We were driving along some highway, that could have been back in Michigan, but I couldn’t tell. My Dad was driving and he was passing a joint to my mom sitting next to him. I was in the back seat with my sister Sharon. I was waiting for them to pass the joint back to me, when the car stopped at a souvenir stand in a grassy clearing surrounded by very tall trees. We all got out with much difficulty as if we lost our basic motor control for movement for a period and then everything was normal again and we went into the store. There was a blind cowboy, with sun glasses on behind the cash register. Sitting on a chair behind him, was a blind Indian woman also wearing sun glasses.
“Can I help you?” The blind cowboy asked.
Before I could respond, Larger started asking him something. I realized that my family was gone and in their place were Coatmire, Van Bueran and Larger. The store was different too. It was brighter than it had been and I noticed beads and crystals everywhere. Then the squaw got up and walked out onto the floor, as if she could see, and took a string of beads off a rack and gave them to Farrer.
“These will protect you from evil.” She said.
After Farrer paid for the beads, we headed out the door, and stopped at a coke machine. It was a dime for a 7 ounce bottle, so we decided to wait until we found someplace cheaper. A GTO came speeding by and threw a brick at our car, which hit the grill and exploded the engine. It was my parents 1957 black & white Plymouth with the fins. Just as I was starting to feel depressed about it Van Bueran was holding a bazooka and Larger inserted a rocket in the back.
Van Bueran pulled the trigger and the rocket took off directly for the speeding 1964 black GTO. When it hit and exploded, the car exploded and the driver was thrown onto the pavement. He was burned almost beyond recognition and was gasping as I looked down on him. It was Mr. Carnute my High school attendance director and discipline officer. I wanted to spit on him, but something inside me urged me to offer him something cool to drink.
I said that we had to go back to the coke machine to get something to drink, but by that time Farrer beat Mr. Carnute’s head in with a tire iron and drenched him with some flammable liquid that he lit. Mr Carnute was burned beyond recognition as he burned with an intensity that prevented anyone from getting closer than 10 feet. Then I realized that I had undergone a transfiguration as I started to glow and floated into the air. Sounds were droning around me, as I opened my eyes and saw that it was 0540 hrs.
I got out of bed and felt dizzy and wanted to cry. I think that my head injury was still affecting me or maybe it was the result of all the mind expanding drugs. After reveille I didn’t feel too bad, but still felt a little strange. Instead of going to breakfast I lay back down on my bunk and slept until Don Williams woke me up to buff the hallway at 0720 hrs.
When I opened the R&U closet, I saw that someone knocked over a can of black paint and the floor and everything on it was covered with paint. I spent the rest of the morning scrapping paint off the floor and got a little paint on myself, but at least I finished. This morning there was Commanders call so everyone was running around cleaning up, like usual, but they left me alone to clean the paint. I told the BC that I wanted to make an appointment to see the Chaplain.
My shoulders are aching from that 1 1/4 ton I drove yesterday, along with my new workout. I fucked up the supply request form for paint and insulation by putting the carbon paper in backwards, so now I have to redo it. Now I feel stupid for asking about the appointment with the Chaplain. I think that my mind is undergoing a change, and I’m not sure if the head injury caused it, all the drugs, the new ideas or growing up. Whatever it is, I’ve got to figure it out before I ETS.
The weather is warming up again, and is in the mid 80’s today. After chow I listened to Paul Harvey in the bay, while I worked on a psychedelic drawing of a vision that I saw on the Sandoz trip. After the afternoon formation, Top wanted me to hang a clock in the conference room, and Herbert overheard him. He said that it was easiest to use cammo wire, and when I got some he hung the clock. Then Top told him to do two others and showed him where to put them.
I wasn’t able to replace the air cooler insulation when it was raining the other day, but since it’s dry again, I went to the Block house and did them all. After work Rublay and I went to the swimming pool. We did laps for about half an hour, and then sat in the sauna, until we were drenched.
We stopped at the barracks, and Howard came with us, to go to the show. We stopped at McDonald’s to get something to eat, and then headed into town to the Bijou, where “The Devil’s Brigade” was playing. The movie was entertaining, but it was on the same line as the “Dirty Dozen”. We got out a little after 2100 hrs. and went to Walt’s Newsstand for a while. I bought a Hippie magazine called “Paper Bag.” Afterwards we went to the USO to shoot some pool, where we ran into John Farmer.
John Farmer, is another chaplains assistant, assigned to 3rd Group, but since he’s been an E5 since I arrived, he always had a private senior NCO room. Plus he attended classes at the University of Oklahoma, in Norman, a couple of evenings a week. So he wasn’t around too much. He was taking his prerequisites and wanted to become a minister, so he was going to get his B.A. in philosophy. I shot pool with him and we talked, until 2300 hrs. when the USO closed.
I found out that John was engaged before he enlisted in the Army, but when he enlisted so he could use the G.I. Bill to pay for school, his fiancée gave him his ring back and said that she wasn’t willing to wait three years for him to get discharged, and then spend another 5 or six with him attending school.
“She wanted to have a family right now.” He said. “So we decided that it was best for us to go our separate ways.”
This led us to start talking about women in general. “The way that I look at women.” John said. “Is as if they were like another species from man. They have ideas and goals that are completely alien to men. The only way that a marriage can work, is for the two of them to merge the two different directions into one, but each one must sacrifice something. Otherwise one will dominate the other. On the other hand,” he continued, “life is a long road, and to take 5 or 10 years to lay a foundation, is something that is necessary for success and longevity in a relationship.”
“What if you die when you’re 25?” Howard, who overheard us shouted.
“Then that was God’s will.” Farmer answered and then continued. “Life is simple. We’re born, we live and we die. In between we have the opportunity to know our source and creator. When we do, we experience islands of peace and understanding in our lives. These islands are our personal places of refuge and they are temporary. We can help others find theirs, but each has their own.”
“Perhaps we can come to a place as I believe Paul did, where we are able to live consistently on our island. I don’t, I’m inconsistent. I keep jumping off and swimming out and losing my bearings, on how to get back to my island. Today I was reading II Corinthians 14 and I got back for a while. God’s word helps us to get our bearings in life. The Bible isn’t a book of rules, but of principles, that we can base our lives on. If we are living on our island, then we can help others to find theirs. That’s why I want to become a minister.”
“You don’t have to become a minister to do that.” Rublay said. “You’re doing it right now. It’s just in the way that you talk to people. You could be a carpenter or taxi cab driver and do the same thing. Ministers are usually pussies who are afraid of life or don’t want to get a real job.”
“In some cases that may be true.” Farmer answered. “But sometimes ministers are people who enjoy helping other people. Also, my job in the army is being a chaplain’s assistant,which is like an apprentice minister.”
“Yeah, but they help people by convincing them to believe in something that is a fairy tale, so they can ignore the ugliness of their everyday lives.” Howard said with a sneer in his tone.
“Life is sometimes ugly.” Farmer said. “People need to have faith in something beyond themselves to pull them through it. It doesn’t matter what you believe, in some cases. Belief itself has a power of its own. The Bible says ‘seek and you will find’, and that ‘God is a re-warder of those who diligently seek Him out.’”
After we left the USO we stopped at Pancake Villa to get something to eat, before we headed back to the base. Farmer went back to the base in his own car, because he said that he had some things that he had to do in the chapel.
Howard cracks me up. He is really a character. His attitude and statements kept me in stitches until we got back to the barracks. He’s been everywhere, done everything you talk about and is an expert at every subject that you bring up. I’ve never known anyone quite like him. He doesn’t brag, he just listens as others talk about whatever subject they want. Then he agrees with what they say or makes a comment that he’s done it. Once in a while he’ll come right out and say that he’s done something, but he never tries to dominate a conversation.
I had a really good time tonight, in fact it was one of the best times that I’ve had without getting stoned in quite a while. Sometimes being around other people is enjoyable. I just wish that I didn’t have to have the same bedroom with 4 dozen guys. After I washed up I smoked a Chesterfield King while lying on my bunk. I finally closed my eyes at 0120 hrs.
The pastor was praising the parents for their choice of a tattoo for their newborn son’s dedication to the Lord. The couple beamed with pride as the camera zoomed in for a close up of the rainbow over the ark. It was one of the more popular tattoos, since the church integrated the latest secular social craze into its liturgy.
Baby’s were tattooed shortly after birth, so the church decided to give the secular pagans a spiritual, Christian alternative. “It would be both a fashion statement and a replacement to the religious practice of infant baptism in Catholic and Lutheran churches or dedication to God in Protestant denominations,” the pastor said.
Then he continued. “Every parent decides what image to choose or create, to have tattooed on their baby. It would be whatever represented the archetype of what you hoped that child would become. It could be a real person, including the parents themselves, or it could be a fictitious creation of another, as in literature or a symbolic image that represented a Biblical theme. Then the child would spend the rest of their life either fulfilling, struggling to fulfill or completely rejecting the expectations that were placed on them. The ultimate rejection would be having the tattoo removed, or replaced.”
I was flabbergasted as I tried to understand the reasoning behind all of this when Stryder woke me up at 0550 hrs. I crawled out of bed and missed reveille, but TaLouse` gave it, so it was no big deal. When I went to breakfast, all I had was toast and a bacon sandwich, with 4 glasses of orange juice. The orange juice was really diluted. The guy from the 4/46th that I traded the joint for the Christmas trees yesterday came over to our table and sat down.
“Have you got any more of that shit that you gave me yesterday?” He asked.
“I have 2 one ounce lids at $25.00 each,” I told him.
At first he balked, but when I asked him how many hits got him stoned, he said he’d be right back. He slid 2 $20.00’s and a $10.00 over to me, and after breakfast, I got the grass out of my gym bag, and gave it to him by the R&U closet.
While we were gone last week, they hung a new luminous dial clock up in the bay, so we’ll be able to see what time it is all hours of the night. The guy from the 4/46th who was camped out on the lawn got back in the barracks while we were gone. After chow, I helped mop the hallway and then buffed it.
I had to get my license changed, so that I can drive a 1 1/4 ton truck. I took one for a spin and didn’t like how it handled. The steering was really tight, and it needed to be driven for a few thousand miles on the range to break it in. You needed weight lifters shoulders to turn it. I hope that I don’t get the same truck if I have to use one, or they’ll wear out my shoulder joints
I got a letter from Larry and Haboy. Haboy’s going into the Marine’s, and his letter had a $1.00 bill in it. This morning I wrote a letter to home, one to Larry and one to Vin. I ran out of cigarettes last night and haven’t gone to the PX yet, so I’m smoking Bull Durham, home rolled today. They are really lousy.
I found a mistake on my short timer’s calender, so I actually have one more day that it says, so I had to change it in this book also. So far it’s a nice day out and should get up to 90 degrees. The BC is back from his leave and he told me that he wants me to paint the day room as soon as I can get the paint. I’ll have to requisition it, so I measured the square footage of the day room as well as the insulation on the air coolers, so I can take care of everything at the same time, at R&U supply.
They had liver for lunch today, which makes me gag, so I just ate the vegetables and dessert. After lunch, I was sitting in the barracks with Stryder and Smart listening to Solitary Man, by Neil Diamond on the record player, while Van Beuran tried to play the chords along on his guitar. I love that song. It evokes a melancholy emotion in me that feels good. It finally quit raining, and now it’s cloudy and warm out.
I sat in the mail room and wrote letters to Dan Ciamas and Bill Black. I worked with Dan at Detroit Pattern, and we hung out after work sometimes. We even went out on double dates together a couple of times. I fixed him up with my cousin Carla once.
Bill Black is Jim’s brother, and he enlisted in the Navy right after he graduated from High School in 1964. They trained him in electronics and he was stationed in Puerto Rico until he developed severe allergies in the tropical heat. After that he got transferred to Great Lakes Naval base in Chicago. Bill is the opposite of his brother Jim, so he’s pretty level headed. We would hang out together sometimes. Once when he came home on leave we went to see John Lee Hooker at the “Chess Mate” coffee house over on Livernois.
When the mail came, I got the mouth bit that I ordered, to hang by my teeth with to exercise my face and neck. I could try it out at the gym tonight. We had classes this afternoon, as usual. Lt. Church gave the last class, on “riot control” and “policing protesters.” The war protest movement was starting to require more and more troops to be deployed, as it grew in size. Although the National Guard was usually used, they were preparing for the worst case scenario.
I found out that one of the lead cooks, Harry Weeks, re-enlisted while we were on leave, so he could go to Thailand. He got a measly $800.00 VRB (Variable Re-enlistment Bonus), since Thailand is one of the most requested tours. If you left it open to the Army’s choice you could get up to $8,000.00. Of course they’d probably send you to Nam. What an idiot or should I say super lifer. He is now RA by the 2nd definition (Real Asshole).
After classes, Larger and I skipped chow and went straight to the gym. I wanted to start back easy, and that way I could work with Larger. We began by doing 2 sets of 25 pushups. Then we started on the bench. I started him with a 25 lb. plate on each side, for 8 reps with 95 lbs. as a warmup. Larger worked up to 145 lbs., for 8 reps, and I maxed out with 225 lbs., for 20 reps.
We stayed with the same program for squats, and then we did leg curls, leg extensions and calf raises. We switched back to upper body with 3 sets of bicept curls, forearm reverse curls and triceps extensions. Then we did some bent over barbell rows, bent arm pullovers and behind the neck pull ups. Around the time that we were getting ready to finish off our workout with same Abdominal work, the veteran’s came up.
“How was your week’s leave?” Herman asked.
“It was great.” I answered. “It was a real trip, in more ways than one.”
They said that they’d be at the Spot latter, if I wanted to have a few beers with them, and I said that I’d try to drop by. Then we did some leg raises and roman chair sit ups. I pulled my new teeth hanging bit from out of my gym bag, jumped up and grabbed the chinning bar with my right hand and hooked the chain on the bar with my left hand. I asked Larger to time me, and let me know when a minute was up, if I made it that long. I inserted the leather piece into my mouth and clamped down on it with my teeth until I was confident that my bite was as good as my grip. Then I took my hand off the bar and hung with my mouth. The only thing that stopped me from being like Newton’s apple, were my teeth clamping down.
By this time the entire gym stopped and there were about 15 people standing around the chinning bar with their mouths hanging open, including the towel attendant. When Larger told me that a minute was up, I grabbed the bar with my hands, and took the weight off my mouth as my jaw released the bit. After I unchained the bit, I dropped to the floor and smiled.
“You are one crazy man,” Kincade said.
“I have a whole new concept of strength.” I told him. “It’s not how much you can bench press. It’s how many minutes you can hang by your teeth or how many pounds you can pick up off the floor with your mouth.”
When we got back to the barracks Larger, Farrer, Van Beuran and I went to the El Matador, for a Mexican meal and a few beers. We smoked a gold joint on the way there and Larger asked. “Do you ever get stoned before you work out?” I told him that I tried it once, but wasn’t sure whether I liked it or not. Now that we have a supply of primo grass I may try it again.
After we ate, we went to the “Crystal Unicorn”, a head shop that just opened up in Lawton. Stryder and Smart know the owner and are managing it for him after they’re off duty. They had posters, water pipes, cigarette papers, newspapers, like the “Berkeley Barb”, the “Fifth Estate” and the “L. A. Free Press” and multi-colored prism glasses. I bought some chocolate cigarette rolling papers.
Afterwards, we went over to the Spot, and the veterans were already there, so we sat at the table next to them. Tommy Moonblood sat down with us and said that he heard about our trip to the Hopi village.
“You should have seen the Jesus Freak commune.” Farrer said. “They were tripping without any drugs.”
“Yeah, but most of them used drugs to get to where they are at,” Tommy said. “One day they’ll become conservatives and everyone will forget that it all started with drugs. Some will even deny it. All religions started with some kind of drug use, or other means of altering reality, way back in the ancient past, but they edited that all out of their scriptures.”
“Hindu scripture mentions Soma.” Larger said.
“That’s because it’s the one that reaches farthest back to paganism.” Tommy said. “Paganism and the nature religions were the first. They all used drugs. Then when they evolved into the modern religions, they dropped the drug thing, because they got too big, and mass hysteria works as good as drugs, and is more controllable. Heck, nobody cares about what happened before they were born, so in a hundred years you can say anything and nobody will question you.”
“I think that I’ll make an appointment with a chaplain. I want to talk to someone objectively about God, religion and some of my new insights,” I said.
Timmy and Elsie were the rhythm section playing tonight, and they had a white haired guy named Johnny playing electric guitar and singing with them, and he wailed like nobody’s business. Then Coatmire, Howard and Rublay came in and sat down with us. Howard kept asking, in his usual comical way what time the dancing girls were coming on.
We didn’t head back to the base until around Midnight. The veterans paid for all the drinks. They said that this was my power lifting meet victory party, compliments of them. They are a great bunch of guys. After I smoked my last Chesterfield King, I went to sleep at 0105 hrs.
I got up at 0545 hrs. and broke starch before I fell out for reveille. It was raining this morning, so we had reveille in the barracks. I’m glad, otherwise my starched fatigues would be ruined. I went to chow and sat on my bunk smoking until we started working on the hallway. I helped mop and then finished the buffing after everyone took off for work.
Then just before Top came in, King, who was the CQ told me that I had KP, since Coatmire, who was supposed to have it is now ED, because of boxing in the upcoming post tournament. I knew that I’d get it this week, but I was pissed off anyways. Now I’d end up fucking up my fresh starched fatigues.
I rolled a joint of gold in a stall and took a walk out to the parade field, as I lit it up and took three hits. Then I walked into the mess hall and I traded the rest of the joint to one of the guys in the 4/46th for 6 Christmas trees. I popped 3 of them in my mouth as I floated into the kitchen. I started at 0740 hrs. instead of the usual 0430 hrs. and I lucked out and got DRO, since I was an extra KP.
I actually wished that I had pots and pans, since I was a human dynamo, exploding with energy from the speed. I could see how the Nazi Blitzkrieg storm troopers could go for days without sleep, and still be enthusiastic about fighting. Just pop some pills and the world takes on a whole new meaning.
I called Lt. Colgate this afternoon to see if he could get me off early to go and bowl tonight. He fixed it so I would get off at 0530 hrs.
Angelucci took care of the mail while I pulled KP. When I got off, there was a letter sitting on my bunk. One was from Frank Ryan. It was the first time I heard from him in 5 months. He’ll be getting out of Vietnam a little after I ETS, he said. “Maybe we can hook up?” He suggested. “That would be great.” I thought. After I took a shower and got changed, I wrote Vin a letter. I walked to the laundry depot, just before they closed and got my clean fatigues, the pair that I wore today were still in good shape, since I didn’t do anything to ruin them.
The Monk was sitting on his bunk when I got back to the barracks. We took a walk out to the PT stand, and I lit up a gold joint. I only took two hits, because Farrer and I were ready to go bowling, so I told Larry that he could have the rest. I also gave him a nickel bag of gold, which he could make about 5 joints from.
I borrowed Rublay’s car, since he had SDNCO, and Farrer and I drove to the lanes at 1915 hrs. I had an open free game my first line, but only shot 195, since it was almost all spares. It felt good to have a game without any opens, even if I didn’t hit 200. That was my high game for the night, since I shot 181 my second game, and 169 my last one. The gash in my head didn’t really bother me on the trip, but for some reason I felt dizzy tonight. I ended up with a 545 series, which was the highest on my team for the night, but we lost all 4 games. Lt. Colgate was in a good mood anyway, but Captain Raddix was pretty upset.
Lt. Colgate and Farrer got into a political discussion about the Presidential elections coming up. Lt. Colgate says that George Wallace is the best candidate, and he said that Kennedy only had his name. This pissed Farrer off, who started defending Kennedy and telling him how important his election was to the future of the country.
“His father made all his money off of rum running during prohibition.” Lt. Colgate said. “His entire family fortune was made illegally. He represents criminals.”
“Wallace made his money off of oppressing Negroes and supporting Jim Crow,” Farrer said, and started to get red in the face.
I finally had to intervene and reminded them that whoever wins, will be Commander In Chief, and that this is the first election that we were old enough to vote in. We got back to the barracks after 2130 hrs. and I started making a peace symbol out of a coat hanger, string, solder and silver paint. After lights out, I went into the latrine to work on it, and finally got to bed at around 2300.
Then there was noise for the next hour, as people came in the barracks for the night. We got some new guys in the unit while I was gone and some of them were straight out of AIT. Some enlistees are in the army because they chose it instead of jail for stupid mistakes that they made and were caught at. Since I couldn’t sleep I got up and went back into the latrine to work on my short timer’s calendar and peace symbol along with smoking my last Chesterfield King. I finally got to sleep at 0020 hrs.
Larger, Farrer, Rublay, Van Bueran and I were in a house, on the side of a mountain. I had all my valuables inside the house. Everything that I had accumulated, collected, produced or purchased over the course of my life and I was a 50 year old man. Then we went outside for a walk, since it was such a beautiful day. As we walked on a trail, among the fir trees, we got to a somewhat barren area, where you could see patches of black ground with smoke or steam rising from it. After watching in fascination, I realized that I was sinking into the ground, so I began to pull myself out, and move towards what I thought was solid ground. Farrer started to move towards me, but he was getting too close, and I was afraid that we would get in each others way, so I told him to keep some distance, which he did. Then I felt guilty for doing this, as if I were rejecting him.
Suddenly I found myself back on flat ground, directly in front of the mountain. There were many people there, and we were watching as steam plumes were being spewed out of the mountain. Everyone knew that the mountain was going to erupt into a volcano, but we were too hypnotized by the raw power and beauty before us, to move.
“After all, where do you hide from an erupting volcano, when you’re right next to it?” I thought.
Suddenly, I realized that I wanted to photograph the event, since I was there, but all of my camera equipment, along with my other possessions were still inside the house. Suddenly I realized that the camera, along with everything else that was dear to me would be incinerated.
Then we all stood there with our eyes glued to the Eastern side of the mountain, watching for the eventual eruption. Finally it came, and the Southern side of the mountain, directly in front of us blew upward, and then Southward. It completely missed us, but then ash started to fall on us, and while we stood there wondering how much would fall, I found myself back at the house on the Eastern side of the mountain. The house was crowded with people, but I ignored them and was looking through my photos trying to decide what, and how much I could carry out.
Then one of the people said, you know, that first eruption could have just been a minor one, before the major one. This idea now became the main thing that I was now concerned with, which changed my attitude. Suddenly, I realized that Jim Black was there with all the other people. It looked like they were all in a cave, and I was standing at the entrance beckoning him to come out. However, he refused to come out and even openly showed his hostility to being forced to. This enraged me, since I was trying to save his life, so I gave him the finger and told him – “fuck you!” Then I turned around and ran down the mountain as it erupted. The ground was opening up all around me and molten lava was flowing down, as the area that I was on began to swell, as if it were ready to explode. I rose up in terror, as Ezekiel shook me awake.
“You must have been having a bad dream.” Ezekiel said.
“It was so vivid.” I said.
“The Lord speaks to us in dreams.” Ezekiel said.
“If that was the Lord speaking to me, then he’s as confused as I am.” I thought, and said. “It was weird.”
We went into the dining area and had a bowl of oatmeal and scrambled eggs with coffee for breakfast. Then we got our gear loaded into the car and took off. We dropped $5.00 in the offering box in the back of the meeting hall before we took off, around 0630 hrs.
As we started out Larger, who had been silent since we picked up Ezekiel last night began to talk. “I heard that communes like this existed, but I never saw one before,” he said. “This is a real insight into the future of Christianity. It’s almost as if these people are saying that cows are communicating the secret of the universe to us, and the way that we can access it, is by eating mushrooms that grow on cow chips.”
“How can you come up with that conclusion?” I asked.
“Cows were a sacred animal to the Ancient Egyptians, as they are to Hindus.” Larger answered. “There are those who think both the religions began as a result of that culture ingesting mind expanding drugs. The Hindu scriptures call theirs ‘soma’, but it’s shrouded in mystery today, since it’s been thousands of years since they used it.
“Then why can’t we just get this knowledge from eating hamburgers?” Farrer asked.
“Proof of that not working is in the fact that nobody does,” Larger answered, and continued, “Certain plants also contain the secrets of the universe, which can be accessed just as we did at the Hopi village. The point is, just like the minister at the commune said, it gives you a taste of transcendence, to whet your appetite.”
“As more people use mind expanding drugs, more of them experience that transcendence, and it’s terrifying to them. They truly experience awe inspiring transcendence through a chemical. The terror of that awe inspiring experience points them in the direction of the existing religions, since they are already systematized so as to be logically learned. Once leaders are established, then they can motivate followers without using drugs. They’ll have the nucleus who will maintain a certain level of enthusiasm for a period of time even after they quit using the psychedelics, but some may secretly still use the substances.”
After we got a couple of miles down Hwy 62, we pulled over and pried the side panel off to get some more weed to smoke on the trip back to Ft. Sill. The Byrds were singing “Hey Mr. Tambourine Man” on Van Bueran’s 8 track as we fired up a joint. That stuff was really bomb. We were wasted again.
By the time that we got to Lubbock it was nearly 1000 hrs. and we were starving. There was a drive in on the main drag that sold burger, fries, shakes and breakfast. After we ate and filled up with gas, we had pretty much an uneventful drive back to Ft. Sill, and ended up getting into a discussion about destiny.
“I think that everybody has a destiny, or a path to take in this life, but not everybody rises to the highest destiny that they have the potential for, because that takes work. So as Jesus said, “many are called, but few are chosen.” Larger said.
“Wait a minute.” I said. “I thought that you didn’t believe in Jesus?”
“I don’t believe in the actual historical existence of a Jesus Christ person, as written in the Bible.” He answered. “But I do believe that Jesus is an archetype, for that time and culture and that the idea must be interpreted and manifested in our time and culture. For our time and culture we have another archetype, or number of archetypes, but we must each find ours, and allow their power to be ours”
“What kind of archetypes are you talking about?” Farrer asked.
“Archetypes to fulfill your destiny.” Hugeback answered. “Jesus was both the ‘prince of peace’ and the ‘warrior king,’ because he was the Messiah, and that was what the Messiah was supposed to be. In today’s world some of the archetypes would still be that of a ‘warrior,’ ‘man of peace,’ ‘saviour – in the form of a doctor’ ‘musical hearthrob’, ‘politician’, ‘mother & father’ ‘brother or sister’ and the list goes on and on. Some can be temporary archetypes, such as that of a student, but they are all prototypes, or blueprints that give us something to shoot for. It’s more a mindset than an actual physical appearance, although the mind will eventually control the external appearance.”
We got to Lawton around 1920 hrs. and stopped at the super market to get some baggies for the weed. Then we pulled into the barracks, at around 1800 hrs. and checked into the orderly room. I got the keys to the mail room and got a letter from my folks, Linda and Taylor. Linda wants to come out next week to visit me, and asked me to call her. She included her phone number.
I called Linda, and she said that she was going to take a bus out to Lawton and find a cheap motel to stay at for a week. I told her that I just came back from leave, and could only swing a 3 day pass, maybe. She said that she didn’t care, and would at least see me at night. She was planning on arriving on Friday, June 14.
After we unpacked we headed back to town to McDonalds to get something to eat, since we missed chow. On the way there we toaked up another gold joint. This is really some bomb shit. Then we went to the Vaska theater in town, to see “In The Heat Of The Night” The movie was great and so were the seats in the theater. They were the rocking reclining type.
Afterwards we went to the Rendevous for a few beers, and they checked our ID’s for the first time. It seems that General Brown, the Post commander sent out an order, while we were gone, that all soldiers must be 21 to drink in any of the off base bars, except the 3.2 Go Go bars. That sucks, since there is nothing else to do, for the average GI, after hours, but to drink. It’s a soldier right to drink himself to death, if he’s a lifer.
We drank until around 2300 hrs. and then headed back to the barracks. When we got there, since it was dark, we pulled the door panels off, and split up the weed. Since we didn’t have a scale, we had to do it by sight. We spread out a table cloth that I got from the mess hall on the PT stand. It was a clear night that the moon and stars lit up everything well enough that our night vision did the rest. So we made four piles and tried to make them even. Then we each filled 9 baggies with equal part of each of our piles. That gave us 9 lids each.
“We need to hide it somewhere, where we can get at it, but at the same time, not where we can be associated with it.” I told them. “I’m going to hold out three lids to smoke, then I’m going to hide the rest. If you want I could hide everyone’s.”
“Where are you going to put it?” Van Bueran asked.
“Under the barracks,” I said. “I found a spot one time when I had to crawl under it to put in some wiring.”
They all agreed to have me hide it under the barracks. So everyone put the lids that they wanted to store in a paper bag with a number on it, according to alphabetical order. I was number “2″ since G is the second letter of our four names. Farrer was “1″, Larger was “3″ and Van Bueran was “4.” We put all the individual bags in a large shopping bag, and taped it shut.
Then we walked back to the barracks. Farrer stood watch by the porch smoking a cigarette, while the others went to bed. Then I crawled under the barracks with a flash light and put the bag in an opening that went in about a foot, under the floor boards, near the center foundation support. I finally got to bed at around 2330 hrs.
The Shaman was shaking his rattle, chanting and blessing the Enola Gay II, as it was taking off to drop the Psychedelic bomb. It was taking off from the Shaman’s Oasis, and the target was the USA. I realized that I was the pilot, and my instructions were to fly the plane into US airspace and reach the closest city to drop the bomb. If I’m shot down, I’m to press the detonation plunger to immediately explode the bomb. It was a suicide mission. I was to saturate the country with psychedelic drugs, so they could all learn the truth and become free men.
The Shaman, who is standing in front of the plane, was dressed in multi-colored rainbow Roman Catholic priest vestments. With both a barren cross and Peace symbol hanging around his neck. The next thing I knew I was flying, and somehow I was flying over Ft. Knox, Kentucky, when Goldfinger gave me the detonation key. It was shaped like a peace symbol, and I inserted it into the proper slot which I seemed to know. Then we said a short prayer and I saw a blinding flash of light, as Farrer woke me up.
“Close those drapes!” I told him. “They’re blinding me, and I just dreamt that I was in the middle of an atomic explosion.”
They all laughed, and Rublay said that we needed to get going by 1100 hrs. including getting something to eat. We wanted to see the sites and check out the local happenings, before going back to the base, since we didn’t have to be there until Reveille Monday morning. After we got loaded and ate, we headed out of town, back on Hwy 62. Our goal was to reach Lubbock by nightfall, which should be no problem. The weather was beautiful today and has been since we took off last Saturday.
Rublay finally had someone to talk to that wasn’t incoherently stoned out of their minds, so he was in a good mood. Van Bueran was driving and we were playing a “Mothers of Invention” 8 track singing about “Suzy Creamcheese.” We were making good time as we were coming to Seminole, when there was a man standing next to a car with the hood up. We pulled over, and asked him if he needed any help. He looked at us with a strange expression, and then said. “It is written, “the just shall live by faith.”
“Faith in what?” I asked.
“Jesus Christ, the savior of the world.” He answered.
“It’s a Jesus Freak.” Farrer said.
“So what does faith have to do with whether you need help or not?” I asked.
“Everything,” he answered. “The Lord told me that you were coming right after my car stopped running.”
We checked the obvious things, like, if there was gas in the tank and whether the battery had juice or not, but the problem seemed to be something beyond that. Maybe the fuel pump. We told him that we were heading to Ft. Sill, after finding a motel and spending the night in Lubbock. He said that he lived at a commune located between Brownfield and Lubbock, and that we were welcome to spend the night there at no charge.
“We always provide hospitality for strangers.” He said. “The Lord commanded it in his word. You might be angels.”
He said that his name was Ezekiel, and we squeezed him in the backseat. It took nearly an hour to get to the commune, which was a large building that was divided into four parts. Two separate living areas, one for males and one for females and children. There was a kitchen and dining room area, and finally there was a large meeting area, that about 100 people could fit in, comfortably.
When we arrived at the commune, it was nearly 1630 hours. Ezekiel brought us into the large barracks like living area for men. There were a number of stripped down beds, and he told us that we could choose whichever one we wanted. Then he brought us bedding, and said that dinner would be available in the dinning room.
When we got to the dining room, they had corn bread and chile, with tea to drink. After we ate all that we wanted, we were ushered into the meeting room, where there were about 100 people already assembled. Women, children, teenagers and adult men, of a variety of races, including Negroes, Oriental, Mexican and White. The age ranged from newborn, to their late twenties. On the raised platform was a bearded man with shoulder length locks of wavy brown hair. He was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans, a black Nehru shirt, and cowboy boots. He looked to in his early thirties, and his name was Rev. Trevor Netzreg.
He looked at us and said. “Blessed are those who come in the name of the Lord.” Then he said, “the Lord has given gifts to all men. Blessed are those who discover and develop their’s for his kingdom. Then he stepped aside, as a young man of about 20 came on stage with an acoustic guitar, and stepped up to the microphone. It was Ezekiel, the same guy that we gave a ride. He was wearing a similar attire to Rev. Netzreg, except he had a light blue Nehru shirt.
“Hallelluia!” He called out, and the congregation responded with – “Praise the Lord!”
Then he started singing:
“Yahweh! Yahweh Elohim! King of the universe!
He always existed, even before time began.
Created the universe, earth and man.
After the fall he sent his son,
who conquered death for everyone.”
“Yahweh! Yahweh Elohim! King of the universe!
The apostles were twelve and then there was Saul.
On the road to Damascus Jesus called him Paul.
Luke featured him in Acts, and he wrote his letters,
While sitting in Rome wearing fetters.”
“Yahweh! Yahweh Elohim! King of the universe!
The book of Revelation predicts the end.
Where it pays in the long run to be God’s friend.
The mark of the beast and the anti-Christ too,
End up in the lake of fire before it’s through.”
“Yahweh! Yahweh Elohim! King of the universe!
While the Lord has tarried for two millenium,
Theologians have all become born again.
Starting with Clement, Origen and Augustine,
The mantle was passed to a future then unseen.”
“Yahweh! Yahweh Elohim! King of the universe!
Today we stand before an open door,
Whose entrance reveals the holy score,
That the prophets of old spoke forth in God’s word.
To a nation of stubborn backsliders that never heard.
“Yahweh! Yahweh Elohim! King of the universe!
We will always love you, yes we will.
We will always see you, on the hill.
Bind our hearts with your loving kindness.
Until we drop dead and leave this mess.
“Yahweh! Yahweh Elohim! King of the universe!”
“Yahweh! Yahweh Elohim! King of the universe!”
“Yahweh! Yahweh Elohim! King of the universe!”
“Yahweh! Yahweh Elohim! King of the universe!”
“Yahweh! Yahweh Elohim! King of the universe!”
The song had one of the most beautifully haunting melody that I’d ever heard. I was transfixed by it. Then Ezekiel stepped aside as Rev. Netzreg came back out and started talking. “On this Hallowed evening of the Sabbath we prepare ourselves to go back out into the world of daily toil, but first let us listen to God’s word again.”
Then he lifted a Black book that I assumed was the Bible in the air, and held it high while he prayed. “Holy Father, Holy Son and Holy Spirit, the almighty triune, our rock and fortress. The one who is three and can cut through iron bars and unlock the treasures of darkness hidden behind brass doors. We come before you with open ears. Please manifest your word to them through your servant, who is your conduit.”
Ezekiel picked up a lectern that was at the back of the stage, and brought it to the front to Rev. Netzreg, who placed place his Bible on it. Then he opened it, as Ezekiel sat in a chair, behind him, and began speaking.
“This evening as we prepare for the Lord’s work in this coming week, we will be building our spirits with Paul’s words to the Romans.” Trevor said. “Turn with me in your copies of God’s Holy word to the book of Romans, verse one, chapter one.”
Then he read. “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.”
“Brethren!” He said with a tone of voice, that communicated a great deal of affection, for his audience. “The epistle to the Romans begins with the writers name, Paul. Formerly Saul of Tarsus, according to biographical information provided by a Greek physician named Luke, in the book of Acts. Paul was a first century equivalent of a Madison Avenue marketing genius, who was eventually able to eclipse the then popular mystery religions of that day, with Christianity. Some of the most prominent mystery religions, of the 1st and 2nd century CE Roman Empire, were Mithraism, Serapism and Magna Mater worship. They involved a theological system that included resurrection, virgin birth, being born again, and cleansing by bathing in blood. The thing that set Christianity apart from the mystery religions was its non-exclusiveness. It was open to the entire population, irregardless of race, social status or sex.”
“You see.” He said. “The Roman empire was filled with foreigners, both freemen and slaves, males and females, adults and children. All of the existing popular religions at that time had exorbitant initiation fees and dues, and were exclusive to free adult males.”
“Paul calls himself a servant. In the Greek it’s the word doulos, meaning a slave. So he was a slave of Jesus Christ, but at the same time he had a destiny, and being Jesus’s slave helped him to achieve his destiny. Paul’s destiny was being a messenger for Christ just like Hermes, Mercury or Tiu were for their respective supreme deities, Zeus, Jupiter, and Woden. The Greek word apostolos literally means one sent out with a message, and this letter is about that message.”
“Being separated or set apart for a particular purpose is a recurring theme in the New Testament. That purpose is always the same. It centers around something called “The Gospel of God.” In other places it’s called “The Good News of the kKngdom.” Whatever it’s called, one thing is for sure, it’s “Good News,” because it’s the key to transcendence. Not just a mystical transcendence, but one having practical application in the material world.”
“Today, at the end of the 6th decade of the 20th century, we see our culture experiencing a religious awakening, through the use of ancient mystical drugs, some of which our scientists have artificially produced in their laboratories. Through these drugs, participants are experiencing a dimension of reality that they never knew existed before. My question is – is this new reality of God or of the Devil?”
“The answer to that, I think can be found in the end product that the participants manifest. Most of you here today, have tried to experience some sort of heavenly religious or mystical experience, through the use of mind altering drugs but failed to achieve it. In fact some of you experienced the exact opposite, finding yourselves plunged into the depths of hell itself. Where the mind is, the heart shall follow.”
“Verse two.” He said and then read. “Which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures,”
“God promised the Good News a long time ago. All you have to do is read the holy writings that the prophets left. Nearly all religions have some form of holy writings, from the Hindu Upanishads, to the Islamic Qur`an. The Hebrew TeNaKh, which later became the Christian Old Testament, was ratified, as being the authorized Hebrew scriptures, by the council of Jamnia, between 90 – 100 AD. The TeNaKh was accepted by the Christian Church, which it later added to the 27 books of the New Testament that it chose out of hundreds that existed.”
“The funny thing is, censorship existed in the church even then. It was in the 2nd century that the Roman faction of the Christian church started eliminating the opposition. They did so by, banning, burning and condemning the scriptures that didn’t present their version of Christianity. Books like the “Gospel of Thomas” and the “Hypostasis of the Archons” disappeared everywhere that the Roman faction gained control.”
“Verse three.” He continued – “The gospel concerning His Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh.”
“The key to enter the kingdom is the person of Jesus Christ, so the good news is also about him. According to the scriptures, he’s a direct descendent of David, the second, and greatest king of Israel. The same king who in 1000 BC brought Israel out of the bronze age, and into the iron age, where it established itself as an independent kingdom. The ties of this lineage are through the genetic posterity of the flesh.”
“It was this same David who thwarted the first invasion of the Greeks in the second millennium BC. We all know that the Sea People who conquered the Mycenaea and Minoan civilizations, also integrated with them, and after 700 years of incubation, the Classical Greeks appeared, ushering in Hellenism.”
“The story of David and Goliath is an allegory for this turn around.” Then he continued, “The Sea People were Goliath, after obtaining the secret of iron from the Hittites. They would have conquered the Egyptians as well, except for fate. The same fate that placed them on the Western shores of Palestine, as the Hyksos fled Egypt from the South Western desert.”
“This descendent of David was the designated, destined and predicted “Son of God.” Besides being a descendent of Israel’s greatest king, He was also a direct descendent of the deity. This designation was declared in power. The Greek word, which is translated as power, in this passage, is ‘dunamei’, which contains the root word for English words, like dynamite, dynamic and dynamo. This is the kind of power that has its source in the divine transcendent realm. It is beyond human ability or comprehension.”
“Most people can’t comprehend power of this magnitude. That’s why mind expanding drugs like LSD, Mescaline, Psilocybin, DMT, STP and marijuana are gifts of God, for the masses to experience transcendence. Sure you could wait on the Lord for 10 years, or go learn to meditate in a cave somewhere, there is even fasting, sleep deprivation and other ways to experience transcendence, but first the appetite must be whetted for a sincere interest to manifest itself, and then have follow through.”
“So here we are now in this age of instant entertainment on what some would call the “Devil Box”, even our food is of an instant nature, so why not our transcendence? After taking over 300 psychedelic journey’s I could never return to the mundane reality of thinking that this was all that there was. So I opened myself up to the Lord and It revealed Itself to me in a vision. As It will to all of you if you ask It to. The proof of that power can be found in Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead.”
“The name Jesus, is the English translation of the Greek Iesous, which is the translation of the Hebrew Yeshua, which in turn is translated as Joshua in English. Jesus was a common name among the Jews in the first century AD, about as common as being named Joe or Bob in the USA during the 20th century. By the way, AD doesn’t mean ‘After Death’, it means ‘Anno Domini’, a Latin phrase translated as ‘Year of our Lord’. It referred the time after Jesus Christ the Messiah was born.”
“All names have meanings, and Jesus, like Joshua literally meant, ‘God is salvation.’ The common feeling among the Jews, at that time, was that they needed a savior, or leader, who would free them from the yoke of Rome, so they could regain their place as an independent nation.”
“The most popular form of government in the 1st century AD world, was a monarchy. Although both Greece and Rome existed as a Democracy or Republic, that was no longer the case. Ever since Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, in 49 BC, which means ‘Before Christ’, the Emperor has ruled an empire. The Jews longed for a theocratic Monarchy, so it was logical that popular sentiment should lean towards bestowing the title of Lord or King on their personal choice, who would be Moses, Joshua and David all rolled up in one.”
Then he paused for a minute and said. “Hallelluia! Praise God! Look at what’s coming next, in verse five – through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,”
“Jesus Christ, who is both the key and the door, as well as the conduit, by which the believer has received grace. Grace comes from the Greek word ‘charis’. ‘Charis’ is translated a number of ways in different passages, some of which are: acceptable, benefit, favour, gift, grace, gracious, joy, liberality, pleasure, thank, thanks, and thankworthy. The dozen English words translated from “charis” are all attitudes or conditions of a positive nature.”
“Sometimes we don’t recognize charis when it occurs. One snowy November morning, the Monday before Thanksgiving Day, I was awakened at approximately 4:00 AM, by loud banging and voices. I was living in an upper flat, in Buffalo, New York, and got out of bed to see what was going on. As I looked out of the front living room window, I saw that it had snowed, and orange light was reflecting off the white blanket. My first thought was that the family who lived below me had a party that was just breaking up, and a surge of anger flashed, since I had to get up for work in another hour. I went back to bed, and tried to fall back asleep, but the noise started again. I got up and walked over to the only entrance/exit to my flat, in the living room, and opened the door. The passageway leading down and out was enveloped in flames, and I realized that I had to get out of there.”
“I immediately ran down the fifteen steps and hit the wall, which I couldn’t see, in the smoke and flames. Instinctively I made a right hand turn, to enter the foyer, where the outside door was, and turned left to exit the building. As I came out on the porch, and ran down the steps to the ground, I turned to look at the house. It was completely enveloped in flames. Then I noticed a car that was running in front of the burning house. It contained the Father, mother, and two teenage daughters who lived below me. As I stood in front of it, I realized that I was stark naked, since I didn’t believe in wearing underwear at the time.”
“The mother opened her door and handed me a blanket, which I wrapped around myself. Then she invited me into the car with them. As we sat there looking at the inferno I realized that I was in pain. When I ran through the flames and into the wall I burned my left arm, face and back. By the time the fire department arrived, the pain was so great, that I got out of the car, and applied snow to my burns, to cool them. Soon an ambulance arrived, and I was taken to the hospital, where I was treated for 1st and 2nd degree burns.”
“After a couple of weeks my burns healed and I salvaged my belongings. I never saw the family again, that lived below me, to thank them for waking me, and saving my life, but as time went on I realized that what I experienced that morning was “charis.”
Then he said, “Let us pray. Heavenly Wholly Other, Omniscient entity who’s energy field illuminates all of existence, grant us transcendence today, as we come before you in all humility and obedience to your word.”
When he was done he looked up, and Ezekiel came forward and began playing a his guitar, while Rev. Netzreg invited everyone to come forward for prayer and the filling of the Holy Spirit. Without hesitation I walked forward and was the first in line for Rev. Netzreg to pray for. He anointed my forehead with oil and as it dripped down my chin, he laid his hands on me and prayed. It felt as if a red hot sledgehammer hit me directly on top of my head, as I collapsed to the floor.
When I regained consciousness my head was in the lap of a young woman in a flowered dress, and blond hair. Her head was turned up and she was speaking in a language that I didn’t understand. When she saw that I was conscious she spoke to me in English. “Praise the Lord Jesus Christ for the great work which He has done here today.”
I sat up and looked at her. She was beautiful, as she raised her hands in the air and began speaking in some foreign language again. “Coudalwvaganay sheendwana evegadga imprcario bleshingadwa is what it sounded like. Some people were singing in other foreign languages, and I suddenly felt a joy in my heart that was unexpressible. I raised my hands in the air and began weeping, as words started flowing out of my mouth.
“Hopamakinday brookanda makinday empagozma preznakina evenbrishka sempakindlay.” I heard myself speaking. The words flowed out of my mouth without me even thinking about what I was saying.Each word made me feel more ecstatic than the last. I saw others dancing and crying. One young man was running up and down the aisles, while some rolled on the floors, laughing hysterically.
The meeting ended by 2100 hrs., and we found out that they went to bed at 2200 hrs., because they got up at 0500 to start their work day, and Sunday was a regular work day to these Sabbath keepers. We decided that we would try to get an early start tomorrow morning, so we turned in with them.
I woke up on my own at 0740 hrs. because I had to take a piss really bad. Then I got dressed, washed up and started reading my New Testament again, until everyone else woke up. “Blessed are they who have not seen, but still believe.” I read.
After we ate breakfast that was spread out on the same table that dinner was, we sat down with the Shaman, another man who the interpreter said was the chief, and the interpreter. The Shaman opened a wicker basket, that was full of flowering golden marijuana buds.
“This is a kilo of Acapulco gold.” The interpreter said. “We will sell it to you for $100.00 American dollars. To outsiders it’s $200.00, but now you are our brothers.”
This was a better deal than we imagined, so we took the money that Larger, Farrer, Van Bueran and I had pooled together for that purpose. We took the door side panels off and after wrapping the buds in bags made from corn husks, with pockets of coffee beans, we put them inside both doors. By 1100 hrs. we were on our way back to El Paso, where we would spend the night before heading back to Ft. Sill, on Saturday.
We made a couple of stops along the way to get gas and something to eat. We reached the border back into the USA, at 2100 hrs. After we showed the border guards our military ID’s they waved us right through without a problem. We stayed at the same cheap hotel that we had before, and hit the town for the night after we checked in. It was definitely an army town, with Go Go dancer filled bars, pawn shops and droves of GI’s on a Friday night.
There was a concert going on at a transformed warehouse. The headline band was a Texas blues band called “American Blues”. We brought a couple of joints of the Acapulco Gold, and smoked one in the car before we went in. We were floating 10 feet off the ground. There were a couple of other bands that played first, but they were just a blur. The crowd was mixed, with Mexican and White civilians and GI’s. All they sold were soft drinks, candy and popcorn.
The place held about 1000 people, and it was packed to the rafters. It had been in the high 80’s during the day, and the unventilated building must have been 100 degrees with all the additional packed in close body heat. People were sweating and both males and females began taking their tops off.
Someone was passing a joint around, so we lit up ours. By the time we were done “American Blues” came out and blew the crowd away. The half naked women gyrated, while sweat dripped from their chins onto their protruding breasts. The entire crowd formed an organism that became a gyrating amoeba, pulsating in time with the music.
After the concert ended at nearly 0100 hrs., we headed back to the hotel. I finally smoked my last Chesterfield and got to bed around 0200 hrs.
Rublay woke me up at 1500 hrs., and asked me if I was going to sleep all day. The others were already up, and eating, My mind was a web work of visions merging into dreams about my very purpose of existence, or at least it seemed that way to me. Then we arrived at a large open area, with benches, and stumps to sit on. There was a large table full of fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, and rabbit. I ate voraciously, and drank a coffee like drink that they brewed in a large metal pot.
I went to the car and got my copy of “Good News For Modern Man” out and began reading the Gospel of John. Jesus is the vine. The Gospels are full of analogies that compare us to plants, animals and other parts of nature. Especially in the parables. How is this different from what I experienced with peyote, Mescaline and LSD? I understand my place in the context of nature and the world better than I ever have before because we are all intrinsically connected together on a cosmic sub atomic particle level. It’s as if all of existence is an infinite number of drawings on a cosmic sheet of paper.
Around 1700 everyone wanted to go swimming.There was a lagoon under the waterfall. From this lagoon there were tributaries that irrigated the valley that the Hopi lived in. The lagoon was about a half mile in diameter. There were some canoes on it, with Indians spearing fish. On the shore half naked women were washing clothes and naked children were playing, some in the water, and some on the shore. We had bathing suits in the car, so after putting them on, we dove into the water and swam around. This place was like paradise.
After nightfall everyone sat around smoking pipes. Some of the pipes were full of tobacco, and some were filled with some of the most potent grass that I’ve had to date. Rublay smoked the tobacco, even though he didn’t smoke, but passed the pot to me. After a few toaks, I began to hallucinate. They passed around cups of some sort of sweet fruit drink that tasted better than anything I’d ever had but that was probably because of the pot. We finally went to sleep sometime around Midnight.
We got up at 0900 hrs. and after Larger, Farrer and I took our showers, we loaded the car up, and had breakfast, at the café. We studied the map that I bought from the Hopi Indian on Sunday, and saw that we needed to start out on Hwy 45 going South. It was an arid drive as we passed Samalayuca. After we traveled about 50 miles, we came to a sign that pointed towards an unpaved road, marked Laguna Sta. Mar`ia. If we kept on 45 we would go to Villa Ahomada, so we turned onto the unpaved road. We traveled close to 100 miles South West until we came to a river marked Rio Ste Mar`ia, then we turned North on another dirt road, for about 10 miles, until we came to a ridge, around 1700 hrs.
What lay on the other side of the ridge was a shock to the eyes. It was a pleasant shock, like seeing the Grand Canyon in the flesh for the first time. Out of thousands of square miles of arid geography here was a tropical Garden of Eden that was probably a few square miles of lush Oasis garden surrounded by parched brown desert. When we drove down the road, into the valley it led towards a village, next to a waterfall, that poured in from the Rio Ste` Maria, and irrigated the entire valley. The village must have been home to about 1000 Indians. As we drove in some men approached us, and one of them spoke English.
“Why are you here?” He asked.
I handed him the map that the Indian sold me. After he looked at it, he told us to park our car, and come with him, so we locked it. We followed him to a large tipi that an old man was sitting in. Flaps on the sides were open lighting up the inside. The old man looked at us and smiled, then he said something in what I guessed was Hopi and shook a rattle at us. He was the village Shaman, that the map seller said was his brother.
After saying something to our guide, he walked over to a table with pottery bowls on it and he told us to each take one. Then the guide led us to another larger tipi, that was lit only by a fire in the middle with benches set in three hexagonal circles.
The guide led us to the inner row, and had us sit down, and said. “Wait here.”
In a little while men came filing in and taking up all the seats in the 2 rows behind us. Then the Shaman came in holding a bowl in his hand, followed by 5 other men also holding bowls. Then the Shaman said something and shook his rattle. The Shaman came to us with his bowl which was filled with dried greenish brown button like objects.
When the guide who was carrying a bowl behind the Shaman told us to take 6 buttons each, Rublay said that he didn’t want to partake. So the guide told him that he would have to wait in another place until we were finished, and led him to the entry portal, where another Indian took over.
After the bowl was passed twice we all had 12 buttons, then the bowls were passed around to all the other behind us. The bowl carriers and the Shaman sat down in the front row with us. The Shaman held a button up in the air and recited something, then he put it in his mouth. All the other Indians around us did the same, so we did too. This went on until all 12 buttons were ingested. By this time it was 1910 hrs.
Then the Shaman started chanting something, in Hopi and then the others joined in. We just sat there. Then the Shaman stopped and told us to hold our pottery jars in our hands, they looked like they could hold ½ gallon of liquid.
Then the guide said. “Use these when you get sick.”
About the time that I was wondering what he meant, my stomach began going through convulsions, and I stuck my face in the jar. After an undetermined amount of time I began to lose the feeling in my hands and I realized that I wasn’t holding the jar anymore. There was chanting going on, and I began to see patterns of incredibly lucid color. The colors were pastels, purple was the most dominant one.
I passed through time and space, and became all animals. I was the frog in the creek. I was the buffalo on the plain. I was the termite in the wood. I was the red winged black bird. I was everything and I was in everything. I was life and I was death. I was male and I was female. I was all in all, and I was all that there is, because all that is, was me.
As soon as this realization began to puff me up with pride, that was bursting my seams, colors began seeping out of a balloon like object that was floating in infinitely dark emptiness. As soon as the colors seeped out, they were extinguished by the darkness, like the ocean would douse a match. I realized that the now empty balloon was me, and it began disappearing into nothingness, as my awareness traveled away from it.
All that was left now was my awareness. That awareness screamed out in terror, but there was no sound. Then it realized that awareness was the first gift that all others flowed from. That realization created a rift in the black nothingness, and soon color began bleeding into the darkness, until there was no darkness left, only rich flows of color that began to take on shapes, that multiplied at an exponential rate, until my awareness was having an orgasmic rush.
This was the most joyous experience I had ever had, eclipsing my LSD trips, but at the same time they were all similar. I once again understood that life and death are both dispensed through the same passageway in mammals. That is sperm and urine. This too was an apparent clue, stating the secrets of life through the mundane and the profane.
It was around Midnight when I gained consciousness enough to be able to look at my watch. After that immersion into the unconscious state like with LSD, I floated in and out of consciousness, until I recognized my surroundings again, which was at 0300 hrs. However during that period of hallucinations I saw myself in an orgasmic relationship with a woman who was singing and playing an instrument that looked like a guitar. The sound of her voice and instrument combined into a sound that exploded with color and a changing panorama of visions. This went on for the next 4 hours until I became aware again to the sound of chanting, which I soon began to be part of. I didn’t understand the words, but it didn’t matter, because it was the sound that carried the meaning, so I just began speaking whatever sounds would come out of my mouth in rhythm with the dozens of other men.
I became aware that I am human, and as a human, all men are my brothers, as are the animals and plants. we are all part of the same whole, and the purpose of that whole is to fulfill its destiny though us all. By 0700 hrs. we were led to a tipi lit by a single kerosene lamp. This was where we were supposed to sleep now. We all laid down on straw beds, with blankets on top of them, and fell asleep.
♪Jesus♬Rocks♬The♬World♪ 