Month: April 2007

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Dealt with taxes all day Sunday… what a mess. Now I know why I paid someone to do taxes for years…. yikes!
In praise of the day. A large feast so to speak, in honour of Albert’s first experience…. I hope you enjoy the entry, and your day!
Gwyllm
On The Menu:

April 16, 1943: Setting the Stage for the World’s First Acid Trip

The Tryp with Rak Razam!

The Links

Anoushka Shankar – Concert for George

Albert Hoffman Quotes

Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) on LSD

Extract: The Joyous Cosmology

In Praise of Poesy: Allen Ginsberg

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Dr Albert Hoffman had the first LSD trip on this day in 1943.
April 16, 1943: Setting the Stage for the World’s First Acid Trip
1943: Dr. Albert Hofmann accidentally discovers the psychedelic properties of LSD.
Hofmann, a Swiss chemist, was researching the synthesis of a lysergic acid compound, LSD-25, when he inadvertently absorbed a bit through his fingertips. Intrigued by the stimulating effects on his perception, Hofmann decided further exploration was warranted. Three days later he ingested 250 milligrams of LSD, embarking on the first full-fledged acid trip.
In his autobiography, LSD, My Problem Child, Hofmann remembered his discovery this way:
“I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.”
The experience led Hofmann to begin experimenting with other hallucinogens and he became an advocate of their use, in both the arenas of psychoanalysis and personal growth. He was critical of LSD’s casual use by the counterculture during the ’60s, accusing rank amateurs of hijacking the drug he still refers to as “medicine for the soul” without understanding either its positive or negative effects.
Hofmann was equally critical of what he considered — and still considers — society’s knee-jerk rejection of a drug that he believes is mostly beneficial and deserving of continued research. “I think that in human evolution it has never been as necessary to have this substance LSD,” he said at a symposium in 2006, marking the centennial of his birth. “It is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be.”

—–

Check Out Our Compatriots Magazine In OZ: Take The Tryp with Rak Razam!

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On This Day: Shortly before sunset in 1651, two English country women saw, in the sky, a battle followed by angels of ‘a bluish colour and about the bigness of a capon, having faces (as they thought) like owls.’ Ninety years earlier, on 14 April, a large number of ‘plates’, ‘blood-coloured crosses’, and ‘two great tubes’ stages an aerial dog-fight, enthralling and frightening the whole population of Nuremberg.

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The Links:

Britain’s fight against drugs ‘a total failure’

Indonesia called biggest ecstasy producer

The Great Tennessee Marijuana Cave

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Anoushka Shankar – Concert for George (2003)

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Albert Hoffman Quotes:

Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and related hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, entails dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must take into account the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their ability to influence our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. The history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure drug. Special internal and external advance preparations are required; with them, an LSD experiment can become a meaningful experience.

-AH

I believe that if people would learn to use LSD’s vision-inducing capability more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjunction with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonderchild.

-AH

I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new conciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate nature and all of creation.

-AH

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Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) on LSD

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The first text I ever read on LSD was Watt’s ‘The Joyous Cosmology’.. it profoundly shaped how I thought about and approached LSD in my early forays. Here is a small extract of it, in honor of this day!

-Gwyllm
Extract: The Joyous Cosmology

Alan W. Watts
To begin with, this world has a different kind of time. It is the time of biological rhythm, not of the clock and all that goes with the clock. There is no hurry. Our sense of time is notoriously subjective and thus dependent upon the quality of our attention, whether of interest or boredom, and upon the alignment of our behavior in terms of routines, goals, and deadlines. Here the present is self-sufficient, but it is not a static present. It is a dancing present—the unfolding of a pattern which has no specific destination in the future but is simply its own point. It leaves and arrives simultaneously, and the seed is as much the goal as the flower. There is therefore time to perceive every detail of the movement with infinitely greater richness of articulation. Normally we do not so much look at things as overlook them. The eye sees types and classes—flower, leaf, rock, bird, fire—mental pictures of things rather than things, rough outlines filled with flat color, always a little dusty and dim.
But here the depth of light and structure in a bursting bud go on forever. There is time to see them, time for the whole intricacy of veins and capillaries to develop in consciousness, time to see down and down into the shape of greenness, which is not green at all, but a whole spectrum generalizing itself as green—purple, gold, the sunlit turquoise of the ocean, the intense luminescence of the emerald. I cannot decide where shape ends and color begins. The bud has opened and the fresh leaves fan out and curve back with a gesture which is unmistakably communicative but does not say anything except, “Thus!” And somehow that is quite satisfactory, even startlingly clear. The meaning is transparent in the same way that the color and the texture are transparent, with light which does not seem to fall upon surfaces from above but to be right inside the structure and color. Which is of course where it is, for light is an inseparable trinity of sun, object, and eye, and the chemistry of the leaf is its color, its light.

But at the same time color and light are the gift of the eye to the leaf and the sun. Transparency is the property of the eyeball, projected outward as luminous space, interpreting quanta of energy in terms of the gelatinous fibers in the head. I begin to feel that the world is at once inside my head and outside it, and the two, inside and outside, begin to include or “cap” one another like an infinite series of concentric spheres. I am unusually aware that everything I am sensing is also my body—that light, color, shape, sound, and texture are terms and properties of the brain conferred upon the outside world. I am not looking at the world, not confronting it; I am knowing it by a continuous process of transforming it into myself, so that everything around me, the whole globe of space, no longer feels away from me but in the middle.
This is at first confusing. I am not quite sure of the direction from which sounds come. The visual space seems to reverberate with them as if it were a drum. The surrounding hills rumble with the sound of a truck, and the rumble and the color-shape of the hills become one and the same gesture. I use that word deliberately and shall use it again. The hills are moving into their stillness. They mean something because they are being transformed into my brain, and my brain is an organ of meaning. The forests of redwood trees upon them look like green fire, and the copper gold of the sun-dried grass heaves immensely into the sky. Time is so slow as to be a kind of eternity, and the flavor of eternity transfers itself to the hills—burnished mountains which I seem to remember from an immeasurably distant past, at once so unfamiliar as to be exotic and yet as familiar as my own hand. Thus transformed into consciousness, into the electric, interior luminosity of the nerves, the world seems vaguely insubstantial—developed upon a color film, resounding upon the skin of a drum, pressing, not with weight, but with vibrations interpreted as weight. Solidity is a neurological invention, and, I wonder, can the nerves be solid to themselves? Where do we begin? Does the order of the brain create the order of the world, or the order of the world the brain? The two seem like egg and hen, or like back and front.
The physical world is vibration, quanta, but vibrations of what? To the eye, form and color; to the ear, sound; to the nose, scent; to the fingers, touch. But these are all different languages for the same thing, different qualities of sensitivity, different dimensions of consciousness. The question, “Of what are they differing forms?” seems to have no meaning. What is light to the eye is sound to the ear. I have the image of the senses being terms, forms, or dimensions not of one thing common to all, but of each other, locked in a circle of mutuality. Closely examined, shape becomes color, which becomes vibration, which becomes sound, which becomes smell, which becomes taste, and then touch, and then again shape. (One can see, for example, that the shape of a leaf is its color. There is no outline around the leaf; the outline is the limit where one colored surface becomes another.) I see all these sensory dimensions as a round dance, gesticulations of one pattern being transformed into gesticulations of another. And these gesticulations are flowing through a space that has still other dimensions, which I want to describe as tones of emotional color, of light or sound being joyous or fearful, gold elated or lead depressed. These, too, form a circle of reciprocity, a round spectrum so polarized that we can only describe each in terms of the others.
Sometimes the image of the physical world is not so much a dance of gestures as a woven texture. Light, sound, touch, taste, and smell become a continuous warp, with the feeling that the whole dimension of sensation is a single continuum or field. Crossing the warp is a woof representing the dimension of meaning—moral and aesthetic values, personal or individual uniqueness, logical significance, and expressive form—and the two dimensions interpenetrate so as to make distinguishable shapes seem like ripples in the water of sensation. The warp and the woof stream together, for the weaving is neither flat nor static but a many-directioned cross-flow of impulses filling the whole volume of space. I feel that the world is on something in somewhat the same way that a color photograph is on a film, underlying and connecting the patches of color, though the film here is a dense rain of energy. I see that what it is on is my brain—”that enchanted loom,” as Sherrington called it. Brain and world, warp of sense and woof of meaning, seem to interpenetrate inseparably. They hold their boundaries or limits in common in such a way as to define one another and to be impossible without each other.

—–

I am listening to the music of an organ. As leaves seemed to gesture, the organ seems quite literally to speak. There is no use of the vox humana stop, but every sound seems to issue from a vast human throat, moist with saliva. As, with the base pedals, the player moves slowly down the scale, the sounds seem to blow forth in immense, gooey spludges. As I listen more carefully, the spludges acquire texture—expanding circles of vibration finely and evenly toothed like combs, no longer moist and liquidinous like the living throat, but mechanically discontinuous. The sound disintegrates into the innumerable individual drrrits of vibration. Listening on, the gaps close, or perhaps each individual drrrit becomes in its turn a spludge. The liquid and the hard, the continuous and the discontinuous, the gooey and the prickly, seem to be transformations of each other, or to be different levels of magnification upon the same thing.
This theme recurs in a hundred different ways—the inseparable polarity of opposites, or the mutuality and reciprocity of all the possible contents of consciousness. It is easy to see theoretically that all perception is of contrasts—figure and ground, light and shadow, clear and vague, firm and weak. But normal attention seems to have difficulty in taking in both at once. Both sensuously and conceptually we seem to move serially from one to the other; we do not seem to be able to attend to the figure without relative unconsciousness of the ground. But in this new world the mutuality of things is quite clear at every level. The human face, for example, becomes clear in all its aspects—the total form together with each single hair and wrinkle. Faces become all ages at once, for characteristics that suggest age also suggest youth by implication; the bony structure suggesting the skull evokes instantly the newborn infant. The associative couplings of the brain seem to fire simultaneously instead of one at a time, projecting a view of life which may be terrifying in its ambiguity or joyous in its integrity.
Decision can be completely paralyzed by the sudden realization that there is no way of having good without evil, or that it is impossible to act upon reliable authority without choosing, from your own inexperience, to do so. If sanity implies madness and faith doubt, am I basically a psychotic pretending to be sane, a blithering terrified idiot who manages, temporarily, to put on an act of being self-possessed? I begin to see my whole life as a masterpiece of duplicity—the confused, helpless, hungry, and hideously sensitive little embryo at the root of me having learned, step by step, to comply, placate, bully, wheedle, flatter, bluff, and cheat my way into being taken for a person of competence and reliability. For when it really comes down to it, what do any of us know?

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In Praise of Poesy: Allen Ginsberg

First Party At Ken Kesey’s With Hell’s Angels
Cool black night thru redwoods

cars parked outside in shade

behind the gate, stars dim above

the ravine, a fire burning by the side

porch and a few tired souls hunched over

in black leather jackets. In the huge

wooden house, a yellow chandelier

at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers

hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles

Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths

dancing to the vibration thru the floor,

a little weed in the bathroom, girls in scarlet

tights, one muscular smooth skinned man

sweating dancing for hours, beer cans

bent littering the yard, a hanged man

sculpture dangling from a high creek branch,

children sleeping softly in their bedroom bunks.

And 4 police cars parked outside the painted

gate, red lights revolving in the leaves.
December 1965

—
Haiku (Never Published)
Drinking my tea

Without sugar-

No difference.

The sparrow shits

upside down

–ah! my brain & eggs

Mayan head in a

Pacific driftwood bole

–Someday I’ll live in N.Y.

Looking over my shoulder

my behind was covered

with cherry blossoms.

Winter Haiku

I didn’t know the names

of the flowers–now

my garden is gone.

I slapped the mosquito

and missed.

What made me do that?

Reading haiku

I am unhappy,

longing for the Nameless.

A frog floating

in the drugstore jar:

summer rain on grey pavements.

(after Shiki)

On the porch

in my shorts;

auto lights in the rain.

Another year

has past-the world

is no different.

The first thing I looked for

in my old garden was

The Cherry Tree.

My old desk:

the first thing I looked for

in my house.

My early journal:

the first thing I found

in my old desk.

My mother’s ghost:

the first thing I found

in the living room.

I quit shaving

but the eyes that glanced at me

remained in the mirror.

The madman

emerges from the movies:

the street at lunchtime.

Cities of boys

are in their graves,

and in this town…

Lying on my side

in the void:

the breath in my nose.

On the fifteenth floor

the dog chews a bone-

Screech of taxicabs.

A hardon in New York,

a boy

in San Fransisco.

The moon over the roof,

worms in the garden.

I rent this house.

[Haiku composed in the backyard cottage at 1624

Milvia Street, Berkeley 1955, while reading R.H.

Blyth’s 4 volumes, “Haiku.”]

—

An Asphodel
O dear sweet rosy

unattainable desire

…how sad, no way

to change the mad

cultivated asphodel, the

visible reality…
and skin’s appalling

petals–how inspired

to be so Iying in the living

room drunk naked

and dreaming, in the absence

of electricity…

over and over eating the low root

of the asphodel,

gray fate…
rolling in generation

on the flowery couch

as on a bank in Arden–

my only rose tonite’s the treat

of my own nudity.
Fall, 1953

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Sun/Tax day… perking up with a cuppa, to do the dirty deed. Why is it that 50% of all our taxes go to weapons and destruction and the other 50% seems to go to welfare for corporations? Notice I said seems.
About to embark on the tax thingy. Maybe in the best of worlds, I would be able to choose where my hard earned monies go? Hmmmmmm?
Tom & Cheryl Charlesworth visited for a bit on Saturday night (flying up from Sedona for Barista classes), they are opening up an Italian desert thingie in Sedona Arizona with their friend Pam who was along as well. Nice evening.
I hope this finds you well and happy. Sunny here in P-town. Check out Radio Free EarthRites… Playing some great stuff today!
Blessings,
Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

America On Parade Links:

Peters’ Picks: Nostalgia: the orb – little fluffy clouds

Two Koans

Poetry: Joaquin Miller

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Americana On Parade Links:

Outsourced prayer lines confuse callers

Disturbing on so many levels…

FDA: ‘Cocaine’ drink marketed unlawfully

Is the Solar Field religious?

Lonesome Highway to Another World?

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Peters’ Picks: Nostalgia: the orb – little fluffy clouds
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Big Sur River…

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Two Koans:

No Water, No Moon
When the nun Chiyono studied Zen under Bukko of Engaku she was unable to attain the fruits of meditation for a long time.
At last one moonlit night she was carrying water in an old pail bound with bamboo. The bamboo broke and the bottom fell out of the pail, and at that moment Chiyono was set free!
In commemoration, she wrote a poem:
In this way and that I tried to save the old pail

Since the bamboo strip was weakening and about

to break

Until at last the bottom fell out.

No more water in the pail!

No more moon in the water!

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Real Prosperity
A rich man asked Sengai to write something for the continued prosperity of his family so that it might be treasured from generation to generation.
Sengai obtained a large sheet of paper and wrote: “Father dies, son dies, grandson dies.”
The rich man became angry. “I asked you to write something for the happiness of my family! Why do you make such a joke as this?”
“No joke is intended,” explained Sengai. “If before you yourself die you son should die, this would grieve you greatly. If your grandson should pass away before your son, both of you would be broken-hearted. If your family, generation after generation, passes away in the order I have named, it will be the natural course of life. I call this real prosperity.”

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Poetry: Joaquin Miller (1841-1913)

Midnight Pencillings
I am sitting alone in the moonlight,

In the moonlight soft and clear,

And a thousand thoughts steal o’er me,

While penciling, sitting here;

And the cricket is chirping, a chirping

And sings as I sit alone,

In the tall willow grass around me,

In a low and plaintive tone.
But fancy goes flitting and flying,

And I cannot keep it here,

Though the crickets are singing so plaintive,

And the moon shines never so clear.

Away in the hazy future—

Afar by the foaming sea

I am painting a cot in my fancy—

A cottage, and “Minnie” and me.
Now fancy grows dim in the distance—

So dim in the long since past,

That I scarce can take the fair picture

Of the playmates I spotted with last.

But away in the western wildwood

In the woodland wild and wier,

I relive in fancy my childhood

And sigh that I’m sitting here.
Yet I know ’tis wrong to be sighing

And seeking a future too fair,

Or to call up old hopes that are lying

A wreck in the sea of despair;

I know that the present has pleasures

That I ought to enjoy and embrace,

Lest I sigh for these days that are passing

When the future has taken their place.
Yet, as I sit in the moonlit meadow,

With no voice but nature’s near,

Save the chirp and the chime of the cricket

Falling plaintively on the ear,

I cannot control my fancy,

My thoughts are so wayward and wild,

That I ever will dream of the future,

Or wish I again were a child.

—

SEA-BLOWN

Ah! there be souls none understand;

Like clouds, they cannot touch the land.

Unanchored ships, they blow and blow,

Sail to and fro, and then go down

In unknown seas that none shall know,

Without one ripple of renown.

Call these not fools, the test of worth

Is not the hold you have of earth.

Ay, there be gentlest souls sea-blown

That know not any harbor known.

Now it may be the reason is,

They touch on fairer shores than this.

—
BYRON
In men whom men condemn as ill

I find so much of goodness still,

In men whom men pronounce divine

I find so much of sin and blot,

I do not dare to draw a line

Between the two, where God has not.

—

THE YUKON
The moon resumed all heaven now,

She shepherded the stars below

Along her wide, white steeps of snow,

Nor stooped nor rested, where or how.

She bared her full white breast, she dared

The sun e’er show his face again.

She seemed to know no change, she kept

Carousal constantly, nor slept,

Nor turned aside a breath, nor spared

The fearful meaning, the mad pain,

The weary eyes, the poor dazed brain,

That came at last to feel, to see

The dread, dead touch of lunacy.

How loud the silence! Oh, how loud!

How more than beautiful the shroud

Of dead Light in the moon-mad north

When great torch-tipping stars stand forth

Above the black, slow-moving pall

As at some fearful funeral!

The moon blares as mad trumpets blare

To marshaled warriors long and loud;

The cobalt blue knows not a cloud,

But oh, beware that moon, beware

Her ghostly, graveyard, moon-mad stare!

Beware white silence more than white!

Beware the five-horned starry rune;

Beware the groaning gorge below;

Beware the wide, white world of snow,

Where trees hang white as hooded nun–

No thing not white, not one, not one!

But most beware that mad white moon.

All day, all day, all night, all night

Nay, nay, not yet or night or day.

Just whiteness, whiteness, ghastly white,

Made doubly white by that mad moon

And strange stars jangled out of tune!

At last, he saw, or seemed to see,

Above, beyond, another world.

Far up the ice-hung path there curled

A red-veined cloud, a canopy

That topt the fearful ice-built peak

That seemed to prop the very porch

Of God’s house; then, as if a torch

Burned fierce, there flushed a fiery streak,

A flush, a blush, on heaven’s cheek!

The dogs sat down, men sat the sled

And watched the flush, the blush of red.

The little wooly dogs, they knew,

Yet scarcely knew what they were about.

They thrust their noses up and out,

They drank the Light, what else to do?

Their little feet, so worn, so true,

Could scarcely keep quiet for delight.

They knew, they knew, how much they knew

The mighty breaking up of night!

Their bright eyes sparkled with such joy

That they at last should see loved Light!

The tandem sudden broke all rule;

Swung back, each leaping like a boy

Let loose from some dark, ugly school–

Leaped up and tried to lick his hand–

Stood up as happy children stand.

How tenderly God’s finger set

His crimson flower on that height

Above the battered walls of night!

A little space it flourished yet,

And then His angel, His first-born,

Burst through, as on that primal morn!
The Little Sur River emptying into the Pacific…

<

The great Way is easy,

yet people prefer the side paths.

Be aware when things are out of balance.

Stay centered within the Tao.

Pause with me for a moment, breathe together in this golden moment. We pass through here perhaps but once…
Life is fleeting. Things change… they always change. Nothing but change…
A nice article by Myron today, Pete has pick of note, and we dance to the poetry of the Tao. I may see you again this weekend… I hope you enjoy your time with family, friends and loved ones.
Blessings,

Gwyllm
The Links

Peter’s Pick:Wax Poetic featuring Norah Jones – Angels

Know Thyself

ARE PSYCHEDELICS USEFUL IN THE PRACTICE OF BUDDHISM?

Poetry: Excerpts from The Tao Te Ching

A Little Treat

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The Links:

When The Earth Was Purple?

Taste Like Chicken, No Really It Does…

Is our replacements getting some practice in?

If Jesus returns tonight, who will feed your pets tomorrow?

_______________
Peter’s Pick:Wax Poetic featuring Norah Jones – Angels

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Know Thyself
Knowing others, one is learned;

Knowing thyself, one is enlightened.

Conquering others requires force;

Conquering oneself requires strength.

Knowing contentment, one is rich;

Having perseverance, one is firm;

Abiding in the center, one endures;

Even in dying, one enjoys eternal life.

— Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, XXXIII

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ARE PSYCHEDELICS USEFUL IN THE PRACTICE OF BUDDHISM?

Myron Stolaroff

Published in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Volume 39, No. 1, Winter 1999, pp. 60-80. Sage Publications, Inc
The Buddhist magazine Tricycle devoted its fall of 1996 issue to the topic of psychedelics and Buddhism. The viewpoints of the authors regarding the efficacy of psychedelics on Buddhist practice ranged from a high degree of support to outright opposition. Those who are interested in the possible application of psychedelics to meditative practice might well be puzzled by such a diversity of viewpoints. Yet, the answer is simple. Psychedelics can be used in a great variety of ways for an enormous array of purposes. The results depend greatly on the experience, knowledge, skill, and level of development of the practitioner. Thus, the person presenting his and/or her own particular point of view may or may not be aware of numerous other considerations involved. Widespread unfavorable public bias toward psychedelics has been created by very selective reporting by the media, as observed by Walsh (1982). As Walsh reports, this bias is so unfavorable that a reputable journal refused to accept an article that indicated some beneficial outcomes from the use of psychedelics unless the reference to positive effects was removed. I hope to shed some light on the diversity of viewpoints by first laying out what I consider to be important factors to take into account in effectively employing psychedelics. From this perspective, we can examine some of the more relevant comments that have been expressed.
Psychedelic agents, when properly understood, are probably one of the most valuable, useful, and powerful tools available to humanity. Yet, their use is extremely complex, which means that they are widely misunderstood and very often abused.
Let me be clear: It is not psychedelics that are complex. In their most useful application, they play a rather straightforward role. After 40 years of careful study, it is my observation that one of the outstanding actions of psychedelics is permitting the dissolving of mind sets. One of the most powerful mind set humans employ is the hiding of undesirable material from consciousness. Thus, a very important function of psychedelic substances is to permit access to the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is enormously complex and possesses an extremely wide range of attributes, from repressed, painful material to the sublime realization of universal love. We probably shall never cease to discover new aspects and dimensions of the mind, as it appears endless, and I am convinced that continual searching will reveal new discoveries.
Probably every hypothesis that any scientist, therapist, or mystic has conceived ultimately can be observed to fit some set of conditions, from psychological dynamics to the ultimate nature of the universe. One of the most remarkable things to the experienced psychedelic user is discovering how the boundaries of perception dissolve to permit viewing ever new images, perceptions, concepts, and realizations. The biggest problem lies in incorporating discoveries into meaningful, enhanced functioning in life.
Humans love structure, and at the same time, the ego loves certainty, so a great variety of claims often are made about what psychedelics can or cannot do. With integrity, commitment, and courage, vast aspects of the mind can be explored. It is important to realize that what one experiences depends a great deal on his/her value-belief system, motivation, conditioning, and accumulated unconscious content, which includes the rigidity with which the mind functions.
I am an early stage novice in my practice of Buddhism, so there is a great deal about the subject of which I am ignorant. However, I have had considerable experience with psychedelics, and my major concern is that there will be attempts to categorize these potent aids and contain them within the walls of narrow, judgmental decisions, thereby cutting off much potential usefulness.
I personally have found that appropriately understood and used, psychedelics can play a significant role in deepening and accelerating the progress of one’s meditative practice. This is not true for everyone. Psychedelics are of little use for advanced practitioners who have learned to achieve results without the benefit of such aids or for those who can free themselves from worldly obligations for extensive daily practice. Also, encountering heavily defended areas in the psyche with psychedelics may produce intense, uncomfortable feelings that many may prefer to work through more gradually.
My concern is mostly for the large number of people who could benefit from fruitful meditation practice but must still be occupied in the world by earning a living and raising a family. Such persons lead busy lives and may not have the time to devote to perfecting a practice that will lead to significant freedom. For these, informed use of psychedelics can be quite helpful in more rapidly reaching the level of accomplishment at which practice becomes self-sustaining. The ultimate achievement of liberation must occur through interior development that does not depend on the use of a plant or a chemical, although these may help in discovering the way.
There are several key factors to consider in evaluating whether the use of psychedelics can be personally fruitful.
1. Legal status. In a sense, this discussion is hypothetical because now most psychedelics are illegal to possess in the United States. Westerners for several centuries have focused primarily on the outer world, with the resulting neglect of developing inner resources. This neglect, coupled with a heavy emphasis on materialism and reductionism, has created a painful schism between adopted conscious values and the deep interests of the Self. For most people, it has become so painful to reveal this powerful conflict that those substances that might accomplish this have been made illegal to possess. This has not stopped many dedicated therapists and seekers who find that the value of such substances exceeds the risk of incarceration. The illegal status also creates the problem of finding pure substances in reliably known dose levels. I am not advocating that anyone break the law, but I am pointing out the importance of developing sound, rational policies that will permit appropriate scientific evaluation of these substances and, ultimately, the realization of their potential.
2. Methodology. It is important that those who wish to work with psychedelics be fully informed of appropriate procedures. Unfortunately, the illegal status of psychedelics has prevented the publication and sharing of results and effective practices. However, there is available a great deal of information to guide the serious seeker if one has the diligence to seek it out. Some excellent examples of appropriate procedures can be found in the following references.
Grof’s (1980) book, LSD Psychotherapy, is a treasure house of good information. See in particular the sections Psychedelic Therapy With LSD (pp. 32-38), Personality of the Subject (pp. 52-64), Personality of the Therapist or Guide (pp. 89-107), and Set and Setting of the Sessions (pp. 108-116).
In Adamson and Metzner (1988), much attention is given to guidelines, preparation, set and setting.
The pamphlet, Code of Ethics for Spiritual Guides, was prepared by the Council on Spiritual Practices, which can be contacted at the following address: Box 460065, San Francisco, CA 94146-0065.
Finally, Stolaroff (1993) presents a brief summary of important factors to take into account.
3. Low doses. Many who have experimented with psychedelics have used high doses of substance to assure penetration into the very rewarding transpersonal levels of experience. Such experiences can be awesome, compelling, and extremely rewarding. Yet, it is often the case that these experiences fade
away in time unless there are diligent efforts to make the changes indicated. In profound experiences, the layers of conditioning that, in ordinary states, hold one away from liberation are transcended and from the lofty view of the transcendental state, personal conditioning seems unimportant and often unrecognized. Yet after the experience, old habits and patterns reestablish themselves and often there is no alteration in behavior. The use of low doses often can be much more effective in dealing with our “psychic garbage.” Many do not care for low doses because they can stir up uncomfortable feelings, and they prefer to transcend them by pushing on into higher states, but it is precisely these uncomfortable feelings that must be resolved to achieve true freedom. With low doses, by focusing directly on the feelings and staying with them without aversion and without grasping, they will in time dissipate. Resolving one’s repressed feelings in this manner clears the inner being, permitting the True Self to manifest more steadily. Such a result provides greater energy, deeper peace, more perceptive awareness, greater clarity, keener intuition, and greater compassion. It permits the deepening of one’s meditation practice. The surfacing of buried feelings that this procedure permits often can bring new understanding of one’s personality dynamics.
4. Different compounds. Some compounds may be more suitable for developing meditation practice than are others. I personally have had substantial experience with the phenethylamines, outstanding examples of which are 2C-T-2, 2C-T-7, and 2C-B (code names for 2,5-dimethoxy-4-(ethylthio) phenethylamine, 2,5-dimethoxy-4-(n-propylthio) phenethylamine, and 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine, respectively). The synthetic procedures and physical characteristics of all of these compounds are published in Shulgin and Shulgin (1991). These compounds have the characteristic of having some of the centering qualities of MDMA, yet being more LSD-like than is MDMA without the powerful push of LSD. This lowers the likelihood of the user being trapped in deep pools of repressed material. Not being as pushy as LSD, these compounds require developing volition to achieve similar levels of experience. This is the same kind of volition that develops good meditation practice. Consequently, it is easier to focus attention under their influence, which permits developing the attributes for good meditation practice. As one develops proficiency in entering the desired state, it is found that the advantage of one compound over another diminishes. The appropriate dose (found by experiment–generally equivalent to 25-50 micrograms of LSD) of most any long-acting psychedelic is helpful.
5. Freeing deeply occluded areas. The practice of Buddhism in general, as I understand it, is not necessarily therapeutically oriented. Therm is much advice in older texts to resolve personal problems with focused attention and application of intention to change behavior. The result is that much unconscious material never gets resolved despite the ability of the mind to achieve high levels of awareness. For a discussion of the difference between meditative realization and the uncovering process achieved through psychotherapy, see Wilber (1993, pp. 196-198). Psychedelics facilitate reaching these deeper, often highly defended levels and clearing them out, thus permitting greater liberation and dropping of undesirable personality and behavior patterns. Some powerfully repressed areas, such as the very painful birth experience ! underwent in my first LSD session (Stolaroff, 1994), might never be resolved without the help of psychedelics.
6. Judicious spacing of psychedelic experiences. In my own practice, I intentionally have limited my early morning formal meditation session to an hour so as to leave ample time for worldly endeavors. Thus, whatever I discover will be more applicable for the large numbers of persons constrained by the need or desire to function in the world. Although I have advanced sufficiently in my practice to fend off some of the typical aging symptoms (I am 77 years old) such as loss of energy, stiff and sore muscles, and increased arthritic symptoms, I do find that after a while, I begin to acquire such symptoms. When this happens, an appropriate psychedelic experience is a very effective rejuvenator. Aging symptoms summarily are dissipated, I am in a much more enjoyable and effective state of being, and I find it easier to remain in this state through my regular meditation practice. Also, if there are deep, underlying, unconscious dynamics that are a drag on life, as I have experienced much of my life, I find it especially helpful to resolve such deep patterns with psychedelics. The psychedelic experience provides extremely effective clearing and a quantum jump improvement in well-being and meditative proficiency. At the same time, it is important not simply to rely on another experience to overcome difficulties. Numerous times I have discovered that mustering a deeper degree of intent can resolve important restrictions through properly focused meditation practice, with the advantage of a more permanent and satisfying state of well-being. Such work also ensures that when an additional experience is found to be appropriate, it will be considerably more rewarding.
7. Honoring the experience. A very important aspect of employing psychedelics is to acknowledge fully the graces that have been received. This is done through appreciation and gratitude, which are best expressed by determinedly putting into effect in one’s life the changes that have been indicated. In fact, failure to do so can contribute to subsequent depression. Thoroughly honoring the experience and postponing further psychedelic exploration until a real need is determined that cannot be resolved in straightforward meditation practice ensures that the next experience will be fruitful. One of the fairly widespread abuses of psychedelics is to rely on repeated use of the drug to accomplish relief from discomfort instead of exerting the effort to make changes in one’s behavior that have already been indicated. This is the most frequent objection to psychedelics raised by the contributors to Tricycle (1996).
8. Historical precedence. Psychedelics have had extensive use in spiritual practices in numerous cultures around the world and encompassing some 2,000 years of history. Current legally sanctioned spiritual practices with psychedelics include the Native American Indian church in North America, based on the use of peyote, and the Santo Daime and Uniao do Vegetal churches in Brazil employing ayahuasca. Robert Jesse (1996) briefly reviews the history of such usage and describes a number of the substances most widely employed–peyote, mushrooms, ayahuasca, soma, keykeon, iboga, cannabis, LSD, and MDMA.
USING PSYCHEDELICS IN MEDITATION PRACTICE
Since the passage of the Controlled Substance Analogue Enforcement Act of 1986, almost all psychedelic substances have been outlawed: As a consequence, it has not been possible to conduct legally any research since that time. The following suggestions are based on the limited amount of experience that has been garnered, most of which is personal, and indicate where future research can be gainfully directed.
1. Ethical framework. Committing oneself to a suitable ethical framework, such as the Buddhist eight-fold path, is essential. This is an important part of the mental set and also provides help in integrating psychedelic experiences.
2. Preparation. The participant should have a thorough understanding of psychedelics including the types of experience that may be expected, factors affecting experience, how to handle various kinds of experiences and how to follow them up, and the importance of set and setting as described above. It is important to have first undergone a high-dose experience with a qualified guide that has resulted in reaching transpersonal levels. This will put the entire process into perspective.
3. Employing a co
rrect substance at the proper dose level. (Described above.)
4. Developing mental stability. This application is probably the most fruitful for employing psychedelic substances. A practice focusing on the breath is particularly appropriate. With proper substance and dose, one will note several possible developments. First, distractions may be more intense than in ordinary practice because the action of the chemical releases more material from the unconscious. At the same time, the enhanced awareness resulting from the action of the psychedelic allows one to notice in greater detail how various attitudes, thoughts, and actions affect the ability to hold one’s focus steady. From this, one learns to hold the mind in the position of maximum effectiveness for becoming free of distractions and for holding mental focus stable. One then experiences the deepening of the practice, more readily avoiding distractions and moving into areas of peace, calm, and growing euphoria. With continuing practice, one finds it easier to enter the numinous levels that one ultimately is seeking. Furthermore, the volition gained in developing this practice under the influence of a psychedelic carries on into day-to-day practice during which the same level of achievement becomes accessible. The outcome that I personally have found most satisfying is the ability to hold the mind perfectly still, a state that makes access to previously unrevealed regions of the mind available, including the direct contact with one’s essence or divinity.
5. Deepening the meditation practice. One’s daily practice may be strengthened by using the discoveries made under the influence of psychedelics. I recommend working to obtain maximum benefit from one psychedelic experience before proceeding with another. When experiences are spaced judiciously in this manner, one learns under the influence to go deeper into the contact with the numinous. As the ability to hold the mind steady grows, it becomes possible to focus more directly on the contact with the inner teacher–our deepest Self, our Buddha nature, or however one chooses to call the wise, guiding entity within us. Maintaining this focus leads to what seems to me to be the most valuable, fulfilling experiences possible. From such experiences, combined with daily practice, grows the ability to achieve similar results in ordinary practice, until eventually the use of the psychedelic substance is no longer required. At this point, the faculty for achieving optimum results has been developed within us. I like to call this “developing a God muscle.”
Many of the issues concerning the application of psychedelics in meditative practice may be clarified further by examining some of the comments reported in the Tricycle issue on Buddhism and Psychedelics (Tricycle, 1996). Jack Kornfield (1996) presents a knowledgeable and well-balanced view of the use of psychedelics as well as important factors required for a good meditative practice and spiritual development. He points out the value that psychedelics have in introducing persons to new areas of the mind and even to glimpses of the goal of spiritual realization, experiences which encouraged many to develop a more disciplined practice. He also clearly points out a common failing among many psychedelic users: failure to understand the depth of change required to transform oneself and to understand that it takes more than repeated psychedelic experiences to accomplish this.
Next, I will present some responses to Michelle McDonald-Smith’s (1996) firmly expressed views.
From my experience, no matter what kind of deep opening one might have on a drug, it isn’t going to develop one’s ability to have those experiences naturally. Other people might say that drugs are a doorway, but I don’t see them developing anything. They don’t develop equanimity, they don’t develop concentration, they don’t develop any factors of enlightenment. (p. 67)
In sharing my own perceptions on the same factors she has enumerated, I wish it to be clear that I am discussing the results of informed used, which has been delineated elsewhere in this article.
I agree that psychedelics alone will not necessarily develop the ability to have transpersonal experiences naturally, despite the fact that many people who have had such an outstanding initial experience are content to never have another, feeling that they have been blessed for life. I maintain that psychedelics are way showers, and we then must work with serious intent to attain the states that are shown to be possible. Nevertheless, it is of enormous benefit and inspiration if one can glimpse and experience firsthand the territory to which we aspire. Norbert Wiener, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist who suggested the binary system on which the operation of computers is based, commented on the successful development of the atomic bomb by the Russians. He stated that their simply knowing that it is possible was at least 50% of the battle. But psychedelics can do far more than simply show what is possible. They permit the recognition and resolution of powerfully repressed material in the unconscious that interferes with contacting our essence or Buddha nature. They can reveal dramatically the errors in our behavior and perceptions, which are generating uncomfortable feelings and inappropriate responses, and can show how such errors can be corrected. When we have fallen back so far so that we are losing energy and motivation, they can refresh us, invigorate us, and renew our inspiration and determination.
In contrast to McDonald-Smith’s (1996) claim, “I don’t see them as developing anything”(p.67), I see them as developing wisdom, heightened perception, self-understanding, energy, and freedom; releasing habitual blocks that interfere with the total response of our senses; facilitating the flow of ideas; releasing intuition and creativity as unconscious blocks are removed and as we become in touch with our inherent faculties; and deepening our meditation practice. My observations are based on some 40 years of research, including observing more than 100 individuals.
Regarding the comments about equanimity, concentration, and enlightenment, I find that appropriate use of psychedelics helps develop all of these qualities. I never realized what equanimity was until I began taking psychedelics. One of the great gifts of psychedelics is permitting one to learn real concentration. Of course, if there is much repressed material in the unconscious and one takes a significant dose of a psychedelic, it is neither possible nor desirable to try to concentrate. It is best to simply surrender to the experience and to let the flow of imagery and feelings proceed undisturbed. In this flow, unconscious material is released. The meditation equivalent is focusing on the breath or on an object and simply letting thoughts and feelings flow without getting involved. When the high-pressure feelings in the unconscious demanding release begin to abate, then it becomes possible to concentrate on the desired object. The practice of holding one’s attention steadily on an image, concept, or object under the influence of a good psychedelic permits many aspects of the object of attention to unfold, so that one may learn a great deal of new information about the object as well as discover unsuspected beauty and meaning and experience appreciation. Eventually, one develops concentration sufficient to hold the mind quite still, which permits other aspects of reality to manifest. I often feel that this is creating the empty space to permit God to enter, which I consider a major factor of enlightenment. In practicing holding the mind steady under a low dose of a psychedelic, one becomes much more aware of the subtle distractions and urges that affect concentration. Some distractions are more intense, so one can practice maintaining stability in spite of them. Such practice under the influence helps strengthen the faculty that maintains steady atte
ntion. A great deal can be accomplished in learning to effectively maintain stability, learning which is immediately applicable in subsequent practice.
McDonald-Smith (1996) stated:
Drugs take a considerable toll on the body and the mind. They bring all this energy into the system so that it catapults you into a different state of consciousness at the same time that it taxes your body, mind, and heart. You get a sort of beatific view, but actually you are further down the mountain. (p. 67)
My associates and I, in psychedelic research, find ourselves very much at odds with this statement. Yes, if a person is carrying heavy psychic burdens and takes a large psychedelic dose, he or she can be very tired at the end of the day and perhaps for a few days after. But often this is followed by a gratifying sense of rejuvenation and appreciation for the benefits realized. Important exceptions are the cases in which the participant does not work all the way through important problem areas, leaving them with a feeling of unfinished business and perhaps even greater discomfort because he or she is now experiencing uncomfortable feelings that formerly were locked safely away. Working through these feelings with the help of a good counselor and following up with subsequent psychedelic sessions can clear up this problem.
Rather than toll, there is healing and rejuvenation. One often feels that he or she has dropped a heavy load off the body, and his or her spirits are high. A heavier mind can come from the unresolved situation described above; otherwise, there is lightness of feeling and clarity of mind. Other than toll, there is renewal. I have friends who take many different kinds of vitamins and nutriments to achieve healthy states of mind and body and to have more energy. I try their various recommendations, but my experience is that none of them work as well as a good, appropriate psychedelic session. Rather than being brought further down, you are climbing the mountain with considerable help. It is very true, however, that to maintain the high states experienced, it takes committed effort to make the necessary changes in day-to-day life. This point is frequently neglected. My experience is that not expressing appropriate gratitude and appreciation for the marvelous graces that have been granted can lead to self-hatred and depression. A good meditation practice is an effective means of maintaining awareness of the needed changes and furnishing the energy and motivation to make them possible.
McDonald-Smith (1996) also stated:
I’ve had people come to retreats who’ve done a lot of drugs, and it seems like they don’t have the energy to access subtle stages of insight. They’ve blown it off with drugs. You pay a price for any drug experience. (p. 69)
It is true that many have abused psychedelics by frequent use, probably of high doses, with insufficient effort to integrate the meaning of the experience. Frequent repetition can dissolve ego strength, and such people can develop rambling minds and have little ability to focus. However, it is important to understand that this is the result of abuse, which is net the case with informed use. You do not “pay a price for any drug experience.” Appropriately used, psychedelic experiences not only have little or no price, but also open the door to healing, rejuvenation, and many riches in life.
McDonald-Smith (1996) says: “On the deepest level of letting go, drugs get in the way. This is especially true for those who are heavily armored” (p. 69). I say that appropriate use of psychedelics teaches you to let go and discover the rewarding benefits of letting go. We are all afraid of the unknown; psychedelics can help one develop trust, face fear, and enter unknown and sublime arenas. Psychedelics are especially helpful for the heavily armored, if they truly wish to resolve their difficulties, as they can help dissolve the heavy walls of defensiveness and permit resolution and profound insight.
A major emphasis in the remainder of McDonald-Smith’s (1996) article is that “drugs promote attachment to peak experience… what you actually get from drug experience is the desire to take the drugs again” (p. 70). Many have fallen into this trap, but it is an overstatement to generalize that this is always the case. With an honest approach, one realizes that there is work to do before seeking another session. My own experience is that for many of us, particularly with me for many years, our self-esteem is so low that we feel that we do not deserve the full benefits of grace. I have found that extensive help is waiting in many different forms and from many different levels and is generously offered. We can always benefit from taking advantage of help in whatever mode, be it teachers, nutriments, reading, exercise, prayer, or simply thinking good thoughts. And they can all work together and support each other. Appreciation and gratitude multiply the benefits. And one certainly cannot argue with McDonald-Smith’s advice to be completely aware in each moment.
Allan Hunt Badiner (1996) has written in Tricycle an impressive description of an extremely powerful, remarkable, life-changing experience with yagé. His experience probably represents the far extremes of intensity, variety, complexity, and meaning that psychedelics have to offer. Badiner is to be highly congratulated for both his courage and his power of articulation in encountering and describing this compelling experience. There are probably not a great many persons prepared to make such an encounter, but the outcome of Allan’s experience is testimony to the advice given by many sages that the encountering of pain and suffering, and even of near death itself, paves the way to becoming utterly alive.
Nina Wise (1996), in her article in Tricycle, tells a beautiful story of personal growth and development with the aid of psychedelics, excellent teachers, and dedicated practice. With her first psychedelic experience, she encounters a trauma often encountered by inexperienced explorers. She has a glorious, very opening experience, yet sinks into deep depression because she does not know how to integrate the experience to maintain such a state. She finds a meditation teacher and begins to grow in her practice. A subsequent experience with ayahuasca provides another important opening that has very meaningful consequences in her life. Later, with the help of good meditation teachers, she reaches the peace and equanimity she has been searching for and is no longer attracted to the aid offered by psychedelics. She has reached the state of realization for which most of us long.
One hardly could hope for a better outcome than that which Nina Wise presents to us. Yet, her story does provide the opportunity to include some additional remarks about the use of psychedelics. Her first experience points out the need, as almost all the knowledgeable writers in the Tricycle (1996) issue have clearly stated, to have a framework and discipline within which to have the experience and, particularly, to help follow up the experience for optimum benefit. Her second experience with ayahuasca illustrated that at an appropriate time, a further experience can be quite helpful.
There were characteristics about her psychedelic journeys that she was quite happy to leave behind her and not engage again. Wise’s (1996) words are, “My psychedelic experiences, which had brought me to this place, were now interfering with my vision” (p. 93). It is important to understand that psychedelics, when properly employed, can lead to the same state she had achieved of direct experience of reality. It is the state reached by what I call the trained user. It helps to know that the creepy visions, the hallucinations, and the constant flow of imagery are the results of pressures in the unconscious where repressed material is demanding release. By employing low psychedelic doses, it is possible to confront and deal with these images and, particularly, the fe
elings behind them, until they clear up. Then one reaches, while under the influence, the stage of immediate perception (Sherwood, Stolaroff, &amp; Harman, 1962). “In this stage, the psychosomatic symptoms, the model psychoses, the multicolored hallucinatory images tend to disappear. The individual develops an awareness of other aspects of reality than those to which he is accustomed” (p. 71). The fact that a psychedelic produces streams of imagery indicates that the interior barriers to the center core of the self have not been completely eliminated. For those who wish to be completely liberated, psychedelic experiences, properly timed and integrated, can be very helpful in resolving repressed material and defensive blocks, thus giving freer access to the divine within.
Trudy Walter (1996) has given us a touching story of the difficulties of addiction and the hardship of breakng it. For years, she took respite and enjoyment in “getting stoned,” and it was only through dedicated commitment to her meditation practice that she could free herself from her addiction. No matter how enjoyable or helpful an aid can be, eventually, as stated so clearly by Frances Vaughan (1995), these “golden chains” must be transcended to develop the capabilities of our true inner self.
Robert Aitken (1996) states: “I don’t think drugs have particularly helped anybody arrive where they are” (p. 105). This is most definitely not true for me and many others whom I know. I very much agree with his observation that many desperately are trying to achieve realization through the drug experience when what is required is hard work in changing their attitudes, values, and behavior–a process facilitated much more effectively through deepened intention and improved behavior than through overuse of psychedelic chemicals.
Aitken (1996) offers evidence that being under the influence and then later trying to practice does not work. This has been commented on by other teachers, and I am sure that it is true for many. However, the situation is quite complex, and care is required to evaluate such generalizations. A great deal can be learned about how to use psychedelics appropriately to enhance and deepen practice. It requires looking at a number of considerations. What is the substance, the dose level, the frequency, the intention, and the effort to make maximum use of the experience, regardless of whether it was pleasant or uncomfortable, or the effort to deal with indicated changes in values and actions? With agents as powerful as psychedelics and the vast regions of the human mind made available, it seems quite shortsighted to draw conclusions before thorough investigative efforts have been pursued. And of course, with the current legal status, one dare not publish or publicly share results, so that it is most likely that there exists a great deal of valuable experience that remains hidden from the public eye.
It is my experience that practice with an appropriate, moderate dose of a psychedelic permits deepening of the meditation practice and learning much more rapidly to avoid distractions and concentrate on the important aspects of the practice. Because of our unfortunate drug laws, it has not been possible to replicate my findings on a broad basis, although preliminary trials with others support my own experience and the validity of my hypothesis. I am sure that we must find ways to verify procedures that offer such promising accomplishments.
Aitken (1996) observes that those who returned to a retreat from psychedelic experiences demonstrated a deterioration in their ability to meditate. I personally deem it unwise to muddle the opportunity to learn what a retreat has to offer by interspersing drug experiences.
Aitken (1996) is certainly right to raise the question, what after the experience? There is now almost universal consensus that being shown the territory is not enough. It is extremely important to consummate the experience by bringing it to full fruition in day-to-day life. Commitment to an ethical way of life, supported by a good meditation practice that enhances stability and clarity, is one of the best ways to ensure this accomplishment.
Aitken (1996) again says that you do not have to take drugs to wake up to reality. This is certainly true, and a great many will choose the meditative path. But for many others, the appropriate use of psychedelics can rapidly hasten the discovery of reality and, furthermore, can help reveal the inner blocks that hold one from reality and even temporarily dissolve them, so that one develops a clear picture of how to stay in touch with reality. Without psychedelics, it can take many, many months of hard work to obtain the same vision, and after the vision is obtained, there may still be repressed inner psychic loads that can inhibit freedom, suppress the experience of one’s feelings and senses to the fullest, and preclude living constantly out of one’s essence or Buddha nature.
There no doubt are many who have turned away from psychedelics because of unsatisfactory experiences. Although psychedelics are not a path for everyone, it is possible to cultivate more favorable outcomes with a better understanding of the nature of the experience, the possible varieties of dynamics that can arise, and how to deal with them. Those who confront and resolve negative experiences can come out with a good deal more understanding and relief from psychic burdens, which can result in greater energy and well-being.
Aitken (1996) states “that there is a qualitative difference between the ecstasy that some people report from their drug experiences and the understanding, the realization, that comes with Zen practice” (p. 109). I am not familiar with Zen practice, and so I may be in no position to comment, as Aitken likewise may not be in a position to comment on the ecstatic experience some achieve through psychedelics. But I do know from firsthand experience that it is possible to experience ecstasy almost beyond what the human frame can stand, and if Zen practitioners reach this state, power to them.
Joan Halifax (1996) clearly understands a great deal about psychedelics and what they can do and, at the same time, has developed her practice to a point at which psychedelics are no longer necessary. In her description of outgrowing the need for psychedelics, she states that the qualities of stability, loving-kindness, clarity, and humbleness are the primary qualities of the mind cultivated in meditation. She further states that such quail-ties are not necessarily cultivated by psychedelics. This statement is certainly true for some users who have been deceived and even become burdensome know-it-ails through their psychedelic use. I personally have found that psychedelics have been powerful influences in developing all the qualities that Halifax mentions. I already have commented that the appropriate mixture of meditation and psychedelics can influence strongly the effectiveness of each practice.
I am very much encouraged by the positive results I have observed during several decades of investigation. I find psychedelics to have significant potential not only in aiding the development of meditation practice, but also in many other important areas. Unfortunately, this perspective is not generally shared, and the controversy over psychedelics continues to be one of the major scientific disputes of recent history.
A number of excellent articles have been published examining this controversy and/or providing additional information for better understanding psychedelics. Clark (1975) presents an insightful article based on 100 respondents to a questionnaire study to assess views on promising areas of psychedelic research, the extent of the promise, and the difficulties in conducting research. A strong recommendation is made for opening up and funding psychedelic research. Villoldo (1977) describes the work of Salvador Roquet, who developed very intense methods of conducting group psychedelic sessions with power
ful impact, perhaps the most intensely focused procedure yet evolved. Many important aspects of successfully employing psychedelics in therapy are discussed. Klavetter and Mogar (1967) make a questionnaire analysis of participants completing the psychedelic program at the International Foundation for Advanced Study in Menlo Park and convert the data into peakers and nonpeakers following Maslow’s (1962) definitions. Peakers consistently report significant therapeutic benefit following the LSD session, a result confirmed by Hoffer (1965) and Pahnke and Richards (1966). Stolaroff(1997) presents an in-depth interview with one of the most accomplished psychedelic therapists of our time, now deceased and unnamed because of our current drug laws. This book covers the successful development of both individual and group experiences, selecting the most effective of a variety of psychedelic substances, and the optimum progression of their application.
Baumeister and Placidi (1983) present a fairly complete review of the LSD controversy, citing interesting and insightful reasons for the positions taken. Kurtz (1963) presents a cogent comparison of religious mystical experience, nature mystical experiences, Maslow’s (1962) peak experiences, and drug-induced experiences. His analysis provides conclusions that the drug experiences of unity, when they occur, are the most inclusive and comprehensive in including all aspects of reality and the totality of human consciousness, combining intellectual, sensory, and mystical aspects occurring simultaneously. Mogar (1965) provides an excellent review paper, pointing out the growing trends in psychiatry and psychology and the growing acceptance of a wider range of human capacities and functions as revealed through altered states of consciousness produced by a variety of means. An excellent summary of results obtained in psychedelic research is presented.
Harman (1963) presents probably the most informed review of the psychedelic drug controversy, recognizing the root of the controversy in basic metaphysical assumptions, carefully describing the character of psychedelic experiences and the factors that influence them, comparing the highest potential of such experiences with natural mystical experiences, presenting the data assuring safety in proper hands, analyzing the resistance to accepting psychedelic research despite the publishing of positive results, and recommending proceeding with important research. The most recent information at this writing comes from Shulgin and Shulgin (1997), which covers a wide variety of interesting topics. Pertinent to this discussion are presentations on the nature and variety of psychedelic experiences and the growing appropriation of power by government to prescribe medical practice and scientific research (see, particularly, Part 2: Psychedelics and Personal Transformation, and Part 5: Drugs and Politics).
Although the articles discussed above contribute much important information, they still fall short in recognizing one of the most crucial aspects of psychedelic use. Most observers still lean toward the allopathic medical perception of drugs, in which the results are attributed to the particular action of the drug in the body. In the case of psychedelics, what transpires depends far more on the characteristics of the participant ingesting the drug and the circumstances of its use. It does not seem to be recognized generally that an individual can, with time and repetition, learn increasingly how to make more effective use of the opportunities psychedelics afford. It is possible to develop the characteristics of the trained user as previously described, when the mind can be held perfectly still so as to reveal other aspects of reality. With continued practice, the aspiring seeker increasingly learns how to focus the experience, learn trust, and develop motivation and courage for deeper exploration. This practice will yield deeper and deeper penetration into unknown areas of existence, with the possibility of bringing back ever new treasures.
I therefore hope that Buddhists and others will approach these substances with an open mind and, as a minimum, not stand in the way of efforts to learn more about them and the most appropriate ways of employing them.
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Hoffer, A. (1965). LSD: A review of its present status. Clinical Pharmaceutical Therapy, 183, 49-57.
Jesse, R. (1996, Fall). Entheopas: A brief history of their spiritual use. Tricycle, 6(1), 60-64.
Klavetter, R., &amp; Mogar, R. (1967). Peak experiences: Investigation of their relationship to psychedelic therapy and self-actualization. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 7(2), 171-177.
Kornfield, J. (1996, Fall). Domains of conscionsness. Tricycle, 6(1), 34-40.
Kurtz, P. (1963, Fall). Similarities and differences between religious mysticism and drug-induced experiences. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 3(2), 146-154.
Maslow, A. (1962). Toward a psychology of being. New York: Van Nostrand.
McDonald-Smith, M. (1996, Fall). On the front lines. Tricycle, 6(1), 67-70.
Mogar, R. (1965, Fall). Current status and future trends in psychedelic (LSD) research. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 5(2), 147-166.
Pahnke, W. N., &amp; Richards, W. A. (1966). Implications of LSD and experimental mysticism. Journal of Religious Health, 5, 175-208.
Sherwood, J., Stolaroff, M., &amp; Harman, W., (1962). The psychedelic experience – a new concept in psychotherapy. Journal of Neuropsy-chiatry, 4, 71-72.
Shulgin, A. T., &amp; Shulgin, A. (1991). PIHKAL. Berkeley, CA: Transform.
Shulgin, A. T., &amp; Shulgin, A. (1997). T1HKAL. Berkeley, CA: Transform.
Stolaroff, M. (1993, Winter). Using psychedelics wisely. Gnosis, a Journal of the Western Inner Traditions, 26-30.
Stolaroff, M. (1994). Thanatos to eros: Thirty-five years of psychedelic exploration. Lone Pine, CA: Thaneros.
Stolaroff, M. (1997). The secret chief: Conversations with a pioneer of the underground psychedelic therapy movement. Charlotte, NC: Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).
Tricycle. (1996, Fall). 6(1).
Vaughan, F. (1995). Shadows of the sacred. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books.
Villoldo, A. (1977, Fall). An introduction to the psychedelic psychotherapy of Salvador Roquet. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 17(4), 45-58.
Walsh, R. (1982, Summer). Psychedelics and psychological well-being. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 22(3), 22-32.
Walter, T. (1996, Fall). Leaning into rawness. Tricycle, 6(1), 98-100.
Wilber, K. (1993). Grace and grit. Boston: Shambhala.
Wise, N. (1996, Fall). The psychedelic journey into the zafu. Tricycle, 6(1), 89-93.
MYRON J. STOLAROFF holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University. In industry, he reached the position of assistant to the president in charge of long range planning at Ampex Corporation. From this perspective of the technical world, he declared, after his first experience with LSD in 1956, that LSD was the most imp
ortant discovery of mankind. In 1961, he founded the International Foundation for Advanced Study in Menlo Park, California, where research with LSD and mescaline was conducted for 3 years, processing some 350 participants and resulting in six professional papers. Additional work continued after 1970 with a variety of unscheduled phenethylamine compounds until the Analogue Drug Bill of 1986. Stolaroff is especially interested in how appropriate knowledge of psychedelics can enhance meditation practice. He is the author of two books as well as several papers on psychedelics.

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Poetry: Excerpts from The Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu

Nothing in the world

is as soft and yielding as water.

Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,

nothing can surpass it.
The soft overcomes the hard;

the gentle overcomes the rigid.

Everyone knows this is true,

but few can put it into practice.
Therefore the Master remains

serene in the midst of sorrow.

Evil cannot enter his heart.

Because he has given up helping,

he is people’s greatest help.
True words seem paradoxical…

—

What is rooted is easy to nourish.

What is recent is easy to correct.

What is brittle is easy to break.

What is small is easy to scatter.
Prevent trouble before it arises.

Put things in order before they exist.

The giant pine tree

grows from a tiny sprout.

The journey of a thousand miles

starts from beneath your feet.
Rushing into action, you fail.

Trying to grasp things, you lose them.

Forcing a project to completion,

you ruin what was almost ripe.
Therefore the Master takes action

by letting things take their course.

He remains as calm

at the end as at the beginning.

He has nothing,

thus has nothing to lose.

What he desires is non-desire;

what he learns is to unlearn.

He simply reminds people

of who they have always been.

He cares about nothing but the Tao.

Thus he can care for all things.

—

A Little Treat…

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in

the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies,

you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I

know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

-Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut has passed away as you probably know. One of my favourite writers when I was young, I always enjoyed his articles and books when I would butt up against his work. His ‘Slaughterhouse 5′ book truly changed my life.
Here is to Kurt, to Kilgore, to Billy, and the brilliant moment of sunshine that he inhabited. Happy Voyage, and thank you for the awakening thoughts…
G
On The Menu

Poem: Joe Heller

The Link

Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

Petes’ Pick: Angel Meditation

A Kurt V. short story: Harrison Bergeron

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Joe Heller
True story, Word of Honor:

Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer

now dead,

and I were at a party given by a billionaire

on Shelter island.

I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel

to know that our host only yesterday

may have made more money

than your novel ‘Cach-22′

has earned in its entire history?”

And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”

And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”

And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

Not bad! Rest in peace!
– Kurt Vonnegut

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The Link:

Bullying: Justice is better than vengeance

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Kurt Vonnegut Quotes
Human beings will be happier – not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia.
Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.
Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

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Petes’ Picks: Angel Meditation

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Harrison Bergeron

by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)

I’d like you to read this famous story and think about whether Nietzsche wasn’t on to something when he criticized the naive idea of human equality.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about.

On the television screen were ballerinas.

A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.

“That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did,” said Hazel.

“Huh?” said George.

“That dance – it was nice,” said Hazel.

“Yup,” said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren’t really very good – no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.

George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.

Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.

“Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer,” said George.

“I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,” said Hazel, a little envious. “All the things they think up.”

“Um,” said George.

“Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?” said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. “If I was Diana Moon Glampers,” said Hazel, “I’d have chimes on Sunday – just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion.”

“I could think, if it was just chimes,” said George.

“Well – maybe make ‘em real loud,” said Hazel. “I think I’d make a good Handicapper General.”

“Good as anybody else,” said George.

“Who knows better’n I do what normal is?” said Hazel.

“Right,” said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.

“Boy!” said Hazel, “that was a doozy, wasn’t it?”

It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples.
“All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in canvas bag, which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”

George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it any more. It’s just a part of me.

“You been so tired lately – kind of wore out,” said Hazel. “If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few.”

“Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out,” said George. “I don’t call that a bargain.”

“If you could just take a few out when you came home from work,” said Hazel. “I mean – you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just set around.”

“If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

“I’d hate it,” said Hazel.

“There you are,” said George. “The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?”

If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn’t have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.

“Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel.

“What would?” said George blankly.

“Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that what you just said?”

“Who knows?” said George.

The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen – ”

He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.

“That’s all right –” Hazel said of the announcer, “he tried. That’s the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.”

“Ladies and gentlemen” said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.

And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. “Excuse me – ” she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.

“Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under–handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.”

A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen – upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.

The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever worn heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H–G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.

Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.

And to offset his good looks, the H–G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle–tooth random.

“If you see this boy,” said the ballerina, “do not – I repeat, do not – try to reason with him.”

There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.

Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.

George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have – for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. “My God –” said George, “that must be Harrison!”

The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.

When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.

Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.

“I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!” He stamped his foot and the studio shook.

“Even as I stand here –” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened – I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!”

Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.

Harrison’s scrap–iron handicaps crashed to the floor.

Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.

He flung away his rubber–ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.

“I shall now select my Empress!” he said, looking down on the cowering people. “Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!”

A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.

Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all, he removed her mask.

She was blindingly beautiful.

“Now” said Harrison, taking her hand, “shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!” he commanded.

The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. “Play your best,” he told them, “and I’ll make you barons and dukes and earls.”

The music began. It was normal at first – cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.

The music began again and was much improved.

Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while – listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.

They shifted their weights to their toes.

Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers.

And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!

Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.

They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.

They leaped like deer on the moon.

The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it. It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling.

They kissed it.

And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.

It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.

Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.

It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George.

But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.

George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. “You been crying?” he said to Hazel.

“Yup,” she said,
“What about?” he said.

“I forget,” she said. “Something real sad on television.”

“What was it?” he said.

“It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind,” said Hazel.

“Forget sad things,” said George.

“I always do,” said Hazel.

“That’s my girl,” said George. He winced. There was the sound of a riveting gun in his head.

“Gee – I could tell that one was a doozy,” said Hazel.

“You can say that again,” said George.
“Gee –” said Hazel, “I could tell that one was a doozy.

________

Best Viewed in FireFox, whilst listening to Radio Free EarthRites!

A Garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!

Rose plot,

Fringed pool,

Ferned grot,

The veriest school of Peace; and yet the fool contends that God is not—

Not God! in Gardens! when the eve is cool?

Nay, but I have a sign:

T’is very sure God walks in mine.

My Garden.

Thomas Edward Brown – Manx Poet
Edwin Austin Abbey – The Lute Player

Dear Friends,
A shortish one today… We cover a couple of relatively unknowns today, Thomas Edward Brown, a Manx poet from the 19th century, and Edwin Austin Abbey, an American illustrator/Painter who was a figure in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Both had great influence in their day, but faded with the changing taste of modern times. Maybe a bit of attention can change that a bit. Our entry is rounded up with a Cornish Story, and a wonderful Petes’ Pick.
Watched “A Good Year” last night wonderful film, recommended.
Off to work, hope all is well in your world.
Gwyllm
On The Menu:

The Links

Petes’ Pick: Starseed

Pixy Gathon; or, The Tailor’s Needle

Thomas Edward Brown – Manx Poet

Artist – Edwin Austin Abbey
Edwin Austin Abbey was one of the most celebrated artists of his day. Born in Philadelphia, he briefly studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy under Christian Schuessele. Before he was 20 years old, he was enjoying a brilliant career as an illustrator of poetry and drama for Harper’s Weekly. Then in the late 1870s, Abbey left America for England to pursue a career as a large-scale history painter. While in England, he was elected to the Royal Academy and admitted to the elite artistic circle of the Pre-Raphaelites.
As a result of his growing reputation at home and abroad, Abbey was about to undertake what would become his most famous commission. He was invited by American sculptor Auguste Saint-Gaudens in 1890 to produce the mural cycle The Quest for the Holy Grail for the McKim, Mead, and White Boston Public Library, which was completed in 1901

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The Links:

Police raid finds tomato growing operation

Mystery cat takes regular bus to the shops

Dreamed up phone number leads man to a bride

Volcano’s fury throws up mystery fish

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Petes’ Pick: Starseed

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Edwin Austin Abbey The Penance of Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester (detail)

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Pixy Gathon; or, The Tailor’s Needle
“BAD times! Master Trickett,” said Betsy Humming, as she turned her wheel, at which she was most industriously spinning, “bad times! for tho’ I be at work from morning to night, and do spin as fine Kersey, tho’ I say it who ought not to say it, as any in Crediton, nobody comes to buy. Never had so little to do all the years I’ve worked for a living–’tis all along with the coming in of the Scotch King.”
“Very bad times, neighbour,” replied Trim Trickett, the tailor, “for nobody wears out their clothes as they used to do in the old Queen’s time; or alters their fashions as the great folk did in the days of Elizabeth. Except a pair of trunk hose for master Justice, Sir Simon de Noodle, and a doublet for his young son; and a new gown for Dame Westcott, I have not had a job to keep my needle going for these two months. Never had such bad times, since I first crossed a leg in the way of business.”
“You’ve as much as you deserve, and more too, Master Trickett; and so have you, Betsy Humming,” said Gammer Guy, a cross-grained old crone, who was sitting in the easy chair by the chimney nook, leaning on her staff. She was one of those village gossips who do little themselves, and spend most of their time in hindering their neighbours.
“No thanks to you, Gammer Guy, if any good luck comes to me, or to any body else,” said the tailor; “for if ill wishing be as bad as ill doing, as some folks think, a body need not go far to find it, when you be near. I know what some people do say of other people.”
“And what do they say of other people?” asked Gammer Guy, “for I know you mean that hit for me, Master Trickett; but do you suppose every body means harm, or does it, because they be old and past work?”
“No, Mother Guy, I think no such thing,” replied Trim. “There is old Anastatia Steer bed-ridden now; I never thought any ill of her, nor said it, tho’ she be the oldest woman in the county; and may be in all England.”
“Ah! poor old soul,” said Betsy Humming, “I’ve spun the woollen for her shroud for her long ago, and that by her own desire to oblige her; tho’ I’m not to be paid for it till she be dead, and calls for it.”
“Then I reckon you won’t much longer be out of pocket, Betsy,” said the tailor.’
That’s true enough, Trim,” replied Betsy; “and if I be called on soon for the shroud, you’ll have to make it;. and that will be grist, to your mill, Master Trickett. And then she has so many relations; and her great great grandchildren’s children be so many, I reckon you’ll have to make a mourning suit for them all, women and men; and what a wind-fall will that be for you! How your needle will go day and night to have the doublets, and hose, and the gowns, and the kirtles ready for the funeral! And I shall sell them some of my black kersies, and times will be better; and we shall have something else to do than to stand and talk about ‘em.”
“Well! if ever I heard the like!” said Gammer Guy, “You and Trim Trickett to go for to settle a poor harmless old neighbour’s death after that fashion! And all to put money into your own pockets! O its a cruel and a very wicked thing! Who’s ill-wishing now I trow?”
“Not I,” said Trim, “I be sure.”
“Nor I,” said Betsy Humming.
“Did you not talk of old Anastatia Steer’s death? and what a profit it would be to you both, before it comes?”
“Yes; but we did not say we’d kill her,” said Betsy.
“Nor wish her dead neither,” said Trim, “we only said she was like to die soon.”
“And is not that bad enough,” exclaimed Gammer Guy.. “What’s the harm with old Anastatia that you should talk of her in such a way; and she only been bed-ridden these last six months?”
“Why, is she not said to be one hundred and forty years old complete? And don’t folks come far and near to see her, as a cuerossity?” said the tailor. “And doesn’t she fail faster and faster every day? She can’t live for ever like the wandering Jew.”
“But she has no doctor,” said Gammer Guy,” and so may last for many a year yet to come.”
“She is blind,” said Betsy Humming.
“And deaf,” said Trim.
“And has never a tooth in her head, and can’t feed her-self,” said Betsy.
“And has lost her memory, and the use of her limbs,” said Trim.
“But she’s alive, and eats, drinks, and sleeps,” said Gammer Guy.
“So she may,” said Trim; “but I do say, for all that, old Anastatia Steer being one hundred and forty years complete, bed-ridden, blind, deaf, and helpless, may be supposed able to die soon, without anything going contrary to the rules of Natur, and without any ill-wishing from me and my neighbour, Betsy Humming; and we both wish her no harm.”
Gammer Guy, who was given to have ill thoughts and suspicions of everybody, shook her head; and after taking a cup of warm spiced ale, with an egg beat up in it, at Betsy Humming’s cost, repaid her hospitality by spreading at the next two or three neighbours where she called in for a gossip, that she was quite sure Betsy Humming, for the sake of selling some of her black kersies, and Trim Trickett, for the sake of having to make ‘em up as mourning suits, were both of them ill-wishing poor old Anastatia Steer, who was comfortable in her bed, free from all sickness, and might last as long as the king himself, let alone their wicked wiles. But such ill-wishing was as bad as a downright murdering of her.
It was so indeed in popular opinion, at the time of my tale, in the West of England; when poor old women and men, if they once got the character of ill-wishing, were sure to be taken up as witches, wizards, or sorcerers, and were in danger of being tried for their lives, and burnt under the law against witchcraft, which was particularly patronised by King James the First.
Now it so happened, that Anastatia Steer unluckily died suddenly within two or three days after this discourse, of no disease whatever, according to all appearance, except that from which there is no escape–worn-out nature. No sooner did Betsy Humming hear of it, than she produced the woollen shroud, spun by herself ten years ago to oblige the departed; and Trim very innocently solicited custom in his way from the friends and relatives of the deceased.
But what was his surprise, and that of his neighbour, the honest spinster of kersies, to find doors shut in their faces, backs turned upon them, and an expression of universal abhorrence at the very sight of them, as if they carried about the plague, at that time rife in a distant part of the county of Devon. It was too bad; and Trim hearing from his little boy, Johnny Trickett, that it was commonly reported all over Crediton, that he and Betsy Humming had ill-wished poor old Anastatia out of the world, he grew furious, and at once accused cross-grained Gammer Guy of having done this injury to the fame of two honest souls. Never was tailor so angry as he; and he protested that he would have justice on his defamer, even if he sought it at the throne of King James the First. But before he could seek that majestic person to obtain it, the town constable sought out him and his supposed associate, Betsy Humming, and both of them were taken into custody on the very serious charge of having conspi
red, by witchcraft and diabolical arts, the death of Anastatia Steer for their own selfish purposes and profit.
That was an awful morning on which the luckless tailor and spinster appeared before the Justice of the Peace. They were ushered into an old Gothic hall, venerable from age and the smoke of many generations. About the walls hung antiquated portraits of various judges, knights, esquires, and ladies, representing, in a goodly row, all the De Noodles who had flourished and died since the days of the Conquest.
Sir Simon, the living representative of his distinguished family, seemed to carry the, grandeur and importance of his long line of ancestry all in his own person. He had a proud and austere air; was tall and lank, of a somewhat withered appearance, with thin lips, and little pinky eyes, and a sharp-hooked nose, with a pair of barnacles stuck on the end of it that pinched so close as to cause him to speak through it with a small squeaking voice. He wore a large pair of trunk hose, a rich doublet, and a black velvet cap stuck on the crown of his head; and when seated in his high-backed carved oak-chair, with his clerk on his right hand, prepared with pen, ink-horn, and paper, to take the depositions, and Master Constable, a figure as broad as he was long, bearing his staff of office, on the other side, Sir Simon altogether presented the spectacle of a solemn, stately old gentleman, whose nod or whose frown was enough to scare the poor creatures who were brought before him on such a charge.
After surveying the accused with no very encouraging scrutiny, and hearing a general statement of the case, Sir Simon proceeded to examine Gammer Guy and the rest of the witnesses. The evidence was by no means satisfactory; and of the “says he,” and “says she,” and “says I,” and “says you,” that make up so much of evidence in a country place, there was a very sufficient share. Though told with many alterations and much exaggeration, nothing more really appeared against the accused than has already been related; not a single fact could be brought against either party except the following, viz., that Betsy Humming had a very favourite black cat, which she was known to fondle and pet considerably; that pussy had been seen to sit by her side and on her knee, and to raise her tail quite into Betsy’s face; that the said cat would purr to her in a very suspicious manner when pleased, or when her mistress rubbed down her back, or gave her from her own bowl some of her milk porridge. The cat, it was solemnly deposed, in the opinion of Gammer Guy and many other credible witnesses, was no other than a familiar or evil spirit, employed by the aforesaid Betsy to do her wicked will.
And as a further evidence of her league with the tailor to do deeds of darkness, it was proved that he kept in his cottage a tame, old raven, of which he was very fond; and the witness who proved this, said, he would like to know what any honest man could have to do with a raven about his dwelling? And that the cat being black and the bird of the same colour, was such a sign of agreement in wickedness as could not be mistaken.
His worship, the justice, on hearing all this, gravely shook his head, and muttered, in an under tone, “Very suspicious.”
His clerk shook his head in assent to the sapient observation of his master, and master constable gave three shakes of his; one, it is to be presumed, in concurrence with his worship’s opinion; another in assent to the echo of his clerk, and the last in confirmation of both the former with his own. At length the hearing of the evidence against the accused closed.
Sir Simon de Noodle looked very wise, shook his head again, leant back in his chair, twisted his thumbs, hemmed thrice, and then–asked his clerk what he thought of the matter. The clerk consulted the constable in an undertone of voice; and the constable whispered with old cross-grained Gammer Guy, who, amongst the many bitter charges she on that morning made against Trim, forgot not to state that he had called her an old fool.
Trim, seeing so much consultation going on, not knowing what would be the result, and fearing nothing less than hanging if the justice took up the matter with the assistance of so many counsellors, rashly stepped forward, and proposed that the nearest relatives of the deceased, who had come into some property by her death, should be called upon to say whether there might not be great probability of poor old Anastatia Steer, in the one hundred and fortieth year of her age, managing to die a natural death, without the assistance either of witches or wizards, or witchcraft of any kind.
Now the relatives of the deceased were far more disposed to settle the matter reasonably than the enemies of Trim and Betsy, had they been left to themselves. But Gammer Guy would interfere; and as Sir Simon de Noodle was, in respect to knowledge of the law, quite as much an old woman as herself, he did not check her. So she persuaded the friends of the dead to drop prosecution for witchcraft and murder solely on the accused subscribing to the following conditions of ordeal: namely, that Betsy Humming should spin one hundred and forty threads (that being the number in agreement with the years of the deceased), and spin them so fine, that they should all, pass through, and remain in the eye of Trim Trickett’s needle with which he usually worked in his shop. But unless this were done by the expiration of one month, and if they eventually failed in such object, then they should both be put upon their trial for witchcraft and murder. The ordeal was a severe one; and the luckless spinster and tailor looked at each other aghast with affright. But Betsy had a stout heart, far stouter than the tailor; and so, raising her hand after a minute’s pause, she gave Trim an encouraging slap on the back, exclaiming, “Never start from the trial, man! never fear. We have done no wrong; let us do right still; and trust the rest to all the good saints in the calendar. I can spin with a clear conscience, and you can thread a needle with an honest man’s hand; and so I’ll try which can spin the finest, I or the spiders. ‘Tis ‘for life or death, Master Trickett, so never fear; but look to pass one hundred and forty of my threads through your needle, till a hundred and forty stick in it.”
“But if the thing fails,” said Trim.
“Why then it fails,” replied Betsy; “and in one month we be tried for witchcraft and murder; but that can’t make us guilty of such wickedness; and if there’s law or justice to be had in the land, we’ll have it, Trim, in some way or other.”
Trim shook his head; but the bystanders observed that the black cat, which had been brought before the justice as a guilty party in the business, raised her tail three times as Betsy spoke, and a murmur of dread ran through the assembly. Even Sir Simon de Noodle did not like the sign, nor the understanding it seemed to indicate between the witch and her familiar, and directed the constable to detain the cat, saying–that the said cat was to be considered as remanded in point of law. Master constable bowed profoundly to this command; and a bag was ordered to convey pussy out of the court to the safe keeping of the law officer. The cat took her removal very ungraciously; and as she scratched and resisted, and mewed loudly, on being forced into the bag, it was considered as an unequivocal proof of her being a familiar spirit in a feline form.
Sir Simon de Noodle now proceeded most solemnly to confirm the conditions of ordeal. But as, for the sake of his dignity, he fancied he must do something out of his own head, he rendered the conditions still harder by ordering that Betsy Humming and Trim Trickett should be forthwith sent to gaol, there to spin the one hundred and forty threads, and there to pass them within the eye of the needle; and the sapient justice added, that unless they could accomplish thi
s task before the expiration of the month allotted for the purpose, he thought the evidence so strong against both of them, that he doubted not one would be burned alive, and the other certainly hanged.
All this was very cruel. Betsy Humming spun from, morning till night, and till she nearly blinded herself with the fineness of her work; but Tim could not get more than ten or a dozen threads through the eye of his needle. They were so poor that they had nothing to live on but prison fare–bread and water; and only straw in their cold, stone cells to sleep upon. For the first week, when they met every day in the court-yard of the gaol, it was only to bewail their ill-fortune, though Betsy’s heart was still stouter than Trim’s.
But (according to a trite and true observation), as in this world there is no condition, however good, but some drawback is found to attend it, so is there none, perhaps, so miserable but some consolation is afforded to lighten the load of inevitable suffering. Now this was exactly the case with Trim Trickett. He was the parent of a little boy named Johnny; an only child, and a very good one. Johnny, seeing how hard his poor father fared, could not bear the thoughts of his having nothing to eat but bread and water; and so he determined to do as other boys did (for there was a great demand for them at this time), and go and work in the mines, to save as much as he could of his small weekly pittance to get some comforts and a little meat for. his father; and, if it were necessary, to live on bread and water himself, so that he might but help his suffering parent.
I shall not detain you, my young friends, with giving you any long account of a Cornish mine, more than to tell you, that, at a very great depth below the surface of the earth, running in lines on beds, called lodes, people find a vast deal of copper ore. This is dug out and smelted with fire, so as to free it from the dross mixed with it, and then it becomes a valuable metal; and the copper-smith works it into many useful things for household and other purposes. A pit, or hole, is made in the earth, and sometimes a mine is found and worked several hundred feet below the surface; and men are let down into it with buckets, not unlike those used at a well. Water is always found in mines; very large machines, therefore, are erected, by which it is constantly pumped up, or the men would be drowned whilst digging out the copper ore. As the light of day cannot penetrate thus deep in the earth, the miners used candles in lanterns; but, in our days, more frequently the safety lamp invented by Sir Humphrey Davy. Boys are much wanted in mines, to do many slight matters of work; such as to wheel small quantities of the ore in barrows to the heap, whence the men remove the load above ground. They are sometimes also employed to pick and wash the copper, so as to free it from the loose earth with which it is mixed. In many other things they are likewise very useful.
Now, at the time of my story, a man named Tregarrens, who was of a morose and tyrannical disposition, wanted a lad to help him do his work in the mines; and seeing little Johnny was a willing and active lad, he engaged him at once; and the pay he was to give him was rather more than the boy expected. Johnny went, therefore, eagerly to work, but he soon had cause to rue having placed him-self under his new master; for on all occasions, whether he deserved it or not, the poor lad was abused and maltreated by this tyrant below-ground in a very vexatious manner, and kicked, and cuffed, and thrashed for the smallest, and oftentimes for no offence at all.
Among other practices in the mine, Johnny observed that the miners anxiously worked wherever they heard a sort of hammering noise within the rock. Their belief was, that this hammering was made by a Pixy, named Gathon, a great frequenter of mines, but who acted with considerable caprice. Sometimes he would hammer where there was nothing but rubble to be found; and then the men would hear him laughing heartily at having so misled them, and caused their labours to be in vain. Whilst, at other times, quite unexpectedly, he would hammer and disclose to them the richest and, hitherto, undiscovered ore.
One day, when Tregarrens’ mood had been more than usually brutal, so that poor little Johnny had received several blows of a very severe kind (though he would not think of quitting his employer, on account of the pittance which enabled him to help his father), he could no longer resist giving vent to his feelings. He sat down in an obscure corner amongst the rocks, where nobody was at work, where it was dark and gloomy, and cried as if his young heart would break; the tears literally poured down his cheeks as he endeavoured to wipe them away with his hand.
Whilst he thus sat deploring his hard lot, all at once he saw a bright and greenish light stream upon the opposite side of the rock; and, on looking up, beheld with surprise the queerest little boy he had ever seen. He was very low in stature, but such limbs! they seemed to be composed of rolls of fat; with a face like a ball, and so full and red, with a nose as round as a bottle; whilst the eyes, that were small, gleamed out of his head like a couple of bright burning coals in a blacksmith’s forge. He had very large ears, hairy and long, resembling those of a donkey, and a tail that he twirled and twisted about, and at last rested the end of it, which was full and bushy, upon his shoulder. He carried a hammer in his little fat hand, and was as naked as when he was born; but that never troubled him. To complete the whole, there was a look in his face, merry and waggish.
Johnny did not know what to make of such a strange creature, and was afraid to speak to it. But my little gentleman did not stand for ceremony; so he said, laughing as he spoke, “Don’t be frightened at me; I’m your friend, Johnny Tricket, and am come to do you good; for I’m a good natured little fellow, as you may see by my being so fat. I am Gathon the mining man; look at my hammer! Ho, ho, ho,” continued he laughing, “I am just come from calling off that tyrant your master, Tregarrens, who intended to thrash you, for being absent from the gallery when he wanted you to help to do his work. But as he started to come hither, to look after you, I hammered away furiously in the great rock near his standing; and off he went to call the men to batter for what they won’t find, a new run of copper ore. Ho, ho, ho!”
Johnny was greatly startled, and could not forbear expressing a fear that the disappointment would cause his master to be in a worse humour with him. “Never mind that,” said the Pixy, “haven’t I deceived them finely? Ho, ho, ho! Let Gathon alone for a frisk and a trick, when he’s in the mood to make fools of the fellows. But now, Johnny Trickett, leave off crying and hear me; for I’m your friend; and let me tell you that you may have a worse than Pixy Gathon the hammering man.”
Johnny’s surprise at seeing and hearing a real Pixy was very great. But the poor boy recollected that he had done no harm, though he had suffered a great deal; and so he took heart, and thanking his new friend for his good in intentions, begged him to go on.
“Well then, this is what I have to say. Johnny Trickett, I pity you much; and your father once did me a good turn, though without knowing it, and I’m not ungrateful. He once cracked a nut, into which, as it was hollow, a wicked old witch had squeezed me, and as you may see, I’m not the most easily to be so squeezed, and so he let me out; and though I bobbed up against his nose, he never raised a hand to brush me rudely off or to hurt me; and now I’ll repay his good deed, by doing good to his son, and to him into the bargain. Don’t cry, my boy, but continue to bear patiently the ill treatment of Tregarrens, till the end of the month your poor father is to be in gaol, and I will do what no mortal creature could do to
serve your father; since for every kick and cuff which you take patiently from your tyrant below ground, I’ll pass a thread of Betsy Humming’s spinning through the eye of your father’s needle. And no fear of a hundred and forty cuffs coming to your share, my lad, before the month is ended.”
“Say five hundred and no fear, but I’ll have ‘em all and take them patiently,” said Johnny joyfully; “and then my dear father will be safe and out of gaol.”
“That he will,” said Pixy Gathon, “and I shall rejoice in doing him good!” And with that the little fellow tumbled three times head over heels and whisked about his tail to show his joy on the occasion.
“I’m sure, master Gathon,” said Johnny, “that father will be grateful; and if it would be no offence to you, and you would like to have them, instead of running about naked in that fashion, father would be very glad to make you a little pair of hose, and charge nothing for them.”
“Pixies never wear hose–thank you all the same for the offer, master Johnny; but I’ll serve you and your father too without seeking reward;” and so for the present little Gathon took his leave, popped into a nook among the rocks, and was for the time seen no more.
True indeed was the assurance of the Pixy, Johnny got so many kicks and cuffs, and so well did Gathon keep his word, that, to his exceeding joy and surprise, the tailor, who was not in the secret, found sometimes five or six threads, or more, passed in one day through the eye of his needle from the skein he already possessed of Betsy Humming’s spinning. Still there wanted a great number of threads to make up one hundred and forty.
In the meanwhile his good little son continued to labour in the mines, and to receive all his injuries with a cheerful as well as a patient spirit. On one occasion, however, his tyrant was so brutal in the fury of his passion, for some slight offence, as to strike the lad a violent blow when he stood close to the mouth of the shaft or pit; he reeled and fell down it. The poor boy must have been killed on the spot, but for the ready services of his friend Gathon. The Pixy had been hammering near the spot, when seeing the lad’s danger he whisked into the bucket, and caught him in it ere he reached the ground, landing him in perfect safety.
Tregarrens, when he saw the lad tumble down the shaft, had been in a terrible fright; not that he cared a rush for the boy’s life; but he knew well, that had Johnny lost it by his means, he should be turned out of his place, and be brought up before a magistrate for his conduct on a very serious charge. When, therefore, he found that the lad had only fallen into the bucket, and that he had not so much as a scratch by way of injury, it was such a relief to his fears, it did what nothing else could have done in all the world, it actually put him in a good humour with little Johnny. This was the very thing which, at the moment, the lad least desired; for there was only ONE day left to complete the month allotted for his father’s ordeal; and his needle wanted but ONE thread more to complete the number of one hundred and forty.
Johnny was, therefore, in a terrible fright when, on that last day, Tregarrens, for the first time since he had been in his employ, called him a good boy; and not a sign of a cuff could he trace in his master’s face or in his manner towards him. At this crisis, hoping to excite in him something like an angry mood, so that it could but procure from him one gentle kick, or if only a box on the ear, he purposely did his task of work negligently; and left two or three wheel-barrows with the ore, standing in the way of Tregarrens, so that he stumbled over one of them and nearly broke his shins. Many other little matters did he neglect in the duty of the day, with the last forlorn hope of obtaining but one more cuff; but none came. Tregarrens had not yet quite recovered from the joy occasioned by his being relieved from the fright of supposing he had killed little Johnny; so that he could not so immediately favour him with a renewal of rough kindnesses or tyranny.
In this dilemma, his fat little friend once more came to his aid; for having bound himself by the honour of a Pixy only to pass a thread through Trim’s needle whenever his son took a cuff patiently; it was not in the power of such a gentleman Pixy as he was, to break his word. But he bethought him of a way to come to Johnny’s relief. Whilst Tregarrens was at work in the mine, he heard himself repeatedly called by his name, accompanied by peals of laughter, and the most insulting and provoking expressions. He looked round, and saw only Johnny standing near him. He at once accused him of these insults; but Johnny ever loved the truth, and protested he had not spoken a word.
Tregarrens doubted this much; but still keeping his temper, he once more turned to his work in the rock. Whilst so engaged, peals of laughter and renewed insults met his ears, as if spoken by some one close at his elbow., there could be no mistake, for at his elbow stood little Johnny.
Now fully provoked, Tregarrens turned and gave the lad a most hearty box on the ear. Johnny, delighted to think that this blow taken patiently would procure the desired end and his father’s liberty, exclaimed–” Thank you, thank you, Master Tregarrens,” and fairly cut a frisk or two in the joy of his heart.
Tregarrens, thinking all this was done in mockery, and to add insult to insult, forgot his former forbearance, and in the extremity of his rage, snatched up his pickaxe, with which he was working, and would have knocked poor little Johnny on the head, had not, at that moment, a most furious hammering in the rock met his ear, from the end of the gallery. Thinking that this was an indication where the rich ore might be found, for he had toiled all that day with very little effect, his covetousness overcame even his fury; and he rushed forward to find the exact spot before the mysterious hammering could cease.
No sooner was he gone, than from out an obscure chink in the rock, near where Johnny stood, popped Pixy Gathon; with his usual joyousness of spirit, he tumbled bead over heels by way of frolic, without doing the slightest injury to a large bright bottle, shining like gold, and almost as big as himself, which he carried under his arm. At length he squatted down after his fashion, and indulging in a hearty laugh to think how he had provoked, played upon, and finally deceived Tregarrens, he bade Johnny get up in all haste and follow him.
Johnny lost not a moment in obeying his whimsical friend; and they soon came beneath the shaft, where was hanging (suspended from aloft) the empty bucket, at a considerable height from the ground on which they stood.
“Get in this moment,” said the Pixy, “and I will give the signal to those above to raise the bucket.”
“I cannot reach it,” said Johnny, “it is so high above my head.”
“Never mind that,” replied little Gathon, “but catch hold of my tail; and I’ll whisk you into it in a second. But first take this bottle; it is filled with gold. Take it to your father; it will make him a rich man for life. It is honestly come by; for I’ve dug deep in the earth to get it up for him; and I make him a present of it. But, though he will not see me, for I don’t shew myself above ground, that’s not the way of the hammering man, I shall be with him before you; for I will keep my word, and this day will pass the last thread through the eye of his needle. Farewell, my boy; and whenever you hear us of the Pixy race ill spoken of as mischievous elves, remember there was one little fellow among them who served you well at the hour of your need; and do us justice as good-natured folk sometimes. when we are pleased, and bestir ourselves at a pinch.”
So saying, the Pixy raised his t
ail, Johnny seized hold of it as a ship boy would of a rope when in danger of tumbling overboard; he held fast, and in another second little Gathon whisked him into the bucket, pulled a bell, and up went Johnny from the regions below to the surface of the earth.
Need I tell what followed on that memorable morning? That the one hundred and forty threads were completed; and that Betsy Humming and Trim Trickett were set at liberty and pronounced innocent; for they had successfully undergone the ordeal. Even the innocence of the black cat was made apparent; for Master Constable, on opening the bag in the presence of the justice, found her dead! which, as she had been allowed no food, clearly proved she was not a familiar, who could have lived without it. Sir Simon de Noodle admitted the fact of innocence tested and proved, as pussy had very properly died from an empty stomach. Trim shared the contents of the bottle with Betsy Humming; his little boy was taken into the service of Sir Simon’s lady as a very pretty page; and the golden bottle became a sign in Watling Street, London; where multitudes of people, and even King James himself went to satisfy their curiosity by seeing one hundred and forty threads within the eye of the tailor’s needle.

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Edwin Austin Abbey The Penance of Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester

_________
Thomas Edward Brown – Manx Poet

THE WELL
I am a spring —

Why square me with a kerb ?

Ah, why this measuring

Of marble limit ? Why this accurate vault

Lest day assault,

Or any breath disturb ?

And why this regulated flow

Of what ’tis good to feel, and what to know?

You have no right

To take me thus, and bind me to your use,

Screening me from the flight

Of all great wings that are beneath the heaven,

So that to me it is not given

To hold the image of the awful Zeus,

Nor any cloud or star

Emprints me from afar.

O cruel force,

That gives me not a chance

To fill my natural course;

With mathematic rod

Economising God;

Calling me to pre-ordered circumstance

Nor suffering me to dance

Over the pleasant gravel,

With music solacing my travel —

With music, and the baby buds that toss

In light, with roots and sippets of the moss !

A fount, a tank

Yet through some sorry grate

A driblet faulters, till around the flank

Of burly cliffs it creeps ; then, silver-shooting,

Threads all the patient fluting

Of quartz, and violet-dappled slate

A puny thing, on whose attenuate ripples

No satyr stoops to see

His broken effigy,

No naiad leans the languor of her nipples.

One faith remains —

That through what ducts soe’er,

What metamorphic strains,

What rthymic filt’rings, I shall pass

To where, O God, Thou lov’st to mass

Thy rains upon the crags, and dim the sphere.

So, when night’s heart with keenest silence thrills,

Take me, and weep me on the desolate hills!

—

CRISMA
TO HIS GODSON
Childe Dakyns, I’d have had thee born

To other heritage than ours,

To larger compass, nobler scorn,

Faith, courage, hope than dowers

The old and impotent world.

So had thy powers

Been tuned to primal rhythms : in Noah’s ark
Thou might’st have dreamed thy dove-bemurmured dream;

Or lain and heard old Nimrod’s sleuth-hounds bark,

Echoing great Babel’s towers;

Or played with Laban’s teraphim.
Or nearer, yet remote from us,

Thou might’st have grown a civic man

Protagonist to Aeschylus;

Or blocked Pentelican

For Phidias ; or, foremost in the van,

Whose lithe-armed grapplings broke the Orient’s pride,

Thou might’st have fought on Marathon’s red beach;

Or, olive-screened by fair Ilissus’ side,

Surprised the sleeping Pan;

Or heard the martyr-sophist preach.
Perchance, to higher ends devote,

A fisher on Gennesareth,

Thou might’st have heard him from the boat,

And loved him unto death,

Who, with the outgoing of his latest breath,

Desired the souls of men : thy thought to lay

His pillow in the stern, when blast on blast

Came sweeping from the ridge of Magdala;

Thy charge to ward all scathe

From that supreme enthusiast.
Or, still in time for purpose true,

Though haply fallen on later years,

Thou might’st have stemmed the Cyprian blue

With Richard and his peers,

Cross-dight as chosen God’s own cavaliers;

Or borne a banner into Crecy fight;

Or with Earl Simon on the Lewes fields

Stood strong-embattled for the Commons’ right,

Or scattered at Poitiers

The wall of Gallic shields.
Or, borne with Raleigh to the West,

Thou might’st have felt the glad çmprise

Of men who follow a behest

Self-sealed, and spurn the skies
Familiar ; leaving to the would-be wise

These seats ; as wondering not in any zone

If some sweet island bloom beneath their prow:

” Let the daft Stuart maunder on his throne!

Let slack-knee’d varlets bow!

We will away !—the world has room enow!”
Childe Dakyns, it may not be so!

The long-breathed pulse, the aim direct

The forces that concurrent flow,

Charged with their sure effect—

Sure joy, childe Dakyns, must thou not expect;

But fever-throb ; but agues of desire,

Like zig-zag lightnings scrabbled on a cloud;

Irresolute execution ; paling fire

Of Hope ; life’s springs by cold Suspicion bowed—

All these thou needs must know;

And I will meet thee somewhere in the crowd.
Ah then, childe Dakyns, what of generous ire,

Of Honour, Truth, of Chastity’s bright snow,

The pitying centuries have allowed

To us forlorn, thou child elect,

Grant me to see it on thy forehead glow!

—

THE DHOON
” Leap from the crags, brave boy!

The musing hills have kept thee long,

But they have made thee strong,

And fed thee with the fulness of their joy,

And given direction that thou might’st return

To me who yearn

At foot of this great steep —

Leap! leap ! “
So the stream leapt

Into his mother’s arms,

Who wept

A space,

Then calmed her sweet alarms,

And smiled to see him as he slept,

Wrapt in that dear embrace

And with the brooding of her tepid breast

Cherished his mountain chillness—

O, then — what rest !

O, everywhere what stillness ‘

—

The third son of the Rev.Robert Brown and Dorothy Thompson, and younger brother of the eminent Baptist divine, the Rev. Hugh Stowell Brown. Educated partly in the parish school at Braddan and partly by his father, T.E. Brown went to King William’s College at the age of 15. He secured several valuable successes at both the College and later at Oxford. In 1854 he obtained the highest academic honor, that of a Fellowship at Oriel. He was Vice-Principal of King William’s College from 1855 to 1861 when he became headmaster of the Crypt Grammar School, Gloucester. He published several volumes of verse, the first being ‘ Betsy Lee, and other Poems,” in 1881, and the whole were collected and published in one volume shortly after his death on a visit to Clifton. He is noted for notable for setting many of his poems in the Manx dialect. Many of his letters were also collected and published after his death and they have been praised for their candor and insight into the workings of a working poet’s mind.
Edwin Austin Abbey – Green

Best Viewed In FIreFox
“Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

George Orwell
(Kris Kuksi – The Mouth Of Hades)

Tuesday is upon us, like a rush of wind. Hope you enjoy this edition, as we go down some different paths together….
Gwyllm
On The Menu:

Quotes From The Ozone

Alan Watts: Does The Wake Steer The Ship?

The Changeling and his Bagpipes

Pete’s Pick #2: Pitch Black – Lost in Translation

Poetry: Yeats, the later years…

Featured Artist: Kris Kuksi…

Kris Kuksi
“It is far to objectionable to even begin to agree upon what art is or what great art should be. Therefore, it is most certain that myself within this occupation be true to my tastes and to expel those pressures to conform to art-trends new or old.”
His art best fits into ‘Fantastic Realism’, yet the overall body of works have no specific category as seen in his broad range of ideas. He feels that using many directions and styles in art are necessary to express his voice and he feels that to succumb to just one style is without growth or diversity. A quiet and gentle man, Kris Kuksi continues his ideas of beauty and the strange in art while living a lifestyle suited to a nocturnal and oftentimes impulsive individual.

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Quotes From The Ozone…
“Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue – to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.”

Socrates
“If you want to become Yogis, you will have to get a move on.”

Aleister Crowley
“By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.”

George Carlin
“So to describe myself in a scientific way, I must also describe my surroundings, which is a clumsy way getting around to the realization that you are the entire universe.”

Alan Watts
“The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens – the more you control all the people.”

Noam Chomsky
“Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people’s actions as hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could never be. So the Galapagos Islands could be hell in one moment and heaven in the next, and Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a butcher in the next, and Ecuadorian paper money could be traded for food, shelter, and clothing in one moment and line the bottom of a birdcage in the next, and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a big explosion in the next and on and on.” – Kurt Vonnegut (Galapagos)
“I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own. So both of them together is certain death.”

George Carlin
“I know that my unity with all people cannot be destroyed by national boundaries and government orders.”

Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
If you are looking for vengeance, be sure to dig two graves.

Chinese saying
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”

Gandhi
Imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It’s madness…

Brave New World
“The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.”

Henry David Thoreau
“I have the terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of the theatre, you expect me to tell you the truth about something. These are the cheap seats, not Mount Sinai.”

Orson Welles
“In this theater of man’s life, it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers-on.”

Pythagoras
“As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.”

Michel Foucault

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Petes’ Pick:Soundpicture 1995 #1

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Alan Watts: Does The Wake Steer The Ship?
Alan Watts: The course of Time is very much like the course of a Ship. Here’s the ship, it leaves a wake, the wake fades out and that tells us where the ship has been.
In just the same way that our past tells us what we have done. But as we go back into the past, and we go back and back, to prehistory and we use all kinds of instruments &amp; scientific methods for detecting what happened. We eventually reach a point where all record of the past fades away in just the same way as the wake of a ship.
The important thing to remember in this illustration is that the wake doesn’t drive the ship, anymore than the tale wags the dog!

—
“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions,

that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.”

-Alan Watts

——-

(Kris Kuksi – Parasite and Host)

__________
The Changeling and his Bagpipes
A certain youth whom we shall here distinguish by the name of Rickard the Rake, amply earned his title by the time he lost in fair-tents, in dance-houses, in following hunts, and other unprofitable occupations, leaving his brothers and his aged father to attend to the concerns of the farm, or neglect them as they pleased. It is indispensable to the solemnities of a night dance in the country, to take the barn door off its hinges, and lay it on the floor to test the skill of the best dancers in the room in a single performance. In this was Rickard eminent, and many an evening did he hold the eyes of the assembly intent on his flourishes, lofty springs and kicks, and the other fashionable variations taught by the departed race of dancing-masters.
One evening while earning the applause of the admiring crowd, he uttered a cry of pain, and fell on his side on the hard door. A wonderful scene of confusion ensued,–the groans of the dancer, the pitying exclamations of the crowd, and their endeavours to stifle the sufferer in their eagerness to comfort him. We must suppose him carried home and confined to his bed for weeks, the complaint being a stiffness in one of his hip joints, occasioned by a fairy-dart. Fairy-doctors, male and female, tried their herbs and charms on him in vain; and more than one on leaving the house said to one of his family, “God send it’s not one of the sheeoges yous are nursing, instead of poor wild Rickard!”
And indeed there seemed to be some reason in the observation. The jovial, reckless, good-humoured buck was now a meagre, disagreeable, exacting creature, with pinched features, and harsh voice, and craving appetite; and for several weeks he continued to plague and distress his unfortunate family. By the advice of a fairyman a pair of bagpipes was accidentally left near his bed, and ears were soon on the stretch to catch the dulcet notes of the instrument from the room. It was well known that he was not at all skilled in the musical art; so if a well-played tune were heard from under his fingers, the course to be adopted by this family was clear.
But the invalid was as crafty as they were cunning; groans of pain and complaints of neglect formed the only body of sound that issued from the sick chamber. At last, during a hot harvest afternoon when every one should be in the field, and a dead silence reigned through the house, and yard, and out-offices, some one that was watching from an unsuspected press saw an anxious, foxy face peep out from the gently opened door of the room, and draw itself back after a careful survey of the great parlour into which it opened, and which had the large kitchen on the other side. Soon after, the introductory squeal of the instrument was heard, but of a sweeter quality than the same pipes ever uttered before or after that day. Then followed a strain of such wild and sweet melody as held in silent rapture about a dozen of the people of the house and some neighbours who had been apprised of the experiment, and who, till the first enchanting sound breathed through the house, had kept themselves quiet in the room above the kitchen, consequently the farthest from the changeling’s station.
While they stood or sat entranced as air succeeded to air, and the last still the sweetest, they began to distinguish whispers, and the nearly inaudible rustle of soft and gauzy dresses seemingly brushing against each other, and such subdued sounds as a cat’s feet might cause, swiftly pacing along a floor. They were unable to stir, or even move their lips, so powerful was the charm of the fairy’s music on their wills and their senses, till at last the fairy-man spoke–the only person who had the will or the capacity to hold conference with him being the fairy-woman from the next townland.
He.–Come, come! this must be put a stop to.
The words were not all uttered when a low whistling noise was heard from the next room, and the moment after there was profound stillness.
She.–Yes, indeed; and what would you advise us to do first with the anointed sheeoge?
He.–We’ll begin easy. We’ll take him neck and crop and hold his head under the water in the turnhole till we’ll dhrive the divel out of him.
She.–That ‘ud be a great deal too easy a punishment for the thief. We’ll hate the shovel red-hot, put it under his currabingo, and land him out in the dung-lough.
He.–Ah, now; can’t you thry easier punishments on him? I’ll put the tongs in the fire till the claws are as hot as the dive!, and won’t I hould his nasty crass nose between them till he’ll know the difference between a fiery faces and a latchycock. [a]
She.–No, no! Say nothing, and I’ll go and bring my liquor, drawn from the leaves of the lussmore; [b] and if he was a sheeoge forty times, it will put the inside of him, into such a state that he’d give the world he could die. Some parts of him will be as if he had red-hot saws rasping him asunder, and others as if needles of ice were crossing and crossing each other in his bowels; and when he’s dead, we’ll give him no better grave nor the bog-hole, or the outside of the churchyard.
He.–Very well; let’s begin. I’ll bring my red-hot tongs from the kitchen fire, and you your little bottle of lussmore water. Don’t any of yez go in, neighbours, till we have them ingradients ready.
There was a pause in the outer room while the fairyman passed into the kitchen and back. Then there was a rush at the door, and a bursting into the room; but there was no sign of the changeling on the bed, nor under the bed, nor in any part of the room. At last one of the women shouted out in terror, for the face of the fiend was seen at the window, looking in, with such scorn and hate on the fearful features as struck terror into the boldest. However, the fairy-man dashed at him with his burning tongs in hand; but just as it was on the point of gripping his nose, a something between a laugh and a scream, that made the blood in their veins run cold, came from him. Face and all vanished, and that was the last that was seen of him. Next morning, Rickard, now a reformed rake, was found in his own bed. Great was the joy at his recovery, and great it continued, for he laid aside his tobacco-pipe, and pint and quart measures. He forsook the tent and the sheebeen house, and took kindly to his reaping-hook, his spade, his plough, and his prayer-book, and blessed the night he was fairy-struck on the dance floor.
The mutual proceedings of the intruding fairies and the intruded-on mortals, are not always of the hostile character hitherto described. It is with some pleasure that we record an instance where the desirable re-exchange was effected without those disagreeable agencies resorted to in the case of “Rickard the Rake.”
[a] Attempts at two law terms. The author has been acquainted with peasants to whom law terms and processes were as familiar as ever they were to poor Peter Peebles.
[b] Great Herb. The Purpureus Digitalis, Fairy-finger, or Foxglove.

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Pete’s Pick #2: Pitch Black – Lost in Translation

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Poetry: Yeats, the later years….

TO A SHADE
IF you have revisited the town, thin Shade,

Whether to look upon your monument

(I wonder if the builder has been paid)

Or happier thoughted when the day is spent

To drink of that salt breath out of the sea

When grey gulls flit about instead of men,

And the gaunt houses put on majesty:

Let these content you and be gone again;

For they are at their old tricks yet.

A man

Of your own passionate serving kind who had brought

In his full hands what, had they only known,

Had given their children’s children loftier thought,

Sweeter emotion, working in their veins

Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place,

And insult heaped upon him for his pains

And for his open-handedness, disgrace;

Your enemy, an old foul mouth, had set

The pack upon him.

Go, unquiet wanderer,

And gather the Glasnevin coverlet

About your head till the dust stops your ear,

The time for you to taste of that salt breath

And listen at the corners has not come;

You had enough of sorrow before death–

Away, away! You are safer in the tomb.
September 29, 1913.

—
EASTER, 1916
I HAVE met them at close of day

Coming with vivid faces

From counter or desk among grey

Eighteenth-century houses.

I have passed with a nod of the head

Or polite meaningless words,

Or have lingered awhile and said

Polite meaningless words,

And thought before I had done

Of a mocking tale or a gibe

To please a companion

Around the fire at the club,

Being certain that they and I

But lived where motley is worn:

All changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.
That woman’s days were spent

In ignorant good will,

Her nights in argument

Until her voice grew shrill.

What voice more sweet than hers

When young and beautiful,

She rode to harriers?

This man had kept a school

And rode our winged horse;

This other his helper and friend

Was coming into his force;

He might have won fame in the end,

So sensitive his nature seemed,

So daring and sweet his thought.

This other man I had dreamed

A drunken, vain-glorious lout.

He had done most bitter wrong

To some who are near my heart,

Yet I number him in the song;

He, too, has resigned his part

In the casual comedy;

He, too, has been changed in his turn,

Transformed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.
Hearts with one purpose alone

Through summer and winter seem

Enchanted to a stone

To trouble the living stream.

The horse that comes from the road,

The rider, the birds that range

From cloud to tumbling cloud,

Minute by minute they change;

A shadow of cloud on the stream

Changes minute by minute;

A horse-hoof slides on the brim,

And a horse plashes within it

Where long-legged moor-hens dive,

And hens to moor-cocks call.

Minute by minute they live:

The stone’s in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice?

That is heaven’s part, our part

To murmur name upon name,

As a mother names her child

When sleep at last has come

On limbs that had run wild.

What is it but nightfall?

No, no, not night but death;

Was it needless death after all?

For England may keep faith

For all that is done and said.

We-know their dream; enough

To know they dreamed and are dead;

And what if excess of love

Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out in a verse–

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.
September 15, 1916.

—

THE SECOND COMING
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

______
(Kris Kuksi – Fall of Rome)

Best Viewed In FireFox…
(John Byam Liston Shaw – Diana of the Hunt)

Hymn to Diana
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,

Now the sun is laid to sleep,

Seated in thy silver chair,

State in wonted manner keep:

Hesperus entreats thy light,

Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade

Dare itself to interpose;

Cynthia’s shining orb was made

Heaven to clear when day did close:

Bless us then with wishèd sight,

Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal-shining quiver;

Give unto the flying hart

Space to breathe, how short soever;

Thou that mak’st a day of night,

Goddess excellently bright.
– Ben Jonson

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A bit of a mashup today… Site Info, Art, Activism, Music… Take your pick.

Sun is out, if only for a little while. If you haven’t been here for awhile, check out the weekend entries… short but sweet!
Have a brilliant Monday!
Gwyllm

—

On The Menu:

Diane Darlings’: “The Red Queen”

Radio Free EarthRItes Update

Petes Pics: Sheila Chandra: Lament of McCrimmon/Song of the Banshee

Einstein Quotes

2 Wheel Solution

2 Zen Koans…

Another One From Peter:”The Zuvuya Sequence”

Collected Zen Poems…

Art:John Byam Liston Shaw
(1872 – 1919)Byam Shaw carried the torch of Pre-Raphaelitism across the turn of the century, a period when books and exhibitions had renewed interest in the Brotherhood’s work. In his paintings he revived the Brotherhood’s use of bright, pure glazes and restated their belief of the importance of truth and sincerity in art. Moreover, he turned to literature and history for inspiration. Literary allusions and elaborate symbolism were used to great effect by William Holman Hunt in his The Awakening Conscience to reveal some of the more pressing social problems of the age.
Byam Shaw was a late follower of the Pre-Raphaelites, and was especially influenced by John William Waterhouse. He was born in India (his father was a legal official), the family returning to England in 1878 or 1879. Both parents encouraged him in art as a child, only giving him the most decorative books, and surrounding him only with that which was beautiful. From 1880 he was tutored by J. A. Vintner, until 1887 when his father died. His mother, keen for Byam Shaw to continue painting although the rest of the family opposed the idea, arranged for him to be taken to see John Millais, who advised that the young man should immediately start working towards a studentship at the Royal Academy Schools. To this end, he studied at St John’s Wood School for two years, and was then able to enter the Academy Schools in 1890. He studied there until 1892, and then shared a studio with the artist Gerald Metcalfe. Later, together with Vicat Cole, he founded a school of art in Kensington. Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale later taught at this school.
Byam Shaw painted pictures inspired directly by the Pre-Raphaelites, commencing with his first picture exhibited at the Royal Academy, Rose Marie (1893), taken from a Rossetti poem, as was We Too, She Said (1895) (from The Blessed Damozel).More symbolist works include Whither (1896), showing a couple, the woman asleep in the arms of the man, who stares at the sea-maidens of his imagination flocked around the boat. He also painted portraits. He was a strong designer, and did many book illustrations after being encouraged in black-and-white work by the artist Gerald Moira, whom he met while at the Academy Schools. He contributed to the magazine Comic Cuts, and then many children’s books for Cassells, and became one of the foremost illustrators of his time. However, much of his illustrated work is in colour in the cheaper, poorer-quality reproduction books.
Two of his paintings, Jezebel (1896) and The Prodigal’s Return, are at the Russell-Cotes Museum, Bournemouth. Love’s Baubles (1897), a most decorative picture with jewel-like colours, is at the Walker Art Gallery. In Austalia, The Comforter is in the Adelaide Art Gallery.

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I am pleased to announce that we now have the 3rd chapter of Diane Darlings’ Red Queen novel on Earthrites.org. Please check it out!
We also have a new featured video on earthrites.org home page. More changes on the way, so stay tuned!

________
EarthRites Radio…

The Music Channels have undergone a transformation and are now broadcasting 24/7. Doug has done some re-engineering, and we have a huge, ever changing show. We have it on a random feed, which is taking some very interesting twist and turns.
If you haven’t checked it out, you should… some very good listening. We just put up another 24 hours of music, and will continue to update the playlist as we go along. If you have any request, please feel free to let us know….
Turn On – Paste Into – Your Internet Radio Player!

-o-o-0-0-O Radio Free Earthrites! O-0-0-o-o-

http://87.194.36.124:8000/radio

http://87.194.36.124:8001/radio-low

http://87.194.36.124:8002/spokenword

_______________
(John Byam Liston Shaw – Rising Spring)

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Petes Pics: Sheila Chandra: Lament of McCrimmon/Song of the Banshee

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Some Quotes sent to me from my sister Tina….
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

“Love is a better teacher than duty.”

– ALBERT EINSTEIN

__________
2 Wheel Solution
I stopped into a coffee shop this week and found this item printed on postcard. What a great idea, positively Ghandian in thought and application. A bicycle, the simplest of transportation devices after our own two feet… No petrol, no ethanol, human power applied directly to the situation on hand.

Bikes To Rawanda

So… if you want to make a real difference, one that functions, one that works, consider giving to this organization.

___________

Two Koans…
Koan: The First Principle
When one goes to Obaku temple in Kyoto he sees carved over the gate the words “The First Principle”. The letters are unusually large, and those who appreciate calligraphy always admire them as being a mastepiece. They were drawn by Kosen two hundred years ago.
When the master drew them he did so on paper, from which the workmen made the large carving in wood. As Kosen sketched the letters a bold pupil was with him who had made several gallons of ink for the calligraphy and who never failed to criticise his master’s work.
“That is not good,” he told Kosen after his first effort.
“How is this one?”
“Poor. Worse than before,” pronounced the pupil.
Kosen patiently wrote one sheet after another until eighty-four First Principles had accumulated, still without the approval of the pupil.
Then when the young man stepped outside for a few moments, Kosen thought: “Now this is my chance to escape his keen eye,” and he wrote hurriedly, with a mind free from distraction: “The First Principle.”
“A masterpiece,” pronounced the pupil.

—
The Tea-Master &amp; the Assassin
Taiko, a warrior who lived in Japan before the Tokugawa era, studied Cha-no-yu, tea etiquette, with Sen no Rikyu, a teacher of that aesthetical expression of calmness and contentment.
Taiko’s attendant warrior Kato interpreted his superior’s enthusiasm for tea etiquette as negligence of state affairs, so he decided to kill Sen no Rikyu. He pretended to make a social call upon the tea-master and was invited to drink tea.
The master, who was well skilled in his art, saw at a glance the warrior’s intention, so he invited Kato to leave his sword outside before entering the room for the ceremony, explaining the Cha-no-yu represents peacefulness itself.
Kato would not listen to this. “I am a warrior,” he said. “I always have my sword with me. Cha-no-yu or no Cha-no-yu, I have my sword.”
“Very well. Bring your sword in and have some tea,” consented Sen no Rikyu.
The kettle was boiling on the charcoal fire. Suddenly Sen no Rikyu tipped it over. Hissing steam arose, filling the room with smoke and ashes. The startled warrior ran outside.
The tea-master apologized. “It was my mistake. Come back in and have some tea. I have your sword here covered with ashes and will clean it and give it to you.”
In this predicament the warrior realized he could not very well kill the tea-master, so he gave up the idea.

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Another One From Peter:”The Zuvuya Sequence”

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(John Byam Liston Shaw – The Kelpie and the Highlander)

Collected Zen Poems…

If you want to be free,

Get to know your real self.

It has no form, no appearance,

No root, no basis, no abode,

But is lively and buoyant.

It responds with versatile facility,

But its function cannot be located.

Therefore when you look for it,

You become further from it;

When you seek it,

You turn away from it all the more.

– Linji

—
Where beauty is, then there is ugliness;

where right is, also there is wrong.

Knowledge and ignorance are interdependent;

delusion and enlightenment condition each other.

Since olden times it has been so.

How could it be otherwise now?

Wanting to get rid of one and grab the other

is merely realizing a scene of stupidity.

Even if you speak of the wonder of it all,

how do you deal with each thing changing?

-Ryokan

—
The monkey is reaching

For the moon in the water.

Until death overtakes him

He’ll never give up.

If he’d let go the branch and

Disappear in the deep pool,

The whole world would shine

With dazzling pureness.

Hakuin

—
The past is already past.

Don’t try to regain it.

The present does not stay.

Don’t try to touch it.
From moment to moment.

The future has not come;

Don’t think about it

Beforehand.
Whatever comes to the eye,

Leave it be.

There are no commandments

To be kept;

There’s no filth to be cleansed.
With empty mind really

Penetrated, the dharmas

Have no life.
When you can be like this,

You’ve completed

The ultimate attainment.

-Layman P’ang (740-808)

—
1. Experience Chan! It’s not mysterious.

As I see it, it boils down to cause and effect.

Outside the mind there is no Dharma

So how can anybody speak of a heaven beyond?
2. Experience Chan! It’s not a field of learning.

Learning adds things that can be researched and discussed.

The feel of impressions can’t be communicated.

Enlightenment is the only medium of transmission.
3. Experience Chan! It’s not a lot of questions.

Too many questions is the Chan disease.

The best way is just to observe the noise of the world.

The answer to your questions?

Ask your own heart.
4. Experience Chan! It’s not the teachings of disciples.

Such speakers are guests from outside the gate.

The Chan which you are hankering to speak about

Only talks about turtles turning into fish.
5. Experience Chan! It can’t be described.

When you describe it you miss the point.

When you discover that your proofs are without substance

You’ll realize that words are nothing but dust.
6. Experience Chan! It’s experiencing your own nature!

Going with the flow everywhere and always.

When you don’t fake it and waste time trying to rub and polish it,

Your Original Self will always shine through brighter than bright.
7. Experience Chan! It’s like harvesting treasures.

But donate them to others.

You won’t need them.

Suddenly everything will appear before you,

Altogether complete and altogether done.
8. Experience Chan! Become a follower who when accepted

Learns how to give up his life and his death.

Grasping this carefully he comes to see clearly.

And then he laughs till he topples the Cold Mountain ascetics.
9. Experience Chan! It’ll require great skepticism;

But great skepticism blocks those detours on the road.

Jump off the lofty peaks of mystery.

Turn your heaven and earth inside out.
10. Experience Chan! Ignore that superstitious nonsense

That makes some claim that they’ve attained Chan.

Foolish beliefs are those of the not-yet-awakened.

And they’re the ones who most need the experience of Chan!
11. Experience Chan! There’s neither distance nor intimacy.

Observation is like a family treasure.

Whether with eyes, ears, body, nose, or tongue –

It’s hard to say which is the most amazing to use.
12. Experience Chan! There’s no class distinction.

The one who bows and the one who is bowed to are a Buddha unit.

The yoke and its lash are tied to each other.

Isn’t this our first principle… the one we should most observe?

-Master Xu Yun

—-
(John Byam Liston Shaw – Jezebel)

A bit of late night fun…!
Kinder Atom: Sangria

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ORGANIZE ORGANIZE ORGANIZE…! Take Our Communities Back!
Peters’ Pick: 1 Giant Leap

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Make Every Act An Evo/Revolutionary Act.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

Best Viewed In FireFox
“If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exultation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up [the] next morning with a clear head and a undamaged constitution – then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and the earth would become paradise.”

-Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would

appear to man as it is, infinite. —William Blake
—-
We all went to our friend Ed’s surprise pizza dinner with a hoard of friends. Good Fun! Ed was delightful as ever, and totally surprised.
He thought he had escaped all the attention by heading off to Joshua Tree with Janice for a camping trip on the past weekend…
Yes, the birthday was on the weekend, but the party caught up with him anyway. Here is Ed, and all fun and laughter he has brought into our lives!
Great Pizza, nice drinks and wonderful company!
Happy Birthday Ed!

—-
Todays’ entry is loosely based on Aldous Huxley. We have some quotes, an extract from Albert Hoffmann’s wonderful book… Peter has chosen a nice bit of music, and Christina Rossetti weaves her poetic magick.
Here we are at Friday, sun is shining and the weekend beckons!
Have Fun!
Gwyllm
On The Menu

Pete’s Picks:Niyaz

Huxley Quotes

Meeting with Aldous Huxley – Albert Hoffmann [From LSD, My Problem Child Chapter8]

Poetry: Goblin Market -Christina Rossetti

Art: Robert Venosa &amp; Gwyllm

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Pete’s Picks:Niyaz

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Huxley Quotes:
Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to Permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or “feeling into.” Thus, remembering our own bereavements and humiliations, we can condole with others in analogous circumstances, can put ourselves (always, of course, in a slightly Pickwickian sense) in their places. But in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. The mind is its own place, and the Places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience.
An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.

At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political ideas.

Experience teaches only the teachable.
Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

That all men are equal is a proposition which, at ordinary times, no sane individual has ever given his assent.
The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name.

There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

_____________
(Robert Venosa – Astral Circus)

Meeting with Aldous Huxley – Albert Hoffmann

[From LSD, My Problem Child Chapter 8]
In the mid-1950s, two books by Aldous Huxley appeared, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, dealing with inebriated states produced by hallucinogenic drugs. The alterations of sensory perceptions and consciousness, which the author experienced in a self-experiment with mescaline, are skillfully described in these books. The mescaline experiment was a visionary experience for Huxley. He saw objects in a new light; they disclosed their inherent, deep, timeless existence, which remains hidden from everyday sight.
These two books contained fundamental observations on the essence of visionary experience and about the significance of this manner of comprehending the world-in cultural history, in the creation of myths, in the origin of religions, and in the creative process out of which works of art arise. Huxley saw the value of hallucinogenic drugs in that they give people who lack the gift of spontaneous visionary perception belonging to mystics, saints, and great artists, the potential to experience this extraordinary state of consciousness, and thereby to attain insight into the spiritual world of these great creators. Hallucinogens could lead to a deepened understanding of religious and mystical content, and to a new and fresh experience of the great works of art. For Huxley these drugs were keys capable of opening new doors of perception; chemical keys, in addition to other proven but laborious ” door openers” to the visionary world like meditation, isolation, and fasting, or like certain yoga practices.
At the time I already knew the earlier work of this great writer and thinker, books that meant much to me, like Point Counter Point, Brave New World, After Many a Summer, Eyeless in Gaza, and a few others. In The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, Huxley’s newly-published works, I found a meaningful exposition of the experience induced by hallucinogenic drugs, and I thereby gained a deepened insight into my own LSD experiments.
I was therefore delighted when I received a telephone call from Aldous Huxley in the laboratory one morning in August 1961. He was passing through Zurich with his wife. He invited me and my wife to lunch in the Hotel Sonnenberg.
A gentleman with a yellow freesia in his buttonhole, a tall and noble appearance, who exuded kindness- this is the image I retained from this first meeting with Aldous Huxley. The table conversation revolved mainly around the problem of magic drugs. Both Huxley and his wife, Laura Archera Huxley, had also experimented with LSD and psilocybin. Huxley would have preferred not to designate these two substances and mescaline as “drugs,” because in English usage, as also by the way with Droge in German, that word has a pejorative connotation, and because it was important to differentiate the hallucinogens from the other drugs, even linguistically. He believed in the great importance of agents producing visionary experience in the modern phase of human evolution.
He considered experiments under laboratory conditions to be insignificant, since in the extraordinarily intensified susceptibility and sensitivity to external impressions, the surroundings are of decisive importance. He recommended to my wife, when we spoke of her native place in the mountains, that she take LSD in an alpine meadow and then look into the blue cup of a gentian flower, to behold the wonder of creation.
As we parted, Aldous Huxley gave me, as a remembrance of this meeting, a tape recording of his lecture “Visionary Experience,” which he had delivered the week before at an international congress on applied psychology in Copenhagen. In this lecture, Aldous Huxley spoke about the meaning and essence of visionary experience and compared this type of world view to the verbal and intellectual comprehension of reality as its essential complement.
In the following year, the newest and last book by Aldous Huxley appeared, the novel Island. This story, set on the utopian island Pala, is an attempt to blend the achievements of natural science and technical civilization with the wisdom of Eastern thought, to achieve a new culture in which rationalism and mysticism are fruitfully united. The moksha medicine, a magical drug prepared from a mushroom, plays a significant role in the life of the population of Pala (moksha is Sanskrit for “release,” “liberation”). The drug could be used only in critical periods of life. The young men on Pala received it in initiation rites, it is dispensed to the protagonist of the novel during a life crisis, in the scope of a psychotherapeutic dialogue with a spiritual friend, and it helps the dying to relinquish the mortal body, in the transition to another existence.
In our conversation in Zurich, I had already learned from Aldous Huxley that he would again treat the problem of psychedelic drugs in his forthcoming novel. Now he sent me a copy of Island, inscribed “To Dr. Albert Hofmann, the original discoverer of the moksha medicine, from Aldous Huxley.”
The hopes that Aldous Huxley placed in psychedelic drugs as a means of evoking visionary experience, and the uses of these substances in everyday life, are subjects of a letter of 29 February 1962, in which he wrote me:
. . . I have good hopes that this and similar work will result in the development of a real Natural History of visionary experience, in all its variations, determined by differences of physique, temperament and profession, and at the same time of a technique of Applied Mysticism – a technique for helping individuals to get the most out of their transcendental experience and to make use of the insights from the “Other World” in the affairs of “This World.” Meister Eckhart wrote that “what is taken in by contemplation must be given out in love.” Essentially this is what must be developed-the art of giving out in love and intelligence what is taken in from vision and the experience of self-transcendence and solidarity with the Universe….
Aldous Huxley and I were together often at the annual convention of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences (WAAS) in Stockholm during late summer 1963. His suggestions and contributions to discussions at the sessions of the academy, through their form and importance, had a great influence on the proceedings.
WAAS had been established in order to allow the most competent specialists to consider world problems in a forum free of ideological and religious restrictions and from an international viewpoint encompassing the whole world. The results: proposals, and thoughts in the form of appropriate publications, were to be placed at the disposal of the responsible governments and executive organizations.
The 1963 meeting of WAAS had dealt with the population explosion and the raw material reserves and food resources of the earth. The corresponding studies and proposals were collected in Volume II of WAAS under the title The Population Crisis and the Use of World Resources. A decade before birth control, environmental protection, and the energy crisis became catchwords, these world problems were examined there from the most serious point of view, and proposals for their solution were made to governments and responsible organizations. The catastrophic events since that time in the aforementioned fields makes evident the tragic discrepancy between recognition, desire, and feasibility.
Aldous Huxley made the proposal, as a continuation and complement of the theme “World Resources” at the Stockholm convention, to address the problem “Human Resources,” the exploration and application of capabilities hidden in humans yet unused. A human race with more highly developed spiritual capacities, with expanded consciousness of the depth and the incomprehensible wonder of being, would also have greater understanding of and better consideration for the biological and material foundations of life on this earth. Above all, for Western people with t
heir hypertrophied rationality, the development and expansion of a direct, emotional experience of reality, unobstructed by words and concepts, would be of evolutionary significance. Huxley considered psychedelic drugs to be one means to achieve education in this direction. The psychiatrist Dr. Humphry Osmond, likewise participating in the congress, who had created the term psychedelic (mind-expanding), assisted him with a report about significant possibilities of the use of hallucinogens.
The convention in Stockholm in 1963 was my last meeting with Aldous Huxley. His physical appearance was already marked by a severe illness; his intellectual personage, however, still bore the undiminished signs of a comprehensive knowledge of the heights and depths of the inner and outer world of man, which he had displayed with so much genius, love, goodness, and humor in his literary work.
Aldous Huxley died on 22 November of the same year, on the same day President Kennedy was assassinated. From Laura Huxley I obtained a copy of her letter to Julian and Juliette Huxley, in which she reported to her brother- and sister-in-law about her husband’s last day. The doctors had prepared her for a dramatic end, because the terminal phase of cancer of the throat, from which Aldous Huxley suffered, is usually accompanied by convulsions and choking fits. He died serenely and peacefully, however.
In the morning, when he was already so weak that he could no longer speak, he had written on a sheet of paper: “LSD-try it-intramuscular-100 mmg.” Mrs. Huxley understood what was meant by this, and ignoring the misgivings of the attending physician, she gave him, with her own hand, the desired injection-she let him have the moksha medicine.

_____________
(Robert Venosa – Prana Exhalation)

Poetry: Goblin Market

(Christina Rossetti)
Morning and evening

Maids heard the goblins cry:

“Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy:

Apples and quinces,

Lemons and oranges,

Plump unpecked cherries,

Melons and raspberries,

Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,

Swart-headed mulberries,

Wild free-born cranberries,

Crab-apples, dewberries,

Pine-apples, blackberries,

Apricots, strawberries;—

All ripe together

In summer weather,—

Morns that pass by,

Fair eves that fly;

Come buy, come buy:

Our grapes fresh from the vine,

Pomegranates full and fine,

Dates and sharp bullaces,

Rare pears and greengages,

Damsons and bilberries,

Taste them and try:

Currants and gooseberries,

Bright-fire-like barberries,

Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrons from the South,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;

Come buy, come buy.”
Evening by evening

Among the brookside rushes,

Laura bowed her head to hear,

Lizzie veiled her blushes:

Crouching close together

In the cooling weather,

With clasping arms and cautioning lips,

With tingling cheeks and finger tips.

“Lie close,” Laura said,

Pricking up her golden head:

“We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots ?”

“Come buy,” call the goblins

Hobbling down the glen.

“Oh,” cried Lizzie, “Laura, Laura,

You should not peep at goblin men.”

Lizzie covered up her eyes,

Covered close lest they should look;
Laura reared her glossy head,

And whispered like the restless brook:

“Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,

Down the glen tramp little men.

One hauls a basket,

One bears a plate,

One lugs a golden dish

Of many pounds weight.

How fair the vine must grow

Whose grapes are so luscious;

How warm the wind must blow

Thro’ those fruit bushes.”

“No,” said Lizzie: “No, no, no;

Their offers should not charm us,

Their evil gifts would harm us.”

She thrust a dimpled finger

In each ear, shut eyes and ran:

Curious Laura chose to linger

Wondering at each merchant man.

One had a cats face,

One whisked a tail,

One tramped at a rat’s pace,

One crawled like a snail,

One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,

One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.

She heard a voice like voice of doves

Cooing all together:

They sounded kind and full of loves

In the pleasant weather.
Laura stretched her gleaming neck

Like a rush-imbedded swan,

Like a lily from the beck,

Like a moonlit poplar branch,

Like a vessel at the launch

When its last restraint is gone.
Backwards up the mossy glen

Turned and trooped the goblin men,

With their shrill repeated cry,

“Come buy, come buy.”

When they reached where Laura was

They stood stock still upon the moss,

Leering at each other,

Brother with queer brother;

Signalling each other,

Brother with sly brother.

One set his basket down,

One reared his plate;

One began to weave a crown

Of tendrils, leaves and rough nuts brown

(Men sell not such in any town);

One heaved the golden weight

Of dish and fruit to offer her:

“Come buy, come buy,” was still their cry.
Laura stared but did not stir,

Longed but had no money:

The whisk-tailed merchant bade her taste

In tones as smooth as honey,

The cat-faced purr’d,

The rat-paced spoke a word

Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;

One parrot-voiced and jolly

Cried “Pretty Goblin” still for “Pretty Polly;”—

One whistled like a bird.
But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:

“Good folk, I have no coin;

To take were to purloin:

I have no copper in my purse,

I have no silver either,

And all my gold is on the furze

That shakes in windy weather

Above the rusty heather.”

“You have much gold upon your head,”

They answered all together:

“Buy from us with a golden curl.”

She clipped a precious golden lock,

She dropped a tear more rare than pearl,

Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:

Sweeter than honey from the rock,

Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,

Clearer than water flowed that juice;

She never tasted such before,

How should it cloy with length of use?

She sucked and sucked and sucked the more

Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;

She sucked until her lips were sore;

Then flung the emptied rinds away

But gathered up one kernel-stone,

And knew not was it night or day

As she turned home alone.
Lizzie met her at the gate

Full of wise upbraidings:

“Dear, you should not stay so late,

Twilight is not good for maidens;

Should not loiter in the glen

In the haunts of goblin men.

Do you not remember Jeanie,

How she met them in the moonlight,

Took their gifts both choice and many,

Ate their fruits and wore their flowers

Plucked from bowers

Where summer ripens at all hours?

But ever in the moonlight

She pined and pined away;

Sought them by night and day,

Found them no more but dwindled and grew grey;

Then fell with the first snow,

While to this day no grass will grow

Where she lies low:

I planted daisies there a year ago

That never blow.

You should not loiter so.”

“Nay, hush,” said Laura:

“Nay, hush, my sister:

I ate and ate my fill,

Yet my mouth waters still;

Tomorrow night I will

Buy more:” and kissed her:

“Have done with sorrow;

I’ll bring you plums tomorrow

Fresh on their mother twigs,

Cherries worth getting;

You cannot think what figs

My teeth have met in,

What melons icy-cold

Piled on a dish of gold

Too huge for me to hold,

What peaches with a velvet nap,

Pellucid grapes without one seed:

Odorous indeed must be the mead

Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink

With lilies at the brink,

And sugar-sweet their sap.”

Golden head by golden head,

Like two pigeons in one nest

Folded in each other’s wings,

They lay down in their curtained bed:

Like two blossoms on one stem,

Like two flakes of new-fall’n snow,

Like two wands of ivory

Tipped with gold for awful kings.

Moon and stars gazed in at them,

Wind sang to them lullaby,

Lumbering owls forbore to fly,

Not a bat flapped to and fro

Round their rest:

Cheek to cheek and breast to breast

Locked together in one nest.
Early in the morning

When the first cock crowed his warning,

Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,

Laura rose with Lizzie:

Fetched in honey, milked the cows,

Aired and set to rights the house,

Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,

Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,

Next churned butter, whipped up cream,

Fed their poultry, sat and sewed;

Talked as modest maidens should:

Lizzie with an open heart,

Laura in an absent dream,

One content, one sick in part;

One warbling for the mere bright day’s delight,

One longing for the night.
At length slow evening came:

They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;

Lizzie most placid in her look,

Laura most like a leaping flame.

They drew the gurgling water from its deep;

Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags,

Then turning homewards said: “The sunset flushes

Those furthest loftiest crags;

Come, Laura, not another maiden lags,

No wilful squirrel wags,

The beasts and birds are fast asleep.”

But Laura loitered still among the rushes

And said the bank was steep.
And said the hour was early still,

The dew not fall’n, the wind not chill:

Listening ever, but not catching

The customary cry,

“Come buy, come buy,”

With its iterated jingle

Of sugar-baited words:

Not for all her watching

Once discerning even one goblin

Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;

Let alone the herds

That used to tramp along the glen,

In groups or single,

Of brisk fruit-merchant men.

Till Lizzie urged, “O Laura, come;

I hear the fruit-call but I dare not look:

You should not loiter longer at this brook:

Come with me home.

The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,

Each glowworm winks her spark,

Let us get home before the night grows dark:

For clouds may gather

Tho’ this is summer weather,

Put out the lights and drench us thro’;

Then if we lost our way what should we do?”
Laura turned cold as stone

To find her sister heard that cry alone,

That goblin cry,

“Come buy our fruits, come buy.”

Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?

Must she no more such succous pasture find,

Gone deaf and blind?

Her tree of life drooped from the root:

She said not one word in her heart’s sore ache;

But peering thro’ the dimness, nought discerning,

Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way;

So crept to bed, and lay

Silent till Lizzie slept;

Then sat up in a passionate yearning,

And gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept

As if her heart would break.
Day after day, night after night,

Laura kept watch in vain

In sullen silence of exceeding pain.

She never caught again the goblin cry:

“Come buy, come buy;”—

She never spied the goblin men

Hawking their fruits along the glen:

But when the noon waxed bright

Her hair grew thin and grey;

She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn

To swift decay and burn

Her fire away.
One day remembering her kernel-stone

She set it by a wall that faced the south;

Dewed it with tears, hoped for a root,

Watched for a waxing shoot,

But there came none:

It never saw the sun,

It never felt the trickling moisture run:

While with sunk eyes and faded mouth

She dreamed of melons, as a traveller sees

False waves in desert drouth

With shade of leaf-crowned trees,

And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.

She no more swept the house,

Tended the fowls or cows,

Fetched honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,

Brought water from the brook:

But sat down listless in the chimney-nook

And would not eat.
Tender Lizzie could not bear

To watch her sister’s cankerous care

Yet not to share.

She night and morning

Caught the goblins’ cry:

“Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy:”—

Beside the brook, along the glen,

She heard the tramp of goblin men,

The voice and stir

Poor Laura could not hear;

Longed to buy fruit to comfort her,

But feared to pay too dear.

She thought of Jeanie in her grave,

Who should have been a bride;

But who for joys brides hope to have

Fell sick and died

In her gay prime,

In earliest Winter time,

With the first glazing rime,

With the first snow-fall of crisp Winter time.

Till Laura dwindling

Seemed knocking at Death’s door:

Then Lizzie weighed no more

Better and worse;

But put a silver penny in her purse,

Kissed Laura, crossed the heath with clumps of furze

At twilight, halted by the brook:

And for the first time in her life

Began to listen and look.
Laughed every goblin

When they spied her peeping:

Came towards her hobbling,

Flying, running, leaping,

Puffing and blowing,

Chuckling, clapping, crowing,

Clucking and gobbling,

Mopping and mowing,

Full of airs and graces,

Pulling wry faces,

Demure grimaces,

Cat-like and rat-like,

Ratel- and wombat-like,

Snail-paced in a hurry,

Parrot-voiced and whistler,

Helter skelter, hurry skurry,

Chattering like magpies,

Fluttering like pigeons,

Gliding like fishes,—

Hugged her and kissed her,

Squeezed and caressed her:

Stretched up their dishes,

Panniers, and plates:

“Look at our apples

Russet and dun,

Bob at our cherries,

Bite at our peaches,

Citrons and dates,

Grapes for the asking,

Pears red with basking

Out in the sun,

Plums on their twigs;

Pluck them and suck them,

Pomegranates, figs.”—

“Good folk,” said Lizzie,

Mindful of Jeanie:

“Give me much and many:”—

Held out her apron,

Tossed them her penny.

“Nay, take a seat with us,

Honour and eat with us,”

They answered grinning:

“Our feast is but beginning.

Night yet is early,

Warm and dew-pearly,

Wakeful and starry:

Such fruits as these

No man can carry;

Half their bloom would fly,

Half their dew would dry,

Half their flavour would pass by.

Sit down and feast with us,

Be welcome guest with us,

Cheer you and rest with us.”—

“Thank you,” said Lizzie: “But one waits

At home alone for me:

So without further parleying,

If you will not sell me any

Of your fruits tho’ much and many,

Give me back my silver penny

I tossed you for a fee.”-

They began to scratch their pates,

No longer wagging, purring,

But visibly demurring,

Grunting and snarling.

One called her proud,

Cross-grained, uncivil;

Their tones waxed loud,

Their looks were evil.

Lashing their tails

They trod and hustled her,

Elbowed and jostled her,

Clawed with their nails,

Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,

Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,

Twitched her hair out by the roots,

Stamped upon her tender feet,

Held her hands and squeezed their fruits

Against her mouth to make her eat.

White and golden Lizzie stood,

Like a lily in a flood,—

Like a rock of blue-veined stone

Lashed by tides obstreperously,—

Like a beacon left alone

In a hoary roaring sea,

Sending up a golden fire,—

Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree

White with blossoms honey-sweet

Sore beset by wasp and bee,—

Like a royal virgin town

Topped with gilded dome and spire

Close beleaguered by a fleet

Mad to tug her standard down.
One may lead a horse to water,

Twenty cannot make him drink.

Tho’ the goblins cuffed and caught her,

Coaxed and fought her,

Bullied and besought her,

Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,

Kicked and knocked her,

Mauled and mocked her,

Lizzie uttered not a word;

Would not open lip from lip

Lest they should cram a mouthful in:

But laughed in heart to feel the drip

Of juice that syrupped all her face,

And lodged in dimples other chin,

And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.

At last the evil people

Worn out by her resistance

Flung back her penny, kicked their fruit

Along whichever road they took,

Not leaving root or stone or shoot;

Some writhed into the ground,

Some dived into the brook

With ring and ripple,

Some scudded on the gale without a sound,

Some vanished in the distance.
In a smart, ache, tingle,

Lizzie went her way;

Knew not was it night or day;

Sprang up the bank, tore thro’ the furze,

Threaded copse and dingle,

And heard her penny jingle

Bouncing in her purse,

Its bounce was music to her ear.

She ran and ran

As if she feared some goblin man

Dogged her with gibe or curse

Or something worse:

But not one goblin skurried after,

Nor was she pricked by fear;

The kind heart made her windy-paced

That urged her home quite out of breath with chaste

And inward laughter,
She cried “Laura,” up the garden,

“Did you miss me?

Come and kiss me.

Never mind my bruises,

Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices

Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,

Goblin pulp and goblin dew.

Eat me, drink me, love me;

Laura, make much of me:

For your sake I have braved the glen

And had to do with goblin merchant men.”
Laura started from her chair,

Flung her arms up in the air,

Clutched her hair:

“Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted

For my sake the fruit forbidden?

Must your light like mine be hidden,

Your young life like mine be wasted,

Undone in mine undoing

And ruined in my ruin,

Thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?”—

She clung about her sister,

Kissed and kissed and kissed her:

Tears once again

Refreshed her shrunken eyes,

Dropping like rain

After long sultry drouth;

Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,

She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.

Her lips began to scorch,

That juice was wormwood to her tongue,

She loathed the feast:

Writhing as one possessed she leaped and sung,

Rent all her robe, and wrung

Her hands in lamentable haste,

And beat her breast.

Her locks streamed like the torch

Borne by a racer at full speed,

Or like the mane of horses in their flight,

Or like an eagle when she stems the light

Straight toward the sun,

Or like a caged thing freed,

Or like a flying flag when armies run.
Swift fire spread thro’ her veins, knocked at her heart,

Met the fire smouldering there

And overbore its lesser flame;

She gorged on bitterness without a name:

Ah! fool, to choose such part

Of soul-consuming care!

Sense failed in the mortal strife:

Like the watch-tower of a town

Which an earthquake shatters down,

Like a lightning-stricken mast,

Like a wind-uprooted tree

Spun about,

Like a foam-topped waterspout

Cast down headlong in the sea,

She fell at last;

Pleasure past and anguish past,

Is it death or is it life?
Life out of death.

That night long Lizzie watched by her,

Counted her pulse’s flagging stir,

Felt for her breath,

Held water to her lips, and cooled her face

With tears and fanning leaves:

But when the first birds chirped about their eaves,

And early reapers plodded to the place

Of golden sheaves,

And dew-wet grass

Bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,

And new buds with new day

Opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,

Laura awoke as from a dream,

Laughed in the innocent old way,

Hugged Lizzie but not twice or thrice;

Her gleaming locks showed not one thread of grey,

Her breath was sweet as May

And light danced in her eyes.

Days, weeks, months, years

Afterwards, when both were wives

With children of their own;

Their mother-hearts beset with fears,

Their lives bound up in tender lives;

Laura would call the little ones

And tell them other early prime,

Those pleasant days long gone

Of not-returning time:

Would talk about the haunted glen,

The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,

Their fruits like honey to the throat

But poison in the blood;

(Men sell not such in any town:)

Would tell them how her sister stood

In deadly peril to do her good,

And win the fiery antidote:

Then joining hands to little hands

Would bid them cling together,

“For there is no friend like a sister

In calm or stormy weather;

To cheer one on the tedious way,

To fetch one if one goes astray,

To lift one if one totters down,

To strengthen whilst one stands.”
(Robert Venosa – Ayahuasca Dream)