At Antioch College in Ohio, a teacher introduced me to In Search of the Miraculous. It took me three days to read the table of contents: each phrase was significant. I returned the book, “I’m not ready.” Reading Casteneda, I found my hands in a dream. Peyote helped me verify the existence of states in which I might wish to live, to which I could return through personal effort. In Guatemala, a houseguest’s box of books rendered up Ouspensky. I read The Psychology in a small house in a deserted river valley. A short sketch of a practical system. I came down with hepatitis, which forced me to stay three weeks in bed. This gave me time to read, slowly, In Search of the Miraculous.
A month later, at 3:30 in the morning, an 8.0 earthquake hit our mountain town. February 6, 1976. Plaster fell on my bed and that of my sister. With the floor shaking and the house pillars crumbling, we crawled on hands and knees to get to the garden. Twenty thousand were killed in the capital. Shock. What is your aim? Not to be food for the moon. What do you want? To find a school. Make haste.
Three weeks later at UC San Diego, I found Beelzebub’s Tales. ‘To destroy mercilessly, the views rooted in people of the world; …to provide material for the creation … [of a new model].’ A bookmark was inside, ‘Now accepting students.’ ‘But am I ready?’ Every morning of the next twelve weeks, from my dorm room in Ohio, I tried again: Try not to say the words “I”, “get”, “really”, “very”, “oh”. No crossing legs. Every morning before noon I gave up. Unable to do these exercises, every day I had to realize that I was not ‘one’.
The summer’s options were set up to learn weaving in the ancient tradition in Iceland, or to go live with a native family in Nepal. But these were deviations. I had to put away childish things. The bookmark had a series of cities: Carmel, Los Angeles, Walnut Creek… Carmel sounded like caramel. Perhaps I should call there? I realized I was still indulging myself. I called the number in San Diego. I would be there in a week. “Welcome home,” she said.