***I want to preface this post to say that it is not fit for children. Also, I am not advocating drug use, especially not the quantities discussed in this story. This happens to have a positive ending, but if it hadn't, if the wrong corner had been turned, then it would have been very potentially debilitating. In other words, this entire post is bat-shit crazy. Enjoy :) ***
With art to exist, there needs to be two key factors in play: The art itself and those that view it.
This isn't to say that the art has to be original, formulaic, or even to come from a sentient source. Jackson Pollock's wife was instrumental to his work, Michael Bay has fans of the Transformers franchise, and certain birds use visual cues to inspire their mates to coitus. Relatives, friends, contemporaries or those that came before and died striving toward the same goal, everyone who produces art is doing it for someone, even if that person is themselves.
The following is the story of how I found my audience.
I was seventeen at the time, wild a wily, slightly overweight, arguably overconfident, and completely unsupervised. I was having a blast before I even got to the massive outdoor show, moved by the cacophony of competing sights and aromas, with people in various stage of inebriation smiling with one eyebrow up, like they were all sharing a secret.
Grateful Dead tapestries gave a venue for poly-chromatic bears to dance across truck beds and opened van doors, each blaring jam-band music almost in a war against one another. No jamming for me, though. I was on a mission. One that would change me completely. Or, at least, hat was the goal.
So with each step, I listened intently to the sporadic murmurs bubbling up through streets created by rows of cars in the parking lot of the concert hall, deftly turning the once-empty space into a writhing, bizarre bazaar.
And as in all bazaars, you have to stay on your toes.
You don't want to get ripped off, wind up purchasing something you weren't expecting, or worse, in this instance, getting caught buying.
"Shrooms."
"Weed."
"Coke."
"Acid."
"Rolls."
Every few steps there would be a mumble, thrown out like a passing thought mumbled by a schizophrenic transient in a world of their own creation. No eye contact. No insistence or recognition. If you wanted what they had, you simply walked up next to them and said the magic words:
"You holdin'?"
Sometimes the answer was "no," and this could mean they were looking. Sure, this mixed meaning can get a little confusing, but it works itself out one way or another. And if they are, in fact, "holdin'," then, as though returning a long understood code, they answer a question with another question.
"You a cop?"
Given the low likelihood of me ever becoming a cop, I'll skip ahead a little bit.
By the time I'd checked off all my boxes, I had what one might refer to as a "Mad Man Starter Pack." A quarter of an ounce of highly potent marijuana, a quarter of an ounce of hallucinogenic mushrooms meticulously grown in a lab in Oregon, and three black gel tabs, each containing a heavy handed hit of LSD.
For those of you who aren't familiar with these quantities, let me put them into perspective for you. Terence McKenna once wrote that a certain amount of psychedelic drugs could be referred to as a "Heroic Dose," where Ego Death is both the journey and the outcome. Having said that, a quarter of Oregon lab 'shrooms is arguably a heroic dose. Three black gel tabs are arguably a heroic dose. So I rolled up the seven joints, put them in my cigarette pack for later, walked into the concert, and promptly ate everything else at once.
You know… because fuck it.*
I'd been pretty familiar with all of these drugs, thought I knew what I was doing, and was confident that not only could I handle myself, but I would wind up being better for the trip.
Here's the thing: I promise I won't tell your kids this, but I was right.
It took about thirty minutes before I turned to my friend, who smiled at me, his face now contorted with translucent worms, a mother-of-pearl sheen only adding to my thrill at the challenge of controlling myself. I smiled back and thought "Off we go..." and off I went.
I started wandering, as interested in the people as I was in the band we were all there to see. It wasn't just a hippy fest. People from a large cross section of backgrounds littered the grass above the bleachers, selling or eating food, passing joints, handing out water, drinking, and smiling. Some had even brought their children, which added an entirely new layer to the experience. At the time, the sense of tribalism was so thick as to give a sense of security, even while wandering alone.
At one point, I looked to the sky and saw three drones, looking almost like spacecraft, each held aloft by three propellers, one flying to the left, one to the right, and one directly above the crowd.
I remember thinking "Man! These guys know how to throw one hell of a show!"
Which is true. They did. They brought on different guest musicians, played music with vacuum cleaners and balloons, and generally rocked out with tones and beats of driving possibility, sometimes positive, sometimes melancholic, but always in tune with their audience. Turns out they'd done this before.
And in the midst of all of this, I sat down on an open patch of grass, choosing to do something that would at first appear entirely innocuous.
I closed my eyes.
And held them closed.
That's what it took to change everything.
The world as I had known it was gone, and in its stead was a cylindrical room roughly forty meters long, ten meters in diameter, with a transparent floor that let me see the curve of the walls continue into a floor and meet below me.
The walls themselves were made of changing colors, shapes, and textures, sometimes quickly evolving, sometimes taking a slower pace, but all to what appeared to be their own accord. I looked around this room, and in doing so, became lost. I'd forgotten how I'd gotten there, complete with a sense that it was an honor I was there at all. Then I looked up.
At the far end of the hallway was a giant, glowing orb of light, no physical portion to be seen. This wasn't God. This was something else. Still, when I recognized it for what it was, a sense of humble acquiescence flooded me.
This orb, in the center of a kaleidoscope of everything, was the embodiment of a self-actualized Jungian Collective Unconscious. Never had I been more sure that I was in the presence, and moreover, had the attention of, a higher power. It was at this realization that I felt as though it had been reading my mind or at least knew me far better than I knew myself. And then it spoke to me.
"YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION."
A flood of shock ran through me, the immensity of the moment leaving me bereft of faculties.
"WHAT?"
And with that, I lost all ability to speak. The question hung in the air like a slowly descending pendulum. I had no other choice but to follow my instinct. So, dropping all manner of pretense, I began describing the world around me. Not the concert, not the cross-sections of people, not the reasons why I took the heroic doses, but the miasma of kinetic forms in which I was enveloped at that moment.
It wasn't a pleasant or joyful feeling, but rather a journey of intensity that pushed the boundaries of how I understood the world and all of my failings in the attempt, one layer after another layer after the next. It was so terrifically exhausting that I felt a catharsis climbing up through the floor and into my veins, my bones, and sinew.
In the exhaustion, I don't know what I said exactly, and I don't remember its response directly. But when it was over, a feeling wrapped itself around me like a blanket to a crying child, not given with generosity, but worn sympathy.
"GOOD..."
And then I opened my eyes. The world came back to me in all of it's splendor, ever moving and changing while my body continued to digest the hallucinogens. Then it finished its sentence.
"...START."
I was forever transformed in those moments, but kept enjoying the concert, often thinking back to that moment in the Kaleidoscope.
Eventually, the concert ended and it was time to go home. My friends asked me how I was doing and I celebrated the experience.
"What an incredible time! And that band! Holy shit! They totally know how to throw a great show! Did you see those giant drone/spaceship things fly over us in the middle of the second set?! Incredible!"
And then my friend turned to me and smiled like he knew I was about to become a punchline.
"Robert, buddy... there weren't any drones."
Maybe not. And maybe there weren't translucent, mother-of-pearl worms crawling all over his face just hours before. But one thing was for sure, for all intents and purposes: The presence I'd met had been real. I still felt it in the quick of my soul, an a priori knowledge slowly lost to the meandering of life. Without an authority around, I had created one without judgment, subconsciously embracing it because it knew I was doing my best.
I've been told I can sometimes be a little too honest, that I tend to point out flaws that people wouldn't normally see. But when you read something I've written and think "I'd never be that open," or that I sound like I'm an asshole, or any other moment you've read from my work where I fail in epic ways, it's because of my audience.
Everything I write, I write as a prayer to that giant ball of light and all it represents:
That we are human, flawed, caught in the matrix of circumstance and the fleeting nature of time.
But with the right eyes, there's hope in that.
I'm going to post a quote from Carl Jung that I had used in a previous post, but it's just too appropriate not to. He said "As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being."
Well, that light Jung is talking about? I think I know where it comes from.
And I think we're all part of it.
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