Of Water, Spirits, and Tequila Sunrise
An Examination of the Alchemical Process of Dissolution
by Travis King
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED TO
JAMIE KIFER
Copyright © 2008 Travis King
Revised Smashwords Edition, November 2009
Released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License, viewable at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
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I
Dwelling, as I do, on the Oregon Coast, it’s not difficult to become accustomed to water, to be drawn to its soothing nature; the rhythm of the rain striking rooftops, the sound of the surf lapping at the shore—these can be hypnotic and instill in body and mind a sense of peace. In my many years of living near the shore in these temperate climes, I’ve come to enjoy the water, and when I’m away for any length of time, I miss it. Water binds me to this place, through some bond I don’t fully understand.
Strangely enough, scientists themselves don’t fully grasp the properties of water, despite its abundance and its importance to human life. Consulting the Encyclopædia Britannica, I find that while its structure of two hydrogen atoms bonded with a single atom of oxygen “seems simple, water exhibits very complex chemical and physical properties that are incompletely understood.” For example, it has higher melting and boiling points than comparable compounds, and it’s less dense in its solid form than as a liquid—a highly unusual trait. But I’m not surprised; of all the substances known to mankind, of all the forces of nature, water is one of the most mystical.
V.H. Frater I.C.L., of the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn, points out that in a number of ancient and modern traditions—Chinese, Greek, and Indian, for example—water has been considered one of the fundamental elements of nature, and that, for the most part, water is seen as a feminine force. The imagery presented in his writing suggests that the oceans may be viewed as the very matrix from which life springs—the womb of Mother Earth. Though the Bible would have us believe that humanity sprang from the inanimate dust of the earth, other religious traditions, predating the Judeo-Christian paradigm, see water as the motivating force of life. In fact, according to Barnhart’s Etymological Dictionary, ancient Europeans believed souls were said to have originated in the ocean and, upon the death of the body, to return there; the word soul itself derives from the proto-Germanic *saiwalō, meaning “that which belongs to the sea.” Many modern scientists, though often quick to dismiss the existence of the soul, nevertheless agree that the ocean is the source of life on Earth, and none would dispute its importance in sustaining all living beings.
Water is vital not only to human existence, but also, as I have found in my years near the sea, to continued peace of mind. Often, when I feel the need to clear my mind of extraneous thoughts, of the cares and worries of the mundane world, and focus on the things that are less tangible—creativity, spirituality, and the like—I walk down to the river that flows near my home or, more likely, I drive to the seashore. Watching the motion of the water—the ripples of the river as its current runs its course or the ebb and flow of the mighty white waves where the ocean meets the shore—I lose myself in a trance, living in the moment and enjoying it, allowing my conscious mind to rest.
Jung tells us that “water is the commonest symbol of the unconscious,” that irrational portion of the mind that is the wellspring of our emotions and of our dreams. Indeed, dissolution, the second stage in the process of alchemical transformation, is often associated with dreaming, during which consciousness rests and the subconscious mind is allowed to assume total control. It is in such dream states, or in states of meditation or drug-induced stupor, that the human mind can see beyond the rigidity of the material world, which is an illusory construct, to the fluid spirit-world of the soul that lies beyond. When we embrace our dreams and their irrational symbolism as the truth that underlies reality, then we can submerge and dissolve the remnants of the ego—the ashes that remain after calcination—in the powerful waters of that world, allowing our spirit freedom from the bondage that comes with the ego’s connection to the material world.
It’s not only in dreams, however, that we confront the illusory nature of the world, but also in our emotions. Jungian psychologist Mark Saban notes that “logical understanding . . . is the hallmark of ego-consciousness.” Dr. Nanci Shandera of the Earth Spirit Center writes also of the alchemical process; referring to the stage of dissolution, she notes: “The task . . . is to actively accept and express our emotions so that we may access the essential emotional core within us. . . . [T]hey must be brought back if we are to grow and mature spiritually.”
Jake Horsley, in his book Matrix Warrior: Being the One, notes that those who are trapped by the material world, those who are bound by ego-consciousness, are trained to repress
strong emotions, such as rage or grief, and if they do, they invariably ensure that its expression is indirect, and convenient. . . . This way they can emote without revealing anything or in any way compromising themselves. Indignation, resentment, bitterness, arrogance, self-pity, contempt, and a thinly-veiled hostility are the preferred emotional responses . . . and the marks of true character within the social matrix.
But, according to the alchemists, the key to freeing the spirit through dissolution of the ego is to embrace these strong emotions, for, as Shandera says, “The fear of being annihilated by an emotion is the fear of feeling alive.”
Saban, too, discusses the process of dissolution, informing us of ancient myths in which “anyone who resists this dissolution of ego structure is subjected to dismemberment and death.” He goes on to say that death, however, is a necessary stage in the journey toward spiritual perfection, which “requires nothing less than a descent into the unconscious, the matrix or womb of our psychic life.” He equates the alchemical stage of dissolution with baptism, “which symbolizes drowning, and stands for the death and rebirth of the person in a cleansed and rejuvenated form. . . . The image of baptism,” he continues, “thus brings together the deadly, poisonous aspect of . . . water . . . and the life-giving restorative aspect.” He identifies the baptismal font with the womb and states that “immersion in the divine water is also a gestation in the uterus.” Life, then—spiritual life—is associated with the death of the ego, the part of the psyche that is bound to the material world. The early Christians understood this, as evidenced by the passage in Colossians 2:12: “Buried . . . in baptism, wherein also ye are risen . . . through the faith of the operation. . . .” Although modern Christians are likely to condemn such occult beliefs as heterodoxy, it is in this Pauline statement that the true secret of dissolution is revealed: Death and resurrection are not parts of a linear process, but two facets of a single event occurring in a single moment of immersion; or, as Saban so succinctly states, “the death is the birth.” It’s our limited human perception, a product of the temporal realm, that sees these two as separate, albeit related, events, when in truth, they exist together outside the realm of linear time, just as the soul itself does.
Deeper down than the subconscious, deeper than our emotions—within us so far that we must delve into extradimensionality to find it—that’s where the soul resides. The ocean is a beautiful symbol for the soul’s home, but even the ocean has a physical form, while the soul is incorporeal. No amount of seeking on the material plane will reveal the soul, and that’s precisely what dissolution is meant to do.
Dennis William Hauck writes that the goal of dissolution “is to reveal what we try most to conceal: our souls.” It’s the final destruction of ego, that entity within us that perceives the illusory world as real and gives us a sense of personal, individual identity as an important, integral part of that world; it’s the connection with the transcendent Self, the true identity that knows itself not as separate from others but as a discrete entity that is at once merely an infinitesimal part of an infinitely greater whole; it’s about shattering the mirrors that serve as barriers between us, keeping us focused upon ourselves, and allowing ourselves to appreciate the oneness of humanity as a spiritual collective.
This isn’t an easy process; it can be frightening, and it can be painful, because the ego is powerful, and it doesn’t want to let go of its comfortable illusory surroundings. But it becomes easy when we surrender to the water, when we immerse ourselves within its comforting fluid form and allow ourselves to go with the flow.
Just the other day, I was enjoying a visit to the riverside. The sky was clear, and the sun shone down, warming the still air around me to nearly a hundred degrees and seemingly scalding the earth and my skin. In contrast, the steadily flowing water was bone-chillingly cold, and, as I sat on a large rock with my feet submerged, I felt some relief from the heat. It was then that a metaphor entered my mind. It was a thought I’d entertained before, but only intellectually; this time, with the water flowing around me, I had a more immediate sense of understanding, true experiential knowledge.
The sun seemed to me to a symbol of the athanor, the alchemist’s oven, in which the ego is burnt to ash during calcination, the first stage of transmutation; the river was the medium, the divine water, in which the ash was to be dissolved, leaving only the spark of the Self remaining, free to be focused upon without the obstruction caused by ego-consciousness. I knew from much reading over the years what dissolution entails, and I knew from my past experience with calcination just how difficult and painful it can be to cross a threshold and endure the alchemical process that awaits beyond. With the full knowledge that recent events in my own life have been forcing me toward dissolution, and knowing that dissolution is a fluid, watery process, I thought to myself—embracing the linear paradigm by which this illusory temporal world is defined—that the process could be likened to the current of a river into which one has fallen unexpectedly.
In such an occurrence, the instinctual reaction is to fight against the river’s might, to try one’s hardest to swim to shore. But trying to overcome such a powerful force of nature does little more that consume a person of vital energy; it’s better just to yield to the river, let it take you where it will. Of course, the journey may at times be turbulent. There may be violent rapids, and you may find yourself battered and bruised; but this is the ego being worn away, for the true Self beneath can’t be damaged by the things of this world. The river is but an effluxion of water, innumerable molecules of H2O bound to others of its own kind, traveling together from a single small source toward the great ocean, where all waters eventually converge.
So it is with souls. Just as a single molecule of water shares the same chemical structure of the ocean, representing the macrocosm within the microcosm, so does an individual soul share the properties of the vast cosmic oversoul. If you follow the course of life without worrying about the destination or the assaults against the ego you may find on your journey there, you will find yourself at the end a soul stripped of the shell that once trapped it in an illusory world of materialism, converging with other souls to share in the experience of the collective unconscious, the realm of spirit, where all are one and one is all, where that single entity made up of multitudinous souls can finally know true peace.
II
Writing of this scorching heat and soothing water, of baring the soul and sharing ourselves, has got me thinking. I’ve been doing some re-search lately for a project on the subject of polyamory, which involves reading some of the fiction of Robert A. Heinlein. I’m not sure if that’s what it is, or if it’s subtler than that, but for some reason my subconscious is making connections, and I’m gonna follow them, gonna go with the flow.
I’m a firm believer that some of the best literary commentary on the human condition—whether on the grand scale of society and national politics or on the smaller scale of interpersonal relationships and personal development—can be found in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. Like I said, I’ve found myself thinking about Heinlein lately—particularly his influential novel Stranger in a Strange Land. In this novel there exists a culture—the Martians—whose customs have arisen, in no small part, due to their life in an arid environment, where water is a rare and precious resource.
Life in the barren wastes of the desert can be cruel. Where water is scarce and the scorching temperature1 is a constant threat, death is an ever-present concern, and one comes to terms quickly with mortality. It’s an impossible task to live in the desert alone and as Donald Goergen says, “one becomes aware of a dependency beyond oneself.” In the desert, the ego is burned away quickly, and one learns early to depend on others and to value, respect, and honor others as individuals, whether they be friend or foe. Those who don’t calcine die quickly; thus, those who live begin the process of dissolution early in life.
Certainly the Martians are an example of this. These alien beings are advanced far beyond humanity, possessing the ability to shape reality according to their will. To humans, the Martians’ powers seem magical, but they’re really based on a deeper understanding of the nature of space and time. The Martians are an ancient race, and as individuals they are immortal, and so they’ve had the time to build up this deeper understanding of the universe—what it is and what it means. They understand that time is irrelevant, that “eternity and the ever-beautifully-changing now” are precisely the same thing. They never hurry, and they often take centuries to weigh the possible consequences of their actions. Their detachment from the hustle and bustle of the universe around them can be discerned in their simple expression, “Waiting is.”
The Martians value above all else interpersonal relationships, and they bond through a water ritual that is never fully described in Heinlein’s novel. Those who share water—a resource more precious to the Martians than gold—become water brothers2, which creates, according to one of the human characters in the book, “a family obligation closer and more binding than that owed to [cousins].” Other characters describe water brotherhood in slightly different terms. According to one, it’s “like being baptized . . . and like getting married. . . . It’s very serious . . . and once done it can never be broken. If you broke it, we would have to die—at once.” It’s obvious that the water ritual is a bond of love and total trust—an utter breakdown of the barrier that prevents perfect communication and the sharing of souls.
Some individuals—influenced by Heinlein—have taken the concept of water-sharing to heart. The Church of All Worlds (CAW), named after the organization of the same name found in Stranger in a Strange Land, was officially recognized by the United States as a religious organization in 1970; considered a part of the neo-Pagan movement, and sharing much in common with other Pagan denominations, it differs slightly from much of neo-Paganism in that its basic principles and rituals are based on those described in Heinlein’s novel. As the church’s website says:
A fundamental rite of CAW is a communion of souls called Water-sharing. In this rite participants share water with one another. They recognize within each other the Divine Being. . . . “May you never thirst” is spoken when the shared water is drunk. Since water is essential to all known life on this planet it is seen as being very precious. CAW envisions Water-sharing as a way of honoring this preciousness.
I can think of some other religious rites similar to this: the Christian Eucharist, the Wiccan Ritual of Cakes and Wine, and the ancient Dionysian ceremonies, all of which differ somewhat from the water-sharing rituals described above, since they were designed as means of communion between human beings and deities rather than communion between two or more people. I know of no actual bonding rituals involving water—at least, not water as we traditionally think of it. Yet, there is indeed such a bonding ritual, and it’s practiced worldwide, in nearly every human society. It’s not generally performed in such a ceremonial manner as the water-sharing rituals above, but it’s an integral part of human culture nonetheless. This is the custom of social drinking.
According to Dr. Rachel Hajar, fermented beverages, such as beer, wine, and mead, have been around since prehistoric times, but it wasn’t until much later that people began producing hard liquor through the chemical process of distillation, which was perfected by Arab chemists around the ninth century.
It’s relevant to note that Hajar asserts that ancient peoples thought alcohol “must contain a spirit or god, since drinking the liquid so possessed the spirit of the drinker,” and that even today alcoholic beverages are referred to as “spirits.” Indeed, according to Dr. H.A. Hajar, the word alcohol itself may derive from the Arabic al-ghol, which means “spirit.” Further, according to William Pokhlebkin of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, in Latin (which was the language of European alchemists), distilled alcohol was known as aqua vitae—the “water of life”—and several other cultures make the same connection: our word whiskey derives from a Gaelic term also meaning “water of life,” and vodka is a diminutive (affectionate term) derived from voda, the Russian word for water.
Regarding humanity’s use of alcohol, the Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) in Oxford states: “From the earliest recorded use of alcohol, drinking has been a social activity. . . .” From mere open clearings such as the German biergarten or African mapalu, to simple structures like the mead-hall of old or the traditional pub, to more extravagant buildings exemplified by modern Western nightclubs, nearly every human culture through-out history has possessed some type of establishment for communion involving alcoholic beverages. As the researchers at SIRC state, “Drinking is, in all cultures, essentially a social activity, and most societies have specific, designated environments for communal drinking.” They point out the liminal qualities of these environments, stating that “the drinking-place is a special environment, a separate social world with its own customs and values” with its “primary function . . . the facilitation of social bonding.”
They further elaborate upon this role, quoting an Australian monograph by T.D. Graves and others: “One of the major functions of moderate alcohol use is to promote social conviviality. But it is the conviviality, not the alcohol, which is of central importance.” Thus, wherever two or more gather to bond while imbibing—whether at a campsite, a bonfire on the beach, or in a person’s home—there exists a de facto drinking-place, and there is found conviviality—a sharing of life, a commingling of spirits.
At the level of poetic metaphor, we might speak of being imbued with spirit by the alcohol; we might envision a transfer of the spirits of the beverage into human bodies, enlivening people and making them merry. Turning to empirical science, we define the effects of alcohol as a chemical interaction resulting in behavioral changes. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, allowing for freer social interaction and interpersonal relations; under its influence, a person is more likely to open up to others, to speak of or do things from which he or she would otherwise refrain, whether such restraint is based on the perception of socially constructed morals, an ego-driven fear of emotional intimacy, or something else entirely; that is to say, a person is more likely just to “let go.”
Letting go is the goal Hauck equates with dissolution. He speaks of the “‘just being’ aspect of Zen,” which “requires simply letting yourself live entirely in the moment . . . without goals or consequences or fears. . . .” He says of the person who successfully completes this stage of the alchemical process:
The product of a successful Dissolution is a wonderfully flowing presence, free of inhibitions, prejudgments, and rigid mental structures. The person is no longer afraid to express that which is within. The purification on the level of the ego and the deeper repressed level of the subconscious has allowed the forces of a greater presence within us to shine through the personality without being concealed or distorted by it.
Certainly, this is one of the short-term effects likely to be encountered by a person under the influence of alcohol.
Reflecting on what I’ve written so far, it might seem that I advocate alcohol as a tool for spiritual development. I don’t. I do recognize its utility in learning what it is to be uninhibited, but only when consumed in moderation; anyone who has to be drunk to relate freely with others hasn’t yet learned the lesson alchemy teaches. Regarding such continuous reliance on external, rather than internal, strength, Hauck writes of “regressive self-dissolution.” This is something that occurs “whenever someone lets themselves surrender totally into the pleroma of the unconscious. . . . The whole point of alchemy is to achieve spiritual perfection without losing sight of the world.”
In other words, to experience true dissolution, you can’t just let yourself go, retreating into the comfort of some external aid. Allowing alcohol to be the sole means of disinhibition, rather than relying on your own strength of spirit, is false dissolution—just as a monk’s retreat into the cloister or a mendicant’s withdrawal from society is antithetical to the exhortation to be “in the world but not of it,” which is found in many of the world’s belief systems. Remember: the moderate use of alcohol is a means to promote social bonding, but it’s the bonding that’s most important. You have to be able to let go of all thought of consequence, living in the moment—what Hauck calls “the eternal now”—and you have to be able to do so at all times, in all situations, relying not upon outside sources but upon your own inner strength.
The secret is in viewing aqua vitae not as a physical substance, like alcohol, but as something else altogether. In addition to its common usage, alchemists also employ the term in a more symbolic fashion. As Saban notes, aqua vitae is not mere liquid, but the quintessence, or spirit, the core substance of the human being that remains after the alchemical process has been carried out. Regardless of whether you commune with others while drinking water, alcohol, or nothing at all, it’s the interaction—true communion without inhibition, judgment, or worries—the destruction of the ego and all its hang-ups—that serves as the mark that dissolution has occurred.
III
I recently took a trip to Portland. I thought it would be routine, maybe even somewhat boring. I was wrong. It turned out to be an exciting journey—not only into the depths of a city far different from the small town environment to which I’m accustomed, but also into the depths of my own psyche. It was an important step along the path toward my own completion of the dissolution process.
Life is fluid, and all is interconnected. Time itself is illusory, an “eternal now,” with no discrete beginnings or endings. As much as this story could be said to have a beginning, though, it isn’t found in the trip to Portland. Rather, this story begins months before, and not with a single event, not with a mundane journey to the city. Joseph Campbell wrote extensively about the hero’s journey and gave many examples of epic wanderings, commenting in-depth upon their meaning. What it all boils down to is that the journey of the hero is a journey into the realms of the psyche, an examination of the self, and a reconciliation of one’s own inner nature. As Campbell himself so poetically stated,
we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
The myth of the hero is metaphor. The physical journey is really a spiritual journey, which anyone can undertake. While a physical journey can be exciting, it’s the spiritual one that’s meaningful. It’s the quest for self-knowledge and, beyond that, the transformation of the soul, that’s important. Moreover, since we all come from the same source—the same cosmic ocean—we often learn about ourselves by interacting, communing with others. That’s why this story doesn’t begin with an event—for the plot of a story, as any saltworthy writer will tell you, is secondary to the characters—but with a relationship. That’s what meaningful stories, like meaningful lives, are about. And so, this story must begin with Jamie.
Jamie is one of the most beautiful people I have ever known. She exudes an energy, a love for life, that’s contagious, despite the grueling hardships of her past, and she’s refreshingly non-judgmental and accepting—yea, embracing—of the diversity that is humanity, where life would have turned most others cynical, bitter, and distrusting. She has an amazing strength of spirit. She is a shining soul.
I first met Jamie at the local community college, and I swear it was fate that brought us together. Though I’ve had an associate’s degree for years now, my wife is now working on hers. Just being around her in her role as a student made me long for the hallowed halls of academia from which I had been absent, and so I decided, in the fall term of 2007, to enroll in a single class, just to get back in the swing of things. As a poet, I thought it would be a good idea to audit a poetry class, thus giving myself the opportunity to learn more about my art and to force myself to write more than I had been in recent months.
I attended the class in Newport, at the central county campus of the college; Jamie attended at the north campus in Lincoln City, some twenty miles away, via a video link. One of the optional components of the class was to post poetry on a private Internet bulletin board system for critique by other students. It was online that Jamie and I first developed our friendship.
Our friendship continued to develop over the course of the term. I remember at one point, she read a deeply moving poem she had written, entitled “You Have Beautiful Eyes.” I’m a fairly sensitive person and have often been emotionally affect-ed by poetry, but hers was honestly the first poem to bring tears to my eyes, and I told her so. Then, I responded to her poem online; my words touched her more deeply than I truly expected and in turn caused her to cry. I realized our relationship had deepened; we had—albeit at a distance—shed tears together.
On the last day of class, the students gathered for a final poetry reading at the college’s main campus. Jamie and I were able to talk face to face afterward, though not for very long, and I felt that we truly had become friends. I wasn’t sure, however, where the friendship would lead—especially since she’d decided to move to Portland and continue her studies online, and I didn’t expect to have much contact with her outside cyberspace.
A couple months later came the trip to Portland. My wife, Nancy, and I went there to check out colleges, hoping to find a place suitable for continuing education beyond our current studies at the community college level. Lacking a car of our own, we managed to convince Nancy’s sister, Elizabeth, to drive us there from our home in the small town of Siletz, fifteen miles from Newport.
We left on a Wednesday evening and stayed the night in Corvallis at Elizabeth’s apartment. The next day, we set out toward Portland early in the morning and arrived at Reed early. I immediately noticed two things about the place. First off, it was quiet; we noticed only a handful of people around the campus for the first little while we were there—not like the hustle and bustle of the University of Oregon, which I had visited many times before. Second, it was a charming place. The buildings were mostly old-fashioned, some even in the Gothic style, and the campus was arranged in a way that made it seem almost insular, isolated from the world at large. It seemed quite peaceful.
Elizabeth returned home, since she had to work the following day, and after finding our way to the admissions office, Nancy and I checked in and waited for the tour to begin. While we waited, we took the opportunity to check out some of the campus for ourselves. We found Paradise Lost, the college’s little bohemian café, and purchased some drinks. We loitered outside the café for some time and then made our way to the dining hall for a light lunch. When we finished there, we made our way back to the admissions office. To further occupy ourselves during the wait, we perused the lobby’s collection of books written by faculty and alumni—books that spanned the spectrum of literary pursuit, including scholarly tomes, popular nonfiction, mainstream fiction, and genre novels, with subjects ranging probably throughout the Dewey system—the ten major divisions, at least. Before long, I also noticed the collections of thin, plainly bound volumes that stood between bookends throughout the room. I soon discovered that these were some of the bachelor’s theses for which Reed College was renowned. Flipping through them, I was astounded by the caliber of work produced by undergraduate students. Many of them were of better quality than some master’s theses and doctoral dissertations. I felt intimidated as I thought that I would have to write such a piece if I chose to attend—and was accepted into—Reed; but, it also appealed to my academically oriented mind, and I thought the place seemed a promising prospect for the future.
The time finally came for the tour, and we spent a while in a routine question-and-answer session. After that, it was time for the guided tour around the campus. It was a wonderful experience. We got the chance to view the areas we hadn’t seen earlier, take in the ambience, and learn a great deal about the college and its policies. Almost everything I saw appealed to me: the conservative academic atmosphere in combination with a liberal social climate, the small student population of only 1,300, the friendly people, and the beautiful, secluded campus—especially the river running through it (not an ocean, I thought, but living water nonetheless). I thought to myself what a wonderful place it would be to attend. It seemed to me one of those magical, liminal environments—a fantastic place of communal life, scholarship, and peace located on some utopian island floating not in the sea but in a void outside the course of spacetime and the world of ignorance and iniquity to which I’ve become accustomed.
Unfortunately, some very important things were missing. Of primary importance to my wife and I as parents were the lack of on-campus child care and affordable family housing. We were, of course, also concerned about the expense of a private institution and their minimal scholarship offerings. Nevertheless, I set my hopes high.
After the tour, we went back to the office for some short personal interviews, and then we were finished. It was time to leave the Reed campus.
I had casually mentioned to Jamie some time before that Nancy and I were visiting Portland and would like to meet up for coffee or dinner. She went a step further and, with no reservations, had graciously offered to let us stay at her home so we wouldn’t have to pay for a hotel. Now that the visit to Reed was over, we called for a ride to her house. We were told to keep an eye out for the red ’68 Mustang, and, after not too long a wait, we saw it pull up.
Jamie got out and greeted us, let us into the back seat, and introduced us to her boyfriend, Tommy, who drove us to their place in Troutdale, about fifteen or twenty miles from Portland along the freeway. When we arrived, we were given a bedroom and told to make ourselves at home.
Now, I’m not against being nice, but I prefer honest interaction with other people; I’m not too fond of meaningless social niceties. When people ask how you’re doing, they don’t usually want an answer, but mere acknowledgement, and when they say something like “Make yourself at home” or “Mi casa es su casa,” it’s just a formality. But with Jamie and Tommy both, I could tell they meant it. For the night, at least, the place was our home too. They fed us dinner, a wonderful meal of pork cutlets, rice, and the most delicious broccoli I’ve ever had, accompanied by a pleasant white wine. We all agreed that it wasn’t just the food that was good, but also the company. During our dinner conversation, Nancy and I found out that Tommy was from Hawai‘i, and Jamie, though not herself from there, had visited the islands and possessed some Hawaiian ancestry of which she was quite proud. I wondered if that had something to do with their hospitality and laid-back lifestyle.
Their attitude and actions reminded me of the same that I had encountered during a vacation in Victoria, BC, a couple years earlier. I’d had the thought during that trip that there must be something about living on an island that made people so friendly, and I had the thought again that night at Jamie’s. I wondered if there was something to my theory. Not too long thereafter, aware that I was traveling the path through my own dissolution, I made the connection between island living and the alchemical process.
Philip Conkling, a nissologist3 and island dweller, writes of the phenomenon of “islandness,” defining it as
a metaphysical sensation that derives from the heightened experiences that accompany the physical isolation of island life. Islandness is a sense that is absorbed into the bones of islanders through the obstinate and tenacious hold that island communities exert on their native-born as well as on their converts, who experience it as an instantaneous recognition.
He says also, quoting his friend and fellow researcher, George Putz, that two of the characteristics of islandness are loyalty (defined as “ultimate mutual care and generosity”) and a “strong sense of honor.” I figured, then, that this islandness might, in part, account for our hosts’ hospitality, which in Hawai‘i manifests itself in the spirit of aloha. It may seem odd to our Western way of thought, but aloha is actually a fundamental doctrine in Hawai‘i and has even been defined by state law since 1986. Regarding the aloha spirit, the Hawai‘i state legislature has the following to say:
“Aloha Spirit” is the coordination of mind and heart within each person. It brings each person to the self. Each person must think and emote good feelings to others. . . . “Aloha” is more than a word of greeting or farewell or a salutation. “Aloha” means mutual regard and affection and extends to warmth and caring with no obligation in return. “Aloha” is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence. “Aloha” means to hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen and to know the unknowable. . . .
Presented with this information, two things occur to me. First, Tommy and Jamie, for whatever individual reasons, both possess the aloha spirit. Second, these descriptions of islandness and aloha spirit strike me as similar to the description of dissolution: the connection with the transcendent Self I mentioned earlier and the “wonderfully flowing presence, free of inhibitions, prejudgments, and rigid mental structures” that Hauck writes about. It’s my conclusion that, just as a barren and scalding desert environment stimulates calcination, so might an island environment, with its aquatic surroundings, stimulate dissolution. I’ve often entertained the thought of living on an island—more so since traveling to Victoria. Come to think of it, Victoria may have been where my journey toward dissolution actually began, following, as it did, on the heels of calcination. I know for certain it didn’t begin with the trip to Portland, just as it didn’t end there; but, it was there that I learned one of the most important lessons of the process.
Later that night, our hosts broke open the tequila. We drank together, formed a social bond. Tommy and Nancy both fell asleep earlier than Jamie and I. We two stayed up for a couple hours, talking over drinks. It was a wonderful bonding experience. The only other experiences I’d ever had that came close to it were many years earlier, when I was still quite young and my friend, Jed, and I shared wine or whiskey when camping out for Renaissance fairs—but even during those events, though Jed is a true and loyal friend, I’d never felt such deep affinity; Jamie and I are genuinely kindred spirits. I remember very little of the conversation that night. All I remember is that I opened up, broke out of the shell that typically shields me, and freed myself from inhibition. I felt the thrall of the water of life and experienced—for a short time, at least—all that dissolution can be.
The next morning, Tommy cooked breakfast, and then he and Jamie drove us to Portland State University, the second of the two institutions we had gone there to visit. It was almost the polar opposite of the college we had explored the previous day.
Reed is small, intimate, and insular; PSU has a student population in the tens of thousands and lies smack dab in the heart of the city, with traffic coming and going all around it. Reed’s campus is beautiful and calming; PSU’s is institutional, crowded, and noisy. Reed is renowned for its academic program; PSU is slightly less esteemed. On the other hand, PSU does provide a respectable education, and it’s less expensive to attend; in addition, it possesses family housing and on-campus child care. By the end of our campus visit, Nancy and I had both decided that PSU was, logistically, the more likely choice for furthering our education.
Once again, our two friends picked us up, took us home, and fed us dinner, and, once again, we found ourselves invited to partake of our hosts’ tequila stores. Jamie and I remained awake, and that night we shared our intimate thoughts on politics, religion, relationships, and life in general. Before I knew it, the sun was rising, and I realized that four or five hours had passed without notice. I had truly been living in the “eternal now.”
Elizabeth arrived later that morning to take Nancy and me back to the coast, and we took our leave of Jamie and Tommy with a heartfelt exchange of bittersweet farewells.
In the wake of these events, I felt much more at peace, and I’ve learned the ability to let go—truly let go—of inhibitions, of a long-standing left-brained outlook on life, of disappointment in the face of unfulfilled plans, and of worries about what the future holds. I had learned to share myself without inhibition. I had communed. Just as Heinlein’s Martians have their water brothers, in Jamie I had found a tequila sister.
I know I’ll be moving to Portland with my family to attend college after my wife completes her associate degree. I know we’ll most likely be attending PSU, and I’m happy about that. I’ve come to the conclusion that Reed appealed to me with a sense of opportunity for dissolution that was false. To follow through on the path to true spiritual transformation, I can’t allow myself to retreat into the world of Reed College—an insular world, but not really an island; I must continue to strive toward the goal of being in the world, but not of it—which I can do in the heart of the city at PSU—by freeing myself, by communing at the level of the spirit and the soul, for these things also dwell within this physical world, though they aren’t truly of it.
Beyond the relocation to Portland, though, I don’t know what the future holds. But wherever life leads, whatever events befall me, I know I have learned the lesson of dissolution—if not yet surrendered to it in full. I know there are loved ones I can count on, individuals with whom I’ve connected at a level much deeper than words can explain. Genetics and legal edict define family in the physical world, but in the realm of the spirit, of the soul, it’s communion that creates the true bond of family—an infrangible bond that exists unconfined by time and space, and that’s why I know that no matter where the illusory arrow of time may take me, in the “ever-beautifully-changing now,” there are, were, and always will be those with whom I have made that connection, those with whom I have shared the process of spiritual transformation: my wife, a few close friends, and—of course—my tequila sister, Jamie.
THE END
~ ~ ~
Endnotes
1. Granted, Heinlein sticks to scientific fact in making his Mars colder than Earth, which is closer to the Sun, but the desert symbolism is still present—and intense cold can burn just as well as severe heat.
2. The term “water brother” is accepted in Heinlein’s fictional world as a gender-neutral term used to refer to both men and women—this peculiarity being due to the fact that Martian biology does not include sexual polarity, thus precluding the use of gender-laden terminology in the Martian language.
3. Nissology is defined by its originator, Professor Grant McCall, as the “study of islands on their own terms.”
References
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