Journeys into the bright world

Marcia. My initials, M.M. Did you realize that M is like Gemini, two. And H, its two lines connected. Oh, this is a very esthetic experience.

Howard. And A for Alltounian is also connected. And S for Sunny is a spiral.

Marcia. Yes, did you know that we both have the initial S for our middle names? We both have the serpent, and Mar-s-ia-the way I pronounce it sounds like a serpent hissing.

Howard. That's serpent power.

Marcia. People prostitute it. They make it dollar power. So the dollar sign also has an S. With two channels of course, going up and down. That's why money is so powerful. Money is just an externalization of the serpent power. Doesn't a dollar sign look like a serpent going up through the Gemini sign?

Howard. Yeah, for sure.

Marcia. Male and female, and they're coiling around in the middle, and there's your dollars. The portal is so far behind I've almost forgotten the trip already, and that's sad. I don't want to come back. When I was saying it I didn't know what it meant. It was like a meditation mantra that isn't supposed to mean anything.

Howard. Yes, its just the sound that quiets your mind. Right? It sets up a vibration you can hear in your body.

Marcia. Now I'm far enough back so I can figure out what it means. "I don't want to come back." That's five words. It's a hexagram.

Howard. That's the formula for ketamine, a hexagram.

Marcia. No, its not five words; its six. That's my hexagram. Gosh, that was like going around in a big circle. All the way out, and then you come back.

Howard. Do you feel waxy?

Marcia. No. Why is Egypt so important?

Howard. I don't know. I don't go there; you do. You freak out on Egypt.

Marcia. No, one time it was Japan.

Howard. Yeah, yeah, It was Japan one time.

Marcia. I still don't know what it is about Egypt. Did you get a contact high?

Howard. For sure. I really did.

Marcia. That was just perfect because there wasn't any time I wasn't sitting up. But I needed something to lean against. Howard. Well there was a time when you were noncommunicative. You were in a light surgical state of anesthesia. You had a lid reflex but it was very slow. Your jaw was relaxed, but you didn't speak even when I spoke to you. People do surgery in that state. Next time I'll have to do it in a light where I can look and see whether your pupils are constricted or dilated.

Marcia. Does it bother you to have me say I don't want to come back? I didn't really know what it meant.

Howard. I knew you didn't know what it meant. But I'm also an anesthesiologist so your being in that state doesn't scare me. But it would frighten a lot of individuals. They'd think, "This person has gone insane."

Marcia. It's controlled insanity. But it's definitely insane. It's like an insane person at the very height of his worst lunatic seizure.

Howard. It didn't frighten me because I knew you were coming back. You had no choice.

On the evening of Saturday, December twelfth I was feeling so oppressed by a welter of booknotes, tapes, and unanswered correspondence that I decided not to tape this session. I just wanted to enjoy a brief low-dose holiday and look at the candle without having to worry about the deeper implications of what we were doing or about what people might think. Since I already had a mental overload I neither expected nor wanted anything new to emerge. Apparently the goddess Ketamine agreed that the time had come to take ourselves more lightly.

Session 10

December 13, 1977   7:30 pm   Alderwood Manor   25 mg

"I feel very satisfied with my life," I exclaimed. "These are butterfly times. I'm seeing this big beautiful cosmic butterfly. Now I understand why my friend Isha calls me a cosmic butterfly. I'm seeing such beautiful fluttering wings as the butterfly flutters by. Down here I'm just a grub grubbing along, but in the bright world I am the cosmic butterfly.

"Metamorphosis. That's my initials. M.M. stands for metamorphosis. Only I can't stay there. The butterfly becomes the grub and the grub becomes the butterfly, and it goes on and on back and forth so that in the long run they exist simultaneously. My big and little selves. It's so hard to keep the balance between them."

After about ten minutes of sporting with the butterfly I found myself being drawn back through the inexorable portal, still contemplating the duality of my own being. "It's so appropriate that God gave us two voices, a big voice and a little voice. We can speak or we can whisper…" This was a brand new thought and I ruminated over it for some time.