As I saw it now, our work was that of "weavers in the light." The downward extending strands of energy were strung from top to bottom on the multi-dimensional loom of the universe. There is a part of each one of us that remains securely attached to both the uppermost and the lowermost shafts of the encompassing framework. Now, by making the horizontal connections we were gradually working our way back up again. The purpose of this effort was not so much to reach the top (in essence we were there already) but to create the design.
To a large extent these crosswise shuttlings back and forth manifest as synchronicity, since they exist in the same present tense. Such synchronous happenings are agents of karma, hence our fate is sealed by conglomerates of apparently chance circumstances. Accidents are only events seen out of context; in their totality they become divested with the variegated hues of meaning which comprise the patterns of destiny.
In our own lives the coincidences were accumulating to an astonishing degree. If I needed a word it was apt to jump out at me from a random perusal of the dictionary. When it was important to contact a friend that person would call for no particular reason. If I fancied that it would be helpful to have a certain object it would soon appear. Often these coincidences involved Howard. For example, on Washington's birthday I was shopping when, as I had done a dozen times before, I passed a place where one could have words or emblems stamped on T-shirts. On impulse I picked out a light blue shirt for Howard and had it emblazoned with silvery letters saying "Dr. Neptune." Arriving home with my prize I was chagrined to discover that he had gone out. When he returned half an hour later he had a gift for me. It was a pink T-shirt stamped "Samadhi." Neither of us had ever mentioned the T-shirt idea to the other, yet we had stood at the same counter within the same hour.
However, the big needs took longer to fulfill. By late February our deeper desires could be boiled down to three wishes. In the order of their ascending importance these were the wish to find a house in the country, the wish to release Howard from the burdensome financial responsibilities which held him locked into an uncongenial job, and the wish to make our samadhi therapy available to large numbers of people. It seemed to us that if captains of industry, leaders of nations and molders of public opinion could partake of this love medicine the whole planet might be converted into the garden of Eden it is potentially capable of becoming. In the meantime, we continued our private experimentations.
It was becoming an intriguing challenge to take off into the bright world from different launching pads and thereby assess the extent to which the ketamine experience is affected by the immediate sensory setting. Since I had now learned to remain seated in the lotus posture up to the thirty-five-milligram point I decided to stage a private session in which I would gaze at my own face in the bathroom mirror. Perching atop the laundry hamper which doubled as a seat I positioned myself about three feet from the washbasin mirror and took a thirty-milligram injection.
Observing the changes that were modifying the image staring back at me I decided that this had to be the most flattering thing that had happened since the age of fourteen when, one day I looked at myself in the mirror in a new way and realized that I was going to grow up to be pretty. Regrettably that youthful bloom had long since passed. My next birthday would be the fiftieth and the creases in my face made it evident that efforts to beat the clock had been only minimally successful. Now, however, my Egyptian queen countenance was coming back into view and I was immensely pleased with it. In the wavering light the eyes were growing enormous.
I had now reached the point where words and ideas jump into the mind unbidden. In this state it seems to be possible to think of more things simultaneously than would normally be possible. "Eyes, eyes that mesmerize…eyes, I's, I-dentifies with the eyes." The letter "I" was the stanchion of my being, standing upright between earth and heaven and directing my gaze both ways at once.
"M.M…that's Marcia Moore, but its also Meta-Morphosis. If I could rejuvenate myself, manifest my true face, then people would be so impressed that everyone would want to try this love medicine. They would learn to care for one another in spite of themselves. The quest for the fountain of youth: it's the only desire powerful enough to make them drop their petty fears and criticisms and accept this gift. It would be the perfect answer.
Perhaps I was becoming like a queen bee, fed lavishly on the royal jelly of ketamine for the sake of the whole hive. But I didn't want to be the only queen; I longed to invite the rest of my kind to the feast so that the whole world might be properly fed. It seemed strange that a longstanding legend maintains that the bees were originally brought to earth by visitors from the planet Venus. I was also struck by the fashion in which the bees build their honeycombs at sixty-degree angles. Was this because they have a special link with the bright world? I sensed the Venusian quality of their penchant for flowers, the sweetness of their product, their elevation of the female principle insofar as they are ruled by queens, and felt grateful that God had created them.
As always, there was more input than the rational mind could sort out. For the first time it dawned on me that these cross-connections of ideas were the higher level equivalent of synesthesia-one more step upward toward the realm of perfect unity.
Rejuvenation! The thought was now beating at my brain. To accomplish this goal it would be necessary to reprogram the cellular intelligences of the body itself. We all know that every human being is a full-fledged godling in the manifold universe of his own flesh. Within this microcosm every minuscule inhabitant is compelled to defer to the decrees of the one governing overlord. But at the same time we are demiurges-imperfect deities who may also instill chaos into those trusting tissues, muscles, and neurons of our long-suffering organisms. If we who are responsible for the welfare of the hardworking multitudes laboring in the caverns of the body do not give them cause to trust in us, how then can we be so presumptuous as to pray to some bigger God who rules the heavens, and in whose judgments we as cells within the body of humanity must likewise trust? Can we humbly beseech Him for favors which we arrogantly deny to those who are equally dependent on our caprice?
Still gazing into the mirror I saw that if the work of regeneration was to proceed I would have to establish myself as the goddess of my particular universe and as the fashioner of the archetypes by which its indwellers are obliged to abide. For too long I had been locked into a Saturnian archetype of growing old rather than into a Venusian archetype of abiding youth. To what extent might it be possible to in-agurate a new dispensation?
The usual background whir was louder now. It sounded like a drill. My eyes were at the point of that penetrating shaft, drilling a fresh archetype deep into the mass consciousness of my own body cells. As the drill bit spun round and round it seemed to be boring in the words, "Oh make my universe beautiful, happy, fragrant, friendly."
Ordinarily, so trite a phrase would never have impressed me. In my softened condition, however, the affirmation was being stamped indelibly upon the ethers of my world within. All at once it seemed clear why so much emphasis is place on the word of God. Words are the archetype makers. It was high time (pun intended) to start manufacturing a new gospel for my own body. Etymologically the word gospel means "God's spell." Ah yes, I was learning more about magic every day!