Journeys into the bright world

"Everything must flow." I wasn't sure whether my mouth was shaping the words but the phrase seared through the landscape of my mind like a river of lava. I was on my way back now. The molten effect was turning ashy and walls were wavering into view. It seemed terribly important that all that had been observed should be remembered. Somehow the idea to be branded in my brain related to the regenerative potency of ketamine as a cathartic psychological plumbing agent which could dissolve the accumulated grime of the ages and flush away hardened layers of accruing anxieties. But there were still too few channels to make the boundless supply of raw energy available where it was needed. Piping systems, irrigation complexes, and all manner of aqueducts would have to be devised. Emotion washed over me like a flood in the desert with no place to go. "I love you, Howard." The words were delicate tendrils of feeling curling out toward him and brushing his face. It would have been unbearable if he had not been in the room. I had been conscious of his presence, even in the midst of my visions, and relied upon the knowledge that he was there.

In the peaceful aftermath of this excursion I lay back in bed and meditated upon the ideas of regeneration and rejuvenation. It seemed as though a part of my brain was awakening that had hitherto lain dormant. Atoms were stirring from their long slumber; molecules were quickening their dance. The secret was to keep these inner forces mobile. To some extent this could be accomplished through outer movements such as we practice in yoga, calisthenics and dance. Breathing exercises would be particularly relevant since when the breath ceases to animate the body death quickly supervenes. I wondered if I could ever again stand to have anyone smoke in my house. It would be like black magic, polluting the very source of our livingness. But as I saw it now, the only real way to counteract the stultifying inertia of the aging process would be to create new relationships based on more perfect alinements with higher activating principles.

If, as I was beginning to suspect, ketamine really does create channels for an influx of vitalizing energies would it also be a way of tapping the fountain of youth? Not for the sake of petty personal vanity but as a way of augmenting humanity's allotment of the eternally revivifying "power that maketh all things new" of which the mystics have spoken. Isn't that where our real energy crisis must be met-in the opening up of the mind to the ultimate source of supply? "Everything must flow." This was to be lesson number one. All else that the goddess might consent to impart would have to rest on that fundamental realization.

I was eager for Howard to take his mind trip while I was still bathing in this fluid ferment of feelings. In the beginning he had been taken aback by the stripping away of personal volition which the experience necessarily entails. But now he was giving in gladly. Less articulate than I, he was for the most part content to rest back and explore the sensations that flickered behind his eyelids. "I love you, Marcia," he said finally. I had already heard him saying the words in our fused minds. Nevertheless, the spoken echo sounded very sweet.

"This body is wax, wax." he repeated as he reemerged into the everyday world. "That's all it is, just wax."

In the days to follow he was to harp on this theme since, as a member of a surgical team, the remolding of this waxen form was a professional preoccupation. Having been privileged to observe some surgical operations I could understand this point of view.

"What the surgeon slices up looks just like so much meat." I remarked to a friend to whom I was describing my impression of the operating room. "They are fabulous technicians. But it is Howard who has to keep the soul in the body, who has to be concerned with the person inside."

At this point we were both starting to realize that Howard could never be content to spend the rest of his days assisting the carvers and stitchers of human wax. Soon it would be time to move on to the far more delicate task of healing the human mind and spirit.