“It is difficult to say, my son,“ he replied, “without going back to the beginning of the encounter, and working our way through this seemingly incomprehensible maze of symbols. For it is the first real look into the nature of the demons, still plaguing you, that we’ve had since their exposure over a month ago. While this dream reveals little about the one, other than the femaleness of the recessive side of your nature, it deals primarily with the dual aspect of the other, more dominant male side of your animal nature.“

“What I find most interesting,“ interjected my shadow, “is the passion with which your body responded to that part of you which acts out or uses body language to express itself.“

“For the body desires nothing more,“ claimed my soul, “than to be reunited with who you really are.“

“Don’t you see,“ inquired my mentor, “how badly your body yearns to be reunited with the creative potential hidden away within all the banality of your male sexuality?“

“In learning to trust the body,“ advised my soul, “you must overcome your distaste for the language that she uses. Otherwise you’ll miss what she’s trying to tell you in her own picturesque way.“

“Aroused by her passion for unity,“ expounded my mentor, “were you awakened to the nature of this demiurge, when his genius sprang from the wild side of your being, like an erection.“

“As this daemon struggled to keep his anonymity,“ explained my shadow, “he used the cryptic language of the body to confuse you about your own sexual orientation.“

“By getting you to reject him,“ acknowledged my soul, “on the basis of your fear of the homosexual factor present within the psyche of all mankind, he hoped to keep you from giving body to the more creative aspect of himself, imprisoned within this lie.“

“Finding little satisfaction in his union with body on the metaphysical plane,“ continued my mentor, “he quickly turned his attention to you, when he realized you shared the same desire, albeit from a very different perspective. Unsure of your own perspective, you couldn’t find it in your heart to accept the manner in which your creative daemon presented himself to you. Since you could only see him through the lens of your subjective bias, you played right into his hands whenever he tried to force himself upon you from this point of view. Thus were you forced to have sex with your self, over ’n’ over.“

“Having gotten nowhere with a gut level response,“ proffered my shadow, “you decided to take another look at him from the perspective of my domain. Hoping to find a more reasonable way of dealing with the sexual aspect of this urge, you were just as disappointed by the more widely accepted heterosexual solution to the problem, as you had been, by the homosexual approach of this daemon in the rough, for neither bias seemed to bring you any closer to the true nature of the demiurge.“

“At that point,“ asserted my mentor, “did you turn to the superior ability of your intuitive faculty, to examine the situation in view of some of the choices you had recently made. To kick the habit of giving into the urge, whenever it demanded sex, you realized that you’d have to do more than just get tough with this part of you, for no matter how hard you tried to shove the urge aside, it always crept back into your life like a cat with nine lives. In your desperation to find a more creative outlet for this urge you latched onto the job of shipfitter with the hope of having hit it on the head. Encouraged by the response of this daemon, to take a more aggressive approach than passive resistance, you resorted to the same tactic the government uses, that old staple of throwing canned interpretations at a subject until one sticks. Confronted by your desires for willy-nilly sex, were you forced to put down this little rebellion which, much to your surprise, you succeeded in doing.“

“Having reduced the urge to its lowest common denominator—to an inordinate desire to spill your guts out,“ inferred my shadow, “did you step outside yourself to look at it from a more objective point of view. Confronted by the truly awesome power of the urge, you wondered if we could even help you redirect it down a more appropriate avenue in life. Though you came close to getting a concession from the beastly side of nature, you ruined your chance when you showed your contempt for that part of you.“

“Realizing that he still held the upper hand,“ reiterated my mentor, “he wasn’t about to give into your prejudice against the racy workings of the lower echelons of your being.“

“Accept your sexuality for what it is,“ broke in my shadow, “a reminder of your incompleteness.“

“Don’t you see, my son,“ exclaimed my mentor, “the triune nature of this urge—how you desire to be at one with your body and the creative potential hidden within it, as much as they desire unity with not only each other but you too, for you are their only means of expression.“

“Though you may feel as if an unfair burden has been placed upon you,“ concluded my soul, “in reality, you are being asked to do no more than what you’ll demand of the woman you’ll one day marry—to love the beast within you, with all her mind, all her heart and all her soul, till it can no longer hold back the secret of its inmost being from you.“

“A broken egg!“ replied my shadow in jest.

“Aw, shut up,“ I yelled out, in my anger over having received such a stupid response. “I ain’t no goddamn egg.“

“What you say is what you are,“ retorted my shadow, “cause two negatives always make a positive.“

“You’re the egghead,“ I shouted back, “not me.“

“You’re the one who penetrated her womb and sowed the seeds of consciousness,“ he enigmatically proclaimed.

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?“ I demanded to know.

“What Michael is trying to tell you, if you’d just shut up and listen,“ exclaimed my soul, “is that I am with child.“

“O, I get it now,“ I sarcastically exclaimed. “What you’re tryin’ to tell me is that I, a mere mortal, got you, a spirit, pregnant. Yeah, right! Why don’t you tell me another one of your goddamn lies.“

“I do not lie,“ she strongly asserted, “for lying ’n’ deception belong not to me, but rather to the evil magician.“

Deep down, I knew she was telling the truth.

“You’ve been penetrating my womb for some time,“ she exclaimed, “and with little regard for the outcome. Don’t you see—it was bound to happen sooner or later.“

“So what does this mean?“ I asked out of my own bewilderment.

“It means that, in three or four months,“ replied my mentor, “you’ll be giving birth to some new aspect of yourself.“

“But why must I wait so long?“ I asked.

“It takes a long time for an idea to gain flesh,“ he responded. “And as you can see, there’s a lot that needs to be done yet, in preparation for the birth of this work of art.“

“Are we all eggmen?“ I asked.

“Yes,“ replied my shadow, “just as I am you and you are me, you are Humpty Dumpty.“

“Is that the only way you’ll ever understand what I’m tryin’ to tell you?“ I fired back in my frustration with his stiff-neckedness.

Having shut him up, for the moment, I grew depressed at the thought that even my best friend was a Neanderthal.

“Like a chip off the old block, eh?“ did my shadow remind me.

“Aw, shut up,“ I shouted back across the void. “I’m gettin’ so goddamn sick ’n’ tired of hearin’ about evolution, that I could puke. Why me? Why am I the only one who ever sees this shit? Huh?“

“I can’t hear you,“ I shouted back, after a brief pause in which I received no other response from my shadow than dead silence.

“I’m sorry, Marty,“ I finally said, “for havin’ taken my frustrations out on you. I’m just a little depressed today, that’s all.“

“This f—-n’ hole’s enough to depress anyone,“ rejoined Marty.

“That’s just it, Marty,“ I exclaimed. “It’s not the place. It’s you and I who’re out of sync. And I feel as if I’m the only one who sees that.“

“I see it,“ he proclaimed.

“You see only what ya wanna see, Marty,“ I rebutted, “whatever demands little or no change on your part.“

“I’m not you, Dury,“ insisted Marty. “And I never will be.“

“You’re more like me, Marty,“ I added, “than you’ll ever admit. You’re just as stubborn as I am. Only you resist change instead of resisting what refuses to change. You’re all talk ’n’ no action, Marty. In spite of that, ya got spunk—one thing I’ve always liked about ya.

“Boy, am I thirsty,“ I concluded. “Ya wanna get somethin’ to drink?“

“Sounds good,“ he exclaimed as we headed for the exchange.

“Ya know, Dury,“ Marty finally admitted, “while I sometimes, really like what ya have to say, I have a hard time figurin’ out how the hell you’d ever live out some of the shit ya come up with.“

“Yeah, Marty,“ I stated quite frankly, “so do I. But I know one thing for sure—I can’t live like this, either.“

With that, we both fell silent.

“You have heard it said, ’You shall love your countryman and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers ’n’ sisters, what more are you doing than everyone else? Do not the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.“ Mt. 5:43–48.

The real kicker came when I realized I didn’t love my own countrymen, for I saw them, rather than the Viet Cong, as the real enemy.

“Do not be alarmed by such sentiments,“ responded my mentor, “for they are the beginning of true wisdom.“

“The real enemy,“ proclaimed my shadow ’n’ guardian angel, Michael, “is found within, not without the realm of one’s being.“

“You feel enmity towards your countrymen,“ insisted my soul, Jinny, “because you are still in the process of becoming aware of how the enemy manifests itself within our being.“

“For the speck you see in the eyes of your persecutors,“ reiterated Michael, “is but a reflection of the beam in your own.“

“You see, my son,“ concluded my mentor, “in condemning the actions of your countrymen, you condemn those parts of yourself, of which you are unaware, to living out their existence in the only way left them, in some beastly fashion. And so does it behoove you to embrace your countrymen in a more charitable light—to enter into a more reflective dialogue with the darker aspects of yourself, in much the same way a child engages his detractors in imaginative play.

“For you really have no way of knowing what form enlightenment will take,“ he continued, “until it comes raining down upon you. If you embrace only that which is known, what reward do you have? Do not those, whose behavior sorely taxes your abilities to deal with them, do the same? And if you accept only that with which you are already familiar, what more are you doing than your countrymen? Do not they do the same? Therefore, must you faithfully reproduce the man God intended you to become.“

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.

“To be perfectly honest,“ I interjected, “I really don’t want to kill anyone, real or imaginary.“

“You no longer have a choice,“ he replied. “Either you destroy the image which tells you it is okay to take the life of another human being, when sanctioned by the State, or this image’ll destroy you, just as surely as it destroyed your stepfather, when it robbed him of the very manhood he had taken from his opponents in battle.“

“Why must I kill this image?“ I asked. “Surely there must be some other way to deal with it.“

“Because you have allowed this image to acquire a life of its own,“ he responded, “this Frankenstein’ll never give it back to you till you take it from him.“

“Until you remove this parasitic growth from your own eye,“ he continued on, “you will never see how to remove the corresponding speck from your neighbor’s eye, for war is really about the killing of your own demons as you see them outside yourself in the hapless neighbor upon whom you have cast such dark shadowy aspersions. In the ensuing struggle to take your neighbor’s life before he takes yours, you fight not so much to protect your life as you do to protect the lives of those demons who have taken over some part of you, for he who has overcome his own demons has no need to take his neighbor’s life, nor defend his own, since it is already in the hands of the One Voice. And so are you tricked, by the projection of your shadow onto a neighbor, into believing you have slain your demons in the slaying of that neighbor when, in reality, you have only given your demons a little more control over your life.“

“Come now, my lad!“ exclaimed my shadow. “You must get hold of yourself, for all is not as bad as it seems. Why you’ve been given a great gift in the ability to see your demons, or that part of your animal nature which still has you in its grip. While you may now see this knowledge as more of a burden than a boon, you’ll one day be called upon to share it with the rest of the world, for like Jonah, you’ve been confined to this instinctive existence, to force you to find the way out.“

“If you know the way, why don’t you show me?“ I beseeched him.

“I know no more than what the Council has deciphered from the images you’ve been shown thus far,“ he replied.

“Well I guess that leaves us all in the dark,“ I quipped.

“Not quite,“ he rebutted, “for we’re continually being fed images that shed light on the way you must go. Until recently, I’ve not been at liberty to discuss with you our latest translation—into thought—of some of the material we’d received from your senses awhile back. If you’re up to it, I’d like to share with you those thoughts that speak to the qualms you are having with your participation in the war in Vietnam.“

“Are you game?“ he asked.

“Sure! Why not!“ I exclaimed. “Like any true glutton for punishment, I want more, as long as it’s not too painful. Though, I’m not sure I could handle coughing up any more demons,“ whereupon he readily assured me that was not what he had in mind.

“If you don’t know it yet,“ he began, “you’ll soon find out that war is hell. Unless you deal with me on a personal level, that is, integrate me into your life, you will be forced to fight me on a transpersonal level, in the faces of the Viet Cong, for the Beast has been unleashed.“

“What beast?“ I asked out of the alarm he’d just sounded to alert me to the very real dangers that lay ahead.

“Why that part of Nature which still defies Consciousness,“ he answered rather matter-of-factly.

“I don’t understand,“ I exclaimed.

“You see,“ he unequivocally replied, “each human being is given, at birth, a little piece of the dark side of Nature, or hell as you-all call it, from which to free the truth he’ll need to get back into paradise. Till he frees the truth yet hidden within the animal side of his nature, it’ll haunt him like a specter. For this worthiest of opponents will act as a thorn in his side, and thwart his every effort to live out any other truth than the one meant for him. And he’ll be unable to resist such behavior because the laws of Nature must be obeyed one way or the other, as either an unconscious animal or a conscious human being.

“Like the fissile material in a nuclear reactor, the energy to live out this truth lies dormant in you till you reach the age of puberty, at which time the One Who Rules Over All releases control of it to you through your rod. If you lose control of this rod, by using your libidinal energy for any other purpose than that intended, you run the risk of releasing this creative energy in the form of that beast which had best expressed this truth, no matter how crudely, before you came along. And if enough of your countrymen lose control of this energy, so that critical mass is reached, a chain reaction of great destructive power is set in motion, above which only the individual can rise, until those who’ve contributed to this war regain their senses and banish the beast back to the wildest parts of their imaginations, from whence it came.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,“ I replied.

“If you were, I’d have asked ya to leave,“ he said. “As it is, I feel the need for some good company and a bit of stimulating conversation.“

Struck by not only his honesty but also his impeccable dress, an obviously freshly pressed set of tailor-made dungarees, I asked him, “Did ya get in trouble today?“

“Nah,“ he answered, “I’m too short. With less than a week to go on this godforsaken can, they (meaning the lifers) can’t touch me.“

I was deeply saddened by the news that he’d be leaving so soon. Even though he wasn’t as warm and vibrant as Van, I nonetheless took an immediate liking to him. For I experienced this young rebellious intellectual from Boston, Massachusetts, as a godsend. Envious of his impending discharge, I wished I were in his shoes instead.

“For four long years,“ he continued, “I’ve struggled against becoming an animal like the rest of these bastards. Next week when I walk off this ship for the last time, I’ll have prevailed.“

“I know the feeling,“ I interjected.

“From the first day of my enlistment,“ he rejoined, “they drummed the idea into my head that I had joined this outfit for one reason only: to fight for my country. But they lied to me, for I ended up spending four long years fightin’ to save my ass from them.

“Don’t believe a word of what the lyin’ vultures say, for they prey upon human flesh with talons made of lies. Resist the temptation to become one of them. And whatever you do, don’t let them rob you of the most precious gift you have, your humanity, for the wraiths will claw away at it until all that remains is the shadow of what was once you.“

I saw too, how both my fathers’ spirits had been broken before me. When my real father unwittingly traded his soul to the Great Gray Bitch, she broke him in two, stole his mind, and carried it off to the metaphysical realm where he roams in madness, to this very day, unconsciously trying to find his way out. In the case of my stepfather, who had offered his body to her as cannon fodder in an earnest attempt to die to himself, she snatched up his soul and imprisoned it in a bottle with the spirits of alcohol, who eventually granted him his wish. And though they both found soul in my mother, such solace came as too little, too late, to stave off the fate they had inadvertently bought from the Great Gray Mother with their souls.

So had I inherited from them this tendency to cash in on the same terrible fate. Having given the Great Gray Bitch my body but not my soul, I still had a chance to change my fate before it was signed, sealed and delivered to me in an even more despicable form. For I was not about to live ’n’ die as half a man, or some soulless beast, as had my fathers before me.