Video: "Surfin USA" by the Beach Boys. Sung by Greg Vanderlaan

https://youtu.be/x-8-T5nQ2os

Classic song that inspired many to move West...

Mural in Eureka, California

Video: "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" a traditional Spiritual Song... Sung by Greg Vanderlaan

https://youtu.be/IhRQmOZKprs

Johnny Cash and Family Sang this...

So did Willie Nelson and Jimmy Carter and family at a campaign concert in Columbia Maryland.

EPA Radiation Limits... A Little Bit of Radiation Might Be Good for You... Absurd.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/epa-a-little-bit-of-radiation-might-be-good-for-you 

The Environmental Protection Agency has recruited controversial scientists to argue that just a little bit of radiation may actually be good for public health, in an attempt to relax standards on radiation levels that the administration considers burdensome.

Dancing to The Humboldt Calypso Band... Absynth Quintet... Blue Rhythm Revue and The Fickle Hillbillies... Arcata, California

Humboldt Calypso Band

Carson Mansion viewed from inside the Pink Lady House across the street

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Me Playing with Kelp

Sculptures near Healdsburg. General Store in Geyserville... Highway 101 North of Santa Rosa. Giant Redwoods...

https://www.ci.healdsburg.ca.us/

https://www.sonomacounty.com/articles/5-fun-things-do-geyserville

Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka, California - Goddess Metal Sculptures standing on Fishing Floats - Sunset Memorial Park

Drive North on Highway 101 and Take a Right at the Sunset Memorial Park... Or A right at the Lost Coast Brewery... at the very Beginning of Town...

Metal Goddess... 

Lost Coast Brewery

Welcome Sign

Brewery photographed from the Cemetary Next Door... 

Another Goddess Sculpture

Chico Natural Food Store - Reflections in the Window of the Crystal Store across the street - Main Street

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Mount Shasta - Panther Meadows - Sacred Spring Water - Summer 2014 - Almost No Snow, Drought let me drive all the way to the end of the road...

A Sacred Mountain. 

as far as you can drive... Mike Jensen and my Ford Windstar

Arranged Rocks on Mount Shasta

Trailhead Rock Sculpture

On the way UP...

Mike Rode a Bicycle down from the mountaintop.

He says it was really cold riding down due to wind chill.

Holy Water

Our Motel - Nice People Work There

Drive North on Highway 5 and take exit 737, Mount Shasta City

Mt. Shasta Lore

            Indigenous people from Northern California and Southern Oregon are primarily the Pit River Indians, Modocs, Wintu, Karuk, Hupa, Shasta and Yurok tribes.

Mt. Shasta’s peak has been used as a spiritual and geographical locator.  At 14,179 ft. elevation and an active volcano, Mt. Shasta towers above all other surrounding mountains.  Native people do not reside on Mt. Shasta because it is considered so powerful.  Spiritual ceremony is conducted in areas below the timberline and when finished, the surroundings are returned to nature, with nothing left behind.  Medicine men and shamans are often taken to Mt. Shasta for training.  There is much Native lore telling how the mountain has healed through prayer, songs, dancing, doctoring and through nature.  The mountain yields a sacred spring and areas for collecting plants and herbs for ceremony and healing.  The mountain is called ‘grandfather’ as it represents the paternal grandparents of the Pit River Tribe.  Their powerful spirit called Mis Misa is said to live inside the mountain and serves to keep the universe in balance.  They consider Mt. Shasta the beginning of all life and the end of all life, where one can ascend into the sky along the Milky Way to the beyond.

The Native peoples report many tunnels within Mt. Shasta.  The Wintu say the mountain generates sound that provides information and guidance.  The Wintu lore says another realm exists inside the mountain and access might come through doorways, such as vents in caves.  Mt. Shasta must be approached with great care and respect as it is guarded by certain spirits.  Mt. Shasta is so powerful that only short visits are appropriate.  It is said that “It has it all”.  During ceremony, the Wintu frequently hear and know the presence of the “little people”, called the Mountain Boys, who live deep within the mountain.  A shaman can communicate with the little people.  The shaman also uses the bubbling brook on the mountain to gain spiritual information. 

When visiting the mountain, silence is important for meditation and fasting. The mountain spirits command respect.


METAPHYSICAL LORE


As early as the 1880s, writers began their association of the lost continent of Lemuria with Mt. Shasta.  Even though these theories cannot be proved, the power of the mountain remains supreme.  People worldwide visit Mt. Shasta to be close to its spiritual energy, to meditate, to communicate with the spirit world and to be healed.  The concept of Lemurians living within the mountain has become widely popular and anyone visiting Mt. Shasta will be amazed by the abundance of literature on the topic as well as practitioners working within the vortex of an important spiritual community.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legends_of_Mount_Shasta

Video: "Aiko Aiko" traditional Mardi Gras Song designed to Dance to. With That Beat! Originaly Recorded by The Dixie Cups in 1965.

https://youtu.be/huxPOT8RxUo


In 1965 New Orleans girl group The Dixie Cups were recording for Leiber & Stoller’s Red Bird Records in a New York studio. They’d finished “Chapel of Love” and during a break the girls began singing a song they’d learned from their mother called “Iko-Iko,” a call and response chant of a Mardi Gras Indian tribe. http://performingsongwriter.com/mardi-gras-music/ 

Letter to the Editor by Darryl Cherney. Humboldt County Earth First! Activist and Singer Wrong/Righter.

http://kymkemp.com/2018/10/04/virtually-no-arm-of-government-is-addressing-the-deterioration-of-southern-humboldt-says-letter-to-the-editor-from-darryl-cherney/

The deterioration of Southern Humboldt County, California and the 3000 person Garberville/Redway area in particular, can be outlined as follows. Since I moved here 32 years ago, we have lost 100% of our bookstores, half of our auto mechanics, 90% of our local doctors, half of our veterinarians, most of our local nurses, half of our restaurants, 75% of our motels for tourists, 66% of our small engine repair shops, all of our evening/night access to the Redway post office boxes, our only movie theater, our Grange Hall, our entire Veterans Hall which also served as our local courthouse (next one is 62 miles north), half of our vegetable garden supply stores, half of our safety from being murdered or robbed along with about half of our sheriffs, half our thrift shops, the ability to leave one’s home and car unlocked, our ice cream parlor, much of the darkness of our night sky, the solvency of our community center which verges on bankruptcy, all of the security and peace of mind of our remote homesteads due code enforcement, and somewhere between 40 to 80% of our sales in whatever stores remain. I’m sure I’m left a whole lot out. While there is still much to recommend our area such as our beautiful mountain elementary schools, the majestic redwoods and the Pacific Ocean, I must point out that virtually no arm of government is addressing any of this except in that all arms of government are vigorously and deliberately making it worse (well maybe not the library). In other words, rather than having a government that works for the people, we have one that works against us. The tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars fees and fines leveled against people for drinking their own water, living in their own self-built homes, or driving their dirt roads amount to this: piracy, racketeering, and extortion. An elder or anyone for that matter can not pay fees and fines more than their homes are worth, let alone do the years work the county demands of them to be done in just a few short weeks. Governments engaging in piracy is an old tradition. Governments (and the bureaucrats who run them) preying on their own people is as old as history. But I say this: water and shelter are human rights. And I suspect this: whether it’s by ballot measure, voting them out, or good old fashion pitchforks and torches, the people of Humboldt County are on the verge of striking back.

Darryl Cherney

Video: "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning" Traditional American Spiritual sung by Greg Vanderlaan

https://youtu.be/kpTW3e2Abv4 

I remember performing this song with my friend Mike Gardner in Chico, California after our AA Meeting in Bidwell Park... 

Upper Bidwell Park Chico, California
The Creek flows thru Lava Rocks from Mount Lassen

I'm Greg and I'm an Alcoholic. Joined AA in the years 2000 in Chico, California.

So glad to be alive and well today. The old Meeting Hall... in The Haven Motel.

Coral Sea Research Vessel in Humboldt Bay. HSU Oceanography classes sail the Pacific Ocean on this ship. Mariner's Memorial. Carson Mansion.

Humboldt State University Research Vessel - Coral Sea

Coral Sea heading towards the Abandoned Pulp Mill

http://www2.humboldt.edu/oceanography/

The Mariner's Memorial Sculpture
Dedicated to those lost at sea

Mariners Memorial Statue on Humboldt Bay

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2013634827/

Library of Congress Photo of The Old Fisherman

The Fisherman honors those whom the sea sustained ... and those it claimed.

 The statue was sponsored by the Commercial Fishermen's Wives of Humboldt through community donations. It was dedicated in 1981.

Carson Mansion, Library and HSU Boating Facility

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carson_Mansion

Kayak and Humboldt County Library

Rotary Club Donor's Sculpture - Inside the History Room at the Humboldt County Library