Dreaming at the Feet of Hades

Posts Tagged ‘occult adventures’

Mer-Amun

(October 21, 2007)

This is a pictorial.  Click here to view. 

(Don’t forget to read the captions under the photographs, as they are not obvious, and they tell the story.)

Mer-Amun

(January, 1985)

I was so tired that I felt dizzy, but I couldn’t sleep for excitement.  The 747 was circling Cairo waiting for landing clearance.  I could smell the ancient city.   I could see the haze in the air which was aglow from the city street lights.  That haze was the reason we weren’t landing immediately.  It was a type of sand storm that had engulfed the whole of Northern Egypt, and threatened to shut down the airport.

Hurray!  Ours was the last plane to land before the airport was shut down.  My business partner and his wife, due to land in another hour and a half, was re-directed to Mecca, the closest airport with a strip big enough for a 747, that was also not affected by the storm.  So, I was alone for 4 days, on my first trip outside of North America.

As we drove through the city, I thought everyone must be mad for the disregard of lanes, speed limits, and road courtesy, and the incessant honking of horns that would have been thought maniacal at home.  The Taxi driver and his brother joked about the “City of the Dead” as we passed by the necropolis – a huge graveyard of tombs – alight with the lanterns of homeless people who spent their nights in there.  They joked that the homeless were actually “the Dead” more than the bones that those people sat upon.

I stumbled into my room at the Holiday Inn Pyramids, in the suburb of Cairo called Giza.  I barely had time to glance out the window into the night, and see looming over the horizon, the night-lit pyramids I had always dreamed of visiting.  I fell into what seemed a long deep sleep, filled with fantastic dreams.

Hungry, and needing to pee, I slowly woke, groggily looking around me, and out the window at the same night scene.  I thought I’d slept more than a few hours, but evidently not, as it was still night, and the pyramids were still right there lit up as when I fell asleep.  Then I realized: I had slept a full 24 hours!  Wasted one of my precious days on this fabulous trip!

I rushed down to the lobby, hastily throwing on my 1980’s black leather jacket, grabbed a candy bar for breakfast, and rushed out into the night, determined not to waste another minute.  I could see the giant pyramids right there, seemingly only a few blocks away, and naively assuming that the city streets would be arranged in an orderly grid, set out in the general direction of them, thinking that sooner or later I’d find my way there.  As you can imagine, I quickly got lost, and unfortunately, in a dangerous part of town at that.  Eventually I found my way at a barbed wire fence that bordered the ancient necropolis  that is beside the pyramids themselves.  There was a small tent with a small fire, around which huddled two or three Egyptian soldiers who were part of the guarding of the site from plunder.  They waved their guns at me menacingly, yelling at me in Arabic, gesturing for me to leave the area at once.  Before I could leave, one of them, speaking clear enough English that I could understand, asked what I was doing there.  I asked for directions to the pyramids.  He kept saying that I should simply follow the “street that leads to the pyramids”, and I kept saying “which street is that?”  After we repeated this to each other a few times, we gave up, and I said I’d go back to my hotel.  Why would he tell me to go to the “pyramid street?”  How was I supposed to know which street that is?  Geeze.

Still suffering from jet-lag, I decided to have some food in the hotel.  From years of accompanying my ex-wife to her belly-dance gigs, I was accustomed to good Arabic food.  There was none of that to be found here.  Terrible falafel, and something horrible that was supposed to pass for tabouli.  Oh well, I thought, I’ll hunt for some good food tomorrow.

Again I slept through the entire following day, so that again it was night when I woke.  I had yet to see Cairo in daylight!  Again I set out into the night, determined to see the pyramids, this time taking my camera strapped around my neck, and hidden under my leather jacket.  This time, I followed the main street in a tangent to where I could see the pyramids, and eventually came to: “Pyramid Street”!!  So this is what the soldier was trying to tell me!  The street itself is named “Pyramid Street”.  I felt like a dummy, but excited, followed it up onto the famous plateau, and straight to the foot of the Greet Pyramid!

I was awestruck by the sheer size of it, looming up into the dark sky above me.  The alien landscape with the other pyramids looming in the distance, and the strange noises that filled the night air felt really eerie, and yet extremely exciting.  I started toward walking around the pyramid, when the night lights suddenly switched off.  I guessed they don’t keep the lights burning all night.  Looking at my watch, it was 10:20pm.

An Egyptian wearing a caftan approached.  In broken English he said I wasn’t to be there and asked me to leave.  I looked at him, dressed like a beggar, and figured he was one of the homeless people the taxi driver was joking about.  I ignored the man and pushed past him, determined to be alone.  He followed quite insistently, and when he saw that I wasn’t going to listen to him no matter what he said, he held out his hand and said “Baksheesh!”  Well, the word I didn’t understand, but the outstretched hand was obvious.  I gave him $20 U.S. hoping he’d be satisfied and leave me alone.  Instead, he immediately started offering me a tour, offering to show me the “quick way” to the top, pointing to take me around to a dark place behind the smaller pyramids, where none of the other figures shuffling around the area could see.  Yeah, right.  The “quick way”!  Figuring I was about to get mugged for whatever other $20 bills I might have in my wallet, I started trying to get away from the man again.

I decided to circumambulate the pyramid three times saying prayers before ascending, and began to do so quickly enough that I would stay ahead of this nagging individual.  Eventually, I came upon a construction wall, with a watchman’s cabin.  This watchman wouldn’t let me pass, but mysteriously, the beggar who was still following me, said something to the watchman, and I was allowed to continue.

Now I was between the Great Pyramid, and the seemingly larger (though actually slightly smaller) pyramid of Kephren.  The strange noises in the dark night air echoed really strangely between these pyramids.  I asked the beggar what that noise was.  He explained that college kids from the University of Cairo come there each night to sing and dance in small groups as teen-agers have done for thousands of years.  Then I realized that was what I was hearing: the chanting and very Egyptian clapping, from at least three groups somewhere out in the dark.  I started walking and praying again.  I came across the construction site, that the guard had let me near.  The beggar explained that this was the newly excavated site of the Boat of Ra, and while the boat had been discovered a long time ago, a building to house it was being created, and new discoveries were being made while digging in the area.  I was grateful for the company of the beggar after all, as he had defended me against the construction site watchman, and he was explaining very interesting stuff to me.  When the beggar saw my attitude change, he again began to offer to show me the top of the pyramid, but this time, he said, he wanted to show me the right way to climb the pyramid.  Not wanting this, I ignored him again, and told him I was going to climb by myself.  He said ok, but just stay with the corners, and not to try to get near the middle of a side.  Soon after this, I guess he gave up, because he disappeared into the night, and I finished my subsequent two turns around the pyramid.

Now I was standing at the North-East corner, and began to climb.  At first, I didn’t know how I was going to manage it, the blocks being too large to scale very easily.  Then, squinting in the dark, I saw that the blocks were actually of irregular size and placement, and if I was careful, I could pick out a route that wasn’t so bad.  Soon, I fell into a rhythm, scaling block after block after block, always looking at my next foot-hold, and deliberately not looking up or down.  I didn’t want to know how hopelessly far from the top I was, and I didn’t want to get dizzy from the height.

After a while, I realized that the rhythm had become so engrossing, it took me a while to notice that I had been quite out of breath for some time, and was about to faint, possibly falling all the way down!  Alarmed, I immediately stopped and sat down, struggling to regain my breath, as I surveyed the view.  The night sky

Looking up into the darkness at the climb ahead, from my resting place about two thirds of the way up.

wasn’t completely dark, as the sand-storm was still around the city, and the orange glow of the street lights lent a faint glow to the haze all around.  The storm just have been subsiding, because I could see stars above.  I looked across the Northern slope at the edge to the West.  That edge, while ragged, looked so stark against the night sky, stars and space immediately upon it.  It looked like the very edge of the Earth. In fact, I became alarmed that I was slowly leaning, leaning toward falling, because of an illusion created by the immense size of the rocky side of the pyramid, which seemed more and more like the ground, and “up” seemed more and more like a vertical from that plane… a false illusion of “up” that would have caused me to tumble to my death.  Quickly I became aware of how vulnerable I was on the steep side of this alien plane, and that the wind was so strong, I had to hold on to keep my balance, my leather jacket flapping in the wind.

Quickly, I looked away from that unearthly horizon, and down at the true ground from which had I started my climb.  And as I looked, creeping out of the dark and gloomy necropolis in the near distance, two packs of wild dogs emerged, slowly advancing on the pyramid, at my feet.  The leaders of each pack advanced upon each other, growling and barking menacingly at each other.  When they met, they were right at the very stone I had first set my foot upon, and as they began a ferocious tearing fight right there, all of the other dogs in the packs began a senseless melee all around.  The terrible sound of this war of dog-fights rose and engulfed me, echoing off the pyramids in the distance, and mixing eerily with the sound of the college kids still partying in the distance.  I wondered, what are the chances that these two packs of dogs should meet to war, exactly at the very spot I had set foot on the pyramid.  Surely, this was some kind of very bad omen for my journey.

I watched the dogs fight below my gaze for a few minutes, and then resolved to turn and resume my climb.  I noticed I had already gone two thirds of the way, and if I got back into that rhythm, I would be at the top before I again lost my breath.  I went only about 10 blocks up, and noticed that the dogs had disappeared, dispersed into the darkness from which they crept.

Block after block, level after level, they all passed in the rhythm of my climb. Again, I neither looked up, nor down, always focusing only on the next block , and the next… and then, to my surprise, there was no next block.  In surprise, I stood, gazing at the plateau at the very top of the Great Pyramid of Cheops.  All I have to do, I thought, was  to climb one more block, and I’d be on top… but then, what would I hold on to, to keep my balance against the wind?

And then, what the hell is that?!!!  I suddenly noticed the sound of something else flapping wildly in the wind, besides my jacket.  It was coming from the center of the plateau… a plastic bag of some sort.  Who would litter on the top of the… wait, it’s not a plastic bag.  It’s something wrapped in plastic, something heavy enough to keep the plastic from completely blowing away… judging by the length and width of it, as the plastic flapped around it, the thing looked to be about the same shape and size of a person, lying on the top of the pyramid, wrapped in plastic that flapped wildly in the wind!  What the… ?!!  And is that chanting I hear coming from it, or is that the sound of the wind whistling around the rocks?

My mind raced with possibilities, trying to grasp the situation, and determine what my reaction should be.  On one hand, it could be someone dead.  But who could labor to carry a dead person up here, without being noticed?  Maybe they were noticed, and were somehow allowed!  What would that mean?!  Maybe it isn’t a dead person, but someone who climbed up here just like me.  But then, how could they breath from inside that plastic, and why on earth would they be doing that?  Maybe it’s someone who’s meditating, maybe meditating on death and imagining what it would be like to be dead.  I’ve seen stranger things, and I’ve gone to graveyards myself with that same intention.  But the top of the Great Pyramid?!  I thought of the beggar down below, who might have mugged me earlier.  Maybe this is someone who is lying in waiting for me, to mug me and throw me down to my death!  Oh come on!  How likely is that?  Ok, but how likely is what I see right before my eyes!  How can I explain that?!  Whatever it is, I reasoned, there’s something very wrong here.  That thing is actually lined up exactly North-South, with the “head” to the North, and in the exact center of the plateau!  Something’s not right, whatever it is.  The sense of danger won over me, and I turned, scurrying down the side as quickly as I could, assuming a “crab-walk” to keep all my limbs in contact with the pyramid, while moving as quickly down as I could.

Quickly snapped a picture of the downward journey into the darkness, from near the top. Note the sand on each level, from which a foothold might easily slip, and start a surely fatal tumble. (click for full size image - note the haze in the air from the sand storm.)

I glanced up at the edge of the plateau above me every few seconds, in case someone were to suddenly appear, and come after me.  My heart was pounding so hard, my croutched body jerked each time with its force. Then, seeing nothing move at all, I stopped, and realized, “wait a minute.”  Just wait a minute.  Think.  Certainly there’s no need to actually endanger myself against the wind by standing up there with nothing to hold on to, and certainly there’s something weird up there… but who on earth would believe this story?  I’m right here, and I’m already starting to doubt what I thought I saw, and what I thought I heard.  I thought, I’ll never forgive myself, if I don’t get my camera ready, and go back up there (gulp), and take a picture of whatever it is.  Then I’ll know that I really did see something up there, and I can show it to others, who might not believe the whole weird story.

So I steeled myself, climbed back up, heart still pounding in my chest, watching my way through the camera view-finder in case something should peer down at me from the edge of the plateau, in which case, I’d quickly go “click!” and run like hell.  But nothing did peer down at me.  So when I got to the top, I carefully aimed, and was about to click, when I realized that the flash in the night was certainly going to draw attention to me where I might have gone luckily unnoticed before!  I decided I had to take my chances… the idea of getting a picture was just too great, so I looked down at my escape route, focused, and snapped the picture.  I scurried down the side of that pyramid like nobody’s business, and upon reaching the bottom, ran all the way down into Pyramid Street, and all the way back to the hotel. 

The next day, I woke in early morning this time.  I befriended a taxi driver who showed me the sights  around Cairo, took me to the perfume shop my Teacher told me to visit, and took me into his home where his wife sheepishly made us a delicious lunch of tomatoes, cheese, and couscous with tea.

I asked the taxi driver, various guards, guides, and officials about my adventure throughout my journey through Egypt in the following weeks.  With one exception, I invariably got one of two responses: a) you’re lying, you didn’t and couldn’t climb the pyramid, especially at night, b) you might have climbed, but you certainly didn’t see that!  (In asking, I discovered that there are signs near the pyramid, warning of the illegality of climbing, and of the certainty of prosecution and probably jail term.  I further found out that the “beggar” was actually a paid guard, whose job it was to keep people like me from going there at night.  I had unwittingly bribed this guard when I gave him the $20 “baksheesh”.)

The exception was on my last day in Egypt.  The Cairo-based travel agent who was in charge of my stay throughout Egypt.  When I told him, his eyes went wide, and he was obviously trying to calm himself for some reason, and he said in a shaky voice at first, “That’s not supposed to be happening anymore.”  When I said “What?” he acted like he never said anything, and simply told me that the “Tourist Police” must be told of my experience, and that they must have a copy of my photograph, as soon as I get it developed.  He wouldn’t say why, and he couldn’t explain what I’d heard him say.  He simply repeated over and over again that I should tell the Tourist Police immediately, and that I should promise to send them a copy of the photograph.

It’s weird that, while I’d been there for more than 56 hours, more than two full days and nights, I never saw daylight in Egypt until after I saw, whatever-that-was, on top of the Great Pyramid.  No matter that I wasn’t believed, those first two days (or rather, nights), in Egypt set a tone or a mood for my entire visit, that lent magic and mystery to everything I did and saw.  

When I returned to Toronto, I had the photo developed, and sure enough, there it is: something roughly man-sized and shaped, inside plastic, that is distorted by its flapping in the wind, lying on the ancient stone blocks that show graffiti from centuries of visits including ancient Romans, Napoleon’s soldiers, etc.  I showed it to a Vietnam veteran, who said it looked exactly like the hundreds of body bags he’d seen.

I showed it to my Teacher.  He said nothing at first.  Then he simply said that it was a warning from the spirit of the Pyramid, and would speak no more about it.

I never did even try to send the photo to the Tourist Police.  I just didn’t want any part of whatever trouble I might be stirring up by doing so.

That’s all I know.  Here’s the picture.  See for yourself.  See what you think.  Maybe it’s nothing and I conjured for myself an adventure out of the sheer excitement of being there, alone, at night, at the top of the Great Pyramid of Cheops.  Still, what on earth is that in the photograph…?  

As you examine the picture, remember, there’s a strong wind blowing up against it from the direction of view, up against the side in view.  Notice the creases in the plastic… it’s a kind of rigid thicker plastic than garbage bags are.  It made a “crackling” sound as it was flapping in the wind.  It’s about 6 feet long, from the “head” (at the right) to the “feet” (at the left).  If you click to look at the larger image, and look closely at the right end, you can’t help wondering what’s inside that the plastic is being blown so strongly against.  Is that really a head inside there?  The “hump” in the middle was only there as the plastic was flapping in the wind, against the weight of whatever is inside.  That “hump” is part of the “flapping”, and between flapps actually lays down flat, even with the top of the left end.  Maybe it’s just a chello, or harp in a plastic bag from the music store.  At almost midnight.  In Giza.  On top of the Great Pyramid.

Top of the Great Pyramid of Cheops near midnight, Sun.Jan.13, 1985 (click for full size image)

(If you’d like to see more pictures from that trip to Egypt, click here.)

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Mer-Amun

(Summer 1974)

It was late one evening in our Teacher’s apartment in Toronto. He had just finished teaching some of his students (including me) a class about Wisdom and Skillful Means. We were all a bit tired from the intense interest peaked throughout his discourse, and as always were closing the day with fascinating discussions generated by his teaching, while sipping tea and munching snacks (which he always provided).

I remarked that I was having trouble with the notion that the study of Skillful Means was merely an intellectual exercise. One of the students asked our Teacher for some tangible proof that Skillful Means really exists and that what we’re studying has a basis in physical reality besides the reality of the imagination. Our Teacher asked what would constitute “proof” of such reality. All at once, students began calling out different effects he could perform in front of us, any of which would be “impossible” without Skillful Means. One called for him to levitate something. Another called for him to make a spirit to appear in physical form before us. Another person mentioned that our Teacher had once (jokingly) promised to create a rainstorm inside the apartment.

To my surprise (and that of others I’m sure) our Teacher agreed to create a rainstorm! But not inside the apartment, though only due to the calamity of getting everything wet. He said the rainstorm would happen outside instead.

I remembered that in another meeting, out Teacher had mentioned that weather magic had always come very easily to him, describing an incident where in his early childhood (6 years old or so), his mother (who was also one his first teachers) had taken him to the top of a hill, overlooking the ocean, and asked him to perform a simple technique for creation of a storm. When he did so, there had immediately appeared in the distance a black rolling cloud moving very quickly, boiling and thundering straight toward them, throwing lightning bolts all along the way. There immediately followed one of those tropical “flash storms” the residents are so accustomed to. Our Teacher mentioned that his mother was very impressed, even shocked at the immediacy and intensity of the reaction to what she thought was her son’s first attempt at creating tangible phenomena. Our Teacher remembered that she tried to hide her amazement, in hopes that our Teacher wouldn’t get a “big head” over it.

As I was thinking of this, I was sitting in a chair right next to the open Western window, laying my arm on its sill. Watching our Teacher get up from his chair, moving to the “meditation” area of the room in front of us, I also looked out the open window. I could easily see the completely clear sky, and the few stars that shone through the city glow of downtown Toronto. I remember thinking that this would be a spectacular trick indeed, as not only was there not even a single cloud in sight, but there wasn’t even a haze in the air, normally so common in the inner city of Toronto.

I watched our Teacher with utter interest and fascination as he began with preparatory prayers of “Remembrance” (which we now call “Recollecting The View”) when lighting a high candle in the nearly complete darkness of the room. I keenly witnessed him perform the same preparatory ritual and mantra that we were all practicing on a daily basis at the time… but he made small adjustments, each accentuating some presence from each of the four Buddha Families, one in each quarter. I savored the sound of his magical sword being dragged on the floor to form a circle around the practice room, which had its Southern wall completely open to us as we sat transfixed in our chairs and couches, our eyes following our Teacher’s every move.

Every few seconds, I would tear my eyes away from the “master at work” before me, whose every movement and utterance was firm, direct, and carefully controlled. I would tear my eyes away to glance out the open window beside me to see if anything was happening outside. To my amazement, as he drew the circle around his place of “working” with the sword, I could see the air thickening before my very eyes into a haze that had not been there before, obscuring the few stars that I had seen only seconds before. The hot night air that was the reason for having the window open in the first place, quickly cooled and a chill ran through me as I thought the window aught now be closed.

Then, our Teacher took a position in the West, facing whatever imagined forces he had summoned there, facing them with a head held high and a look of power and authority that sent shivers up my spine and made the hair on my forearms stand on end. He powerfully thumped his sword into the floor before the West as he mentally addressed those Western entities he faced, making us all jump in our seats with the suddenness and the power in that “Thump!” Quietly then, he stood there, obviously exercising some part of the “operation” inwardly with his irresistible imagination, and I glanced again out the window. To my amazement I saw far off in the Western distance the haze giving way to clouds visible in the partial moonlight, gathering there out of nowhere in the now cool night air.

Suddenly, but smoothly and carefully our Teacher raised his sword, pointing it high toward the top of the Western wall, and he began to trace in the air with the sword a clockwise circle toward the West three times. As he did this, the clouds gathered up and began to move at an incredible speed, directly toward us, forming a dark and undulating ball. By the time he finished tracing the third circle in the air, I could see the clouds were immediately overhead. The timing struck me with awe, and I realized this was no foolish matter I was witnessing. The atmosphere of playfulness we had all been in when chiding our Teacher to perform some visible Skillful Means was wiped completely from my mind.

Immediately upon finishing his tracing the three circles in the air, he powerfully thrust his sword at the top of the Western wall, suddenly and loudly blurting out a word of prayer in a low and resonant voice. I was shocked and frightened for a second, because at the same instant he thrust his sword, and the same instant that he blurted out that word of prayer, a brilliant and deafening thunderbolt of lightning crashed from the sky directly over our heads. I saw the brilliance of the lightening light up the entire sky and the entire Toronto skyline visible from that open window.

His mantra chanting continued slow and low, resonating with authority, and I realized that his sword had been at the top point of an imagined symbol as he moved it in strong lines past all of its parts. Then he once again thrust he sword to trace in the air part of a different symbol chanting a different mantra in a similar low and powerful voice. As he moved his sword around that figure in the air, I was startled again when my arm became immediately soaked before I could pull it away from the open window, for huge raindrops, the largest I have ever seen, began to pour down from the sky, instantly drenching anything caught in the open. I could barely see across to the next house, only 20 feet away, for the thickness of this torrent of rain.

Our Teacher began some closing prayers and mantras, and the rain began to lighten in its downpour. He came back to the part of the room where we were all sitting, and laughing, took his seat again amongst us. All of us were very impressed and a chatter of amazement erupted in the room. “How did you do that?” “Is that difficult to learn?” “Did you do that yourself, or ask a deity to do it for you?” “What were those differences in prayers and mantras from what we practice every day?” “Is it raining everywhere, or in a specific area?” “Were you just helping something along that would have happened anyway?” “Did your work cause the rain, or did the coming rain cause you to do the work?”

Our Teacher explained that the circle he had drawn with his sword on the floor had actually described a specific area in Toronto where it would rain, and there would still be clear skies outside that area. He explained that what we were practicing every day was not an empty intellectual exercise, but that it formed the foundation for all of the practitioner’s powers through minor variations like those we had seen that night. He explained that there was really nothing special about him in his ability to do what he did, but that all of us were capable of such things and much greater things if we simply stuck to our daily meditation and ritual practices. He expressed his worry about having done this for us. He was worried that maybe we’d now be practicing only to impress other people in the way he’d impressed us, instead of practicing in order to help others in need of help. He explained that he thought we needed something to show how serious and truly “real” our practice was, so having weighed the benefits and consequences had decided to do something tangible in front of us.

It continued to rain for only about 15 minutes, after which, through the open window, I saw the clouds dissipate into a haze, and then the haze disappear, leaving only the perfectly clear night sky again.

I feel luckier than the others in the room that night, because I was the only one able to see out the open window into the night sky. I was the only one who saw the instant effect that our Teacher’s every gesture and prayer were having on the real world outside. I’ll never forget the exact timing of the thrust of his sword and the crash of that bolt of lightening. I was the only one to get part of myself soaked because of the suddenness of the torrential downpour of huge raindrops that immediately answered his prayers. For me, since that day, his teachings have never again been “an intellectual exercise.” I know that I was not tempted to continue the study in order to do things that impress others, (I have only once been tempted create the same effect – all alone – and to my amazement, was actually successful to a degree!), but that the effect of this night on me was to “ground” in my being in an irrefutable way the “truth” and “reality” of what our Teacher was offering to teach us. This effect has never left me, and never will.

The next day I was further shocked at the depth of the “reality” of what I had seen when my best friend remarked on the “freak” rainstorm that had soaked him and his girlfriend the night before. I laughed with excitement when I heard that. Again I laughed when I saw a small clip in the Toronto Star newspaper that day in the weather section, describing a “freak” rainstorm that had occurred the night before in only part of Toronto, during what had until then been a completely clear sky, raining for only 15 or 20 minutes, and then abruptly stopping when all the clouds suddenly disappeared.

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Nestled in the valley between two huge mountain ranges just inside the British Columbia border is the town of Golden, where the mighty Columbia River and the wild and rocky Kicking Horse river meet. 

In June 1967, where the Kicking Horse river enters the edge of town along the steep wall of a rocky cliff there was a public campground, and close to that campground were the houses of my friend and I. 

I was 11 years old that year and it was the year of the 1967 International and Universal Exposition, or Expo 67 as we called it.  The fair was held in Montreal, Canada, in honor of that being Canada’s centennial year.  It was considered to be the most successful World’s Fare of the 20^th Century with over 50 million visitors and 62 nations participating, and nearly everyone in the country wished to go. 

Every year, the moon’s most powerful solar day of the year is the day that the sun enters the moon’s own sign, the sign of Cancer.  That day, the summer solstice, is the longest day of the year and has been considered for millennia a day of union between the God and Goddess (sun and moon, as the former enters  the latter’s own sign). In 1967, the evening of June 21 was a particularly powerful day for the moon, as it was not only the evening of the summer solstice, but it was also the evening of the Full Moon.

That night, the moon was particularly bright, so much so, that it actually woke up my riend, shining through the window onto his face as he slept.  Creeping out of bed in the silvery moon light, he went to his window to marvel at its brilliance.  He was accustomed to seeing the river just outside his back yard, and the rocky cliff off to his right, but this evening, everything looked anew in the wash of the moonlight. As he gazed at the fantastic light shining off the cliff, something moving caught his eye.  What would someone be doing, climbing that dangerous cliff so late at night?  His interest was peaked.

At first, catching sight of long flowing golden hair, he thought this might be a woman, but in astonishment, he realized that the person climbing was a totally naked man!  Fascinated, he watched the man reach a small outcrop part way up the cliff, stand straight up, face the moon, and lift his arms toward it as if in prayer.  Not 10 minutes passed, when to the further amazement of my friend, from all directions there emerged a cloud of what seemed in the moonlight, and from the distance, what he thought to be silver butterflies, surrounding the man as he stood there with his arms outstretched.  As if that scene weren’t strange enough, lit up so brightly by the powerful light of the moon that night, the silvery creatures actually gathered around close to the man, and all landed upon him, completely covering his body in one shimmering silvery mass.  It was as if the man with the golden hair had turned to silver before my friend’s very eyes. 

A few minutes passed and the man let his arms down.  The silvery creatures dispersed, and the naked man climbed back down the cliff, disappearing into the campground.  My friend didn’t sleep at all that night, with the wonderment of what he’d seen.  What kind of man was this?  What on earth was he doing there on that cliff!  Why had the silver butterflies covered him like that? 

As soon as his parents woke, which was about 7 am that Thursday morning, my friend rushed his breakfast and bolted out the door.  Racing to the campground on his bicycle to see if he could find this amazing man, he spotted the man, who had his hair tied in a pony-tail.  He was with a couple of older women, beside a Volkswagen van. He noticed that they were breaking camp, and would be leaving any minute.  Immediately he turned and rode as fast as he could back to my house, where he began pounding on the door, punching the door-bell, and yelling out my name in frantic desperation.

Groggily I came to the door to see what the fuss was all about.  He was talking so fast I couldn’t understand at first, and didn’t understand why I should change out of my pajamas and go bicycle riding with him so very early in the morning.  In what must have seemed like forever to him, the story of what he had seen came out, and after asking him to repeat that several times, I finally understood the urgency.  There was some kind of “super-human” man in the campground, and I should come and watch immediately because he was about to leave at any second.

Rushing into my clothes and onto my bicycle, we sped to the campground, looking for the Volkswagen van.  To our terrible disappointment, it was gone.  I didn’t know why, but the disappointment was all-consuming.  Over the following weeks I fell into a deep depression, spending much of my time huddled inside a cardboard box in the basement.  My mother and a doctor tried to snap me out of it, but all I could think of was: I had my chance to meet an angel in the flesh, someone like no other being on the planet, and I was unworthy, so I missed my chance.  The sense of loss and unworthiness was overwhelming, far more than I could take.  All I could do was sit in that cardboard box and cry for days and days.

Five years passed.

Now I was 16 years old and my younger brother and I had moved to Toronto to stay with our Mother after the divorce, and after our abusive father had once again brutally beaten me, and finally threatened to kill me.  We were listening to our mother in her drunken stupor, explaining that she was moving to Yellowknife with her 17 year-old boyfriend where he would make a lot of money working in mines there, and she would work as a bar maid.  “The rent’s paid to the end of the month, boys.  Have a nice life,” she said.  I had been living in parking garages before our mother had eventually sent for us to join her.  Now, it seemed, it was back to the streets for me, and this time also for my bother.

I burst from the apartment crying, the sense of abandonment cutting so deep into me that I couldn’t think.  I wandered the unfamiliar streets of downtown Toronto tortured with thoughts of uncertainty and fear, of hostility and helplessness.  What was I going to do?  How would I find food?  Where would I live?

I was standing on Bloor Street, under the shelter of a construction walk-way, where the Manu-Life Center was under construction at the time, sheltered from the soft rain that fell that evening.  I stopped, bewildered and lost, as the feelings of betrayal, exposure, and terrible uncertainty washed over my head, far deeper than I could handle.  Tears streaming down my face, I closed my eyes, and shouted in my mind as loud as I could, “If there’s any kind of god or goddess or super-human or alien or anything out there listening, please, please, I need help.  I don’t know what to do.”  I tried desperately to imagine any kind of superior being that might exist, concentrating and focusing my mind as strongly as I could.   I thought of that angel-like “super-human” I had only just missed the chance to meet, five years ago, in Golden B.C.

Immediately, I was bathed from nowhere, within an infinite ocean of rose-pink colored light.  With the pervading light, came an absolute certainty that I was not alone, and that I would be taken care of, that everything was going to be OK.  This particular color of light, I would learn in years to come, was none other than the signature of a particular being, who would be as close to me as my own mind for the rest of my life.

Suddenly calmed and comforted, and even excited with the secret knowledge that everything was going to be taken care of, I opened my eyes, wiped away my tears, and sought our mother’s apartment where I had 2 weeks to live.

A year passed.

My brother and I were living on Yonge Street, sometimes sleeping in the storage room of a “head shop” (a shop that sold drug paraphernalia), sometimes sleeping in parks, or parking garages.  We had become accustomed to stealing food, visiting parties where we might find something to eat, and some way to get stoned for free, and sometimes skipping out on restaurants (where the waiters knew us, pitied us, and served us knowing that we had no money). 

We badly needed and wanted jobs, but couldn’t find anything.  It takes money to make money: the only clothes I had were the ones I wore and those wouldn’t get washed for months on end, and we couldn’t pay for transportation to possible job prospects.  My brother was too young to work yet anyway. 

To pass the time, I sometimes spent the day at the University of Toronto, downtown campus, where there was a computer terminal room that was open to the public.  I had been hanging out there after school before our mother left, and had school friends who did the same.  We were trying to learn to be main-frame hackers.  I was trying to learn what I could about computers from my friends, and the older “hackers” that hung around that place.  Eventually I managed to get a part time job there changing the type-writer ribbons in card punch machines.

One day my brother was on his way from hanging out with other street kids, to the Sanford Fleming building at the University, where he was to meet me on pay day.  We were going to celebrate payday by doing to McDonald’s for dinner.  He took the same short-cut he usually did, through a long alley way just off Yonge Street.  He passed the same garages, the same garbage cans, the same fences as he always did, but for some reason, today, he had an impulse to climb into the narrow space between a telephone pole and a fence, and then look up along the height of the telephone pole.  To his surprise, tacked there on the telephone pole, far above the height of his reach, was a bright blue flyer.   “Why on earth would someone deliberately tack a flyer where it could not normally be seen?”   The only way it could possibly be seen would be to wedge oneself between the pole and the fence and look up, exactly as my brother had inexplicably done.  The poster was too high for him to read or reach, so he left, wondering about it, and then forgot about it.

A few weeks later my brother was taking that same route again, when he remembered the curious flyer.  Again he wedged himself between that telephone pole and the fence, and looked.  Still there.  Of course, why would it not, since it was too high to reach, and completely out of sight anyway.

This time, on meeting me, my brother pleaded with me to come with him, because he wanted to show me something strange, though he wouldn’t tell me what.  He thought I wouldn’t come if I knew it was just to look at some dumb flyer tacked to a telephone pole.  He told me to wedge myself against the fence as he had done, and then he said “Ok, now look up.”  At first I was looking at the sky, not knowing what he meant, and then I too noticed the weird bright blue poster deliberately tacked out of sight, and out of reach.  “Why would someone do that?” I asked my brother.  “How would I know?  I was wondering the same thing,” he replied.

I asked my brother to crouch and provide a foot-hold, so that I could climb on top of the fence.  Doing so, I was now within reach of the poster, which I tore off the pole.  Jumping down, we stared at it with excited curiosity at first, and then with a sense of weird apprehension.  The poster said that it was from a group of people that meet each full moon specifically to help people in need.  It said that those in need could receive this help either by writing to a post office box, or by concentrating on the image of the full moon, any month on the night of the full moon.  We both wondered why an advertisement like this would be deliberately placed where it couldn’t be seen.  But then, we had seen it, hadn’t we?  On the night of the next full moon, my brother and I sat quietly, focusing on the image of the full moon, praying in our minds that he might find a job.

The next afternoon, my brother was rushing up Yonge street, just about past Charles Ave., on his way for a meeting with friends, for which he was already late.  As he passed what was then the flagship Coles bookstore, a man with a European accent ran out the front door of the bookstore and literally grabbed my brother by the arm.  The man apologized, and begged my brother for a few moments of his time.  He explained to my brother that they’d just gotten a huge shipment of books and were opening the next day, and needed help stocking the shelves.  The man said he would pay handsomely for my brother’s time, if he would only please help.

Ok., just hours ago, we were doing as this weird poster said: praying to the full moon, asking that my brother find a job. Now someone had literally grabbed him by the arm, and begged him to take a job.  Wow. 

That couple of hours helping out turned into a steady part-time job for my brother.  One of his co-workers at that store was Geoffrey, a young man from New York City.  My brother used to see Geoffrey taking his lunch hour and coffee breaks by sitting alone in a small room in the basement, “meditating” as he put it (though my brother often saw him nod off into a snore).  One day Geoffrey was talking to an older man about an occult subject that my brother and I happened to be reading about the very night before.  My brother surprised them both by chiming in on the conversation, holding his own with knowledge of the particular topic.  More conversations like this eventually led to Geoffrey’s explaining that he belonged to a meditation group, and that my brother and I would be welcome to try to meet his teacher, if we would write a statement about why we wanted to join such a group and learn meditation.  After so writing, our applications would be reviewed by existing members, and a decision would be made as to whether or not we would be invited.  That night we wrote, and my brother gave our letters to Geoffrey and a week later we were invited to meet his teacher.  It was explained to us that while the group normally did not accept members of such a young age, we were accepted because we had specifically mentioned in our desire to learn meditation, the desire to help others in need.

It was Monday (moon-day) October 29, 1973 when we were to meet the “Teacher” and other members of the meditation group.  My brother and I walked fast through the brisk Autumn evening in a state of high excitement.  Wow.  We were actually going to meet Geoffrey’s teacher, and these other people who were into mysticism and meditation.  Then I realized we were a couple of kids, completely alone in the dark, going where no-one else knew, to a meeting that no-one else knew about, to meet a bunch of complete strangers who were bound together by some kind of mystical practice.  I realized that we could completely disappear that night, and no-one would know what happened.  Fear mixed with excitement in the quick pace through the night, but the fear and the doubt were not strong enough to deter me.  I mentioned my doubts to my brother, but he said, “Nooo… Geoffrey would never hurt anybody, nor have anything to do with anyone who would hurt anybody!” I decided to take his word for it and forget about my doubts.

Arriving at the address written on the scrap of paper that we had, we found ourselves standing in front of a two-story apartment building in Cabbage-town (a trendy part of downtown Toronto), just a few doors from the dilapidated Winchester Hotel on Parliament street, and nearly across from an old church that had been converted into a community center.  The building was recessed farther from the street than other buildings, probably because it was older than the rest.  It was dark back there, and we could see no lights in any of the windows.  Cautiously, we approached the huge front door.  The wooden stairs creaked loudly as we climbed to the second floor where we stood at the door to apartment number 3.  We could hear voices inside.  We waited a couple of minutes, shyness and worry overtaking us.  I really didn’t feel confident in meeting a bunch of strangers, but reached out and knocked anyway.  A few seconds later, we could hear the floor creaking as someone approached the door, and then took what seemed forever unlocking what seemed like ten different locks, latches, and chains before opening the door.  To our relief, there stood Geoffrey, his frizzy hair tied back, wearing a meditation robe, and grinning at us with outstretched hand.   He motioned us in, and introduced us to his Teacher, who was now right in front of us.

I looked at him with shocked wonder, noting his side-burns and long golden hair, tied in a neat pony-tail.  He was smiling at us with such warmth, I thought I saw a radiant aura of gold emanating from him that enveloped and pervaded the whole room.  Looking around the room, I saw a group of people I didn’t know, but my brother recognized one of them to be the older man who often visited the book store to talk to Geoffrey and my brother about mysticism.  (His name is Richard.)  That night Geoffrey’s teacher offered to become our Teacher too, on condition that we never partake of street drugs again.  (I immediately agreed, but my brother would not.  My brother and I parted ways not long after.) 

That was the first night of the happiest, most wondrous and magical part of my life.  Sometimes I’d visit our Teacher when he was helping Richard in his bookstore, and often he would say, “Have you eaten today? Because we were just about to get some dinner and would like you to join us.”  (Years later I learned that they had actually usually just finished eating, and said this to me so that they could buy me some food, without embarrassing me about the charity.)   I met with our Teacher, Geoffrey, Richard and others, learning to meditate, and taking long walks in the night discussing and learning philosophy and mysticism from our Teacher.  We learned to meet as a group on the nights of the full moon, to direct prayers to anyone in need who might also be concentrating on the image of the full moon. 

Yes.  This was the very same meditation group mentioned in the weird poster!  It was Geoffrey himself who had deliberately tacked that poster out of reach and out of sight, so that only the person with the right “karma” might see it.  Years later I learned later that my Teacher performs a special practice by himself, where he tries to find people in distress, and bathes them in an ocean of rose-pink light as part of beginning to take care of them, and assure them that everything will be OK.

So here’s how it all fell into place: 

• I had been in terrible distress, praying for help from anyone or anything that might be listening.
• I was answered and comforted with an ocean of rose-pink light
• We took down a poster that had been deliberately hidden for the right person
• We did as it said, to focus on the full moon when a group would be offering help, praying for a job for my brother
• The next day my brother was literally grabbed by the arm with offer of a job, and ended up meeting the very same guy who hid the poster, a member of the group that had been offering help through the full moon, the night before (though we didn’t know this at the time)
• That eventually led to our meeting and joining that very same group
• The teacher of this group happened to be the same being who helped with the rose-pink light in the first place (though I didn’t know this until several years later)

Twelve years passed.

One evening in 1985, upon learning that I’d lived in Golden B.C. as a child, our Teacher was prompted to telling us a story about a really strange thing that happened to him in that very town.  He said that he was travelling with two older women in a Volkswagen van, headed across the country to attend Expo 67.  They had stopped for the night at this campground in Golden, by a river, near a rocky cliff.  He explained that he had waited until the women were asleep, swam in the river climbed onto the shore (not the cliff as my friend thought he saw) to do some prayers, when suddenly, out of nowhere, these gold and pink moths (not silver butterflies as my friend thought he saw) appeared and covered his whole body!  Very weird experience, he said.

Socked, I said, Oh my gosh!  That was you?!!!!  18 years ago?  You were naked when you did that!  He asked how I knew that, blushing quite red.  I explained what my friend had seen.  He said he really didn’t think anyone would have been watching, so late at night, and so far out in what he thought was wilderness.

So, to add to the chain of events above, is the fact that the very same “super-human” being I had been so close to meeting as a child, actually came to my aid when I was in such desperate need, and even became my life-long Teacher, and guided me through life from then as a new father might.

While I will never shake the terrible feeling of unworthiness I have always felt, even when crying in that cardboard box as a child, to him I owe all of the best parts of my life:

• Most importantly, whatever training in Life, meditation and mysticism that I’ve been able to take to heart, being such a poor and unworthy recipient of such.
• The “luck” and encouragement and direction that helped me climb from the streets into a successful life-long career, without formal education.
• The “chance” meeting of my beautiful and loving wife (who is also one of his students).  Together with our son, of whom I’m so proud, I have a family more wonderful than I ever dreamed I would.
• The most spectacular adventures of my life, in Egypt and traveling with him through Nepal and India

I wish I could someday make him proud to be my Teacher, as I am proud to be his student.  Some day.

Mer-Amun

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