Hawkwind December 5, 1973

HAWKWIND

December 5, 1973

John S. Blackman

* * *

“The affirmation of self cannot take place without the negation, or abandonment of self.”

– Joshu Sasaki Roshi

“To become aware of the Self does not mean to be conscious of one’s own self; on the contrary, it means to have lost any hankering after the small self (ahamkāra) and, being lost to one’s self, to discover, recover, be the Self (atmān).”

– Raimundo Panikkar, The Vedic Experience, p. 81

“Telepathy and the allied powers will only be understood when the natures of force, of emanations and radiations, and of energy currents, is better grasped. This is rapidly coming about as science penetrates more deeply into the arcana of energies and begins to work – as does the occultist – in the world of forces. It should also be borne in mind that it is only as the centres employed are consciously used that we have that carefully directed work which will be fruitful of results.”

– Alice Bailey, Telepathy, p. 11

“. . . Jesus said that in heaven there is neither marriage, nor giving in marriage, because in the blissful state of union there is no sense of ‘otherness,’ or separation.”

– Paul Foster Case, The Tarot , p.112

“Whoso knoweth himself knoweth his Lord.”

– Ibn ‘Arabi

* * *

HAWKWIND

MD, DE and I drove from Santa Barbara to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on December 5, 1973, expecting little more than another good ol’ space-rock concert. I recall no particular omens while traveling down the coast that night, other than the enormous cumulus stacks parading like giant Aztec warriors across the sunset, looking every bit as if they were preparing for battle.

Not long after we had arrived and settled into our seats (Section E, Row 11, Seat 49 for me), the vibe began to tingle a little bit more than usual. I had never seen so much weed smoked before any concert, bar none, as before this one. The smoking was fast and furious, as if with a certain sense of urgency. I remember noting before the show started that no one – literally no one – was smoking tobacco. Just joints – and lots of them. And it seemed that nearly everyone was smoking. . . .

Solo singer/guitarist Candy Johns was introduced as a special friend of Hawkwind, and would we give him a warm welcome. It seemed a bit odd that a folkie would be opening for such a heavy-duty band as Hawkwind (the term Heavy Metal hadn’t been invented yet, and it might not quite apply anyway); but what the heck, we thought.

Unfortunately, his first song was terrible, and his second was worse. After a few bars of his third song the crowd became visibly upset. The crowd actually started to become a bit surly, which was unusual for the time. People began to boo.

But Candy Johns plunged ahead, and kept playing, almost defiantly now.

Something was not quite right. He just kept playing – and not very well, it seemed. And the crowd kept booing, louder with every song. Was this some sort of joke, I wondered to myself? Or was it some sort of clue as to what was happening, or what was about to happen? As we had each partaken of a moderate offering of F & T’s most amazing pure liquid clear light Vitamin L, naturally it was at first difficult for us to discern whether this was intended as a joke, or a serious effort – or, as we were later more psychedelically to speculate – was this (either consciously or unconsciously) something that would agitate the crowd, something that would generate emotional energy, which could then be used to focus the power of the crowd, via our combined attention, via our group energy?

Soon the audience’s feeling of discontent was so intense that Candy Johns was forced to leave the stage in humiliation. The crowd was literally so horny to hear Hawkwind’s space rock that it simply couldn’t abide this folkie’s off-key, sloppy ramblings. The crowd hounded him off the stage.

This was weird. Having come of age as teenagers in the 1960's, we had heard some pretty lame opening acts before; but we had never experienced anything quite like this. The audience was unusually surly, almost combative – which was also a little odd for a bunch of people who were stoned out of their minds. Smoking joints usually led people toward acceptance of mediocre opening acts (or at least a bit of passive tolerance) rather than hostile rejection – at least so quickly.

The MC who had introduced Candy Johns came on stage and scolded us for booing him off stage. There was some confusion and trepidation in the crowd, but also a sense of anticipation, as if getting rid of Candy Johns was going to lead to something good, and that something was happening, or was going to happen. The crowd’s collective inability to interpret the situation was electric: was this Candy Johns guy for real? Are they really serious about trying to make us feel guilty for booing this guy off the stage? Should I be angry? Should I be embarrassed? Or should I be laughing? What is going on her here, anyway??? Many in the crowd were making sideways glances at their neighbors, trying to see how others were reacting to this admittedly confusing situation.

There was nervous laughter from the crowd, and scattered catcalls and hoots. But most of all, there was a portentous murmuring. . . . and ever-growing cries from the crowd of “Hawkwind!” “Hawkwind!”

Nothing happened on stage for a long time, which only heightened the tension. There were no announcements, nothing for the crowd to go on, save for an electronic burbling sound occasionally rubbing up against the rising murmur of the crowd. Was the band not going to show up because we had insulted their “close friend, Candy Johns” (as the MC had suggested might be the case)? Or were they just playing with us – or preparing us in some way?

Suddenly a woman appeared onstage – a very spaced out Joanna Leary. There was a sense of urgency in her voice as she told the story of the time she and her husband Tim heard Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine” on some jukebox in some cosmic café somewhere in Switzerland. At the time she made it all sound very exciting, mysterious and almost revolutionary, what with all her talk about spaceships, space people and the like. Unfortunately, my recollection of this part of the concert is a bit fuzzy – but then, she may have been a bit fuzzy that night too, so perhaps there wasn’t much to recollect about this anyway. But truly it was odd to see Timothy Leary’s wife pop out onto a stage so unexpectedly, talking about space ships and what-not, while all these crazy things were happening, and while we were coming on to the liquid clear light . . . . At the time, though, this form of confusion was much preferable – and more propitious, as it turns out – than getting scolded again by another local DJ for the Candy Johns debacle.

Then Joanna Leary disappeared stage right, about aw quickly as she had come. It wasn’t long before there were more cries of “Hawkwind!”. . . Hawkwind!”. . . “Hawkwind!”. . . .

The anticipation was mounting. Candy Johns was the only opening act, and all of Hawkwind’s equipment had been plainly visible on stage all the while we had been in the

4 auditorium. Lights would flicker occasionally, sometimes playfully, sometimes a bit ominously, although never quite in any intelligible pattern. (This visual foreplay with the audience, which was subtle but apparent during Candy Johns’ performance, might have accounted for the intensity of the crowd’s impatience with him.) Some of the amplifiers and speaker boxes were painted wildly with day-glo paint. Strange, unfamiliar boxes flickered, with even stranger, unfamiliar lights.

Finally a disembodied voice came over the PA. Hawkwind was welcoming us to the “Space Ritual.” Then the voice began a “countdown to Hawkwind.” The electronic burblings that had been percolating in the background ever since Candy Johns had left the stage were becoming slightly more noticeable – yet they still only played at the edge of the crowd’s consciousness. It was hard to tell if the burbling sounds were really ‘there’ or not.

“Three minutes to Hawkwind,” the disembodied voice intoned. I remember thinking the voice was sounding more serious than the situation seemed to warrant, but there was still that nagging sense in the background, wondering if there was something more important than usual going on . . . .

Strung across the top of the back row of speakers on stage was what appeared to be a hollow plastic tube, about two or three inches in diameter. Once or twice before the band took the stage I could have sworn I had seen bits of light flash through it, traveling quickly from one side of the stage to the other. Then the ‘subtle electronics’ of moments before started to become a swirling ocean of sounds – although it seemed that only about half the crowd noticed, so eager were they to see Hawkwind.

The countdown continued . . . .

At “Zero!” Hawkwind took the stage, amidst deafening electronic rumblings and an enthusiastic reception from the crowd. The members of the band calmly picked up their instruments and began a drone, half tuning, half playing. They appeared to be gathering the energies of the moment, building momentum to launch the first song – much as the wise wizards of old (and the wise-wizard bands of the present, such as King Crimson, or the Grateful Dead were wont to do in the days when pure bald-ass improvisation and kick-out-the-jambs sonic assault was desirable, acceptable, and even expected. (Oh god, those were the days, when people could simply do things without the self-conscious curse of digital recursive self-awareness!)

Nik Turner was wearing an awfully scary mask (it looked like a combination gas mask/space insect face), and the other members’ get-ups were equally space-cabaret. It was all a bit overwhelming.

Through all the initial chaos and rumble there was a sense that something interesting and unusual was happening, and that whatever it was, it was about to get even more intense.

The color/sound scene was extravagant; a large movie screen was set over the band,

5 although it wasn’t showing anything at the moment. A row of icy deep blue lights outlined the back of the stage. There were black lights all around, and even some strobe lights. A thorough array of spotlights shone all seven colors of the spectrum. I remember thinking that these colors were true, and accurate, and I remember thinking about this almost in the way a judge would analyze the accuracy of a lawyer’s evidentiary presentation. The colors were clear, and uncluttered.

. . . And that clear tube strung across the back of the stage, behind the band – was it pulsing? Were those flashes of white light shooting through that clear tube? Or was it blue light now?

As the first song materialized, the vision on the screen behind the band came into focus as earth – at first close up, then, synchronous with the building spaceship/spaceblast/space- cabaret/electronic-pulse music of this outrageous band, gradually receding from public view, until it was but a small orb in vast space. Then we traveled to the moon, pausing briefly there. . . Suddenly Mars slipped by, then over the next few minutes we went through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter (the blistered, scattered remains of the sorry planet Maldek, according to Garmen and Evangeline van Polen, sages of the Ruby Focus in Arizona).

Then Jupiter was suddenly upon us, and as the music continued to swirl through the audience’s collective head, that collective head was riveted to our stunningly realistic audio- visual trip through our solar system and into outer space.

As we drifted past Saturn I realized that the music had been rather artfully reflecting the ebb and flow of the approaching and receding planets. Holy Smoke – they really are doing a space ritual, I thought to myself.

The first planet we landed on, if I recall correctly, was Uranus. The music rolled along as if it were the fog on the planet . . . Almost hypnotic . . . . Why are we stopping on this planet?

Gradually, ever so gradually, the tempo picked up and we blasted off yet again, past Neptune and Pluto and out of the solar system, then out of the galaxy . . . . Out into space, nothing to hold onto, gone beyond beyond, senses overwhelmed. One could feel the audience being overwhelmed. Sidelong glances passed among the crowd, subtle and slightly nervous attempts to ascertain how others were reacting to all of this. Truly it was an unusual concert, and everyone seemed to sense that.

Just as suddenly as we seemed nicely transported into outer space, everything started falling apart – the music, the band, the audience. I wasn’t quite sure whether the band was inadvertently disintegrating or whether they really meant to sound as if they were losing it.

Then Nik Turner began his devastating narration of “Sonic Attack”:

“In case of sonic attack on your district, follow these rules . . . .” It was actually scary. Were they serious? “Do not panic,” he mocked.

I realized at this point that they had us. They can do anything they want with us, I thought. No - I knew they could. “You will notice vibrations in your diaphragm. You will hear a distant hissing in your ears. You will feel dizzy. You will feel the need to vomit . . . ” Christ Almighty! I thought to myself. Are these guys a bunch of space marauders sent by some evil intelligence to rip the minds out of the planet’s impressionable youth, of which I was one? Was this the end? Was this a group of magicians (black? white?) trying to gain control of a bunch of stoned kids? Or was this just a very elaborate, well-staged rock’n’roll show?

Either thought seemed entirely plausible at the time, though more than a few signals tended to point toward the space marauder theory as opposed to this being just another psychedelic rock concert.

And then, at the crest of all this chaos, came the most devastating phrase of all. Nik Turner slowly, deliberately incanted, rhythmically and repeatedly:

“Think only of yourself.”

One could not help but think of death.

Twice earlier in the concert, and now again during “Sonic Attack,” I had noticed a faint buzzing warmth in the palms of my hands. It appeared to be accompanied by a barely- perceptible violet light. Earlier in the evening when I had noticed this, I tested the sensation by slowly bring my palms together until they were almost touching, then pulling them apart slowly, back and forth. I had noticed that this increased the sensation, whatever it was. But each time I had started this, I had stopped after only four or five passes – thinking that people were looking at me, and would undoubtedly take me for some kind of nut. I was self-conscious about the whole thing, and I wasn’t about to have someone else thinking ill of me. . . . I didn’t want to be embarrassed, so I had stopped.

But this time I persisted. I felt I needed to check this out. After a few more passes, though, I again became somewhat embarrassed, and I stopped doing it. Then. . . “Think only of yourself. . . Think only of yourself. . . Think only of yourself. . . .”

Now, I took this statement to heart, and I began to contemplate the various meanings it could have.

The first and most obvious meaning, the one ostensibly offered by the apparent context of the song, was that of individual self-interest and self-preservation, such as, ‘cover your own ass and don’t worry about trying to help anyone else.’ Somehow I didn’t feel that was quite what they were after, though. No, there must be something more to it.

Then I connected what they were saying to my own situation at that moment: there I was, too embarrassed to do something I wanted to do because I was worried about what other people around me might think.

Suddenly, “Think only of yourself” became “Think only of your Self” – if you know what I mean. It occurred to me that if I were to think purely as Self it would be impossible to hold any thought of not doing something because of what ‘others’ might think – for Self knows no ‘other’ – and thus by not letting the effects or results of my actions distract me, I could purely act - as Big Soul Self, as opposed to little-personality-self.

Now, for whatever hermeneutical problems this interpretation of the events of that night might entail, this is the way I interpreted the experience at the time.

I realized that if every single individual in the room were to think ONLY of – or from, as Panikkar might put it – his or her SELF, then there would literally be no room for any possible thought of anything or anyone “other,” and thus nothing or no one to restrict the full expression of creative talents and potential. (Aha! – and nothing to restrict the perpetration of wrongdoing, either – which has always been the cosmic catch-22, the biggest pitfall on the path to enlightenment: the powers that create (does “the mind” ring any bells here?) can also be used to destroy.)

And then it occurred to me that if we could all ‘think . . . only . . . of/from . . . Self’ together, well, Holy Cow – how powerful would that be? We would no longer be restricted by thoughts such as ‘Oh, I’d better not do that because of what other people might think’ – which clips short so many great thoughts and keeps us from doing so many great things. We could do that if there was no ‘Other.’

What I imagined at that moment was this: if everyone in the auditorium were to think as, or from, Self (or perhaps more properly “be” Self), then all those ‘individual’ thoughts could only but coalesce into one coherent thought: “Self.” It would be like an explosion, where God gets a little bit ‘bigger,’ if you know what I mean. (After all, that’s what group-consciousness events do – whether a concert, a Mass, a lecture, a festival, a party, etc. – they help our seemingly individualized consciousnesses coalesce into a higher group consciousness – and God gets a little bit bigger, a little bit closer, a little bit . . . more?)

Well, at least there was no denying the possibility. . . .

In retrospect, my thoughts that night were rubbing up against the Hindu concept of moksha, or the Buddhist nirvana – liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. As self gives way to Self – as the personality construct/little-self channels, and then becomes, Self (or maybe as the personality allows Self to shine through and drive the personality as a driver would drive a car) – then one enters and walks the path of moksha or nirvana.

I also realized that if everyone in the auditorium simultaneously thought only of, or from, the Self, this “Self” would be the only ‘person’ in the room, so to speak – ‘person’ here being the crowd/band/everyone Self, as a whole, of course. And well, then, if I was sincerely acting as Self and so was everyone else, no one ‘else’ could be bothered by what I was doing or thinking. And if I was thinking only of or from the Self, it wouldn’t even occur to me to first reflect on

8 what ‘someone else’ might be thinking before initiating any act, because, in a very literal way, there would be no one ‘else.’

No, I would simply do it, damn it. I would simply play with that ball of light in my hands. And my act would be true, as an arrow’s flight is true to its target.

Well, as I said above, for whatever hermeneutical problems all of this may entail, the upshot of these thought processes was that I kept moving my hands back and forth. I could feel and see the sensation now as a sort of violet electromagnetic fluid, strongest in the palms, but flowing up my fingers and off my fingertips as well. It was as though I had a tangible substance between my hands that I could mold and massage – a slightly buzzy, putty-like feeling. The violet light appeared to be flowing off the ends of my fingertips in a liquid-y sort of way.

It occurred to me that this might be what was meant by etheric energy, or prana, chi, or qi – well-described in the eastern wisdom and classical occult texts as life force (or, for lack of a better phrase, as Dylan Thomas so vividly put it, “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower . . .”).

But at the time I didn’t think about it quite that way. It wasn’t like any other revelation I had experienced before, although it seemed more natural than unnatural, more ordinary than extraordinary. It was like, ‘Oh yeah, this energy I have flowing through me; right.’ I wasn’t sitting there thinking, ‘Oh, wow, peak experience! How unusual!’ or anything like that at all. It was simply happening – this liquid, violet light flowing through my hands was obviously part of the ‘stuff’ of our interconnectedness with everything that is. In fact, on reflection, truly one of the most remarkable things about this entire Hawkwind experience was how unremarkable and ‘normal’ it seemed to us at the time. None of us was acting like, ‘Oh, wow!” It was more like, ‘Oh, yeah.’

As the concert ended, after the commotion from the “Sonic Attack” had subsided somewhat, Hawkwind threw yet another ace on the table:

As the audience was somewhat numbly clapping and mumbling – not shouting – for an encore, an exotic female dancer appeared on the stage out of nowhere, clothed in what can only be described as ancient/futuristic warrior/priestess garb, complete with terrifying mask and bells on wrists and ankles. She leapt about, in sync with the hypnotic pulse of the music, her large, pendulous breasts heaving to and fro as she danced. This last element immediately caught the crowd’s attention. While the initial feel immediately after the music had stopped was somewhat subdued – certainly more subdued than was typical for a ‘heavy rock’ concert such as this one – when the dancer with the large breasts came out on stage, the crowd really perked up.

Eventually the dancer began taking off her top, slowing swaying her pendulous breasts over the edge of the stage. Many in the crowd – mostly males – rushed forward as the last bits of clothing on her upper body came off, revealing a tremendous set of naked breasts. The crowd’s attention was now riveted to the stage.

9 What is going on here, we, the audience collectively thought as people rushed the stage or stood on their seats for a better view. I remember wondering whether the police were outside, and whether they might burst in at any moment, because having someone bare their breasts in public like this might be illegal.

After having undergone the “Sonic Attack” experience a mere 30 minutes or so before, I could not rule out the possibility that the police might rush in and arrest at least the band, if not the rest of us as well. What Hawkwind was doing that night was so outrageous I just couldn’t help but wonder if it might not all be illegal. . . if not by way of an anti-topless-dancing statute, then at least by some obscure municipal code or regulation proscribing the practice of hypnotism without a license, or something of the sort. I was a bit worried, and I could sense some anxiety about this in the crowd as well.

At the height of this naked frenzy, sparks of white light began traveling from stage left to stage right, through the clear tube that was draped along the back row of speakers. I picked up on the violet light thing again, this time not even giving it a second thought, but just doing it, being there with it, not even needing to waive my hands back and forth very much to conjure it. My realization of the Self (or my realizing from the Self) seemed somehow connected with the sparks in that tube of light. I remember wondering at the time whether all this had anything to do with Wilhelm Reich’s “orgone generator,” which was mentioned in the liner notes to Hawkwind’s most recent album, Space Ritual.

As Hawkwind wound down and left the stage, all that remained were sporadic bursts of white light through the tube, and a few revolving flashing lights whose color I can only describe now as a pure, icy blue. These lights were spinning like a the gumball lights on the top of a police car; their color was exceptionally clear and bright, unlike the usual somewhat hazy blue- filter spotlight or stagelight. There they were, slashing across the stage as if in warning – but they were this gorgeous clear blue, not yellow or red.

Shouts of “More! More!” brought only a few faint throbs of light from the tube. The crowd was in what can only be described as an uproar for quite a while after Hawkwind left the stage. It seemed like about 10 or 15 minutes, but was probably only a few. At every concert I can remember except one (which was Johnnie Winter following the J. Geils Band, also at Santa Monica Civic c. 1974; the band and probably most of the audience were so coked up and stoned many had stayed and were still talking about 20 minutes after the last encore, then, even with the equipment half taken down, the crowd was so horny and high (and the musicians too, apparently) that the roadies eagerly started setting up just enough amps for another half hour or so of outrageous rock ‘n’ roll) – after an encore, or maybe two, when the lights go on the crowd generally quiets down, people pick up their coats and slowly start to trickle out. But not this concert. The crowd was still buzzing, and people stayed a lot longer than usual.

And then suddenly a lone, shirtless male figure appeared on stage, stage right, holding something aloft on the end of a stick. I couldn’t quite make out what it was. This gesture drew a loud but slightly confused response from the crowd – some applauded, some hooted and howled, others seemed upset and they yelled too, and yet others laughed, cheered, jeered. Some just

10 stared dazedly at the stage. Whatever it was that had been hanging from the stick, after a while, the crowd’s mood seemed to level off, the lights went on, and people gradually began to filter out.

MD, DE and I looked at each other in amazement, as if to say, “Well, that was pretty interesting; what next?”

After some shaking of heads and some rather tentative smiles of appreciation we decided to leave. I remember walking very slowly up the aisle, basking in the liquid light feeling in the air. I also remember noting that I had never seen so many people slumped over in their chairs after a concert, either passed out or looking as if they were about to. But there were many bright, knowing smiles among the crowd too. . . .

And so we undulated through the lobby of the Santa Monica Civic, and floated to the parking lot. Many were smiling as we left the auditorium, but there was little talking. In fact, it was conspicuously quiet for a departing rock concert crowd, particularly after such an electric, energetic show. It was almost like a congregation leaving church after a particularly uplifting – if not a little devastating – ceremony. I saw many smiling a wide grin and nodding to each other thoughtfully, almost kindly and gently. The violet light ocean that connected us was quite apparent to me, and I noticed more than a few others acknowledging it too by pushing some light my way with the soft, friendly wave of a hand, or a knowing smile. In retrospect, it’s striking how this exchange of (or participation in) energy was all so obvious and normal.

As we were arriving at our car I remarked on what a great concert we had just seen. MD nodded, but DE said something about feeling put on, or words to that effect. He wasn’t certain whether it was a good concert or not. I asked him why. He answered, and MD confirmed the event DE then related. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized what the shirtless figure had on the end of the stick just before the houselights went up: a set of plastic female breasts. The exotic ‘female dancer’ who ‘exposed herself’ to the crowd and riveted their attention so thoroughly – and generated so much frenzied, focused energy – was really a man, with a set of plastic boobs.

What a coup! I thought. The entire crowd had been absolutely electrified by seeing not what was actually on the stage, but what they thought or believed was on the stage. Oh, the power of belief! It doesn’t rely on reality for its power at all; rather, it gets its power just from you thinking it so! How magical and god-like is that?

Hawkwind had showed how easily thousands of people could be enticed to fall into a single mind, a single thought – and they had accomplished this feat using a fiction. MD, DE and I discussed how interesting it was that a ‘product of our imaginations’ could have triggered such an immensely powerful – and completely real – group focus.

Amidst such stoney thoughts we hopped into DE’s red Volkswagen beetle and began our journey back to Santa Barbara. DE was driving, I was in the passenger seat, and MD was in the back. The rush of streets and freeways was a bit confusing, and the liquid clear light we had

11 taken was still gently massaging our consciousness – so naturally we managed to find ourselves going ‘the wrong way,’ traveling all the way through the bowels of Los Angeles out to the Ventura Freeway, i.e., taking the inland route when we had planned to take the shorter and more scenic coastal route, as we had on the way down. Strangely, none of us realized our ‘mistake’ until we were just past the point where it still might have made sense to turn around. But it all seemed so normal; instead of freaking out that we had gone the wrong way, we just noted that we had taken this different course, and that was that, we didn’t really care.

We engaged in a spirited, enthusiastic discussion of the night’s events as we bobbed along down the road in DE’s little bug. I related various cosmic interpretations of what I thought had transpired, and MD and DE did the same. The more we talked the more it dawned on us that we had experienced more than simply a great rock concert. As we reminded each other of certain of the night’s events, a larger and more astounding pattern began to unfold than any of us had realized during or immediately after the show.

It was as if the show was still going on.

Just as we hit the fringe of the greater Los Angeles area, around Thousand Oaks, my attention was suddenly attracted to three flying craft above and to the right of us. (In the early 1970's there actually was a ‘fringe’ of the greater LA area; going north, after Thousand Oaks there were great expanses of empty space, dead dark at night, at least between there and Ventura, where Highway 101 veered back toward the coast.) I noticed the ‘aviation lights’ on these craft weren’t blinking. As I watched them come closer to us I felt a knotted, buzzing sensation along the back of my head. My interest greatly increased when I realized that these lights were the exact deep clear blue as the siren-like lights on stage at the end of the concert. At that moment it occurred to me, quite matter-of-factly, that these were not earth ships.

As the three ships floated above us (and ‘floated’ is the precise term here, because these vessels were large, low-flying, soundless, and traveling very slowly) – I stuck my head out the window for a better view. The arrangement of lights on these craft struck me as odd because instead of the usual three of four wingtip and fuselage lights which airplanes always have (and which are usually red anyway), the lights on these craft were side-by-side, continuous across the ‘front’ of each craft, and the lights themselves were squared-off, appearing more like lights shining through windows than like aviation lights.

I checked over and over again for any sign of red or even blue aviation lights. I saw none. And the blue lights on these craft never blinked. The position of the bank of blue lights corresponded roughly to what would be the wings of a normal aircraft, except they were curved in a slight oval shape instead of straight across or angling back as a typical plane wing would; and there was no fuselage assembly attached to these ‘wings,’ front or back. But for all this, they were definitely not hovercraft, nor were they dirigibles.

A few minutes later three more floating craft followed upon the first group of three, and in the next 10 or 15 minutes or so, as we hewed back toward the coastline on our way back to Santa Barbara, we saw three more, this time floating across our port side.

In retrospect it is interesting that we all reacted so matter-of-factly to the sighting. As we sized up what we were seeing, our collective response was more of a casual, ‘Well, yes of course’ than a ‘Wow, can you believe that?’ It just didn’t seem very strange at the time. Yes, we were smiling, but it seemed so natural. Most of us today would feel that if we were to actually see something like this, we would be so shocked we would either be speechless, or scream. But oddly, that was not our experience that night. Seeing these floating ships after all that had happened that night was simply not as ‘remarkable’ as one might otherwise think.

The intense rounds of conversation that night in DE’s bug were lively and inspired. At one point we approached a police car from behind, but instead of feeling the pangs of paranoia typical in those days we laughed and joked about how we were following him, and not the other way around. There was a distinct feeling of being inside a kind of psychic bubble that protected us from any sort of unwanted contact. Upon later reflection I realized that this feeling most likely stemmed from an utter absence of fear, or, as the saying goes, ‘standing in the light.’

In any event, we kept up our cosmic banter all the way home, and to this day I wish I had a tape-recording of MD’s inspired rap on matrix, vortex, and the Christ that he channeled in one long burst from the back seat that night, shortly after the identified flying objects had left our view. It was a marvelous, inspired exposition of the interrelatedness of all things, and the fact that while the differences and distinctions between all things were real and important, nonetheless there was an equally co-existing reality in which these so-called differences and distinctions held less and less significance, and were superseded by a greater context, eventually merging into and as a whole. He really ‘summed it up’ very nicely – and we all had a nice, knowing laugh at how clear ‘It’ was.

We arrived at my duplex on Del Playa in Isla Vista around 2:30 in the morning. Just as we were getting out of the car, a magnificently large white bird swooped down dramatically directly in front of us – overhead by about 10 feet, from right to left, and perfectly silent, save for that light silky slashing sound made by feathers in flight.

All three of us saw the bird. We smiled and turned to each other, saying “Well, yes, of course – it was that kind of night, wasn’t it?” And then we laughed. No big deal, just the natural course of events. The way it is.

Needless to say we were still quite awake when we arrived, so we sat in my living room for a while, quietly reveling in our experience. (The next morning MC remarked that he had heard us come in and could tell something was afoot from the tone of our voices; he said he had almost gotten out of bed to see what was up, but it was too late. I wish he had, just to see how we would have ‘checked out’ on a his coordinate system, which would have been straighter than ours at that point.)

As we sat talking I began playing with the violet light that was all around us. I ‘tossed’ some of it to MD, and he tossed some over to DE, who tossed it back to me, around and around, back and forth, each of us smiling quietly as we saw the violet light passing so easily and so

13 beautifully between us.

In retrospect it seems remarkable that we experienced and assimilated so many events that would usually be called “unusual,” in such matter-of-fact fashion. Just before MD and DE returned to their apartment, one of us joked that it would be fun to go wake up all our friends and tell them of our wild time that night – but then we immediately had a good laugh at this, partly from picturing our friends thinking we had finally lost it, but mostly from realizing that none of us actually felt any urge at all to shout about it. There was just this profound sense that, yeah, this is normal. The glow of the feeling of this experience, the next day and for days afterward, was one of such presence that there really wasn’t anything else to talk ‘about.’ It had just happened the way it happened, and there was this zen-like tranquility with the fact that we were where we were, and we just didn’t need to talk much about it. This kind of response to such extraordinary experiences was somewhat unusual, as those of us in our 20+ circle of closest friends otherwise tended to rather freely and enthusiastically share our wild, eye-opening experiences among ourselves.

I awoke later that day awash with the clear, invigorating energy of the night before. I couldn’t remember when I had last felt so refreshed. RW came by not long after I had arisen. As he walked up the driveway he said, “You look different. Your aura looks really big. There’s a lot of light in your aura today.”

I smiled, and told him of the events of the evening before.

* * *

Post Script

Okay, so there you have it. Think only of your Self.

If we could but allow our selves to operate ‘together’ as and from ‘Self’ – for lack of a better way to say it – well, then, we would be worlds ahead. And we are, because each of us already is Self. We just have to realize it, i.e., make it real. As we act that way, goodness and greatness follow. (To quote the Swami on the box of tea, “In order to be great, you must act great.”)

Or, to put it yet another way: The walking of the path to enlightenment is the enlightenment.

JB Foster City, California May 16, 2014

14 edit 12-10-14

Super Postscript

On April 30, 1989, while rummaging through the garage at 1766 Herschel Street, San Mateo, California, I stumbled upon an old book of my I Ching readings from years before. Among them I found the reading for my tossing of the coins before leaving for the Hawkwind concert that night of December 5, 1973.

The question I posed was, “For the Space Ritual with Hawkwind tonight.”

The hexagram which appeared was 17, Sui, “Following.” [Richard Wilhelm Translation, rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes, Princeton University Press (1950) – by far the best version to consult, don’t bother with any of the others]:

17. Sui Following

______

______Tui The Joyous Lake [gladness]

___ O ___

over

___ X ___

______Chên The Arousing Thunder [movement]

______

“Joy in movement induces following.”

16 The JUDGMENT:

. . .

“If a man would rule he must first learn to serve, for only in this way does he secure from those below him the joyous assent that is necessary if they are to follow him.”

THE IMAGE:

Thunder in the middle of the lake: The image of FOLLOWING. Thus the superior man at nightfall Goes indoors for rest and recuperation.

In the autumn electricity withdraws into the earth again and rests. Here it is the thunder in the middle of the lake that serves as the image – thunder in its winter rest, not thunder in motion . . . . [A] superior man, after being tirelessly active all day, allows himself rest and recuperation at night . . . .

The changing lines:

Six in the third place: You must know what you want and not be led astray by momentary inclinations

Nine in the fourth place: Following creates success . . . . To go one’s way with sincerity bring clarity. How could there be blame in this?

“. . . only when a man is completely free from his ego, and intent, by conviction, upon what is right and essential, does he acquire the clarity that enables him to see through such people, and become free of blame.”

* * *

Analyzing the changing lines, Hexagram 17 turned into:

63. Chi Chi After Completion

______

______K’an The Abysmal Water

______

over

______

______Li The Clinging Fire

______

“This hexagram is the evolution of T’ai, PEACE (11). The transition from confusion to order is completed, and everything is in its proper place, even in particulars.”

CODA

“I first believed without any hesitation in the existence of the soul, and then I wondered about the secret of its nature. I persevered and strove in search of the soul, and found at last that I myself was the cover over my own soul. I realized that that in me which believed and that in me that wondered, that which was found at last, was no other than my soul. I thanked the darkness that brought me to the light, and I valued this veil that prepared for me the vision in which I saw myself reflected, the vision produced in the mirror of my soul. Since then, I have seen all souls as my soul, and realized my soul as the soul of all. And what bewilderment it was when I realized that I alone was, if there were anyone, that I am whatever and whoever exists, and that I shall be whoever there will be in the future.”

- Hazrat Inayat Khan