Dear Readers:

We are nearing the close of this 1968 rite of passage. In this chapter, the nineteen-year-old employs the method of healing and integration that she provided for me in December 2018 as my arm healed. She looks to a time when she was an empowered/natural child. She reconnects with who she was in her true nature. She recalls adventure as well as her love of having the freedom to explore. She visits the roots of her relationship with the natural world gaining a deeper understanding of how these sensations were reignited at The Farm and particularly through meeting a role model such as Alice.

Intuitively she circles around to integrate the young child that she once was, remembering what made her sparkle and shine then and what keeps her alive now … as she is returning to The Farm.

52

The source of life
Is as a mother.
Be fond of both mother and children but know the mother dearer
And you outlive death.
Curb your tongue and senses
And you are beyond trouble,
Let them loose
And you are beyond help.
Discover that nothing is too small for clear vision,
Too insignificant for tender strength,
Use outlook
And insight,
Use them both
And you are immune:
For you have witnessed eternity.

The Way of Life
According to Lao Tzu
translated by Witter Bynner

The drive to The Farm holds tremendous importance. As we move closer and closer, I sense that something has changed. This drive transports me. As Medicine Man softly drums his right hand on the steering wheel to the rhythm of Miles Davis on trumpet, Thelonious Monk on piano, I feel myself travel back in time. First, I am naturally reminded of the Greyhound bus ride several months ago. The landscape looked magical under the influence of the ‘medicine’.

Looking out the window now, I catch a glimpse of those same vibrant colors, I can easily imagine the expanded forms making the passing scene take on a Peter Max poster quality. Brilliant shooting sun rays light up the already golden fall landscape. I catch one reminder after another of the unspeakable beauty which kept me mesmerized during that first trip. Yet, there is something else happening. I am simultaneously carried back in time.

My mind wanders and sifts:

In 1957 Mom, Dad, Linda, me, Debbie, Laura, and just born Robert live on one side of the duplex where Dad grew up. Dad’s older sister, Marge, Uncle Paul, and my cousins, Sandi, Susan, Stephanie, Steven, Sharon, (and soon Sarah) live on the other side of the wall. Grandpa Drozda, who lived there too, died last year:

 

For my adventurous kid’s mind, the neighborhood is an adventure oasis bordered on three sides by railroad yards. Pebble encrusted concrete bridges, many that grandpa Drozda helped build, form arches over a tangle of train tracks beneath two-lane one-way streets. For me, the bridges make a sprint destination! When an approaching train engine’s black smoke disappears under the bridge span, I run for it! I want to see if I can get there before that dark cloud of coal smoke spews out the other side of the bridge! I run as fast as my skinny legs will carry me! Can I get to the bridge, climb up the sidewall, lean over, engulfed by the black cloud, as the train comes out the other side? I am delighted when the engineer pulls the cord, blasts the horn saying, “Clear the area!” bringing the long row of cars that make up the train to a brake-squealing halt.

All-day long the engines are carefully attached to railcars being switched from one track to another. Whistles shriek, signal lights flash, steam blasts, voices call loudly up and down the track as workers maneuver equipment, empty, then fill container cars, load, and unload cargo.

On Saturday night, during Lawrence Welk, mom has Linda and me take turns, sitting on the floor between her knees. She carefully loops strands of hair held by soft cotton rags. On Sunday morning she unfurls our curls. Then mom selects our prettiest dresses (gifted by Mrs. M across the alley). We walk to mass with dad. We cross the 44th Street bridge and wind through the narrow side streets to the domed roofs of St. Procop Roman Catholic Church.

I settle into our pew and lean back against the carved wood to gaze into the meandering designs in the high domed ceilings. Jesus and the saints look down at me from jewel-like leaded glass windows, the wood, dark and carved, the patterns in the gold-gilded wallpapers, the sculpted saints of wood and marble, the silk embroidered vestments worn by the priest, brass tooled altar vases filled with tumbles of fresh flowers, the long wooden red-tipped matches and the rich smell of hot wax reflecting from the large banks of votives burning in their red pressed glass holders in the vestibules, the smothering, smoldering takes-my-breath-away scent of incense as the priest disappears behind his cloud of smoke.

Dad volunteers with other men in the Holy Name Society. Linda and I follow out the side door of the church across the small flower-filled yard. We climb the sandstone steps, cross the tiled floor, and make our way down into the stone basement of the Rectory. Dad and the other men count the collection basket money. While piles of nickels, dimes, and quarters are carefully rolled into paper sleeves, one of the men calls Linda and me over. He places dimes into our small open palms. He points at the shiny machines, one-armed bandits, lined up against the wall. He instructs us to place a coin into each of the slots. Okay, now pull the metal arm down. Maybe, just maybe if we are lucky, we will line up the bright pictures of three cherries, or oranges, or lemons, and then coins will tumble out.

After the money counting, we walk, skip, hop home to Fenwick Alley but instead of going home, we stop at Mrs. M’s house. She lives across the alley. It’s like dad’s second home. Grandma Drozda died when dad was away in the South Pacific in the Navy during World War II. He was really young and had never been away from home. His mom died while he was away. He never got to say goodbye. Fenwick Alley is dad’s whole world. Mine too.

I love Mrs. M’s house. She displays beautiful dogs and birds made of brightly painted china. She reminds me, “Look. Do not touch.” Crystals hang from the lampshades on big lamps at either end of the plastic-wrapped white sofa. The crystals make rainbows that dance all over the living room walls and ceiling. The same tables hold cut glass bowls filled with ribbon candy. The candy is so fragile that it snaps if you touch it, so then you must eat it. Every Sunday Mrs. M makes egg noodles to put into her homemade chicken soup. She works on a big board placing the flour in the middle. She makes a well and cracks an egg into the center. She adds some water and a pat of butter then she mixes everything into a ball with her hands. She mixes the dough into a ball then rolls it out with her heavy marble rolling pin. Next, she cuts the noodles with the big knife that has the wooden handle, slicing different size strips, some very wide, others very narrow. Carrying the wooden board around the corner to her bedroom she carefully hangs them, one at a time, to dry, placing them over the white cotton string that stretches from the four posters of her bed with the white chenille bedspread and many pretty pillows.

For me, the absolute best part of being at Mrs. M’s is that the railroad tracks are in her backyard! I hold the railing as I scramble down the steep wooden stairs scaring the robins away running past the huge cement birdbath over the small patch of soft grass, through the back gate. I look both ways before dashing across the gravel service road to the tall metal fence where I can put my fingers through up over my head and my shoes through the diamond pattern, pull, climb up, up almost to the barbed wire on top then stare at all the Sunday sleeping trains.

Why am I revisiting this part of my childhood? Why today as the farm fields whirl by? Medicine Man effortlessly guides the Jaguar down the highway nodding to the rhythm of John Coltrane’s sax.  

I continue to time travel.

Many Sundays we would come home from church or Mrs. M’s, change clothes and pile into the green 1956 Chevrolet. A drive to see Grandma and Grandpa was the only reason to get into the car that dad only used for work. I jockey for a window seat for the long green drive! Green as far as my eye can see! Big puffy clouds, horses, and cows grazing in green fields. It was so exciting for me to drive along the old canal road. This is the Ohio and Erie Canal where I can catch glimpses of the thin strip of water moving slowly, hardly moving at all until we come to the mill wheel. The water is turning the wheel! The water is falling off the wheel filling the canal with frothy soap suds! Mounds upon mounds of white suds make a huge pile under the wheel then drift and break apart into smaller islands of bubbles slowly floating down the canal. Sometimes dad pulls off the road and stops the car for a minute. We jump out and pop bubbles as suds overflow the canal and spill out onto the road. Once there was a wall of suds up ahead and dad delighted us by driving right through the sparkling rainbow of bubbles.

Soon the car will pass under the high-level bridge.

Soon we pass Acadia Farms owned by Cyrus Eaton.

Dad says Mr. Eaton is in the news because he made a deal with the Russians. Dad says people call him a Communist. All I care about is that Nikita Khrushchev gave him a gift of three magnificent white horses. Together they are called a Troika. Every time we drive past this beautiful rolling landscape I strain to see if the trio is out grazing with the cows on the emerald green grass.

I love to visit Grandma and Grandpa Toth in their beautiful house with a cabinet filled with giant seashells and collections from when they travel plus they have an attached garage! Their car is right outside the kitchen door, two steps down and still inside, under the roof! I run in the orchards and flower gardens, I dodge bees and pick Japanese beetles off the raspberry bushes. I play hide n seek in the pine grove that my grandpa planted. Thin and wiry, always on the move. Dressed in pedal pushers, matching t-shirt perfect for swinging from the low branches of the apple tree outside grandma’s kitchen window. Linda and I climb aboard, legs dangling off the back of the cart pulled by grandpa’s tractor.

The forest green Jaguar turns into the lane leading to The Farm. The window is down, I listen to the voice of the brittle corn, the stalks rattling a rhythm, making their own kind of music in the late fall breeze. We wind back and back approaching the earth-hugging-home that Larry built for Alice. In the distance, I see the moving cloud of grazing sheep. The sweet scent of the earth rises to surround and welcome me. I feel at home.

How many times over the past months have I lifted above this situation or that circumstance knowing I had the freedom to journey here? I cannot count how many times, over the past few months, that I have gazed into the gentle eyes of Jesus, his generous arms, hands opened wide, spreading above the treetops assuring me, “All Is Well.” I have said this so many times to myself:

All Is Well

Alice is radiant, dressed in a delicately embroidered caftan, her thick white hair pulled back easily at the neck forming a loose waist-length braid. As we hug my heart expands to the chiming of the hammered stack of silver bracelets on her left wrist. 

The four of us visit easily. I am seated beside Alice, my Earth-Mother, sipping tea from a clay mug. She is my anchor. Her environment supports me. Oxygen. Peace. A sense of the True Me rises from deep in my bones.

It doesn’t take long before Larry is asking Medicine Man for his birth month and year. He then makes a graph that reminds me of Tic-Tac-Toe jotting numbers into each box. Suddenly he is telling Medicine Man about his strengths and also warning him of things that it is best to avoid. I can see that Medicine Man is sitting on the edge of his seat leaning forward and hanging on every word. In this process, I gather the information that Medicine Man is fourteen years older than me. We are young compared to Alice and Larry. Medicine Man, who is usually the boss, has just received wise counsel. 

Larry stands tall and lean, scruffy and bearded, dressed in his uniform of overalls, flannel shirt, and workboots. He invites much shorter Medicine Man, contrasted by expensive meticulously trimmed hair, manicured fingernails, spit-shined penny loafers of the softest leather, creased black dress slacks, and white dress shirt (sleeves rolled so casually) to walk the land. Medicine Man is ‘out of his element’. I know that they will step over quite a bit of sheep manure before the tour ends with a visit to the gigantic wood-working shop/barn filled with mounds of sawdust to walk through.

Alice and I walk down to the fall garden, now a tangle of spent squash vines climb the fences helping to shade the new lettuce and spinach beds, grasshoppers springing up as we step onto the thick soft mulch making up the paths. Alice invests our time reminding me of her healing journey; the isolation of childhood polio which led to her mystical connections, followed by yoga, clairvoyance, Theosophy, meditation, and, her eyes sparkle and shine as she tells me of her meetings with angels, followed by the dedication to the making of her art.  

Back inside her cozy earth-hugging home, she shows me her most recent painted poems, speaking of the joyful peace discovered when the abstract shapes in vibrant colors meet her eye dancing on the paper.

I could listen to the soft strength of her voice for a lifetime. Sensing my attention she smiles and reminds,

“Follow your star.”

I move among the plants visiting old friends. My hands rest on the cool marble of the sculpted female figures, formed by the hands of Alice, that populate the room. This idea of being an artist … this is my star.

Alice places into my hands a copy of The Brotherhood of Angels and of Men by Geoffrey Hodson. She says, “You will be strengthened by these words.” 

Late in the afternoon, we hug goodbye.
I breathe deeply taking in a picture of how my life may one day look.

It’s growing dark, Medicine Man, seeing me open my new gift book, turns on the reading light over my seat. Now I can see the words, as he drives us back to the city. I imagine Alice reading aloud to me:

FOREWORD

I have been asked to introduce this book to a skeptical world,
and yet a world in which every religion, each scripture,
asserts the existence of Angels and of their occasional appearances among men.

They may be called by any name ___ angels, nature-spirits,
devas (shining ones), elementals.

Angels and devas is the term often applied to
the higher grades, nature-spirits, elementals, fairies to the lower.

And later …

a living sense of unity with nature must be reached, till you can see yourself in every tree, in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every passing cloud, and realize that the manifold diversities which compose a valley or a garden or a wide panorama of mountain, sea, and sky, are but expressions of the One Self which is you, of which you are a part … every true artist has gone along the road, yet few have found us; for the enquiring mind of the scientist and the penetrating gaze of the seer must be added to the sensitiveness of the artist. 

Medicine Man seems softer and gentler. I can feel that something has changed in him. Perhaps, he too needs a place of calm and quiet, a place of peace.

What he is thinking will soon be revealed.