This occurred to me, through a set of circumstances that bear telling elsewhere. Events in my life added to the melodrama that is attendant to teenage years, making it more desperate and unknowable than I could have previously imagined. It was, I would fantasize, like living through a war or a natural disaster and then making my way through the ruins. Post-apocalyptic literature seems to be somewhat vogue today-it resonates with us, not just because of fear and apprehension of the future, but because it has already happened. We’ve lived through an Armageddon of ideals. The wars of the past cetnury destroyed civilization-have no doubt about this. We are only now starting to rebuild. Wars put paid to our pampered notions of civility, and laid bare the true extents of the human condition-down along dark contours the lineaments we are only now beginning to fathom as it has finally been long enough. The past can still speak to us, but only because it is at enough distance we can listen.

 This was no less for true me-tradition was torn and shredded, blown apart by the explosion of being. Church and State were both irrelevant institutions as far as I was concerned. It was oddly liberating. Having lost most of what I had before, I found myself free to explore unfettered by any but the worst of societal expectation. Truly, there was no path here-this was not on any of the maps my forefathers left me.

The Hobbit Habit was an independent book-store before there was a word for such a thing. In an age before mega-bookstores and the Internet, most places to buy books were still independently owned affairs. Usually, they had familiar stock divided into sections not to dissimilar to what you’ll find in Barnes and Noble today. But, perhaps because it was a university town, this store was somewhat different. This wasn’t apparent at first: when you walked in, the first covers that greeted you were science fiction and fantasy paperbacks. I went in-at first-to round out my collection of Michael Moorcock’s various fantasy series. However, as I walked deeper into the store, other things came to my attention. 

The cover of one book was decorated with a gilded diagram of spheres and paths connecting them.   

“That’s a good one.” the store owner advised….To Be Continued…

I’ve been a story teller my whole life. Since I was a kid, I wove tales to entertain myself and other people. Outrageous stories with super-heroes, talking animals, journeys to outer space. Although obviously fictional in content, sometimes I would insist that what I told was the truth, and had, in fact, really happened. These were kids’ stories, like insisting there was some sort of monster in the water, that I had once seen Bigfoot, that I found a lost valley of dinosaurs. But the thing is, a story doesn’t have to be real to be true. The point was that sometimes, someone would actually believe me and there was a brief, transcendent moment where I related the tale and they went there with me. Not only that, the story was entirely real, unquestioned. The story was the reality.

A story may never have happened, but a well written one has truth that is apparent. As the story ages its power disseminates throughout society without diminishing. It becomes a strong enough part of common experience that it shapes and defines it. People quote the story without knowing, its ideas are incorporated into the strata of our being, until it is hard to say who we are as a people without the story that we’ve all heard before. What was once mere fiction transforms into a level of being that is higher than our mundane lives. As its idea pervades us all the story becomes real.  This is a very actual and very terrible truth.   

I had an implicit understanding with myself that I was telling stories for a higher purpose. Each iteration was different than the one that preceded it, closer to the unattainable perfection every writer imagines but can’t put into words. I tell stories for myself. Each tale reveals a truth of who I am. Art is alchemical-our lives are the alembics and furnaces. As we perfect our craft we somehow perfect the world that is around us, the two spheres mirror each other. To that end-the perfect story we know we will never actually pen-we put forth our efforts to capture some inner essence or truth of who we are and cast it onto the page, fevered and autistic, so we can read it later and see some small piece of the vast inner world we attempt to describe.

Those who are truly devoted to the quest will undertake any effort to see it fulfilled. I’ve watched others envoid themselves in solitude, drink into dementia, ingest any number of drugs, seek out wild and profane experiences all in the attempt to open their unconscious, to plumb its depths, to interface with the beyond and from that other side, return with a vision of greater meaning. I tried all these things: drinking, fucking, fighting, doing crazy and stupid shit. But none of them really worked for me. It never brought me over the horizon to the other shore. The way was too well-trodden-I merely found myself in lands already traversed by others. I needed to go where there was no path. To be continued… 

Some roads we know intimately, having driven, biked or walked them innumerable times. They may seem rather mundane, a part of the local terrain, no more marvelous than any other part of our daily lives. As such, people rarely stop to consider just why the street bears the name it holds. But each name holds a story to it, names are given with intentions. And all stories are interesting, no matter how small or local they are. Any real writer will tell you the story is in the telling.

I grew up in Athens, Georgia. Like many cities, there are some rather old streets (by American standards, anyway)-old enough that no one remembers why they bear their names. I’ve done some historical research for a novel and discovered new maps that showed the me the old city for the first time. I was amazed to find that Spring Street-located downtown-bore its name because they old Village Spring was underneath it. The spring came from out of a high granite rock and was an important source of water to the old community. I couldn’t believe it was paved over-and for years, dreamed of seeing the spring. Today you can, some of the asphalt has been peeled away, and the spring is apparent-and yes, it is small, but no less miraculous.

There is a Park Avenue in Athens, a short road that joins Prince Avenue and Boulevard. I always assumed that the road was named after the more famous New York address-but when I looked at the maps, I discovered that a park had indeed been on the avenue. There was once a small lake, trees. Today, it is a kudzu choked gulch lined with dilapidated concrete buildings.

There is a secret topography, forgotten once it’s not relevant anymore. The original court-house, jail and police station were all on Hill Street. This was because, before such things had been built, legal proceedings took place in the house of a man named Hill. None of these are present any longer-the courthouse was torn down, the police station relocated. I, in fact, saw the old jail burn. All that remains is street itself and so the reason for its name passes into distant, obscure memory.

Sometimes, the names are sentimental. Prince Avenue, once an exlcusive address, a road that still bears Neo-Classical estate homes (now, for the most part, long converted to commercial use), was named for Oliver Prince, a young man lost at sea with his wife. Other names were more practical: Market Street (re-named Washington), which led to the city meat market. Many streets bear the names of those the citizens deemed noteworthy-men who today are rather questionable in character, being slave-owners-men who built their wealth on the backs of the exploited.  

Discovering these old streets, sometimes with different names, always with a story behind them, brought out the life of the city and a life out of myself. We often see ourselves reflected in the world about us. Perhaps as we tour the boulevards and avenues of our lives, we also transit stations within ourselves. When we visit places in the outer world, we also voyage to a corresponding point within us.

There was one street I couldn’t find on any map-at first. I only knew about it from having read the writings of Dean Tate. Magazine Street-ostensibly named for the sale of gunpowder. I studied map after map-looking for the street that had so obviously been re-named. Why was its name changed? Perhaps the name’s connection with violence made it odious, perhaps it was on good real estate-and the name of a famous Athenian was now there, perhaps another name better suited to school or industry. But it was none of these things.  

There was once a tradition of burying the dead on College Hill. Jackson Graveyard, the small remnants of a much bigger cemetery, resides next to the Fine Arts building. A century ago, the plots of land occupied by the dead took up much more space. The University grew, and encroached upon these grounds. Another graveyard, Oconee Hill, was opened to accommodate the needs of the school and the town. Before this happened, there was a street that ran parallel to the Jackson Graveyard. It was Magazine Street. They sold gunpowder next to where they buried the dead. Sometimes I grin at this grim and ironic placement-other times, I wonder if the name was meant purely as a joke. Either way, there is some story there, a tale that could be told by the men who paved the road and put its name on signs and maps. The street no longer exists. The University annexed the land long ago.

During the late 70’s my neighborhood suffered a dearth of children to play with, and I spent long long hours in solitude (this was, in fact, how I got started writing stories). When I wasn’t writing, reading, or wandering in the woods behind my house, I spent an inordinate amount of time watching television. There was one event I looked forward to every summer: Monster Week. Turner Broadcasting-then a small, local channel-would have a week long monster movie marathon. My mother would indulge me and allow my fare of truly terrible monster movies: Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, Godzilla versus King Kong, Destroy All Monsters. It was great. All boys love monsters-especially giant, mutated, radiation spewing ones. During a commercial break, I went upstairs to get something (a drink, maybe more popcorn) and saw my mother shedding a few tears. I asked her what was wrong, and Ma, in her Long Island diction, said: “Elvis died today, Petah.”

Now, I tried to be sympathetic, no child likes to see their parent upset. But my mother didn’t know Elvis personally, and perhaps I was too young to understand nostalgia. What was more, I’d seen Elvis on TV-and, to me at least, he appeared to be a slovenly, gaudy creature that played tunes I didn’t care for. How could my mother possibly be moved to tears at his passing? Death is tragic, to be sure-especially when it is early due to unnatural complications like drug overdose. Not really understanding, I soon returned to my monster movies.

Many years later, I was fortunate enough to have children of my own. Everyone says that having kids will change you-and it’s very true. Some of the changes are obvious: we feel more pressure in our jobs-we need to make sure we have enough resources to provide; we feel more anxiety in our behavior-we don’t want to somehow accidentally raise our kids the wrong way. But some changes are not so apparent. For my own part, the understanding that we were all children once-that we are the results and consequences of our youth and family-really sunk in. I started to view humanity differently-and I like to think, if anything, it made me more understanding and compassionate of others. So many of us still live out the roles we assumed at such a young age-believing things about ourselves that are deeply ingrained and difficult to objectify from. I started to see the child inside of others.

When I was a boy, in addition to monsters, I also loved super-heroes. I still do, despite any literary pretensions it may seem that I hold. Heroic narrative is very satisfying when it’s written properly-and somehow, the absurd conventions of super heroica (secret origins and identities, garish costumes, impossible powers) add the proper element of the fantastic…of the mythic.

The universe of super heroes and villains is incredibly vast-with the majority of them being unknown to the population at large, only a relative few make it big enough to earn public recognition. Captain Marvel (Shazam) is, perhaps, one of these, having at one time outsold Superman. His younger counterpart, Captain Marvel Junior, probably doesn’t make the list. However, there was a time, in the 1940’s, when the young Captain Marvel Junior also sold very well-well enough that competitor DC Comics (which eventually bought the good Captain and his attendants) created Superboy. In real life, when a young boy is good, he is really good. You could never doubt his love for his mother, his desire to do the right thing, his eagerness to help others, his joy of learning about the world around him. Captain Marvel Junior, like many fictional boy heroes of the day, was created to exemplify these traits.

Not too long ago, I read that Elvis was a big fan of Captain Marvel Junior; in fact, his collection of Captain Marvel Junior comics is on display at Graceland. I learned that his hair-cut was meant to resemble the young hero’s (and after a moment’s thought, I realized how much it really did). The small cape he wore-it evoked Captain Marvel Junior’s own. Even the lightning bolt (the emblem and mandala of the Marvel Family) insignia of Elvis’ record label hearkened back to the boy hero. The discovery of the King’s love for the Captain completely surprised me. I looked back at Elvis, doing his stage show in costume: the cape, the full black hair, and I saw, in the smile he wore, something younger. There were earlier days in that face: a young boy whose twin died at birth, close to his mother, raised in extreme poverty, berated for his love of music. The boy reads the exploits of Captain Marvel Junior: stories about empowerment, doing the right thing, tales that could help bear a young man through his own trials. I saw the boy in the man and saw the man in a completely different way.  He was somehow even more tragic in that moment, and also, somehow ennobled. And I could at last understand how my mother cried the day the King died. He was a boy king and the death of youth is always a sad thing.

Up to that point, the crazed anger I felt at a system that had failed me in a vast manner expressed itself in typical teen-age nihilistic self-destruction. There was no higher calling to the extreme rebellion I felt welling up inside of me with beautiful, elemental fury. Little did I suspect, incident and cause would be laid up at my feet.

It was the Ides of March. I was downtown with some friends, drinking a beer and getting ready to go see a band play. At that time Athens had a local TV station that aired live footage. The TV crew was going around asking folks what they were planning to do on the Ides of March. It just so happened that my English class was reading Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, so of course, the play gave me what I thought were great ideas for a clever answer. The TV crew came to our table and asked my friends and I what our plans were, and I burst out with an exclamation that we should do to Reagan what was done to Caesar…although I must admit, I didn’t express myself too eloquently. Instead, it was just teen-age me saying dumb teen-age things. I was pretty pleased with myself at the time, very sure that no one could top what I said. I don’t really remember the rest of the evening-presumably, I hung out, saw a band play and probably tried to meet college girls.

I forgot about what I said-didn’t think there was too much to ponder on, really. A few weeks passed uneventfully. I played around with theater when I was in High School-the production at the time was Jesus Christ Superstar. One day, practice let out early and my mother showed up (she wasn’t in the hospital yet). Usually she picked me up late, and practice let out early-so this meant she was realy early. And that meant, of course, that I was in trouble. The thing was, I couldn’t for the life of me think of what it could be.

It turned out that, whatever the problem was, there were men at the house who wanted to talk to me-and my mother couldn’t tell me about what. That was particularly chilling-as my mother was my only real advocate. I racked my brains for what it could all be about this time.

Two men waited for me in my own house. One was a fat guy with a broken arm-local law enforcement. The other was a poster child for the SS: gigantic, dressed in a dark suit and tie, square jaw, perfectly combed blond hair and blue eyes. He asked me if I was who I was and then told me to take a seat-again, this was in my own home. It turned out he was FBI and they were investigating me. They had seen the film footage where I made my comical remarks about the Ides of March.  Remarks, I would like to reiterate, that were obviously made in jest. This from a local show in a small town on a Friday night on a station that no one (or almost no one, it would seem) watched. I was too shocked to be scared-the situation was surreal, like watching myself in some weird indie movie.

What I said was against the law. What about freedom of speech? Well, apparently, that’s open to interpretation. Technically, because of legislation enacted during the Kennedy administration, I was on the wrong side of the law-again. A lot of people today have lionized Reagan and his era as some sort of Golden Age. It’s their answer to the Kennedy Camelot. Well, let me tell you, it wasn’t that great. The nation was reeling from recession, the Cold War was stepped up so that WWIII and subsequent nuclear Armageddon seemed inevitable. All the environmental concerns I was raised in during my 1970s’s childhood were tossed out the window. Callow materialism gripped the land-the hippies had grown up to sell insurance and bought their kids designer clothes.

Here I was, a fourteen year old boy, trying to hold his own in the world, and the FBI decided I was enough of a threat to national security that I was worth investigating. They said the reason it took them so long to find me (two weeks or so) was because they assumed I was in college. After that, they looked through local High School year books and there I was-positively identified by a school teacher that was trying to date my mother. They knew who I was, where I lived, who my associates were. They took photos of me: my front and my profile. They gave me a hand-writing test. I was on record. Nothing else came pursuant; fortunately, I lived in the US and so a black bag wasn’t put over my head and I wasn’t dragged off into anonymous oblivion for insulting El Presidente.

When they left it took awhile for me to realize no real prosecution was going to take place. A colossal sense of relief fell on me as I felt that for the first time in recent memory, I was given a break. My father called and asked me what I’d done now. Nothing. I’d done nothing. Except open my stupid teen-age mouth and say stupid teen-age things. And to my surprise, Big Brother really was watching.

Years later, the US government talked its citizenry into going to war with the nation of Iraq. They did so with fraudulent evidence and deliberate fabrication of the facts. As a result, thousands died (20% of the casualties were children, by the way) and millions were displaced. Illicit spying on Americans by their own government was engaged-a person I know even said “as long as you’re not doing anything, what do you care?” Under the excuse of war, kidnapping and torture were also employed by a government that people assume is responsiblebecause they assume it is accountable. Countries are destroyed and private corporations are given contracts to re-build them. The cost of oil triples. Health care sky-rockets. The free press is just another business interested in profits. And the pockets of one percent or so of the population are lined with yet more gold.

Sometimes, I look back at myself when I was fourteen-1984. It was one of the most formative years of my life. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin: “Those who are willing to sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.”

            The Party is a little boring tonight. It’s one of those dazes when, the people are there, there is plenty of alcohol and other things, decent music is playing. But it’s still boring, and everyone there is just there and they’re not really sure why.

            I check my cell-phone. Nope, no calls.

            Jerry is dressed in some sort of fur-coat and sips on champagne while a guest-someone that looks human but I understand is actually a robot-regales him with a story. I’m not sure what it is with Jerry and Visitors lately, I guess it’s his thing at the moment. When the Visitor walks off, Jerry glances my way. His face is inscrutable, eyes beneath mirror lens shades. He nods imperceptibly, it is okay to approach.

            “Selena, my dear. I’m so glad you’ve returned from your-should I call it an adventure? It sounds so banal.”

            I smirk. “Adventures are for the petty bourgeoisie Jerry. They need to have uncomplicated stories with happy endings.”

            “So true.  So true. But,” he sips his champagne. “we’re not so sentimental are we?”

            “Oh no, not at all.” I reply and sip my own drink, a gin and tonic. We look at each other silently for a few seconds. “Jerry?”

            “Yes?”

            “Can I ask you a question?”

            “Certainly, my dear. What troubles you to ask?”

            “Well, the Visitor, the Blue Rose that turned out to be Roses, the Design you sent me to-did you do all of that, knowing what would happen? Were you trying to help those people in that other world?”

            Jerry sniffs, my directness is a breach of his etiquette. I knew that, but my desire to know the answer was greater than my social inhibitions. He places a hand on my shoulder and takes another drink-a deep one this time. “You see my Party? It’s boring tonight-it can’t always be good. Everyone is lagging and serious. But at other times, the Party is full of noise, life and playful madness. I told you once that my Party sustained this world, that as long as the Party lasts, this world will remain.” He pauses. “But, there are some worlds where my Party has been interrupted, where I am no longer there to throw the Party, and the poor souls there will never know the joy of being in or excluded from it. I think that’s a terrible shame, don’t you? People shouldn’t be deprived of me. So I needed to arrange things more to my liking. And there you have it. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I need to refill my glass.” And with that, he glides away.

            I check my cell again, no calls.

            Emma approaches me, a little excited despite the boredom. The guys have been giving her a lot of attention. I can see why-her new outfit is tight leather, a short jacket, stiletto heels. Her long hair is in a ponytail. The trademark Union Jack is a patch on the jacket. “I’m glad I came! This is fun!” she says.

            I smile. “I’m surprised you did.” Jerry let her in, saying it was the least he could do, considering he shot her full of rounds and almost killed her.

            “Ahh. I need to know the lay of the land, Selena.” Emma says. “But, um, you ready to go? I can see you want to leave and I’m not about to stay here by myself.”

            “Yeah. I got what I needed. Let’s go home.”

            We bike back to Virginia Highlands. I bought the bungalow from Heather’s dad. I didn’t want to-but I needed a place for us all to stay and I was already there and he wanted to dump the property as soon as possible. I’ll need to hit Jerry up for another job soon, but I can worry about that later.

            I can hear Monty Python before we enter the house. Oh brother, I’ll be so glad when he gets off this kick.

            Midi is sitting on the couch, chuckling at the TV and sipping on some wine. The cell-phone is next to him on the arm-rest. Just in case. I’m sure we’re safe, but better to play it safe. He hasn’t fully recovered, and neither of us knows how long that will take.

            “How was the Party?” Midi asks.

            “Boring.” I answer, and join him on the couch.

            “I think I have something to do.” Emma says with a wry smile on her face, and disappears to her room.

            I lean on Midi, and he puts an arm around me. The scent of coriander fills me, as my head cradles against his neck.

            “Midi, I have something to ask you.” I say.

            “Yes?” he responds.

            “Can we watch something else?”

            Midi laughs. “Of course.”

END

Brent and I held regular drum circles in the woods behind his house. We’d light up a bonfire, imbibe heavily and beat on drums. Sometimes we’d read poetry or compose stuff spontaneously. We’d dance around the fire. There was even a sweat-lodge. People came and went, and while we banged on drums it felt like we were somehow whelming a higher order of change into our lives, like demented teen-age shamans.

Brent was a big dude, and looked like a hippied out Clark Kent/Superman: large frame, black hair, square jaw, and glasses set on a beard, tie-dye shirt, sandals and a face that looked out onto other places. Once, when we were hanging out, Brent up and decided he was going to run for a mile. I laughed at him and didn’t think he could be serious. He didn’t work out regularly and considering the lifestyle we led at the time, a full blown mile run seems a little out of the question. Good as his word, Brent went and ran the mile. Without stopping and like it was no big deal. Brent was a brilliant guy, and could rattle off long chains of esoteric information. Sometimes, it was a little elliptical, long strands of well-thought out and convoluted insights hung together for you to see, if you could follow him.

Despite Brent’s good looks, intellect and very gentle nature, he wasn’t all that good with the ladies. Often, women would approach-initially interested by his appearance, maybe by the life he led. Then, once they spoke to him for awhile, they usually left well enough alone. At the time, it mystified me. But not only was Brent untroubled by it-he just didn’t seem to care.

I dated a lot of women in my pre-monogamous days. Taking them to see Brent was a sort of litmus test, based on their reaction to him, I could tell a lot about who they were. Brent certainly never failed to impress. On one occasion, he introduced me and my then girlfriend to Joseph Campbell. It was one episode out of a series, The Power of Myth on Bill Moyer’s Enlightened America. She and I watched the whole thing, mesmerized by the wisdom dispensed so casually by Mr. Campbell. One hour can change your life as they say. That sort of thing happened a lot at Brent’s.

People go through phases. Sometimes we’d meet at the drum circle often. Sometimes, we’d go for months hardly seeing each other. Then, we’d pick up where we left off, as if no time intervened. Student life, the life of young people, is like that. Brent would have his episodes. He would get obsessive about astrology, about reincarnation. He wanted to grasp the meaning of his life, as if it could have hard, cold reasons wrung out of it, like old water from a dishrag. Brent’s mother killed herself when he was younger. Taking in the fate of the parents, the child sees themselves as destined to repeat in some fashion the actions of their forebears. The child is the parent of the man. Brent usually only mentioned it when we were drinking heavily, but the self-service death his mother gave to him set an opening, legitimized a way out that said it was okay to bail. She did.

Brent started to claim that he was the reincarnation of a man from Mars. His soul had come here from the doomed civilization of the Fourth Planet and this explained a lot about things…I tried to talk sense into him, and when it became apparent this wasn’t going to happen, just sat and listened. I watched him unravel. Brent drank more and more. He switched from beer and liquor to robotussin. I started to avoid him at the bars. Men do that, we distance ourselves, give out the space that is needed when it is, and then-if you’re a real friend-are still there when the room isn’t required anymore. My last memory of him is watching him stumble to a trashcan outside (I was in a Euro-style pub in Athens called The Globe) and puke his brains out.

Two weeks before Christmas, a mutual friend told me that Brent was dead. He killed himself-carbon monixide run by a tube from the exhaust pipe of his car. He’d been dead for awhile and I’d just found out. The sensibilities of today reel at this-but this was a time before email or cellphones. News-personal news-traveled slow. If no one told you, there was no way to know. My friend was dead. Gone on to whatever awaits us all afterwards. I never saw the bonfire again. I never drummed again either.

We all go through phases. I didn’t keep up with Brent because I was muddled in my own life. Within a few months I ended a serious relationship, dropped out of college and wandered through my life for next few years. Brent’s death was another part of it-darkness was closing in on me, at long last.

That night I held it in at the Christmas party for as long as I could. At some point, when no one was paying attention, I stumbled out. I walked home. My house on Boulevard had a large back yard, cleared of all its trees. I went out back. A cold night, shot through with a dim haze of light pollution. The sky was indigo and only a few stars were visible. There was no toast, no salute, no rationalization that this senseless act was somehow alright with me. I never discussed it with anyone. No one could possibly have anything of value to say to me about it. Brent was dead. He was dead and it was like the whole time we both knew he was destined to go out that way. Somehow, we both knew I was going to bear witness to his ending.

When someone leaves us  perhaps the hardest thing to cope with is the most obvious. They aren’t there anymore. They don’t come by to visit. They don’t call to say hello. Whatever you did together was over-it wasn’t going to be done again. Whatever you talked about together was over-there are going to be no more conversations. All that we have left are the memories. But what was left of Brent? Who is going to remember anything more than fragments of some strange, quasi-shamanic guy who tragically took his own life in the early 1990’s? The man who was into Joseph Campbell, who dug magic and mysticism, drummed all night, wrote automatic verse? That night, I looked at what the Egyptians call the Ikkhemmu Seku-The Stars That Never Fail. The stars are eternal. It’s why they’re etched all over the tombs inside of the pyramids. The only thing that can live on, here in the temporal world, are memories. Memories persist. Thus, I resolved not to forget. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t forget Brent, his life and death wouldn’t pass event less into the night of time, meaningless and forgotten. I’d find a way to eulogize him, to commemorate so other people would know at least a little about him.

A young man walks briskly up a hill on a cloudy day. The sky is coin-gray, monotone and the air is thick with an unborn rain. He crosses a break in the tree-line, a section clear-cut to make way for miles and miles of powerlines. They stretch from tower to tower as far as he can see in either direction, strange dolmens that will be wondered at in ages to come. He nearly continues his hike, when he pauses. There, in the grass only a few feet away, small against the broad expanse, two turtles perform the latest in a series of actions that hearken back for millions of years.

“You still can’t hurt them when they do that.” the young man notes, mystified. He observes for long moments. Then, satisfied with what he has seen, he continues on his way.

I took a film class during the winter quarter of my sophomore year in college. Part of the requirements for the class was that we attend foreign film night at the university movie theater-which was every Sunday. This was a happy condition and I got to see a lot of great films from all over the world. The only drawback was that I had no car and had to ride my bike. Usually, this was no big deal. Athens, Georgia, where I went to school, is a small town and getting around on a bike wasn’t really difficult. If anything, it was nice supplementary exercise to work off calories from the vast quantities of beer I consumed.

That said, the films were at night, and I had to bike home in the cold-not fun. One Sunday,  Pedro Almodovar’s Matador played. My first exposure to this wonderful director’s films. Aptly enough, the film dealt with death-at least in some sense. After the movie, I hopped on my bike and began to pedal home. I made may way up the steep hill that went from the student center (which housed the theater), past the library to north campus and the way home. At that time, I was extremely asthmatic (it went away later, a tale for another day)-and perhaps it was the combination of cold air, the bike ride…I’m not sure. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. Gasping for air, I fell off my bike and collapsed on the ground. No one came to my aid. It was winter on a Sunday night. There was no one around.

Struggling to breathe is terrifying at first-but then, as asphyxiation sets in, it gets more relaxed. “This is it,” I thought. I laid on cold asphalt. Above me, the indigo sky was vast, full of the stars that never fail. I was going to die, cold and alone. It was okay. It didn’t feel too bad. It wouldn’t have surprised me if I went out that way. I felt myself rising up, as though I was no longer observing the night, but amid it. But then, something pushed me, gently, back down. It was like being lowered…and there I was on the ground and I could breathe again. Not tempting fate, I pushed my bike the rest of the way up  the hill and waited until on level ground to pedal home.

I had a spiritual teacher once who told me that in the near future I would have an experience that would leave me at a loss for words. She was a little enigmatic and while I thought it sounded cool, I didn’t really think anything too crazy would happen. Sometimes, when meditation is deep enough, death can result. There are probably a number of reasons why this is-perhaps the individual is at a point where they are prepared to give up their current incarnation, or they have gone too far to the other side and can’t come back; of course, the reasons may be more complex, personal and beyond our understanding.

While in deep meditation, I reached a space where events went beyond my own intentions. As in shamanic experiences I’ve read about, my body seemed to fly apart. I was going through the portal of death! And rather than feel the fear or dismay that I expected, I felt elation. All my life I had heard and read mystically inclined folks say “this is all an illusion”-referring to the temporal, physical universe. It’s sort of de rigeur, and a phrase that is repeated so much I got tired of hearing it. Yeah, yeah, it’s all an illusion. Whatever. Upon my experience, I found-to my surprise-they were totally right. It is all an illusion. The true, spiritual reality that informs the physical lays behind everything. It was like waking up-and I mean that literally. I thought: “It wasn’t real! It was a dream! Just a bad dream! Thank God!”  There aren’t words to describe the relief I felt. Have you ever had a dream where you were back in high school, never graduated, had to take a test on a subject you hate for which you never studied? That was how it was. This life, this physical incarnation, is the test I had to take that I never studied for. But it was just a bad dream! A goddamn dream! I woke up. I never told my master what happened-she probably knew, anyway. But she was spot on.

Nearly two years ago I almost died. I had a life-threatening health condition and was hospitalized for two days. This was different than the other times. There could be no willing surrender to the inevitable. I have three children. I couldn’t leave them. With a strength and a resolve that is born from the love a parent has for their sons and daughters, I fought my way through. I would not die. I would not pass through the doors. Not yet. It was the longest 48 hours of my life. When my wife picked me up-the entire experience, alone in the twilight and shadow of the hospital , seemed surreal, another dream. And when I was outside…there was a blue sky, the sun on my back. Birds, trees. People milled about, talking, meeting, doing their thing. I observed in silent wonder. Later, I was happily reunited with my family, my friends.

I’ll never forget that singular moment: blue sky, sun on my back.

Death is the silence, the meditation. Life is the sound, the action. The same golden thread is woven through them.

Here in America, our history relatively new, we are only now beginning to learn the land in such ways. Only now are appellations becoming apparent: Russian River for Pinot Noir, Colorado for mutton. Thus are the names of a place called out and recognized, as partners with our civilization.

But there are other, deeper names that go beyond practical functions. I’ve stood on the piazza built over a site sacred to Attis and Cybele. I’ve dipped my fingers in water drawn from the well of Niniane. Someday, I plan to walk the Camino Del Santiago and, in one of the great pilgrimages of the West, seek vision.

Once, the hills, forests and streams about me were named. In days gone by they were inhabited by mystical serpents with jewels in their heads, little people with hair down to the ankles, killer witches that croaked like ravens as they cleaved the sky. Not anymore. Only the river, the Long Man, Oconee, keeps the lore of the men and women that preceded me. The First People are gone-taken West long ago, and the names went with them. I make my way amid the  local world and wonder what the name was for the Granite Seats By The River. I wonder what spirit presides over the Stone Spring.  The rituals for the seasons, the trees and the herds held now only by ghosts unrecognized.

Sometimes, I sit on the hill overlooking the river, and wonder when there will be names for them again.

Long hours were spent in these woods with my childhood friends playing Star Wars, catching fire-flies, building forts and dams.  Later, in my adolescence, I took long strolls into solitude. I would sit in a silent communion, amid the trees, seated on stone slabs overlooking the river there was a silence that contained everything.

There are the burial mounds of the Cherokee Nation near the river. Graves dug into the top of a hill, covered with stone. Cedar and holly were sacred to the Cherokee, and still grow among the remains. Part of the funerary rituals of the Cherokee were cleansing in the river, which they called “The Long Man.” I walked among the dead near the river, respectful, my presence to keep memory.

Once, I was in the deep wood near the river, after a visit to the Cherokee graves. Thunder lowed from heaven and warm, heavy rain came down-fat drops that shook hands with the trees. The path was narrow, thick with brown and green that gave some canopy from the down fall. And then, before me, there was a deer-but unlike any I had seen before. It was unhorned, a doe, it was the color of tea, legs like reeds. I saw many deer in my years on the river. They are skittish creatures and bounded away to a safe distance in all my encounters-except this one. The doe regarded me intelligently. It was unafraid and knew I meant no harm. Long moments passed, and then the deer stepped into the brush next to the path and vanished. I went on, through the woods, in rain, by the river.

Many expect spiritual experiences to contain great revelations, explosions that accost and interrupt our lives. But often, the greatest moments of illumination are quiet and personal things.