SHELTER COVE, CALIFORNIA

Ramona and I drove to Shelter Cove to see if we were meant to move there. It is a beautiful place but we saw a deer that told us the time isn’t right.

BLACK DOG ON THE LOST COAST // Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. EF24-70mm ƒ4L IS USM. ISO 100. 24 mm. 0 ev. ƒ7.1. 1/125 s.

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We drove from San Francisco to Shelter Cove to see if we wanted to move there. I experienced physiological manifestations of mental illness in the form of elevated heart rate and shortness of breath. This photograph was taken after I had successfully beaten those symptoms into submission by running through the forest and the whole town with Ramona. We saw a bear shit and I felt better and Ramona had lots of fun running behind me formed up like a wolf. She got tired eventually and we went back to where we were staying to drink some water and we drove the truck back down to the beach so I could take a swim.

While we were in Shelter Cove a man at the general store told me how his bobcat broke and his portable milling business was on hold. A lady told me that the seaside air cured her asthma and that you should never go swimming here or you will die and I said don’t worry I’m a professional and the ocean is the least of my problems which she did not like but it’s true and swimming in the ocean was a brilliant part of our stay.

There was an airstrip, a house by the beach road with drawn curtains and “fuck rik” painted on the outside of the window. There was small fish processing station. There was a man who had an artistic garden and chickens who I complimented. There was lots of boats, some broken, some not, one with a statue of a shark driving it through someone’s front lawn.

The way the coastal range, covered in dark green forest slants into the grey rocks of the beach is quite magnificent. I could live there, but right now I don’t want to leave where I am. I feel that I’m being uprooted by force and cast to the wind. I hear the voices of people that scorn me for having these feelings, and thinking these thoughts. I am a failure, and an embarrassment and now I have the audacity to write about it.

I am writing into the void though dumbass. And the standards at which these accusations are rendered are not my own, any more than I am anything more or less than some mysterious, happenstance confluence of matter and energy. Now, finally the radio broadcasts, which pleases God. Does God desire an editor. I suspect so, but trust that position will be filled at the appropriate time and plac.e

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

This journal is a record and you record what you record, which creates a pathway. I like reptiles and snakes. Furthermore I would like to live a good life and be a source of positivity so I tried to steer the sailboat more in that direction here.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

I remember that I thought the summer light in the room was pleasant and I should use the camera instrument. You can’t justify yourself in the name of art or psychology. There was a forest witch named Franky who made the movie Aquaman and people all over the world pay extra for the privilege of drinking coffee in front of strangers.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

KITCHEN THAT LOOKS LIKE A SPACESHIP PHOTOGRAPHED WITH POOR UNDERSTANDING OF LIGHT AND FOCUS // Canon EOS 5D Mark IV.    EF24-70mm ƒ4L IS USM.    ISO 1600.    24 mm.    0 ev.    ƒ4.5.   1/800 s.

BEDROOM ON A NORMAL DAY ON THE EVE OF A STRANGE PERIOD IN LIFE //  EOS 5D Mark IV.    EF24-70mm ƒ4L IS USM.    ISO 6400.     24 mm.    0 ev.    ƒ4.5.     1/800 s.

A WELL EXECUTED PHOTOGRAPH OF RAMONA RESTING  //  EOS 5D Mark IV.    EF24-70mm ƒ4L IS USM.    ISO 6400.    24 mm.      0 0 ev.    ƒ4.5.    1/800 s.

This was a time in life wherein I was stuck between worlds. I wanted to finish art projects but felt there was not enough time to do so. The house was relatively organized. The dog was healthy. The plants were healthy. I was not. I smoked cigarettes. I felt as if something was always somehow missing, and that whatever I did was never enough. There was a constant feeling of time running out and the world closing in around us. And yet the photographs are so still and quiet. Was it the loneliness that was getting us down, or rather, the feeling of being cloistered and constrained by signing up for agreements subconsciously that could never be fulfilled?

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Apple iPhone 13. Wide Camera — 26 mm ƒ1.6. THE BLACK DOG ENJOYING A BEAUTIFUL MORNING ON THE BEACH.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

BLACK DOG, EARLY MORNING

Here is a writing exercise wherein you write down an assumption that bothers you, and then reflexively retaliate with what would constitute the opposite of that assumption:

✞ I will be unable to keep up with the standard of living in San Francisco, accrue debt and interest, lose my house, and become the Unabomber.
☽ I will thrive using my skills, talent, and proximity to community. Subsequently I will share the winnings with the community by revealing the methodology of creation, and in the inspiration emanating from what I create.

✞ I don’t have enough time, nor energy. Thus I will run out of both and be imprisioned.
☽ I will slow down and be free. An action performed gracefully emanates from one who has taken all the time necessary to rid oneself of distractions and false emergency. Someone who appears fast, has taken an exceedingly disciplined approach to slowing everything around them down.

✞ My past mistakes have doomed me.
☽ My past mistakes are lessons that if properly observed, help to solve the riddles that would be unsolvable if we hadn’t made the mistakes in the first places.

✞ I will be unable to take care of Ramona while operating in a society that deems it finaancially impossible to do so from a time is money perspective.
☽ Ramona, a descendant of wolves, exists to illuminate the false assumptions of human society, and in so doing, shows how to properly parcel time and energy to live a healty, wise, and realized life under the true principles of nature.

✞ I don’t have time, nor energy for love and companionship in human form.
☽ Smart work creates the circumstances wherein these stars align. Smart work is fulfilling work, and conducted at a rate, and time scale wherein the basic needs of life are taken care of with no sense of desparation.

✞ My past art and music are embarrassments I can never outrun.
☽ The purpose for making art and music is in the playing, learning and presentation. It is a process oriented field, like the baseball field you left too soon, and switched to music to redeem that regret. Failure is part of the game and part of why you like playing. Being in the batter’s box is fun because you are using God given kinethestic intelligence and ingenuity to defeat failure. It isn’t fun without the possibility of failure or the experience of it.

✞ I’ve wasted time and money making three websites for my art, music and garden businesses respectively, when there is only enough time in life to do one thing well, and probably not even that.
☽ Intelligence, and all ideas are radio signals. They serve as tools and instruments these websites do. They cost relatively little, and they’ve gotten better with each bit of work you’ve done on them. They will pay for themselves and help you to organize and prevent that which is beautiful and well rendered, and simultaneously show what to discard in order to make room for more innovative work.

✞ I’m too backed into a corner psychologically and financially, from a stress and anxiety perspective, to quit smoking.
☽ Breaking this habit happens relatively quickly. You won’t miss it once it’s gone. On the contrary, you will feel better and notice it, and enjoy it. It will open up new areas, and return your focus to where it naturally belongs when you are operating as the expression of the wilderness you enjoy being most.

✞ My back fence, and house actually, will deteriorate and fall down faster and more expensively than I am able to afford to fix.
☽ You have developed the skills to fix it yourself. That is a powerful investment that you haven’t yet seen fully realized. Imagine: You can build a fence with only the cost of materials, whereas most people have to pay thousands of dollars in labor costs, and even then, lack the perspective to properly select and verify the quality of the labor. You can do this! This is the ground of independence, on which freedom is bound to take root and flower. This garden will grow for you.