{80}

As the sun rises from its long sleep, Marvin awakens with a tingling warmth penetrating his skin.  Halfling (who by daylight is actually about 18 or 1018 years old) shows him a piece of paper the size of her tiny small-fingernail.

On the minute piece of paper, is a little picture of what looks like a green dragon - she places it onto Marvin's tongue.  LSD!  This unexpected turn of events makes Marvin really wake up and take notice.

The van slowly grinds its way, rattling like a tin-can up an arid hill.  As they crest the ascent, the landscape suddenly changes from dry ochre, to lush sub-tropical jungle-forest.  The tumbling van-can gathers momentum and descends into the valley, chugging along beneath a canopy of luscious green leaves.  The sunlight flickers rhythm-strobes through the window.  Not once but thrice, Marvin unleashes a sneeze.

Just as restlessness sets in, the van pulls into the camping ground and spews its contents out into the forest, tumbling Halfling down a soft sensuously-green embankment.  They find that a path winds down the hill and side of the valley;  and into the heart of the forest, where tinkling shenanigans of streams babble out their story for all to hear:

{81}

                falling
                                falling
                we're open and lost
                fresh
                incessant stream
                that endless noise
                for years beyond now

         
                falling ever falling

                we're open and lost
                awake
                incessant stream
                scream at me
                voices in the night
                of fabled forests

                falling never falling

                we're open and lost
                aware
                incessant stream
                speaking with the river
                dead voices crashing echo
                through the early cold awakening.

{82}

Marvin marvels at the way that at each look, the green seems to get greener and greeener.  The sheer greenness of it all being an overwhelming and euphoric sight to behold.  Gasps, , , swells of emotion gather inside;  breath caught up in the heart with the effulgence of green.  In a stumbling awe-struck daze, his feet manage to walk him down deeper into the valley, his whole body, mind and soul under the control of some electro-magneto-psychic field of green forces.  His awareness a passive passenger to the journey.

The path and river meet and cross over at a Waterfall called the Madonna and Child.  Its cascades fall from over an hundred feet, with tall ancient rocks on either side.  The ever changing greenness of the forest gathers around the coolness of this bubbling pool.  A comfortable verdant nest around a sacred shrine of Natural birth.  A warm lush crevice in body of the Earth.

Marvin looks up and notices Wolfgang hanging from some distance up the waterfall by one hand, while Jo stands behind him;  they are both quite high.  With a sudden start Marvin remembers the two golden rules of LSD:

1:          You can't fly.

2:          Don't introspect, or  >look inwards< 

                i.e. stay out front in the world.

To distract himself from their precarious arrangement up on the towering waterfall, Marvin turns his head in a moment of insane vertigo, and goes over to inspect the ground, where he finds an onion plant;  which is promptly uprooted in surprise.  He digs his nail into the onion flesh.  As the green-white-ooze tingles a golden little bite on his fingers, he senses a most peculiar vibrating through the fingertips.  Prying further - he uses both hands to peel away at the onion, layer after golden glowing glistening layer... until, penetrating to its core, he destroys it completely, and flings the remaining pieces in all directions.

Marvin's hands and arms begin to burn with onion juice;  biting into his skin until he screams out; “Help  I'm being eaten by onions!” more in surprise than in agony.  Nekos rescues him by plunging his arms into the water to wash them.  But somehow for what seems to Marvin like a very long time, the tingling gets sharper, like thousands of tiny fragments of glass penetrating his skin.  Then it subsides.

{83}

Gaze into the falling water;  falling, falling, then crashing as it hits the bottom;  and now gently flowing past his fingers, and the rock beneath them.  The maroon moss suddenly moves  -  it breathes  -  pulsing alive with a golden tingling touch... and then the pulse seems to echo through the rock;  which lives so conclusively, beating and throbbing beneath his frail figment of form.  For a moment Marvin is lost in the eternity of rock...

How long is a moment in eternity? 

Marvin looks at the waterfall as the river flows through him, the feeling of lostness intensifies in a timeless cascade.  He becomes enthralled by the fact that each drop of water plunges for only a few moments, yet the waterfall itself remains constant for centuries, if not millennia.  The rocks are so ancient, and yet his life is barely noticed by them;  a mere scampering human who imperceptibly blinks past them in one micro-instant of an existence.  Marvin's

perception of time seems to stretch and flex uncontrollably.  His very sense of self, becoming likewise warped through time.

{84}

                And space....

{85}

Predator. Tiger on all fours.... pacing over the rock;  quickly, intently.  He sees Wolfgang who now sits with his back towards him, and so Tiger begins to stalk.  Tiger notices that Wolfgang is quite plump and will make a good meal, his teeth tingle at the smell of flesh.  And the oddest sensation:   the sense of sight is profoundly different... where movements can now be traced more easily, and the internal visual picture of the world can now see many more different movements at one time.   The entire arc of vision is wide enough to observe half the forest at one glance.  He is able to somehow focus clearly in many places at the same time... and the body becomes so aware as to be constantly alert... skin prickling... ready for any sudden movement.  He lopes forward with true feline vanity.  Majestic.  Beautiful.  Perceptive.

{86}

Insatiable life.  The Earth is soft beneath my caressing paws, as I pad-pad-pad beneath the shadows of bright-wet leaves.  Eyes flicking from side to side to side at every bird-flit or leaf-tinkle - watching for a movement that is more substantial. 

Aromas of fresh growth, afterbirth; blood-of-a-monkey-feast. . . Gunpowder!  Stop.  Ears flatten, and legs crouch lower to the ground.  Listen for man-chatter, or any other banter.  The man-smells are manifold - the gunpowder is old, but there is a newer human smell - different to the usual sweet and sweaty stench of man-flesh.

Clattering a little way off, pricks up my furry orange ears - and pads are quickly in pursuit of this newest game.  What strange smell?  Yes - certainly human, but so clean... Hmmm, tantalising unknown tremors on the tips of my teeth infuriating me, tingling my desires, promising the taste of dreams;  delicious as the sound of screams.

Aah there it is - towards that shaft of light that illuminates the drinking pool.  The Earth is indeed generous when she delivers her meals at a jungle pool.  Allowing for a good drink or even a swim afterwards.  Brushing against the bark of a tree, running the ribs smooth - sensuous just for me.  Hmm, and there she is, purest purrs of furious furs, just for free. 

What a sacred pleasure this beast is, her young brown skin, almost naked from fur.  Just a smooth neat wrapping, presented in the softest shredible skin.  The earth has offered its most edible meal, which is sooo delightfully naked.  And those young limbs, well-fed and plumpish with such thin bones that soon will easily crumple, like dead leaves.

Yet look how well she moves.  Each pace is perfect placed, easy graced.  Aah, such a kill this will be, and she will squeal when my soft nibbles burst her fleshy bubble, and the warmth of her thick blood fills my throat.  Aaah such treat, such pleasure sweet.  My tongue will swallow her fear, her spirit, her girlish glee.  It almost seems to be a pity, but never was such a meal, ever quite as pretty!.

{87}

Up the side of the waterfall, Marvin sees Nekos and wanders over to him... he is writing something on a piece of paper. . . Marvin is perplexed because he can't read it, nor is he able to speak, he just makes meaningless sounds.  Its an odd feeling to realise the sense in not making sense, and continuing to do so all the same. . .  then a brief moment of hysterical laughing somewhere, and suddenly a peculiar popping sensation, like when descending in altitude or pressure, where one's ears and mouth equalise with that feeling :  pop

Marvin can sense a peculiar >chime< coming from somewhere off the path.  It seems to be calling a tune that sounds vaguely like words, vaguely  like a name;  but it rings with the sound of tiny bells from within his spine.

Listening beyond the sound, almost as if he has earphones plugged directly into his nervous system.  Marvin hears the rhythm of another being resonating through his core;  and it is summoning him;  beckoning, and taking him.

Marvin looks to Nekos, and it feels like he can hear him thinking.  It feels like ESP ? ! ? - Marvin is stunned by the clarity, and also the intensity of the communication. . . unlike talking with idea -words, its more like their minds leak into each other uncontrollably.  He feels an intense moment of discovery that people are not locked into their bodies in the manner he had previously believed.

{88}

Marvin slips inside himself, and falls out, into some else-where-ness.  Some other awareness, elseness, weariness.

{89}

Astonished!  Marvin is a young girl naked by a pond;

feminine, young and beautiful. . . 

But oddly he can see the back of himself, with the sense of vision of a stalking Tiger. . .

{90}

Impaled upon his own insignificance, he retreats off the rock, down to the depths of the mud below, watching the river of time past flow.  The water seems not to be falling really, more like clawing its way downward;  pulling at the rocks, fighting to the bottom to join the icy glitter of the pool.  With a sudden explosion, billions of brilliant lights of water splash his face. . . something slippery slimes between his fingers... brightly illuminated, brownly beautiful;  mud-in-a-muddle-puddle.  The ooze pulses in his hand, breathing its life energy, tingling the fingertips, so that they feel as though they may burst with some weird cold flame.  It feels as though his very being is slowly melting away - plunging inwards through the mud, below the bottom of his world, and the bottom of his mind.  And something clicks together, and he realises that he is

about to undergo, some sort of transformation, and utters “If I am going to do this, then I'm going to do it properly”, as he strips his clothes off, and prepares to enter into the icy waters of the wintry flashing pool.  Having not had a swim for many years.

And then an intense all-consuming fear passes over him, and Wolfgang takes the shape of the devil, with a wry wicked grin, and goatee-bearded menace.  Marvin freezes in an obliterating fear, that he had never before felt.  All at once his mind conspires him to believe that everyone around him is about to catch him and kill or castrate him!  He tries to flee in a wild senseless panic,  then feels suddenly trapped. . . as an enormous shadowless white-winged form settles over him.  Its immense unimaginable power, beauty, intellect and compassion, surround him as his struggles weaken.  He succumbs.

{91}

In an explosive blast, voices loud and clear burst through his mind, too quick or too intense to be understood because they're not words at all, but more like images, ideas, thoughts, or even bits of consciousness.  Flashing past him like a torrent or fountain in all their horror and splendour.  All his hells and realities, figments, fragments and masks;  deceits, lies and guilt washing up over his scattered and decentered unfocussed awareness.

Rocks breathe beneath his naked feet, and the forest alights around him;  each bush or tree, or even leaf, has its own inner light, its own living soul;  each leaf  >giggles<  with warm anticipation at every move made, seemingly transfixed by his movements, as though they are watching a fireworks display.  And it feels as though the top of his head has become nakedly open, and the layers of his selfhood begin to be stripped away;  before the almighty embrace of the ancient, and wise rocks and stone, and living leaves;  and the momentary flickers of drops of water tumbling down the waterfall.

He is taken through a kaleidoscope of life, though somehow not even realising the majority of it.  Yet the trees happily consume all which he does not, detecting the flashing display of etheric fractals emanating from the core of Marvin's being.  He becomes shakingly aware of a Divine presence within.  It feels like a mighty half-seen Angelic force above and behind his mind;  a warm life force surrounding him;  Saintly and soulful, helping him as he faces himself

in all his naked truth.  Answering the endless questions that rattle through his head, answering their confusion with perfect clarity. 

Often, the Angel gives answers before the question is properly formed in his mind.  Often giving answers to questions that follow on from questions that haven't even been asked yet, long before they even begin to vaguely take the form of words.

The Angel imbibed the knowledge into his mind at such a rate that he could not quite see even most of it completely, but catching large glimpses of truth that emanated inside him, available to ponder and explore even long after the ACID left his system.  This truth was not in words, but rather in idea-forms, or images.

It was as if the knowledge was always  >within<  him, but now it flooded his mind-vision with such a force that overwhelmed his ability to understand it, making him feel quite ashamed of his ignorance.  Yet still this ignorance was being lifted in a swarm and flurry of awakening.  And now he could gaze at truth;  although always with a sense of trepidation;  and watch its precious bejewelled substance wash over the strands of his mind.

And more shame or pain filled him as he saw himself, fists raised above;  pounding, again, again, feeling his face mush and squish beneath his fist;  then suddenly the pain is in Marvin, more potent, and with it comes the mocking laughter that sinks its talons of humiliation in to the spirit, hard and callous as the face is pounded.  And the lesson of the futility of war relearned again, yet it is now magnified to the pointlessness of eternity, for ultimately, if one fights, it is only oneself who one defeats.

Then Marvin notices Jo, and it is as though behind her body is an enlarged reflection of her inner core;  as there is behind him - and as he looks around, each of the others also has enormous reflections behind them, guiding their movements - reflecting their vibrations - sensations, essences. . . and the back of his mind talks to the back of Jo's mind even though both merely look at each other.  He feels the inside of her mind with an inner ear;  it feels as though they interact behind the face.

Their two personalities, the Butterfly and the Dragon dance a cosmic conversation that resolves and revolves around an existence so beyond this lifetime that they are as long lost friends delighting in the changes that a few aeons might have made on the Spirit of any particular Soul.

The rocks and trees and brightly lit plants saw much more of him than he himself could.  Awareness.  All thoughts are not as private as we like to believe.  They are real.  And all our thoughts mingle and interact with each other, though we may be completely unaware of this happening, as most of us have our etheric eye closed.  And so remain locked within our own inner chrysalis.

{92}

Laughing wafts softly, playing in and out of the sunbeams that stretch and straighten the warm sunshine.  Marvin awakens in a young boy's body, about ten years old, and he feels that he is amongst his tribe who are adorned in simple grass skirts, or loincloths.  All around, the warm green jungle glitters in the sunlight.  And then he realises that they're laughing at him, and he sees Wolfgang, who is the Chief / Patriarch of the tribe laughing loudest.  Marvin realises he is lying on a woman's lap who feels like his 'mother', (though not his real mother), and he feels her sense his tenseness, and she says “don't worry it was just a dream”, and she pats his head. ..

{93}

Now he is an adult, again in a jungle scene, but can see the others who are also tripping as if they're far away.  Yet, there is some slightly visible barrier separating them.  They are wearing what looks like strange clothing, that clings to their bodies. . . strange for him, for he is used to wearing a loincloth, and not jeans and T-shirts like them.

Marvin is consumed completely by the greenest part of the greenness.

And they are aliens, and He is the Soul at the centre of the Earth.  The Entire Earth in all its purity, and they are the invaders, the bringers of conflict, war, pollution.  And so the Angel asks if he has got anything to say to the aliens.  And so he says to them  “Get the fuck off my planet!” in a calm detached sort of way.  He feels as though he is the only living entity on the planet, besides the conflict / evil / city / stench / pollution. 

It seems though, that he is one of many planets, just a local little rock in the Galactic neighbourhood.  And that all planets only have one real inhabitant;  or

that is the way it used to be, because for now he feels invaded, and alienated from parts of himself.  As the shadows that hang on the world, still hang upon him... heavily as a thick and over-humid sullen atmosphere.

{94}

Alighted yet uncomfortably on edge.  He is back at the waterfall, and Nekos and Jo take the form of two parental figures, though Nekos is rather friendly and goatee-looking, and Jo looks immortally enthralling, as she dances her hands in choreographed synchronicity.  Wolfgang is still the Devil so Marvin avoids him;  then Halfling offers him potato crisps.  He eagerly plunges his hand in the packet, but is repulsed by the greed within him, as his hand still grabs a hand full.  So he leaves the chips.  He feels clumsy and unrefined, yet is aware that each time he feels this way he is learning to refine himself, his thoughts, intentions and attitudes to all things.  He ponders that it would be a perfectly enjoyable thing to do, to go off and leave this life behind, and live naked in the natural forest for the rest of his natural life.

{95}

Somehow, later, he manages to acquire his clothes, but doesn't remember how he got them on again.  He is with the Rastaman, and everything seems quite stable and normal, then suddenly a dark force sweeps over him and he is immersed in an icy sea of shame, as GUILT entendrils his life's essence.  The full force of many bad karmic events cut through his inner wirings to his core.  Then a feeling of desolate despair and clinical doubt, as the Sun sets in what seems like a few seconds. . . Nekos turns to go and so does Wolfgang, as the darkness engulfs him.  The final moments of his life drain from him, and he lies down to die.

{96}

A giggle at the thought of death complete; utter annihilation.  What an impossible concept.  Its like saying “I am dead”.  How can it be true if I am saying it?

“What now?” Marvin asks the Angel.  It answers that he can forget the whole thing happened, write it off as a bad trip and carry on with his life the way it has been.  Or he can choose.  Choose to believe, and make a difference to himself and to the world.  The choice is handed to him as simple as the difference between up and down.  It would be ridiculous to ignore the feelings within. 

Where he had lay down defeated, he now stood up with purpose.  He observed Karma, something he had previously denied, living in a world of survival of the body only, so morality had not mattered, only survival counted.  Now that immortality lay bursting from his insides, all the backlash of suppressed destruction had to be reckoned with;  destruction which he had caused in a futile bid to survive as a body.  Now that the fear of bodily death had been conquered, he faced his shadow;  the dark side of the self, which can never be conquered because it lives only in the past;  but one can find peace with one's shadow, and see it for what it is:  a shadow, something which is behind you, if you face the Sun.

And the larger portion of the burden of guilt / fear / shame, seemed to be suddenly surgically or spiritually removed by the Angel.  An odd sensation like a tick of the mind had been pulled off his being, in the form of doubt and materialist death dogma, and all its attached residue of pain, horror, persecution and spiritual decay.  It felt as though a dead part was cut a way, and all doubt as to the immortality of his perfect soul was lifted with it.

He could feel a type of Knowledge within which was perfect.  He could not doubt this for it stared back straight in the faceless core of his being with all the honesty of the Divine, shaming him at every second turn.  It felt as though he briefly glimpsed God.  And the knowledge gained was that our human souls being immortal and transcendent, are originally born in a pre-temporal reality, and we are therefore strangers everywhen.  Earth is not our home, but we are welcome guests here, as long as we look after the place.  Because we are strangers we are not completely at home anywhere either, in exchange for this we are immortal as far as this particular Universe is concerned.

The Angel sang to him a mind-to-mind psyche-song, singing how likely it is that we may suffer from celestial parasites, half-formed bits of semi-consciousness that feed off us, and make us forget what we are, and fight wars, and cause misery to ourselves and one another. 

For this we are to use natural herbs to cleanse us;  and especially the seven leafed herb of peace and knowledge.  And the more powerful psychic activators are to be used by the more brave and capable amongst us to perceive the hidden workings that lie within the conscious fabric of the world.

Marvin was then urged to undertake a mission to repair metaphysical rips in the threads of reality, that cause fear, uncertainty and war;  the semi-conscious half-forms of the shades that prevent the soul from attaining to the joy and glory it is due.  But real truth is still beyond all these, for it is always in the direction where one least wants to look.

And the Angelic Being imparted the meaning of evil:

All life is full of joy, only the most noble of Angels can remain Angels in the pits of hell, but pain and torment are only faults in us by virtue of our incapacity to see past them.  No pain is as real as we make it out to be.  Even the most persecuted, still have the choice to have a soulful inner chuckle at the mindlessness of those that torment them.  Which is worse?  To be the victim or the persecutor?

If one is the victim, then be glad to know that one can teach the tormentor dignity by not showing fear, and giving them the word or the look or the prayer of truth.  For evil was put in the world for us to pursue and conquer;  it gives us our moral and spiritual momentum.  Yet be aware, for a spiritual war is not a war of blood, except the blood that bleeds from your soul.  Have faith and know that you are right.

And if one is the persecutor, then one has gained as well;  for by facing our fault openly, we will always be able to learn what is then right in the light of the darkness;  as long as one wants to.

This is the fruit of the tree of knowledge:  That good is good, and evil inspires good to be better.  Whatever harm befalls you, look to it again with new laughter, the child's laughter within you, and you will see why evil has befallen you;  and what lessons it will teach you, and be ready not to fall into it again.  Use it to grow.  This is the power of learning - the meaning of evil.  Without it we could not transcend and cast our past away;  without it we would stagnate;  without it we would not be the Creators that we are becoming.  Evil burns within us, it lures us and taunts us, and we chase it with ever increasing magnificence;  we are its prey, and it is our passion.  Only once we see this;  will

it cease to be our master.  Yet then again, we will still chase it, for what else can we do?

“Wait” shouted Marvin as he ran after Nekos and Wolfgang, the feeling emanating from his footsteps, how his life must change to dance the etheric dance of impossible virtue.  Life would change, the past would always be the past, but somehow he could now be free of it, for he looked to the future.  He walked now beneath a different set of rules;  good and bad seemed easier to know.  Accepting the power of the intuitive mind as equal to the rational.  In this way the good / bad distinction disappeared, and he was instead left with the concepts of good and better.

This felt like new laughter;  perfect laughter;  the sound of Angels that reside forever within.  These Ancient stone voices, bare witness to the eternal immortality of his soul.  Death will be as the blink of an eye between beautiful sights.  And life born with these gifts:

                Patience:  a moment in all of eternity.

                Laughter:  eternity in all of a moment.

As dawn edged its golden green way through the trees, the world seemed normal;  and so he tramped into the forest to seek his shoes, for although he did not really need them, (feeling a new sense of non-attachment to things) what else could he really do but go and find them.  Yet to find two shoes in an enormous forest could take most of the morning;  if they could be found at all.  He felt a tinge of despair, but then a moment later felt the new laughter, and decided to enthral himself in the search with thorough delight.  Another moment, and he looked up, and there immediately lay one shoe.  Strangely and joyfully he walked on and found nothing, then for a moment thought 'what if it is lost?', and then he remembered the sound of the Angel laughing and this echoed to become an amusing thought of having only one shoe;  he then looked to his right, suddenly, there was the other shoe, lying innocently before him.

Then he heard a sound, and looked to where the others were, and they pointed to a large brown cow.  'Come and look' they called.  But he was filled with shame and could not approach the cow, because he would be afraid to look into its eye, as the claustrophobia of the cattle-truck and the horror of the abattoir

filled his thoughts.  And so instead of letting the emotion override him, he breathed easier and decided never to again eat the creature that had nurtured

him by giving to him its mothers milk from its maternal breast, as if he were its very own Offspring.

The Sun seemed to shine warm for the first time in a long time.

Marvin became suddenly aware of the fact that despite all his previous beliefs, that the change brought about in him was not because of something in the LSD, though it somehow played the role of a catalyst.  He knew that he did not need the LSD again to experience any of the truth which he had just experienced.  Another oddly paradoxical feeling, but considering what had just happened, paradox was beginning to look like the natural order of things.

The feelings of guilt at having his own sin and ignorance revealed to him, still ached at his heart.  Even though he had never killed any warm blooded creature, not even a rat or bird;  just having been a meat-eater was enough to feel pangs of pain throughout his insides.

How must it be for murderer or rapist or child-abuser to undergo such an experience?  No wonder so many hate-filled people despise psycho-active substances.  Much as ugly people hate mirrors.  And foolish people despise authentic philosophy and authentic learning.  The closed minded people who condemn psychotropical substances, are those most desperately in need of them.