Journeys into the bright world

In some ways this undertaking seemed like constructing an external nervous system that could reach outward to the heights and depths of a sentient cosmic organism. With just one jab of a needle a psycho-astronaut could now transcend the confines of the body. By dialing the right number, so to speak, he could plug into the feelings, thoughts and conditioning archetypes of other states of being and thereby become part of the numinous nexus of ideational processes that interfuses existence with the light of meaning. Could it then be that at some evolutionary omega point, we might all be unified into one "galactosapiens" encompassing the entire life of the galaxy? Already I seemed to be standing in the penumbra of a serried host of shining intelligences into which the qualified members of mankind were being initiated one by one. Now, with each new synaptic flash of recognition the incentive was being provided to move on.

As we continued our explorations, the places and spaces to which we went were remarkably diverse. Particularly fascinating was the manner in which the theme for every jaunt was set by an immediate state of mind or external cue.

For example, one evening early in January I took off into the bright world from our waterbed while Howard watched a medical documentary on TV. Although I had no cognizance of the program itself, in my inner-dimensional sphere I seemed to be attending a telepathically conducted medical school in which it was being demonstrated that all disease stems from just one basic source-the disharmony between inner and outer realms. There were enormous depths of profundity in the lesson being taught but, as always, the sublime significance of the concept deflated to a simple cliche on being reduced to words.

During a two week mid-January vacation in Southern California I was bemoaning our inundation by torrential rains just when we so badly needed sunshine. In compensation Howard and I decided to take a twenty-five milligram flight into the bright world. Rising through the clouds I seemed to be a participant in a pageant of the elements featuring the Sun as a positive male force, the water as a negative female force and the dancing colors of the rainbow as their multihued offspring-"the joys and sorrows of the light." Within this misty flux of fiery and fluid polar opposites the fertile moisture of the air was bathing the earth with soothing vapors.

Rising on up to a Hollywood-level archetype Howard and I emerged together into a movieland set where the Sun was still shining. There we became bit players in a brief but exhilarating "beautiful body on the beach" episode starring a brawny twenty-year-old Sunny and a sixteen-year-old Marcia with "long, languorous, lustrous limbs" tossing a ball and sporting in the sand.

Later there was an "old hotel in Carmel by the sea" excursus during which Howard with an ear-to-ear grin stared out the window at a gray sky exclaiming, "What an absolutely lovely day!" At that moment he was playing the role of the Happy Troll, and in the collage of his countenance I clearly saw the troll with crisp black curls springing out around his head beaming benignly down on the passersby below.

Then late in January there was a twenty-five milligram flight of fancy during which I found myself being drawn into my favorite portrait which hangs on our bedroom wall. The face is that of a nature spirit sketched in gold and surrounded by wavy emanations. In a vague way it is an idealized version of my own face, even though it was sketched in blue glass by a German artist before I was born. As I watched with mesmerized fascination the face began to glow from within like blackened metal being burnished to a mellow shine. Now it resembled my own eternally existing countenance-one which would one day be reclaimed. Since its creation the image had been copied and recopied, folded in the middle and mailed to the United States as a Christmas card, passed through several more hands and finally repainted by an artistically inclined friend. This portrait had accompanied me from Massachusetts to Maine to California to Washington. Now I felt as though I were seeing the original version that had inspired the artist so long ago. My ephemeral personality had also been bent, folded stapled and mutilated, yet the pristine purity of that primal identity remained untarnished. It felt good to know that I actually had a true face that could remain inviolate through so many inadequate renditions.