The next morning I got up and started hitch-hiking again. Practically all the traffic came from the Reservation Casino. It was interesting looking at the faces of the people leaving there. I tried to decide whether they had won or lost. That proved impossible. Some seemed to express some sort of tension, others didn't. Many of the cars had more than one person in the car. I knew from experience that there wasn't much chance of me getting a ride with them. Most of my rides came with single men.
I don't know what the real percentages are, but I suspect about half of the rides I got over the years was from men wanting to counsel with me about religion. It seemed as if it made them feel good to save a soul for Christ. I didn't argue with them, but rather accepted what they had to say. Many prayed for me in my hour of need. Sometime I would get saved 3-4 times a day. Many others were drinking. Some seemed so drunk I just wouldn't ride with them, but not often. Other time homosexuals would pick me up hoping for a little action. Most of them were married with children. I don't know how many times I got picked up during my sojourns by men who had left their wives and families and were just riding around the country. They were usually pretty sad and just wanted someone to talk to. Others were looking to party, but after having lived the domestic life for a while, they didn't know how. At least a coupla times this has happened and I would suggest we go to Mexico, and off we'd go. Well, they had been told what to do all their lives by somebody including their wives, most people have been, so they were happy to see me.
It seems difficult for regular people to realize how many people live in the United States, and that kinda stuff is going on all around them. It's not just their neighbors. The roads are full of lost people. They have been led to think that life is a certain way, and that if they do what they have been told, then things will work out. For most people it does. If things come up that don't fit the plan they deal with it somehow, but some never really get their act together. Maybe I'm one of those people. I don't really believe that, but I have to accept it as a probability. I wanted to live a life of adventure from the time I was very young.
I don't really remember much about the next ride I got, but I do remember he took me to an intersection about 25 mile west of Phoenix, Arizona, gave me some money to get something to eat, and I went inside the truckstop that had been a stagecoach station at one time. They had a restaurant and a big souvenir shop. It was a fairly interesting place with lots of antiques from the ranches around the area. I sat down in a booth designed for 6-8 people and ordered some food. Not long after I sat down an older man approached and asked if he could sit across the table. He soon told me that he had been a horse wrangler most of his life, and that he still rode in rodeos. He was 84 years old. He had on one of those shiny-looking jackets that had horses embroidered on it and the name of some rodeo he where he had won the senior title. He said he had bought a small ranch to break horses for the local ranchers that he came to in the winter time, but when it warmed back up in Wyoming, he went up there to work. He had spent his life going back and forth wrangling horses.
The next ride I got was with a trucker. He was driving a flat bed that had four huge tires on the back. They were so big they stuck out over the side of the trailer. They were used on some huge mining machine. Pretty amazing sight.
This guy drove out of California, and told me all about how he had just built a new home up north of San Francisco somewhere. He was a gun nut and liked hunting. He told me all about his guns and how pissed off he was that somebody has stolen his four-wheeled all-terrain vehicle in broad daylight. When we got to the weight station leaving California they told him he couldn't drive at night with a wide-load, and so he pulled into a small independent truck stop just up the road.
We went inside, and he asked me if he could pay for me getting a shower. I hadn't had a bath for a week or so, and my clothes hadn't been washed since Texas. I guess I was smelling kinda ripe. He bought a coupla six-packs and said he'd wait for me at the truck. So, I took a shower. When I went back out to the truck he offered me a beer. He told me he would give me a ride the next day if I wanted to spend the night there, but there was no room for me in the truck. I asked him if I could sleep up on the trailer between those huge tires. Too many rattlesnakes in Arizona to sleep on the ground. He said that would be fine, so I crawled up on the trailer and was soon out like a light.
The next morning bright and early, for some reason this guy didn't like me. Maybe he had a little hangover. I didn't drink but one of the beers. I was a little worried, him being a gun nut and all, that he would pull a gun out and rid the world of one more bum, but he didn't. He did start lecturing me on the Christian work ethic. He told me his boss had a fuel contract with a station that was a coupla blocks off I-10 and when we got there I had to get out. Fine with me.
He pulled into this fuel depot that looked like it was a regular service station for cars. It was a tight squeeze for him to get into. When he stopped I got out of the truck, walked around to thank him for the ride and be on my way. As I approached him, he told me I oughta think about getting a job. Right then, one of the tires blew out on his trailer. Pow!He glared at me and got out his phone to call his boss. I started walking away, and another tire blew out. Pow! He started yelling at me because I was laughing. I walked off looking for an entrance ramp.
I asked a Mexican fellow where the next ramp was. He told me it was about a mile futher east. I had to zigzag around the streets of downtown Phoenix to find it. When I did get near I found that the best way to get to the entrance ramp was to walk down the exit ramp leading to it. It led down to a city street and the entrance ramp was on the other side of the street.
As I walked down the ramp I saw a bum with a sign at the bottom of the exit ramp. He was bearded and wore fatigues, I figured he was a 'Nam vet down on his luck. I watched him work the traffic as I got closer to him. He hit up a coupla cars with a big grin and both of them gave him some money. He seemed to be doing alright. I crossed over the ramp to show him I wasn't invading his territory, and threw up my hand and waved at him. He gave me a big smile, and called out, "Hey bo, going to Carolina... eh?" I nodded and then made my way across the street to the entrance ramp. Just as I got on the shoulder of the ramp I thought about what he said. I looked at my gear to see if there was a sign or something that would tell him I was headed for Carolina. There was nothing. I turned to look at him and he was staring at me. He waved again and turned back to the off ramp traffic. There's a lotta strange people on the road.
The guy who picked me up next was a drunk. He had a cooler on the floorboard of the back seat where he could reach it. He asked me if I wanted a beer and I took one. I hadn't had any coffee and I was in the desert. It tasted pretty good although I don't really like beer.
This guy was all over the road. He wasn't speeding, but he did wander off on the shoulder of the road occasionally. He told me he was going home outside Wilcox, Arizona. It was the hometown of Rex Allen, a cowboy who became a movie actor. He lived outside of town on a ranch he and his wife owned. Said she was gonna kill him for being drunk again. I didn't say much. I just wanted to get to the next town to see if I could get in a little better place to get a ride.
All of a sudden this guy decided that he really liked me. He said he was going to "adopt" me and take me to his home where I could clean up and spend the night. I had been through this before. What he really wanted was somebody to be with him when he came face to face with his wife, and then maybe she would act a little different with a stranger in the house. I wasn't about to let this happen. When he stopped to get another six-pack I got out of the car and disappeared. He actually drove around a while looking for me, and eventually left.
An old trucker gave me my next ride. He was going all the way to Meridian, Mississippi, only twenty miles from where I was born.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
One of the most unbelievable events of my life happened when I took a hike in Yosemite National Park one summer morning in July. I climbed up an asphalt trail to the top of one of the lesser peaks there to have a look from what was described as a wonderful vista of the beauty of the park. I got to the top without too much effort. The top of the mountain had a fairly flat area and one could walk around it with ease and see the entire surrounding area just by going to different viewing points scattered around the top of the mountain.
After an hour or so it started drizzling rain and most of the tourists left. When the drizzle changed to snow, all of them left. I felt great about being on top of the mountain all by myself.
What I didn't think about was that the snow would cover the trail up and I might not be able to find it to get off the mountain. I thought it would stop snowing at any moment, and didn't worry about it. After all, it was July. It was summer. This freak storm could not stand.
I should have left right then, because it started snowing harder, it got deeper, the trail head was made indistinguishable from all the other snow covered objects of the area, and I soon found myself marooned there wearing only shorts, a t-shirt, and a pair of canvas deck shoes with no socks.
I desperately searched for a way to get off the mountain, but the sides of the mountain were sheer drop offs and the trail the park service had cut was the only safe way down.
It continued to snow and by dark it was up to a foot deep. I got frightfully cold, and my extremities were turning blue from that cold. I knew that if I did not get off the mountain before dark I would die.
With the additional snow my chance of finding the trail was negated, and when it got close to dark I concluded that I was going to die for my foolish decisions.
Just as the Sun was disappearing over the horizon I saw one last-hope area at the edge of the mountain that might have been the trail head. It was fairly clear of trees and brush and had a little slope down to the edge of the precipice. But the deep snow had blanketed any sure indication that the trail was beneath it.
I sat down on my butt and scooted my way down toward the edge to see if the trail went down and beyond my view in that direction. But as I came to the edge I could see nothing that resembled a trail, and just over the edge was a sheer drop down the face of a cliff for what I estimated to be around 700-800 feet.
I sat there weeping for a while, as my hope of surviving left me in despair. For some reason, I kept visualizing the Park Rangers coming up on the mountain the next day and finding my dead body. I imagined them speculating among themselves what kind of idiot would let himself be entangled in such a stupid situation.
Suddenly, I started scooting back up to flatter ground as fast as I could, and then when I could stand up easily I started running back toward the center of the recreational area in a big loop and then ran as hard as I could toward the edge of the cliff... and leaped out and over it as far as I could. I could not bear the thought of them finding me dead on top of that mountain.
As I took that final leap over the edge of the cliff I lost consciousness. When awareness returned I found myself walking toward a light, I assumed it was the light at the end of the tunnel I had read so much about and I seemed quite happy to be dead.
The light I saw in front of me was not that ethereal tunnel light, but a very earthly one. As I approached it and drew nearer, the light turned out to be a camping area light next to the bathhouse of an unused tent camping area. The door to the bathhouse was open, the inside was heated and the showers had hot water.
I was not dead... yet.
When I looked at my perfectly cobalt-blue body in the mirrors along the wall above the hand sinks, there was not a scratch on me, and my clothes were no more torn than when I jumped.
As I left the park on a bus down to Bakersfield and the warm desert, I suddenly realized I was about to forget the entire incident. I had to struggle to recall the event, and as I thought about what had happened I began to realize the implications of what had transpired. But, if I had not made a extreme effort to remember.. it would have faded away into the oblivion of the unconscious as if waking from a dream.
After an hour or so it started drizzling rain and most of the tourists left. When the drizzle changed to snow, all of them left. I felt great about being on top of the mountain all by myself.
What I didn't think about was that the snow would cover the trail up and I might not be able to find it to get off the mountain. I thought it would stop snowing at any moment, and didn't worry about it. After all, it was July. It was summer. This freak storm could not stand.
I should have left right then, because it started snowing harder, it got deeper, the trail head was made indistinguishable from all the other snow covered objects of the area, and I soon found myself marooned there wearing only shorts, a t-shirt, and a pair of canvas deck shoes with no socks.
I desperately searched for a way to get off the mountain, but the sides of the mountain were sheer drop offs and the trail the park service had cut was the only safe way down.
It continued to snow and by dark it was up to a foot deep. I got frightfully cold, and my extremities were turning blue from that cold. I knew that if I did not get off the mountain before dark I would die.
With the additional snow my chance of finding the trail was negated, and when it got close to dark I concluded that I was going to die for my foolish decisions.
Just as the Sun was disappearing over the horizon I saw one last-hope area at the edge of the mountain that might have been the trail head. It was fairly clear of trees and brush and had a little slope down to the edge of the precipice. But the deep snow had blanketed any sure indication that the trail was beneath it.
I sat down on my butt and scooted my way down toward the edge to see if the trail went down and beyond my view in that direction. But as I came to the edge I could see nothing that resembled a trail, and just over the edge was a sheer drop down the face of a cliff for what I estimated to be around 700-800 feet.
I sat there weeping for a while, as my hope of surviving left me in despair. For some reason, I kept visualizing the Park Rangers coming up on the mountain the next day and finding my dead body. I imagined them speculating among themselves what kind of idiot would let himself be entangled in such a stupid situation.
Suddenly, I started scooting back up to flatter ground as fast as I could, and then when I could stand up easily I started running back toward the center of the recreational area in a big loop and then ran as hard as I could toward the edge of the cliff... and leaped out and over it as far as I could. I could not bear the thought of them finding me dead on top of that mountain.
As I took that final leap over the edge of the cliff I lost consciousness. When awareness returned I found myself walking toward a light, I assumed it was the light at the end of the tunnel I had read so much about and I seemed quite happy to be dead.
The light I saw in front of me was not that ethereal tunnel light, but a very earthly one. As I approached it and drew nearer, the light turned out to be a camping area light next to the bathhouse of an unused tent camping area. The door to the bathhouse was open, the inside was heated and the showers had hot water.
I was not dead... yet.
When I looked at my perfectly cobalt-blue body in the mirrors along the wall above the hand sinks, there was not a scratch on me, and my clothes were no more torn than when I jumped.
As I left the park on a bus down to Bakersfield and the warm desert, I suddenly realized I was about to forget the entire incident. I had to struggle to recall the event, and as I thought about what had happened I began to realize the implications of what had transpired. But, if I had not made a extreme effort to remember.. it would have faded away into the oblivion of the unconscious as if waking from a dream.
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
The next morning I set out to go to Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean. I thought to just go there and stick my toes in it. That was not to be.
I looked on my map to chart a course to there from Ontario, California. There was a big throughway nearby that would take me straight downtown. I walked to the entrance ramp and put my thumb out. I was there for a while before I got a ride with a truck driver going home in his car. He took me all the way through L.A. to a place just south of downtown. He told me what a favor he was doing to get me through the central area. I believed him. Just as we passed by the center part of town where all the tall buildings were we passed a little grove of trees at one of the intersections. A middle-aged man sat on the ground waving carelessly to the passerbys. He seemed pretty doped up. For a moment I saw myself in him, and I didn't want to be there. That feeling stayed with me the entire time I was in the area.
I saw the LA County jail in the distance. I spent some time there when I was stationed at San Diego in the Navy. Thirty-seven days! I had gotten mixed up with the wrong kind of people. I wasn't innocent of what they put me there for, but it wasn't something I would have done on my own. This kid from L.A. saw me coming, and inadvertantly got me involved in attempting to prove I wasn't a yokel. My trying to prove to him I wasn't only proved I was. Hard times. I saw my first murder in that jail. In fact, I saw two of them, and I was supposed to be next. I didn't even have enough sense or experience to be afraid.
Things got mixed up around L.A., and I kept getting short rides that didn't get me anywhere. I finally figured out that I didn't have a place I really wanted to go except to the ocean, and that wasn't happening easily. I decided to turn back and return to North Carolina. I finally got a ride west back toward I-10. One of the places I found myself was in Southeastern L.A. in the same area where the Watts Riots took place. This was not a place I wanted to be. I felt very nervous there. I found myself at an intersection in what seemed to be a very desperate part of town with a lot of desperate people giving me the eye. I wasn't sure why, but I had the distinct feeling their intent wasn't congruent with my well being. I started walking east to another intersection that might be a little safer place to be. I must have walked about 10 miles until I reached an entrance ramp in a little better neighborhood. There, it didn't take me long to catch a ride.
The guy who picked me up was on his way out to an Indian Reservation that owned the closest full casino to Los Angeles. He was a member of that tribe, but had married a white woman and lived off the Reservation. He told me that he was in charge of the maintenance of the Reservation, but he didn't have anything to do with the Casino part of it. As we rode along, he told me a little bit of the history of the tribe. What he told me was pretty interesting. In general the land granted to the Indians was the most undesirable land around, but fortunately for this tribe, the land had a large canyon that was covered with peat moss. This allowed water to collect there and survive the desert conditions during the hot months. During WWII, however, the government came and removed the peat moss claiming they needed it for the war effort, and this left the tribe destitute. Only when they built the Casino did their fortunes improve.
This Indian guy told me that he had been an athlete in his younger days. He had almost made the Olympic team in one of the track events. That's when he became a Christian. As soon as he asked me if I had been saved I understood why he had given me a ride. This was not an unusual situation at any time during my hitch-hiking days. I began to wonder what I could bargain for to let him save me. I was hungry, so I started working a food mojo. It didn't take much. I asked him if they had restaurants at the Casino, and if they were expensive. He asked me if I was hungry. I told him I was, and he said he would buy me a good breakfast. When we got to the Reservation he drove me around a little bit so I could see how much better the Indians lived now by comparing some of the old huts that were still around with the more modern houses and double-wide trailers. Then we went to this upscale franchise restaurant to eat. He recommended the potato pancakes, and they were delicious. As good as I've ever eaten. I don't know whether they were really that good or I was just so hungry it seemed that way.
After we left the restaurant he drove me back to the intersection of I-10. But when we got there he pulled over to the side of the road and asked me if he could pray for me. I knew the best thing to do was just to go along with him. He grasped my left hand in his and began a long prayer for my soul. At the end of his prayer he asked me if I would accept Jesus as my savior. I said I would. I didn't tell him this same thing had happened four or five times in the last week. It seem to make him so happy he reached into his pocket and gave me a wad of bills. He counted it out first so I would know just how generous he was being with me. It amounted to $17. I took the money and acted like I was putting it in my right hand pants pocket. He talked to a little more about how happy I would be about my decision for Christ, and then he let me go. His eyes followed me as I crossed the road to the entrance ramp, and then he looked down and saw that I had left his money in the car seat. He screamed at me to come and get the money. I refused as nicely as I could . He got out of the car with the money in his hand, waving it at me like it was a victory cup. I still refused his money and walked a little further up the ramp. Finally, he drove off. I don't know if he ever figured out that my soul wasn't for sell or not. I sure haven't. I may have already sold it. Who knows?
This intersection was an interesting place. There was a railroad running parallel to the Interstate. A coupla long trains passed by while I was standing there, so I kinda figured it was one of the main tracks coming out of L.A. toward the east. Across the tracks and down in a little valley was a concrete mixing plant. Beyond the buildings that made that plant up was some low hills that had a little vegetation popping up here and there. This was part of the Mojave Desert and it seemed a little unique in the way the colors, mostly various shades of brown, fit together to form a pattern. It must have been the background for a lot of the western movies filmed around Hollywood. There were a couple of good sized trees on the corners of the intersection. After I had stood waiting for a ride for a while in the hot sun watching the faces of the people leaving the casino I decided to take a break in the shade of those trees. The tension I had experienced by being in the city for the last coupla days caught up with me, and I decided to spend the night there. I found a little niche in some bushes just behind the trees and laid me down to sleep.
I looked on my map to chart a course to there from Ontario, California. There was a big throughway nearby that would take me straight downtown. I walked to the entrance ramp and put my thumb out. I was there for a while before I got a ride with a truck driver going home in his car. He took me all the way through L.A. to a place just south of downtown. He told me what a favor he was doing to get me through the central area. I believed him. Just as we passed by the center part of town where all the tall buildings were we passed a little grove of trees at one of the intersections. A middle-aged man sat on the ground waving carelessly to the passerbys. He seemed pretty doped up. For a moment I saw myself in him, and I didn't want to be there. That feeling stayed with me the entire time I was in the area.
I saw the LA County jail in the distance. I spent some time there when I was stationed at San Diego in the Navy. Thirty-seven days! I had gotten mixed up with the wrong kind of people. I wasn't innocent of what they put me there for, but it wasn't something I would have done on my own. This kid from L.A. saw me coming, and inadvertantly got me involved in attempting to prove I wasn't a yokel. My trying to prove to him I wasn't only proved I was. Hard times. I saw my first murder in that jail. In fact, I saw two of them, and I was supposed to be next. I didn't even have enough sense or experience to be afraid.
Things got mixed up around L.A., and I kept getting short rides that didn't get me anywhere. I finally figured out that I didn't have a place I really wanted to go except to the ocean, and that wasn't happening easily. I decided to turn back and return to North Carolina. I finally got a ride west back toward I-10. One of the places I found myself was in Southeastern L.A. in the same area where the Watts Riots took place. This was not a place I wanted to be. I felt very nervous there. I found myself at an intersection in what seemed to be a very desperate part of town with a lot of desperate people giving me the eye. I wasn't sure why, but I had the distinct feeling their intent wasn't congruent with my well being. I started walking east to another intersection that might be a little safer place to be. I must have walked about 10 miles until I reached an entrance ramp in a little better neighborhood. There, it didn't take me long to catch a ride.
The guy who picked me up was on his way out to an Indian Reservation that owned the closest full casino to Los Angeles. He was a member of that tribe, but had married a white woman and lived off the Reservation. He told me that he was in charge of the maintenance of the Reservation, but he didn't have anything to do with the Casino part of it. As we rode along, he told me a little bit of the history of the tribe. What he told me was pretty interesting. In general the land granted to the Indians was the most undesirable land around, but fortunately for this tribe, the land had a large canyon that was covered with peat moss. This allowed water to collect there and survive the desert conditions during the hot months. During WWII, however, the government came and removed the peat moss claiming they needed it for the war effort, and this left the tribe destitute. Only when they built the Casino did their fortunes improve.
This Indian guy told me that he had been an athlete in his younger days. He had almost made the Olympic team in one of the track events. That's when he became a Christian. As soon as he asked me if I had been saved I understood why he had given me a ride. This was not an unusual situation at any time during my hitch-hiking days. I began to wonder what I could bargain for to let him save me. I was hungry, so I started working a food mojo. It didn't take much. I asked him if they had restaurants at the Casino, and if they were expensive. He asked me if I was hungry. I told him I was, and he said he would buy me a good breakfast. When we got to the Reservation he drove me around a little bit so I could see how much better the Indians lived now by comparing some of the old huts that were still around with the more modern houses and double-wide trailers. Then we went to this upscale franchise restaurant to eat. He recommended the potato pancakes, and they were delicious. As good as I've ever eaten. I don't know whether they were really that good or I was just so hungry it seemed that way.
After we left the restaurant he drove me back to the intersection of I-10. But when we got there he pulled over to the side of the road and asked me if he could pray for me. I knew the best thing to do was just to go along with him. He grasped my left hand in his and began a long prayer for my soul. At the end of his prayer he asked me if I would accept Jesus as my savior. I said I would. I didn't tell him this same thing had happened four or five times in the last week. It seem to make him so happy he reached into his pocket and gave me a wad of bills. He counted it out first so I would know just how generous he was being with me. It amounted to $17. I took the money and acted like I was putting it in my right hand pants pocket. He talked to a little more about how happy I would be about my decision for Christ, and then he let me go. His eyes followed me as I crossed the road to the entrance ramp, and then he looked down and saw that I had left his money in the car seat. He screamed at me to come and get the money. I refused as nicely as I could . He got out of the car with the money in his hand, waving it at me like it was a victory cup. I still refused his money and walked a little further up the ramp. Finally, he drove off. I don't know if he ever figured out that my soul wasn't for sell or not. I sure haven't. I may have already sold it. Who knows?
This intersection was an interesting place. There was a railroad running parallel to the Interstate. A coupla long trains passed by while I was standing there, so I kinda figured it was one of the main tracks coming out of L.A. toward the east. Across the tracks and down in a little valley was a concrete mixing plant. Beyond the buildings that made that plant up was some low hills that had a little vegetation popping up here and there. This was part of the Mojave Desert and it seemed a little unique in the way the colors, mostly various shades of brown, fit together to form a pattern. It must have been the background for a lot of the western movies filmed around Hollywood. There were a couple of good sized trees on the corners of the intersection. After I had stood waiting for a ride for a while in the hot sun watching the faces of the people leaving the casino I decided to take a break in the shade of those trees. The tension I had experienced by being in the city for the last coupla days caught up with me, and I decided to spend the night there. I found a little niche in some bushes just behind the trees and laid me down to sleep.
Sunday, May 11, 2003
A person asked me directly if I was the living personification of the I Ching. I don't gnow his intent in asking me this question, but I do gnow how it affected me. My answer to him was that I don't use the book I studied through using it for over thirty years.
I do think the voice that told me not to use the book as an oracle anymore came directly from the I Ching entity I installed in myself. My use and study of it did install it in my psyche in such a way that it acts in my psyche of it's own volitions, and my querent's question appeared to be about whether or not I was it's stooge or not. The answer is yes, I am strongly influenced by the wisdom I found in myself as a result of subjecting myself to it's influence. I am influenced to an even greater degree by other systems of thinking.
Mainly, I am influenced in thought and action by the King James Version of the Bible. I was raised to adulthood where it was the chief resource of the people around me in my family and community, and still is. It was everywhere. In every media I was exposed to both at home and in the public venue. To even question it's veracity was to invite social disaster upon my person. And yet, as I matriculated into puberty, I did just that. Quietly, with some subterfuge at first, then all out rebellion. I defied the God of the Bible in the most direct fashion I could muster. But, by the time I did that, it was too late, it was already a part of me, and simply became the standard by which I sought other influences. I was at war with myself. At war with an invisible enemy that was not really an enemy at all, but which existed as my conscience that made me consider my words and actions with a particular bias that led to predictable results. It stratified the way I ideated my point of view.
My real war was about wanting options to this predictability. I hated being predictable. As I got away from my natal family and the communities I was associated with due to my family, it became even more apparent that others were aware of my predictable nature. They could easily manipulate the way I responded to them because they knew that people who had been taught to think of themselves in this particular mode would respond to the stimuli they provided in ways they could take advantage of. And not only that, but in ways totally unbeknownst to me. I absolutely hated thinking that I had taken some unique path to another way of seeing the world, only to find them waiting for me on the front porch of my destination, sitting there patiently waiting with a smug smile on their face. What seemed even worse, they seduced me into doing and saying things that contradicted everything that I valued and held sacrasanct whether I was consciously aware of such values or not, and left me praying for relief from a God I had arduously denied as a possible savior.
I needed systems of thinking about things that was at least unpredictable to people working run-of-the-mill mojos. I began to look at the very systems people of this ilk found objectionable.
I wanted to box outside the Queensbury's Rules. I wanted to learn to be street smart in a way that allowed me to cut the crap, and if not win the good fight, to at least find strategies of retreat that would allow me to fight again another day. Total capitulation to my childish vulnerabilities of predictability would not satify. I needed... the occult! Or, so I thought, and so I did.
Over the years, I found that rejection of the system I had been raised to rely on was not enough. Even my great war with myself was not enough to declaw my detractors, because even this rejection was predictable, and led to the same end.
I met a guy during my various sojourns into the world outside the familiar who read Tarot cards. I followed him around like a puppy for about a year to learn how to do this system. This lead me to a person who indoctrinated me into the 'mother of all the occult systems', astrology. Then, about the same time I was given a copy of the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the Book of Changes in a very odd manner, and I became aware of the subtleties of reading palms. I became deeply involved with learning these devices, and over the next thirty years they became the weapons with which I fought the mediocrity of my early years. I certainly became more unpredictable, and I was certainly left alone to stew in my own juices while following this path. It did lead me into communion with others who were at war with themselves, but it did not satisfy a deep and abiding need to be at one with the other.It did lead me to understand that the other was not "out there" beyond all the noble rhetoric I had become a professor of. It lead me to my own person, and to the acknowledgement of what I needed to do to be at home with myself.
I do think the voice that told me not to use the book as an oracle anymore came directly from the I Ching entity I installed in myself. My use and study of it did install it in my psyche in such a way that it acts in my psyche of it's own volitions, and my querent's question appeared to be about whether or not I was it's stooge or not. The answer is yes, I am strongly influenced by the wisdom I found in myself as a result of subjecting myself to it's influence. I am influenced to an even greater degree by other systems of thinking.
Mainly, I am influenced in thought and action by the King James Version of the Bible. I was raised to adulthood where it was the chief resource of the people around me in my family and community, and still is. It was everywhere. In every media I was exposed to both at home and in the public venue. To even question it's veracity was to invite social disaster upon my person. And yet, as I matriculated into puberty, I did just that. Quietly, with some subterfuge at first, then all out rebellion. I defied the God of the Bible in the most direct fashion I could muster. But, by the time I did that, it was too late, it was already a part of me, and simply became the standard by which I sought other influences. I was at war with myself. At war with an invisible enemy that was not really an enemy at all, but which existed as my conscience that made me consider my words and actions with a particular bias that led to predictable results. It stratified the way I ideated my point of view.
My real war was about wanting options to this predictability. I hated being predictable. As I got away from my natal family and the communities I was associated with due to my family, it became even more apparent that others were aware of my predictable nature. They could easily manipulate the way I responded to them because they knew that people who had been taught to think of themselves in this particular mode would respond to the stimuli they provided in ways they could take advantage of. And not only that, but in ways totally unbeknownst to me. I absolutely hated thinking that I had taken some unique path to another way of seeing the world, only to find them waiting for me on the front porch of my destination, sitting there patiently waiting with a smug smile on their face. What seemed even worse, they seduced me into doing and saying things that contradicted everything that I valued and held sacrasanct whether I was consciously aware of such values or not, and left me praying for relief from a God I had arduously denied as a possible savior.
I needed systems of thinking about things that was at least unpredictable to people working run-of-the-mill mojos. I began to look at the very systems people of this ilk found objectionable.
I wanted to box outside the Queensbury's Rules. I wanted to learn to be street smart in a way that allowed me to cut the crap, and if not win the good fight, to at least find strategies of retreat that would allow me to fight again another day. Total capitulation to my childish vulnerabilities of predictability would not satify. I needed... the occult! Or, so I thought, and so I did.
Over the years, I found that rejection of the system I had been raised to rely on was not enough. Even my great war with myself was not enough to declaw my detractors, because even this rejection was predictable, and led to the same end.
I met a guy during my various sojourns into the world outside the familiar who read Tarot cards. I followed him around like a puppy for about a year to learn how to do this system. This lead me to a person who indoctrinated me into the 'mother of all the occult systems', astrology. Then, about the same time I was given a copy of the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the Book of Changes in a very odd manner, and I became aware of the subtleties of reading palms. I became deeply involved with learning these devices, and over the next thirty years they became the weapons with which I fought the mediocrity of my early years. I certainly became more unpredictable, and I was certainly left alone to stew in my own juices while following this path. It did lead me into communion with others who were at war with themselves, but it did not satisfy a deep and abiding need to be at one with the other.It did lead me to understand that the other was not "out there" beyond all the noble rhetoric I had become a professor of. It lead me to my own person, and to the acknowledgement of what I needed to do to be at home with myself.