When I Was Brave
1
Dave and Linda had a baby girl during my year staying with them in Chicago. Wanting to be closer to their family back in Alliance, David took a job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs teaching at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I made a move on my own the following year because I was tired of being so cold.
In Chicago the wind off the lake blew tears out of my eyes sideways across my face where they froze like little diamonds on my sideburns. Dubuque was also cold, below zero for the entire month of February, except for one day when it was ten degrees and sunny and we walked around in T-shirts. Iowa City was also cold, the walk across the bridge over the Iowa River on a windy day was brutal. Alliance was even worse with the arctic jet stream dipping down to torture us all. There was an ice storm in Dubuque that year and then a snow followed by another ice storm. A heavy layer of ice inches thick covered everything. Roads and driveways had to be sculpted out using axes and ice chisels. When I saw a picture of Albuquerque, New Mexico taken from the top of Sandia Peak, five thousand feet above. I knew that I had to move there, back to the state where I was born. My mother, who had grown up there and whose four brothers still lived there, wanted to come with me. Andrew, however, decided to stay in Dubuque. His life had suddenly gotten much better once I finally convinced him to grow a beard to cover his goiter.
In third grade his face had changed from a normal child's to an almost perfect egg shape because underneath his chin a pouch grew. The growth covered his neck making his face look like Humpty Dumpty. Because of that he never had a girl friend, at least not until he finally grew that beard after years of me needling him to grow one. The results were remarkable. Suddenly he had a woman that was interested in him and all his friends praised his new look. Andrew, with new found confidence was ready to live alone. He sold the mobile home began looking for an apartment in town while my mother and I loaded up a U-Haul truck with the furniture we had been hauling around since I was a child; what was left anyway. With my mother in the cab beside me we took off to a new city where we had no friends, no house, no car and no job, just a passion to move.
In Chicago the wind off the lake blew tears out of my eyes sideways across my face where they froze like little diamonds on my sideburns. Dubuque was also cold, below zero for the entire month of February, except for one day when it was ten degrees and sunny and we walked around in T-shirts. Iowa City was also cold, the walk across the bridge over the Iowa River on a windy day was brutal. Alliance was even worse with the arctic jet stream dipping down to torture us all. There was an ice storm in Dubuque that year and then a snow followed by another ice storm. A heavy layer of ice inches thick covered everything. Roads and driveways had to be sculpted out using axes and ice chisels. When I saw a picture of Albuquerque, New Mexico taken from the top of Sandia Peak, five thousand feet above. I knew that I had to move there, back to the state where I was born. My mother, who had grown up there and whose four brothers still lived there, wanted to come with me. Andrew, however, decided to stay in Dubuque. His life had suddenly gotten much better once I finally convinced him to grow a beard to cover his goiter.
In third grade his face had changed from a normal child's to an almost perfect egg shape because underneath his chin a pouch grew. The growth covered his neck making his face look like Humpty Dumpty. Because of that he never had a girl friend, at least not until he finally grew that beard after years of me needling him to grow one. The results were remarkable. Suddenly he had a woman that was interested in him and all his friends praised his new look. Andrew, with new found confidence was ready to live alone. He sold the mobile home began looking for an apartment in town while my mother and I loaded up a U-Haul truck with the furniture we had been hauling around since I was a child; what was left anyway. With my mother in the cab beside me we took off to a new city where we had no friends, no house, no car and no job, just a passion to move.
Uncle Charlie who drove up from Lovington, one of the towns on the table rock where he and my mother's other brothers lived. We had not seen him in almost a decade and the reunion between him and my mother was joyous. His nickname for me since I was a little child was "Happy" and hearing it again made me feel like a prodigal son having come home. Years later I used that name for a movie credit. He helped us find a car and a house to rent.
When my mother was pregnant with me, Uncle Charlie and my father started a door and window factory in Artesia. They built two houses side by side. We lived in one house and Uncle Charlie lived in the other--until he sold it to try another season of cotton farming. Unfortunately for my father, the well that supplied water for both houses was in the new owner's house. According to my mother's telling it was also unfortunate that my father developed an obsession to have a lawn as green as the ones he grew up with in Pennsylvania. He used so much water trying to turn his little patch of desert green that the new owner cut off the water to our house. My father loaded us all in the car and drive across country to his sisters house in Williamsburg, Pennsylvania . Two years later a sheriff came to his door to issue a warrant for abandoning the factory and the house without setting his debt with the bank. That is how our family wound up driving back across country to New Mexico where my father began working for Gambles. A portion of each paycheck deducted in order to pay back the loan. The saga was the most complicated story my mother ever told me. She recited it factually with no remorse or anger, trying to navigate the reason her future was destroyed in the pursuit of a lawn.
When my mother was pregnant with me, Uncle Charlie and my father started a door and window factory in Artesia. They built two houses side by side. We lived in one house and Uncle Charlie lived in the other--until he sold it to try another season of cotton farming. Unfortunately for my father, the well that supplied water for both houses was in the new owner's house. According to my mother's telling it was also unfortunate that my father developed an obsession to have a lawn as green as the ones he grew up with in Pennsylvania. He used so much water trying to turn his little patch of desert green that the new owner cut off the water to our house. My father loaded us all in the car and drive across country to his sisters house in Williamsburg, Pennsylvania . Two years later a sheriff came to his door to issue a warrant for abandoning the factory and the house without setting his debt with the bank. That is how our family wound up driving back across country to New Mexico where my father began working for Gambles. A portion of each paycheck deducted in order to pay back the loan. The saga was the most complicated story my mother ever told me. She recited it factually with no remorse or anger, trying to navigate the reason her future was destroyed in the pursuit of a lawn.
Moving as often as our family did had made packing and unpacking almost a ceremonial ritual. As limited as our possessions were, we had an intimate relationship with them, reestablished each time we picked them from their almost forgotten position in the house and carefully cushioned them for the trip. The favorites: the ceramic blue bird family and the porcelain owl cookie jar, were wrapped with multiple layers of newspaper and laid into the box as if being tucked into bed.
Dad’s coo-coo clock got very special attention. He had brought it with him when he left Pennsylvania and said it had been his father's, who had been killed in the Harwick Mine Disaster when my father was only two years old. The gentle clack clack of the pendulum and the call of the coo coo bird as it launched its head through the little wooden door to mark the hours was a constant background song inside our homes. Each time we moved it was carefully disassembled. The carved birds and maple leaves that adored the top were slid out of the slots that attached them and wrapped in paper along with the leaf shaped pendulum. The weights, shaped like narrow pine cones were surprisingly heavy. My brother and I always took time to bounce them in our hands before laying them in the box with the darkly stained body of the clock. We carefully tucked dish towels around it and covered it over in layers of wadded paper to cushion the blow of its transportation. In a ceremonial fashion, Dad picked the position for the clock in each new house. Assembled and mounted he pushed the pendulum to start its swing and turned the hands of the clock towards the new local time, pausing each half hour so the coo-coo could pop out and mimic the bird song. Towards the end of his life the clacking of the pendulum sounded like an echo of a hammer pounding him into the grave.
On the living room wall of our newly rented house in Albuquerque we hung the clock, gave the pendulum a push and listened to the clicking of the gears. The clock before was a treasured keepsake but, writing about it now, I think it is the spirit of him, his heart beat anyway.
Dad’s coo-coo clock got very special attention. He had brought it with him when he left Pennsylvania and said it had been his father's, who had been killed in the Harwick Mine Disaster when my father was only two years old. The gentle clack clack of the pendulum and the call of the coo coo bird as it launched its head through the little wooden door to mark the hours was a constant background song inside our homes. Each time we moved it was carefully disassembled. The carved birds and maple leaves that adored the top were slid out of the slots that attached them and wrapped in paper along with the leaf shaped pendulum. The weights, shaped like narrow pine cones were surprisingly heavy. My brother and I always took time to bounce them in our hands before laying them in the box with the darkly stained body of the clock. We carefully tucked dish towels around it and covered it over in layers of wadded paper to cushion the blow of its transportation. In a ceremonial fashion, Dad picked the position for the clock in each new house. Assembled and mounted he pushed the pendulum to start its swing and turned the hands of the clock towards the new local time, pausing each half hour so the coo-coo could pop out and mimic the bird song. Towards the end of his life the clacking of the pendulum sounded like an echo of a hammer pounding him into the grave.
On the living room wall of our newly rented house in Albuquerque we hung the clock, gave the pendulum a push and listened to the clicking of the gears. The clock before was a treasured keepsake but, writing about it now, I think it is the spirit of him, his heart beat anyway.
2
The only option for me back then was to find any job I could. I eventually wound up in the Pioneer Wear clothing factory where I met Pat Dexter, who worked in the shipping department where I was assigned. Happy go lucky is the phrase that defined him perfectly. He was the gentlest and most upbeat man I had ever met. He was also a perfectly fit man with the build of a dancer whose grace enhanced his freestyle frisbee routines. Pat was a frisbee evangelist preaching the spiritual powers of performing with a free floating disc while stoned. I became his disciple. By nature I am a disciple, fitting myself into others passions. A personality trait that made my life interesting then it would have been otherwise.
Only a dozen people in Albuquerque considered frisbee a serious sport back then. They would meet on weekends in various parks around the city practicing the skills required for free style. All the throws except the standard backhand were new to me. The sidearm, thumper, finger tip and over hand wrist flip took a long time for me gain control. Pat would bring a boom box and we would practice for hours. Everyone in the group requited new members and before long there were enough players to pair off and hold freestyle competitions. When traveled to the regional freestyle championship and met players from California that were so much better to was like going to Mount Olympus to play the Gods.
The number of regular players grew to the point there were enough to start playing Ultimate Frisbee. The game is similar to soccer and required a lot of running. Ever since Coach Thorell forced me to break a sweat I was always trying to achieve it on my own but I needed to be pushed. In high school I played one on one basketball with Dave almost daily and every chance we got in Chicago we played. Over time my body improved but Ultimate Frisbee drove me to a level of fitness I could never achieve normally. I was part of a team that needed the best of me. I did not have the physical coordination and strength to master the throws so I did my part by playing defense. My best tool was running fast enough to get in the faces of the opposing team. The sport expanded quickly and soon we were playing for that state championship, then the rocky mountain regional championship and winning all the games. Our team, "A Toda Madre", then flew to Oakland for the national championship where I don't think we scored a single point. I was part of team, we played together, celebrated together, failed together and I ran and ran and ran.
Only a dozen people in Albuquerque considered frisbee a serious sport back then. They would meet on weekends in various parks around the city practicing the skills required for free style. All the throws except the standard backhand were new to me. The sidearm, thumper, finger tip and over hand wrist flip took a long time for me gain control. Pat would bring a boom box and we would practice for hours. Everyone in the group requited new members and before long there were enough players to pair off and hold freestyle competitions. When traveled to the regional freestyle championship and met players from California that were so much better to was like going to Mount Olympus to play the Gods.
The number of regular players grew to the point there were enough to start playing Ultimate Frisbee. The game is similar to soccer and required a lot of running. Ever since Coach Thorell forced me to break a sweat I was always trying to achieve it on my own but I needed to be pushed. In high school I played one on one basketball with Dave almost daily and every chance we got in Chicago we played. Over time my body improved but Ultimate Frisbee drove me to a level of fitness I could never achieve normally. I was part of a team that needed the best of me. I did not have the physical coordination and strength to master the throws so I did my part by playing defense. My best tool was running fast enough to get in the faces of the opposing team. The sport expanded quickly and soon we were playing for that state championship, then the rocky mountain regional championship and winning all the games. Our team, "A Toda Madre", then flew to Oakland for the national championship where I don't think we scored a single point. I was part of team, we played together, celebrated together, failed together and I ran and ran and ran.
3
My plan at the time was to create a novel without words told solely through drawings, a left over residue from the book attempted in Chicago. After a day working at Pioneer Wear I drew for several hours then watched television with my mother. The urge to plow on uninterrupted became so overwhelming that I quit my job to draw full time, convinced my drawings were telling a story. I had been led into that deception by the numerous sketch books I produced, spewing out drawings on such a regular basis that I sensed a plot developing over the course of time.
The hubris in my brain must have been astronomical because what I produced was terrible. "Weeds" was four hundred sketchy drawings ranging from cartoonish images to quasi life drawing that in mind my told a story. I was proud of myself, astonished at my own genius, a genius I was convinced would bring everyone to their knees in awe. There is probably a chapter on that kind of condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses. The most terrible part of that adventure was sending copies out to publishing companies. Today, instead of rejection letters, the publishers probably would have just sent laughing emojis.
The hubris in my brain must have been astronomical because what I produced was terrible. "Weeds" was four hundred sketchy drawings ranging from cartoonish images to quasi life drawing that in mind my told a story. I was proud of myself, astonished at my own genius, a genius I was convinced would bring everyone to their knees in awe. There is probably a chapter on that kind of condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses. The most terrible part of that adventure was sending copies out to publishing companies. Today, instead of rejection letters, the publishers probably would have just sent laughing emojis.
The delusional confidence born from the act of creating had distorted my sense of reality to the point that I attempted another version of a book but did not even send it out. The scales were falling from my eyes and the limitations of my skills becoming painfully obvious. The library at the University of New Mexico, Art Forum and Art News was the only source available to educate myself. Vacillating from George Grosz, Francis Bacon to Goya's Los caprichos;, I became fascinated with the realism of Salvador Dali and did several ink washes copying his style. I submitted them when applying to the UNM graduate program. I was rejected.
Looking at them now, I cannot remember or, even imagine, the me that did those strange paintings. The mind that made them can only be guessed at. I had never been in any kind of relationship, had no sister, knew nothing about marriage, child birth or babies. There is no reason for the subject of these paintings other than there was no one around to stop me. They look like pictures from a twisted INCEL picture book.
Looking at them now, I cannot remember or, even imagine, the me that did those strange paintings. The mind that made them can only be guessed at. I had never been in any kind of relationship, had no sister, knew nothing about marriage, child birth or babies. There is no reason for the subject of these paintings other than there was no one around to stop me. They look like pictures from a twisted INCEL picture book.
4
One of the members of A Toda Madre was Kris Ferris. Broad shouldered and trim waisted he did not have an ounce of fat on him, a feature that stood out when we were playing shirts vs skins in Ultimate games. His face, haloed by flowing curly hair, was almost identical to Roger Daltery, the lead singer of The Who. Kris rebuffed those comparisons with a joke, quipping "Roger Daltery looks like me." His witty response quickly established him as not only handsome but witty, likable and somewhat superior than the rest of us. Kris's relaxed manner could also be attributed to his stumbling into the business of manufacturing silver beads for Navajo jewelry, which was making him a lot of money. He and his wife Beverly had purchased a four acer property close to the Rio Grande River with a large modernized adobe house featuring a wall of glass sliding doors opening onto a terra cotta patio with a large adobe fire place. Behind the house was a small hut with a closet sized wire cage attached to it that housed two small monkeys who were constantly sodomizing each other, one monkey behind the other like a backpack, hips thrusting like a tiny jackhammer, all while
while staring directly at me. Next to the hut was a pit with canvas stretched over it attached by springs creating a ground level trampoline. Beyond those was a house sized fenced in garden and a small wooden shed housing two goats and a milking ramp. Further on was a scattering of peach and apples trees and then an open field of brown grasses where the goats grazed during the day. A dozen cats roamed throughout their property like caretakers. In front of the house, surrounded by a scattering of short scrubby mesquite trees was a small adobe hut that housed his silver bead manufacturing business with a labor forced that included his wife's brother and brother-in-law. Both of them were also on the frisbee team. Kris's wife, Beverly, had been in my class in Alliance High School, a significant coincidence which helped our initial friendship and, perhaps, the reason he hired me to solder beads. A tall slim woman with long straight hair who walked the halls like a model gliding over a walkway, she was one of the unattainable girls that yanked the backbone right out of me.
Kris and Beverly had cast off all vestiges of traditional beliefs of the corrupted materialistic Western culture years ago during the LSD tour of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Open to all the spiritual possibilities previously unknown to her, and me and anyone else from Alliance, Beverly navigated through the New Age hallucinogenic journey of metaphysical mysticism, UFO cults, Eastern religions and utopian communities before settling on Wiccan spells, astrology and herbal medicines.She had developed friendships with several local villagers from the nearby Pueblos of Santa Ana, Isleta and Laguna to learn about their farming methods and spiritual connection to the land . She studied all the available literature on natural healing and was developing a line of herbs to be used keep domestic animals healthy.. Kris believed in mind alteration and at one our first meetings handed me an especially strong joint created by one of his workers in a homemade green house in his back yard and pressed me to read The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda. I was soon searching for my spot.
Astrology had always appeared to me to be a parlor game requiring knowledge of the personality traits of the twelve signs of the Zodiac so people could tell me who I was instead of the other way around. Astrology, to Beverly, was serious, based on millennials of observations of the heavens and notations on human behavior that were cross referenced into charts complex as the equations of quantum physics and the periodic table. I was not one to judge since I had been in therapy sessions beating a pillow and trying to find the original hurt by staring at the back of my eyelids so long I was temporarily blind when I opened them. Beverly, and Kris, followed the astrologer and metaphysician Ed Steinbrecher who was teaching how to navigate the world outside of human sense perception through Inner Guide Meditation from his house near Sante Fe. As someone obviously in desperate need of a personal transformation to a higher plain, they suggested I come with them.
while staring directly at me. Next to the hut was a pit with canvas stretched over it attached by springs creating a ground level trampoline. Beyond those was a house sized fenced in garden and a small wooden shed housing two goats and a milking ramp. Further on was a scattering of peach and apples trees and then an open field of brown grasses where the goats grazed during the day. A dozen cats roamed throughout their property like caretakers. In front of the house, surrounded by a scattering of short scrubby mesquite trees was a small adobe hut that housed his silver bead manufacturing business with a labor forced that included his wife's brother and brother-in-law. Both of them were also on the frisbee team. Kris's wife, Beverly, had been in my class in Alliance High School, a significant coincidence which helped our initial friendship and, perhaps, the reason he hired me to solder beads. A tall slim woman with long straight hair who walked the halls like a model gliding over a walkway, she was one of the unattainable girls that yanked the backbone right out of me.
Kris and Beverly had cast off all vestiges of traditional beliefs of the corrupted materialistic Western culture years ago during the LSD tour of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Open to all the spiritual possibilities previously unknown to her, and me and anyone else from Alliance, Beverly navigated through the New Age hallucinogenic journey of metaphysical mysticism, UFO cults, Eastern religions and utopian communities before settling on Wiccan spells, astrology and herbal medicines.She had developed friendships with several local villagers from the nearby Pueblos of Santa Ana, Isleta and Laguna to learn about their farming methods and spiritual connection to the land . She studied all the available literature on natural healing and was developing a line of herbs to be used keep domestic animals healthy.. Kris believed in mind alteration and at one our first meetings handed me an especially strong joint created by one of his workers in a homemade green house in his back yard and pressed me to read The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda. I was soon searching for my spot.
Astrology had always appeared to me to be a parlor game requiring knowledge of the personality traits of the twelve signs of the Zodiac so people could tell me who I was instead of the other way around. Astrology, to Beverly, was serious, based on millennials of observations of the heavens and notations on human behavior that were cross referenced into charts complex as the equations of quantum physics and the periodic table. I was not one to judge since I had been in therapy sessions beating a pillow and trying to find the original hurt by staring at the back of my eyelids so long I was temporarily blind when I opened them. Beverly, and Kris, followed the astrologer and metaphysician Ed Steinbrecher who was teaching how to navigate the world outside of human sense perception through Inner Guide Meditation from his house near Sante Fe. As someone obviously in desperate need of a personal transformation to a higher plain, they suggested I come with them.
Beverly prepared me for my first astral journey in advance. Knowing I was a Scorpio was not enough, exact time of my birth was required. The information was sent to an astrological center where my rising sign could be calculated and a chart plotted out noting the position of every planet, celestial body and galactic coordinate the minute I was born. When the package came Beverly and her friends, members of the local coven who were also interested in the reveal, gathered around. All my stars were in the bottom half of the chart like sediment settled in a glass, a curiosity that caused both serious and humorous reactions. They pronounced that I would never have money. The calculations also stated that my Ascendent sign was Gemini and my ninth house was Aquarius, important information for determining who my guide would be.
The next Thursday evening I rode with them to the outskirts of Sante Fe turning off the thruway onto a small dirt road winding through a forest of gnarly Mesquite trees barely ten feet tall. Tucked inside them was a large adobe house topped with low dome made from interlaced branches of mahogany mesquite giving it the look of a temple. There were multiple cars parked among the mesquites and people were filing into the open double doorway where Steinbrecher was greeting them. He was tall, shiny bald and dressed in a straight white gown reaching all the way down to his sandaled feet. He had a powerful voice that was very soothing at low volume. He gave Beverly an enthusiastic hug, Kris a formal embrace and a handshake for me as he ushered us inside.
The main room of the house was large with a sunken area in the middle about fifteen feet in diameter. Scattered across the floor were soft pads covered with fabric of different designs. About two dozen people who had been milling around settled down on the pads or sat on the edge of the sunken circle when Steinbrecher began to speak, using charts to explain the complex effect of the stars and the astral world, Steinbrecher believed that we were projections of our astral world and the way to align our lives to the cosmos was inside that world. Gaining entrance into that world required a astra guide.
After Steinbrecher's astral lesson for the week, the lights were turned down and he instructed us all in a soft voice to close our eyes and visualize ourselves walking down ten steps. He emphasized the importance of staying and not visualize ourselves from above or anywhere else. With my eyes closed I forced my self to imagine my feet stepping down on a surface I could not quite see until the ten steps were done. Then, as instructed, I turned to my left and walked through a doorway. The best I could do was conjure up a cloudy curtain but I did have a sensation of passing through it. The next step was to call an animal to come up to me. I did that mentally, without imagining myself actually speaking. To my surprise, a form did approach me that could have been a goat, a deer, any midsized animal or just a cloud. As instructed, I asked the animal to take me to my guide and the animal took off in a sprint. I ran behind it through a foggy landscape whipping past either fuzzy trees or power line poles until a foggy shape of a man appeared on the right side of the road. I mentally asked the shape if he was my guide and in tornado like whirl he disappeared. Shape after shape appeared and then dissolved during the whole meditation and I never found my guide that day.
The inability to see anything with any clarity was frustrating and exhausting but I was amazed that a person could talk to a daydream and the daydream would respond. Up until that time I had no idea such a thing was possible. Even more oddly, when I described what I had seen, the images that had been so vague during the meditation appeared clear as a real memory in my mind. I had manipulated a daydream and the daydream responded to my commands and questions as if depicted in it were a separate people. I had been shown the existence of two minds who could talk to each other. It was a profound discovery for a twenty eight year old.
The next Thursday evening I rode with them to the outskirts of Sante Fe turning off the thruway onto a small dirt road winding through a forest of gnarly Mesquite trees barely ten feet tall. Tucked inside them was a large adobe house topped with low dome made from interlaced branches of mahogany mesquite giving it the look of a temple. There were multiple cars parked among the mesquites and people were filing into the open double doorway where Steinbrecher was greeting them. He was tall, shiny bald and dressed in a straight white gown reaching all the way down to his sandaled feet. He had a powerful voice that was very soothing at low volume. He gave Beverly an enthusiastic hug, Kris a formal embrace and a handshake for me as he ushered us inside.
The main room of the house was large with a sunken area in the middle about fifteen feet in diameter. Scattered across the floor were soft pads covered with fabric of different designs. About two dozen people who had been milling around settled down on the pads or sat on the edge of the sunken circle when Steinbrecher began to speak, using charts to explain the complex effect of the stars and the astral world, Steinbrecher believed that we were projections of our astral world and the way to align our lives to the cosmos was inside that world. Gaining entrance into that world required a astra guide.
After Steinbrecher's astral lesson for the week, the lights were turned down and he instructed us all in a soft voice to close our eyes and visualize ourselves walking down ten steps. He emphasized the importance of staying and not visualize ourselves from above or anywhere else. With my eyes closed I forced my self to imagine my feet stepping down on a surface I could not quite see until the ten steps were done. Then, as instructed, I turned to my left and walked through a doorway. The best I could do was conjure up a cloudy curtain but I did have a sensation of passing through it. The next step was to call an animal to come up to me. I did that mentally, without imagining myself actually speaking. To my surprise, a form did approach me that could have been a goat, a deer, any midsized animal or just a cloud. As instructed, I asked the animal to take me to my guide and the animal took off in a sprint. I ran behind it through a foggy landscape whipping past either fuzzy trees or power line poles until a foggy shape of a man appeared on the right side of the road. I mentally asked the shape if he was my guide and in tornado like whirl he disappeared. Shape after shape appeared and then dissolved during the whole meditation and I never found my guide that day.
The inability to see anything with any clarity was frustrating and exhausting but I was amazed that a person could talk to a daydream and the daydream would respond. Up until that time I had no idea such a thing was possible. Even more oddly, when I described what I had seen, the images that had been so vague during the meditation appeared clear as a real memory in my mind. I had manipulated a daydream and the daydream responded to my commands and questions as if depicted in it were a separate people. I had been shown the existence of two minds who could talk to each other. It was a profound discovery for a twenty eight year old.
5
Kris and I began hanging out together more often. I would hang out during his band's rehearsals and visited several clubs with him to see the what was happening in the rock and roll scene in the bars around town and hoping to find a place where his band could play. We chewed raw peyote and slept on a mesa and discussed my thoughts on Christ and the New Testament. I was still attending church with my mother, a church ten times the size of the ones we attended in the north. The preacher had been a professor of Religion and Philosophy at Pepperdine University so I was trying to impress him with my interpretations of the verses during the Sunday morning adult bible studies. An interest that finally getting an opportunity to give the evening sermon to a large congregation. To have someone come forward to confess their sins and be baptized because they were touched by the sermon would have been extraordinary but that could never happen. It is the voice, the musical instrument that kills pain and inspires love, that give power to a sermon. A voice I did not have but I appreciated the microphone. Can a drunk go to heaven was the theme of my sermon. If, according to Paul, if the Greeks still attending an orgy during the week and services on Sunday can just be considered weak but not condemned then a drunk and go to heaven. Kris liked discussing those topics and the radical nature of Christ and the writings of Paul, however, he was mostly fascinated by my hypocrisy.
We came to be close over time, buddies almost, but he was hard person to pin point. I was never sure he believed in Astrology and the astral world or just going along for the ride, vacillating from new age gardener to hard parting drugs and rock and roll to owner of a jewelry manufacturing business. He was totally closed and equally open to everything. I made a portrait of him, putting his head in a box that opened into a cross. My attempt to capture the soul of a person that artists aspire to.
We came to be close over time, buddies almost, but he was hard person to pin point. I was never sure he believed in Astrology and the astral world or just going along for the ride, vacillating from new age gardener to hard parting drugs and rock and roll to owner of a jewelry manufacturing business. He was totally closed and equally open to everything. I made a portrait of him, putting his head in a box that opened into a cross. My attempt to capture the soul of a person that artists aspire to.
I made a similar box of myself although mine was not so spiritually calm
The blazing red evening sky dramatized the weekly drive up to Steinbreche's where I had still not found my guide. Steinbreche treated the situation with urgency because he believed it was not safe to be in the astral world without him. He took me into his kitchen and sat me at a long heavy wooden table. He motion me to sit at the near end of the table and he sat catty-corner to me. Putting one hand on my shoulder and the other on my forearm as if to secure me down he quietly talked me down the steps and through the door. A zebra stripped goat took me to my guide. He was naked accept for a belt made from four narrow bands of sliver clasped around his waist like a bracelet below which hung a deep alizarin red loincloth. Behind the belt was a silver post with a bouquet of soft feathers sticking out of it. On top of his head was a silver skull cap with an eagle’s beak sculpted in the front. He was tall, trim and olive skinned. He looked like a Peruvian Prince from the time of the Incas. When I asked if he was my guide he reached out and tickled my nose with a feather and said. “What do you think darling”.
The journeys into the astral world began with an assignment from Steinbrecher based on the astrology lesson he had just taught. The room would go silent for five, fifteen maybe thirty minutes, hard to tell. After we opened our eyes those who wanted to told what they had seen. Their stories astounded me. One story in particular that stuck with me was told by a woman about sitting on top of a mountain made of short knotted ropes untying them one at a time.
Fascinated with all the imagery I started self hypnotizing myself. Following instruction from a book I had checked out of the local library I lay down and held by arm perpendicular to my body. Counting from one to ten I lowered my arm until at the last count it lay limply on the bed. In my imagination I started lowering myself through separate levels as if I was in a glass elevator. The author of the book claimed he and a friend had counted down levels together until the fiftieth where they shared the same dream, walked in the same landscape and saw the same animals. I never made it that far. After tiring out from trying to bring fuzzy images into focus I just zipped back up to my bed. Knowing I could call the astra version of people I know, I asked for Kris one evening and a big happy dog appeared.
During my sessions with Steinbrecher the meditations were fascinating and my guide came into shaper focus with each trip. However he was a tease, I mean a real tease; ruffling my hair, dancing around like an ancient Incan drag queen and declaring with a laugh “Just look at you!". I could not understand where in my head such a character could have come from since, to my knowledge, I had never met anyone like him before, especially not in my childhood.
Writing this story down now, forty five years later, I realized where the guide came from. During one of my several job searches that took place in Albuquerque I decided I would like to be a detective, a fantasy most likely born from movies and television. In Dubuque, before applying to John Deere I had applied to become a policeman, the opposite side of the picket lines I was in the year before. The chief got the results and wanted to hire me because I had the highest score on the writing exam in the departments history. However, I had failed the eye exam so I lost my chance to don the blue and, out of the blue, the fantasy hit me again.
I looked up detective agencies and applied telling the interviewer that I wanted to become an investigator. He assured me that would be possible and then said, "You have a gun?". I said yes. He said, "Bring it.". I said, "I am not going to shoot anyone." With a slight laugh, he said, "No, no, no. It's just for protection."
The journeys into the astral world began with an assignment from Steinbrecher based on the astrology lesson he had just taught. The room would go silent for five, fifteen maybe thirty minutes, hard to tell. After we opened our eyes those who wanted to told what they had seen. Their stories astounded me. One story in particular that stuck with me was told by a woman about sitting on top of a mountain made of short knotted ropes untying them one at a time.
Fascinated with all the imagery I started self hypnotizing myself. Following instruction from a book I had checked out of the local library I lay down and held by arm perpendicular to my body. Counting from one to ten I lowered my arm until at the last count it lay limply on the bed. In my imagination I started lowering myself through separate levels as if I was in a glass elevator. The author of the book claimed he and a friend had counted down levels together until the fiftieth where they shared the same dream, walked in the same landscape and saw the same animals. I never made it that far. After tiring out from trying to bring fuzzy images into focus I just zipped back up to my bed. Knowing I could call the astra version of people I know, I asked for Kris one evening and a big happy dog appeared.
During my sessions with Steinbrecher the meditations were fascinating and my guide came into shaper focus with each trip. However he was a tease, I mean a real tease; ruffling my hair, dancing around like an ancient Incan drag queen and declaring with a laugh “Just look at you!". I could not understand where in my head such a character could have come from since, to my knowledge, I had never met anyone like him before, especially not in my childhood.
Writing this story down now, forty five years later, I realized where the guide came from. During one of my several job searches that took place in Albuquerque I decided I would like to be a detective, a fantasy most likely born from movies and television. In Dubuque, before applying to John Deere I had applied to become a policeman, the opposite side of the picket lines I was in the year before. The chief got the results and wanted to hire me because I had the highest score on the writing exam in the departments history. However, I had failed the eye exam so I lost my chance to don the blue and, out of the blue, the fantasy hit me again.
I looked up detective agencies and applied telling the interviewer that I wanted to become an investigator. He assured me that would be possible and then said, "You have a gun?". I said yes. He said, "Bring it.". I said, "I am not going to shoot anyone." With a slight laugh, he said, "No, no, no. It's just for protection."
My favorite gun was my 38 special, snub nosed revolver. When shooting bottles and cans for fun I liked to shoot it from the hip. Putting it the new black holster strapped to my belt felt transformative, actually, just a little tickle of the brain but a tickle none the less. The detective agency required that I have a uniform, not the film noir detective suit I was envisioning, but considered it necessary as part of the step up the ladder. I bought a grey shirt with black straps on the shoulders, black pants with a thin silver strip down the side and a police hat with a hard plastic brim. All dressed up they sent me to guard a parking lot all night. Soon I was standing by doorways in public meetings, weddings, and catered parties wondering if I had made an astronomical mistake when I was assigned to guard a door at bar. Upon entering the bar I was greeting with laughter. I was just beginning to realize that was I dressed up like kids version of The Village People when a tall thin black man saschayed up to me and said "Just look at you".
Then he stole my hat.
Then he stole my hat.