Surprise Hallucinogenic Ending

When My Thoughts Turned To God

The rains came before I had made it very far down the mountain, only a
few drops at first, but they quickly turned into a steady, wet rain.
It didn't really bother me. Up on the mountain I felt eerily at one
with nature. Up there, the drama of it all passed over me. I felt like
a rock must feel; I was just there. And then, as I was making my way
further down the mountain, I started to feel different, very
different. I was extremely sure-footed. I knew exactly which way to
go, even though I wasn't going anywhere in particular. I didn't fight
the feeling. I let it flow over and through me. I was overwhelmed by
it. I followed my instincts into this whole new world. The ferns,
trees, and spongy grass under my feet erupted into an "immediacy" I
had never known before. It was as if everything around me had all of a
sudden sprung to life. But not just to life, to a life that was just
as alive as I was. This was a wonderful and a frightening experience.
There was no time for fear, though. It didn't matter in which
direction I went. Everywhere a path opened to me.

I was in a very intense and delicious state of consciousness when a
Grouse startled me. It flushed right in front of me. Perched on a limb
ten feet from me, in silence, we both looked at each another. She
didn't move, nor did I. The rain rolled down my face. We were just
there, penetrated by the moment, and transfixed by one anothers gaze.
The Grouse flinched first. She seemed to lose interest, and then
immediately after that, I flinched, but mine was not physical, it was
mental. In that fractured moment, I thought, "Why? —Why this beauty?
—Why this life?" And then I remembered the acid, and, just as
suddenly, my thoughts turned toward God. The vibrancy of my
surroundings faded simultaneous with the God-thought. The "immediacy"
of the moment rushed out of my experience. I had experienced a world
of astounding sensitivity in my altered state of consciousness, but I
could not "think it." I could not conceptualize it. I could only feel
it. And then, when I struggled to move forward, I tripped and fell to
the ground. When the God-thought hit me, in that instant, I fell back
into the frailty and indecisiveness of the person I was before I
dropped the acid, before I climbed the mountain. As I picked myself up
and brushed new mud from my pants, my reintroduction into feelings of
uncertainty and doubt was strangely reassuring.

When I reached the waterfall I was thinking about what had just
happened to me. I was completely drenched by then. I was admiring the
falls, enjoying purely human thoughts, when I remembered the words of
an old Russian mystic (I believe it was Gurjieef). He said, "For those
who wear shoe leather, the whole Earth was covered with shoe leather."
Somehow, those words meant more to me now. When I said good-bye to the
pretty (but far from spectacular) waterfall, I hiked back along the
lake trail until I reached camp. I started a fire as soon as I
arrived. I was getting pretty good at building those "rain fires."
Thank God I had a good book. I spent the rest of the day reading,
eating the morning's burnt biscuits, smoking cigarettes, and turning
from side to side. In the rain, I could only keep selected areas of my
body dry.