History, current events, photography and other randomness
12.28.2011
Trying to drink Ernest Hemingway under the table
Check out this awesome story about the man himself, Ernest Hemingway!
"De noche todos los perros son negros"
12.21.2011
12.14.2011
My Big Sur Top 10
Alright. It's almost time for another trip up north, and you haaaave to take route 1 unless you have a time constraint. Or just don't feel like driving an extra 62 miles and 2 hours. But you should. From all the thousands of miles I have driven in Amerika, this is truly one of the most spectacular drives. From beginning to end, there is something for everyone, so lets start our journey!
The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big country of the south".
10. Morro Bay / Morro Rock
Starting at the southern end of the drive, we see the "Gibraltar of the Pacific", beautiful and stunning Morro Rock.
From Wikipedia:
The rock was quarried on and off from 1889 to 1969, and provided material for the break water of Morro Bay and Port San Luis Harbor. In 1966, a new state law was adopted that transferred title to the State of California. In February 1968, the San Luis Obispo County Historical Society and the City of Morro Bay succeeded in having Morro Rock declared California Registered Historical Landmark number 821.
Morro Rock was first charted in 1542 by Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who called it El Morro, the Spanish geographical term for a crown-shaped rock or hill ("the pebble"). Since then, it has become an important landmark to sailors and travelers.
The Salinan and Chumash tribes considered Morro Rock to be a sacred site. The Chumash had an important nearby prehistoric settlement at least as early as the Milling Stone Horizon(6500-2000 B.C.E.), and the village was near the mouth of Morro Creek. Despite protests by the Chumash, Salinan tribe members also have exemption to legally climb Morro Rock for an annual ceremony celebrating the time in legend when hawk and raven destroyed the two-headed serpent-monster Taliyekatapelta, as he wrapped his body around the base of the rock.
The Rock, as locals call it, was previously surrounded by water. However, the northern channel's harbor was made from its sediment.
Morro Rock is the best known of the Nine Sisters of San Luis Obispo County, a series of ancient volcanic plugs that line the Los Osos Valley between the cities of Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo.9. Monterrey & Carmel
At the northern end of the drive, we find two charming towns. Carmel comes first if you are coming from the South. A small seaside community, great thing to do is the 17-mile-drive past ocean eroded rock and super fancy golf courses. Or you can view it all from the beach in Carmel.
Another great thing to do in the area is check out San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo Mission! A beautiful site and superb reconstruction allow anyone to walk through times gone past. some of the only building remnants of the California Native Americans.
Monterrey Aquarium is sick, I love the kelp forest glass tank, Cannery Row is a nice place to take a stroll and think about John Steinbeck. There's just something about Monterrey that I have always loved!
8. Hearst Castle
Back on the Sur side of Big Sur, we find the glamorous abode of one William Randolph Hearst tuckered up on the hill. For many years as a minion I drove past and only caught vague glimpses. But I have now in fact gone up the hill, listened to the greeting history low down by Alex Trebek (?) and stared in awe at the beautiful tower and the facade of La Casa Grande. And I'm still a minion.
The man was not joking around when he built this castle. His dad had owned the Rancho San Simeon and it passed on to Willy when popps died. He said, "I've been staying on this property in tents since I can remember. I want to build a little something." He hired architect Julia Morgan and that "little something" turned into a lifelong obsession that literally was "unfinished" when he died. You got legit Roman column heads around the Neptune Pool. Largest collection of antique wooden ceilings in the U.S.
One of the tours you can go at night and dress up in period clothes and drink cocktails on the balconies. Worth a visit.
Also look for the ancestors of the zebra herd that has roamed the hills for the last 70 years.
7. Friends of the Elephant Seals
Can't do a top 10 list without mentioning these guys! Something out of a prehistoric gonzo movie, elephant seals are pretty incredible. Just up the road from the Rancho San Simeon, this pull off provides a great chance to stretch your legs and check out our evolutionary ancestors!
Did you know elephant seals are amongst the deepest divers of the seal world? They survive by living off of the plankton or whatever that is like 500m below sea level or some crazy shiz!
Sometimes the gals and chitlins are molting, kind of looks weird, but its OK, they're fine! Then the big males with the Gonzo noses come rollypolling out of the water and try and get some - she says "Yo I got a baby right here damn son I gotta head ache!"
6. Fernwood Campgrounds
Here we are, right in the heart of the town of Big Sur! This is the local watering hole / restaurant / cabin / campsite place right off rt 1. I found a nice spot for me tent along the Big Sur River, real nice spot. Will be returning soon.
5. Old Coast Road
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| Bixby Bridge, and the beach Jack Kerouac hung out on. The Old Coast Road is on the North Side of Bixby Canyon |
This is apparently where Lawrence Ferlinghetti's cabin where Jack Kerouac stayed and wrote the novel Big Sur. Tough times for Jacky Duluoz. But every time I cross Bixby Bridge I look for the "Alf the Sacred Burro"
4. Point Lobos State Reserve
"Best $10 you will ever spend." And it was. An amazing reserve filled with the beautiful Monterrey Cypress trees, all gnarly and windblown over the years. You can just imagine the storms these mothers have been through. Real nice trail, viewing of birds and poop on rocks, and nearby is the lone pine tree that Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart kissed in front of in "Vertigo" !!
3. McWay Falls / Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park
This state park is named after Julia Pfeiffer Burns, a well respected pioneer woman in the Big Sur country. The park stretches from the Big Sur coastline into nearby 3,000-foot ridges. It features redwood, tan oak, madrone, chaparral, and an 80-foot waterfall that drops from granite cliffs into the ocean from the Overlook Trail. A panoramic view of the ocean and miles of rugged coastline is available from the higher elevations along the trails east of Highway 1.
Even if you don't want to meander up the 1/2 mile trail through the redwoods and over McWay creek, or go under the PCH tunnel and take in the falls from the steps of what once was Julia Pfeiffer Burns' house, at LEAST pull over when you see the sign and get out and see if you can take in on of the most picturesque waterfalls on the Pacific Coast! Well worth a look!
2. Esalen Hot Springs
This is the place! Call ahead and make a ressie! 1am to 3am the public can access the hot springs flowing from deep inside the earth. Clothing is optional for the next half hour! Smells all sulfury, you sit in the tubs and listen to the roaring ocean crashing on rocks below. Don't know if it gets any better than that!
1. Nepenthe
Ah, Nepenthe. Once the love shack of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, bought by Lolly and Bill Fassett, once they had this incredible property, they said, "Hey, we can't keep this to ourselves!" And there has been a family run restaurant going on ever since! It is a truly incredible place to take in the view, check out the Phoenix drift wood and gift shop, or just stretch your legs and enjoy the view.
Did I mention the view?
Also, check out the movie the Sandpiper with Liz Taylor and Richard Burton! Such an epic film. What a pair those two!
Welcome Home
After traveling to Mexico and visiting the ruins at Chichen Itza, it has become more apparent than ever that the Mayans and other cultures in those parts were on to ...something!
Today is 8 Deer on the tzolkin calendar!
Check out some things I have been reading about this :
From 7 Wind
Imagine a comprehensive cosmology of numbers which unites the workings of both the material and spiritual realms. Imagine it to be based upon the ancient systems of the I Ching and the Golden Proportion. Furthermore, imagine this brilliant philosophy as a revival and completion of Kepler's obsession with a "harmony of the heavens" based on the five Platonic Solids. You have just imagined the Mesoamerican Sacred Calendar.
The Gregorian calendar is given a secondary place in these calendars for a reason. In a sense, the Mayan haab and the Gregorian year serve the same purpose. They both refer to the civil or secular count of days - the obvious yearly cycle of the earth around the sun. The Maya preserved a 365-day approximation of the year, even after they realized a more accurate method for tracking the true solar year. They did an amazing thing by combining the haab count with a sacred count, the tzolkin, which symbolizes the mysterious inner dimension of reality.
In this way, the two aspects of human experience, the sacred and the secular, the inner realm and the outer realm, are synthesized into one comprehensive cosmo-conception. The world view which thus follows is a complete acknowledgement of spirit in matter; one in which the processes of the microcosm and macrocosm mirror each other.
By comparison, the Gregorian system, though mathematically more accurate, provides only a lifeless cosmos of clockwork drudgery, an endless ticking of the minutes, hours and days. The Maya recognized that our sense of time defines the depth of experience of a culture, and then endeavored to model the fantastic nature of the multidimensional cosmos that they perceived around them. If the tzolkin/haab becomes our primary time reference, only secondarily related to the Gregorian system (as a convenience), we may begin to embrace a more complete and mature attitude towards life on earth.
Nice! Well Put. So I have become very interested in taking up the Calendar of Ye Old Times ! I have read several times about how the patriarchal Gregorian system is just messing with everything and we need to get back to a Matriarchal based system involving being in tune with natural cycles and the moon and everything... now I just need a garden to harvest!
If you are interested in finding out more about the Mayan tzolkin and what day it is, check out this site:
http://www.aquasoul.com/MayanUpdates2012.html
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| Mayahuel was the female divinity associated with agave and pulque, a creamy fermented agave drink |
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| I love this depiction of Cortez and Moctezuma II... |
An interesting take on all this 2012 stuff:
If we look back into the tapestry of time we can pick out a couple interesting events which mark significant breakthroughs in consciousness and technology. For example, the birth of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution, roughly 11000 years ago, signaled a major turning point for mankind. The invention of the wheel and written language between 4000 – 3000 BC also represent significant advances in human technology. Likewise, the Industrial Revolution, which occurred roughly 300 years ago represents another turning point in the wave of time. Most recently, we have crossed through the Computer/Information Revolution which occurred only 30 years ago.
There are a few important aspects of this unfolding picture that we may want to consider. Each period of the harmonic time wave, that is to say periods between major advances, is increasingly shorter in duration than the cycle which preceded it. Also, each respective period of the time wave is characterized by accelerated levels of new things happening faster and faster and in unprecedented, unpredictable ways. If we project this pattern of acceleration into the future, we find that the rate of ingression into novelty becomes mind-boggelingly exponentiated in a very short period of time.
For instance, we can expect a 400 day cycle in 2011-2012 when we will experience more transformation than in all the previous cycles combined. Similarly, a 6 day cycle before the Dec 21, 2012 date will exhibit even more dramatic levels of hyper-accelerated transformations. There is a dwell point here in our near future which attracts everything like a Black Hole, indeed the conceptual interplay of various dimensions at the crossroads of 2012 seems to reflect the nature of a singularity. In the last 135 minutes before we encounter this singularity, 18 such transformations, comparable to the appearance of life and the invention of language will be crossed. Thirteen of these evolutionary quantum leaps will be crossed in the last 75 x 10 -4 seconds of the Great Cycle.
I imagine we will witness the end of third-dimensional existence. I imagine we will realize what it means to be human. I imagine we will realize what it means to die. Moreover, I imagine we will realize what it means to be consciousness. To summarize, I imagine we will realize what it means to be light vibrations of eternal divine love. Each one of us will encounter our True Self. This will be the fulfillment of an ancient promise we made to ourselves a long, long time ago at the other end of time. I imagine that the human race will consciously realize the broadest sense of infinity. In fact, there’s no doubt in my mind because in the broadest sense, all this has already happened an infinite number of times. The key is to remember that it’s all One Love. In closing, I’d like to state that everything contained in the project is make-believe. Imagination creates reality, so create your reality with imagination. The fruit is in the seed. Do you remember? ”Evam maya e ma ho” All hail to the harmony of all mind and nature.
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| Temple of Kukulcan, Chichen Itza |
Something else that to me is much more sophisticated than the Egyptian pyramids everyone always talks about is that the number of steps on the Temple of Kukulcan (aka Quetzelcoatl) is that each side has 91 steps, the top temple "step" equaling 365, the number of days in the haab calendar.
The 5 days of the week, multiplied by the 4 sides of the pyramid give you the 20 day mayan month
The 9 platforms of the pyramid divided in two from the staircase in between them, give the number of months in the mayan year - 18!
The picture I have posted is on one of the solstices when the temple is aligned just so so that the shadows from the sun make it look like there is a serpant descending from heaven! Now that would be a sight to see!
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