Journeys into the bright world

When once again I was able to look at my watch I realized that the entire experience had lasted less than an hour. My mind felt pure, peaceful, and refreshed though when I tried to move I discovered that I was still dizzy. I knew that I would sleep well that night-as indeed I did.

The following morning I felt as though the conduits of my consciousness had been thoroughly cleansed. Stepping outside was like witnessing the dawn of creation. Every leaf and flower was polished to a brilliant sheen, the sea sparkled and the air was dewy fresh. I knew that there would be many impressions to ponder on the way north. Seemingly, some element of my former personality had died, but some other part that was far more vital had been reborn. Whatever it was that wanted to come to life was important, but I didn't yet know how or why. Perhaps it would be enough simply to wait patiently and without pushing or prodding see what might emerge from a new season of growth.

2: To Begin Again

ACTION

Ketalar is a rapid-acting general anesthetic producing an anesthetic state characterized by profound analgesia, normal pharyngeal-laryngeal reflexes, normal or slightly enhanced skeletal muscle tone, cardiovascular and respiratory stimulation, and occasionally, a transient and minimal respiratory depression.

A patent airway is maintained partly by virtue of unimpaired pharyngeal and laryngeal reflexes.

– Parke-Davis

Late in May 1977, Dr. Howard Sunny Alltounian was browsing through the Quest Bookstore in Seattle, Washington. Fingering a massive textbook entitled Astrology, the Divine Science, co-authored by Marcia Moore and Mark Douglas, his gaze was caught by the picture of a woman on the back flap of the dust jacket. At that point the name Moore was completely unfamiliar to him. However, as he studied the photograph the thought flashed through his mind, "Wow! Would she make a perfect wife I" As he expressed it later, "I actually felt some electrical impulse coming off the page and penetrating me, such as we visualize with magnetism." 

At the same time, thirty-five hundred miles away in Virginia Beach, Virginia, I, Marcia Moore, was just rounding the circle that was to lead me to the Pacific Northwest. Since the first of April when I headed my mini-station wagon away from "Ananta Ashram," our foundation center in Ojai, California, I had been pushing eastward on a four-month lecture tour which involved a circuit of the United States and Canada. After touching down in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona, I left the deserts of the Southwest to zig-zag back and forth across the Midwestern plains, and then dip down again to the central eastern coastal area. Now that I had finally turned my corner I planned to continue on up to Maine and then to wend westward once more, driving across Canada to British Columbia and down the West Coast to Southern California-a fourteen-thousand-mile journey in all.

Looking back on this marathon tour I recall it as a time of meeting and mingling with many wonderful people. Friends and strangers alike were so good to me that I am still swept with emotion at the thought of the multitude of kindnesses bestowed. Indeed, the experience taught me that there is no such thing as a stranger upon this earth. Everyone is a potential companion upon the way we all must travel together. And yet, when the moment came to pack books and clothes and continue on, I always seemed to be alone.

Generally I remained in one place no more than three days. Often, there would be a bed for the night or a spot beside the road where my sleeping bag could be laid out under a tree. Many times I curled up and slept behind the steering wheel of my mini-staion wagon, regretting having purchased a model with the brake jutting up between the two front seats. Indeed, so bonded did I become to my car that gradually I came to regard myself as some sort of mythic creature-half woman and half station wagon.

In Virginia Beach I was privileged to enjoy five delightful days with the astrologer-therapist Ted Sharp, his son Sam, and his charming fiancee (now wife) Nancy. I had been looking forward to visiting this resort town not only because I was eager to see the Atlantic Ocean and exchange ideas with Ted but also because this was the pivotal point at which I would reverse my course and be heading home again.