out past the garden,Howard's Holy Space
The door is a painting project with no end in sight - mystical keyholes, kokopelis, night and day scenes reversed, upside down - fire water, elemental magic.To open fully the door requires shifting some plants, the branches of a flowering tree by the door.
The pebble path extends a narrow strip.
To the right, beyond the immediate foliage is a reclined chair. Covered with thick woven blankets, and topped with a mushroom bandana, a psychedelic perch.
From this vantage point, seated in the corner, witness the quiet majesty of Howard's holy space.
Right is an altar. A bone brazier dominates this wood work table. His friend Jennifer recently gave him some Copal, pine incense from the Central American highlands, detect it faintly lurking under the floral scents.
Pictures of gods and gurus adorn the walls above, spiders have made some their homes. On the table, faded tarot cards lay formerly cast. Boxes and statuettes, a drum, tools of a shamen.
Further on down the table, oil paints and pallette await a painter. Hanging from the rafters, between corn cob christmas lights, are some of Howard's more textured paintings. No more than seven inches across and layered with oils. He says he wipes the cobwebs off of all of them, except one, where he's swirled the cobwebs into an ongoing piece with so much rainbow texture, it might be more sculpture than painting.
Opposite the altar, cactii, both erect and supple, Vishnu dancing between. Solandra, up on a shelf, the Aztecs brewed beer from its leaves.brougminsia: large yellow blossoms hang from vines and branches, they seem to speak - small white tendrils curl out from within their deep recesses.
All the plants in this greenhouse seem to talk, if you are quiet enough to listen. Inevitable, because their presence inspires a certain awe, respect for your elders.
either that, or simply a rich oxygen infusion.
It is truly a mystical spot.
Someday, when I settle down, I will have my own mystical spot, and there will be a lot of plants there with me.
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