insightful politikal email from UK - (Weed from Eel Pie Island commune days)

Weed (his legal name) and I got back into email contact around the turn of the century. We both lived in the hippie squat/commune in the abandoned Eel Pie Island Hotel circa 1969. I find his political commentary very insightful, perhaps because he's got a broader perspective from across the pond.  Comments from my initial email in italics. 

 hi Chris,

> Congrats to the UK Labour Party for finally driving the godawful
> Tories out of power
> Do you think they’ll make any major positive changes in the UK

the opportunity is there! i don't agree with some of Keir Starmer's policies but i recognise and appreciate that we now have a relatively stable Government after 10 years of instability which at times has been close to chaos -- it's early days and i think the Government will be cautious in not biting off more than it can chew, but it gives out a vibe of being serious about trying to solve the country's problems and i'm hopeful that we can avoid a swing to the right at the next election

> Maybe with the possibility of another Trump era, [amerikan parties's]
> politiks aren’t so T and T

i heaved a sigh of relief when Joe Biden announced he was stepping down from being a candidate -- i've been following US politics closely over the last few weeks, watching the speeches, reading the analyses, following the polls etc -- two weeks ago it seemed like the Republicans had everything under control and the Democrats were panicking -- now they're back in the race

i assume that if Donald Trump were to win, then the Replican Party, which seems to be firmly under his control, would most likely win both Houses of Congress -- he's already got the Supreme Court aligned, and though he hasn't got any obvious military backing, he has the enthusiastic support of many evangelical groups, some of them armed -- Trump seems onboard with the wholesale removal of civil servants, replacing them with his own people, and if he then went ahead with plans to lock up his political oppponents the only thing left to do would be to change the constitution so a President could serve more than two terms -- and hey presto, the USA becomes a bona fide dictatorship

Kamala Harris is probably as good a candidate to oppose Trump as the Democrats have available -- (first impressions are that she's likeable, positive, smart and competent, and has a sense of humour) -- though even if she wins, her troubles may not be over -- many of Trump's supporters will regard him as the real President regardless of the election result -- she needs to win big to have a trouble-free accession, and that means whipping up enough enthusiasm to overcome the general cynicism and negativity amongst floating voters, who may decide to stay at home or vote for RFK Jnr

i've read that Biden's withdrawal from the race may have been delayed until the Republicans had selected a VP candidate -- whatever, JD Vance is a way different character from Mike Pence!

next up presumably is the Democrats' Conference and the announcement of their VP candidate -- however for many people (including me) the big question is, will Donald Trump agree to take part in another Presidential debate? -- he bullied Hillary Clinton in 2016 and won -- he had a hard time holding his own against Joe Biden in 2020 and lost -- will he dare risk the possibility of being cut to pieces by Harris? sure, she laughs a lot and seems a fun person, but you don't get to be Attorney General of California just by being nice to people

anyway, enough of all that for now lol

> I had a “crazy” experience three weeks ago at a local spiritual site.
> pain in both my shins... disappeared after the blessing.

wow! i just read your blog posts - what an amazing experience! i can understand why it's taking time to process -- i guess when all's said and done, a blessing is a blessing, and all we can do is be grateful -- it's kind of reassuring that the world still continues to surprise us :)

> I’m continuing to do volunteer work at  Callaghan’s Rapids
> Conservation Area

definitely good for mind and body, though a 7am start sounds daunting -- fortunately our work parties are in the afternoon -- my weekly butterfly counts continue though it's hard not to get distracted -- the more i look, the more i find (though my sightings tend to be flowers and insects rather than those big birds and large mammals you come across on your hykes - see attached pics -- it's been a lot easier taking photos since discovering the macro facility on my phone camera!) -- so much mimicry goes on in the insect world: moths looking like wasps, wasps looking like flies, flies looking like bees etc - very confusing, which i suppose is the intention

all the best for the rest of the Summer -- it's now finally starting to warm up here -- i'm envious of your ability to thrive in sub-tropical conditions!

Weed x

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why Kamala Harris will be our next American President - Michael Zizis (astrology)

Note: Michael prepared this July 6th! 

Anything we can do to promote sanity as the "head" of Turtle Island is a good thing.

Why Kamala Harris Will be Our Next American President.

Michael Zizis

·

Follow

6 min read·Jul 6, 2024

aka -

RISKING BEING WRONG (again!)

An essay by Mike Zizis

Authors note; I highlighted the fixed Star Algol and its influence regarding Donald Trump in my previous essay. Astrologer Ursula Fugger pointed out to me that Regulus, the fixed star of royalty, is conjunct his Mars and his ascendant. Thank you Ursula!

FROM:

https://observationhobbies.com/astronomy/astrology/what-does-regulus-mean-in-astrology/

Regulus is more than just a mere point of light in the sky — it’s a potent astrological influence. When this royal star positions itself prominently in your birth chart, it’s said to bestow upon you the qualities of a leader: ambition, courage, and success. But with great power comes great responsibility; the position of Regulus speaks not only to potential but also to the ethical use of one’s influence. Symbolically it confers:

Honor and fame: Reflective of its regal namesake, Regulus suggests a path to accolades and recognition.

• Power and wealth: Embodying the riches of the king of the jungle.
• Potential for downfall: As with many mythic narratives, a reminder that every rise could be met with a fall.

{As of this writing the planet Pluto is completing its 248 year return in the chart of United States, according to the Sibly chart (the most popularly used chart) of the United States. Pluto is the destroyer of that which must be and can be destroyed to make way for the new. In his Phoenix representation he most often reveals that the rebirth is extraordinarily better than that awful rowing towards slow death.}

Joe Biden is a Scorpio. He has been through many sorrowful tragic Scorpio/ Pluto deaths. It appears that fate is not yet done with his earthly cycles.

In part one, in my essay on Algol The Most Evil Star And Donald Trump, I promised you an analysis of the coming November presidential election, the players, and the outcome.

https://michael-zizis.medium.com/algol-the-most-evil-star-and-donald-trump-e7fd1f078640

Well here it is. In the previous essay I pointed out that the star, Algol, astrologically, symbolically represents gruesome themes that begin with beheading, mass murder, piling up of corpses, etc. Please advise anyone angrily unfamiliar with astrology not to read this essay if they have Algol prominent in their charts and are viciously against understanding symbols. In that work I somewhat erroneously came to the conclusion that Biden was in for a probable assassination, between November and taking office in January. With the advantages of hindsight, I now realize that Algol at 26 degrees Taurus opposite Biden’s natal Sun in Scorpio is symbolically about the beheading of his power, not his person.

That leaves Kamala Harris as his most probable successor, and she is a true scrapper and warrior who delights in battle.

Her transits are quite revealing. In the week of July 12 to July 21, she will have transiting Mars/Uranus and stationary Algol conjunct her Natal Jupiter at 24° Taurus in the 12th house. Jupiter at that placement represents divine protection from the worst outcome. So my conclusion was that this means being protected from becoming heavily targeted because of carrying so much authority.

But transiting Saturn in her tenth house, tells a very different yet parallel story. Saturn transiting the top of anyone’s chart, based on their own self-knowledge, means that this is a flowering of busy successes that continue for at least four years.

In my one sided autodidactic understanding of astrology, I am trying to keep this as simple as possible. Kamala Harris’s star is rising in the world. Saturn transiting the 10th House indicates worldly successes and prominence. Saturn’s astrology gives back what we put in. And as the poet Milton said, “They also serve who only stand and wait,” (which is much of what the Vice President does).

When and if she is most probably chosen by the largest democratic donors and many in the Democratic Party — she will have waited decades for her prominence in the world. Astrology, among many themes, reveals the timing of events.

Based on Joe Biden’s horoscope and Saturn transiting the end of his third and the beginning of his fourth House, he is at the nadir of his worldly public journey. Classically the third house reveals everyday communication, while Saturn symbolizes learning from experience, blockages, possible failures and setbacks, in whatever area it is moving through in one’s horoscope. Please keep in mind that Saturn gives us back what we have put in. Saturn transiting the bottom of the chart indicates one of the most difficult transits in a 28 year cycle. So many of us were shocked at his trailing inconsistencies, abrupt endings, and non-sequiturs in the debate. This is indicative of Saturn transiting the third house and how it symbolically blocks communication from the brain to the tongue.

Now let’s take that next step through the illuminating and complex door called astrology. The Sun in a person’s chart represents their own empowerment, vitality, and the important males in a person’s life and passage. The Earth is also a planet, not often used by astrologers. The Earth is always opposite the Sun. For instance, if you are a Libra by sun sign, the Earth will be in Aries. If you are a Scorpio, the Earth will be in Taurus, etc. In my work I try to mine the meaning implicit in the planet earth as representing one’s earthly mission.

The sabian symbol of Kamala’s earthly mission is derived by using the Sun as a symbol of ordinary male-ness. Here is the Sabian symbol for her earthly mission;

(ARIES 28°): A LARGE AUDIENCE CONFRONTS THE PERFORMER WHO DISAPPOINTED ITS EXPECTATIONS.

KEYNOTE: The necessity for mature preparation and self-criticism.

We see here the tangible results of the situation evoked by the two preceding symbols. Great hopes, excited expectations cannot be sustained. The last symbol reveals the performer’s state of consciousness; in this one he is actually made fully aware of having promised — to the many elements of his own personality as well as perhaps to other human beings — more than he was able to deliver. The issue is how to handle this situation. In one form or another, it is an often recurring situation in the life of an individual person. The manner in which it is met determines the individual’s future possibilities of development and achievement.

This is the third stage of this five-fold sequence. What is implied here is the need to be more than “obsessed by potentiality” and subjectively involved in the use of the new powers. The objective results have to be considered, i.e. what this use will do. The individual is not alone concerned, for in a sense mankind as a whole will be affected. What is required, therefore, is an objective inclusiveness of the whole environment; thus a sense of RESPONSIBILITY for what one’s actions will produce in people who have been made to expect significant results.

…

Since she seems not yet to be a performer who has disappointed a large audience blah blah, that leaves us with a conclusion that it points to her boss.

Speaking of Algol and the beheadings, it is clear that a large portion of the American public have lost their heads. This is reflected by the US’s Pluto return. All that is left, in this collective case, is the body politic, full of the emotions, of the vicious and violent crowd, emotions without a mind. Pluto often states, astrologically, that the truth will set you free, but it will hurt like hell before it does so.

Worldwide we are witnessing both collectively and individually, women rising and attaining more personal, economic, and political power, whether that means women in many countries like Japan, refusing to have more and more children at the cost of their worldly productivity, or women coming to power by being in worldly power.

It’s not my intent in this essay to plunge into Kamala Harris’s chart as president. In astrology we say that nothing is certain until after it happens.

Below you’ll find Wikipedia references to her professional rise in the world, and therefore, why, in my opinion, she is a qualified human being to become the next president.

I am concluding this essay by returning you to that Sabian symbol above. Tellingly it also represents prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his earthly mission. As they say in mathematics and astrology; go figure.

Mr. Library Man/Moon City

Last week I sent 1 1/2 kilogram Canada Post mailing boxes to Nicky Drumbolis of Letters Bookshop and Vicki McCullough of the Haiku Canada archives committee. This is one of the final unloadings of over half a century of collecting small press poetry stuff, and it feels good to have a new home for all this material. 

While filling their boxes I came across many memories, including two broadsheets of my haiku circa 1988 - 1990. This was when I quit my clerical job with Toronto Public Library and moved to Cordova Mines on the edge of the Kawartha Lakes to live closer to nature. Some of the haiku/senryu are pretty damn good, so here are my selections.


from Mr. Library Man*:

first year in the library
   I pierce my ear

5 years in the library
     A tattoo!

the talkative patron
we hide in the workroom

so cold
I don’t want to lock
the night book drop

again he renews
The Joy of Sex

books on incest
bruised young eyes

from Moon City**:

on my birthday
swimming alone

list after list
income and expenses:
writing full-time

big spiders
share the bathroom
cool

Sunday night
cars speeding
back to the city

drinking rye
and writing book reviews
deep blue dusk


*Mr. Library Man was a Haiku Canada broadsheet produced circa 1988

**Moon City was produced in1989 by Mark McCawley withGreeensleeve Publishing 

still a 'New Agey' Buddhist after Mary experience

from an email to a friend about the Mary miracle visitation:

I’m still processing the experience. Nope, definitely not converting to Catholicism ;  )-  Too much evil caused by the Christian religion, esp. Catholicism. Thinking of the Doctrine of Discovery*, which gave the go ahead for our planet’s genocidal history of colonialism, which is still playing out here in Canada. Also the Crusades, etc. etc. . 

I’m trying to think of some good metaphors to explain my ambiguity to the visitation and blessing. Closest I’ve come so far would be if someone gave me a billion dollars, and then I had to spend it for the greatest good of the most people. There’d be stress and confusion, lots of instant friends and mega jealousy, but it’s the kind of gift most people couldn’t refuse.

I most definitely didn’t go to Greensides looking for a miracle. In a way the visitation was almost a cosmic practical joke. I went there for a country walk and some peace of mind while I waited for my mechanic to inspect my old Subaru. 

Maybe it was borderline rude of me to (in some people’s eyes) to practise Buddhist oriented meditation on a Catholic shrine site. Boy, did I get a comeuppance!!!

I will still retain my neo-Buddhist ’New Agey’ beliefs. After all, Buddhism is a couple of millennia older than Christianity, and it was this lifelong practice (I believe) which was part of reason for the visit from the beautiful Mary entity.

I’ve become more selective in whom I confide the event. The responses from the handful of people I’ve told in person have been extremely varied, even amusing. If someone had told me the same story, I wonder what my response would have been?

Thanks for the suggestion of checking YouTube vids. Did a quick check, and there are lots there. Haven’t watched any yet, but guess I should. 

Thanks for helping me articulate and reflect on this unsettling but magical occurrence ; )-

Cheers,

Chris

I may need a few more “cheers” to handle this ;  )-

*from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights

The Doctrine of Discovery was set out in a series of declarations by popes in the 15th century. These declarations (known as “papal bulls”) provided religious authority for Christian empires to invade and subjugate non‐Christian lands, peoples and sovereign nations, impose Christianity on these populations, and claim their resources. These papal bulls were written at a time when European empires were embarking on widescale colonial expansion.

from Tricycle's Daily Dharma - this helps me understand the paradox of being a Buddhist and someone who has also experienced a Christian miracle

More Than One Truth Paradox is where enlightenment is born—it’s not about resolving or conquering paradox by choosing one side; rather, it’s in the tension of more than one truth being true that a new wisdom arises. Kai Cheng Thom, “Writing Love Letters to Monsters” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

bill bissett appointed to Order of Canada/gentil ask for th secret handshake peer support group

 NEWS | TUESDAY JULY 2, 2024

bill bissett Appointed to the Order of Canada!

Legendary pioneer of sound, visual, and performance poetry bill bissett has been appointed to the Order of Canada! bill is the author of over 60 books of poetry including its th sailors life / still in treetment, breth, and inkorrect thots and co-founded the Secret Handshake Gallery, a peer-support facility for people with schizophrenia. A huge congratulations to bill for this well-deserved honour!

Read all about it here.

from Talonbooks website 

Subject: a loveing n gentil ask on behalf uv th secret handshake peer support group network 4 peopul with schizophrenia

Date: July 4, 2024 at 10:08:49 AM EDT

To: bill bissett <centralianwings@gmail.com

From: bill bissett <centralianwings@gmail.com>

Subject: a loveing n gentil ask on behalf uv th secret handshake peer support group network 4 peopul with schizophrenia

Date: July 2, 2024 at 1:58:11 AM EDT

a loveing and gentle ask on behalf of the secret handshake peer support group network 4 peopul with schizophrenia

 

you can dew direkt deposit     recipient  the secret handshake  email  thesecrethandshake3@gmail.com  

or you can send a chek  if yu like   2 the secret handshake  c/o bill bissett   60 homewood ave  apt #219  toronto  ontario   

M4Y 2X4 

the secret handshake   peer support network  group  4 people with schizophrenia is looking 4 donaysyuns  n help with

th rising costs   wud you like 2 help   no amount is 2 small   wud yu lke 2 help out th secret handshake   a wundrful 

group network n its club hous 4 manee hours uv peer support sessyuns pr week 4 people with schizophrenia a place

2 go without stigma  condescensyun  or creating mor problems thn it solves   heer we sort out our lives ourselvs

people with schizophrenia  ar also oftn artists   painters n writers   poets  novelists  dansers  singers   and we have a gallery  

showing the works of members  friends  fellow travelers and  supportiv allies  and likewise   many poetry readings similarlee 

put 2gether    IAM is wun uv our biggest donors  and sum private donors also big time   but we are always needing 2 rais more

 

sew we are opn six dayze a week  monday 2 friday   1-4 and saturday  2-5 pm   drop in n see our art shows   ask 2 be on our 

mailing lists  and we will b abul 2 let yu know evreething that's going on in our club house  at  360 college st  #301  third floor

elevator from th ground  only a few bloks west of spadina

evry second monday of evry month honey novick teeches vois yoga  relees of pent up paradigms thru singing

n if yu ar on our mailing list yu will reseev epostrs uv all our publik events

thanks sew much 4 tuneing in here  n if you donate you will receave very quiklee a charitabul donaysyun receipt

helpful 4 yr incum tax deductions     and if you’ve already given   cud you 4ward this ask on to other people  friends and allies

I'll always be indebted to bill for publishing my first non-selfpublished poetry collection, Unacknowledged Legislator, with his blewointmentpress in 1981 

poet Jim Larwill: youtube vids on Milton Acorn and poetry from the margins

I heard from old comrade Jim Larwill today (Canadian Liberation Movement - google it). Jim was a mainstay of the Purdy Country Poetry Fests I held for eight summers at my ZenRiver Gardens retreat. Great to hear from him and to know that he's staying very alive and active on the Canuck poetry scene with his online vids. Please check him out!   

Hey Chris,

How are things going these days?  Same old same old here.  Slowing down with age a bit.  Writing less but trying to do something with some of it.  I don't know if you remember the paper I gave on Acorn at Purdyfest but I have turned it into a video/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9oo1fJIWns

The beauty of the internet is that today a poet can be ignored by the entire world!!  I miss reading to a live audience sometimes.   Covid seems to have shut down most reading series and I am too tired in the evenings to drive into town and all the way back anyway.  Videos are a hell of a lot more work that reading to a live audience...  and a live audience doesn't have an algorithm between the stage and the seats.

Anyway I hope you are well.

Jim

-- 

Jim Larwill is an Omnigothic Neofuturist. 

You can read his poetry and essays at: http://web.ncf.ca/wolf

You can read "i Wolf" the Carnivoreque literary theory of "human" origin at: http://web.ncf.ca/eu386/iWolf

You can watch his You-tube videos at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXNKeq1xZcCY4QJ2_vI6oxg

some of Jim Larwill's memories of poet and CLM comrade Rob Macleod from our email

exchanges today:

The other day I happened to come across an obituary for Rob Macleod who it seems passed a few years ago.  Rob like all of us had his quirks, but he actually was such a really good guy.  Rob over the years was good at keeping in touch with me (phone to pass on bad jokes and puns on a regular basis) and I kind of eventually noticed I hadn't heard from him in a while.  When he became a father I did hear less because he was busy.  He absolutely adored his daughter.  I was quite sad to hear of his death.

So many memories come to mind.  There is is picture of me standing in the middle of the centennial flame of Parliament Hill where I am lighting a Time magazine to start a bonfire of American magazines which were being dumped into Canada.  A successful demonstration that helped bring in protection for Canadian Mags.  1974?  In the background of the picture Rob is holding the CLM banner with a Mountie standing beside him.  Of all of us I would say Rob was probably the closest to Acorn.  He took a trip to PEI with Acorn where Acorn lost his People's Poetry medal on a beach lamenting that eventually some American with a metal detector would find it some day.  Rob said he was working on a book on Acorn.  Not sure what happened with that.  It is maybe important we try to keep out version of history alive for a little while.  Maybe I should do a vid of my Acorn memories?

Jim and Rob on Parliament Hill

photo Jon Penner

LSD nights and days with a pyramid: Glastonbury Fayre 1971

This a chapter from my haibun/memoir. Listening to CBC Radio this morning I heard a news item about this year's line-up for the Glastonbury Music Festival and started reminiscing. I first published this in 1990 as a chapter in Eel Pie Dharma: a memoir/haibun with my poetry press Unfinished Monument. Tai Grove did a much more professional reprint with his Hidden Brook Press in 2012. We changed the title to Eel Pie Island Dharma: a hippie memoir/haibun so potential readers would know it wasn't a cookbook! 

As always, special thanks to fellow Eel Pie Island communard Weed for posting this online in the early 2000s. Check out his websites.     

EEL PIE DHARMA - a memoir / haibun -  © 1990 Chris Faiers

Chapter 24 - Glastonbury Magic Festival Word went out through the hippie grapevine of a magic festival to be held in Glastonbury.  Glastonbury was a legendary sacred site in England, with a cathedral where one of the apostles had planted a rose bush which bloomed all the year round.  Nearby loomed a mysterious conical hilltop, called a tor, which was rumoured to be hollow.  Glastonbury Tor was said to be a 'sending station' on the system of ley lines, a power grid which lay over the English countryside, and which is the planet's equivalent of the magnetic fields which surround the human body which acupuncturists use. Jeremy and I had earlier visited another of these mysterious tors, Michael's Mount off the Cornish Coast.  Another such tor is Mont San Michel off the French coast.  In the olden days festivals were held to replenish the 'dragon power', or earth magic which kept fields fertile and the inhabitants prosperous.  Supposedly the twelve signs of the zodiac were laid out around Glastonbury Tor, and from the small chapel on top of the Tor one could see the zodiac's unusual shapes blended in with the English countryside. This was an event not to be missed.  The festival was to be held for the summer solstice, June 21, and I left my dossing friends in Cornwall and began to hitchhike.  I got a ride as far as Salisbury, travelling quickly through the ancient fields of Stonehenge country.  Walking through Salisbury, a hippie/student came up to me, and gave me a hit of acid wrapped in foil.  He bragged how he and his mates had put hits of acid into the milk bottles which the local police used for their tea, and how that day a couple of cops had gone to hospital with hallucinations, while the other policemen wandered about in a happy daze all day, smiling at everyone. I thanked him for the acid, and not knowing what to do with it, and not wanting to be caught with it in my possession after hearing his story, I put the foil packet in my mouth and resumed hitching.  Rides followed quickly.  First a van full of black musicians on their way to a gig picked me up, hoping to score some dope.  Then a mysterious business-type man in a sleek Jaguar told me to hop in. As we sped through the darkening evening his conversation became more and more questioning.  He seemed to know a lot about the forthcoming festival, and was eager to know as much as I could tell him about it.  I realized that I was beginning to babble, and then it occurred to me that the acid had been dissolving in my mouth, depite the tinfoil.  So I was starting to trip, and at this point, speeding through the night, my mysterious driver told me he was the police chief for the area, and that he wanted to know what to expect from the festival goers.  I tried to put his mind at ease, that we weren't going to be smuggling dope or sacrificing virgins.  I also realized that I wanted to get out of the car before a full-blown acid trip took over. He let me out on the outskirts of Piltdown, after pointing me in the general direction of the farm where the festival would be held.  I wandered down the lonely highway in the dark with only starlight to guide me.  The white lines in the middle of the road began stretching and blurring in an effect I knew was the result of a mild acid trip, but the effects weren't overpowering.  At the juncture with the road I was to follow the next day, I slipped into a field and fell asleep, exhaustion overcoming the weak acid dose. I awoke late the next morning, still feeling some effects from the acid, and lay in the field watching the clouds make incredible patterns in the clear blue sky. Finally excitement at the thought of the festival overcame my lethargy, and I started to walk down the country road.  Surprisingly I got another ride, this time from a local who also had heard a lot about the festival.  He was dubious about the quality of our hippie magic, as the weather had been overcast for the past few days.  His tone wasn't ironic, and I realized how many of the British, especially in the countryside, still believe in magic and a lot of the Celtic mythologies. The road was becoming jammed with fellow festival goers, and when my ride let me out, I joined the throng.  This was a more serious and committed type of hippie.  We were the true believers for the most part, not just students growing their hair long for a wild summer. A local farmer let us use his fields, with his stone farmhouse as headquarters.  By the time I got to the site it was dinner time, and some self-styled diggers had set up a kitchen beside the farmhouse in the barnyard.  I ate some stew dippped from a huge iron pot, and soon was reviving old friendships with people from the Richmond scene and elsewhere. There was a magical excitement in the air, and the view over the festival site was typical of Somerset's hilly beauty.  I wandered from the throng at the soup kitchen, and fell asleep on a hill in the middle of a field.  A very odd snuffling noise awoke me very early the next morning: Asleep in a field     a browsing cow         my alarm clock I was too excited, for once, to fall back asleep, and made my way down the hill to where some vans were unloading around the base of an unusual structure.  The rock'n'roll bands were going to play on a platform part way up a scale model of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, which we were going to build with construction scaffolding which an enlightened builder had loaned us. Everyone was smoking dope and unloading trucks in a flurry of manic activity, and I joined in.  I was proud of the muscles I had developed as a gravedigger, and I spent hours unloading scaffolding.  After unloading, I joined the construction crews, and very quickly the pyramid began taking shape.  One job I had to perch on a rail high in the air and saw off the end of a piece of pipe with a hacksaw.  Halfway through the job, someone handed me a carrot carved into a chillum and stuffed with pungent hash.  We were a crazy looking construction crew, but somehow through the haze of hash smoke, the pyramid grew skyward.  Boards were laid for the performance area, about twenty feet off the ground, and the scaffolding continued to a peak about seventy feet above that. After working on the pyramid all day, I took off for a tour of the festival site.  The farm was about a hundred acres, with hedgerows dividing the area into several major fields.  Tents were appearing everywhere, and many hippies were building huts in the hedgerows.  Banners and tents and colourful people were everywhere, like some medieval camp before battle. For a bunch of spaced-out freaks, things were amazingly well organized.  Six-foot deep latrines were dug, and metal pipes were laid across them.  Another free kitchen sprung up towards the bottom of the site, and everyone looked like they were going to be housed and fed.  At the bottom of the hilly fields, the pyramid stretched into the sky, and after several days of building, the musical part of the festival was about to begin. I settled in a giant wigwam tent, at the bottom of the fields about a hundred yards from the pyramid.  Quickly our tent became a family, and I met a blonde girl who hitched into Piltdown with me to buy food for our tribe.  That night about ten of us dropped acid together while we sat huddled in blankets before the stage. Arthur Brown was the first performer, and he tried to bum people out.  He sang about how the Aquarian dream was a fake, and that we should all examine our consciences.  We countered his rock star negativity by staying in our group, and whenever one of us looked a little uncomfortable, the rest of us would put our arms over them and tell them they were in a big egg and about to be reborn. The positive group dynamics soon had us all on great acid trips, and we felt free to wander as a group.  We danced and listened to the music under the stars with hundreds of other stoned worshippers, and all was at peace.  Someone had gotten hold of a jug of scrumpy, a strong local cider, and that also helped ease any acid paranoias. Later in the evening, one of us had to take a dump, and so the whole gang of us dutifully trooped over to the open air latrines, and all of us sat in a long row on the poles and had a good shit or pee, men and women, young and old.  It was one of the most liberating experiences of my life, all of us sitting there in the open air under the stars, making the natural and rude noises we all must make every day of our lives without any embarrassment.  Some of us got the giggles from the acid, and the relaxing sound of laughter mixed well with the rock music and the sounds of nature. We all stumbled into the wigwam and fell asleep in each others' arms.  I slept with the blonde girl, but we wanted to remain celibate to keep the spiritual atmosphere.  In the middle of the night there was a commotion outside, and when we went to investigate, we noticed a giant shining star.  On acid it hung in the sky like a space ship  -  it was the morning star, and we all stood in awe for several minutes. After a week of wandering in the fields, listening to music around campfires and eating with our fingers, we were incredibly dirty.  I decided to walk the mile to a little pond where there were thirty or forty skinnydippers splashing around.  I slipped off my dirty bellbottoms, and swam around in naked bliss, the water cool under the high afternoon sun. Late the next morning a hippie gave me a hit of acid, and then suggested we walk across the fields to Glastonbury Tor.  It was a long hike, and after the usual hour the acid started coming on.  It wasn't enough to overwhelm us, though.  After several miles we came to a country road with a pub, and we stood and watched the swaying patterns the wind was making by sweeping through the ivy on the walls: Wind     through ivy mat         pub walls Finally we reached the Tor, and began the slow hike up.  After twenty minutes we completed the steep climb, and there below us was laid out the Somerset countryside.  Try as I might, I couldn't make out the mythical zodiac patterns, but the old chapel on the top of the Tor had a very magical aura about it, and the view itself was enough to make any other kind of magic irrelevant. The festival had lasted over a week.  It was much written about in the British musical and countercultural press, and I believe that the festival is still being held annually, almost twenty years after our inaugural event with the great pyramid. Eel Pie Dharma is protected by international copyright laws. Individuals may print off a copy of this work for personal use only to facilitate easier reading.

---

Eel Pie Dharma - contents   |   previous chapter (23)   |   next chapter (25)

---

original Glastonbury Festival web page   |   official Glastonbury Festival web page

---

comments to weed@wussu.com
revised 8 March 2017
URL http://www.eelpie.org/epd_24.htm