ERON My Dad says he’s a crazy old coot and blasphemer-saying Jesus was a junkie and a queer.

BEARY Not a junkie, that he took mind expanding substances, power plants. And he didn’t say that he was queer, he was androgynous, both male and female together that symbolizes the union of opposites. He was both sexes in one.

ERON it’s the same thing. And who said he took drugs? Does it say that in the Bible?

BEARY Sure does, man, what do you think those loaves of bread were? Shrooms, man, shrooms, they were all stoned out of their minds and hallucinated all that bread and fish and they sure did drink a lot of wine. Just like now. And they were divided into different camps just like now, the Essenes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, all aping after power just like now, the alkies versus the dopers, power versus freedom, rationalism versus idealism, mind versus heart, the cops versus the dealers. Doctor Dog says they’re bound to lose though, sooner or later, cause everybody takes something. Most people live in a small world, drugs make it big, most people are stressed out and unhappy, drugs relax them and give them something to smile about for a few moments. Everybody likes to change their head a little bit, or a lot, and some things work for some people and some things work for others. Doctor Dog said he used to work in the Capitol, in Washington D.C., a long time ago, and those old farts in Congress that run the country and make these asinine drug laws he said they can’t make a move without taking a drink of whiskey. That was a long time ago, now they do a line before Congress convenes. Can’t you see it? Hear Ye, hear ye, Congress is now in session, where are they? Where are they? Snort, snort, no wonder the country is so messed up, I mean the world, it’s the same bunch, they’re all in the cloakroom under the cloaks doing you know what.

ERON What?

BEARY Making deals and jerking each other off. They diddle the people while scooping up the cash.

ERON Oh, come off it man.

BEARY No, shit, I wouldn’t jive you. Listen.. there’s the sky cop (The hum of a low flying plane can be heard in the background. Both get up and peer out of the camo netting.) Comin in real low. Look! You can see him in the cockpit, he’s smoking a dubbie!

ERON No shit? Look! He’s waving.

BEARY No shit, man, look! Big Bubba saying howdy!

ERON That’s a cigarette. He’s so close we could blow him out of the air if we had a small rocket.

BEARY You sure that’s a cigarette? Those guys all smoke the confiscated stuff. Everyone knows that. The weight’s never the same by the time they get it back to the station. A pinch here, a pinch there and the Big Chief gloms the rest. (After a pause) And don’t talk like that, man, then it really would be a war. That’s bringing ourselves down to their level.

ERON you think the priests and ministers drink the church wine, what they give communion with?

BEARY Well sure, that’s what religion is all about, getting stoned on God. All the priests in India smoke it, all the wandering monks and holy men smoke these big pipes every day with a special mixture of hash and other herbs. Some take a vow to smoke at least one pipe a day, it puts them closer to God (Passes joint to Eron after taking a hit but he refuses.) Bom Shiva!

ERON What’s that mean?

BEARY Bom Shiva! It’s like Praise The Lord! Only Indian style. It’s what the sadhus and monks say just before they smoke a bowl. Shiva is a god of destruction and recreation, lord of the world, the supreme yogi who lives in the mountains with his consort Parvati, smokes the chillum and always has a hard-on.

ERON Really?

BEARY Yeah, man, it’s like the symbol of creation. All over India there are statues of his lingam, they call it, and everybody worships it, especially the women who want to have kids. They say prayers to it, put flowers on it and melted butter.

ERON Melted butter! And this Shiva guy smokes dope?

BEARY Yeah, he and Parvati, this gorgeous goddess he hangs out with in the mountains. They have a kid named Ganesh with an elephant head and big stomach.

ERON Came out weird, uh? Too much drugs.

BEARY Actually it was considered a boon, big head and big stomach is a sign of wisdom and prosperity. He is the god of good luck in just about every Hindu house.

ERON Really?

BEARY That’s what Doctor Dog said, he used to live there.

ERON And all the priests smoke it?

BEARY That’s what he said. There are millions of them and most of them take some kind of drug to assist them in their meditations. They try to keep it low profile, it’s embarrassing to the government but it is their blessed sacrament. They even have government pot shops near the big temples that sell handfuls for a few pennies to the people who either smoke it or drink it in a sweet and spicy milk concoction called bhang. It opens up those secret doors so they are more receptive to the gods, so the heart is open to Brahman, they say.

ERON You don’t think Jesus smoked it, do you?

BEARY They have good stuff over there where he was born and some scholars say he spent a lot of time in India—there were a bunch of lost years, remember. And others say he and his gang of twelve were shroom freaks, they took the magic mushroom, the soma of the ancient Aryans, the drink immortal of the Rig-Veda. They were all over the place, just pop them in your mouth fresh out of the holy cow shit or scramble them up in omelets and you’re instantly transported to heaven to sit at the feet of God for eight hours. On shrooms you know you’re the Son of God and who hasn’t had savior fantasies at one time or another when stoned? They give you The Answer and for that moment you have the potential to be the savior of the world. Then you come down, you’re down but you’re never quite the same again because you really know that you have that potential. Maybe Jesus activated his and never came down. Doctor Dog says when you take those sacraments they tear the wool from your eyes and you see clearly, reality in all its splendor, peace, joy, ecstasy and total understanding. Of course the government doesn’t want you to see clearly because then you won’t want to go into the army or work at stupid and meaningless jobs or think about the future, whatever that means.

ERON My dad says that drugs take away your ambition.

BEARY How can he say that? What does he know? He’s a boozer, a different mentality, different reality, different chemistry, a different animal.

ERON He tried it once. He got stoned with my sister. Not even a half a joint and he couldn’t get out the chair for three hours, couldn’t understand the football game on TV, bad stuff he said, bad, bad stuff, no wonder you people don’t want to work, he said, you can’t!

BEARY It’s not that you don’t want to work. Your values change and you don’t want to do the dumb stuff anymore. This isn’t work? Toiling in God’s garden for seventy-two hour stretches, poison oak, rats, rip-off artists, government goons, twenty-four hour paranoia. Just getting the water down here is a full-time job. Labor intensive to the max but I love it. It’s my religion, my politics, it’s the way I vote, my education and my entertainment. And I love the chase, man, it’s cowboys and Indians, matching my wits and will against the Drug Czar and his merry band of Neanderthals, honing my skills in the wilderness, experiential education, learning to be a good boy scout without the bullshit. And the botany you learn out here in one season is more than you could learn with Professor Dipshit if you stayed in his class your whole life. You learn about economics, physics, the law, jeez man, Doctor Dog says growing pot is as American as apple pie and moonshine. Only difference is alcohol kills brain cells and pot helps them grow. It’s free enterprise, laissez-faire, supply and demand, that’s what it’s supposed to be anyway but we all know it’s BS. Our days of glory are over, man, we can’t even make a good car anymore our workers are so stressed out and drugged out. They bought into the big lie and now it’s falling down on them.

ERON You don’t think we’re contributing to America’s downfall by being growers and suppliers of the most potent pot the world has ever known?

BEARY Absolutely. Doctor Dog says his whole life is dedicated to the peaceful and harmonious overthrow of the American way of life. It is the only thing that will save us, he says. We need some humility, our house is built on a shaky foundation, man, ego and credit, arrogant and moralistic theism, divide and conquer mentality, from the original inhabitants of this land to the land itself, we’ve raped and plundered and when we took our fill we committed the double indignity of shitting in the very hand that made it all possible. As my old Russian grandmother used to say, "He who shits in his bed sooner or later rolls over in it." For me this is sacrament, man, and better use couldn’t be put to Caesar’s land. I don’t know about you but I’m growing the flesh of the gods, blessed sacrament, a holy herb to assist our brothers and sisters in their quest for wholeness, oneness, contentment and clarity. It’s also right-livelihood in the highest spiritual context and the pursuit of happiness like it guarantees in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

ERON That’s a lot of fancy talk. I’m growing money. These are money trees as far as I’m concerned. My mother is always telling me money doesn’t grow on trees. Boy, if she only knew.

BEARY I’m really taking a big chance with you as a partner, you know that? You’re in this for all the wrong reasons and the bad karma you generate with your attitude will affect me.

ERON Don’t worry, I’m just as cautious as you are. I know the Big Bubba is always watching.

BEARY That’s not what I mean. It’s your greedy attitude and I don’t want to be a part of your team when it comes time to pay the dues. For me this is my religion. I’m exercising the god given right for which the founding fathers came to this land to begin with; freedom of religion, the right to worship the Great Spirit, the Overmind, the Big Joint In The Sky, whatever you want to call it, in your own personal way. For me that is what life is all about, getting in touch with that deepest part of myself. That’s what prayer is, that’s what meditation is. That’s where God is. The little smoke is a friend, a key to help you open the door to the secret garden. And the soma, the magic shroom, is to help you dissolve the walls that surround it. God’s breath and God’s flesh the Indians call them. Here they are dangerous drugs. Taboo. Like sex. Both entwined with the great mysteries of creation and evolution.

ERON But you can’t have everyone sitting around taking dope and talking about God and philosophy.

BEARY Why not?

ERON Because there are more important things to do.

BEARY Like what?

ERON Like running the country.

BEARY If they’re doing it drunk they can certainly do it stoned and do a lot better job. If everyone in government was smoking the weed of wisdom instead of drinking that fancy rotgut they would be more sensitive to the other, more reflective, kinder, softer, more peaceful and more inclined to dialogue and non-adversarial solutions.

ERON How about progress, evolution?

BEARY Progress and evolution proceed at a faster rate when people resonate at a higher vibration, on a purer and more conscious vibration; mutation occurs, subtle genetic changes grow into larger ones, the species branches out into new sub-species and a new race is born. All of those folks in the sixties who were exploring inner-space with psychedelics had their brains rearranged as a result, rewired some would say, the chromosomes, the DNA, the genetic material altered so their perceptions, their thinking, their imprinting was changed, a new program, new software for the coming generations, for their children and their children’s children. Those flower children had kids – I am one of them—and now we are having kids and we all have that rearranged genetic stuff, ever so subtle but it makes us a different kind of human being.

ERON Are you saying you’re some kind of special person because your old hippie parents fried their brains out on acid twenty-five years ago?

BEARY (After a pause) Yeah, I guess that’s what I am saying.

ERON God, you’ve got a big ego. How about your junkie sister?

BEARY It was a big evolutionary leap and some people got left behind. Life is survival and some don’t make it. Natural selection, man, survival of the fittest. It was a time of war and there were casualties. For some who were not ready, the terror of waking up was too much, some preferred to involute and return to the womb the easy way, a few took the more difficult route and jumped off buildings. A wise man once said you can’t give rocket fuel to a lawnmower. All were not ready for the great leap forward. And we mourn the loss of those brothers and sisters as we mourn our losses in any war but out of that rubble a phoenix did arise, a new human being and a new religion was left in the aftermath of those intense, chaotic and ecstatic times. Awakening, transformation, faith and bonding, autonomy over your inner life, greater consciousness and more intelligence were all the offspring of that birthing.

ERON Artificial paradise, man, the world is just the same, everyone out for himself, everyone needs to make a buck. You have an over active imagination tricked by the abnormal excitement of your brain due to too many drugs. Delusions…

BEARY But we are here, brother, we are everywhere. Open your eyes, look around you. We are everywhere in the world and there are many of us and we won’t go away. And we are prolific. Our brand of enlightenment turns us on to our bodies and dehypnotizes us of any last vestige of Christian guilt so we have many children for we believe there is food and space for all is we would get our priorities straight—and if we don’t there won’t be food or room for any of us. That’s why it’s important to become awake to your higher nature. It doesn’t make any difference how, the method is not important, whatever works, just do it. That’s why I like to give my stuff to the young army guys at the local base so they can put flowers in their guns and introspect while doing guard duty or to the school kids, get em while they’re young, our future leaders who will one day be old farts in Congress and responsible for sending young men to war.

ERON You got your head in the clouds. Those guys are getting stoned just like everybody else, they don’t have any big deal ideas about changing the world. Take it up to the city and sell it to the Turk. You get big bucks from him. He sells it to all the rich yuppies in Wood valley.

BEARY See, that’s what I mean, you’re just thinking about the money, your own selfish interests and that generates bad karma. You laugh but wait and see, good brother, it all comes back to you. That’s why growers have such a bad reputation, too many people growing money.

ERON At five thousand dollars a pound who can resist? I’m gonna go check the seedlings before we turn in, see how they fared with that new drip system and put some tuna out for the cats. (Goes Off-Stage to other side of camo netting.) They’re beautiful! Just amazing how they grew in four days. Juicy, nice color, they’re going to be big ones and no rat damage at all.

BEARY We don’t want them big, the days of the big plants are over for a while. We want them short and bushy and under the trees in filtered sunlight. That’s the only way you can get a crop through anymore unless you go indoors. But what we lose in weight we’ll get back in quality by using the best seeds and organic fertilizers. Those Indica seeds from Holland are the best. The Dutch really know how to do it.

ERON If we used the chemicals we would get more weight.

BEARY There you go again.

ERON Why do you always try to make me feel guilty about wanting to make money and get ahead? You said it was the American way.

BEARY It’s your attitude, man, hungry, grasping and not thinking about the people who smoke it since you don’t. What do you care about their lungs? You’re as bad as the tobacco vultures not caring about the poisons you sell to your customers as long as it fattens your purse.

ERON Bug-off, man, I’ve heard you on this one before. I’m going to crash, we have a lot of work to do tomorrow. (Long silence) What do the Indians say about making money? What kind of attitude do they have about profit?

BEARY You can’t compare, it’s a different world over there, insecurities due to climate, the invading hordes, monsoons and poverty make them aggressive and even cruel sometimes in their quest for profit. They know that all men are bound by these desires though and they have made the acquisition of wealth one of the four goals of life; artha, kama, dharma and moksha or the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, righteousness and liberation. Righteousness, man, that’s dharma, sometimes called the law, means there is a right way to execute one’s duties and obtain the goals of life. It all boils down to you gotta do it right my friend, it’s the supreme law of duty…dharma. There is nothing wrong with profit if it is honest and not excessive but when you start to cut corners for more profit and put shit in your product, which you know is not good for you but adds more weight, this is not practicing righteousness. These are biggies for all of us, these four goals of life and especially in India where life is such a frantic hustle just for the basics.

ERON How can India be so holy if it’s so grasping?

BEARY Opposite side of the same coin, one extreme to the other. Poverty begets God. If you don’t have anything else you’ve always got God while the rich man boogies on into the night. There’s great wealth and poverty side by side, there’s saintliness and wisdom next door to evil and brutishness. All the extremes are there right out in the open, the truth is there for all to see and nothing is swept under the carpet. Great suffering begets great saintliness, Shiva’s dance, destruction and creation, a razor’s edge that is immediate, in the moment, be here now, same as in the patch, constant awareness or you get ripped-off. It’s the secret of life Doctor Dog says. If we do this task as a meditation, to act without attachment to the fruits of our labor as the Gita advises, do it because it’s there to do, the right thing to do, without tension, grasping and striving, then it will unfold like the petals of a flower and give to you its very best fragrance…literally.

ERON (Silent for awhile) Sounds great.

BEARY It’s the only way to do it, man, make your labor like an offering to God, to the Great Spirit, to the Tao, whatever metaphor you relate to. That in itself is a privilege, a benefit to your soul and a payoff on a higher level.

ERON I need the bucks.

BEARY Bucks! Schmucks! Man, I’m giving you divine wisdom, the secrets of the universe and you’re just thinking about your pocketbook.

ERON It’s empty, if I don’t think about it no one else will

BEARY But I’m trying to tell you how you can do it in a righteous manner, more skillful, more humble, healthier for the earth and more profitable in the long run for yourself and everyone else.

ERON I’ll think about it. I’m going to sleep.

BEARY Sleep, sleep, the whole world is asleep, how do you wake up the living dead?

ERON Better men than you have tried, Charlie Brown.

BEARY I know, but you have to keep trying. What we grow is medicine, my friend, medicine for body, mind and soul according to Doctor dog, helps you to sleep, relieves cataracts, asthma, aches, pains and nausea, digestion and arthritis and every doctor of the body should have some in his little black bag. The mind doctor needs some to treat his clients for their existential anxiety and their illusion of separateness and the soul doctor needs it as host medicine to make whole and holy the poor in spirit. It just takes a little bit when you use it sacramentally, like the communion wine, just a taste to push the inner button and transport you into the mystical body. The issue here is freedom of religion, don’t you see that? Because of my religious beliefs and practices I am an enemy of the state. We can go to jail just for being out here in the woods with this stuff (Sweeps arm around). I can go to jail for sitting in front of my altar and taking a toke before my morning meditation. Is that fair? You can ingest the fermented juice of your sacred plant every Sunday, or anytime for that matter, to facilitate your ritual and make more meaningful and deeper your experience of communion, yet I cannot ingest the smoke of my sacred plant to assist me in my ritual, in my worship and meditations. Why is that? The goal is the same, to put us closer to God. What you and not me? I experience my mystical communion my way, you in yours. That’s why this country was founded. Why old George Washington even grew the herb. Man, the founding Fathers would roll over in their graves if they knew what was going on here in the name of the Republic. What they would like to do is round up all the psychedelic mutants and put us in reeducation camps, the shock box, man, megavolts from the little black box, that’s all they need these days. They can lobotomize and castrate you electronically without all the bloody mess and reprogram you at the same time. Scary.

ERON Oh, get off it, man, the government doesn’t want drugs to ruin the youth of the country. It’s a big problem all over the world.

BEARY And why do you suppose that is?

ERON I don’t know. Everyone seems to have a lot of theories but no one seems to have any answers. What does the old crazy on the mountain have to say about it?

BEARY Pain, man, pain, everybody is in pain, some kind of pain. Just turn on the TV, you’ve got Anacin, Excedrin, Motrin which is better than I.B.Profin which is better…Preparation H painless suppositories which are better than on and on and on. Did you ever look at the over-the-counter stuff for pain? Amazing, unbelievable. And how many prescriptions you think the medical vultures write every year for pain, for tranquility, for mood elevation as they call it? The Buddha said it twenty-five hundred years ago, man, ALL IS SUFFERING, everybody is suffering, we’re all out of sync a little bit, we’re all hurting deep, deep inside and we’re all afraid to die, it’s all over so quickly most people think, they want to grab just a little taste of paradise before they kick off into the great unknown, before the big, black blanket is pulled over their head, a little taste of sweetness, of bliss, of ecstasy that the church or job doesn’t give them, take a pill, take a drink, snort a line, a joint, a geez, gorge on chocolate, the list is endless an there’s hardly a person out there who doesn’t do something.

ERON Everyone has their own antidote for their brand of pain.

BEARY Existence is tough, man. When the Buddha was running around India it was a pretty miserable place: heat, floods, wild animals, disease, little food. It’s still a pretty miserable place so you can imagine what it was like twenty-five hundred years ago. Still in some places a dentist is a little old man on a blanket on the side of the road with two pair of pliers, one for big jobs, one for little ones. We in the West don’t suffer that kind of pain anymore, ours are more sophisticated because we have the time and leisure, our brains and our bodies are better developed because of diet and technology but our spirits are hurting, our soul, our vital essence is devaluing, slipping back, losing that fine quality and balance that separates us from the brute. Inform on your parents! My God! Shades of the Hitler Youth! Is that what we’ve come to? This is the most creative solution we can come up with? More jails, concentration camps, psychosurgery, more armor, more alienation? Some would even call it genocide, the attempt to eliminate a whole group of people, drug users, for their beliefs and practices. People choose to use drugs themselves, it is not a disease, a bug or virus that comes from the outside and grabs you in a death grip and devours you. Your alcohol problem isn’t a disease, what a crock of shit hoisting that on to the drinking and drugging public. Insurance bucks is what that one is all about. It’s your choice every time you stop the car and go in for a 6-pack. You know that way down deep, man, you like to get loaded, it makes you feel better, for whatever reason, you didn’t get enough tit when you were a baby, your mother drank, your father beat you, doesn’t mean diddly man, you are responsible for your life and no one else, not your parents, not the government, not God, only you, right now, here. Don’t blame your failure and your unhappiness on alcohol, it’s a symptom of your disease, drugs are a symptom of our national malady, the disease of our collective… are you listening, man?

ERON ZZZzzzzz