Back to Death Valley

[mnaz]

When I go back to Death Valley
on the LA side, even a hundred miles out,
the ghosts speak louder each time; I hear
the living dead earth rattling along faults,
lost gold legends and haunted mineshafts.
Manson looking for a door to the underworld.
Sorcerers and shamans onto something new.
Hippies on a break between world wars.
Politicians still masturbating to power.
California still dreamin'.
The usual.

[winddance]

ghosts that rise
on heat wave mirages
wait for years
to go for a swim
in a ghost lake

[mnaz]

old frontier ghosts watching.
wild burros standing dead still,
frozen on a dry lake shimmer,
no longer ridden by jackass miners.

old mining canyons, gulches,
cabin ruins, old timers all gone,
slow digs replaced by brute power,
big brute machines mauling hillsides.

ah,
but you can't go back, can't go back,
to those days of wide open freedom.
the desert has changed.

[saw]

the old west has always intrigued me
the rushes to the west to stake your claim
the mad panning for gold. the saloons
the spirit pioneers.....I love McMurtry and the others

[mnaz]

I'm still kinda blown away that a guy who once lived at the same camp I lived at for a while is rumored to be the real-life inspiration for "Don Juan" (of Yaqui teachings) in that 1968 book by Carlos Casteneda. Apparently, he and Casteneda were colleagues at UCLA at the time. Amazing. (Though of course, no one really knows the story behind this character.)

And apparently, the story about Manson looking for a door to the underworld (in geologic rifts and hot springs) is true.

[saw]

wow...cool info

[winddance]

spent a whole year after I read the don Juan books trying to achieve the first step of dreaming (looking at my hands) never did it. I thought since I was such a vivid dreamer , it would be a great way to travel.