She had such a knack for turning the humblest of tasks into the holiest, that my time in the brig flew by, ever so quickly. A staunch believer in hard work, she made it all seem like play. And in her ability to find the most extraordinary things in the humdrum realities of everyday life, she never ceased to amaze me.

Once, when I balked at having to clean a particularly dirty toilet bowl, she convinced me in her own magical way, through the use of imagery, that is, to look at it as a fish bowl in need of a little cleaning. Having conned me into jumping into the task at hand, she took me on an underwater tour of one of the most beautiful lagoons I had ever seen. There, in the womb of my being, did she give me my first glimpse of the new awareness that’d been taking shape, over the past seven months. As I scrubbed away at the sides of the bowl, in the service of my fellow man, she conscientiously scoured the quarters of this little objection of mine for any fecal matter which might get in the way of a healthy birth, down the road, of an awareness of the greater objection I had to military service.

“I see your conscience has not yet developed,“ she complained, “to the extent that you can distinguish service to your fellow man from military service, as the latter still so overshadows the former with its self-serving brand of selflessness. And I see your objections to meeting the real needs of your fellow man as very small, indeed, when compared to the objections I have raised to your service in the military of the rich and powerful elite that runs your country, without any regard, whatsoever, for the vast number of lives it has squandered away on the most ambitious effort, ever undertaken by man, to satisfy the insatiable appetite of the god, he has made out of his self.“

Then God spoke these words (from deep within my being): “I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth below, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of their parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.“ Ex. 20:1–6.

“In other words,“ explained my soul, “must you become Who You Really Are, and no other person. You must never make anything more out of your self, whether in thought, word, or deed, than what you really are. And at all costs, you must never inflate another person’s view of himself nor emulate such false images of one’s true Self, for it takes many generations to work out the damage—the confusion ’n’ hurt—one inflicts upon himself and his offspring when he chooses not to live out Who He Really Is. Instead, you must stand out as a beacon to him who has yet to find his way back home to Who He Really Is.“

Through her did I find greater joy in doing the little things in life that needed to be done. How quickly I learned, that it made little difference, whether I did these things for my Self or for another, because deep down inside ourselves, she informed me, we are all one and the same person, in spite of our differences.

“These differences have been created,“ she went on to say, “to give you some idea of the breadth and depth of the one who inhabits you. Only it’s the little things you do for each other, which help to mend the terrible rifts these differences seem to foster, for in your shortsightedness of the whole picture, you-all tend to dwell on the qualities of the lesser or more adversarial image of man than on those of the greater or more Christlike. Real differences, like real individuals, tend to promote a unity of purpose that is impossible to beat, only because the visions of those who bear these differences meld with the one vision for all.

“As Cain overshadowed Able, so does the lesser man, the greater. Stalked by his animalistic past, man really has no other choice but to take the high road,“ concluded my soul, “if ever he wishes to escape the terrible fate of his ancestors or the unparalleled mass extinction of his own species, a self-inflicted punishment worthy of the crime of having despoiled this paradise, you call earth.

“Come now,“ she added. “Let us not tarry here too long with matters which do not concern us, for the day is drawing near when you will be asked again, to choose between me ’n’ the Great Gray Whore.“

“I believe you ’n’ I are the ones who should take a hike,“ concluded my mentor, “so these two can spend some much needed time together, getting to know each other a little better.“

“You’re right,“ agreed Michael, as the two of them disappeared, leaving me alone with my soul, really, for the first time since I met her.

As I sat there poking around in the fire of my heart’s desires, with a stick, I grew uncomfortable with the feelings I had stirred up. Fearful of letting the beast in me take over, I jabbed the stick, quickly, in ’n’ out of the coals, before plunging it all the way into the fire and letting go of it. Immediately I climaxed, without having ejaculated.

O how wonderful it was! Gone was the fire that burned between us. Gone, too, were the two of us, for in our place stood, for an instant, an invincible being of neither sex, before it returned to its former glory.

And O how she did radiate with the beauty of that little amalgam of her and me.

“What happened?“ I asked with a grin.

“You have just experienced at-one-ment with me,“ she replied with that roguish little smile of hers.

Just then, the bubble burst. And I knew, immediately, that I was in trouble again with the Navy.

“You’re on report, Dury,“ shouted some PO, as he disappeared up the ladder before I could even identify him.

“For what?“ I shouted back, to no avail, for I had absolutely no idea of why I’d been written up again.

Expecting my soul to have already disappeared from the mirror, I was surprised, when I turned around, to find her standing there, glowing with the radiance of the new life taking shape within her womb. Instead of chiding her for having gotten me into trouble with the Navy again, I simply smiled at her, for it’d just dawned on me how she was trying to help me get out of the Navy. Whenever she enticed me to cross the line between this world and the next, I literally left the Navy behind, as if it really didn’t exist, to embrace the reality of Who I Am.

“I am Who Am,“ muttered I to my self, in my confusion over the true nature of this unnamed god.

“Yes,“ reaffirmed my soul, “and that’s exactly what your shipmates and their kin saw walking among them on the pier, the day you returned to the isle of your Self.“

“I wish I could’ve seen what they saw,“ I groaned.

“O but you have,“ she exclaimed, “when you beheld the exquisite beauty of that unnamed aspect of your greater Self, that is, of you ’n’ me, I’ve been struggling so hard, over the past six months, to carry to full term for you in my womb.“

“I’m sorry I haven’t been more helpful,“ I confessed.

“When I realized how afraid you were, of assuming responsibility for the consequences of your own actions,“ interjected my soul, “I took the advice of my father and backed off for awhile, or at least until those times when your desire for unity with me overcame your fear.“

Having been charged again, for failing to appear at my appointed place of duty, and for having been derelict in the performance of my duties, was I dragged before the Captain, several days later, with the added charge of having failed to shave that morning, for a real shotgun wedding of sorts. Finding my self surrounded, for the first time ever at a Captain’s mast, by my soul, Michael, and her father, I stood there, before the High Priest and his entourage, dressed as the White Knight.

“Do you, Mr. Drury, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?“ asked the High Priest.

“I do,“ I replied out of guilt.

“And do you, woman, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?“ he asked my soul.

“I do,“ replied she out of her love for me.

“Then I pronounce you both man and wife,“ proclaimed the High Priest, rather methodically, as he sent us on our way, with his blessings, to the Naval Station Brig at Pearl Harbor for thirty days of correctional custody, and all for the paltry sum of half a month’s pay.

Though I was being led to believe that I could stand up to the Navy and prevail, I had some reservations as to whether or not I could ever beat the devil at his own game, since, in the past, I had overcome Instinct on only the rarest of occasions. Why I felt as if I were hopelessly locked into a body, that wasn’t mine, and into a whole way of life over which I had absolutely no control.

“You can do it,“ insisted the White Knight from out across the void, “but only if you step into my shoes.“

“How can I do that in reality?“ asked I of my own shadow.

“Love me,“ came back he in a way that almost verged on the unholy. “That’s all you have to do.“

“Would learning to love this aspect of my Self truly solve the problem of evil in my life?“ I wondered to my self. “Or would it only exacerbate the problem? Don’t I love my Self, as I ought to? And if not, how can I learn to love something about which I know so little?“

“You know,“ insisted my shadow as he loomed up over me, larger than life, to embrace the nothingness of the ego that now stood naked before him. “See, how easily I penetrate your facade.“

And as I penetrated to the very core of my being, I ran smack dab into my soul.

“What child is this,“ burst in some heavenly chorus from deep within my being, “who laid to rest, on Jinny’s lap is sleeping? Whom angels greet with anthems sweet, while shepherds watch are keeping?“

“She loves me above all else,“ interjected the White Knight.

With that, did I realize how much more than anything else in the whole world I needed the love of my soul, for it was, ultimately, the only key to heaven I had.

As word trickled down through the chain of command that we were to be given the day off, at the discretion of the commanding officer of each division, word of a very different kind—that the rank and file of First Division had gone on strike—spread like wildfire through the crew. Ordered to report up topside for work, like jackasses had they sat down on their haunches, in the hangar bay, refusing to budge no matter how hard their cruel taskmasters tugged at the reigns of fear that bridled them. After learning that the members of every other division on the ship had been laid off for the day, except for those required to stand watch, they grew irate and demanded to know why they were being so mistreated.

Locked out by the officials of First Division, while they hammered out a face-saving agreement with those who had called this wildcat work stoppage, I stood in the passageway outside the door to the hangar bay, anxiously awaiting any news of the outcome of this exciting new development in the feudal relationship of the rank and file to the officialdom of His Majesty’s Navy. As the flood gates to my imagination burst open, I was inundated with the mutinous talk of a small coterie of disaffected seamen who’d gathered up topside, several months ago, to revel in the myth which had gripped the imaginations of these would-be mutineers. Why I was so captivated by my own thoughts of mutiny, I hardly noticed the XO as he whisked by, to rendezvous with the rabble in the hangar bay. In defiance, did I smile when he turned to glare at me in an accusatory manner before closing the door, as if I’d been the cause of this totally spontaneous event. As I saw it, I was no more responsible than he was, for the myth which’d grabbed the imaginations of this mutinous lot was much larger than either one of us. Sure, I preyed upon the disaffection of my shipmates, but only as a point of contention or means of getting back in touch with what I was really feeling. For I could not fathom what new life my soul’d give birth to, in the coming months. And as the only breed of new man…

Just then, I heard the door open. Looking up, I saw the XO emerge with his head hung low. And as he scurried past me, with his tail between his legs, I knew that we had prevailed.

As I zeroed in on Greg, to get the scoop on what had gone down, I learned that they had been told to keep their mouths shut about what had happened, unless they wanted to be charged with mutiny when they all got back to Hawaii. Fearing that I’d been misled by my perceptions of the XO as he emerged from the hangar bay, I asked Greg if they had not won any concessions from him.

“You bet,“ he replied with an exuberance that touched me deeply. “We got the motherf—er to not only give us the day off, but also guarantee us better treatment, in the future, from our immediate superiors.“

“See what can be done,“ I interjected, “when we ban together.“

“Yeah,“ responded Greg. “We can all be hauled away for mutiny, court-martialed and locked up for the rest of our lives in some godforsaken prison.“

“Are we not now serving time for our rebellion against the Highest Authority in the world?“ I asked.

“Maybe,“ he surmised. “At least I have the consolation of knowin’ that I’m gonna get outta here on good behavior in about a year.“

“Will the soul really be freed from its imprisonment in nature when one’s self is released from this indentured servitude to embrace a life of unbridled greed?“ I probed him more deeply. “I think not,“ I philosophically replied, “for such a life only further enslaves the soul to one’s self. How does one free himself then, from the chains he has forged in this life with his own hands? Unless he embraces the life that is his soul, I daresay he can never escape the hell he has created for himself.“

At first, I was beside myself, only because I had looked forward to going ashore when we reached our next port of call, Hong Kong. Having, in the past, held onto these excursions for dear life, after my experiences in Subic Bay, I realized they were not nearly as important as those of the imaginary world. Had I never learned to take off on these flights of fantasy, nor met up with the likes of my own faculties, I would have, long since, buckled under the weight of the peer pressure that hung over my head like the Sword of Damocles. Nor had I inherited from my parents such a strong will to survive, in spite of the odds, I would never have found the strength to march to the beat of a different drummer. Luckily, I had learned, early on, to live out the young David in my mother rather than the old Saul in my stepfather who, like his counterpart in the Old Testament, was tormented by the demons of old dying world order, because he refused to listen to the winds of change that continually swirl about the mind in search of form.

O how it did please my soul, to give form to life over death! Whenever my soul and I became as one again, I’d be filled to overflowing with all the joy ’n’ satisfaction of the psychological equivalent of an orgasm. For I was being driven by a much deeper and more evolutionary aspect of the primitive urge to propagate the species—an insatiable desire to create a new life for my self, only one made in the image and likeness of the Original Being.

How often, though, did I succumb to the intransigent will of Saul. Forced to wrestle with Saul’s demon and my old nemesis, Brute Force, whenever Saul tried to bully his way back into my life, I quickly learned to slam the door in his face, once I recognized him. Thus did I learn obedience by what I suffered at my own hand.

“I must be losing my mind,“ I cried out, in response to the little musical charade that kept playing in my head. “I mean, one day I’m flying high, and the next, I’m wallowing around in my own shit, like some goddamn animal. I don’t get it! Just once, I wish someone, outside myself, could see what I’m going through. Even then, I’m not so sure I’d be any better-off, for they’d probably think I was nuts.“

Until I have gotten my self into a heap of shit or fallen flat on my face again, I never know if it’s “me“ who is getting in the way or not. In choosing to live out the dream instead of its meaning, I delude my self into thinking I know the way, when I don’t. And even though I may disagree with my soul, I always wind up doing exactly what she wants me to do, for it seems she must be obeyed, one way or the other. Either I act upon the truth I find hidden within the dream; or I’m sucked down below the belt, to live out the dream, like an animal. O that I could live out the rest of my life in tune with my Self!

Having spurned my soul’s suggestion to resist the Navy, was I confined to a body which, like any stubborn mule, refused to be pushed beyond the limits of its imagination. In my inability to drag my ass any further than the head or mess decks, I quickly found my self at odds again with the Navy when I failed to appear, one morning, at my appointed place of duty. Actually, I had gone by the head, I’d been assigned to, only to discover I was out of scouring powder. Like a dumb ass, I made the mistake of leaving my station without first having asked for permission to go ’n’ get what I needed. And to make matters worse, I followed my ass right smack dab into a conversation with a fellow jackass down in the compartment, only to forget why I’d gone down there in the first place. Having, as usual, been assigned to clean the head by myself, had I unwittingly responded to the greater need my brother, the ass, had for companionship. With no other explanation for my behavior than that, was I put on report. In the struggle to meet the demands of my being, thus did I learn the ins ’n’ outs of the art of passive resistance, that is, who to resist and who not to.

“Until you say no to the Navy, in body,“ stated my mentor, “you‘ll have neither the energy nor the will to go on as you have.“

“O well,“ bemoaned the jackass, as the last of his faculties abandoned him to his self.

“Good night ’n’ good luck,“ echoed the voices of my faculties from somewhere across the void.

“That’s the last straw!“ brayed a perturbed jackass as it chomped down on the words of its master, chewed them up, and spit the unpalatable ole cud onto the ground, to be trampled underfoot, pissed and shit upon.

And so was the donkey driven to play with its self, only on a much lower level than it’d grown accustomed to, of late. Having pissed away another opportunity for union with soul, had the ass, once again, banished itself to the barren reaches of its mind, to trudge through the endless sand in search of that oasis where the beast could unload itself of the burden of soul with impunity. Like Jonah, had it only succeeded in further miring itself down in the belly of the animal kingdom.

“Lemme outta here,“ screamed the horse’s ass, to no avail.

“Like a schizophrenic,“ he went on to say, “had the right hand of man lost touch with the left one, when the right began to pay homage to those individuals whose central focus in life revolved entirely around the self and no one else. Having created a new god on Mt. Olympus, that is, within the psyche of man, did the right proceed to amass for its self, so much of the power ’n’ wealth of the world, it left an incredibly huge vacuum or black hole from which then arose the god of the left, or worship of the collective—to the complete denigration of the individual. In the rush to serve these gods, did the hands of men fabricate two titans, one to the east, the other to the west, to rule over themselves. In place of the one Lord Who had ruled over the hearts ’n’ minds of men since time immemorial, now stood the images of an old business tycoon and his nemesis, the bear. Since the world could ill afford to support one titan, much less two, there arose such a clamor between the two of them, for the souls of men, that many lives were needlessly lost in the struggle to find a military solution to the psychological problems of mankind—this schizophrenic split in man’s collective psyche.“

“To find healing for the terrible rift that divides us,“ proclaimed Jinny, “you need only turn to me. Embrace me as of old, and I will show you the way to true happiness. Refuse me, and I will unleash upon you the madness that engulfed your fathers.“

And so did all three disappear, leaving me alone atop my perch, to drift about aimlessly in a sea of conflicting emotions.

Looking ahead, I saw a doctor who reminded me of Dr. Jekyll, though he looked like Uncle Sam, standing over a young man whose battered body lay wrapped in a bloody sheet on the table before him. To the left of the young man’s body, in the shadow of Uncle Sam, stood another nefarious surgeon general, I immediately recognized as Hyde, though he looked a lot like Ho Chi Minh. As they stood there bickering over the fate of the young man’s life, I realized that neither of them could ever gain control, either in life or in death, of the spirit of the young man while it remained free.

Forced back into my body, I sat straight up on the table, looking a bit like the risen Christ, for I wasn’t about to let these two thugs take control of my life. I had to take the helm if I didn’t want to end up hanging from the cross of one or the other of these two thieves, who had already taken so much from the world, in the name of their respective ism, there was little else left for them to take, but life itself. Since I was neither an unrepentant god nor an apologetic beast, I wanted no part in the killing of other human beings. Nor did I care to lose my life participating in such a dead-end affair. Although I sympathized with the plight of the apologetic beast, I knew that his way of life left as much to be desired as that of the moral right or unrepentant god, for hidden within the desire to destroy the terrible images they saw in each other, lay the hope of one day unearthing the missing link, a way of being that seeks to live out the best of both worlds instead of the worst.

Only I couldn’t imagine what the missing link looked like, much less how it would act in my situation. While I sincerely believed that Jesus would never have participated in the killing of another human being, I didn’t know what to do about my own participation in such an act, now that I was in the position to take another’s life. After all, I wasn’t Christ. Nor was I even Christlike. Yet I knew the missing link was, in spite of its apelike appearance, more like Christ then I could ever hope to be, for this gentle humanoid was ultimately tied to its maker by the limits of its imagination, of which I was just now becoming aware.

“To you,“ stated my mentor, “has been given the secret of the kingdom, but for those outside, everything comes in images.“ Mk. 3:11.

“Only I do not know this secret of which you speak,“ I insisted.

“When an animal looks,“ replied my mentor, “it does not perceive. Nor does it understand what it hears when it listens, for it lacks imagination. And so it is with all who have never learned to enter, a second time, the womb of the imagination, for I tell you, unless your shipmates become like children, they will never enter the kingdom. Bound by the images of Instinct, they will instead be left standing outside to wail and gnash their teeth, like animals seeking entry to their master’s house.

“Pay attention,“ admonished my mentor, “to what you hear rather than to what you see. ’For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light.’ Mk. 4:22.

“Now that you know,“ he concluded, “wherein the kingdom doeth lie—having seen the face of God there, with your own eyes—take care, lest you lose sight of this vital link to Who You Really Are, or what consciousness has been given you, will be taken away.“

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.