Neither am I.
CANAL STREET, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1969
This morning when I woke up, I reviewed my disaster of yesterday and decided it was definitely minor. I’m not pregnant, because I’m on the pill, so nobody was hurt. My ego got knocked around a little, but that’s okay. Roy says ego bruises can bring about an increase of wisdom, so the whole thing could hardly be called a disaster. Just a blunder—or maybe a blunderette. No, not even that. I had a very good time with a very dear, superficial, attractive ass, not to mention gaining lots of new experience for my autobiography. At first, when he poured Drambuie all over my breasts, I thought he’d freaked out, but when he started licking it off, the whole thing began to make sense. Edward may be part fink, but he’s tremendously imaginative and free. I tried to top him by putting his penis in my mouth (another first!) but I don’t suppose he dug it as much as he pretended to. Anyway, I’m glad I tried it, because now I’ll be able to write with authority on the subject. I’ll explain to my readers the ritual value of penis-sucking, how every real woman should take joy in paying homage to the fabulous male organ from which emerges the sacred seeds of human life. Besides it’s sort of groovy.
Roy wasn’t in bed last night. When I came in, post-blunderette, I needed him. But he wasn’t here. And then I began to realize I’ve seen very little of him since we moved in here. I’ve been running around with Sally and Cary, and he’s been spending practically every waking minute with Archie and Jeanette. I hope we’re not drifting apart. I miss him. I guess what I miss most is his needing me. What good’s an earth mother without any children? But that’s not all of it. Roy is my beautiful lifelong friend and brother, my soul’s tender lover, and I would like him always to be in my life. I also missed his skinny little body in the bed. It’s a bummer to run all the way home from a foolish, lonesome experience and not have somebody to hug. I suppose I could have hugged Sally or just about anybody, but it’s not the same.
Tonight while we were doing the dishes, I told Roy about seeing Hank Glyczwycz teach his class. Something about that entire thing is still bugging me, and I was hoping Roy’d be able to help. I asked him if he had any idea why a person would continue to think so hard about someone they weren’t really interested in any more. Roy said, “After all, he’s your father. It’s only natural you’d keep thinking about him for a while—even if you don’t dig him.”
I suppose he’s right. But I’m still not satisfied. One thing that really freaks me out is that I can’t remember Glyczwycz’s face any more and it’s only been two days. Everything else about Monday afternoon is still perfectly clear, but when I try to pull his face into focus, all I get is a blank. It’s so frustrating I don’t know what to do.
CANAL STREET, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1969
Having a completely blah day. Might as well copy down the rest of the bulletin board.
There is neither Jew nor Greek
There is neither bond nor free
There is neither male nor female
For ye are all One in Christ Jesus
—John 17:22
God respects me when I work
but he loves me when I sing
—An Uphead’s Song
Where your head is is your wealth.
—Gene Robeson
I don’t mind dying as long as I have a big grin on my face.
—Archie Fiesta
Learn wisdom from the pupil of the eye that looks upon all things and yet, to self, is blind.
—A Persian poet,
according to Malcolm X
Aug. Phone bill—$38.50. Message units up 112 from last month.
Love,
Jeanette
P.S. Whoever made the call to Colorado, it was $12.20. Oh, hi, Cary!
Each soul is like a drop of water without which the whole world would thirst.
—Ugo Betti
Merely being alive is such a fantastic
privilege. The only maintainable thing to
do is to get into life and dig every second.
—Danny
There will come a day when you won’t even
be ashamed if you are fat.
—The Mothers of Invention
To live outside the law you must be honest.
—Bob Dylan
We are everything you say we are, and more,
and we are proud of it.
—Jefferson Airplane
Any well regulated life has its share of sex and dope—and irregularity.
—Peter
If you can love one person, yourself, you can love the world.
—Ty
When one eats, he fills his stomach.
When one loves, he fills his soul.
Once he found this, he’ll never give it up.
—2 Friends
There is no insight without Love.
—Choo Choo
The ultimate product of materialism is shit.
—Cary Colorado
We Are Love—
You and I and
We are all Love
And if God is Love,
Then we are God—
—Aman
The kernel of all jealousy is lack of love.
—Carl Jung
The earth is a flower—opening.
—Swami Choochitananda
I used to think joy had to be paid for in blood
and pain. It doesn’t. It’s free. Joy doesn’t
increase our debts. It increases our capacity
for more joy.
—One who learned this
We’re living in the world’s most beautiful day.
If we’re more aware of the darkness than ever
before, it’s because there’s more light penetrating
it in more places.
—Peter
Just being is holiness itself.
—Socorro’s Life Said
This to Us
Fighting for peace is like fucking for
virginity— But it’s great!
—Subway men’s room,
Astor Place stop
The only way you can win a war is by seeing
to it the enemy has everything he needs.
—Will
You only meet yourself on an acid trip. If
there are aspects of your life, your self,
your past, your future, that you’re afraid
to look at—don’t take the acid.
—Peter
I’d love to blow your soul.
—Archie Fiesta
Television is education. That’s why all
the schools are dying.
—A TV student
A girl who’s sleeping with your brother isn’t your sister-in-law. She’s your sister outlaw.
—A deep thinker
May the longtime sun shine upon you, all
love surround you, and the pure light within
you guide your way on!
—The Incredible String Band
Butterflies are flying flowers.
—Swami Choochitananda
Be yourself: No one can ever tell you you’re
doing it wrong.
—Good John
If community is to come it will come from
one-to-one, perfected.
—Neyeurme
Let us overcome the angry man with gentleness,
The evil man with goodness,
The miser with generosity, and
The liar with TRUTH.
—Old Indian Wisdom
NOTE TO ALL LAUNDERETTE TRIPPERS
Don’t forget we’ve got an enormous
box of low phosphate soap now, so take some
with you. Their detergents fuck up the
rivers!
—Cary
No more paranoia! It attracts persecution.
—Jeanette
You must find God in whatever you are doing.
—Mike Pollack
Everything is wrong that forbids the fr
eedom
of the individual.
—Dylan Thomas
He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout,
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
—Edwin Markham
If we live what we know, our life will be our rap.
—Cary Colorado
We are the people our parents warned us about.
—Some hippie
All beauty is head food.
—Jim Coan
It is not how we love, or who we love,
but that we love.
—Unsigned
UNDESIRABLE DISCHARGE
FROM THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
This is to certify that
Harry Wilson Jones, Jr.
Was discharged from the United States Navy
On the 29th Day of April, 1968
As Undesirable
—Modern American Wisdom
When the pupil is ready, the teacher comes.
—Buddha? Meher Baba?
Anyone who takes the sure road is as good
as dead.
—Carl Jung
Fuck is no longer a four-letter word.
—Neyeurme
Resist biologically—be erotic.
—T. Leary
Anything that can enslave you can also free
you.
—Starcke
Life must be guileless, roleless.
—Mark Stern
Nirvana is pure gamelessness.
—James
Lies tend to isolate you.
—Jeanette
Life is learning what you can grow.
—James
Love is a humble dragon
Hate stands alone . . .
—Chinese Wisdom
Translation, Brad Brasfield
Bank Balance for July $1,907.06
Bank Balance for Aug. $1,540.22
I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
—Walt Whitman
CANAL STREET, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1969
Stoned out of my mind on LSD. Fabulous visions, impressions. Feel great urge to write it all down. Can’t. Words get in the way. Reality is reality and words are words. Besides, my pen is turning into a rose.
CANAL STREET, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1969
Last night we all dropped acid. The stuff had some speed in it and I ended up rapping too much and grinding my teeth a lot, but I don’t regret it, because so many groovy things happened.
A. I heard the Electric Prunes’ Mass in F Minor.
B. I stopped being hung up on Archie.
C. Doris came back from California and caught us all stark naked and tripping. (Why do I say caught? Is my life forever to be plagued with guilt? I think I’ll do C all over again.)
C. I made a new friend. Her name is Doris and she’s heaven.
D. I made a second new friend. Her name is Sara and she’s a ghost.
Archie had come in about an hour before dinner with a dozen tabs of orange sunshine. He said it was the same very high stuff Timothy Leary recommended in an East Village Other interview in the spring. Anyway he passed it around.
Nyoom frowned at it for a moment. Then he said, “If this is the sacred substance recommended by the High Priest himself, one can hardly decline.” He took a tab and popped it into his mouth. Sally said she preferred to abstain, but assured us she’d be tripping right along with the rest of us on a contact high.
Cary Colorado said he hadn’t tripped since Boulder, and he was interested in seeing what it would do for him. ( Later I asked him how it compared with the high he got on meditation and he said he found the acid pretty sloppy.)
Jeanette took a tab without comment.
Roy looked at me and said, “What do you think, Witch?”
I told him it was his head.
“Yeah, but are you going to?”
I said yes. So Roy and I dropped, too.
Cary put the new Donovan record on the stereo, the one about Atlantis. By dinnertime we are all having rushes and nobody was interested in eating. We all took our clothes off. Cary’s idea. At first I was nervous about being naked with Archie. I was afraid I’d start hallucinating the two of us making love all over the place, or that we’d get into a pure lust thing that could put me on a bummer. (What’s wrong with pure lust? I don’t really know, but if just thinking about it can put you in a down head, what would the experience itself do?)
Anyway, I needn’t have worried. Because seeing Archie under acid, clothes or no clothes, had the opposite effect on me. Aphrodite went out the window. Earth Mother moved in. I stopped wanting him, and don’t think I ever will again. His body is as lovely as his face, but the acid made him seem so helpless and alone. Maybe acid makes what your soul is more important than what your body is. I don’t know. But I was seeing auras all night, like on my very first trip. Archie’s was a color I’d never seen before, indescribable, sort of a dark puce with very little light in it. It’s almost not there. Also, I saw not just auras but souls, too. At least I think I was seeing souls. It was as if all of our bodies existed inside of a quivery watery sheath. I tried to write about this last night but I couldn’t. I guess there are things that refuse to allow themselves to be written down. Or maybe I don’t know enough words. Anyway, with acid, hiding doesn’t work. You show who you are. Archie’s whole being comes through as a selfish, pouting lost child. He was beautiful, too. I suppose all souls are, if you really see them. I had no interest in Archie sexually, and yet my breasts actually ached. I felt as if my soul wanted to suckle him and nourish him, but it didn’t know how to go about it.
Seeing Archie so clearly gave me a real insight into the dangers of acid. My own trips have been pretty glorious experiences, but I’ve always had high friends around who could help me use my paranoia and turn it into a growth trip. For some reason I’ve never really had major problems about keeping my head straight, but Archie is a mess. A half a dozen times through the night someone had to be with him holding him and comforting him and telling him everything was all right. At one point he thought the house was on fire and couldn’t be talked out of it. Finally we all had to put our clothes on and take him outside and show him everything was okay. Then we brought him back inside and he cried with relief. But a few minutes later he was whispering to Nyoom, “The house isn’t on fire. Right?” And Nyoom said, “No, Archie. The house is beautiful. So are you, and so am I. And everything’s cool.”
The first really interesting event of the evening was meeting Sara the Ghost. Sally and I had been up on the roof in Will’s greenhouse trying to see gnomes in the flowerpots. Sally’s convinced each plant has a little invisible creature tending its roots and she was hoping with acid we’d be relaxed enough to see them. We weren’t. But on the way back downstairs, just as we were coming to the first landing, Sally stopped and said, “Far out!” I said, “What’s happening?” And she said, “I’m getting extra strong ghost vibes. Just stand still right here and see if you can pick them up.”
I stood still for a few seconds, looking into the dark, and I didn’t pick up any vibes, not a one. But I saw the ghost. There was this big watery-looking oval of space, like a full-length mirror with blurry edges, and she was sitting inside of it in a rocking chair, watching me with an enormous grin on her face. The most far-out part of it all is that I wasn’t even surprised.
I said, “I can see her, Sally. She’s right here.”
“Oh, Witch! Can you truly?”
By this time the ghost was waving at me, so I waved back and said, “Hello there!” She had on an 1890s-ish costume and her hair was all braided tight across the crown of her head. Her face was homely but nice to look at, and the expression on it was terribly dear. She looked so pleased, you’d have thought we were old friends.
> Sally said, “Oh, Witch, I’m so excited! Please! Tell me what she’s like.”
I described her as well as I could, but it was hard to talk to Sally because the ghost seemed to be talking at the same time.
I said, “Are you talking to me?”
She nodded brightly and said, “I certainly am. You’re the only one in this entire house that can see and hear me!”
I said, “Good lord, am I? Why, do you suppose?”
The ghost shrugged. “I just knew you’d be able to, if you ever really looked. And tonight you’re really looking. I’m so pleased.”
Season of the Witch Page 13