Chapter 9 – The Four of Them

Bobby and Abby

He dreams of putting two pairs together into a larger whole. He’s figuring out how to best fit them together.

Speaking of which – they’re really coming together with Bobby and Abby now. There’s a lot of love in their house. Their lives are taking form. A warm family is happening.

He’s in love again. Not with a person, as with Edie, but rather with a couple, with Bobby and Abby together. They have all decided to go to the Four Corners area for a few weeks soon after Christmas. It’ll be fun fitting the four of them, all their gear, and their two dogs into the van.

He asks the I Ching about their journey to the Southwest and receives the Hexagram, Decrease, which counsels sharing without decreasing himself or others. This seems particularly relevant given the small confines of the van.
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Bobby came to live with him and Karen first, over a year ago, just after the Zen people started leaving. They liked his dog, Hootch, a black Labrador retriever, and took in Bobby so they could live with Hootch. Bobby grows on you though. He’s good hearted. He’s been hurt somewhere, sometime in his life, probably by his parents. It isn’t easy for him to be open.

Abby came to live with them earlier this year, after Gail finally left. They liked her from day one. She’s very open and friendly and has really helped to bring Bobby out of himself. She’s very intense, yet somehow the energy between her and Bobby feels very good and loving. They seem to balance each other. She brings him out of himself and he grounds her out, brings her back down to earth.

They’re not really a couple yet, not as he and Karen are. They’re lovers, and they live in the same house, but they are just beginning to see where they’re at with each other and where they might want to go with their energy. He thinks that his and Karen’s relationship encourages them to explore what’s between them more than they would on their own.

It’ll be interesting traveling with them. Here in Berkeley, there are always distractions and interruptions to the process of becoming open and close with one another, but, on the road, the four of them will be together most of the time. If they can just let down their individual barriers, they may become true family.
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The Word is a Turd

The four of them dropped acid a while ago. He wanted to drop with his new family. He wanted to drop surrounded by love and warmth, especially after being so frozen by his mother when he last visited her.
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At one point in their journey, he has a strange experience. These four beings enter the front door. Three of them go immediately to Karen and Bobby and Abby and merge easily with them. The fourth mills about for a while and then approaches him, not quite knowing what to do with him. It finally touches him, and, all of a sudden he feels like Steve Gaskin said he felt one time when he first connected with his psychic abilities.

He feels as if everyone but him has always been awake, patiently waiting for him to wake up too. He feels as if Karen and Bobby and Abby have always been telepathic and in each other’s heads. He looks at Karen and Bobby and Abby. He can tell that they know he has finally woke up. They greet him without words.
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Later in the trip, Bobby and Abby are in Abby’s room, hanging out and getting to know each other. The dogs are with him and Karen in the living room, romping around and playing with the acid energy. He and Karen are cracking up watching them. They’re really funny. Just then they hear Bobby and Abby laughing also, in tune with them. He realizes that Bobby and Abby have been watching the dogs play through their eyes. Just then, Bobby hollers in, tells him not to think about it, or else he’ll break their connection and lock them all back into the silence.
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In the early morning hours, they take Hootch and Wolf and go for a long acid walk in the neighborhood. They stop at this playground and listen to the sounds of the world together. They listen to a couple talking softly on their back porch. They get into the couple’s heads, and are able to follow their heads, as they go back inside their house.

He bursts out with the first words he has spoken in hours – “the word is a turd.” Karen and Bobby and Abby laugh, glad he has finally figured this out for himself.
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They’re back home again. They feel like they’ve been tripping forever. They keep expecting the sun to come up at any moment. Yet the darkness persists. They’re all still very high on the acid. They want to greet the sun, the new solar year, with their new consciousness before sleeping. He finally puts the Beatles song, Here Comes the Sun, on the turntable, waits until light finally begins to return to the world, waits till the sun first rises over the Berkeley hills, then lets the song burst forth with the new day.
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I Ching for the Solar Year

For the past several years, on the morning after the Winter Solstice, he has asked the I Ching, to comment upon the coming solar year and his role in it. This year when he asked – the morning after that longest night, tripping with Karen and Bobby and Abby – he received the Hexagram, The Wanderer, changing to the Hexagram, The Caldron.

The wanderer described in the first Hexagram could easily be the Wanderer he is becoming. He “has no fixed abode; his home is on the road. Therefore he must take care to remain upright and steadfast, so that he sojourns only in the proper places, associating only with good people. Then he has good fortune and can go his way unmolested.”

The changing line, the six in the second place, is the line that allows the first Hexagram to change into the second hexagram, in this case, into The Caldron. This line says, “The wanderer described is modest and reserved. He does not lose touch with his inner being, hence he finds a resting place. In the outside world he does not lose the liking of other people, hence all persons further him, so that he can acquire property. Moreover, he wins the allegiance of a faithful and trustworthy servant – a thing of inestimable value to a wanderer.”

In the second Hexagram, The Caldron, it is said that “the highest earthly values must be sacrificed to the divine. But the truly divine does not manifest itself apart from man. The supreme revelation of God appears in prophets and holy men. To venerate them is true veneration of God.”
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By letting go of his old forms and by cleaning up his loose ends, he has become Wanderer, traveling soon to the Four Corners area and later in the spring to wherever. Karen has committed to going with him and will be of inestimable value. By becoming Wanderer, he is also becoming a Caldron, a holy man, a man of God. He’s finally becoming who he truly is. He’ll wander on the roads and on the trails. He’ll wander with acid, in his head and in the world. He’ll listen to and follow Spirit and share with others what he hears and discovers.
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Grand Canyon

They’re doing it. They’re heading south, on the road again. They are a most together crew, their dogs and all. All the psychics are predicting an earthquake in the Bay Area while they’re on the road. He doubts it. But if so, their timing would prove to be impeccable.

Leaving California, they decide to first backpack in the Grand Canyon, not where the tourists go, but west of there, on the Havasupi Indian Reservation. They stop first at the Hawalapi Indian Reservation that borders the Grand Canyon and ask permission to drive through their land to get to the canyon. The folks there say okay, thinking though that they’re crazy to go backpacking this time of year.

The road is the worst he has ever seen – deep chuckholes that they could literally bury the van in, and giant boulders too from God knows where, maybe from the chuckholes for all he knows.

They don’t even get all the way to the canyon the first day. They do find an abandoned and trashed schoolhouse that night that shelters them from the worst of the cold and wind. It’s clear and very cold, way below freezing.

They survive easily with their down bags, but their fruit and vegetables that they left in the van didn’t. They all frozen solid. They lose a lot of their food but still have enough for their time in the canyon. They’re looking forward to dropping down off this high plateau soon. It’ll be much warmer down in the canyon.

The next day, early, they arrive at road’s end and ready themselves and their gear for the long hike down. The dogs are ecstatic to finally be out of the van. They’re running around in circles ever widening.

They head finally down this long but easy trail to the Native American village at the bottom. They’ll have to pass through the village to go on to the camping area nearer the main canyon. As soon as they drop over the lip of the canyon and head down, it begins to warm up. Soon they’re hiking in shorts and tee shirts. When they come upon their first stream, they notice a bluish-green tinge to it – from the limestone, they think.

The village is a big disappointment to them. It looks like a rundown communal farm with lots of fences and overworked animals. They expected native people living in harmony with the land. He sees instead folks buying their food from the rip-off trading post rather than growing their own. There are no fresh vegetables or fruit in the store. Most of the food is in cans. They can’t even find anyone who knows about the wild and edible plants growing all around them.

They leave and go on, through the maze of canyons and high, commanding walls everywhere. They walk in beauty. They get to their camping spot late in the afternoon and spend most of the remaining daylight setting up camp. They’ve either been on the road or on the trail constantly since they left Berkeley four days ago.

They come up with a ritual for the night. Each of them rolls two joints while there’s still enough light, and later, after a good dinner, each of them pulls out a joint and shares it around the fire. They smoke each of the four joints slowly, one at a time, as they warm before the fire and watch the stars above, so clear from here. Later, they snuggle down, each of them in his or her own sleeping bag, and smoke their last joints by themselves, connecting to themselves and their day before dropping off.
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Last night, before falling asleep, he decided to stop living in a house. He’ll live in the van instead. He’ll save a great deal of money each year on rent and bills, and he’ll be almost completely invisible. He guesses he has decided to drop out. He has already turned on and tuned in. He did think of Leary last night.
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Now it’s earthquake day. Karen dreamt last night of an earthquake in San Francisco. She was watching it happen. It didn’t happen here though. Instead it’s raining very hard. They’re all under their shelter waiting to see if it’ll stop. He’s going to drop acid soon and wander around. They didn’t explore very far yesterday.

It rains seriously for most of the day. He wanders around in beauty and has a good time, but it isn’t worth the acid. Their camp is together, and they all survive the storm. There’s probably two feet of snow now up on top where they left the van.
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They stay for almost a week. They wander around, either together or separately, becoming freer and wilder each day. They have only begun to explore the many canyons leading everywhere.

When they do hike out, they only make it halfway up the trail before it’s too dark to go further. It’s all freezing cold and rocky up here again, and they make a hard camp for the night. It is the coldest he has ever experienced. Abby cries in her bag for most of the night. He’s afraid to go to sleep, thinking he may never wake up.

Somehow they all do survive, and the next morning they head on up the trail to their van and the road again. They’re going to head over to Flagstaff next, replenish their supplies, find a hot shower somewhere, and give Spirit a chance to set them upon the next leg of their journey.
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Bobby and Abby Leave

They pile all their gear and themselves back into the van and head on to Flagstaff. Maybe because they’ve been living outside and have been able to spread out more this past week, they’re all having trouble being confined inside the van together.

When they hit Flagstaff, they head to the only natural foods store in town, tiny compared to the ones in California yet having everything they need. They talk with the folks here who tell them about the local “free” shower in a nearby apartment building.

They drive over and sneak in, one after another. Abby and Karen go first and then Bobby. As each of them comes out, he realizes just how dirty he is. His scalp especially begins to crawl as he waits. When it’s his turn and he goes in, he can’t find the room with the free shower at first. He thinks maybe he’s on the wrong floor. Then he sees the wet barefoot trail leading away from the door at the end of the hall. Sure enough, it’s the shower room. He can even lock the door from the inside and relax. If someone figures out he’s in here and is not supposed to be, he’ll just get dressed, then run down the hall and into the van and away. He’s not too worried.

They’re not about to spend any money on a motel, so, after eating at one of the local Mexican restaurants, they head east and north of town to a campground they’ve heard about from friends.

They just get here and it begins to snow. It keeps snowing. They had thought to set up a camp outside of the van because it just isn’t big enough for all four of them to sleep in. Then they decide, what the fuck, and all of them drop acid, figuring they aren’t going to sleep anyway.

It’s a very magical night. The dogs are comfortable under the bed and become their heaters. They’re all sitting up on the bed, under their down bags, smoking joint after joint, talking and sharing. Here they are again, on another all night acid trip together.
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When morning comes, Bobby and Abby decide to return to Berkeley. They’re burnt out and maybe want to be alone with their new relationship. He and Karen help them build a big snowman with his arm and thumb out as if for a ride. No sooner do they finish than a big semi pulls up. They all hug, then Bobby and Abby and Hootch climb up into the cab. He and Karen turn to one another. Now what? He’s sick of Indian country. He suggests they go north into New Mexico and Colorado, into freak country. Karen says, “let’s go,” and they head on out.
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Chapter 10 – On Their Own

New Mexico

From Flagstaff, they head north and then east through Navajo and Hopi country. They’re staying off the main roads so they can see the land. The first night, they find a good spot to camp, in the middle of the Navajo reservation, on a high, windswept plateau. It’s easy camping in their van now without Bobby and Abby riding along with them, but they sure do miss them.

The next day they slowly make their way through Indian country, marveling at the barrenness and desolation. The Whiteman sure didn’t leave the Native Americans any good land, nothing that could be used for anything.
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Maybe they should have headed straight to New Mexico as they had intended. Maybe they shouldn’t have tried to visit that Hopi Mesa – they didn’t let them in anyway. They wanted to get to Gallup before dark, but they’re late. And when they’re still a hundred or so miles away, the fog rolls in with the night. They can’t see more than twenty feet in front of them. Their windshield becomes iced. Most cars and trucks have pulled off for the night. Those drivers know better, maybe. But he and Karen keep going.

After driving for over three hours and going only fifty miles, they finally come out of the fog. It’s like being able to breathe again. When they arrive in Gallup soon after, they find a late night restaurant, eat their fill, and then sit there for hours just to get warm. They have no heat in their van and are very cold.

Finally the restaurant folks want to close, so they head out to their van and drive to the vacant lot they saw earlier. They park there for the night, too tired to find a better place to sleep: and luckily no one bothers them.
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The next morning, early, they head to New Mexico, heading first to Albuquerque to visit an old friend of Karen’s from school. They find him in a bad place. He had been sleeping with a woman, and her boyfriend came at him with a gun. He dared the guy to shoot him. Not smart at all, because the guy did, and now he’s is paralyzed for life.

Thinking about her friend’s story, he can’t help seeing the further irony in the man’s life, especially after he gives them a tour of the animal labs that he works in at the university, the place where they torture and maim the animals, all in the name of science – and perhaps sadism too.
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They leave for Santa Fe the next morning. They want to go on to Taos, and maybe into Colorado after Santa Fe. They’ve heard good things about a town called Boulder, near Denver.

Santa Fe blows his mind. He does acid and walks around in wonder all day. It’s like being in a different country. He loves all these old Catholic churches. He loves the museum and the plaza. Most of all he loves the mystery.
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His Soul

Outside of Santa Fe, in the nearby mountains, sleeping cozily in their van, they each dream. Karen dreams that he is giving an acid sermon. He dreams that he’s with Karen, his mother, and a Catholic priest. His mother wants him to speak to the priest. She’s says she’s afraid for his soul. He tells her that his soul is fine. He tells her and the priest that the vibes and Spirit in his house are different than theirs. The priest wouldn’t like it there. He tells them that he reads minds too.

Visiting all those Catholic churches yesterday here in Santa Fe stirred up something old in him. He’s in Catholic country here. From this perspective, he can see how much he has changed and, most importantly, how much his spiritual trip has changed since his days with his mother and her Catholic relatives. Karen, with no prejudices or hang-ups, is able to see this clearly too. He’s not losing his soul. He has found it actually, but not in a way that a Catholic could appreciate. To them, it would seem as if he has lost his soul. To any unbiased acid person, however, it would look rather as if he has found his soul and is now openly sharing his soul’s wisdom with the world.
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He likes Santa Fe. He feels better here than anywhere they’ve been since leaving Berkeley almost three weeks ago. His and Karen’s connection is better here than it’s been in a long while. They’re stopping their worlds together. They’re doing a lot of acid together on this road trip. They’re doing it again today. He’s really into it, into being free and wild, spiritually high, and a natural animal – his own blend.

Acid slows him down until he can stop and wake up to the world as it truly is. Acid slows him down enough for him to stop his world, the one created by his speedy and controlling and structuring Granny fear side. When he is thus slowed, he can be in the world as it is, whether he’s under his Juniper tree up at Dinky Creek or else walking with Karen around the Plaza here in Santa Fe.

He’s thinking of Don Juan and his notion of “grabbing your ally.” He sees it differently than Don Juan does though. For him, it isn’t grabbing onto his ally and letting it spin him out of his reality. It’s more like mastering his ally, which in his case is the spirit in acid, mastering it by wrestling it to the ground of his reality and integrating it into his life. If he can do this, then eventually he will be able to become acid high without even having to do any acid.
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Acid, along with the work he has done on himself with it, has changed and renewed him spiritually. He does have a soul, mother.
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Retreating from the Cold

They make it to Taos the next day, later than they thought they would. It’s already dark as they drive into town. They wander around the almost deserted town for a while. They meet a guy there who tells them about some folks living up in the mountains above Taos. He’s says that they live up there year around and that they live in tipis and raise and trade horses. Hearing this, he’s tempted to try and find them now, but he and Karen are just not ready. It’s too cold here. After all, it’s the middle of January. Living in California sure hasn’t prepared him for this real world of winter.

They spend the night outside of town, planning on checking out Taos again in the morning. But when they wake up they see that it’s snowing. They’re cold and discouraged and decide to head home. They need the warmth. They leave a bit later in the day, driving through the snow storm, planning to head first west, then south by back roads, on down into southern New Mexico. Somewhere along the way they’ll become warm.
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They stop out in the desert north of Gallup for the night. The next morning it’s beautiful, warm and sunny again, so they walk deep into the desert and do acid, saying goodbye to northern New Mexico before heading south. An hour into their trip, however, the clouds roll in. Before long, it’s snowing hard again.

They make it back to the van before the worst of it and decide to drive south out of the storm. They’ve had it with cold weather. They’ve driven before on acid. It’s no fun, but, in their van, they can handle it. They take turns driving while the other relaxes on the bed in back.
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Before it’s over, hours later, they have driven two hundred and some miles. They’re in southern New Mexico now, near Reserve, a small town in the Gila National Forest. They find a place to camp in the woods just north of town and finally stop Sam’s engine. It’s so peaceful without it running. He’s glad they left and drove here. It’s so much warmer here, even in the evening. They’re happy just to be stopped again and warm.
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The next day they drive into Reserve and eat one of the best Mexican food meals they have ever eaten. They also hear about Frisco hot springs, down the road, on the way to Silver City.

Luck is with them, and they find the hot springs, although the directions were misleading to say the least. The springs are on a road, off the main road, and then down a steep, one-lane dirt road to the river.

They see someone camping below as they drive down to the river. They want to stay here a few days, until they’re completely warm, before heading on.
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Ron

When they’re down by the river, they park the van and meet the camper. His name is Ron. He has been camped here for most of the winter. He came here soon after a flashflood washed out the hot spring pools here by the river. He has spent most of his time since then rebuilding them. He just finished his work today and is about to try them out. Once again they see that their timing is impeccable.

They set up our camp and then wander around for a while. Then they join Ron down in the pools – and finally they’re warm. The pools are heavenly. It’s very peaceful here. If someone didn’t already know about this place, they’d never think to come here.
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Ron is a very intense guy in his early thirties. He’s very smart and psychically tuned in. Rom has dropped out way more than he has. For one thing, he isn’t in a relationship, feels it would take away his ability to follow his own flow. From not loving with a woman, he has this incredible yet very tight and overly controlled energy. He’s extremely yang, as the Chinese would say.

Ron’s been living on the land for years, plans to continue for the rest of his life. Ron’s the first real hermit he has ever met. He says all the locals know him and really appreciate the work he has done here to restore the springs. He’s also good friends with the folks who run that Mexican restaurant back in Reserve. He’s been staying there in Reserve lately, whenever he needs a town experience and company for a while.
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Ron’s not into acid, being so intense anyway. He also feels somewhat fragile. He’s very interested in them doing it though. The next day Karen wants a break from acid, wants to just sit by the river and not do anything all day. He decides to do some himself and wander around for a while. He also wants to climb a nearby hill. He has always liked to explore and get an overview of things.

He spends the day wandering around the area. While wandering, he thinks about his dream last night in which he saw an old, wild man with long grey hair and beard and heard a voice saying “Lordsburg.” He knows that Lordsburg is a town just south and west of here, on their way back to California. Maybe they should stop there.

He finally climbs the hill and gets a good view for miles around in every direction. After this, he wanders around the countryside again. There are fences everywhere. Later, Ron tells him that they aren’t to keep people out but rather to keep the livestock in. He’s says that all the folks around here, those who ride horses anyway, use wire cutters to open the fence so they can ride through. Once through, they retie the wire and go on.
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Heading West

The next day they wake up to another snowstorm. It has followed them even to here! They don’t want to get snowed in, down here at the bottom of the steep dirt road heading up the hill. They see that the road is already muddy and is beginning to be covered with snow. Ron tells them that they might not get out for days if they stay. They hurriedly put themselves and their van together, say goodbye to Ron, and then start up the road.

He’s doing all right driving on the mud and snow until he hits the big turn to the right. He feels the van’s back wheels begin to slide sideways. He’s really close to going off the road. He almost stops to let the van slide back down the hill, but he really wants to go on.

He remembers a song he heard in his dream this morning, the dream about an old sorcerer, a wise and wild old man in the desert. In his dream, a voice was singing, “sail strong this ship away. . . .”

Remembering this, he decides to keep going. He has been driving the van a lot lately. He feels he can make it. He turns the wheels into the slide and keeps on going in low gear. Somehow the van stays on the road.

Soon they’re back on the concrete and heading to Silver City and then onto highway 10, heading west towards Tucson. They’re sailing strong away now.
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He was too busy keeping the van from going off road back there to notice how shook up he was. If he had fucked up, their van could have been ruined and both of them could have been hurt or died. They’re here now though. They smoke a joint together and, then, while driving still, he begins to meditate, with his eyes open of course. He focuses on his chakras, moving his energy up his chakras, circulating his energy through them. Each time he does so, he becomes more relaxed, more centered, and more in touch with the core of his being.
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Besides his dream last night of the old sorcerer, he remembers another dream from last night, of being in school and taking a test. He scored a ninety-five, the highest in the class. Stan was second. He and Stan always used to finish first and second, ever since grammar school. In his dream, he left school then, happy with himself. He feels he has passed a life test on this winter journey. They’ve been almost four weeks on the road now, and he has done okay.
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They’re in Arizona now, in the desert. They’re warming up finally, looking for another hot springs. Yesterday they drove all day through the snowstorm. They both feel that the snow has been a message from Spirit, driving them ever further south and west and home for the winter.

He didn’t even stop in Lordsburg yesterday, although Ron had told him that’s where an old sorcerer lives. He figured that the old wild man in his dream last night was himself as an old man, himself as Wanderer.
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California, Here They Come

After replenishing their food supplies at a really good natural foods store in Tucson and hanging out around the local hippie scene for a while, they head west on highway 8. They’re staying as close to the border as they can. They would probably go into Mexico to get warm if they weren’t holding medicines.

He and Karen are really opening up to one another on the road now. She’s trusting him with her love, as she never has before.

Several times they see planes flying low overhead, checking them out. Probably government planes wondering if they’re smugglers. They hope they don’t stop and search them

No one bothers them though, and their van steadily eats up the lonesome miles. Sometimes they don’t see another car for hours. They’re going to be in California tomorrow. They plan on entering through Yuma, then heading up through the desert. Although it’s warm now, they aren’t taking chances.

The next day, finally in California, they head up to Idyllwild, going through Julian into the mountains. They decide to camp at Humber Park, at the trailhead to their old camp at Willow Creek. When they arrive, there’s still snow on the ground, but it’s not too cold. They’re going to drive into LA early in the morning, then head north and home.
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In the morning though, Wolf is gone. Some hikers coming down the trail say they saw him up above, near the saddle. It’s a hell of a hike, but they aren’t about to leave without him. They hike on up and finally find him, way back in. It’s a fun hike now that they’ve found him, but they’re still a little pissed at him.

They head into LA now, through the usual horrible smog. They finally arrive in Venice, at Steve and Simon’s. Wolf runs away again once they’re here. He’s trying to slow them down, telling them maybe that they’ve all been in the van too much lately. They spend the next several days looking for him. He even does acid and wanders around Venice and the beach, trying to find him by his vibes, with no luck at all. After four days of searching, they give up. He’s gone.

They’ve been on the road for over five weeks now, and they’re ready to slow down and settle in for the winter. He has had enough of wandering for now. They’ll be back out on the road soon enough in the spring. He wonders what their house is like. He wonders how Bobby and Abby are doing.