A Book’s Mind author, Jason Eslamieh, was recently featured in The New York Times. Read Frankincense Fit for a King (One, Anyway) or download the PDF here.

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Congratulations to Jonathan Edward Stevens!
His story The Moon Balloon took home the grand prize Publishing and Web Marketing Package, valued at $3,499.

2nd Prize goes to:
Michael Ireland and Jim Ramphal

3rd Place goes to:

We would like to thank everyone that entered our contest, it was a privilege reading your stories and we had the honor of meeting some great people.

Order your copy of Cultivation of Boswellia directly from Jason Eslamieh.

You can meditate!

Artful Meditation is the skillfully creative and imaginative use of experience and cleverness to quiet and focus the mind! Living life as a creative and enjoyable process of flow, experience and expression is a wonderful way to live. By incorporating an Artful Meditation practice into your life you can outwit that busily thinking and stressed out mind and have the creative, enjoyable and peacefully flowing experience you deserve.

You will experience stillness and peacefulness of mind as you experience this book.You will achieve:

•    A quieter mind that you know you can control.
•    Peace and calm regardless of what’s going on around you.
•    The physical well being that comes when you relieve yourself of stress.
•    You will be meditating before you finish Chapter 1!

Beyond even this, you will open a window to the vast  potential you hold within your mind. Relax into the ease and inspiration of meditation with me!

Get your copy now at: www.abooksmart.com

I was sitting up in the Bay area, taking care of some family business and purchasing a little hot rod pickup from my brother Micheal. Brad Stock and I were planning to meet up a day or two later in Santa Cruz and spend a day or two surfin’ and hanging out. He called me today and ran the idea past me to meet him down towards Santa Barbara. He has an opportunity to work several shifts down in Buellton and he wants to go ride his new surfboard and hang out down along the central coast. My heart is telling me I have to get after this. I figured what the hell, I’ve got the wheels and I can hide out from my employer for a week or so. Let’s go see some of the coast.

Some of my earliest memories in this life that I got to live are of me and my Mom riding in the car and travelling together from San Diego up to our family home in East Palo Alto, California. I have vivid memories of travelling the Old El Camino Real… the route of the Franciscan Friar Father Serra, who built the ideal and the ideals of the famous Mission Trail. Much of that still exists and roughly follows U.S. 101 down through central California. Dad was always gone to the Navy when I was a kid. My brothers had not arrived yet and early on it was always just me and her; me and Mom. She was a capable person who didn’t shrink from the challenges that our life presented. She taught me to live with what I had and to be thankful for the opportunity to do so. She always made everyday fun and found something interesting to do and plenty of life’s mysteries to contemplate. Thanks to her I aint scared to pick up my old guitar and sing a song. She sat me up on her knee and played that boogie woogie piano for me; eight to the bar… Oh yeah.

Monday I wrapped up my business on the peninsula with my little brother Michael. I took possession of my little hot rod GMC pickup and I headed south towards the salad bowl, King City and the Salinas Valley.

I ate tacos and fresh fruit from the stands that are everywhere along the back roads in central California. I filled a large cooler with beer, sodas and fresh fruit. Oranges, grapes, apples, and a double flat of fresh from the field strawberries… too good. I cruised Steinbeck’s haunts and tried to imagine the world as it was then, so very much different and yet, just the same as always. Contemplate that, Mom.

I ended up in a little motel in San Miguel, just north of Paso Robles. In the morning I went to the Mission San Miguel, a very special place in my life, my favorite little Church. I sat in the sanctuary and enjoyed the peace and the quiet in a place; a room where people have worshiped and received divine inspiration and assistance for centuries. I sat for morning prayers with the Franciscan’s and the mass that followed. I am not a Catholic, just a simple Christian, but I always find myself welcome at mass and I always hear a message and find fellowship with other believers.

After services I jumped in the pickup and turned south down the El Camino Real, headed for Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo and beyond. I stopped in Santa Maria for some Carnitas tacos for lunch. Took several side roads through the farm fields and checked in to the San Marcos Motel on the Avenue in Buellton right around supper time. We had planned dinner but Brad got called out. This is what his life is about, being ready to go at a moment’s notice. When he’s working, he is working. All business and dead serious. When he’s playing… same thing: serious. Serious about having fun.

I hung out, took some pictures, and sacked out late to sleep in late in the morning. We went for a quick coffee drink at the local joint and the cute little girl there was putting on some sort of veggie breakfast burrito that was out of this world. Beyond that, I got to meet the most incredible woman, Anwanur. Tall, with sharp features and well put together, the kind of put together that most women can’t really handle, just like a very expensive sports car that you have to know how to operate. You just have to know what to do with this much womanhood, and she knew. She openly displayed not only looks, but real brains too. She had the smarts and the physical capabilities to participate in a nice little sport known as Roller Derby; an interesting little affair whereby some nice girls all ride around a roller rink on pink roller skates and exchange pleasantries. You know, talk about shopping and hair doo’s … Not!

Chrissy Bang Bang was her ‘stage handle’ and alternate persona. Most women can’t come up with even one persona, this woman easily handled two; possibly more, I don’t know. I would have to maybe investigate that further at some other time. Looks, brains and plenty of chutzpah, she had all of that and those eyes; dark, smoldering eyes that catch it all and reveal nothing. Nothing that is until she sends the message, it is simple, ‘Be ready when your turn comes, fool. You may get to ride, or you may just get run over. But either way, you’re gonna enjoy it…’ Oh yeah, she was all of that. If you read this sweetheart; I aint forgot those eyes…

Brad is one of those people in my life that I absolutely cherish. We met at a jam session and cemented a solid friendship on shared pursuits in life. The kind of friend that I might not see for weeks or even months at a time yet the phone rings and we are yakkin’ away about whatever has gone on. I really looked forward to sharing this adventure with him.

We drove down the first night to Santa Barbara to an Open Mic at a coffee house down on Cliff Drive. Brad sang a couple things from his album and we heard some good local people givin’ it a shot. Afterwards we ended up across the street at a nice sushi place and enjoyed some crunch roll and pickled ginger. We talked some about a general plan to find some good surf on Friday and try to be in position to ride it.

Brad was built to be a surfer. He has the slim, quick build that he keeps in tip-top shape with as combination of Yoga, high quality beer, Thai cuisine and any strong tea or coffee. He suffers with some weird genetic predisposition towards monkeys which allows him to crouch ready to stand on a surfboard with his toes curled under like a monkey; his brain often curls up also, but a quick trip to the ‘collective farmacy’ for medicinals and he was quickly normal once again. We also have the video proof of Brad actually spanking some poor monkey. Not his monkey, mind you, but some farmers monkey. “Bad Monkey. Bad Monkey.” I could tell you the story, but we got to get on with it here. Like I said, all the attributes of a real surfer.

What I know about surfing I learned as a lad, a Navy dependent living in Honolulu. My Dad had drawn a duty station there and we were living in Halsey Terrace, CPO family quarters. We would drag our pathetic surfboards down to the beach at Kehii Lagoon, or if we could catch a bus that carried the boards, out the big open water breakers at Barbers Point. If you have ever been to Barbers Point, you know that this is sarcasm. The place has the most benign surf. But, it was an excellent place to learn how to get on and get off anyhow. In spite of not looking like a likely surfer, I did learn to catch the waves and how to fall gracefully into the white water and not drown. Thankfully, I was always very buoyant, that is I could always float. There is also a special feeling of simply surrendering to the swell and letting the wave have its way with you, for long moments you feel like the tiny piece of cosmic dust that you really are, and it’s okay. It’s alright to surrender to motion of the ocean, hold your breath and wait for the world to appear again once the swell is through with you.

At any rate, those experiences from forty some odd years ago gave me the instinct to shoot some killer surf pictures from atop the rocks in front of the old lighthouse at the end of Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz. There was an incredible local scene going on there. There usually is at any of the local beaches. This looked to be friendly yet highly competitive as good surfing must be. Just like the roller girls, they aint there to trade recipes, they’re here to ride!

I was struck by the individual personalities that they represented in their individual riding styles. I was sure that I could predict their personalities judging by their surfing styles. I was also struck by a protocol that was operating, for the most part everyone was polite and careful to give everyone a chance to catch a wave and ride. This is not always the case at some ‘Local’ beaches. Sometimes the locals can be anywhere from discourteous to downright vicious. Today everyone seemed to get along and even enjoy the company. There were several young ladies riding and they were all good, always a pleasure to watch. I got several nice shots of them. There were several obvious pro caliber riders who consistently caught and rode the best waves. Everyone recognized their abilities and gave them the right of way. There was an older gentleman, easily my age, and that is old. He was in killer shape and he consistently rode every good wave and I got some great shots of him. I took several dozen great shots of Brad on his new surfboard. He managed about a half a dozen rides during about three hours in the water.

We ended this day with a killer Thai dinner down on the beach in Capitola. The following morning, Saturday morning, we were up and after it. We left Watsonville at dawn and headed up the coast. It was a perfect ocean day along the beaches where the morning fog layer had surrendered to mean old Mr. Sun. We had crab cocktails and chowder at Ketch Johannes in Half Moon Bay and continued north. We had to stop in San Francisco and put Brads’ board away safe at a friend’s house in the Sunset. Then, off to Salt Lake City. We both had pressing business there and we set about motivating in that direction. We ran out across central California through the big valley and up the Tioga pass road and took the cut-off to Sonora.

We had begun this day on the coast at Watsonville and now we were ninety-six hundred feet up on top of one of the highest passes that cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We watched the last rays of a fantastic sunset from the tree line, ‘High Lonesome’ as the old mountain men would say. The Sonora Pass is laid on top of an old wagon road, more than a hundred years ago those old timers stood right here, next to their mules, watching the light fading to black night with a sky full of stars and one quarter of a waxing moon. Just doesn’t get any better… Contemplate that, Mom.

David Clark is available for freelance writing. To contact David, email: tedwhiskey51@yahoo.com

David’s debut book, Someone For Me To Love, is coming soon.