Dreams and moments of awakening carry Jack deeper into the collective unconscious.

“Thought is always fragmentary and what it holds is always partial, as memory.” Krishnamurti




Chapter Nine Moments of Awakening




“… what is your original face before you were born?” A Zen Koan. And, it can help one to see that the “Inner Self,” the “Essence,” exists prior to birth and comes down in the invisible realm to make up that aspect of the total “I.” It is in fact real “I” in a body that entombs it. And the “I” that you call your self is that aspect that grows in contact with the outer reality that creates it to fit the needs of the environment in which one grows. One needs the personality to pay for ones material existence, and thus should develop a good personality. But the real work of man is to consciously grow an “Essence” that can relate to the invisible world beyond time thought.

The time that we spend in union with the spiritual self should increase as we grow older and have made some stride toward the work of a “Good Housekeeper.” How much time do you spend in connecting to, remembering “… your original face before you were born?”

I step out of the faculty room and see Mr. Strands, the music teacher talking to a sixth grader. “Did you get your elective changed?” he asks.

“No, I’m going in right now to talk to the counselor. What’s her name? The little girl asks with a big smile on her face.

“Mrs. Pounds. She’s in the office right to the left of the main counter,” he says. The girl waves good-bye and takes off in a trot.

“A new recruit,” I ask.

“Yea, I started a second beginning band class. There were several students like her who want to start playing an instrument.”

“So, what are you teaching your prep now?”

“Yea, and would you believe it, the site council offered to pay for it. I took the proposal in to the parent meeting last Thursday and it’s approved, already….”

“That’s one thing you can say for our district. They are really supporting their music program now. I mean, I can remember a time even here when there was much less support. Mr. C. used to come into our sixth grade combined classrooms about twice a month to give an hour lesson. And when I first started here, they had this kind of hip looking guy who came in once or so a week, but took off in the middle of the year to travel with a band.”

“Yea, each of the middle schools has a full time music instructor now. The high schools have two….They sure have been good to me….”

“Me too as a parent and grandparent. Vickie, my daughter, took guitar lessons from Mr. C. ‘course, I had to buy the guitar…. And Bella. Can you believe her choir got to sing at Carnage Hall,” I say as another student rushes up to greet Mr. Strands.

“Catch you later,” I say and head off to the portable where I’ll sub for an SDC teacher.

Sunday morning, as I walk through the orchards, I realize that I am not my body. I am way more than my body and as the mind is outside the body, outside time-space so is the real “I” that comes into existence when one dies to the ego, the brain, thought, the material self. Real “I” spreads out in every direction and is encompassed in the damp brown earth, the dark shadows, the green leaves, the bursting almonds, the wind, the sky, the half moon that hangs mid sky on the western horizon, the canal water that tumbles over a gravity spill. In empty space the ego disappears and the blue behind the moon holds court.

It’s Wednesday the first week of September. I walk into the faculty room for lunch and see six or seven teachers crowded around one table. I get my brown bag lunch out of the refrigerator, grab a newspaper from an empty table and take a seat on the couch. As I bite into my turkey sandwich, the art teacher, Marlene comes over to join me. “You make it to any of the fortieth anniversary celebrations in the City?” I ask.

“No, but a friend of mine was out from back East a couple weeks ago. We took a guided tour of the Height. The girl who gave the tour had lived there in the sixties. She was really good….”

“I’ve never spent a day or night in San Francisco when I didn’t have a good time. What a city…. You know, I am so glad I ‘m not a full time teacher anymore. I don’t know how you guys can stand following the standards. As I sub now, I find everyone is doing the same thing. Even when I retired just five years ago, no one ever interfered with what I did in the classroom.”

“Well, as a art teacher, I have a lot more freedom than most. There are standards, but they’re very general. But, not everyone is following the standards. I have a friend who teaches kindergarten in Stockton. She refuses to be on the same page every day. Her school is in a poverty area, mostly Hispanics and Asians. She has most of the Hispanic kids. The other kindergarten teacher has most of the Asians. Last year, she had her students plant flowers in a little dirt plot outside the classroom. In the spring when the flowers came up, she had each kid find his or her own flower. Some how they knew the one that they planted. Then, she had the students paint their flower. One of the kids told her, ‘I never painted before. I don’t know how to paint a flower.’ Not to worry They’d work it out together she told them After that, she had the students write a little story about their flower. And boy, did they have a lot to write. The paintings and stories were hung together on the bulletin board….”

“Yea, now that’s real teaching. A teacher doing something that she loves to do, and the kids love it too.”

“The standards at that time right after Easter vacation had the children write about their Easter egg hunt. Most of the kids in the other classroom were Asian. Most didn’t celebrate Easter. They had no idea what to write about,” Marline tells me as the bell rings to end lunch.

Walking towards Jack London Square in downtown Oakland, Vance and I step into a small bar. Vance sits at a corner table while I go up to the bar and order a couple beers. We sip our beers and talk quietly. As we exit the bar, I ‘m telling Vance, “You know when I was in New York City, it was a great feeling to have a beer and step outside the barroom door knowing that you were going to be on the streets of New York City. ‘Course, its not so bad stepping into the streets of San Francisco is it?”

Outside the bar we find ourselves on Columbus in North Beach. We walk a half block or so and enter another bar. Again, Vance walks straight to small table. I start to order a couple beers and notice that Vance is still nursing the beer from the last bar. I get a beer for myself and join Vance at the table.

A couple days later, I’m substituting for a sixth grade teacher. I have her students lined up in two groups of twenty some on the sidewalk several blocks from school. The students are chatting and fooling around as they move slowly toward a cross street. “O.K. stop. Stop! First of all, when we are walking in a trail group, there should be no talking at all. Are you all in your trail groups?” I yell.

Mrs. Vermilion their regular teacher walks up between the two lines of students and assures me that they are in their trail groups. “Let’s take them back to the classroom,” she says.

“Oh, I wanted to give them some instruction while they are in their groups, and maybe walk them another couple blocks.”

The students are milling around chatting and goofing off. “O.K. Let’s quiet down. There are certain times when you are on a trail at Science Camp where you have to be completely quiet, when you’re on night hikes, on a difficult trail, when there are wild animals around….”

“We got the best trail group out here,” one of the students blurts out.

“You don’t have a trail group yet. I can change these groups anytime if I find that you don’t fit in. I saw a naturalist get right in a students face and remove him from the group,” Mrs. Vermilion says getting in the students face in imitation.

I’m thinking that I ought to tell the students that Mrs. Vermilion is right. How I’ve seen naturalists take students out of a group and send them back to camp during a hike.

The front line of students starts towards the cross street and the rest of the students follow. “Stop! Stop!” I yell at them. A half dozen students from both lines have crossed the street. I yell for the students on this side to back up, and direct the students across the street to return to this side. I guess Mrs. Vermilion is right. We’d better get them back to the classroom, I tell myself

It’s a day later. I’m in a jumbo jet with Anne and our grandkids waiting for take off. We learn that there will be a half or so delay. The flight attendant tells us that they will be lowering the ramp in a few minutes. People are up and milling around. I decide to get off to ask some questions at the ticket counter and pick up some fast food.

I bump into a fellow teacher, Don, who tells me that he too is headed for Scotland. “Yea, I want to spend a little time in Britain and Europe before I head back to Australia.”

Don tells me that I don’t need to get off for fast food. “They’ll serve you a good snack here since there’s a delay. The flight attendant can give you any information you need,” he adds. I see a flight attendant and ask if he can take my order. He tells me to return to my seat and he’ll be with me in a few minutes.

Walking though a foreign city with my granddaughter, Natzie, I see that we are heading for the poorer quarters. There are several women in long dresses and headscarves walking ahead of us. Their clothes are dirty and they look malnourished. We turn a corner and see an open market with rugs, fruits, vegetables, and domestic animals. “This is really exciting isn’t it?” I ask Natzi. She nods her head in agreement. Then I remember that our plane will be taking off in a few minutes. “We better head back to the airport,” I tell Natize hoping that we can find our way back

Next morning, I’m standing across from a wide river at a large resort in a wilderness area. Directly across from me is a narrow bridge. Parents from our middle school leadership association are decorating the bridge for the dance that will be held this evening. I notice that a second bridge crosses about thirty yards down river. There are a couple front office officials checking out everyone who might approach the bridge from this side. I’m sure that the will not let me pass.

Then, it strike me that I can video the dance. I start toward the bridge pretending that I’m holding a video camera. When an official beckons toward me, I point to the imaginary camera and keep walking. I figure I can film the before dance preparation to introduce the dance. Several parents have climbed to the top of the green steel bracing at the top of the bridge to hang posters and banners. I’m amazed that they have climbed that high and are hanging there with their decorations.

I leave the bridge to get the school video camera. When I return a beautiful black haired girl is walking toward me. She is all alone and I figure I can have her leading the crowd that crosses the bridge a little later by dubbing them in on the computer.

I’m on the second bridge. It is gray and empty. I focus across at the first bridge and film the bright banners and flags that the decorating committee is still hanging. I’m thinking that I can give the stuff that I shoot to the video tech who films the school dances. I figure that I’ll tell her to use what she wants and scrap the rest. It seems to me that the students will cross the first bridge and then have to recross on the second bridge to get to the auditorium. As gaze up river, I see the rugged mountain slopes the rise above us.

I’m in the auditorium filming the students and parents as they enter. There is a gigantic billboard at the far end of the auditorium. An assistant superintendent, Leo Scones, is climbing atop it spreading a red ribbon. I remember him as teacher and vice principal. He was always so good with the students. He was an expert in video filming and I always envied his knowledge as I was just learning to film and work the computer equipment when he was still teaching.

In a flash, Leo starts across the billboard like spider man weaving the red ribbon as he goes. He flits to the bottom of the board and then spurts back to the top and disappears in a puff of smoke. How did he do that? I ask myself as I focus the camera on the puff of smoke where he vanished.

The video tech enters the hall. “I’m filming some pre dance stuff. You can edit anything that turns out into your film of the dance.” I tell her.

“Well, since you have my camera, you might as well film the dance yourself,” she tells me and marches off.

“Guess I’ll have to relearn how to use the editing equipment,” I tell myself and continue to film the incoming students, parents, and teachers.

This afternoon as I sit with my coffee after a hard day’s subbing, it strikes me. Teach your own history lesson in every class, I tell myself. I recall the history lesson with my seventh period ESL class. The teacher is following the script from the authorized texts. We’re to read pages 143 to 153, discuss, do Cornell notes, and answer the questions on page 154.

The kids are from the lower half of the seventh grade section. It’s a substitute. Time to have fun. They’re coughing and laughing, and choking and making animal noises. “O. K!” I shout at them. You wanna behave like kindergartners? Kindergartners go home late!!!!” I Mark a large one on the board and tell them, “One minute after school. You can earn it off, or earn some more. I don’t care how late we stay. I gotta wait for the traffic to clear up, anyhow. Now, get out your books and open to page one forty one!”

There’s some mumbling and grumbling, a couple muffle grunts, some laughter, and a few quiet chirps.

“O.K.” I tell them erasing the one and writing a two. “ That’s another minute.”

I get up to four before they quiet down and open their books. “What page did ya say?” from a kid in the back.

“One-forty three,” I repeat pointing to the board.

“He just throwed something by me!” a girl up front shouts.

“Fernando!”

“NO I Didn’t!” Fernando shouts shaking his head back and forth.

“Yes he did… Him… He did….” Several girls say pointing at the boy behind them.

“O.K.” I say writing his name and adding a check.

“You didn’t give me warning,” Fernando whines.

“For throwing something I ought to give you a referral,” I throw at Fernando. Jocelyn giggles. I write her name on the board.

“What’s that for!” she shouts.

I add a check, and ask, “Anyone else?”

“Do the history lesson and then show how the texts never ask the questions why and how. How the texts never show how history is related to the events of the day. Tell the kids all history is war. And today we are at war. And some of you may have to go and fight in a war some day,” I tell myself as we begin the lesson.

It’s a Saturday morning in late September. The wind blowing from the north sets the leaves of the orchards in motion. Saturday, a workday and almonds are ripe and set in windrows where red and green machines brush them into the hopper. Across the canal a yellow shaker is empting the trees of their fruit one by one following the row. To the east, a white tailed hawk glides silently and spreads the cloudless sky. My footsteps quicken and my breath comes quicker. A red tailed hawk lifts out of one of the giant mother walnut trees and hovers above her. The hawk is not separate from the tree or the deep blue sky above it. And as my ego melts away the entire valley opens to the song of wind and sunshine.

A couple weeks later on a mid October morning as I walk passed the dead mother walnut trees again I am struck by the absence of the life and beauty of the mother trees. Last week when I saw for the first time that the dozen or so mother trees had been razed to the ground along with the hundred or more acres of trees, I was cut to the core by the loss. Today, I think that the spirit of the trees has been released and that it is free to enter other matter to create new life.

I had an inkling that some of the mother trees would be culled after I talked to one of the local ranchers. His white pick up was parked near a water tank at the side of the canal and he was either emptying or filling a mobile tank that he towed behind the truck. We shook hands and introduce ourselves. After a short conversation, I ask him about the mother trees and whether they had some special purpose.

“No, they’re just older trees. Some of them are sixty-five years old. The whole orchard has to go. It’s more than forty years old and not producing enough to make it pay….”he answered.

“Someone told me once, that they were used in breeding younger trees….”

“Yea, a while back they were used to help pollinate some younger trees. They’re no longer productive, though. We’re gonna have to cut them down….” he told me.

I didn’t think he was talking about the Promenade of Mother Trees. I thought he was talking about the individual mother trees in the smaller orchard,” I told myself as I walked by with bowed head.

Today, I’m teaching in Mr. Calverto’s sixth grade E.L.S. class. He has left me lesson plans enough to cover the full day. But, I stick in one lesson of my own. “Today, and the next several times I come to sub for you guys I’m gonna stress one thing. Focus,” I say as I write the word on the white board. “Focus! Write it on the top of your paper.” The students know me. I subbed a full week with them several weeks ago. And, I dropped into the room a couple times last week to see Mr. C. They say hello to me in the hallway.

“Remember when Kenna Turner spoke at the assembly last year. You know, Kenna Turner the Forty Niner who has done the writing contest the past several years?”

Elizabeth raises her hand. “We’re only sixth graders, Mr. Daley. We weren’t here last year.”

“Oh, yea. We’ll Kenna Turner was a Forty Niner running back. He has like four Super Bowl rings. He comes to speak to our students every year. About six or seven years ago, he talked about focus. You guys know Jerry Rice?” A few heads shake yes, but most shake no.

“Rice was one of the greatest backs that ever played, a hall of famer. Kenna played at the same time as Rice. He said that Rice wasn’t superman. He wasn’t that more athletic than most of the niners. But, the one thing he had was focus. When he was running a route, he didn’t think about anything but running that route. And when he made a catch, he wasn’t thinking about anything but catching that ball. He didn’t think about dinner last night, or about how cute the cheerleaders are, or about what he was going to do after the game. He stayed focused every second.

“That’s what I want you guys to do today. And, I’m gonna keep reminding you. The one thing I noticed the last time I subbed here is that some of you guys lose your focus too soon. If you really want to learn anything, you have to keep your attention on that one thing. When we’re reading from the literature book, when you’re taking notes, when you’re working on your composition, you have to stay focused. So, look at me. When a teacher is addressing you, when a classmate is talking, you have to look, pay attention, stay focused….” I tell them. All but a couple are paying close attention as I ask them to get out their English workbooks so we can begin work on the standards.

At an art colony somewhere south of Mariposa, I’m looking over paintings and sculptures that are scattered about a large studio. Several painters are rummaging through the art- work looking for specimens to send to an exhibit at another art colony out of state. Some of the paintings are done on butcher paper and in spite of the poor quality of the paper they look really good.

“Are you going to do some SIC paintings for the exhibit?” one of the artists asks me.

“No, I’m not a painter. I’m just looking at the work. By the way, what is a “SIC” painting?” I ask.

“It’s a painting where the letters S I and C are prominent. Sometimes all three letters,” he answers.

As I continue to examine the paintings, I can see the letters S, I, and C in them. They do not appear as actual letters, but as curves and background figures. The paintings are much more clear to me as I use the letters as focal points. Humm, maybe I ought to take up watercolors again, I tell myself.

Vance and I are walking across the boardwalk toward stairs that lead down to the beach. Near the stairs, I see a little girl with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I saw her there yesterday, and didn’t stop. I felt terrible the whole day,” I tell Vance.

“What’s the matter?” I ask the little girl.

“The stones won’t die. The stones won’t die,” she tells me between sobs. She’s hitting several small stones with a larger stone.

“They won’t die because they’re already dead. The stones are dead,” I tell her.

“My mother told be that everything is alive,” she answered.

“Your mother is right. But, it is all relative. The stones are more dead than alive,” I say. A big smile lights up the girl’s face and she stops striking the stones. As we walk down the steps to the beach, I’m telling Vance how glad I am that we stopped to talk to the little girl.

I’m walking towards a high road that leads to a path that I’ve walked many times before. The path wanders through a high mountain forest. A hundred or so feet below me, I see Alex walking on a lower path. I wave for him to join me. He returns my wave and I stop to wait for him.

Fritz approaches and joins me. I ask him if he still has the property that he had up in the foothills. He tells me that he sold that piece and has a few acres higher up in the Sierras. As he tells me about all the improvements that he’s made, I feel a little envious, and wish that I had a piece of mountain property.

I notice that Alex is still on the wrong path. He has walked passed the trail that leads up here and will have to climb up the rocky ledge. Below, there are a couple dozen men with picks preparing to do a ceremonial ground breaking of a new housing development. Alex appears beside me and asks if I don’t think we should go down to join them. He then tells me that we’d better move on ‘cause all that pounding on the ground might cause the road up here to collapse.

“Where you living now?” he asks.

“We just bought the top floor of the house we were renting. I’m not sure why we didn’t buy the whole house. Anne kind of was in charge of the deal. The lady we bought from said we’d be better off that way,” I tell Alex. He nods his head and we take off down the road. In a minute or so I look for him and discover he has gone. Maybe he went back to get some weed, I tell myself.

I’m in a mountain tavern. To my left is an old hag. She has a glass bowl that is filled with coins. She takes out a silver dollar and orders a whiskey and water. “Don’t any of youse take my nickel change. That’s what I use to tip the bartender. Last time somebody took all my nickels,” she tells me and the three guys to her left.

“With all that change I thought you might want to buy me a drink,” I answer her in a joking voice.

Alex comes in wearing a change of clothes. “When are you ever going to learn to face up to things? Do you know all of the things that you can’t face up to? You don’t even know why you didn’t buy the whole house. You let Anne take care of it. You have to begin to acknowledge those things that you can’t face up to. It’s the same consciousness. The lower consciousness that you have to enter,” he tells me.

I don’t face up to financial responsibility… I don’t face up to Anne… Should I tell Alex? No, Anne would kill me if she knew I was discussing her with Alex…. I tell myself.

“Did you ever really love her? You know when we first got our swimming pool forty years ago you were there every day. We couldn’t keep you out of the pool. And when we got the new house you were there day and night. We couldn’t get rid of you. It wasn’t always your fault. Half of the time you were too fucked up to know what you were doing….” Alex tells me.

What’s he taking about? It was him that we couldn’t get rid of, I tell myself.

It’s the first day of November. I’m walking down Eldorado Street in Stockton. I see that there has been an automobile accident. An old lady has been struck by a car. There is an ambulance and police car at the scene. I walk up to get a closer look. Someone covers the old lady with a blanket. She’s dead, I tell myself. In the car that struck her is a friend of mine, the music teacher, Mr. C. He gets out of his car and hurries toward a ten-story department store on the corner. I follow him inside.

“I killed her. I killed her. I’ll have to commit suicide,” he tells me as we climb toward the top floor.

“It was an accident. You didn’t mean to do it,” I reply.

“Yea, but I’m still responsible for her death. I’m responsible. I have to kill myself,” he says.

“Dostoyevsky said that we are all responsible for all. You’re a good teacher. You have something to contribute to society with your music. Killing yourself won’t bring the old lady back,” I tell Mr. C.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re right,” he answers and disappears into the down elevator.

Back on Eldorado Street with Alex, I’m telling him about the auto accident and the old lady’s death. “I hope I talked him out of committing suicide,” I say.

“Still, he was responsible. If he hadn’t hit the old lady she would still be alive,” Alex tells me.

“Remember, Dostoyevsky says that we are all responsible for all. I was reading his latest novel recently. I see what he is saying now. You have to consider the greater good. What is best for society as a whole? Mr. C is a good teacher. The kids don’t like him a whole lot ‘cause he’s very strict. But, he is a very good teacher. And, he writes music. He’s getting really good now. He will make a definite contribution to classical music. His death wouldn’t bring the old lady back. We have to consider the good of the all.”

It’s later the same day. I’m in the Oakland Coliseum for a Raider Game. Right up from the “Black Hole,” I’m sitting next to a couple of die-hard Raider fans. The guy on my right is wearing a black eye patch and a black bandanna. The guy on my left is wearing a T-shirt, which says, “I’m a Raider Fan Kiss My Ass.” “We’re taking a poll to see what Raider people think about the war,” the guy on my left tells me as he gets up from his seat with a pencil and pad. His friend follows.

I can imagine what kind of poll these guys will get, I tell myself and walk over to where Anne is sitting to borrow pen and paper.

I approach a middle-aged man in the food concourse and ask him what he thinks of the war in Iraq. As he mumbles a quick reply, I find that my pen is filled with tomato juice and there are big holes in my notepaper. I don’t hear a word the man is saying, as I am too busy trying to get the pen and paper to work. The same thing happens several times. Each time my pen doesn’t work and I don’t hear that is being said.

The heck with it, I tell myself. I’ll just pretend to write. It’s more important that I hear what these people are saying.

I stop a cheerleader like young girl who is strutting up the concourse and pretending to take notes ask, “What do you think about the war in Iraq?”

“Our country is doing what is best for America,” she tells me.

“What if you had to serve? You know we are running short of troops. The next thing you know they may be drafting women. What if you have to serve?” I ask.

The girl’s eyes open wide. He shoulders slump and she pauses for several seconds. “I don’t know…. I don’t know….” She tells me.