In the next two weeks we spent all of our time  in groups; eating sleeping going to the

bathroom, taking showers, meditating, building, logging, cooking, cleaning,

gardening, and refining the lost art of “hanging out”.  I couldn’t get enough caffeine or

sugar and had a cold from the brusque and damp mornings and hard work.  But I had

others, an awkward bulky sense of togetherness.

Living down to the bones had it’s positive effects: I was coming out of a fog- but

unknowingly going in to a subtler one.  In spite of getting fat on brown rice  and my

overworked body, I began experiencing a natural high.  The kind of high that you get

if you’ve ever stayed up all night, or gotten a second wind from pushing your limits. 

Like laughing hysterically or falling madly in love or having revelations and

experiences of telepathy with others.  Picking tomatoes by moonlight or walking in

the woods.  Moments of inspiration and revelation came.  And went.

I was not ready to be here.  People were extremely serious.  

It wasn’t this way for everyone.  A friend I made later at the community told me that

he found that people were open with him.  He didn’t feel judged or that he had to

present a certain image to get positive reactions from people. He said that he was

attuned to collaborating and cooperating from his past experiences in V.I.S.T.A.  but

he said that here the focus was much more concentrated.  “People are committed to

raising their consciousness, not just doing humanitarian things.”  What do you mean

by conscious ness I bravely asked him one day.  He described consciousness as,

“Just being in every moment contact with the part of my mind that seeks to see the

truth of the situation, not trying to accomplish things....  To perceive reality, rather

than to mold it.” 

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But for me, unable to handle the pressure, after two weeks of the place I was getting

restless. I wanted to run around and disturb the facade of “holier- than- thou,’ the

“peace” that’s here. 

Louie and the Mushroom

I made friends with a  impish comedienne-type named Louie.  He immediately took a

liking to me. He reminded me of Alfred E. Newman of Mad magazine. It appeared

that he’d had a good deal of rejection in his life.  Maybe he was there partly because

of loneliness, like me.

He tended to put people off and to not be taken seriously.  Yet there was something

about him that was ingenious—his could of see right through people’s power plays

that were all dressed up in spiritual facades, and he had overflowing buoyant energy.

We soon rebelled together and become partners in mischief.  

One afternoon we broke away from the meetings and walked out in to the woods. 

We stopped before a large bright red mushroom with yellow raised velvety spots.

“Amanita Mescaria.” Louie identified the hallucinogenic mushroom for me. 

Without hesitation he plucked it and bit in to it.  He silently handed me the other half. 

For a minute I worried about the rule, “no drugs.”  But I rationalized that this was as 

natural as food, capable of perhaps bringing me some insight or vision that might

make my stay here more tenantable.  I then lay down on the grass next to Louie and

quickly fell asleep.  Before dozing off I had the thought that the mushroom didn’t do 

anything, after which I found myself falling straight down a long tunnel, like Alice in

Wonderland.  I experienced being somehow awake in my sleep:  I became aware of

Louie and it seemed that that he was aware of me.  Although I didn’t give it much

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thought, I  also was aware that I was in a different experience of time and space than

physical reality or a dream.  This experience was more active, more colorful and vital

than dream-time.  There was a  lucidity  that was distinct and separate from sleep. 

Louie and I were suddenly  free-falling down the tunnel, face to face.  He was

communicating to me, telepathically, that he was unhappy about our relationship—

something about my lack of attraction to him, or that he felt that I felt superior.  I could

only see his face.  I felt a great love for him but it was not the kind of love a woman

feels for a man.  I was about to explain this to him but as I began to speak something

started happening to him.  He was getting younger.  Before my eyes, he became a

baby.  Then the experience abruptly ended and   we simultaneously sat up with a

start.   “Wow.” Louie gasped.  

I told him of my experience.    He was not surprised at my report; it dovetailed with

his own experience.  Memory of this sort of thing was deceptive so I can’t say that we

had the same  experience at the same time, but I do know there were strong

similarities.

Still elated from the effects of the mushroom, we flew in to the dining hall, playfully

disrupting the somber atmosphere there.  It was dinner time as we ran through the 

room, rearranging forks and plates, laughing and deliriously yelling nonsense to each

other, and generally creating a commotion.  

Put off by our mood, people asked us what we thought we were doing. “Shh!” we

respond. We are doing IT.  We are acting important.”  

Within a short period of time we are asked to leave the community, I think it was by

Dale,  who would have told us something about needing to “grow more” and then

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come back. A few days after the incident with Louie, Dale suggested to Louie and I

that we were “getting too blown out by the energy” and needed to get away from it for

awhile. I went home to finish high school with no intention of returning.

Visiting dad in the hospital 

I went home to perhaps see my father once more and to finish high school.  My

mother was home for a few minutes before returning to the hospital, where she was

nursing my father, who was rapidly dying of cancer. “Millie,” he had said to her, “I just

want to talk to her.” When I walked into the hospital room where my father was

supposed to be I didn’t recognize the old withered man who sat staring out the

window and wouldn’t answer me when I asked if he knew where Lennie Odess was. 

He just kept staring.  I stood there for a minute.  Then I turned and left.  That was not

my father.  My father was a stout loud reactive man, angry, yes but not decrepit.  If

that was my father, that bitter looking skeleton, then his spirit was gone. An iron door

slammed shut in my heart.  I was not sad, I was repulsed. 

Mom wanted me to see Dad when he was dying, so I could go on with my life with a

clear conscience, she’d said. But as far as I knew, my conscience was clear.  I simply

hated my abandoning, judging, blaming,  father, who had gotten my hopes up, had

given me real respect at that family meeting and now was taking all those incredibly

relieving blessings away. 

“Which room is Mr. Odess in?  No,  that must be the wrong one.  I already went

there. There’s just some scary old man  in there who ignored me, looking out of the

window.  No that’s not him, are you crazy?  This guys tiny, my Dad’s much bigger,

this guys way older than Dad, and he doesn’t look at me or answer.  I’m

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not going back in there even if you say it is.  He’s EVIL.

Dad’s Death

August 20, of ‘71. I was out walking in West Hartford center on a beautiful clear blue

day. I became aware of a strange sensation, or rather, lack of sensation in my body. I

started feeling faint as I walked along,  I hadn’t taken anything that would have

altered my state of consciousness and yet I was getting light-headed; feeling more

like I was in a dream than in real life.   I felt as if I were being sucked upwards, out of

my body.  I started walking quickly to the nearby outskirts of town, until, nearly

running, I made it to a field near the end of the street that I lived on.   As I dropped

into the fragrant grass upon the soft welcoming earth, I was flooded with blinding,

misty light. A brilliant golden light obscured my vision.  Light flooded through and

poured through me, I could not see through this thick rich misty light. I closed my

eyes and the light was there.  I opened them.  It was still there.  All I could see was

brilliant, vibrant gold light.  I  was surrounded, imbued, and held by an awe-inspiring

essence.

I felt a great burden lifting off my shoulders as if a thousand angels were lifting a

weight from my body. It was as if the emotional ropes that had attached, entangled

and confused me were unraveling and leaving me, blessing with a welcome

emptiness and light became my body, like a cathedral through which golden light

flooded in through the windows.

I sobbed as a heaviness that I had no idea I’d been carrying lifted off of me. An

unbearable burden,  a yoke was being removed by a dozen  loving invisible hands. I

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couldn’t think, I was caught up in a dimension of sensation as ecstatic waves of relief

washed my troubled soul clean,  pouring over me, through me, massaging my brain,

my heart, my internal organs.  I felt lighter and lighter.  The 

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only thing that mattered  was that I felt the weight lift and leave me.  The relief was

profound.    I continued to be consumed by waves of energy and golden  light.  It was

enough, I was enough, life was holy, I was home safe and surrounded and blessed

by the energies that were pouring so generously through me. 

Eventually I regained my eyesight and “floated” effortlessly home . Like a cat, I glided

in to the kitchen, deeply quiet, meditative, in a state that reminds me of the term

“grace.”  My sister, Eleanor was sitting by the phone.

When I entered the house, she said to me, , “Daddy just died.”

The phone rang; it was for me.  My mother’s voice was pleading and urgent.  “Laura,”

she said, choked with emotion, but not so much sad as desperate: “Your father... I

have to tell you...I have to tell you that when your father, well, you know, he was

about to...Go.  He was dying.”  She stopped to regain her composure.  Firmer now,

and with conviction, she continued. “Laura, you know that I don’t believe in E.S.P. 

But something happened when he was dying.  He couldn’t speak.  He was trying very

hard to communicate something to me.  He looked at me with something to say  it

was in his eyes... I asked him,  I said, ‘it’s Laura, isn’t it?’  He closed his eyes. That

was the best he could do.  When he opened them tears were streaming down his

cheeks.  He seemed so HELPLESS, he wanted to communicate one last thing to me,

but, you could just feel, he was being pulled away.  He was so weak.  But if you could

have seen him, Laura, you would have known.  You would have felt how SORRY he

was to leave things like they were.  It was written all over him: It was like he was

pleading with me to hear him even though he couldn’t get the words out.  Laura, I

heard him, as clearly as if he were speaking out loud, I heard him in my mind; I heard

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him tell me in my mind.  He said to tell you that he loved you... and that it was NOT

your fault. “ 

I was not  surprised.  Relieved, convinced, but not surprised...”I know,” I said...”I felt

something.  I untied my sneakers, took them off wearily, and put them by the kitchen

door, then went upstairs and fell instantly asleep. 

Dream of Dad/ There is no death

Dad looked fabulously young- twenties or early thirties, optimistically shining with the

innocent openness of youth;  a vibrant, handsome dark face and a trim fit body in

perfect radiant health.  We flew into each others’ arms. I had a sudden thought and

drew away, deflated and deeply disappointed.

“What’s wrong?!” he asked in surprise. 

“This is only a DREAM!”  I responded, crushed.

“NO, Laura.” He said, with urgent earnestness.  

“You died, remember?  They cremated your body!  This can’t be you—You have no

body!”  I accuse my dream father of being a fraud, an illusion of unfullfilled wishes.  I

found it so hard to accept both this presence and the lack of it in physical life. I feared

that the universe was toying with my feelings.

He looked pleadingly at me, deeply concerned and with a strong intention.  “Laura...”

he said slowly, pondering the best way to make me listen; “This is not a dream.  This

is me...  How else would you recognize me if I didn’t come to you in this form?” “Hi

dad, ... “You look  fantastic.”

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Spirit in Flesh

winter ‘71

I was lying in a burned out basement with the full moon in my eyes...I was hoping for

replacement when the sun burst through the skies...There was a band playing in my head and I

felt like getting high...Thinking about what a friend had said, I was hoping it was a lie...Thinking

about what a friend had said, I was hoping it was a lie~ Neil Young

In the winter of 1971, just after the recording of Michael’s album, “Spirit in Flesh,” I

went up to the mountains again to visit.  I felt a need to come to some kind of terms

with this place.  The memory of it had burned a deep impression in my mind while life

as I had known it continued to pale in contrast.  It was shortly after the photographing

of the cover of the communities album, Spirit in Flesh. The photo on the cover of the

album was of the unfinished dormitory, with hundreds of people who lived there

hanging out of the dozens of un-paned  windows, bearded and wild eyed and happy,

adults and children.  A strange new order that I didn’t know what to make of but felt

connected to. 

I arrived at the farmhouse to find hardly anyone at all about.  I learned that the

community was sleeping during the days and staying up all night.   I was told that this

was because the energy was higher and more positive during the night.  best time for

the band to practice.  It was prophesized by  the Krishna Force, through the medium

of Elwood, that the 

Spirit in Flesh Album would sell over twenty million copies and rock the world with it’s

apocalyptic message.  (Actual sales would eventually reach 1,100.  The demographic

was composed essentially of friends and relatives of community members.

That night I heard Michael “singing”  in the band’s small studio building.  “How will he

ever make it?” I wondered.  He sounded constipated- trying so hard to push

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something out.  He wailed and screamed persistently and eventually, through the

sheer force of his will, did make progress.  He was driven.  

I admired that, reflecting on how difficult it is to be creative in this world.  The lyrics

reflected the communities philosophy:  “There exists a fine line, oh yes a fine line

between a man called crazy and a man that’s sane.  And we’re walking right on down

that line.”  Hmmm....is that supposed to be good?  “In a world of fear and greed how

can a kid that’s shooting speed find a new direction?  You know we do o.k. if what

people do or say don’t get in our way!”  Can’t argue with that.”

I’ve walked in this world without fear of reject and I’ve seen what a joy life can

be...the buildings seem brighter the whole world seems lighter without fear of anyone

you see!”  “I’ve got the weight of the world on my shoulders.  I’ve got to help it cause

it’s my home....”   “The meek shall inherit the earth.  We who were last shall be first.” 

“Hey all you people in the 

streets, I mean those of you who speak about freedom.  You say you’re getting

together but I don’t see how.  You meet stormy weather with no one around who has

a peace of mind.”