Chapter 11 – Going Solo

Acid Walk

This is an historic day for him. He dropped acid earlier this morning and walked all around the UC campus and town, especially Telegraph Avenue. He was out for hours, wandering about. People felt his energy. He got a lot of smiles. He also ran into a lot of folks he had wanted to see. They all said they were feeling his energy.

There are some very peaceful places on campus. He found a bench called the Senior Men’s Bench that’s very comfortable. Earlier this morning, he sat on it and warmed himself in the sun. Just behind it and down a grassy bank under the trees is a beautiful and secluded stretch of the creek that runs through campus. He sat there for a long while too, listening to the song of the creek as his mind floated off with the waters.

When he was walking around town and the more populated areas of campus later, he was very open with his eyes. Many people saw him looking and looked away. A fair number didn’t notice. Those who did look and kept the contact invariably broke into big smiles that warmed his heart. He looked in a storefront window and saw this same smile on his face. It reflected the love and joy he was feeling in his heart to be this high and holy and walking among people in the city. The smiles he received back from those who shared their eyes with him showed the power of open eye contact, showed perhaps the power of his heart too.

He’s doing a fair amount of acid these days, and he feels as if he’s waking up for the first time. He’s stronger now and more in control of himself. His consciousness is more focused now too, yet he’s looser and more open at the same time.
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A new, higher and simpler consciousness, one more honest and loving, is emerging from within him, is trying to emerge in everyone probably. Most folks are still like he was, freaked out by this new and unexpected psychic force that seeks to share their lives. Must folks, when first confronted by this force, hold on to their old egos and refuse to let go. This new spiritual force that is emerging in the world today, however, is too strong. If folks reject Spirit’s call and attempt to fight it, if they strive to keep it from coming to consciousness and to life from within them, they will have taken sides against life, against God really. They’ll be the new walking, living dead.
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Wolf Again

They’re just sitting down to eat dinner in their house in Berkeley when Wolf calls from down in Venice. Actually it’s Simone calling to tell them that some folks found Wolf and somehow knew to bring him to her house. It’s been a few weeks now. He wonders how Wolf survived.

He’s going down to get him the day after tomorrow. He’s going alone. He felt when he lost him down there that he lost his luck. His luck’s back now though. He’s excited and feels in the flow again. He’s going to drop acid with Wolf when he gets there, give him some too, and see if they can make a real connection. He’s tired of Wolf always splitting on him

That night he dreams that he finds Wolf, but he’s dead the next day. When he finds him he feels very high, way up, but when Wolf dies in his dream, he feels down, way down.
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When he leaves, he takes a slow drive down the coast, finding his own pace after so much traveling together with Karen. He has no schedule, no times to be anywhere. He goes a way that he has never gone together before. He’s exploring himself as well as these new byways. He likes being alone.

When he arrives at Steve and Simone’s, Wolf is very glad to see him. He just got lost, looking for food to fill his always hungry belly. The next day he shares a couple hits of acid with Wolf, and they go walking out on the beach for the day. He feels the acid strongly, but if Wolf does, he sure doesn’t show it. He and Wolf have a great day together though, and he feels better connected to Wolf now, better connected to himself too.

He decides to continue with acid. He’s going to do it alone for the next three or four days here in Venice and maybe even on the road back. He’s throwing himself into life, seeking his fortune with his luck.

Whose Fear Is It?

While he’s in Venice, he stays at Steve and Simone’s. His first night there he’s sitting at the dining room table with Stan, an old friend of his and Karen’s, and Stan’s girlfriend Debbie. Stan’s a good brother. He’s really in love with Debbie. Watching them, he can see that she knows this and plays games with Stan, never really letting him feel he can relax with her. He knows the feeling. Pamela was always like that with him.

Sitting with them at the table, he suddenly becomes very scared, paranoid really. He feels that someone is going to hurt him, that someone is trying to rip him off this very moment. He worries about the van, so he excuses himself and runs out of the house and out to the street. When he doesn’t see anyone around the van, he slows down some, but he’s still going to check. He peers inside and checks the doors. No one’s inside and the doors are all still locked. He gets into the back of the van and sits there alone for a while, smoking, wanting to figure out why he was so scared.

He’s not scared now, not at all. He feels peaceful and glad to be alone for a moment. He feels at home again, in the van named Sam.
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After awhile he goes back inside. When he sits down again, he feels the same fear again. This time he is able to keep it at a distance and look at it more objectively. It’s in the air. He begins to listen more attentively as Stan and Debbie talk with one another, noticing that the fear is coming from them, from their lack of trust in each other and from the urgency of their need to connect.

Stan’s basically telling Debbie that he’s afraid she’ll hurt him, maybe cheat on him, something like that. Debbie isn’t helping him. She feels threatened by his needs. Because of this, she saying things like, “I want to be free to do whatever I want,” and “I love you but. . . .”

He tells them that he can feel their feelings. They look surprised, finally noticing that he’s here. He can feel their pain. He lets them talk to each other through him for a while. They’re finally able to let go of their fears and really talk with one another for a change.

He can connect to what other folks are feeling, especially if it’s strong enough. He doesn’t always know though if the feelings are his or the other persons. With Stan and Debbie, going outside and being alone with himself for a short while was enough to let him know that the feelings weren’t his. As he becomes more and more able to sort out his own stuff from the feelings he takes on from others, this “talent” for feeling what others feel will become a healing gift for him to share.
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On his last day in Venice, he drives up to Boney Ridge. He spends the day alone there visiting his old haunts, memories of those days with Steve and Larry and Jonathan and Karen filling the air.

Later, parked near the trailhead, hanging out in the back of the van, he feels movement and leaps without thinking for the handbrake that he hadn’t properly set. The van stops, bare inches from the edge of a ravine. He’s so freaked by this that he immediately becomes very sick, with a severe head and throat cold – swollen glands and all.

Later, when he’s calm enough, he drives to a campground at the beach for the night. He spends hours laying in the bed in the back, relaxing his body, especially the chakras, circulating his energy through them. Finally, he falls into a deep and peaceful sleep and wakes up the next morning refreshed and well, ready to drive north to be with Karen on Valentine’s Day, the day after tomorrow.
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Burning His Past

A thought came to him out of nowhere, from somewhere deep and mysterious within himself; yet when heard, this wandering thought felt right and true.

He needs to let go of who he has been. He needs to burn everything from his past – all his old dream books, his records, his old writings, and all his old picture albums. He needs to sell all his books and all his other old things. He needs to pare himself down to who he is now.

He needs to burn his past, all of him from before he met Karen. Just throwing everything away won’t work. He actually needs to sit before the fireplace here in their room in the house and feed the fire.
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Why wait? As soon as he has eaten and gotten ready for the day, he opens his old cedar chest within which he has carried his past for all these many years now. He goes through each dream book, tearing out each page and feeding it to the fire. He feeds in the book covers too. He decides to keep any dreams after 1968, after he first met Karen. He’s doing this with consciousness too, reading all the dreams that he’s throwing away, and remembering what they meant to him then, remembering his life then.

After all the dreams are gone, he begins to go through his practical life. He throws away all his bills. If someone he owes still wants money from him, they can bill him again. It’s satisfying. He feels as if he’s taking pounds off his back with each little blaze of burning paper. He throws away all his tax records. This is a huge relief. He hates taxes and that sort of thing! He does keep some things – his old report cards from grammar school, some of Jonathan’s too from his early school years when he was still with him, things like that.

When he comes to his old writings, He just can’t do it. They’re his children. He can’t throw them away anymore than he could throw away Jonathan. He created them out of his mind and his heart. They are part of his life. Rereading some of these early writings, he’s struck by how long he has been writing, by how he has continued writing through all his changes, and by how much he has always enjoy writing.

When he looks through the photo albums, he can feel all the hurt and rejection again that he had received from his parents and family. He gleefully tosses photo after photo into the now raging fire. He’s raging inside himself, matching the fire’s intensity, as he relives, through each picture, the unhappiness of his life before he met Karen. When he is finished, he feels empty, Zen empty, and lighter than he has been since he was a young boy.
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Chapter 12 – Reaching Out

Chuck

He met Chuck through Joe Shaker at the Free Clinic. Chuck was at an open rap session there. He had just gotten out of jail for something to do with drugs. He had been ripped off though, as soon as he hit town, and he had nothing left except the clothes on his back, not even a pair of shoes. It’s still winter and cold here too.

He has been meeting a lot of good men lately. Besides Joe and Chuck, he has also connected with Ray and Frank and Mark and Robert. They all want to trip with him. Being into acid themselves, they all respect where he has taken it and want him to share with them.

He and Chuck are up at Briones State Park now. They’re going to trip together, wander around and enjoy the day. He hopes that Chuck can handle the high so he can enjoy his.
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Later back at the house, he and Chuck had a really good day tripping at Briones. Chuck was easy and fun to trip with. They’ve gotten closer from the day too. Chuck is a good man. Chuck’s teaching him to play chess on acid. He has played chess before but never on acid. Chuck shows him how the pieces move themselves when you’re high enough to notice. They tell you where they want to move next. They play several awesome games together.

Chuck has adopted him, their whole house in fact. He’s a young guy who has never been treated well by anyone before. They found him an old pair of boots from all the shit left behind by previous tenants that has been stashed in the crawl space under the house. In fact, they let him ‘shop’ under there for whatever he needed. Chuck’s warm now
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He’s thinking of getting into some sort of body discipline – yoga again, or Tai Chi, or maybe a martial art. He needs to learn how to channel his energy – on both the mental and the physical level. He’s too scattered otherwise.

He’s making money too. Ray paid him for the letter he wrote for him. Ray’s social worker said it was a good letter. She thinks he’ll be able to get money from the state. Also, just before he left the house this morning to go tripping with Chuck, he received a call from a radio station in San Francisco. They want him to be on their talk show soon to discuss the I Ching and other things. He said yes.

He thinks the I Ching is the highest expression of masculine consciousness in the world today. He’s really honored – and nervous too – to be talking about such an important book with so many people.
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Acid and Dreams

He dreams that he’s with this older man. The man is lost. He wants to help the man. He helps the older man get into his car that’s parked on a steep San Francisco Street. He’ll take him somewhere. The older man is complaining about not getting high on acid anymore. He asks the man if he’s into his dreams. The man says that he isn’t, says that he never remembers any. He tells the man that he shouldn’t expect acid to get him high – which is just being in touch with himself and the universe – if he isn’t already high from his dreams.

The older man is an older version of himself. The older man is not getting high anymore, and so has returned in time to his acid beginnings, wanting to know why he’s no longer getting high. In his dream, he’s telling this man from his future that it’s because he no longer dreams, no longer seeks his own inner wisdom. He’s lost from himself, and that’s why he isn’t getting high.
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He sees many old acid heads around him who are like this, who have given themselves up to the acid, trusting mistakenly that the acid is the source of their high and any wisdom they might acquire while tripping. After enough of this though, they become mere burnt out and empty souls with no direction home. This, his dream says, is a strong possibility for him in his future. His dream is trying to save him from it though, by encouraging him to continue to honor his dreams.

He remembers several times up at Dinky when he was tempted to give himself over to the acid, to give up responsibility for his own life. Looking again at the older man of his dream, he’s glad he resisted this temptation. If he had given in completely to acid then, he would already be that man from his future, lost with no way home.

Without attending to our dreams, without that sure knowledge of self and way that comes from a careful and religious following of each dream to it’s core of feeling and meaning – without this, there is no overall view of self and world upon which to ground even the highest acid flash of wisdom. Acid then is just like a random firing of electrons on a cathode ray tube. There is light, true, but often no meaning.

Today, acid still helps to unlock his inner wisdom, still gets him high. When he’s on acid, he becomes Wanderer and is very high. Because he has worked so long and hard with his dreams and has continued to do so even after five years of doing acid, the wisdom that comes to him from acid has meant something and has kept him from being lost. He’s still getting high on acid because he’s still getting high without it.
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Wolf Leaves for Good

Wolf split on them again last night and still hasn’t come back. They looked some for him, but there’s not much they could do at night. In the early morning, sleeping out in the van in case he came back in the night, he and Karen both dream that he does come back.

They’re in the town of Mountain View, near San Jose, visiting with some of Karen’s old friends from the East Coast who have moved here recently. After this, they’re heading down to visit some freak friends who live on open land just south of here. So far, they’ve spent the day here, walking and driving around looking for Wolf. They’ve had no luck so far. They were planning on leaving tomorrow morning early, but now they don’t know.

He’s tired of Wolf splitting on them. He’s almost ready to give up on him. Right now he’s angry. He doesn’t want anymore of Wolf’s games. Karen also dreamed that Wolf turned into a human being and didn’t want to be with them anymore. Maybe that’s it, maybe Wolf doesn’t want to be with them. Maybe he won’t come back, and their dreams are reassuring them that they haven’t lost their own connections with the wolf within each of them.

Wolf is really stupid compared to Gypsy. He has heard that female dogs are generally brighter than the males. It’s certainly true in this case. Gypsy would never have been stupid enough to run away in Mountain View. It’s a giant, ugly subdivision with nothing natural and wild around for miles and miles. Part of him wishes Wolf good luck, another part of him hopes he’ll be taken in by some old lady who’ll have him neutered and turned into a giant lap dog.

It’s similar to what’s been happening to him at home, trying to connect with Bobby. It’s as the I Ching says, “if you lose your horse, do not run after it; it will come back of it’s own accord” (Hexagram 38, Opposition). Of course, if it’s not your horse – or friend or dog – it won’t come back. That’s how you find out.

He’ll just do the same here, whether Wolf is his dog or not. First, he’ll calm out his anger or else Wolf will never come back. He’ll spend time here looking for Wolf, just as he has spent time trying to connect to Bobby, but he won’t push it, he won’t step out of his own flow. Maybe Wolf will show up later as he did in Venice.

He also decides he still going to leave in the morning, Wolf or no Wolf. Karen agrees. They’re both sad but, thanks to their dreams, know that there is no deep inner significance for them in his leaving, beyond his not wanting to be with them anymore.
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On the Radio

He has been nervous all day, waiting for tonight. He’ll be in San Francisco then, talking about the I Ching on a radio talk show. He’s feeling almost sick now, sort of weak and cold – stage fright probably. He’s going to do it anyway, no matter how he feels. He’s going by himself, and he’ll try to center himself in the I Ching on the drive over. He wants to arrive early too so he can meditate in the car before going into the studio. He knows he’ll be okay.

Everyone in the house and all his friends wish him well and say they’ll be listening. He heads on over the Bay Bridge, then through the city’s maze of streets to the station.

When he gets here, he sits in the van for a while to quiet himself from the speed of the drive over. He thinks about himself and the I Ching, how they met when Stan passed through on his way to Haight-Asbury. He thinks of his relationship with this holy book and the consciousness within it that has developed over the years. He thinks especially of how he learned of Spirit from this book, of how the consciousness within it exists outside of time yet speaks clearly of events still to come.
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Inside the radio station, the woman interviewing him is friendly and glad to see him. This puts him somewhat at ease. She asks him what he would like to talk about, shares with him what she wants to ask and the time constraints, things like that.

They talk for a while, waiting for the big red hand on the clock to reach the top. They’ve moved into the studio and he’s more uptight in here, with the microphone in his face and folks watching from behind the glass window. They’re the engineers, she tells him.
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The interview is okay. His expectations were perhaps too high for what could have been done in the half hour they have, with constant interruptions for commercials and all. They do all right though. He’s very nervous at first. The cat does get his tongue. The interviewer helps though, and before long they are chatting away like old friends.

His highpoint is when she starts taking calls from listeners. Among others, Cheno calls from the house. Another brother calls too, says he wishes he had a thousand hits of acid to give him, said he couldn’t think of anyone who could use them better.

Reflecting on the interview as he drives back to Berkeley, he is very moved. He feels that everyone out there who was listening has a better understanding and feeling for the I Ching now. He’s satisfied.