What sort of world do we want to live in? Certainly not one like the one we’re living in now. Where should we take this current revolution, this chance for a new and brighter future? If we don’t know where we want to go, how will we ever get there?
.

I envision a world where there is complete acceptance of all human beings by all human beings, regardless of gender, race, nationality, religion, or sexual preference, a world where there are no outsiders, no untouchables, not in any sense of that old and ugly word.

I envision a world where there is equality, on all levels for all folks, a world where there are no leaders or followers, no hierarchies at all. Where there are no privileged folks, not in any way.

I envision a world where there are no bosses, no one telling anyone what to do. This is a Rainbow Family concept. At the gatherings, everything is always decided by consensus. The entire idea of leaders and followers puts most of us down. Also, it should be obvious by now that all the leaders, throughout history to these present days, are always stupid, greedy, power seeking assholes.

I envision a world where there is no money, where everything is free. This is another Rainbow Family idea. Earlier though, back in the early 60’s, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters took it one step further, putting all their possessions in one room. When one of them needed something, he or she would get it out of the room, use it, and then return it to the pile.

James Redfield had a similar idea in his book, The Celestine Prophecy. He sees a future in which “Our needs for survival – foodstuffs and clothing and transportation – will be totally automated and at everyone’s disposal. Out needs will be completely met without the exchange of any currency.”
.

How will we ever get from where we are now, mired in prejudice, inequality, greed, and evil bosses with their stupid power games? It will never happen with protests or revolutions. Anger and righteousness will kill any change for a higher future.

It will never happen unless we change our consciousness, and I definitely do not mean just our thoughts. I don’t even mean the consciousness that seems to live in our heads, the consciousness that we think comes from our brains Actually, each chakra has it’s own consciousness, and, if we let it, it will contribute to the whole.

We will need to change our consciousness from our present day and very limited left-brain ego consciousness – that very small bit of consciousness that we are able to accept today with our closed minds – to one more whole, one without fear, one more open to both masculine and feminine consciousness, and especially one that is more connected to Spirit.

I liked what Grof said about the results of his LSD Psychotherapy. I like that he showed us that we can all be fully conscious, as he describes it. This is certainly a goal worth achieving. If we can do this, we will have a future, otherwise, probably not.

I don’t care how we get there, to this new and higher consciousness. If we can get there without acid, fine. But if we can’t find our way to this higher consciousness otherwise, please remember that acid as therapy can take us there. We could just make acid legal for psychotherapy, as it once was. It would sure help. I think that’s why it’s here, to take us into our future.

According to Grof, with the guided use of LSD, we can overcome our fear of death, the source of most of our fears. We can give up our head trips and learn to appreciate the simpler aspects of existence. We can give up being selfish and competitive. And, of course, we can realize how exciting the exploration of consciousness can be. As Grof says, “The universe ceases to be a gigantic assembly of material objects; it becomes an infinite system of adventures in consciousness.”
.

I envision a future that would satisfy all of us. This is so because no one would be prejudiced against another person, not after becoming conscious of that side of him or herself that is like that other person. I envision a future where we are all equal, where we know that no one is better or worse than we are. This is so because we have seen who we really are. I envision a future where there are no bosses, no leaders and followers. How could a fully conscious being think that they knew another’s path through life? I also see a future where everything is free, where we finally realize that we are all family.

The 60’s revolution failed. We all know this. The bad guys kept their power and undid almost all of the positive changes we had worked so hard for – all of them that they could undo, that is. However, some of the things we worked so hard to actualize back then did survive. In fact, many of the positive social changes from the 60’s revolution are still with us today.
.

We have become much more aware of our Mother Earth, this awesome Spaceship Earth that we all live upon, cruising through the endless space-time continuum. We have learned that she is more fragile than we thought. We have learned that she loves us all dearly – after all, she is our mother. We have also begun to realize that we can help her too.

We have become more aware of the various kinds of pollution that are slowly killing all life on Mother Earth, whether it be in our waters, in our air, or even in our earth itself. We have seen the enemy, and he is not us. He is of the 1 percent that try to lord over the rest of us. If they would just get out of our way, we could still save ourselves and Mother Earth.

We have become more aware of overpopulation, although we haven’t done anything about it yet. In fact, there is a powerful faction here in the United States that is against limiting the population. But Mother Earth can only keep so many of us folks alive and well. Too many folks are already dying of hunger, bad water, and disease. I keep hearing folks saying, “Maybe we should all have to have a license to be a parent.” Good idea, but try telling that to most of the folks on this planet.

We have become more aware of the effects of global warming. This was something we were already very concerned about in the 60’s. It seemed obvious to us then. Now it is obvious to almost everybody, although the many brain-dead folks aligned with the immoral world of greed are still in convenient denial.

It is obvious now though. Temperatures are rising. Animals and even plants are slowly migrating north in the Northern Hemisphere. Most of the world’s glaciers are going or already gone. When we hike in the high country around here, we see that the glaciers we used to play on are already gone.
.

Since the 60’s, we have become more aware of our bodies too. Physical health and fitness have become more important. More and more folks are walking, running, bicycling, skating, swimming, working out with weights, playing sports, skiing, climbing rocks, hiking, backpacking, doing yoga, making love, and all the other adventures that we give to ourselves these days. More and more of us folks are not going blindly into couch potato old age.

More folks are now exploring and enjoying Mother Nature in her wilder aspects. We are rediscovering Her as she truly is, as a place of high adventure as well as a place of spiritual renewal. Many of us use Her wild mountains and deserts as spiritual retreats, as places away from the chaotic group consciousness of the city and this sick society that we all live in, a place where we can slow down and listen to Spirit.
.

In the early 60’s, it was difficult if not impossible to find organic food in most towns and cities across the country. Most of what we did find was in funky co-ops or vitamin shops that carried only a few organic items. Organic food sure caught on fast though. Look around now. There are at least ten natural food stores here in Boulder, and many more in the nearby, surrounding communities. And most of the big chains, Safeway and King Supers, are carrying more and more organic foods.

Along with this, in the 60’s, came an upsurge in organic gardening. For many of us, gardening has become a new but meaningful endeavor. Today, it is becoming a necessity.

People are raising chickens nowadays too, for the eggs mostly. But some folks are killing the males when they are old enough to be called fryers. At least three of our neighbors here in the city are raising them. No roosters though. Too noisy, too early in the morning.
.

The 60’s really changed the status of women. We have finally begun to realize the importance of women and the feminine. We are finally accepting that women are different from men and at least equal to them. They certainly can mellow out the men’s warlike, testosterone induced energy. Without their balancing energy, men would probably have already destroyed this world of ours. Women can create life, whereas men can only destroy it.

Motherhood has become more important and more respected too. Women can now nurse in public. Many women can take maternity leave from their jobs and can even nurse at work now. Since the 60’s, women have gained much in the way of freedom, in so many areas of life.

Blacks are accorded much greater respect than they were before the 60’s. When I was young, we never saw a black person on TV or in movies, not unless it was Jack Benny’s Rochester. The same is true for the other minorities, especially for the Asians and the Latinos. Even the Indians are getting a better press these days.

Gay men and women have become much more accepted in our culture too, even in the military. Now they can honor their love for one another in a sacred marriage, just as those of us who are not gay have always been able to do.

Perhaps we are slowly becoming a more accepting culture. We definitely need to keep moving in this direction. It is in the Tao.
.

Most of us are back living in our single-family dwellings, inside our single-family minds. Most of us have given up on community, although we do keep saying that it takes a village to raise a child, almost as if we’re trying to remind ourselves of something.

Lately, however, I have been hearing folks wishing that they could share the childcare, preferably without everyone having to live together in one house or on one farm. These folks are just beginning to wake up. At this time in history, we all need to remember (with a slight change) that old 60’s saying, “People (originally ‘dope’) will get you through times of no money better than money will get you times of no people.“

Dope helps too, helps community. Remember the circles and folks saying, “What goes around, comes around.”
.

I wonder where we will take the world with this revolution? All these gains from the 60’s were just baby steps, mere beginnings on our way to a higher future. Wherever we do take it, it will help us if we remember that we are all here together on Spaceship Earth and that to keep it livable, we all have to work together.

In my next note, I will begin to share my vision for our collective future.

During the 60’s, those of us who wanted to create a more spiritual reality used various paths to become more conscious, loving, and kind.

We used various forms of dream work. This included analyzing our dreams and/or using active imagination, or visualization, to understand their messages. We learned from Jung and Perls and others what dreams are and how we could use them to become more whole beings. We learned that dreams speak in ‘God’s forgotten language.’

We discovered the I Ching, the ancient Chinese holy book, an extremely high spiritual book. We saw that the book was also an oracle that responded to whatever question we might ask by describing the situation that we found ourselves in at the time we asked the question.

Many of us began meditating in the 60’s, influenced perhaps by the influx of the many Buddhists who saw a golden opportunity and came to America to gather disciples. Many of us still meditate, just doing our own forms.

Many of us favored LSD in the 60’s. We weren’t afraid of it then as many folks are nowadays. We liked how it made us more clear and compassionate. We found that we could be completely open and honest with one another when we tripped together. We found that we couldn’t bullshit when we were tripping, not to ourselves or to each other. We called it acid honesty.
.

Although I don’t think Stan Grof’s way, his LSD Psychotherapy way, is necessary – many of us have done it on our own, in our own ways – but it does work. The result of his LSD therapy, the sort of person one can become, is described in the following quotes from his bookLSD Psychotherapy (see pages 227 and following if your curious.)

“It (LSD) has mediated a profound spiritual opening in atheists, skeptics, and materialistically oriented scientist, facilitated far reaching emotional liberation, and caused radical changes in value systems and the basic life style.”

“Subjects free themselves from certain idiosyncratic perceptions, inappropriate emotional responses, rigid value systems, irrational attitudes, and maladjustive behavior patterns that are products of their early programming.”

“They suddenly see that their entire concept of existence and approach to it had been contaminated by a deep, unconscious fear of death.”

“The emphasis shifts from pursuit of complicated external schemes to appreciation of simple aspects of existence.”

“A selfish and competitive approach to existences is seen as ignorant, inferior, and ultimately self-destructive.”

“The western life philosophy, which confuses conspicuous consumption with richness of life is replaced by a new emphasis on “voluntary simplicity.”

“Another striking aspect of the psychedelic transformation is the development of intense interest in consciousness, self-exploration, and the spiritual quest.”

“The universe ceases to be a gigantic assembly of material objects: it becomes an infinite system of adventures in consciousness.”

.

Those folks ‘in power’ today, those who are still trying to bullshit us so that they can ‘control’ us and the world, all those politicians and other leaders, were so afraid of LSD in the 60’s, afraid of how it was waking folks up, that they made it illegal and those of us who disagreed, outlaws.

Those bad guys are still out there. If we wish to overcome them, we have to be more conscious, more loving, and more kind. We can’t win by fighting them. We have to walk those peaceful spiritual paths again.

In my next note, I’ll share some of the positive results of our efforts in the 60’s, results such as environmental awareness, the growing equality of women and the feminine, the equality of gay men and women in our culture, the health and fitness movements that have led to organic foods and gardening, and the notion that it takes a village. I’ll look ahead too, wondering where we can take the current spiritual revolution.

We don’t need to wait until the current revolution is over before we begin creating our new world. We didn’t wait the last time a revolution was attempted, back in the 60’s. And we don’t need to wait until this one is over either. We can start now.
.

In the sixties and early seventies, the counter-culture split into two main factions. Many of us stayed with our anger and fought against the establishment – in the anti-war, anti-nuke, and other anti- movements.

Some of us, however, worked to create a new world – a new way of being, a new way of relating to each other, a new way of living with one another. We became quite creative.

We created communities. We created the Rainbow Gathering, a spiritual gathering that brought thousands of folks together every year. We created the notion of non-hierarchal councils in which everyone had a voice and was listened to. We created men and women’s groups.

Instead of focusing on our anger, we focused on the spiritual. Most importantly, we created a new consciousness, using dreams, meditation, the I Ching, bodywork, and various psychedelics, all for personal and spiritual growth.

In spite of all the love and energy that we put into it, the 60’s revolution failed. The Rainbow Gathering eventually turned itself into a party, most of the communes failed, and folks stopped trying to be more conscious. Instead they began to focus on making more and more money. Most tellingly, over time we all stopped saying “have a good day” and began saying “take care.” Will “take cover” be next?

If the current revolution succeeds, and we wish to move on to new ways of being human, we need to create and share new visions for our collective future, visions that we can begin to actualize now. It’s so much easier to focus our spiritual energy if we know where we want to go with it.

In my next note, I’ll share some of the spiritual paths we took in the 60’s, as well as where they took us.

Last fall, I felt I was stuck I felt that something needed to happen, something that would free me to move ahead in my life. So I got out my old Angel Cards and asked about my life, what was happening, the long view.

The first card I received was Patience. I already knew patience. I’ve had to cultivate patience in order to be a good mommy-daddy these past eleven years. Also, because we have been so poor, I have had to be really patient about more money coming to us. I’ve had to be patient about more medicine and friends coming back into my life too.

The next card I received was Transformation. It was telling me that a big change was coming in my life, a transformative change. I knew I needed one. I needed something really profound to kick me in the ass, to get me moving again.

The next card I received wasWillingness. I took this card to be telling me that I had to be willing to accept whatever change was coming. If I didn’t accept it, it wouldn’t happen. I wondered at the time what it was that I would have to decide upon.

The next and final card seemed to address this issue. It was called Brotherhood. I understood from it that the transformation would involve my willingness to be more involved in some sort of collective world beyond my immediate family.
.

This card reading occurred back last fall. And for a long while, nothing seemed to happen. I remembered though, and I was patient.

But recently I have begun to see some changes. We were just gifted with a van, and we sold our old car for a good price, much better than I had thought we’d get. So, some money has finally come to us, as well as a much better car. Also, Jake has applied, with our help, for SSI because of his Muscular Dystrophy. When he starts receiving this money, it will really help us.

Also, more folks have begun to come into my life, both old and new friends. And what has been most interesting to me is that they have all been acting as if I was helping them just by listening to their story. They have all been very open and sharing too, and when we have finished our visit, they have all said that I have helped them.

To tell the truth, I resisted this at first. I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to fulfill this role for folks again. I had to step back and see that this was the transformation, that something between me and the universe had finally gotten straightened out, and, like Job, I was back in favor.

And then the pot was sweetened, so to speak, when one of these folks, an old and best friend, offered to share something that he had ran across, something that I was pleased to accept. I saw then that it was all tied together. I understood that I had to accept all these folks coming into my life with their needs for clarity and understanding. I had to be open to helping them and all the others who will probably be coming my way. I had to be willing to accept the transformation for it to happen.

The word Brotherhood excludes half of the human race. I would rather use the word Family. Clan or Tribe work too. Maybe a family will come out of this ongoing transformation. Aspen and I have been talking lately about living with other folks somewhere in a big house. It’s feeling like it’s time to gather. We already knew who some of the folks are that we would live with.
.

This transformation that I am going through reminds me of that Hopi prophecy that the Elders in Oraibi put out several years ago. Reading it again helps me to understand this transformation that I’m going through. And I don’t think the prophecy is just about me. I have met many of you in the river.

The Hopi Elders say, “This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold onto the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, Push off into the middle of the river. Keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.

See who is in there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

(For the entire prophecy, see the previous entry in “Notes from the Edge.)

This is a prophecy that the Hopis put out several years ago. Since then, it has become more and more relevant. And it is becoming obvious what they meant then, given what is going down in the world today.

“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell them that this is The Hour.

And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold onto the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, Push off into the middle of the river. Keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.

See who is in there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

The Elders,
Oraibi, Arizona

Aspen and I met in late January of 1985. We were engaged by the middle of March and married by late June. We have never looked back, have always loved one another and have never thought of ending our marriage.

With half of all marriages in the United States ending in divorce, we have decided to share our love story and how and why it has lasted for more than 26 years. So, if you are at all interested in a serious relationship with another person, especially if you want to have children some day, it will certainly be worth your while to read about how we have done it.
.

The other day, while Aspen and I were out walking, we came upon a man we knew. He saw us and blurted out, “You’re holding hands.” Yes, we were. We do so whenever we can. We snuggle together every night too, and we make wonderful love. We’re still loving, after all these years. It has always come natural to us.

How did this happen, when it is so rare in the world? Well, when we met that fateful January, we were medicine folks. Every Friday night, we did Ecstasy and acid, first the Ecstasy and then several hours later high dose acid. We did this every Friday night for several months. Doing so, we opened up to each other completely. We came to know each other more deeply in that short time than most couples do in a lifetime of marriage.

The night we decided to get married, we were doing medicines. I asked Aspen if she wanted all of me. She said yes, and she has had all of me, all of my love and support and understanding ever since.
.

After our courtship and our marriage, we began to spend more and more time backpacking and traveling. We did some climbing with a friend here in Boulder and in Joshua Tree. We went to more than one Rainbow Gathering too. We lived outside the law, and we were honest. We started in Boulder, of course, but we also lived briefly in California, in Mammoth Lakes, and in Arizona, in and around Tucson. We lived on the West Slope of the Rockies too, in Paonia, on an organic fruit farm.

When we were still living in Tucson, before we moved to Paonia, we wondered what else we could do with our love. We had been married for over 14 years. We had done almost everything we had wanted to do. What else could we do? The decision seemed to be made for us. Aspen was in her mid-thirties and was beginning to realize that she would have to have children soon if she wanted to be a mother.
.

Although I had thought that I was done raising children, I was more than okay with us being parents together. I knew she would be a great mom. And I have always enjoyed being a dad. Being parents together would be our new life adventure. I certainly enjoyed actualizing her desire for children, and soon the babies began to come.

When they started coming, with Callahan being the first, we moved back to Boulder, and we now live just two blocks from where we started out 26 years ago, back when we first realized that we loved each other and wanted to share a life together. Since then we have come full circle in our life and our love. And now our love is actually stronger now than it was when we left Boulder all those years ago – way more than enough to nourish our three young boys.

The boys are 5, 8, and 11 years old now. They are more than a handful. They are all high maintenance, extremely loud, and overwhelming argumentative. They are also heartwarmingly loving and extremely interesting. It’s awesome watching them grow up and become people. They are my sons. God! What an obligation! What a responsibility! I love it.

Tonight I’m home alone. I just smoked a bowl of the good. Now I’m listening to Pianoscapes by Michael Jones. He’s awesome. I’m really enjoying this peaceful space. I love being dad, but the boys are not at all peaceful. They fight non-stop with one another, yelling, screaming even, and mostly arguing over toys, “that’s mine!” sort of thing

I told them they should copy the Merry Pranksters, that acid family from the 60’s, and put all of their things in a pile in the playroom. Then when one of them wants something, he can go get it out of the pile. And then, when he’s done with it, he can return it to the pile. They didn’t buy this at all.
.

For now I’m alone and it’s peaceful. And when they do come home from the YMCA and Karate tonight, they’ll be going right to bed. I usually play Pianoscapes or maybe Ecstasy by Deuter for them when they go to bed to calm them out for sleep. I like to end their day in calmness and love.

I’m reading a book now by Scott Westerfeld, a science fiction space opera sort of story, a hard to put down sort of story too. Tonight I’ve read more than I can usually read in several days. Most of my reading, if any, is at night after the boys are asleep.

Sometimes I read when the boys are around too, mostly to distract myself from their energies, but still be there when they need me – with homework or a new drawing by Callahan or something on the computer that Jake wants me to see or listening to Zane tell me that he’s the other dad, that he and I are the dads here.
.
.
So, every day I pray that I will continue to find this peace in my heart. So far, ever since the late sixties, I’ve always been able to find it. I first found it back then when I was alone for weeks at Dinky Creek, in the High Sierras. I found it then when I was vision questing with the help of acid and peyote.

Now I can find it by just turning my head off, by stopping my world, as Don Juan would say. Although, sometimes these days, I do have to isolate myself, maybe going upstairs to meditate or taking a walk or a hike in the nearby woods. But whatever I have to do, I have always been able to find the peace in my heart.
.

However, finding the peace in my life has always been much more difficult for me. What I really need now for peace in my life is more money for my family. We’re living on the edge. And it’s scary, and it’s certainly not at all conducive to peace. I have always done poor well, Aspen has too, but I can’t ask this of the boys, not until they’re old enough to make their own choices.

And come to think of it, maybe having more than enough money would be interesting too, as interesting perhaps as it was traveling on the fly, finding work in one town in order to buy enough food and gasoline to move on to the next.

So yes, I do need more money. I also need more medicine for my work of exploring consciousness. I need more friends too, friends with whom I can share my life and my work, friends like Ramon and Paul and the many others I’ve had in the past. When these very real and important personal needs are met, then I’ll have peace in my life as well.
.

Of course, I wish that there would be peace in the world too. But I don’t expect it. After all, look at what’s happening right now in the world these days, in the United States too, what with the right wing Christians and the mega-corporations at war with the rest of us and trying basically to enslave us in their subtle webs as they overthrow our democracy.

Don’t take my word for it. As Michael Moore says, ”Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.” He goes on, “Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined.”

I have had many friends in my seventy-seven years of life. My early school years were long ago; so I don’t remember most of my classmates from then. However, I do remember Bob Smith. He and I grew up together and went to the same elementary school together,

Later, in high school, he was our star pitcher. We called him the Iceman. And after high school, I enlisted in the Air Force and became a flying officer, while he enlisted in the Army and became an officer in the Paratroopers. Later on, after going to UCLA together, I became a clinical psychologist and he became a psychiatrist. I haven’t heard from him in years now, not since I dropped out and began doing medicine.

I have no friends left from my days in the Air Force and only a few from my early days at UCLA. My two best friends from UCLA are both dead now. Richard Taurek drank too much and died of liver failure, and Ken Dallett killed himself by turning on the gas in his psychology lab. Another friend from UCLA, Norm Fogel, later married my ex-wife Pamela, leaving me to wander if he had been one of her lovers when she and I were married.

I had lots of friends in Berkeley, although I don’t see many of them anymore. I lived with Ariana’s mother Karen, Abby Minot and Bobby Keeler in a house in the flatlands of Berkeley. A lot of good folks hung out with us there. And then there was Jim. I really loved him. He was easily as far out as I was. I don’t think I ever knew his last name though.

I made many friends in the Rainbow Family too. I used to travel to the gatherings almost every year just to see my friends. I don’t travel as much nowadays, and I’m not planning on ever going to another gathering. Some of us are still in touch though.
.

My best friends have always been those folks that I’ve tripped with. Not having done any acid these past few years, I’ve lost touch (for now) with most of them. But there still remains the acid connection, as we used to call it, that psyche tie that remains forever between two folks who have seriously tripped together.

Ramon Landero, or Mexican, was my all-time best friend. I met him back in 1973 at the gathering in Wyoming. He’s dead now, murdered in the Bay Area outside the Dead’s New Years Eve concert. He was trying to score. Too bad. He was a beautiful soul. He would have become a great wizard if he had lived.

Then there was Paul Borne. I was camping alone at Dinky Creek in the High Sierras once, and I saw this guy jump off a cliff above the creek. I rushed over to where I thought his body would be and saw that he had jumped into a pool, one that I later saw you couldn’t even see from where he had jumped. I was tripping and gave him a hit. He deserved it. The next morning, when I woke up, he was squatting by my sleeping bag with a big smile on his face. “Got more?” He’s a stunt man in Hollywood now. He’s also Ariana’s godfather.

There were a lot of folks at the gatherings who were great trippers. Mitro, who was Chastity when I first met her, turned me onto teepees, turned me onto her too. We were together for a few years, tripping and raising our kids together. I had a high house with Ramon and her and our kids up in Gold Hill, above Boulder.

Then there were Brett and Lee from Minneapolis. Aspen and I planned on meeting them somehow at the gathering in Missouri, We didn’t know how or when or where. We finally arrived there, after flying into St Louis, taking a bus south, and then hitching a ride to the gathering. When the driver stopped to let us out in the gathering’s parking lot, Brett and Lee were standing there, as if waiting to lead us to their camp. Synchronicity!

There were many others high folks from the gatherings too – Spice and Jimbo and Rex and Felipe and Hoot and Motorcycle Michael and all the others, all very high brothers and sisters.

Here in Boulder, Aspen and I had friends too, until our boys came into our lives. Most of our friends dropped off then, when they realized we had become boring, in their eyes anyway. And most of them didn’t really like kids anyway, except maybe for an hour or so. And, for our part, we were always exhausted from having to put so much of our energy into our boys

We didn’t make friends with other parents either. Not many of the couples with young kids that we have met have a 31 years age difference between them, as Aspen and I do. Aspen was friends with some of the mothers for a while, but most of the men just couldn’t relate to me. I was as old or older than all of their fathers.
.

In my life now, I want grownup friends, friends of the same high quality as those of my past. I want friends who are interested in what I am interested in and doing now – which is primarily writing, doing kitchen table holy work, and being a holy medicine man. Besides having been a father for most of my adult life – for the last 50 or so years – I have spent the rest of my time either writing or healing or tripping. And I have found that this is what I like to do and do well.

I want friends who have created their own unique life, who value being conscious and loving, and who are daring and wild and live outside the law (so they must be honest, hey Dylan?) I want friends with whom I can really share my interests and hear theirs. And, when we stare, I want to be with them in person, either outdoors somewhere or else sitting together over coffee or tea and maybe a pipe and talking about what’s really going on with ourselves.
.

Aspen and I were driving by all the big houses on the Hill here in Boulder earlier today. She said she’d like to live with other folks in one of the big houses. I told her that I didn’t like the neighborhood. I see rich people as greedy and selfish and too uptight – not folks I’d want to live near. But I told her I did like her idea.

I’ve been reading about the Indians of the southwest lately, and they all have large extended families. They honor the family. It’s the center of their life and their most important social world. Most white folks don’t. People move away from family for work. Children don’t stay and live near their parents. The white folks’ nuclear family is exploding.

I’ve lived in communities. I lived in the Grant Street house in Berkeley for several years. Only four of us paid rent, but there were a lot more folks there every day, going home only to sleep. It was a very high, a very fun house.

I lived briefly in the community in Deadwood, Oregon. In fact, I helped start it. I’ve lived with the Rainbow Family too, although there has never been a place for the family to live. I have had to just follow them around, going to thanksgiving and spring councils and some of the regional gatherings too.

I’ve also visited other communes or families. There was Stoneybrook in Missouri, Gaskin’s Farm in southern Tennessee and another, unnamed one in Nashville. There’s also my friend Wayne’s White Buffalo Farm in Paonia, out on the West Slope.

They’ve all been interesting, but I’ve come to see that I’m more interested in a looser family, one that comes together naturally and evolves without rules or any hierarchy. I not at all interested in any sort of formal community.

I haven’t lived with others in years. But I agree with Aspen. I would like to live with others again. I want a large family too, one bound by love and common interest. Actually, I want a family made up of all of my friends.

The first time I smoked marijuana was in the city jail in Roswell, New Mexico. Really! I was in the jail for drunk and disorderly conduct. I had been trying to hit on these two women in a restaurant, and I had been so drunk that I couldn’t take no for an answer. While I was in the jail, one of the other prisoners gave me a couple hits off his joint. It sure made it interesting, being there in jail

I’ve smoked off and on ever since then. Without it, I have found that I have a lot of trouble slowing down. I can’t even slow myself down with meditation. Once, when I had quit for a while and was getting speedy again, I had a dream in which the two dogs I was out walking ran away from me. I couldn’t keep up with their energy. I understood from the dream that when I wasn’t smoking, my physical energy would get out of control and run away from me.

Of course, during the sixties and early seventies, before it got uptight again, almost everybody smoked, even a president. I’d go to a UCLA party and everybody there would be stoned, professors and lawyers and doctors and students and all. And when I lived in Venice and later in Berkeley, smoking was almost a political statement, one that went like this – “if only everyone would smoke marijuana instead of drinking alcohol, the world would be a better place, certainly more peaceful and caring.”

The Rainbow Gathering was another place where almost everybody smoked. And, at least in its early days, it was a safe place to sit outside in nature, smoking the peace pipe, so to speak, with your friends. I made a lot of friends there, sitting around a circle and remembering that what goes around, comes around.
.

These days, I have a medical marijuana card. I’ve had it for several years now. In addition to using smoke to slow down and to raise my consciousness, as I always have, I also use it these days to deal with my chronic pain, especially the pain in my shoulders. Sometimes I use it for headaches too. It helps.

I’ve heard it said that coffee makes you smarter than you really are. I know that smoke makes me wiser than I really am – which is really good for my writing.

If I smoke in the daytime, it’s mostly while I’m writing. But I usually smoke at night, after the boys are finally asleep and I’m done with all my household chores. I want to be off duty when I smoke.

Interestingly enough, I’m smoking less and less these days. Over the many years that I’ve smoked, I’ve found, paradoxically, that the less I smoke, the higher I get.

As the next bend in the trail of my life draws near, I’m beginning to see what I have to do in order to bring in more money for my family. I know that I have to support them on a higher level than we’re living at now, one where we’ll be more comfortable, certainly not wealthy, but no longer living so close to the edge.
.

In order to understand what I have to do now, I need to first go back in time, back to an earlier bend in the trial of my life, back to when I was younger, in my late twenties and early thirties. In those days, a lot of folks thought I was teetering on the edge of insanity The Jungians in particular were worried and thought I needed more ego if I was ever going to be an analyst.

I disagreed. I thought I needed a less complicated and less frightened ego. So I began to do a lot of acid. In those days, instead of the edge of insanity thing, I preferred to see myself as a wandering acid holy man, With the help of acid, I came to realize that my mind was naturally simple. It was who I was. I saw then that my spiritual task was to fit my life to my simple mind. My life had to become simple too.

In those days, as I have said in my note, “Traveling Light,” I learned to keep my life simple. Even today, I still buy one pair of pants a year and wear them till they wear out. I still borrow books from the public library. I still grow food and eat simply. I haven’t changed.
.

But now, raising my three boys, I do need more money. I don’t need more for myself. I still live as simply as always; but I do need more for the boys – and for Aspen too. I definitely need to bring in more money. My family’s real needs motivate me to do so. They really energize my father energy. But I still have my simple mind, and it still requires a simple life. I can’t change that. So I’m seeing that I have to earn more money with this simple mind while I continue to live my simple life. It’s who I am.

My simple mind and my simple way of life are worthy. I know this. I also know that I’m not at all like those holy men in India. I’m not holy in that way. I’m a family man who’s up early every morning and busy raising his boys until 8 or 9 at night, every night. I’m a family man who’s trying to be holy.

But I’m not even always nice. I lose it sometimes when the three boys are all arguing and fighting and screaming, often all at once. When all this is happening, I can get caught up by their negative energy and lose it too. But I always do deal with my lapses of good sense and consciousness, those times when I lose my connection with the love and wisdom in my heart.
.

I know I’m high enough now to go wandering again. I’ve been a stay-at-home mommy-daddy for way too long, for the last eleven years, in fact. I’m tired of it. And the boys need a productive dad more than a mommy-daddy now anyway.

I’m thinking too, these days wandering doesn’t require traveling in a VW van or backpacking into the high mountains. These days, I can just go walking around this town called Boulder. There ought to be a few folks out there who would catch my high.

This is the path to more money for my family. I can feel it. I’ll go out into the world and let the world decide who I am and what’s my worth.