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I went up to Lake Eyre with Hiedi in her car before
the Gobblyn Bus actually left the Alberrie Creek camp, having
not seen it yet. There had not been any rain yet this
year and the entire area was in its usual state of a
huge dry salt pan. Driving across from camp in the
night, we got bogged and had to leave the car near the
road. We began to walk to the salt pans but being
tired and not knowing how far it was by foot we soon
returned to the car. However later that night I felt compelled to walk off and see it, and set off alone in the cold night air under the stars with a small doona drawn around my shoulders. I wasn't even sure which was the right path to take once they started to diverge, and after an hour or so gave up on finding the lake that night and began to head back. However the moon had now set and I soon realized I was rather lost. The landscape was totally flat and bereft of landmarks and in the dark I couldn't tell the difference between proper roads and where people had just driven their four-wheel-drives across the marsh, leaving tyretracks. I cursed myself for not having taken note of the positions of the s constellations when I left. The great arched body of Nuit spread overhead, and there was a faint glow on the horizon where Her toetips seemed to touch the land. Thinking this was the glow where the moon had set, I orientated myself on that for a while, walking away from it. I wasn't that worried for the first few hours, relishing the spectacular clear spread of stars above and the open space to chant and sing and discover strange new vocal frequencies. After a few hours I realized it couldn't still be moonglow on the horizon and, presuming it to be just another luminous distant star cluster, ignored the patch. Then I saw a bright orange light just above the horizon in the opposite direction and thought that must be the camp across the road, and headed that way. After quite some time I realized the bright orange light was getting gradually higher in the sky, and shifting to a glowing white -it was actually Venus rising! -some of the planets from out here shine so brilliantly that they look mighty close. Realizing I was now thoroughly lost, I wandered around for another hour or so until I felt too chilled and exhausted to continue. I knew it would be much easier to find the car in the daylight, so I made a pillow of sand and curled up in my little doona to a short cold half-sleep. Sure enough as soon as the sun rose I walked a bit and saw the car. I could also see the camp across the road -right where the glow at Nuit's toetips had been! I actually felt charged from my night wanderings on such intense land, although a bit tired simultaneously, so we went and checked out the lake in the day. It was beautiful, a vast plain of white salt glowing in the sun, cracking here and there into branching patterns of crystalline ridges. Anklehigh shrubs encrusted with large cubical salt crystals sprouted from the edges of the vast vista of whiteness, and fossilized grasshoppers and dragonflies abounded. Returning to the lake with everyone on the bus a few days later, we did some surreal black and white photographs there (as yet undeveloped -Puck?) and found a fossilized bearded dragon. We only spent one night at the Lake Eyre camp, raging winds encouraging us to move on. We took the photos at the lake the next day, then I meditated there while massive dark clouds gathered above, the first white flash of forked lightning above echoing the branching cracks in the salt pan. We set off flags flying from atop the bus in the mighty wind, hoping to beat the rain but had only progressed about 20 minutes down the dirt road when it erupted. Within minutes the thick layer of fine dust on the Oodnadatta track had turned to slush and our great Ship of Fools slid off the road diagonally into a muddy trench beside it. Attempts to get out only embedded us further. It looked like we were stuck there. Soon a fourwheel-drive pulled up beside us and offered to tow us out. We didn't think they could but gave it a go and there was a resounding cheer of relief when the huge old bus lurched and skidded back onto the road. But five minutes down the road we were entrenched again, and the rain was coming in heavy. We weren't going anywhere that night, niether forth nor back, and for who knew how long. I had been redrawing the Blasted Tower (sudden drastic change/upheaval/catastrophe) card for my Book of ChAos Tarot deck. So far it had only related to my own personal trip within my own psyche, shards of my ego falling away as expectations and relationships fragmented into unexpected twists and turns. But now the group situation seemed to reflect this turmoil. The 'Desert of Set' is a great place for dramatic adjustment of the persona.  Photo (c)01 Bonsai. As we sat around in the Gobblyn Bus, amidst all the weird dangling paraphernalia of our travelling circus of chaos, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled from a roiling black sky. The rain was continuous and there was no chance of setting up any tarps or tents with the sixteen-inch layer of slush the ground had become. We were stuck with each other for the duration of the freak storm, seven strange souls stranded together in a poky space. Even when the rain stopped it would be at least a couple of nights before the road would be fit for travel again. Supplies were low -not much food, coffee, tobacco and pot left. People began to face the possibility of dealing with major withdrawals in a clustered space. Not having any real addictions myself, and being quite comfortable with the idea of a short fast, the prospect of having to deal with everyone around me spinning out in the bus was still almost as daunting! As people began to progressively deteriorate into neuroses around me, I was very thankful I didn't smoke tobacco. The experience consolidated that the minor ganja habit I had been verging on was something I should stop before it went any further. It was not long after stopping that people's minds were already starting to crack around the edges at the possibilities of being stuck for weeks with dwindling supplies. Some of us began to discuss who would make the best meal. However such twisted humour was soon backgrounded by the spectacle of the lightning storm which intensified around us as night fell. None of us had ever seen anything like it; huge flashes and sheets of white light crackling towards the land from turbulent black masses of cloud cover. What was significantly different about it from other big storms I have experienced was the continuousness of the lightning, every few minutes for hours, and its vast scope of area -it would flash progressively all around us in 360-degree arcs -the Lightning Gods had us surrounded! I heard later how much the Aboriginals associated serpent dreaming with rain, and remembered the wish circle when we took the rainbow serpent down to the creekbed at the end of our wish circle at Alberrie Creek (see Part I). Well our wishes would certainly be flowing along them quite well now! After a late night of fevered speculations on the bus, one by one we each fell into a crowded fitful sleep. The next morning it was still raining, but began to clear towards midday. Short wanders through the mud revealed that the road was blocked by steadily rising creeks on either side; and it looked like perhaps more rain again that night, inwhich case we could be stuck for a week or so.  It felt quite wonderful outside when the rain had stopped; the dry desert land felt incredibly refreshed and replenished, consolidating what Kestral and I had discussed the night before -that it would be unethical to do magick or even wish for the rain to stop out here, no matter how difficult it might things for our little crew. Frogs croaked in the flowing creeks that had been dry for probably a good eight or nine months. It is amazing -apparently the frogs here go into some kind of suspended hibernation, a temporary dehydrated death then come back to life with the next rain perhaps a whole year later! 2 4wds were bogged next to us, a couple of straight doctors and their families. We set up a little camp in the road with them, a fire against the cold winds. They were kind enough to offer some cigarettes and a bit of food to some of us. It didn't actually get that bad in terms of withdrawals from anything -rations and spacing out of things rather than actually running out- but the more addicted of us were dealing with their fears of more than actuality of fullfledged fasting. The lack of personal space of course intensified it all. By the time we had all pretty much surrendered to the worst possible scenarios, accepting and even grateful for the chance of cleansing without temptations available, we were able to move on! For that second night bogged in the road the clouds seemed to be clearing again, and the moon which was at its peak that day peered out from their fuzzy edges. The energy of fresh hope was high with the bright moon, as we sat around the fire huddled against the blasting cold of the wind. Jaf decided it would be a good time to try some DMT (an extremely intense psychedelic which lasts about ten minutes), so he and I went off up a small hill enwrapped in doonas. Making a little shelter against the wind for the rather intricate procedure of smoking it correctly, I prepared his exit from this reality. He got a good hit and came back exasperated and speechless for quite some time, having been engulfed in flames and scattered into infinity in a conflagration of copper springs and coils popping and winding into a serpentine lemniscate of everything eating everything else in eternal expansive spirals and loops. He was quite relieved to return to his individual self and identity, his first words upon return being, 'I was not...'
  Just before driving into the little
pub-and-a-shop-of-a-town we were surprised by a
surreal sight out the window of the bus -an old
leafless acacia tree hung with a dozen or so big grey
feral cats, swaying in the wind.
 When we arrived at Williams Creek there was a flurry for the bus door. Everyone charged into the shop just before closing time for food and drink. We discovered that the road to Coober Pedy was closed til the graders went through and fixed the storm damage, so we would be there for a few days -but there were plenty of supplies available here at least! Unfortunately for one of our number the availability of everything turned out to be more of a problem than our drought of supplies had. He hit the pub upon arrival and swung to the other extreme after our involuntary fasting. Someone who is on the edge anyway, he drank way too much and cracked. He started babbling nonsense and eventually punched another bus-traveller in the head with no apparent provocation. Several people immediately jumped in and pulled him away, giving him his belongings and telling him to go away and think about what he'd just done. Once he was off we all sat around in a huddle of confusion around the bus, wondering what to do about the situation. It was obvious that the culprit was not in his usual state but although several of us have a lot of love for him it was also obvious that he couldn't continue to travel with us if so unpredictable. The next morning the locals (a population of about twelve!), who heard about it all pretty quickly, didn't want him left there either. While one of them suggested we tie him to the roofrack and drop him off in the desert somewhere, we ended up letting him get a ride only to the next town, Coober Pedy -to catch public transport from there to wherever... He purported to remember nothing of the incident the next day, but we couldn't excuse his violence on these grounds. It was a sad situation; Hopefully he now knows not to drink excessively considering his erratic nature.
   At Williams Creek there was some amazing old machinery in the square between the pub and the shop, old industrial engines and strange devices in the middle of nowhere, and even a used rocket ship! The HarleQuintet all dressed up for some super-8 footage and camera stills with these contraptions as potential material for the developing magickal-musickal device known as the Choronzon Machine. There are some wonderful images so far...    We left after the second night at Williams Creek, driving straight through to the opal-mining town of Coober Pedy. Arriving around dusk, we were surprised and delighted to find the Earthdream party there had been organized and advertised for that night. Too bad we didn't have time to set up anything ourselves to perform, but we thought we would have missed it altogether with all the delays. It was an interesting night, although I was a bit travelweary to fully appreciate it. Earthdreamers and locals (black and white) mingled in friendly communion around campfires and on the dusty danceground at a site on aboriginal land (with their permission) about 11km from town. At about 3am several people noticed a large aureole (ring of light) around the moon. This had been seen around the moon at Alberrie Creek for a few nights before the storm kicked in. Sure enough, a few hours after dawn a fierce cold wind came through, followed shortly thereafter by a downpour of rain which continued incessantly over the next three days. Everyone packed and got out of the (lowland) area before the mud etc. got too formidable. Earthdream became scattered for the next few weeks over various dwellings and parking areas around and in town, congregrating here and there in cafes and pubs.
 Personally, I was glad to have a wonderful place to stay for a few nights. I had met up with an old friend -Jeremy- at the party and discovered he had been living in Coober Pedy for the last year or so. So I got to see another side of the town from last year. His place was only 5km from the little town, but quite isolated. He lived out the back of 'Crocodile Harry's' (photo above), a home-come-tourist-attraction with a stream of Australian and European visitors. Harry is a 76 year old living icon, a German who spent much of his youth killing giant crocodiles (one photo showed him with one that's head alone was longer than his body!) with axes for a living in the Northern Territory. The outback archetype of 'Crocodile Dundee' is apparently based loosely on people like him.  Harry has mined opals and lived on the edge of Coober Pedy for 26 years and his hand-dug-out home in a hillside is an amazing museum of strange assorted treasures and sculptures. A reknowned alcoholic womanizer, he has collected the signatures and painted graffiti of thousands of 'virgins' (don't ask how he proves this!) on his cave walls and roof. Whenever he runs out of room he digs another cave off from the existing complex. The front of Harry's is to me the most striking: rusty old junk sculptures everywhere that rattle and clank in the wind, creepers and giant cactuses growing over the cliff-face and out of old dirt-filled car bodies... A veritable desert oasis of recycling. Parts of 'Mad Max III' and other movies were made there.
  Jeremy lives in one of Harry's old caves (above) while developing his own across the road. It is wonderful sleeping in pitch blackness. Jeremy gets around on an incredible contraption he has devised for desert conditions and pollution avoidance - an intricate three-wheel low-to-the-ground machine with a sail (does up to 40/50km on a good windy day) and pedals, with room on the back for his son Moss.  A week or so in Coober Pedy was enough, then on up to Alice Springs for the big solstice Earthdream gathering there. As it was on a cancer new moon and a solar eclipse (visible in Africa), I wasn't sure how conducive the energy would be for a party, but it turned out wonderfully, if challenging...  Above photo (c)01 Bonsai. All other photos except as noted and text (c)01 Orryelle. ON to Orryelle's Illustrated EARTHDREAM '01 JOURNALS PART III -WINTER SOLSTICE SOLAR ECLIPSE NEW MOON WORLD HEALING DAY -ALICE SPRINGS BACK to Orryelle's Illustrated EARTHDREAM '01 JOURNALS PART I |
