by Gwagwagwe
A warm wind led the bison east, toward the stories of the ancient loblolly pine forests and ten-foot alligator spirits. Having experienced the harshest conditions Louisiana had to offer, at least this year (teens at night, just above freezing during the day, for three days), we traveled a couple hours into that place they call Mississippi. We were in the middle of reading (everybody reads most books and then we spend a lot of time figuring out how it fits into our mosaic) Zinn's Twentieth century (thanks running bare). Well, anyone familiar with the recent history of this place, we wondered if that "spirit of Dixie" still flourished. Well, we got a hard core dose of how strong people can hold on to a culture, a bloody good for them. Sure the fuckin' states full of anti-government, racists assholes, but at least their carin' for their own instead of joining the assimilation that is America's fascination with equality and homogenization.
Here we found enough free camping for anyone who choose to live by squatting in Nat. forest to spend their entire lives finding their place in an ecosystem. But, the bison have mountain gods who must be kept alive where our summer "hunting" grounds flourish.
The library system was easy to "access". And we spent many a rainy sun reading great books (Zinn, Barash's Whisperings within, Castanata (what a goof), Krakauer's Into the Wild, Chatwin's Songlines, Zerzan's elements of refusal, some Joyce and Campbell). We didn't apply for food stamps, so we spend a half moon living off our emergency rations, but it was worth it. We shared our stories with the woodpecker, yellow rumped, bat, bass people. And we walked amongst all the southern pine, oak, and magnolia spirits. Here where 25% of the remaining "old-growth" loblolly , the rest is found on eggland airforce base in the Florida peninsula (all total only 100k acres remaining), we watched the yellow-rumps do their fox-dance, and the bass do their best belly flops, we watched the kingfisher soar down the river as he waited for a fish to offer up its life. Here amongst these gods the bison lived, breathed, and added ourselves to their energy. After a half moon we were ready to head back to that paradise of the South, central Louisiana, where the folks are friendly, and you can get drive through margarita's off any country road, back amongst the cypress and our armadillo sisters.