a little bit of heaven

Last night I dreamt of an earthquake. Being a Californian, I’ve been thru many earthquakes and feel a strange familiarity with them. Every time the earth shakes, I have this “oh, there you are!” kind of feeling, combined with the anxious curiosity of how long and how hard the movement is going to be, or if it’s a jolt, if it will be followed by one much stronger. In my dream, the earthquake was the big one, coming not in one jolt, like some, but a long rolling that increased in intensity. I was at home, and although everything was topsy turvy, the house survived. The rest of the dream focused on discovering that my carriage house had been housing all the stuff from the booth I’ve been involved with for over two decades that makes eggrolls at one of the oldest alternative festivals/fairs in the nation, The Oregon Country Fair.

Our city was without electricity or running water, and there was rubble all around. I found myself with my neighbors and some of my friends who’ve been part of the eggroll booth, setting up the booth in my own home, realizing that I had everything I needed to serve eggrolls right in my own backyard. The amazing part of the dream was that this seemed to be happening on every block, people having coleman stoves and big tanks of water stored, all ready to go. Cell space, a community art space a few blocks from my house, had the same feel as the big action center in Seattle that was created during the WTO demonstration. Big information boards were put up there, and trainings were happening in everything from first aid to gardening. Being a dream, it made perfect sense that my favorite hotel in Memphis, the Peabody, was open on my block and Elvis himself was passing out mint juleps.

Years ago at Woodstock, Wavy Gravy pronounced “There’s always a little bit of heaven in a disaster zone”. This week is Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I know that as time goes on, more and more stories will emerge from the mighty disaster of Katrina of people helping each other, of kindness and compassion in the midst of chaos. One of the things that may have seeded last night’s dream was reading an article on Burners Without Borders, a movement that’s rising out of the Burning Man community. Every year at Burning Man, a city gets built up in week out on a barren playa in the desert. Like the Oregon Country Fair, those who participate get skilled in setting up camp and providing for themselves outside and off the grid of the overculture. Who better to help out the Mississipi Coast than those who’ve built a city on the desert out of nothing, and then dismantle it and leave the playa as it was! Burners Without Borders are setting up kitchens and camps which are helping the clean-up and restoration of the coast, and the article told of many who went for a week and have now been there months, adding their particular spice to the mix of the South.. It turns out being able to create a great party without benefit of electricity comes in handy in a disaster area. Many San Franciscans are avid "burners", all with closets or garages full of supplies for the annual event. My dream tells me there may be some method to the madness, that nothing could prepare our city more for a disaster than to fill it with people who's camping supplies are stored along with plenty of glitter, wigs and costumes.

I woke this morning and thought about my dream, and felt a newfound gratitude for my years at the eggroll booth, for the experience of putting up and taking down a village that sustains itself in high style, if only for a few days. My neighborhood has been organizing itself to be prepared for disaster, getting together and discussing what supplies we need and forming loose plans of how we’ll care for each other. We haven’t met in few months. This dream calls for another meeting. When Elvis shows up in my dreams, I pay attention.