Primordial soup, a thank-you to the Flaming Lips

Photo by strangejourney

I saw a swarm of mosquitoes hovering today

flying in drunk tired circles

stupid in the late season

There’s breeding ground a-plenty:

garbage can lids under pots of earth,

overflowing with rain water

mini ponds in low, sodden footprints

but I tracked them to a crack in the lid of  5 gallon plastic juice bucket

Inside a stinking brew of  weeds

water rich green, primordial soup

I remember now: a splash of olive oil on top of the weed tea prevents this

Tip it over, wave goodbye, no tears at the

mosquito graveyard (where the garlic grew)

There’s death in the garden. I’m  always murdering something when I’m out there. Slugs get it the worst. Right through their soft bellies with a sharp stick. I don’t show much mercy to aphids and their nasty leaf-sucking ways either.

However, it’s all hand to hand combat and I don’t focus. I’m opportunistic and lazy. I’m picking greens for dinner or throwing a bit of mulch around, thinking peaceful garden thoughts (or anxious thoughts about money or bored considerations of what to make for dinner) and then GWAH HA HA…!

What I need are  more predators. Garden snakes eat slugs. They’d be more consistently motivated.  But it’d take some doing to get a habitat corridor going in this neighbourhood that would support a snake population. A snake learning party? Invites all done up with skull and cross-bones with a big X through the slug? T-shirt tie-in?

Photo by photogirl7.1

Gardening, from a permaculture perspective anyway,  gets you thinking about sex and death pretty much all the time. A permaculture garden provides the setting for a frenzy of fucking, birthing, eating and dying. (I liked when farmer, story-teller Michael Ableman said last year at his talk in North Van that we we are missing the boat trying to interest people in sustainable farming by talking about health and abundance etc: it’s SEX, SEX, SEX all the time people. But then again, you start with sex, you get to death and in that little human conundrum there lies the story of how we got to the hyper-controlled rows of veggies jacked up on fertilizers.)

I spent yesterday’s late afternoon out there in the end of September sun; warm enough for bare skin, humming the same song over and over, like an am transistor radio in the 70′s

..

Do you realize

that everyone you know

someday will die

and instead of saying all of your goodbyes

let them know you realize that life goes fast its hard to make the good things last

You realize the sun doesn’t go down

it’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning around

The Flaming Lips know what’s up. They share it generously with balloons and confetti and smoke and LOUD, BEAUTIFUL noise. I loved hearing the new Embryonic songs live and loved, loved that Steph was there with me.  We’ve been listening to new music together since we met in grade 9 but its been a million years since we’ve been able to go to a gig together.

It was perfect- well a drink or two would have made for more unrestrained dancing but as Wayne points out there’s trade-offs to the Malkin Bowl. You get to rock out in a forest cathedral but they kick you out at 10 and don’t serve booze.  Isn’t that just like real life.

Thank-you Flaming Lips for another magic show in our forest, in the heart of Vancouver. ’til we meet again, in the meantime,  I discovered you’re all on twitter…

photo by draggin

photo by draggin

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