Settling down in Santa Cruz

Dear Friends -

I hope this moment finds you in love, at least with yourself.

After traveling the U.S. from June 2010 to June 2011, visiting friends and family, nesting in temporary retreats to write, camping some nights, renting a motel room now and then, and sometimes having no idea where to go next . . . I finally found a place where I can relax and feel at home.

My bother Jerry and Cecille invited me to stay in their little guest cottage in Aptos, just south of Santa Cruz, California. I'm in the studio space above the garage. I really like Santa Cruz. The downtown is upscale and trendy - and it’s sort of the retirement lounge for old hippies. I’m an old hippie, so I feel pretty comfortable here. There is something refreshingly retro about this place . . . in an area of 75,000 people there is not one Walmart anywhere in sight! Elvis is long gone.

I've come to realize that when I first started my travels I was looking for a “home,” but as I got deeper into the writing of my novel Shambala, my quest turned into looking for the best place to write. Perhaps this will be my ideal writing den. I'm a grateful artist freed to focus on my art.

There’s no getting around it - as an artist I see the world in my own unique and often peculiar way. An exceptional artist will express their art in the way that flows naturally. Van Gogh saw the world in impressions and painted that way.

Impressionistic Cadillacs stuck in the mud a few miles west of Amarillo, Texas.

Van Gogh wouldn't paint and sell pictures of windmills to tourists, even though he could have lived better if he had. For most of my life I wasn’t an exceptional artist, in that I made art wrapped in a struggle to survive. I compromised my talent and that had an effect on my artist's soul. Once I let go of the ceramics and embraced writing, I stopped compromising. Each time I found a retreat place along the way, Shambala was a joy to write. 540 pages flowed from my fingers. For the first time in my life, making money wasn’t the motivating factor. This wonderful story proved to be pure, raw inspiration and I can hardly wait to share it with you.

Mt. Kailash - considered the most sacred mountain in the world

is central to the plot of Shambala

And, of course, there is no doubt that it takes money to live in this world. I have used my savings to travel around - and soon I will have to invest in printing books, which I will want to have available. I will have to pause in order to sell Shambala to the salesman. But more than anything I really want to share the Path to Paradise. The story has reminded me to open my eyes and heart and to see the beauty that surrounds me - wherever I go. It reminds me that wherever I am - I am - in paradise.

I left Tennessee almost three weeks ago and drove to Taos, New Mexico where I spent six days with my gypsy family. I really like Taos - it’s like an island high in the mountains. Fresh air, clean water, nice people. I could live there. From Taos I drove west to the LA area - Corona Del Mar, Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Duarte and Santa Monica.

I had wonderful meetings with people I love, who love and accept me. I planted some “writing” seeds in good soil, and I will patiently wait for the flowers to bloom.

Self-Realization Fellowship pond in Santa Monica

I have come to realize after all my travels, that I am a West Coast man. I’m familiar and comfortable with the land west of Oklahoma. It’s pretty obvious to me that the Western U.S. has a different energy and personality than the American South - and the western ways are more to my liking. All those southern states I’ve traveled through - Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia, and Alabama - are extremely beautiful - lush with forests, rivers and lakes, birds and wildlife and Adult bookstores.

In all fairness - Chattanooga is the cleanest city I’ve ever seen. They’ve spent multi-millions to build parks and riverside walkways. Incredible public art is all over the place. Everyone I met there was kind and helpful, and nobody bothered me with their religion. June and Scott treated me like family, opening their home and hearts to me with a whole lot of love and respect. Not every Southerner is born again, eats fried chicken five nights a weeks and lives in a trailer park.

When I write my novels - like Twins of Kashal (now being reworked as The Crystal Women), Shambala and Two Crows - I’m very respectful of organized religions. Blogging is different. It’s been fun for me to let lose and ramble on in this forum; to be blasphemous, sacrilegious, satirical and silly; to get lost in petty parity exaggerations. I certainly don’t mean to offend, though sometimes I can’t help myself. I have to say something about things like this sighting in Arizona.

Being from the West I just know that Western Christians have a better sense of humor regarding Jesus and porn. They just do. Instead of the blanket Jesus-saved-me-so-its-OK-to-be-a-redneck-asshole, the Catholics sin, confess, sin some more, confess, and it keeps going on in a lighthearted Jesus, Mary and Joseph way until they die and go to hell for all the lies they told during confession. A weird part of me likes lumping Jesus, porn, Starbuck, Walmart and the second coming of Elvis all together. OK, I’ll throw in a few gray aliens and a six pack of Bud. To balance all my 'bad' out, one day soon I may write a serious discourse regarding what I have learned about Jesus after over forty years of religious and spiritual study. I'm slowly compiling The Memoirs of an Old Hippie, which will include my spiritual journey. In my next blog I may send a short story I first wrote in 1975 when I lived here with Sara, mother of our two sons, before we were married, titled "St. John of Santa Cruz." Stay tuned.

I send my love as always

- and please -

Don't hesitate to drop me a line and let me know how you're doing.

With blessings,

David Dakan Allison

my new writing window

In the South somewhere between penis and piety

Dear Friends -

Yesterday I was in Muscle Shoals, Alabama where many of the great American musicians - like the Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Wilson Pickett did recordings. I remembered this town from Lynyrd Skynynd's "Sweet Home Alabama.” Anyway, being the silly Dad that I am, I decided to pick up a Muscle Shoals shot glass to add to Alan and Aaron's (my) collection - a shot glass from every state I drive through. I looked around town - no shot glasses. Finally I stopped at a Big K (I’ve lost interest in my US tour of Walmarts) thinking for sure they would have shot glasses.The manager didn’t remember seeing Muscle Shoal shot glasses anywhere. There wasn’t even a little frickin’ "Alabama" glass in the whole store. His “I’m sorry, sir,” was like the Zen slap. At that very moment - I achieved enlightenment!! My grown sons don’t need another damn $5 shot glass. Truly. What was I thinking? If they sat with a bottle of Jack Daniels and filled and downed the ones I already gave them - Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas, California, Graceland and Anderson’s Pea Soup - not to mention the Neunschwanstein Castle glass I illegally bought at Goodwill - or the one from Alcatraz that came from God knows where - they’d both be hammered out of their minds - all because of my silly tourist collecting useless crap thing. So I bought a cool $5 straw hat instead. What do you think?

I was driving down the freeway this morning and passed by a billboard with huge lettering - WHEN YOU DIE WHERE WILL YOU SPEND ETERNITY? Hmm. Do I still have two choices? I thought about that for a few miles and realized that I’m no closer to the answer since I’ve become enlightened, then I was before. Then a few miles later the answer boomed out on another billboard. Arkansas’s Largest ADULT SUPERSTORE. Next Exit. (Jesus saves . . . right after the next lap dance)

The picture on the right sums up Southern Christianity for me . . . except I would put a crucifix around his neck and a boner in his pants. (though he just may be yanking off - if you check his left hand and that shit eating grin on his face) I think if God were a psychiatrist and lined up Southern Christians on his or her couch - he or she wouldn’t be doing shots of Jack Daniels with my sons - he, she or it would be swigging the whole damn bottle and saying, “Jesus help me!”

I'm still not sure what Jesus has to do with good old All-American Baptist patriotism and sex toys. I'll choose #3.

By the way, Jesus lives in the South. These people down here take a particular ownership to him. He’s their boy. If I decided to take a photo a day of every Christian church in the South I'd be taking pictures for the next 200 years. And it's all about answering that billboard question. Who exactly wrote the curriculum? I did notice however that rapture does happen. I don't know where they end up, but I’m probably the only one who noticed the rapture last week. While his father did everything in his power to hold on, this young handsome Master was pulled through the car’s glass sunroof and up into the tornado. They never found his body. So, at least one person we know of was raptured up. I guess you just have to be in the right place at the right time. Shoot - I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Little Rock and I’m feeling pretty darn raptured right this moment. After abstinence for a few months, this coffee is making me feel real high. The point being - Who makes up this shit?

I really liked what the Enlightened Master Sadhguru is saying. Here's his picture again if you forgot about him. He said that India has produced thousands of Enlightened Masters. He said that many of them weren't religious at all, or necessarily nice - some were downright mean and nasty. They lived in a culture where they didn't have to play by the rules or subject themselves to advertisements, society or peer pressure. If they wanted to spend their life standing naked on a street corner ignoring the world, it was OK. The one thing they had in common was DEVOTION. They found something they devoted their lives to and stuck to it, no matter what. We are sooooo distracted all the time. That's our insanity. Jesus and porno most often are forms of distraction. My devotion is writing - telling stories. My blogs are silly stories - but my 540 page novel Shambala is serious good writing. I call it the "Most surprising love story ever told." It's detective intrigue, travel around the world to the Himalaya's and one of the most understandable spiritual teachings you have ever read. This all happens because I have no doubt that I was born to share something with the people of this earth. That may sound cocky - but I believe it is actually true for all humans - if we choose not to be so distracted - if we choose to stand naked on the street corner and shout "This is who I am and this is what I do." Then you will see - all these other beliefs, all the ones I appear to be so sacrilegious about - are the pulls away for Self - pulls away from your chosen devotion and unique reason for Being.

If you're interested in update on the progress of Shambala let me know. Should be available this fall.

With lots of love and blessings, (the highway is calling - on to Oklahoma)

David Dakan Allison