He drove. The road was lined with fireworks stands, put together with plywood and scrap lumber, with hinged wooden shut-downs over counters packed high with brightly wrapped pyrotechnics from China. Hand lettered signs identified each stand. They seemed to be family enterprises. We later learned that the teen-aged son of each family was obliged to sleep in the shuttered stand with a .357 magnum tucked under his pillow to protect the investment from vandals and thieves. According to law, the fireworks purchased on the reservation must be set off on the reservation, but of course mainlanders came over and filled up their trunks, turning their own quiet neighborhoods into war zones, terrifying the family pets and invariably blowing off some of the little digits of their own children. Don't get me started on fireworks. More distractions for the dumb. Fireworks have killed and maimed more people than marijuana, which to date hovers around zero, but one is legal and encouraged, the other one can get you hard time. Don't get me started.

There is no new consciousness born, and no consciousness is ever destroyed. All consciousness resurfaces somehow. That's why we continue to go from life to life, all of us, the same beings, from the limitless beginning of time... every sentient being has been your mother." Rimpoche Nawang Gehlek