Howard. I wanted a fire lady. I didn't know I was going to get the Fire Lady.
Marcia. Doesn't it scare you to see your wife going insane…and turning into the Fire Lady?
Howard. No, to me its not abnormal.
Marcia. Even at my nuttiest, I realize that this is a heavy trip to lay on some poor man.
Howard. What can you recall at this time.
Marcia. What I remember is the incredible frustration of not being able to relate the two worlds. I still can't get them together.
Howard. And you can't direct it?
Marcia. It's so different.
Howard. I know, and another point you made is that even after a week you forget.
Marcia. Yes. It puts you in a realm where everything is energy… This delusion of grandeur thing has to be watched on two counts. In the first place, of course, you can get beglamoured and think you're more important than you are. But there's an equal danger of thinking you're less important than you are. You and I actually do have an incredible potential. We have caught a pretty big piece of fire. If only we can hang on. I no longer see myself riding a tiger. I see myself riding a comet.
Coming back to normalcy it seemed to me that there was no question but that I had been certifiably, even if only temporarily, insane. It is just possible, however, that to experience periods of controlled insanity may be an eminently sane mode of experimentation, particularly if one wishes to understand a planet characterized by pathology run amuck. In any event, when I finally did return to terra firma my mental atmosphere felt as dewy fresh as the air when skies clear and the sun comes out at the end of a tumultuous electrical storm.
Since Howard was due to be away on Christmas our real holiday was the day before. I was tired. We had given a late party the previous evening after an exceptionally heavy schedule of holiday preparations. Inexplicably my right hip joint was hurting and I still felt seared by my metamorphosis into the fire lady. Nevertheless, I wanted to maintain our weekly contacts with the bright world. Consequently, with some trepidation, I decided to take the same fifty milligram dose that a week earlier had plunged me into a state so deep as to be incommunicado for fifteen minutes.
Session 13
Marcia. I have learned not to try so hard to determine where the experience is going to take me. It's like dreaming. It's hard to decide what you're going to dream. But I do have a particular thing to look into about my body… Two minutes and I'm well into it. This is a very noisy silence. All kinds of sounds going on. Everything becomes intensified. The waterbed is almost too hot… Now I'm getting into the archetypes. There's always that throbbing, pulsating, vibrating undertone. It's so hard to write about it and make the words sound like the vibrations of what you feel. But vibrations are all there is. Everything is a vibration. And to me now there is a complete synchrony between vibrations and wings. I just love wings.
Howard. I know.
Marcia. When I went to get Christmas cards I didn't want to buy any because they were all Walt Disneyish critters. I wanted angels with wings. You can't imagine how much I love wings.
Howard. That's because you want to fly.
Marcia. To me wings, white and gold wings, mean flying, transcendence, vibrations, doves and feathers. It's amazing how often feathers come into the experience. Now I'm right in between. This is such a soft gentle place. To be in the middle. It's like cotton batting. It's very hard to maintain it. I'm like a seamstress trying to sew together the seams of these two worlds. It's so very hard to pull them together. And there are all those auditory sensations now-together forever, together forever. I've been deeper than this before.
Howard. Well, you've just eaten a little bit.
Marcia. Yes, I'm building up a tolerance. This is nice. This is a featherlike realm. Everthing is drenched in a lacework of golden light. Now it's all feeling. It's so good of you to be here with me-just sitting doing nothing.
Howard. It's a medical legal responsibility.
Marcia. And yet feeling is so important. It feels clear. This is so different from all the other trips. This one is a very gentle trip. It's just Christmas and we're together. A little gentle madness. I'm seeing all the pretty hallucinations. This is just the tinsel and the bow; it doesn't mean much. They want me to have a happy Christmas. I'll have to take more to get to the fire lady. This isn't intense. It's just like wispy lace…wings. This is healing. A strange soothing, healing, massaging trip. This is a different trip from any of the others I've been on. Very, very low key.
Howard. You didn't dilute the ketamine, did you?
Marcia. Is this a different kind of ketamine?
Howard. No, its the same fifty milligrams per cubic centimeter.
Marcia. I'm right here. Totally in control of myself.
Howard. It's tolerance.
Marcia. But it's doing something. It's like a very fine angel hair, weaving over me. And there's a piece of me that's needed to be healed, and they're saying, Merry Christmas. We will heal you. Funny, It's my leg. It's been hurting so much and I didn't want to tell you. This really is a truth serum. I didn't want to mention it until after Christmas.
Howard. I think you should relax.
Marcia. What a strange trip. I'm coming out now. It was just like the tinsel and a bow.
Howard. How can you be coming out? It's only fifteen minutes.
Marcia. I'm coming out. It's strange, very, very strange. No fire.
Howard. You're building up a rapid tolerance.
Marcia. I haven't really built up a tolerance.
Howard. You have. You just don't want to admit that you have, but you have.
Marcia. No, I haven't. It's working at the level of the roots. The roots are still searching, searching, searching.
Howard. Where are you now?
Marcia. I'm coming back That was such a strange trip…and a nice one. I felt as though somebody loved me. I think my high self wants me to know that. This is like little Christmas bows. Not very significant. Something that can be discarded. I don't even have to use it for the book. In fact I think I won't. They don't even want me to have to bother with typing it. This is just a little red tinselly bow saying "Merry Christmas, we love you. We're going to be with you for a little while. You and Howard can do your thing together…and then you can come back to us. Have fun." It's pretty and bright.
Howard. Close your eyes and just go with it. You don't have to talk. Just stay with it.
Marcia. This is so different. The Christmas archetype. The spirit of Santa Claus. There's a spirit of Christmas and a spirit of Santa Claus. This has been my spirit of Santa Claus trip. Big Santa Claus in the sky.
Howard. I knew you were going to say that. It's part of Marcia's big sky country.
Marcia. I knew you knew I knew. And so on. (Pause) I wanted Christ, and this trip is Santa Claus. But it's OK.
Howard. You're still well under, but you're resisting it.
Marcia. I know. I was just on the outside like tinsel and paper. I wanted Christ and I got Santa Claus. I can see Santa now. I'd swap that Santa Claus for a crucifix any day. I understand now about the need for a therapist. Because left to myself I'd think I was completely awake. I can see the room. I know I'm back here.
Howard. You're not. You're still well under. You still have nystagmus (rapid eye motion). Nystagmus is a little flicker of the eyes.
Marcia. I wish I weren't a writer because when they feel things and then they try to put them into words on pages nobody else can really know or feel the same way. Christ and Santa Claus. You see I am back. I can tell because the motor's gone down. It sounds now like a record running down-almost to the point where it goes da-da-da-da. That's my theme song. "I wanted Christ and you gave me Santa Claus."