Jack London’s Piggery February 8, 2009

I am preparing to leave the Valley of the Moon for the East Bay.

My love affair with Jack London continues as I am currently inhaling a wonderful biography of the writer, which fills in many holes for me.  I now know that his Beauty Ranch in Glen Ellen (just five minutes from where I currently live) was meant to be an escape from San Francisco, Oakland, all of industrialization, and his painful past.

I moved here with a kindred desire to get away from the din and the negative voices in my own head, to become closer to Nature, and to my own voice.   In the two years I’ve lived here, I have been somewhat successful: there is never a shortage of animal life to encounter – the squirrels in our redwood trees talk to me, sounds I’ve never heard from squirrels elsewhere.  When I go for a walk I am met by at least half a dozen cats, and I always take time to stand under the eucalyptus tree that is home to four hawks, who flirt and fight with each from the highest branches.  There are so many animals that have talked with me, I have begun writing a song about them.  I am researching ways to record this new song on Jack London’s property.

But in a week, I will be moving all my belongings to a new home with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, just a few miles from where Jack sweated, fought, struggled and starved in his early days.  I hope the industrial life will be kinder to me than it was to him.  I would have liked to have been more prolific in my time in the Valley of the Moon, but I find that I need more stimulus and more conversation than the animals alone can provide.

I know that I will continue to visit Sonoma Valley and find inspiration from it.  I also hope to find more peace inside my mind than Jack was able to find in his short lifetime.  He died in 1916 on November 22, and I was born 55 years later to the day.  I feel there is still much work to be done with Jack – this incredibly flawed, ego-fed, fatherless writer who was never afraid of making a reality of his dreams, whatever the cost.

Jack, I will be back.

Jack London and his piggery

Make a wish. A big one. December 12, 2008

I will be in wolf heaven tonight, here in the Valley of the Moon.  I just hope the fog will take the night off.  Prepare for the howling.

La Luna

Tonight’s full moon will be the biggest in 15 years, lying almost overhead at midnight.   Also guest starring tonight: the annual Geminid meteor shower, one of the year’s best displays of shooting stars. Up to 100 meteors an hour can fly across the sky. The meteors, which are easy to spot with the naked eye, appear to shoot out from the constellation Gemini, hence their name, but they can be seen all over the sky. However, with a full moon so bright, the best place to look is away from the Moon.

Jack London’s Frogs January 20, 2008

Took a walk on Jack London’s Beauty Ranch today, circled the lake.  You can’t see the frogs, but you sure can hear them – must be hundreds of them.  Awesome.