Here are more pictures of the Covelo Yoga and Healing Festival last weekend, May 29 to June 1. Please let me know if you don’t want your picture posted here.
More photos on the next blog entry. Higher-resolution versions of the photos are available upon request.
Thanks to Yoga Daddy and everyone else who organized and contributed to the Covelo Yoga and Healing Festival last weekend, May 29 to June 1. I’ve posted some pictures of the event below… please let me know if you don’t want your picture posted here.
More photos on the next blog entry. Higher-resolution versions of the photos are available upon request.
The trip to Covelo was great! We all spent a lot of time hanging out around the ramshackle cabin. Creamy and Yoyo showed up in drag for the big BBQ. Jombi and Win were looking adorably queer. And Eric chowed down on the meat in a cloud of smoke from the BBQ.
Contrary to popular belief, Mitch did not turn into a hedgehog, and his Pan concocktion was delicious, refreshing, and stimulating. Somehow, Brian and Johnny transformed from kitchen queens into kings… now what is that all about? 😉 Along with all the volunteer chefs, their efforts made the event a gourmet success. Selma made fabulous quiche to complement the crate of granola I brought, so much it wouldn’t have gotten eaten if we had left it out every morning and with a bunch left for Yoyo upon our departure. And there is Will (with Eric below) who received many kudos as the meat czar.
Prickle and Buck were dandy-licious, as was Anthony in his lovely collar. Garnet, the bird, was quite often talkative and occasionally took flight as her cage is more of a sanctuary than a lockdown.
John’s boyfriend Bill was kind enough to encourage John to learn about massage, fortunately on me. We set up Eric’s massage table in a madrone grove down the hill from the cabin.
The path to my camping site brought me past a particularly lascivious madrone tree, its brown smooth bark forming a hot crotch I lusted after each time I went to my tent. Another knotty hotty madrone made me drip each time I cruised by as well.
Each day, I hiked down with some of the boys to the Eel River for delicious swimming, rock climbing, diving, sunbathing, and picnics.
Some of the guys got covered in mud and one or two buried under the sand. Win, John, and I made Jombi into tribal art, the remains of which appear below, as does a snake who slithered in the river as I swam.
Some special pictures are in a password-protected location. Let me know if you’re in any of these pictures and would prefer they be on the password-protected web page.
Other highlights of the Covelo camping trip for me were visiting the garden Yoyo is tending, reading poetry aloud while Eric, Mitcho, Anthony, and others made love on the porch, and morning yoga sometimes led by Three*. I really loved the spirit of comradery, the great food, and the healthy environment.
Thanks so much to Eric and Mitch and everyone else who made the trip possible.
From Eric and Mitcho’s land, Covelo, Mendocino County, CA:
How amazing to be back out in the country camping on the land. During the Queer Freedom Day festivities, Eric (aka Cattail) invited me to come to a Fourth of July camping weekend at his and Mitcho’s land in Covelo. Coincidentally, Yoyo (aka Joe), who I met at Antler’s Comfort & Joy Afterglow party, is the current caretaker and Eric and Mitcho’s place. So, I got a ride up with Andrew, his boyfriend Nori, and Anthony. We talked radical politics for part of the ride, considering my proposal for limiting income from all sources to $7 million a year.
We ate at a Chinese buffet restaurant on the way up, after getting a jump start for the van from a neighbor on Bernal, near my house.
We arrived fairly late at night, but I really wanted to set up my tent so I could feel fully landed and grounded in this beautiful place. So, I asked Eric, who was kind of helpful, and Yoyo, who brought me to a fabulous camping spot in a madrone grove not far from the main cabin. The path to the location feels like it is magically warded somehow because I have to concentrate very hard to remember the path even though it’s within shouting distance of the cabin.
Jack T., former housemate, is also at the Covelo gathering and it is great to have an informal environment where we can reconnect.
So far today, I’ve done my yoga — been keeping up a good practice, although my lower back seems tight — and helped with installing a solar water pump down by a creek, which was fairly hard work, but I got to jump under little waterfalls in the creek afterwards. Apparently, there is a bigger river to play in nearby which I hope to check out a bit later today. These are all tributaries of the Eel River, which Mitcho tells me is one of the last few clean rivers around here.
Buck and his friend Prickly made magnificent Hawaiian macademia nut, mango, blueberry pancakes for breakfast, which I ate along with a mimosa from Eric. I skipped the bacon and eggs.
From 304 Winfield Street, San Francisco, CA:
Yesterday, the mystery of what happened to Guille was solved. I noticed him online and chatted him up. He was cordial and even friendly and loving, yet he was on there to call his sister for her birthday. The day before he had sent me an email explaining that he had received the funds for his mother’s medical treatment, that the treatment was going well, and that he had been busy traveling around to take care of her. In other words, he was very busy, so didn’t have time to answer my emails or phone calls during that week. Then, while we chatted online, when I realized he was preoccupied with his sister’s birthday, I offered to wait and chat with him whne he finished with her. He seemed glad about that and said, “Dale,” in Spanish, which means, “Let’s do it.” So, I waited and waited for him, then I noticed that he signed off chat, then briefly back on, then off again, without chatting with me. I can’t help but feel disappointed. I’m feeling like the best move now would be to let him contact me, rather than throwing so much of my energy into what may be a lost cause.
No, that is too harsh. I want to let him contact me so that there is a balance in desire to connect within the relationship.
Interestingly, Paul T., who I met in Rio on my last trip and who now lives in Cordoba, Argentina, started chatting me up yesterday. This after I had decided not to seek him out any fruther since he didn’t want to meet with me while I was in Argentina. I told him that I didn’t feel like he was really a friend because chatting online once every several months didn’t make a friendship for me. I asked him if his boyfriend had broken up with him, and of course that was the case, probably because he gave his boyfriend the same on-and-off again attentions he has given me. He thinks a deep connection with me isn’t possible because of the distance, or so he says to me, even though he is now coming to the States on a regular basis. We left it that he will contact me on his next trip to the States and we will meet in person to see how things work out between us. Basically, I feel like it’s up to him at this point.
Meanwhile, on the eve of Queer Freedom Day in San Francisco, I met up with Robin Hood, who I had met previously at the Vancouver Green Body radical faerie gathering. He is a faerie who lives on an island on the Canadian coast. He and I set up a ritual (or scene) where I met him at the dinner that Kirk R. and his partner Ed had set up for Canadians coming to Witch Camp in Mendocino redwood territory. The scene involved a whirlwind tour of San Francisco’s queer underbelly, with him blindfolded and on collar and lead. We had a great time at various venues, such as navigating through 20,000+ people at the Pink Party on Castro Street, where I showed him the center of gay mecca as well as Harvey Milk’s camera shop, while we danced, him blindfolded, in the streets. People tried yanking his chain, removing his blindfold, and other shenanigans, sometimes without permission, but apparently the protective spell we cast to initiate the ritual on my back deck held well throughout the evening. We also visited the Hole in the Wall, where we removed the blindfold briefly so he could appreciate the visual panoply of this historic dive, then to the Powerhouse which we checked out and kissed and got blown on the rear patio after navigating stairs jam-packed with sweaty guys, all while he was still blindfolded and on collar and lead. Then, to Blow Buddies, the first time for both of us, where they made us remove the blindfold, and we watched lots of mindless sex in little cabins with glory holes and got blown again by a cute boy who sat on a toilet seat after we pissed in the nearby urinals. I liked how Robin Hood shared the boy freely with me and I loved the feeling of his short dark hair in my hands as my dick slid in and out of his sweet throat. I pet him as he sucked me, then kissed him after I came in his mouth, tasking my own cum on his lips. Then, we left Blow Buddies and headed to Afterglow, a Comfort & Joy party at Antler’s place in the Inner Richmond. There, we released our scene of Beauty (Robin Hood) and the Prince (moi) by Robin Hood saying, “And they lived happily ever after.” We partied a bit more there and I met a delicious faerie named Yoyo who Robin Hood urged me to get to know better, so I made out with and smoked a little pot with him. It turns out he is caretaking Eric (Cattail) and Mitcho’s cabin up at Covelo, and the next morning, after riding groggily with Mikes on Bikes (gay guys on bicycles) just after Dykes on Bikes (lesbians on motorcycles) who start the Queer Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco, I was at a brunch with Cattail and Mitcho where Cattil invited me to a little gathering over July 4th weekend at their place in Covelo. Thus, a possible time to hang out with Yoyo some more, although he may still have a “friend from New York” visiting him at that time. I’m trying not to get too attached to the notion of him falling for me, although I bet I could fall for him.
I saw him again on Queer Freedom Day when I went with the brunch boys from Johnny Thunder and Brian’s place in the Haight over to the Faerie Freedom Village. We weaved our way through the humungous crowds to drop our bikes off at the cool valet parking offered by the San Francisco Bike Coalition. The Faerie Freedom Village seemed more packed than usual, and with a lower proportion of faerie faces I knew to those I didn’t. That still meant hundreds I did meet and greet, including Ron and Rog who are real sweeties. A photographer friend persuaded Ron and me to get nekkid for pictures in the Vilalge, including some with the grease-covered buy in overalls who organizes Mikes on bikes each year. Hopefully, she will email copies of the pics as promised. I even had enough energy to stop in at the Mikes on Bikes party at Marty’s place on 14th St. on my bike ride home. I was hoping Yoyo might show up there as well, but he had been up all night since he stayed at Antler’s and probably crashed out somewhere before heading to the Mikes on Bikes party. I called and left a message with him about potentially hanging out a bit in Covelo over July 4th weekend. I will go anyway because it sounds like a fun group and an amazing place, even if I don’t get to hang with Yoyo.
Meanwhile, I’m focusing this week on Egypt, reading history and learning hieroglyphics. My project is gradually coming together and I’m very excited to be working on my true passion. Let’s hope the money side of things works out as well.
I’m really loving riding my new bike with the raised handlebars, so I don’t have to worry so much about my neck/spine trouble, and I’m ready to check out local swimming pools to get even more exercise. I’m doing yoga almost every day before I work on the novels, and I’m eating carefully to keep my weight down. I’m experimenting with going off my blood pressure medication and, so far, the blood pressure reading averages appear to be the same as when I was on the medication.
Storm’s buddy Hawke is visiting us for awhile and we are still searching for another housemate since the departure of Joannes (aka Janice) and Kat. I saw them at the Trans Rally and March on Friday, which I attended wearing a paisley skirt on my new bike.
