I am now and always will be. I have been since there was an earth, since land formed on that earth. I will always be that land, at one with the land, a piece of that land, a piece of this earth. I have seen many creatures come and go, live their lives and fight their battles for existence. All these creatures I think of as my children. I have always protected my children and will continue to protect my children. My very existence is for their protection. There is sacredness about me, about my physical being. Some of my children knew that, sensed it, and worshipped me. Others thought of me not. Many did not believe in me. But the time has come for me to reveal what I am, who I am. My children are under attack. For the first time since I began they are in danger of being wiped from the face of my earth. But I can remain silent no longer, I must be heard, I will be heard.

Many of you will not believe what you are about to learn. This cannot be you say. It goes against convention, against reason, against all that you have been taught and led to believe. But I am real, I do exist and I will exist. I am the protective mother, the encourager, the life giver. I am known to the native peoples but that knowledge is fought against by the non believers. I am the spirit of the land, the god of the soil, a god of the earth, one of many. I am the source of many religions and am denied even my existence by many others. But I will prevail, I will survive, it is the others that will perish.

There is sacredness about me, about my spot on this earth. This sacredness has existed since the formation of this earth. This sacredness was given by the great god, the master of us all, the foundation for all the major religions of the earth. But even they deny my existence now. But you will know, you will learn. Over eons of time the creatures dearest to me have changed. At one time I existed only on the bottom of a great sea, and all my children were creatures of that sea. In time the bottom of the sea rose and exposed my flesh, the dirt and soil of this earth, to the light of day. And the creatures that played and lived upon me changed. But always they were my children and I protected them. In time my skin, the crust of the earth, will touch the heavens and my children will fly, eventually to become part of the bottom of the sea again. But that is in the future and I am only concerned with the present.

I am one of many, one of thousands, existing for all time, always to exist. This vast universe is only a glimpse of what you can imagine. What I am about to do has never been done by my kind before. In the process you will learn who I am and why I am. But to tell this story I have had to change, to assume another form. I cannot tell this story alone; I need the help of one of my children. And he is the one that will give the details that I present to him, in the form of dreams, insight and imagination. There will be many that will treat him as just another person with delusions, with unfounded imagination. But you must listen to him; believe him, for his story comes not from him but from me.

There is no moral in what I present here, the moral is to be formed by your own conclusions of what I have to say, to tell. What I present here is just a story, a listing of events about one small piece of this great earth. There is a special place on this planet for my very special children. They are drawn here and live here under my protection. This is their story; ignore it at your own peril.

Many thousands of years ago I called my special children to this area. They answered my call and settled into a life that was easy and unhurried. The hunting was good since the waters, land and sky were plentiful and they lived a peaceful life. There were many tribes of them in the area but the ones closest to me were the group you now call the Ohlone. They lived as one with the land, to the extent they considered the very land, the waters, streams, trees and other plants their friends, giving each a name. They were a very peaceful people and is one of the reasons I called them to me. But it was their treatment of their shamans and spiritual leaders that drew them to me. They considered life changers to be the most holy of all. These are the ones that adopted the skills and habits of the other sex. They were the ones that could blend with either and show how to live in peace. They were given a very special place on this land, a place for them to live and teach. This spot of land soon came to be the most holy of all the lands. Male shamans would stay with the women of the tribe and teach them the way of the men. The women shamans would ride with the men during the hunt and teach the ways of the women. And in so doing they all lived in peace and understood the other. And so it would be for many generations. As time passed this holy place would be a gathering place, a meeting ground for different tribes and members of these tribes to settle their differences. And so it would be until the arrival of the white man.

The white man came and saw and disapproved. He tried to change the ways of the native peoples, tried to discourage what they practiced. He forced upon these gentle people a different religion, a method of belief that was foreign to these hills and valleys. The will and spirit of these native peoples were broken and they died out. But the holiness of this place did not die. It has always drawn the chosen ones because they are called to this place. And so it has become in the modern age. The life changers are again here in great numbers. But they have not been listened to, they have not been believed. And that must end. These gentle people have things to teach all who will listen.

This holy spot of land is now home to the largest collection of shaman and life changers in history. And in their numbers alone they are gathering power. And soon you will begin to listen to them, to heed their call. But before, you must know of their history in this place. There is no written record of the history of the Ohlone, but since the white man came everything has been written down and recorded. And so from these records, these writings, I will show you how these life changers belong in your society, can teach your society. From the time of the death of the last Ohlone, many years would pass with no life changers in the area. But my call was too strong to keep them away. Slowly they would begin to arrive. Just a trickle at first and as the years passed, the word would spread among themselves that this was the place to be, a place of acceptance. And so as the years passed they would gather, live and teach, drawing more and more of their kind. Finally their numbers are sufficient to show their power to the world. And it is now that I have chosen to tell their story.

The very words you read now are not from the author of these words. These are my words, the land spirit, the earth god. I have taken over the thoughts and words of a story teller and will use him to tell the story. He is just a vessel, a carrier of my thoughts. It is his dreams and trance writings that will tell the story. He is driven to write and does not know why, only that he must write. And so he will tell my story for me, collect the facts and thus show you the truth.

The only way to show you the effect of my chosen ones is to tell the story of the city that grew up around the place where these life changers gathered. And to show how they had a hand in the direction of this city, the major events that helped changed and shape its future. These life changers and shaman today are called by another name. In today’s world they are gay and lesbian. And the place they have been called to is today called San Francisco. This is their story, and the story of their city, their role in its past and their direction of its future. This is a story that has never been told, has been suppressed for all these years. But that time is now.

The sky is just beginning to change as I pull into the parking lot of Twin Peaks. It was dawn in San Francisco. This is not something that I normally experience. I work nights and generally do not get up until around ten in the morning. I was wide awake at five in the morning and could not sleep any more. So I thought I would get up and see what the sunrise looked like. This would be a new experience for me. I normally put the city to bed; watch it close down for the night, get quieter and quieter. This would be different. I would see it come to life. It would be a real treat for me, but not something that I would want to do daily. I like to sleep late, like to stay up late.

There were only two cars in the parking lot when I got there. Both cars looked empty, but just as I passed one car, the brake lights came on. Thinking the occupants would want to continue with their privacy, I headed to the far end of the lot and parked.

The first thing I noticed when I got out of the car was the large crow cutting through the early morning air, his call piercing the quiet. For most of the time I was there he kept circling the area. It seemed to be a very large crow, the largest I had ever seen, and as black as coal. He would swoop and soar, his distinctive call breaking the silence, the only other sound the wind. He seemed to be bothered by me standing there, watching. I got the impression he was upset I was intruding on his area. Several times as he flew by, by what seemed to be no more than ten or fifteen feet away, I got the feeling that he was checking me out, twisting his head to get a good look at me. After the fly-by, he would fly to the top branch of the closest tree, a tall and stately pine, and land on the slim branch and give his throaty call. Was he telling me he wanted me to leave, was he calling on others of his kind or what?

It was a cold and windy San Francisco morning. I was bundled up in gloves, stocking cap, sweatshirt and a thickly lined windbreaker and was still cold. In the crisp early morning air, I kept struggling to keep warm, to not get chilled. When the first lone jogger appeared, I was surprised to see that he was wearing only a T-shirt and running shorts. I got colder just watching him, even though I knew that as long as he kept moving, he was probably warmer than I was. It was not long before there were more runners, early morning risers, trying to get the daily exercise in before they headed to the office towers in the distance. What a treat it must be to jog this hill, the very center of The City, with some of the most spectacular views in The City. I watched them come in pairs, sometimes in groups of three or four. And many more single joggers.

They would glide easily up the twisting road to the top, flow effortlessly across the asphalt of the parking lot and then back down, some cutting through paths formed long ago by other joggers. I imagined them getting back home, the blood flowing, the adrenal coursing through their veins. Once home, there would be hot steamy showers, freshly brewed coffee and a hearty breakfast. These were not the people to grab a breakfast bar and head for work. These people would sit down and have a real old fashioned breakfast. They needed something to replenish the fuel they had consumed in the morning mist.

Suddenly I could hear the squeal of tires, the sliding of rubber on the road. The road to the top of Twin Peaks is a true mountain road, lots of twists and turns, switchbacks and a constant rise. And here was someone with a SUV, what the industry calls a sport utility vehicle. I call them UAV, Urban Assault Vehicle. The driver must have thought he had a sports car because he was trying to drive it like one. He would gun it on the short straight section of road, only to have to hit the brakes hard when he came to the tight curves, not even trying to stay in his own lane, crossing back and forth across the double yellow line. The vehicle never did appear in the parking lot and I did not hear the crash and crunch of metal as it went down the other side, so I assume they made it safely down the other side, avoiding the joggers and small wild life that were beginning to appear on the roads.

Finally after what seemed like hours of waiting in the cold wind, the sun began to peak over the horizon. Before it actually could be seen, the sky went through several different colors and hues. The clouds were all grey before the sun. There were light grey clouds, dark grey clouds and several shades between, probably depending on the percentage of moisture in the clouds. In the early morning dim light, they all seemed threatening, looking for the right spot to drop their load of moisture. The sky began to get brighter, the grey changing to pastel. As the light level increased, the color went from grey to deep purple, the purple changing to pink, never missing a shade or hue between the two colors. The pink would soon turn to a golden yellow. Finally the sun edged its way up over the clouds in the distance, the edges of the cloud directly in front of the sun turning to liquid fire, the cloud seemingly alive, the sunlight streaming through something that was just a few minutes ago threatening and grey, now a brilliant yellow, almost alive.

The jet stream may have been carrying all these clouds over the bay area, but there was a thick fog that hung over the tip of Mt Tam. That fog was hiding the mountain top when I got here and it was still there when I left. The clouds had passed over the area, the jet stream forcing them quickly from the northwest to the southeast. But all the time the fog just clung to the peak, never revealing the mountain hidden behind this white veil. I always thought that fog was just a cloud that touched the earth, but this was different. The clouds were all grey and the fog on the mountain was white. Thick, fluffy and white. Not pure white, not hospital white, more like a dirty eggshell white.

For off into the distance of the East Bay hills I could see the string of headlights of autos emerging from the Caldecott tunnel, snaking their way down the hills, the road turning first to the right, then the left, in long gentle arcs. These were the early morning commuters, heading for the towns of the East Bay, The City and toward Silicon Valley. The lights formed a continuous line down the hill and across the Bay Bridge. I wondered what it would be like to have to drive that each and every morning, to put up with the continuous traffic. I looked at the lights, then down at the city streets, practically deserted, with only a few cars as yet moving about. Soon the streets of the Financial District streets would be crowded, the cars jockeying for position, the blare of horns and shouts filling the morning air.

Of all the buildings downtown there seem to be two that are stretching for the sky, both trying to be the tallest, one trying to outdo the other. From where I stood, they both were the same height, neither one winning. One was the huge monolith of the Bank of America building and the other was the tapering tower of the TransAmerica Pyramid. Both buildings of controversy, both hated when they were first built, one of them now a symbol of the skyline of The City. The Bank of America building was one of the first buildings that did not use white or light colors for the outer sheeting. The marble was dark and made the building look overpowering, humbling.

Even the sculpture at the base was dark, very dark. Black marble to be exact. It was a shapeless, formless thing that looked like a rock, and had gotten the unflattering title, not official title, of “The Bankers’ Heart.” The TransAmerica Pyramid was constructed right after the city put a limit on the height of a building. That limit was based on the ratio of the total number of square feet in the building to the size of the lot. TransAmerica got away with the height of this building when they tapered the building into the Pyramid shape. They could conform to the building codes and still have a building that would actually be taller than the Bank of America building. Because it was built on lower ground, from my vantage point, they looked to be the same height.

Off to the left of the financial distract I could barely make out the beautiful Coit Tower. It seemed to be peaking from behind one of the high-rise apartment buildings, looking almost like a child that was playing hide and seek. The tower is at the top of Telegraph hill, built to commemorate the efforts of the fire fighters of The City. The money to build it was from the estate of Lily Hitchcock Coit. Her life was saved by fire fighters when she was just a child. From that day on, she hung out with firemen, drank and smoked with them, even riding or chasing the fire engines to fires. This was at a time when women were not allowed to be fire fighters, were looked down at and scorned if they smoke or drank in public. Just another example of the type of independent thinkers this city has always attracted.

As the daylight increased, the dull grey-green colors of the city were changing. The winter rains encouraged the growth of everything and The City was a healthy green. This began to show through the early morning hours, the fresh morning moisture laden air bathing the dust and dirt from the trees and plants, the vibrant green showing through.

The view from the parking lot of Twin Peaks is almost 360o. If it were not for the other peak of Twin Peaks, it would be. Looking west is the Sunset district of the city, stretching for about three or four miles to the edge of the continent, the Pacific Ocean lapping on the beach. To the northwest is the Golden Gate Bridge, the dull orange towers looking like an Art Deco erector set, connecting two pieces of land reaching toward each other. That narrow inlet is busy with boats and ships all year long. This was the bridge that could not be built, the very symbol of The City.

Just before the sun actually come over the horizon, with the sky beginning to brighten, a news helicopter from one of the local TV stations darted across the sky. It look so tiny and helpless, the sound almost like one of the remote controlled model planes. I looked around to see if there was someone there controlling this toy, this mechanical insect buzzing through the morning sky.

People are so lazy. There are numerous trash cans here and yet they throw their cups and litter off the edge, into the brush. Since this place is visited mostly by tourist, I wonder if they would treat their own home towns this way. I could never understand how someone could carry something in filled with food, yet when they have eaten, when it is lighter and takes up less room, and they do not want to carry it out, they just toss it. And I was not more than thirty feet from a trash can.

It was a very cold night, and windy as well. I was bundled up warmly but I was still cold. The sun had not arrived yet to warm the place, to have its’ rays bath upon you and feel its warmth. The wind was strong and biting, stinging the eyes and the ears, the tips of the fingers.

Night rain had cleared the atmosphere, yielding a crystal clear sky. The rain had not been strong. It was just enough to cleanse the air, to have this crystal clear morning.
As the sun rose above all the clouds, I could feel the warmth from the rays. The joggers were gone, the streets were beginning to fill with cars heading off to the places they needed to go.

The crow had just done another fly-by, closer than all the others. As he flew by, it seemed he did not want somebody like me disturbing his (or her) existence. Besides, I had seen the sunrise. As I turned to walk back to the car, this lone crow gave out a call that drew several other crows. It seems they had won. They buzzed and circled the area, joyous in their victory of driving me from their realm.