Ballantyne's Inspired Musings #17
January 1997
Vox Clamantis in Deserto
The voice of one crying in the wilderness
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BIM is a subscription publication -- $20 on up for an inspired period. The more you send, the more you get! Lagniappes in the past have included photographs, books, Tibetan incense burners, turquoise, sage.
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Chinese Horoscope Compatibility
| Rat | 1 | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Ox | 1 | 3 | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Tiger | 4 | 6 | 5 | | | | | | | | | | |
| Rabbit | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | | | | | | | | | |
| Dragon | 1 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 2 | | | | | | | | |
| Snake | 3 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 5 | | | | | | | |
| Horse | 6 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | | | | | | |
| Goat | 5 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | | | | | |
| Monkey | 1 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 1 | | | | |
| Rooster | 4 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | | | |
| Dog | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 2 | | |
| Pig | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | |
| | Rat | Ox | Tiger | Rabbit | Dragon | Snake | Horse | Goat | Monkey | Rooster | Dog | Pig | |
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1 - excellent 2 - successful 3 - good
4 - fair 5 - awkward 6 - clash
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The Hand Job
“Listen, this jerk can barely speak English. Drop the anger and treat this as a creative problem!” I said to myself as the swarthy at the copy center refused to redo BIM16 as two sided copies. I don’t have a strong pusher anyway. He had to eat 250 Christmas cards from the previous customer, a Laguna cop, who had NOT wanted her name printed on the cards. So I’m easy, at least overtly. I do much better at covert anger when I’m totally in control. Yeah, yeah, I know. F it. At my age Forgive has had to become the F word in my life. I can’t afford to mail out 18 pages! What to do. It takes me 6 hours to figure it out. Half my subscribers are in and around Laguna. Deliver them, and any cards I have done, on my bicycle by hand, and then worry about the rest of the BIMs later. Brilliant. I did about 20 miles on my bike in full sun. After I finished I was cycling back down the canyon and someone passes me blowing the horn like crazy. She pulls in front of me. I delivered a card to her a few hours ago. We watch the sun set from Dietrich’s Coffee house, she with her latte and me with my Starbuck’s coffee. I refuse to drink anything except Starbuck’s coffee so I walked over there and got a grande and then brought it back to Dietrich’s.
Goin’ Too Far
“The unconscious always tries to produce an impossible situation in order to force the individual to bring out his very best. Otherwise one stops short of one’s best, one is not complete, one does not realize oneself. What is needed is an impossible situation where one has to renounce one’s own will and one’s own wit and do nothing but trust to the impersonal power of growth and developments.”
C. Jung, Jung and the Tarot by Sallie Nichols
“Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what’s next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never actually knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.” Agnes de Mille, as quoted in ‘The Artist’s Way’
I wound up like Ewell Blackwell, the sidearm throwing pitcher on the New York Yankees in the 1950’s except I was throwing the car keys and SHE wasn’t at bat. She had gone way too far telling me she would drop me off at a coffee shop and pick me up in 2 hours instead of letting me use her daughter’s truck to browse around Sport Chalet when I had been driving it around all afternoon. The wrangling started at dinner at the Chinese restaurant. This is my current favorite place serving real down-home mountain Chinese food like the Tibetans in
So here we are in the church parking lot wrangling over the keys. I wrest the car keys out of the ignition and jump out. “Oh, so you are going to trap me over here.” That’s when I wound up my throwing arm, my left, the same as Ewell’s, and adjusted down in mid-throw so as to not hit the window. She was behind the door of the truck. The keys thwacked into the door. In a flash I set off at my normal 4 mile an hour flat ground walking pace heading for Laguna. I walked several hundred yards before I began to think I had gone too far; Laguna was about 11 miles away. I didn’t slow me one bit as I diagonaled across the lawn of the adjacent church and then headed up
I settled into a fast pace in the cool clear night air. It was beautiful out. I began hitchhiking as cars went by. I have NEVER seen anybody walking on Newport Coast except way up on the top near all the new housing, never here on the middle of nowhere especially at night. No one hitchhikes in
Gerry, my benefactor, and I totally relaxed. I told her of all my bank work back in
The next day I had too much to do, lots of errands, Xmas mailing then a 14 mile hike. I did all the mail at the
I didn’t get hiking until 1:01. Still with remnants of the flu. I wouldn’t be back until 5:30 or later in total darkness. I headed out. It was arduous and slow going; I didn’t make it to the big orange wind sock until 2:50. I was wiped. I tussled with whether to continue or go back down the way I came up and be reasonable. I almost went over to lie down in the sun when I thought, “No. You need to go too far! Over the edge. Go for it. So what if you have to walk out the last hour in total darkness.” I set off on the final 8 miles of the walk along a sun-drenched ridge from which I could see
I got to the Chinese restaurant right about 6; this was the third time in three days I had eaten there. I ordered 3 different appetizers and then asked the waitress about a dish I had seen a customer across from me eating last night that looked like beans or peanuts. I show her the last joint of my little finger. “Peanut, bean?” she said in very broken English. “No. There nothing on menu like that.” I asked her if there is something on the Chinese menu that isn’t on the English menu. “No, only one item. Rice soup.” I hear her and her cohorts talking about me in Chinese in the back. I sense they’re miffed about the scene SHE threw in the restaurant last night. Lost face or something. Little do they know I am the original ugly American having thrown fits all over Asia if things don’t go my way with the petty thieves, rickshaw drivers, yak herders, hotel owners and anyone else who I think is screwing me around! The waitress brings me a small dish of what looks like dog meat, actually shredded tofu. “Maybe this it.” “Maybe," I say thinking my vision is failing. Next time I’m going right over to any strange food and photograph it or something. I don’t care if I look like some barbarian westerner anyway. The hell with it. I want what I want and I want it now!
I begin to eat. Two minutes later she delivers a small dish of bean like things to the table across from me. I immediately call her over. “That! What’s that?” “Ohhh, that peanut," she says. “I’ll take some.” When she brings me the boiled peanuts I ask, “Is this on the menu somewhere?” “No, solly.” I decide not to inquire further into this oriental inscrutability but leave only $7 for a $6.35 bill, far less than my normal one dollar tip AND I walked right up to the register to pay not waiting for my check.
I drive over to Mother’s Health Foods to get some carob chips, my current favorite binge food now that I’m totally off sugar forever, once again. Three Buddhist monks in gray robes enter right before me speaking the usual strange language and they end up standing right in front of the carob chip bin. I try to read their minds. Does God not want me to have carob chips today? Two of the monks are women and one is an older man. I wonder if he can see that my crown chakra is real open and the top of my head is hot? Finally, not able to contain myself any longer, I go up to the man and ask him, “What country are you from?” He gives me a ‘I got no gun’ double palm shaking saying nothing. I go to check out thinking I’ll have to use my ATM card. The pound of carob chips rings up on the brand new computerized register as 21 cents. I say nothing and give the cashier the change. I am certain the monk ‘did something’, carob chip-wise. I get home at 10 after a church meeting.
I call my mother to thank her for a Christmas check she sent and, wonder of wonders, after 10 years she thanks me for finding the managed care facility she is in in Florida and how well it has worked out for her and she thanked me for cleaning up her affairs. Ten years.
Three days later Loretta comes over for dinner and then we do an exercise of letting our inner child journal about Christmas. In response to the question, ‘Can you remember a happy Christmas?’ I write “NO! Everyone always dies around Christmas," remembering my two sisters. Later that night I am at the computer and hear a noise out back. It's HER standing there in a formal evening dress and heels. She is just getting back from a dance and wants to use the phone. “Sure.” She said she had a message from her sister whom she never talks to. SHE starts falling apart. “I wonder if it’s my Mom?” I offer to dial her sister for her, as her calling card no longer works. She bursts into tears and sobs uncontrollably. Her mother has died hours before. She stays and talks and cries for a half hour before leaving. She hasn’t spoken to her mother for months. I had tried to get her to call only a while ago to get her correct birth time.
I become deathly sick in the middle of the night, diarrhea and vomiting, as I’ve been poisoned. I cannot move from bed the next morning. SHE calls at 10:30 and wants a ride to
Dave comes in just after the tree is up. “Did you cut off a little bit of the stump first?” I think for a minute, “No, in my family we had a tradition of never cutting the stumps of Christmas trees.” There is uproarious laughter. I speculate aloud about taking a Tylenol Sinus as a rectal suppository. SHE cries and dozes for almost two hours then asks me to take her to her daughter’s house. Today I notice she left a scarf and a headband here so I put them on the tree with all my Christmas cards. SHE’s on my machine when I get home, crying. I can’t reach her.
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Growing Up
I once took an unbelievable trip to
Many, many hilarious incidents ensued over the next two years fueled mostly by alcohol in any number of imbibable forms. Fly acquired his nickname by climbing drunk right up the side of a 2 story apartment building gripping only the decorative bricks that protruded ½” from the corners of the walls. His climb was so we could get into some girl’s apartment who were so horrified at our shenanigans they tried to lock us out. As I recall these girls had come over to the apartment and Fly and Berger had gotten drunk so the girls wanted to go home. Berger and Fly refused to drive them and demanded they walk the five or so miles. I magnanimously told them I’d drive them and got Berger’s keys. He worked for the Buick regional office so we were always driving around in brand new cars and Fly had a new Stingray, the first of the modern Corvettes. His would do about 150 mph, I recall him doing 135 past the apartment building one night and he was easily able to outrun the
I got a menial job for $85 per week wrapping paper in a printer’s mailroom. This printer did a lot, as in millions of dollars, of printing for my father’s corporation and Wayne, my father, awarded the contracts. I’m still not sure how it happened but the three of us got drunk one night and decided to go to Mexico for ‘a while’. Berger had to work so Fly and I took off in the Stingray. I told Berger to call my work and tell them I wouldn’t be in as I was having my stomach pumped. He did and I guess the general manager of the printer called up every hospital in the
Six years ago I was driving cross country with one Elizabeth, who foolishly thought she would like to move to
Fly and I were considered minor celebs wherever we went as Route 66 was then popular on TV and the Stingray model of the Corvette was brand new and Fly’s was the first seen in person by everyone. I still recall floating slowly past this little Mexican kid in Laredo having just crossed the border and his eyes getting real big and he looks at us go by and says, “Hey! Stingray!.” From this and a few non-automotive related incidents Fly got that as another nickname. This was 1963 and down south it was to be almost another 10 years before the 1955 Chevy was no longer the most popular single car on the road AND they all wanted to race the ‘Ray. As I recall, the ‘Ray was never beaten on the open road or the streets of Washington including the 427 Ford we drag raced right through the middle of downtown one night.
Anyway,
Fly and I found a great hotel in
More driving, driving, driving and Fly and I arrive back in DC and one day I float back into work to wrap paper and printed matter again as though nothing had happened. No one ever said a word to me about being away. Codependent wimps. A few weeks later the entire company staff was given an aptitude test for computers, one of the first commercial applications in the world. I passed, at the top, of course, and so began my career as a computer programmer and systems designer. I was able to drive up to
I rode my motorcycle day and night, winter and summer. Frequently, I was so drunk I could barely walk, but I could always ride. Once, I sort of passed out after kicking the Gold Star. It didn’t start and I came down on the seat and sat there immobilized as the bike slowly fell over. I hit the pavement full on with my left elbow, pulled myself out from under, righted the bike and tried again. I usually closed the bars at 2 AM and then rode over to one of those diner type places to eat. These were the type of places that made omelets by whizzing eggs in
The Burn’s tolerated me even though I was always wetting my bed. I hadn’t always been a bed wetter; I started when I was 18 and ‘Dump truck’, the president of Animal House, had beaten me up on the Friday night of the Dartmouth Winter carnival, or carnivoral, as I called it. I was pissing in the gutter of the bar while ‘Truck’ was talking to the weekend’s chaperones nearby, the parents of one of our fraternity brothers. I came back to the fraternity later with a dagger I had in my room and tried to knife him. ‘Truck’ foolishly held up his hands and said “OK, go ahead.” A campus police auxiliary told me to go home, so I did. That was the first time I ever wet my bed. I continued until I was 31 and finally stopped drinking. Anyway, the Burns used to write me notes about my ‘personal habits’, I would frequently have to sleep on the box spring for days at a time while my mattress was on its side near the window drying out and finally the Burns put a plastic sheet on my bed. I assuaged the 70 year old black maid we had by giving her a huge 25 pound fresh turkey at Thanksgiving from the owner of the printing company’s farm. Anna never complained about us again. We also began to leave Anna money which Mrs. Burns didn’t like as she paid her so little. Fly left for overseas, the Army, and a girlfriend from a Catholic school nearby whom he ended up marrying. I ended up at Burn’s by myself for another almost year, drinking up a storm at the Oxford Tavern right across from the zoo, living with an older guy from
I eventually had to go on active duty for 6 months in the Reserves to avoid
If you bring forth what is within you
What is within you will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you
What you do not bring forth will destroy you.
The Gospel of Thomas as quoted in ‘Conscious Dreaming’ by Robert Moss
‘He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” Mt 10:39
When Things Get Worse
One of the basic laws of the Unifying Principle (of feng shui - Chinese geomancy, the art of the integration of people and things in space-time) tells us that, at the extremes, everything changes to its opposite. A balloon will expand continuously until it bursts. A country's power will grow until it collapses. As we approach the end of a long cycle of change, things may get a bit worse before they begin to get better. .....A rejection notice will look better in hindsight if the next publisher accepts your poetry and wants you to sign a contract for more money. Missing a boat that sinks is a blessing, although it is hard to see that when you are stranded at the dock.
After a while, if things are clearly not improving despite your best efforts, look within.
In World War II, on a particular site in
Feng Shui Made Easy, William Spear, HarperCollins
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Nathan Fink
Nathan Fink is a brilliant tax attorney practicing in
I kept quiet, mailed everything off to Nathan, my attorney, and after New Years, when the cold dreary of
Fax to Nathan, September1996
Dear Nathan,
Sorry to have gotten you involved in this pesky IRS problem I have created for myself. My real underlying concern is that the problem may have been precipitated by the last of several letters I wrote to Janet Reno and Larry Freeh, the head of the FBI demanding murder indictments on the FBI sharpshooters who killed Randy Weaver’s wife in the Ruby Ridge killing in 1992 and signed the last of my letters telling Larry to go fuck himself. The IRS began inquiring about me shortly thereafter so I am wondering that although my total income over the past 10 years has been nil that these dudes may have some agenda of putting me behind bars as I presume the laws are convoluted to do so even for my seemingly trivial case.
Other than that concern, of can and will they actually try to send me away, as you may recall that yenta, my ex-wife’s lawyer thought of, the last time I was an active client, if its just a question of money to the IRS and you really don’t want to hassle with either this case or me I don’t want to aggravate you especially when I have $3.78 in the bank and can only promise to pay you when my book becomes a best seller. I can only presume that my jawboning with these guys on my own here in Laguna Niguel at their fortress will cost me a lot more than if you managed this for me. Incidentally, if you were willing to sell it I want to repurchase that ruby you bought from me when I get some money again in my life. My Hindu astrologer in Kathmandu, Nepal who told me I could write more prolifically by wearing it around my neck recommended it to me……………….
Fax to Nathan, December 1996
Dear Nathan,
Thanks again for your work on my behalf in this pesky tax matter. Basically, I totally dropped out of society at the time of my divorce in 1981 when I had my last regular job of any sort. Since that time I have lived here and there with friends in all manner of places including a year, for example, at a Hindu temple in
Regarding 2, my non-taxable means of support since the proceeds from my small inheritance ran out in 1991;
· I have not paid rent since December of 1990 when I left for a 5 month trip to
· In the last 6 years I have lived with girlfriends and other friends never paying any rent. For example, I spent last winter living an unheated storage room of a friend’s house for 5 months sleeping in my sleeping bag. I have moved an average of 5 times a year during this time. In the summer of 1991 I lived in my tent in the Sierras for 3 months.
· I haven’t owned a car since 1991 when I sold an old Jeep I had purchased with inheritance funds.
· My mother sends me, via her money manager (the Fly!), about $1500 per year at birthdays and Christmas.
· I occasionally make small amounts from my photography of the
· Surprisingly to myself, I am considered eccentric even by my eccentric friends here in one of the nexii of artistic living on the west coast.
I don’t know if this provides any reasonable explanation regarding ‘non-taxable’ means of support. At the encouragement of friends I have recently completed a book about the last 20 years of my life but am as yet unable to find a publisher.
Letter to publishers
Dear Ms. Davis,
Bet on a sure thing! Four psychics have assured me my just completed autobiographical sketch of the last twenty years of my life, The Adventures of a Knight Errant, will sell well.
“You will write many books which will sell heavily.” (palmist in
“I see it on tables and shelves in bookstores before Christmas ’97.”
“Your book will be a best seller.”
“You are going to make money from this book.”
My 115,000 word spiritual odyssey is some combination of The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen, A Search in Secret India by Paul Brunton, Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrar and The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.
I was born in
I look forward to and enclose a SASE for your speedy response and request for all or some portion of this compuscript which I wrote using Microsoft Word 7.0 on a PC. I know this book is going to sell! Thank you for your time and attention to my query.
Yours truly,
Carlos Ballantyne
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Are We Fated Or Are We Free?
God, thou hast created us against our wills; free us! Paramahansa Yogananda
The world is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering. Tao Te Ching
A man is truly free, even here in this embodied state, if he knows that God is the true agent and he by himself is powerless to do anything. Sri Ramakrishna
All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark. Swami Vivekananda
The awakening mind should be understood to be of two types: the mind that aspires to awaken - and the mind that ventures to do so. Shantideva
Superiority to fate
Is difficult to learn.
'T is not conferred by any,
But possible to earn
A pittance at a time,
Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
Subsists till
Emily Dickinson
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Notes from a Lecture on Grief
by John Townsend, Ph.D. at Monday Night Solutions
Airport Hilton Hotel,
Reality is for people who can’t handle drugs
People who are face to face with God are people who have deeply grieved
‘For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.’ Ecc 1:18
Reality brings grief. Grief redeems the losses in out lives. Sorrow is the emotional state that goes with grief. Grief is harder if the person grieved is alive.
Grief is letting go of what you cannot keep in order to get what you cannot lose.
Grieving people are learning people. People who cannot grieve stay stuck in their cycles. Grief is saying yes to reality.
Stages of grief
1. Ambivalence - feel the sadness and the love at the same time. Value the lost person. Don’t split, feel the love and caring. Set boundaries. Good people leave good people. The more we devalue the person grieved the more we are stuck with them.
2. Loss of character loss of love loss of freedom - Let go of the fact that you can impress me.
3. Catastrophic or traumatic -
4. Existential grief - sadness of the world
A lot of depression is unfelt loss
Problems in grieving
1. Forgiveness - we hold someone else to blame and don’t fully grieve
2. Emotional isolation - don’t isolate, let people in first, then grieve. Mercy is given to the merciful.
3. Defensive hope - this will put your life on hold, lot of omnipotent control here as we hope the situation or person will return. Control what you can control; grieve what you cannot. (other people, other people, other people) Defensive hope blocks comfort which maintains grief.
If you need something from someone who can’t give it to you, you are in spiritual bondage.
Stop trying to let other people see you as good.
If you don’t have a lot of love inside you;
· find people who can love you
· people without love become hyper-independent
· experience gratitude
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Restaurant and Market Notes
all in
1. Fresca’s -
2. India Sweets and Spices - on the west side of
3. A & J Restaurant -
4. 99 Ranch Market - The last time I was at A & J a customer told me about 99 Ranch Market, a Chinese supermarket at the corner of Culver and
5. Afghan Market - Raymond Way off El Toro Road just east of Rockfield in the little shopping center on the mountain or east side, next to a large consignment shop. A 10 foot wide cacophony of spices, carpets, videos, fresh meat, Afghan bread and of course bags of Basmati rice. Probably the least expensive spices in
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Snippets
from on-line “He’s a duel personality.”
from on-line;
S: we must all except each other as we are
S: I do except myself
S: I am very happy with myself
BIM11: You ought to pack up and get your but down here
‘If people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.’ Yogi Berra
“I used to get all dolled up to go out thinking I had platinum ovaries.”
“When I would show up at her door in the morning she could always tell what I had been doing the night before depending on whether the sand was stuck to the toes of my shoes or the back of the heels. She’d ask me if I wanted a screwdriver or a bloody Mary.”
“I do not like so much the blah, blah, blah.” Monique from
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Another Update on Good Health
I ran into a nutritionist at a health food store and had a long chat about a few of my favorite supplements.
· MCT by Twin Labs – medium chain triglycerides in a water soluble form, non-carbohydrate fuel for aerobic (vs. anaerobic, or sugar burning) performance. She told me this stuff is EXCELLENT and is now given to premature infants as it is so easily digested.
· Coenzyme Q10 – She says it is in and used by every cell in the body to produce energy and suggested that more IS better and that I try going from 30 milligrams a day to 100, if I could afford it. She has had excellent results with her clients including a cured irregular heartbeat.
· Vitamin E – She suggested I should be taking as much as 800 units a day due to the pollution we live in. I currently don’t take any Vit E.
· Water – The nutritionist does not believe in distilled water and thinks it strips the minerals out of our bodies.
· Stevia – She recommended stevia as a sugar substitute noting it is used in
The nutritionist is a great advocate of individual differences and thinks, for example, that some people need to eat meat and shouldn’t attempt to be vegetarian. She is against blanket treatment given to all patients due to these individual differences, such as treating all cancer patients with raw vegetable juice regimens. The nutritionist is an advocate of the oriental system of classifying people into different dispositional types. I noted that the nutritionist appeared to be about 60 years old, had many liver spots on her hands, an indication, I think, of lack of oxygen getting into the system, and she appeared to me to be about 40 lb. overweight. What do I know? Maybe she’s actually 85 and doing great. She had great skin, complexion, disposition and energy. She said she was unable to take on new clients due to her current workload and that she consulted for a supplement manufacturer and traveled to
My Maxim
I have had for some years a theory I call my maxim which is -- We humans all do in the world the thing we can’t do for ourselves. I know it is true because if carried to the limit, which is getting to a state where there is nothing we can’t do for ourselves, we don’t need to be here any more. We are complete. I came upon this maxim listening to a fireman speak about going into burning buildings and having them collapse on him and I had a flash picture of it really representing his inner process. I turned to the woman sitting next to me at the fireman’s talk and asked her what work she did. She said she was a waitress. I asked her if she was able to serve herself and she got very upset, on the verge of tears. From what I’ve seen almost all body workers desperately need nurturing. The age of death of the average American doctor is something like 58, I believe. I have tried to do as little as possible in life so that no one can get a handle on my incompletions. It is much easier to see other people’s stuff than our own. Who wants to look within?
‘The life which is not examined is not worth living.’ Plato
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The Goddess
It is a difficult thing, Goddess, for a mortal man to know you at sight, even a man of experience; you turn yourself into all sorts of shapes. Odysseus to Athena in Homer’s Odyssey
I first saw her a few days after I returned from five months in
I left her because of the madness. “Madness …. most certainly can, and often does, kill love through its mistrustfulness, unrelenting pessimism, discontents, erratic behavior, and, especially, through its erratic moods.” An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison
manic depression is characterized by “excessive involvement in pleasurable activities.” “full inter-episodal recoveries” Diagnostic and Statistical manual DSM IV, from An Unquiet Mind. Sounds sort of like me in that brackish time between adventures. Jamison described diffidently going to the head of her department at
Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson
I felt a cleaving in my mind
As if my brain had split;
I tried to match it, seam by seam,
But could not make them fit.
The thought behind I strove to join
Unto the thought before,
But sequence raveled out of reach
Like balls upon a floor.
Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, - you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
‘While all human personality is probably, at bottom, in a kind of chaos, and only compelled into coherence by the necessity to act in the outer world, it has been the tradition of biography, in all its forms to impose a, more or less, Newtonian pattern of linear intelligibility on this turmoil of an individual’s nature.’ Jesse, the biography of Jesse Jackson by Marshall Frady
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Packing for the Himalayas
or, F… all these white people and flatlanders. I’m outta here.
large backpack[1]
carry on bag[2]
day pack[3]
duffel bag[4]
sleeping bag[5]
Lowe compressor bag for the sleeping bag[6]
3 or 4 lightweight breathable underwear tops[7]
long pants[8]
long underwear bottoms
nylon sport shorts[9]
shirts with large buttoned pockets[10]
lightweight jacket with zippered inner pocket[11]
windbreaker shell, water repellent
Speedo racing bathing suit[12]
a roll of Bounty paper towels[13]
freezer bags[14]
dental floss
toothpicks
toothbrush and paste
sunscreen
moisturizer
lip gloss with sunscreen
8 oz concentrated laundry detergent[15]
6 oz Dr. Bronners concentrated liquid soap[16]
water purification pump and filter[17]
2 - liter or liter and a half water bottles[18]
bottle of iodine tablets for water purification
comfortable pair of lightweight hiking boots[19]
shower shoes[20]
sandals for walking around[21]
wash cloth
towel
6 or 8 clothes pins
balaclava[22]
6 pair light weight socks[23]
2 or 3 pair hiking socks
small flashlight[24]
camera and film[25]
sun hat[26]
sun glasses
Lexan tablespoon[27]
gloves
down vest
Random thoughts
Ultra Fuel powdered high performance drink
AA batteries
Shoe Goo shoe repair glue
American cigarettes to sell
waist pack[28]
I usually carry half my stash in cash, $100 bills and the other half in American Express travelers checks. I’m having thoughts of carrying Swiss francs or Deutchmarks instead of the US dollars. Why? I don’t like play money!
Credit cards work everywhere
When I pack I put my backpack and carryon on one side of the room and everything I want to take on the other and throw things in priority order toward the luggage, periodically going over and packing it. When the luggage is full, that’s it.
Most everything else you could ever want, and lots you wouldn’t but might purchase anyway is available ‘over there’. Bring few clothes. For me, one pair of long pants, a couple of shirts, and lots of tee shirts and long underwear tops is best. Lots of great clothes to buy or have made overseas.
Best outfitters;
[1] Unless you can be sure you will never have to carry your own bag make sure you get a nice large comfortable pack.
[2] I use a medium size rock climber’s backpack for carryon. I once had 34 lb. in this bag leaving the
[3] Take it empty with you. Useful for knocking around. You’ll need to carry at least your own water bottle with you where ever you go.
[4] Good to take a duffel empty in your luggage to bring stuff back in or to ship it back from ‘over there’. Remember the object is to get to where there is no here or there anywhere.
[5] I have a Western Mountaineering ultra light bag I paid $250 for that I have LIVED in for months and months at a time. The finest down bags made in the
[6] Takes a sleeping bag down to the size of a grapefruit
[7] The secret to packing light is to layer. This first layer is crucial. This is the layer I sleep in and change every few days or so when away from clean clothes for 2 weeks. I use
[8] Consider REAL outdoor pants that you can remove without having to take your boots off first. Why? Guess!
[9] THE cachet outfit of the American Everest climbers until they actually head up the glaciers is
[10] I love to have shirts made up or modified with a sun glass pocket on the sleeves
[11] For passport and money carried as unobtrusively as possible. For me a layer I wear every day and layer under and over.
[12] No its not for swimming, it’s for when you get diarrhea. You line the suit with Bounty paper towel so you don’t dirty all your clean underwear in one night and the nylon suit cleans readily.
[13] I separate each sheet, fold it into thirds, then thirds again, pack the squares into freezer bags
[14] Pack almost everything in freezer bags, the heavy duty 2.7 mil ones. My luggage upon departure is bags of freezer bags of ‘stuff’.
[15] A capful is enough to hand wash two weeks of dirty clothes by hand in the shower in
[16] 2 drops for each armpit, 2 more for your face and you’re DONE
[17] Don’t drink ANY water overseas you haven’t purified yourself. First Need filters are OK and the least expensive. Don’t use Katadyn. Too $$ and too slow.
[18] Tanya had an aluminum canteen she would fill with hot water at night and put into her sleeping bag an hour before bed
[19] I have used HiTec Sierra Lites, 1 size over with 2 pair of socks
[20] You aren’t going barefoot in there are you?
[21] I’ve worn Birkenstocks for miles, the new sport sandals are good
[22] A face mask is nice to have if it gets really cold. Mostly I’ve worn mine in my sleeping bag at night.
[23] Lately I use Coolmax socks, ankle high. I even sleep in them. Pull the hiking socks on over them. You only have to wash the liners then, never the hiking socks
[24] Useful for getting to the bathroom at night. I have a little one I leave around my neck at night while sleeping.
[25] Many opinions here. I always shoot slides, throw most away keeping only the very best. Fuji Provia or Sensia is probably best. Buy mail order from B&H Photo in NY (800-221-5662) with Kodak processing included. Half the price of any other method. Take more film than you think you’ll ever shoot.
[26] Anything from a baseball type to a cowboy hat depending on sun sensitivity
[27] “You’re going to eat with THAT?”, I like to carry my own
[28] I don’t like these as I never want to expose my valuables like this
