COSMIC ASTRAL
INITIATION 0: THRESHOLD (March 1987 - April 1988): The Eleventh State: Maharishi Consciousness
My lover and I asked Gene Garfin if he would like to accompany us to California. We both liked him very much; he was always ready for adventure, and he could be a second driver. I, who did not drive, would navigate, keep the driver awake, and tend to the fuel, oil, tire pressure, etc. The car owners were in no hurry for their second vehicle and did not mind if we took the southern route, so we first headed down through Missouri to Arkansas, where we spent a day seeking out the finest sources of quartz crystals. Gene had wished to take the car east to Memphis to visit Graceland, but we demurred --- I was feeling a little impatient, and actually taking the car east seemed unfair to its owners.
Up and down over thickly-wooded hills we drove, through the sweetly wild Arkansas countryside around Hot Springs. We were getting pretty discouraged after several hours; all the towns we tried had very good quality stones, but crystals were now becoming very popular, and there was an aura of expensive greed around them which did not bode well for spiritual work or for our wallets.
At last, we headed west through the Ouachita Mountains to resume our trek to California --- and there it was! A compound just outside a little town named Mt. Ida. It felt perfect. We could visit the mine, or simply peruse the acres of picnic-tables displaying stones that had already been dug. We did the latter, spending all afternoon amongst the crystals --- they felt very pure, and the prices were reasonable! As usual, I got more and more intoxicated by the spiritual energies the crystals were emitting. I ended up spending about $300 for thousands of unusual stones --- the proprietor saw my interest and offered me over a thousand oddly-shaped double-terminates, "communicator" trapezoids and Herkimer diamonds for about $100; I also bought hundreds of gorgeous clusters and some jewelry points which my lover had picked out, as she had no money to spare. Gene also spent about $50 on the odd double-terminates. Gene and I couldn't help but laugh ruefully that we, too, were not immune to the subtle flash of greed as we attempted to equitably divide these choice stones between us.
We carefully packed the crystals in tissue, laying them in parallel arrays within numerous cardboard boxes that we stored in the back of the car. All the way through Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle and New Mexico, those crystals never stopped singing; we joked that the car really should be able to run on that crystal-power, rendering gasoline obsolete. I spent the rest of the trip in blissful semi-trance.
I believe it was Gene's idea that we visit Sedona, Arizona, where the Tibetan Foundation was located. When we reached Flagstaff, we wound down through Oak Creek Canyon into Sedona. Now the crystals really lit up. The road through town passed among various mesas and buttes to either side, which eerily resembled the pictures of ornately-carved Hindu temples that I had catalogued for the Harvard Fine Arts Library seven years before. The crystalline energy poured through my body and suddenly opened seven chakras around the crown of my head, exactly like seven spiritual eyes. I was astonished to see these reddish rock-formations radiating the strongest spiritual energies I had ever encountered. These various energy-centers performed disparate functions; one was clearly a temple; another a library of akashic records; another a resonant bell of radiating energy. I could also see the various devic and angelic beings administering the energies of the formations. Never before had land seemed so integral to the Master-plan, yet I felt no special desire to work with this particular land.
We went on to visit the Tibetan Foundation, where we meditated in a blue-carpeted room holding a giant copper-tubed pyramid. It was enjoyable, but I felt nothing additional to what I had already experienced. We picked up some brochures on the area; to my surprise some of Sedona's psychics had precisely confirmed my perceptions of Sedona's energy-vortexes.
We decided to press on. As we passed through Cottonwood, I wondered incredulously who would possibly choose to live in such an unpreposessing town. As usual, as soon as I had condemned something, Nature made sure I experienced it from the inside. A few miles further, the road began climbing an immense mountain, winding up and around to Jerome, a picturesque, 19th-century copper-mining town at the top. The mines had long since played out, and the town's few remaining souls now depended on tourism. As the car struggled up and up the steep road, its radiator finally blew just as we reached Jerome. There was no gas-station in town, so we had the car towed down the mountain --- five miles back to Cottonwood. We spent the next three days in a hotel there while the gas station ordered a new radiator. The air was warm and dry; the people were frank and friendly, and I came to love the place! A rangy hotel-neighbor, a surveyor, showed us a fantastic Native American mound just a few hundred yards behind the hotel. Among the pottery shards I found a small, blue-tinted bone: a finger-joint, for which I felt a deep affinity; I took it with me. Somehow I did not think of myself as a grave-robber; rather as a shamanic archaeologist. Gene buried one or two of his crystals on the site, and we left. I now saw Cottonwood in a whole new light, and wondered incredulously how I could have been so quick to judge the town earlier.
With the radiator now fixed, we decided not to tempt fate on another arduous scenic route; we took a spur to Route 17 to Phoenix, and then headed west to California. When we got there we first went to Laguna Niguel, and dropped Gene off at his parents' house. I never saw Gene again; my lover and I spent the night at a friend's house. The next day we lunched at a Mexican Restaurant in Laguna Beach, a town whose easy grace I loved on sight, and then got back in the car for the final leg up to Santa Rosa.
After a beautiful trip up the coast and northward into California's wine country, my lover and I returned the car to its owners, and spent the next few months staying with various friends and relatives of hers in and around San Francisco. We also stayed awhile with her mother, who was suffering from Alzheimer's. This was my first encounter with that disease, and it was most poignant to see this lovely old matriarch's consciousness transcending time while interacting with us through a humorous child-persona. She seemed to be more focused in the present when her physical pain was alleviated, and we did our best to give her as much healing as she was willing to accept.
I greatly enjoyed exploring this lively city with its exquisite views, splendid parks and beaches, Victorian architecture, unusual subcultures, and excellent food. I continued working on the 144 Solar Angel cards every day, and we would sell one or another of our beautiful Arkansas crystals when we needed money. To my surprise, a crystal costing us perhaps $1 would fetch as much as $80 wholesale in a New Age shop.
My lover's husband lived in southern California; over the next few months he came north for several civilized meetings with my lover in San Francisco. Sometime around May, we all went out to a park. While my lover and her estranged husband walked off for some privacy, I sat under a large oak-tree and allowed my consciousness to merge with it, flowing up and out into its immense soothing canopy. It was odd: I had never thought to try this before, although some fourteen years earlier I had drawn a pen-and-ink of a man turning into a tree, and labelled it, "Prince Ashoka Experiences Tree-Consciousness in the Presence of the Queen of the Night." Some time passed. When I re-entered my body, my lover stood before me: her husband had asked her to move back in with him to work on their marriage, and she agreed. I was heartstruck and afraid she would fall into slavery again, but wished them well and decided to spend some time on Orcas Island. I would have to change planes in Seattle; I think it was at this time that with my lover's blessing I decided to visit Kerry for a day or two to see where things stood between us. Kerry unenthusiastically invited me up, and I flew into Sea-Tac airport, where I was met by Carolyn and Kerry (like me, Kerry didn't have a license).
While Carolyn and I talked excitedly on the drive into Seattle, Kerry was very quiet, and I became aware of a bone-chilling freeze along my left shoulder and arm, which was touching hers. Was this psychophysical sensation the origin of the term "cold shoulder"? I had noticed this freezing sensation once a few months before, in San Francisco, when sitting next to a schizophrenic in a crowded restaurant. I still didn't know whether this chill was my perception of a psychic distress in the other, or in myself. Whichever it was, as we neared our old apartment, Kerry abruptly said that I could not stay with her, but that Carolyn would put me up at her apartment. Carolyn nodded a welcome. I was puzzled, but agreed. It seemed that I had failed yet another unspoken test of Kerry's.
When I came over to visit Kerry the following day, she said she wanted to get a divorce and to divide our stuff. I was shocked; I was not ready to admit we needed a divorce, but was amenable to division of property. We calmly decided I would get the computer, the encyclopedias, and a few of my old bottles and books; she would get everything else. I would assume our Visa debt, which I thought merely comprised the outstanding payments on the encyclopedias. At our farewell, we hugged, and she said coolly, "If circumstances were different, I would go out with you again." I told her I felt the same about her.
I never knew if our paths were genuinely irreconcilable, or if we were both simply too proud and arrogant to compromise. We were much alike. We were both of Celtic ancestry, we even looked similar! Both eldest children, we were bright, competitive, passionate, unconventional, verbal, artistic, and deeply involved in astrology, mythology, and the subtle realms. As the guides had taught, I was aware by now that love never truly dies. I still loved Kerry deeply; I had failed at my first marriage through excessive pride, and was unwilling to fail again. But I was seven years older, and neither of us enjoyed the paternal qualities our relationship seemed to evoke from me; it still pained me greatly to see how her normal enthusiasm was so dampened and deadened by my very presence. Yet I hoped that in time our attitudes might mellow and meld again.
I flew on to Orcas Island, staying first with John and Vicki in Olga, then with Carol and Jim Hardman on the north shore, then housesitting: first for Tara the crystal lady, and last for Jack Potticary in Dick Tuck's compound, both near Eastsound. What a wonderful community Orcas was! It seemed every weekend was given over to potluck suppers filled with song, laughter, children, and deep spiritual discussion; this beautiful Island abounded with spiritual people having families and living simple and soulful lives; I felt privileged to be among them. I spoke to many of them of my desire to establish a Lunar-Ray Temple here as part of the Global Matrix of 12, and to my surpise many of them seemed aware already of this Temple's subtle presence on the Island; many too were looking forward to lending their skills in its physical construction.
It seemed the Island herself took me deeper and deeper into her confidence. Within a few days of my arrival, I was talking one day with John and Vicki in their living room when I was suddenly overwhelmed by presence of the Angel of Orcas; she embraced me and passionately asked me for help: her Island was being overrun with too much development. John and Vicki looked on compassionately as I suddenly began sobbing with unbearable joy/sorrow; I felt as if I were having an immense orgasm in my nose, which was copiously running. I loved this Angel and wanted to help her, but sadly had to refuse: I couldn't see how I could help other than by becoming a radical environmentalist, and political infighting didn't seem to be my Path. I was deeply grieved; I had seen how Martha's Vineyard had similarly become spiritually depleted by overdevelopment, but saw no solution.
A few days later, I met John and Vicki's friend Valerie, a thirtyish black-haired Irish shaman with piercing blue eyes and several apprentices in tow. She had scented a power spot in John and Vicki's house, and was having her apprentices track it down. While Valerie and I greeted each other downstairs with an instant recognition and delight, her pair of apprentices slowly climbed the stairs to my attic room. There on the floor were arrayed the bones of a small deer skeleton I had found up on the mountain. Their eyes popping comically, they rushed back downstairs! I believe at first they thought I was some sort of black magician; actually I had always been interested in anatomy and skeletons, first as a hopeful doctor-to-be and later as an artist. There was indeed a small power-spot in my room -- I had created it through prayer and meditation -- but it hadn't much to do with those deer bones! While I saw little of Valerie or her apprentices over the next few months, we were eventually to become close friends. Knowing how shamanically inclined she was, I eventually gave her the bone I had found in Cottonwood, together with another very powerful artifact: a black arrowhead my stepfather had given me.
Despite my refusal of the Angel, the Island continued to unfold more and more of her secrets to me; nearly every day my good friends took me to more and more of their favorite spots. In those enchanted woods, groves, waterfalls and fields I saw dwarves, faeries, naiads, unicorns.... Jim Hardman showed me a good many stone circles he had established around the Island to help open Orcas' chakras; one day we set one up together in a clearing on the side of a wooded mountain. We measured the circle by using our bodies as radii, laid the stones, and danced clockwise around them. As we finished and sat down, I thought perhaps I was having a heart attack: far too short of breath, dizzy, heart pounding, tingling all over amid the powerful presence of Something greater than I. As I watched in disbelief, a cloud of brilliant blue sparks of light came spiralling down from the heavens into our circle. Like the softer and larger lights of the Ascension, these seemed to be physical, rather than subtle, but a reality-check never hurts. "Do you see those lights?" I asked Jim. To my surpise, he shook his head No. "But I feel them," he replied softly.
Orcas held a great deal of allure and my friends were wonderful, but I continued to miss my lover deeply, and periodically spoke with her on the phone. She told me that things were not going well with her husband; that he continued to take her for granted and made no attempt to change. He also continued his manipulative tactics and psychic enslavement techniques, though she was more aware of them now and they had less effect on her. Finally around July I asked her to rejoin me, and she did. After a passionately erotic reunion, she relayed a message from her husband: That I would be sorry later that I hadn't given them time to work everything out. While I could see he might have a point -- I was beginning to become more acutely aware of my own flaws of impatience and neediness -- this still sounded a lot like a curse to me, and I automatically negated it. I felt it was my lover's choice, not mine, anyhow. It was bliss to be together again!
Soon afterwards my lover and I decided to return to Fairfield, where we had been keeping up the payments on our apartment. We took Amtrak out of Seattle, and after a long and scenic journey, made yet longer by many mishaps -- including a fatal collision with a cow, replacement of a drunken engineer with a sober one, and repair of a burnt-out brake system -- we pulled into Salt Lake City too late to catch our connection to Mt. Pleasant, Iowa (Fairfield no longer had a passenger station). Amtrak thoughtfully put us up for the night in a nice hotel in Salt Lake City, and I enjoyed exploring this very odd metropolis: the best discovery was the Zion bookstore, where I found a wonderful old one-volume illustrated encyclopedia from the 1830s. We finally pulled into Mt. Pleasant about 36 hours behind schedule, and telephoned our friend Steve, who most kindly came to pick us up and bring us home to Fairfield.
About this time I had finished the 144 Solar Angel cards and a book of 144 pages -- a page of text explaining each card -- and was wondering what the next step would be. I knew these symbols were important, but wasn't sure how to present them to the world. My lover reminded me that people wanted something practical, and I thought, OK, let's try them out. I looked up my own birth card -- it was the red-gold Lion -- and recited its accompanying mantra. Wow! Instant bliss! I looked up my lover's birth card, and gave her the accompanying symbol and mantra. As she tried it out, she too felt an immediate surge of bliss, and instantly an age-old digestive problem cleared up. My guides pointed out that this was a powerful Solar Initiation technique that would align an Initiate with their Divine Solar Angel and Soul-Seal, and that it would clear up deep-seated resistances to one's Divine Dharma or path of Right Action.
We told our friend Don Porter about the technique; he tried his symbol and mantra and found similarly powerful results. Soon Don and I were reciting all the 144 mantras together nearly every day. We noticed that they sent a profound ripple of ecstasy out over Fairfield; when we timed the recitations with the TM siddhis program in the morning, friends in the "golden domes" reported that the general levitation or "flying" was far more lively and exalted than usual. Don had colleagues all over town; we initiated a large group of them in my lover's and my apartment. I saw a Solar Angel merging with each of them at initiation; afterwards most reported wonderful improvements in their lives.
Two of the colleagues we initiated that day were Janet DiGiovanni and her partner Ron Sharp. Afterwards, Ron and Janet asked me what was the highest chakra I had enlivened. "Hmmm..." I said, mentally counting upwards through the subtle anatomies of my Higher Self and His Higher Self. "The 18th," I said. They looked stunned. "But," I added quickly, "it seems more important for me right now to work on refining the lower ones!"
Not long afterwards, Janet and Ron offered a course in Iowa City on clearing one's subtle meridians and aligning them with the stars, and they invited Don and me to attend free. What fun! Janet was very excited by how her discoveries seemed to be foreshadowed in J. J. Hurtak's "The Keys of Enoch", a most interesting book which had been published some ten years earlier. I greatly enjoyed the course, and Janet and I did a lot of "cross-fertilization," comparing and combining our various insights into the meridians and the chakras. Don and I absented ourselves on the penultimate day to perform a Solar Initiation in town, and were surprised to find ourselves angrily chastised by Janet on our return -- they keenly felt our absence; the course was lopsided without us. I was chastened, and flattered. It was true that throughout the course, I had felt my radiant charisma to be immense, and it appeared to have a deeply healing effect on others. I hadn't known that others were aware of this too, but -- "Yes!" said one man to me. "Your light is so intense it's almost blinding!" Wow. It was nice to be appreciated! On the final day, I saw the complete harmonization of Janet's and my systems, and when I excitedly described the mechanics, the whole course seemd caught up as if in a Pentecostal flame.
After the course, Janet, Ron, Don and I talked of working together, but I soon saw that the dynamics were not right. I told Janet and Ron simply that I was going to have to put their "orbits" further from my Inner Sun for a time -- not exiled, I quickly added; just a bit further out. They reacted with some fury, and accused me of being arrogant. I cheerfully agreed. They later asked Don privately how he could stand to work with me, wasn't I impossibly arrogant? Don said, Yes, I was, but he had more fun working with me than with anyone else! We laughed at that. I was sorry I had hurt their feelings, but didn't see what more I could do. I think in some ways I was also clearing some judgements I still held around Maharishi, who was known for abruptly dismissing people from his presence for no given reason. Now I understood him a bit more. "Know by being," as the guides had always said.
Don also had connections all over the continent; a friend of his was visiting from Washington, D.C. and we initiated her as well. She was very excited, and wanted to set up a course for us to teach in Washington. Don, my lover and I decided to form a triad to travel around and teach this material. I remember gathering with them before we went to Washington, and saying, "I have three desires for us: One, that we enlighten a lot of people; two, that we make a lot of money; and three, that we have a lot of fun."
Another friend, an enthusiastic Solar Initiate, painstakingly combined my cards with the printed descriptions from my book, so that we had an integrated "diploma" to give to new Solar Initiates. She also printed brochures with some of the testimonials. We devised a simple Initiation ritual, and went to Washington to give the first of several teaching courses.
Almost on our arrival in Washington, we were unexpectedly whisked away --Don's friend had arranged for us to attend a New-Age gathering hosted by a Colonel in the U.S. Army. The Colonel was well-known for his world-peace meditations, which he held in a "Peace Room" in the Pentagon. Everyone at the gathering introduced themselves and their work; I spoke briefly on the Solar Initiation. The Colonel was an avid dowser, and asked afterwards if he could measure my aura. I consented, and he found it was larger than the room. After some further discussion, he invited us to initiate him tomorrow -- in the Pentagon. We consented. I had never told anyone, but I had always had a secret fantasy of teaching in the Pentagon. I was awestruck by the beneficence of Divinity, to so smoothly arrange a fulfillment of an age-old desire!
When we arrived at the Pentagon, the soldiers at the security gate were somewhat surprised to see the enormous crystals that my briefcase held for the upcoming Solar Initiation. The Colonel told us he would have to postpone our appointment for about half an hour, so we went into the courtyard of the Pentagon and chanted the entire cycle of mantras to bless the atmosphere. Don and I were tickled to note that we stumbled over and had to repeat nearly all of the Mars mantras. The guides had told us that a mispronounced mantra signified environmental negativity, which would be healed when the mantra was repeated correctly. After we finished the complete cycle, I saw several enormous Angels -- they must have been thirty or forty feet tall -- approach and embrace us, thanking us for their healing. Though I was a child of the Vietnam Era, never again would the Pentagon appear evil or twisted to me.
We initiated the Colonel in the Pentagon's theater. Afterwards he asked for and received some advice on clearing a large obstacle in his path, and then gave us a tour of the rest of the Pentagon, including the rather prosaic cafeteria, where we lunched.
That night we held our first introductory lecture, at the house of Don's friend in Maryland. What fun! The response was fantastic. Everyone who attended our introductory lecture signed up for the technique; I belive we were charging $108 at first. Over the next few days we initiated them all. Everyone enjoyed the Initiation, many reported that the symbols held deep personal meaning for them, and everyone reported significant improvements in their lives afterwards, just as the guides had predicted.
I could not help but notice how automatic this whole thing was -- as if I were finally completely immersed in the Divine flow. Indeed, the teaching felt marvelous -- I was radiantly blissful. Now I could enjoy the full divine blessings, the "no-time" blissful consciousness of the guides, with my eyes open and enjoying my own full awareness. I especially enjoyed the group follow-up meetings, with their success stories and the group chanting. Truly, though I never mentioned it, I now felt like Maharishi at his best; indeed several of his long-time devotees, who had enjoyed his personal presence for many years, separately approached me and told me I felt exactly like Maharishi to them.
As we travelled from city to city, though, I noticed a subtle difference between my Initiates and those who practiced Transcendental Meditation: while both groups felt very pure and good, my Initiates felt as if they were my blood relatives: they manifested more warmth; much more immediate presence of Heart. Of course, had I been Maharishi, I'm sure I would have evoked the same Love from the TMers! Nonetheless, there was a subtle "fingerprint" of distinction between the two groups.
Meanwhile, my lover decided that she would really rather skip the tours and wait for me at home. I objected at first; her feminine presence was most helpful, healing and balancing during the Initiations. She grudgingly acquiesced, and went on another tour to Milwaukee with us, but she did not enjoy it. We argued bitterly, and she stayed home for the following tours. From this point on, despite my best efforts, our relationship remained rocky. She was a very old and wise soul, but she still loved going out to parties and dancing all night at roadhouses, returning early in the morning reeking of cigarettes and beer. At first I had been worried and jealous, but over time had learned to release those samskaras and accept her for who she was. Now, we had healed each other as much as we were going to, and she knew it was time to move on.
I resisted this knowledge, but when she asked me to join her at a Hallowe'en party at Quentin Wood's studio, I suddenly saw the outcome and said, "Why should I? You're going to meet your new lover there, and I'll just have to watch." But she insisted; I went with her, and watched as she met and clicked with a half-Welsh, half-Cherokee shaman. A Vietnam vet, he was a good man: a brilliant and powerful healer, albeit somewhat chaotic. When I left the party, they were still talking; they soon became lovers, and she moved out of our apartment in a few days. I felt somewhat angry and betrayed, but saw this was her right path, and mine too: This felt like the completion of the lessons begun with Annie's infidelity, and with divine grace I felt the last of my jealous insecurities being expunged, never to be reawakened. After some prompting by her closest female friend, I gave my lover half the crystals I had bought on our Arkansas journey, as well as the car an old client had given me. They left town heading West for a spiritual/healing commune, and I was alone in our -- my -- apartment.
For awhile, Don and I continued the Solar Initiations. Early that December, we set out to give another course in Washington, D.C., leaving Fairfield in Don's old van at daybreak: perfectly suspended between an immense full moon on the western horizon and the rising sun on the east. I had by now gotten an Iowa driver's permit, and we drove in shifts: though Don did most of the driving, speeding across the West Virginia mountains in a blinding snowstorm to reach Washington the day after we left Iowa. Despite my lover's absence, this Washington tour went as well as the first; word of the Initiations had spread, and we again taught everyone who attended the introductory lecture. Sometime before, my guides had told me that when one-half -- 72 -- of the 144 Solar Angels were anchored through Solar Initiates, we would see a significant step towards world peace, and that when all 144 Solar Angels had been anchored, we would have world peace. We had already initiated far more than 72 people, but many of them shared the same Solar Angels. That tour we anchored the 72nd Solar Angel in Washington, at virtually the moment Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty a few hundred yards away.
During this tour, Don stayed with his friend in Silver Springs. One of our first tour's Initiates, a beautiful blonde twenty-something Aquarian with eyes of the deepest blue I had ever seen, invited me to stay with her family in Washington. Her mother was a real-estate agent, and her father was a Jungian psychologist who had undergone his own kundalini experience many years prior, and who now practiced Mandala therapy with his clients. I greatly enjoyed my stay with this most warm and hospitable family, and delighted in comparing my insights into archetypal color and shape with those of the doctor.
His daughter, too, had done much work on the spiritual path, and delighted in chanting and transcendence through music. While discussing the Solar Initiations and the Canon with her one night, I experienced the most complete kundalini awakening I had ever felt -- every chakra opened into immense power, from bottom to top, until all of them were open simultaneously. When I had first undergone full kundalini a decade prior, in 1977, the chakras had opened and closed in sequence, essentially guiding my consciousness upward until it left the body through the golden lotus at the top of my head. This time the chakras had opened in sequence -- but had then all remained open at once, and I was able to stay within my body, which was now essentially one giant chakra. Gasping a bit in ecstasy, I wondered: why now? I asked my friend: was she experiencing this too? She shook her head No. How odd.
I was deeply intrigued by and attracted to this young Aquarian, but remained chaste and returned to Fairfield a few days later. We did exchange frequent letters, but I was not to see her again until 1990. For the next seven months I lived alone, and was completely celibate. By 1988 I had stopped giving courses, for several reasons: First, I started feeling as if people were merely pawns in my World Plan -- something I had disliked in Maharishi and was most displeased to see in myself. Second, I wasn't sure if the Initiations were truly beneficial, or if people were simply responding to my enthusiasm, like a placebo effect. I knew these Initiations were more powerful than TM, but had my doubts about both techniques. Third, the guides said the Earth had had as much Solar Initiation as it could comfortably tolerate for now.
I shaved my head -- I now seemed to be on the bhakti path of the ecstatic devotee -- and spent a good deal of time in prayer, meditation, and watching TV. I had never lived completely alone before, and watched with interest as my diurnal cycle shifted to about 25 hours -- I would fall asleep an hour later each night, until I was sleeping in the day and awake all night, and then gradually aligned again with the rest of the world. My sleeping pattern also changed -- now instead of sleeping 7 or 8 hours straight, I would sleep twice a day, for about three hours at a time.
I believe Don returned to Canada about this time, and Gene was still out of town. I still saw my friend Steve a lot, as well as my volunteer "secretary," a lovely ex-nun who would type my notes on the Canon and the calendar system. I also spent a lot of time on the phone with Kerry's mother, Nancy -- we enjoyed comparing our various insights and experiences. Once in meditation, I had manifested God in front of me and with shock found that He incandesced with a white-hot passion for me. Another time, I was surrounded by a divine presence of deep Love that was accompanied by a strong scent of roses and jasmine. Yet another time while meditating I suddenly found myself birthing strange deformed creatures -- gnomes, horse-headed folk, and the like -- that looked like products of Arthur Rackham's fantasy. To my surprise, I found I Loved these creatures with all my heart: they might be ugly, but they were my children.
On my long walks around Fairfield, I would often find myself etherically shapeshifting into a dignified, ten-foot-tall dragon of a splendid iridescent red and gold, with wings folded capelike down my back. This felt very real, and I could distinctly feel my feet extruding long talons. Almost always on these walks, I would see the devas of Fairfield's trees and shrubs; we would often exchange bows as I walked past. My mother-in-law Nancy and I would remain on the phone discussing this sort of thing for five or six hours at a time. We were full of plans for hosting a spiritual tour of the Bahamas, but it came to nothing.
Like me, my estranged wife Kerry was now living alone. I would speak to her occasionally on the phone, hoping she would come back to Iowa, but she remained in Seattle. Early in the Spring of 1988, she told me she was finalizing our divorce, and asked me for my half of the fees. I considered it, but refused -- I was not in favor of our divorce, and didn't wish to support it. When I had gotten divorced from Annie, I had desired the divorce; Annie hadn't -- and I had paid all the fees. It seemed only fair that Kerry pay for this one if she wanted it so badly. I asked Kerry's mother what she thought; she diplomatically refused comment.
Faced with Kerry's decision, though, I had no choice but to let go of her, though it was the most painful thing I ever did. My left arm felt suddenly amputated; my entire left side shrieked in agony. And of course, as soon as I let her go, I realized the full extent and depth of my immense unconditional Love for her. How ironic! And yet, how soothing, in a way, to remember that Love never dies.
The divorce papers arrived on Good Friday, and I signed them on Easter Sunday, 1988. Once again I was legally single, poised at the edge of an empty new world. What to do with the rest of my life? I no longer particularly desired to be a Master surrounded by students, nor did I much desire a mate; now I simply wished to be in a loving community of equals, filled with music, magic, color, and laughter. I could clearly see and feel this Renaissance-Fair atmosphere, and I wanted to manifest it.
NEXT: COSMIC ASTRAL: INITIATION I: BIRTH (May 1988 - June 1990)
