Love and Haight

"Nice title," Doc chuckled. "Are you sure it hasn't already been used?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to use it anyway," I said. "Pretty informal for a thesis though."

"Simple and elegant, just enough words to capture the essence of what it's all about," said Doc. "I think Ockham would be proud, Lau Tzu too."

"Who'd of thunk Doc," I said, "leaving for Berkeley at age 15, now here I am, all these years later...another lifetime gone by...and I'm just now finishing my Masters."

"No substitute for direct experience," smiled Doc. "You've seen a lot. So what's is about, what's your thesis?"

"It's a beautiful learning experience."

"How so?"

"I think I'll have a malt first."

"Chocolate or vanilla?"

I hesitated for moment to think about it, each in its own way was a favorite. Funny how thinking about such simple things brings back so many images, sweet memories of days gone by, times more innocent, yet somehow more wise.

"Strawberry."

"Whoa!" Doc teased. "You gettin' radical on me?!"

"That's right," I teased back. "And gimme a burger and onion rings while you're at it."

"You got it partner. How 'bout you make the beverage and I make the chow."

Friendship...true friendship...deep and lasting...it's a real gift when you have it...one of life's best presents...like being a parent...having a soulmate...a kindred spirit...

"Hey genius, have you seen the movie yet?!" Doc shouted from the back.

Seemed sort of odd, watching Doc work the grill in the back. After so many years of mixing drugs, now there he was flipping burgers, whistling away, happy as ever. Man's gotta make a livin', Doc says, and this is as good as any.

"You mean Brother Sun, Sister Moon?!" I shouted back.

"Yep!"

"Not yet, it's one of the last things I need to do before I finish my thesis!"

I continued musing as Doc continued whistling. Like the overhead bell dinging, or flute playing, these simple sounds, like the rest of the simple treats offered up at Doc's store, bring up so many memories, happy, but in a way haunting.

"Nostalgia," Doc interrupted, as he slid a basket of greasy ambrosia onto the counter in front of me.

"What about it?" I asked.

"It's a funny thing," Doc said. "What do you make of it?"

"That's a good one, I've been pondering that very thing for over 20 years now."

"And what have you come up with?"

I continued to think for a bit. After pondering the past for so long now, nostalgia infused memory, what does Rip Van Winkle have to say of his dreams under the tree?

"Nostalgia is fodder for the future...memory of the better for the better."

"Hmmm...like a seed then?"

"Yes, like learning or education for our children."

"Knowledge carried forward?"

"Yes, the best of what's been gained from the past."

"And the worst?"

"It's forgotten, except for the lesson of what not to repeat."

"And how's the lesson carried forward?"

"In fairy tales we read our children."

"Hmmm...I see. How 'bout the adults?"

"Yes, what about the adults. Who are the adults anyway?

"The Dreamers?"

"Like Martin Luther King Jr."

"And John Lennon."

"Jesus."

"And so many others."

"And they keep killing them...the messengers...the readers of the fairy tales...the authors."

"That's a hard pill to swallow."

"Yes it is."

"So what's the solution?"

"Listen. By now you've heard the story of The Man in the Cave, the man who planted his onion at the foot of Bodhisativa. What have you learned from him? How far you have traveled? So much you have seen...and so much have you learned...science...religion...all these words and disciplines, which mean so much. And yet the final answer is faith...faith in yourself...and faith in your Creator, Creation...faith in Santa Clause...Saint Nicolas...good fairies...and good stories...faith in your dreams...faith that dreams come true...faith that dreams are real."

"Yes I see I have learned all these. And I see with faith comes science...as the mystery requires investigation...and with science comes reason...and logic...direct experience...and consensual validation too if we are to exist as a population with higher ideals and higher aspirations. Yes, even with great faith we still need great science, as well as the other way around."

"And so too we need religion...guidance...teaching of the mystery...continued learning...as the mystery is always unfolding."

"Indeed, just as faith must accompany reason, and the other around, science must accompany religion because the mystery of Creation is ever unfolding."

"Philosophy and Spirituality...hard investigation and prayer...these things are not mutually exclusive as often thought. In fact they cannot but go together, like the architect and the builder, the Mind and the Maker..The Dreamer and the Weaver.  I never told you that little story. It goes like this...

One beautiful night, as Mother and Father were dancing under the soft light of a full moon, Father said to Mother, "My mate, my wife, you know I love you."

"Why?" Mother asked.

"Because if it were not for you, I would have no body to dance with."

Mother smiled at this. And she said to Father, "You know my husband, my man, I love you too."

"Why?" Father asked.

"Because if it were not for you, no thing in my world would have meaning."

Mother and Father had a great big laugh at this...followed by an even bigger kiss.

The End

"Oh yes, it makes sense," I said, "The Dreamer and The Weaver, now that's a good beginning!"

"I think it's a logical prelude to the Big Bang."

"Indeed! And with romance no less!"

"Doc, I do believe this is the best burger and rings I've ever had!"

"How 'bout the shake?"

"Perfect!"

Silence...silence to process...to think about all that's been said...to listen. How much we miss if we don't listen...truly listen. Now that's learning! And I see therein lies the problem, in lack of listening...and the consequent lack of understanding. Sources in stubbornness...arrogance...genius so great as to think it has a monopoly on intelligence. Hmmm...the solution...a little humility needed here...just enough to show the connection...the relation...the interdependence.

"Can you blame the blind if they cannot see?"

"Yet to keep them from doing more damage in their rage?"

"Indeed."

"Yoga."

"Bodhisativa."

"Nice long walks alone."

"Or hikes with loved ones."

"And dinners."

"Music and dancing!"

"Have a big party!"

"Dream lots of great dreams!"

"Explore the Earth and outer space!"

"Build good connections among people. All beings on this planet deserve good treatment."

"Spend our money and resources, our time and our energy on cooperative efforts, allow creative synergy to work wonders."

"Your focus becomes your future."

"Be the change you want to see."

"Gandhi."

"Holy rebel of a cause wonderful!"

"Balance."

"Firm principle."

"Uncompromising Honesty."

"Dedicated Integrity."

"Lovely Sage...Beautiful Yogi."

"Avatar...Teacher."

Suddenly I felt a calm I don't think I'd ever felt before, with Doc or anyone else. It's as if we saw eye to eye, even joined mind to mind. Not surprising as I could see quite clearly now who he was to me.

"So here's the answer to your original question Doc," I said, chewing and swallowing the last bite of this half-pound burger he'd come to call the Dean. "The thesis to my Masters is this:

The flower children were mostly kids running away from home. They weren't satisfied with what was being fed them, whether by their parents or their government or society or culture. And can you blame them?. With McCarthyism, the Cold War and the communist scare, soul scarring images of Hiroshima---knowing it was the best brains of their fathers that caused all this, though many hesitantly and reluctantly, for who knew the right thing to do, because we had to stop the killing of our boys too. With the war in Vietnam, the balance of patriotism and humanism rattled on shaky scales, justice trying to find its equilibrium in the maelstrom. We were all just learning, we were all just kids, young and old, us and them, at home and overseas, many doing their best to clean up the past, and a few doing their damndest to create a better culture, a new future built on the highest ideals of peace and love. All these tragedies, and all these triumphs, of the fairytale Sixties...it's a beautiful learning experience.

"Sounds like a good approximate," said Doc. "Why do you think the movement failed? What's the big lesson?"

"I don't think it failed, I think it's still happening, in fact it's still growing."

"How do you mean?"

"It was the spirit of the thing that made it happen. And that spirit has been around a long time, at least since the utopian vision of Christ, but the spirit still lives with any person or group, throughout time, then or now, who strives to live a higher ideal than their forebears."

"And yet it's those forebears who get us here."

"Yes, that's the value of tradition isn't it? We carry forward the best of our past and discard the rest, as we learn from it. Something like that anyway."

"The power of Nostalgia?"

"Yes, memory that selects those images to keep, feelings most sweet, and forgets the worst, save for the essence of the lesson, the morals in our fairy tales, the records we must keep in our deepest hearts so we don't make the same mistakes."

"I can see why 20 years was necessary."

"A lot to learn there, a lot to uncover and remember."

"Nostalgia of The Dreamer."

"Yes, another story, another time."

Ding.

Ding.

"Hey Doc."

"Yeah?"

"After all this talk, I wonder if we haven't skirted the notion of good and evil."

"Maybe after you come off your cloud my dreamer," Doc smiled. "But not until you tell me where Haight failed, how the scene turned sour."

"Ok, then next time around, it's back down to Earth."

Ding.

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