"Moooo!" bellowed the black and white cow that ambled ahead of me down the muddy tractor ruts that led through the wet grass of the pasture. It was fall in Oregon and it was raining. I had driven several miles up a road that followed a small creek just north of Tillamook in hopes of finding a field in which the psylicybin mushrooms would be growing. Since I could see a man crawling around on his hands and knees in the middle of the field. I assumed I had arrived at the right place.

"Howdy," I greeted him as I approached. "Are you finding any?"

"They’re finding me," he replied, getting to his feet. He was perhaps a little older than me, had a beard and wore a serape with stripes every color of the rainbow. He held open the woven bag at his side. It was nearly overflowing with tiny brown mushrooms.

"Oh, wow! Alright!" I exclaimed. "Did it take you very long to find this many?

"All my life," he grinned.

"Are they ‘Liberty Caps’?" I asked, examining the caps and stems he placed in my hand.

"Sure are," he replied. You can recognize them by this littler clear nipple on the top. The stems turn a purplish color when they’re crushed. They grow around these piles of old cowshit."

"Are there any poisonous mushrooms growing here too?" I asked as my fingers began parting the wet grass.

"Probably. But once you’ve picked a few, you’ll have no trouble seeing the difference."

"Is this one?" I asked excitedly, showing him the first one I found.

"Sure is. Here, put them in this bag." He took a small brown paper bag from his hip pocket and handed it to me.

"Is there just this one Kind?" I asked as I began to find families of up to half a dozen, varying in size from half an inch or so to several inches high.

"I’ve heard of other kinds, but here in Oregon I’ve never eaten any but these. Down in Mexico thought the "shrooms are hasta la madre and there’s so many different kinds."

"Hasta la madre?"

"Means ‘until the mother’ literally, but it’s used in Mexico to mean really far out.

"There’s a kind in Oaxaca called ‘Pajaros,’ which means birds and they can really make you sing. When you eat them, whatever you’re looking at is so beautiful that you can’t help but sing. You close your eyes and the visions inside are so sharp and clear and beautiful that you sing about them too. And then there’s ‘Derrumbes.’"

"What does that mean?’

"It means landslides," he laughed. "I’m not sure whether that’s where they grow or if that’s a description of what they do to your head. Charley Chaplin! Those are good ‘shrooms!"

"These are good here too though, aren’t they?" The bottom of my bag was already covered.

"Oh, sure," he laughed again. "You just have to eat a lot of them. Not like in Palenque, over on the Yucatan Peninsula. There’s another kind down there so large you can hunt them from horseback."

 

"It sounds like you like to travel a lot," I remarked.

" ‘I was born a travelin’ man. . . .’ " he sang, mimicking the once- popular radio tune. "I’ve been down to Mexico several times. What’s your name?"

"I’m Felix. Felix de Savage." I extended my hand.

"My name’s Benjamin Rainbow. Pleased to meet you. Would you like to smoke some funny fumes?"

"Sure. How many of these ‘Liberty Caps’ do you eat?"

"As many as you like," he grinned, popping two or three into his mouth and chewing them while we walked over to a dead cottonwood log on the edge of the pasture and sat down.

"Yeah, I know, but for a good trip how many of them would you suggest?"

"How many questions do you have?"

"What do you mean?"

"Haven’t you ever tripped before?" His eyebrows raised.

"Nice bowl," I admired the pipe he had just filled, lit and passed to me.

"It’s a whale; from a design used by the Indians here on the coast. It’s real pipestone."

I took a hit and handed it back to him. "I used to eat some LSD when I was in the service, but that was quite a while ago, during the Viet Nam War."

"Were you over there?"

"Just for a couple of months; caught a piece of shrapnel in the ass during Tet and ended up spending my time overseas pounding a typewriter on Okie. Good Smoke."

"It’s some of Oregon’s fine sinsemilla ¾ grown in that mellow southern sun near Ashland."

"What did you mean when you asked how many questions I had?"

"Oh, just that when you eat them, if you ask the little plants a question, in the course of your trip the answer will be revealed. In Greek, psylicybin means ‘bare head.’"

"But they’re just fungus. How can they answer questions?"

"They’re magic." From the twinkle in his eyes as he replied, he seemed serious.

It has stopped raining and it looked as if the gray clouds of dawn might yet burn off with the advancing sun.

"There’s a scientific answer to what they do, if you’d like to hear it," he said, exhaling the last hit of pot.

"Sure," I replied. Across the field from where we sat the herd of cows grazed contentedly.

"In the brain," he began, "there is manufactured a chemical called serotonin. The release of serotonin is involved in the process of synapses. It acts as a relevancy screen over our perceptions, emotions and thoughts. Psylocybin and psylocin, the two primary chemicals in these ‘shrooms, temporarily retard the production of serotonin in the brain, bringing all things in contact with one another, which they are anyway, by dissolving the filter of relevancy which normally separates the world into its parts. Thus experiences of unity in both time and space are made possible."

I’m not sure if I know what you mean by a relevancy screen," I admitted.

"If you’re driving a car, the road conditions, lines and signs and the steering wheel and gas pedal and gear shift are all the relevancies with which the mind deals while driving; if you get stoned on ‘shrooms, then all the scenery you are passing, the texture of the seats, the lenses of your lasses, the fight you had that morning with your wife, your work, the thickness of the windshield, all of these things might become just as relevant as those things which are necessary to drive effectively. And of course if everything is suddenly of equal importance and relevancy, it becomes difficult to focus your attention on only those things that are necessary to drive."

"That’s why it is so important that the setting where you eat the mushrooms is tranquil and hassle-free, so that you can relax and let the relevancy screen be replaced by the questions you ask of all reality when all its diversities appear as unity. In wholeness is the answer to many things."

"So how many should I eat?"

"It’s up to you; you could start with fifteen or twenty and then if you feel like it you can always eat more later on."

"How many do you eat?"

He laughed. "I lost count a long time ago."

"How long to they last?"

"The rest of your life," he replied matter of factly.

I laughed. "But how many hours are you actually tripping?"

"It varies, of course, but you can count on five to six hours of pretty intensive tripping and then several more hours where you probably won’t feel like moving around very much. When you’re in your head, your body tends to want to rest. The day after you trip is usually pretty mellow too, so it’s nice to have a couple of days to appreciate fully the effects. Where are you going to trip?"

"I don’t know yet. I haven’t given it much thought. On the beach, maybe. . .."

"May I recommend a place that’s a favorite of mine? Perhaps you already know of it ¾ Neahkahnie Mountain?"

"I’ve heard of it, but I don’t remember where it is."

"It’s not too far from here actually. It’s before you get to Cannon Beach."

"I’ve been to Cannon Beach before. Why’s this mountain a good place to trip?"

"It’s a very high place and overlooks the sea. You can see for fifteen or twenty miles down the coast as well as a long way up the valleys inland and it’s nice and quiet; not many people go up there."

"That sounds great. I should pick some more ‘shrooms. It looks like the sun’s going to shine."

"Sure does," agreed Benjamin and we both began to pick mushrooms once again. "Do you have a car?"

"Sure do - a van. It’s parked over there behind those trees."

"Well, if you’re going to Neahkannie this morning, maybe I could get a ride with you as far a Yahats. I’ve got a friend there and I’m sure she’d enjoy some of these "shrooms".

"Of course."

"OK. Thanks a lot. I’ll make you a map to show you how to get to Neahkahnie."

A short while later we decided we had picked enough "hongos" as Benjamin told me they were called in Mexico and we headed toward the road.

"Moooooo!" bellowed a couple of cow from the herd as we passed.

"Moooooo!" we hollered back.

"Is ‘Rainbow’ your real last name?" I couldn’t help but ask as we pulled out onto Highway 101 and headed north.

"No," he replied, "it used to be Rypple. I changed it to signify that I have joined the family of the spectrum of pure white light that shines hope eternal in the world. As the rainbow is in the sun’s light and the drops of rain, so am I in that eternalness and infinity that has no name and so is that namelessness in me."

As we drove into Yahats he said, "Here," and handing me six nicely rolled joints, "this is where I need to be." He pointed to the edge of the road near where several motor boats sat resting in their trailers beside the river.

"Thanks," I stammered as we shook hands. "Thanks a lot."

"Just remember to treat the little plants with respect and they will respect you and answer the questions you ask of them. Be patient, as answers are never exactly as we expect them to be. With the mind, we create. Be respectful of you mind’s creations and your mind’s creations will be respectful of you."

"For sure," I said. "Take care."

"Happy trails," he said as he got out of the van and I was alone again driving north with the metronome of my windshield wipers clearing scattered drops of fog from the windshield.

There were no gas stations open yet as I passed through the small communities that are strung like beads on the necklace of Highway 101 and I wondered if I’d be able to get gas later on during the weekend. I decided not to let it worry me and when I reached the end of the road that led off the highway to the trail head at the base of the mountain, the needle of my gas gauge rested on empty.

Perhaps it was seeing that gas gauge needle that triggered the shape of what was to follow on the mountain, for, as I began to ascend the mountain in the increasing sunshine that had by now dispersed the fog, I began to think of energy and power.

From gasoline and the lines at the stations and the confusion of shortages and high prices, my thoughts passed on to an even more threatening power crisis - nuclear power, particularly the fact that a nuclear power plant sits right on the crumbling edge of one of the deepest stone chasms on the North American continent and how seventy percent of the United States Government’s nuclear waste is stored nearly on the banks of the Columbia River. One major accident, I had heard, and nothing would grow in the Willamette Valley for thousands of years.

How long, I wondered, would the sleeping automatons, whose cogs drive the wheels that move the machine of civilization as it slowly turns fertile fields to concrete and asphalt wastelands, wait before awakening to the fact that if the environment is poisoned, then one of the rest of what passes for civilization is of any value at all? Is it really rational in the minds of so many that man is capable and responsible enough to erect structures, trigger extremely dangerous processes of nature and build systems to monitor and control the complex technology involved in a nuclear power plant perfectly? How many error-free human beings are there on this planet? I’ve never met one to be sure. What it really boils down to, I thought, is that no one really understands energy. I realized how little I really understood about the subject myself.

Then I began to think about the series of events of the past months and how they all flowed together to bring me to this path through the waist high salal; to this path that was leading me to the mountain to eat the magic mushrooms.

Perhaps, had it not been for the facts that my girl’s visit to see her grandfather who was dying in New York had turned from one month into three and that finally monotony of work at the assembly plant had driven me to such a state of destruction that I was unable to complete the term and the University and went on a booze binge that lasted nearly a week and a half before meeting some hippy in a bar in Lincoln City who told me where to find the magic mushrooms. I wouldn’t have been climbing the mountain that fine fall morning.

I realized more and more that what was needed on this planet to solve its problems is a more clear understanding of energy. So as the vistas broadened with each step of my ascent, so too did the nature of the questions that I wished to ask the magic plants as Benjamin had suggested, until, when I at last stood on the thin vertebrae of jagged stones that forms the crest of Neahkahnie Mountain, a question had formulated itself in my mind.

"What is the nature of energy?" was the question I decided to ask the mushrooms.

What transpired during the hours that composed the day that followed is the story that I shall attempt to tell you in the following pages. I say that I shall ‘attempt to tell’ because a narrative such as this that issues from an altered state of consciousness is in much danger of being misunderstood, particularly by anyone who has not yet had the psychedelic experience.

Psychedelic is a word, which from Greek roots means ‘mind manifesting.’ I’m not sure that I shall be understood even among those who would have been conscious of the manifestation of mind through the use of psychedelic plants and chemicals, but, since the fact that such consciousness-altering substances are the sine qua non of my narrative, I can only ask that prejudices in the reader’s mind concerning the validity of information garnered or granted in such a state be suspended for the duration of my story.

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

From the crest of Neahkahnie Mountain one can see the breakers of the Pacific for nearly thirty miles to the south and into the haze of distance where sky and ocean meet to the west. Looking inland one’s eyes follow the green and blue shades of river valleys and hills to the horizon. While looking north through the clear-cut scars one sees the large stones that linger beneath the tongues of eroding waves offshore near Cannon Beach.

Benjamin had told me that the early natives of the area used to ritually burn the vegetation from the face of the south slope, although now it is thickly matted with a carpet of salal, thimbleberries and blackberries. The berries were ripe and sweet and I’d munched out on them on my way up.

Pirates are said to have buried treasure that has never been found somewhere on the steep slopes that become sheer rock walls when they plunge at the base into the sea.

It was getting comfortably warmer as I sat in the sun watching the waves below me sparkle silver. I sat near a stone on which ‘T.S. Eliot 1926’ had been neatly carved. I wondered if it was indeed carved there by the famous poet.

"Let us go then, you and I . . . I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floor of a silent sea . . .." Favorite lines from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ floated through my mind as I untied my yellow bandanna and began placing the mushrooms in pairs side by side on its flattened surface.

"Eat them in pairs and ask each pair a question," Benjamin had said; "that way you’ll see both sides of the question and its answer in creative and receptive form."

As I chewed the earthy tasting caps and stems and tasted the tang of the psylocybin on my tongue, I asked each pair a question. The questions centered around energy. What is energy? Where does it come from? What controls it? How does it relate to power? Why is it such a big problem? What are the solutions to the energy problems?

I stopped when I was about halfway around the circle of the mushrooms and lit one of the joints Benjamin had given me. Seagulls flew with white wings up the south slope of the mountain crying their lonesome cries. On the north side, fir trees whispered in harmony with the distant breaking waves.

What is the secret nature of energy? I asked as I swallowed the last pair and chased the taste from between my teeth with a couple of swigs from the bottle of cheap wine I’d carried up the mountain in my pack.

"What the hell," I thought, "I’ve got six of these joints, why not smoke another?"

About halfway through the second number, I looked down at my boot and saw my sock sticking out through a hold that had appeared somehow during my drunken binge and I began to laugh.

The more I laughed, the louder my laughter grew inside my head until I found myself floating in spheres of echoing laughter; spheres that grew larger and larger and then burst and reproduced around me in botriodal patterns that tasted like the nectar of pomegranates and felt warm like the sun.

I found myself floating through bright spheres of every color of the rainbow, raster and faster until it novaed into a blindingly white flash of omniversal light.

I’d seen the eclipse of the sun that spring and the only way I can describe how blindingly pure that light was is to compare it to the intensity of the light just before the eclipse is total and in those few seconds after Bailey’s beads have reappeared to signal the end of totality. That light in its pure silver crescent defies comparison.

Two things passed rapidly through my mind. Either I’ve really done it now and totally blown my mind, or somebody after all these years finally pressed a button that put me at ground zero of a nuclear explosion, in which case I’ll probably soon see a mushroom cloud.

As my mind lit upon this absurd semantic synchronicity, I began to laugh once again which dispelled the temporary rising of the specter of paranoia and made me aware of how silent it was except for my laughter.

"Where am I?" I heard myself saying out loud as I watched echoes of my voice move through the silent whiteness creating ripples of silver that crackled like lightening through the brightness. Intrigued by the effects of my voice, I repeated, "Where am I?"

"Where is anywhere by here?" said a voice that sounded like the song of the flutes and sent ripples of color like the shimmer of abalone shell from the horizon of the whiteness toward me from all directions, which, by the time they reached me, became a mist of luminescent colored droplets that swirled about in billowing eddies like cotton candy in a stiff breeze.

"But where is here?" I repeated again very slowly, unsure that I had really heard a voice.

"Here is called by many names," replied the voice.

"But where are you?" I asked.

"I’m in Bubblonia," replied the voice. "So are you."

"But where is Bubblonia?"

"Bubblonia," replied the voice that moved the colors, "is a mind event based on the structure of bubbles."

"Bubbles?"

"Each part of every bubble contains the whole bubble just as each whole contains its parts. Each whole and each part is a bubble that exists in a hierarchy of bubbles, being at the same time part of both larger and smaller bubbles.

"All bubbles have a surface formed by the collective bubble of the words and sounds used to delimit it and that surface is at all times in contact with the surface of all other bubbles, their surface being both common and individual.

"The space enclosed by one bubble interpenetrates and coheres to the space enclosed by all other bubbles," the voice continued.

"When the production of word bubbles ceases in the mind, then the surface of all bubbles pop and we experience reality as the unity it truly is."

"Who are you anyway?" I interrupted.

"I am called Lu Thotshifter. By action I destroy."

"What do you destroy?"

"Bubbles," was the reply. "I am a Bubblonian and at your service."

"But what’s a Bubblonian?" I persisted in my inquiry.

"I cannot tell you what a Bubblonian is," he repied, but I can tellyou who this Bubblonian is if you like."

"Ok," I readily agreed, somewhat amazed at my ability to be conversing with. . .with what or whom, I did not yet know.

"I am a wanderer in Bubblonia like yourself. I am the voice of that spirit which springs eternal in the heart to wander, to look just beyond the most distant horizon to the next bubble that lies under the tireless tread of each day’s steps on a ceaseless journey through Bubblonia. I am Lu, the wanderer. Wanderer means planet; planet means this one here now.

"I shift thoughts by destroying them."

"But why does movement have to destroy thoughts? I asked.

"Because thought in linear," he replied, "and Bubblonia is not. To shift thought is to destroy it."

"But not all thought is destroyed. . .."

"That is true. Form preserves. You shall doubtlessly meet a bubblonian called Ken Thotsifter and he can tell you more about form and preservation. All bubbles are destroyed, all bubbles are preserved and all bubbles are created. Wisdom creates. When you meet Ch’ien ‘The Dragon’ Thotlifter, he can tell you more about that aspect of Bubblonia."

I’d sure like to experience the energy of the planet as it truly is," I said.

"Sojourney with me through the bubble of water," said Lu. "We shall look into its energy first."

His voice was like the wind among the needles of the firs and my attention followed the lead of his words willingly and without the slightest hesitation.

"Watch the ocean waves," he said, "and think of all the shores upon which they wash; think of the spray on those endless ribbons of waves evaporating and being herded like sheep before the shepherd of the wind toward higher and higher pastures where dust is raised to the clouds to form a bubble of rain that falls on fertile soil and seeps underground to bubbles of roots and into stems and leaves and fruit and seeds that we eat and drink and become blood sweat and tears. Tell me, my friend, where does the river being?

"Does it begin at the continents of ice at the poles or in glaciers that form beds for snow fields? Or in the snows of winter that pile sheet after white sheet of frozen water over the springs of the stony earth and its mattress of vegetation? Or in the quilts of rivers tucked tight to the pillow of the sea?

"Or does the river begin in the steam from boiling mud that gushes from the earth or in the bellies of mosquitoes hovering over the stillness of a tropical swamp or in the fish that eats the mosquito or in the bird that eats the fish or the man who eats the bird’s eggs or in the tongue of his grandchildren?

"Or does it begin in the juices that bees turn from flowers into honey? Or from early morning dew on grass blades? Or in the bubble beneath water falling? Or in the bubbles of steam rising? In high or low? In hot or cold? Tell me, my friend, where does the river begin?"

"I think I’m going to go help one start now," I said; "I have to take a leak."

"Water seeks its own level; flows down to the sea," said Thotshifter as I wandered into the thick undergrowth on the north side of the mountain.

As I relieved my bladder, I felt very connected and at one with the water on the planet. It seemed to me like the energy of all moving water was flowing through me: the stone crushing energy of icebergs; the rivers that form mighty channels through the crust of the globe; the water in all the plants and all the animals that animates their growth; the energy of dammed-up rivers; the energy of water wheels and steam engines; the energy or irrigation; the energy of cleansing and refreshing; the energy of waves that slowly turns the boulders of continental edges into tiny grains of sand; the energy of hailstorms and floods and typhoons; the energy of the currents of the oceans; the energy of my own heartbeat thundering rhythmically through my ears.

When I returned and sat down, Thotshifter spoke again.

"Now look just above and just below the wings of those seagulls and tell me what you see there."

I gazed at the seagulls drifting lazily in the wind trailing echoes of their wings against a deep azure sky.

"I see the sky," I said. Then after a pause, "I think seagulls must see the wind the way they glide . . .." I felt very light-headed.

"So journey with me through the bubble of air," invited Lu.

"Are you not held aloft by that which is the roadway of seagulls? Does not your voice move the clouds?"

 

"The wind blows inland to the mountains where the moisture it carries cools and, becoming heavier, falls out of the winds which blow on and on between the leaves and needles and spines of threes and vines and snowcapped peaks of mountains through canyons and coyotes and deer and elk and mice and buffalo and elephants and mastodons and mud larks and dog barks and through more than four billion sets of human lungs and whales and sharks and goldfish and daffodils and tulips and turnips and corn and potatoes and beans and apples and onions and pterodactyls and redwoods and cannabis and mushrooms.

"The bubble of breath animates life. Breath moves. Without breath, the rivers of the heart cease to flow; breath fans the flames of our transience into warmth that nurtures endless waves on the sea of generation; breath supports our wandering faces.

"Watch your breath. Now you are breathing fast. Now you are breathing slow. The wings of life fly on the winds of breath.

"Movement of air animates the world. Motion makes things grow. It is awareness of motion that leads through the bubble of time. Time deadens. Time destroys all. Time is motion. Coming and going. Beginning and ending. All things are cyclic. Even within your body there are cycles of bubbles. Physical cycles. Emotional cycles and mental cycles. All things change.

"Imagine all the air there is between your eyes and way down there where that point sticks out into the ocean."

I started in silence out into space as the morning sun grew small crawling toward its zenith.

"Sojourney with me through the bubble of earth," invited Lu. My mind followed the images as he evoked them.

"Our teeth are stones supported by bones that eat the soil plants raise into the wind from the surface of the bubble of earth. The grinding stones of animals make the dirt softer for us to eat. We raise ourselves from the dust. Into the dust we return.

"We are bubbles of dust on a bubble cooling stone that cracks into canyons and valleys as it shrinks and thrusts mountains up from plains. Mountains veined with gold and spinach veined with iron give strength and wealth.

"Consider the energy in the movement of earth. From seeds grow diamonds.

"Wander with me now from highest glaciered mountain peaks down giant bouldered slopes and steep crevasses to caves beneath the stones. Wander with me down alpine valleys into timberlines whose roots break the stones and whose needles and bark and wood spread their generations on the slopes of crumbling stones which flow down the sides of mountains getting deeper and deeper and the soil gets finer and finer until it finds its way to the seas as grains of sand which layer the floor of the sea until the cooling convulsions of the stone bubble quake rearrangements of the shore lines and leave behind salty deserts.

"Sojourney with me through the bubble of earth. Feel the textures of all the clays and all the sands and all the stones. See the colors of the jewels and gems. Feel the strength, power and energy of metals. See the lead and gold, the iron and the silver, the granite and the marble, the limestone and the platinum, the ruby and the diamond."

My head was buzzing beneath this barrage of suggested visual stimuli as my mind formed images and multiplied and divided them until, minute by minute, I felt myself getting heavier and heavier and feeling more and more like the earth I was sitting on. I was completely enveloped in an expanding and contracting cloud, or perhaps I should say bubble, of kaleidoscopically changing fragments of all the colors of the spectrum in what seemed like must have been all their hues and shades.

"My ass is getting kind of tired contemplating these stones," I heard myself say suddenly, startling myself and interrupting my spectrographic reverie. I stood up and walked down the narrow rocky ridge of the crest of the mountain until I found a comfortable place on the grassy slope to sit down.

I say I walked, but it felt more like my mind just floated to a new location and my body followed along. Although at one point, I wasn’t sure whether I was moving or not because it suddenly felt as if noting the front of me was getting nearer and larger as it should; so I looked behind me and it seemed that nothing behind me was growing smaller and receding, yet when I looked at my legs they were moving. I repeated my series of observations several more times, each time with the same conclusion - I wasn’t moving? This persisted until at last I said, "This is impossible!" and that returned my perception of motion.

 

I lit another of the joints Benjamin had given me and gazed over the grassy green mountainside off into the distant hills and valleys that form a contrapuntal rhythm with the shimmering troughs and crests of the sea. When I finished, I had a bad case of cotton mouth which I tried to satiate with large gulps of wine and was very happy to find applies I had picked from a tree beside the road a couple of days ago still in my pack. As I crunched, the voice of Lu Thotshifter spoke once again.

"Sojourney with me for a while through the bubble of fire."

His voice had grown familiar by now and I settled back to listen, yawning as I threw the core of the apple into the bushes.

"In your belly a fire burns the fruits of the earth into the warmth of your blood that coils a serpent of fire around your spine, where it rises to become a reflection of the light of the sun and the bubble of stars.

"At the planet’s core there is a bubble of fire that bubbles mountains to their peaks and heats the water underground.

"Lightning leaps from clouds to stir the fire in the trees and grass and brush.

"The fire of the sun raises the water and earth into air. The fire of the sun allows us the reflection of the spectrum whereby we distinguish the world into its components, by changing reality, by shifting thought, there comes about the diversity of the ten thousand changing things.

"Sojourney with me along the path that fire has taken since the first ancestor overcame his fear of the piece of the sun that fell from the sky long enough to venture close enough to the tongues of flames that licked that cold primeval night to discover that it was warmer there and that creatures whose flesh had been passed through those flames was softer between his grinding stones. So he took a bit of that sun that had fallen from the sky and brought it back to his camp where it was kept alive and his food was cooked and he could be warm around it at night which gave him time to contemplate the nature of the light and the heat.

"He say by that fire for millions of years and cold nights discovering its energy; discovering that it can be used as a weapon to ward off those attracted to the odors of his cooking meat; that it can harden the clay and make containers which can store food for the season of the cold and bring the pure spring waters to him instead of having to bring himself to the spring each time he was thirsty; that it can soften the metals of the earth so that he can mold them into imitations of chipped stone points that he can shape wood and puncture flesh and hide and skin and form armies armed with blades of metal; that it can shape the metals to shape the stones to build bigger fires to keep more people arm; to shape the metal to shape the wood to build houses where people live and grow food and grow in number.

"And enough people stayed awake longer than the sun so that they soon though themselves smarter than the sun and set about to alter that natural rhythm, saying, ‘We will strive to imitate the suns in the sky and have heat and light during the full cycle of the earth’s rotation, then we can use more metals to move more stones to build bigger castles to grow more food, to build more fires to seat more men around when the sun is gone and snow is on the ground.’

"Just as when fuel is piled right and dry, a park in the timber will turn it to flames, so too, when the right people sit around a fire, a spark of an idea can leap into the tinder of discussion and burst into a conflagration of innovation.

"Someone figured out how to capture the fire and make in explode upon their command. Some wanderer, unafraid because he carried fire, wandered into a land where he’d never been and discovered stones that burn and make hotter fires which can shape stronger metals which can hold more of the energy of the fire which allows armies to march through lands they’ve never marched searching for the essence of the stones that burn to shape the metals to hold more of the power of fire to build bigger castles to hold more people to sit around bigger fires in the quest for energy brighter and more powerful than the sun.

"Good luck to you wherever you may wander. Now I go."

There was a rush of wind that seemed to come from all directions at once and gathered itself into a swirling vortex which howled upward until I could hear it no longer and Lu Thotshifter was gone.

My eyes were closed. It was warm and I was very relaxed.

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

 

 

I found myself side by side naked with a beautiful woman picking blackberries and eating them. The tart taste danced across my tongue like a sunshine ballet on the needles of a pine tree. Each berry hung from the bushes like a botriodal purple jewel among the humming bees and birds whose songs fanned the fragrant breeze that blew between the blossoms and the berries and the thorns and the leaves.

The soles of my feet felt the warm carpet of grass that covered the river bank on which we stood eating, and pausing occasionally to dip handfuls of cold clear water to our lips, our eyes would rise upward to the bright blue sky. We smiled at each other, listening to the cries of the gliding seagulls.

"Welcome to the bubble of your senses," said a voice that was deep and sonorous.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I am Ken Thotsifter. Since you have chosen to further explore Bubblonia, I have been sent as your guide. I am at your service."

"But sent as a guide by whom?" I could not help but ask.

"I am sent by that which has no name, no face, no space, is every-where and has all faces and all names."

"Oh," I said, "and you’re a Bubblonian too, like Thotshifter?"

"That is true."

"But who are you? I mean when you aren’t being my guide?"

"I remain the same whether or not I am your guide. I am keeping still. I am the mountain. I am the energy that gives things form thereby preserving them. I am duration whereby all is preserved."

"But how do I go about experiencing this bubble of the senses?" I asked, intrigued by this new voice.

"Sit still with me and expand through the bubble of taste. Expand from foraging for fruits and nuts and berries and insects in their seasons through the days of Nimrod and Diana, the hunter and huntress, through the days of the divine husbandman, Sen Nung, who brought the arts of cultivation and irrigation to man.

"Let the bubble of taste expand through the meats and eggs of domestication and the fruits of hydroponic gardens.

"Let the bubble of taste expand through all the sweets and sours; through all the salts and freshes; through the camphoric, musky, floral, minty, pungent and putrid spectrum of the bubble of taste."

As I listened to the voice of Thotsifter, I wandered down a path through a garden of every kind and type of fruit and vegetable imaginable. Beside the path gurgled a crystal clear brook in which fish and ducks swam and from which drank all kinds of animals from alpacas to elephants and from cows to kangaroos.

After walking along for a long time, eating from the cornucopia on both sides of the path, I suddenly smelled smoke.

"Sosit with me and expand through the bubble of smell. Follow where your nose leads."

I took the hand of the naked young woman beside me and we followed the aroma of the barely visible smoke down the path past the peaches and the hippopotami, through the tangles and turkeys, around the apricots and antelope until we came to a very large and heavy wooden gate. The odor of smoke wafted from the other side.

"Sosit with me," said Thotsifter as we went, "and expand in the bubble of smell across the plains following the spoor of game; through decaying logs in swamps and fields of fragrant blooms; among dead leaves and needles and freshly fallen snow; follow the scent of your own kind across dusty deserts, over rocky mountain peaks, beside briny shores of oceans and into fertile valleys filled with the fire and smoke of Man, the energy user."

The gate was locked. I needed the key. Where is it, I wondered?

"Ask for it," said Thotsifter. "The key to anything is given if only we ask for it."

"But who do I ask?"

"There is only yourself to ask. All knowledge is eternal and preserved in the bubble of sound. So sit and expand into the bubble of hearing," directed the voice.

"Listen to the mutter and the murmur of the wind; listen to the inhalations and exhalations of your breath; listen to the breaking waves; listen to the rumble of falling stones; listen to the songs of birds and insects; listen to cracking ice and crackling flames; listen to the voices of the animals; listen to the voice of others; listen to your own voice; listen to your heartbeat; listen to the heartbeat of the world.

"Listen for the footfalls of the animals, those that you eat and those that could eat you; listen to the footfalls of friends and enemies; to the footfalls of marching feet; and to the footfalls of dancers celebrating seasons passing.

 

"Hearken the ticking clocks whose bells chime cadence to the footfalls of measured time that march into history.

"Hearken to the bubbles of sound that rise from the bubble of the sea of all sound inside you and gather together to form larger bubbles of syllables that raise the flow of word bubbles into larger bubbles of syntax that bubble into pens and pencils and chisels and voices and bubbles of echoes that make tongues that bubble together into the bubble of language in the bubble of the sea of all sound around you."

"What tongue was spoken before the Tower of Babel fell? I heard myself wonder.

"That was the language of silence," said Ken Thotsifter.

"So," I said, "silence must be the key to the gates of the bubble of sound."

"All things have their own voice which express their truth. Our ability to hear them depends on our ability to speak the universal language of silence. Voice is another key. We sift all the sounds of the bubble and give form to those which best reflect us. There is another key also."

"What is that?"

"It is the expression of sound which most truly reflects the bubble of sound in its totality - that is the key to the gate of the bubble of the energy sound. That key is music.

"Music expresses the rhythms, harmonies and tones that bubble through the bubble of sound. But you don’t need a key to open the gate before you now. You need only listen and remember."

After quite a long time of being perfectly still before the gate, I finally remembered the advice of the Bubblonian and went up to the gate and knocked.

"Enter," said a voice as the gate swung open.

I looked at the woman next to me.

"My name is Lilac," was all her sweet voice said before she disappeared.

I finally found myself plunged into total darkness such as exists only in the darkest subterranean tunnels.

"Sosit and expand through the bubble of sight," said Thotsifter.

"I can’t see a thing!"

"As the bubble of sound is related to the bubble of silence, so the bubble of sight relates to the bubble of darkness. Expand with me through the darkness of caves and attics and through the darkness of deep space; expand with me out of the bubble of the void and into the bubble of light."

"Which way? Which way?" I heard myself wondering as I had no sense of direction at all in the dark.

"Expand with me though the bubble of the stars. . .."

I found myself floating among the nebulas and galaxies and suns of space. I felt huge, as if the blackness was my body and the stars were my eyes, watching myself travel through space.

Suddenly the fragments of white light that compose the heavens all seemed to rush straight toward me and as each source grew brighter and brighter and larger and larger it burst into crystals of every color of the rainbow and formed a kaleidoscopic tunnel down which I found myself sliding at an ever-increasing rate, until I popped out into a soft white cloud.

On the cloud burned a fire and sitting on the other side, wrapped in a blanket whose stripes were every color of the rainbow, sat an old man whose hair and beard were as snow white as the cloud upon which I stood.

"Sosit down," the figure invited.

I sat down and looked at the fire. It was no ordinary fire by any means. The logs in it echoed colors of the blanket worn by the being across the fire from me, and the flames that leapt from each log were the same colors as the lot itself. The smoke smelled like a mixture of the scents of fruits and flowers.

"From the bubble of the void comes the bubble of the darkness; from the bubble of darkness comes the bubble of light. The bubble of light is chaos until the bubble of sight orders it into cosmos.

"Sosit and expand through the bubble of sight with me. Expand and contract from the stars to the grains of sand; from the micro to the macro; from the sun to the fireflies; from the mountains to the minnows; microcosm and macrocosm are inside; inside and outside are one.

"Bubbles of sight emanate from us, as do the bubbles of our other senses. They create form and shape and size and color and hue and shade, creating order from the chaos through the principle of opposites.

"The bubble of sight creates the light of the world. On how we direct it, depends what we see. We may face the darkness or the light, it is up to each of us to decide."

"Can you tell me the secret of energy? You see I’m on a quest to save the world and . . ."

"I know your quest and the boon which you seek," he replied.

"Then you can help me?" I asked hopefully.

"I will tell you some things which may help you on your way."

 

"Alright!" I exclaimed and moved closer to the fire.

There are two kinds of light - the external kind and the internal kind - humans pursue both kinds, that which illuminates first on the inside and then is manifest outwardly and that which illuminates the outside but that does not awaken the light within. . .."

"Like nuclear power plants, that would be an example of the latter kind, wouldn’t it? I asked.

"Yes, indeed it would," responded.

"But we have to use energy; it has to come from somewhere. . .."

"The fact that we use energy is not the problem. The problem lies with the fact of the excess energy user. If we all used only as much as we actually needed, instead of what we’ve been programmed to use by those who profit from such excess, there would be plenty of energy of every kind for all."

"I can see that alright, but what about this other kind of light you’re talking about?"

"Man has always known that a bubble of light exists within him that is brighter than all the suns combined. Through the ages he has sought to impart this knowledge to his fellow man in many different ways, some of which have been systematized so that the path of realization might be more easily trod by those who followed them. Most of the time these teachings have been misunderstood and as a consequence, not well applied."

"Why is that?"

"The answer is quite simple really. Each person or group of people who have sought to pass on knowledge of the bubble of light within have, from necessity, constructed a series of analogies which worked particularly well for a particular time and place. But, as time mutates civilizations and cultures, the full meanings of the words, images and analogies used to convey such knowledge has been lost or at best become confused. Therefore there has always been much arguing and bickering over the validity of other’s symbols and disagreement between systems of symbols has frequently led to the wanton waste of human life and potential."

"But is there no solution to this state of affairs?"

"Each of us finds that solution in their own way. Each of us seeks, and to the extent we seek, we find."

"But where shall I seek?" I wondered out loud.

"The bubble of light must be sought inside of you in the bubble of mind and the bubbles beyond mind.

"Soon you will journey through the bubble of mind and in it you will find many answers to many of your questions and with courage you might well discover the boon that will unite and lead all mankind toward the light that illuminates from within so that the poisons of the excess energy users will not consume the species."

With those words the figure simply disappeared, leaving the rainbow blanket lying empty on the other side of the fire.

"The blanket of the spectrum is yours," said an echo of the voice.

I picked up the blanket, wrapped it around my shoulders and sat down near the warmth of the fire once again on the soft cloud.

The voice of Thotsifter returned and spoke with the rhythm of the waves.

"Sosit with me and expand through the bubble of feeling. Expand with me from the nipples of your mother warm with milk into the branches of trees we clung to until the fierce breath of the sun snapped them to the ground and thorns instead of leaves goaded our feet into a terrifying journey across the jagged stones and lions’ teeth into the salty sea which cured our aching wounds and molded the vibrations of our tongues into sounds that conveyed the feeling for the unseen fish swimming beneath our gaze but not the gaze of others in the sea where we were driven by the drought.

"Expand into the sea we remember as an ocean of emotion, the sea we remember as expansion of the bubbles around the nipples of our mothers; as expansions of feelings around us in the warm sea that kept us gestating our lives in an exterior amniotic mode for many passings of the sun and moon beyond the depth of the water where we knew any enemies, which floated us in a band of peace around the shores until the sun once again permitted the growth of forests and we followed our feelings for fresh water back onto the shores of rivers and lakes and shaped the muddy earth into useful jars in imitation of our footprints and shaped the saplings into curves of bows and shafts of arrows that mimicked our shapes into extensions of our feelings. Expansions of the bubble of feeling pump from our hearts through our bodies and into the surrounding bubble as our emotions.

"The bubble of feeling expands through Bubblonia and embraces and repels that which it comes in contact; yet, just as sight shapes the images of our seeing, so too, the extensions of our heart flow into Bubblonia imperceptibly to the other senses but reflected in them as the sun and moon on the surface of the sea.

"When we expand through the bubble of feeling to expose the opposites and merge them, the expose and merge the bubbles of opposite feelings into a single bubble that expands as purified feelings to embrace the world anew, each awakening is a tableau rasa upon which the purest waves of our heart may slowly pearl the shores of our lives into a smoothness unequalled by any silk.

"When the bubbles of feelings have merged into an omniversal feeling called love, then they touch all with which they come in contact with the feeling of love, and we find ourselves floating in a bubble of love that expands equally and evenly in every direction through every bubble of time and action."

"But many times," I said at last after listening for a long time to Thotsifter, "emotions are really difficult to control."

"Perhaps," replied Thotsifter, "if we expand differently you will see how control may be achieved.

"Within the bubble of feelings is the bubble of judgment. It is the bubble of judgment that determines how the bubble of feelings expand. When the bubble of judgment pronounces attraction or repulsion, it releases a bubble of juices that flow through the bubble of the body and excite or inhibit its movements. If we are automatically moved by the movements of the bubble of judgment, then we are in a constant state of disequilibrium, a state of imbalance. It is only when the bubble of judgment is purified so that we as a whole control the bubbles of movement that result from the bubble of judgment, that we achieve balance and equilibrium in the bubble of emotions and feelings."

"You mean we learn to control the flow of juices that creates our movements?"

"Yes, that’s right."

"But how do we do that?" I asked, still puzzled.

"There are many ways, of course," said Ken. "Most of them require some fundamental restructuring of the bubble of mind. The bubble of mind emanates just as the other senses do, shaping the content of our lives."

"But if we all have the ability to shape our lives, why is there so much suffering and pain here in Bubblonia?"

"People suffer because they have something they don’t want and because they want something they don’t have. Suffering, very simply, is a result of attachment."

"Attachment? I don’t understand."

"When the bubbles of our senses emanate from us and create the bubbles of our world, they tend to forget their source and become identified, attached, to the objects of those bubbles. When we are attached to or identified with the objects of our senses then we are denying expression of our fuller selves, of our selves that exist beyond the bubble of senses."

"I’m still not sure I understand."

"In order to really comprehend takes us many passages through Bubblonia. We return again to human form as long as we are attracted to its senses and the world of their objects.

"When we are no longer attached, we no longer suffer continual rebirth on the great bubble of karma."

"What’s karma?"

"Karma is the bubble of action that is existence here in Bubblonia - the world of cause and effect."

"What goes around, comes around?" I asked, quoting something I’d often heard.

"That’s an expression of what karma means alright, but now we’ve sat still long in bubble of the senses and it is soon that the difficult part of your travels through Bubblonia begins.

"From here you will traverse the vast reaches of Bubblonia proper - the Bubblonia of the mind, learning from all that transpires there as you seek the boon of the wisdom of energy."

"But how shall I travel?" I wondered.

"You shall travel there via the conveyance of bubbles, by turning the bubble of the senses inward, by quieting the bubble of the senses that arise in you and by following the bubbles of the senses to their source.

"In the Bubblonia of the mind, the familiar properties of time and space become altered and the world seems quite a different place.

"Remember this on your journey, should you wish to expand the particular bubble in which you find yourself, you have only the need to light a fire and you will find yourself expanded through one bubble and into another as frequently as you wish.

"Now I go. Travel in eternal peace," said the voice of KenThotsifter.

I opened my eyes and looked out over clouds that were infused with the orange, red, yellow and silver light of the sun, an orange bubble that melted slowly into the sea.

As the colors of the sunset faded, I gathered some branches and twigs and soon had a fire going. I spread my sleeping bag next to it, sat down and had a drink of wine and lit a joint.

"These mushrooms are alright," I thought, "in fact, they’re great!"

 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

My story here becomes more difficult in the telling, as the events and voices I encountered took place in states of consciousness for which I have no names.

Of the relative duration of each step of my journey I can say nothing with precision: it seemed some things lasted only as long as the blink of an eye, whereas others seemed infinitely long. At some points they seemed to somehow exist simultaneously in both modes and yet to have transcended time entirely.

To say that they existed in the sense of the existence of the objects of our everyday waking world would be misleading; they existed in a world that, the only way I can say it, is ‘more real’ than that which we know every day. Or, I must confess, if ‘more real’ is overstatement, the ‘as real’ is equal understatement.

The space through which I wandered was solid enough to that within me that wandered, yet it had an extremely delightful manner of change and mutation about it and a clarity and conciseness that had no parallel to any state of dreaming or waking I have ever experienced.

As I closed my eyes, my face suddenly felt very tired; a strange feeling, the source of which I could only conclude must be the fact that I had spent most of the day smiling for a change and relaxed, instead of swimming in the turmoil of worry that seemed to compose my life.

"Escapist!" I thought. "So what." I yawned and felt very heavy - like a stone. I laughed inside myself and my laughter grew louder and louder until once again it seemed like a cloud around me out of which spoke a voice.

"So roll, so rock, so rock and roll with me. Now, through the bubble of the energy of the stones," it said.

"What about the Beatles? They’re at least as heavy as the Stones," I giggled.

"Rock and roll with me, Now, through the bubble of stone energy," cajoled the voice, "into that bubble of energy where all stone is molten, into the heat of the evolving worlds, where the stone bubbles mountains into place, scattering ashes into seas that dry up and disappear leaving behind the compacted mud of eons which bakes in the sun."

Are you a Bubblonian?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a name?"

"I am called Now."

"Now?"

"Expand with me, Now, through the bubble of stone. Expand as Vulcan’s mighty hammer splashes showers of sparks, bubbles of liquid stone, forging the mountains and the beds of seas."

 

I found myself standing on the sandy shore of a receding sea. Lilac was there with me gathering the stones that moved at the water’s edge while I repeatedly dropped the same large stone on them, cracking them open so that we could eat the succulent meat. We used the broken shells as cups to get a drink from a nearby stream of clear water.

"So stone," said Now, "because energy when it became used as a tool. Stones became extensions of our hands which facilitated lessening the constant hunger of the stomach."

I found myself with Lilac at my side, standing at the mouth of a cavern in the earth, our arms hurling boulders as fast as we could onto the skull of a mammoth whose tusks threatened to disembowel us with each thrust of its massive head.

At last the neck of the beast, weakened by the vertebra-crushing boulders, could no longer support the massive bellowing head and the elephantine form slowly crumpled to its knees, and amidst an avalanche of stones, went crashing down the primeval slope.

Although exhausted, we ran screaming as we chased the dying animal to its last breath and with sharp stones chiseled huge slabs of meat which we roasted in the fire at the cave and fell asleep and dreamed of sharper, smaller stones that would be more effective in bringing the flesh of the beasts to our stomachs.

When we awoke, we found the stone walls of the cave had become the stone walls of a fortress from the ramparts of which we bowed arrows at men below who with catapults hurled huge stones at the walls of the castle which grew higher and higher as generations added layers of stones; stones that were cut to shape and stones that were crushed; stones that interlocked with each other to form the bubble of architectural geometry that shelters the world from elements and enemies.

Looking over the side of the by now very high wall, we saw a sign which read, "MEN BELOW, PLEASE DON’T THROW" and heard the screams and grinds of a million metal-against-metal gears.

We sat on the edge of the huge high tower with our thumbs out, hitchhiking toward a sign that said, "EXIT" and listened once again to the voice of Now that seemed to emanate from the roar.

"By combining fire with earth and by digging deeper into the ground and finding stray fragments of stars, man moved from pyramid power into the bubble of stone called metals.

"With metals, the uses of stone were at first imitated and gradually we learned to make plows that would turn the soil and successive generations of seed into more abundant crops. With the development of the wheel, the art of shaping metals grew to such utilitarian proportion that uses were found for many different metals and in the course of that discovery it was also discovered that there are far fewer of some metals than of others."

I found myself on a man-of-war ship carrying bullion from the coffer of a defeated new-world king to the mint of the realm of a king in the world of the old. The ship was under attack and rolled heavy iron cannon ball after heavy iron cannon ball down the gullet of the heavy iron cannon behind the powder and touched the fuse with flame that fostered the explosions that soon had the other ship dead in the water alongside.

I helped haul chest after chest of silver and gold on board from the other ship and added them to the previous hoard of precious jewels, stones and metals. Up and down I rode on the heavily laden ship, listening to the voice of Now, whose even rhythms lulled me into listening closer.

"And so, in pursuit of rare and valuable metals and stones, man shaped the metals into imitations of animals. He endowed metals, his swords and plowshares, with the bubble of energy of internal combustion. The metal animals did not eat grass but consumed gas instead. Gas from oil of decaying organic matter - animals of metal the feed on the decay of organic matter that man sucks and tears from the bubble of the stone."

"And the hardest, clearest, deadest, most valuable stone of all was the diamond!" I exclaimed, feeling the excitement of the discovery.

"No, not the diamond," replied Now, "although much of the world so believes."

"You mean diamonds aren’t the hardest thing in the world?" I asked incredulously.

"Consider for a moment that which is harder than diamond - that through which diamond in hewn at a single stoke as if a hot knife blade were passing through butter - that which is called ‘adamas’."

"A-da-mas. . .?"

"Adamas. The source of the seeds from which the diamond comes."

"But what is it? Where does it come from?"

"About adamas, I can tell you little, although I will quote for you a poem written by a bard of old named Unisapien the Wise. In his verse h e speaks of the stone in such a way that each may reflect upon it and know it in part."

"That would be great."

"It is called, ‘To You Who Seek the Stone.’ It goes like this:

Greetings to you who seek the divine stone of philosophers,

Which, being harder than diamond,

Is called adamas.

 

Beyond the gates of the dark cave of consciousness

On the other side of the sea of dreams

In the mountain of self-knowledge

Is the vault of transcendental wisdom.

 

Amongst the treasures therein

Seek the quintessential stone -

The perfect jewel whose purity is beyond question

And whose clarity turns baser metals into gold.

 

Seek the stone within and without;

Its tincture fosters universal health.

Search for it in the microcosm and the macrocosm;

Look above beyond and in between.

It is freely given to those who seek sincere;

It is neither bought nor sold

For any amount of wealth.

 

Search for it in the Earth and the Water

And the Fire and Air - and when you find it not,

Know that it is nearest. Believe it to be

Unnamed by any name thou heareth.

 

Good luck to you who seek the stone.

Seek it with your breath

Your heart

Your bones.

 

I found myself suspended in a bubble of a golden sky studded with diamond stars that formed frescoes that sparkled soft carpets of rainbows in all directions.

"By prying the secrets of the stones and their combinations from the earth, man has unlocked and learned to use a very powerful energy source.

"The energy of the stone bubble must be used wisely or the same energy that carries proof of his existence toward the stars will destroy him."

"But there are some good machines," I managed to say.

"Yes," replied Now, "it is not the machines themselves that portend doom, but rather the excessive misuse of the machines and the unwise disposal of the waste material they generate that make them dangerous to the survival of the species.

"If the use of energy is proportional to real need, it may be beneficial; it is when greed expands desire for energy into an unhealthy balance with need that problems are generated.

"Silent: I am Now." That was the last I heard of the voice.

The ride that came along and plucked us from the entrance ramp to "EXIT" was a sleek silver starship which carried us farther and farther through the blackness of space, closer and closer to the fiery bubbles of the stars.

 

 

 

CHAPTER FIVE

 

Suddenly I found myself falling, falling I say, although perhaps it was more like shrinking, shrinking smaller and smaller until I found myself, with Lilac alongside me, sitting in the midst of a bubble that contained every imaginable plant and animal.

There were plants that flourish their spines and flowers on the quiet floors of deserts and plants whose roots entwine in silent symphonies in still marsh waters.

There were frogs croaking dusk into moonlight and crickets serenading crisp silent starlight.

There were animals whose home is the sky and the water and the earth.

There were insects and fishes and whales and dolphins and eagles and hawks and cranes and sparrows and robins and meadowlarks and whippoorwills and ants and bees and butterflies and goldfish and trout and tuna and rabbits and goats and chickens and oxen and geese and giraffes and elephants and lions and tigers and bears and beans and squash and cucumbers and tomatoes and carrots and corn and rice and wheat and potatoes and pears and apples and onions and avocados and peppers and cloves and cinnamon and cauliflower and cabbage and quail and pheasants and chuckars and the gnarled trees that meet the sunrise on the crests of high mountains and the blue-green clouds of needles and leaves that march like verdant legions from beneath the morning haze on mountainsides.

There were grasses tipped with morning dew in meadows and hummingbirds gathering nectar in the first breaths of evening and beavers building dams across streams.

There were violets and hollyhocks and pansies and tansies and buttercups and sunflowers and swordfish and salmon and dandelions and daisies and daffodils and Queen Anne’s Lace and turtles and turnips and tumbleweeds and deer and mice and elk and moose and mountain lions and moles.

All the plants and animals from alders to zebras, from zucchini to albatross were there in the bubble in which we floated. It did not really surprise me this time when I heard the voice.

"Expand through the bubble of organic energy," it invited.

"Are you another Bubblonian? What’s your name?"

"I am indeed a Bubblonian. I am called Here."

"I know you are called here, although by whom I don’t know, but what’s your name?" I asked again, not understanding.

"I am called Here," repeated the voice.

"Oh," I said, prepared to listen.

"Expand with me, Here, through the bubble of fauna and flora that endlessly repeat the gestation, birth, consumption, excretion, reproduction, dying, decaying cycle, eating and being eaten with each passing of the great golden bubble of the sun whose heat and light energy animates the water with the clay and air in endlessly repeating cycles which are never quite the same despite the fact than an unbroken genetic bubble links each moment of the organic energy bubble with each other moment in the organic energy bubble.

"Since all separate manifestations in the organic energy bubble are linked to all others, the actions of each individual plant or animal form automatically affect all others. Individuals with this bubble move through the series of relationships that is their manifestation through the energy of instinct.

"Individual forces within the organic energy bubble are acted upon by forces which are both above it and below it in the hierarchy of energy.

"The stone earth is an energy bubble of receptiveness that receives the creative energy of the sun. Through this interplay of these two energy bubbles, the creative and the receptive, the ten thousand changing things are brought into existence.

"Just as that which is above, the creative, has within it an energy which is receptive to the growth of that which is below, the receptive earth contains within it the energy of the creative, the seeds which grow into the ten thousand changing things. In combinations, these bubbles may represent those state of change whereby the world is composed."

I found myself side by side with Lilac early in the morning foraging for berries by a river, stopping occasionally when we came to a rotting log on the bank to break it apart and extract the juicy worms which we found inside.

Later, as the sun climbed in the morning sky, we found ourselves gathering snails from the river to eat with the mushrooms we had collected earlier in the day.

Noon found us hunting a wild pig through the underbrush while gathering vines to make a net to catch fish.

In the afternoon we cultivated a field of corn and beans, some of which we fed the cows and chickens we learned to domesticate while sitting watching the flames of dead wood warm the flesh and vegetables which we would eat.

"So," said Here, "those who ate cooked food refined the usage of earth’s elements differently within their bodies than those who did not.

"Since this ability to transcend the natural rhythms of the food cycles of the bubble or organic energy developed, it became increasingly necessary to invent methods whereby a sense of this transcendence could be conveyed to other members of the species. Natural sounds from the bubble of organic energy were duplicated and employed in increasingly complex structures to designate departure of intention from the natural cycles of the organic energy bubble.

"These departures from natural rhythmic cycles of energy consumption lead from the stomach through the mouth to the heart. And as food energy rhythms became further and further abstracted from the natural rhythms of the organic energy bubble, so did the energy rhythms of the heart change and adapt themselves to expression which could convey the joy of the novelty of that transcendence. With the energy of that difference in organic energy bubble usage, man who cooked his food invented language to insure the harvest of planted seeds, transforming the brain of man into an organ of consciousness with a sense called the mind."

Those were the last words of the Bubblonian Here that I heard. It was getting chilly as the coals of my fire died down. I rolled over and pulled my sleeping bag tighter around my ears and watched the orange glow of the full harvest moon spread a skirt of increasing brightness above the horizon, until the giant orange bubble itself rose and, after the initial excitement of that splendor subsided within me. I closed my eyes once more.

 

CHAPTER SIX

 

 

There formed before me a dragon of translucent silver-white light whose claws clung to transparent crystal bubbles and whose breath was eddying torrents of ultraviolet purple flaming word tongues that incinerated the threads of confusion from the veil of the unknown and laid open my mind to an understanding of itself and its functions such as it had never in the past dreamed possible and such that I know I shall never forget.

Do bear in mind the thought that the recounting of this part of my journey through Bubblonia is the most difficult. To recall each of the infinite illustrations that "The Dragon" placed before me to illuminate the bubble of mind would be impossible. I hope that my words and power of recall will recount a sufficient amount of what transpired so that your mind will create its own bubble of images to illustrate for itself the meaning of the bubble of mind.

"You must be ‘The Dragon’ the other Bubblonians spoke of," I addressed the writhing form before me.

Its many-faceted eyes flashed iridescent rainbow patterns as it spoke.

"I am Ch’ien Thotlifter, also called ‘The Dragon’."

The voice made me tremble inside and remain very quiet.

"Sorise with me, expand through the bubble of mind," said ‘The Dragon.’

"But how?" I wondered, not even aloud.

"Listen to the sound of the ocean waves and the sound of the wind in the leaves of trees; listen to the sound of rain and the sound of birds and animals and falling stones. Listen to the sounds the planet Bubblonia that we live on makes.

"Now listen to the sounds man makes as he learns to deal more and more abstractly with the chain of biological events that nourish him. The energy necessary to gather, hunt, fish, cultivate, domesticate and ultimately remove part of his individual members from the necessity of being involved with the food chain in anything but an abstract way, leads to an increasing division and specialization of the energy of labor.

"As the bubble of energy necessary to deal with the food chain divides, it expands mind into space and time. Division of mind leads to division of the outside world, via the invention and evolution of language, into space and time.

"The bubble of space and the bubble of time merge to create the bubble of memory. As these bubbles compound they compare with each other and we judge whether their effects are beneficial or malevolent, bringing into existence the bubble of causality.

"That which the bubble of judgment desires, that bubble of memory which brings about the desired end or avoids an undesirable one, is then associated with the time and space, which become identified with the bubble of sounds that recall that bubble of time-space. The sounds which recall a time and space become representations for that time and space.

"Thus for each memory symbol, for each idea, there becomes a combination of natural sounds reproduced by the human voice to indicate the increasing differentiation of the world. For each idea, whether it be concrete space or abstract time, there is a word and for each word, an idea.

"Light and dark are differentiated. Sometimes it is day and sometimes it is night. The bubble of language is a dialogue of opposites, limited in its ability to approximate reality by its linearity.

"This dialogue of opposites is stored in the bubble of memory. In the bubble of mind are the bubbles of words, the bubbles of ideas.

""The bubble of ideas creates a bubble of world view inside of which the geography, the fauna and flora and the weather and climate bubbles are in a constant state of comparison. That comparison is expressed to others through the use of language.

"The effectiveness with which one uses language determines one’s relationship to one’s self, to one’s family, to one’s social group, to one’s society and to the world.

"When world views, which are different from one another because of separations in the casual world of time and space, come in contact with one another, those differences are the bubble of the unknown.

The bubble of knowledge, the bubble of ideas moves from known to unknown through the use of analogy. The degree of our adeptness to analogize determines the degree of our knowledge, the degree to which we transmute the unknown chaos into the known cosmos.

"Before we can acquire new knowledge by applying the will to learn, we must be willing to suspend our belief in old knowledge, to become nonattached to it. Each of us has an innate will to know that is limited only by our efforts. We create the bubble we live in by the bubbles on analogy which we use to express it to ourselves.

"The bubble of consciousness is a bubble of reflection in the bubble of mind that expands through the limits of analogy to awareness of self beyond those limits. To the extent we are aware of our bubble of total self and cosmologize our mind bubbles, to that extent our consciousness is aware of itself and its bubble of energy, to that extent is consciousness capable of creation through its directed movement.

"Just as the bubbles of the senses are capable of moving by expanding to embrace the increasingly differentiated worlds of their objects, words and ideas, it acknowledges them into a world view which is unbalanced and chaotic or balanced and cosmic.

"Within the bubble of mind is the bubble of consciousness. Within the bubble of consciousness is the bubble of the personal and the bubble of the collective. By the fact that all ideas have opposites, these bubbles of consciousness have complementary corresponding bubbles in the unconsciousness.

"Each of these bubbles of consciousness has energy which seeks expression. The expression of this energy is creation. Wisdom creates through will.

"When a bubble of thought, a bubble of ideas, is expressed within the bubble of mind, it creates by the process of attraction which gathers like ideas together and thereby increases their energy.

"In each of these bubbles of consciousness and unconsciousness, both the personal and the collective, are creations of accumulated like energies. By the processes of self-examination, self-reflection, meditation and cosmologizing, one comes to know the bubble of energy called self which, by realization of its parts and their contents, undergoes a process called individuation. By expanding through the bubbles of the contents of the personal and collective consciousness and unconsciousness, their totality is experienced as a bubble called self."

"I found myself watching an endless parade of faces flickering by more quickly than rapidly blinking eye lids.

"Remember," said the voice of ‘The Dragon,’ wrapping its fiery coils tighter and tighter into my consciousness, "by the time forty generations are passed, the number of your ancestors is in the millions."

At first the faces of my mother and father floated by, talking, smiling, frowning, laughing, yelling, growing; the faces of my brothers and sisters with the expressions of many moods and ages bubbled by and became intermingled with the faces of lovers and friends and acquaintances and finally into a huge bubble of unknown faces that bubbled up all around me.

"Think," said ‘The Dragon,’ "of the influence of all those people on your bubble of self."

I found myself floating through bubbles of matriarchy and patriarchy, bubbles of warrior bands and chiefs, through bubbles of emperors and despots and liberators and rulers and leaders and bullies and dictators and wise men and fools whose commands and desires have led to collective power.

"The ability to implement ideas, to turn ideas into reality is a primary bubble of power," said Ch’ien Thotlifer.

"To be able to control the bubble of power in the minds of others so that they implement the ideas of your mind is a primary power bubble. It is this energy - power over mind - whereby control is asserted by the collectiveness upon the individual.

"The bubble of the powers of the state and the bubble of the power of organized religion throughout man’s history of expanding civilizations and introverting cultures are the bubbles which control the power of the collective over the power of the individual. Personally and collectively, these two bubbles of energy within us both consciously and unconsciously; bubbles of energy that the collective bubble of the mind of man has devised to guard against the constant influx of chaos into a world which struggles for balance by creating and preserving cosmos.

"The bubble of will is the bubble of authority which directs the movement of consciousness.

"Energy is the bubble of will power in each of us that directs the creation of the bubble in which we live and for which we must assume responsibility.

"By directing our bubbles of senses and mind into that bubble of authority within us, we may ascertain to what extent that bubble of power is truly a product of the self and not simply a bubble that has been supplanted from a source outside oneself or from a source that is only part of the self.

"Since consciousness is capable of movement, it may locate in any part of the bubble of mind and mistake the part for the whole. By becoming identified with a part and ignoring the fact that the whole exists, we let the will which is imposed by that partiality serve as surrogate for that which develops within us as the instrument of self expression.

"To the extent," continued ‘The Dragon’ as I lay very still and listened, "that will is applied to liberating ourselves from the bubble of habit, to that extent our will to know extends into the unknown bubble of chaos, turning it into the power bubble of cosmos."

 

"Isn’t anything we do more than once a habit?" I asked.

"Repetition is habit if it is ignored, if it is not perceived as a new and different act each time it is performed. A repeated action is ritual to the extent that its innerness is recognized as new and different each time.

"The bubble of suffering is the bubble of habit. Suffering is attachment. If we would end the bubble of suffering, we would end the bubble of attachment by applying the power of will to extinguish habit.

"Habit results from attachment to ideas which deaden the world. We interpret their linearity as being representative of the whole world which, due to their natural limitation, they can never be. Watch ideas as they arise in the bubble of min and follow them to their source.

"Attachment to the objects of the senses depends on our attraction or repulsion of them. Suffering comes from having something we don’t want or wanting something we don’t have.

"Be neither attracted nor repulsed and as habit and desire die away like the wind abates after a storm, suffering too dies away as nonattachment brings one closer and closer to the bubble of calm and peace whose center is everywhere and whose surface is nowhere.

"By turning the bubble of the senses inward through releasing them from attachment to their objects, they are purified so that each time they are expanded, they are expanded purely, undulled by the anesthetic bubbles of habit.

"It is the nature of the bubble of the mind to differentiate and arrange things by hierarchies. By unifying this bubble of opposites that has been created by the bubble of the mind, we experience the nature of life in a new way. But since this new way of perceiving Bubblonia is not dependent upon mind for its perception, it is impossible to describe it, delimit it or define it. It can only be experienced. This is why the energy of the bubble which is higher than mind, sometimes called the bubble of spirit, is energy that is not well understood.

"Yet some humans in all times and places have known that this energy exists and it is in that energy bubble in which ultimately all bubbles of energy originate. Humans have always sought to teach others of this bubble of energy by devising world-view bubbles that attempt to lead others to realization of that indefinable, indisputable ultimate energy bubble, by developing sets of analogies and symbols which are indigenous to their particular time and culture. For people who raise sheep, for instance, there is the symbol of the saving shepherd.

"Magic, religion and science are three symbolic paths through which man has learned to enter into relationships with the ultimate bubble of the matrix of energy."

 

"But how does this self-knowledge happen?" I asked, watching the coils of ‘The Dragon’ writhe and twist about one another in iridescent hues as his voice shook the whole bubble.

"The bubble of self-knowledge comes about by turning the bubbles of the senses inward upon themselves until they are purified by becoming non-attached to their objects and by realization that their energy creates the bubble of the world when it is projected into the bubble of the unknown in either a chaotic or a cosmic form.

"The bubble of the world within and the bubble of the world without are one bubble.

"The less illusions we create by nonunionization of opposites, the less distorted is our view of the nature of things, which is constant wholeness among constant differentiation, which is here now where nowhere is not forever. The less the bubbles of illusions, the more the bubble of joy, the more the bubble of peace.

"Watch your breath that it be not the breath of habit but the inhalation and exhalation of the bubble of divine bliss. Let that bubble of divine bliss enter your heart until it pumps reflections through all that you create and let the light of that bubble of divine vision sing its harmony into each pure new moment of perpetual awakening in sentience.

"The plant cannabis and the mushrooms which contain psylocybin are tools that when properly used, allow us insights into those bubbles of consciousness beyond the fringes of our minds. They aid us, if we choose to use them in that mode, in quieting the bubbles of our senses and their purification as they are turned inward and reflected anew into the unknown void as chaotic or cosmic creations.

"The plants aid us in unifying the opposites our sensory bubbles create and from this union emerges the cosmic energy bubble.

"When the bubble of cosmic energy is unified with the bubble of self, the bubble of that union leads man on his way to becoming a creature of planetary consciousness and a citizen of the bubble of cosmically conscious energy known as Bubblonia.

"I will now reveal to you a document called ‘The Declaration of the Rights and Responsibilities of Each Independent Cosmically Conscious Citizen of Bubblonia.’ It is this document that you are to return with to your people."

I watched as ‘The Dragon’ grew thinner and thinner and concentrated into a white-hot sheen. The traces left by the passing coils inscribed in silver these words through the bubble of darkness:

"We, the Independent Cosmically Conscious Citizens of Bubblonia, recognize the sovereign singularity of the bubble of Earth upon which we all live and do hereby declare that it is to this Bubblonia called Earth that we owe our allegiance. Only if we respect Bubblonia will it respect us and those of us Bubblonians yet to arrive and expand through the form.

"While we are here in the form, each of us has the responsibility of fulfilling the needs of our form, these being clean, pure air and water, adequate balanced nutrition, proper shelter, proper clothing, education in the ways of Bubblonia and proper disposal of all waste generated by the fulfillment of that responsibility. It is the responsibility of each Bubblonian to establish and preserve those fulfillments which we Bubblonians together hold as common heritage.

"It is the birthright of each Bubblonian to a portion of the bubble of Earth’s surface sufficient to fulfill the needs of the form, and to do on and with that portion as each may choose, so long as the rights of other Bubblonians and our common heritage is preserved.

"To these ideals we dedicate our sentient breath.

"Free the mind! Free the land! Free the planet!"

Then ‘The Dragon’ hurled his writing coils of light across my entire field of vision and wrote, "L f V E" which expanded and expanded until it filled my slumber.

"What do I have to do to live and love," I wondered to myself, suddenly opening my eyes to the bright star-lit night and the silver bubble of the moon which was about to melt, an echo of the sun, into the sea.

Might as well smoke another joint to celebrate the moonset since I’m awake anyway, I thought. And as the last long silver beams that skimmed from the moon across the water touched my eyes, more of Benjamin Rainbow’s gift of smoke began its journey into my visions.

 

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

I once again tucked my sleeping bag up around my earns and watched the glowing red coals growing grayer and grayer against a field of stars that grew brighter and brighter as the space between them grew darker and darker.

Although I did not really feel sleepy, I felt very, very stoned and despite the dazzling celestial spectacle before my eyes, the lids soon closed and I found myself wrapped warmly in a soft cape of rainbows.

It seemed to me that I was lying very still, as still as huge boulders lie on the side of mountains. Here I am I thought, a stone lying on the mountains. Here I am I thought, a stone lying on the mountain. It was a relaxed stillness that I had never known before. It was as if the whole world had simply stopped; all movement seemed to have ceased.

The thought of this startled me and I clenched my fist slowly to assure myself that I still had the capability of movement. Several repetitions of this exercise assured me that I could still move - that I was still alive - and I settled down once again to enjoy the visions of ever dissolving and recreating kaleidoscopic mandalas that seemed to emanate from everywhere and change and expand into ceaselessly new bubbles of light like those created by fireworks on the Fourth of July, or perhaps like all fireworks you’ve ever seen in your life compacted into a single surging bubble that is simultaneously expanding, contracting and duplicating.

My ears folded the sounds of the crickets, the wind in the tree needles and the droning waves of the sea into a single sound which I can best describe as the universal ‘Aum,’ the seed syllable of Sanskrit origin, in which all the sounds of the bubble are a single sound. It was as if I was listening to the very sound the Earth is making as it orbits through space. Symphonies performed by all the instruments on Earth would be like the warm-up band for the sound I was hearing.

The patterns of the colors and the patterns of the sounds mirrored one another and merged with one another until it was a single bubble in which I felt joyously happy and content.

Then suddenly I felt very cold through and through, as if someone had suddenly infused the marrow of my bones with ice water. "That’s pretty strange," I thought, "to be cold inside when I was nice and warm only a moment ago." Then I was warm again. "Warm and cold both seem to be in my mind. Everything seems to be in my mind. . .."

 

"And all mind is one," Said a voice. "’The All is Mind,’ says the Kybalion." As the voice spoke, the mandalas before me all merged into a single blindingly white bubble whose surface drifted apart and revealed to me clearly the scene of which I soon became a part.

I found myself standing in the center of a regal round chamber that was covered by a dome whose edges I could not see, so vast was its size. The architecture that held the massive dome aloft on the transparent concave-looking deep blue floor was like none that I have ever seen; tapestries and banners hung from the pillars that seemed to be made of precious metals and stones, but at the same time seemed to be living, growing things like trees.

I was so overwhelmed by the splendor of what I was beholding that I had nearly forgotten about the voice that had drawn me to the place, and I was slightly startled when it spoke again.

"Do you remember why you have come to the bubble of mind?" The voice echoed like music through the vast dome, seeming to be everywhere at once.

"I have come in search of the secrets of energy?" I replied.

"Remember and study what is revealed to you here in this place. Regard the wisdom you discover here as an ever-renewing gem and treasure it as you treasure the beat of your heart and the breath of your lungs. Remember that understanding once with the heart equals all the understandings of the head and use the energy created by your understanding wisely."

"I will," I said. "I will do my best to be prepared to use all that I receive wisely. Bubblonia will be preserved. Free the mind! Free the land! Free the planet!"

"That’s the spirit I like to here," said the voice which I now perceived was emanating from the pale white bubbles that rose from a fountain that stood in the center of the dome. The bubbles floated toward the ceiling, growing larger as they ascended.

"May I ask who you are?" I ventured, somewhat timidly.

"I am called Ani. I am a scribe. I am of the most distant bounds you know of as history. Greetings."

"Greetings," I gulped. "Are you a Bubblonian, too?"

"I carve scarabs," replied Ani, "in celebration of the sun."

"What’s a scarab?" I wondered.

"You will see after sunrise," replied Ani. "But now we shall speak of Hermes so that your visit here may have the most possible meaning and value to you.

"We shall expand into the wisdom of Hermes Thrice Great by learning the principles of his teachings through an ancient book called The Kybalion that has passed through the ages and into your language due to the work of three initiates.

"’As above, so below; as below, so above,’ says Hermes. The principle of correspondence is axiomatic and an understanding of the Law of Correspondence allows us to reason from the known to the unknown, which is the direction of expansion of the bubble of mind."

"But what is the bubble of mind?" I asked.

"’The All is Mind,’ says The Kybalion."

"But what is the All?"

"’The All is the substantial reality that underlies all appearances and outward manifestations of senses and which is of course unknowable and undefinable but which we may think of as omniversal living Mind. This principle explains the true nature of ‘energy,’ ‘power’ and ‘matter’ as well as why and how all these are subordinate to the mastery of the bubble of mind. The world lasts as long as there is mind.

"’Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates,’ says the Hermetic Principle of Vibration," continued Ani as I stood transfixed by his voice.

"Everything has its own level of vibration, from grossest of known matter to the most unknowable subtle spirit. The scepter of power lies within the grasp of those who comprehend the Principle of Vibration."

"’Everything is dual; everything has its pair of opposites; opposites are identical in nature but different in degree; all truths are but half truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled,’ says The Kybalion. The Principle of Polarity teaches that opposites are really the two extremes of the same thing with varying degrees between them. The Hermetic art of Polarization teaches we may change our degree of polarization with the use of the will," continued Ani.

"The Principle of Rhythm says that the pendulum swing is manifest in all things; swinging between poles, rhythm compensates, the measure of its swing to the right is the measure of its swing to the left. We can not annul the Principle of Rhythm or cause it to cease operation, but we can learn to escape its effects to the degree that we apply the Mental Law of Neutralization."

"How do we do that?" I asked eagerly.

"Expand the bubble of your consciousness to a point ‘above’ the plane through which the pendulum swings and then do not let the undesired, negative part of the swing manifest. It is the work of Will to apply the law; with practice we become increasingly proficient.

"The sixth Hermetic Principle is that of Cause and Effect. ‘Every cause has its effect; every effect has its cause. There are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the law. We may mentally rise to a bubble higher than the ordinary bubble of cause and effect and become causers instead of effects.’"

"I’m not really sure I understand."

"Most people are carried along in a bubble obedient to the bubbles of heredity, conditioning and suggestion that surround them. Some though, expand through bubbles and become bubble masters instead of bubble pawns."

"But how?" I implored.

"Meditate on the phrase, ‘Will to Will’ and your understanding will grow," said Ani.

"The seventh Hermetic Principle is that of Gender,’ he continued. "Every bubble has its masculine and feminine side. Every thing contains creative and receptive energy which combine to create Bubblonia. Each of the two genders holds within itself a bubble of the other, its opposite. All opposites are ultimately reconcilable.

"Use what you have learned wisely," said Ani.

"I will," I affirmed.

The bubbles that rose from the fountain rose faster and faster and expanded more and more until the entire dome was encompassed in their soft glowing whiteness and I found myself floating blissfully in its amniotic warmth.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

In the glowing white warm bubble in which I found myself, the silence was so utter that even the sound of "Aum’ seemed like a distant echo. The warmth of that bubble must have been ninety-eight point six degrees; it was like floating suspended in milk that nourished me by the simple fact that I was suspended within it.

The whiteness pulsed with the rhythm of a heartbeat, growing increasingly brighter and brighter until it suddenly began to become pink and suddenly there was beside me the most beautiful female creature I have ever seen.

She was in a completely natural state and when I looked into her eyes I found myself floating through vast universes beyond which words of this world can describe. Yet, since they are the symbols that we hold in common in our sentience, I shall do my best to recount what transpired between us.

"Hi," she said, "I’m called Be."

"Bee?" I said, quite astonished. "Like a honey bee?"

"No," she said, "’Be’ and in ‘to exist’ and ‘to continue.’"

I was utterly transfixed, looking into her eyes, limpid pools that mirrored the dimensions of the universe. From them emanated a light that was clear and bright and pulsating as the rings that evolve on the surface where a pebble has been dropped into still water. The source of the light was a crystal unlike any crystal I have ever seen. It was at the same time that most blindingly bright light reflecting from every facet and a light that was translucent and soft on the eyes like a thick fog.

"Are you a Bubblonian, too," I managed to stammer at last before the blindingly beautiful gaze of her eyes.

"Yes, of course, we are all Bubblonians," she replied with a voice that poured into my ears like honey across the tongue.

As my gaze continued to meet hers I was once more drawn into the space through which the soft waves of the crystal traveled to become the glint in her eyes. With each pulse of light a new and changed image of her body danced before my eyes.

"Believe Be," she said. "Let the bubble of spirit guide the bubble of mind into the bubble of the senses and the elements, for when the bubble of spirit is merged with the bubble of matter, the use of the bubble of matter is as wise as the innocence of a child."

She smiled at me with lips as red as autumn leaves and pearly white teeth that shown as bright as the full moon on newly fallen snow.

"We look through the muddy bubble of our imperfections with the energy of clear vision to that crystal image of ourselves that is our self in its original purity, waiting ahead, beckoning us to rise and carry the light of that vision into the bubble of the senses and into the bubble of Bubblonia; to rise up and overcome the inertia bubble of the collective imperfections of mankind and create in its place a new bubble of cosmic consciousness that embodies the light of the divine crystal which is in man and all men and guides his destiny through the stars."

 

Rising up toward the stars I was as I followed the movements of her lips as her voice poured through them and into my ears like notes that stream from the strings of lyres and harps.

"We transcend the death of winter by surrendering our past and absorbing it into the bright birth of the spring of innocence, pureness and beauty."

As she spoke, her hands and fingers danced rhythms that surged the blood faster and faster through my heart. Their repertoire was like the dance of earth and sun and air and water combining to raise the first shoots of the seeds from beneath the soil. Spellbound by the mudras with which she emphasized. I watched those fingers weave visions of peace around her voice.

"When the bubble of the crystal light of new realization rises, it is as a single shoot asserting its strongest impulse from the unknown into the action of its growth toward the sun. As that bubble rises it nourishes the procreation of generations."

Then she crossed her legs into a full lotus position and laid her hands, palms upward, on top of one another in her lap. The movements of her rippling thighs and calves sent new growth tingling through the tips of the branches of warmth that were spreading over my entire body.

"To receive the energy of the bubble of the crystal light requires stability of position like the sun at the center of the solar system. To possess this stability is to make that energy useable, to allow conception to come to fruit."

As she spoke, her hands became an overflowing cornucopia of the fruits and nuts and vegetables and grains that nourish us here in Bubblonia.

"There is enough for all," she said, still smiling.

My eyes followed the smooth flowing curves of her shoulders in front of her glistening hair to her breasts which were round and full like ripe peaches with nipples as firm as the tight buds of spring. My heart was pounding so hard by now through my temples and loins that I trembled listening to this wondrous woman, trying to control my excitement.

"I am flexible and versatile," she said, unfolding her arms and legs from their positions and rising to her feet.

 

"I seek the limits of all growth into the light that ripens the fruits of summer," she said, stepping toward me and extending her hands.

Mine reached out and when they met, it felt like lightening bolts sprang between the tips of our fingers and into the branches of our palms, sending peals of thunder through me that shook the trunk of my spine.

"But who are you?" I asked, drawing her supple form closer to me in the bubble of light that had turned from pink to red to orange and now bathed both of us in a warm golden yellow glow.

"I am the cycle of experience," she replied as we embraced. "I am the summation of all the bubbles of the unconscious mind that surround the bubble of conscious mind."

"Your voice is an embodiment of the music of the spheres," I said, feeling the growing heat the proximity of our bodies was generating as we stroked each other’s backs and arms and chests, our eyes drawing nearer and nearer.

"My voice," she said, laughing and tossing her long locks around her shoulders, "speaks through the history of Bubblonia both before and after Bubblonians acquired the knowledge of language.

"We make experience our own by feeling it," she kissed me lightly on the lips, igniting a passion in me that stretched to the limits of the six directions. "When we are totally involved with all of our sensitivity, we reach the fertile garden of spirit immersed in form where all things nourish and ripen us."

"Between your thighs," I whispered, "flow the rivers of life. Those are the waters through which I wish to swim."

She kissed me passionately on the lips, our tongues met and then our bellies were no longer touching but were one. We were joined in the ecstasy of infinity - infinity that seemed to burst and multiply into even vaster recreations of itself. The energy of our hearts, at first a dialogue, became mirror images of each other and then united into a single beat that led me up; up higher and higher on a spiraling ramp of rainbows that was a singled-sided band so that again and again we returned to the beginning which contained in it the end and again and again we found ourselves at an end which contained within it the beginning.

Our loins danced complimentary cosmic rhythms to music that flowed around us like nectar from a divine arbor.

"Once we have been together," she whispered with her hot moist lips and breath in my ear, "we are together for eternity."

And the heat of our union rose and rose until we were afloat in a warm sea of our own making; a sea that grew hotter and hotter; a sea of steaming bubbles that boiled with the intensifying crescendos of the music to which we danced the joyous gyrations of the union of the heart.

Each bubble of pleasure grew until its surface could no longer bear the tension and then burst into an even greater bubble until at last in a grand finale of synchronized movements we felt the final release of self within us and floated through the bubble of ecstasy and bliss that defies comparison.

The bubble of light in which we floated changed slowly from green to blue.

"I love you, Be," I said.

"All love to all," she replied. "I live to express and share the fullness of life - that powerfully creative experience of energy with which we realize we are full and equal parts of Bubblonia."

"You are a pure expression of the beauty of the energy of harvest."

"Thank you," she said, adding, "When the fruit is picked, already the vine withers.

"As we analyze our changes, we concentrate and purify our sources so the fertile seeds we gather from the passing experiences of our growth may be of service to others and nourish them as they expand through similar bubbles."

She glowed with a warmth of life that was as crisp as the noon day sun and as soft as shadows in the moonlight. I felt the radiance of the stars flowing through her skin next to mine.

"When we balance ourselves through work in the bubble of spirit, it puts us in harmony with the bubbles of our sensory form. By balancing the bubbles of form with the bubble of spirit through the transcendental-ness of knowledge, we take responsibility for the knowledge."

Her voice was a warm buzz in my ear now as her head lay on my shoulder and my arm lay around her neck with my hand resting lightly on her breast. The bubble of light in which we floated grew from deep shades of blue into lavender and purple and indigo.

"We take responsibility for our knowledge by plunging it into the fiery hot kiln of reality to burn away the drossiness that mars the reflection of the light of the pure divine crystal that shines inside us. We let that grossness disintegrate by destroying the inessentials of knowledge.

"Believe Be," said she, "the flames of passionate regeneration burn away the dross that hides the spirit, until what remains in the crucible of wisdom is the clarified remains of knowledge, the perfect pure crystal seed which contains and reflects only light: that living crystal that guides the foresight of our aspirations toward the realization that the cycles of our lives are the systole and diastole, the ebb and flow, the dissolving and coagulating of the bubble of life itself passing through us. We must remember that we are not the passing process of our lives buy are that part of a crystal through which light and life shine infinitely and eternally.

"Life and death meet each other in the beginning and in the end on the one-sided band of existence that is Bubblonia. Through that union we are unshackled from the chains of our illusion and a glimmer of the meaning which lies beyond is revealed to us.

"We learn to use contractions to form the crystal seed bubbles of light that will guide us through our next expansion toward the ever-expanding bubble of cosmic light that illuminates all of Bubblonia and is the light through which true Bubblonians see."

She kissed me lightly on the lips, whispered, "Believe Be," and was gone as suddenly as she had appeared, leaving me in a calm clear bubble of pulsing purple light that grew brighter and brighter, and I opened by eyes to the first beams of the rising sun as they illuminated the silent grey coals and ashes of last night’s fire.

I watched the clouds change color as the sun pierced the horizon and then as it grew warmer, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

It was hours later when I awoke again; the sun had risen to within shouting distance of its zenith and I was very thirsty. Remembering the spring I had passed on the way up the mountain, I got up, dressed hurriedly, collected my pack and walked back down the trail.

I was soon splashing my face in the cool crystal clear water and taking long refreshing gulps from a little pool. Looking down into the sand at the bottom of the pool a green stone caught my eyes and I lifted it from the water.

To my amazement the stone appeared to have been carved into the shape of a beetle with its wings folded up on its back. I turned it over on the flat bottom side was inscribed the name Ani. I looked at it a while in utter astonishment and disbelief but then, as it didn’t disappear or change like so many of the things of the previous day, I put it in my pocket, smoked my last joint, took one long last gulp of water and walked whistling down the side of the mountain to my van.

I opened it up, sat down and stuck the key in the ignition. The engine turned over but it wouldn’t start. I remembered the gas gauge. Empty, sure enough.

I got back out, slammed the door and locked it.

"Maybe I ought to just take the plates off and just leave it here," I thought as I started down the rough rocky road to the highway.

An hour later I was standing beside a straight stretch of Highway 101 with my thumb out beside a green carpet of pasture on the other side of a barbed wire fence.

The black and white spotted cows grazing there looked up at me and several greeted me with friendly morning "Moooooos."

"Mu! I answered. "Muuuuuuuuuu!"

 

THE END