talking here, inside this man, disturbing my peace? Is this some internal inner-leftist holdover diatribe?
Why, it’s the boogeyman inside, taking that American point of view and allowing no other perspective. How dare he climb into my head, here on this peaceful day in the woods?
I think I’m getting a little tired now. Oh, good. Here is this green meadow. It doesn’t look wet and is full of those yellow little wildflowers. I’ll just lie down now and call it a day.
I still have a few hours of light left. It’s about, let’s see, my little Swatch watch says it’s 16:00, that means 4:00pm out West, and it seems like the clouds with their drops of water, their gray foreboding, are moving eastward. I can lay right down here, next to this tree. Maybe I can put this little pack, rucksack, as they call it here, down, and lay on my sweater, that brown pullover v-neck which blends in so nicely with the earth and leaves.
Those birds sure can sing, and it seems like so many different kinds now. What am I going to have for dinner? Wasn’t I going to cook for Anna, my Austrian girlfriend? She was supposed to come over about 19:00/7:00pm, and I was going to have an American-style barbecue. Let’s see, I can have those frozen green beans with that French style bread. Maybe I’ll put garlic butter on it along with the meat that I bought. I sure didn’t eat so much meat in the States. But here the meat is so good, and I found a bio-fed natural beef that I like, that tastes so good. No BSE/foot-and-mouth disease and additives for me! I’ll have to start the coals about 18:00, so that when she arrives they will be hot enough to put the meat on. Besides, I’m getting hungry. Where was I? Yes, here I am, lying down out here. The sun feels so good now. I’ll just close the eyes a little more, and bye-bye . .
13.
LAPSE
INTO . . .
. . . It feels as if I’m falling, falling, falling now, faster and faster. I can’t keep up with the velocity. It’s through space. Timeless. It’s after death, or on another plane, between life and death, another plateau. I see all of these lights go by. I see some faces now. They are people I don’t recognize. There are old women laughing at me, and then there are some young boys without their clothes on, running and playing on the beach.
I see all sorts of things as I keep falling and looking and wondering, as in Wandering Jew: Where I am going? It is at once exhilarating and disturbing, fearsome and exciting. I am alone, yet I have many others joining me in these movements. Is it a black hole I’m in? When will it stop? This is not real, yet it is so familiar and so real. The paradox astounds me as I hear music and sounds and people talking. I see many buildings, and foreign places where I have never been. Isn’t that the Taj Mahal over there? And then there are cows, and the Ganges, and bodies burning, and old saddhus walking: skinny men with long hair and white loincloths and bare feet, begging and praying.
I see one man who is sitting in sort of a lotus, yoga-type position. He is chanting something. I fly over there. Wait, I think I hear some sort of chanting voice . . . “ram, ram, ram,” . . . over and over, and somehow he tells me to repeat after him . . . “ram, ram, ram,” slowly inhaling, and exhaling slowly. So I find myself saying this, doing this breathing. I don’t know if anyone can hear me or if I am just saying it, as if an inner ear is hearing this. I hear the man’s voice inside me. It is ancient and eternal, as if this very word has never stopped, and it has been going on forever now in my voice. I am carrying on something. It is really deep and profound and has some incredible meaning, but I don’t quite grasp all of the significance of it, and I find I must leave this place.
It is so peaceful and I want to stay there, but he, this man, with the all-knowing and peaceful face, an ageless eighty year-old, this dark and smooth-skinned man with his yellow-orange robe, sitting alongside a dirt road in front of green grass fields with high mountains on the horizon: He tells me to go, that I can go now, and to repeat these words, and, if it feels right, to pass on this mantra, these words, to others who may feel this same feeling and sense of an always-continuing peace when they are pronounced.
I am disoriented. From here the feeling that stopped with this man has begun again and carried me through some time zone, a timewarp, to where I am in a room, a familiar one, and I am in a bed looking up at these faces. I can barely make them out, but they appear to know me and are smiling down at me just a couple of feet away from me. It seems that they are saying something:
“Look at the cute little baby. Isn’t he cute? Coochie-coochie-coo. Yes, isn’t he? Jesse is such a good baby. Now go to sleep and rest. Let’s put on some lullaby music, and I’ll rock the crib,” the familiar voice gently says, with so much affection that it brings tears to my eyes. I have the feeling that it was my mother and grandmother talking to me. I was a little baby, but it seems so real and fresh and alive now, as I feel everything.
Oh, what is that? It’s like a giant pyramid, except it’s a kind of ride, and it whirls around and around, faster and faster. I am suddenly strapped onto the side of it, and I spin around. I am laughing and crying. I feel sick and I want to throw up, and out comes this electric-blue liquid out of my mouth, and it splashes all over me as I turn blue, and everything I see has this bluish tint to it.
The ride has stopped now, and I see myself asleep in a bed somewhere. It is very comfortable, and the bed has four posts coming up out of the corners. It is made with gold all over it and has a white linen covering and is draped over the posts, as I look up and around. It is as if a gauze-whitish fabric has been placed over my eyes. Everything – these objects and paintings and walls and ceiling and oil lamps and bedroom – seems like a fourteenth century room. It is as if I am in a museum or palace, looking around at these beautiful antiques, only I belong here and they are mine. I see only foggily and am not focusing. I am getting rather tired and want to go back to sleep . . .
I have been to so many places, and for so long. It has been a tiring trip, and now the sensation is one of sleeping and floating somewhere and being carried away as if on a magic carpet floating in the air and across the sky through the clouds . . .
What was that? I feel a little twig hit my face. I must have been sleeping. How long has it been? Oh yes, I must have drifted off. For a second I don’t know where I am — and now I feel as though I’m sinking into the ground, the wonderful grass and sunshine, and late afternoon breeze rustles the trees. I feel rested, but I vaguely remember someone talking to me in a dream. It was my mother. It was, you know, one of those dreams that is so real, stronger than the waking state, and so meaningful.
Why did I dream of my mother, and how could I have such a vivid dream? Deep inside I feel that this was not just a scene from a dream but a stored memory, an engram: a facsimile of a photoscape of my life, replayed as though on an inner video screen.
I reached to find some meaning and reason for this motherly family visit, with the little baby Jesse talking as if I were maybe a few months old. I was speechless, and even crying a bit, in this real-life dream.
14.
JUXTAPOSITIONS I SUPPOSE,
AND NOW REALITY-PLUS
Where am I? That Jesse, the young star, the Hollywood-born boy growing up with all the promise. The life ahead. The dreams and hopes. A celebrity at birth. The recognition. The cameras and attention. The visitors and status. Everything taken care of.
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end . . . tra la la la . . . Reminiscing. I thought I wouldn’t diverge. I was just sleeping, and now the thoughts keep on and shake up this natural man asleep in the forest. I remember now. What time
