"Every time I’ve come here, I feel a pull to the strange and mystical. The way people talk about Sedona and Santa Fe as being vortexes - I don’t know if I believe in all that, but I must say I do feel something in Big Sur. I don’t really think rose quartz and jade have “power.” But for some reason, certain places on this planet attract people. Not people looking to get rich or raise a family, but people looking to commune with energies otherworldly. In 2013, I was cycling from Oregon to Chile. Near the beginning of my trip, I passed through Big Sur. It was then I really felt the layered realities of the place. I was run off the road by RVs from Ohio and thick clots of tourists at every vista and bridge. But the Henry Miller Library, Deetjen’s, the forests and creeks we camped by - all told a different story, the story of a town where real people live. But people deeply informed by place. This isn’t a man-made world, where the affairs of culture and society are on the tongue. It is a place where Big Sur is always being discussed. A rockslide. A fire. A destroyed road. The tourist comes though and gobbles up a view. The local lives in a constant conversation with the land and place and change and the way things were." Excerpt of "Permission to Enter” by @jedidiahjenkins from the new @wildsam Big Sur field guide. (photos by @lumbum_ & @michaelwashh)