out here in humboldt county caliphorny, bookin this tour and writin new songs with as few distractions as i can get - but i still get distracted, even more, by the hills and winds.
my feet are pure hobbit at this point. i've walked these deer trails for years, but now i'm braver barefoot than i ever was with shoes. when i come home my feet tingle like they fell asleep but its just all the stinging nettle they've been treading.

yesterday i went up to the top of the ridge to the ruins of the old house, slanted, torn to bits, grown over and ready to fall after abandonment, earthquakes, windstorms and a century. in the ground around this house i've found several charms, including a shard of porcelain with a unicorn on it and a chunk of rose quartz crystal.
i had an unusual urge to shoot one of my arrows into the top scrag of the dead tree next to the house. --- last time i was here, in the winter, i was given an old yew-wood bow and made several arrows to shoot with it. on a trip to the cemetary i found a dead egret and plucked its white feathers to fletch the arrows with, but now the feathers are not holding up so well. in the trees next to this house live two sparrow hawks and a few big red-tail hawks. i've always wished for them to drop just a feather or two for me, as a gift and to fix my arrows.
and on my way to the house i had passed the witchy apple tree where i've often practically stepped on deer in the grass, very calm there. on my left were the remains of a calf and the buzzards were circling and squawking at me to let them back to their meal. and on my right was a single white down feather stuck in the tall grass. too small for an arrow, i had stuck it behind my ear in faith that it would take me to the feathers i need.
SO, there at the dead house, i picked the arrow with the lousiest feathers as a sacrifice to shoot into the top of this dead tree (not thinking about the fact that if it hit the tree, the feathers must be fine!). i fired it up, nearly at the sun. a decent shot as my shots go but it missed, by not even an inch, and soared far up the hill.

I followed the arrow's straight path, that took me to a swamp that had dried up for the summer. Up here, and in sight of the ocean, the wind is heavy and cold, and the feather in my ear was flapping and whistling. On the other side of the swamp was - ANOTHER swamp. but in between the two was flat, dry grassland. and right in the middle of this opening was a circle of feathers - some ten inches long, white with brown and grey spots and stripes. a hundred of them, not a complete bird but something serious had gone down, leaving them all piled up, protected from the wind somehow.
i gathered all the useful ones and thanked the screeching soaring hawks, but knew these weren't their feathers.
as my father would later confirm, these were of an Owl. The wise bird. The bird i've rarely seen but had encountered twice in the last two weeks. Once in passing as she flew across the night windshield of my visiting friends in Petrolia. and Once last week when stargazing with my father on Rainbow Ridge, an Owl perched at the edge of our campsite and squeaked to us. my friend Larkin has a lot to say about Owls, namely to revere them or their strong karma will wreck you. Do not stuff an Owl. To be led to these Owl feathers was a big deal.

With just one more step, i saw my arrow's white fletching standing straight out of the far edge of the second swamp. i wondered if it might not be better to go around - even for me, it wasn't the nicest place to go barefoot - but i knew i had to, for growth's sake, follow the straight line i had shot. and just three steps into this swamp, the feather that had stuck in my ear all this time suddenly blew out into the tall swamp grass. i reached to picked it up but stopped - this was my BABY feather, the one that wasnt USEFUL, but would help lead me to ones that were. now i had the strong feathers i had come for, and i had to give back the small borrowed one that brought me there. i left it to float away, made it through the swamp and collected my arrow. It doesn't seem so lousy anymore.