Following in the tradition of Dickens and others, The Caldron is publishing, for the first time ever, here in the Weekly Reader, the sequel to The Birth of Wanderer. It is called The Life and Death of Wanderer, and it tells of Wanderer’s life as a wandering acid holy man. It tells also of his death.

Each week a new chapter will be presented on these pages. This week, we offer chapter 48, the final chapter. The Preface and Chapters 1 through 47 may still be accessed using the drop down menu above.
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You may still read The Birth of Wanderer here in The Caldron. You may continue to access the entire book, the preface and all the chapters using the drop down menu under Birth of Wanderer.

Chapter 48 – Into the Future
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Turn the Pain into Love

As he begins to find his center again and move on with his life, he remembers going backpacking by himself in the Three Sisters Wilderness Area last summer when he and Karen were still together. He remembers how just before he left Eugene, he got into a big fight with Jonathan and Ariana. He was burnt out and needed a break from them. They had been very needy, maybe even scared by his going away. Karen and his new friend, Larry, who lived next door, were going to take care of them while he was gone.

After driving out of town and up the winding road to the trailhead, he found himself finally hiking in the healing woods again. He missed Jonathan. Maybe that was what Jonathan was upset about – upset at not being asked to come along this time. He explained to him that he needed to be alone and that he would bring him next time. But he wasn’t sure if Jonathan understood. He didn’t know what Ariana was upset about.
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The next day though, doing acid, he suddenly realized how they must have felt, how much his anger must have hurt them. This freaked him out at first. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to leave and go to them, especially not while he was doing acid, but he could really feel their pain.

Just then, a voice spoke to him clearly, coming from the empty air. It said simply, “turn the pain into love.” This was repeated several times.

He realized that his heart was still sore from his anger and that his kids were still feeling it. He understood what he was being told. He turned his attention to his heart. It felt cold and constricted. He closed his eyes, sitting there in the sun, and imagined his heart opening up and becoming warm. When he did this, he could feel the blood rushing through it. He could feel its warmth, as it relaxed and opened itself again to the world. He had turned his pain into love.

He knew that he was not the only one feeling this now. He knew that Jonathan and Ariana were feeling this back at home too. He didn’t have to go home to love them; love transcends space and time. He could feel their pain disappear finally, replaced by love.
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Future Tripping

He’s doing acid today. He’s future tripping. He wants to see where he’s going with his life. As he looks ahead, his future unfolds itself before him. He sees how his life till now had been but a prelude to being who he truly is.

He sees that there is acid in Eugene, and he’ll find it soon. He’ll always find acid when he needs it. He’ll be married again too, maybe more than once, and he’ll have more children. He’s not surprised. He loves women and children. He can’t see a life without them.

He sees that he’ll raise Ariana, without Karen, for most of his next twenty years. This he finds exciting but hard to believe from here. He wants it to be true though. He sees that he’ll raise her alone until she’s almost grown up. He’ll be her mother, her mommy-daddy because Karen will be unable to be that for her.
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He sees that someday he will be living in Boulder, Colorado. He had a dream about that recently. Ariana will be there with him. He’ll be a writer then. He won’t finish this book until then. He won’t even be able to reread these notes until then. They are too charged with what he has been through. They would throw him off if he were to read them too soon. Before he can read them, he’ll have to become much more grounded and centered in who he is. He sees though, that he will finally publish this book. It is worthy.

He sees that Karen will let him have Ariana – without really knowing why. He sees, in the years to come, that both Ariana and Jonathan, especially Jonathan at first, will help him to stay grounded and centered, so that he won’t become a desert hermit like Ron or run away with Barbara and join the Indians.
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He sees that he’ll keep very few friends from these days. Pamela and Al and Mary and Richard and Franz and Bernice and Steve and Simone, all his old friends from LA, will soon be gone from his life, either by death or by just drifting apart. His folks will die.

Bobby and Chuck and Cheno and Edie and Sallie and all the others from Berkeley will be gone too. Jim and Abby and Joe Shaker will be back for more though. Of all the folks from Swisshome and Deadwood, he’ll see only Doc Webb after this, and only rarely. He’ll lose touch with most of his road family too. But he’ll build up new family again – always acid brothers and sisters, always changing as they move along the Tao.

Mostly, when he future trips, he sees himself both as a father and as a secret agent for Acid Rescue – raising his kids and trying always to save the world.

He sees finally, now that he’s free of Karen, that he will mature and fulfill his destiny.

The End

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