Welcome to this online portfolio of writing you won’t find anywhere else! [Click here to learn more about the origin of the Digital Potlatch.] I started with chapters from BUFFALO LIGHTS, my book about moving to New Mexico, and then added columns from Horse Fly, a sadly defunct alternative Taos newspaper. I also chose the best pieces from GRACK!, a Web column of some renown, as well as a few other stories published here at FarrFeed. If you don’t know, a potlatch is an event where one gives valuable things away to grow in spirit. You wouldn’t be able to read most of these now unless I’d republished them, and that’s why it’s a gift. – JHF
[NOTE: You are at the main Digital Potlatch category page with 49 linked posts! To browse the BUFFALO LIGHTS, GRACK!, FarrFeed Classics, Horse Fly, and Yellowhammer Farm selections separately, use the drop-down Potlatch menu in the navigation bar.]
It’s been a long time since I contributed a piece to the Digital Potlatch. But I was searching for material about Yellowhammer Farm and rediscovered this post from 2007 I’d like to share. Here you go, and every word is true. This may end up in a book some day, but you can read it [...]
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There were hundreds of skinny green willow shoots to be cut, leaves to be raked from the rocky bottom, tree limbs and trash to be thrown off to the side. Everyone saw what had to be done and did it, moving easily along, exchanging tools as needed without asking, talking quietly among themselves or calling out to neighbors they knew. I had little to say, but that was a given: far better to listen and simply work than try to ingratiate myself.
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Maybe if I got out more, I could tell you who the other people were. I recognized one, Mike Reynolds (the earthship guy), then Dennis and the entourage moved on to the front room of the restaurant. I’d seen the man in movies all my life and knew he was dying, and there he was, passing 20 feet away.
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So here I am this Easter morning, having experienced a resurrection of my own these last few days. It’s not the where, but just (?) the “what,” spending every waking moment loving who I am and finally letting go of all the rest. Again and again, however many times it takes until I check out and move on. I’m dropping out to spend the rest of my life on permanent summer vacation–do you remember how that felt, the first time, walking home from school?
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On our walking route, I sometimes passed by a field of ripening oats or wheat, I never knew which. But more than once, I felt as if the crop was conscious. I kid you not. I felt the spirit of the grain. I was aware of something we don’t have words for, you might say. I am in this respect a raving mystic, I suppose, and I swear to God I’m not making this up.
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There I was, educated and dropped out, running from Nixon’s U.S.A. and Vietnam, tormented and scatter-brained, provoking locals right and left and wondering what the hell I’d do when my money ran out, and there was Luther, both feet on the ground , high on whole wheat and the Holy Ghost.
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There was room for my portable typewriter, a few books, and a kerosene lamp, which delighted me no end. My bed, a metal army cot with a thin cotton pad for a mattress, was opposite the fireplace against the wall. I had room for everything I owned, which wasn’t much, a well not ten feet from my door, and I was happy. I even had a place to pee.
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When I’m not there the ragged pack keeps fit by chasing cows, and when I am I use my latest curse: “Back! Back! Back to hell from where you came!” The neighbors peer from curtained windows and cross themselves, but the dogs seem strangely reassured, as if relieved to know their provenance. But I still take my stick.
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The wind blew strongly from the south and shook the branches, but the tiny carcass was firmly lodged. Back and forth it waved, like something in a dream you half-remember and try not to forget. It must have fallen from the sky, dropped by a raven or a hawk, or been accidentally lost by dueling magpies, I reasoned.
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“Hi fella, how you doin’?” said the smiling silver-haired man as he approached, carrying a clipboard. A pencil stub dangled from the clip, attached with a piece of string. Grasping the stub, his hand hovered over the printed form flapping in the breeze as he eyed the black-and-white plate on the rear bumper and inquired, “Where you from?”
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How we got here. $2.99. Click cover for details. Sample chapters here. Amazon Kindle
, paperback.
Stories of life in El Norte. $2.99. Click cover for info & free sample. Amazon Kindle
, Apple iBooks, Smashwords, PDF.
Click cover to download FREE PDF sampler w/8 chapters from above two books. (Kindle version,$0.99)
John Hamilton Farr is the author of Buffalo Lights and Taos Soul. (More info here »)
Email: jhfarr@newmex.com
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