It all started way back... such a long, long time back...
Way back in the days when the grass was still green
and the pond was still wet
and the clouds were still clean,
and the song of the Swomee-Swans rang out in space...
one morning, I came to this glorious place.
And I first saw the trees! The Truffula Trees!
The bright-colored tufts of the Truffula Trees!
Twenty years ago, I wrote a play that happened to win a national playwriting contest. The prize was $2500. When you’re 22 years old and you’ve just graduated from college, a check for $2500 feels like you’ve just won a million dollars. Well, maybe not a million dollars, as I actually did just graduate from college and want to at least acknowledge that I had received a four-year liberal arts education that would allow me to discern the difference between $2500 and $1,000,000, but I will still share that having more than $100 in my bank account made me feel like I was just totally flush with cash.
So like any good and responsible recent college graduate, I took the money and headed with my best boy friend for the Promised Land! California. The Grateful Dead were about to embark on their summer tour and it was starting at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. My fortunes were enough, surely, to not only purchase us plane tickets to California, but a rental car while we were there to follow the band and hotel accommodations, too! And I was certain we’d still have enough left over to continue our escapades once we returned to the East Coast from our two-week sojourn West.
(NakedMom, if you’re reading, you might want to stop now. I am saying this because NakedMom likes to think that her daughters are all upstanding citizens of the planet and never participate in illegal activities. If she stops reading now, she can continue to believe this. If she keeps reading, well, I’ll just remind her that I gave her a warning to stop! We all totally know she’s not going to, don’t we. NakedMom never does what she’s told. And she wonders why her daughters are so rebellious?!)
Our journey began at the National Airport in Washington, D.C. We were flying on a direct morning flight from DCA to LAX courtesy of our good friends at United Airlines. Tickets that I purchased at the airport that very morning with cash! This was twenty years ago and security consisted of passing your carry-on bag through the x-ray screening machine right before you actually got on the plane. In my case this meant passing my backpack through. I was grabbing my backpack from the belt just as a very large and jovial African-American woman stopped me and said, “Hold on, honey. I saw something in your bag.” And then she was opening it up and pulling out all my tie-dyes and paisley skirts and digging around and saying, “I know it’s in here somewhere. I saw it. I know I did!”
Then she was holding it. An antique sterling silver pillbox. That my Nana had given me. That on that particular morning just so happened to contain 10 felonious tabs of very potent lysergic acid.
She held it out to me and said, “What’s this?”
“Oh that! It’s a pillbox my Nana gave me. It’s an antique!”
“Well, I just wanted to be sure it wasn’t something we should be concerned about. But since your Nana gave it to you, I’m sure it’s perfectly okay!” And she shoved it back in the bag, grabbed all my clothes and shoved those back in the bag, and sent me on my way.
Disaster and a jail cell narrowly averted, I smiled a huge grin and told her to have a wonderful day and then hopped on the jet plane. California, here we come!
But those trees! Those trees!
Those Truffula Trees!
All my life I´d been searching for trees such as these.
The touch of their tufts was much softer than silk.
And they had the sweet smell of fresh butterfly milk.
I felt a great leaping of joy in my heart.
When we landed at LAX, we had the good fortune to be met by one of my dear friends, Bobby Daly. Bobby had scored us tickets to an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie premiere for that evening and we spent the day before the premiere at his house in Beverly Hills romping around in his pool, having sandwiches delivered by the house cook, our clothes ironed by the maid and living a life that felt exactly as I would imagine folks in Beverly Hills lived. Until that very moment my only reference for a life in Beverly Hills was what I had seen in the movies and on television. This life that Bobby lived? It was exactly like that.
Around 4:00 or so a limousine came and gathered all of us to go to the movie. It was the premiere for Predator. I will never forget walking the red carpet into the theatre with Bobby dressed in my finest hippie attire and being completely oblivious to the fact that I wasn’t dressed appropriately for a Hollywood movie premiere. At all. Not by a long shot. It still makes me giggle now when I see pictures of folks on the red carpet.
We all split after about ten minutes into the party that followed the premiere and headed back to Bobby’s house for more debauchery. The Dead were playing at Ventura the next day, so before we all crashed, we made plans for surfing in Malibu, getting to Ventura, and scoring tickets to the show.
I would be remiss if I didn’t share with you at least some of the details of my first Grateful Dead show in California. Not my first Grateful Dead show, people. I certainly did not wait until 1987 to start amassing my collection of shows. But it did take me that long to ever get myself from the East Coast to the West Coast. So 1987 does mark the date of my first California Dead experience.
After a morning of surfing in Malibu at Bobby’s beach house (because doesn’t everyone in California have a house in Beverly Hills and a beach house in Malibu?), we finally arrived at the Ventura County Fairgrounds around 2:00 p.m. on Friday, June 12, 1987. I remember being just giddy with excitement and when I saw all those freak flags flying in the parking lot, well, I knew that I had come home.
The parking lot at a Grateful Dead show is like no other place on earth. Truly. I have yet to experience anything like it anywhere else. In fact, now that the Grateful Dead is just the Dead, the parking lot scene is not the same at all. But at the height of the Grateful Dead’s popularity, when they were touring all the time, the parking lot was a place where you could score the best drugs, buy the best imported goods from Guatemala or India or Thailand, find the perfect tie-dye, get the coolest sticker for your car, donate to Greenpeace and eat the healthiest vegan food on the planet. All in one place! Not to mention all the hugs you would get. I got more hugs in the parking lots outside of Grateful Dead concerts than I think I have received in the rest of my years as a citizen on this planet. Is it any wonder that I miss it?
Anyway, the parking lot was also where you found your miracle ticket. A miracle ticket is another name for a free ticket to a concert. Long before the Secret ever became a national phenomenon, Deadheads were working the Law of Attraction by asking the Universe for Miracle Tickets and having them magically appear just before Jerry and Bob took the stage and strummed those first tell-tale notes on their guitars.
Among our group of friends, I happened to be an expert at finding Miracle tickets. I don’t exactly know why, but I could put my finger in the air and without even uttering a word, a ticket, two tickets, five tickets would magically appear. In all my years of following that band around the world, I never got shut out of a show. And neither did any of my friends. I also was very good about giving back when I had extras and made sure that I “miracled” the most down and out looking characters in the parking lot whenever I could.
That day in Ventura there were five of us who needed tickets. And since Ventura was actually a run of three shows, there were five of us who needed tickets for three shows. Fifteen tickets. That’s a whole lot of miracles.
Remember, I was new to the California scene. At East Coast venues, I knew that the easiest place to score a Miracle was right next to the Will Call ticket office. Folks would show up, get their tickets, and often they’d have an extra one or two because for whatever reason their friends couldn’t make it to the concert. Those folks would then gladly hand over those tickets to me. Again, I don’t ask why. I just smile and say “Thank you!”
The problem was, there wasn’t really a Will Call office at Ventura. Another problem was that you couldn’t really get into the parking lot without a ticket! The parking lot was obviously going to be the place where the extra tickets would be floating around because folks who had extras would have come and parked their car and then looked to give them away on their way into the show.
I needed to get into the parking lot.
So I did what any college graduate would do. No, I didn’t scale the chain link fence. Duh. I went out to the highway. 101. And as the hippie vans were streaming by, I stood there with my finger in the air. It didn’t take long for one to stop. I jumped in, they handed me a Miracle and I was on my way. I rode with them into the parking lot, showing my ticket to the folks at the gate, and then once in the parking lot continued to wander around with my finger in the air.
Within 45 minutes of my arrival in the lot I had Miracles for all 5 of us for both Friday night and Saturday night. I honestly figured the Sunday afternoon show would be easy, so I wasn’t too worried about that. I also had scored a delicious hummus and veggie sandwich, a very cool sticker, and three bottles of water. All for free. Man, California really was the Promised Land!
The Ventura County Fairgrounds sit right on the ocean and are usually used for things like Country Fairs and bull-riding competitions. I remember being in the “arena” and dancing in the sand and seeing the Dead in front of me and the ocean behind me, hearing their music literally bounce of the waves and thinking to myself that life just does not get any better than this.
During the Saturday night show, the Dead played Terrapin Station, a rare and different tune. While they were playing it, a steam train came roaring across the train tracks that were directly behind the stage. And at the moment in the song when Jerry sings, “And the whistle was screaming” the engine blew its whistle long and loud and hard. That night, after the show, we were all sitting on the beach digesting it and our friend Bob was completely convinced that the Dead had arranged for the train to arrive at exactly that moment.
“Bob, the Dead don’t even come on stage with a set list. They’re not going to be planning a train arrival!”
“Sure they are, Jen. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen them do in a concert!”
“Bob, honestly, I think it was all coincidence. It would be really expensive to hire a steam train to come plowing down the tracks just for one song. Not to mention kind of insane.”
“They’re fucking millionaires, Jen. On drugs. They can do anything!”
Allrighty, then!
I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
And I´m asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs--
he was very upset as he shouted and puffed--
What´s that THING you´ve made out of my Truffula tuft?
We left Ventura on the following Monday morning and slowly drove up the coast. Eventually we found ourselves at UCSC. It was June and the students had just left for the summer. At one point, we walked out onto the Stevenson patio that gives you an unencumbered view of the entire Monterey Bay. It was one of those perfect days in Santa Cruz. No clouds. No fog. I was able to practically see the people playing on the beaches in Carmel.
I gasped and said, “I’m moving here. Now.” I knew, right at that moment, that this was home. As much as London was home. As much as Washington, D.C. was home. That the Monterey Bay had my name and heart stitched upon its shores and that there was no way I could possibly deny its siren song.
But there were more Grateful Dead shows awaiting us. As well as San Francisco and Berkeley and so off we went.
We arrived in San Francisco at the exact moment that KFOG played the Dead’s only Billboard hit, Touch of Grey, on the radio for the very first time. We were driving through the Embarcadero because we had no idea where we were going or how to get to Haight Ashbury, Mecca for all Deadheads, when the song came tinkling over the air waves. We cranked the radio as loud it would go, rolled down the windows, and were yelling to the businessmen on the street that Jerry was singing on the radio!
I’m actually surprised we were not arrested. It's a testament to San Francisco's love them as they come attitude!
We were later cited in Haight Ashbury for skateboarding on the sidewalks. They loved us, we just were knocking over pedestrians! With our citations in hand, we decided it was time to head to Berkeley.
The Grateful Dead was playing for three nights at the Greek Theatre on the UC Berkeley campus. I will tell you right now that for all the places I’ve seen the Dead play, I do think this is one of my most favorite venues. Maybe because it is their backyard, but they just play very well at the Greek. And maybe it is because it is always general admission and everyone is just in permagrin moods, but it’s just so much fun.
Again, we had no tickets. Again it was up to me to manifest the Miracles. This time there wasn’t really a parking lot! The entire city of Berkeley was the parking lot for the Greek so that created a new set of challenges. Where do you stand for your optimal chance?
Hearst Street.
Now that the Dead no longer really does their thing, I can share with all of you that the most optimal place to stand in Berkeley when you’re hoping to score a Miracle is on Hearst Street. Right near the parking garage. But not in the parking garage. I positioned myself between the parking garage and the Greek Theatre. And very quickly I had tickets for all three nights at the Greek for all five of us.
The first night of the Greek, my best boy friend, Greg and I decided to partake in some of the felonious lysergic acid that was hiding out in my Nana’s pillbox. We dosed sometime during the first set and then during the set break sat up on the hill above the stage and watched the sun set over San Francisco Bay and all the city lights put on an amazing show.
The second set gave us another Terrapin Station and one of my most favorite songs, Stella Blue. When the show was over, Greg and I were tripping too hard to possibly return to our hotel room on Durant street and all we really wanted to do was to commune with nature.
We were lying there on the grass on the hill looking up at the stars, watching the trees sway overhead, and I felt like I was truly one with all living beings on earth. Especially with the grass. And the trees. I knew that I was a part of them and that they were a part of me.
Eventually the security guards told us we had to leave the actual venue. We reluctantly did this, but soon found ourselves in this ancient grove of trees not far down the road.
Trees that had obviously been standing there for a lot longer than the university buildings that surrounded them. Trees that offered us sanctuary from the noisy mayhem that is always the aftermath of any Grateful Dead show. Trees that had their own songs to sing and story to tell.
Greg and I scampered up into one of these trees and immediately found ourselves cradled, comforted and soothed. As the din of Shakedown Street seemed to fade away, I became aware that there were other voices that were speaking to me.
At first I was rather certain that there must be some other folks who were in the trees with us. However, I couldn’t discern anyone else. The grove of trees wasn’t that large and it certainly appeared as if we were all alone. I kept asking Greg if he heard these other voices, but he kept telling me it was all in my head.
I may have been tripping, but I can promise you what I heard wasn’t in my head. The trees were talking. They were telling a story! A story about Native Americans who had hunted rabbits and deer and had gathered the oaks’ acorns to eat. The trees were witnesses to the deaths of this gentle tribe with the arrival of the “others”. That’s what the trees called them. The others!
What were more beautiful, though, were the songs that they sang. Trees sing! I had known ever since I was a very small child that plants had feelings because whenever I picked a flower I could hear the plant let out a sigh, or sometimes even an “ouch”. Yes, I know it sounds somewhat bizarre, but it’s true. Until that moment in the trees, though, I had never heard them sing.
I am not sure that I can adequately describe those songs or voices. I suppose if you imagined a symphony comprised entirely of bass instruments you might get the idea. You know, actually, the sound is most like the Gyuto Monks when they are chanting. Perhaps the oak trees chant because they are enlightened? All I know is that I was in reverential silence and believed at that moment that I was in the presence of a divine spirit and love.
At this point, I’m sure there are many of you who are rolling your eyes and going, “Nice acid trip, huh, Nakedjen?”
Well, yes. Certainly. It was truly inspiring and I remember all of it as if it was just yesterday. However, as someone who has done more than her fair share of acid, I want to share that I really do believe I heard those trees talking and singing. Taking acid for me is really about opening connections in my brain and sensory body that for whatever reason remain closed in my day-to-day life. Closed so that I can participate more easily as a citizen of this planet? Not sure. But I do know that opening those doors and connections led me to some quite startling revelations about myself and about this planet.
Those beautiful, old, stately, sacred trees! They sang. They rocked me and held me and touched me in a way I had never been touched. I was safe in those gnarly oaks. I opened my heart and those trees sang me home.
That was long, long ago. But each day since that day
I´ve sat here and worried and worried away.
Through the years, while my buildings
have fallen apart, I´ve worried about it
with all of my heart. But now, says the Once-ler,
Now that you´re here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear.
UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It´s not. SO...
Catch! calls the Once-ler. He lets something fall.
It´s a Truffula Seed. It´s the last one of all!
You´re in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds.
And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.
Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care.
Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back.
When I first heard about all the recent commotion about the Oak Memorial Grove at Berkeley, I must admit that I honestly didn’t make the connection that the trees in question were “my trees”. How could they be? My trees were sacred and special and certainly everyone in Berkeley knew this and no one could possibly be considering doing anything that would harm them.
I knew that there were folks who were sitting in the trees to protect them, that there were other folks who were fighting the good fight, but I still believed that the grove of trees in question must have been on another part of the campus that was a more high-traffic area and where putting a gymnasium made perfect sense.
Then one day I actually saw some video of media coverage about the oak grove in question. My heart sank and my eyes filled with tears. My trees! My trees were at risk of being cut down. The powers that be at UC Berkeley were actually planning to silence their songs.
That simply could not happen. Not on my watch.
DearSweetDave will tell you, if you ask him, that he’s married to a very passionate woman who cares deeply about the planet. When we first met, he was shocked to learn that I would be willing to sit alone in a tree for months or years in order to save a forest. Julia Butterfly Hill had just recently come down from her tree sit in Luna and I told him that I deeply admired her conviction and would do the same thing she had done if necessary.
I was more than tempted to go and sit in my trees. I had Buddha and Stella to consider, however. When I asked those dogs to join me in my life’s adventure, I promised them I would not abandon them. Ever. Sitting in the oak grove trees might take many many months and I couldn’t abandon them for that long. I knew that there were other very loving folks who were sitting in the oak grove to protect it, so I decided I would help in whatever other ways that I could.
Last Saturday that desire to help took shape in the form of a photograph. Jack Gescheidt chose to also contribute to the ongoing battle to save those magnificent trees by creating a beautiful photograph as part of his Tree Spirit project. He was looking for volunteers to participate. It was the very least I could do.
DearSweetDave joined me and I must say that for someone that hasn’t really been involved in political action protests, DearSweetDave has certainly chosen some beautiful projects to join. This was his second protest and I felt so loved that he came with me and chose to be another body for this very important work. And though our participation mainly consisted of just getting naked, it still wasn't easy. It was cold. There was lots of media there. The police were threatening to possibly arrest us. Each and every one of us that day knew in our hearts, however, that we must be a voice for those sacred and majestic trees.
As the sun broke through the clouds and we all lay silent and naked in honor and reverence for those magnificent trees, I opened my heart and my ears and I heard those sacred chanting voices once again.
Thank you, they sang. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
