| Something About Lake Lahontan |
[Mar. 14th, 2006|06:24 pm] |
Friends of the Black Rock/High Rock
Something About Lake Lahontan
By Will Roger Peterson
It was 1994 when I first came to the Black Rock Desert. The occasion was the burgeoning Burning Man Festival on Labor Day weekend. There were about 2,000 people camped out over several square miles of blank dry lakebed. The 400 square mile camping area was not at all crowded. I immediately took off my clothes and shoes and celebrated my independence from the ‘real’ world and danced around barefoot and naked. It seemed that I was the only one with such enthusiasm and the next day I discovered why. My skin was so burned from the blazing sun that I had difficulty laying down. Worse yet were my feet, cracked to the bone from the salt and minerals in the talcum like playa surface. My first time visiting the Great Basin Desert and after one day, all I could do was gingerly sit upright in a lawn chair. This forced me to look more deeply at the things around me and attempt to enjoy my fate.
Close by was an unusual camp made up of boats on their trailers that had been towed in by pickup trucks. People were living and camping in their boats! There were about six of them and some how this camp looked like it belonged out there on this sea of playa dust. Fully clothed this time, with my bloody socks showing through my sandals, I limped over to their camp to be neighborly. They made me feel really comfortable, sat me down, listened to my laments about my ailments as we made friends. After several hours of cocktails and fishing tales I felt better, as if the desert had captured me and made me different then I had been before I came to it. I finally asked my hosts what was up with all the boats out here in this dry desert place. They answered, as if I should have known, that they were the Lake Lahontan Yacht Club. (see image)
It was several years later when I heard of Lake Lahontan again. By this time I was one of the organizers of Burning Man and spent several months each summer on or around the Black Rock Desert as director of the desert operations. I had learned to negotiate traveling on the lakebed by ‘dead reckoning’ or looking for memorable variations in the surrounding landscape and using that as a reference point for travel. A certain horizontal marking on some of the mountainsides surrounding the dry lakebed had been puzzling me. These stripes were layered, maybe several hundred feet apart and some were a mile long or longer and perfectly parallel to the ground. They seemed to be made of a rock that was darker then the rest, in fact almost black.
That day I was working with BLM Recreation planner, Mike Bilbo, who informed me that the stripes were the ancient shoreline of Lake Lahontan, that each stripe represented 10,000 years. Further he said the Black Rock Dry Lake Bed was a sediment remnant of the old Lake Lahontan and that it was over a mile deep in spots. He said that a fully intact wooly mammoth skeleton was found on the northeast part of the Black Rock Desert near the Quinn River wash.
Apparently this was a very big and ancient body of water that had left its mark to this day. All of these personal and discordant introductions to Lake Lahontan had caused some interest in me to learn more. The following information about the ancient lake was discovered on the internet. I’ve included some web addresses so that you might discover more on your own.
(Wikipedia)
Lake Lahontan
Extent of prehistoric Lake Lahontan
For the modern reservoir, see Lake Lahontan (reservoir)
Ancient Lake Lahontan was an enormous endorheic lake that existed during the ice age, covering much of northwestern Nevada, extending into northeastern California and southern Oregon. At its peak approximately 12,700 years ago (during a period known as the "Sehoo Highstand"), the lake had a surface area of about 8,000 square miles (20,700 km²), with its largest component centered at the location of the present Carson Sink. The depth of the lake was approximately 800 feet (240 m) at present day Pyramid Lake, and 500 feet (150 m) at the Black Rock Desert.
Climate change around the end of the Pleistocene epoch led to a gradual desiccation of ancient Lake Lahontan. The lake had largely disappeared in its extended form by approximately 9,000 years ago. As the surface elevation dropped, the lake broke up into series of smaller lakes, most of which rapidly dried up leaving only a playa. These playas include the Black Rock Desert, the Carson Sink and the Humboldt Sink. The only modern day remnants existing as true lakes are Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake. Winnemucca Lake has been dry since the 1930s and Honey Lake periodically desicates and has been dry since mid 2003. The ancient shoreline is evidenced by tufa formations throughout the area.
Surprisingly, the watershed feeding Lake Lahontan is not thought to have been significantly wetter during its highstand than it is currently. Rather, its desiccation is thought to be mostly due to increase in the evaporation rate as the climate warmed. Recent computer simulations indicate that if precipitation and evaporation rates within the watershed were maintained at their historical yearly maximum and minimum, respectively, Lake Lahontan would return.
The existence of the lake coincided roughly with the first appearance of humans in that region of North America. Archaelogical evidence exists along the ancient lake shore of early human habitation.
(Wikipedia)
Lahontan, Lake (ləhŏn'tən) , extinct lake of W Nev. and NE Calif. It was formed by heavy precipitation caused by the Pleistocene glaciers and with Lake Bonneville (see under Bonneville Salt Flats) occupied a part of the Great Basin region. Lake Lahontan vanished shortly after the Pleistocene epoch, but Pyramid, Winnemucca, and Walker lakes and Carson Sink are its remnants. The area, especially Lovelock Cave, Nev., is rich in Pleistocene fossils.
(Encyclopedia, Colombia University Press)
Lake Lahonton History:
Lake Lahontan is a pluvial lake that formed within the western portion of the Great Basin, occupying the majority of northwestern Nevada during the middle to late Pleistocene. A pluvial lake is one that has had considerable fluctuations in water levels primarily due to climatic changes and fluctuations in precipitation and evaporation rates. Lake Lahontan formed at a time when regional climatic conditions were much different than they are today. Precipitation in the Great Basin region was at a much higher level than it is today, and evaporation rates were very much decreased, allowing for the formation of a large inland body of water within the enclosed basin complex. Presently, Lake Lahontan exists only as several small remnant lakes that have managed to survive due to perennial tributary streams.
Geography
Lake Lahontan was the second largest pluvial lake in the northern hemisphere, covering approximately 21,000 km² during its period of high water level. The basin which encompassed Lake Lahontan covers the majority of the northwestern portion of the Great Basin, and extends between approximately 117° 30’, and 119° 30’ west longitude, and 38° 30’, and 41°30’ north latitude. The drainage basin covers approximately 115,000 km² and extends from the northwest corner of Nevada to the northeast portion of California, and north into Oregon.
Great Basin Formation
Lake Lahontan’s history begins approximately 12 to 15 Ma with the final stages of the Great Basin’s formation. During this period, the upper plates began a series of faults that were upward steepening and that surfaced as normal faults. This period of detachment faulting continued on into the early Pliocene (approx. 5 Ma) causing the Great Basin to expand by almost 50 percent.
(Above) A side profile of the Great Basin spanning from the Pacific Ocean(far left) to the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains (far right).
It wasn’t until the Pliocene to early Pleistocene that the west edge of the basin was completely enclosed by the Sierra Nevada Range. Previous to this time period, water could flow out of the Great Basin through channels in the young Sierra Nevada. During the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene, the Sierra Nevada were tilted westward by a series of heavy uplift. This formation created a completely enclosed basin with very few inflows or outflows.
Pluvial Lake Formation
Pluvial lakes are, by definition, lakes that have had considerable fluctuations in water levels primarily due to climatic changes and fluctuations in precipitation. The Pleistocene is the only time period known to have had enough fluctuation in climatic patterns and precipitation levels to produce pluvial lakes of any magnitude. Pluvial lakes are formed within closed basin formations that have no through-drainage outlets into surrounding fluvial or coastal systems. Because of this restriction, ancient pluvial lakes of North America, as well as their modern day remnants, are mainly found in the arid and semi-arid regions mostly within the Great Basin itself.
The closed-system restriction is probably the most important factor for the formation of a pluvial lake, the second being a high precipitation to evaporation ratio (more precipitation than evaporation). A closed system is interpreted as one which is almost entirely shut off from surrounding environments, therefore making it nearly self-contained. The Lahontan basin area isn’t completely cut off from outside precipitation systems since precipitation from the west does make its way over the Sierra Nevada from time to time. However, these small amounts of precipitation have an overall very miniscule effect on the inner workings of the system itself. Lake Lahontan formed during a time period of heightened precipitation and decreased evapotranspiration. Precipitation in the Lake Lahontan region today is thought to be about one tenth of what it was in the Pleistocene, and evapotranspiration is now much greater, therefore creating an inverse relationship between the two time periods.
(University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, History Class, November 7th, 1998)
Lake Lahontan & Wonder Stones
US50 at Grimes Point
Road factor/Accessability - Rough dirt
378 miles from Las Vegas
Over 12,000 years ago, Nevada and surrounding areas of neighboring states were covered by a massive body of water. This inland lake shares its name with the Lahontan Mountains to the east. Of ancient Lake Lahontan, today only few lakes survive; Pyramid and Walker Lakes being examples in Nevada and Mono Lake in California. One of the lakes which has disappeared in the last fifty years is Honey Lake, now as dry as the surrounding desert.
From Hidden Cave north of Grimes Point, evidence of the ancient lake can be seen. Shorelines of the lake, as it dried and receded, can be seen here as long horizontal steps on the slopes of the Lahontan Mountains. Further north, pebbles called Wonder Stones can be found. These naturally polished stones owe their appearance to the mineral hot water that existed here eons ago.
(cmdrmark.com/lahontan.html)
Who killed the Lahontan cutthroat?
Pyramid Lake — named for the chiseled, shark’s-tooth island that rises from the water — looks like a wide and majestic mirage, landlocked in its desert valley. Pyramid is a remnant of glacial Lake Lahontan, which once spread across 5.5 million acres of the Great Basin in northwestern Nevada, northeastern California and a small piece of Oregon. The Lahontan cutthroat, which likely descended from coastal cutthroat trout, evolved in Lake Lahontan 600,000 years ago, developing a tolerance to the warm, salty waters of the lake, which had no outlet to the sea.
Then, about 8,000 years ago, the glacial lake receded, leaving behind smaller, isolated lakes. Within these lakes and their feeder streams, individual populations of Lahontan cutthroat developed minute genetic adaptations to their new habitat. In Pyramid Lake, the Lahontan cutthroat evolved into a piscivorous species — that is, it began to feed on other fish, and so moved up the food chain.
For millennia, bands of Paiute Indians sustained themselves on the lake’s bountiful cutthroat and the cui-ui sucker. But in 1874, President Grant placed the Pyramid Lake Paiute on a reservation surrounding the lake and lower Truckee River, and set the stage for massive change. The tribe soon built a cannery that exported up to 50 tons of Lahontan cutthroat trout per year to groceries and restaurants across the country.
Then, in 1905, Congress ordered the newly formed U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to build Derby Dam, 30 miles upstream of Pyramid Lake. The dam diverted half the Truckee’s flow into the neighboring Carson River for irrigation, lowering levels in Pyramid Lake, de-watering the mouth of the river and destroying spawning habitat for both trout and cui-ui.
Politicians and celebrities such as Clark Gable still came to fish for the remaining 20-pound trout. But the loss of spawning grounds and the continued angling pressures overwhelmed the species. While other strains of Lahontan cutthroat survive elsewhere in the Great Basin, by 1944, the Lahontan cutthroat had disappeared from the Truckee River watershed.
( http://www.flyfisherman.com/southwest/stpyramid/ )
ed. The next two maps of the old lake are high resolution and should be seen larger by going to the listed web addresses.
( http://imageserver.library.unr )
( http://pubs.usgs.gov/mf/1999/mf-2323/mf2323.pdf
Some other notable links:
http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb6/about/overview.htm
http://llnl.confex.com/llnl/ams10/techprogram/P1730.HTM
http://www.plpt.nsn.us/geology/index.html
http://www.livinglakes.org/month/1-lahontan.htm
Well, that’s a lot of information about lake Lahontan. I hope you found it as interesting as I did. I think it’s amusing that in the midst of all the speculation about global warming and the resulting climate changes, just a few more inches of water in the form of precipitation, falling in the Great Basin Desert annually and this Pluvial Lake could return. The Lake Lahontan Cuthroat Trout could make a comeback. When that happens I’m joining the Lake Lahontan Yacht Club and going fishing.
Will Roger Peterson
March 13, 2006 |
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| tales from the Black Rock |
[Jul. 26th, 2005|10:48 pm] |
Stories from the Black Rock Desert:
How We Spent Our 12 Year Anniversary
By Will Roger Peterson
Our twelve-year anniversary was coming up and I suggested that we spend it at our favorite place, the Black Rock Desert. Crimson said yes and from the look in her eye I knew that I made the right suggestion. So off we went for a weekend in Gerlach with a Saturday night excursion planned for the Black Rock Desert. We packed up the normal stuff and took off from our place in Oakland for the 320-mile drive to the town of Gerlach, Nevada, the Gateway to the Black Rock Desert and High Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.
We landed at our trailer in Bruno’s Trailer Park sometime late Friday night and crashed out early. In the morning we began to plan what we might do that night to celebrate our anniversary together. Our outdoor interests are varied and the conversation from my end went something like this:
“Do you want to go for some target practice?” “I’ve got a new scope I’d like to calibrate”. (No response, not very romantic I guess.)
“How bout taking that off road trail we saw off of High Road on the motorcycle?” (No response.)
“You want to check out the old gold mine that Richard told us about a few weeks ago?” (Same, no response.)
We could take the 4runner up the trail to the top of Melody Mountain and look at the view from up there.” (She looks interested.)
“It might be romantic to just go out with the motor home and drive to the middle of the Black Rock Desert and look at the stars”. (Sounding better, key word romantic.)
“We could bring the telescope and some snacks and the portable fire place and some wood and maybe some sparklers and, and,” (Now we’re both hooked on the plan.)
“OK, it’s a plan, we’ll take the Motor Home out to the middle of the Black Rock Desert, have a romantic evening star gazing, spend the night, have a nice breakfast, you can do some painting and we’ll come back Sunday afternoon.” (The plan got me a nice hug as a reward!)
The motor home is a 1973 Barth 25 ft. model that has been converted to run on propane. Since it hadn’t been taken out for a cruise in a while I busied myself looking it over for any problems that I didn’t know about. Crimson did some organizing and prepared some snacks for the outing. She likes to create watercolor paintings of the desert landscape and needed to assemble her materials to paint. After we loaded up, we were finally ready for a nice cruse and a night camping out in our favorite place, the Black Rock Desert.
Did I mention weather permitting?
We leave Gerlach around 5PM and head toward the 12-mile entrance to the playa on state route 34. (It’s called the 12-mile entrance because it’s exactly twelve miles from the front door of Bruno’s Saloon in downtown Gerlach.) We’re beginning to notice that the clear blue sky that has hovered over us all day is looking very stormy up ahead and not only were we driving toward the disturbance but the storm is also coming toward us!
It’s really beautiful, the Black Rock Desert, the rawness, blankness, the sky seems bigger, the weather closer some how, on a clear night the sky much closer, the heavens blacker then anywhere else I’ve been. We unknowingly slow down from the shear weight of the troubled sky and as we pass Doobie Lane (a living, public memorial made of simple rock sculptures) to view the surprise of the impending storm, we begin to realize that our best-made plans might be about to change.
Weather permitting, did I mention that?
We pass the 9-mile entrance, the one made for the Burning Man event, and the storm is directly in front of us. Obviously, the desert to the north, the very spot that we were headed has just been soaked by this powerful storm. At 10 miles from Bruno’s we pull off onto the lookout spot that looks over the southwest portion of the playa. The lightning to the north is beginning to put on a show so we decide to get out and watch the storm. Before we can get out of the motor home the radio scanner crackles a communication from some campers who just got seriously stuck in the mud. Up to their axels as they say! They were OK and help was on the way in the form of a 4-wheel drive big tired truck, but this radio transmission confirmed that the playa was not passable right now.
This lookout spot is a great place to observe the activities taking place on the South West end of the Black Rock playa. I watched the land speed record competitions from here. The temporary city, built for the Burning Man event, called Black Rock City, looks incredible from here especially at night. It’s a testament to their clean up efforts that the site disappears from view so completely. From this spot I’ve also imagined seeing the early settlers and pioneers slowly making their way west on the Applegate-Lassen Route or the Nobles Trail. I’ve also watched the amateur rocket scientists shoot off their homemade missiles, some to reach great altitudes and some to explode prematurely.
The only thing to do was to get out and watch the show! We screwed down our hats and went outside to experience more directly the fantastic lightning display that nature was putting on for us in celebration of our anniversary. Just WOW, that’s the only way to describe it. The flashes were seemingly everywhere. The lightning from far away lit up the whole sky, illuminating the clouds in between and created a soft fleeting beautiful light, the closer bolts flashed hard and crisp making harsh, scary, horror film, B-movie light. It still came towards us. We couldn’t move or turn or we might miss some astounding phenomena. The storm came closer. I began to count the seconds between the flash and the sound, lightning and thunder.
In 1997 the British Thrust Jet car broke the sound barrier on the Black Rock Desert while setting a new land speed record. I was there and heard the boom of the broken sound barrier as the car went by in a blur. Like a speeding bullet describes it right. The actual speed was 778 miles an hour. So if that’s the speed of sound at this altitude that means sound travels at about 13 miles a minute or .21 miles a second or about 1 mile every 5 seconds.
The time between the closest flashes and the thunder was around 7 seconds so the lightning was still over a mile away. The rain, which we hadn’t really noticed until it soaked through our clothes, kind of woke us up from the lightning show, rave like trance, we were in. We looked at each other and hugged and knew that what we were witnessing was really better then the most perfect anniversary celebration that we could have planned.
At this point we turned around to get back in the motor home to begin the return trip home. We were not really that disappointed that our best-made plans were trumped by the storm because the storm was quite an event in it’s self. What we saw when we turned was the most violent foreboding sky I have ever seen. The storm had snuck in behind us with a vengeance. Lightning was flashing repeatedly and rapidly from everywhere to the south and in the direction we intended to go. We got in the motor home and headed back down Route 34 toward Gerlach.
As soon as we pulled out on the state route from the lookout point the rain began. At first it came in sheets and then in heavy waves. The sun had set by now and the thick cumulus nimbus clouds had further darkened the night. It started to hail, heavy pea sized ice. We drove for about 6 miles, slowly, when the darkness and rain and hail made it impossible to see the road. We had to come to a complete stop. Then the lightning flashes became frequent enough to see about 50 feet, so we made slow progress driving now by lightning light in little 50 foot bursts. In another few miles, just out side Gerlach and right at the north entrance to Doobie Lane I noticed that we were now driving through an angry river of mud, and debris. The lightning was even more frequent and had a second or less between the light and the sound. Everything came at us stronger now, gripping the steering wheel and not speaking, we new we were in the midst of potential trouble.
The almost continuous lighting strikes all around us became our driving lights and allowed us to see and drive through to the other side of the road wash out. As we drove past the Gerlach town line we felt a little safer from the lightning, which had not diminished, because the motor home was no longer the highest object around. Passing the home of a friend we witnessed a bolt hit his antenna tower and both of us, out loud, expressed hope that he was OK. The next day he confirmed that he was in the doorway when it hit and it knocked him back in side. While he hadn’t as yet checked all his electronic equipment no lighting damage was apparent.
We finally made it home and made some drinks, lit some candles because the power was out and proceeded to watch the rest of the storm go by. (I now know exactly where my old mobile home leaks!) Later, the evening turned very romantic especially so because we had just experienced something very powerful, very special together. Nights like this, experiences like this, make people closer.
The next day the County Road Crew had to use heavy equipment to clear the rocks, boulders and mud that the storm had deposited on Route 35. Had we gone through it just a few minutes later we could have been swept away.
The Black Rock Desert is a special place, a great place to do so many out door recreational activities. It’s also a place that is so vast and so powerfully beautiful that it can activate the spirit in us and heal the soul. Danger is everywhere in the high desert and goes hand in hand with the beauty. And sometimes the journey is the purpose and leads to the result that you need, weather permitting.
Will Roger Peterson
Vice President
Friends of the Black Rock/High Rock
Post Script:
The flash flood that I described here got much worse just after I passed through. Doobie Lane has been made impassable by mud and rocks slides that are four feet thick in some spots. Doobie Lane needs help from volunteers to clear the trail and uncover and rebuild the sculptures. Matthew Ebert has agreed to help coordinate the restoration effort. Please contact him by e-mail if you would like to help, metric@brc-dpw.org, and thank you in advance. |
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| Heaven and Hell |
[Jun. 14th, 2005|01:38 pm] |
Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs Italian, the mechanics German, the lovers French and it is all organized by the Swiss.
Hell is where the police are German, the chefs British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss and it is all organized by the Italians. |
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| New California |
[Jun. 14th, 2005|12:53 pm] |
Subject: Dear Red States
>
We're ticked off at the way you've treated California, and we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own
country, and we're taking the other Blue States withus.
In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the
Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new
country of New California.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.
We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs.
>You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states
pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy
families. You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and antiwar, and
we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your
evangelicals.
They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths
for nopurpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their
children's caskets coming home We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not
willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent
of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95
percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all
cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods,
sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, CalTech and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected>health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists,
virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and th >University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life
is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that
evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam wa >involved in 9/11 and 61 percentof you crazy bastards
believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
By the way, we're taking the good pot, too.
You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.
Sincerely,
>
Author Unknown in New California.
>
>Comments? |
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| Bertrand Russell's Ten Points for Intellectual Independance |
[Jun. 9th, 2005|12:05 pm] |
1. Do not feel certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worthwhile to produce belief by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
4. When met opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if yo do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8 Find more pleasure in intelligent dissents than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the later.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even when truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness. |
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| Beginning a dialog. |
[Feb. 15th, 2005|05:58 pm] |
To be accountable, we must be responsible for everything that we do. Every step, word, action and reaction we make is a manifestation of our truth. Those things that we do, that we call 'out of character' are still things that we must be accountable for. If something is masking our memory then it's important that we address that masking agent and remove it from our experience. We cannot lie to ourselves nor make excuses, rationalize, or blame others for our actions. We are and what we do, is our truth, with no excuses. Having no memory of an occurence does not remove it from your truth.
My particular masking agents have been alcohol, often mixed with cocaine and/or marijuana. Not to mention my personal delusions. My method has been to binge to the point of blacking out of character and out of memory. Out of character for me is to be arrogant, abusive, demanding, confrontational, aggressive, obtuse, and drunken. Mostly this behavior was to mask my fears, lack of courage, frustrations, and some behavioral scars from my past.
I have hurt people. My sober self knows that this was unintentional but that does not lessen the harm that I've caused others. I'm ready to be responsible for my actions. I'm truly sorry and regretful and willing to make amends to those that have suffered as a result of my behavior.
I've also learned that abstinence is something necessary for me to achieve but living sober is truly a great and difficult undertaking. Seeking the truth is my goal, nothing less then having a profound emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual transformation. This is the path that I choose to take, to be accountable, to be real, to be truly myself, at last! |
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| Test |
[Dec. 23rd, 2004|05:08 pm] |
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Test from MacJournal 2.5 |
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| Test |
[Dec. 23rd, 2004|05:07 pm] |
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Test from XJournal |
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| test |
[Dec. 23rd, 2004|04:50 pm] |
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Test 12/23/04 |
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| Burning Man |
[Jul. 12th, 2004|05:45 pm] |
A quote I found on the Tribe.
-
Will
I was driving back from Colorado to Oregon today, took a right at Fernley, and ended up with this:
July 11 - Gerlach, NV - (while eating a Prospector sandwich @ Bruno's)
Just got back from the playa and was overcome by the emptiness. There was nothing there, nobody at all 26just my own little slice of heaven. I drove around for an hour and never once saw a sign of what will be or what had been 14not even the basic premise, the outline, of our great city.
I had hoped to have a little ceremony at the foot of the Man, or at least the spot where he would eventually stand. Having failed in that, I was forced to find another means to mark the occasion. So what I did was drive out into the middle of this vast paradise-colored plane, take my hands off the wheel, close my eyes, and floor it.
Soon enough, as I 19m rocketing along in the old Ford pickup with a full load of preparatory burner crap (half-eaten antelope skull from Montana, motorcycle-cum-bison from Denver, my first baby blanket, et cetera ad nauseum), Hank Williams begins to rain down from heaven over the satellite radio, singing something timeless. It is fucking magical.
And after thirty seconds or so, when I am at last forced to take a peep for security 19s sake and get a reading of my progress toward the distant mountain range, I am faced with a simple, practical realization:
All of us, you and I and all of us together, are but a pixel on the canvas of that wonderful expanse of sky and earth. We can scream Armageddon together and make love for a week in a great throbbing buzz of humanity, but our collective rebel yell will still sink inexorably into the dusty, crusty void of the Black Rock Desert.
However: If our combined energy is strong enough to penetrate that resistant, barren, sonofabitching ground (which I assure you it is: I felt it) then it must also be able to infuse our very beings.
Case in point: this afternoon. One minute it 19s Hank twanging something out about heartache and getting 19on to another town, and soon enough I 19ve twisted the dial to the tranciest beat I can find, gotten out of the truck, done a strip tease for the dog, and started swinging around an old bungee cord and dancing as only a liberated dopefiend can. Hell, I don 19t even like trance! All I 19m saying is, this shit changes you.
So for a full moment I loved that spot, that nameless piece of ground in the desert, as completely as I could. Because the knowledge of its potential in the face of all that empty space made it that much more special, and the fact that I was there, alone and in possession of my particular space/time, seemed all the more precious.
I wonder: Is this the culture of Burning Man, or just another cult?
abrazos,
-Tucker |
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