The Search Began
Shocked and awed by my experience, I tried to recreate the memory, to access it again with another hit of acid, deeply concentrating on my last experience as I tripped, but it was all to no avail. I thought, if I were in control, I would remember everything right now. But I could not bring this memory back no matter how hard I tried. And believe me, I tried, weekend after weekend until I decided to give up acid as a method of searching and try something different. I had come to the conclusion that this anamnesis experience could only have been a gift from god. But why? And how could I reconcile this gift of reality? Maybe I could find it in books. Maybe someone else has experienced this and wrote about it. But where would I look? Metaphysical book stores seemed the most likely choice, but under what category?
So I searched. There had to be someone out there who had experienced the same anamnesis.
Times were different in the 60s and 70s. Searching was ‘in’ so to speak. Along with the newly accepted use of pot, acid and mushrooms, people all over America, Europe and beyond were asking “where do we come from, what are we doing here, where are we going after this life, is there another life, what is self realization, who is God, is there a God?” And other questions like “is our government lying to us, is their life on other planets, why do we want war, is capitalism a good thing” were on the minds of young people all over the world. It’s as if God rained down on the earth a magical drug to wash us free from illusion, or at least the first layer of illusion so we would start seeking truth. Oh yeah, He did! That was LSD and the time was right!
Many hippies took off and joined communes, growing their own food and experimenting with free love. People went in many different directions but the goal was something different, something new, a real change from what our parents were in love with, a new culture, a new consciousness, a new drive, a new planet. Some people were simply interested in doing more drugs. Others got involved in new age politics or went into farming and living off the land. Many fled to India looking for a Guru. Some went the route of getting rich off the drug business and others explored their creativity in artwork, music or film. The music industry was exploding with the sounds and lyrics of the type never heard before. Not just a lot of ‘silly love songs’ but deep, lyrical poems to inspire thought and action. New creative art burst onto the scene. We were changing the world!
And what did I do? I searched for anyone who might have a clue about what happens at the time of death and what happens when we are reborn! Everyone I knew thought I had gone off my rocker! (That must be a southern expression!) And I had! I was disturbed! At first I thought I would try another hit of acid but it didn’t work. So I kept asking people I met if they ever experienced anything like death and rebirth while they were tripping and all I got was “no,” or “oh, it was just the acid.” I thought I was close to finding the truth once when a source told me about “The Great White Brotherhood,” having nothing to do with being white but was all about merging with the ‘pure white light.’ But I could never find anyone involved in anything close to that name. (There was no internet at the time.) So I thought the answer must be in religion. Since I was born in a christian family, I ruled out the possibility that the answer lay there. The agreed upon concept from christianity is a child in the womb is unconscious or asleep and I knew differently. As a child growing up in christianity, I asked my mom, “Who is God?” She replied “No one knows.” I did not understand. “If no one knows about God, then why do you believe in Him?” No answers, only that we must have faith. It almost made me mad. She insisted I love God, but she couldn’t tell me anything about Him. “You must Fear God,” she would say. Love and Fear? They seemed opposites to me. I run away from things that I fear. That was very confusing.
So I turned to Buddhism. I read about Buddhism and Taoism. Then I read all the books by Carlos Castaneda and Herman Hesse, etc. I played with the I Ching, and toyed with astrology. (What the hell is that about, mother?) Then there was numerology, auras and color and herbs and before I knew it, I didn’t fit in the straight world anymore at all. I was officially weird.
Then, someone told me I should check out a book called “Remember, Remember, Be Here Now” by Ram Das who was also known as Dr. Richard Alpert and was one of the first people to experiment with LSD. LSD? - Remember? I thought. That must be it, because the acid led me to the experience and I am trying to remember what it is that I am supposed to be doing! I drank in the book with amazing speed and within a few days knew I was on to something real. In the book, Ram Das spoke about how high you got from LSD but eventually the high subsided, a very disappointing ending to a great experience. I agreed. So you did more and more acid, but it wouldn’t get you off again until your system cleaned out. Then, after around 4-5 days, you could do it again and it would work. Yep! I thought. The problem was, the acid made you feel so incredibly good, you wanted to stay that way forever. I felt the same way! But the reality was, if the acid kept you high constantly, you would never quit. You wouldn’t go to work. You wouldn’t eat. You wouldn’t sleep and finally you would probably die of exhaustion. The body simply cannot take a deluge of the drug, so it seemed god devised a way of limiting the experience and causing us to search for the real high that would last forever! Yep! Once again I was in total agreement.
Ram Das went to India, met a guru and spoke about mantras and meditation as a way of self-realization taking you to that place that was real and full of bliss. But I knew nothing of mantras or where I could meet someone who knew about them or where I might find a guru. I only knew what he said about the LSD experience and waking up out of our illusion made perfect sense to me, because I knew after being born, I was instantly put into illusion. But where would I find him or anyone else who knew the truth he was speaking of? I needed more information. So I kept searching. Alone.
Rusty tolerated me. He loved me and never criticized me as I was going through my change, although he was not as curious about these things as I was. Naturally. Before we married he was patient, even while we dated. I was fortunate enough to have some good looks and talent, I suppose. In high school I was Head Cheerleader, Junior Princess and first runner-up in my senior year for Homecoming Queen and getting dates was somewhat easy. On weekends I would have a date with Rusty one night, then Billy the next and maybe even an afternoon date on Sunday with Jack. Rusty did not complain. He stuck with me and won my heart. But things change and things were changing very quickly for me, not him.
We were married now. We both quit school as LSD and pot were the center of our lives. We worked various jobs, I think, nothing career oriented, just something to pay the bills while we got high and I searched. And I searched with no results while we became a part of the very popular concert/acid mania lifestyle. We saw the Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa while tripping on Blotter Acid. We saw Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Black Oak Arkansas, The Who, Yes, The Moody Blues, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and so many amazing rock groups while we tripped on windowpane, orange sunshine, pink microdot and ate mellow mushrooms.
On Labor Day weekend 1972 things started to change. I was no closer to the answer of the question burning in my heart when we took off to a rock concert in Illinois. As I remember, it was an amazing festival. 220,000 plus people swamped the Midwest in a place called Bull Island and a festival know as the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival. The festival was touted to be the Woodstock of the Midwest along the banks of the Wabash River and it WAS! People were swimming naked, painting each other’s bodies and dancing through the woods. I wondered where the snakes went! LSD was flowing freely. People were giving it away! Black Sabbath, Joe Cocker, The Allman Brothers Band, Fleetwood Mac, Ravi Shankar, Cheech and Chong, Richie Havens,Tina Turner, New Riders of the Purple Sage, John Mayall, Santana, Canned Heat, The Eagles and so many other amazing musicians were there. Five friends including Rusty and myself made the trip with tents and whatever gear we could pack into the arena. Life was good and we felt free.
We laid along side the long road lined with cars and rested by the cornfields while we waited in line for admission to start. We were patient, having our own party along the way.
As we relaxed beside the road, I looked up to see a long-haired skinny guy sitting in a tree above me. He was checking me out and smiled. After some time, he crawled down and joined our group to talk. His name was Richard and he served as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam for two years, released from duty in 1970. He was much happier going to the rock festival instead of being shot at and we laughed as he told us stories. I was personally amazed at what a naturalist he was. Kinda. He blew his nose in his hand and then washed his hands. As time went on, of course, I saw this many times, but was surprised when he so naturally cleared his sinuses. He grew attached to me as we walked and talked and didn’t seem to care that I was married. That was a time of free-love, remember. Rusty and I agreed to the popular trend, but I still wondered how he felt about the whole thing. He never said anything, not a word, not for it or against it. He was just agreeable.
Richard camped by the side of our tent and made it known that he liked me, but what I liked was something very different.
I was in love with Rusty and this guy was simply a new friend, though I did like him, and he was cute. But as we spent time together during the festival, we had discussed religion, philosophy, the purpose of life and the reality the LSD experience provided. We connected in a real way as we got to know each other. On the day before we left, Richard told me, “When I leave the rock festival I am going to the Hare Krishna festival in West Virginia. Would you like to go with me?” “Aren’t those the people who chant Mantras?” I said. “Yes, if Rusty doesn’t mind, I would love to go” and Rusty did not mind. Or at least he said so. At the time, I think Rusty was just glad to get rid of me because he was tired of hearing me talk about all my mystical bullshit. He knew I was looking for someone like Ram Das described in his book, “Remember, Remember, Be Here Now”.
At the end of the festival, I took my tent and Richard and I started out towards West Virginia, hitch-hiking. It was only about a 7-hour drive from Chandler, IN to Moundsville, West VA where the Krishna festival was being held, so we didn’t expect to have any problems. We took off with optimism in our pockets and then the spirits kinda waned when we were still 5 hours from our destination and it was almost 10pm. Amazingly, however, we got a ride just when we were about ready to find a place to pitch our tents. An off-duty truck driver gave us a ride all the way to the very entrance of the festival and dropped us off at 4:00 am in the morning with a kind and pleasant smile while he kept on moving. Was that just luck? I don’t think so. It was too perfect!
We got out of the truck and were surprised to find many people rushing into a building with blankets wrapped around them and paint on their face. We slowly followed them into the building to see what was happening. I’ve got to admit I was weirded out. We took off our shoes and went inside where a group of around 60 people were gathered in the dark with candles in front of an altar. They began to sing in some foreign language a beautiful melodic tune. Richard and I stood mesmerized, soaking it all in. I wasn’t sure how he felt, but I knew I was in the wrong place. There was no way I could possibly understand what these people were doing. Nevertheless, I was there, so I was going to find out what the hell was going on. After the ceremony was over, we merged out into a second room where people were milling about, talking to each other, watching other people reuniting with friends saying, “Great to see you again” and talking about different things. Richard and I were together checking out the strange art covering the room when a bubbly and vivacious girl came up to us with a smile big enough to cover Texas and asked, “Do you know who God is?” Her name was Gayatri.
Remembering my mother’s answer, “No one knows,” I painfully said to her question, “No, I do not know who God is. Do you?” She said, “Yes. Come over here and I will show you.” I thought, Show me? A simple telling me would be great. How can you possibly show me? But she pointed up to a picture of a blue-colored man dressed in yellow garments with his arm around a golden-colored woman with a red dress. They were holding a flute together as they looked into each other’s eyes. “That is Radha and Krishna. God is both male and female.” She went on and on talking of love and Krishna and devotion and she said so much I could not contain all the information she was shoveling into my head, when people started shouting, “Here comes Prabhupada! Here comes Prabhupada!”
A large Lincoln rolled up and everyone gathered around the car singing and jumping up and down with their arms in the air. A stately, old Indian gentleman stepped out of the car, very regally dressed in pale orange robes with a walking cane in his hand. He strode like a peacock as everyone followed him into the building. Looking at each other, Richard and I followed suit and went inside the building looking for a place to sit. After another round of singing their mantras, the old man began to speak. His accent was strong, but I could understand him a little, nevertheless. The funny thing was that after that class, the only thing I remembered were his comments on sleep. He explained that a person should only sleep around six hours a night. Then he added, “Later, if you need, you can take a nap, maybe for 15 minutes only.” I was shocked! Is he off his rocker? I thought. (There’s that word rocker again.) A fifteen minute nap? What’s the use of a nap at all?
Richard and I stayed for 5 days traveling to Pittsburg, going to a Krishna Rock Opera where Srila Prabhupada attended, spent some time with a rich hippie in a huge mansion who picked us up hitch-hiking and then returned us to the festival. The whole experience was amazing and different and crazy! We camped on the farm land, ate apples off the trees, fucked and listened to some of their classes. Gayatri and her husband were constantly seeking us out to give us more information. I understood a little, but by no means a lot. Some of the people really turned me off and others were sweet and charming as they tried to explain their philosophy. Some of them appeared to be trying to force us to believe them, but we were on our own and could escape from the hovering very easily, so we did!
At the end of the festival when the Spiritual Master left, we headed south to Alabama, stopping to visit a friend of his, hitch-hiking all the way. I technically was not cheating on Rusty because we previously gave each other permission for free love. But I missed Rusty and was ready to go home. When we arrived back in Alabama, Richard spent a few days with us there and then left. I saw him again around 4 years later. Things had changed!
My feelings about Rusty were confusing at that time. Free love is not a good thing for a marriage. Humans are simply too jealous. Rusty never complained, however, maybe because he knew how much I loved him. Sometimes I wondered if he suffered from a low sex desire. Maybe he was doing something on the side as well, but he never showed any signs of it and I never made any attempt to hide what I was doing. Only much later in life did he ever stray and even then I think that it was not coming from his heart.