Chapter 5 – Centering

Steve’s Here

Steve’s here, staying with them for a while. He’s really something. The first thing he does when he gets here is clean up their kitchen and wash all their dishes. Then he goes out dumpster diving and comes back with all kinds of vegetables and fruit from the nearby produce market. And now, he’s cooking dinner for them, stir fried vegetables with rice.
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It was heavy for him in prison. It wore him down. But he’s still the high brother he has always been, even though he was inside for over two long years. He says it wasn’t the big things that got to him. It was all the little things, the petty things, like not being able to eat healthy food, especially vegetarian food. He tells them how he tried to start a yogurt culture on top of the hot water heater in the workshop. They caught him and made him stop doing even that – it was unauthorized food. Listening to him now, they can see why he was so into cooking as soon as he got here.

He tells them about being on a work crew in the mountains. He volunteered for it just to get outside the prison walls for a while. He says it was very hard on him to always be inside walls. After they got into the nearby mountains, in the late afternoon, he was sent on ahead to prepare the camping area for the rest of the crew.

Somehow he became lost. He figured then that he might as well make the most of it, so he wandered around free, eventually finding a cave. As night came on, he made a fire and spent a warm night by himself. He says that, in the morning, when there was enough light, he found his way back to where the rest of the men were camping. The guards were a bit pissed at him but didn’t do anything.
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Steve’s really glad to be out of prison and with good folks again. Steve’s a bit quieter now and seems haunted somewhat by his time in prison. He and Karen want to help, but only if and when Steve brings it up. Right now, it seems Steve just wants to immerse himself in life again.

They’ve thought about going apple picking with him. Maybe it would help him to have them around, and maybe he would open up, working with them in the orchards. They would get out of the city for a while too and still make some money. Karen wants to go more than he does. Right now, he’s more interested in doing acid and connecting to the folks here.
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Apple Picking with Steve

He finally decides to go apple picking with Steve. He wants to spend more time with him. He wants to see where they can take their friendship

They spend a few days getting ready. They’ll probably be gone for several weeks. Bobby and Abby can take care of the house and the cats. Finally they’re all packed and on the road again. Steve’s riding with them, so it’s a bit crowded, but they all love one another. Steve knows an orchard up above Wenatchee, so they head there.

The first night they camp along the Klamath River. They’re up early the next morning and back on the road. If they keep trucking, they can be at Joiner’s orchards before dark. Steve’s the only one of them who has ever been this far north.

They drive into the farm just before dark. Steve walks over and talks to Joiner. They’re hired. They start work in the morning, as soon as the frost is off the ladders. He’s scared and excited. He hopes he can stay centered in his body while working.
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In the morning, Steve wakes him out of a dream. He’s not used to jumping out of bed and going straight to work. He has done it before though, working as a carpenter, but that was years ago. At first he and Karen are really awkward with the long picking ladders. Finally one of the other pickers comes over and gives them some useful tips. It makes a difference. But by the end of the day, he and Karen have made only twenty-five dollars between them. He’s tired, hungry, and wants to get stoned and centered.
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By their fourth day of picking, he has lost any energy he had for the work. It’s not fun for body. He broke his pipe too, stepping off the ladder. He wants to stop. He’s angry again. He stays though, and continues picking. He does get closer to Steve while they work. This feels good to both of them.

They decide that they’ll leave in two more days, heading slowly back to Berkeley and their life and work there. Steve’s staying here. He’s been offered work for the winter. It’s been interesting, but he doesn’t think he’s an apple picker. His body doesn’t like to climb up and down a ladder all day carrying a heavy bag. It’s just not fun.
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Indian Wars

He dreams that he’s with some friends in the mountains. He sees the Whitemen coming, so he leaves, trying to get away from all the ongoing destruction that’s masquerading as construction. Now the Whitemen demolish the place where he had just been. He runs away over this weird area, where they have hollowed out the earth from underneath, except for a thin shell held up by steel rods and concrete. He gets freaked even more by all this and runs back to his friends, trying desperately to get away from all this ugliness and sacrilege.

Now he and his friends are all in their van, hurrying down the mountain. The Whiteman is ahead of them here too, blasting the side off a cliff to widen the road. They see some beautiful overhanging rocks ahead of them, with one of the Whitemen standing beneath them, already looking up at them. They know they’re going to blast these rocks away too. That does it. They’re all very angry now.

Now the Native Americans have started a war against the Whitemen. Karen is already with them, helping them. He’s been on an errand, and now he’s trying to get back to them. He’s hoping that he’s not too late to help. He worries about Karen. She and the Native Americans are fighting with some Whitemen at the museum. That’s where it all started.

He finally gets to the museum, and Karen is telling him how it began, how she and this Native American woman started the war themselves. Some Whiteman here wanted Karen and the Native Americans to use the telescope in the Whiteman’s way. They insisted on doing it their own way. One of the Whitemen called the police on them then, and the war began.
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Since he opened himself to the Bushman within himself, to Ishi, he has been terribly aware of how much the Whiteman has trashed the world. Hardly anything has been left natural, even here in the West. His dream is saying the obvious, that he has been assailed and assaulted by the Whiteman’s nightmare of ugliness ever since seeing all the clear cutting and road building and cow grazing going on all around Dinky. Now his eyes are opened and he can see it everywhere. The Whiteman destroys anything that gets in the way of his straight lines everywhere, all going nowhere.

What’s new in his dream, what he really needs to hear, is that he is this angry about it. He’s extremely angry now – at war with the Whiteman, with his religion of death and denial, with his need to control everything, with his lack of beauty, and especially with his lack of heart.
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Fighting The Whiteman

He dreams that these gangsters are extorting money from a businessman. The businessman has been paying them a lot of money each and every week. But now Dick Tracy is here to help them. He encourages the man to stand up for himself. He shows the man how he can protect himself, how the police can help him too. He shows him how he can be more self-sufficient, how he can grow wheat and other things in his back yard. The man decides to fight the crooks. Dick Tracy leaves then to continue the fight from the outside.

Now he dreams that he’s in Berkeley. He’s in the Grant Street house with Bobby and Abby, hanging out. He sees his son in front, playing. At first he wants to go back to the garage and do yoga and meditate, be alone, but now he liking what he’s seeing in the house, decides to stay

Suddenly, these gangsters come and take over their house. He and his friends all escape to the house behind them. He asks the people here if he can use their rifle. They hand it to him, and he shoots one of the crooks that he can see inside their house. He shoots him through the screen door. They return his fire, using hand grenades. He retreats.

He wakes up and thinks, “Fuck, the war is really on,” then falls back asleep.

Now he dreams that they’re giving a party in their tree house. A wild looking outlaw approaches, riding a tired horse, and leading his wounded friend on another. They bring the wounded man into their house and help care for him. Later, they’re all driving in the Hollywood hills, going to another party, one given by the outlaws. These outlaws are okay.
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It’s all the same war. Here, in these dreams, the gangsters are the Whitemen, seen, this time, from a slightly different perspective. Western culture is a gangster culture. Our nation is just one great big gang, with the Godfather-President ordering an attack on any nation, or business, or group of folks that don’t do what he wants them to do. He just sends in his goon squad army and has his way. Here in his dream, the President’s men are seen in their roles of tax collectors, extortionists, and finally as invaders, using fear and force in an attempt to control others

He and his friends retreat from this naked use of force against them. His friends are the honest outlaws, like the earlier free Native Americans. He hears Dick Tracy about being more self-sufficient. If they can take care of themselves, they won’t need the Whiteman’s government. They would be one less reason for its existence.
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Chapter 6 – Heading Home

Going Home Dreams

He dreams that he’s at Dinky. He’s here to get the things that he stashed last time. The bulldozer has been here though, and his stash among the rocks is gone, destroyed. Fuck!

He dreams again that he’s at Dinky. This time, he’s with his new woman and his parents. They drive up to the trailhead. He’s excited to show everyone his home here at Dinky. His woman and his parents have never been here before. They all hike up beyond where it’s been torn up and destroyed, up to the higher country. They come to a lodge at the very top. Later, inside the lodge, they’re looking north at the wild country. There’s going to be a gathering here soon. His parents like him for a change, and everyone likes Dinky. He’s happy.
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He also dreams that he has just gotten back to Berkeley. He’s with Karen and some others. They’re all on bikes, heading to the Avenue. Karen has to return home for something, but he goes on. He’s digging being here with his friends. He gets on the Avenue and heads south. He sees a young girl asking some folks where the free spirits are. He’s definitely back in Berkeley!

He comes to Moe’s bookstore and sees that Carlos’ new book is here. He wants it. He goes inside. He goes to the section where Castaneda’s other books are. There’s a big black book here. He picks it up – Journey into Self. This is the book. It’ll tell him who he is and what he’s to do with his life. He feels at peace. He has made it home.
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They say you can’t go home again. With Dinky it’s true. Ever since he saw the devastation wrought by the loggers and the ranchers, he has known that his home there is gone.

There is an inner Dinky, however, a sacred temenos within himself into which he can retreat from the ugliness of the Whiteman and his world. In this inner Dinky he can still be Wanderer and the Bushman and Ishi and all the rest of who he is. His inner woman likes it there too. So do his inner parents.

And there’s always Berkeley. It’s home for him too. He is free here and with friends. It’s his kind of place, a home for free spirits.

In his dream, the book he sees at Moe’s is by Castaneda. In reality, it will be by him. It will be this notebook, Wanderer’s Notebook, a recounting of his own spiritual journey. He knows now what he wants to do with his energy this winter. He wants to continue writing this book!
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The Digs on the Coast

He and Karen are at the site of an old Native American fishing village that was abandoned more than five hundred years ago. It’s on the western, the ocean, side of the Olympic Peninsula. They’re here because of Madge, another old friend of Karen from her college days. She and her husband, Paul, are running the archeological digs here. They’re not here now but are expected back soon. They’ll be returning by helicopter.
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He and Karen had to hike in more than four miles themselves to get here. No helicopter for them. Most of it was through the woods on a wooden trail built up over the wet and boggy ground. Then when they finally got to the beach, they still had to walk north through the sand for almost a mile. It was difficult but good for his body.

Finally Karen’s friends fly in, the helicopter throwing sand in everyone’s faces. He likes them, although they’re not his kind of people, being too much the academic intellectuals they are. They share a meal with her friends and some of the other folks here. They have quite a setup. They’ve been at it for a few years and have built themselves a home away from home. Tonight, he and Karen are going to sleep in a tree house that one of the workers built several years ago.

He soon sees that Karen’s friends are very straight, very scared of themselves and life. Some of the other folks here aren’t though, especially the Native Americans. They feel the same as he does about the Whiteman and his ways. He’s more like a Native American himself, being a man of knowledge. Don Juan says, “A man of knowledge is free. He has no honor, no dignity, no family, no home, no country, but only life to be lived.”

For him, the highpoint of being here is being accepted enough by the Native Americans that they let him watch their gambling game with the bones. He’s awed watching them. They’re master psychologists. Anyone could learn a great deal about consciousness from watching them play – using misdirection, bluff, and outright magic, always trying to confuse the other team, and always trying to see through the illusion the other side is putting out.
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After several days of visiting, they decide to head south to Oregon, on their way home. They leave late in the day because Karen wants to try again to connect with Madge and Paul. He’s not interested himself. It’s like his dream of Karen going back home while he continues onto the Avenue. It feels likes the home that she’s trying to return to is really different from the one he’s heading to. They’re having trouble connecting to each other’s friends too. They’re on really different trips now, more so every day.
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Their Oregon Trail

Yesterday, camping on the Oregon coast, they met some good folks, Dean and Connie and their two little girls. They had been apple picking in Washington too. They pick fruit all year around – apples in the fall, citrus in the winter and early spring, and cherries and other fruits in the early summer. They’re heading to Arizona now. He feels they were sent to show them a viable alternative to being stuck in Berkeley all winter. They’ll have to see where meeting these folks will take them.

He and Karen fought again most of yesterday. She said some really bad things about him, blew him out. He was more hurt and angry than he has ever been. Finally she saw how much she was hurting him, said she was sorry, and then started her period. For his part, he has been getting more and more angry at all the logging he has seen on the Washington and Oregon coasts. He is very angry. “They’re raping our mother!” Maybe some of this is leaking out onto Karen.
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He found Castaneda’s new book, Journey to Ixtlan, in Newport, on the coast. It was in a bookstore just up the street from Moe’s fish restaurant. He’s reading it now in the van. He gets to the place in the book where Don Juan tells Carlos that he has been coming to him all this time because his body knows it will die and wants to learn what Don Juan’s body can teach it before it dies. Don Juan is saying it’s all about body.

Reading this, he gets very excited. He jumps out of the van and runs on down to the beach. He’s jumping and running and doing cartwheels, celebrating body, celebrating that someone out there really understands body. It really is all about body!

Dean and Connie left yesterday. He doesn’t want to pick any more fruit for now. He’s feeling energy for going back to Berkeley now. Maybe his journey to self is to Berkeley, and, maybe like Don Genero, he’ll never get there, never get back to who he was when he left there.
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They stop in Swisshome, in the coast range between Eugene and the coast. They’re visiting their friends from California, Carol and Denny and G and Maria. They all lived in the canals in Venice when he and Karen lived there. They made a lot of money on a big deal and bought land up here. They’re good folks.

They’re still in Swisshome, enjoying the Oregon homegrown. It’s very good. They’re leaving later today. They have decided to go on back to Berkeley, earn enough money, and then go back on the road in the spring. They like being on the road.

Now though, they are going to head first to Eugene and check it out there. Folks say it’s a good city, like Berkeley but much more mellow. Afterwards, they’re going across the Cascades and then down to Mt Shasta. They have decided to return to Berkeley, but they still want to travel some. Staying here in Swisshome has been good for them, letting both of them get their center back after the road. They’ll be in Berkeley in a week or two, then on to LA soon. He wants one more trip to Dinky too, if possible.
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Now they’re in Blue River, in the Cascades, up from Eugene, on the western slope. Eugene’s a very mellow city. It’s not an acid city like Berkeley. It’s, more like elves and mushrooms. He liked it okay, especially the people, but the hay fever there was terrible for him. The Native Americans who used to live there called the entire Willamette Valley the valley of little sicknesses. He can see why. He likes it better up here in the mountains, but the underbrush is too thick even here. It’s almost impossible to ramble about in the woods. Maybe up higher, nearer to timberline, it would be better.

They stay in Blue River with some of Karen’s friends. They meet some of their friends too. All very high folks.
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Now they’re on the other side of the Cascades, heading south, near Klamath Falls. He’s angry at having to go back to all those people in Berkeley hanging out so close around him and all the noise too. Oh well, he decided he would go back, and he can live with it for five more months, until spring. He can focus on making a living while he’s there. That’ll keep him busy. He can write and edit his book too. He can teach folks how to relate to their dreams and the I Ching.

Their last night on the road, they stop just north of Mt Shasta and make a camp, sleeping outside on the ground. It’s too nice to sleep in the van tonight. They’re happy and peaceful, somewhat sad to be ending their first major road trip, but satisfied for now, until the spring. They’re feeling their love for one another, for the folks at home waiting also.
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In the morning they wake up at dawn. As the sun rises directly to their left, the moon is setting to their right. They are in a direct line between the two. They feel blessed, feel that the universe is saying they’re balanced now between the masculine and the feminine. They do feel centered in the world and are ready to return and tackle it anew.

They’ve each been changed by their journey into self. Their relationship has been too. This has been much more than a trip to and from the apple orchards. This has been a fresh start for each of them, and for their marriage too. Realizing this, they are each eager to be home again, eager to try themselves out on the world.