Mark David Fey was my Dad.

He came from rural Oregon, raised by austere Calvinists who didn’t talk at the dinner table. They thought christ would have returned by now.

His father was a railroad worker, and then a farmer. My grandfather was a man of few words and no hugs.

As a young man Mark was a powder monkey for a blasting road crew and liked explosives.

My dad was a hard worker who tried to do right by people.

He was a missionary to indigenous people in Alaska.

He was a truck driver.

He was a longshoreman.

He was an evangelist to hippies and married one of the born-agains, Janice James, the mother of my brother Rick and I.

Before going into the ministry full time, he was a school teacher and a summertime lumber jack at Mount Rainier. We painted houses together to make ends meet.

He was a spiritual artist.

My Dad loved capturing the beauty of nature with his cameras. It was a fortunate honor that he let my little legs follow his. He brought me, carrying his camera equipment, to the most rugged natural places in the Western States. His heavy Nikon F1 camera captured the complexity and power of nature. We met magical mountain goats together, we slept among herds of elk, and avoided disturbing the bears. We traveled and slept in his pickup truck.

In his artistic ministry, he showed his slides in tiny rural churches for free, and negotiated shows in the big chain churches.

He showed his visions of god in nature to those who could not get close to wild nature themselves.

Back at home, we grew our food in the rich earth of the Puyallup Valley. He taught me where natural healthy food comes from. I thank him for showing me my connection to the earth.

Dad made bold choices to live by his visions and not be held back by those who did not share them. He ministered to those who shared his love of god and he served his community.

Now my Dad returns to the earth he revered and taught me to respect.

Goodbye Dad. I have missed you a long time. And I will miss you until I join you in the soil.

Goodbye and thank you for taking care of a weird little kid.

Thank you for showing me the beauty of creation.

Most of the visitors for Cumbre Yah 2011

These are some of the latest visitors to visit the Bosque Village. Really awesome mix of people from all over Mexico and the world!

Things are pretty different now than when I lived here alone. I still felt a little shy with all these people though.

More pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebosque/sets/72157626422224383/

Click ‘Like’ on faceook:  https://www.facebook.com/cumbreyah

The Bosque seems to be coming together. Many new plants and trees in the ground. More and more people wanting to come for longer term. Learning to be a hard ass with unaware folks. Many new Photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebosque/collections
Can’t sleep. Reading Masanobu Fukuoka who writes everything I already think. Re-assuring.
Add us on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/bosquevillage

In a dream I knew Isotelesis and the triz and the scrum. Late at  night around the fire we discussed spookey metaethics. never found  the secret Antikythera.

Next day now day one day we will go to the noosphere.
We will have childrem named Apsara, Gaggle, and qubit.

It is over. Dead. Death is a wonderful release. Let those molecules  go free! Name each: audaxviator, Jamais vu, Heyoka, parallax,  flummox.
But for now live in your hyperbolic wigwam. Live your brazen nezarb  lifestyle. Light the fire for us pyrolagnia bitch. Serve pristin  ecclesia druidic path. Take the sacrifice. Be venus unclothed. Be  the flecha and live in the house of leaves.
As night falls we go to droomoord to meet the enchanted katak.
The magic is before you here in Michaocan, Mexico. Purepecha shaman  still lives after generations in secret. The kinship was not  destroyed. Banjaxed. The Bhikkhuni hut is reserved for the next  half year.
Do it. Come here now and be close. Know true intimacy. boko-maru feet together. Put you in the calaboose.

There is more but none for now.

We talk at night over beers. People are all so strange in the way the see the world and the way they mix. Interesting minds.

Plants are going in the ground today. Gardens being prepared. No one day of such work seems so important, but it adds up over time. Seeing a baby walnut tree 8 inches tall makes a nice feeling in me.  Chilino tells me that there are more rare birds coming here now. I notice it too. I saw one I have never seen before while I was standing in a forest grove and trying to see the future of the space. Wondering where to plant trees. Wondering thinking imagining. I don’t have to do things perfectly, but I have to work all day every day in generally good directions.

Yesterday I painted in the studio while chatting with a nice muse…. not revolutionary work, but progress on some paintings which have taken a long time.I don’t know how to talk about the compositional relations I am playing with. I have no language to say it, but I guess it doesn’t matter. The painting will have its own life and it will be removed from mine.

Painting is the hardest and easiest thing. It is one of the few things I enjoy.

I wish I had some cheesecake. I would eat half a cheesecake and give you one piece. Maybe two if you really want it.

Hi Brian
Saw your facebook photo album of some of your seattle paintings.  Thought I’d send you a picture of Holy Fire in case you’d like to add it.  I still love love love the painting!  People always compliment it when they come over.  I can still stare at it forever.
Hugs,
Anna

I wrote back:

I felt very happy when I was painting it and am very pleased with the composition. Now I am making some more complex things which interest me too… but the balance in Holy Fire is really what I like the most. There are many artistic adventures to have… but Holy Fire is what I would want to live with.

I made a promise some years back to those who bought my art that I would keep painting.  I would continue to produce and develop my vision…. improving the value of the work they purchased as well.  Though mostly people buy my art simply because they enjoy it, I would like to make sure that their art investment grows over time.  I have not forgotten that promise to my clients and friends…. but I have not been painting enough to fulfill me or the promise.

The three years I lived alone here in the forest were hard…. I did not paint much… The other worlds were far away…    I still kept thinking and have sketchbooks with new designs. Recently as I have been painting I am finding that I can do some things which were difficult for me compositionally. Combining blobular with relation and symbol.

I have built the nice space to live in, I have food and cutie muses…  time to paint.

So painting is good. More painting. I have a backlog of thought. I will try to write about it, but I find it difficult to write about what I am doing compositionally.  Hmmm…. We shall see.

We have been eating mushooms a lot. There are 4+ good kinds to eat here, though the favorite is oreja de raton since it is easier to clean than the trompas. I tried drying them and that works very well. I should be able to serve mushrooms all year round after I collect enough in the next rainy season.
I need to figure out what level of collection I can do without damaging reproduction.

Great news! My huge stone cistern is finally full! 67,000 liters of water. All the other water storage things are full too.
So for a couple weeks I have all the water I want. As the rains taper off, then we will have to go back into conservation mode. This year I will have 5 times more water than last year, though I will have more guests too.
I still need to build the sauna and more composting toilets.

The face totem pole is nearly done. Now we will have to figure out how to move it to a dryer place, seal it, paint it, build a base, and lift it in.Hmmm…

I had beer with locals in the tiny town several times which was enjoyable.

The dogs are mostly all ok.
Dizzy has some kinda tumor in her tits. The vet says to keep an eye on it and use a cream.
Goldie has been slowing down more and more over time. I was confused by it. She acts sad. So I took her in and the vet diagnosed that she is over 12 years old! The people who gave her to me said she was 3 or 4. The new heart medicine we put her on is having immediate positive effect.
It looks like I may give Hippie and Sebastian to some nice local guys. I will wait until after I can get them fixed.
A little more focus on dog training is improving dog behavior.

A wwoofer and I mapped the community center in Eronga. I gotta figure out some things to do there, though it is nearly impossible since I never go to town ecept to get the things I need to survive here.

A bunch of the adobes we made got rained on. Arg! What a waste.

Many more things going on, but I am too busy to write much.

More pics here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianfey