46 Lazarus

There were dreams, dreams, god, such dreams, the influence of Castaneda, and there were waking dreams which led me about town in the stupor of awe, staggered by my first vision of heaven, heaven on earth, my whole world immeasurably expanded, infinite and infinitely beautiful, revelation after revelation after revelation, and me marveled, mute, dimwitted, dumb, speechless, wordless.

The globe a globe of light.

Light!

Aura, moon, moonlight surrounding the earth, light everywhere, all light, white light.

Clear light.

My books were filled with arcana, the knowledge of the occult, and secrets, all dark and opaque to me before but now open as if to x-ray vision.

The hidden was exposed, uncovered, all revealed.

Everything open, simple, all easy.

Easy all.

The world had become all symbols, all signs, and all I had to do was follow them.

Yellow brick road.

There was nothing but symbol, even I myself was symbol, mythic character incarnate, the seeker, the quester, the initiate, the novice lost in signs, symbols, echoes, mirrors, and only my mind, my god, my zen, my breath, to care for me, my breath and gesture so graceful and all the rest light, dream.

Glass.

I could hardly eat so beautiful were the fruits torn open, purple, red, orange, gold, yellow, green, and some days I lived green, dressing in green, reading only green books, talking only to people who wore green, observing and studying only green objects, sitting only in green furniture, following green signs and green clues, meditating only on green in my practice, dreaming of green places, green things, green dreams only, and on other days yellow, or red, or white; and I experienced the great power and choice and selection of the well fed and safe, the days of perfect freedom afforded the fearless who would not fear death, the unborn and undead who were deathless, who were buoyant and magic and mad, and dangerous to the lifesick and hungering, to the yearning, to the unfulfilled and unrealized, to the insecure, to the struggling; and I was in touch with the spirits of the dead and their music; and on other days I lived blue, I lived pink, I lived purple, I lived orange.

Marvell:

What wondrous life is this I lead!

Ripe apples drop about my head;

The luscious clusters of the vine

Upon my mouth do crush their wine;

The nectarine and curious peach

Into my hands themselves do reach;

Stumbling on melons as I pass,

Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,

Withdraws into its happiness:

The mind, that ocean where each kind

Does straight its own resemblance find;

Yet it creates, transcending these,

Far other worlds, and other seas;

Annihilating all that's made

To a green thought in a green shade.

I was graves opening, corpses rising, I was Lazarus, I was Jesus, I was Buddha, I was Socrates, I was Er, I was one of many chosen to see and I didn't know how nor why, I didn't know why, I did not understand, really, did not, could not, really, would not ever but was only given, given to.

Given demonic insight, blindness divine!

God!

I was transported, the world translated to me, I saw it all, and I was totally without fear, fearless was I, though stupid, no doubt, and reckless from the outside, intoxicated, wild, demented, mad, but from within it was perfect, I was perfect, they were perfect, all were perfect and whole, one, beautiful, beauty itself, the origin of all beauty, good, truth, god, worship, mysticism, religion, glory.

On the inside—awed.

Odd out.

I had no fatigue because all fatigue was psychic and moral.

I saw that clearly.

It was a pretense, an avoidance, a head game and mind trick to escape the truth.

It was an unswallowing.

What had been required was my surrender—

My letting go.

Life had no sleep, sleep was one more trick, one more hiding, one more covering up and withdrawal, sleep was unnecessary, a psychic burial, and there was no night because the only night was moral.

Night.

There were no metaphors because everything was metaphor.

Poem.

There was only the pushing on, the pushing on, the pushing on toward the whole great pacific truth of all the gods, all the avatars, all the churches, all the visions, prophecies, religions, myths.

It was as if I had somehow lain without sleep, unmoving, flat on my back for six months beneath the open sky and watched the earth encircle the sun and orbital galaxies whirl towards infinitude, end, as moon, sun, earth, stars, spheres circled and spun about me according to exact mathematical formulae.

Cold sod pressed up behind me, against me.

My grave.

Yes!

It was like that.

Yes.

It was like that.

Yes.