1/3 of a shenanigan: Prana Birth, Bird Death, Camera Death, Resurrection, Ascension, Etc.

MY CAMERA IS ALIVE. 

And my body is slowly but surely feeling alright after the scramble of leaving my stagnant safety nest and coming back out into the world. SO, here is a third of my birthday shenanigans I documented before my magic-halting camera death at the waterfall. 

Perhaps I would otherwise break this up but I won’t dishonor the roller coaster through unnecessary compartmentalization so here ya go. 

A friend of a friend has some land out in the middle of nowhere about an hour southwest of Asheville. They invited me to stay. I stuck around for a couple days intending to find an even deeper pocket of forest to spend an entire day of naked solitude. But as I turned the corner I realized I would stay. For one, the weather was threatening to further inspire my moody coller coaster. I was also in the middle of conquering some heavy discomforts in my time here and wanted to keep going. This place is 100 acres large and owned by a really incredible queer, nudist, ex-CEO who had beat cancer, renounced most of society, and was creating a safe, healing haven on his property. Right at the precipice of such an important gathering of energy, I really feel like I could have a place here. My photographic journey has saved me in so many different ways, so many times over, including saving me from killing myself over the pain that often drives my experience as long as I let it. All I want is to hone this magic and share it with others so that they might feel similar freedoms. But I’m not ready. I’m still deep in the trenches of my own muddy pits. The intersection of feeling so at home, and feeling so unprepared, and fearing a missed opportunity creates an unsettling feeling. It wasn’t until I realized I was trying to escape on my birthday (as opposed to pursuing something), that I realized  I needed to power through, conquer these shaky chest-bone feelings, and stay. 

I mean it was still the middle of nowhere, no one was around, and no one could find me. Once I got over my self-made worries, everything opened up. I didn’t see or talk to anyone all day. I woke up in the van, did a few hours of careful physical therapy exercises as the clouds opened up and felt the blood and strength seep into my muscles, I said hello to my toes before they went numb for the day. 

And I existed! I started by burying a friend. A little warbler had been struck at the edge of the property by a car at dusk the previous night. He was paralyzed on one side and panicked. I knew he wouldn’t make it. I built him a little nest box away from the rain to soothe him into passing. I told him he was good and enough, and I watched his frantic breathing slow. I attached a lot of my turmoils from the past year into the metaphorical passing of this bird. I listened to “My Dear Friend” by Deer Tick and cried my eyes out. He was holding on as I drifted to sleep, and was still and painless the next day. After my muscles awoke, I buried the bird. I built him a nest in the ground to bookend his time, and thanked him for allowing me to attribute his passing to my own healing ends. I shot my expressions before and after the grounding. I can say that I felt more grounded myself. 

Then came Mr. Snail. Lucky/traumized little guy. I wanted to try a new sensation this day. Who can say they know exactly how it feels to have a cold, slimy organism move around on their exposed body? Whelp, now I can. I really could’ve used some assistance here, though, as the face-snailing did not go well. After he fell off one time, into my hands, I couldn’t bring myself to put him through another round of FACE and opted for HORIZONTAL TORSO. This was imeasurably easier (immeasurable because SNAIL), and I let him go pretty much where he wanted, which was off me ASAP. I’d had my fix, and placed him in the mossy forest by a pile of well-deserved cantaloupe rinds that he preceded to eat for the next 50 hours. I got several shots of this and will most likely, knowing me, add them into a composite so it looks like several snails are on my body.

It was the very early afternoon, and not actively raining, so it was time to gather some photo toys and hike up to the falls. I "accidentally" got way too high on birthday spliffs, so the spider jungle was extra terrifying. Once I finally reached the decided ”safe zone” of my destination, I opened my cutely packed backpack to find a mysterious gaping hole in my waterfall IPA. Its hot, pungent contents glistening on my well-soaked camera case, which was then sponging it steadily and tenaciously into the body of my camera. Yum. Again, very high, I somehow took one photo(??) in a random dumb direction and happened to capture the big loud flowing water before the body shut down on me and the shutter whirred, clicked and slammed into darkness. That’s it! Shows over. The end. 

I descended immediately to go doctor the camera. I felt so naked and the wind was gone. Suddenly, I couldn't ignore the burn down my legs, the pressure-pain-nausea in my neck and clawed gripping feeling enveloping my head, the stab of a thick pole above my sacrum, the burning tingles as the last of my white toes lost feeling, the fascial pull of my knotted hamstrings and the ache of their torn connections to my sit bones and hips. The stab behind my shoulder blades and the associated burn down my arms, the pounding waves of hot and cold and hot and cold. My wrists, even my wrists! It all came rushing in. I arrived back at my van with a vengeance to save the day. Fueled by all of the CBD and two non punctured IPAs, I filmed some nude yoga by the lake. I visited the bee hives, had a birthday salad from the garden (wasabi arugula, anyone???), drove 40 minutes for birthday tacos and then back. And had an absolutely tremendous fireside taco dinner between my van and my Warbler friend. Listened to further-intoxicating tantric yogic mantras and watched the little fish make hundreds of intersecting bug-snack rings in the dimming mirror of the lake. Day saved! Full circles, lots of them.