I took my first acid trip in the fall of 1968. It changed my life. Since then, I have done it regularly, sometimes quite often. I have always used it to raise my consciousness and to heal my relationships with other people and the universe. I have always liked it best for talking with God.

I began tripping while still a graduate student at UCLA. In my first year of clinical practice, while also training to be a Jungian analyst, the Jungians found out about my use of acid and asked me to choose between it and their training. I chose acid then because it didn’t ask me to choose. Instead it merely asked me to continue using my Jungian analytic awareness, as I had done earlier with my dreams, but now to help me stay conscious on my medicine wanderings, both inner and outer.

Although I still earned my Ph.D., I soon gave up being a psychotherapist. Instead I dropped out, and moved to Berkeley, where I lived in a house with other high folks whenever I wasn’t wandering in the high mountains or on the back roads of America.

I did act out my inner life, just as the Jungians had thought I would, but I did so with awareness and style. My life itself took on symbolic meaning, and I entered into another, more magical reality – one in which whatever happened was a symbolic message from God, guiding me upon my path. I soon began backpacking in the high mountains, often alone, doing high dose acid and learning who I really was and why I was here. The most important thing I learned was that there was nothing to fear.

I have lived a much different life than I would have had I chosen to give up acid and continue on with my Jungian training. Instead of becoming a Jungian analyst, I have become a Taoist wanderer, living simply and close to the land. Forced by the Jungians to choose, I chose the freedom to be myself and to follow my own path through life. I have never regretted my choice.

My friend and I were talking recently. I was saying how I was always most balanced and whole, most tuned to reality, whenever I was doing medicine. She responded, “Whenever I’m doing medicine, I’m walking on the earth, the sky above me.”

What she said beautifully expressed what I had been trying to say. My balance, in fact the only sane balance for all of us, has to always be between Mother Earth and Father sky. We are balanced and whole only when our bodies are connected to the earth below and our consciousnesses are connected to the sky above. Similarly, we are most tuned to reality when we are tuned to both halves of the reality that together make up our totality.

The Chinese, especially the Taoists, see that in each of us there are two souls joined together for the duration of our lives. There is our earth, or yin, soul and our sky, or yang, soul. According to the Taoists, when we die, our two souls separate, the yin soul returning to the earth from which it came and the yang soul returning to its home in the sky. We don’t just go to heaven, as the Christians would have it, we return to both the earth and the sky – and to both with full awareness.

For the past several thousand years, our prevailing western culture, based upon one-sided masculine values and the fear of death, has denied half of its reality. We have paid homage only to the sky above that we have called heaven and which we have seen as the only true abode of Spirit. Afraid of death, we have sought to avoid it by avoiding the earth, our final resting place.

In our vain attempt to deny reality, we have divided our very nature into two separate and warring factions. We have created conflict. Is it any wonder that repression and violence have become the norm in our Western culture, in spite of our lip service to love? How could it be otherwise, with our entire culture base upon fear and denial?

The old culture of the Great Goddess was different in many important ways from the male dominated culture that has supplanted it, the most important being in the realm of authority. The essential difference between these two disparate cultures wasn’t in which gender held which positions of authority, but rather in how this authority was perceived and used.

In the time of the Great Goddess, when a woman or a man took a position of authority, it was because she or he wanted to be responsible for the people. Today, when a man takes a similar position, it is because he wants to have power and control over other people.
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Now, this isn’t inherent in the nature of men. There were many men in positions of authority in the days of the Goddess. They did not seek power over others. They focused upon being responsible for those in their charge. No, the difference between men then and men now is to be found in the differences between the underlying spiritual structures of these two different cultures.

The old culture worshipped the Goddess, and in worshipping her, worshipped the way of the mother – of giving life and raising it to its full potential. Members of this older society were seen as the children of the Goddess. One who accepted a position of authority became in essence a mother or a father of the people, focusing upon nourishing and fulfilling them.

In our present culture, only the masculine is worshipped, and that, in spite of the example of Jesus and others, only in its aspect of power and violence. Those caring aspects that do exist in the masculine have come to be seen as being too close to the feminine and have been repressed (sissy, mama’s boy, etc.). However, when the world of the insecure and angry father has finally died of its destructive one-sidedness, it will be replaced by the world of the Great Mother and the Great Father, both whole and complete, and again authority will be used for responsibility and service.

It may seem as if I have only one son, named Jake, seeing as how he is the only one I have written about so far. However, I have two other sons, Callahan and Zane. Today I am writing about Callahan.

First of all, Callahan’s name comes from Spider Robinson ‘s book, Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon. In it, Mike Callahan owns a saloon that even I would visit, maybe even have a drink again, if it really existed. Mike is a time traveler, back here to save the world. Jake’s name came from the book too. He is Mike’s bartender, the story’s narrator actually. Read the book and you’ll understand.

Callahan is ten years old now. He’s in the fourth grade and doing well. He’s not the straight A student that Jake is, but he doesn’t have Muscular Dystrophy either. Instead he has been diagnosed with what they call an attention deficit. His brain moves too fast for him sometimes. In spite of this, he’s very bright, gifted really.

He’s a gifted artist. A drawing of his has been selected to be one of thirty-five others that will represent Colorado Elementary School art. It will be shown in Washington DC at the Department of Education, sometime in early May.

Callahan is in an after school program called OWL (or Open World Learning.) In it, he is learning sophisticated ways to use and enjoy computers in the company of some of the brightest boys and girls in his school.

Callahan is also a Karate student. He has his purple belt and will try out for the brown this summer. I remember the first time he was tested, for the yellow belt. He was the only one being tested for yellow, and he stood up there in front of all those formidable judges and did it. He started out strong and clear but then lost his place in the middle of his kata and faltered. But when the head judge told him to take it from a certain place, he did so! He didn’t lose his head. And he received his yellow belt.

He’s also getting more and more into skateboarding. He’s in a skateboard club at the Y. They all meet after school on Mondays, and, once a month, they get in the Y’s bus and visit another skate park in the area. It’s great for Callahan. He gets a lot of male energy.
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But that’s not all there is to Callahan.

He and I hike a fair amount. He can keep up with me on our long hikes together. We spend most of our time hiking down here in the foothills above Boulder. We have been up to Blue Lake and other higher places. This year we are going to hike up Glacier Gorge in the Rocky Mountain Park. I love that place. He and I are also going backpacking together, just the two of us, sometime this summer. If we get to California, I’ll take him (and everyone else too) to my old camp at Dinky Creek.

When Callahan and I hike together, we usually hike for awhile, an hour or so, and then find a place to sit and enjoy the day. One of our favorite places, the one we usually visit at the end of a foothills hike, has a pond with cattails and frogs and a big old momma tree. Most of the time, Callahan doesn’t want to leave until it is dark. He really likes being out in the woods. He calms down for one thing. And he likes to explore. His main interest is in bugs and insects, and he usually finds something special to bring home. He’s a natural naturalist.

At home, he is definitely the big brother, perhaps a bit too bossy at times though. Maybe he got that from Aspen and me. He’s also beginning to help out more around the house. When Aspen was gone for three days last weekend, he really helped.

Emotionally, he quite volatile. He is learning to manage his emotions but they are very strong sometimes, whether they are positive or negative in nature. When he’s sad, the space around him seems darker, more dismal. When he is happy, the sun seems to bless us all. He’s also very imaginative. Working for him, it helps him to be very creative. Working against him, it keeps him up at night sometimes, hearing strange noises in the house.

Physically, he is healthy, although he often complains of aches and pains. He is very sensitive, almost overly sensitive, to what is going on with his body. Aspen is like this too. He’s strong and centered though, and finds it easy to be in his body. This makes it easier for him, if he’s active physically, to turn off or at least slow down his overactive head.

Callahan, being our first, has taught us and is still teaching us how to be better parents. Because of him, we have become better at it with each of our sons.

It will be very interesting, watching him grow into manhood. As I said about Jake, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Remember the movie, Dr. Strangelove, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb? Remember how Dr. Strangelove was always afraid of making love, always afraid of losing his “vital essence?” There was some truth to his worry. His vital essence wasn’t just the physical sperm that he would ejaculate when he came. It was also his creative masculine energy.

Although a man may continue to produce sperm, if he comes too often, his masculine energy will soon be depleted, and, until it is replaced, he will feel an aversion to sex. He will feel threatened by his partner, as if she were a vampire sucking him dry. He will turn away from her until his sexual energy builds up again – and then the cycle will begin anew.

The Taoists teach the importance of a man managing his own sexual energy. He should not get off too often. How often varies with the man’s age and his innate vitality. Although I make love often, some of the time I save my masculine energy to make things happen in the outer world. Most men can’t relate to this. I can hear them saying, “What’s the point of making love if we don’t come?”

But there’s more than one reason for making love. Besides baby making, we also make love to share our love, to share touch, and to give and receive pleasure. If you are one with your woman while making love, you will feel her pleasure too. You will feel it as your own. She will feel yours too. And pleasure shared is always pleasure doubled. Sometimes, if you are really tuned to your partner, her come will be strong enough to take you with her.

If you don’t get off every time you make love, your masculine energy will always be there whenever your woman wants you to share it with her. It will be there whenever you need to be masculine and creative in the world too. Most importantly, if you love your lover (not all of us do), the energy you have saved from your lovemaking will be an ecstatic and joyful reminder of your time together, drawing you and your lover to each other always

Most importantly, really love her. To love her, you have to love yourself, especially your own femininity. If you don’t love yourself, how can you love another? If you don’t love your own femininity, how can you love your woman?

Always be affectionate and loving. Be her best friend at all times, not just when you want to get laid. Touch her often. Don’t wait until you’re horny. For most women, whenever their man touches them, it’s a signal that he wants sex.

When you and her are making love, be in touch with your heart and express your love. Cry out and sing with her. Let her know that you are enjoying her too, that it’s not just your dick.

If you do love your woman and can express it to her, she will be blessed. Many men are uptight sexually, yet there are so many women who can’t get off by fucking alone. But many men know of nothing else – or if they do, they are too afraid of the feminine to do anything about it.

Go down on your lover. Women like this. They all want you to focus on their pleasure for a change. Pay homage to the Goddess at her main altar, between your woman’s legs. What better place to worship the feminine?

The main difference between a man and a woman sexually is the slowness of the woman’s response compared to that of the man’s. If you do want to please your woman, slow down. There’s no hurry. And make sure that she gets off before or as you do.

The man who is focused upon his woman’s pleasure will learn a great secret here. If you are one with your woman while you are making love, you will feel what she feels – and her pleasure is always much more intense than yours could ever be.

And afterwards, don’t leave her immediately for your thoughts. Continue to hold and caress her. Stay in your own body for awhile too. Stay with the feelings. By all this, she will know that it wasn’t just your lust speaking of love.

The conspiracy by men to repress women that has existed for over five thousand years extends even to the bedroom. For all this time, men have rarely considered women’s pleasure at all.

“In ancient China, however, it was basic to the philosophy of Taoism. When the Tao of Loving was first formulated, Chinese society had only just changed from a matriarchy to a patriarchy. The position of women at that point was still nearly equal to that of men.” (The Tao of Love and Sex, p. 71)

Since those early days in China, the male viewpoint has come to dominate, and, until recently, women have been considered lesser beings, to be used for man’s pleasure and to make babies. Women have even been seen as dangerous, as vampires who take a man’s vital essence and use it to stay young and strong at the man’s expense. A woman who enjoys sex has come to be seen either as a temptress to be shunned or else as a slut to be condemned.

However, beginning near the turn of last century, the studies of Ellis, Freud, and others gave impetus to the then revolutionary idea that women could and should be sexually satisfied. Today the work of these pioneers has born fruit, and women are again beginning to be accorded equal rights in the bedroom.

But even today, most women are not getting the physical love and affection that they need. This must change! Half of the world cannot be miserable while the other half is blissfully unaware. And it is so unnecessary too! A man who has learned the Tao of Loving, a man who can control himself and his ejaculations, “can completely satisfy his partner without fail. In turn, he will find his own erotic pleasure tremendously enhanced.” (p. 78)

Everywhere I go, I see women who are bitter and who have given up on love. More awareness and love from their men would quickly end this. And if all women were sexually satisfied, half of the world would immediately be happier and more fulfilled. Their partners would be too. A fun and easy way to save the world!

As a therapist, women tell me things that most men never hear. They tell me what they want from a man and what they actually get. Most don’t get what they want.

Ann Landers did a survey several years ago, asking women how they felt about sex. A majority answered that they would rather just be held than have sex with their partners.

Now I know that women can enjoy sex immensely. Any woman can. For one thing, a woman’s sense of pleasure is much more sensitive and intense than a man’s. This being so, why would a majority of them prefer to pass on sex?

The answer is in the question. Few women want to have sex. All women want to make love. Making love includes being held and requires affection between the partners. Without affection, the man is merely masturbating, using the woman for his selfish sexual release. This is always degrading and disgusting for the woman.

All women can enjoy sex, but many of them have had bad experiences with uncaring, self-centered, and even violent men. Many have never even had an orgasm, although almost all of them could. Turned off to sex and disappointed with love, they just do it to get it over with and to protect their relationship.

Most men are bad lovers because they are ignorant about what pleases a woman. Why are they so ignorant? Men have figured out how to send a rocket to the moon, and yet they can’t be bothered figuring out how to please their women. Why is this?

It’s because they don’t value women or the feminine in themselves. They have been raised this way – to be real boys and eventually real men, whatever that means. This reflects thousands of years of social conditioning, beginning when men took spiritual authority away from women and the Great Goddess.

It’s sad. Most men don’t know what they’re missing. Making love is much more intense and rewarding for a man when he is focused on pleasuring his mate and being one with her.

Jake is probably not what most of us would think a boy with a serious illness like muscular dystrophy would be like. Most of us would probably think that he would be quiet and perhaps a bit depressed, perhaps a loner, someone caught up with his physical problems.

He’s not at all like that. Jake is rowdy. He fights, he wrestles, and he runs around constantly. He never stops. He is full of energy and lives his live to the fullest.

Jake gets into a lot of trouble in school. He’s loud and he says whatever is on his mind. He gets into the most trouble for cussing. Once, back in kindergarten, he said fuck in class, and the teacher got upset with him. He responded to her upset by saying “ what did I do, I only said fuck.” I think that now though he is finally getting that school is run by uptight people for uptight people and he has to live in their world when he’s there. He’s learning.

He also gets in trouble for hitting and shoving, wrestling with his friends. He is wild. Sometimes I see him barely in control. He spends a lot of time in the Principles office at school. They are becoming friends. His teacher likes him too. Everyone likes him. They just want him to control himself so that he can fit into their environment. He will. Callahan did.

Jake is also a straight A student. Reading and writing are easy for him, arithmetic isn’t hard either. He reads a lot, not because he has too but because he wants to. He reads the funny paper every day. He’s always reading something.
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Jake does know that something is wrong with his body. He’s not ignorant, certainly not a fool. He knows that his muscles are weaker that most boys. He also knows that he doesn’t have the endurance that others do. It doesn’t stop him though. He just keeps on going, running up the trail ahead of Callahan and me. I don’t think he knows yet where the muscle dystrophy is supposed to take him. And even when he does know, I don’t think he will slow down for it at all.

He does know that something is wrong. After all, he goes to the muscle clinic at Children’s Hospital in Denver twice a year and is poked and prodded and tested by five or six doctors, nurses, and others. He has me stretching out his muscles in his feet and ankles every day. He also has Andrea his physical therapist and Jonathan his rolfer working on him weekly. He knows something is up. He knows that his body needs help. But rather than be depressed and sad at what his life may have in store for him, he is fighting it every inch of the way with an exuberance that is incredible.

I wonder how his life will turn out. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Imagine that Gaia our Mother Earth, is alive and conscious. Imagine that all the planets in the universe are sisters, also alive and conscious. Imagine that they all communicate with one another and share themselves on all levels, with a closeness beyond our comprehension. Imagine that they are a vast web of awareness permeating all of existence.

Imagine now that a lesser form of life, us human beings, her children if you will, grow to prominence upon Gaia and turn destructive. Of course there’s no need for this, she provides freely for all life upon her. We aren’t hurting her for food though. No, this she freely gives. Instead we’re hurting her out of our greed and our ignorance, by digging into and under her surfaces and by dismantling her elaborate and precious communication system made of rare metals such as gold and silver, and the crystals too, all carefully aligned and connected for transmission and reception.

Now she is silent. Her sisters wonder. All life wonders. She is loved, if not by her own children, certainly by all others in the universe. She has long been a part of the dance of life.

Alone in her silence, she grows ever more lonely and isolated. She will die soon of loneliness, long before her time, having always been one with all life. In her despair, she turns to her children, but we do not hear. We do not hear, but we cannot help but feel her pain. Being egocentric, we think that it is our loneliness, our pain, and our despair.

However, one of her children finally does hear. He has always had a dream of the human race realizing its full potential and attaining a conscious group mind, a networking of individuated consciousnesses. He knows his dream can be realized. He knows that we can merge together all our individuated consciousnesses with that of our neglected but potentially powerful group mind – thus creating a new and more conscious union of our selves.

Listening to Gaia he realizes that his dream and her need fit together. If we humans can open ourselves to each other while still maintaining our individual awareness, we can function as Gaia’s communication system. We can heal our mother of her loneliness and pain and in this healing process heal ourselves as well, especially of the insanity of separation that possesses each of us in spite of our best intentions to be loving and high and noble.
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Her need is urgent. His vision is true. But can it happen? He begins by telling Gaia’s story. “Listen,” he says, “if you listen, you can hear her.” Some do listen now and some finally do hear. These share their experience of Gaia with others. But not everyone can hear her. She speaks through the body, and many of us are no longer connected with our bodies. But soon, by rumor, by word of mouth, and by other ways, we all come to know her plight.

Once her story is known, once we understand how important it is that we do all become one, we have an even deeper and more important reason to be conscious and aware of ourselves and each other. We also understand just how important it is to find our way back into our bodies again. We soon begin to explore ourselves and each other in ways unthought of just a few years before. We begin to feel comfortable with who we really are, with each other, and with our Mother Earth.
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The final step is easy. Now comfortable with ourselves on all levels, it’s easy to let go of the barriers that have long been standing between ourselves and others, between ourselves and all of life really. Dropping these barriers, we finally become one with one another.

At first, we play with this oneness, enjoying and tuning it, and then a wondrously sweet voice speaks to and through us all, saying, “Dear sisters and all others, Gaia is back. I’m sorry I’ve been gone for so long. I’ve been quite busy lately, raising my wayward children. Would you like to speak with them? They’re here with me now, together with us finally. I am speaking to you through their new group consciousness. Imagine!”

I had a vision once. I have lived with it for many years. In it, I see the human race moving towards the edge of a great abyss, inexorably, as if driven by a deep and fearful compulsion. There seems no stopping this rush to oblivion. Imagine all of humanity moving towards this fearsome edge. There would be only darkness and the beating of funeral drums.

With this dark vision, came another. In it, there suddenly appears a great Light, and all of humanity wakes as if from a deep sleep. We look at this edge together, now visible before us, and realize the great danger that we had faced and have now barely overcome, thanks only to the Light. It is the turning point, the Return. We gather ourselves then and turn away from that deep and fearsome edge and follow instead the Light that will lead us home once again, as it did long ago – as it always has.

We have been on the brink of nuclear holocaust for years. We are on the brink of environmental holocaust now. Our air is barely breathable. Our water is no longer pure. Everyday we foul our nest! We have no direction for our lives, moving through them as if asleep. Violence and chaos are increasing everywhere.

We are at that awesome edge right now. Even blind, we can feel it before us. And now a mystery occurs. Just as we are about to enter the great darkness, the Light appears. What is this Light?

This Light comes from the depths of the human psyche, from that deepest place within each of us, where we connect to each other and to Mother Earth. We have long been absent from this place of refuge, from this inner source of wisdom. Our rational minds and our little individual and collective egos have been making too much noise being self-important.

The message of the Light is clear – turn inwards, turn towards the Light that is within each of us. And as more and more of us do so, we will begin to realize just how insane we have been, denying the dangerous reality of our lives as we have lived them.