Before long I dropped out of Berkeley High School and took the GED exam so I could attend the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland to study fine arts. Since early childhood, with the encouragement of my family and teachers, I'd been making artwork and writing up a storm. The disturbing little oil painting above (original long lost) may have been prophetic. Upon the sepia world, a square like gold-leaf applied to a Buddha image offers an arbitrary window into alternate reality. Fairy terns radiate from rippled dunes above, only they do so with elegant symmetry. Flower Power went to seed; the seeds scattered globally. Culture shock set in as I found myself a stranger in a strange land. Perhaps I had to create my own dark night of the soul in order to grow: a psychological meltdown in my late teens and early 20s.

OK. Some things are more worth remembering than others. Though I'm grateful for the ordeals that humanized and humbled me . . .  I'm even more grateful that by 1976 I landed in Shangri-la! Seen in a far more recent photo above, Estes Park, Colorado remains dear to my heart. I lived there for 12 years, a full cycle of healing and regeneration as Nature itself returned me to my innate wholeness. Day after day I spent hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park.

We can have quite a few soulmates in this lifetime, meaning people with whom there is simply a deep inner connection regardless of space/time. Here's a major one of mine: Willard, AKA Jill Engels. Along with Uncle Dodge, AKA Roger Byers, she became my best bud in a quirky kind of triad during my years in the High Rockies. You may note she inscribed my print according to her twisted sense of humor, something that endears her to me still.

Willard really IS mega-talented. She can do anything well. Here you see her as the Lady of Cups in the funky little E.P. cabin by the Fall River where she lived all those years ago. Uncle Dodge, Will and I shared many adventures in that wonderful habitat that sometimes flew like a box kite amid the churning rainbow lights of the Cosmic Wheels; in winter we ate star-shaped cookies and adventured on the frozen river behind; all summer we played dress-up preparing for the highest holy day of all--Halloween! I remained really shy in some ways. Will looked at me with relentless clarity one time and said: "You're not really living, Bruce, you're just observing life." I never forgot that. Partly thanks to her honesty, eventually I did dive into life.

Here we appear vintage, significantly perched atop the stone wall of a small enclosure containing several of the only human graves I know of in the area. We appear as ancestral spirits preparing for that festival of death at the Autumn Equinox when the gates of the underworld open and the cold breath of winter emerges, driving life inward.  There's really nothing spooky or morbid about this, as it's all just part of the great wheel's turning.

Somewhere in the midst of my 12 years of healing and coming back to my true essence in that Shangri-la of the Rocky Mountains, I had the opportunity of attending a poetry reading at CSU in Fort Collins, by the amazing San Francisco Beat Renaissance poet Michael McClure. I'd studied poetry with him at CCAC some years before, so my brief chat with him that evening was a bit of a reunion. He told me his favorite flower was the Shooting Star, AKA Dodecatheon alpinum. So I went to a marshy meadow in the mountains, found some, and painted a portrait that I sent to him.

Part of the mystique of our beloved Uncle Dodge (AKA Roger Byers) was the amazing vehicle picture above, a Dodge Power Wagon vintage WW II as I recall. The combo of various unfinished re-painting jobs had left the rugged vehicle especially beautiful and it has a special mystique, at least for me. Power as in the universe according to don Juan Matus. Sometimes we'd drive up into higher reaches of RMNP on starry nights and listen to the eerie whale-songs of the elk bugling through immense canyons of granite and evergreens. 

Here we are, Uncle Dodge and me perched atop a big green bug on our way to the Woodstock Festival! Just kidding! This was at least 10 years, probably more, after that Magickal turning point in the world's curious history. Actually we're taking a breather from the cramped little interior of the wondrous classic insect, during a road trip to visit Willard's family home in Wisconsin. 

A friend's equipment rental biz went out of biz and we all got outfitted with cross-country skis and matching poles one winter. Boy did we ever make use of them! We'd take 2 vehicles, park one at Hallowell Park, then drive up to bear lake. At the trailhead we might drink a hot toddy, then launch ourselves through forests buried in snowdrifts to half the height of the trees. Being almost entirely downhill, though the skis were cross-country variety, this was like a roller-coaster-toboggan ride at times combined with flight. Also, one time we evidently traversed a wormhole in the process, as we made the entire hour + course in barely 20 minutes!

I'll not say too much about this holy being, Taliesin, here, as I'll be saying plenty more about him elsewhere on the Web. At any rate, after my little dog Sagebrush passed into the Light, I decided, "No more dogs, that was too traumatic!" Little did I know that a kitty soul would soon claim me. My job running the mail;-order department of a western clothing store involved daily trips to the Post Office. From a box of give-away kittens, a white one with jade eyes looked up and spoke to me in English. "NOW," Taliesin said. I could not possibly say no. 

Very shortly after Taliesin claimed my heart, my 12-year-cycle in Shangri-la concluded. Willard had moved back to Wisconsin, various other close friend got married or moved away. Though I felt I would never leave, suddenly it was easy to move on, knowing the highest mountains were within me always. A small inheritance from a great aunt allowed me to move to a basement apartment in Fort Collins where I pursued writing full-time for 2 years. I'm seen bagging up raked leaves from the lawn, appearing disgruntled at being photographed.

Staring in about 1988, for the first time I developed sufficient attention-span to begin revising the dozens of novel manuscripts I had been hammering out on a series of typewriters I wore out. Reluctant to go back to a low-paying job just to survive, I enrolled in CSU in 1990 and took a leisurely 4 years to complete my B.A. in English with a Creative Writing Concentration, 2nd field in History.

Back in the School of Life, I realized that my challenge was now to fully accept, no, to LOVE myself as I AM without judgment or comparison with anyone else. The Universe had plans for me . . .   

Taliesin turned out to be far more than a pet, as I learned from him that people belong to cats, not the reverse. One time Uncle Dodge was visiting me in Ft. Collins and he said, "It's great that you have a familiar." Well, Taliesin was not only a great animal spirit, but a kind of guardian angel, who gave me "somebody to love" and kept my heart open while I lived as a saintly student monk, until I met my life partner Tom. Late in 1995 I received a brief introductory letter. Seeing the nifty artist/architect-type hand writing, something told me here was the One. He's the ultimate Taurus, a master of manifestation, & likes to handle big hefty tools, as you can see with the Dingo above!