Atlas Apocalyptica ~ #paradisepartywagon #roadtriiiiip #utopiaorbust

THE REVOLUTION SHOULD BE A PARRRRTYYYY!!!

YAAS QUEEN IT ALREADY IS.

WE ARE THE ONES WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. *blow-kiss emoji* throw in a *winky face* just for good measure.

“Yah, duh, i knew it all along… really. Not gonna lie, it’s cute to see it all play out on tv tho. See it in action. It was getting a little sketchy there for a minute, but i guess that’s what makes for a really good show.

The greatest story ever told, and here we freakin are right here to see it, watch it all go down irl.

Joe Shmiro Lago over there got thrown in the Corona tank, gettin his own lack of awareness thrown right back in his face.

I heard he was trying to look at his reflection and got sucked into a black hole sun. Wont you come and wash… yourself clean with rain?

Oh sorry you can’t do that anymore because you have purposely sought out to destroy nature, taken lives for the coin, just so you could be an extra fancy faux with your posh blood stained hair.

Maybe now we won’t worry about him no more. Regardless of the details of the continuing saga, we fucking shouldn’t. Give no heed to Nightmares – They disappear when you wake up.

*oh snap*

—Whiiich we get to look forward to even more now since we got this whole paradise project to get crafty with.

Why not let’s just get to it – get to making this place – how do you say de GEORGEOUS?! How do you say de GROOVY?!?!

Sounds DeLightful, have some wine and charcuterie. *blow kiss emoji*

We’ll talk about what we want the world to be.

Love wins bitch. Sorry Bezzzzoz you lose the game. Regardless of how it all plays, but now (as the billboard says) in the NEXT SEASON : ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

So loved ones don’t delay.

And with the beauty of unexpected realizations – we just might be exactly where we want to be. Playing out our BEST scenes. Funny how for so long we thought we were just the pawns when actually we are the KWEENS AND KINGGS.

Our world bitch. Sorrrry henny.

Love y’all. Don’t be shy babay you got this, YES I’m talking to you! So fyyyucccking wooorrrrk iiiitt 😉 Love you boo.

A character out of my past showed up for me this morning unexpectedly, when i received a call saying that someone from my (at one time “our”) old address rented a car under my name, left it idling at the border of Texas and Mexico with blood on the seats and a hidden stash of cocain.

About a million things went through my head, all of which had me wrapped around the finger of the phishing line – strange coincidence of memories i guess – my own Mexico expedition that along the way had me half wondering if i might not just leave my car idling at the side of the road to huff it through Mexico on foot…, the camper van remodel – taking down the ceiling panel to find hidden blood marks and a huge stash of meth…, or the infamous Janelle Monae lyrics running though my head “her hologram photo stayed near to him”… the drivers license i had lost being the only photo of me that he had in his possession after i left.

W, WC, Willow, Ophelia… He went by many names/ She went my many genders, tried on a revolving door of carnival personalities with the quick change of a hat. Be it the whiskey drinking piano player, the ring leader, the dark mistress, the puppet master, the broadway singer, the fortune teller, the magician, the black jack dealer, the cult leader, the self proclaimed sociopath, the wannabe serial killer, and the meth head as it devolved to in the end… in any number of the many hats he wore – the devil was always in the details. (Mephistopheles was his favorite, he always did have the look of a faun.)

The hidden aspects of that world, the secret conversations, the scavenger hunts, the love found-the love lost, the poison, the illusion, the betrayal, the clawfoot bathtub are all still there in my memory – written in invisible ink on all those layers inside of me.  

“Like an onion…” he once told me in reference to our relationship… “many layers”. We had been getting into emotional territory after having taken what i would call, too much acid. I believe this may have been thought to be another one of those jokes – the delivery, perfectly timed, leading up to the big punch line… when, right as the acid reached it’s peak – Heeeere’s trouble busts in through the front door like a methed out koolaid man. I was displeased. The TL must have been passing out street drugs like party favors that day by the vibes i was getting from this guy.

“I’m Onion” he said while looking suspiciously at something behind my head. Then before i could say anything he was out the door as fast as he came in, he and my friend with him.

many layers indeed.

~~~~~~

I had thought that i wouldn’t write about my friend the devil… Not wanting to relive the pain, the stress, our time shared together always in some sort of perpetual dual, some tumultuous mess. I hadn’t wanted to write something that would end up a tragedy, a made for tv sob story to watch while crying into a pint of ice cream. No Ma’am.

But i realize that by contrast, the darkness amplifies the light. And it wasn’t all bad, me n the devil were bff’s for quite some time. Since the dawn of time he had liked to tell me late into those dark nights where we would improvise worlds, sing songs and play music till 4am with the dollhouse basement cabaret.

~~~~~~

It wasn’t till years later, while driving back from Mexico City with a new love in the passenger seat beside me, that the onion joke came up again on the late night drive.

But this time it was a parfait.

I received a message while writing all of this. A message on my phone. A recorded voice message from a close friend, calling me from the inside of her bathroom. The only place she found she could breathe, she said; Sonoma county fires having yesterday begun a new wave of mandatory evacuations from all sides.

Looks like wiki has been updated just in time for today’s post – “As of September 29, 2020, a total of 8,155 fires have burned 4,018,888 acres (1,626,386 hectares),^[2] more than 4% of the state’s roughly 100 million acres of land, making 2020 the largest wildfire season recorded in California history“

She said she wasn’t ready to leave her house yet. And they hadn’t told her that it was her time to go. So she sent me this instead. Thought i would share it with you-

<<<<<TRANSMISSION FROM INSIDE THE FIRE ZONE>>>>>

<<<<The tinny sound in the recording seemed to give echo to her voice, a voice from a far off land.  Sounded as though the line that connected the can she was speaking into was stretching further and further out into the farthest reaches of the galaxy… making sure though, in the least, to hold tethered long enough for her to make her point.>>>>

“How do you create the world you want?  Do you do something or do you be something?  And in what order?  Whatever direction we find ourselves having gone, it is because we set ourselves out to get there by who we were being.  So the place to look is who you are being.  When the world isn’t working – who am I being?  

And it’s both a vulnerable and in these days- a culturally ethical question.  Who are we being that this is what we have?  Who have we been being?  And what of those facets of ourselves are we still holding on to?

Do we have a say in who our future selves become?  Do we?  Do I?  Do I have a say in what our future selves become?  

Do I have a say in what my future self becomes?  Absolutely.  

Do I have a say in what our future selves become?….  Yeah, I do.  Yeah I do.  And it’s enhanced by how I am in the world – OUT THERE.  Which means speaking to people. Which means being with people.  Which means being OUT LOUD about what I’ve learned, what I can share, what I can contribute.  

The world needs me more that I thought it did.  

At least more than I gave creedence to what I though it did.  For me it was always more important to hide than affect change.  

Is it still more important for me to hide, than to affect change?

What do I give my word to?  What is my word?  Even when I don’t know I am speaking it, I am still bound to it… So as to have a good life.  A full life.  A rich life.  Ya know…  A taking ownership of my life kind of life.  

So I think that’s what it is… 

Own that I am of these times, this is my reality.

This is what’s going on around me.  The forrests are burning down around me.  The homes, my extended Sonoma county home is burning down around me.  My house, for the moment.. is ok.  The Glass fire is… Really close.  And the places that they’ve sent evacuation orders to are… Really close.  I am blessed in that way.  

And I’m blessed then as a witness that has something to say – In the year 2020… the fires burnt…  to my upper left – my north west – the fires broke out 6 weeks ago from lightning, a rare strange lightning storm that struck… i’ve never seen in my lifetime here… and ignited fires all over the Sonoma county area, and Northern California area, and Oregon area, and Washingtion area, and set off a huge cloud storm of smoke that actually blanketed the United States and pushed on towards Europe. 

And 6 weeks later find myself still at my home, my home being near precious resources.. that are protected, and towns that are protected…  ((How protected tho?))  And like I said to the north west of me is the Boysen fire, and now to the east of me the the Glass fire and the Shady fires have all merged together now, threatening my friends on the eastern side of my own town.  Setting the stage for what I said earlier, that I wanted to record something of my thoughts, and i wonder – what role do I play?  

What role do I play in life, being the way it is?  For me, for us, as it unfolds right now.  What role do I play?  That’s the only key that is going to give any of us access to something different, is that I look. That we each look. 

I don’t know and I don’t know.  And I don’t want to figure it out.  I just need to look.  

And I invite you to look.  Just look.  Dont know.  Dont say what you know.  Or think you know, or think you’ve figured out.  Or might have said before, that’s right there to say.  Just… ya know, all that will come up… just say “stop”… no wait…  let me just… look.

And then be brave enough to not have to come up with answers.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“We are in this fertile ground, after fire burns all is layed new, barren before new, it becomes fertile ground after one has given time.  So just don’t know.  Just look.  Just look and don’t know.  That is your assignment for the week.  We’ll meet next week… and, well we’ll talk… and we’ll create…  and we will be.  

And… well I’ll see ya then Captain…  Love you.”

z(10022)  It feels like nighttime.  But like hell’s nighttime.

v(VTY)    Definitely a hellscape.  No doubt.  But at least there’s that layer of fog between the smoke and us that allows us to still breathe.  That’s real neat.

z(10022)  My understanding so far is that all that smoke – its just realllly really high up there in the atmosphere.  I mean it’s only been getting worse since all since those.. what 12,000 lightning strikes a couple weeks back?

c(11012)  Yeah it’s really bad up here too… the sky is just black.  That eerie red has kinda faded and now it’s just black.  Love you.

b(11001)  :/ So what do you think of this sky?..  Wanna go for dinner tonight?  

a(10227)  :O woah dude this shit is cray..  I didn’t see you at the house earlier – we bbqing on big mountain RN, come out gurl!!  This shit is a sausage party – I need me some fem witch energy!

My eyes opened slightly… “Ugggh what time IS it?  Why are there people awake so early in the kitchen?” 

It felt like 5 AM, but I noticed the temperature in my room was a deep morning’s doing, muggy, filled with humid exhalations of a body’s full night of sleep.

Why are you people up so early?  I thought once again, something feeling very off.  Still dark out… Get up, roll out of bed.  See what all the going on is about.

Opened my bedroom door to the… people in the kitchen… talking over coffee… but there was no daytime outside. Waiiiit, whaaat?? “No fucking way. Whaaaaat the hell is this shit? Nooooo fucking way.”

Exchanged cool looks of WTF silent brain explosion. No light.  The opaque hue that came through the sky light in the hallway was that of a dark blood red night.  

The whole scene was surreal, something one might expect to see on Mars in a science fiction movie.  This is what day would be like on a planet with no sun.  The sun blocked out of the sky with a heavy blanket of steel wool; A charcoal rust blanket of brutalist, dystopian aesthetic. 

I had recently been thinking a lot about Margot… that little girl in the Ray Bradbury story who lived on a dark planet where the sun would never shine… was only told about in fable. She struck me a certain way as a child, and has always stuck out in my mind…

I ran outside to look at the sky from from all angles, like an animal in shock, not ready to believe or speculate on what it sees there before it’s very eyes… just keeps scampering, tripping on it’s feet while looking UP from different corners of the yard – vantage point of the deck, behind the umbrella, the other side of the bushes, pick up a rock, pick up a stone – in the hopes of finding the sky.

“You broke the sky Sally!! Ohh no this is all bad, this is all bad” the shark man said, flailing his arms wildly in the air with over the top jest, because one must at least have a last laugh – It is an innate right we all have as carbon based life.  

“Yesterday you told me everything would be fine!!! You lied to me Sharkman!” … He had in fact just the evening before, told me not to cry, that everything would be fine – a thing he liked to say to people when they weren’t crying (it is believed that he mistook this sort of thing for a joke). Though i will admit that my poorly hidden tension may have been a bit obvious, after having driven that morning from the Yosemite fires, car camping trip burnt out, the high winds having followed me home to the bay.

Sure. Might have been a little stressed.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Captains Log : 10/09/2020 8:23am : Sky – burnt umber, all POV Confirmed. Black out.

Coffee.

“Good morning.”… “A good evening to you sir.”  went the conversations, bouncing back and forth. A good evening it is at 8:30am. I had a good laugh – all the jokes over the past months, saying “Good morning” at all hours of the day (mornings leaning into afternoons, afternoons into evenings into never never land) – the jokes now had a new ring about them.  Good evening sir.  Good evening madam.  Top of the darkness to you.  Tip of the hat.

“Hahaha ya know what i was just thinking about?” Ace said to me “Not to make you worried or anything” …(insert dramatic pause here)… “Well get on with it, say what you’re gonna say.”

“Not that i believe in this or anything, but its kinda weird… You know what they say in the bible… revelations or whatever it is – how the beginning of the apocalypse starts with… complete darkness, and a red sun, or a black sun something like that… I mean, just think of all the people who are probably freaking out thinking that this is it, ya know, the apocalypse… people are gonna have a field day with this one.”

The red sun. Behind it and before it, on every side of it – mars black. The darkest day. Yes, you could stare right at the sun and not bat an eyelash, hardly even know it’s there – aside from that (super casual) blood red glow coming through the rusted-ash-sky-veil-blanket up there where there used to be a sky. Doesn’t worry me at all, no no i swear… not religious, never gave much heed to the bible. And deeefinitely not worried.

But for real though WTF.

How did we let it get this bad? Will the sun ever come back? Is this just life now? Ohhhh gaawwwwd whyyyyy?

I thought of the wise words of my lord and savior, Douglas Adams – DON’T PANIC

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was time for us to go our respective ways, all curious to see what the world was like on the outside.

“Good night and good luck. Gawd speed.” i said to my roommates (and to myself) on my way out the door…

…To finally, go and meet the night of day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

September 9^th The day of the dark night.  Dial back- 2 weeks, 5 days.

Writing in a new spot in the yard, catching the ark of the sun as it goes over once again, I notice a bubble compass sitting next to me, a succulent filled guitar & empty bottle of mezcal displayed on the shelves.  I think about the eagle shaped level discovered at my last writing perch.    

It has taken me some time to write about this day – the day of the dark night I’ve referred to it as; the day itself has been haunting me, stalking me in the darkness, waiting to be let out of my mind before it dissolves inside of me.  Put it on the page.  Great Scott I think she’s got it! I hear the audience say.  This in some way is like the compass – the putting on the page.  A point from which to navigate by.  

I will say before proceeding with the story, that the day itself finally broke something in me that needed to be broken.  I’ll give it that. It got me to finally get my shit together and post my writing. 

Something about hitting that kind of “Blackout zone” rock bottom freak out moment where you watch the scene of your entire life collapse on the big screen right before your eyes… your whole world dissolve in a second… but it’s actually real life.

… those thoughts in the pit of my stomach “this can’t be real” my mind feeding fears of the horrors I’ve seen on the tv screen, the horrors I’ve had in my dreams (of which came first i do not know). 

“Is this it?  Could this be the end?” “Is that all there is my friend?”

Gawd i had so much more i wanted to do. Why couldn’t i have written my book?!! Why couldn’t i have become a rock star like i’d always wanted to?!?! So many experiences i’ll never know; Never get to watch on the memory channel after i go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dialing back into the archives.

The scene opens – 

Morning. Everything just how she had imagined it feeling like.  Somewhere in her mind she had seen this scene before.

The writers threw in a couple interesting details, surprises/ hidden allegorical clues to be unveiled as living art, entirely dependent on the cast’s involvement, to come into the picture upon hitting “Record”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I opened my eyes, fuzzy with the diffused light to the ring I had taken off the night before, set on the outer corner of his mattress next to where I lay my head.  It had been a barrette someone had left on the kitchen table – bling, fake rhinestone – the word LOVE.  I rolled over, unhappily preparing to leave… he found a key laying on the sheet. That whole bra doubling as a pocket thing, yes it’s had me misplace a key or 2 or 3… But if there wasn’t a good metaphor in there i don’t know what would be.

I know this person, this scene is supposed to teach me something.  If nothing else, in the very least, it was quite nice waking up next to him in the morning. I’ll leave it at that for the time being, taking with me the message of the scene. Something heard so many times it’s cliche, nonetheless, todays clue seems loud AF – Love is the key.

To be continued… 

Looking back over the words I wrote this time 2 years ago…  Dayumn I am dramatic sometimes.  I wish I could give myself a little more leeway, maybe hop in the shower to cool off, drink some water before burning myself down completely.  Maybe bring some balance to all this fire, if at the least somewhere in side of me.

Interesting timing, just having posted this last clip this morning when i was asked by a friend if my family was ok, many people having had to evacuate northern california fire zones already this morning.

I think of my drive back just yesterday morning.  Something had got my goat fur sure, and I had been rather agitated all day.  The soundtrack of the drive leading my mind through flashes of memory and looming thoughts; Laying the pieces together for me in an interesting new way.

Observing the way in which the scenes in my mind were illuminated via the soundtrack, how the songs themselves led the seemingly fragmented scenes and thoughts into cohesion, into their own saga. 

– i do believe that this is one of the ways in which i observe intuition. Having been asked before “How do you know?” in regard to an “intuition” I’ve had… and in the past not having any “real” way to qualify my knowledge – i have since then sought ways to analyze my own process in order to understand (what intuition even is). And music for me, i know is a big one.

So maybe it’s time to look back at what the soundtrack told me.

FLASHBACK: from the archives – 11/22/2018

I feel like I’ve had many metaphorical deaths in my life.  Phoenix energy, something inside me always wanting to burn in flames and rise from my own ashes.  If I cannot hold strong through means of love, beauty, art, practice, self mastery, and ultimately creation then I must go up in flames, allow the dark corridors to be illuminated by the fire, to be extinguished and exorcised, in order to rise up from the ashes of yesterday’s mistakes, yesterday’s reservations, yesterday’s silence.  

I must make sure to be careful that they do in fact become yesterday’s mistakes, I don’t have any more fucks to give to recurring nightmares.  

I arrived in California yesterday back home for the holidays, 12 days  after the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history incinerated the town of Paradise.  Something must be said about the brazen allegory here…  I can’t stop thinking about it.  Paradise.  Paradise burnt down.  Paradise is lost.

For the past two weeks my Instagram and Facebook have been inundated with pictures of my Bay Area friends wearing respirator masks #apocafemme #dystopiannightmarefashionweek.  Finally stepping out onto the streets of San Francisco, it was shocking to see it in person, a bleak hang in the gait of people passing by me in respirator masks on the street.  Sick to my stomach from inhaling clouds of cities turned to dust, imagining what my friends and family have been going through for weeks now, images flashing through my mind of “dystopian futures” from the past resurfacing to compare and contrast. 

Eleven.  Something about the 11th hour, this sneaking sensation that time is running out and I have to act rapidly.  *the 11th hour” flashes over the screen.  And GO*

I need to break to spell. Ask myself – what do I need to do to create a dramatic reversal in myself and in the world around me?

“To save time is to lengthen life” – the emblem on my remington typewriter flashes into my mind. Use your time wisely my babe, do not offend it by pushing it aside.

“Gone next dawn” were the last words i read in my dream. The last push of allegory from my dreamland, an image to be remembered, etched in my mind, not to be forgotten my subconscious told me.

In my dream I felt sadness over leaving new orleans, had been running around trying to get in all my last adventures with friends before saying goodbye. Winding down the adventures in a movie theater, my last night, not watching the film because the packed seating and commotion in front of me made it difficult for me to see clearly. Instead I lay curled up in a friend’s lap, just listening, while he held me, stroking my hip in the darkness.

Morning am. Coffee.

Today I can see the sediment of the fires in the air again, feel it on my face.  After only a paragraph I see the specks of ash intermingling on top of my cup of coffee swirling around. The bamboo on the hills so dry it almost sounds like the crackling of fire when the wind rustles through.

It reminds me that this rn is another birthday, reminding me that I haven’t yet written about the big one -the day of the dark night. To be told when it wants to be seen again i guess.

Reminding me that I don’t yet want to throw in the towel. I don’t yet want to give up on hope and on life.

And more and more i realize that this is a choice I have every single dawn i am alive. My own fucking free will, that’s the real kicker. I’m the only one who can truly choose, every day we have our choices, every day we have a mini plight. I should show my life a lot more respect than i do.

New orleans on my mind, I flipped through some of my old writings from that time, random tarot card page flip to a page i had written while living there – always interesting how the pages land.

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