I forget the source of this story. Perhaps it was posted in Amazon Frontlines? The part I do remember is that the squirrel gnaws on the liana that holds the world tree, breaks the vine, then the tree falls down. What happens to the people after that? Where do the birds, butterflies, and cicadas go? And the jaguars running loose everywhere?! There is a huge evil harpy eagle on patrol also…
Sorry folks, I’ll take an incomplete. Better go back to sleep, and dream about this one a little bit more for a followup sometime in the future.
It had a picture of old time hero Dr Schultes crouching in a vision quest circle, lookin’ like he was about to fast for a few days and meditate on the desert.
In the section on the supernatural beliefs, origin stories, and culture creators, they talk about the spirit power of plants. There is this idea of an invisible power that looks like a hairy bug named ICOR, and it is in charge of the life and spirit of all the plants. Moreover, the hairs of the ICOR create dust on the plants, dust of various colors. And sometimes this dust drifts into the air and forms clouds, storms, rain, the whole bit.
Well I thought this was pretty wicked cool, and if anything, somewhat resembled our scientific water cycles of transpiration and cloud formation, along with how plant cover can facilitate rainfall in a given region.
Another part of Seri mythology was about the various humanoid mythic beings that made this earth habitable for people. One such creator was a short, fat, dirty, breech cloth wearing dude named HANT HASOOMA. He reminded me of the master of animals, and so I had to draw him too. He is basically the spirit of the desert itself.
And heres the key to some of the Sonora desert plants in the drawing. HEHE is the name given to the life and spirit of a plant:
These are some sketches I did for friend Sparrow JSM in his book entitled Rainforest Medicine: Preserving Indigenous Science and Biodiversity in the Upper Amazon. Some of the pictures made it in, some did not. Well, check out the book if you want to learn more about tropical jungle botany and the healing methodology of native peoples.
The crew I blundered into a herd of fun loving gentlemen while dawn patrolling at Black’s the sea was the inspiration she gave birth to our collective imagination and hosted our daily gatherings the swells were professors of an energetic sort varying in amplitude, frequency, and wave length Blacks was our happy hunting ground and we loved Our Lady
Barb ’n skate is better known today as B Bateau He was a roomie and fellow ocean lover cant say enough good and funny things about the old man he’s got a great and stylish backside haha a massive unruly flop of white afro hair lazy side way glancing laughing eyes and a nose to smell out the crustiest urchins, the stinkiest mollusks and the tiniest wisps of northerlies or sou’westers in the painting, Bateau is massaging our lady’s feet currying favor with her payin’ his dues he is in submission pose with the utmost respect because he knows and acknowledges our lady’s invincible strength humbling power and overwhelming fertility
yes
he is being eyed by a sting ray
shuffle those feet!
Bob was an old timer A half man, red knee boarder full of salt whose dog Corona sat patiently on shore while his master Bob transformed into a seal dodged liquid lips and pulled into train tracks of green tunnels he had a shack on the beach in Rosarito Baja approximately a grand ‘ol 6’ x 12’ home where he could eat hot chiles, drink cold beers, feel the warm sands and enjoy the bare simple essence of the sea while the warm water gushed out of the power plant into the lineup
Corona was a golden retriever or a lab, I forget what breed One of them kind, loyal, companion forever, best friend dogs in the painting there is a black lump oozing red above Corona and a swim fin below this requires a bit of an explanation – I would always come across dead seals on the beach with their heads cut off freshly washed up or in a state of advanced decomposition, smelling ripe for fly food i liked parts I wanted to harvest the hide for a kayak skin, and some pelvic bones for a necklace but the marine mammal protection act prohibits such activities anyhow I always wondered about the origin of the seal corpses until I met a fella in entomology class who said he worked with the marine fisheries NOAA in San Diego on fishing boats his jobs was cutting off the heads of seals caught and drowned in fishing nets so that they could make a data table about sex and age and so on then of course they dumped the rest of the carcass overboard that explained it as for the swim fin well theres this crazy beach creature who had an addictive obsessive personality which enabled him to have intense focus, rigid structure, and fully-on commitment in all things he did he also happened to like to collect things, as is common in people with such challenges you know the type – frugal and conservative, saving for a rainy day kinda thinking so at his house, he has a couple of boxes of socks he found, mismatched mind you but maybe useful one day, just in case not really clean socks either, rather – salt hardened, sun bleached, gritty kinda socks and another huge box full of swim fins, singles of a myriad of shades and sizes again, who knows when you might need another rubber blade? you never know! so we pranked him one morning this is what we did we had a fin, a blue and yellow churchill on the bottom of it, we wrote in permanent marker “Dave is a turkey” and left it on the beach at 5 am, letters facing down bait sure enough, here he comes, about 5:30 am, still kinda dark, jogging along with his backpack he sees the fin, cant resist, puts it in his pack, grabs his board, goes surfing and later, he gets home, empties his stuff, stoked he found another fin for his collection he turns it over and !!!!!!
Dr Harding, Peggy, Allison & Tyler are a family At the time, Dr Harding was the only early morning riser who was married with children the rest of us were undetermined wandering strays without such responsibilities some of the other names we called Harding were Warren G, Yams, or Fact Boy lately he even responds to Mr Calves somehow he has hardly aged in thirty years, and is charging even harder now than back in the day that is a mystery that remains to be solved Harding had an old red pickup truck he would drive to the beach park on Farms Road and sit there inside with the heater turned on not sure if he was waiting for us to run by, so that we could jog down together, or if he was just warming up, meditating before the descent into the cold canyon and even colder water Harding was a knee boarder he liked to ride this shape of a board called a fish which is a short stick with a split tail, like a fish’s caudal fin although Harding does the navigation and the paddle it is Peggy who sweeps late into bottom turns carves hard and carries the troop forward thems little kids on Fact Boy’s shoulders…. they are all grown now and swimming in the open oceans all I recall is how small and cute they were once upon a time
Floating death head is yours truly One winter of sloping wedges I thought, how about keepin’ it simple so I swam and body surfed for a few months amidst the AM breakers it was alright, plenty fun easy to duck dive the waves just swimmin’ without the encumbrance of a long foam float tethered to you and you get a good long slide, if the swell has got enough juice to ooommmpha push ya down the line other folks though, seeing my head bobbing up and down in a here and there, now you see em now you don’t, unpredictable fashion conjured up images of naval mines, IED’s, and grenades with the pin pulled hence floating death head and yes I am sleeping next to our lady atop a orange single fin sunset type board my fav I’m keeping her company at peace with my mom, your mom, everybody’s mom mom the sea our Lady of Black’s
Party Boy you already met He is the kid who finds fins on the beach party boy is a nickname that is spoken of in jest and irony because he is not a party boy at all it is said that he had a beer in the fourth grade, and that was the last of his party days later he fell into punk rock, classical piano, material science, Teahupo’o and I don’t know how many other countless exacting methodical diligent highly precise activities but a party boy, no he is not nevertheless he is depicted with a party hat the cone type hat with a little elastic string they give out at the children’s birthday parties hahahahhahahah party boy is also a knee boarder, like Bob, like Harding but his board is chunky, heavy and fast a log of a tank I want to say it is 3 inches thick and so wide you can barely fit your arm around it the board is not a good fit for the dinky dink peewee inside waves that are sometimes hollow rather it is well made for the second or third wave of a once every 25 minute mack truck set it is perfect for a wave that comes from way way way outside looking like a black marker on the horizon it comes in a set of waves that heave to, and buck in a peeling stampede of a thousand bulls three quarters of the crowd gets washed and plastered by the first wave of the set they are in total disarray and destruction, fumbling in the bubbly foam while on the outside, party boy tucks in and hones his M1 Abrams of fiberglass and resin ready and in action he glides atop our lady’s face, shoulders, and elbows and eases into his favorite spot – her round pit enclosed in a circular orifice, bound by staves, known as the ‘barrel’
Poole street The most memorable ‘brah’ i know from Poole street was named Paul he had a blue board maybe it was a long board not sure, don’t remember when you think so cal beach break happy mellow generous surfer ‘dude’ the epitome of stand up with your arms raised in the tube style there you go Paul brah and because of his slightly taller stature we would always be stoked to be in the line up with him, during a hectic thunder and lightning storm on a gray gloomy electrified sea when the air is buzzing and the rain’s beats of pitter patter are all around we’d figure, well, maybe it will strike the tallest object out here… that guy with the blue board scrunch your shoulders down, just a little bit more, stay low hehehehehe
Shambles Somehow we made the acquaintance of this total nut ball, crack out, madman who also manages to be an entrepreneur, world traveller, artist, business man, marketing genius so on and so forth and yes, that is his nickname it fits shambles like when a building collapses or referring to a state of mayhem and disorder shambles when he was at Black’s he was a sponger, a body boarder that is why he is on his belly with fins he now heeds the call of ‘stand up!’, and has changed his ways he would often surf at night under the light of the moon he would sometimes come late cause of girlfriend or mechanical issues he lived in the mansion at the top of the hill to this day I have no idea what he is about or how he manages to slip and slide through so many worlds I look at him, squint my brows, and my brain fills with question marks ??????????
Shred Heads We were the 5:30 AM crew another crew would clock in at about 7 AM sometimes we would overlap, if the waves were good the shred heads might have also lived on Poole Street with Rick or Paul or who knows who else some of them were locally or nationally famous as surfers at places like Mavericks or Steamers others were unassuming, spray throwing, rippers in the same genre, ilk and time period as thrusters, floaters, and airs I knew them mostly from the switchback eroding trails watching them amble down the cliffs as the sun brightened the sky doing the obligatory head nod to acknowledge another fellow surfer engaged in the ritual worship of swell receiving the daily communion of nasal drip and aquatic fists pounding
The arena To orient ourselves, every place got a name this included both the features on the land like the Ho Chi Minh trail with a big drop at the end, off the glider port as well as places in the water where waves would consistently break spots where you could paddle out, and receive a few blessings in other cases, we would be looking for a channel of shifty erratic water where a consistent rip current would take you to the surf zone and give you easier access to the breaking horizon
Gilligan’s was a few hundred yards off shore South of the trail entrance, in the direction towards La Jolla Shores pier it was in the general area as ‘south peak’ it was sometimes abandoned and empty even though a nice lil left handed wave ploughs through there time to time I don’t know why it was called Gilligan’s ask Paul, who named it, and got spy hopped by gray whales in that vicinity perhaps something to do with a three hour tour
Knoll A bollard gate led to a circular overlook that provided a view of the ocean north towards Torrey pines and south towards the Cove that was the knoll it was a nature trail and loopity loop with interpretive signage rope fencing native plant habitat restoration in the works nice spot to bring tourists and visitors without having to unduly exert yourself with steep climbs or shaky sand stone footing its a no no to go over the edge unless you are a dare devil non law abiding shred head
North Peak At the base of the trail that marked the arrival to Black’s you go to the right – north where the bump in the sand stone cliff sticks out a bit that is north peak paddle out it is crowded if you show up late oh so good at the crack of dawn with just your mates
Refrigerator corner Cold air likes to sit in a sink at this location especially in the months of January and February around the second bend, headed down the hill to Blacks – is that chilly bur bur spot it is next to the eucalyptus tree hide out and adjacent to where the fox likes to cross the road here, the wind is channeled straight up at ya and you wonder what you are doing with bare feet on gravelly asphalt in the dark running well don’t think! just keep going!! you are almost there!!!
White triangle Before the first bend in the road you can get a hint of what is to come in the waves below by peeking over the edge of the cliff and checking it the overlook rocks form the bottom two sides of a triangle and if the waves are breaking far out collapsing in foam and whitewash then a white triangle is generated and visible attesting to the fact that solid power and righteous energy is incoming! so then having seen this you let that anticipation build into frenzied internal heat of excitement as you continue the charge down the hill its gonna be good… go go go go go go go!
On the road There were three pieces of graffiti writing that somebody painted on the road on the way down to the beach one said’ kooks litter’ another said ‘pack it in pack it out’ and the last said ‘I love Blacks’ a kook is a beginner surfer that does not follow the rules a person who is rude dumb and disrespectful it is somewhat derogatory and not what you want to be the other two phrases are self explanatory
the lumpy brown sausages on the road?
those are german shepherd turds,
soft warm and squishy
left on the road by this old couple who would walk down to Blacks
early in the morning
to take a dip in the sea
sometimes arriving even earlier than us
The flora and fauna Yes the waves are first priority and most surfers could just as well ignore the whole rest of the scene you could be in Australia or South Africa No Cal or So Cal and you wouldn’t care jack about Table Mountain, or the family of Banksia and Grevillea, wouldn’t give a darn if you were in the desert scrub or next to an evergreen forest who cares… ‘I’m here for the waves, bro!’ unfortunately, that was not the case for me I would be distracted and carried off course, lose focus and miss a day of ‘it was so epic’, and ‘should have been here yesterday’ in the mean time, while folks were scoring in the water, or partying I made friends with the plants and animals
California sage has got a whole plant community named after it such is its prominence along the California coast observe the bunchy, scrubby, round shaped blobs in gray green fine thin leaves are pungent and oily scented with a mix of something like – don’t know meats, wonder what that is spices, and twist your nose this way and that perfumes in this group are the artemisias, and i will throw in the salvias too I’m not a picky taxonomist sorry teachers, I’m just a sloppy amateur accustomed to common names and detail-lacking lumping!
Natal plum is a common landscaping plant in San Diego that hails from South Africa its got glossy shiny roundish leaves, spines and a fat round red berry that bleeds milk cannot miss it there were long hedges of it on Farms Road, fruits – free for the taking it prunes easy, and is drought tolerant the process was: catch some waves, gather some fruits, make some jam, eat a few heaping spoonfuls, take a nap shoot! was there a test this morning?!!!
Ice plant was all along the coast bluffs and flat sands Hottentot fig is another name for it the fruits are edible salty and seedy like you washed a kiwi in the saltwater and tanged it with the gel of chia seeds its okay for survival food, but its better for stepping on, when the sands get too hot in the summer
Chinese wintersweet To be truthful, I am not exactly sure if this was the plant on Farms Road that was fragrant beyond comparison whose scent would color the whole trail that led from our base at Nottingham Place by Robinhood Lane all the way to the black metal gate of Black’s but as we ran or bicycled with wetsuits on, boards in hand, there would be this smell of complete intoxication ecstasy, before we even touched the water perhaps it was a chirino philadelphus in flower or a bunch of lilac inflorescences, they are really sweet also it wasn’t four o’clocks, cause it was blooming early in the morning plus four o’clocks don’t bloom till the summer perhaps it was some kind of cactus? not sure if I will ever know its identity well we will stick with the winter sweet
Dodder is a plant composed of strands of messy orange fibers It flops all over the other plants it is a parasite orange colored, not green looks like straw spaghetti witches hair
Ladies fingers Out of the dry crevices and crumbly rock cracks grows a native California succulent chalky thin clumps of ladies fingers emerging from the ground as if the earth had fine porcelain hands tipped with whitish yellow nail polish blooms of the summer when the winter storms hit us hard rivulets of water are running down the canyon lines and runoff is sputtering downhill off the asphalt curbs sometimes ladies fingers would go a tumbling down too pulled by gravity hastened by erosion can’t hold on… any longer I’d pause on the uphill climb pick em up and tuck them back into the damp folds of the slope
Coast brittlebush is another common component of that Coastal sage scrub plant community like many arid dry adapted plants its got the whitish reflective leaves useful adaptation for where the sun is beaming hard on ya like a good portion of California plants it has got yellow sunflower flowers sunflower being that typical flower every kid loves to draw its relatives being
California buckwheat Unless it is blooming you might just miss this beaut I mean it looks like sticks with teeny leaves what’s the big deal?! come summer though puffballs of white cover the thing and seems like every hard working bee hovering big eyed fly never seen it before tiny beetle and commuting butterfly or moth comes in for a taste of nectar and pollen
Giant kelp lives offshore in the San Diego’s aquatic forest Whole worlds of life woven off the reefs buoyed with the floats of bladders undulating with the sun beaming in the waves once in a while a fierce squall will pull the anchors on these tentacular giants and cut em loose they end up dying on the beaches as the marine snails dry and the brown dotted fronds tangle with sea grass and red coralline algae clouds of flies gather to feed on the stinky and tasty morsels of the nearshore gardens
Indian fig is prickly pear The flat padded thing that some folks eat in their burritos as nopales the fruits are yum magenta but got irritating hairs that you gotta get rid of, before eating a quick torch and fire does the trick as does rolling them in the sand
Coast cholla Prickly pear got a tubular round cousin chollas they got tons of spines! when the sun lights em up they glow like oh so many poky galaxies atop the cliffs you wanna touch them, but caution says otherwise warning if you get too close, they will hitchhike
Frangipani Is a tropical plant a chunky stemmed thing that bleeds white latex when cut it is the sweet smelling, pin wheel like flower they use to make leis Our Lady has it on as decoration tapping the Oceania connection
Lemonadeberry In the thicket by the Eucalyptus tree above it was a dense thicket of lemonadeberry looking at the sticky glistening awkward pink orange fruits, you would not venture to think that it was something that you would want to put in your mouth but if you do and suck it hard then you will be overcome by the sour tartness of the bush pulling your cheeks inward wrecking your saliva glands and if you are like me – a lover of lemon drops, sour patch kids, warheads, and nerds you will like it and come back for more maybe even gather a bucket full and make some old fashioned native lemonade
California fan palm This palm is common as a garden plant in rows next to hotels and fast food drive-ins as a specimen plant standing tall over agaves and jade plants and it is also at home in the springs of the Sonoran desert where it forms an oasis of shade amidst the wetter canyons well, one year, Harding, Bateau and myself thought it would be fun to plant a bunch of them near the base of Black’s as a sorta welcoming committee we dug holes, watered them in good, and let nature take over hahahaha well that is the first lesson in being a gardener right plant in the right place and suffice to say, being situated at the forefront of gusting winter gales millions of micro drops of salt spray and sheltered by the damp cliff shadows was not the preferred habitat of the California fan palm okay lesson learned I got one word to describe the experience tatters
California spiny lobster The lobsters in California do not have big claws like the ones you eat at the restaurants that Red Lobster crusher of a marine bug comes from the east coast our California lobster has got five pairs of legs, all couplets more or less alike they hide in caves during the day and go for walks at night sometimes in a row with their buddies they are very pleasant and civilized creatures that scoot backwards when threatened hard on the outside, don’t mind that… oh so soft within
Sand dollar This creature has five fold symmetry and soft spines when alive by the time we find them on the beach they are mostly broken and bleached skeletons wash ups flotsam round dollars stuck in the sands free for the taking then I stash them in the backyard ‘bank’ along with the abalone shells, cormorant feathers, glass fishing floats, driftwood, and other wandering jetsam reminders of happy times with not much on your mind
Medusae the most common jellyfish deposited on Black’s shores were the clear disc, blue finned thing known as ‘by the wind sailors’ velella you come across the larger rubbery jellies too drifting in the water most of the time, you are paddling with your hands and you scoop one by accident you do not expect it and your face does that surprised and scared, ugghhh yuck get away! grimace funny
Gray whale At Black’s, there is a submarine canyon offshore it is not quite as deep or as large as Monterey Bay’s trenches it is like six hundred feet, not five thousand feet still it does funnel the swell’s energy well and likely contributes to the marine richness and diversity of San Diego through cold water upwelling and the abundance of planktonic nutrients these in turn eventually support really big animals like whales when they are cruising north and south it is a treat to be close to them no two ways about it just freaking awesome creatures!!! wow whales so glad to meet them
Brown pelican When they are not dive bomb hunting for baitfish, and flopping that huge sac of a throat pouch we see them gliding on the air currents atop the breakers they are surfing the waves in a most elegant formation they come in groups of four, five, six ten, fifteen, twenty its a kind of lifestyle that just seems so very… harmonious and free
Coastal California gnatcatcher This is a tiny bird males wear a black cap and females have a ring of dotted white eye liner oh so cute luckily for us they like the scrub of the coast they like Black’s canyons and hollows ‘what up little friend?! yeah we are here again! you too eh? say hi to the family alright?!’
Bottle nosed dolphin The first time I saw a dolphin swimming next to me !!!!! shark shark shark! then you notice the gentle curve and the arc of the fin more rounded, not straight and you breathe a sigh of relief watching dolphins catch waves and bust out the back at speed you admire their all natural easy going style amazing timing and finesse incomparable grace consummate skill boy talk about surfer envy
Gray fox Theres two kind of foxes around these parts the native one is the gray fox with hairs speckled brown white black brown and gray it is a sort of astute fellow, a smaller tighter thing than its wild kin the coyote and the wolf foxy the other fox is the red fox a fox introduced from Europe with a big bushy tail, and more flamboyant manner
In closing the sea is where it all begins and where it all ends the image of the sea personified as a black woman conjures up many other mythological tales of peoples around the world I love the Polynesian story of Hine nui te po and Maui who got cracked in half it is a reasonable explanation for why death has never been conquered and must be accepted, and lived with – with dignity and honor with respect my Yoruba inspired friends are always singing praises for Yemaya, and of course not forgetting Elegua and Shango if I was chained up in a cargo hold, crossing the Atlantic Ocean for two months, for sure I would be praying to her as well and wearing a necklace of clear crystal and ocean blue scientist friends have reminded me of an idea called genetic mitochondrial Eve, and the ancestral DNA of humanity way back in time they say this painting reminds them of this same motif that of unity and common origins, that we are all from the same place but splintered and divided by time and drift, culture and customs oh well for me this relationship is nothing abstract, academic, or make believe, it all started with a love of the sea and a wish to be with her everyday pretty simple these days I don’t get to see her so often anymore if I am lucky, I get out there two to three days a week or so well, I’ll take it 2-3!!!
The Mission Blue butterfly ranges from the southern part of Marin County down the San Mateo Peninsula to whereabouts of Crystal Springs Reservoir. It has been observed at the Marin Headlands, Oakwood Valley, Twin Peaks, San Bruno Mountain, Sign Hill, Milagra and Sweeney Ridges. It inhabits small specks of grassland and rocky outcrops along these coastal hills and ridges.
Mission Azul 