This question echoed further within me the following day, as we first pursued meditative and group connectiveness exercises, and then five hours alone in the desert, each alone with the wind and rocks, and an occasional scolding bird that paused to make itself known. To wit, another poem was written.
He dreams of infinite space
To come of age in this dry place
‘Ere the wind speaks nonsense and leads one astray
Time fleets careless as a black-winged bird, gliding ever on
and away
Hark! Zephyr’s voices – some distant, some close
Resounding murmurs of heavenly host
Echoing through rocks and bushes, lonesome trees
The wind says nothing – no, nothing to please
Believes it has wisdom
Acts like it has knowledge
Blows but one way, leaving no solace
It’s been here forever – no time to it sticks
‘Tis but the sirocco playing its’ trick
The only one it knows…
The evening mushroom trip was to be the main event of the retreat and, indeed, the large amount of dried material placed before suggested as much. After ingesting what seemed to me to be several doses, I lay back and quickly began to feel myself slipping away – dissolving into a state of self-liquidity and flowing down what seemed a conduit into a brilliant nighttime carnival of multicolored light purple and green neon lights and images, the most notable being a six-breasted Indian goddess of some beauty. All around me a paraded a cavalcade of entities – an endless panorama of faces and beings composed of different colors and shapes, body plans, and appendages – some disjointed and contorted, some scolding and questioning, some happy and some not. Were they all coming to see me – and from where? I told myself that whatever I saw, whether ugly or frightening, that I was not afraid and would meet all with inner love and acceptance. I held the belief that this approach would be the best way to countenance and did so for what seemed a lengthy time and until my energies began to dim. I began to wonder what is the meaning of this inner psychedelic world of a million faces that pass by and phantasmagorical starbursts appear in my head when I yawn? Some have said that this is the land of the gods, but in truth I don’t remember seeing any gods, except for the one, although everything had an intense otherworldly and ethereal quality. One of the group facilitators came by and asked how I was feeling. I told him I was fine, although it seemed a bit crowded in my head! But alas, I couldn’t find any true coherence to this experience and felt my energy spent from supporting the parade of entities. For truly, I had no more to give to the experience and, perhaps, they had no more to give to me.
Almost immediately, the colors that had surrounded me quickly faded and the beings in my mind passed away, as I came down. I couldn’t get back into the psychedelia and felt sickly, as if mushroom dread squirmed around in my stomach. I suddenly felt how much I missed my kids and wanted to be with them – to talk with them, cook for them, put them to bed, and just to love them. What am I doing with these strangers – comrades in this cold desert night charade – when I could be with them, I wondered? And I suddenly realized that I wanted someone to comfort and take care of me. I needed to be held, to be loved, but who would do that in my life, while I am the one who serves and supports all – children, wife, students, co-workers? And then I realized what I was missing from my life, both now and back when – I missed my dear mother
Long passed, she had fallen victim to a severe stroke at eighty and passed away in a geriatric facility on the west coast of Florida but two years later. In truth, I saw little of her during that last period, as I lived abroad and was busy with my life, career, and family. I never even got to say goodbye to her. Well, not entirely, as on the night of her death, I dreamed that we were together in the kitchen of my childhood home. She had been cooking, as was her wont, and we were placing dishes in the dishwasher. Yet, she was angry – angry at my father for keeping her in the geriatric facility, for all the years of unhappiness, and for not being whatever she had or had not wanted him to be, I believe. They had had a difficult marriage. My father was an immigrant of Jewish descent from a strict yekke background, trying hard to be an American, working hard in NYC, and commuting for hours each day to provide for his family. She was the daughter of divorced parents and although moving frequently, had and grown up without much luxury in Chicago during the Great Depression. They never had much in common and seemed to lack shared passions or interests. But they stuck it out, each unhappy in his or her own right – never reaching real fulfillment in each other and, perhaps, in their lives. When they met it was a period when life itself was always in question, where war could strip away all roots and identity, and where convenience and plenty were words mostly foreign to their understanding. Survival and security were driving forces, and the soul-searching of identity and purpose weren’t high priorities. They never did talk much about their past together. Although my father provided more details, my mother always kept quiet. I never knew why she wanted him, why she married him, and what she ever wanted from this life – for herself? He at least, I knew, wanted to be an American – not a Jew, not a German anymore. As the dream continued we went for a drive in her tan Buick and as we passed close to an old and rather ominous-looking green paneled truck driving on our right, we began to edge closer and closer to him than the lane would provide. Feeling anxious, I suddenly had the feeling that it was now time for me to get out. I told my mother that I could not go any further on this road and, as I was getting out of the car in my dream, the phone rang in my apartment. I immediately woke and answering it heard my father in Florida saying that my mother had just passed. Turns out that I had said my goodbye to her in the car, not knowing that it would be real and final.
