The Longest day of the Year

 So here we are, June 21, the longest day of the longest year since forever. And here I am, in the midst of what is now feeling like the longest project ever. 

But it's not the longest project by a long shot. My other two Blogger efforts, The Lost Canyon Project, and The Lost Era Transcripts take that prize. The Lost Era site is a good candidate for the finest work I've ever done on anything. But at this point, it seems that all of the effort I put out to preserve Pete Hampton's life work was done for nothing. 

 Before the fates pulled me into the world of my departed friend, Pete, I was having some fun revisiting some of the wayward paths of my youth. I was doing a series, "On Getting High." I learned that several of the common columnar cacti grown here in the Southwest, are mescaline bearing. So I bought some cuttings, and read up on the means of preparation.
Three years ago today I made the journey. It was way more fun than I planned on having. 

Story here: 

A Vein of Fire

 Here are the plants, three years later.  

There's not a heck of a lot to report as far as the stone goes.  I'm still digging out the bowl on the upper part of the figure, and shaping in the loop, so that it will drop neatly through an opening in the bottom of the bowl. 

 

It is slow going, scratching it out with the spoon end of the rifflers. There isn't anywhere up there to really get good leverage on the tool, or get in with a chisel. So it's all dig and scratch. I'm kind of getting impatient with the slow progress, and I've been tempted to break out the flex shaft grinder, or the drill, but every time, a little voice says, "no."

At least I have these, from the Milani Tool Company in Italy: 

Pretty, huh? I bought them just before starting the project. These two diamond rifflers put me out some serious bucks, but they very quickly became two of the most useful tools in the quiver, and not just because they're super hard. Rifflers are tiny rasps; the sharp steel teeth cut in only one direction. The abrasive surface on the diamond tool cuts no matter which way it is pushed or pulled. And the diamonds don't wear out.

But anyway...

It is all so very strange

I've mentioned before, that we don't have television here at the Suburban Hermitage. Neither do we take a newspaper. The only radios are in Mary's car and in my truck. I take my news and information from a carefully selected pool of on-line sources. Mary does the same.  It's enough. More than enough. And most of you who drop by the blog, here, probably swim in the same on-line currents. So, I'm not even going to start in with the particulars of politics, and current events.  Like our dear friend Janet Church used to tell her art students, "See whole picture."

Whole picture ain't lookin' too good. It's depressing, angering, and frightening. The nation, the culture, is unraveling. Hell, handbasket, all that.

And yet.

These have been some of the sweetest days of my life. Maybe the toxic overload of the last year was like the ball of TNT that surrounds the uranium core in an A-bomb. It put pressure enough on my head that it lit the creative burn. Now the burn is driving me. The sense of purpose is real enough that I can take hold of it. This is a good thing.

Mornings roll out in one of two versions, me up first, or Mary up first. Most days it's me.

I'm usually up around four, but before I awaken, the Skinamalink senses that I'm about to stir, so he jumps off the bed, and trots out to the kitchen for his fish. I get back to the den, sit on the futon with that first cup, and before I can fall asleep again, the coffee catches me in freefall. It's a twilit state. All the channels to the subconscious  open.

"Our Father..."

Prayer concludes with meditation, and fades into the first thoughts for the coming day. Skinnies has been asleep on my lap. I didn't even notice.

Flip on the desktop about six AM. Check weather, and the usual bookmarks. Mary fixes breakfast for me. 

I'm unpacking the tools by about eight thirty. I treat it like a job, and work it like I was on day shift. Habit of years, I guess. Put in a couple or three hours,  pause for a break. Re-heat the nasty left over coffee from  earlier, and park it in the gazebo. Buddy the Cat, and The Skinamalink come trotting out to join me. Skinnies takes the seat next to me,  looks up, and mewws  for a pet and a scratch. Budddy hops from the ground to the chair to the tabletop. He circles around the perimeter, and comes up to my elbow.  He speaks out in a decisive sharp little "Murrrowp!"and butts his forehead into my shoulder before curling up on my forearm.  

The morning is cool; the marine layer is evaporating into that hazy blue light. The sky is straight out of one of Pete's paintings, and a lame crow is yakking away on the wire above the orange tree in the yard. 

 

Maybe hit a wake n' bake.

I'm not kidding, sometimes I wonder how  heaven could be any better than this.

And yet.

I did spend my time on-line.

The crap chowing away at Western Civilization still runs hog-wild. The great Inversion continues apace. The Un-Makers are loose upon the world. We are ruled by insane vermin scum. It doesn't take much before I've seen enough, and just turn the whole mess off. None of this stops because I decline to watch it. Sometimes I think if it wasn't for Van der Leun, I'd just quit the internet altogether. 

And even in the small world of our circle of friends...

Scuba Dave, from our bike club, RatRod Riders Bicycle Club of Southern California is in hospital. All we know is he has cancer, it isn't looking good, and we can't get any information. Mary's friend, Kathy, has ALS. Kathy is the one who, along with her husband Mark, took us to the Sawdust Festival four years back. Now she's paralyzed, and slowly getting worse. Day by day we all of us grow slower. Our time is winding down.

Here in the gazebo, Buddy the Cat snoozes on my forearm. We have as tight a bond between us as ever man and beast have had. I love that silly critter so much it scares me. We're both old. He'll pass me up all too soon, and it'll tear me to pieces to lose him. But we're both of us here now-how many days like this remain?

 

There is so very much to be grateful for. Right here. Right now. For this one day. In the quiet of this small space, things are well and good. This too, must pass.

Melancholy thoughts for a mid-summer's day.

Anyhow. Here's the stone thus far:

Tune in next week for more exciting stuff.