There are things we have done that we are not proud of. Nevertheless, on inspection, they are invariably found to perfectly manifest our state of being at any given time. Nothing is fortuitous, nothing is out of place. It all fits perfectly into whoever we are, no matter how much we would wish it to be otherwise. It could not possibly be any other way.

Goodbye

Part One

Consciousness is the thing. In fact, consciousness is everything. It was as if I'd known this all my life, but events in Bristol had brought it into the fullness of day. The way to go....

On my return to Oxford, I set about shopping. I soon succeeded in procuring a few tiny blue-coloured pyramids. I gave one a test run on Shotover Hill, the sandy eminence which rises modestly between the village where I lived and Oxford city itself. I watched the bark on tree trunks pulsing and writhing in multicoloured rhythms in time with the heartbeat of the universe. And then it was time to reciprocate and invite Jimmy up.

He drove through from Bristol in his beaten-up tiny car one weekend in April. We sat on logs at the top of Shotover, the grass beneath our feet dancing in deep green three-dimensional patterns. Then we took the long walk into town. Wave upon wave of goblinesque beings assailed us, some bumbling along in jolly fashion, others burdened down tragically with the weight of Saturday afternoon shopping and with life.

Once more, the unnerving experience of seeing right into people's psyches kicked in big time. 'I know everything/Everything you do, everywhere you go/ everyone you know.... I know your deepest secret fear.' The words of that simple but eerie 'The Spy' by the Doors echoed through the acid-splashed chambers of my psyche. Nope. Nowhere to hide at all.

We pop into my college to watch the ancient walls dance to that ancient rhythm, and to check the mail. One of my tutors appears. "Hello" he waves cheerily before breezing on. Jimmy looks at me, eyes like the rings of Saturn. "He's gay" he proffers through lips sculpted in astonishment. My tutor's demeanour so obvious; yet no-one ever said a word. Not until Jimmy turned up, that is.

Come evening we stroll into the Sandpiper, the trendy village pub for trendy young people. Despite the beer, the acid continues to course through everything, and the 'I can see right through you' party trick makes a comeback appearance. On the far side of the bar Josey of Reading festival fame is having a drink with her off-on, good-for-nothing-much boyfriend Stuart. Their little corner of the pub explodes into a shower of tears; they aren't having a good time.

Sunday arrives, and time for Jimmy to go. "I realised yesterday that I prefer women after all" he volunteers as he's getting into his car. I feel a bit cheated at being his companion while, unknown to me, he is sorting out his sexuality tripped out of his skull. All the same, it's been a great weekend.

A few days later I bump into Josey at the bus stop. "How are you, Josey? Are you getting on with Stuart? Seems like you were having problems in the Sandpiper." "How do you know that?" she enquires, all at once anxious. "We had taken some consciousness-expanding drugs. We could see everything."

Josey's large hazel eyes open still wider. Her lips, so tight at Reading festival, fall apart involuntarily in stunned surprise, horror, and barely concealed distaste. It's the first time that my taste for the psychedelic state spills out inappropriately. It won't be the last.... 

Part Two

In between consciousness exploration and preparations for full-on communal living, I managed to squeeze in finals at university. I was in rude health for the entire affair. Judiciously-measured doses of amphetamine-like substances ensured that my mind remained alert yet crystal-clear for the duration. Like a wire that is neither too taut nor slack, I approached each question with a deadly combination of seriousness and couldn't-care-less. After so many years in this education system, so-called, it would be foolish to flunk out with nothing. At the same time, there wasn't enough in it for me to actually worry about.

While fellow students were rushing to the front of the hall at ten-minute intervals to fetch yet another sheet of paper on which to regurgitate everything they knew, I was sitting still, carefully marshalling the limited information I knew about tropical land forms or the social geography of 19th century England to maximum effect. It was a skill that I'd always possessed: making the most of the little that I knew, instead of making a mess all over the paper with a mish-mash of half-digested word bytes.

As a result, I came out with the highest marks of all six of us doing geography in my college. I felt a bit bad about this. Two, at least, of my college colleagues knew far more than me, and for them, dreaming of careers, professions, academic research, it was far far more important. This was their undoing. One, in particular, Roger V., completely blew it. The vast compendium of facts and figures filed away somewhere in his mind disintegrated into a horrible overcooked blancmange as the exams drew near. You could see it happening, and it wasn't a pretty sight. He ended up with a third, which is just a pass. In simple terms, it means that you did terribly, but they didn't have the heart to literally fail you. We were a bit concerned that he might actually jump off an Oxford bridge to end it all, but I don't think he did.

Not impressed, I had nevertheless done the education thing. I happily closed that chapter of the book, to move on to something real: life in the 1970s counterculture. 

Hello

Part One

High summer 1974 finally arrives. It's been a long time; now to set down some new roots.

After all the greetings and meetings, the walks, the talks, the connections forged and friendships made, it's disappointing that, despite the wide circle of well-wishing, there are eventually only four of us definitely up for the big trip. Dave, Mottie, Liberty Fox, and me.   

An irony is not lost on me. After almost a decade of single-sex education institutions, I am now signing up to an indefinite period in a single-sex non-institution. Probably simpler than four blokes and a girl, I philosophise. Maybe.

Out of all the discussions has emerged the simplest of plans. We will live together and all find work, in order to save sufficient money to eventually buy land and a building for the rural self-sufficiency project we all crave. We will proceed on the basis of 'take what you need, give what you can'. It is clarity and elegance made manifest.

First things first, though: we need somewhere to live. My mother works in the offices of one of Oxford University's colleges, and gets us a summer let on a student flat in north Oxford. Thanks, mum. Oxford, we agree, is a decent starting point. As urban environments go, we all find it bearable; and I have contacts, which may come in useful.   

South Parade is in Summertown, one of the more affluent and pleasant parts of town. Soon we are settling in to life on the first floor, with the sun frequently illuminating our south-facing living room with warmth, optimism, and hope.

Practicalities of daily life are dealt with. Cooking and shopping rotas are drawn up, cleaning programmes organised. We take on an allotment nearby, and soon the late season vegetables are sown and beginning to pop up.

A willing sense of simplicity, austerity even, pervades decisions and events. All money earned will be pooled, with the minimum taken out for personal pocket money. 

I start to look for work, and immediately discover the value of a degree from Oxford University.

"You are over-qualified" I am told at a number of factories where I apply for a job. "Qualifications are not the point. I just want some work" I plead. In vain.

Part Two

Of equal importance is a personal landmark, a potential game-changer: I've decided on a haircut. For years, under a strict and studied regime of measured neglect, my hair has grown steadily longer. At school I would dart into empty classrooms or disappear down darkened corridors, to escape confrontation with one of the teachers most likely to utter those five dreaded words: "Boy, get your hair cut." Those words, so crushing to the youthful spirit, would roll off the tongue of officialdom so easily. The far-off gaze of petty authorities: everything I wanted out of; in fact, had already left behind in my own mind.

By now, my hair is well below shoulder-length, falling straight orange-red. More Mott the Hoople than Hawkwind, and I am proud of my creation. It is, however, beginning to be problematic. It is difficult to comb through the increasingly tangled mess. And hair is coming out in handfuls. Males on both sides of my family have been follicle-free by early middle-age, and I have no wish to follow in their footsteps. Maybe the scalp could do with some exercise.

Vicky comes down from Sheffield to stay for a few days. She is good-natured, good-hearted, impossible to dislike. There are just two things about Vicky. Firstly, she seems to exist inside a vague aura of, well, vagueness. A kind of sleepiness accompanies her wherever she goes; if she was an animal, it would be a koala bear. And secondly, there is a lingering suspicion that her eyesight is none too good.

"I can cut hair" she chimes in when I bring up the topic. "Sure?" "Sure."

I fetch the scissors and we're on our way. Snip, snip, snip. "That's it." "That's it?" "Yes, that's it. Haircut."

I stare at the strands of long orange hair on the floor around me. Then I look into the mirror. It's not even a pudding basin cut. Just a uniform length all around. A job in the circus beckons.

Come evening, Dave returns from work. He is the first of us to find a job, and is driving a social services van around town. I have got to know him a bit by now, and know that he is not given to jollity and hilarious laughing. His humour is measured, droll, and dry. Even so, he almost collapses on the floor in laughter when he sees me hiding in the kitchen. He hasn't seen anything so funny for years.

I cower indoors for two long days until early one morning, before too many people have ventured out, I scamper to the nearest hairdresser and get it fixed.

Not a day too soon, either. We are preparing for a big event, to be hosted at Her Majesty's Pleasure. She has a decent piece of lawn, and you wouldn't want to miss it for the world. It's time for the Windsor Free Festival....   

Images: Browsing for an image of the sandpiper bird, I came upon this one from Josh VanDerMeulen's blog, Explorations of an Ecologist. It is a sandpiper in Wheatley harbour (Lake Erie, I think). This is all very well, except that....... the village where Jimmy and I visited the Sandpiper pub, and where I lived at the time, is named, er, Wheatley.

Bottom image: Mandala of Amoghasiddhi, Buddha of action. 

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