How I Came to Live in a Hut - Neil Levy, Issue 6

HOW I CAME TO LIVE IN A HUT


IT'S FUCKING COLD IN HERE. I better go chop some wood and carry water. Sometimes living way out in the boondocks is a hassle. I got to walk a quarter mile through foot high snow and down the slippery hill to the spring. Then I have to chop a hole in the thick slab of ice and scoop up two gallons of water filling these here buckets. Takes over and hour. Then back up the slippery slope, I'll probably fall to my knees at least once. I'm, pretty good though since I recently bought super deluxe snowshoes. Then the quarter mile back, passing some incredibly ancient trees. When its warmer out I sometimes sit down and meditate beneath these friends of mine. They are so strong and peaceful. Today though I will hurry this water in the house and then go split some logs. Heat the hut the old fashioned way. I'm an expert on lighting lingering and warm fires. It's a skill I've developed over the last three years I've shacked up in this here hut. Yep, three long years. And here I am still here chopping wood and carrying water. Like the old wind mill in the valley brought over piece by piece from Ireland in the 1880's. It just keeps on turning. Sometimes with a slow almost imperceptible rotation. At other times when the season of the high winds arrive the arms spin so rapidly that it looks as if its solid. Getting used to the pitch dark out in the wilderness was extremely trying for me. Oh, for about the first three months I hardly slept a wink all night. I was jumpy. I had the sense that I wasn't alone. That there were crazy people wondering through the hills and valleys. A murderer limping, dragging an axe along the dirt road to my house. Homicidal maniacs dancing around my hut. I'd hear a noise and pull the covers over my head and remain motionless till the next episode., Let me tell you there are many such noises that come out during the dark phase. You know people, mostly men, who are aggressive and violet are another bread altogether. I met some of these specimens while in prison. Oh man, that's a whole other story.

Anyway these guys are freaky. Often they've got screwed up teeth and a smile that sends shivers down my spine.They have this look, maniacal is the only way to describe it but you get this sense that they are not held back and that they can, like a wolf, just attack you if it so strikes them and just for the fun of it. The ones that went so far beyond their boundaries and snuffed another life out gives me the sense that I'm on a cliff just at the point of falling for these seretonin deficient individuals have no sense of boundaries.

Boundaries. I'm losing my sense of boundaries. It's been happening slowly over the years and is one of the main reasons I moved way out here, away from the rabble. The rabble, oh what a waste! There is some bitterness in my voice, its true. But, alas, it has become part of my experience. I am what I is. Got some cool, clear, fresh water. Cold water on a frigid day homeopathically warms me. I still hear those pipes, gliding their sweet melodies through the air. I used to play the Uilleann pipes. I miss those days. Out here in the thick of it I carved a few crude instruments. They play pretty good but there was nothing like those pipes and all those beautiful lasses that thar danced for me. I was in bliss, in heaven, I danced, composed music,and choreographed my pieces for all the world to see. I was the man. The Lord of the Dance. And then like the great Nijinsky my mind collapsed.....< like a house of cards.

When I was a wee lad I used to spend hours constructing all kinds of architectural wonders with decks of playing cards. I even won a number of art contests and it got me scholarships to architectural school. I learned the secret of balance and form in those days; guided by a kind of intuition and focus. I knew that these structures, so beautiful and grand, were extremely unstable. Often during the new and full moons I hear the fullness of the pipes filling my soul. I don the leopard costume I wore at my last performance and dance throughout the night, giddy with joy .

Oh Salome.....Dionysus, pan, the satyrs, old Bacchus arrive.....No longer do I think of marketing it,of yakking about, concerned what the rabble think or feel toward it. It is liberating out here in the world of HUT! Oh, when I had the narcissus sickness life was so constricting; I felt as if a cobra were choking me. Now don't get me wrong I had my share of fun. And it is vital that I had those wild experiences. So I also feel deep gratitude for the rabble. I am part of the rabble for you.. Hidden away here for three years is the culmination of "all of it." Sometimes tears fall down my at the intense feelings I have for your world. You are out there interacting with the populace. What a wide variety of human beings and their life conditions. Tomorrow I am going to bake the weeks bread. Lots of kneading. When I was back in LA,having immigrated from Ireland, to pursue my dreams, or should I say my illusions, I was amazed to see a TV show on Life's meaning or some such thing and all throughout the show were these corny references to baking bread and now I baked bread and find it spiritualizing. I often let my conscious mind hang in a rocking chair most of the time. I've trained it and given it its freedom to lounge around. A permanent vacation. When I compose it comes forth to some degree but I keep the door wide open. I'm not perfect, not by any means a serene hermit sage. Not in a long shot. But, hey, who wants to be a sage? I'm not interested in money anymore. Just enough to last till the breathing stops. Spare change is all I need. Got any? IT'S FUCKING COLD OUT HERE IN THIS HUT OF

MINE!!!!!!

—Neil Levy, Minneapolis