SANTA CRUZ CENTER SHINES

Me and Nirba worked hard and were focused on growing our little center. In the center was Joel my long time abalone diver buddy. His friend Teresa who was a short super cute black haired pure Sicilian woman. She was the center Italian Mom and had 2 great kids. There was Beate who was in her mid 20's. She was a strong German woman who worked as a nannie in Soquel. There was Jim who I still see and is a fixture in Santa Cruz. He looked like a Tibetan monk and was as simple. He was slow but there was a spirituality about it; a steadiness. He would also have great spiritual dreams and visions. Our gemstone was Cliona who was an Irish university student. She had long straight black hair, sharp eye-teeth and a definite occult facet. A dead ringer for the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. She was a cute and fun! We loved her. She was also a friend of to Eileen and was an employee at Hobbies at one point.
Nirbachita and I gave meditation classes at UCSC and at The Louden Nelson Center in Santa Cruz. Also we put on a number of concerts with the SF singers and Anuraga; the S.F. Center male ensemble group. Our joy days were simply the best at that point in the Center. They were modled on the early La Jolla Center joy days I had attended. Well organized, good food, unique activities and above all fun. If someone is going to brave Hwy 5 up Cali we wanted to make Joy Days very, very, fun for them. The crowning achievement was the the very professional biathlon we put on and the subsequent joy days that followed. Sundari, singing group leader from S.F. Center always made stellar pies and fruit baskets for the top 7 in each category. A race club innovation that made top finishers very pleased. The Biathlon was a chilly swim around the wharf and a 10k run on the hard pack low tide sand in front of the Boardwalk. The first joy day was blessed by a huge group of New Yorkers returning from Japan, laid over a few days to go to our joy days. Seeing these New Yorkers happy and smiling, lounging under impromptu sari tents, or sunning on the beach or swimming was an honor to say the least. It made Santa Cruz Center legendary.
Just a side note, Alot of the long time disciple women had "Center Regulation" one piece bathing suits. These crazy-modest retro numbers had double padded bras, sewed on skirts made of a thick stretchy poliester is a sight to behold.
We also had a steady flow of visiting disciples from S.F. Center or abroad. San Fran Disciple we would come down early on our appointed center meeting night to get some of Santa Cruz's stellar weather for a run. I always loved new running partners or beach companions I always knew a new trail or beach. I figured if it was fun they would come back possibly move there. It was a philosophy that had worked for me in San Francisco. I aggressively head hunted young fun new happy disciples from other centers and built the joint into a thriving creative center. Brought it back from the dead.
After Center Mediation there was always stellar food from Ananda Fuara or made by Teresa.( Her Garlic bread was Bombastic!) Or we would all descend on some restaurant en mass. Very happy days.
The vagabond disciples were often sweat suit wearing Germans seeing California. California has an irreversible effect on the Gerries. It's an awakening that shatters some rigid cultural framework. We blew one member of the Zurich Centers mind with an out of the ordinary center meditation at a beautiful mountain top home that a female disciple was house sitting. Dee was her name, new disciple friend of Joel's and a blond bombshell. It was mid-summer and after meditation we ate a great meal and then capped it all by piling ( boys and girls )into a hugh hot tub located in a garden. Though the tub thing wasn't exactly kosher with the center guidelines but we were like a big family and it was about joy. I was still high out of my mind from the meditation when the German disciple turned to me in wonder and said : " Ve Vould nevah do zis in Zuyich!" I could tell by his eyes he would now never be a pillar of the Zurich Center.
Damn straight!

KATIE

"You must be the new girl" I said warmly as I stared into the bluest eyes I had ever seen. She smiled and damn if she wasn't the Cheshire cat. I like her fresh sparkliness immediately. I was assigned the job to train her in the ways of Hobies. She didn't stay a bus person long with me as her lobbyist. I always tipped her fat and helped her when I could. One day she asked me to coffee after shift.
Katie had been Magna Cum Laude and phi beta kappa at Occidental ( Occey ) college. It was an all girls college in Los Angeles. She had created her own major and upon graduation immediately signed up to dance on a cruz ship in the Caribbean. She had a fantastic dancer body; Beautiful and alive, I discovered on one of our several trips to the beach as it was mid-summer. I remember her powerful looking Sacrum.
At the outdoor cafe where we sat that day proved to be the beginning of a long friendship that served me well. I loved her happy life force and her intelligence. Her boy friend at the time was all absorbed in pre-med. She was new to Santa Cruz and it was a bitchen summer and just wanted to have fun. Always looking for a person to do fun things with( libra ) we were a great match as friends.
I took her swimming in the kelp beds, and sunning on some of my favorite beaches. We ate at interesting places, went to work and work parties, went to movies, yoga. Above all we talked like kids. I was into body work and was looking to get into massage school possibly. She had powerful opinions and was from a heavy feminist background as was I.
She was from a family of therapists and had what I mistook for an introspective tendency. It was more a mental review of emotions and actions, a reflection, which is different as it is confined to the mind. An introspective capacity can get confused with the tendency, almost compulsion to process and over process. I've seen people create process to avoid dealing with an authentic process trying to happen. An intuitive and developed introspective capacity is a psychic capacity and has depth and truth in it. It steps below the mind and stands behind observing, not only the mind but all facets of the this complex being.
Katie could hold her own in a conversation and offered me new perspectives on alot of topics. And I loved these new perspectives and sure needed them.
We were kids just having a load of fun. About a month into our endless fun having I could feel the energy between us getting a sweet and a definite emotional flavor to it. At work a friend of mine said after he looked at the schedule at work: " Fuck, I work with you and Katie. You two are boring, You flirt the whole shift." He was right. After work that night I told Katie that I was lovin her company but that we should cool it as I could feel where it was going. She said: "But I don't want it to stop." What could I say I sure didn't want that either. I let it ride.
I remember one night I had just finished my evening meditation in my new apartment. All was candle light and incense and a knock rolled across my door. Katia came in kind of wild eyed and wanted to walk out to light house field at Steamer Lane and watch an electrical storm out at sea. It was raining intermittently, the wind was all storm gusts. I loved the spur of the nocturnal moment visit by her.
She felt things begin to heat up between us and mentioned to me what a first kiss might be like. I resisted the topic, which seemed to make her more forward. One day at the end of shift as we were doing our closing work, she came into the mens restroom that I was cleaning. She locked the door and slid down to a sitting position with her face in her hands frustrated. I was clue less and kept cleaning.
She hugged me and didn't let go. After my nose traced a pattern around her neck and ears a few times we shared a sweet soft kiss.
Things heated up and we talked about them as they did. One night we had been out and Katie dropped me off at the center as I was late for center meditation,I leaned into hug her and she turned to kiss me and we just macked! It was a full on Kundalini fire passion kiss. I was a little disoriented as I got out of the car and and as I walked into the cozy meditation room. A few friends had come down from San Francisco, I felt so exposed; I was a ball of fire, I felt like I stood out a mile.
Katie said she went to the beach and cried intensely as she was moved.

MY CENTER LIFE ENDS

Sex for the first time since high school was very anticlimactic. Improved dramatically as I trusted myself and relaxed. Eileen and I had alot of fun for a short period of time before her fiancee came back. Then she was off and married in Carmel. I was half heartedly invited but as Eileen was in the habit of full disclosure and honesty and had informed her fiancee all about our time spent. He was not super happy but loved and trusted her. Out of respect for him I declined the invite, but I was sad and missed her.
I was still in the Sri Chinmoy Center and I was doing all my duties: holding center meditations twice weekly, giving public meditations, driving up to the city twice a week for center meditations, printing posters at Krishna Copy and postering. etc. I was also running alot and had recently started surfing. Joel and I were regularly going on on long ocean swims in the kelp bed in front of his place on West Cliff Dr. He would lend me a shorty wetsuit and swim way out for about an hour deep into the kelp beds. Swimming through kelp if your not wearing a shortie was a scratchy affair. But Joel use to rub it on his face and chew a bit of it. He said that the skin absorbed some vitamin or mineral on contact with the kelp and that it was super good for you. I had swum a bit in Aquatic park in San Francisco where the water was always well below nipply, and started to favor just board-shorts. From August through the famous Santa Cruz indian summer the top foot of water is sometimes 5 degrees warmer than the water below. In the kelp bed as the current is more restricted and the temp is even more choice.
Kelp beds in Santa Cruz are always teeming with life; otter, dolphin, gulls and frolicking fish. Sometimes a nice omen would come as a snowy egret walking like a sage across the kelp or a powerful osprey flying over us with a wiggling fish in it's "sharp talons." The otter are always fun. The don't have much natural fear of humans in the water. As the kelp strands would grow more than a foot a day by mid summer the kelp forest would be thick and buoyant. Joel and I would would sometimes get close to them and wrap up on a Kelp raft and watch them frolic. They would be chewing on a clam or be using a rock to smash a shellfish. Often they would have babies on their tummies or floating near and would dive with them. Otters are ridiculous when they sleep. They lye on their back with their flippy-feet in the air like a cartoon, then just pass out cold. I tried to pat a sleeping one as it just looked like a little shitzu dog. When I got about a yard away it turned its furry head and whiskers and just looked at me for a second as if to say nonchalantly: "May I help you?" Then I swear it barked at my and dove. Me and joel shrieked as we swam away with thoughts of it bitting my toes. The thick summer kelp made for great swim unders; dark and shady like big slow swaying trees in the soft current.
I moved into the apartment behind the center when the hippy guy inhabiting it moved on. He had no furniture except a professional looking home beer still. When I moved in it wasnt much more decorated. It was a one roomed sunken studio with a great garden view. I spent about a month peeling paint and repainting. I painted the old wood trim lavender, white walls and carpeted it a thick forest green. I loved it. I furnished the place with a dark blue futon Eileen gave me, and a white laced shrine. On it was my brass framed Transcendental photo of Sri Chinmoy and a photo of the Mother Kali statue at Dakshineshwar. It was a temple and I always had a stick of Red Sandalwood burning. It was simplicity itself and I loved it.
I had been in Santa Cruz more than a year or so. After a Center meditation on a night when Nirbachita was out of town, a new seeker Andrea who had meditated with us for a few months asked me to the movies with her. She was cute, cool in a nerdie hip UCSC Creskie college sort of way. She wanted to see a French film that I wanted to see so I was like: "Sure." Not really a good disciple choice but I tried not to think about it as I wanted to see the movie. It was a late show and after she wanted to see my new apartment. After about an hour of her staring me in the eyes with all the green lights I just kissed her. Not a lot of forethought in the action. Just an in the moment inspiration. Not a whole lot happened after that but she was all questions about the apparent discrepancy in philosophies. I did'nt have any answers. It was my first lesson on the complexities of women in the dating world. The "Double speak." Where the energy says one thing and the mouth says the opposite. Gets even weirder when the body says one thing and the mental says another and the mouth says yet something else.
I had crossed a boundary and made something personal. It was the sweet forbidden fruit! This was a choice of mine and I accept that, However Andrea's emotional and physical energy was all about it. The next day she called me and was all mixed up. I didn't really understand at the time but I told her that if she needed too she could call my sister and talk to her about it. I knew it would mean I would be kicked out of the center in no time but She seemed quite mixed up about it and I felt guilty. I knew I could have talked her out of it or started a secret romance but I guess I was confused by my actions apparent lack of fore thought. It felt weird to tell her how to feel or taint her perspective in a way to make it easier on me. In short it felt like an insincere act.
Also I have to address a part of my personality that I think is the Chinese Fire Horse in me. There was something in me that wanted to just take a heroic, defiant and rebellious charge into the forbidden. It is a spirit I have defined more clearly as The years have past. Almost the prompting of the soul to Shiva-like charge forward with reckless abandon.
I got a call at work the next day and it was Ashrita telling me I was out. I knew it was coming as my sister had called me the evening previous and asked me what happened. Poor Nirba, I felt bad for her as I was shouldering her with everything.
I walked out of Hobbies loosened my tie and sat in the sun for a few breaths. It was a great hot day in August. I remember I could smell the ocean which meant it was flat and a glassy swimming day. I mounted my loyal rusty steed and creeked towards the sea and home with a heavy heart.

LEARNING FROM THE SOMMELIER

I had been meditating since age 13 but it had been an hourly twice daily event for 9 years at the time of my move to Santa Cruz in 1995. I was not aware of psychic or energetic interactions between people or environments at the time I moved to Santa Cruz. It wasn't non-awareness of energetic movements, more precisely I just hadn't been taught to attach attention to these interactions or to that faculty in an outwardly focused way. Eileen by her very nature was sensitive to relational energetics, and her years of Reiki energy work had sharpened her faculties.
In the Bhagavad Gita Sri Krishna does a great double-speak when Arjuna asks him which path is superior that of action or that of contemplation. Krishna was in a hell of a bind. He had to get Arjuna, who was waxing emotional in the midst two surly armies, to nut up to the business of killing of family members ASAP. Yet he could not help but extol the directness of the path of contemplation. Sri Chinmoy in his teaching about things psychic was very reminiscent in that. Guru was chock-a-block with occult visions and antics of his own, or that of past realized masters. However in his instruction to disciples he would always sternly warn against any kind of development of occult capacity. For the years before this I had used my psychic focus inwardly to cry or strive upward or to create and identify with expanse. What Guru didn't say was that years of meditation develops these capacities automatically.
Eileen pointed out things that she observed and I would observe and see if it rang true with me. I learned many a Jedi trick from her. She was also a little lover pie and seriously intrigued by me. She saw me in a way I had not seen myself, as a man. She was personally interested in me. A new concept for me.
For the previous 9 years I had been a kid. Girls had Cooties. Also to consider is that for the 8 or so years I had taught public meditation classes. At these classes I engaged many people but all with the intent of service to the spirit. I had noticed a certain focus in the eyes, a wide open stare that I understood as someone receiving light. I wasn't aware of my doing anything but I was holding a space. To hold this space I needed to keep myself out of the way so Yoga spirit could give what it needed. Yoga spirit was feeding them. So when Eileen became attracted to me personally it threw me a bit at first. It re-engaged my outer identity in a deeper way, a personally intimate way, and that in turn dusted off a few core insecurities that had been shelved during my center years.
It was the Triptophane in the hot chocolate or the whiskey-magic of her warm dark eyes but I agreed one night to pull into a shaded ocean overlook on West Cliff Dr. If I wasnt aware of my Pranamaya Kosha ( Energy body ) before that night, I sure was aware of it now!

LIGHT BEGINS IT'S DESCENT

My boss at Hobies in Santa Cruz was a stunningly beautiful woman named Eileen. She was a classic 18th century Lunar beauty. Doe eyed, soft bodied, porcelain skinned brunette with plumb purple lips like those in paintings by John Waterhouse. To say she was easy on the eyes is a super understatement. My eyes wanted to leave my head and go home with her. She was engaged to a man who was living in Colorado and attending music collage. I was still a disciple and a devoted one. I didn't let my thoughts move in her direction most probably because I never even considered that she would be interested in me. Also her beauty was inspiring to me not so sexual it seems in hind sight. I was about as Yang as they came back then. My evolution was looking toward the feminine and feminizing my nature or as I like to think of it as polishing the rough stone. I was very interested in massage and advanced body work modalities at which she had studied a few. She was an advanced Reiki practitioner, and hypnotherapist to name a few. I was a more interested in Feldincrise method, Cranial Sacral Therapy and Rolfing, more physical healing modalities.
My job there was great and I soon had cash coming out of my ears. I was a good worker and the crew there was a bunch of Mad college kids. I just couldn't believe people drank that much. Sometimes rolling in almost black out drunk in wrinkled shirts and stained ties. I However bought three classy white linen shirts and kakis that I ironed and starched daily. I had also began working with a local tie maker and had a amassed a collection of stellar silk ties. The reader should understand that before I took to the renunciates life I wore nothing but Armani which was a relatively obscure designer back in 1985. I went into the Sri Chinmoy Center and basically lived in sweats and tee shirts for 10 years. So the opportunity to show my style I was more than enthusiastic about. And an ironed apron without having to ask is the way to a restaurant managers heart.
I didn't drink but I loved how freaking nuts and sweet these kids were. They went to live shows, music festivals, local dive bars and always knew of a house party. I remember getting a ride over to Joel's house after shift and having 8 or 10 Jose Cuervo bottles rolling around at my feet. The shifts at Hobbies were long and busy and we all had alot of fun.
Eileen was a great manager, good with power, good moral and team builder, and she trained me well. After shift one day as she helping me with ticket count, she just looked at me and said: " What's this energy we have between us?" I was a bit oblivious as at that time I really had not learned to identify consciously psychic interactions. I was aware of them I just didn't pay much attention to them. I responded: "Uhhh,.. hun?"
She began to tell me about the frolicking that our energy bodies had been doing since we first met. I recognized that I had a deep connection with her. Often after I had left work her face would appear in my mind and I would feel a heart flutter. We started having hot chocolate dates at Mr. Toots in Capitola. She was a bit of a nerd and was a Scrabble super freak. She was also a professional singer with an operatic voice and loved Renaissance fairs, and an ex-lesbian. Oh yeah and we both went to the same High school; Archbishop Mitty in Cupertino. After shift one day she invited me to go with her to see a movie but the theater was closed. She suggested we drive to San Francisco to see it at a theater up there. The Theater was 3 blocks from Ananda Fuara restaurant and I was afraid of being "busted".
Obviously not that afraid. She had a fiancee and wasn't a cheater, I had a vow of celibacy. The forbidden fruit thing was thick on both sides. We hugged a lot that night and I held out for a few weeks but I was a marked man.
It was a disciples duty in the center to rat out other disciples if you even think they are doing something on the sly. I had busted some disciples in San Francisco a few times. A policy I thought was repulsive, but I understood it as order maintenance. Also I had busted my ass for years to bring disciples and build San Francisco Center and it seemed better to talk to my brothers or sisters first before throwing the grenade at them. So if it wasn't in my face I didn't care. There were a few people in the center just loved to tattle for anything. It was a malicious pleasure and I didn't understand why Guru didn't take them to task. One evening my buddy Golapendu and I were out looking for a "flick". We bumped into a prominent doctor disciple with his bombshell date in front of a theater. We ratted and Guru did nothing. I didn't really care. From it I learned people were held to different standards. I knew that the disciple "rules" were a blanket set of rules to keep a general sense of order and discipline, mostly aimed at the budding Yogis. An understanding arrived at by reading about Ramakrishna's life with his disciples and other Masters. Blanket rules were just that. People's inner life's were all so unique and their connection to the divine so differentiated that hard and fast rules, especially in the advanced stages are absurd, and detrimental to growth at some point. Morality becomes not so much a set of rules but a thing between the Divine and the yogi; a moment to moment following. It is a trial and err process where by which the intermediate yogi slowly becomes more efficient and tight with following the way.

INDIVIDUALIZATION

I was cruising along California St. after a steep climb up Van Ness St. to a delivery. I took Hyde St. down, my favorite high speed descent back to Ananda Fuara Restaurant at 9th & Market St. Halfway down I detoured cutting down a quiet street toward home when I drove by a young bored hooker in a doorway. She said something and I stopped. She asked if I wanted sex, I said no but that I did want to touch her cute body. She pulled me into a quiet mostly hidden apartment building entryway and put my hands on her breasts. She was sweet and soft, and most accommodating as I was a bit timid. When I rolled away a couple of minutes later I was freaked out. I felt out of control, and strangely exhilaratingly alive. The encounter was totally random and in the moment. I had barely gotten back to the restaurant Ananda Fuara from my delivery when Ashrita, Sri Chinmoy's secretary/bag man called with the message that Sri Chinmoy wanted me to pick a center in California and go there. No explanation.
It was instantaneous as I knew it would be. I waffled as to the center I would move too but in the end the choice was a no brainer. It had to be Santa Cruz. My sister and I had established a center there. It was a 1 bedroom apartment on Beach Hill section of Santa Cruz and it had good light and a garden view that stretched all the way around. My sister and I had meticulously painted it and had a luxurious blue carpet installed wall to wall over double padding. The center had no furniture, just pillows everywhere.
I moved into the center in Santa Cruz immediately and began looking for a job.I had not had a job outside the center since 1986, which was 8 or so years previous when I was 18 and worked in a Gelato shop in Los Gatos. I had done a lot of construction work but mostly restaurant work. So I got a resume made by my sister who was way more savvy in the job world than I was.
Joel was a disciple in Santa Cruz and very successful commercial abalone diver and my great good friend. He lived in Santa Cruz and was the centers most generous patron. Joel was a stud, always in great shape, always up to have adventures and fun(like me). He would stay with me in the city after a dive trip. We would always have fun. As a diver for California Red Abalone he had to brave some very cold and sharky waters. So he carried a Glock 9mm hand gun in a special pocket in his custom wetsuit as it was effective under water. Some times we would sneak down the coast shoot bottles or go to the beach. We would see midnight movies and eat in late night diners: kids stuff. He lived in Santa Cruz payed the center rent every month. As it turns out I moved down there at the closing of the Red Abalone season so Joel was soon to leave for a 2 week warm up trip to Cabo San Lucas Mexico followed immediately by 2 1/2 months of uncrowded surf in Nosara, Costa Rica. He had a cool studio right on West Cliff Dr. by the ocean and drove turbo Saab. He gave me the keys to his car and told me to watch the place. He had Cable TV and a VCR so I was more than happy too. There I was dropped in Santa Cruz summer paradise.
I looked vigorously for work but it was the end of the summer and restaurants were cutting summer staff as the tourist season slowed. I began to surrender to a rigorous discipline of swimming, running, and writing at the beach and cool coffee shops with nightly therapeutic videos at Joel's pad. It was hell and heaven. To quote a line from Sri Aurobindo's epic poem "Savitri": " His day's were lonely, and splendid like the Sun."
My money began to run out. Joel was always flush with cash and was always cursed with change. He had seemingly endless coffee cans of silver change. This proceeded to keep me fed for 2+ months with a steady evening diet of spaghetti ($1.50) and marinara sauce($2.50) maybe a salad with lemon juice and olive oil ($3.00) A handful of quarters and I was set for the evening.
I wrote like crazy. Something about creative activities that help the process of life move forward. It's a magic that seems to grease a forward evolutionary momentum. I went through all the stages of death and finally surrendered to no job and hours of quality time. It might seem like a no brainer to some but my life in San Francisco was intense. I worked 8 hours a day 6 and sometimes 7 days a week for the past 7 years straight at Ananda Fuara restaurant. And it wasn't for the $1.50 an hour. In my off hours I logged 30+ running miles a week. Swam 4 miles a week in the pool, transcribed music for publication, sang in a singing group and a ensemble group, helped manage a road running club, put on garage sales to fund my 3 to 5 meditation classes that I and my sister did a week which means I had to poster for those classes every week. I could go on add nauseam but you get the picture. Working hard was easy for me, Not working that was real work. The feeling and pressure of group living, being watched, feeling closed in by disciples and the constant stress of community activities gone in a second.
In early October I got up early in the morning and after a great meditation there it was like a Mike Tyson hook. The confident, divinely inspired urge to get a job that very day. A few hours later I was a waiter at Hobie's Restaurant in Santa Cruz. The beginning point of my reentry into the world.

ENTER SHAKTI

Back in San Francisco things never quite got back to normal. I did keep up with a class or two but Santa Cruz became my main focus. My great friend Joel Roberts who was a commercial abalone diver rented an apartment in an old Victorian house on Beach Hill where we had center meetings. Nirbachita and I made the old apartment into a divine respite from the world. We also rented a room at the local community center as we had for years. A transplanted Hiedleburg disciple, who was the defacto singing group leader and music director in SF, and I would poster for the class that me and Nirbachita would give on Tuesdays. My sister and I drove down there 3 days a week with some moderate success. At the restaurant I was still working full time and on the weekends Nirbachita and I were having our lucrative garage sales. Guru at one point gave us money to buy a car after Nirba's got wrecked so we could continue our center building.
I was doing deliveries 6 days a week at Ananda Fuara restaurant in downtown San Francisco as I had been for 3 years running. I loved San Fran with its old back alleys named after mistresses of long forgotten mayors and its gritty and visceral big city nature. the bike deliveries was a job I pretty much created and ran and loved. The manager there at the time was the usual petty tyrant. Controlling micro manager that was sure that everything would fall apart if she wasn't there. She also had a knack for "loosing" large amounts of money at Costco. I had to constantly and instinctual growl at her so that I could continue to love my job. I knew it was just her nature to rob everybody of their creative freedom. I wouldn't let her have mine. I noticed how guru systematically put those types in charge. I observed that a powerful happy center was not so much the goal as an atmosphere where people had to seriously overcome a daily petty tyrant. It made sense in an evolutionary sort of way but it was not the way I would have run it. It seemed that disciples were always kept at the boiling point and for this stage of learning it was necessary, it had a Utility as my brother Yogaloy would say. Things after I got back started to become burdensome for me. Before everything was easy and I was happy. Slowly but surely everything that use to give me joy and energy started to take it from me. I live with disciples went to center meditations with them, sang with them, ran with them, worked with them etc. This use to be a joy and now it began to feel like a prison. I felt watched and fet a true need for my own space. My hip began to feel odd about this time and I began getting chiropractic work done and started becoming interested in bodywork, massage; Feldenkrise and Cranial Sacral Therapies in particular. These were total taboos in center life. Any touching of anyone else or being touched by any one else.
On the road I was a madman, I rode fast and hard and was out of control on the bike. I truly loved riding with the messengers. They were cowboys, the ones that were actually athletes. The Goth delivery guys dressed in mid 90's irony didn't inspire me much. I liked the hard riding seriously not serious delivery guys who had good bikes painted with neon spray paint or covered in electrical tape that loved hills almost as much as they loved going through red lights or secretly hanging onto car fenders. They locked their bikes to pipes sticking from walls or railing as a statement and I could see It had a mystic with all the suits in the financial area. Part of them, their very DNA wanted the cowboy like off the grid freedom of messenger life. Red light green light all the same. Side walk, street, one way or two all of that was meaningless. The art( and it was an art) was don't get hit and don't hit anybody. I was in super shape and was also swimming everyday before work as my mom was working at the central YMCA in downtown ( word of advice about the YMCA in San Francisco...shy away from the steam room ) I was also starting to wonder what it would be like with a girl friend. One day out on my ride I past a 20 year old prostitute who was tight bodied, fresh and cute. She was high and happy and had her shirt on backwards and inside out, with the nipple of one of her small breasts poking out of a hole in her shirt. Next thing I knew we were in someones yard away from the world making out like demons. I almost tore her shirt off I wanted her breasts so bad. It took all of a second fully clothed for me to finish after her pants came down. I didn't want sex as AIDS was at its height in San Francisco at the time. When she said: "fuck me" that was the buzz kill for me and I quickly paid her and finished my delivery ( food delivery). When I got to the restaurant again I felt what I can only describe as being flooded, no, blasted with love from an external source. The next few weeks were like I was waiting for the axe as I knew Guru was aware of my dalliance. Guilt and fear in a very basic crude form were beginning their end-game with me. " I should have taken the Blue pill'