"Well," said Shura, "Dante's less of an unquestioning believer now than he used to be, but he's still the kind of person you'd trust with your life. I would, anyway."
I smiled.
He went on, "Ginger is a superb painter/ by the way. She began painting only a few years ago - watercolors. They live in the high desert - beautiful country - and she paints what she sees around her."
Maybe I'll get back to my own painting someday. Not enough time or energy, right now. No.
That's an excuse. If I cared enough, I'd find away to do it.
Shura said, "They're both seasoned travelers, Dante from way back. He was one of the founders of a place called The Institute for Consciousness Exploration, or something like that, way back in the '50's, in Berkeley, when LSD was still legal - or at least not illegal. Ever hear of it?"
"I remember hearing about a clinic where anyone could go and spend a day under LSD, for $25, I think it was, and somebody who knew the territory would sit with them and take care of them through the experience. It was in Berkeley."
"That's the one," Shura said/ "They did some groundbreaking work there, especially with alcoholics, and they were starting to get a good deal of attention in the medical community, when the law was passed making any research with LSD illegal unless controlled by the government. Of course, if anyone applied to the government/ they found it next to impossible to actually get permission to do anything, any real research in humans/ any kind of therapy. In the meantime, as we all know," Shura's voice had an edge to it, "LSD went underground and hit the street, and it was available to every hippie and college student who wanted to take it.
Of course, everybody did want to take it, because - as they all said - if this stuff was banned by the government, it had to be worth trying; it had to be good!"
I nodded, "I wondered what happened to that place, the institute. I knew someone who worked there a few times, a woman psychiatrist who did volunteer work as one of the guides, and she told me a fascinating story about something that happened to her. Maybe I can share it when Dante is here. He must have known her."
By 10 o'clock, Ruth and George had arrived. The sky, which had been clouded the night before, showed clear and blue. It was a good day for an experiment, I thought. It was going to be warm outside.
Next through the door was John Sellars, and a few minutes later, Ben and Leah Cantrell came in with two people I assumed were the Sandemans.
I smiled at the sight and sound of Shura being his extrovert-self. He always greeted his close friends with a shouted "Ho!" hugging hard and lifting the women off the floor. In a public place, he would sometimes omit the lifting part.
Dante was not a tall man, but he was muscular, built like a boxer, and I was to discover that he kept himself in shape by hiking with Ginger, several times a week, often up the slopes of Mount Whitney, which was near their home. The balding top of his head was tanned and freckled, but the sides showed plentiful grey hair. His triangular face was lined deeply between nose and mouth, the effect being one of great good humor mixed with traces of pain. His smile was wide and open, while his eyes, under bushy, sand-colored brows, held an expression more anxious than curious. He shook my hand firmly and said in a voice that cracked a little at the edges, "I've heard so much about you, Alice! What a pleasure to finally meet you!"
Who told them about me? Shura, or someone else in the group? Wish I knew what they said.
Wish I knew what all of them feel about me. Never mind. Never mind. Insecurity rears its bloody head. Just be who I am, let the rest go.
Ginger gripped my hand in both of hers and said, "Hello! It's about time we got to see the real thing!" She was almost as as tall as her husband, with red hair cut in a short, feathery style.
One eye was blue and the other green. With a mouth fractionally too wide for prettiness, her face was attractive in its strength and aliveness. She looked ready to enjoy, to laugh. She had a superb figure, lean and athletic, with voluptuous breasts.
No-nonsense type lady. Forties? fifties? Hint of unsureness underneath. Fighter. Survivor.
She'shad pain in her life, too. I like them both, so far. Silly-don't know them yet. But they feel good. Nice warm energy.
David Ladder was the last to arrive. I realized, now that I thought about it, that I'd heard his name mentioned often by Shura, particularly when he was talking about difficulties in the synthesis of a drug, or some article which they had co-authored. He was a remarkably young-looking man. As Shura had said, only the grey in his blond hair would lead one to suspect that he was over thirty. He was tall, with a boyishly slim body. He shook hands with me quickly, barely glancing at my face before ducking his head a little to the side, as if afraid of being somehow intrusive.
Shy,indeed. Nice face, kind. Vulnerable. Intelligent, probably very intuitive.
We all congregated in the kitchen, where the various food contribu-tions were laid out on every available surface. Ginger squinted at the top of one window and remarked cheerfully to me, "I see Shura is still keeping faith with his little spiders! I suppose he's warned you on pain of banishment not to deprive the poor things of their sense of security!"
I laughed, "Well, we've compromised on a few token webs in each room, and I get to remove the ordinary overnight types without applying for a special permit."
There was a light touch on my shoulder and when I turned around, Leah greeted me with a kiss on my cheek, "Hello, Alice. Glad to see you again."
I looked into the open, thoughtful eyes and hugged the thin body, "Me, too."
John Sellars gave me his slightly conspiratorial angel smile as he passed through the kitchen.
Finally, Shura shouted to gather 'round, and we went into the dining room. When there was quiet, he made his proposal for the day.
"I thought - in celebration of the Sandeman's all-too-infrequent presence - that we might try something a bit daring, this time, something that will appeal to the hard-head, macho types especially - and there is certainly no dearth of them in this little group -"
There was a scatter of applause and laughter around the table, George adding his loud groan.
Shura continued, "I propose - subject to your approval - a higher dosage than any of us have taken previously of mescaline, with the cut-off point at five hundred milligrams." He beamed at us, leaning forward, fingers splayed on the table.
Dante looked immensely pleased at Shura's suggestion, then frowned and began speculating out loud about exactly how high a dosage he dared take. George sputtered comfortably about five hundred milligrams being a bit rich for him, and Ruth nodded in vehement agreement.
Ben, his face thoughtful, said he might consider four hundred, but didn't think he should try higher than that.
Shura called out, "Hold it! First of all, is the idea appealing to everyone? Anybody not happy with it?"
There was a general nodding of heads and assurances that it was, indeed, a great idea. Dante spread his arms wide and cried, "I can't imagine a more spectacular way of being welcomed to the beautiful Bay Area and the beloved Farm and all our friends!"
Shura sat down with a lined pad and began listing names and dosage levels. He turned to Ben first, "You're sure about four hundred?"
"Yes," replied Ben, arms folded, "That's higher than I've taken before, and I expect it'll keep me busy enough."
Shura turned to Leah, "How about it, love? A bit lower?" Leah looked pensive, her slim fingers tapping silently on the table, then said, "I think I'll go for two hundred, and see what happens.
I can supplement later, can't I, if it's too low?"
Shura said, "Yes, certainly, supplements should be effective for probably as long as a couple of hours into it."
He called out, "Everybody, attention for a moment! If any of you wish to be on the conservative side to start with, you can always take more later." He added, "I'm going to measure out an extra couple of hundreds and a couple of fifties, in case someone needs a booster. I'm going to do it ahead of time
because I frankly don't know if five hundred milligrams will allow for precision in much of anything, later on, never having taken mescaline at this level before."
Ruth said, "I thought you'd taken everything at every level imaginable, Shura!"
"Almost, almost," said the wizard modestly.
John, his young-old, pink-cheeked face showing only a slight smile, said he would try five hundred milligrams. "Should be interesting," he added, eyes squinting in amusement at the exclamations and hoots from the others.
"John, five hundred," said Shura, busy writing.
Dante was next, frowning again, "Well, since we can take a supplement later, if we need to, I think I'll match Ben's four hundred to begin with and see how it goes."
Ginger said, "Three hundred is as fur as Ah'm a'gonna go, at least to start with, Shura."
I looked at Ginger, and took a moment to appreciate the beauty of the hand-made Mexican smock she was wearing, its white cotton shining against her tanned arms. There were large red and pink roses embroidered around the neckline.
Loofcs Mexican. I want to go to Mexico someday and get some dresses like that. Delicious roses.
George had decided that three hundred milligrams was high enough for him, and Ruth said she would take a bit lower, how about two hundred, to which Shura replied, "Sounds good to me,"
and scribbled on his paper.
David cleared his throat and said, "I'm going to be a bit cautious and take two hundred and fifty, because this is my first mescaline."
Shura nodded silently, writing, then looked at me. I said, "I'd like to join you in five hundred milligrams, if that's all right?"
Nobody hooted or teased, this time.
"Alice, five hundred milligrams," Shura wrote. Finally, he took a deep breath and reviewed the list out loud, then asked, "Have I got them right? Any revisions before I go to the lab?"
When nobody spoke up, Shura rose and asked David to come with him to help carry the glasses.
Noise erupted around the table, as Dante and Ginger talked, laughed and answered questions.
Names of people and places I didn't recognize were flying everywhere, while I listened, smiling at all the high energy.
When Shura and David returned with the glasses, various fruit juices were poured out according to individual tastes, then we trooped into the kitchen to form the circle.
Shura said, "I've discovered a way to avoid the nausea, you'll be glad to hear. If you sip your drink over half an hour, instead of taking it all down at once, the nausea doesn't present a problem. So take your time, sip it slowly, and the inevitable doesn't have to be inevitable, after all!"
Does that mean synthetic mescaline causes nausea like the natural peyote? Thought that happened only with the plant. Must ask him.
When the toasts to the Sandemans and ourselves and the clinking of glasses was over, the various group members drifted out of the kitchen, sipping cautiously at their drinks.
I asked Shura my question, and he nodded, "Yes, that's a very interesting fact about mescaline; it doesn't matter what form you take it in, the nausea seems to be part and parcel of the experience. If you take it fast, that is. I finally thought of trying it this other way, just to see if it made a difference. This method does, in fact, more nearly parallel the way the Southwest Indians eat Peyote, you know, and I'm happy to say it worked for me. Hope it works for everyone else. If it does, well - next stop, the Nobel Prize! For starters, that is!"
I chuckled and patted his fanny.
Thirty minutes later, Shura was being assured that he had, indeed, made an immensely important contribution to the welfare of the species. No one felt nauseated, although several in the group had decided to walk around outside for a while, finding themselves too attentive to their stomachs inside the confines of the house.
I decided I wanted to be alone for a few minutes and went into the dining room, from where I could see the outside world in two directions, through the big window to the mountain and through the sliding glass doors to the patio and the front stairs. I sat at the table, intending to stay still and quiet until I could be sure my insides could be trusted. I felt no nausea, not even pre-nausea, but wasn't about to tempt fate.
My hope, of course, was for an experience comparable to my first, years ago, the peyote journey with Sam Golding. Shura had warned me not to expect that, because, as he said, "Remember the famous quote, to the effect that you can never step twice in the same river."
The onset of the change, this time, was subtle. I was aware of a sense of something familiar, but couldn't be absolutely sure that what I was feeling was peculiar to mescaline, or simply typical of the transition to an altered state. I noted a mild, rather pleasant tingling in the neck and down my back.
I looked across the table at the daisies I had bought the day before, on my way to the Farm.
They were shining softly in their simple glass vase, on top of the bookcase. Each white and yellow blossom seemed to tremble faintly in the light from the big window, as if grateful for the warmth.
Their roots are gone, but they're still alive. They exist fully, in this moment, and somewhere in the universe there's a place where this instant is forever, full of daisies and soft green stems and sunlight.
I had heard and read of the Akashic Records, a name originating in India, as a level of reality where everything that has ever existed in the universe is recorded, and from which a spiritual initiate can retrieve information - the sights, sounds and sensations of any instant in time - if he knows how to do it.
How does one learn to do such a thing? And how is an event recorded -from whose viewpoint, through whose eyes and ears? Whose feelings and sensations become part of that eternal record? The daisies' or the observer's ? What if there is no observer; is there still a record of the daisies, and from what perspective?
I smiled at the flowers, sent them my love and respect, and rose from my chair. My tummy was going to be okay.
I wandered into the kitchen, where a big soup pot sat waiting on the stove. On the tile counter were green lettuces and bright-red tomatoes heaped in a woven basket, alongside loaves of bread - one satin brown, another a braid of creamy beige, sprinkled with poppy seeds.
Basic, basic. All us humans connect with each other by giving and sharing food, no matter where in the world. Other animals do that, too. And birds. Food shared is life shared. Eating with others is a way of connecting our livingness with theirs. All of us - humans and animals -
take what the earth sends up out of her body, and give back what comes out of ours. Life-system. We are part and parcel of each other - us and our earth.
I saw, as I had seen years before on the peyote day - but in different images this time - the planet itself as a living entity with a consciousness not comprehensible to the thinking mind of the human, since it is of a kind, of an order, entirely different from anything in ordinary human experience. I saw that there is a part of the human psyche which is aware of the planet as a living being, and seeks to interact with it, to stay in relationship to it, as the child of a nurturing mother reaches for her hand, feeling with pleasure the texture of the skin and the solid bones of the fingers.
So humans touch the earth skin, planting and harvesting, and so they touch the planet's bones, hiking mountains and climbing rocks. We used to make our homes inside her, in the caves, like other animals. Then we ventured outside and learned to create our own peculiarly human dwellings. But we still anchor them, whenever we can, in the hard bones of the Mother.
I glimpsed people in steel and concrete cities, shut away from the feel of the earth, unable to touch more than an occasional tree growing out of a hole in the pavement, losing connection with the mother-body, some part of themselves gradually paling, drying to deadness.
I returned to myself, standing in the middle of the kitchen. The images and feelings that accompanied them had taken probably no more than a minute, I realized, but I had experienced that minute as a long, flowing piece of time.
I left the kitchen, a moving body of streaming energy. I felt as if I were emitting light. Smiling to myself at the thought, I ducked into the bathroom to see my reflection in the mirror, just in case it should actually be so. I saw a soft glow around my head, but it was due to light coming through the thick glass bricks of the window behind me. But what radiated from the wide blue-grey eyes with their enlarged black centers was not reflected light; it was what always showed in the eyes of anyone whose mind had changed its way of seeing and being aware.
I waved to the friend in the mirror and left.
In the living room, I was greeted by Ruth, who said, "Hello, hello! How are you doing, or need I ask? No, I needn't ask!" She smiled and patted my arm, "I think everyone's coming back into the house. They all decided it was just a mite too warm for comfort."
I asked her how she was feeling, and she replied, " think I took just the right amount. I certainly wouldn't want to go higher than this, though. It's just about all I can handle, as a matter of fact, pretty intense. But it's okay; I think it's going to be all right." Her arms were folded, fingers making small, absentminded stroking movements on the blue silk of her sleeves
She's on the edge of being overwhelmed, but she heard herself say it'll be all right, and she'll believe that, make it true.
I asked how her husband was feeling, remembering the last time he had done an experiment at the Farm; I'd heard from Shura later that it had taken George almost three days to fully return to baseline, which had never happened before on any material. Shura said that George had sworn to be more conservative from then on - whatever that meant - particularly with new drugs.
Ruth said, "George took three hundred milligrams, fifty more than I did, and he seems to be doing fine, no problems this time. So far, that is," she added with a chuckle. John came through the door, his fine-boned face shining from inside. His blue eyes were piercing, unreadable, and I knew he was focused on whatever was happening within, and content with where he was. He went over to the pile of thin blankets I had folded and placed next to the piano, and when he had wrapped one around himself, he sat down on the big foam pad Shura and I had laid out in the middle of the floor that morning. After rocking gently for a few minutes, he lay back on the pad and closed his eyes.
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