Tuesday, March 24, 2015

52. ME AND YOU

"The Passion of Lovers is for Death."
           -- Bauhaus

"Aaahh Freak out! Le Freak, c'est Chic!"
           -- Chic
     Me and You is a classic drug-overdose "script". It is the prescription, medicine and antidote to the reality I became one evening. We are settling into a long night of utopia enhancement, parlaying "Grimly Fiendish"1 with the Holy Spirit of Coca, ensconced in a warm cove, the snug harbor of Ivan's living room / lounge. All Systems are Go! The night is young, our brains and retinal fluid express willingness to be saturated with the mix, the alchemical light formula. The vein purification rites commence. Suddenly, in the early firing procedures, a tremendous glitch occurs; the syringe is pumped to deliver an overdose, and I am the fated morsel, the One whose Flesh will be eaten by the Goddess.
                            Dali, Salvador, Dream Caused by a Bee in Flight Around a Pomegranate 
 One Minute Before Awakening (1944)
     With zero time to react, graciously primed by my Chosen and Most Faithful Knight, I sink under. Our eyes meet in a surprisingly emotionless display of questionable betrayal and quixotic, soul fancy, before regressing to a primal, root-chakra, seeing-red, Kali-esque survival impulse: my last move is to claw his eyes out. Like a tiger springing up towards the face of its Deliverer, propelling itself into the shot, "Resistance is Futile"2. I am swept under a giant tsunami of brain and blood boil, fading to the floor beyond Instant Revival, hovering between infinite portals and mirror existences of Selves. Dropping the key to Wonderland's door, I am Nowhere Fast, frantic to brake the art of free-falling. Instead of landing and coming out of the prolonged moment, I am simply No Longer There............
             Craven, Wes, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) (based on the book by Wade Davis)
     How long do I remain Insubstantial? My next memory is cold, hard and strange. Alone in the adjoining makeshift basement kitchen, I'm standing over an electric stove, staring into a big pot with leaves boiling in it. A swirling cauldron brewing a magical herbal potion? A link to my intended demise? A clue to reveal my Lost Identity? My insane calm hides a murderous, schizoid Id, which re-emerges seeking Revenge. As tears gently roll down my face, I undergo a Crisis of Soul Reckoning, unleashed from a freakish karmic Bardo, whereupon I AM.....IT, THE ZOMBIE (reliving a past life whereby having committed an unpardonable, heinous crime, I AM, by punishment decreed by tribal council, administered a poisonous, Zombie-inducing, cataleptic). I DETEST pufferfish / Datura neurotoxins. I've fallen up, and can't get down (everything's reversed in Snake God Iwa Damballah Wedo's land).........
                                    Russell, Ken, Altered States (1980) (screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky)
     I cannot talk or express myself......don't know who or what I am......desperate to play hide 'n' seek, counting backwards from ten. I find the Others, who are...totally casual?....daring to ask whether I've yet to come to my senses? The acrobatic, alien replicant in Bladerunner fritzes out, experiencing Sensory Deprivation (escaped from the John Lilly's isolation tank in Altered States, and de-evolved to amoeba-status). Choices leave me glazed, uncomprehending........
                                                   Jackson, Peter, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
     ZaZa and M are standing in front of me; tall, elfin warriors, concerned and sympathetic to my situation...... a million light-years away, simultaneously Here and Now, I SEE TWINKLING STARS, THE PITCH BLACK SPACE BETWEEN PARTICLES MOVING.....MY FRIEND'S FACES MORPH INTO DRAGONS, COLUMNS OF MISTY WHITE SMOKE REEL FROM THEIR CURLED LIPS, AND IN TANDEM FLARE FROM THEIR NOSTRILS......I am utterly amazed as a child, not wanting it to end, nor for it to go on without "me". Freak-out is the only available option........  
     
     The Sanskrit term for Vision or Sight is Darshan, literally "Seeing the Divine": "Beholding with inner or outer vision, a temple image, Deity, holy person or place, with the desire to inwardly contact and receive the blessings and grace of the Venerated Beings or Beings. Darshan is also the feelings of the emotions of a holy person, the intellect, the spiritual qualities they have attained, and most importantly, the Shakti, the power, that has changed them and is there constantly to change others. Darshan is the emanating rays from the depth of an enlightened Soul's being. These rays pervade the room, penetrating the aura of devotees and enlivening the Kundalini, the white fiery vapor-like substance that is actually the heat of the physical body in its natural state."3    
     Kundalini Ether! Bingo! Golden Rule: Don't hang on to peaks of epiphanies! Instead of letting the rich, auric revelations wash over me (observing Shakti flowing in the True Nature of the Universe!), I panic, refuse to come down, and freeze like a computer mouse......game over, pinball past the flippers, no extra ball. I cling to the machine, becoming a liability to my friends, who'd like to see me out of the grey area, into the warm, pink, fuzzy, Throbbing Gristle (faint smile). A cold shower ensues - from which I emerge kicking, biting and scratching......poor, wet, wild animal, cringing from the Light.
                                                                                               Wile e Coyote
     A family jaunt is to be undertaken. Pile into the station wagon, everybody! We're going to the HOSPITAL! Harsh reality time for naughty cretins. It's the last thing the Retrieval team wants to do, however, they know real downers in downtime are the perfect antidote for stabilizing a "Major Tom to Ground Control" ("strung- out in heaven's high)4....did I grab the wheel, nearly killing us on the way? Sorry, no grace. God. That's messed-up. Surgically-garbed Earthlings whisk the ambulated frightshow down a long hallway on a stretcher; keeping up her best beastly antics, she bites down hard on anything within reach; screaming, clawing....no "Sympathy For the Devil"4
     It ends somewhat anti-climatically; I'm shut in a room, and given a shot of my own tears (a saline solution). Up like a bolt, cognating reality, I demonstrate I'm capable of "leaving the building"...resonating a mix of Dorothy's "Oh! Auntie Em" and Alice's Wonder. I recall ZaZa's radiantly beautiful face peering from the shadows of the hall, sweet Sister of Mercy. A wholesome peace, a religious tide, washes over me. Accompanied by my Archangel Death / Soul Brother Light, I write an epitaph / epigram on the sign-out register:

                              Me and You. Meow. 

1 The Damned, "Grimly Fiendish"
2  The Borg, Star Trek
3 Darsanam, Guru Kripa, Darshan, Grace of the Guru
4 Bowie, David, "Major Tom"
5 The Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil"

A Poem: The Lingering

I was a lonely Psychick;
My third eye was nailed blind,
Yet I could still feel
the floating flowers
dancing on my spine.

When I began to wobble,
the doctors took me away;
I bit their hands
and bit my tongue
and still the night was very young.

I sprang some leaks,
chanting revelatious squeaks,
screaming with all my might;
til Albert E. appeared out of the blue
and began to lip-sync my rights.

I wept as all my beautiful friends
turned into demonic fiends,
and laughing hysterically like a fool
watched my pineal gland sprout wings.

I awoke in the night,
feeling the light,
in a hole where my bindi usually seems;
I remember asking the ladies-in-white,
Is it really all just a dream?

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