Chapter 1 – Newborn

Karen Returns

He wakes up this beautiful, sunny morning and puts himself and his camp together. Then he slowly hikes out to meet Karen. And now, as he comes down the trail to the parking lot, he sees her pulling up in their car.

After hugs and kisses and lots of eye contact, they decide to hike into the higher country above Dinky Creek. For one thing, he has been alone in their camp for two weeks now and would like to see something new. For another, it will be an adventure for them, something new and exciting for them to do together.

First, they hike to their camp by Dinky and Cow Creeks where he has been these past two weeks. He picks up his stuff, and then they head on up.
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At first, the higher country above Dinky is wild and beautiful. But this doesn’t last. Soon they hear, and then they see through the trees, a jeep driving by them less than fifty feet away! What’s this? They hike over that way and see that the jeep was on a dirt road that they hadn’t even known was there, less than fifty feet away from the trail.

Soon, they see the reason for the road. They come upon a decimated logging area with dead and dying trees tossed all about and the earth carved up as by giant bulldozer knives. It looks like an ancient battleground of giants. Where there is still grass and trees, there are hundreds of cows grazing about. Whoever allowed this destruction, desecration really, has no love of nature and no sense of beauty at all!

Discouraged from seeing all this ugliness, they turn around and head back down to their old camp, to their oasis in the middle of all this misused and trashed forest. When they finally arrive back in camp, they’re overjoyed to be again walking in beauty, to be again out of sight of man and his ugliness.
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He’s thinking that he and Karen probably went on this out of their way hike so as to give the energy between them time to meld again. They have been through so much lately and separated from one another for two weeks now. They both feel like newlyweds, married but now not sure where to go with themselves and their energy.
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The Bushman

Still at Dinky, he dreams that these four Bushmen escape from a corral where they had been held prisoners by the brutal Whitemen. They had been beaten and forced to live there in inhumane conditions, worse than if they had been animals.

They escape with several horses. The Whitemen come after them. All of the Bushmen get away to the wilds except for one. Still dreaming now, he realizes that he is this Bushman. He sees that he won’t be able to make it to the wilderness, so he cautiously approaches a farm and hides out in one of the outbuildings. The Whiteman living there soon discovers him but is friendly and offers to help him.

The farmer is going to take him somewhere safe in the morning. He is a good man – they even sleep in the same bed that night. He has to learn the Whiteman’s ways, like using a toilet for pissing and shitting. He knows that he’s dirty and smelly compared to the farmer but that’s just who he is. They slowly get used to each other.

In the morning, the Whiteman takes him out to his car and shows him how to get inside it. He’s going to take him to safety. He has to make one stop first though. He parks behind his stop in a wide alley, full of old cars, looking strangely like an elephant graveyard. The farmer tells him to stay in the car while he’s gone and shows him how to put up the convertible roof on the car.

He does so. He’s in the driver’s seat now, waiting. It’s hot, and he’s uncomfortable and sweaty in the car. He has all the windows, made of darkened glass, shut so that he won’t be seen. He can see out through them though. He’s beginning to really suffer from the heat and from being confined in the car. He looks forward to safety and to the coolness of wilderness.
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When he wakes out of this dream, he’s holding a stick in his hand. After breakfast and his other morning chores, he wanders off alone by the creek. He’s visualizing a throwing stick, one like the Bushmen use, with a stone point notched into the end of the stick and tied with leather. He knows he can make this. He’s looking for the right stick and stone while he rambles about today. He also wants to make a headband out of a leather thong with a knot over his right ear for a feather.

He has changed. Something has been liberated within him since that incredible peyote night – a wilder and more natural way of being a human being. He is this Bushman yet still the Whiteman. The two of them sleep together in one bed, in one dream. The Whiteman sets the Bushman free, and in doing so sets himself free. Alchemy – the union of opposites.
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Back to Dinky

Several weeks later, after a short trip to Berkeley, they’re back at Dinky.

They slept by the car last night and hiked up to their camp at dawn today. When they got here, they had to repair the damage done by the last campers. Whoever they were, they had really trashed the camp.

He’s at peace. He’s surprised by this, yet enjoying it while it’s with him.
He’s been swimming and smoking, being lazy. He’s looking for Karen now. Their cats are with them – Star and Stoney, anyway. Momma Sylvie stayed in Berkeley. Both cats are very mellow here.

He’s at his tree now, doing medicine. He’s alone.

He’s thinking of his book. He needs to support himself now, yet he also needs time to write and edit it. He has to get it out there to be read by other folks. He wonders who is going to read it.

After awhile, he decides that he has been thinking enough. He rambles over to the big pool and dives in. This always gets him into his body. When he gets out of the pool, he sees a chipmunk staring at him from a rock. He offers her some of his sandwich, and they eat together, friends for now.
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Now he’s sitting way above the pool, at the Place of Power. He’s mediating between the Whiteman and the Bushman within himself, getting them to talk with each other. He listens as they begin to speak.

The Bushman doesn’t know why both of them can’t just take to the woods, live here off the land. The Whiteman can’t yet, explains the daypack, the bigger Kelty pack, the car, the road, the house, the garden, all those things of the city. And, of course, the need for money to keep it all going.

The Bushman tells the Whiteman to go make money, but to spend it all on skis and snowshoes and a tent and stove so they can both be here together all year round. He tells the Whiteman to hurry back, says he’ll stay here while he’s gone into the city.

The Whiteman needs the Bushman to come with him into the city, tells him so. They have to stay together to succeed. He tells the Bushman that he has to help earn the money that they will need to live both in the city and here. Knowing that the Bushman is afraid of the city, he asks him why isn’t he afraid of bears. How is he unafraid of them?

The Bushman says that he gets along with bears by being strong and kind. As soon as he says this, he gets the point. He tells the Whiteman that he’ll come to the city with him. He’ll be strong and kind in the city.
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Ishi

He’s still at Dinky. He has just read about Ishi, the last free Native American. He wonders if he might actually be Ishi himself, perhaps his living reincarnation. His dream of the Bushmen escaping from the corral – that’s what really happened to Ishi and his people here in California. They were captured by the Whiteman and locked up in a corral. They escaped too, if only briefly.

He’s back at his Juniper tree now. He found a fair sized piece of brown obsidian near the Old One earlier. The early people living here used this camp too. They made their arrows and throwing stick heads out of this obsidian. It’s all over here. The brown colored ones must have been traded though. It’s said to come from way south and east of here.

He sees himself as two people. He sees himself as the Whiteman and as the Bushman, or Ishi. The Bushman/Ishi part of him has been very frightened whenever they are in the city. That’s the source of most of his fear when he goes back to the city from here.

He also understands why he has been afraid of his acid consciousness until recently. It’s the same head for him as the Bushman-Ishi head, as his hunting and gathering consciousness. The Ishi side of him has been afraid of the city, and the Whiteman in him been afraid of this Ishi side of himself. If he can overcome these fears, then the Whiteman and Ishi can live together without fear wherever they are, in the city or in the mountains.

Somehow he imagines Ishi as being centered in his belly. As Ishi, he has been a prisoner in the city, held within ego consciousness. He broke free and escaped on acid, into these mountains. How can he be free still in the city? By making sure belly is always relaxed, by making sure that Ishi is always with him there.

This isn’t just his problem. This is a problem for all Whitemen to solve – how to stay focused enough in ego to live in the city yet still be part of the whole of life, of which Ishi and the Bushman are integral parts. How can the child, the wild and primitive spirit within all of us, live in the city? How can the Whiteman’s ego live in nature?

He has to become like a Bushman so that he can feel his full manhood, his full strength. Only thus can he live fully in the world as he finds it. He may be insane – he still worries sometimes – but he accepts the myth now that he’s Ishi reborn into a Whiteman’s body.

Thinking back to his recent dream of the bulldozer raging through Dinky, he realizes that the Whiteman’s way has destroyed his camp here at Dinky, his home. He has no home now. Perhaps he never had one, really. He has been a wanderer, a stranger in the Whiteman’s world for more than thirty-two years. Now he has only his own feelings and his center in belly.
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Chapter 2 – New Ways

They Buy a Van

They’re back in Berkeley now. They’ve decided to buy a VW van. They’re looking for one now. As soon as they find one, they’re going to take off in it and drive to the Sierras, to Lake Tahoe probably.

They decided that they wanted a van so that they can live more easily outside of the city. The have also thought of traveling cross-country. Karen wants to go back east. He wants to go to the Southwest and the Rockies. They’ve been looking at a lot of vans. They may have already found the one for them. They’re going to sleep on it tonight, see how they feel in the morning.
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The next morning, they buy it! It’s blue and white with plenty of windows. It’s old, made in 1968, but it’s in very good shape. They have already had it checked out. They call it Sam – Sam the van.
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Later the same day, they head to Lake Tahoe. On the way, they stop off the road by a little creek to eat dinner and smoke. Afterwards, when he tries the engine, it won’t start. But he’s not too worried. He consults Muir’s Idiot Book for the VW. Muir makes everything easy! Using it, he figures out what is wrong and gets Sam started, but then Sam’s lights go out! He fixes them too. He sees that Sam needs a new ignition switch, but for now he’s running and has lights.

Today they’ve been going slow, enjoying the scenery, not trying to get anywhere. When they get to Lake Tahoe, they find that the rent in the public campgrounds is too much for them. There are too many people here too, with all their loud radios and bright lanterns. If they stay here, they might as well still be in Berkeley.

They leave and drive out of town aways and find their first, but not their last, hidden, free, and off the road camp. It’s easy with the van. They just pull off, park as level as they can, shut down the engine, and get in the bed in the back. When they’re really set up, they’ll have curtains for privacy and a stove and propane tank too.
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They’re going back to Berkeley tomorrow. They’ll put the curtains up and build a permanent bed, a folding one so there will be room for them to move around in the daytime. He’s going to donate one of his oriental rugs for the floor. It’ll keep it warmer, hold down the noise, and, most importantly, look beautiful. Karen’s going to Chinatown to get some wooden boxes for food storage. They’re creating a home. When they have the propane tank and the stove, they’ll be all set. They’re almost on the road.
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Being a Healer Again

He feels somewhat weird working as a psychotherapist again. He thought he had left it behind to explore the Old City. But he needs money now to live and to explore that deeper reality. Until his book is published, he has to earn a living somehow. He knows that he is a trained and competent therapist, and he does help his patients. He likes the money and helping folks, but he doesn’t like the way he has done therapy in the past. Maybe, because he is different now, especially because he’s less afraid, his work will be different too.
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Later…. He already has a patient, is already earning some money. He’s seeing him later today. The money so far won’t be nearly enough, but it is a start. He and Karen are putting up a new handbill soon, advertising themselves and their work. They’re being open about their connection with acid now. They feel they can best help those folks who are into medicines already. They plan to begin new workshops in the fall too.

They are both confident, although they do have their doubts and fears still, and will have them until they have actually proven themselves. He and Karen are growing closer each day. This new closeness will help their work greatly.
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Another thing he decides is to not wait for folks to come to him here at the house for healing, but to go out into the community, to walk on Telegraph Avenue and on campus and be healing all the time – with friends, with people he meets on his walks, with folks he works with already, with the folks at the Rap Center, with Roger and Bobby and Abby and Edie, especially with Edie for all she has given him. He owes her big. If he just focuses on being healing and bringing his energy out into the world with him, the money will come of itself. He’s learning this.

It’s difficult for him to justify keeping his healing to himself except when people pay him for it. He knows that he can be drained by all the low energy and negativity that’s out there. He knows that there are folks that he can’t be open to. There are plenty of folks though, whom he can talk with and hear their story, whom he can give his compassionate understanding. The main thing for him to remember is to stay grounded. Then all the negativity he absorbs will just drain through him, into the earth. He’s in his body now, and even in the city he and Karen will help each other to stay grounded. Also, he can insist that anyone talking with him has to go walking with him, has to be in his or her body too.
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A Hippie Carpenter

He dreams that he’s hitching north. He’s on a street somewhere in Hollywood, trying to get home. He’s with two other people. A van comes by, with a hippie driving. When it stops, he asks the driver if he can take all three of them. The driver says he doesn’t have the room. The van is all filled with his tools. He decides to go with the man anyway. He’ll meet up with the others later.

He decides to go with the hippie mostly because the inside of his van is all in wood paneling and he has all these carpenter’s tools, almost as many as his dad had. The hippie driver tells him that he’s setting up a work collective, doing mostly woodwork – building, remodeling, making cabinets, etc. He tells the driver that he used to be a journeyman carpenter himself. He tells him that he still has his tools and would like to be part of the collective. The two of them like each other.
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He wakes up from his dream, and the first thing he does is put his own tools in Sam the van. This way they’ll always be with him. He can even work as a carpenter on the road! He realizes that this would be an excellent way to support himself while traveling. There’s always work for a carpenter with his tools. He thinks too that he could put wood paneling in their own bus as his dream friend did in his, but later on he and Karen decide to stay simple for now.

He’s also intrigued with the idea of a work collective here in Berkeley, focused on carpentry and other related skills. He would like to work with folks like the man in his dreams and others like him, working with their hands for a living. He sees that they could even take smoke breaks and get stoned. They could also set their own hours. And, most importantly, they would be working for themselves and not for a contractor who would get most of the money.
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He realizes that he could work both as a therapist and as a carpenter. The carpentry would help him to ground himself out after working with his patients. He would have two sources of income too. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” as his mom used to say.

It would be healing for him also. Working for his dad spoiled carpentry for him. He would like to work with brothers, not for a father-boss breathing down his neck all the time, constantly on his case, no matter how well he did. Maybe he’s a good carpenter. He never found out when he was working with his dad, because his dad never trusted him with anything important and never gave him any responsibility. He appreciates the dream and the suggestions within it. Thank you, God.
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A Man Unafraid

There is a process that all of us who are on our way to Spirit must first go through. Carl Jung sees this process as accepting our shadow, our repressed and hidden aspects, and thus freeing ourselves from the negative and destructive aspects of our unconscious. Don Juan sees this process as defeating fear, the first enemy of man – by not running, by standing up to it and allowing clarity to grow out of the ensuing lack of fear. Doris Lessing sees it as defeating the self-hater – that voice within each of us that is constantly criticizing us for who we are and for what we are doing. By accomplishing this and by going into and through our craziness, we come to ourselves.
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He sees it as they do, as first defeating the self-hater and then becoming centered and whole by going through his personal and collective madness. He sees it as defeating his fear and connecting to his inner teacher. He sees it as accepting his real self and allowing the unconscious to become a positive and healing force, rather than, as it so often is – for most folks anyway – a negative and destructive force and the source of all our neuroses and psychoses.

He sees in his own life that he first became identified with fear long ago, when he was still a young boy. He became afraid then, not without cause, of the inner and outer worlds, of all that was inside him and of all the people in the outer world, except perhaps his mother. In his life now he is separating himself from this fear, from his unconscious identification with it. He’s becoming open again to the unconscious and to his spiritual life. He’s finally opening up to people too, and in a healing way.

When he was a young boy, dying on the operating table and living with a father who hated him, his little developing ego was overwhelmed by fear, which then took over and became his dominant personality.

However, with his dreams as well as with grass and acid, he’s becoming himself again and is no longer afraid.

He is freeing the anima, rescuing the maiden from the dragon, defeating fear, the self-hater, becoming clear and sure of himself. He’s becoming centered in and through his madness, and he’s becoming who he truly is, a man unafraid.
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Steve’s Free!

He met Steve back in Venice, in Southern California, when he first lived there. Steve lived near the beach with his brother Tom in the same apartment that he and Karen lived in later, just before they moved north. He bought his first grass and his first acid from Steve. Steve always had the best. Steve was and is a very high brother. He has always felt that Steve was ahead of him on the path, and he has always tried to track him.
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It’s been easy to keep track of Steve lately. He has been in Safford, Arizona, in the federal prison there. He’s been there for the past several years for refusing induction into the military. He’s not a registered conscientious objector or anything like that; he just feels this way in his heart. He realizes that he would have probably done the same as Steve did if he were still of draft age. When he went in the service, in the early fifties, no one opposed the draft. They were all like sheep being led off to the slaughter of war.

Anyway, Steve refused induction, refused to even go for his physical. For this, he was sentenced to five to ten years in prison. He remembers when Steve left. Steve was staying high behind it, but it was clear that it was scary and being hard on him.

They’ve kept in touch. Steve has written several times, and other folks, like Steve’s girlfriend Evie and his brother Tom, tell them the latest. He and Karen have written him too. In fact, they just got a letter from Steve today, saying he was getting out soon and heading their way.
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They would love to have him live here with them, at least for this summer, when most of them are sleeping outside anyway. Steve said in his letter something about going apple picking in the fall. Karen wants them to go with him. He’ll see.

He’s excited. Steve has always been an idol for him, a mirror for the potential in him that he couldn’t yet see in himself. Now he will be able to see how far Steve has come since their days together in Venice and up at Boney Ridge. Now he can gauge his progress too, with this perspective, using Steve to measure himself against. Also, he and Karen can help him to debrief after the stress of doing time. That must have been hard for Steve. There must be scars. It’ll be good for him to be here in Berkeley with them, after that prison in Arizona.

Reading Steve’s letter, he decides to actively help others like Steve to stay out of the clutches of the military. He’s angry that the government can take folks out of their own lives and turn them into robotic killers. From now on, he’s going to help anyone who wants to stay out of the killing profession.