Brightly colored veils were a blur, or was it my vision that was smudged by a rush of transcendent desire, elation elicited by this encounter sublime? Entranced by rhythmic motions conveying transcendent love stories and mystical secrets superlative, beautiful bare belly and swaying hips expressing movements and vibrations as ancient as the first pangs of desire, those most primal longings that bring forth and maintain existence itself. Shakti.
I remember rich purple, shimmering gold and soft pink—though I could be mistaken regarding the precise shades. I remember beautiful dark locks of hair flowing like a night waterfall under an ocher moon, wistful brown eyes and sparkling visage expressing emotion in certain time with body’s certain movements, facial expression matching mood and motion, and breasts and belly and buttocks swaying and trembling so perfectly timed to the smallest increments of the drum’s beat.
Every muscle and curve and strand of hair and cloth and step and even breath seemed to move in such idyllic synchrony as one would expect only of a dream or psychedelic hallucination or Hollywood special effect. And her laughter! Her lovely laughter fell upon my ears like the peal of the perfectly tuned bells of an Himalayan shrine, like the sound of a mountain waterfall echoing off canyon walls, like the song of a spring breeze blowing o’er bright green spring leaves and bearing the scent of jasmine or lilac or apple blossoms, as melodic and genuine and pure as laughter can be. She seemed unreal, beyond mortal, a Goddess, unapproachable, unavailable, and it seems, unforgettable.
I was still a young man (in spite of having served—before I began to regain my wits and instincts—as the pastor of a church where most of the congregation was two to three times my age), and thus hadn’t the least clue of how to behave in the presence of one such as this, most beautiful of belly dancing baristas, likely the loveliest to have ever graced this world.
______________________
I think I stopped for a coffee at Trinity Coffeehouse (formerly Muddy Waters Coffeehouse), and then began to hike down Grand—or would moving to the East on that particular street be hiking “up?” That is, considering the layout of Laramie, as addresses ascend as one proceeds in the direction of the Laramie Range (on the East-side of the tracks, that is), and as the elevations rise at a steady pace from the river towards the Sherman Hills. These sorts of directional and geometric and geological factors tend to figure into the way I have learned to think since exploring and examining so many sacred-ways of so many peoples, and I’ve found that to literally read the lay of the land indeed might grant some surprisingly valuable clues to whatever given puzzle.
I recognize these habits might be labeled “neurotic obsession”: i.e., constantly calculating and emotively cross-checking time, place and persons in an envisioned web of experiential reality—past present and future, and across the span of my travels and imaginings and visions, and via all possible and likely connections between faces and places known and imagined, and always hearkening to an understanding of Divine good and whatever applicable mythological archetypes and spiritual teachings. Most the time these are nigh subconscious and peripheral contemplations else merely musings, save when the riddle at hand seems to beg the question.
Regardless of what epithets might be applied to these practices of perception, I have in fact discovered that geography can be read, in the manner stars might to some degree be read, to map certain aspects of a destiny. And indeed, I have some exceedingly complicated questions to answer, and would avail myself of whatever tools I might, in good conscience, to find answer to certain riddles have vexed me in recent years as I continue this journey through space and time aptly or inaptly titled “life.”
Lay-lines of relationships and places visited and the more obvious and generally acknowledged points of geo-spiritual significance can be treasure map to any number of gems of understanding and esoterically emplotted secrets, and even sometimes to physically manifested booty . . . so to speak. Layers of signification even overlay the patterns of city streets, whether or not these are intentional or inadvertent. And indeed such significances are sometimes intentional, as was proven to my satisfaction when I encountered a plaque in downtown Sandusky, Ohio that told that the layout of the streets was designed to represent the Freemason compass—a group who pay no little attention to sacred geometry, often imitating various ancient modes of geometric and geographic conjurings (which said occultists then adapted to their particular and peculiar philosophy) as they designed many of our cities. The streets and important buildings of Washington D.C. are likewise arranged according to certain geometric patterns designed by this group, certainly with intentions to do something . . .
A more abiding and natural manifestation of a “geographic constellation,” or perhaps better, “earthen pictogram,” is represented in the topography surrounding my purported place of birth. There are three mountain ranges that extend into southeast Wyoming (the Sierra Madre Range, the Snowy Range, and the Laramie Range), that when viewed from above are clearly the three prongs of a Trishul (the proper Sanskrit and more ancient term translating to the vernacular as “trident”), which connects to a danda (“staff”) which extends south in Colorado as the Front Range. This Trishul appears to be held by a large cloaked and bearded figure which can be seen sitting in lotus or “Indian style” and facing east, comprised of mountain ranges and valleys and bodies of water from below the Four-Corners region and up through western Colorado and eastern Utah. Check it out the satellite photographs, if you doubt me. A more well-known and revered example of a natural geographically manifested sign is found on the southeast face of Aum Parvat, a great mountain in the Himalayas that displays a massive ॐ symbol in the snow on one of its slopes—which of course offers the riddle: which came first, the symbol or the sound?
This particularly fateful journey to Quebec and the Eastern U.S. certainly proved as much a trip through warped time-space and lines of fate and memory as a mere cross-country tour that happened to take nearly three years to complete. And I must say, it’s not always easy to maintain one’s bearings on such an adventure (or misadventure, depending on one’s perspective), even with some insight into the subtle features of the map or the sky. It is more than likely there are many layers of hidden signification inscribed upon the landscape, dimensions of potential travel not represented in any atlas I have yet encountered nor in any construction I have yet read of or figured, primordial inscriptions formed of earth and water which have had subtle effect and esoteric bearing upon the outcomes of my journeys and destinations—and likely upon yours, too. If there’s a way to read these, all the better for the time-space traveler trying to find his or her way to a destination, whatever that might be. Perhaps something like a Hitchhiker’s Guide to . . . Eternity.
If you find yourself traveling much, try to take note of the geometries between whatever points on the map become significant to your life story. See if there is not indeed some subtle symmetry there, shapes drawn on the dot-to-dot puzzle of your life journeys. Then like looking at a Rorschach inkblot, give an eye to reading the meanings in and of your patterns of personal migration. More fun than reading tealeaves.
I guess this won’t work for you more sedentary types who’ve stayed near hometown for your lifespan, unless you’ve the patience to plot your patterns of movement from home to work or school or market, café, church or temple and whatever day-to-day steps you take to see if a meaningful design is revealed in and of your paths and habits. Patterns will likely emerge that will offer you much insight into certain life questions.
My intention was to hitchhike to Cheyenne and then hop a train from the convenient rail yard, located just off of the capital city’s downtown. Though I could have hopped a train from Laramie’s yard, I suppose I thought it more appropriate to depart from her hometown, or something to do with the lay of the rail lines as the line from Laramie forks, one track cutting south through Ft. Collins and the other east through Cheyenne. Before I made it past the UW campus, a fellow I knew mostly from the Buckhorn Bar pulled over and offered a ride.
I was wearing a pack my friend John had ordered custom made at Atmosphere Mountain Works downtown. He decided he didn’t like certain features, and so passed it on to me. Zunaka, the wolf-dog that had accompanied me for several years, was traveling with me in tow—or was it I was in tow?
Ed dropped me off at the gas and Greyhound station about two or three miles from the edge of town. Before trying for another ride, I was approached by a man with salt and pepper hair. It was “Dr. Bill,” former principle at the prep school I had attended as a child. He didn’t recognize me at first. I told him of my plan, and he offered me some cash to help on my journey. I thanked him, and after a smoke I started to walk down the highway. I threw out my thumb to get some help over the hill to Cheyenne, and very shortly was obliged as a kindly middle-aged woman in a Subaru who pulled over to the shoulder and opened her passenger door.
I parted with my kind hostess after the mountainous passage, disembarked at the edge of downtown Cheyenne, then hoofed it towards the train station. Though I can’t recall the precise date, it was either late January or early February (I’m leaning towards it having still been January) 2005, and fortunately for my purposes the weather was unseasonably warm. The sun was out, though high clouds lingered. I had reasonable clothing for the current climatological conditions, blankets and tarp, munchies, dog food, some herb, corncob pipe and tobacco, and plenty of water. I had less than two hundred dollars in cash.
Having never been on a freight train for any distance I was quite enthused at the prospect of riding the rails, if perhaps a tad ill prepared logistically and otherwise for all the implications of what I would experience over the duration of the coming long journey. I was also excited at the prospect of a meeting with Leslie, mere weeks away—assuming all went well with my voyage and that she was amicable to my humble intentions.
I was going east to seek the company of a particular woman purportedly living in Montreal who I had decided might be of some importance in answering one of those “What does it all mean?!?!” sorta questions (à la John Cusack in High Fidelity). She was a mysterious and beautiful barista and belly dancer I had encountered years before, and had become a figurative Beatrice, Kali Ma, and yoga guru in my imaginings (and certainly in at least some imaginings, tantra-yoga teacher or the likes), an idol or icon or murti in my mind’s envisioning.
Having experienced certain premonitions in early October that something might not be well with this woman I had never really known yet could not forget, I decided perhaps it was time to bring some fruition or closure to my feelings and perhaps offer whatever assistance she might require of me, assuming my prescience was accurate. I thus endeavored to brave riding the rails and the winter’s cold to venture on the least planned and provisioned journey of my life, just to chance that I might again be granted an encounter with this woman, to take hold of whatever possibility that a connection missed might have meaning still. All this in spite of the fact that the extent of our communications previous to this journey were limited to such exchanges as:
“Coffee?”
“Yeah—er, no . . . perhaps I’ll try a chai today.”
Yet experiences that occurred in the following years led me again and again to imagine this figure as somehow significant in my spiritual path, and perhaps bearing some importance otherwise. I found I couldn’t shake thoughts of her even when I tried, continuing to find imaginings and daydreams of her lingering in my mind, randomly and inadvertently finding likenesses of her visage in the faces of women I encountered throughout my journeys—and not necessarily (or at least not always) by my own intention. Through relationships and love affairs with more than a few beautiful women over ten years or so, Leslie had remained something like an ideal expression of the Feminine Divine incarnate, at the very least in my imagined renderings.
This is of course not difficult to do with a figure who’s somewhere afar. I intended to brave bridging that distance, as I’d reached a stage of confidence in myself—and in Self—that compelled me to take the chance something of meaning might manifest, else I’d at least likely be granted an audience with someone at least imagined Divine.
Around the time I first began to unconsciously exhibit (ehem) certain signs of being sadhu, she danced a dance of such subtle movement, such seductively charged grace displayed during belly-dance performances given at a local coffee house (where she was also employed), I could only later render this apparition as at least very like an incarnation of Parvati, and specifically resembling said Deity in the myth wherein She was encouraged to seduce Siva, as the other Gods feared the fierce tejas (fire) raised by the Master and Progenitor of Yoga.
Zunaka and I hopped the fence just a bit east of the downtown station and I found a train that was at least heading in the proper direction, judging by which end the engines were on. As I lifted my seventy-five pound furry companion and my pack and myself aboard the container-car I felt an exceptional exhilaration, a liberation of being freed from even the burden of maintaining a gas-guzzling vehicular domicile as my mount (most of my previous journeys were aboard an old Dodge Power-Wagon with a camper on back and an orange sunshine painted on the passenger door, the which I had sold shortly before this trip), and thus in my reasoning unattached to the karma of war and exploitation of earth and people attached to said energy source.
As the diesel engines began to pull, the links tightened in domino sequence till I felt the many tons of metal under my seat jolt forward, wheels randomly screeching and whining, metal frames groaning as this snake of metal started on the well-worn track towards the direction of the sun’s rising. I reclined and lit my pipe to celebrate this auspicious departure, first journey by freight-rail, and as I had deemed this quixotic quest, “last big off-the-cuff adventure.” Of course, whether or not this actually proves to have been my last such impetuous and scarcely planned departure for the unknown remains to be seen. A certain amount of preparation and assurance of provisioning, more than I had secured for this endeavor at least, seems wiser now than then. I am no enemy to moderate creature comforts, even if I do undergo the occasional intentioned austerity, and the sometimes unintentional privation.
I had imagined this journey not unlike others previously, as part cross-country exploration and part ritual transformation. Yet certain factors were unique, as the theme of this adventure was romantically (for lack of a better English word, though the Sanskrit word bhakti might better fit) as well as mystically motivated, if with the rather humble romantic goal of sharing coffee or tea and a chat (likely at most, was my presupposition) with Leslie. I wanted at least a moment or two to offer thanks for the inspiration, and to ascertain whatever further significance might or might not present itself, with the intention of then touring the Northeastern United States and perhaps enjoying some additional explorations of Eastern Canada. And as is the case with any of my endeavors, I had in mind a willingness to play whatever role I might to better whatever I might for others in the process of my movements and actions, if only by thoughtful acts subtle or small, smiles or a kind word, sacred intonations, or by whatever means come my way as I walk through this or other worlds. Karma-dharma, sevA: duty in action, service.
By an hour out of town, bundled up in bedroll, I fell asleep to the hypnotic rhythms of the train—a sometimes jarring vibration of metal on metal that nonetheless becomes a sort of lullaby—and to the cold kiss of the still frigid winter wind, only partially blocked by the containers stacked in front of our perch. I slept a strange sleep—dreams in transit or transit in dream.
Awoke late at night in a large switchyard somewhere in central or eastern Nebraska to a disturbingly-orange-lit reality, to the sound of trains slamming together and broken apart and switched to other lines, and to a sky as dark and starless as any I’ve seen. Zunaka and I hopped off to stretch and piss, then made it back to our berth just in time to evade the yard-bulls as they rolled by, spotlights scanning the cars in search of . . . me?
This large yard was a disorienting place to awaken, and the more startling upon realizing the yard bulls are on the hunt, slowly cruising the narrow spaces between trains, scanning with piercingly bright spotlight beams between the heavy pale hue of discomforting pink-orange floodlights and patches of gray shadow. The scene was reminiscent of the metallic wasteland depicted in The Terminator, but instead of hovercraft searching for stray humanoids, it was a white pickup truck cruising between the tracks that sought stowaway humans hiding amongst so many tons of steel.
The first time they passed I was not seen. Two or three times more the white pickup passed by, a track or two over. Second time they passed directly beside our chosen berth they did not find our hiding-place, as we both lay flattened on the tail end of the piggyback container carrier. The third time I was spotted.
The man who caught sight of me gazed my direction for only a second, then turned away, perhaps attempting to pretend he had not spied our illegal perch. It could be that he sympathized with a hippie-cum-hobo desperate or crazy enough to ride a train across the Upper Midwest in winter. Perhaps he just didn’t want to deal with the paperwork, but I think I sensed compassion, inasmuch as one can read intentions on the face of another at a glance, at night and in a passing vehicle. Despite the paranoia of Homeland Security and the Patriot Acts, on-the-ground administrators of the system’s rules are still, for the most part, human. Most of the time . . .
Train started again, slowly accelerating until we were safely on the move and out of view of the railroad cops. As I lay under the again visible sky, I pondered how I might approach some possible meeting with Leslie, not wishing to appear “the stalker” and so forth. It is not so easy to determine those lines these days, as remnants of the chivalric tradition gave way to Victorian propriety, and the latter (the “free love” era notwithstanding) to extremes of sensibilities that, while to some degree justified as measures of protection of personal privacy, have also made it difficult to express the deep and heart-felt devotions of a love-stricken fool. Likely a significant portion of those endeavoring a romantic gesture by standing beneath his or her beloved’s window whilst holding up a boom-box playing “In Your Eyes” get arrested and slapped with a restraining order.
These mores and strictures and lines in mind, I envisioned how I ought seek out and approach this heretofore unapproachable maiden. Leslie and I had not been acquainted beyond the most casual of interactions, after all, lest some subtle communications or remembrances I thought I’d sensed or recalled from her days as barista at Coal Creek Coffee were more than my imagination or wishful thinking.
Once I had overheard her not small voice declare, “I feel sorry for Holly.” Holly was the name of my wife at the time, and I wondered if somehow this woman knew of my carousing behavior, oft enough displayed for public view at the Buckhorn and other local bars, and was indirectly chiding me for my misconduct. She also made various rather crass (or at least blunt) remarks to her coworkers that seemed meant for my hearing, and even almost overtly directed towards me, as well as uttering other random statements that seemed well fitted to circumstance in my life—certainly beyond what might be labeled “coincidental.” Though later I would be informed this wasn’t quite the case, at least as far as conscious intentions were concerned, and that I had in fact been a scarcely noticed part of Leslie’s reality while she worked at Coal Creek, such factors perhaps prove irrelevant to synchronicities noticed, other than to denote said statements were not consciously or intentionally offered for my ear. Synchronicity needn’t be noticed or deliberate to exist.
Innuendo at best was thus the only real communication I had carried on with this astounding woman, yet I was no longer willing to let fear or irrational inhibitions overcome my want to understand the important questions of this life, nor to dissuade me from seeking the company of this woman who had become my “Beloved.” Regardless of fervor, however, I had in mind all due respects and restraint.
Indeed, my intentions were quite honorable, if not downright chivalric. I had no plan to do other than to politely request Leslie’s company for a cup of coffee or tea—seemingly apropos considering the circumstances of our slight acquaintance—and was of course fully willing to accept a “No” with grace and repose. Regardless of the outcome of this potential encounter with this woman at least once glimpsed as seeming vessel of the Divine Feminine incarnate, I intended to convey every due respect and consideration.
I had contingently maintained a wish to wander about in the Northeast, after all. This was one region of the lower 48 I’d not yet seen in all my journeys, excepting a couple of weeks in New York City at the end of a cross-country trip on a Green Tortoise tour bus, and a few months spent in D.C. This journey would thus offer additional opportunities for exploration, assuming nothing of substance came of my meeting with Leslie—and as I’ve stated, I made no assumptions of her whatsoever. Indeed, I’d have plenty to see and experience on this voyage, regardless of whether any fruition turned out to be destined for the more quixotic features of the quest.
The train was rhythmically rumbling, grumbling and singing a cacophonic symphony to accompany my meandering thoughts. I ate some of what remained of my food, opened Zunaka’s feedbag and shared some water with my white wolf-dog companion. I lit my pipe, and then covered my head under the felt blankets that insulated my reclined form—covers made from perhaps hundreds of recycled bedspreads (and who knows what) of the sort given away at homeless shelters and other charitable places, and further shielded myself from the wind under the tarp that encompassed my cowboy-style bedroll, Zunaka curled at my feet. I was wearing two or three pairs of pants, a couple or three layers of shirts and two coats as well as blankets and tarp. One of the two coats was given to me by Chloe.
Chloe was instructing a yoga class I had regularly attended on First Street whilst I lived in a wigwam by the Laramie River in Optimist Park. Chloe had been raised in a home where murtis of Siva and Krishna and Devi (Sanskrit for “Goddess”) as various Avatars were displayed for devotion. Chloe worked at Trinity Coffee House (previously known as Muddy Waters Coffee House), which was across the street from Coal Creek Coffee Company’s downtown coffeehouse (where I had first encountered Leslie). Chloe’s mother Julia was Leslie’s belly-dance and yoga instructor in Laramie years before.
Shortly after first meeting Chloe, she and I and a mutual friend who also happens to be named Jeffrey (aka Monk/Squirrel/Baba Ananda Vyasadev) went to a small party on the outskirts of town, and I discovered upon arrival that Leslie was present. It was a hot tub party, and of course people in the tub were likely not wearing clothes. Despite my appreciation for communal bathing au naturale under a starry sky, I didn’t get wet with Leslie and others that night. Had I braved such an intimate setting with still secret object of devotion on that occasion, Leslie and I would surely have conversed, and I would likely have never embarked upon this adventure to request her company for a cup and a chat.
Chloe means green buds of grain, and is another name for Demeter, Greek goddess of spring and such things, and mother to Persephone, maiden kidnapped by Hades in the well-known myth. I almost invited Chloe to dinner at my wigwam, but never quite got the words out after early morning the yoga class she taught. Maybe for the better, as I’m not sure my dal and raita or vegetable bajji would’ve impressed her much. She grew up in a home with a stepfather from India who I hear is a great cook. Chloe gave me a purple Marmot parka—she liked to ski.
Now the wigwam, as it turns out, was a rather pivotal locus in the inception of this journey, or at least in reckoning the subtle and esoteric factors that frame said trip. I had spontaneously decided to build this shelter whilst smoking some herb with friends Hans and Naomi under a rather prominent, if still well hidden willow tree near the Laramie River. Surrounded by red willow thickets (a non-branching straight stick sort of willow), this octopus-branched tree was well known to some area pagans, to pot-smoking high school kids over the years (of course), as well as serving as a campsite to various hippies and hobos and area drunks from time to time.
The first phase of construction was a lean-to wall woven of dead red willow sticks and set against the base of the short trunk, then woven together with the tree’s lower branches and thatched with the abundant tall grasses growing nearby. Hans suggested these grasses might be of the genus Phalaris, thus containing DMT, but I had no interest in chemistry experiments at the time, just a want for shelter.
I found a full-size mattress next to the dumpster behind a local furniture store, and placed it on some pallets under the grassy structure. I later added a dome to one end of the lean-to, woven from branches of the main tree, saplings that grew in a convenient circle, and many dead red willow sticks. The structure was made waterproof with recycled bubble-wrap, also from behind the furniture store, and thatched top to bottom save for a bubbly translucent window that allowed in light from the sun’s low winter passing.
Much of my time was spent searching the area for dead willows and patches of tall grass and chanting various Sanskrit chants, as is my practice, whilst I worked. I had plenty of time to spend on constructing my hermitage, as my only other obligation was as a cook three-days-a-week at the Laramie Soup Kitchen, where I utilized the donated tofu and various vegetarian items the other cooks would overlook to feed our patrons.
For heating and cooking and entertainment I built a fireplace of rock and mud with a cast iron top surface for heat radiation and on which I could set a pan or fry flat bread. The chimney protruded through the south wall. I mudded around the fireplace and lower portions of the entire structure to prevent the whole thing form inadvertently going up in flames—an obvious hazard with a grass hut. A two-burner alcohol stove sat atop a salvaged counter-top that I attached to one wall, pots and pans and utensils hanging above, with a half-buried plastic bin underneath which served as an icebox. A single mattress and some pillows were placed along one side of the dome as a couch of sorts, and a rug lay atop some cardboard as a floor. Home sweet home.
During my sojourn in this closest thing to a non-motorized home I had known for years, I decided that I ought to change my white wolf-dog companion’s name to something more appealing to my personal aesthetics. He was given to my care several years previous with the name Zeus, a mythological figure from a mythological paradigm for which I maintain little affinity. I chose the name Zunaka from a Sanskrit lexicon, which is both a proper male name and a word meaning simply “dog,” and which maintained a similar sound to what my white wolf-dog traveling companion was accustomed to hearing when called.
Less than two weeks later I just happened to be reading the Upanishads and just happened to come across the statement, “and Angira taught Zunaka the secrets of Brahman (the abiding Nature of reality/Universal Divine Person).” Seems I had chosen dog’s new name well. In later research, I discovered that the willow tree—one of the primary materials and framework of the wigwam’s structure—is associated in Greek mythology with the deity Zeus, as well as Hecate, witch goddess of the Greek underworld who is associated with Hölle, etymologically related to “hell” and to my x-wife’s first name, Holly.
Signs and symbolic and synchronistic shit of all manner, shape, form and modes of delivery have become given realities since I began my path as a mystic madman. Situationally relevant mythology and memes and ancient memories have often enough manifest as undeniably prescient and pertinent writings on the wall, and mind and matter and motion and coincidence convey extra-temporal communications that often prove to be at least informed outside opinions, and sometimes offer concise and astoundingly accurate predictions and visions regarding my sitz-im-leben. This has not, however, detracted from the importance and scrutiny I grant to each-and-every signal and sense stimuli with seeming significance—for even some signs which appear as certain, veritable writing on the wall, can deceive and mislead. Generally those signs that have proven most reliable prognostications or subtle level indications have been those connected to sanAtana dharma, though whether due to personal expectations or the intrinsic truth of said paradigm is of course debatable.
Discernment is vital, and awareness of tantamount importance if one chooses to look beyond veils and the officially sanctioned and popularly received visions of reality. Even misleading indicators can often be read (between the lines of esoteric semiotics and deceitful or mistaken impetus or intention) to offer clues to whatever riddles one is seeking to solve. The writing is indeed on the wall, in the clouds, in patterns of tealeaves spilled, dreams remembered and contemplated, and nearly everywhere—if one has the eyes (or eye) to see.
I have had thousands of experiences I’ve scrutinized in depth that indicate ‘tis not merely a material world, and material and spiritual are not so separate as many assume. And yet, there is certainly something to be said for non-attachment to the potential distractions of seeking to uncover that which is occulted, and sometimes much wisdom in paying no mind to the mystery’s plot in order to maintain a meditative state of mind, not to mention sanity . . .
Much preferable, of course, to maintain a somewhat oblivious and blissfully entranced state of consciousness (or perhaps better, “mindful yet blissfully . . .”), more in tune with nature than human intrigues or lila. At times, however, it seems even a would-be, dilettante of an sadhu needs to attend to these latter factors, to dive into the mire of sometimes fucked-up humanity and the confusing riddles and intrigues of maya in order to fulfill dharma.
This is reminiscent of a Japanese Buddhist proverb a friend named Tom in Santa Fe told me once. A man living in the city who grew disgusted with the drunkenness and debauchery he observed retreated to the mountains to seek enlightenment. One day upon some high peak, ‘poof,’ he became enlightened. And just what did this austere ascetic do upon attaining this elevated state of being? But of course, he returned to the city to engage in drunkenness and debauchery.
Early in the construction of the wigwam I began to have premonitions and other sorts of signs and sensations presented me which told me that Leslie, beautiful and beatified figure (in my personal constructions at least), was facing some potential threat to her well-being. I prayed some prayers, after my own fashion, and performed some rituals intended to protect her, after my own fashion.
“Don’t mind me, but a humble (dilettante-of-a) sadhu squatting in this city park and carrying out ancient tantric rituals,” or perhaps, “What, you’ve never met a crazy sorcerer living in a swamp? I thought every shadowy willowy thicket at the edge of any given village was supposed to be inhabited by at least one holy man or wizard or witch!”
I had various random visitors whilst whiling away the days and nights in my humble hut, most of who either offered to share some smoke, else gladly received my invitations to join me for a session by the fire. One of the more memorable visitations to this unusual abode was a pair of travelers presenting themselves as British tourists. They accompanied me from the Buckhorn and through the thicket one night to smoke or merely to see my hut, I can’t recall which. One of the two was a bit o’er concerned about spiders, so we stayed only briefly.
The arachnophobe with the British accent was a beautiful movie (television?) star blond who told me she was an archaeologist, and that her name was “Claire,” and she kissed me oh so sweetly on the walk towards her room at the Sunset Inn on this interesting evening. I only mention this event as I’ve recently become a fan of the TV series Heroes, and the Claire I met at the Buckhorn, led to my wigwam, and with whom I later shared a kiss bore more than a slight or merely coincidental resemblance to Hayden Panettiere, the actress who plays Claire Bennet, the indestructible cheerleader. Sometimes the lines between art and life get rather fuzzy, if not downright tangled, twisted and even dread-locked.
Friends and other passersby would irregularly, randomly, and frequently stop by, and on more than one occasion I was able to offer shelter to someone in need of a temporary place to crash. This was something of what I had hoped to accomplish: to create a magical, sacred, pure, and safe yet wild habitat in the middle of a city. Only shared my wigwam bed with one woman, however, before a policeman showed up, gun drawn, to inform me I had to abandon my home.
“Laramie police!! This is the police, come out right now!!”
I pulled on a pair of pants and swung the door open, emerging from my cozy cottage to intercept a blue-clad gun-toting civil servant who was wearing an expression that gave me the impression he expected the Blair Witch to emerge from the spooky hut in the scary marsh. Blair was actually my erstwhile lover’s best friend— if I recall correctly they met in Africa whilst serving in the Peace Corps, and Blair had left the wigwam once Catherine and I started making out, and thus was definitively not present. Admittedly, I had hung some spooky stick-figures in the trees amidst the many glow-in-the-dark stars and other appropriate seeming ornamentations, murtis, odd decorations, and two mildly menacing scarecrows I had constructed in my yard for kicks, so I suppose one could understand his paranoia.
“Put that silliness away,” I said as I assessed his posture and the position of his firearm, in hand and presumably ready to fire, though not quite pointed at me.
“Oh, sorry,” he exclaimed as he returned pistol to holster.
I ended up going to the local newspaper and receiving reasonably fair coverage of the incident of my eviction on the front page, but was still forced to leave my home by the river a few days later.
Catherine and I spent one more night together, this time at her house, a month or so before I set out for Montreal. This night, or more specifically a few short moments during this night, would prove to forever alter the lenses through which I perceive reality, already a good distance removed from most folks’ paradigms after several years of crazy hippie-style mendicant mystic meanderings.
As we were on her bed that night, Catherine assumed a position atop me, and as is the custom in such circumstance I gazed at her face as she found her pleasure, legs bent on either side of my thighs and hands resting on either side of my shoulders. She opened her eyes and stared down at me, and whilst gazing up I quite clearly viewed her visage morph into the visage of my most recent lover previous, and then transformed back into the face of the woman I thought I was having sex with. I said not a word, though my eyes may have dilated or my mouth may have fallen agape in surprise. She continued to gaze into my eyes, and then said rather matter-of-factly,
“Oh, you saw my face change,” a mischievous smile scarce contained upon her lips.
“You’re a fucking shape-shifter!!!” I exclaimed, with no pun intended.
“Ah, cheap magic trick,” said she, and only scarcely interrupting her rhythmic circular motions upon my lap and linga.
Once a person sees such a feat at such near proximity, any number of givens regarding the nature of reality are called into question. Quite simply expressed: I have seen someone change her appearance into a different form at less than two feet from my face; therefore, shape-shifters exist; therefore, I can have no certainty that anyone is exactly who or what they seem. Yet another case of the ground not existing where I once assumed it ought. This realization would certainly influence my assessment of later encounters with Leslie, and for that matter, my interpretation of every person I meet and face I see. Oh well, there goes so called “reality.”
I had encountered a shape-shifter on at least one other occasion, I might note. This incident occurred on the Navajo (Diné) reservation in Arizona, though not at anywhere near this proximity. This particular southwestern mythic beastie was at the healthy distance of fifteen yards or so from my vantage, and I was safely inside my big burly four-wheel drive pickup, the Miraculous-Beast-Shanti-Mama. Upon viewing the huge, hairless, green glowing human-like canine run across the road, I cried out in surprise, “What the fuck was that!?!?!” One of the Diné teens that had guided me from Camp Anna Mae to a Hopi woman’s house to acquire a quarter or half-oz. of shwag (bricked marijuana) casually responded with the answer I believe I already knew, as I had been introduced years before to the lore regarding this particular mythical beast when a teacher at the prep school I’d attended read to our grade school class from a book of true-life scary stories one Halloween.
“That was a skinwalker,” he said casually, as if to say, “Oh yeah, here we commonly see lycanthropes cutting across the road in front of vehicles in transit after dark—no big deal.” I have seen many a mangy coyote and have a respectable knowledge of wildlife generally, and what I viewed quite clearly as it crossed the dirt road was unlike any species I might know or imagine. The only possible and rather unlikely explanation for the apparition would be that what we had viewed was a cougar who had denned in a cave of uranium or radium, thus the loss of hair and green glow, though the length of the snout I succinctly recall would not fit with that theory and the movement of the creature was not at all catlike.
Amidst the rumble and sway and vibrations of my mobile berth I moved in and out of a strange sleep, a state in which normal time and space seemed distorted or warped, and dreams and waking were not so separate as they most often are whilst not in-transit, and especially in-transit in a mode not really meant for moving people. Just before waking I had dreamt that I was walking in some nondescript dimly lit urban neighborhood. Approaching on the sidewalk from the opposite direction was a man leading a horde of zombies. I leapt high over this seeming threat, and then awoke.
The train had stopped in a city or town. After nearly two days aboard this segmented serpent of steel, we dismounted well after dark and began to seek an open restaurant or convenience store. As Zunaka and I started down the neighborhood street, I noticed a man approaching on the sidewalk. It was definitely the man from the dream, though thankfully there were no zombies in tow—unless they were invisible. We exchanged nods in greeting as we passed in opposite directions under the glow of dim streetlights.
I soon discovered we were in Iowa, not far from the Mississippi, and found a late-night diner where I might sit on a padded seat, eat, drink coffee and recuperate. I soon regained my land legs, and shortly ceased to feel as if my body was vibrating. I ravenously consumed an omelet and hash browns, and drank quite a bit of coffee before returning to the tracks.
The train we had been aboard was gone, and another was parked in its place. We hopped aboard a grain hopper car, which are often built with a convenient platform on the tail-end that is protected from rain and snow and wind. Some of these sorts of rail cars even have a compartment one can climb inside between the car’s shell and the interior grain bin, a cozy if grungy cubbyhole often bearing traces of previous hobo inhabitants: cigarette butts, water bottles and blankets, emptied 40s and liquor bottles, and perhaps if lucky you’ll find a roach chance thoughtlessly or thoughtfully left in the corner, half-smoked and sticky with resin, else half a bottle of whiskey layin’ in the corn dust. Similarly constructed coal hoppers don’t have these first-class hobo accommodations, by the way, and are a rather dirty ride regardless. Container carriers, the type of car we’d hopped on in Cheyenne, are my second choice mounts for hobo-style transportation. If you sit behind the containers, wind and rain or snow usually blow right over, depending on the speed of the train and direction of wind, of course. Boxcars are a fine ride, except you have to concern yourself with securing the door so you don’t find it slamming shut, locking you inside. More than one hobo has expired from the cold or heat or dehydration inside one of these potential death traps, seem such an accommodating ride.
When the train shortly started east, I dozed for a few hours. Upon regaining consciousness I realized the train had turned, and was now traveling north on the west bank of the Mississippi. Though my intended destination was Montreal, Canada, there was no hurry to travel deeper into the north’s midwinter cold. It seemed wiser to wait till the other side of the Great Lakes before any further movement towards the pole, as the cold steel of a freight train car conducts climatic conditions straight from the air to your arse.
We disembarked in Dubuque, found a coffee house to have breakfast, then walked across the bridge into Illinois. I recognized an obvious symbolic passage as I looked down at the Mississippi, likely at half or less it’s eventual breadth, and then gazed across the bridge into Illinois. Walking between a patchy mix of clouds and clear sky above and the cold flow below whilst crossing the watery border between the “Corn State” and “Land of Lincoln,” I proceeded on towards destiny, desideration, disillusionment or deux folie, or some odd admixture of the above.
It seems there is a certain shift in reality when one crosses any given recognized border, if too subtle for most to notice, and something more than coincidental to the relationship between the term “state” designating a region and said word used to designate a condition of being. To cross an acknowledged border is thus to step into a realm of difference. And indeed, the Mississippi divides both bordering states and this nation on the order of no other delineation, save for the Continental Divide’s heights.
We continued along the highway just east of the mighty Mississip, and I extended left thumb to the side as I hiked to signal that I would indeed appreciate a lift, in case anyone passing couldn’t tell. A lanky tie-die clad fellow with a scruffy beard took the hint and gave us a ride to the next town, sharing some herb and advice regarding the nature of the area and its people. After dark, Z-dog and I made our way into downtown Galena, Illinois. “Lead sulfide,” Illinois, if read literally. Lived in Leadville for a while, a high and far from dry little town high in the Colorado mountains, a locale where it seemed from my observations that the local brand of hippies did psychedelics so they could stay up longer to drink yet more beer and whiskey . . . but I digress.
After a half-an-hour wandering the well-kept business district of Galena, a couple pulled over and offered me a place to stay. The woman rather reminded me of Chloe’s mother Julia, perhaps the first yoga instructor who taught me asanas (in this lifetime at least), at least from what I recall of their respective visages. They offered me some soup upon arrival at their country home. I slept a dreamless sleep on a well-cushioned couch.
Next morning, grateful for a comfortable night’s rest we again hit the road. Zunaka pulled hard on his leash as we walked along the tree-lined road. Swept through Rockford, a rather sad Midwest town likely hit hard by the decline in manufacturing over recent decades, then crossed the border into Wisconsin.
Went to the library in Beloit to try to figure the layout of the railroad tracks in the area, hoping to hop another train, but according to an atlas I found on the shelves there seemed no easy boarding and no certain track to convey us in the proper direction. We wandered to a convenience store located near the intersection of highways leading to Milwaukee, Madison, and southeast towards Chicago. I penned a sign with a Sharpie—an indispensable item on the road which is found in nigh every crusty traveling kid’s belongings—and Zunaka and I sat on the sidewalk holding a piece of cardboard that read simply, “Chicago, Madison or Milwaukee.”
Whilst awaiting the manifestation of a ride, passers-by often offered cash and food and water and dog-treats, but no offer of conveyance toward any of the three advertised optional destinations. After a couple hours or so, a rather conservatively clad middle-aged man in jeans and a polo shirt approached and began to chat with me about various jam-bands, from The String-Cheese Incident to the Grateful Dead. He handed me a bottle of water or some dog treats or some such and returned to his pickup. Just previous to his appearance, I had contemplated potential modes of moving on: Train? Hitchhike? Bus? I couldn’t take the Greyhound, as they only allow canines aboard as service animals, unless . . .
An acquaintance I’d known in Laramie had once told me a friend of his had feigned blindness to travel with his dog on “the Dog” on numerous occasions. I couldn’t possibly . . . I wouldn’t want to take advantage . . . even if I could pull it off . . .
The man who I’d just conversed with returned and offered some rawhide for Zunaka, and also extended his hand holding pair of sunglasses, stating that they’d be good for carpentry or some such. These shades were rather large, had side-guards and looked almost too perfect to pass as a blind-person’s shades. I took this as a clear sign I ought to employ my acting skills to get myself and dog aboard “the Dog” for this next leg of the journey.
I still implicitly trusted signs at this point, not yet disillusioned with that intrinsic sense which assumes that whatever happens, it’ll work out properly and fairly. I had yet to become jaded and suspicious of the subtle snares might well lie behind seeming boons and apparent miraculous manifestations. I have since learned to look a gift horse in the mouth, for my own betterment or no. I must say, I rather liked seeing the best in things the better.
I carried out my plan rather flawlessly, and without finding the least need to utter even one false word as I remained in character through three bus changes and multiple stops. That is, until arriving at the border between New York and Quebec, where my bluff was revealed.
At the time it was necessary to display both a state ID and birth certificate or a passport in order to cross the border on public transportation, whereas a driver’s license was acceptable identification for drivers or passengers in private vehicles. For my identification I had only a driver’s license, which for obvious reasons would not suffice as authentic identification for a purportedly blind person, with or without additional ID. The bus departed, leaving us at the border after a rather uncomfortable period during which my status was in question and whilst the bus and its passengers anxiously awaited.
As I sat in the waiting area at the Canadian border station, I couldn’t help but notice that the majority of the Canadian border officers were attractive women. Upon being conveyed to the American Homeland Security run border station, I could then scarce help but notice the contrast between the paramilitary style uniforms sporting over-sized “Homeland Security” patches worn by the American officers (and the corresponding attitudes) and the more casually dressed Canadians, the differences in gender balance (only one female amongst the Americans, and a rather butch one at that), and the uncomfortable tension in the air at the U.S. border station office compared to the rather laid back Canadian officials’ attitudes.
Whereas the Canadians were amicable (if not particularly humored) in spite of my potentially prosecutable offence, the American guards seemed to enjoy forcing me to wait, seemingly finding some sadistic pleasure in the power they held over me, even as they did let me go unhindered after what seemed an unnecessarily long wait. And I should also note regarding my troubles at the border: I was informed that a veterinarians certificate verifying current rabies vaccination was necessary in order to bring a dog into Canada.
As Zunaka and I began south, I looked to both east and west to ascertain the viability of a less formal or frontal entry into Canada. So far as I know, the paranoia of the Neo-con’s has yet to lead to a wall or other such excessive measures on the northern border, save for some purported cameras and motion sensors along the western portions designed to impede the flow of “beasters” (mid-grade, mostly keefed marijuana grown in western Canada) between British Columbia and Washington state. And these electronic barriers are designed to keep people and smuggled goods out, and not, at this tenuous point in this nation’s history, to keep people in. I decided to seek someplace to pass the night instead of attempting an illicit crossing, however, and found a 24-hour convenience store that turned out a boon for more than merely the warmth and hot coffee.
An attractive young brunette was the night clerk. I ordered a coffee and sat at one of the tables in the deli section. I ended up telling the clerk the purpose of my journey and explaining the little misadventure at the border, including the detail of missing a hydrophobia-free certificate for my canine companion. She made a phone call, and a dready kid somewhere in his teens showed up sometime towards 3 a.m. with a veterinarian’s certificate certifying that one male “Saint Bernard mix” had received his shots. Zunaka was purportedly a Great Pyrenees/wolf/lab hybrid, and so could easily pass as maintaining Saint Bernard blood.
After sunrise, this sweet bestower of blessings drove us across the border and accepted my invitation for breakfast at a café a few miles down the road. We sat amongst overall-clad francophone farmers as I had my first meal in Quebec. Unimaginative and in fact cliché as this might be, I ordered crêpes. I bade farewell to my partner in cross-border dog-smuggling, and Zunaka and I started north along the highway towards Montreal.
Hitchhiking up north is a breeze compared with the potential hours of waiting often experienced endeavoring the same in the States—indeed, as Canada is in many respects more open to travelers and gypsy sorts generally. A woman in an economy car pulled to the shoulder before I had hiked a mile. She didn’t speak English, but seemed completely comfortable with offering a ride to a big, unwashed bearded man and a wolf-dog from the States. Oh, Canada! What qualities of community, hospitality and compassion you have that in this land seem oft depleted, if not sometimes almost forgotten in the face of fears forwarded by faux foes and fantastic plots presented a populace fixated on the sensational and shocking, so well trained to believe in what’s presented on the screen.
After less than three weeks on the road and rails I had arrived in Montreal. Or to be precise, a rather unimpressive modern suburb across the San Laurent. I found the entrance to the underground rail, and attempted to negotiate the young and beautiful crowds whilst loaded down with large backpack and large white wolf-dog. Across the river (or from underneath the river, to be more accurate), we emerged into the center of Old Montreal, and as far from the cultural milieu of Middle America as one’s likely to find north of Mexico, save on Native American reservations and perhaps in the backcountry Cajun swamplands of Louisiana, else deeper into French Canada.
Indeed, central Montreal is more like an old world European city than a “New World” commercial-style venture. I walked amidst stone buildings that were between or over two and three hundred years standing, strolling narrow brick-paved streets and walkways likely laid centuries in the past, and could only compare the scene to my blurry (Guinness and cider induced) recollections of a visit to London during my college years. Of course I do recognize the rather provincial purview presented by this comparison of a francophone metropolis and London, but such is the extent of my direct exposure to architecture outside of ranch-style, duplexes, macmansions, boxy condos, steel-girded skyscrapers and hometown American blasé, embellished by the occasional and intentionally-artsy experimental artifice and the increasingly rare Victorian, Art-Deco, colonial or other non-cookie-cutter style structure.
The pedestrians I encountered on this rainy, then sleeting, then snowing afternoon were notably different from the average urbanites I’ve encountered Stateside. Fashionably—no, smartly dressed hipsters (or their equivalent, rendered en Français) strolled the streets, along with other more seasoned residents who for the most part seemed to wear their clothes better than their counterparts to the south. Even the manner in which people on the streets carried themselves there seemed a step more graceful—or at least appeared to my eyes to express a more refined aesthetic. I will admit to having been taken a bit by the spell of novelty, and I do recognize some hyperbole in this expressed perception of mystique did coalesce as I observed these passing pedestrians’ self-presentation and overheard the mostly indiscernible din of French words as these fashionable francophones carried on everyday conversations, if understandably whilst under the influence of high romantic hopes and dreamy vision in a setting so self-consciously amorously urbane.
I was amazed to discover that as I found it necessary to engage in rudimentary exchanges, I had indeed acquired enough knowledge of the French tongue from one semester studied in college to carry on moderately intelligible conversations. I soon realized, however (and to my slight disillusionment), en Montreal it is actually not necessary to speak the neo-native tongue (Iroquoian and like tongues being the more truly native speech, of course), as most inhabitants speak English as a second language, and many as a first. To describe the perhaps too common experience en Montreal of observing a conversation that begins in French and then reverts to English: there is a sudden alteration of air and mood that I would describe as not unlike the feeling of falling out of love.
(Continued in next post . . .)
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