by Erik Storlie
“What is this stuff, really?” I ask. “What does it do? How does it do it? Everything else I’ve ever had is just kid stuff.”
“It’s something else,” says Lon, shaking his head.
Farmer smiles a broad smile. “Hey, they never told us about this at the Unitarian Society.”
“That’s for sure,” I say. “Hey, let me do the dishes. Maybe you can get a fire going in the fireplace. It’s getting cold.”
We finish eating, and I carry plates and cups back to the kitchen. The sun has set and the old cabin begins to grow dark. I light a kerosene lamp and lift it onto a shelf up behind the warm stove. It stands next to three red coffee cans filled with rice, beans, and brown sugar. I set a dented enamel dishpan on the edge of the stove and fill it half full with water from a bucket on the stove, then add some cold water bucketed up from the spring outside. Stirring in plenty of soap, I drop in cups and plates and spoons.
Warm now, cozy before the stove, I swirl the soapy water idly. I’m a child again, the cups and bowls marvelous craft riding on surf raised by a hand. I reach for my white coffee cup and, holding it before me, observe it for long moments in the gentle pulse of yellow lamplight. I dip it in and out of the soapy water several times, then begin scrubbing the inside with the dish brush.
“What,” I ask, “is all this, really?”
Here’s my cup, shaped from wet clay into a hollow cup galaxy that curves back into itself, then burned by fire into fine-grained ceramic stone. The soap transmutes moving water into a thousand bubbles that reflect rainbow light. Ten-fingered, hairy animal hands calmly, lightly, and deftly manipulate a small galaxy in space.
I gently return the cup to the dishwater. My visual field wells with colored objects. A red bowl, bobbing on the waves, dissolves into capillary beds, networks of interlocking channels through which blood, transparent like water, flows and flows.
“Where does it exist?” I ask, reaching again for my cup. “In the retina? In the visual cortex?” Surely it’s out there too in the solid world, now a rainbow of flowing colors whirling themselves into forms—the rough pine bench, the battered wood range, red coffee cans on a shelf, a lamp quietly glowing, log walls yellow in the lamplight. Standing before the dishpan, I hold my cup. The corners of the little kitchen darken to black in the fading light.
It’s October 1965—a sunny, crisp autumn afternoon, a Saturday in Minneapolis. I’m back from the Flute Reed Mountains, living in my old basement room in my parents’ house, taking courses toward a Ph.D. in American studies, and now teaching full time in a tiny community college that’s just opened in a black neighborhood in Minneapolis.
Lon is still in Berkeley. Farmer and I are a church of two. We’re absolutely committed to the Leary program. Each week, on Saturday or Sunday morning, we take the sacrament, do zazen, and burn karma.
We feel close to mastery of this yoga. After several hours in zazen, we’re calm, sailing confidently on oceans of awareness. Come the afternoon, we climb into Farmer’s GTO and tool around town—young buddhas eyeing the girls, buying auto parts at discount, drag racing boisterous teenagers in a hot car that pulls up next to us on Lake Street, doing curbside mechanical work with the hood up and parts strewn all over the boulevard. By evening, we’re standing at the old mahogany bar at the Mixer’s on Seven Corners, chatting quietly with comrades, secretly amazed as the white foam on our beers goes through endless, gorgeous, cloudlike transformations.
This particular Saturday morning we each rose at six, he at his mother’s house a few miles away, me in my basement room, and dropped acid. After several hours of zazen, I drive over to his house. His mother opens the front door and greets me cheerfully. As I step over the top step, I’m aware that the earth beneath it has opened and gapes wide. I say “Hi,” noticing the hot flames and fierce magma glowing hundreds of miles beneath my feet. Fanner appears, his face joyful, and we jump in the GTO and take a drive through the city and around the lakes. By afternoon, we’re heading to my house to help my parents change storms and screens and wash windows in preparation for the winter.
We work under an old oak tree in the front of the house, which sits on the crest of a hill a block from Cedar Lake. I’m carrying the large, heavy storm panels up from the garage and leaning them on one side of the oak. Farmer washes them with a bristly brush dipped in a bucket of ammonia solution and then squeegees them off. When they’re dry, we carry them to my father, who’s up on a ladder at the side of the house, removing screens, washing windows, and putting up the newly washed storms as soon as they’re dry. My mother is in the kitchen making a late lunch.
The house has some thirty windows, many high and out of reach. After carrying a dozen, I stop and watch Farmer working with the squeegee. He is intently involved. He finishes a pane and reaches out delicately with a scrap of cotton dishtowel to rub out a smudge down in the corner.
“Hey, give me a turn,” I say. “That looks fine.”
“It is,” says Farmer. “El perfecto.” He takes a last swipe at the panel and moves it to the clean stack. I move a new window into place and brush it all over with the hot, sudsing ammonia solution—a pungent burst inside my nose—then use a rag to wipe excess water running on the top and sides of the window glass. Firmly placing the squeegee at the top of the pane, I smoothly pull it down and to the bottom.
How wonderful! The ammonia solution runs busily ahead of the squeegee rubber, carrying the buildup of dirt and fog from a year of use and storage. A sheen of solution left by the rubber vaporizes almost instantaneously in shafts of sunlight that penetrate the oak canopy. Light breezes play about the hilltop.
“Well,” I think. “It’s chores again. At age twenty-four, it’s chores. It’s wonderful. A long nightmare of drinking and doping is over. Demons were in hot pursuit. What irony. Saved by a drug from drugs. But I’m home again. I’ve returned.”
It’s the next day, at the end of a late Sunday breakfast with my parents. We read the papers, lament the latest trick played by the Republicans, chat. The only jarring note has been my new vegetarianism. I refuse the bacon, accept the eggs. My mother is convinced I’ll become malnourished. As I get up to leave the table, she says, “Erik, your dad and I have to talk to you. We’d like to go in the living room and sit down.”
Not too surprised, ready for whatever comes, I carry another cup of coffee into the living room, and we sit. My father, a child of prairie Norwegians, waits quietly. For a moment no one speaks.
Then my mother says, “Erik, I’m frightened. I’m terribly frightened. I saw your eyes yesterday—and Farmer’s, too. Your pupils were horribly dilated. I think you were on LSD. Don’t you know how powerful and dangerous it is? Your dad and I think we’ve got to do something. And I’m simply going to insist that you see Doctor Myhre. He’s our doctor and he’s a good man. He’s known you for years.”
My father says nothing. Cautiously, he watches.
“Well,” I say, “you’re right. We did take LSD yesterday, early in the morning, before we got together. And then we each did zazen. But can’t you see how different this is? This isn’t about escaping something, or getting high and messed up. You saw us. You couldn’t really tell we were on anything. This is a yoga. Everything’s different now.”
“I just don’t believe it,” says my mother. “I’ve read about that crazy Leary at Harvard. They threw him out, thank God. And that sidekick of his, too. They simply want to get young people involved with drugs—and with thinking they’re some kind of holy men.”
Finally, my father speaks, choosing each word. “Remember, Erik, those men are looking for recruits. Young men like you and Farmer.”
“I know why you’d think so,” I say. “But you’re wrong about them. The press is on the attack. The establishment is terrified that LSD wakes people up to the immorality of the war. And to the American rat race. Einstein was the last big step in an age of scientific exploration—the external world. Now Hoffman’s discovery of LSD turns us inward—to an intern
al world—to consciousness itself.
“I know how strange all this seems,” I continue. “But it’s real. It’s a chance, finally, for a real American enlightenment.”
“Remember, Erik,” my father says, “every generation, for a time, thinks it’s found an answer. We’re concerned about all this, of course. I’m especially concerned with the anti-intellectualism in what I see of Professor Leary. And in Buddhism too. The rejection of ideas and rational thought is dangerous—and an old story in this country.”
“What exactly happens when you take LSD?” asks my mother.
“Oh, it’s hard to explain it, really. But, for example, you see that the world—what’s right here in front of us, this living room, these chairs—it’s all created by the eyes and brain. You actually see the capillary networks in the retina and visual cortex constructing walls, rugs, tables, trees, clouds. Everything is in constant, fluid transformation. It’s beautiful—and scary, too.
“And the mind itself stands revealed. It’s like a vast, shining ocean, and thoughts are simply waves rolling over the surface. When the waves come to rest, I’m just the ocean. Then I can wash windows. Yesterday was actually a lot of fun!”
“It sounds simply terrible to me,” says my mother. “It’s your brain you’re changing—the only one you’ll ever have, Erik.”
“I know,” I say, “I understand. It’s hard to say what it is with words. Maybe you and Dad should try it. Maybe you and Barney and Lucy, too. Then you’ll know what it is.”
Shocked, my mother stands. “I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. And you won’t hear the end of this until you’ve agreed to see the doctor.”
My father keeps sitting. He watches quietly, his face relaxed. Do I see the shadow of a smile playing over his lips? Finally, he stands too, for a moment immersed in thought, then looks at me squarely. “Just remember, Erik. You don’t have to be anyone’s recruit.”
Soon Farmer and I are running out of LSD. We have no source in Minneapolis. With my new teaching salary, I decide to send five hundred dollars to San Francisco. This will buy 250 capsules, 250 micrograms each—better than a two years’ supply for two of us taking it once a week. I’m no longer into subterranean, beatnik secrets. I decide to be straight, at least with my father.
I approach him one evening as he works at his workbench in the basement. He’s preparing to glue and assemble a small cabinet he’s building into the wall in my basement study.
“Dad, I’ve got a question for you.”
“Yes,” he says, continuing with his work, checking and rechecking the fit of two pieces of wood.
“I’m going to send money to San Francisco to get some more LSD. Farmer and I are going to keep taking it. We’re not into sales. This is our own experiment.”
“Ah,” he says, his voice questioning. “So you’re still convinced you’re on the right track here? And that your ex-Harvard professors aren’t deluded by the very stuff that they’re promoting? Ponce de Leon lost much time looking for a fountain of youth.”
I hesitate. Finally, I say, “I understand your skepticism. But this thing is genuine. It’s huge. It’ll change everything. It’s Galileo’s telescope.”
He sets down his work and holds my gaze.
“I don’t want to go around hiding,” I say. “I want your permission to have some sent to this address. If you say no, I won’t do it.”
He stands for another long minute, says finally, “Well, I guess that’ll be all right,” and then turns back to his workbench and the work.
It seems only minutes have gone by, yet hunger pulls me back to the Crag. And a mild throbbing in the knees. They’ve always ached, but now, after years of jogging, aerobics, hiking, and zazen, they teach me my age.
It must be close to noon. The westerlies drop for a moment, the air suddenly still. The sun beats down, hot on my shoulders, and the black rocks surrounding me radiate heat. I look out toward the mountains, then down over sage and timber. I hear the distant roar of a truck engine and the fluctuating whine of a gearbox, as someone bumps and labors up a roadless slope somewhere.
“Bastards,” I fret. “They know damn well this area’s closed to off-road traffic. They love to grind their way up to the top of any mountain they can manage. Of course, you had your own good times four-wheel driving all through this country twenty-five years ago. Lots of good times. Oh, well.”
My knees begin to ache, now. A light sweat breaks over my back. The bottom of my foot tingles, and I’m anxious to uncoil, stand up, stretch, yawn, and scratch myself all over.
“Don’t move yet,” I caution. “You’re not yet really so uncomfortable. A little hunger and pain will wake you up, wring out these thought forms, clarify the mind.”
Over the years, I’ve learned to evaluate carefully. Is the body just whining? Or does it have a genuine grievance? I’m jury and judge. Zazen should do no damage. Yet pain is inevitable when there is discipline in Dogen’s steady, immobile sitting. To move the body or mind for some trivial reason destroys concentration, destroys the zazen itself.
“Well,” I think, “we could accept discipline from Suzuki Roshi. We sat hard for him. And we sat hard on LSD. The combination was powerful. But it reached far beyond us. We only dreamed we could master such titanic powers.”
Gently, I rock from side to side on my seat on the Crag. This movement eases my cramped knees and allows blood to flow freely back in my legs. Then slowly I sway forward and back, coming carefully to center. Then I sway again from side to side in ever-decreasing arcs, finally entering motionlessness at a balance point of back, shoulders, neck and head. I tuck my chin in slightly and feel the top of my skull supporting the sky.
And I resume my sitting, gently. And gently, I pull the mind back from its many thoughts to rest, for a time, only on itself.
6
Torture and Punishment
IT’S EARLY SPRING, 1966. FARMER AND I HEAR that Tim Leary himself, busted now but defiant, will do a seminar in Chicago on cosmic consciousness. The seminar will focus on nondrug techniques for awakening the mind to enlightenment. We’re excited. We decide to take the train down, stay with our old friend Dean, and drop acid for the event. We mail in our registration fees with a letter to Leary that reads in part:
“For almost two years now we’ve been practicing the weekly psychedelic yoga that you, Alpert, and Metzner recommend in your great, updated version of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. We’re eager to meet you in person. We understand why it is impossible for you to provide the molecule, so we will dilate Mind before we arrive.”
The conference is to begin at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning at a large hotel in downtown Chicago. Farmer and I ride the Zephyr down after work Friday evening, and Dean picks us up at the depot.
Dean’s flat is in a grimy three-story brick building in one of the interminable lower-middle-class neighborhoods of suburban Chicago. The side windows look across a few feet of space to more brick walls. After a few beers with Dean, we turn in. Tomorrow we’ll rise at six, only a few hours away.
The next morning we wake to a bleak, overcast sky. We’ll drop acid and do zazen early. This will give us several hours to master these energies before Dean gets himself up and drives us downtown.
“Listen, man,” I say to Farmer, as we stand blearily in Dean’s little kitchen, “I think we should take two caps. It’s our chance to meet Leary and for him to see just where we’re at now. We might as well go the whole distance.”
Farmer’s brow wrinkles. “Oh, no, don’t you think that’s pushing it a bit too far? You know, we’ve got to get down to the hotel, get into the seminar, deal with whatever goes on there.”
“We can do it, man,” I say. “Look how well things have been going all winter. We’re cool! For almost two years we’ve been following his program. And there’s no one to talk to about it in Minneapolis. And we want to do more than just talk. When’ll we have a chance like this again?”
“Listen,” Farmer says, “if you want
to, go ahead. But I’m fine with just one. Remember, these things are two hundred and fifty mics apiece!”
“Yeah, I know, but I’m ready,” I say, eager to show my stuff to the master. “I’ll do two and you do one. Then you can pilot us through the hotel lobby,” I conclude with a chuckle.
We drop our caps and sit zazen facing the ancient flowered wallpaper in Dean’s living room. In half an hour I know I’ve made a disastrous mistake. I inhabit a body too vast—a cosmos where light years flash across the spaces inside a fingertip. I can’t coordinate the motions of this body. I can’t stay upright on my cushion. Sighing, trying to cover my confusion, I lie back on Dean’s threadbare carpet, chilled, shivering in the gray, early morning light.
Shutting my eyes, I’m helplessly aware of an outpouring of huge, empty energies from every atom of my body, an endless, vacant, exhausting flow that leaves me lost and helpless, stunned, unable to feel fear or pain.
“My God,” a muted voice whispers in my head, “is this finally the Clear Light? Is it possible the Buddhas sit in the middle of such vastness?” Infinity upon infinity of fluid energies rush out from my body and mind into oceans of space. But there’s no bliss. I simply witness and endure endless, irresistible energies.
For an hour I lie on the carpet, praying for release. I wanted to meet Leary, to show him my accomplishment, yet how foolish, how remote that desire now seems. More time passes, and finally Farmer and Dean, concerned, try to rally me. I look up to see anxious faces bobbing above me.
Farmer says, “Listen, do you think you really want to go? You don’t have to. I’ll stay here, too. But if you want to go, Dean’ll drive us down to the hotel. The seminar starts in about an hour. You have to decide.”
I can’t reply. I look up at them, helpless, paralyzed.
Then Dean suggests anxiously, “Look, there’s no reason for you to go. You can just hang out here.”
