The wild geese are flying. They are stretched across the sky in a wide flying "v" each goose tucked dynamically behind the wing extension of the next. They fly far above the tumbling sea of crystalline shining orbs, crashing and churning in its ionic ballet. Far above the plankton forests and hidden deep towering kelp pillars. The wild geese have been flying for a long journey, and like all gypsies they are about to arrive at a home that is not home...but *is* home.
The wintering ground.
The wild geese are flying so long and far on these wings and this air that you would think that they had flown from the moon, you would think that all they ever ever had to do was fly the winds of the earth with faerie kin on their backs letting the shifting spirits rise and fall from them like fireflies or aurora borealis.
We see the long open dairy fields stretched nearly to the sand dunes, rich with green grass and fat worms. The line of wild geese lifts and then dips down...lifts and then gracefully, abruptly, the lead goose touches down onto the ground.
The goose is a flashing bright eyed and strong goose, it takes long running strides as it lands on the earth and then, stopping gently it arcs its neck in a perfect line with the ground gently touching the earth with its beak as if ceremoniously kissing the ground after such a long treck.
From this view where the goose is giant, sort of like a brontosaurus, we see a tiny little man is in fact disembarking from the goose's gently extended beak.
He is a tall and thin man with a wiry constitution and a spring in his step. He is dressed in short grey trousers, a long white poets shirt and a tall black hat with two arcing black rooster feathers. He seems to have walked out of a medeival woodcut and yet there is a magical far-out twinkle in his eye that makes you aware he has seen more than a draw bridge in his time. As he steps off of the goose he pounds his chest and turns to the viewer.
"ah, there you are" he says in a velvet voice that sounds like a deep furnace and gravel. "You must be from the Fools Guild", he removes his hat and ruffles his thin grey hair at the viewer, "I am ever so pleased" he says bowing. He straightens his shirt, places his hat firmly on the noggin and turns to search something out of the extremely long grass.
First he hoists a brown leather bag onto his shoulder, "Swadeshi bag" he mumbles to himself, rummaging around some more in the weeds and herbs he pulls up a bagpipe." ahhhhh" he says "ahhh HAAAaaaaaa".
an aside:"You didnt think it was all just the geese with those tunes...did you?" he blows on the pipes , huffing and huffing, each time he releases them to take in air the bags let out a little sigh.
"ahhheooohhhh"
"ahheeoooouuhhh"
"aaaaheeeeooohh"
then the man (Bob, for those of you who have not guessed or ever met him before) digs his elbow into the bag and an amazing shriek is emitted, a sound which would make all of the male cats for about a half a mile stand up and take notice.
"You are awake now" he says smiling a winding almost devious smile. "I made these pipes in stir" he says, " I had to save a tack here, stash some upolstery there...." the pipes wind down not being inflated any longer wheeeeeeaaaugghhhh, " IT really doesnt seem like much, I know, but these pipes are my most stunning accomplishment....well that and teaching the inmate two doors down how to read..." another one of those sly smiles steals across his face.
"I've been rude" he says " MY name is BOb ",
As he sweeps the ground in a long low dramatic bow you can hear and see all around him the geese feeding, attention drawn to succulent nourishment waiting in the grass.
" I have made better pipes," he says, " some were harder to design and make, some sound sweeter and some are made from the finest materials...but all in all I like my hoosegow pipes the best" He is standing low in a long sweeping field which leads up and away to a wooded hillside in the distance. At the base of the hill is a low glittering little city, a few houses sprinkle the hill but overall the scenery is dominated by nature and sky.
"Behold Arcata" says Bob with an appropriately sweeping gesture, "land of the Free home of the Brave" he smiles here and there is a note of irony and sarcasm in his voice." Actually it is a lovely town, charming and civilized...something like early Berkely or Santa Monica." nearby a small hummingbird stops to look at a buttercup, it does a double take as it see's Bob and pulls along side him, he gives it a nod of recognition and then spryly leaps astride the humming bird taking off towards town suddenly.
We are facing Bob as he is holding his hat and being flown with lots of attending wind and the sound of bells (a hummingbird noise).
"I am showing you Arcata so you can see why Baby WIzard is so busy" he says, " see Baby Wizard is in a bit of hot water, she was travelling with Farmer through the *check points* (anywhere is southern humboldt) when the Empire Guards pulled them aside for questioning and a quick search" he is able to somehow maintain a strange sense of dignity while flying recklessly at high speed on the back of a ruby throated hummingbird. "Baby Wizard was good, she insisted they see that she is a patient (read: prescription under 215) and that the small amount of cannabis prescribed by her doctor was a legal holding....the empire does not give up so easy" he shakes his head, " the the Darth Chippie gave her a misdemeanor...11357(B) ..disregarding her rights to travel and have releif from her condition (such as it is, duly under physicians care)". From his vantage point we see a small town with a village green center square surrounded by two story shops, two vintage 1920's movie houses and on the hill an ivory tower.
"Baby Wizard is trying quickly to move here..." he gestures below to the slow moving peacefull town. Funky dread-headed young people and urban professionals are wandering the streets. "Here they have extended protection to patients...here they have decided not to leave the sick and the dying on their battle field while they wage their cold war against conciousness and compassion..."
Nestled in the streets below is a clubhouse of other such patients. The smell of comfort and "high times" is in the air. Inside the clubhouse is a scene you would only see in Amsterdam. Fraternization, solidarity, and high quality medicine.
"They may be knocking on her door any minute..." he says very calmly as if it were the most normal thing in the world."She doesnt live here... remember...not yet anyway. She still lives South in the cold war zone....a very foolish thing for a young barely trained *jedd-i*. But you know how she is..." far below on the road we see a brown volvo station wagon scuttling across the little town to the storage units. The back is filled with paintings and photo albums, suitcases of art supplies and boxes of mementos. At the wheel is our Baby Wizard, resoloute and unafraid (at the moment). She has a court date on april 4th, and so much to do before then. Probably nothing will come of it, they will return her little tin with pictures of her babies on it with her medicine in it...this she knows. The only thing gained will be the trampling of her rights and the shaking of her sense that the people are behind her. "We dont recognize 215" the highway patrol says, "We let the courts sort it out".
As she is driving the last mile across the grassy dairy bottoms into Arcata she is not thinking of Darth chippie or his comrade Fed Bright Eyes. She is thinking of what Jim Letchworth said just the other cyberday about driving, and gas, and the need for community and sanity amidst our misguided dreams of postage stamp ranches and endlessly unfolding highways. The solution is right in front of her, everything is pointing the way....all that remains is a house and another dozen trips....
Off to the side she see's the wild geese feeding. This gives her chills for a moment. It is good to see the wild geese ...they are the totem of the people. The tribe that traveled and raised the kings amidst Bards, musicians and magicians...they were called the *wild geese* (we are the wild geese) by the people. For a moment her head clears and she can hear the first few stirring bagpipe bars from the sixteenth century lament called "The Wild Geese" about the departure of the exiled tribes to the new world.
She draws in a breath of releif and calm, thinking about her fool brothers and sisters, she is not alone on the path. This thought gives her a curious calmness and stregnth. Though she is just one small woman against all of this she moves everywhere surrounded by the *impossible posse* and the support and love of her foolandia comrades. With this she moves surrounded by a swirling band of energy which appears solid like saturns rings of energy and light....just as she sends out constant circling and protection around the campfire of this long stranding tribe....the energy is moved back to her along a thin golden thread which encircles her with the grace and fire of her unusual family.
Outwardly to world known as:
"Fools"
secretly Native American clan named :
"Run! Hippie Run!"