ERON Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.

BEARY (After a pause) I wasn’t sleeping so you didn’t wake me.

ERON Why do you do that every morning?

BEARY Because it clears my head, centers me for the day, reminds me of what’s important, connects me with my spirit guides and allows me to travel to parallel universes and unexplored dimensions and even to such mundane places as the supermarket and the beach. I go to India all the time with Doctor Dog. Sometimes I even take a friend.

ERON How do you do that? Does he meditate with you?

BEARY Kind of. I pick up his wavelength and travel with him.

ERON Does he know that?

BEARY Sure, he must. I think he knows just about everything.

ERON And all that happens in twenty minutes, I mean clearing your head and traveling and stuff?

BEARY That’s all it takes if you do it right, if you are consistent, focused and mindful for those twenty minutes. Some yogis can zap into trance immediately once you know what you’re doing and have some practice. It’s like anything else – practice makes perfect. (Starts to fumble in his day pack looking for his stash.)

ERON And now you’re going to smoke a bowl?

BEARY Yeah.

ERON How come?

BEARY Whaddya mean, how come?

ERON If your meditation did all that for you why are you going to smoke?

BEARY More, man, more, we all want more, a bigger ice cream cone, more money, more brains, more girls, more experience. You want a new truck and a big house, I want clarity and understanding. Meditation is a method of learning how to see things as they really are. So is ganja if used with discrimination. These substances are the fast lane, more dangerous if you’re not a good or experienced driver but they will get you there faster. This is the age of the pill and computer, man, who’s got the time to sit in a cave or monastery for twenty years?

ERON Whaddya mean get you there faster? Get you WHERE faster?

BEARY To the truth, man, to the truth. Didn’t the Greeks say in wine there is truth? Well, in the ganj there is also truth, you Christian boozers don’t have a monopoly on the truth, you know, as much as you like to think you do. You’re only two thousand years old, mankind has been around a lot longer than that thinking about this kind of stuff and experimenting with these plants.

ERON Then why doesn’t the government legalize them and make the truth available to everybody?

BEARY Because the government does not want the people to know the truth. The most dangerous man to any government is the man that knows the truth, who is able to think for himself without being influenced by propaganda or the language of euphemism.

ERON You make it sound like a conspiracy.

BEARY It is. It’s a conspiracy against the enlightened man. Too much is a stake. If the people cease to be asleep, if everybody wakes up, who will fight the wars? War is big business, man, revs up the economy, culls out society’s dead wood, gets rid of the hippies, gooks and nigras as the good Senator from the south confided to Doctor Dog a few years ago. You can’t be too different if the machine is going to run smoothly, got to have interchangeable parts, you are expendable along with creativity, originality, genius, divine madness and imagination, all of the things that contribute to a vital, growing society. When you use these power plants windows of the mind become more clear and the channels of perception more sensitive so your instrument becomes capable of non-ordinary reception and transmission. That’s what they’re afraid of, man, because then you can tune-in to all the jive that’s going on behind those big, closed, oak doors and call them on their bullshit, then you can fly higher than their fastest jets, laugh and give them the finger and what can they do? Even if they put you in jail they can’t really touch you because you’re operating in another reality and if you really become skillful you can just walk through the walls.

ERON Really!?

BEARY Sure, man, Doctor Dog says some of those guys in India can do all that, siddhis they call it, occult power, the ability to do extraordinary things.

ERON Does the old dog have occult powers?

BEARY I don’t know. I’m sure he wouldn’t tell anybody if he did but I rather suspect that he does, for emergencies. Real yogis don’t exhibit them though, only if absolutely necessary. Traveling around is OK but doing the heavy power stuff for fame or fortune is frowned upon

ERON Frowned upon by who?

BEARY The Hierarchy, the Masters.

ERON (After a pause) It all sound pretty far out to me. Sometimes I think you’re really weird, you know that?
BEARY Come along sometime and I’ll show you.

ERON What do you mean?

BEARY Just what I said. Come along sometime on an inner-space journey and I’ll show you another world.

ERON When?

BEARY We have a lot of work to do today. Let’s see how we feel when it’s over.

ERON First thing is to fix that old waterline down at the lower patch and get it operating before we leave tomorrow.

BEARY And all the rat traps checked, emptied, reloaded with fresh peanut butter, have to tie the primary branches down on the bigger ones, man, that stand up there on the hill, they are just too big, Eron, we could lose the whole crop because of those ladies. They’re ready to harvest anyway, we’ll take those before we go and leave those others for next week. The rains are late and they’d love a few more days in the ground, especially that big one. Check all the camo netting and chicken wire for holes, deer repellent on all the cages, we have to do fertilizer this watering also.

ERON no problem on the water?

BEARY No problem, he said (Indicates to the top of mountain where Doctor Dog lives), you boys can drink to your heart’s content, as long as I have water, you have water. We’ll have to give him a nice stash.

ERON Does he know what we’re doing down here?

BEARY As far as he’s concerned we’re just a couple of college boys camping out in the state park. He doesn’t know a thing. But then again….

ERON We have to be careful on this government land, man, they put more rangers on this year, I hear, and now they carry guns.

BEARY Don’t sweat it, brother, we’re doing holy work, we’re tending Shiva’s garden and as long as we have the proper attitude they can’t touch us, but you gotta have the right attitude. As soon as you get self-serving, BLAM! It comes down on you. Instant karma. And there is a poetic justice in growing on Caesar’s land. If it was truly the people’s land then all of those homeless folks that our system is producing would be living on it and growing their food. But now it is the exclusive right of our well padded middle-class. But… whatever needs to happen sooner or later happens with or without our Big King’s permission. Look at us. We’re growing soul food, mind food, manna, right out here in the state park. Fantastic! The very land that the King has claimed as his own will in the end be responsible for his downfall. That’s what we’re doing out here, man, producing love energy that will bring about the peaceful downfall of the American way of life.

ERON Why do you want to do that? It’s the best one in the world, none of them are perfect.

BEARY It’s not working right anymore. It’s coming apart at the seams and those guys up there don’t know what to do about it. They want us to pay more taxes. Five million dollar space crappers, two hundred billion dollar losses because of their drug war and they want us to pay more taxes. Ha! when they get real about drugs I’ll get real about paying taxes. And the jails are bulging, man, they build new ones and appoint heavy-handed goons as caretakers and behavioristic ball-breakers as doctors. Pretty soon the whole country will be in jail guarded by computers and one programmer.

ERON The Drug Czar was an ethics professor! Maybe he’ll be the programmer!

BEARY Ethics professor… he’s the poor lump who thinks the solution to the so-called drug problem is to chop off your head. That’s Christian ethics for you. The spirit of the Inquisition slumbers in their breast and makes no compromise. He’s the fucking problem, man, the warped and convoluted thinking of these bleeding Jesus’ is the very reason people are shooting smack and crack. It’s just too painful and too difficult to live in a world of their making. Rome is till in charge, all the drug czars have been agents of the Pope.

ERON He said most Americans would feel morally justified in tearing someone’s limbs off if they caught them selling drugs to their kid.

BEARY I’d like to find his kid and give him some of our best for free. He could probably really use it growing up with that asshole.

ERON The Chief Enforcer’s kid is a hippie, did you hear?

BEARY I heard, I heard, you see, we’re everywhere, man.

ERON The Chief Enforcer said casual drug users should be shot for treason because we were in a war. And smugglers should be hung at the airport as soon as they’re caught.

BEARY That’s the mentality we’re up against, sadomasochistic and very dangerous. Guilt, fear and the will to power motivate them and killing is just part of an ordinary day’s work. Onward Christian Soldiers, another self-righteous war under the banner of one of the most mellow god brothers the world has ever known…though he was a little batty some say from too many shrooms, too much truth, that’s what happens when you see clearly, you can’t play the game anymore and you have to put your money where your mouth is, go all the way even if it means being crucified. Give me liberty or give me death.

ERON Are you so dedicated that you would go all the way?

BEARY I would hope so. We’re talking about freedom, man, full autonomy over your own life, freedom to worship, to pursue the mystical experience in your own way, that’s what it’s about. If people have full autonomy over their own lives they are going to disengage from the monster and jump into the ocean of bliss. That’s what the whole war on drugs is about, man, it’s a religious war, a war on personal freedom. It doesn’t have anything to do with drugs, tobacco and alcohol are the absolute worst, they don’t produce cosmic orgasm or twenty-four ecstasy, only stupification and death, but that’s OK, Caesar makes money on those, but the ones that give you a taste of paradise and internal freedom, those are anathema to king and country because then you are no longer under their control, you aren’t predictable and thus not controllable. How can you control someone who’s in a state of God intoxication all the time? How do you get someone to go to the office when they’re on a rocket headed for transcendental bliss? Dangerous stuff, man, if the truth gets out, and I am here to help it get out. The flesh of the gods, eat it or smoke it and make love with the gods and goddesses like never before. The politics of ecstasy excludes intimacy, man, they’re scared to death of being open and vulnerable because they think it’s a sign of weakness.

ERON I’m going to water the plants and tie down the big ones. See you later.

BEARY Maybe after dinner we’ll go traveling if you want.

ERON Alright, I can’t wait. Will we be back for the harvest moon circle tomorrow night?

BEARY We’ll be back before you can say Bom Shiva.

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