We have been born solely for the benefit of each other, for the purpose of raising every individual, or aspect of the body of mankind, from our animal roots, to create a whole new branch on the evolutionary tree of life. To create this new species of truly human beings, we must give ourselves completely, not only to each other, but to every aspect of creation, like the leaves on a great tree. So do we, as we die to our selves year after year, make the greatest contribution toward resurrecting the image of God still trapped in the wood of the tree.

Only, I saw my life in the Navy as a step back into the nightmarish prehistory of mankind, where the still invisible image of God lay hidden within unconscious life forms. Since these life forms bore little resemblance to the Creator, many of them were scrapped in a supreme effort to create a being made entirely in the image ’n’ likeness of the Original Being. And so did God, with the evolution of our species, elect to turn the task over to us, to complete. In our inability to let go of our animal heritage, did we fall from the evolutionary tree, to a level of existence that lay beneath our true dignity.

With the development of our capacity to think, were we freed from a purely instinctive response to the images of the imagination. Whereas our ancestors had been programmed to unconsciously mimic what they saw in the images that cropped up to guide them, we took the first conscious step in the creation of the image ’n’ likeness of God in the flesh. As the beneficiaries of millions of years of evolution, did we stumble upon the means to become aware of ourselves.

Out of the void, that has occupied the head since time immemorial, did we catch wind, one day, of a whisper on the breath of a gentle breeze. As the wind spoke to us, we sensed that a momentous change was about to take place in our bodies. We’d been reprogrammed. No longer were we to take the images of the imagination, literally.

As Adam, was I overcome by an instinctive desire to penetrate the hole which had opened up before me. Sucked into the spiritual vacuum of the void that now stood between me ’n’ the truth, did I fall victim to a rapidly unfolding stream of images. There was I confronted by the unfathomable wisdom of my heart, in the guise of a naked woman. When my rod extended itself out from my body, like a serpent, its head from a tree, I lost my head—this newly won ability of mine to choose the real thing over its image. Out of ignorance, did I mistake the act of procreation for that of creating consciousness. I was bamboozled by Instinct into believing I would become all knowing, like the Creator, if I tasted the fruit of a sexual encounter with this image of God. Ignoring the admonition to avoid taking these images literally, did I cave into the gentle persuasion of the woman of my dreams. Thrusting my self into this fantasy, I gave my self up to her completely. As I came, I saw heaven penetrate the earth and sow the seeds for the creation of a whole new species of animal, one made in the image and likeness of God. On the Eve of my humanity, in the arms of a real flesh ’n’ blood woman, did I wake up to my own naked truth—that I had just participated in the conception of consciousness.

Confronted by the still invisible image of God, I realized my mistake. Immediately, I blamed the woman who then laid the blame on Instinct, for it was he who had filled our bodies with the desire to become as one again, like God. As half a man, had I lost my head over the very heart, she had just deferred to the wrongheaded views of Instinct. And so did I learn that Instinct could no longer be trusted.

At some point in the song, I found my self standing in a field of the most luscious strawberries I’d ever seen. Wary of the sudden craving, that’d come over me, to jump in and wallow around in the berries, rubbing them all over my naked body as I ate whatever I wanted, I backed off with the realization that man does not live by images alone, “but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God“. Mt. 4:4.

Then the magician, who’d been standing behind this fantasy, waiting for me to choose, took me down to the very kore of my being, or source of all fantasy, and placed me before the most voluptuous woman I’d ever seen, saying to me, “If you are a true son of God, then throw your self upon her; for it is written,
’You will not die;
For God knows,
That when you partake of this fruit,
Your eyes will be opened,
And you will be like God’.“ Gen. 3:4–5.

“It is also written,“ I said to him, “that ’you shall not commit adultery, for anyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart’.“ Mt. 5:27–28.

Again, the magician took me down to the very kore of my being and showed me every sensuous fantasy he could drum up, whereupon he said to me, “All these will I fulfill for you, if only you let me trick, er, I mean, treat you to the delights of your imagination.“

“Away with you, Satan!“ I finally insisted, “for it is written,
’Indulge not the fantasies of Instinct
But rather the way of the soul,
For it is she who must be obeyed
If you are to be overcome’.“

“In what book is that written?“ the magician demanded to know.

“Why, right here on this page from the story of my life,“ I pithily replied, whereupon he disappeared, leaving me sitting there with a brief glimpse into the strange workings of my soul.

Unable to let go of the pain of this unresolved conflict, I kept to myself on the way back to ship. At one point, was I forced to let go of my fragmented condition, long enough to reach an agreement with Greg that we should pay our cabby double the fare he had originally asked of us, besides thanking him for such a wonderful splice of life in Thailand, and wishing him well. Forced to listen to Greg ramble on about the events of the day, was I effectively kept from gaining any further insight into the conflict that continued to rage on, within me, between my right side and what was left of me after the former had taken everything it possibly could from the latter.

As I sat down in the back of the launch, I stumbled upon an image of Mother Nature that sent shivers down my spine. For I had found her badly beaten body lying on the cold stone floor of a fantasy forged in hell. Unable to free her from the chains that fettered her to the floor of this fantasy, I stooped to wipe her badly bruised and battered face, but broke down crying instead. As she reached out to comfort me, of all things, I took hold of her terribly mangled fingers and, with great care, kissed them.

“Thank you, my son,“ she painfully uttered with the distortion that’d once been her mouth.

“Who has done this to thee, my lady, that I might avenge thee?“ I demanded to know.

“Why the beast you call Brute Force!“ she exclaimed.

“That cannot be,“ I retorted, “for I, myself, have seen his demise.“

“You have seen the demise of but a shadow of the collective beast,“ she reiterated with great pain, “which, like Cain, doeth yet terrorize those able to withstand the temptation to use brute force.

“To defeat the evil beast, once and for all, you must slay the great dragon with which he doeth sleep,“ she painstakingly added, “for nothing is more dangerous than sincere ignorance nor mightier than sincere truth—the double-edged sword set in stone, long ago, to keep it out of unscrupulous hands. In defense of the truth only, may you draw upon its incredible power.

“Heed the counsel of your guardian angel, Michael, my daughter, Jinny—the very soul of your being—and her father, Hewhay, whom you have affectionately adopted as your mentor,“ she concluded with a sigh too deep for words.

“What is this tunnel of vision of which you speak?“ I asked.

“It’s the path you took,“ he replied, “when you walked through the black hole or pupil in the looking glass or eye of your being, to seek the viewpoint of the Council, that point of truth upon which its four seemingly disparate members converge, like the faces of a pyramid. While Pure Thought struggles to give rational form to the mass of confusing sensations which rise up to challenge you, soul uses his ideas as a springboard for leaping off into this unknown cloud to feel her way around in the dark, on the hunch she will find, lurking about my form, the insight we’ve all been struggling to raise to a conscious level.“

“How can you get someone, like C…, to remove the speck from his own eye?“ I begged to know.

“You can never point out a man’s demons to him“ he warned me, “for they’ll only gang up on you and outwit you. Rather you must reveal to him the myth that has him under its spell, and stretch his imagination back through the tunnel of vision, to give him the opportunity to see the truth for himself, if he so chooses. However, you must first remove this splinter from your own eye, to acquire the myth or antidote with which he’ll need to be inoculated, if he wishes to be healed of his affliction. While this myth contains tremendous power to heal, you’ll also find it to be a great stumbling block to the truth, as many’ll choose to hold onto its affliction rather than let go of its appeal.“

Fearing the exposure of my demons, I left off asking him any more questions and hoped like hell he had nothing more to say to me. Since there seemed to be a limit to the amount of truth I could handle at any one time, I could stand to be around my mentor for only so long before I needed to get away from him for awhile. Besides, I found it hard being around someone, even if he was imaginary, who had the answers, whether I liked them or not, to all my questions. And yet, I found myself continually being drawn back to him for the insight into my life I still so desperately needed.

While I valued these encounters for the truth they revealed, I was concerned about spending so much of my time playing with imaginary friends in imaginary places. Having tapped into an inexhaustible supply of energy for making consciousness, I generally left these encounters feeling renewed by them. Nonetheless, I was having a difficult time letting go of a fantasy life that offered me so much more than the meaningless existence I was being forced to lead on the outside.

Instead of finding the fire that burned within, I somehow ignited a small brush fire at my genitals, which threatened to burn out of control, if I didn’t do something quick. Panicking, I only succeeded in fanning the flames that swiftly consumed me.

“Let go!“ commanded the old Indian, from across the void.

“Let go of what?“ I demanded to know.

“Let go of the illusion that holds on to you as tightly as you hold on to it,“ he replied.

“I don’t know how to do that,“ I shouted back.

“You must stand emotionally aloof from the illusion until it begins to dissipate of its own accord,“ he responded, “for it is nothing without your participation. Your imagination’ll then show you the way to go.“

“It’s not working,“ I cried out, after I had tried to close my eyes to the illusion instead of trying to disentangle my emotions from it.

“O yea of little faith,“ he muttered. “Look around you.“

Opening my eyes, I watched with amazement as the last of the fire died out, for I’d inadvertently allowed the old Indian to distract me from the fire of my desires, long enough, to keep me from fueling it with my emotions. The more I let go of the illusion and refocused my attention elsewhere, the faster the whole scene changed of its own accord, exactly as he had said it would. So did I, with the climax of yet another daydream, suddenly find my self seated at a table in a small European-type cafe, opposite my soul who had just ordered tea for the two of us, from a waiter whom I immediately recognized as the old Indian.

As I cringed with embarrassment over my handling of this last affair, she laughed. “I see you’ve already met my father,“ she concluded.

“Good morning,“ said the old Indian.

And for lack of anything better to say, I wished him the same.

Older and much wiser, in this fantasy I find my self speaking to a small gathering of elders about the wonderful relationship my soul and I have enjoyed down through the years, for they had never cultivated as close a relationship with their souls as I had with mine. While I wondered if she would still be sending me revelations, when I reached this ripe old age, or if she would have already locked the door, through which I had always returned to the land of the living, and thrown away the key instead, I heard the voices in my head unwaveringly insist they knew not the answer to such a far-reaching question. As I continued to reminisce over the long walk we had taken together through the garden of life, I had just begun to tell my audience how I could never have asked for more when I heard the voices in my head say, this time around, they wanted no more than to see my self retire to the back pages of my mind. As I began to go over the places in nature where she had hidden herself in the game she used to play, to see if I could find her, I realized that life was much too short to piddle away on the unthinkable. Having been sentenced to two years before the mast for the sins of my generation and those long past, had I found the answer to my dilemma in the person of my own soul.

Like a vulture, did he swoop down on me. “You’re on report,“ he screeched out.

“What for?“ I asked.

“For disobeyin’ a direct order,“ he squawked, “and for leavin’ your appointed place of duty without my permission.“

“I had to take a shit, Farris,“ I tried to explain to him. “And when I couldn’t find you anywhere on the mess decks…“

It was useless trying to explain anything to him, for he was totally unreasonable. “You’re on report,“ he kept screaming into my face, over ’n’ over. “You’re on report.“

“I’ll tell you one goddamn thing, Farris,“ I finally interjected. “I’ve never once had to ask anyone on this ship for permission to take a shit, unless I was on watch. And I’ll be damned if I’m gonna start now.“

Immediately, he spun around and raced off across the mess decks, only to disappear down the forward passageway.

“The guy’s a f____n’ animal!“ exclaimed Marty.

“Nah,“ I replied, “he’s just afraid; that’s all. Like the rest of them, he’s afraid of the tide of resistance that’s risen up from amongst us plebes, and threatens to sweep over the ship like a tidal wave.”

Although this fellowship was short lived, I nonetheless found great consolation in the affirmation I received from them, for the views I held. Seeing others, for the first time, under the spell of the same fantasy that plagued me, namely this underground resistance to the war in Vietnam, helped me to realize that I wasn’t so crazy after all. With participants from every division on the ship, I felt energized by the potential for action that lay within our grasp.

In the face of similar decrees in other divisions throughout the ship, and with the exception of a few stalwarts like Marty ’n’ myself, I saw this fellowship quickly disintegrate. In the end, I—like so many of the others—grew fearful of the consequences we’d suffer if we acted against the Navy. Unwilling to lay my life on the line, at this point in time, by joining this underground resistance, I simply stood aside and watched it fester beneath the surface until it gained enough momentum to push me over the threshold between fantasy ’n’ reality—to openly rebel.

Onboard the train, I was amazed at the speed with which the train zoomed through the countryside, stopping just long enough to allow passengers to get on and off. And I wondered why we didn’t have in place such a modern and efficient means of transportation in St. Louis. I certainly would’ve had it easier, traveling from South County, where I lived, to see Mary at her parents place in North County.

What little I saw of the countryside from the window of the train was simply gorgeous. However, the lush beauty of the precipitous foothills that surrounded the quaint little villages, nestled snugly into every nook ’n’ cranny along the line, quickly gave way to a flattened terrain, monotonously dressed in the urban sprawl of a more modern Tokyo.

When it came time for me to disembark from the train, I felt as if I were stepping into some fantasy without the slightest clue of what was going to happen next. For I’d found no unfolding tale here to guide me, till I stumbled upon the most unusual park I’d ever seen, one completely surrounded by a massive stone wall, like the fief of some medieval warlord. Upon entering the grounds, through one of its large open gates, I wound up roaming about this dreamlike world for hours, taking pictures of its perfectly manicured gardens, groves of cherry trees in full bloom, and quaint old Japanese structures. I was never more impressed by anything I saw in Tokyo than by this singular glimpse into Japan’s past, for Tokyo was like any other large city in the States, choked with its monuments to commercialism like an overcrowded cemetery.

Having worked up an appetite, I flagged down a cabdriver who seemed to understand as well as speak a little English. When I asked him to take me to a good but reasonably priced restaurant, we sped off down through a maze of very narrow ’n’ windy side streets as if he were trying to catch up with the other entrants in the Grand Prix after having been forced to make an unexpected pit stop. So did I about have a heart attack whenever we zoomed past an oncoming vehicle traveling at the same high rate of speed. Not realizing what I’d gotten myself into, I thought my fate was surely sealed as I imagined a head-on collision with every car we passed. Still in a near state of shock by the time this roller coaster ride came to an end, I was miraculously left standing in one piece on the sidewalk in front of a place that looked like any other small ethnic, neighborhood restaurant back in the States.

Having regained my wits about myself, I entered the restaurant and sat down. Shortly thereafter, an elderly Japanese woman handed me a menu which, much to my surprise, was written in English. Looking forward to a good sampling of Japanese cuisine, I soon discovered that I was about to enjoy a good old-fashioned American meal. After feasting on a sumptuous steak dinner, I graciously thanked my very modest hostess for such an excellent meal, whereupon I quickly found myself back out on the streets again.