-“For those on foot, there is a spiral staircase at the east end; for coffins, there is a shaft.”
-narration, a tour of the Royal Vault

Those meditating on the deeper meaning of today’s state funeral of Her Majesty the Queen, I wish you peace and solemn reflections.

But for the rest of us knuckleheads and death enthusiasts, here’s a fascinating look onto a passage of the final journey.

I was curious as to the logistics of this historic day, and my morbid curiosity paid off in this very informative piece which includes historical images and accounts of the Royal Vault, a very temporary stop en route to the actual final resting place of Queen Elizabeth.

No matter the high degree of splendor, death also includes dark passages, halls of ancient stone, and human error: Workmen long ago, during a renovation, accidentally exposed a hidden mystery, centuries old, amongst the monarchs interred there.

The intimacies and the uncertainties, the scrapes and lonesome moments of imperfection are also a part of what it is to be human, since the beginning of time. In fact, anthropologists say these imperfections define what it is to be human; how we think of death, of the Dead, defines us.

A Spirit Photo

This year when a friend died I realized I had a photo of the person that I could only call a spirit photograph.

A spirit photograph to me is not one of a ghost, but a photo of a person that expresses spiritual, ethereal qualities of the person as I imagine them after life, or the life beyond life. Or still right here in life, familiar, plus something never before noticed in such a clear way.

You see it and you think, “That’s it!”

They’re usually lovely, full of transcendent energy and, well, spirit. And there is no image like it, of the subject. Perhaps others would overlook it, but your own heart responds immediately with pleasure and appreciation and recognition.

I’m claiming this for myself as Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s spirit photo. It’s really just an idea in my own imagination. I’m not a special fan, or adherent. I just notice things sometimes.

It’s not necessarily about the queen’s mortal passing; it’s about the love that exists in one’s heart, in a general sense.

I like the idea of a spirit photo. When you see one, you know. They are completely unique.

Perhaps you will notice a spirit photo of people in your life. When you find it, it will instantly take you there.

***

(…below, the photo that I recognized as spirit. My dear friend who passed in feb ‘22, with her daughter:)

Jeffersonian

It gets quiet of an evening. One thinks of constellations, cosmology, laws that govern orbits.

Somewhere out there is the energy of an Adams, a Jefferson.

-Impossible to imagine these dignitaries wouldn’t take an interest in human events now.

Be still.

I sensed Jefferson this evening, out in the Cosmos. Or right here, when the living room is quiet, at nightfall.

He has that jaw set. The wakeful dreaminess. The political insight of a street fighter. The intense interest in the scheme of government. All submerged in a deep, deep infinite contemplation.

Here in the living room for a brief time, beliefs and human schemes evaporate; out in America comfortable people dream, and the universe, our cosmology, assets its existence for a moment.

-I thought of slavery. I can’t mention the presence of Jefferson without mentioning the modern American polling data on a Jefferson of two centuries ago, regarding the horror of human bondage.

The impatient rejoinder from beyond is as follows:

“So are you willing to throw away car keys and walk? Because the energy usage is devastating to the environment and the workforce is paid half wages.”

Point taken.

So the issue before us is, that out there in Mar-a-Lago tonight is a former President, a virtual terrorist, willing to threaten the United States, asserting powers that are…extra-Constitutional.

Jefferson is referring to MAGA as “the Ultras”.

They were there in 1800, too. Personal empire, as a means to a personal end.

This is a fascinating stress test of a still-young republic, this Florida stand-off with the former president.

I sense a deep capacity for contemplation in Jefferson. A mind that is its own galaxy…infinite but focused. A natural bridge. Still. Quiet mind. Observing.

And the thought comes that we are what we believe we are, and at times those ideas fluctuate and the Nation is its own cosmos, with its dynamic laws, which can only be approximated in the Constitutional scheme.

Ideals exist. And these are expressed in a balanced design of government, of natural rights, of human rights.

And the former president Trump is now outside of that dynamic scheme. A “private citizen.”

Here is a description of tyranny:

“a condition imposed by some outside agency or force.”

---

Cosmology is our theme. Constellations. Satellites of governments. Rogue agents and astronauts, attempting to determine boundaries and corruptly acquire assets, from beyond the map set forth by the political explorers of the early United States.

Jefferson is pointing out that, as in the historic case of his Vice President Aaron Burr, Trump has become interested in empire, and so has stepped beyond the scheme of government.

With Burr, it was an empire in Mexico, which led to a trial for treason before a Supreme Court justice.

With Trump, a base in Florida, and documents he may use as bargaining chips to sell, extort or destroy.

To step outside of the scheme is a paradox: one loses power when one departs from the design set forth in the Constitution; it is a bit of a trap, a hidden trapdoor contemplated, devised by the Framers.

They told no one, that the Union, being perpetual, to step beyond which allows no leverage, so one tumbles to oblivion, by asserting powers that don’t exist in the Constitution.

“Perhaps that is the case before us.”

He said.

***

Just My Imagination…

So.

The spirit of Gore Vidal dropped by last week, in my living room. Still using the cane on the Other Side. A friend referenced his famous view of our politics, often expressed, the party with two Right Wings, so I’ll describe:

It’s kind of funny but hard to translate. I was sitting alone at midnight after the siege of Mar-a-Lago, the room in semi-darkness, thinking of how Man is actually an Island out on a distant crag, surrounded by the great infinite mystery and how the ship of state is headed toward its Great Destiny- or The Great Dark. I was alone, looking into the Vastness and blank-ness of our political situation, of the Bird with Two Right Wings, and I suddenly sensed the great presence, Gore Vidal. The Great One. And he gave a sinister eye-roll and said in spirit, “well what took you so long? You’re really not quick.” And then pfft he was gone. And that is true. And I felt somehow…reassured. Jynx was staring at that corner, too with her green eyes buggin’ out. I’m not sure what it means but I’ve learned to be grateful.

***

On Meeting a Biographer: reverie

On Meeting a Biographer, a reverie.

I recognized the biographer of Joan Mitchell, Patricia Albers, coming out of the main library today. She had a name tag on, so I could run up and thank her for her book.

It probably disturbed her reverie, and San Franciscans usually don’t accost writers on the street-bad form- but her writing is great, and Joan Mitchell was here at the MOMA not too long ago. Her paintings- she passed in 1992.

Joan Mitchell is one of the famous people that drops by sometimes, when my mind is quiet. It’s imagination- or is it??

I was thinking of her paintings one evening and I thought, you know, what would be good, would be to be IN the painting, you know, to be walking around amid the color and forms and dimensions. Like a universe in there. Of course. To be within.

So at that moment, quiet evening at home, reverie, living room, I felt the pleasant tingles down my spine-energy- so I said thank you, and she said (or was it my imagination) “Go ahead- knock yourself out”- in a way both blasé and playful, and she was smiling and blowing smoke. For a second.

I believe some creative artists respond to their audience, those truly interested in their work. One doesn’t have to “be” somebody. You open the door, and inspiration may follow.

So you could say we’re friends.

My experience recurs when I’m aware of artists in the center of their work, within it, part of it, multidimensionally. Then, she’s there. See?

I snapped a detail from my walk through the Joan Mitchell exhibit last year. An art curator was in hospice at Maitri last year, and I intended to frame some details, but we agreed that nothing comes close to the experience of the actual painting- it’s not an artifact, it’s a personal experience, like visiting Yosemite. A picture of a painting isn’t It.

But the detail turned out to be the pathway in.

Joan is funny. She’s not mean. She’s generous.

The curator told me he met the artist at a dinner and though he was ”terrified” because of her reputation for histrionics, they got along well.

I never gave him the details I snapped, but he didn’t need them. I told him about the show and his eyes lit up.

Professor Albers wrote that for Joan Mitchell, letters were colors, sound was taste, emotions were right out of the tube: like illuminist poet Arthur Rimbaud, she had synesthesia, so, with Joan, one is confused at first, until the maelstrom, in stillness, in immensity, and with plunging infinite detail, invites you in.

I kind of laughed because seeing the author brought this encounter to mind. Then the light changed and The City moved on to the next moment, moving life in every direction.

Knock yourself out!

***Postscrypt:

It was on the 10 o’clock news that I heard the news of the death of Princess Diana. I know, let the eye-rolling commence.

I had just locked the doors at the haunted bookstore and drawn the shades and turned off the lights and breathed in the perfect peace of a bookstore at night.

Let’s stop right there. A bookstore at night is like church.

Ok.

I had no interest in Princess Diana whatsoever. Took the rattling streetcar home. It was a lovely warm summer night in San Francisco.

So, at home at midnight, I watched the pale dawn in Paris and London on television, and saw the beginnings of flower memorials outside the palace gates. The world was awakening to the sad news and blanket coverage was just beginning.

Then, lo, there was Di standing over by the window in the corner, just a step out of the light of the 60 watt overhead bulb of my room- which was a mess, as usual.

There she was in Appearance, an Apparition. Right there in my disorderly, usually cold low-rent room in San Francisco. I think I was eating a sandwich at midnight. Maybe it was a burrito.

-Then, she Wasn’t.

She’d completely disappeared from that ambient imaginative space. Could not reimagine her. She was gone.

So I asked The Great Whatever why a nobody like myself would have an Experience like that and TGW answered:

“The Princess acknowledges every person who has a thought for her everywhere the world over, and brings a message of peace to everyone who remembers her this night.”

So, there you go. I received an unearned gift of grace of some sort.

In the following days there was a great global outpouring of feeling for Diana Spencer, and the Royals were blindsided and had completely underestimated her now charismatic appeal for the masses, the whole world over.

I knew that the spirit probably touched everyone as The Great Whatever had explained.

Am I saying that Lady Diana from another time is a ghost?

No. She’s not a ghost.

But the world keeps turning and something ancient and venerable is always at work, and when a person stops and thinks, time stops and thinks too.

As Isaac Newton says:

“Time is its own thing.”

***

***

Welcome, October.

Do you believe in spirit communication?

I do.

For me it’s coincidences.

Example.

I had the opportunity to visit artists in studio, and one of the artists, while painting, told me she pushed her students in a strident way by clapping her hands to urge them to get busy. “Chop chop!” Let’s go! Get to work!

We discussed how weird and jarring and probably racist that old hackneyed expression is. We laughed about it.

Well, a few days later my wife and I were were watching tv and a random program I wasn’t paying any attention to was on in which a character was killed by bad guys, but was awakened by magical powers and the first words the character said coming back to life were: “Chop chop! Let’s go!”

-What?!

I’ve heard psychics say that those weird word coincidences, well, that’s your spirit guides letting you know they’re there.

This happens all the time now.

So tonight I was listening to a nice song called “The Wheel” from Todd Rundgren’s early cosmic days- on YouTube -it just appeared while mindlessly scrolling, and the verse goes “Let us off this Wheel of Karma, let us stop the hands of time.”

“Hands of time” is a repeated verse, in the form of a round, as when people sing together a disjointed phrase that harmonizes with itself.

I know, woo-woo. But it’s a nice song. I let it go.

And, while listening to this “Hands of Time” thing in bed, I was reading my library book of essays from an art writer I’d never heard of which I just checked out at random and which it turns out I love and I turned the page and the chapter, chapter two, totally random, was entitled:

“Hands of Time”

(I know. What?)

…While the random song was playing the exact same words at the exact same time. Totally random.

Okayyy.

Welcome, October! Veil is thin.

Perhaps it’s the musician friend I heard had passed, years ago, but that I just found out about. So it’s new information. That would be just like him. Miss that guy. We really had fun. Brilliant. Creativity everywhere, every minute.

Oh now the coyotes have started howling. I like them, too. This universe is quite interesting.

***

Bad-Ass Beyond the Veil

Ok I had a recurring imaginative still picture in my mind, yesterday and again today, and that is of two major anti -imperialist bad asses on the same side of The Veil.

I’m seeing D Crosby, pointing at Mark Twain, with a mischievous look, and Twain is standing beside him- pretending to be dead.

Make of it what you will.

***

spirit photo

I collect what I call “Spirit Photos.”

Not apparitions, but portraits that tell us everything we can know of a person’s essential being.

And it can be a healing meditation if you’re into that kind if thing.

This a great one, the people’s pope that died two days ago- but made a final earthly appearance Easter Sunday. 2025.

My orders are to suggest you have a cup of tea before reading.

Ok.

I’ll tell you what I did on election night.

I turned everything off at sundown. No news.

Nothing serious had happened, yet the desired signals were dark.

So I sat in my darkened living room like Americans have done since 1924 and waited in silence.

But I was not alone.

Because I have a …vivid imagination, I daydreamed and in my daydreams in the dark you’ll never guess who showed up in my consciousness-

Benjamin Franklin!

I’m not kidding.

So we sat quietly for a while.

He turned to me and spoke in a confidential tone and said with a slight wry smile

“You know dear sir, I lived through three world wars.

Our effort was global.

Our home desk in London and Paris.”

He added –

“…in 80 years there was never one moment of certainty that things would resolve amicably.

Every moment persists as a courageous act on the stage of impossibilities.”

Then he was gone.

That was about 8 pm.

I checked my phone and a friend from Russia told the news indicating disaster- saying that mass psychosis had broken out.

And so early I went to bed, leaving everything aside except silence and peace and a deep dive into spiritual grounded space.

Table of Contents

Please type or copy/ paste the desired title ( w/o number, just title) into the search box and it will take you there. 

Once there, there are live links by title, so easier navigating between texts. 

There is a book of California sketches, a book of seasonal pieces and five poetry chapbooks. The way they’re organized is noted at bottom. 

1. California: A Book of Beginnings: in ten short essays (Plus “Sketchbooks Belong Together” – Photos and history along the Bay Trail.) 

2. Ghost Walking with Richard Brautigan: San Francisco during lockdown.

3. A Year of Poems/ Evening Poems

4. The Imperfect Tree Survives the Ax (political poems)

5. Steamer Day (San Francisco history poems and rough drafts)

6. Pumpkinalia / & On Christmas Road (Four Christmas meditations)

7. Poems I Invite You (early efforts and photocopies)

8. The Fact of Breath/ CoEvolutionary Covid (archetypal essays on the Pandemic)

9. “Emperor Norton, Robin Williams and the Bicycles of the Afterlife”- a San Francisco Halloween Poem

10. Circles and Arrows and a Paragraph on the Back About Arlo Guthrie/ Pete Seeger/ & Bruce Sherman, Bookstore Balladeer; I met a Beatle

11. Red States Revelations: The Gospel of Larry. Meek and mildly offensive, so I’m sorry.

12. Garden of Stones: An Essay on Monuments and Murals

13. A Norwalk Ohio Memory/ Ballad of a Wolf-faced Eel, an anecdote for Uncle Obie

14. My Bridge: An Ohio Journey- With Thoreau

15. A Springtime Story for the Lincolns: a meditation

16. My Debate/ Pieces From the Crate: poems during wartime

17. The Little Book of Guns

18. Nickelodeon: A Niles Canyon notebook, San Francisco sites.

19. The Immaculate Kitchen/ and Everyday Life in the Ancient World: two spiritual bookends

20. On the announcement of the death of J.D. Salinger: a letter

21. The Day I met George Plimpton: a notebook on freedom of the Press

22. My Supreme Courtyard/ Heaven is in Your Pocket: Two Poems (by request)

23. Send Me No Magnets: a poem of Summer for your refrigerator 

24. Hospice: a notebook. Poems and paragraphs.

25. My Meditation Shack: a novella awaiting a title an ending and a plot.

26. A Beatles Christmas: a poem for my sister Kate. (with help from OAK)

27. Dear Jelly Roll

28. The City From Space

29. Premier Menuet; Vexations! Satie; Summer: Bix Beiderbecke and Music in the Air

30. You, Ocean

31. The Tree is You

32. Hunter’s Point Notebook 1

33. “Suspicious Disappearance”: Molly’s sleuthing a family mystery 

34. The Great San Francisco Earthquake (and Fire) Blues

35. Acts of Oblivion 

36. Old San Francisco Bay: Hunters Point Shipyard Notebook 2

37. Peninsula Nature

38. Ocular notebook

40. Jesse Benton Fremont at Black Point- a photo essay (California Beginning. 

41. Summer: Bix Beiderbecke and Music in the Air

43. Ida’s Mad Fandango 

43. Afghanistan 

44. Mission

46. Bipartisan Buzzsaw

47. The Radical Cheesehead Demolition and Religious Freedom/ The Great Awakening 

49. The Queen’s Passing: I’ll Take the Stairs/ A Spirit Photo/ Jeffersonian/Just My Imagination, Gore Vidal/ Joan Mitchell

50. In Memory of… (Presidential)

——Note on Organization:

If I were to collect most of the pieces in this Table of Contents I would create two prose volumes and four poetry chapbooks.

Book 1 California:A Book of Beginnings would also include “Sketchbooks Belong Together: photos and history along the Bay Trail”: (1. Old San Francisco Bay; 2. Hunters Point; 3. Jesse Benton Fremont at Black Point; 4. Peninsula Nature; 6. I Get It, It’s Morning; 7. Embarcadero to Mission Creek; Ghostwalking with Richard Brautigan.) 8. Mission; These are really part of my “California Beginnings” book of essays. 

Book 2 “My Book of Seasons” would contain my Thoreau essay “My Bridge”, plus four Christmas pieces plus “Beatles Xmas poem; Summer, Bix; my autumn pieces Redwood Rhapsody and Pumpkinalia and my autumn Woodstock essays Circles and Arrows and the Pete Seeger and “I met a Beatle” and Halloween poem “Robin Williams and Emperor Norton and the Bicycles of the Afterlife”; the John Fahey monograph; spring includes “Spring Story For the Lincolns; etc

Poetry comprised of 5 little chapbook collections: “Year of Poems”; “Evening Poems”; “The Imperfect Tree”; “Steamer Day.” plus Scrawls : early attempts.