"Uh . . ." This hurt. My throat tightened painfully. "Some of them are very good people!"
"That's not what I asked you. I'm not denying that they're good people. What I asked you about was their commitment. What are they committed to?"
"The eradication of the Chtorran infestation from Earth." "Right. Survival."
"Uh."
"Right?"
"Right."
"Think about it, Jim. Have you been treated like a god in training? No. I'll bet my right arm that you haven't even been treated like a human being. You've been treated like a machine, haven't you? Admit it. You've been abused, betrayed, lied to. You've probably been put in life-threatening situations a few times, without anyone taking the time to explain why it was necessary. You haven't been allowed to be responsible for yourself. You haven't been allowed to do your best or live up to your potential, have you?"
"How do you know that?"
"Because that's the way they treat everybody." He laughed. "But you took it personally, didn't you?"
I laughed right back. "Doesn't everybody?" Two could play at this game of enlightenment.
Jason clapped me on the shoulder. "Look; you're our guest, Jim, like it or not. Let's make it easy for all of us. Here's the deal. You stay with us for a while; see what we're up to here. I promise you, no one will hurt you or force you to do anything you don't want to. We'll treat you as lovingly as we know how."
"But I can't leave."
Jason looked sad. "Under other circumstances I'd let you go in a minute, if I could. If I thought you really wanted to. And if I thought I could trust you not to betray us. But we can't move for a while, and we both know that you'd be back here with choppers and flame-throwers so fast, it'd just prove everything I've been saying about the army mind being committed totally to survival. But I have an equal responsibility to the survival of this Tribe. So, we really can't let you go right now; not until we're ready to move to our next location. When we do, you can choose if you want to stay with us, or go back to that old mind-set."
"How long?" I asked.
Jason considered it. "Two, maybe three months. That should give you more than enough time to discover for yourself what we're really up to here."
I thought about it. I frowned.
"Annoying, isn't it?" Jason asked. "You're trying to see me as a villain, and I keep refusing to cooperate, right?"
"Do you read minds too?" I snapped, but it was hard to stay angry at Jason.
"After a fashion. Besides, yours isn't that hard to read." He grinned; he made it sound like a joke between friends.
"I want to know about the worms," I said, finally.
"I know," he said. "I've seen how you watch them." He looked off into the distance for a moment, then looked back to me again. "Jim, I invite you to test me. I invite you to test yourself. I invite you to use this place to find out what you're up to. This is about our humanity, Jim. Yours, mine-all of ours."
"Then why the Chtorrans?"
"The Chtorrans are part of it."
"I don't see that."
"I know you don't. That's all right. Here's all you need to know right now. There's an incredible amount of love available to you. All you have to do is let it in. If you let in the love, you can let in all the other answers too." He studied my face with interest and compassion and dedication. He was totally with me.
His hands were still on my shoulders. I allowed myself to reach up-and put my hands on his and look back in his eyes. We looked at each other for so long that time stopped. We just stood there, being with each other. I felt myself disappearing. I felt myself dissolving into him. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. I wanted to trust this man. I had this sudden sense that he really did love me. I wanted to let go of myself and let the rush come.
And it did. It started as a tickling sensation in my groin, that swept up my spine like fire, growing and exploding out my eyes in tears.
He took me into his arms and held me and let me cry.
And when I was finished crying, he dried my tears with his handkerchief, and he smiled at me and kissed me. He said, "I know the truth about you, Jim. It's the same truth for all of us. All you really want is to contribute. All you really want is to love and be loved in return. So, I want you to know that I love you. All of us here love you. Test us. See that it's so. Because we know that underneath all that other stuff, you want to love us too."
I nodded. He was right. All I really wanted was to be a part of the right family. I gulped and thanked him-then impulsively, I grabbed him and hugged him. Hard.
"Thanks," he said.
I went back to my room confused. I felt wonderful. I felt terrified. My thoughts didn't make sense. I was going crazy here. I wanted to know what was happening to me. I loved Jason and I hated him for making me love him.
The Chtorrans were my enemy. Weren't they?
Outside, Falstaff burped and rumbled. Weren't they?!
A promiscuous sort was dear Laurie.
(Yes, this is that kind of story.)
She did it with Joe
and Larry and Moe
and Curly and Howard and Morrie.
And Johnny and Richard and Pritchard and Kerry
and Lonnie and Horace and Boris and Barry
and Donald and Harold
and Ronald and Gerald
and Tommy and Dicky and Harry.
And . . . Peter and Paul and Teddy and Todd
and Matthew and Mark and Simon and Rod
and Brucie and Mark
and Bobby and Clark
and she still isn't finished! My God!
And David and Dennis and Huey and Ken
and Dewey and Louie, then David again,
and Willy and Ben
and David again
and again and again and again.
And Danny and Manny and Gary and Fred
and Mackie and Jackie and Dougie and Ned
and Harvey and Len
(then David again)
and-hold on just a second, she's dead!
14
The Circle
"If 'Thou art God,' then praising the Lord is an act of conceit. And praying is just talking to yourself."
-SOLOMON SHORT
I went to the circle that night.
And every night after that.
We did three things in circle.
First, there was Definitions.
Jason said that we didn't use our language as much as we were used by it. "Your language channels your thinking. The way you use language demonstrates how your mind works. A skilled observer will be able to make such pertinent observations about you that you'll suspect he's reading your mind-and in a way, he is. He's reading the way your mind is expressing itself." Jason then said that the way to break out of the trap was to learn how to communicate beyond language; but unfortunately, because that was impossible for most of us (so far), we'd have to do it the hard way. We'd have to learn how to make our language serve us.
That is, we'd have to start learning how to use our language with precision. "Learn the precise concepts that the words represent. Learn the true definitions of the words, and language will be transformed. So will your communications. And so will your thought processes."
So the first part of the awakening was definitions. We'd spend hours, sometimes whole evenings, discussing what various words really meant, what was behind them, underneath them, inside them. What were we trying to say-and what were we saying instead? Amazingly, most of the discussions were a lot of fun, although one or two, particularly the discussions of want and need and love, were very uncomfortable.
And once, we spent a week just talking about integrity. "Integrity is total," Jason said. "You can't have a hole anywhere in your integrity or you don't have any integrity at all. It doesn't matter how good the rest of the balloon is, the air still goes out the hole."
The second thing we did was Exercises.
There were all kinds of different exercises. Sometimes we sat in a big
circle and closed our eyes and Jason would tell us to imagine things; or think about things; or not think about anything at all, just notice how we were reacting to what was happening. That was the point of the exercises-for us to become conscious of our reactions to phenomena. What memories or emotions came floating up to the surface? "Don't try to figure out what it means," Jason would say. "It doesn't mean anything. Just notice that's how you react. That's the memory you came up with. Notice the emotions you have connected to that memory."
And so on.
Sometimes the exercises were done with our eyes open. The exercises were always about the way we experienced ourselves and our lives, or as Jason put it, "Before you can flush out your head, you have to know what kind of shit is floating around in it first. "
Yuck.
But he got the point across.
One of the most frightening of all the exercises was the one about being naked. Jason divided us into groups. One at a time, each group had to stand up before the rest of the Tribe-naked. We were supposed to notice how uncomfortable we were being naked in front of other people.
The first time we did the exercise I thought I'd pass out. Later on, it got easier.
Jason said that clothes were the way we lied about our bodies; we presented ourselves to each other as a package of clothes and hair and makeup, instead of presenting ourselves as beings who lived in bodies. I didn't get the distinction, but I sure got the panic.
"The point is," Jason said, "most of you are afraid of other people's disapproval of your bodies." And after we worked our way through that, Jason told us, "And what's underneath that is your own disapproval of your body. You're angry because you have to live inside that body. You don't want to live inside that body; it's too old or too fat or too short or thin or too ugly or too light or too dark or too something. So you resist living inside your body; you won't let yourself experience your own body. That's why people do drugs and alcohol. That's why you turn into compulsive eaters and compulsive fuckers and compulsive anythings-because you're afraid to come out and simply be with the other members of your own species. You disapprove of your body, and you know that everybody else will too."
That was an angry evening. I didn't know exactly what had triggered it; apparently one of the little boys had been modest in front of one of the girls and Jason had seen. Modesty angered him.
For a couple of weeks after that, Jason had us all go naked. A lot of us got sunburned, but the point was made. After a while all tits and asses and cocks and pussies all looked the same. Different, but the same. Variations on a theme.
Never mind. You had to be there.
The third thing we did was Feedback.
Jason said, "Most of you are unconscious to the effect you have on the people around you. You have no idea what you are doing to everybody else. Or, let me put it another way: you are pissing on each other, you are shitting on each other, you are bludgeoning each other to death with your words! All the lies! All the bullshit! All the language games! All the rationalizations, excuses, justifications, explanations-all the things you do instead of simply telling the truth. The cost of it is your aliveness.
"That's why we do feedback. It's a chance for you to share what's going on inside your experience, and discover the effect you're having on the people around you. Look out at the group and see how they react-that's what you're putting out into the world."
There was so much. The funny part is that most of it was joyous. We almost always left the circle feeling fulfilled and inspired and enthused about the next day's work. Even when Jason yelled at us, it was only until we got the joke. There was always a joke. "Life is a joke we've played on ourselves," Jason would say. "What makes it so tragic is that most of us refuse to get the joke, so we go around letting life be a burden, a chore instead of an interesting challenge."
He didn't talk about the worms very much. That wasn't the point of the circle. The circle was for the people. The Revelations were for the worms.
There was a lot I didn't understand. I kept asking for explanations. People laughed when I did so. Jason said, "No, don't laugh. There's no such thing as a stupid question. The only stupid question is the one that isn't asked. And, Jim, what you need to know is that they're not laughing at you. They're laughing because they remember their own confusion. They're laughing because they're on the other side of the question now.
"What you need to know is that the explanation is irrelevant. True understanding only comes after you have experienced something. I could explain how to ride a bicycle all night, but that wouldn't teach you how to ride a bike. That wouldn't even give you the experience of it. But once you learn how to ride a bike, you don't need the explanation. Do you see that the explanations are irrelevant?"
"Uh . . ." I blushed. I was embarrassed. "Yes." I sat down. Everybody applauded. We applauded everything and everybody. We created our own excitement, Jason said. "Life is not what happens to us; it's what we create it to be. Here, we create our own enthusiasm."
I wished they wouldn't. It seemed so artificial. I didn't want to sit with it. So I stood up and announced, "I'm upset."
The circle cheered. "H'ray! Jim's upset." Jason said, "Thanks for acknowledging it."
I said, "What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing. It's your upset. You handle it."
I said, "Don't you even want to know why?"
"No, not really. But you feel a need to share it, don't you?"
"Yes, I guess I do."
"So, go ahead. We have space for you to share your upset."
"I don't like all this cheering and yelling and hollering. It feels phony."
"I got it. Anything else?"
"No." I sat down. Everybody applauded. I felt foolish. But the upset was gone. Somebody leaned over and clapped me on the back. Other people smiled their love at me.
Jason said, "I want to talk about transformation tonight." Everybody cheered. This was a favorite subject.
He said, "Actually, I need to talk about experience first. Because I'm going to use the word experience a lot and we need to be clear what we're talking about. When I talk about your experience, I'm not talking about your history. I'm not talking about the rules and the beliefs and the stories you carry around. That's all bullshit. That's all over. That's the past. This is today. Now." He snapped his fingers to illustrate the point. "Now, now, now, now, now-and so on. Now is always now. That's where you live." He paused and grinned at us. "Now, now, now, now." Almost instantly, the whole circle was chanting with him, "Now, now, now, now-" until he raised his hands and cut us off laughing. "Right. You got it. That moment of now-that's who you really are. You are the place where the experience of now occurs. You are not the ideas or the judgments that you create. And you are not even the raw experiences. You are the place where it happens, nothing more. You are not your body. You are not your name. Get it! You are not a thing. You are not your attitudes, you are not your judgments, you are not your beliefs. Those are just concepts that you create and that you hold and have. But you are not your concepts. You are simply and only the place in which all of this occurs. You are the place where you create your life.
"We're going to do an exercise now, to give you the opportunity to experience your ability to create yourself as a being. This is a game where everybody wins. There's no way to do it wrong. So don't worry if you're doing it right. You are. The purpose is to experience yourself playing. It is in your play that you create yourself. So let yourself experience whatever comes up for you. It's all right. Everybody stand up. Now, first, we've got to shake you out of your heads. You're all with your thoughts, so we're going to shake you into consciousness. So everybody find a partner. . . ." He waited till we had done so. My partner was Frankenstein. "Now, grab each other's hands-and start jumping. Up and down, up and down, around and around . . .
It was a shock to see Frankenstein's monster smiling and grinning and laughing and jumping up and down. I had to work to keep up with him-I was afraid he was
going to rip my arms out of my sockets if I didn't.
Jason kept calling. "Come on, jump! Jump! Jump! Dance with each other! Dance! Shake yourselves loose! Shake yourselves awake." Everybody was laughing now. I couldn't keep up with Frankenstein, so he grabbed me in a big bear hug and held me to him like a child and started bouncing around the circle. Everybody was hooting and pointing. We collapsed in a silly heap on the grass and Frankenstein kissed me and told me he loved me and I felt so happy that I kissed him back and told him I loved him too. And then we got up and did the next part of the exercise.
"All right," Jason said. "You need to start getting in touch with your breathing now. Everybody put your hands on your knees. Lower your head. Close your eyes and just breathe in slowly. Hold it. Breathe out now. Hold it. Breathe in slowly. Let yourself experience your breathing. Just concentrate on your breath. Hold it. Breathe out now. Let yourself be your breath. Hold it."
At first I was annoyed: Then I was frustrated. After a while, I was bored. How long was this going to go on? I started concentrating on my breathing. I stopped listening to Jason's words and just let myself count and breathe, count and breathe, let myself live in my lungs. After a while, the rest of the universe disappeared. I could hear Jason's voice as if from a distance. He was my guide back, if I wanted to come back. I didn't.
"All right now, good. You're doing fine. It's time to stretch. Reach up and touch the sky. Everybody. Come on, Jim, reach up and touch the sky. As far as you can."
After we stretched, he had us sway. He transformed us into trees. We swayed in the wind. We felt the breeze move through our leaves. We stood there, a grove of human pines, turning to face Jason, the sun, as he circled around us. There were small trees, clambering to see his face. There were tall trees, stately and calm. There were male trees and female trees. There were stiff trees and supple trees, brittle trees and quiet trees. We breathed in and out. We swayed. The days passed. The seasons. It was spring and we blossomed. We showed our sex in our flowers.
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