These days, I’m walking. And, as I walk, I stop often, and I stay slow, because I don’t want to be a part of the ongoing and speedy war machine that’s destroying this country of ours.

Walking, I’m not part of the problem, the need for wars because of the need for gasoline. Walking, I have time to think and feel and notice how the clouds move across the sky. Walking, I meet folks and hear how they feel and what they think. Walking, I am much more a part of everything, in harmony and sharing.

If I didn’t walk, it would be difficult for me to stay centered these days, difficult for me to even find my center! There’s an incredible amount of anger and negative energy being manifested by the collective. There is an equally incredible amount of denial – folks acting as if the various wars we’re involved in don’t even exist and life is normal.

The truth is that life will never again be what we have called normal. Actually, for most folks in the world, it never has been what we Americans have called normal anyway.

If we are to survive long range, I suggest that folks would be wise to put their trust into friends and family and not into institutions, especially not into those that have brought us to this brink of disaster. We need to come together and take care of each other. It is time.

We also need to balance the terrible and potent darkness that is being generated by the various wars with something equally awesome and potent of the Light. So, let us enjoy the good fortune we have, living here in this world of beauty. Let us radiate joy and love. And remember; lets not be angry, even with ourselves. Anger feeds the Dark Tower. And we’re trying for the White.

Times are tough these days, and getting tougher. Gone are the days of plenty, even here in the United States. More and more folks are becoming poor these days. We are living in an age of the rich getting richer and the poor (the rest of us) getting poorer

Aspen and I have always done poor well. We have lived on very little money for a long while. Perhaps, with our wealth of experience, we can help all you folks out there who are new to the being poor game.
.

I’ve been poor several times in my life. The first time I was poor, I was a student at UCLA, living on the G. I. Bill. I didn’t mind it much then because students were supposed to be poor. I saw it as somewhat romantic and as only temporary.

I was poor again in the late sixties and seventies, when I was a wandering acid hippie. That time, I was poor on purpose, wanting to separate myself from the system that was based upon violence and greed. In those days, I made everything I could for myself, grew food whenever and wherever I could, traded often, and lived very simply.

I remember leaving Berkeley once to go across country and back with five hundred dollars for gasoline and van repairs, forty dollars for spending money, some good smoke, and a decent food stash. On the road, I traded when I could and worked when I had to. I worked as a waiter in a natural foods restaurant in Columbia, Missouri, and as a carpenter in Nashville, Tennessee. I picked apples in Iowa and Idaho and Oregon.

I kept my needs simple in those days. I could put all my belongings into two small wooden boxes and my backpack, all of which then would fit, along with myself, in my van. When I wanted to read, I borrowed books from the library. I didn’t go to movies or watch television for years. I didn’t go out to dinner either except for community potlucks, which I liked better anyway. I always ate simply and off the land as much as I could.

This was a spiritual trip for me. I came to find great beauty and wisdom in simplicity. Once a year, I would buy a pair of Levi’s and wear them until the knees wore out. Then I’d make them into cutoffs and buy myself a new pair. I wore the same blue work shirt all year, washing it whenever it became dirty, and then putting it back on. I wanted to see how little I could use, when there were so many in the world with nothing.
.

I remember reading a book once called Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison, in which the heroine’s whole life was a letting go of attachments to people and things, until one day she finally stood naked and alone. It was only then, when she had let go of everything, that her life truly began.

My hopes are high
My way is bold
Reminiscent of the old
Here I am
Rising from the dark again
From the interior of my soul
Where I have lurked
Hibernating through the years
Until this time
This day
When from now on
I call myself Wanderer
And ask you
To call me Wanderer too
After all
This is my name
.

Wanderer has long been a sometimes conscious part of my personality. Originally he was just a part of who I was as an active and happy little boy. But when I died as that little boy, I lost a large part of myself. I lost what I have come to call Wanderer. He was lost, left to wander in my unconscious, existing as mere potential.

After dying on the operating table and then returning to life, I became very introverted and very scared and very unhappy. I spent most of my time alone in my room, reading grownup books and listening to music. I had very few friends. I was no longer an active and happy little boy.

Lost in my unconscious, Wanderer carried the rest of me, all that I had lost – that active and happy little boy, enjoying his body and beginning to explore the world around him. For a long while, this Wanderer side of myself was completely outside of my life and my consciousness.
.

In my late thirties, after working on my head for a long while and becoming a lot braver, Wanderer finally began to return to me, He first came to me in a dream, a wandering man that I took home with me. He appeared in several more of my dreams, but then he became strong enough to come to me sometimes when I was doing acid. Once, when he came to me, I actually saw him. In fact, we sat around my campfire for hours together. After a while, I even forgot he wasn’t with me in a physical body and offered him a joint.

Finally, alone for three weeks in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, doing acid and peyote, he and I merged and became one. Soon after this we began to wander and our life became one of adventure and powerful magic.
.

However, back in 1973, traveling through Flagstaff, Arizona, Wanderer asked me to take the next step, to take Wanderer as our name, to call ourselves Wanderer instead of me calling myself by my given name. I refused, feeling it would be weird and presumptuous to introduce myself to others as Wanderer.

Looking back from the here and now of my life though, I realize that I should have taken the name Wanderer then. I should have been braver. This is why I am taking the name now.
.