Just Seeking

I really had to just stop smoking weed.

It's been 3 days now, and only now have some of the clouds in my mind cleared enough so that I can make a rational decision not to smoke it for a while.

Before, I would sit there thinking: "I need to just stop smoking weed," with the thought having been inspired by the joint that is still smoldering in the ashtray. Then, after coming down and getting some sleep, I would wake up with a fresh perspective and "realize" that all that grandiose thinking, I'm gonna go totally substance free and "make something of myself" had all been a pipe dream; that was just stoned thinking, and I might then light up again, and repeat the process.
One time, when I was about 24 years old, I was driving along a two lane road through southern Massachusetts and had smoked a joint. After the weed hit me, I came around a corner to discover a monastery of some kind, run by Trappist monks.

It was St. Joseph Abbey in Spencer, Mass.

There was a porcelain statue of Jesus, with his arms stretched out towards a probably monk-made pond, and a road leading to the where there was the monastery and, of course, the chapel where monks, who otherwise practiced a vow of silence, could be heard chanting just before sunup each morning, before they gathered to eat in silence.

I found most of that out, about it, at a later time, but at that moment, I thought, what could be cooler for a guy who had been driving aimlessly and pondering the meaning of his life, and who had just smoked a joint, to come around a corner and find a monastery, as if having been lead there.

It wasn't beyond me, at that age, to have considered cloistering myself away in such a place, and forsaking the material world, etc.

I needed to find a monk to tell of all the experiences and revelations that I had been having, and the first one I came to was in a little stone building, probably built by monks, which served as kind of a Welcome Center, for people coming to hear chanting.

It soon became evident that it was also like a gift shop, complete with a cash register -a modern one and not an abacus made by monks- behind which stood a monk, who really looked like one, and apparently had had the vow of silence lifted off of him, as he welcomed me with spoken word.

On the glass counter in front of him were displayed jars of "Trappist Preserves," something that's fame had extended as far as my having heard that they were delicious, but which had the first-listed ingredient of "sugar," which gave me pause, at the time. I had been subsisting on a more monk-ish diet of fruits and vegetables and whole grains, as part of my pursuit of Spiritual Truth, in those days, and was probably into the fifth of what would amount to more than thirty five years without consuming sugar.

"How can I help you?," asked the monk behind the counter.

Was I there to buy preserves at 12 dollars a jar, or to find out when the galleries around the chapel would next be filling with seekers longing to be consoled with the strains of monks chanting in perfect harmony?

No, I had been having these experiences where I got the sense that I was seeing through the veil of the material world and tapping into some sort of universal consciousness, and being led to think that there was no destination for the soul to arrive at where it already wasn't.

"I'll be with you in a minute," the monk said, raising a finger to a young couple who had entered, probably wanting some jelly.

Turning back to me, he asked, in a lowered voice: "Can I ask you, have you been using drugs of any sort?"

"Well, I did just smoke some marijuana as I was driving along Rt. 9, but..."

"Yes," he said solemnly, lowering his gaze, as if to peer into his own heart.

"Eliminate this from your life for maybe a month or so, and then come back, and I'll be happy to talk to you..."

Well, this sucks, I'm baked out of my mind and in the mood to talk about love and a higher purpose, and an awareness of a universal consciousness that I might tap into and become one with the All, right now; before the joint wears off. Can't you just give me the low-down? I'm sure I'll still remember what you say when I wake up tomorrow morning...I thought, as I left.

While he might have been thinking: Well, this sucks, I haven't sold a jar of jelly all day...

I suppose, like any other business venture, they have people show up ready to spend money, and those "just seeking." (groan)

"Well, this sucks..."

But, to bring it around full circle, it is Wednesday night, and I have a sinking feeling of dread at the thought of going out to busk.

Pretty soon the Decadence Festival will be under way, and I have bad memories from the past few years of that.

At least now I am armed with the knowledge, imparted by Lilly, that the reason hundreds of gaily clad men will typically walk past me without tipping is that "most of them are here to make money."

Mongrels who ain't got a penny, walk or crawl here, sniffing for money from the wealthy minority who, in turn, rely upon their money to compensate for their usually older and overweight bodies, in order to purchase themselves a good time.

I can remember hearing: "I don't even have a place to sleep yet," coming from certain anxious young men walking the streets in thongs, as midnight approached, and they hadn't hooked up yet. This sheds light upon Lilly's comment.

But, they will most likely be at the Lilly Pad in numbers tonight, with the festival just a few days away.

And, Lafitt's may have already set up their loud PA speakers, blaring such hits as "It's Raining Men," and "In The Navy," by The Village People, to drown out my efforts.

I wonder if I could re-work the lyrics to the latter to be something like:

"In the priesthood, you can have a good time.
In the priesthood, you can even drink wine...
It's clerical; It's hysterical!,"
or something.
Maybe not.