Montgomery, Alabama
This gentleman materialized just as I was packing up after a shoot at a college. At the end of our impromptu 2.5 hour conversation, I grabbed my audio recorder and asked if there's any advice he would like to share with the world. This is what he said:
"Don't follow the person speaking. Seek the truth for yourself. If you're looking for a spiritual belief system, like what is God? What is the creator? What is the origin of all things? Find out yourself. I don't see any other way. In the very deepest part of your mind, just very intelligently and quietly seek the creator/ source/ origin, make up your own interpretation in your mind of all reality and try to ask it/ them/ whatever, to reveal itself. To communicate with you. Keep attempting until some sort of intelligent data comes in. Like transmitter > receiver. Source > load. Zero > all numbers going from it. You see what I'm talking about? You keep doing that until you get a revelation or intelligent understanding, and once you get that, no one can take it away. But I would recommend be very careful that you don't go out and tell too many people about it just yet. Because you'll feel pretty refreshed, like you're born all over again. And keep reapplying it until you get better and you'll just find, or at least I did, that somehow I feel like I'm smarter. I'm able to recall things I haven't been able to before. Or certain health issues like allergies or headaches or walking problems are starting to reverse themselves. Gifts are starting, and that's the first contact phase as I call it."
Hobo Hot Springs, California
Met this fella in the parking area of some semi-secret hot springs as he was trying to catch a rabbit that escaped from his truck. After earning his trust, he showed us the way to the slightly-more-secret hot springs where he whipped out this stone weed pipe he carved himself. He was very proud of it. When I showed him these pictures, all he said was "My hair's getting pretty long, huh?"
Wickenburg, Arizona
As we bounced through the desert in his Jeep, Glenn taught me that the Saguaro cactus has to be around 75 years old before it grows its first arm, but the exact age of the plant can only be determined through the "S.W.A.G. Method"...pause... "that stands for Scientific Wild Ass Guess."
Glenn also talked about the jumping cactus, which can use static electricity to shoot its spines at you under perfectly hot and dry conditions. In his almost 80 years of living in Arizona he hasn't actually seen it happen, and a hasty internet search suggested that he was probably talking out of his ass again. Mostly Glenn just drove really fast and made fun of me for wearing a seatbelt.
The Guru of Port Huron
Sometimes you're just hanging out minding your own business and a bum hobbles over and drops a wisdom bomb on you. He didn't even ask me for a dollar or nothin'