Musings of a Dharma bum #2

On this lil road trip thru my memories I invite you, my groovy readers, to journey back yet further with me, back to the tender age of 14. See here my time machine is ready as am I. The only question left to be answered is, are you?

14. Was an age of major upheaval in my life. It was at that age that I really began to question everything I'd ever been told as doctrine in my life. It all started three weeks after I'd turned 14 when my parents took me to my second oldest brother's for Thanksgiving. My brother put me up in his den and in one corner was his entire tape/ CD collection. Being curious that night I took a CD off the shelf and popped it in my portable player, put my headphones in, lay back, and closed my eyes. At first I couldn't tell if it was music or if my heartbeat was just ridiculously loud. Then the voices came and the screaming started. My eyelids flew open and I frantically around the room trying to discern the source of such cacophony. As I realized it was just the music I lay back down and settled in. These strange otherworldly tones began to weave pictures in my mind's eye and I went to places I never would've dreamed existed. I had just experienced Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon for the first time in my life and had my young mind blown. Up to this point I'd only ever been exposed to music along the lines of country, classical, and gospel. This new wild music stuck in my mind, perhaps in my very soul and I wanted more. That night a few rocks had been loosed and those rocks would build into a landslide that soon enough would have no hope of being stopped.

The final massive shake would come in August of the next year. At the time I was in show choir at my school and we were invited to go to New York City to sing on the CBS Morning Show. While there we went on a tour of the city and I found myself talking to the bus driver, who was an old hippy. He handed me a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and told me to keep searching and questioning. The real quake didn't come until I found myself sitting at Strawberry Fields. It was there that I met a group of old hippies who pulled me off into the "woods" with them to smoke my first joint, and bong. They told me many things and declared me to be John Lennon reincarnate. They encouraged me to tune in and drop out, to never accept what I'm told on blind faith and to find me and just be that.

After that trip I began really questioning everything. I stopped attending church and when I could get away with it, school. I began researching hippy culture and other ways of thought and being.

Next time we'll delve further into that transformative year and the ripples that have continued to spread thru my life from it.

Until thrn my groovy readers
Much peace n love
RH