Chapter 33 – Beyond the Darkness

Still Alive!

He realizes he’s still alive. He killed the Vampire. He conquered his fear. He looks around now. It’s going to be a sunny day. The rains are over for now. The birds are singing and all is well again here in these mountains. He wants to go somewhere and sleep for awhile – maybe under his Juniper tree. He knows those ants. He bathes first down by the creek and then does some yoga on the rocks.

Afterwards, up by the kitchen fire, he notices his big fire stick, the one he has been using all week. He realizes that it represents an inflated opinion of his masculinity – thinking he can be lovers with two women at the same time. He starts a small fire and tosses in the big stick. His cock – his stick with which he stirs a woman’s fire – is just not that big. He looks around and finds another fire stick more his size.
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After eating a simple breakfast, he wanders about for awhile, ending up at his Juniper Tree. He sits here for awhile, watching the day begin, but after a while he lies down and falls asleep.

When he wakes later in the day, he remembers a dream. In it he dreamt that he and his woman are living in a house in the country with some other good folks. In the morning, while out walking, he finds a nearby wild area. It’s a pretty place with lots of tall grass and trees.

His dream is reflecting where he has gotten to in his head and heart this past week alone here at Dinky – to a new and better place that includes the wild and the beautiful within himself.
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Sitting here under his tree, he realizes that his mind has been quiet for most of the day, ever since the powerful magic of last night. He has stopped trying to constantly construct the world out of his thoughts. Instead, he has been accepting the world as it is, as an endless adventure.

Until last night he hadn’t been ready to face the world as it really is; although, being inflated, he had mistakenly thought that he had been ready. His task now is to become the man who can continue to face this awesomeness, this extraordinary reality, without fear and without being shattered by it.
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A New Day Beginning

Today is his last day to be alone before Karen returns. It’s sunny again this morning. He’s going to drop acid later today and ramble around. He’s beginning to enjoy being alone.

He bathes down at the creek. Something starts him thinking about Karen, about her coming here the next day. But as soon as he starts thinking about her, the death fantasies come again. He knows now that they are going to come whenever he’s not living his own life, whenever he’s just marking time, like waiting for Karen to come so he can be alive. He might as well be dead if he’s going to keep on doing this.
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He’s back up at his Juniper tree today. He’s sitting here now, reflecting back upon these past few days. From here and now, he can see that he had been seriously inflated in his life. However, his botched relationships with Karen and Edie as well as Gypsy’s death have all helped to deflate him. Coming to terms – as he has done all this last week, especially during that night of darkness – with who he has been and how he has related to the world has left him without fear.

He has nothing left to fear. How could he? He has nothing left to lose. Gypsy’s dead. Edie’s gone. Jonathan is lost to him for now, down in LA with his mother Pamela. Karen may or may not be coming back to him. He has no work, no money, and no home. He has nothing and no one. His dad, at a similar time in his life, was defeated by fear and went on to become a coward and a bully. He’s deflated now, but he’s not defeated. He’s not going to give up and become like his dad.
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He just dropped some acid. He’s seeing that he can accept death by letting go. He has been so much in control. He has always tried so hard to understand what was happening to him that he has never let anything happen.

He became afraid of acid when he was tripping here last summer, when he began to lose control of reality. He has been afraid of acid ever since, especially afraid of doing it alone in the mountains.

He stopped using acid back then as a means of exploring consciousness. He stopped exploring the Old City. Instead, he fell into the guru trip and, like Leary, began to collect people around himself with his acid charisma. Ever since then, he has been misusing his personal power to get people to come here to drop with him, just so he wouldn’t ever have to be alone, just so he wouldn’t ever have to experience his ego death.

From now on though, he wants to devote himself to using acid to connect to the higher consciousness within himself. This is the only way for him to ever achieve inner detachment. His work is to become the highest, yet at the same time, the simplest and most earthy being he can be. His work for now is here in these woods and alone, although his life is still out there in the world with Karen and others.

This tree loves him. He can feel her love. It’s going to rain today. He can smell it in the air; and it won’t be out of anything he has done, yet it will be intimately connected with his very being and with where he’s at with the world. True wisdom is letting go – just being in the world without trying to influence it. The world is more than he can ever understand, let alone influence anyway. All he can do is live his life with awareness.
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The rain has come! The clouds are everywhere! All is gray. He loves these mountains. If he is man enough for them – for their cold and their sudden storms as well as their sunny days and sparkling creeks, then he won’t ever have to be afraid of anything anymore.

He sees a deer just a ways off, and there are lots of little birds around. None of them are at all afraid of him, probably because he has accepted death and is no longer on its side out of fear. He wishes that he could bring this realization back to Western Man, who, in his fear of death, has attempted to escape his fate by identifying with it, by becoming a killer himself. He feels that it would be very healing for all life if folks were to accept death as a reality in their own lives.

He stands to stretch and then starts off rambling about for a while. He needs to warm up. It’s cold today. For him, his death has been the end to all his illusions about himself. Giving them up during that long dark night was terribly hurting, but at least he can live with himself now.

He wanders about for awhile more. He even walks all the way up Dinky Creek to the dome, but now he’s heading back to his tree. The paths he has learned from rambling about on acid will stay with him forever. Today has been an amazing and exciting day. He has rambled all about and saw and heard and felt so many wonderful things. Now it’s time to head back down to camp for his last night alone before Karen returns – his last night really to be himself.
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High Point

He’s back in camp now. He has already started his fire. This is his last night to be by himself. Now that he’s no longer afraid, he can really slow down. This is what he has been learning all this past week – to slow down and do just one thing at a time and well.

He’s thinking about his notebook. It tells the story of one man’s attempt to reach full consciousness, the story of his odd path to himself. Most of his time and energy these past several years has gone into both living and recording this story. And now it’s finished!
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While his food is cooking, he walks over to the tree that was bent over when it was just a little seedling. Although the bend, or kink, has remained, the tree has eventually been able to straighten itself out and grow to be quite large, quite tall. Well, he was definitely kinked himself when he died as that little boy, when he was split into two. And he has straightened himself out and has grown much higher too.
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He can understand now why he asked Karen to bring him that book called Hara. It’s all about belly and the consciousness residing therein. Belly is also central for Don Juan. Belly is our connection with the outer world, first through the umbilical cord to our mother and then later through that mysterious force that Don Juan calls will. Belly is an autonomous and powerful center of consciousness, and opening himself to this center has radically changed him.

Slowing down is the only way to defeat fear, which wants him to hurry through life, without ever stopping to enjoy it. But now, just as long as he stays slow and in touch with his belly, he’ll always be connected with his center. He’ll know when fear begins to hurry him because belly will tighten up. Whenever this happens, all he will have to do will be to slow down and, using his attention and his breath, start sending healing energy to belly until it relaxes again. Then he can easily deal with whatever inner fear fantasy or outer world event has scared him and got him into hurrying.
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He wants to remember a strange thought he had earlier. Oh, yes – even if Karen were dead, God forbid, or has left him, he would go on because he would still have this powerful and loving connection with the consciousness in his belly. Yeah, it’s a strange thought. But he does believe he has just let go of Karen. He hasn’t lost his wedding ring yet, but he does believe that he has just left her behind. He is certainly no longer afraid of losing her.
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He is going to sleep outside tonight under the stars. He’s going to lie in his warm sleeping bag and get stoned. Then he’s going to watch the sky and listen to the sounds of the world.

Belly doesn’t want him to write so much anymore, feels it’s too hard on body, tells him that he no longer needs to write everything down to remember it. He no longer needs to remember much of anything really. If he just stays centered and slow and listens to belly, he’ll be able do whatever he needs to do whenever he needs to do it. He’s remembering now –
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He’s a man
A simple man
An honest man
A loving man

He loves sunshine
He loves acid
He loves the mountains
He loves to ramble

He saw a deer
He’s warm and happy

He’s Wanderer.