August 22, 2002
Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
8:37pm. I just found lyrics to Dan Bern's song Jerusalem, that Heather shared at the Burdock bonfire:
When I tell you that I love you
Don't test my love
Accept my love don't test my love
Cause maybe I don't love you all that much
Don't ask what kind of music I'm gonna play tonight
Just stay awhile
Hear for yourself awhile
And if you must put me in a box
Make sure it's a big box
With lots of windows
And a door to walk through
And a nice high chimney
So we can burn burn burn
Everything that we don't like
And watch the ashes
Fly up to Heaven
Maybe all the way to India
I'd like that
All the ancient kings came to my door
They said, "Do you want to be an ancient king too?"
I said, "Oh yes, very much
But I think my timing's wrong"
They said, "Time is relative
Or did you misread Einstien?"
I said, "Do you really mean it?"
They said, "What do you think we come here for
Our goddamn health or something?"
Everybody's waiting for the messiah
The Jews are waiting
The Christians are waiting
Also the Muslims
It's like everybody's waiting
They've been waiting a long time
I know how I hate to wait
Like even for a bus or something
An important phone call
So I can imagine
How darned impatient
Everybody must be getting
So I think it's time now
Time to reveal myself
I am the Messiah
I am the Messiah
I am the Messiah
Yes, I think you heard me right
I am the Messiah
I was gonna wait till next year
Build up the suspense a little
Make it a really big surprise
But I could not resist
It's like when you got a really big secret
You're just bursting to tell someone
It was kinda like that with this
And now that I've told you
I feel this great weight lifted
Dr. Nusbaum was right
He's my therapist
He said get it out in the open
I spent ten whole days in Jerusalem
Mmmm Jerusalem
Sweet Jerusalem
And all I ate was olives
Nothing but olives
Mountains of olives
It was a good ten days
I like olives
I like you too
So when I tell you that I love you
Don't test my love
Accept my love
Don't test my love
'Cause maybe I don't love you all that much
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost 1875 - 1963
"There's no love sincerer than the love of food." -George Bernard Shaw
9:13pm. Looking through my notebook, I'm pulling out poetic gems, nuggets of wisdom and leads to follow. Sharing my visions and intended destinations has been very helpful. Pieces of the puzzle are handed to me daily, solving large and small portions of the great mystery.
Ernesto Santanaria and Adam Levine of ecohumanist.org, who I met at Burdock, are on parallel paths to my own, with aspirations to create "ecovillages," like the Findhorn Foundation, Earthaven and Sirius. They turned me on to La Caravana, an international, non-profit, mobile ecovillage, working since 1996 in Central and South America. Its mission is to bring grassroots ecological awareness and education to the Americas. They are a diverse crew of approximately 25 people from 10 countries who share the challenge and the adventure. That is what I have in mind for The FAR OUT School. I think about it a lot, almost obsessively. The people, places and resources are all here in this city. We just need to get organized. Soon I will have a date and call everyone to meet.
In my hand is a postcard with a picture of a bunch of inner city youth standing around a wooden boat they have built. Painted on another boat behind them are the words: "This is about creating a new Reality." Adam Green, who directs "Rocking the Boat", a boat building project for youth in the Bronx, gave me the card at The Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in New York. I'll do a show for him when I go to NYC in the fall.
Tomorrow, I'm driving four hours with four friends to Antigonish, Nova Scotia for the Evolve Awareness Fest. Its the Maritime tribal gathering. The past two years it has been in a farm field. This time it is on the beach.
