Mentor, Teacher, Psychonautic Cartographer, Guide, Friend
David Lee Powell. Is, responsible for my most crucial transformative learning experiences at a critical juncture in my life-path, believing in a smartass know-it-all-for-nothing doper like me just when he was about to 'retire', and recruiting me for his endgame at the ol' geoduck farm - a force of conscience and clarity, rigor and renewal, inspiration and intuition in my daily life, even now i can hear his laugh, see his brow fold up with concern, wonder, and wisdom, and receive his parable-laden advice doled out like the biblical prophet who was too bad-ass & right-on for anyone to record (i tried - transcribing his Huck Finn lecture from tape was like trying to adapt the zohar for the stage) - Is. in the hearts, minds, souls, and bodies of all of us who were blessed to share a smoke or a joke or a poke under the covers of the conventional wisdom to the fire inside...
God, i wish i had made myself face reality and been with you more, in those long painful years, how hard it was for you to live like that - but i saw you live more alive than in your vigorous days which are for me only story, i saw you live so alive that nothing else will ever do, when on the track of the unnamable force that suffers and revels with us, suffusing all flesh with meaning.
Your precious library, david! It lives as you know, not in books but in the souls of your family, friends, and students.
And all who read this, let's set up that institute that he wanted to make, his library and the treasures of humankind laid bare to be ravaged by the One Who is behind all masks,
Behind every mask of human variance there is the light - thank you david, bless you, that you showed me the secret behind words, pain, and hope - in your memory, every moment -
Shall Be Greatened and Hallowed, the Great Name - amen (...)