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Our friend Forrest will be guest blogging for the month. We think that there is no better time for him to start than today, the solstice!!! So here is a short bio about Forrest by Forrest! “I was born and raised in rural Vermont. My first memory is of two grey skinned anthropomorphs above my crib. They are ruthlessly tickling me. I cried to my father that these creatures were ‘zines,’ that is: ‘designs’ and so they would truly be a design upon my life. In one moment my psychic and physical selves were permanently blurred and while every other child gazed open-eyed at a world full of adventure I only saw the deep recesses of my own psyche. Others leapt off bridges to feel the gushing adrenaline while I walked slowly through the woods tweaking the nerves of psychosis in order to alter my perception of the size of my body. While my peers pushed themselves to the physical limits of alcohol consumption, I reprogrammed my brain in order to become the eye in the Illuminati pyramid. I experienced severe hallucinatory paranoia and absolute bliss, all without the crutch of psychedelics! Recently I realized that this internal exploration was inhibiting my physical, that is social, success. After a life spent naval gazing into a dark and infinite void, I found that I could utilize the blurred relationship between my psychic self and my physical self as a lens through which I could explore the fundamentals of the human psyche without risking my own sanity. All I needed was a catalyst. And so here I am, completely alone on the hot side of the mountain, the land dried up and dead. I live in a trailer on an ancient Indian campsite. The burial grounds are somewhere in the vast cattle ranch on the Western side of the creek. Cats howl in the darkness, rattlesnakes slither in the undergrowth, frogs proliferate around the leaky irrigation, and mountain crab spiders as big as your hand crawl in through the air vents. I am volunteering full-time with the Mono Indians of the Western Sierra Nevadas. Practicing a sort of applied anthropology, I am assembling a sustainable cultural preservation program that will protect both sacred and non-sacred ways of living practiced by the Mono Indians. Utilizing both my physical and psychical dexterity, I am treading around culturally sensitive territory, dealing with Anu (spirits), and working to find my place as an “outsider” on an isolated Indian Reservation.” Leave a Reply |
