CHAPTER 24 Brand New Pure, Recycled Deja' Vu

I guess Bonnie had read my mind in our brief conversation about Jerome, Arizona. I need to mention her last name here, although I have avoided last names in most of this story. Her last name was Slagle. It matters when it comes to Deja' Vu.

There was an incredibly spooky feeling about the place and not just because it was a ghost town. The feeling of having been there before was almost like coming home - or perhaps like having never left. Part of the feeling unquestionably, was Bonnie. We just somehow fit. We didn't need to talk. Another part of it was historical and I discovered later, perhaps a part of the collective memory that most of us it is said, carry around with us from earlier generations.

I knew little or nothing of my family history at the time. I discovered through family genealogy many years later, that in the nearby town of Cottonwood, my great-grandfather Benjamin Nathaniel on my father's side of the family, had lived and my grandfather Claud had been born. I was re-tracing the footsteps of my ancestry. I was delving my roots with no knowledge of the discoveries to come. The feeling was rather like rummaging through an old attic full of things that had once been your own.

I was also becoming more in touch with God, although you rarely realize things like that when they happen. I had always professed Christianity. I had no idea at the time that I was on something more than a prolonged acid trip.

Realizations come slowly, so as not to startle us. We marvel at the concept of Eternity while we busy ourselves with the concept of time. The celestial clocks given to us by God - the sun, moon and stars, are simply not enough for the mankind of modern times. We mark, measure, separate, weigh and market time in an effort to buy, sell and trade it as a commodity. We thus, become frantic idiots; slaves to the mathematics of an abstract concept that Time and Money are the same thing. Mammon is a monster - eating us all, alive.

Since the day in 1967 that our country was removed from the gold and silver standards, our money has taken on the value of that same abstract concept. It serves however - to keep the masses working and under control. As long as we can be kept busy and feeding ourselves, we remain that three or more celebrated meals this side of social revolution. In other words the financial elite who really run things have us well trained; to obey our calendars, clocks and watches - as well as our checkbooks and credit cards.

It is a most powerful magic spell, making slaves of us all.

In 1752 as a matter of fact, our methods of keeping track of time changed with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. In 1752 we lost something like two months of time. In addition, we continue to manipulate and "play" with Daylight Savings and other time-keeping methods that can with just a few seconds of manipulation, make a massive change in the quantity of our Gross National Product. None of us really, knows what time or day it really is. Therefore dear friend if you feel your job is grinding you down into spiritless submission and that our economy is stripping you of your very soul, rejoice. You have reached an important realization. Our economy and our society in the guise of Patriotic Endeavor and/or Judeo-Christian Work Ethic, is doing exactly what it was intended to do in the first place - dominate and control you.

It is a Lie - the very biggest in these times of The Great Deception. We are almost all, slaves.

And what is really funny about Time; It is by definition immeasurable; for all our instruments of measurement, even our atomic clocks, shall be reduced to their own elements before the job of measurement is finished. The pyramids are testament. I submit to you that the only practical measurement of time is in the developing generations of mankind and the unfolding events of life according to the will and plan of God.

I don't mean to preach to you. I am assuming you are a younger person and that some of this at least, is new information to you. This is not a lesson to teach, it is a realization to share. The prophecies shall be fulfilled. Without them, we have no goals to live for. What I mean is, there are times when God just seems to say; "OK, now YOU do it". If you don't, you are stuck.. for at least a lifetime.

There are many references to the word "house" in the Bible... the "House of David", the "House of Solomon" and so on. We usually take the meaning to be shelter. The meaning can also be " Family, Place in time" or "Generation". Hebrew words often have several meanings. Us non-Jewish folks need several understandings.

With that in mind, consider this interpretation of the scripture John 14:2; "In my Father's house (domain/family/generation/place in time) are many mansions (families/generations). If it were not so, I would have told you". Consider here the word "mansions" in a generational context. The meaning can be interpreted as "many fine families". No doubt there is an allusion to quality here.

God among all his other roles, serves as our perfect DNA example from which we attempt to replicate perfection in our various human and sexual passions. It is our sin nature that we as humans must of course, screw it up in some way. We were given the freedom to do so. We continually stamp our genetic graffitti on every life that evolves from us. It is our nature to sin. Sin, of course represents our choice to disagree with God. Not because it is wise, but because he allows it.

Placed naked on a perfectly flat surface and confronted with a perfectly vertical wall, both surfaces unlimited in all directions and without blemish; we would create a graffitti. That is, we would find a way to do SOMETHING to those perfect surfaces that would mark our presence. That mark being the only distinction in all of infinity, would likely become the very spot where our descendants would worship. Inevitably of course, they would wind up worshiping the spot itself instead of God - the way we have learned to worship church buildings in many cases. And Time. And Money.

Mammon. It is the chosen God of mankind.

"In my father's house are many mansions" to my mind, is a theologically clear statement of the fact of time travel. Time travel requires truth and karmic innocence. Innocence requires one to have exorcised himself of lies - and thence, the fear of death.

Understand it is not death itself that we should fear but the fear of death - fear itself. Fear is the "hook" that ties us to our concept of guilt. Guilt devours innocence, and there you have a description of what I regard as Original Sin. Not only is that true just for Jesus, but for you and me too. Time travel. Me. You. Jesus. Rebirth, not reincarnation.

I don't presume to tell you how to wind your clock, I am only telling you the time. I am also suggesting that it may run in more than one and indeed, in many directions at once. Try this; "In my father's place in eternity, are many generations". The experience of Deja Vu' therefore, may be our contact with eternity. Deja Vu' is most likely our more natural concept of time.

Deja Vu' permeated every waking moment of my life in Jerome, Clarkdale,
Cottonwood, the Verde Valley and Prescott county jail. I was in other words in "that" state of mind, my lifelong occasional reverie, for most of my waking moments.

I arrived at Bonnie's house in "The Gulch" well after dark. The Gulch was a precipitous road running from the base of Mingus mountain at the city limits of Jerome, to rejoin the main highway a half-mile further and about 200 feet higher. Bonnie was taking a bath when I knocked. Never modest, I barely had time to say hello before we were on the floor, making love. Damn, it was good to be home.

It was here in Jerome that I first heard what I call the "Holy Hum".

Mingus mountain on which Jerome was built, is considerably hollowed out from years of copper mining. In spite of that if you listen on a very quiet morning on a very clear day, you may hear a very deep vibration that is at once almost audible and almost not. The vibration must be at about 25 cycles per second. You feel it in your mind and sense it in your soul long before you hear it in your ears if indeed, your ears hear it at all. It is the kind of sound or feeling that would be emitted by a monstrous electrical transformer the size of a mighty ship. Perhaps it could be described as the sound of a giant diesel locomotive many miles away, which never draws closer. For me, it accompanies tinnitus - ringing in the ears.

The Hopi indians it is said, were the most holy and spiritual of all the Native American tribes. Local stories have it that they were drawn to Mingus mountain in ancient times, for their holiest ceremonies. From there legend has it, they divided the world into four parts. Tribes of the Hopi went in all of those four directions and it is said, reunite spiritually every year on Mingus. Mingus mountain is in other words, the center of the Hopi universe. Having camped on the top of Mingus and lived near its rib cage, I can believe it. There is much more to that mountain than meets the normal senses.

Within thirty miles of Jerome is Prescott, Arizona located on the other side of Mingus to the southwest. Just below Jerome to the north is the Verde River which cuts through some of the most picturesque and inaccessible Indian cliff dwellings imaginable. Bows, arrows and other artifacts were still being discovered in those caves in the middle 1970's. Further up an old country road to the west is Parson Springs and a wilderness area known as Sycamore Canyon. Off to the east a few dozen miles are the spectacular rocks of Sedona (another of my Great Grandfather's stomping grounds). South and east of there are the deserted Verde Hot Springs where it is said, many a hippie has been carried off this earth by aliens in UFO's. It didn't happen to me even though I sent them a telepathic message daring them to take me.

There were other unmistakable servants of fate though, one of them was my friend, Ed Roland. Ed was a tall black man in his late 20's. He wore his hair in a natural afro style and was a devotee of exotic herbs and pure foods. This was a man to be reckoned with and to befriend. He was a wealth of information about folk remedies and there was not one stitch of superstition within him. No mojo jive or gris-gris voodoo in his array of curatives. His approach to health was simple and straight forward. You got a bad tummy? You drink gotu-cola tea with a little peppermint and golden seal. Maybe you should chew on some fennell or down some flax seed tea. It works. There's no need for witchcraft or bullshit. We became good friends in short order.

Deja Vu' - my taste of eternity, just about consumed me during the times that Ed and I would take nutritional sabbaticals at a farm along the Verde river. We would enjoy fresh vegetables such as corn on the cob, right in the field. It was raw, delicious and very satisfying. The Deja Vu' was unexplainable at the time but I came to learn later that BOTH sides of my family tree were represented in the local history. My great-great grandfather (another one) Alexander Strahan had owned a large stretch of land next to the Verde river where I was feasting and exploring. It was quite likely that he and I were fed from the same land, separated by several generations of genealogical ignorance on my part.

I never knew these things until some 25 years later, but I was standing on the ground where BOTH of my great-granfathers had lived and worked. The gulch house and most of the buildings in Jerome were quite probably visited by them in their times, more than 100 years before. The Strahan sons were into mining, it is told. The Phelps-Dodge mine was indeed, the driving force of the local economy until its closure in the 1950's. It is quite likely that my ancestors on both sides of the family, had worked there.

Deja Vu'? Did I mention Deja Vu'? My great-grandfather Alexander Strahan had in fact, donated the land for a local cemetery and a local school in Cottonwood where my grandfather Claud Wortham was born. The name of Alexander Strahan's wife? (go back a few pages and look quickly at the opening paragraph of this chapter). His wife was Melinda Slagle. Bonnie and I were quite likely distantly related. As are we all.

Good friends sometimes do crazy things together. Ed and I decided to go search out the legendary fields of marijuana in Kansas and Nebraska. Kansas City was Ed's hometown, so we decided he needed to visit his mother as well. Legendary fields of marijuana? Did I say legendary?

During the world wars, there was much need of rope for the Army, Navy and other services. Rope was mostly made from hemp in those days and grown abundantly throughout the plains states. You can't kill out all of such a crop and hemp, dear reader, is plain old Mary Jane. The male version was preferred for rope since it has a long, straight stem. We were in search of the female version with the lovely, illuminating flowers. I had a recipe for harvesting weed that I learned from my friend Scott.

Understand that I am not encouraging you to try this, I am simply sharing the knowledge so you will appreciate the dynamics. This is a job for experienced persons. Don't try this at home.

First, you dig a large ball of dirt up with the marijuana plant, saving as many
roots as possible. Gently wash the dirt away, leaving the root system exposed and as intact as possible. Tie several plants together to make a bundle and immerse the roots in a large pan of cold water which has been placed on a stove. Turn on the heat and s-l-o-w-l-y over a period of an hour or two, bring the pot to a slow simmer. As the sap rises from the roots and stem you will notice that the leaves of the plants have turned sticky with resin. That is the very resin that dark, block hashish is made of. The yellow, crumbly kind is made mostly from the pollen of the flowering plants and is the finest quality you can get. Colors in between the crumbly orange/yellow and the black tar-like version are a mix of the two substances.

What happens in the boiling process is that the water from the very warm pot is being sucked up by the roots, forcing the sap out onto the surface of the leaves. After the pot has boiled for at least an hour, strip the leaves from the stem and lay them on paper or plastic to dry. You may freeze them if you wish (for gourmet smokers who like to dry their own), but sooner or later they will need to be dried. Mary Jane makes a fine seasoning for stews, salads and
casseroles. I find it remarkable that so many people choose to smoke it. Ingested, it gives a very mellow glow to your sense of well being and lends itself to the control and cure of quite a few minor ailments. I was able for instance, to pass an eye test and obtain my commercial drivers license after months of gentle feasting of this sort.

For Ed and I both, the trip was a challenge and fun. The old truck I had traded for in Phoenix had been pieced together from an old 1952 chevy windowed panel truck body bolted on a 1948 chevy 4X4 army ambulance frame. The engine was a fine old 1953 GMC inline six cylinder with no flaws. The front wheel drive had developed a problem so I had removed the front axles and let it free-wheel. It was safe, just not a hill climber. The heater was out, so I converted a back seat air conditioner that I had cannibalized from an abandoned Cadillac. Itworked well enough to drive with all the windows open in decidedly cool weather.

In the back was a sleeping bag, a little food, a bowie knife that my friend Ray had given me and little else. Ed and I took turns driving to Kansas City. On the way we stopped and checked a few places for hemp, but found nothing. We only
stopped once to sleep in an open field. The trip was essentially uneventful. Kansas City was cordial and pleasant, Ed's mom was a sweet lady, and I was made very welcome.

On the way back to Jerome however, things became really strange. Ed was driving almost every time that we were stopped by the cops and it happened several times. I had to hand it to him though. He somehow smooth-talked his way out of every situation. We were only searched once. In one situation we were escorted to a police station where during questioning, he stated flatly that he was my brother (indicating that I might be a little retarded), and we had been to see his mother. He did that with a complete poker face. What's more, the cops let us go. They didn't even smile. Somehow, we made it back to Mingus mountain.

Funny, I didn't FEEL Black.