The cemetery stones tell much of the story. On the hill above the landside of the mesa, they begin at the eastern edge with the oldest graves: an Irish family, the founder dying in 1805 and the last dying two generations later in 1873. Their lives drift by as you wander towards the seaside, ending above the street with the most recent tombstone: 2004.
There are stories in the vacant patches of land between the stones. Over a hundred years has not filled this couple of acres. Mendocino is one of those beautiful, highly desirable spots, inhabited by protective spirits who ward off domination from any quarter. The graveyard will never be full. Location is part of it- in the remote north of California, above a jagged coastline, the spirits do not contend here with the combined force of humanity, as they do in Los Angeles. In Mendocino, the sea and wood gods gave up the Pomo to the Spanish, then shipwrecked the Spanish and later the redwood pillagers who founded the town, driving them off. Periods of bankruptcy, what we in the cities might call "blight," were in fact periods of balm and resurgence for the forces here.
Perhaps some element of those forces possessed the Packard family, so that Mrs. Packard, who owned the tip of the mesa, where the redwood mill used to wreak its carnage, refused in the 1980's to sell her land for condominiums. We stayed in her beautiful old house, now the Packard House Bed and Breakfast. Such was the warmth of our hosts that whatever spirits clung to the place were too subtle and satisfied to contact.
That evening, before we walked to a big white tent on the upper slope to hear Vivaldi choral music, Susan and I explored the end of the mesa, Mrs. Packard's gift, and studied the trails that wound down to the south-facing coves. I felt that I'd have better luck encountering any spirits residing near these coves if I went down the next morning at dawn (Susan reserves dawn for sleeping).
I should mention that I don't know if there are such things as spirits. Sometimes it seems I'm hearing from a consciousness I can't see, reminding me of those quantum physicists who wonder if they're detecting an entity that "knows" what they're doing and is messing with the results- it's mostly a glancing and ambiguous experience, and my "belief" is tentative. I think you'd need to be a prophet, engaged in direct conversation with a conscious force or entity you can't see, in order to believe in it. Like many others, I want there to be forces other than human. I get no kick from the "scientific" vision of our species, which is that we are the only super-duper consciousnesses anywhere, surrounded by lesser creatures with tiny, stupid brains, and tinier things that have no brains and mindlessly interact with other senseless things, waiting for us to play with them as our toys, so that we are the only smart things anywhere in the known universe. Sure, keep telling yourself that.
Anyway, when I'm someplace where spirits we chase away seem to have the strength to gather, I want to seek them out and, I don't know, pray or something.
With this in mind, I stole out the front door of the Packard House at 6:00am, and made my way to the cliff stairs Susan and I had inspected the night before. These I now descended to a sandy cove. The high tide at night had kept the curved beach free of visitors and smoothed its surface. Wandering across the sand and marking it, I saw a series of caves, hollowed out over eons by patient waves. "A spirit might be in one of these," I thought, and then wondered if there were such things as malevolent spirits as well as friendly or indifferent ones, as our popular culture and many of the world's religions have it. "Could be," I thought, but I did not sense one. At the southern end of the cove I found a low, narrow cave, about 25 feet long, perfectly straight and tapered at the end, so that you had to crouch more as you proceeded. I entered and within a few moments was at the end, where I sat on the damp sand, facing out. I saw the flat, smooth sand floor, with only my own footprints as blemish. The thick frame was black, centering on a bright, ovalesque picture of a primeval beach, an animated picture...with langorous rolling waves (see footnotes for videos).
Surely there is a spirit here with me, I thought, after sitting for a while. No mortal may inhabit such a place and claim it as his own.
Yet I felt nothing, no presence. I meditated; still nothing. Either I was alone there without any "other," maybe arriving at the interval between nocturnal spirits and the barking dogs of day, or my presence, loud and clangy from 56 years in Los Angeles, was enough to silence or even banish any subtle company. I did not, in short, fall into a meditative state, gazing at the mandala of the oval until time stood still, and seeing beyond it the question that is its own answer. Instead, like the New Age dropout I am, I left after a couple of minutes, scurried up the trail and headed for Moose's Coffee shop, which featured internet access. A relaxed woman in her thirties took my order. "I'll have a tall latte," I said. "Tall?" she asked, puzzled. "Oops," I smiled, "I'm thinking of Starbucks. They call 'small' 'tall;' I don't know why." She laughed, and it seemed we shared a solidarity against the giant Starbucks, in a town that has defeated giants. And yet, I thought as I carried my coffee to a bank of pc's, I had fled the cave. Why was I not still there?
Logging on, I gazed at the AOL news. "What is this madness?" I wondered. People expending their lives over ugly, ruined strips of land bedecked with a hocus-pocus of hate, while my cave, the magic place I fled, lay unused. "I can't fight what I am," I thought sadly. I took my coffee outside into the lightening morning and headed to the Packard House in time for breakfast. We spent the rest of the day touring the charming shops, and then, around 2:00, we left. I carry that cave around with me now, in Los Angeles of all places. I gaze at the animated oval at the center of darkness... I feel a presence. It is watching us.
Footnotes:
https://youtu.be/p8N9T4z8PbM
https://youtu.be/k5oQ2iddybQ
https://youtu.be/aHDIhh64aWE
