The Human Be-In

This is an excerpt and a little different than what is in the book.

January 14th, 1967

January 14^th finally arrived.  I dressed in my splendid outfit and walked to the Polo field in Golden Gate Park with the Beatnik Gangleader at my side.  We stood on the rim of the Polo Field looking out.  Before us was a sea of freaks stretching from one side of the giant bowl to the other.  As we pushed through the crowd of people, moving toward the middle, the electric buzz of acid sizzled through the perfume of pot smoke lying in a low cloud over the field.  A little man in a white jumpsuit, crazy hat and goggles appeared in front of me and dumped a handful of small white tablets in my hand. 

"White Lightning.  Pass them along." 

The sssss of the word pass sizzled behind him as he pulled his goggles down and winked, disappearing into the crowd.  The rain from the week before evaporated into the marijuana haze as the sun worked its way up the sky.  From the cosmic buzz of thousands of people, a low hum merged into a chant to the raise the sun.  I popped a tablet into my mouth, gave one to Jeffrey, and handed the rest of them out.

We wandered around, looking at one another.  People sat on the shoulders of others to get a look at the crowd.  Instead of anxiety, there was a low current of expectation.  Joints circulated freely from group to group.  Allen Ginsberg, clad in white with flowers in his hair sat on the stage next to Gary Snyder and Timothy Leary, banging away at two large hand held cymbals, chanting “Hare Om Namo Shiva” like some pop song from the radio.  As Country Joe and the Fish started playing, people near the front of the stage began to dance.  Ginsberg abandoned his seat and jumped down gyrating wildly with the dancers.  Dogs wandered through the crowd sporting collars of bandanas and eucalyptus buttons.  Knots of revelers staked out places on the grass with blankets and baskets of food.  Guitars, tambourines, drums, all kinds of percussion instruments broke into impromptu jams.  And everywhere people moved in the sun, their arms whirling windmills, their hands tracing acid trails in the air. 

I turned to Jeffrey, “What are we supposed to do?’

“Nothing.  Nothing at all.”

Suddenly, I felt heavy in my outfit, stiff and formal.  I unhooked the side of my skirt and stepped over the pile of red velvet as it fell to the ground.  I turned my head slowly to take in the scene.  I levitated, and floated above the crowd, flying slowly through it.  People far away telescoped into my sight, perfectly formed, and then faded, back and forth.  The trees at the edge of the field were vivid.  I felt their restless movement in my chest, all beating in time to my heart.  Then I felt the sound of my breath moving in and out.  I fought to hold onto one single thought and follow it to its conclusion, and a fluttering palpitation of panic filled me.  The very molecules of my body were trying to separate. 

I gasped for air, breathing faster and faster, turning my eyes to find something familiar.  Someone handed me an onion, and I sank to my knees staring at the perfect yellow orb in my hand.  The layers upon layers that made up the whole opened like a lotus flower as my vision penetrated to the core, the center, the seed.  I perfectly understood the complexity of the world contained within.  A piece of parchment fluttered to the ground before me with the words, “Silence is Golden.”  It was the very pronouncement I waited to hear.  My eyes filled with tears, and a saltwater rainstorm poured from my core, running down my face, a cleansing stream.  I felt a touch on my shoulder, and looked into the eyes of Daisy Mae.  She was reflected through a prism of rainbow tears, a kaleidoscope of shapes forming and reforming, never the same.  I took a deep breath, the first breath in a new universe.  As the air filled my lungs, the suspended time began a gentle pendulum, in and out, in and out, and the mechanics of breathing resumed.  Daisy laughed at me as she squatted down, “Here, you need this.”

She carefully arranged a brown felt fedora on my head, took my onion, pointed to the paper on the grass in front of me.  She held a finger to her lips as she moved away. 

No one around me looked familiar.  Well, no one is familiar.  None of us really knows anyone.  There is no one new, nothing new, it’s all old, as old as the hills and the rocks and the sea.  We have been here before and will be here again.  Being stoned and being aware of being stoned was exhausting.  I felt silly and a little frustrated with myself.  When I looked up again into the crowd standing around me, the face of my friend Bruce detached itself from the ocean of strangers.  He bent down and kissed my cheek lightly, and moved on.  As I slid from the peak of my acid dream, I understood what Einstein was trying to say, that matter is never destroyed.  It was all so simple.

When I finally stood up, I could just barely see the stage. Lenore Kandell, the ‘Love Poet” read.  It all made perfect profound sense.  The fact that Jeffrey was lost in the crowd made perfect sense.  I had always been in this crowd at this moment, and it was where I would always be.  I turned away from the stage and looked toward the sea as a small marionette dangling from a giant kite, backlit by the sun, descended slowly from the sky.  Crowds of people rushed in his direction.  Another miracle. 

The sun was setting.  The crowd thinned.  I was nervous, lost and confused.  I wasn’t sure what to do, where to go.  The long low wail of a conch shell filled the field, someone took my arm and helped me into the back of a truck full of people.  Am I a refugee?  Am I being taken away?  I recognized one of Daisy Mae's boys, looked around and realized I knew most of these people.  With a sly smile, Pappy handed me a sweater, patting my arm.  Suddenly I was so tired.  I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink all day, and as if I spoke the words, I’m thirsty, aloud, Sam handed me a bottle of juice.  We joined a caravan of vehicles moving slowly through the Park.  People walked beside us, talking and singing.  Mothers holding babies, crooned lullabies, everyone smiled and moved in the direction of the ocean.  I belong here, now.  I have not been forgotten, I am not lost.

At the beach we sat and watched the sunset, huddled together at the edge of the world.  Samantha wrapped her arms around me to keep me warm.  It was the first sunset I had ever seen and it was a revelation.  The beach glittered with dozens of small fires.  Groups of people danced to drums and the tinkling of bells and finger cymbals rose and fell on the waves.  Soft laughter floated on the embers and the world was suspended in time.  A cosmic time-out.  No one was arrested, no one was punished. 

I loved coming down.  I was filled with joy.  I don’t know whether it was relief or delight in the way acid shatters everything we know, rendering the world confusing, frightening and incomprehensible, and then puts everything back into place.  I also know it didn’t happen that way for everyone.