the contining narrative of the voyage of the bloody, snake chariot
MAY 2004
In California I was reduced to the deductive foundations.
The fact that the bloody, snake chariot had brought me there – was miraculous. Everything was miraculous. I did not worry about tomorrow. Even though everything was uncertain, indeterminate, I had my ease, my peace.
Then the bloody, snake chariot was pointed East. I was asked to drive a UHaul truck from the Wild Ridge in Colorado to the Long Island of New York.
While crossing the Mojave I paid $3 for a gallon of gas. In Flagstaff I admired the snow covered crater. I passed by Hopi. Was well received by the Dinai, the Mesa Verdeans, the living and the dead.
I walked the Wild Ridge until I was certain the UHaul thing was not going to happen. But I was still on a chute, back East. There was no turning West.
Under the plains of Kansas I was met by Ayahuasca.
I wept joyously. I vomited copiously. I was again in the song, the song of the revealing, the revelation that is medicine, the joyous, healing.
And then my destination became Shanksville, Pennsylvania and the crater of Flight 93. And then when I looked at the map my destination also became the place where the Dam fell, the place of the dreadful flood – the Johnstown Flood.
In Johnstown, Pennsylvania Flight 93 was observed flying erratically and then it flew upside down in that supernaturally bright, clear, sunny sky in September of ’01. It crashed into a hillside, 30 miles South. It had nearly full tanks of fuel.
The first at the scene found a fiercely, burning crater. Beside the crater lay a singed but intact Bible. The snowy, white pages opened by the impact were those of 1 Kings Chapters 12-14.
Nothing else was at the site/sight of impact. There was only the fiery crater and besides it the open Bible.
The three other hijacked planes crashed into New York and Washington, D.C. Flight 93 was the only hijacked plane that crashed into America, the mystic heartland, the mystic highlands. At the site of impact is the miracle of the site/sight of impact. Here is the prophecy of the miraculous cutting of the book. Here is mystery and the American mysticism.
1 Kings, Chapters 12-14 tell of the fall of the House of David.
Solomon was blessed by God because he was King David’s son and successor. And God loved David.
But Solomon is the author of abominations. He makes idols, and temples to Astarte and Milcom. He does this at the request of his wives and favorite concubines. Solomon becomes Solomon’s bitches’ – bitch.
Because he was David’s son, and because God so loved David, God does not destroy Solomon. He allows him to rule Judaea until he dies.
After Solomon dies the people of Judaea cite the harsh treatment and great burdens of Solomon’s reign. They ask Rehobeam, Solomon’s son and successor, to lift the oppression. In return they would be "loyal subjects."
Rehobeam replies: "My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. My father placed heavy burdens on you I will make them even heavier. He beat you with whips; I’ll flog you with bullwhips!"
The people of Judaea rise up against Rehobeam and make Jerobeam their king. But because Rehobeam is David’s grandson, and because God so loved David, he is allowed to rule the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and the city of Jerusalem.
Rehobeam assembles 180,000 of the best soldiers from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in an attempt to regain his father’s kingdom.
But God tells Rehobeam and his army "Do not attack your own brothers, the people of Israel. Go home, all of you. What has happened is my will."
Rehobeam’s army disbands and goes home.
But then Jerobeam becomes the author of abominations. He comes to believe that if he allows the people of Judaea to worship and offer sacrifices at the Temple of Jerusalem they would be transfering their allegiance to Rehobeam.
Jerobeam prohibits the people of Judaea from worshipping at the Temple of Jerusalem. "You have been going long enough to Jerusalem to worship. People of Israel, here are your gods who brought you out of Egypt," says Jerobeam. He then presents to the people of Israel large gold statues of bulls. He makes sacrifice to the idols. He makes the people of Israel worship and make sacrifice to the gold idols.
And of course there is pay back for this. And pay back is a bitch.
There is the reiterations and the fulfillments of the curse: You have outdone (or followed in the footsteps of) all your predecessors in wickedness; you have provoked me to anger by making for yourself other gods and images of cast metal; you have turned your back on me; you have led Israel into sin. For this I will bring disaster to this house, and I will destroy them all, every mother’s son…and I will sweep away this house, as a man sweeps up dung until none is left. Those of this house who die in the city shall be food for the dogs, and those who die in the country shall be food for the birds…
Around Illinois the bloody, snake chariot had begun farting, sputtering, back firing, sluggishly accelerating. It farted, sputtered, back fired from Shanksville to the place where the Dam fell.
In the hills of Southwestern, Pennsylvania a large artificial lake was created to supply water for transportation canals. The transportation canals were supplanted by the railroads. The lake and its dam was taken over by the richest families of Pittsburg to be their lavish, European-styled, country-club.
The earthen dam was state-of-the-art engineering. Beneath it there was a well-engineered emergency water release system. Besides it, the dam had wide spillways.
Earthen dams will stand as long as they are not overrun by the flood. If water tops an earthen dam it will become mud and dissolve.
The Pittsburgh robber-baron oligarchs that were the fishing and hunting country-club economized on the maintanence of the dam. When the mechanisms that controlled the valves that controlled the water release system under the dam failed they did not get fixed.
But the country-club lived large, spent lavishly on fish. They stocked the lake with expensive sport’s fish. They put screens on the spillway to keep the expensive fish in the lake. The screens became clogged with debris.
Then there was the deluge. As much as eight inches of rain fell one night.
At first light, Italian laborers made a heroic effort. They tried to rip the clogged screens off the spillways. But the dam was topped. It dissolved in seconds. A seventy-foot-tall wall of water smashed into a large passenger train, two villages and the city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Over 2,500 people were flushed to kingdom come.
The bloody, snake chariot sputtered, and farted and skipped through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York City and Connecticut. It continues to sputter, fart and skip.
It could be said the chariot has carried me home. But it is as Rumi says – Home is where you’re going to.
The fox has its den. The bird has its nest. But there is no place for the son of man to lay his head.
But this is no dirty, stinking, plaintive whining.
The way of Gnostic Yashewah ben Yosef is the way of affirmative homelessness, of being a passerby, lest you become entangled and forget the invitation, the true covenant.
From the highlands I see. And when I look to the hills I see the Dam that will not hold, and the Flood that comes.