Journeys into the bright world

Marcia. I really don't know. Because it hurts. It's painful sometimes. But when I get as far as I'm going to go under, there's Howard-the other twist of my spiral. You're like that obligatory bunny on the Playboy cover. (Laughing.) Any ketamine experience I have you're in. You know why it's painful? Because the more I love you the more I realize I could lose you. It means I'm that much more vulnerable. I mean, what's a spiral if it doesn't have its other turn? Have you ever seen a spiral without its other turn?

Howard. Never.

Marcia. It's true, as Lill said in her letter today, that pure love knows no possessiveness. And I think of myself as being an unjealous type. We both are because that's one of the qualities of Gemini. Nevertheless, everything spirals. And if you're a spiral without the other turn that's painful.

Howard. Well, I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here with you.

Marcia. I know, and I'm not worried about that. It's no big issue. But what I still haven't figured out is why love and pain are so closely associated in this cosmos. You know, Wagner's "love-death." The lovers have to die. I used to go to a lot of operas. And each time the lovers have to die. In Aida at the end she gets squashed in that horrible Egyptian tomb. I think they entomb her. Yes, she dies for love. And then there was Mignon who dies for love. They all die for love. I mean it's love and pain. And in the zodiac love is Taurus and death, loss and pain are Scorpio. I still haven't figured out why it has to be painful to love someone. Honeybees go up and they mate, and then the male bee falls dead to earth. 

Howard. The praying mantis does the same thing.

Marcia. And the black widow kills her husband. Why do love and pain have to go together? Like Mini-mouse running up and down, like the roaches in your building, and Worry Wort. But actually this has been a very joyful time. There's about as much Mini-mouse in my life today as there are cockroaches in this place we're living in. I'm only saying it because it's residual. I want you to be the other turn of my spiral.

Howard. I am the other turn of it. I'm only saying it because it's residual. I want you to be the other turn of my spiral.

Howard. I am the other turn of your spiral. I'm your heavenly twin.

Marcia. You see, Gemini has to be drawn like two pillars. It would be too complicated for astrologers to have to draw them twisted the way they really are, going round and round each other. The finest of yarns are double that way. They twist the strands together and then you get all that subtlety and beauty. And if you take the Gemini sign and give it a twist then you have the true Gemini. That's the serpents-the caduceus-the rod of Mercury. That's the symbol of your own profession. I wonder how many doctors in your hospital know what their emblem really signifies.

Howard. Very few. None.

Marcia. We ourselves don't really know. Even though we are members of the Order of the Serpent. That's the order of those who heal, wherever in the cosmos they may be.

Howard. I can't possibly get off the spiral now. I'm just curious to see what's going to happen. The book's going to come out; I'll have to quit my job. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do. (Laughing nervously.)

Marcia. That's your Mickey Mouse. He's scurrying around squeaking, "What'll I do if I lose my job over this?" Can't you hear that little mousie scream way down under? Howard. Yeah, I hear it.

Marcia. I see Mickey in his short pants and those big ears, and he's scurrying madly about in the depths, saying "What will I do if I lose my job? How am I going to support all those people who are dependent on me?" Mickey is all over the place there. Howard. That's true. When I think of all those years. Working my way through four years of college and four years of medical school, a year of internship, two years of residency… (Tape runs out at this point.)

Probably this was the time of Howard's maximum concern that if the authorities at his hospital were to discover that we were engaged in ketamine research he would promptly lose his job-a serious affair for a man with four dependents and two homes to maintain. But at least Mickey had now come out of the woodwork and could be dealt with on an adult level.

One of the most extraordinary aspects of the ketamine experience which the tapes fail utterly to convey is the intensity of the response to music. Not even a lifetime of training could have produced the tonal sensitivity that was a regular feature of life in the bright world. The only problem raised by this absorbtion in the sounds being played was that it was possible to become locked into the music to the extent of being at its mercy, too spellbound to turn a dial or register a protest. There seemed a real danger of becoming enmeshed in the wrong vibrations while in this vulnerable state. On the other hand, music I had never specially enjoyed sometimes sounded so much better that I was glad it was there.