Call me old-fashioned, I work alongside hip dudes mostly atheists mostly well to the left of Karl Marx. Right now, I stay at a distance while I carry out my own secret reality checks. Meaning, who's buying in and who's buying out. Going back a bit I was friends with a network of young french intellectuals who lived in small communes mostly in the Ardeche. On the door to one of the houses, someone drew a picture of a cute duck with the expression, "Take off your mask through entering this place." Over 4 years, I found a pathway to excrutiating parts of my character time and time again. I have not found the way to nirvana quite as well as I did then. I know that everyone strove for the very peak of the mountain the likes of Cat Stevens sung of in praise. Zion is close, the rastas know this. Rastafarianism is like this.

Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Z.

The Birds

Down in Devon there's a place I know where I love to feed the nuthatches, the jays and the woodpeckers. It's so spectacular, and peaceful, even quite exciting.

In Bristol last winter a few long tailed tits dropped by and a family of green finches,

This summer I heeded the seagulls and the pigeons; the magpies shipped out for a bit. Of what?

I love birds because they can fly, I am able to imagine the demands on the muscles of their bodies. I see inside their views the ground 40 feet below and the way they turn and navigate between the high walls and rooves. Hooray for them, the birds!

I tell you - trust nature; animals and birds provide our every need, yes! Guidance too - the inner voice of Gaia our planetary soul sister.

Z.

16 is the age of revolution, the start of it. Working with disadvantaged teenagers, the talk and bonding around drugs, drink and criminality cannot be penetrated completely atall by adults (shit word crap). Kids see the world's future, we see the past. Cos I felt the issues of '68 , I am impatiently hoping the next summer of love is coming. Honestly? The summers of love get stronger, are getting palpable. Look to all the kids, they are already the future; as to day's hippies, the stoners, the E's, the ketamins, their groups of no order keep grown-ups out. I want to say I know, but my face, my age locks me out, but to have a say at all I reject the crap of lying down quietly (old). I just know that brilliant trip they're on. I keep my stories to myself. Politicians fuck about with 100 year old head fucks and mutter in hairy groups about 'the Balkans or Persia or Rhodesia. You all grew old you wankers, fuck you politician twats, fuck you, fuck off to a place of safety.

Z.