Let the revolution begin. In this day, the right to not be the ego-I, had not been won. Many of the other differences—different ethnic, racial backgrounds, different sexual attraction, differences between men and women—all the hard-fought needs and rights that were ‘signed into law’ to be openly allowed and assimilated into the culture were being lived openly and widely accepted. All except the right to no difference, the actuality of not actually being a private citizen, or a public one. The right not to be a separate one was still widely unrecognized and mostly unheard of and incredibly misunderstood. Everyone had fought so admirably for the right to a dignified survival and then for their own version of the pursuit of happiness, that the few who were interested in the art or actuality of being a no one were relegated to be misunderstood as some kind of reactive cult by the status quo of certainty. What attracted these few people to give up everything to be nothing—to have no difference? Were they crazy or on a new curve of evolution, of consciousness knowing itself as matter, and matter knowing itself as the truth of no-form-necessary, of consciousness itself? How can one live with no identity and only see with eyes (no I) of awareness? This was the pursuit of madmen, saints, and artists, and of our friend Hank Harry Henry, who was an artist, an actor, a madman and most certainly not a saint!
Hank, or 3H as some folks called him, was like an actor. He could interpret personality to suit his mood and when he wasn’t on, it was hard to define what Hank was actually like. He used qualities and mannerisms to revel in happiness, and whoever met him thought they knew Hank, but everyone’s version was completely different from everyone else’s. How could one man have so many natures? After all, there are only 12 signs of the zodiac. Everyone felt him to be the sign they liked the most. He could be as loyal and stubborn as a Taurus, as sensuous as a Scorpio, and could direct like a Leo. He always did whatever he wanted and this endeared him to everyone, because he was so much fun. He oozed sensuality, had charisma, was entirely photogenic, dressed in vibrant styles and colors, never cut his hair, and always shared everything he had with everyone. He was never selfish and always kept the best treats available for whomever came by to sing and dance, paint and doodle, laugh and hiccup. He was never serious about the condition of the world or what was insane about the latest development in politics. He was tom foolery without being a foolish clownish. Hank was the most important person in the whole world but only a few people had ever met him. He was the consciousness that would start the revolution. And man, it is about time. The pursuit of happiness via the material dream of being a special “me” is getting us all down. It is flunking as happiness and the worst part is, it is a big dam fat lie. An illusion, a delusion of the slipperiest kind. Do we want to be rich, or do we want to break open the vault of happiness, of groovy real lovin? Hank, a man of open heart—a belly laugh and smile so big and wide one could stay permanently blissed out in it—he gets my vote. Who cares about getting ahead and making a profit? No more angles, no more con of the ego, let’s be on the round—all going around holding hands around the whole world. Hank, when are you coming to my town?
Hank was on his way. He was creativity exemplified. All possible magic existed in him and surrounded him. He was a magnet for whatever his heart strings wanted to play. He made up his songs of pleasurable devotion as he walked. When he wandered into my small town of 2000 souls, I heard his voice first. It was so vibrant and melodious I looked up from my coffee cup and there he was. It is hard to put into words what I saw and felt when Hank waved at me and gave me a big grin. It felt like my best, oldest buddy was finally returning to me. He was shocking but entirely familiar to me. Up to that point, I hadn’t known I was waiting all my life for this time—his entrance or should I say, his return into my life—but I knew when he sang and appeared in my little town, that’s what was happening. Day one, my life was finally beginning. I sighed in a big relief. I knew everything would change now but I was not afraid. I wanted everything that went before to end. I didn’t know how desperately I wanted a new beginning. I wanted the real thing, the real life.
I quickly became Hank’s best friend. We did everything together and not one minute of our time together was ever monotonous or unimaginative. He said I was the best of mates, and while I enjoyed the flattery, all I could actually do was try to keep up with him. He confided in me that he had a lot to do while he was here, but he never told me what that was. We mostly spent our days making up characters and improvising them into strange scenarios. We combed the river for found objects, often well-worn rocks or branches that had floated down river, and used them to create platforms or mini stages. We caught fish for lunch and usually took naps in the heat of the day. In the evenings we made up songs, never repeating, and each day I looked forward to Hank’s new diddy. We made up new fashion costumes from the leftovers at the leftover store. Sometimes we wore very little, and other days we amused ourselves with feminine attire. We went on treasure hunts and actually found a Rolex watch on the beach once. We painted plein air style and gave away our paintings to anyone who liked them. The locals always suspected that I really wanted to be a bum and this creative life with Hank confirmed my motive for them. So it surprised me one day, after living this natural follow-creative-impulse life that Hank said to me, “We should buy a ranch and start the revolution. We have been preparing for it all these months.”
I was dumbfounded. Neither one of us actually had any money to speak of. I was getting by on unemployment and Hank never seemed to even have a dime. He told me that he never touched money, it made his skin crawl. When I asked how we would do that, as neither of us had any sums of money, he looked at me surprised and said, “Mana, my best mate, we’re creative, surely manifesting money for a ranch or a ranch without money should be easy for us guys!”
“You mean, maybe someone would give us one, or let us stay at theirs?”
“Ah, the juices are flowing!”
They say think it, believe and it will manifest. All I could think was we’ll never pull this off.
I began to think or doubt Hank’s plan. I thought (maybe) he was taking advantage of me, as we always did whatever he wanted to do. I felt grumpy and resistive to what now seemed as just his wild whims of imagination. He knew I was doubting him and gave me some space to stew in my own dark juices. I continued like this for a couple of weeks when he told me, “I found the ranch, it needs some work but it will do.”
This shocked me out of my mood (I was even imagining trying to get a job!) when he said that our plans are definitely in motion. “Just one problem,” he said, “the place is haunted, no one has stayed there for quite a while. The owner passed it to his grown children who live in L.A. They are looking for a caretaker to do some fixin and handiwork. Eventually, they want to get it off their hands.”
We moved in without even checking it out first. There was a main house that was kind of weird looking. It looked like a typical ranch style of the 50’s but the walls were adobe like. It definitely needed some tending to but no windows were broken. There was a barn a little distance from the house that seemed ready to collapse. Up the dirt road from the barn was a pond—a good size pond that had algae and weeds growing profusely in it. There were a couple of cottages by the pond. They all had the adobe-like finish that made them look unfinished. I had no idea what the original owner or builder was trying to accomplish with these structures. All the structures were very dusty and it was evident that all sorts of animals had come to nest or live here or nearby because of the easy water access.
Hank suggested that we shack up in the lesser wrecked cottage. It wasn’t too bad, I’ve actually lived in worse places in my small town. The first night there, I couldn’t sleep, there were all sorts of weird noises, creaking boards, rustling sounds in the nearby trees. I woke up Hank with “Did you hear that?” I could see him nod his head, the full moon light lit up the bedroom,“Yea, sounds like a mountain lion.”
I finally fell asleep around 3:30 am. I was mercifully asleep when Hank jumped up out of the bed and said, “Get up! We have to get out of here!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“This place, this property is a vortex, a doorway for all sorts of negative beings to enter. They want to mess with us and show us their power.”
The goosebumps were popping out all over my skin. I felt paralyzed and unable to move. Hank, seeing me in this position, stood over me, “Look at me,” he repeated twice. As I did I felt the fear subside and I saw Hank get bigger and bigger. He was encompassing the space in the room and then I saw him blind me with his brilliance that surrounded the house and the entire property. I don’t know how I was seeing this. I don’t know how to describe what I saw next, as his brilliance circled and invaded every inch of the property, a dark mass manifested, I heard it moaning and threatening him. I heard him say, “Be gone, this place is not for your purposes.” The mass fluctuated and swirled, trying to assert its dominance, but was unable to, then the most amazing and strange thing happened. Hank patted the dark swirl into a ball shape and popped it into his mouth and laughed hard. “It needed some sweetening,” he concluded.
After our first night there, we never encountered these strange forces again. The nocturnal animals came for water and played around the cottages as usual. I never asked how Hank did what he did, his brilliant expansion of his form. He didn’t mention it either but I began to feel that I was not dealing with an ordinary, creative type. Perhaps the impossible was in his possession or his capacity to achieve. Maybe he was really serious about his revolution. I wondered how he would change everything. Would governments topple and the people rise up to take care of each other? Would the wealth of the world be shared equally by all the people? Was this the kind of revolution he was talking about? I don’t know why I never asked him about how he was going to change the world. I knew that I was not dealing with an ordinary guy.
Sometimes, I thought I should find my way back to some kind of ordinary life—not wear-a-tie kind of life, but maybe find some kind of second or third-generation hippie chick and raise a few kids. Now that we were living on the ranch we were always busy with cleaning up and rearranging the nature around the buildings to make the environment look beautifully natural instead of naturally a mess. Even Hank’s handiwork of nailing old boards and painting the walls of the houses had creative expression expressed all over it. After three months we started working on the main houses. This is when he told me that the owners, the O’Leaf sisters, were coming by to see how the place was getting ready to be sold.
They came on Friday, drove up in their new pickup truck—a beautiful truck with mucho space and pickup. I was eyeing that truck, I was even imagining what it would be like to have one of those bad boys when my attention (my daydream) was abruptly ended by the sight of the two sisters. Both sisters were at least 6’ 5 inches, big women with big bones and big smiles. They were attractive in a very rough way, my guess is that no man ever messed with them. After they introduced themselves as Tucson and Katrin, Hank invited them in and around to show them how we had brightened the place up.
They exchanged raised eyebrows a few times. Looking at the improvements through their eyes, maybe the paint jobs on the cottages were a little too bright—bright yellow with some lavender and green accents around the windows. Wait till they see the main house when it is done with a bona fide rainbow arch over it—that Hank said would be his finishing touch. More raised eyebrow exchanges at the tiki logs and fire pit.
We invited them to a tall glass of homemade strawberry kombucha. Tucson spoke first, “Hank, I had no idea that the place was being kept up, ah improved in such a way. We were hoping for a little weed wacking and a cleanup, paint job to get the place ready for sale. What you have done is…”
That’s when Katrin interrupted and spoke up. “What you have done is, wow, really interesting in a great way!”
“We just wanted to sell the place,” inserted Tucson.
“But look, sis,”
“What?” asked Tucson. The two sisters looked at each other and read each other’s feelings and thoughts in a way that sisters can do at times.
Hank got up and poured them another glass of kombucha. “Well, gals, Tucson and Katrin, me and Mana were hoping you gals weren’t in a rush to sell the place. I think you will really like some of the more innovative improvements I have in mind. This ranch, we could call it, “The sisters are doing it” or some other name you gals like. We can make this place really interesting and get some interesting things done here and someday maybe what we do here will really change the world.”
I don’t know how Hank did it, but after the third glass of kombucha the two sisters agreed to put off selling the ranch, to wait and see, and Katrin wanted to finance the improvements. I could see that Katrin had that same knowing of Hank—the intense spark of familiarity, of finally we’re here together—let’s get it on, like I did when I first met Hank on that fateful day. So after that initial meeting and agreements to continue to improve the ranch, I wasn’t too surprised at the inevitability of the two sisters moving to the ranch in October, after the hot season abated. Things got even more interesting then, our combined creative juices were really flowing and Hank worked and constantly stirred up our creative excitement. It was hard work, but a very exciting creative time.
As it went, Katrin worked closely with Hank, or 3H as she preferred to call him. She was the more creative of the two sisters and I could see that she was inspired by Hank to ‘get out of the box and go for it’ and her ideas were quite good. She had the idea to create a labyrinth in the front patio of the main house and she painted a banner to name the place. The sisters decided to call the place ‘From Here’. Tucson and I had some fun ideas of our own and Tucson was a strong worker and had carried many of the rocks up from the river for the labyrinth. She was a hard worker and wouldn’t quit till the task was done. The kombucha was flowing freely and after a hard day of work, Hank would cook us up some fish and the rest of us would make the salad and boil the couscous and share a glass of wine. I still enjoyed our evenings most as Hank would sing, always an instant classic. At times I wished I had recorded Hank’s spontaneous bursts from the heart for future enjoyment. We would all go to bed belly satisfied and heart satisfied and completely exhausted.
We worked and played every day and we accomplished so much. I could see that I was stronger than I had ever been. I had become more focused, too. I used to be a last-minute kind of guy, but with Tucson’s influence I learned how to be steady at task. Hank had never pushed or challenged me, he made everything look effortless and fun, Tucson loved the sheer effort of doing and her endurance was very admirable. I liked her, she was conservative and really decent—the type of woman that I would have never partnered with or been attracted to. I got her to laugh more and sing more, even though her voice for the most part was really bad. Her belly laugh, on the other hand, was her best song. It was full and raucous and when she laughed at my jibbing I knew she thought I was a true crazy madman and I liked being a madman for her and I so loved and enjoyed her laughter.
Hank and Katrin, their chemistry as a team involved a lot of team spirit. Sometimes, from what I observed in their creative flow, they could finish each other’s creative ideas and impulses. Katrin would civilize some of Hank’s rougher ideas and Hank showed Katrin how to open up to her attractions.
The job was getting done, the ranch was really evolving into our place. It was both functional and wildly creative. Again, I never gave any time to imagining Hank’s revolution, how he was going to change the world, and he didn’t talk about it much with us at this time. We all felt this was the best time of our lives and for me and I’m sure for the gals as well, this time with Hank was our revolution of body, mind, and spirit. We were all living in a doubt-free state—we did not doubt our instincts, our ideas, our attractions, we worked out our instincts, our ideas, our attractions in the building, in our creation of the ranch. The ranch was our heart’s creation. When Hank and I first came to the ranch, a malevolent force lived here, but our combined energy birthed a new force here. We called this force Shakti and “from here” we could feel her living presence.
The locals got curious about our ranch ‘From Here’. Most just seemed curious and accepting. I could feel the buzz around town and at the local mercantile store Hank put up a flyer on their bulletin board. Hank offered a fire pit, sharing-story-telling time, complete with not just strawberry kombucha, but ginger/lemon and cherry hibiscus as well. The girls and I made a few berry pies to go along. Instruments were welcome, no electric though. This coincided with the big, full harvest moon. I was surprised when a gang load of 20-somethings showed up along with a few older grandma and grandpa hippie types. We showed them around first and the older hippies really appreciated the hard work put into making the place so beautiful. The younger crowd enjoyed the energy, the shakti of the place and they were high on their vitality and sexuality as well. We all sat around the fire and watched it as the flames got higher. Unlike gazing at a TV screen, gazing at a fire rests your eyes and mind. It opens you to your own heat and makes you feel the burn of your own vastness. Hank led the way with his first wild song of the night. I could feel the circle of people enjoy Hank’s storytelling through song and as Hank created a catchy bridge, everyone joined in when it came around. The drummers got on to a beat that made the song even catchier. Hank’s songs were always about the audacity to be happy now, to throw every caution away for the sake of the great pleasure of love. I could feel Hank’s magic, his persuasion on everyone and as I looked at the fire-lit faces, I could feel that everyone was experiencing happiness and that grooving on love and the love of life was the only true righteous way to live. After everyone’s heart was full, Hank offered everyone an open invitation to return to the ranch. I didn’t know what he had in mind to accommodate these possible visitors, but in time a few of the younger ones returned to sing with Hank and an older hippie couple came with some wonderful ideas to keep improving the ranch. They came with their ability to endure and brought their own supplies. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but a family was forming and people saw Hank as the heart of the family. Everyone thought of him as their best friend and regarded him and referred to him as the “Heart Spoken”, as we all relied on him to speak to us from the Heart. The language of love was being learned by all of us. I realized that this language, the language of the heart being spoken, had never been heard or spoken in our culture, in our lives before. That unconditional love could be spoken and lived, was possible because of Hank. When I first met him I thought of him as a creative madman, a genius, and now I was living in his genius, his ability to create love and abiding expressions of love out of ordinary fools—fools like myself who were always rejecting responsibility. I learned from Hank that responding was the joy, was the love and happiness expressed and lived. For me and our small family at the ranch, a revolution was occurring. We weren’t trying to give peace a chance, we weren’t idealizing love as the answer, we were living peace and living love as our response to Hank’s heart of hearts. We didn’t believe anymore in the limits that the culture or our minds had grown us up to believe in. All limits on happiness, or peace, or love were just a stall from the life of learning to live as love. Living with Hank, we fed on his strength of only love, and all the justification of not love now that was the everyday meal of the world, did not exist for us here on the ranch with Hank. How he could pull off this miracle with us, I don’t know. He was a hard man to fathom, his depth was as deep and as high and you could count all the way to infinity and not ever truly fathom him. I thought at times that he was above all that we ordinary fools suffer. But his heart could be broken, and it was broken many times. I could see that he gave us happiness and love and accepted our selfishness and pettiness and only returned us purified of our limits. I could see that this process affected him, he suffered us and he healed quickly and never skipped a beat, a song or a dance to show us, and to live happiness even now and now. There were difficult times at the ranch. Tucson and I lost our first baby, she was stillborn. I thought it would take Tucson a long time to mend, to be happy again. Hank showed her how to love even then, and by the end of the day she was as giving and sharing as openly as on her best days. This was the kind of miracle Hank gave, this was the power Hank had. I’m sure we all depended on him too much for this power. He allowed us to do that.
When the ranch ‘From Here’ was established, really rooted, and the family could take care of it and each other, Hank took me aside. “Mana, my dear friend, you have been with me since the beginning. It is time for us to go out to the world and see how the revolution is going on in other places.”
I couldn’t imagine why we would leave such a perfect place. I had everything I ever wanted and needed here. How could he leave?
“It will take about a year. I have a sense where we will be going. I’ve got the call, like when I first came to your town. You up for coming with me, mate?”
I had so many questions, all of them were forms of my resistance to going. I looked at Hank. He was grinning with excitement—waiting for me to give my yes and I was waiting, resisting. All the hard work, the ties I created, the family we birthed. All this great history of giving and sharing weighed on my heart of being able to give Hank my simple accepting, my faithful yes. I began to also feel into a year without my main man, what would it be like not to be around his great creative heart? My mind weighed in on the loss of going and the loss of staying. I could see that it was incapable of making any real decision. My heart was beating hard and Hank was still standing there waiting. I could feel that my hesitancy was causing him pain and I reached out my hand to show him my acceptance and said, “Yes, I’m coming.” He grabbed me into his big bear hug and whispered in my ear, “Let the revolution grow and spread around this big beautiful planet. It’s time that all people here get happy on the real happy.”
Everyone on the ranch took it hard but to their credit, they all stayed relatable and loving. I didn’t know how Katrin would get through it as 3H (as she called him) was her closest and deepest companion and intimate. She is quite strong and brave and told us not to worry, that she would keep love and happiness as Hank would live it. I could see how her heart ached to go. She is stronger than me, I know I couldn’t be as giving or as happy without Hank’s power of happiness, without being with Hank. I knew she loved him in a way, deeper than I loved him. I admired her and knew that the ranch would be in capable hands, blessed by a strong, open heart. My dear Tucson knew I had to go—to help Hank with his great work that neither one of us really understood. We both trusted Hank and saw the effect he had on us. We knew he belonged to a bigger impulse, a more creative endeavor than just living out his days with us on our ranch. Tucson encouraged me to take a video and pictures of our journey and said, “Please, please, Mana, keep a good journal of everything that happens. I want to read it and we can share it with our two girls. For the future.” I agreed, knowing that my life with Hank and this journey was not just for us. I felt it was a link to all those who needed to know Hank’s heart and come into his arms. In all my imperfect ways and imperfect motives, I set out on May 1 with my beloved friend. There were a lot of big hugs and many kisses as our family graciously let us go. Grandpa Carl told us that they all had some more beautiful creative projects for the ranch. “So Mana,” he said, “Bring our great ‘Heart Spoken’”, as he called Hank, “back to us. We will be busy here, as we usually are, more work and more art to get to.” He slipped a roll of money into my pocket and patted it. He was always generous in so many ways, a quiet man with the stamina of any young man. “I’ll look after your two girls, give them some grandpa spoiling” he added.
Our journey was beginning, where would we meet the revolution? With Hank, I knew, he knew where we needed to go to find those he needed to find, and I sensed the world needed to find him, and he was making it easy for them by walking right to their town, their place, wherever they are. Would we find the revolution being lived in other places, not just at our ranch? Or did the world of others need Hank as much as our little family at the ranch needed him, to spark our hearts into loving action and a loving life?
We had the pickup truck stocked with camping gear, a cooler, and an old beat up suitcase containing our getting-around clothes. We headed easterly, through the desert, where we camped for over a week before moving on. Hank loved to wander in the desert. He said he felt his essence of light there and he collected some rocks and odd weather-worn objects for his creative endeavors. I walked with him, fumbling around with the camera. I think I actually got a few decent shots of him walking the sand dunes at dusk. Hank was still up for singing and I also learned how to record his songs and performances. We really didn’t see anyone and I wondered when and where we would meet up with those living the revolution. On our last morning there, when I was dousing out the fire with some dirt, a strange guy wandered into our campsite. We offered him some breakfast. We could see that he was in a bad way; he looked like he hadn’t eaten for a while. After we refilled his cereal bowl for the 3rd time, he looked up at us and then turned to stare at Hank, and then he broke out into a song, and man that guy had a pair of lungs. The song was strange, perhaps in an ancient language. Hank was really enjoying the guy’s performance and when the man paused, Hank jumped in and sang back to him in the same strange language. Both men sang until their hearts burst, and knowing that Tucson definitely would love hearing and seeing this, I managed to get the video camera out of its case and videoed at least the last half of this strange duet. I didn’t know what to make out of this strange occurrence. The man left abruptly after the singing ended. I was hoping that Hank would offer up an explanation as to what just happened. All he said was, “I didn’t know that guy was still around.” I pressed him to explain. He laughed and said, “He knew my father and worked with him in the day.” Hank dropped the subject and put the tent into the truck. “We’re heading to the southwest today. Got some miles to cover.” That was not the end of our strange encounters, but the beginning of many to come in many different locations.
Once on the road, I was absorbed by driving—the truck’s third gear was hard to get into and the brakes were getting a squeak that worried me. Hank was looking at the stones he gathered in the desert. “Carl would like these rocks. Did you know he used to be a geologist?”
“No,” that explained why Carl always used rocks in his new structures on the ranch.
“Yeah, he told me that at one time he had a rock collection of over 5,000 rocks. He had
geodes and crystals the size of our truck. He sold most of his collection to help us with the ranch.”
This information surprised me. It made me think about how much people gave to be with Hank, how much they wanted to give everything to him.
“I’m collecting rocks for Carl.”
The rocks Hank had in his hand just looked like ordinary dime-a-dozen rocks that were common in the desert. I knew that Hank was serving Carl’s heart by collecting and saving these rocks. I could sense that Hank always had a great purpose and those rocks were a link to a great purpose he had intended for Carl. I wondered what my link and purpose was—how I am serving, what part I am playing or have to play in Hank’s revolution. And I wondered what part that poor fellow who we had encountered at breakfast had.
Hank appeared to have read my thoughts. “Links have been created even before this lifetime, and on our trips we will meet and activate these links.” He tossed the rocks back and forth, from his left hand to his right. He created a rhythmic pattern and sang a diddy about the clanging of rocks, the heat of the desert, and the hunger that only cereal can fill. The song got funnier and stranger and I burst out laughing and said, “Come on Hank, your song quit making any sense.” He laughed too and said, “Good, let’s not take ourselves seriously. After all, this is our revolution of happiness.”
We did some serious driving that day and ended up camping outside—somewhere outside of Santa Fe. We were pretty tired and after heating up some dinner I was ready to lay my head down. I know Hank was pretty tired too but that didn’t stop him from singing and dancing. Tonight his words and the pounding of his footsteps felt repetitive, hypnotic. I wondered what he was doing, what he was causing to happen. I took a few shots and some video for posterity and mostly for Tucson. I was so tired that I fell asleep while he was dancing. The strange thing about it was that I knew I fell asleep. I could see my body asleep, still with my camera in hand. I could see Hank singing and dancing faster and faster. Our small campsite fire grew bigger and bigger, the flames reaching higher and higher. I was worried that the fire would get out of control and burn my sleeping body. I could see that Hank was causing the fire to get bigger and bigger and the fire seemed to comply and be in sync with Hanks’ footsteps. As the fire reached great proportions, Hank’s mantra changed and sounded forceful, yet inviting. A form appeared in the flames—a woman—perhaps a goddess. She watched Hank dance and imitated his moves by using the flames to compliment his steps. The fire even hissed in sync with Hank’s mantra. Some kind of union was occurring between Hank and the fire goddess. Then I feared for Hank’s life as the fire, the goddess, caught onto his form and his form, still dancing, was on fire. I gasped, wanting to wake up my body to come to the aid of my friend. I could do nothing to get my body to awaken. I felt that I must act but how? I realized that my awareness was present, not asleep, and my awareness could do something. When I realized this my awareness—present in some kind of subtler body—jumped into the fire to absorb some of the heat of this crazy union. Now I was on fire too, the heat was intense, yet I wasn’t being burned to a crisp. Instead I felt cleaner, freer. This fire was burning away limits—all my fears that were confining me to a knot of separate inferiority. Then, I felt my heart rip open and the bliss of a heart being open was a pleasure that no separate one could understand and endure. I realized that I assumed limit so I could assume to be myself. This was clear in this strange fire of purification. I knew that I didn’t exist. I laughed at the absurdity of it all. All these separate desperate people trying to survive, trying to get happy, trying to get free. There was no one to get happy. We as our self only exist because of our fear that imposes limits on love, on happiness. This fire burned these limits and I didn’t know if I still existed. I heard laughter and felt a prodding on my shoulder, the voice that had been mantra-like before now seemed concerned. I opened my eyes and saw Hank standing before me. He said, “I might have pushed you too hard that time. Okay buddy?” I was unable to say anything. I just smiled. He laughed and said, “I think he’s got it!”
I fell asleep into a deep sleep of no dreams. Hank woke me up when the sun was high in the sky. I could smell the eggs and turkey sausage being cooked. I felt ravenous. Hank seemed relieved that I was up and had such an appetite. He gave me half of his portion as well. I wanted to talk about what happened, what I experienced and understood, but I couldn’t form any words. My awareness was present and alert, but my mind didn’t seem to work. I looked at Hank and he said, “You know, Mana, you can live without the mind.” He laughed and winked at me. I looked at him and knew without any doubt, any mind about it, that he was always in this state. Wow!
I was a basket case for the next several days. Hank moved our campsite each day, fed me and got me to walk, showing me the different rocks he found, asking me if Carl would like this one or this one. He kept my attention occupied in this simple way. Whenever I laid down, the fire returned and burned bright and bright white. It was both pleasurable and difficult to endure. I trusted this journey that Hank was taking me on. I was truly lost but I was truly found in the Truest way possible. I knew that it was impossible to return back to who I thought I was. I was something (someone?) different now. My mind would try to interfere, it tried to qualify this experience with its fearful judgements—“this can’t be good”, “you are going crazy”, none of it could stick, all the judgements on unqualified freedom or happiness burned in the bright white fire. I knew that this was the revolution that Hank was trying to bring about. I knew it was real and again I marveled at his power and wondered, how is this happening? I knew I had a part in this revolution, to not be an ego-I, to be truly as I am. I knew Hank was prepping me for this.
“What are you guys doing here?” Hank and I looked up the hillside. A wizened old woman was standing on a ledge right above us. She appeared to be at least 85 or so. I was surprised that someone at such an advanced age could get around these hills. They were loose with shale rocks and prickly cactus.
Hank looked up. “Hello, we are on a roundabout.”
“A roundabout?” asked the woman.
“Yes, a walkabout with no final destination.”
The woman grunted a laugh, “You guys don’t look like trespassers or desert rats. What’s this walkabout business about?” she asked.
“We are on a journey of love, truth, and happiness,” answered Hank with a grin on his face.
She wrinkled her brow. “You guys, the hippies, tried that back in the 60s.” She had her hands on her hips. She had an unusual way of dressing that was all at once refined, elegant, practical and colorful. I thought that she had to be an artist.
“Yes,” answered Hank, “that was the beginning of the revolution.”
“Far as I can see it petered out and we have this crazy chaotic world that we find ourselves in. You guys seem harmless enough. Come on over to my ranch, it’s just up the road a bit. Come on, Zaour will make us some lunch and you can fill me in on what you guys are up to. Revolution, ha,” she smiled to herself and thought, this dream never dies out. Well, why should it? What is all this living about if truth or beauty can’t be seen, can’t be lived?
The old woman was indeed an artist. You could tell that she had spent a lifetime creating on the canvas that was her ranch. It made me remember our ranch and the beauty we had created there. I missed it and Tucson and of course, our two girls. She introduced us to Zaour, her cook, and helpmate. You could tell that she was once a beautiful woman, her advanced age couldn’t diminish her spark and thirst for life. She was curious about us and asked us a lot of questions. Hera Mad was her name. Hank told her about our ranch and she asked us a lot of questions about how it functioned, about water access, what we grew there.
“Come, I’ll show you guys around.” The main house was made of stone and adobe with big windows with big views. It was bright and sunny inside with skylights in some of the rooms. There were beautiful pots and vases all around. She admitted that it was her work, her studio was filled with clay and her tools, and she had several shelves lined with her work. Her work was extraordinary, with ancient designs from cultures of the past. Many had inlays of precious jewels and turquoise. Hank complimented her on her place and her work.
After the tour we rested in the shade of the inner courtyard. Hank spoke first. “You have created a beautiful life and a beautiful oasis here, Hera.”
“Thank you, Hank. It’s been a good life, with some difficult suffering, but there has always been beauty, too. The beauty of this land and the beauty of the people who have lived here before, called me to be a spokesperson for it, that’s why I became an artist. Now I am old, what can an old woman have to do with beauty?”
Hank looked deeply at Hera and said, “Everything. You are beauty now, you live in beauty because you have loved the beauty here.”
“How did you get so wise, young man?” she asked. “What’s this about the revolution? What are you guys trying to do?”
“It’s the right time. It is always the right time to begin the revolution. I’m the guy for it, as is my friend, Mana.”
Hera looked at the two men and studied them. “How do you guys know you’re the guys to start it?”
“The same way the land and people called you to reveal their beauty. I have been called to reveal the truth of happiness.”
“Alright, I am following you on this. I understand a calling, a passion, and the endurance to manifest it. One has to be dedicated and devoted and overcome any or all the limits that present themselves along the way. It’s not an easy life. So, if you don’t mind me asking, what is the truth of happiness?” she leaned in when she asked this question.
“Well, Hera, simply put, ‘we can’t get happy, we are already happy’.
Hera closed her eyes and felt deeply what Hank had said to her. She wasn’t thinking about what he said so she could produce a judgement on his simple wisdom, challenge it with her perceptions of suffering and identity that came from her long life. She sat with what he had said and opened and drew herself into the words and then into the man himself. She sat quietly, deeply here and present without moving or opening her eyes. When she did open her eyes she looked at Hank and nodded, “That is what beauty has shown me, too. But I can feel that you have realized happiness at a level beyond suffering in life, beyond identity, and maybe even beyond life as well.”
“That is what I have come to reveal, that is how I live. I know I am being here to call the world to begin the revolution of love.”
Hera smiled and she could see that Hank’s passion, to save the world from unhappiness,
to ignite the revolution of love, of happiness, was not just a young man’s optimistic idealism. She sensed that there was something true and deep about him. He made her feel like the desert did on certain occasions when her mind let go and her heart met the heart of the desert. She felt a rapture, a blissful recognition of love as the desert, as herself. She was feeling this now, sitting and talking to Hank. She could see that Hank’s friend, Mana, lived in this rapture with his best friend. The three sat in the mystery of the heart that lives all. After a while, the sun, shining directly on them, made them unbearably hot and Hera stirred. She patted Mana’s leg and said, “How fortunate you are, that you are with him. Take good care of him.”
Mana nodded. He could see that being found by Hera was no coincidence, that Hank with his innocent certainty of life, had drawn Hera to them. So, she is a link he came to activate in the revolution of love. He liked this woman and admired her fortitude and courage, her relationship to her art, and her teacher, the desert. The world, he reasoned, might be filled with people who have left the conventional assumptions and pursuits to follow and learn by the mystery. People who were drawn by a deeper need, people with passion, people who were weren’t ruined by suffering, who instead rose to meet it with an undeniable need to know love as love is. He knew that somehow, Hank already knew these people, like he knew his own body, and it was time for him to gather them. The revolution, he felt, is alive, it has been growing, deeper and deeper. I see it in the life and passion of Hera. Mana felt his good grace to be Hank’s companion in Hank’s big work of opening the Heart and letting the Heart speak.
Later that evening, after a glorious sunset of peach-colored bands, Hank sang for us and he created a special song for Hera. His voice was powerful and I could hear a few coyotes in the distance calling back. He beckoned Hera to dance with him and though she had good reason to decline because of her advanced age, she couldn’t resist. He held her in his arms and I could swear that I saw her 20-year-old self smiling, laughing, flipping her hair in a flirtatious movement. They felt like two young lovers in the throes of first love. I could see Hera in love with Hank and he with her. I might have been jealous but I knew Hank’s love in that way and as my own too. Hank’s love didn’t have a limit and that’s what I held so dear about him. I wanted to love in that way, in the way of a love so big it knows no borders, limits, and has no need for jealousy or possessiveness. This was and is my passion, to love and live love as Hank does. I thought of Tucson and my two girls and decided not to be sad at missing them, instead I sent them my happiness of loving them. Though I wasn’t physically with them, I felt our hearts were together and I knew they were receiving the best of what I can give them. I could see my youngest, Laela, hugging me and singing happily, “I love you too, daddy.”
Hera suggested that it would be pleasantly cool to sleep on the roof. We gathered her futon mats and we watched the stars shine in the dark night. I felt again the transmission of energy descend throughout my body and circle it with the radiance of light. I lost all mind and assertions of me and other, in and out, and I laid there with a big grin of no difference, of heart wide open. I laid under the stars in a brilliant effulgence of light and I knew not time or how it passed. I returned to the notice of desert and heat rising and saw that Hera and Hank were up. Hank was helping Hera down the ladder. I got myself together and also found my way down the ladder and into the kitchen. Hank was making Hera one of his delicious omelets. Her hair was down and she was wearing a kimono over her long gown. She seemed like a royal matriarch and a woman truly satisfied in love. She smiled at us and looking a little drunk in love blurted out, “Yes, the revolution has begun.” We all laughed and clinked our juice glasses together. Hera was a bit saddened when Hank gathered his things.
We were on our way again. I knew I had to get a picture of this graceful artist. She insisted that the picture be taken with Hank by her side. As I was ready to click the shutter she moved to hold Hank’s hand and held it to her heart. “Make sure I get a copy of that picture. And make sure you guys carry on with the revolution, it’s the best of all possible dreams. And I’ll be doing my part here, here on the ranch.”
Hank smiled and said, “We’re counting on that.”
As we drove away from the ranch, the one-night-blooming flowers on the cactus by her drive were ending their brief life of beauty and closing as the bees tried to get their last meal of pollen from them. I sent Tucson and Katrin a picture from my phone. I was finally figuring out how to use all these devices that they had given me to record our walkabout. Katrin studied the picture of the aged artist and her mate Hank. She shared it with her sister, Tucson. Their ranch was also in bloom with wildflowers. Each day was getting warmer and she enjoyed the warmth, especially in the evening. She missed Hank and his singing and she had been learning how to dance using elements from the hula, a native Hawaiian form of dance, as a surprise for him when he returned. The twins Zeke & Zoe got some cheap ukuleles to accompany her. They all missed Hank terribly and Tucson was also missing Mana as well. The ranch family were holding and everyone was doing their best to make the ranch functional and beautiful and staying happy.
Katrin was determined to keep happiness, to always extend herself in love as her practice. It was hard at times, the responsibility and demand of the ranch fell mostly on her shoulders. Carl and his wife Sandra helped a great deal with steering her to well-thought-out decisions. They all worked hard every day, at times the younger people rebelled and they reminded her, “Time to have a day of fun.”
Before she went to bed each night, she talked to Hank with her heart, telling him of the day’s best moments, and how everyone was happy and living love. At times she sat and visualized Hank singing and dancing. She kept her struggles to herself, as she did not want to burden him with it. She wanted to be strong, to live love, not apart, but with him, so she never dwelled on the fact that he was not physically there. She knew that she could never be separate from him, the apparent physical separation was a test for her to go beyond those assumptions, and as she struggled with releasing feelings of loneliness and anxiety about being left out, she did feel his presence in her heart, and she remembered her special moments with him and the gifts of love she would shower him with when he returned.
Tucson showed her girls the pictures Mana had sent from his trip with Hank. She also missed Hank terribly and her close heart, Mana. She and the girls were also working on a project to surprise Hank and their dad with when they returned. It was a treasure hunt and Carl had given them some of his most beautiful stones to hide. The final treasure was hidden in a wooden box that Sandra had made and inside was a heart the girls had made from clay, rocks, and branches.
The family of the ranch all lived with the uncertainty of when their friends Hank and Mana would return. The heart and spirit of ‘From Here’ was in good hands with good hearts. It was interesting that the personalities there matched and complimented each other with no adverse, conflictual relationship. It was as if Hank had picked and determined it before he had met them and in meeting each one of them, he had determined and created a true family. It wasn’t as if everyone was easy to get along with and contributed a fair share all the time. There was an awareness that continued to deepen, that the ranch was a place where love was always asked to be lived. Usually people got over mistakes easily and laughter returned. It didn’t occur to anyone to hold grudges, and everyone valued the creativity and collaborative ideas and work. All felt a sense of pride at how beautiful the ranch was becoming. No one was left out or on top, though they did acknowledge Katrin’s strength as a leader. She was always fair and acknowledged everyone’s strengths and collaborations. They also looked up to her because of her generosity and her kindness, and that she worked the hardest at living love. She was the “mama” to Hank’s papa heart. She softened Hank’s wild passion, his unpredictability and his intense transmission of already happy freedom. They missed his hilarity and enjoyed Katrin’s patient acceptance. Life on the ranch was an oasis where a small band of souls strived to live love now. Hank held them to his heart of love and no one wanted to leave it to assert a private kind of special-me status anywhere else. ‘From Here’ is where the smiling Buddha made his stand among those who were simple in their heart to love and stand with him. They didn’t know how they were serving the revolution, they were living their lives in the arms and big belly hug and creative passion of the one they danced around, and with. It was a good life and they felt a deep satisfaction in it. They were always in the test of love’s unselfish demands, Katrin shined that for them.
They worked hard, played hard, and laughed much waiting for Hank’s and Mana’s eventual return.
I was surprised that our journey had changed course. Hank had declared, “North, my man, north!” We travelled in that direction for many days. My appetite for the road was waning, I truly was sick and tired of driving, but Hank just urged me to keep my foot on the pedal. We drove all day till dark, quickly put up the tent, Hank would sing the day’s end and the night’s beginning. After five days of this we were in Washington state, maybe close to the Canadian border when Hank said, “Mana, I need a healer, find me a healer.”
“Are you alright?” I was really concerned.
“My heart feels constricted. I can’t breathe deeply. Find me a healer.”
“Do you want to go to the nearest hospital?” I asked.
“No, find someone, a real healer, not a practicing medical doctor. Find a true healer, a wizard, a shaman.”
Where would I find someone like that, I wondered. If that was what Hank needed, surely one existed. Hank urged me to take the next exit. I wanted to contact Katrin to get her help and advice. “Don’t worry her,” he said as he probably read my mind. “Look, there’s a small clinic in this town. Ask in there if they have a healer, an alternative kind of doctor.”
I went inside and at first the lady dressed in scrubs behind the computer looked at me like I lost my mind. “Are you okay? We can see you here.” She asked.
“No, I’m looking for a healer for my friend. Is there anyone in these parts?”
“Well, everyone comes here for their medical needs in this town. I’m not really sure who you are looking for, couldn’t you bring your friend in? We could see him right away.”
I could see that my request was baffling her. I thanked her for her help and returned to Hank. He was looking paler and his eyes were closed. “Did you find the healer?” he asked.
“Can’t I bring you to the clinic? The people are willing to take you right now.”
“No, find the healer.” He closed his eyes and I could see he was trying to stay with his breath.
I was at a loss. I was getting really frightened. I didn’t want to lose it, I wanted to help my dear friend. I got on the internet and asked for “the healer” in the town of Kaspin. The clinic and its hours came up, a chiropractor, and a massage therapist, and there was a guy named Lodi Spence who did “healings on all levels,” whatever that meant. I looked at Hank. He was doing all he could to stay associated with his body. I called Lodi and he said, “Bring him over now, I’m only down the road half a mile in the grey house with the roundabout porch.”
When I pulled in, Lodi, a tall man in his mid-thirties came out. Hank was now unconscious and Lodi and I carried him into his house where we placed him on a cot in his front room.
“How long has he been unconscious?” he asked.
“Since just after I called you. Can you help him?”
“Yes, you say he was struggling with breathing?”
“Yes, he told me that his heart felt constricted.”
“Has he experienced this before?”
“No, I don’t believe he has,” I answered.
“Sit down, I’m going to enter a meditative state to find out what I can do to help him. Please be quiet while I do this, okay?”
I nodded yes and thought, boy, what is this guy doing? I should have just made Hank go to the clinic.
Lodi went into some kind of trance, his eyes were rolled up and he moved his fingers in strange ways that I guessed might be mudras. When he opened his eyes, he looked at me and asked me, “Why didn’t you tell me who he is? I am a healer, I can clear most diseases, but what this man has is—how do I say this—this man is suffering from having the whole world of suffering standing on his heart, it is crushing him. Tell me who this man is.”
I searched for the words to tell the healer Lodi who Hank is. He is my friend, my best friend, the man of love who lives happiness every day, who only loves. What could I say? “He is the one who can truly bring about the revolution of love,” I told Lodi.
Lodi looked at me straight on, “This is the God-Man,” he said simply. I never heard such a term to describe Hank, but it made sense to me. I knew that Hank was no ordinary man or even an extraordinary man, he was something beyond us.
“Yes, he must be,” I concluded.
“We must put him in water, help me put him in my hot tub.” Once in the water, I could see Hank made a big sigh. Lodi asked me to hold and rub his feet. Lodi closed his eyes again and he began to talk to Hank.
“I, Lodi, am the healer that you empowered many years ago. Because of your great gift, I have served the health of many beings. Today, please allow me to help you. Allow me to take your burden away. You have made me into a great healer. I have the power and ability to take this suffering that is crushing your heart. I am strong enough to take it on. I know how to release it.” Hank opened his eyes. There was a faint smile on his lips and he nodded weakly. Lodi’s eyes rolled up and his body went stiff. I became worried for both my dear friend and the healer. I watched this exchange, fearing for the worst. After a few minutes Hank opened his eyes again, all the color returned to his body. He smiled at me and looked at Lodi. Lodi’s body was still stiff and Hank reached out to him and touched him. Lodi inhaled a big, long breath and opened his eyes.
Hank laughed and said, “Now that’s a real healing from a real healer!” we all laughed.
Lodi invited us to stay at his place as Hank convalesced. During the week we stayed with Lodi, he did everything to make us both comfortable. He made a super green smoothie with kale for Hank every day. Hank complimented Lodi on every kind of gesture. Lodi told his story: he had been a musician in a band of rock, folk, new-age for many years until one day he got a strange illness. He was unable to leave his bed, to do anything. He went to many doctors and specialists, but no one could diagnose what was wrong with him. He felt he was losing all interest in life. His guitar and his music equipment collected dust, and his voice—usually strong and powerful—became only a whisper. Friends lost patience with him and thought it was all psychosomatic. This went on for two years. Fed up, he thought of suicide, that’s when he got a strange phone call. It was a female’s voice and she simply said, “You are the healer now, heal yourself.” When he tried to question her, she simply repeated what she had previously said and hung up. After that phone call, he cried and cried and this went on for about three days. After three days, he had no more tears left and he fell into a state that resembled sleep for three days. On the first day, all the dreams of his life played out, all events were relived and seen. He felt his highs and lows, his disappointments and achievements. On the second day, all the people he had known, the people he had cared for, appeared and showed him their disappointment in his love for them, how he had failed to satisfy their need for him. On the third day of this peculiar dreaming, a gathering of women surrounded him and touched his body with their healing hands of light. They also touched his mind, placing their hands of light right into his brain, like they were altering the very makeup of his brain waves. When they finished this work, he was healed and different in a way he didn’t understand yet. For two years he had stayed in his bed, hovering between life and death, uninterested in life, in his life. At the end of the third day, he threw the covers off and went to the kitchen and made himself the biggest meal he ever ate. Two omelets, 10 pieces of toast, he added a bowl of brown rice and a salad. He still felt hungry, so he made a smoothie of all the fruits in his refrigerator. He ate voraciously for a month and all his prior strength returned. He took to walking the mountains that surrounded his town, and his body became strong, and he was athletic for the first time in his life. His disposition had changed as well. He used to be only interested in what he was obsessed by, but now he began to look at life and those who he came across. He noticed people and could see their suffering. An overwhelming compassion for them would be aroused in him and a voice would say in his heart, “You can do something about this.” He wondered what he could do. He started his sittings where he could visualize what was wrong with people, and he could send beautiful energy to them, and later he found out that they were getting better, some quickly, some slowly, but they all healed. When a few old friends—his musician friends—returned into his life, one guy named Bilu was suffering from advanced cancer and didn’t have much time to live. To Bilu’s utter amazement, his friend Lodi did a sitting for him and within a week he was completely cured. Bilu didn’t know how his friend could do what he did for him, and he nicknamed his friend, “The Healer,” and he wrote a song about Lodi, and later a whole album about Lodi and his gift or ability to heal. Through word of mouth, or the psychic internet, people found the healer and he cured them all. He never charged anyone, people gave him gifts. After five years into his new life of healing work, he received another phone call. It was the same woman’s voice from the first call, he was sure of it. Again, she didn’t bother with any social trivialities and said, “The source of all gifts, the God-Man, is coming to you,” and hung up. Lodi told us he received that phone call about five minutes before I placed my frantic call to him.
Hank loved Lodi’s story. “Ah, the mystery, the dreams of the dreamers want revolution!” he exclaimed. Hank’s singing that night was unimaginably out of this world. His voice was boisterous, all his strength and then some, had returned. I knew that Lodi had helped Hank achieve this new lease on life. He was like an ecstatic kid, dancing and singing about how all of humanity will dance with him. I’ll never forget that night, and yes, I remembered to record it for Katrin and Tucson and everyone on the ranch, and everyone who wants to dance! I could see that Lodi was in love with Hank, like Hera was when we visited her at her ranch. It would be a sad parting tomorrow for me. I really liked Lodi. He had taken out his guitar last night and accompanied Hank in his wild performance. I could see he was a talented and practiced musician besides a healer, besides saving the life of my best friend.
As we packed up our car and I checked the balding tires and made a note for new ones, I had an impulse that was out of my usual boundary of following Hank’s lead. I turned to Lodi, gave him a big hug, and in that hug I felt a surging of warm energy go through by body. Was he healing me of some problem I didn’t know about? I felt so much gratitude toward him that I blurted out, “Why don’t you come with us?” Hank raised his eyebrow as he looked at me. Lodi looked at the both of us and said, “Man, I am already packed. Would you like a break from driving, Mana?” He smiled a big grin and asked Hank, “Where to, God-Man? Where to, Master?” That was the first time anyone ever called Hank “Master”, and it would not be the last. From that day on the both of us called him “Master”. He was not an ordinary man, I knew this, but it was Lodi who recognized him as the God-Man, as our Master, first.
The next day we crossed the border into Canada and took our first look at the Canadian Rockies. What beautiful magnificence! Lodi told us of a festival that would be happening outside of Jasper in a few days. Hank seemed interested and Lodi told us it was called “The Festival of the Mystery”. Hank, or should I say, Master, as we now called him, clapped his hands, “That’s where we’re headed!” We arrived a day ahead of the festival and secured a campsite. I emailed Katrin and Tucson about what we were up to. I didn’t tell them about the Master’s close call with death. I did tell them a little bit about Lodi. The Master’s singing tonight was beautiful, I wondered if he was calling or singing to the hearts of those who were arriving for the festival. A festival celebrating the mystery, this would be interesting, I thought. I wondered what people thought the mystery was. From what I saw of people arriving, it felt more like the mystery was something you felt. The Master always worked with and brought forward or opened up the mystery of who we really are and what we are really doing here—his singing opened you to feeling, we at the ranch called it “Heart speaking,” but I imagine the word mystery works just as well. The mystery of us being here and being all together, how is all this happening? I think it is beyond our minds to understand it. Our lives are full of mystery, as our Master says, “You can’t know what a single thing is. Let your heart live!”
The Master walked around the entire campsite and gathering area and stage area a couple of times. Lodi was excited, he was feeling the vibes—looking around to see if everyone was healthy. He brought his guitar and he and Hank—our Master, “The Master”—had worked on an outrageous song together. I overheard the chorus, it went, “I am a no one who is the heart of everyone.” When we heard the crowd’s clapping and the sun was setting, we knew the music was starting. The warm-up bands welcomed us and I noticed all the songs stayed true to “feeling the mystery”. I was having a blast—it felt like being at the ranch, except our family had grown into about 1,000,000 people! Of course, I was wishing that Tucson and my girls could be with me, and then I remembered that they are with me—always—in this wonderful mystery that includes all of life and everyone everywhere. I saw Hank—I mean the Master—singing along and felt his presence permeate the heart of everyone.
The last band was led by a guy named Truce. He seemed to be well loved and known in Canada. I loved his last song and no one wanted to stop singing, “some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me.” Everyone was stoned, stoned on the happiness of the mystery. I thought, why can’t every day be like this. Everyone loving and grooving on love, on the love of mystery. My life with the Master, I knew, was a gift of that love, that life. I looked at him, now dancing, and I felt overwhelmed, over blessed, and deeply appreciative of his presence. Lodi looked at me being all emotional with the love for the Master (our Master!) and he put his hand to his heart and shook his head up and down, affirming with the gesture, “I know, I know, how lucky we are, man. What did I ever do to be in this life?” I wondered. I knew I didn’t do anything, it was all his gift.
The second day of the festival was even more wildly ecstatic than the first day (I know, how could it be?). Lodi met a few people who were in need of a healing and they went away feeling better. The Master relaxed most of the day and I noticed a few people—and a family of six—straggle by and stare at him. Later he welcomed them to a song, and he made up a particularly funny one for the kids. They were laughing so hard and falling over into his lap. One little girl about 6 kept hugging him and said, “We all want your joy of love.” You aint kidding, we all do. Her brother, who hadn’t stopped laughing the whole time the Master was singing, clapped and clapped when the song was over and said, “I want to live with you forever!” The Master beamed at him and said, “You do, you do!”
The music started up again as the sun set. There were screens beyond the performers—the visuals were psychedelic and there were also visuals of beautiful people and beautiful places. I recognized our own place, our hometown in the mountains on the screen, and nudged Lodi and told him, “That’s where our ranch, ‘From Here’, is located.”
Again, the bands did not stray from singing and feeling the mystery. When words or lyrics ran out, the music ran on and moved us with its cries. I could feel that we were all feeling not just the yearning to be love, to be free, we are free. I knew it was our Master’s work, that he was giving everyone the direct experience of being love, of being free like he had given it to me in the desert right before we met Hera. He was revolutionizing everyone to actually experience the true vibe—the true state of love already alive and being lived. The last band of the night, the Matter Matters Band, riffed out in a psychedelic, spontaneous flow, and the lead singer was improvising along and he was ranting and singing about being one tribe, one heart, and being free in the mystery of living love. Wow, we all fell into an ecstatic sleep that night.
On the last day, the morning of the 3rd day of the festival, the Master went off for a walk and Lodi and I exchanged stories about our experience. I sort of got the feeling from him that he was struggling with something and he confided in me that he never wanted to leave the Master, and did I think he would be welcomed to stay with the Master, travel or live at the ranch with him? I didn’t see why not, so I assured him if that was what he wanted, “You know, Mana, one can’t understand the Master, he’s off the map of predictability. After all, the guy is working on the big revolution—the one of opening everyone’s heart.” Lodi, even though we had only known each other a short time, I felt he was a deep, soul brother and he saw the Master in ways that surprised me because of my ordinary familiarity with Hank—the Master—I didn’t let myself see. I had grown used to his miracles in a way and I counted on him probably too much to take care of my happiness. Lodi opened me up to seeing and loving the Master and acknowledging that the Master’s life was for everyone, not just me and my family and the family of the ranch. I don’t know why Lodi had such a deep feeling or such a deep knowing of who the Master is. I knew that Lodi helped me to put things in the right perspective—of not just seeing him through my little life. I couldn’t speak for the Master, if the Master would give Lodi his heart’s desire to stay with him, I did know that I would love that Lodi stayed with us, and I told him that.
The final evening of the festival, a light rain came down and cleared to reveal a rainbow, followed by a bright blue, then pink, then peach and red sunset. The final performance of the night was by a band named “Beyond the Lens”. This band was set up on the left side of the stage and we watched a light show of ethnic art, and ancient Egyptian images of gods and goddesses. The music was ascending, moving up and out of this world. It made us feel like we were all in the mystery school of the astral. A man came out dancing and swirling around on the stage. I swore that he was levitating and flying. His arms were moving strands of light and he glowed and completely disappeared at times. Wow, who is this guy? I tried to think but my mind was not operating in any linear manner. I felt that he was throwing me around into the skies of the light realms. I was really stoned but it was different than my experience in the desert. I turned to look at Lodi, he was enjoying the performance, he wasn’t shaky or shaking as I was. I looked at our Master. He had a focused, steady gaze on the dancer. He looked back at me and said, “I’m going up there”.
When the dancer moved faster, the light radiated out from him in white-light bursts. I heard a voice booming, a familiar voice, the Master was on stage singing. The guys in the band looked at each other and continued to play. They continued to be linked to the dancer’s dance of light, but as the Master sang, he sang to the dancer and the dancer turned toward him. The Master held out his hand and the dancer hesitated, the band was confused as to what to do. Then I noticed that Lodi had gone up to the stage and the guitarist allowed him to use his guitar. Lodi, through his playing, was somehow the link to the Master, and the dancer and the rest of the band followed his lead. Our master continued to sing with the dancer as he danced. His dancing changed, he was coming to meet the Master where the Master is. I could see a most beautiful yearning on the dancer’s face, an attraction that was beyond resistance. The more the Master sang, the more the dancer danced to his heart attraction. The Master’s singing became so sweet and so tender, I had never heard him sing like that, the dancer danced and his movements were not bursts of light flight, but a coming to here, where the Master was waiting for him. I saw the dancer come into the Heart of the Master and I saw the Master hold him and then both of them got up and danced together and Lodi made a beautiful attempt at humor by playing the notes to the old classic, “I Could Have Danced All Night”. When the performance ended, the Master whispered something into the dancer’s ear and to our surprise the dancer did a full body prostration to the Master. Everyone would have gasped if they weren’t already too stunned by the whole performance. Lodi continued to play and the band followed him with a song that was simple, and good and easy to follow. I think it was a Beatles song.
On that crazy night of the crazy beautiful performance of the coming together of the Master and Beyond the Lens, I later learned that there were different festivals throughout the world—in the USA, in England, France, Japan, going on. People were celebrating the mystery there as well. I don’t know if this was the Master’s work. I didn’t ask him those kind of questions. His miracles, I was used to them, were my everyday life with him, but that song and dance on the final night of the festival was some kind of really special magic. It was a link up of major proportions. I wondered what happened to that guy—the light dancer.
I am so dam excited, I found the town, the one I saw in my dreams. I can’t believe I am here. She will be here, she lives on a ranch, how hard will it be to find her, the ranch in this small town? Steve closed his backpack and went into the town’s one and only coffee house. He could smell the coffee and ordered a chai. A few locals were sipping coffee while on their laptops. There was a lively conversation going on with 3 men sitting around their cups. They were talking about the latest fire around the town. I could hear that they were proud of the fire department’s response and work of putting out the fire. One was a retired fireman.
I was sipping on my chai, figuring out my next move. I always knew that my life was heading toward this moment. I’ve dreamt about her since I was a young child, a baby even. My parents thought she was an imaginary friend that I invented. I always knew she was real and that my life would truly begin when I found her again or we found each other. I always knew I was here not for the usual life of raising a family or the usual pursuits of personal fulfillment. I am here because she needs me to be here. As I thought about her and beginning this new, real life, I must have had a big grin on my face because the guy behind the counter smiled back.
“A chai, please,” I turned to see who was ordering and there she was. I recognized everything about her. My heart leaped out of my chest, I grew dizzy, I had to say something, but I was tongue-tied. She got her chai and I knew I had to move, I was so nervous. I grabbed my backpack and headed out the door behind her. “Excuse me,” I called out, and she turned and looked at me, puzzled. “Can I help you?” she asked.
I wanted to yell, Katrin, it’s me, Steve! I could see that she didn’t know me or recognize me. How could that be? She has always been with me, helping me, laughing with me, encouraging me, loving me ever since I was a baby.
I didn’t know what to say next, I always imagined our meeting—that she would know me as I have always known her. I was fumbling and scrambling for something to say. She asked me, “Do you need a place to stay for a few nights?” I could see that she was thinking something over and proceeded with, “I lived on a ranch, there’s a cabin you could stay in for a few nights.”
I thanked her and she unlocked her jeep and my backpack and I piled in to the passenger seat. “Where are you headed, going to the park?” she asked. I wanted to tell her that I was coming to her to begin this weird destiny that I knew I had with her. I didn’t know why my destiny had always been obvious or known by me, maybe I’m really psychic but just about my own life.
“Thanks for the place to stay. I am road weary and trail weary.”
“You’ll like the ranch, it’s very unusual, we’re trying to create place of beauty, a place for the heart to grow wide open.”
Wow, I thought, this is already way too cool. I’ve seen the ranch many times in my dreams. The road, the gate, yes, it’s just like in my dreams. She drove past the main house and stopped at the cottage. “This look okay?” she asked and added, “For a couple of nights?”
“Thank you, this is so kind of you.”
“Need some help?” she asked.
“Is there anything I can do, to repay you?” I asked.
“Come over to the main house in about an hour. We always have chores to get done.” She put her lips together and puckered them a little bit and then smiled again. “Steve, right?” she asked. I nodded yes and then she said, “There’s something really familiar about you,” and then she turned around and hopped into the jeep.
Day one, my real life was beginning.
As I wandered around the ranch, how boldly creative it was, I thought. There was even a rainbow arch gate, a rock labyrinth and some fascinating sculpture made of rock and metal. I saw a few people tending to the garden, a couple of guys like myself—they looked just alike, twins! They waved at me as I headed up the main drive to the big house. The main house embodied a splash—all the parts of the house were creatively embellished, complete with a mosaic wall. As I went up to the porch I saw a wooden sign that read ‘From Here’ and underneath that sign was another sign that read “The revolution is here”. This made me smile and feel happy that I am at the right place. Underneath my arm was my portfolio. It contained my drawings of this place and of Katrin that I had done after my vivid lucid dreams. I knocked at the door and I heard Katrin yell out, “Come on in.”
I walked in and followed her voice, “I’m in here.” She was in a studio, it looked like a dance studio. She turned to me and said, “I’m learning the hula.” I didn’t know what to say. She saw my portfolio under my arm and asked, “What’s that, are you an artist?”
“Sort of,” I said. “I have been drawing my dreams over the years.”
“How interesting,” she commented. “Can I see it?”
I very much wanted her to see my drawings of her and the ranch. It crossed my mind that she might think it creepy, but I pushed that thought away and held my portfolio out to her.
“Let’s go sit out on the porch and take a look.” She led me to the back entrance of the house. There was a nice shade canopy there and big patio couch. We sat down next to each other and she slowly opened the cover like she was opening a well anticipated treasure. I appreciated that.
The opening page read ‘From Here’, the name of the ranch. She was quiet when she read that and I thought, oh man, I hope this doesn’t blow your mind too much. As she turned the pages I could see her register shock and nervousness. When she got to the portraits of her, she looked up at me pensively. She didn’t say anything, and when she finished looking at all the images, she closed the last page slowly. She closed her eyes, I knew I shouldn’t rush her to a response. After a while she opened her eyes and said, “Steve, you say that these images are from your dreams. We are connected in some important way, I can see that your dreams have shown you this. This is new for me, so give me chance to gather my feelings.” She gazed at me and then I saw that twinkle in her eye that I had often experienced when we had set off on our next insane dream adventure. She laughed and said, “How wonderful, how mysterious how the mystery works! It will take me a bit of time to catch up on our relationship, it seems that you have known me for a long time, that I have been a help to you, for me it seems like we have just met.” She patted my hand and then squeezed it like she also had done in our dreams.
She thought of Hank and felt how much Hank would love this leela, as he would say. She cleared her throat and smiled at me, “So how do I begin?”
I didn’t know what to say. “Could I work on the ranch?” I asked.
“Okay, my young man,” she said. I laughed because she always called me that in my dreams. “Not much pay to speak of, you can share the cabin with the twins. I’m sure I’ll figure out what to do with you”. We both laughed.
She was quiet for a moment, she was thinking something over. “There is something, someone missing from your portfolio. Was I ever with a man in your dreams?”
“No, I never recalled any dream like that.”
“You know, this ranch is a place where we are learning to live in the unifying field of love, past ego trips. We are living a quiet revolution here. This is our place where we are making a stand for and living love and happiness as our passion and work. Hank, my beloved dear friend, has brought us here to realize this and live this life. He is our heart here, he has shown us this and he always lives this. We were a bunch of ordinary fools searching for love and happiness in all the wrong places. Hank, in his wild passionate way, exorcised us of our desperation to get happy, and showed us how to be happy as he is, as he lives. He is the true revolutionary.”
I was stunned to hear this. To me, Katrin was this mentor—and now to learn that my teacher has a teacher and that her teacher lived here also. Day one, hour two of my true life was off to an unimaginable beginning.
“When can I meet him?” I asked.
Lodi pulled over to pick up a hitchhiker at the Master’s request. A young woman in her early twenties with disheveled hair hopelessly tangled, got in.
“Thanks, fellows.” She sat next to the Master in the back. She was immediately attracted to him. He smiled at her and said, “I’m Hank and these are my mates Lodi and Mana. Where are you heading?”
It was weird but she started singing, “I’m going home, I’m going home with my mates, my mates in this car. On the road to everywhere to find everyone and when I find them I’m gonna free their hearts.” When she finished her wild song she smiled a big goofy grin at Hank and, boy, were her teeth really awful. It looked like she hadn’t brushed them in years, none of them were missing, they just weren’t white at all. They were coffee and cigarette stained. I assumed that was her steady diet.
Hank appeared delighted by the song and held her hands, which were strangely very clean and her nails were painted sky blue. Everything about her seemed a contradiction. None of us were afraid of her, just mystified at how she ended up like she was, except for Hank who seemed to thoroughly accept and enjoy her.
Hank also sang a song in response to hers. “Yes, we are going, going, going, only to be here, here, here. I am with my mates and my ole time lady friend. We are living happiness and will never be arrested for that!” After finishing his song he reached into his bag and lit up a cigarette for her. She laughed, took the cigarette and puffed on it very hard.
“I like smoking and I like you,” she sang, staring at Hank. After that she fell asleep and her snores were so loud it drowned out our usual traveling music.
I wondered what her story was, and Hank spoke quietly so as to not disturb her. “She is an ecstatic, a spiritually advanced person—her attention is on where love is, where love lives and the ordinary stuff of being a person in this context and culture makes no sense to her, and her state keeps her alive.” I wondered how someone could live like that. Once I got past her unkempt appearance and her unkempt teeth, she did seem strong and healthy. I wondered if she was some kind of link for the Master’s work and seeing his delight in her, I knew it must be true.
We stopped at a rest stop and brought out our sandwiches to eat. The Master broke apart his sandwich and fed it to her piece by piece. She chewed it and swallowed it. I could see that this attention or gesture by the Master pleased her a lot. He even tenderly wiped the crumbs from her lips. She clapped her hands and sang another song, “I like you so much, you are the one only being that all hearts want to meet and want to love. Everyone wants to be you!”
The Master clapped his approval of her song. He sang, “Yes, I am everyone and you, my darling, are me, too!”
I could see that made her delightfully happy and she sang out, “I give you everything, all my gifts are for you. Today is the day of gift giving, it is all for you.” She touched him and I saw a spark of light pass between them and the Master sang, “Your life is in my heart, I have received the best gift ever.”
Then, she went lifeless and I was frightened that she passed out of life, and I became worried in the most conventional way—worried about how we would explain her death. I heard a loud gasp of air and I saw her revive. What kind of strange spiritual state had she been in? Lodi looked at me and gave me an assured look that I read to mean, “Don’t worry, I’ve seen this before.” I remembered my own spiritual experience in the desert, so I relaxed and accepted what was going on.
Half an hour later, as we were driving by a particularly boring monotonous part of the road, she sang out loudly, “This is my place, time to go.”
Lodi pulled over and this unkempt woman jumped out of the car and started walking straight into the forest.
I looked at the Master for his explanation of this strange occurrence. Would he fill me in on what happened with this strange woman? He said nothing but his mood was very happy. Perhaps she did give him a gift that he greatly appreciated. How mysterious are the ways of the Master, I thought. Lodi nodded as if he read my thoughts, and given the strangeness of the day and our most recent encounter, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.
The following morning, the Master said, “Time to change things up, men, let’s go to the islands.” Lodi surprised me by telling us that he had a cottage off the beaten track on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. “Nothing fancy,” he warned. “A shaman gave it to me after he couldn’t heal his son. He came to me and together we got the boy back on his feet.” We put our car and some of the heavier clothing stuff into storage and got on a flight. I texted Katrin and Tucson about what was going on. I was really missing them, my girls, and everyone on the ranch. It seems they were having some adventures their own when a young guy named Steve showed up.
Steve’s two dreams.
After a week of being on the ranch, I had two of my very vivid dreams. The first one began to happen while I was almost asleep. I was in the space—that’s the moment or place when you are still aware of being in the room. I could hear Zeke, one of the twins, snoring. I could also see images form and appear in my mind. They formed and their story began to unfold. I lost consciousness of being in the room and now I was aware in the room of my dream. I knew I was dreaming, or was I being dreamed? I was with a man, we were both riding horses. This was no idle ride for pleasure, I could see that the man was intent on his mission. I felt that I was newly acquainted with him. I trusted him, but I was unsure about how to be with him. His presence (to me) was bigger than anyone I’ve ever seen or known. I knew that this was my teacher’s teacher.
When he began to trot, then push his horse faster and faster up the hill, I did my best to push my horse to keep up with him. We reached the top of the hill and a fire burned all around throughout the countryside. I was aghast when I realized that the fire would soon arrive at the ranch, and that all the life at the ranch was in peril. The man called to me to hold the reins of the horses and he went ahead and walked toward the fire. He appeared to be singing to the fire. I could barely make out what he was singing. He sang louder and louder and the fire increased in flames and size. The fire was taunting him. He held his ground and his voice became more soothing and he improvised a dance of courtship with the fire. Then he did something I never expected him to do, he walked right into the fire and disappeared and then to my utter amazement the fire disappeared too. The fire was out and the man was gone. The master was gone! I was stunned.
The second dream happened as a vision. I was eating a sandwich by the pond, I had just finished some gardening. I saw figures emerge from the pond’s water. A family, perhaps, with several generations, they all bore resemblance to each other. They all waved at me and had seeds in their pockets that they sprinkled on the land. The seeds all sprouted and grew not into plants, but grew into people. The people were healthy and strong and again bore resemblance to each other, though they were all different and of mixed races. They welcomed me warmly as if I was a member of their family. I was surprised to realize that as they all bore resemblance to each other, I also resembled them. I wondered if I was a part of them, if they were my ancestors. And yet I was convinced that they came after me, and that I somehow was the originator, or the original seed that sprouted to bring them all forth. As I was thinking this, they all came to greet me and I felt their happiness and love in their greeting of me. After this vision faded, I felt so connected to the place of ‘From Here’ and I laughed to myself, of course, ‘From Here’ is where this remarkable ongoing family has sprouted, is taking form. This is where the revolution is growing from the seeds of Katrin’s vision and Hank’s power of already happy, of love being lived now. I spent the evening sketching my dream and my vision. I knew they were big dreams of big foretellers of big events. I also knew if they were the future, I would only be ready to understand these events by living through heartfully, as best I could, all the events leading up to them. One big thing I had learned about my visions and lucid dreams, I didn’t have all the information, or knowing or maturity right now to understand their future. I had to grow into them to arrive there.
It was raining hard when we got to the shack. From the main road we drove the rented jeep down an unpaved road filled with puddles and rain-created groves. I was nervous, it was almost dark and I didn’t know where we were going. Lodi, who had been there years back, recalled enough to urge me on. “It’s about a quarter of a mile on this road, almost there.” Fortunately, there was a full moon that was appearing as the clouds finished emptying their contents. The shack was in no better condition than the cottages at the ranch when Hank and I first, I mean the Master, first saw them and lived in them. The Master was weary as we all were, still we sat on the stoop and he sang his song slowly and reverently. Perhaps he was acknowledging the spirits of this place. He always accepted every place and everyone as his very own. He had a love affair with everyone and everything, an ongoing song that always had another verse. I was in awe at the bigness of his love. My loving was still mostly at the possessive, attached level to a few close individuals.
There was no electricity at the house. Lodi mentioned a generator that he had always intended to get working. We fumbled around in the moon-lit room. The cabin was basic, we found a bed, a bunk and a couch. We lay down our bodies respectively and I passed into a jet lag state with mixed images of where we had been, and the ranch. I could see that Lodi was sitting in a meditative posture and I admired his discipline to do a meditation at this time, since we were all bone weary. Maybe it wasn’t his willpower, I thought, he wasn’t the kind of guy who idealized a concept or a practice, and I thought that it was his passion, his love for the full love—the love that is—beyond form and fear. Lodi was genuinely a spiritual guy—a guy who didn’t talk the talk, he was a guy who put his life right into it. I didn’t really notice an independent self looking for his own pleasure or fulfillment. He was one pointed in his loving service toward our Master. I was always falling over my feet, saying dumb stuff and regretting it. The Master, and I don’t know why, was always easy on me. I was a bit jealous of Lodi, gee the man healed our Master! All my attempts to be with our Master and serve him were awkward at best, mostly I counted on the Master to keep me happy. Seeing Lodi’s dedication and devotion, I wondered why the Master put up with me.
With these mixed emotions I fell asleep. I woke up groggy and was disappointed because there would be no cup of coffee to jump start my body and attention. Lodi and the Master were already up. I saw them from the window heading through the coconut grove. I jumped up and tried to catch up to them. Lodi was showing the Master the river when I got there. The river was swollen from the recent rains, the current was swift. The master smiled at me and said, “How about a boat ride?” Lodi untied the boat from the small dock and we got in. This was going to be an adventure, and I didn’t know if I was up for it. I wasn’t a strong swimmer and I hadn’t had my cup of coffee. After Lodi paddled us out into the main part of the river, the current moved us down stream. The scenery was breathtaking, bright lush green. Other people, maybe locals or tourists, were also moving down the river in their more expensive boats.
The Master cast a smile at me from time to time and I could see that he was really enjoying being here. The Master motioned to Lodi to turn the boat to shore. We got off the boat and the Master sat on the sandy shore on just a small patch of dry land. We sat by his side and the island birds chirped at increasing volume. I certainly wasn’t meditating in silence on the silence, these birds were way too noisy for me to accomplish that. I was enjoying the beauty, the life there, including my own, and forgot all about my cup of coffee.
A man came out of the forest with a simple fishing rod. He walked by us, a little surprised that we were sitting there motionless. He cast his fishing line and immediately caught a fish, placed the fish at the Master’s feet, and proceeded to catch several more. He left all his fish at the Master’s feet, but one which he took with him. That was our breakfast, lunch, and dinner on our first day on the island. In the afternoon, Lodi got out his guitar and showed the Master how to hold the guitar and play some chords. I was asked to find the town and to buy some brushes and some paints, a sketch pad, and few canvases, the Master wanted to paint! I got my bearings easily enough and found the town not too far away. They had a small but adequate combination craft, art supply store. I didn’t think the Master would mind if I stopped and picked up some groceries and a cup of coffee for us all. When I was leaving the coffee shop I saw the fisherman sitting at a table. He was sipping what I assumed was coffee, he smiled at me and motioned at me to come over. I wanted to get back with all the supplies, but I felt a few moments more wouldn’t hurt any. He got down to business right away, wasting no time with chit chat.
“Aloha,” he said. I returned the greeting, feeling a bit foolish at returning a greeting I didn’t really understand the meaning of. I blurted out, “Thank you for your generosity, we enjoyed the fish very much.” He sipped his coffee and said, “I was instructed to catch and give the fish to the man you are with. My ancestors asked me to do this as an offering of recognition.”
“I am Mana,” I replied. He smiled when he heard my name, as if he knew the name and it verified something for him.
“Would you share with me about your relationship with this man, my ancestors told me that he is the changer, the one who changes everything.”
“Who are your ancestors?” I asked.
“My ancestors are all who came before me, my lineage, our process of understanding ourselves as free beings. The past, present and future are our circle, our relationship of knowing and living in the unifying field of love.”
I nodded as he spoke. I knew that he must be a spokesman for his people, a spiritual elder, maybe even a chief. I didn’t really understand the status of a chief except that like Hank, the Master, a chief took on and felt responsible for the safety, survival, sanity and happiness of his people.
“Hank, the Master, as I now have come to call him, is our chief. What I have come to understand about him is that he is here for all people for all of life for all time.”
Makona smiled, “Then he is a great chief, as only a great chief would take that on. Could I prepare a meal for your chief? There is a request I must ask of him. The ancestors have this request and I am acting as a link to achieve that purpose.”
I shook my head yes, I knew that the Master worked with links to accomplish his work. Surely he would accept Makona’s meal and request. “I will ask the Master.”
We exchanged phone numbers. As I drove back I thought of the extraordinary meeting with Makona, such events in my life were becoming more and more ordinary and natural. I remembered all of the doubts I had had in the morning, to really serve the Master well, how I compared myself to Lodi. I didn’t know if I could be more like him. I decided not to doubt myself and to trust the Master’s trust in me. The Master always accepted me, all my mistakes and goofiness, laziness. He always loved me and forgave me. I won’t doubt myself, my love for him, his love for me. I vowed to keep trusting, growing in that love. I knew my mistakes were there for my learning, and I wanted to learn and I laughed to myself, so this is what passion is! This is my passion!
When I returned to the shack I could see that Lodi had already made some noticeable improvements. The generator was connected so we had electricity, running water too. I told the Master of my meeting with Makona and his request. He rubbed his chin and smiled, “It’s on for tomorrow evening at 6:00”.
Makona arrived promptly with food in hand. He made a fire pit in which the meal was wrapped in leaves. I was surprised that there was no pork or pig, instead fresh fish and vegetables were baked in the pit. We ate outside by the fire as the sun had already set.
The Master, still seated, with the fire lighting up his beautiful shining face, began his singing. His voice was soft and exquisite. Makona tapped out a beat and Lodi strummed his guitar. There were no words to the song, it was a steady hum that changed in duration. My heart felt full, full of love for the Master, our companions, and the night.
When the master finished his song, no one moved for a while. I wiped away the tears from my cheeks and I saw Makona do the same.
The Master spoke, “Makona, I have heard that you have a request of me? What is it? I will do my best to serve the heart of those you serve.”
Makona shared with us, with the Master, that the ancestors had recognized him as the changer, as the one who changes everything. The Master had a sweet smile on his face when heard this. He spoke deliberately and patiently to Makona, “Tell your ancestors they have prepared very well in helping my work to change everything. They have been with me in many ways and all along. They are with me now in your form. I will do what I have come here for.”
I could see that Makona was pleased and shocked at the depth of authority that the Master had spoken. I was too, as I had not seen him speak like that before.
Makona replied, “The ancestors have told me that they have created a link for you to meet the great mother of our heart, of our people, of our way. Could I bring you tomorrow to the location where she resides, where she has created a link for us to meet her?”
The Master closed his eyes and nodded yes. As Makona departed, he clasped hands with the Master and Master held him to his chest and whispered something into his ear that I did not hear and he did not later share with me. I could see that Makona had received something from the Master, something that he needed and wanted for a long time. Lodi and I talked about this remarkable meeting and he encouraged me to be ready to record tomorrow’s meeting with the goddess, the mother of the heart, as Makona had referred to her. I checked the batteries on the camera so I wouldn’t make that stupid mistake. I wrote in my journal about today’s remarkable meeting. I was really tired, but I remembered how much the master liked papaya and made sure to pick a few for him from the tree outside the window. As I was dozing off, I saw Tucson and my two girls playing in the pond at the ranch, I gave them my love and our hearts met and they smiled and waved to me.
The next day when Makona arrived, the Master greeted him first. I caught the moment with my camera, it was beginning to feel natural to me, I was able to stay out of the way and find the best place to stand or move to capture the scene. Makona motioned for us to get into his jeep, he would be driving us there. His long hair was pulled back. He seemed happy, that he knew this meeting with the goddess, the mother whom he called the “Original One, Maroo” would be a good one. Makona was a strong, good built man, his appearance could be intimidating, except for the fact that his big heart is what you felt first upon meeting him. It is obvious he was a deeply spiritual man. I asked him if my using the camera was okay. “Yes, this is an important moment for all of our people, for all people,” he added. He also said, “I have no idea what will occur,” he laughed when he said this.
Being new to the island, I was keeping track of our drive up the winding road. Lodi, too, was observing the scenery all the way. Perhaps he had been to this part of the island. The Master became chatty with Makona, asking him about his family, including them into the intimacy that the Master created with everyone he met. After about half an hour of driving, the road became a dirt one and a sign was posted that read: “Private Preserve, No Trespassing” Makona drove past the sign and said, “That doesn’t apply to me, to us.” The road got worse and as it kept going higher and higher, Makona drove the car mostly in first gear. The road ended abruptly (thank God!) and we got out of the jeep. We were standing on the top of a mountain that was above the rain forest. It was very wet, everything was drowning in moisture.
Makona turned to the Master. “That the sun is shining is very auspicious, it only rains here. We call this place ‘The First Rain,’ it supplies the fresh water for the island and creates the river where we first met.” Makona walked the ridge in a counterclockwise circle. He was in a deep state of concentration. Lodi looked at me and I took the camera out of the case and stayed out of the way and filmed Makona. The Master sat on a stone, he was simply present with his eyes opened. I did notice that his feet were dancing. When Makona finished his circumambulation, he sat next to the Master. “Maroo is happy that you brought the healer with you” and he looked at Lodi. “Maroo guided him to the island and he has helped our people.” The Master smiled and Lodi smiled back. “How can we help the Mother?” asked the Master.
“She has asked me to leave you with her, she has a matter of great heart importance to discuss with you. She asked that we leave the two of you in privacy.”
The Master nodded. We began to walk down the path. “Just for a while,” Makona assured us. As we walked, Makona asked Lodi about his healing work and ability. “I know the shaman whose son you were able to heal. He is doing well. His ego was shaken a bit that you were able to heal his son when he wasn’t.” In Lodi’s version, he had said that they had worked together, that was the kind of guy Lodi was. Makona asked him how he came to be acquainted with the Master, that story too proved to be very interesting, and he said, “Your Master is a very different kind of man, a very great man to take on the work he is taking on. I know, Maroo has told me that he will change everything. You must also be a very powerful healer to help your Master in that way.” Lodi simply said, “What I can do I must. This gift was given to me for a true purpose, I know that, it was confirmed when I met the Master and was able to serve.” I felt awkward being among these truly spiritual people, awkward and grateful, my admonition to keep growing and learning helped me in this ego-humbling circumstance.
The Master felt the voice of the Mother Maroo speak in his heart. “I can see that you are very big, beyond the limits that my children here believe in. This life with my children has come to sadden me and I feel a deeper thirst for a true love that they cannot give me. My children have been reactive to their need for me and I cannot serve their hearts if love is not recognized. Makona is the last of his line and he truly serves my heart to love all to live love. I do not want my love to grow barren, I want the people to feed from it—as I love them, they love. What can I do? I sense your heart is great and you are working here to achieve a miracle of great proportions, not just for my people but all people.” The voice was quiet and the Master now spoke from his heart to the Mother Maroo. “I am here as the Heart, openly lived and given to love. I am here not only to begin the revolution, I am the revolution. I am the source of Love, all arise in my heart, in my field of Love, I am the unification of all, I am the unifying field. I am here to show that ego-I and its pursuits are the unreality, the delusion, the unreal. There is no one here not to love, all beings are ready to live in the Truth that they are Love itself. There is no one else, the game of the ego is only a fear-based delusion that seeks for perfect sustainability, and because of its fear of never achieving its sustainability, it has produced all the ego-dominant games of unlove, hatred and fear.”
Maroo spoke again in the Master’s heart. “Yes, I have felt their independence from my heart as a deep shadow, a defiance that has only caused an insanity in how their lives are felt and lived. How, Master, can you change that?”
“I have changed it already. I am the authority that there is only love.”
Maroo was awed. “Forgive me, Master, my intuition is strong in that the power of love can accomplish everything. Where does your authority come from?”
“It comes from perfect Understanding, perfect Truth. Mother Goddess, as strong as your intuition is of the Reality of Love, have you never felt how your love and your loving is never fully satisfied?”
Maroo was quiet. The Master could feel her breathing in his Great Heart. He felt how deeply she loved and how deeply her heart ached. He parted his lips and the most beautiful song sounded from his perfect place, his Heart. He loved her perfectly and called Her to come fully into Him. And she did and her longing left her and her heart was full in His. The Goddess became only herself now as He is and she realized the Unifying Field of Love, the True Reality of Who She Is.
“Master, you have graced me with showing me your authority most perfectly. I understand perfectly now. I am with you always, perfectly given and perfectly. Love.”
“Are you not the Mother of all?” he teased her. “I have a request for you, Mother.”
“I will fulfill any request you have of me. You have given me love like no other could ever fulfill. You have given me myself without any limit, a love with no difference, no separation.”
“Will you not choose a body, will you not arrive here, to live as the Unifying field of Love with all the people? Will you live the new life without the fear that the ego-I lives, the new life always given in love? Will you show the people the face of love without fear so they can live with their need, their right to be no one—to be not an ego-separate one, to be Love?”
Maroo, the Goddess, the Mother, felt the Master’s request and her Free Heart could not shrink from this Great Request. “I will live as my True Self directly among the people. I will live as your living has shown me. I will do this.”
Katrin opened her eyes, she had felt her beloved Hank. She had felt his gift and her heart knew no bounds. Her heart was boundless! She jumped out of bed, she felt delighted and knew her beloved would come home to her soon. She dressed quickly, feeling his love for her and her love for him. How I love him, she sang and danced a few hula moves! How I love him! She knew what she wanted to do first on this glorious day. Her beloved was coming back to her! She went into the barn and went to her storage bin. She opened it and saw the thousands of seeds that she had collected over the years and had categorized so carefully and lovingly. She brought all those seeds to the light of day. In a ceremony of her own understanding, she took the seeds and walked to the pond. The sun was just rising and as a wind, a gentle wind was rising and blowing, she dispersed the seeds. They danced in the breeze and rose and flew! They flew to the earth to grow, and this place, their ranch of love, of beauty—this place of ‘From Here’, was here where it began.
Steve had been watching this curious sight from his cabin window. Katrin, wild with the passion of love, tossing seeds into the air. Yes! Of course, my vision, this is part of my vision! She was birthing the new people in this wild ceremony, he thought. His love for Katrin was boundless and he went out to greet her. She hugged him and told him the news, “Hank is coming back! My beloved is coming! He is returning to us!”
Steve was ready. He thought of his second dream of riding to the fire with Hank, with the Master. He had told no one about it. He would be ready to live it when that day would come. He would be ready be living love now, he would not worry about the future, about the fire, about the life of Hank or the ranch, about their own sustainability. He would not live in fear that life could end, he would serve his family—his teacher Katrin and her beloved Hank, the Heart Master, with all his heart. He felt capable of that, of loving past fear. He knew that this was some kind of miracle, a great gift, a gift bigger and better than his visions and lucid dreams. He danced again and again with Katrin. He was drunk with love. So, this is my new life, he thought and he danced some more.
Mana was road weary to be sure. The Master, totally radiant from his meeting with the Goddess, looked at his companions and said, “Time to go home, back to the ranch.” He turned to Makona and said, “She is living among us now, you have served her well.” The men walked down the hill to the jeep. “I’m going home! I’m going home!” That was the song in Mana’s heart. He ached to hold Tucson and his two girls. Mana took one last picture of the mountain as the Master’s form so beautifully graced it. He thought of how much he had learned, how his heart had grown. He knew that he was not the same man who had met his Master, his companion that he had called Hank. He had found and grown into his heart, into living the Heart, because of the Master.
Lodi looked toward the Master. Mana could see that Lodi was feeling a little unsure if he was returning to the ranch to live a life with the Master and the family there. Mana could feel his insecurity and touched Lodi’s hand and said, “You’re going to love the ranch. We sure could use a healer there, and your music accompaniment.”
The Master nodded and Lodi’s heart wish was fulfilled. He looked toward Mana and whispered, “Thank you, man,” as Lodi could have never asserted his desire to the Master, he wasn’t that kind of guy, but Mana was, and Lodi loved him for that.
The reunion of all the hearts of the ranch with their one big Heart was a day to be celebrated as every day! The revolution of Living Love now was alive and the world was dreaming all the possibilities of love. Over generations, love and its creative joy dreamed the unification of all, not as a legislative right, but as a natural course of living. The need to dominate, the fear of loss loosened its grip and love was lived among the people. The Great Master had lived among the people and had burned the seed of egoity, of its delusion of fear-based choices. Mana had preserved the songs of the master and His songs were sung all over the land. Steve had many visions that rang true, and he lived a life of growing into these visions. One day, not long after the Master had dropped the body, Steve had a vision. A little girl danced into his life and sang into his ear, “I am coming! I am coming!” And he knew the Heart in its wide openness, in its full expression of love, was coming. His daughter arrived nine months later.
Santosha Tantra June 2017
