A Few Embraces, a Few Dreams

Introduction to the Second Edition

AS I WRITE THIS, it has been ten years since Treya's death. I am immeasurably more, and immeasurably less, because of her presence. Immeasurably more, for having known her; immeasurably less, for having lost her. But then, perhaps every event in life is like that: filling you up and emptying you out, all at the same time. It is just that, it is oh-so-rare that such a one as Treya is with us, and thus the joy, and the pain, are all so intensely amplified.

There are as many Treyas as there are those who knew her. What follows is my Treya. I am not saying it is the only Treya, or even the best. But I do believe it is a full account, fair and balanced. In particular, it makes liberal use of her own journals, which she kept off and on for most of her adult life, and which she kept almost daily during the years we were together.

I had always intended to destroy these journals after Treya died, and without reading them myself, because they were so intensely personal for her. She never showed them to anybody, not even me. Not because she was reclusive or private about her "real feelings" and thus had to "hide" them in her journals. On the contrary, one of the most extraordinary things about Treya – in fact, I might say the single most astonishing thing about her – is that she had almost no split between her public and her private selves. She harbored no "secret" thoughts that she was afraid or ashamed to share with the world. If you asked, she would tell you exactly what she thought – about you or anybody else – but in such a nondefensive, direct, straightforward way that people rarely got upset. This was the basis of her enormous integrity: people trusted her right from the start, because they seemed to know that she would never lie to them, and as far as I can tell, she never did. No, I had intended to destroy the journals simply because when she wrote in them, it was a special time for her to be alone with herself, and felt that nobody, including me, should violate that space. But right before her death, she pointed to her journals and said, "You'll need those." She had asked me to write about our ordeal, and she knew that I would need her journals in order to convey her own thoughts.

In writing Grace and Grit, I read through all of the journals (around ten large notebooks, and many computer files), and was able to find excerpts on virtually every topic covered in the following pages, thus letting Treya speak for herself, in her own words, in her own way. As I read those journals, it was exactly as I had suspected: there were no secrets, no items that she had not generally shared with me or with her family and friends. Treya simply had no split between her public and private selves. I think that was exactly part of her enormous integrity, and I think that was directly related to what can only be called her fearlessness. There was a strength in Treya that was absolutely fearless, and I do not say that lightly. Treya had little fear because she had little to hide, from you or me or God or anybody. She was transparent to reality, to the Divine, to the world, and thus had nothing to fear from it. I saw her in much pain; I saw her in much agony; I saw her in much anger. I never saw her in fear.

It's not hard to understand why people felt alive in her presence, vivified, awakened. Even when we were in various hospitals, with Treya undergoing one gruesome indignity or another, people (nurses, visitors, other patients, their visitors) used to hang out in her room, just to be around the presence, the life, the energy, that she seemed to radiate. In a hospital in Bonn, Germany, I remember waiting in line to get into her room.

She could be obstinate; strong people often are. But it came out of that core of vivid presence and wakefulness, and it was bracing. People often came away from Treya more alive, more open, more direct. Her presence changed you, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but it changed you. It drew you into being present to the Present, it reminded you to wake up.

One other thing: Treya was remarkably beautiful, and yet (as you will see in the following pages), she had almost no vanity, which was amazing. As much as anybody I have ever known, including some very enlightened teachers, she was unselfconsciously herself, just so. She was simply and directly present, all of her. The fact that she had little self-consciousness made her even more right here. Around Treya, the world became immediate and focused, clear and inviting, bright and honest, open and alive.

Grace and Grit is her story; and our story. Many people asked me, since I was so careful to include Treya's own writing and her own voice in the following pages, why I didn't list her as coauthor of the book. I thought about doing so from the beginning, but conversations with editor and publisher made it increasingly clear that to do so was misleading (as one editor put it, "A coauthor is someone who actively writes a book with another person. This is different from taking someone else's writings and weaving them into a book"). So I hope that those readers who felt that I was not acknowledging Treya's contribution will realize that such was certainly not my intent, and that Treya's real voice has been included on almost every page, by letting her speak for herself.

At one point in Treya's journals she wrote, "Had lunch with Emily Hilburn Sell, the editor at Shambhala. I like her a lot, trust her judgment. I told her about the book I was working on – cancer, psychotherapy, spirituality – and asked her if she would edit for me. I'd love to, she said, which makes me even more determined to see this project through!" Treya did not have time to complete her book – which is why she asked me to write this one – but I am glad to report that Emily was the editor of Grace and Grit, and did a wonderful job.

A few minor points. Most people read this book, not for technical information about my work, but for Treya's story. As I indicate in the Note to the Reader, chapter 11 is particularly technical, and it definitely can be skipped without missing a thing! (Actually, if you are skipping that chapter, just read the few paragraphs in between the interview material, since it has some important story elements; but otherwise, skip away. Readers interested in a more up-to-date version of my own work might wish to consult Integral Psychology.)

In this present book, all of Treya's journal entries are marked by a vertical solid line down the left-hand margin. These are different from, say, some of her letters, which have no solid lines. Her letters, even if they were mostly private, were still open to other people (namely, those to whom she sent them). But every entry marked by a solid vertical line is from her journals, and thus an entry previously not available.

The reception to Grace and Grit was overwhelming, and it wasn't me the readers were responding to. To date, I have received close to a thousand letters from people all over the world – an unprecedented percentage write to tell me what Treya's story has meant to them, and how it has changed their lives. Some have sent pictures of their baby daughters named "Treya," and I can tell you, as a purely objective bystander, that they are the most beautiful little girls in the world. Some of the people who write have cancer, and they were initially afraid to read the book; but once they did, they tended to lose their fear, sometimes almost completely – a gift from Treya to them, I honestly believe.

Dear Ken,

Last August I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had segmental surgery, lymph node dissection and a three-week treatment. I am in constant relationship with cancer on all levels. Several weeks ago a friend told me of your book and I knew I had to read it. It was a scary thought because, after all, I knew the ending.

"But," I thought, "she had some other kind of more serious cancer." How's that for denial? The fact is, I have the same kind of terrible cancer Treya had. The truth is this book has been at moments terrifying, but totally freeing....

Freeing, because Treya describes, almost step by step, the way in which she moved through the pain and agony of cancer and into a spiritual freedom and liberation that outshines death and its inherent terror. As one of my favorite letters said (and this is the entire letter):

Dear Ken Wilber,

I am fourteen years old. Since I was a little girl I have been very afraid of dying. I read Treya's story, and ever since, I have not been afraid to die. I wanted to tell you this.

Or another:

Dear Ken,

Last year I was diagnosed with advanced metastatic breast cancer. A friend of mine said I had to read this book, Grace and Grit, but when I asked how it ended, he said, "She died." I was afraid of the book for a long time.

But having finished it, I wanted to thank you and Treya from the bottom of my heart. I know I might die, too, but somehow following Treya's story has made me unafraid. I feel free of fear, for the first time....

Most of the people who write do not have cancer. It is simply that Treya's story is everyperson's story. It might seem that Treya "had it all": intelligence, beauty, charm, integrity, a happy marriage, a wonderful family. But, like all of us, Treya had her own doubts, insecurities, self-criticisms, and deeply unsettling issues about her own worth and her own purpose in life... not to mention a brutal battle with a lethal disease. But Treya fought the good fight with all of those shadows... and she won, by any definition of the word "win." Treya's story speaks to all of us because she met those nightmares head on, with courage and dignity and grace.

And she left us her journals, which tell us exactly how she did it. How she brought meditative awareness to bear on pain and thus dissipated its hold on her. How, instead of closing down and becoming bitter and angry, she greeted the wrld with love in her heart. How she met cancer with "passionate equanimity." How she rid herself of self-pity and chose joyously to carry on. How she was fearless, not because she lacked fear, but because she immediately embraced it, even when it became obvious that she would soon die: "I will bring the fear into my heart. To meet the pain and the fear with openness, to embrace it, to allow it. Realizing that brings wonderment at life. It gladdens my heart and nourishes my soul. I feel such joy. I'm not trying to 'beat' my sickness; I'm allowing myself into it, forgiving it. I will go on, not with anger and bitterness, but with determination and joy."

And she did so, greeting both life and death with a determination and joy that outpaced their tedious terrors. If Treya can do it, we can do it: that is the message of this book, and that is what people write to tell me about. How her story moved them to remember what really matters. How her attempt to balance in herself the masculine/doing and the feminine/being spoke directly to their own deepest concerns in today's world. How her remarkable courage inspired them – male and female alike – to carry on with their own unbearable suffering. How her example helped get them through the dark hours of their own nightmares. How "passionate equanimity" installed them directly in their own true Self. And why all of them understood that, on the very deepest level, this is a book with a profoundly happy ending.

(Many of those writing me are also support people, those who suffer doubly: having to watch the loved one suffer, and not being allowed to have any problems of their own. Grace and Grit speaks for them as well, I hope. Those who would like to see some of the mail response to Grace and Grit might wish to check One Taste, March 7 entry.)

As of this writing, Treya's family – Rad and Sue, Kati, David, Traci and Michael – are all still alive and doing very well. Treya often said she could not imagine having a better family, and to this day I agree with her.

The Cancer Support Community, founded by Treya and Vicky Wells, is an award-winning institution still going strong. If you would like to offer donations, or if you need its services, you can locate it by calling San Francisco information.

Treya and I were together for five years. Those years have been etched into my soul. I really do believe that I have kept my promise, and I really do believe it is due to her grace. And I really do believe that any one of us can meet Treya again, any time we wish to do so, by acting with honesty, integrity, and fearlessness – for there lies the heart and soul of Treya.

If Treya can do it, we can do it. That is the message of Grace and Grit.

A Note to the Reader

WHEN TREYA AND I first met, we had the strangest feeling that we had been looking for each other for lifetimes, but I don't know if that is literally true. But I do know that then commenced one of the most extraordinary stories I myself have ever heard. An unbelievable story, in many ways, and therefore I can assure you, a true story.

This book is two things: One, it is that story. But two, it is an introduction to the perennial philosophy, or the world's great wisdom traditions. Because, in the final analysis, the two are inseparable.

Treya had five main passions, I would say: nature and the environment (from conservation to recreation), crafts and arts, spirituality and meditation, psychology and psychotherapy, and service organizations. Nature, crafts, and service organizations are fairly self-explanatory. But what Treya meant by "spirituality" was contemplative or meditative spirituality, which is another way of saying the perennial philosophy. Treya didn't talk much about her mystical spirituality, which led many people, even some very close to her, to conclude it was peripheral to her concerns. Treya herself described it as the "guiding symbol of my life." It is, in other words, absolutely central to this story.

As it turned out, this interest in psychology and religion was also one I deeply shared, and, indeed, I had written several books on exactly that topic. And so woven into the following narrative are explanations of the great wisdom traditions (from Christianity to Hinduism to Buddhism), the nature of meditation, the relation of psychotherapy to spirituality, and the nature of health and healing. Indeed, the main purpose of this book is to provide an accessible introduction to just those topics.

Nonetheless, if you hit one of these explanatory sections – which occupy about one-third of the book, and which are very obvious – and all you are interested in at the moment is following Treya's story, feel free to fast-forward through these sections and pick up the story again. (Chapter 11 is particularly technical.) If you wish to come back later, you can peruse these sections at leisure.

I first met Treya in the summer of '83, at a friend's house, on a breezy night, on the edge of the San Francisco Bay....

A Few Embraces, a Few Dreams

LOVE AT FIRST TOUCH, she always called it.

It took me thirty-six years to connect with "the man of my dreams." Or as close as one gets these days to that ideal, which in my case is pretty damn close. Once I got used to his shaved head, that is....

When I was growing up in south Texas, in the days when girls dreamt of such things, I never imagined I'd marry a six-foot-four philosopher-psychologist-transcendentalist who looks like he came from some faraway planet. Unique packaging and a unique combination of traits. What a sweetheart! And brilliant too. In all my past experience with men, the sweet ones weren't brilliant and the brilliant ones were definitely not sweet. I always wanted both.

Ken and I met on August 3, 1983. Within two weeks of that first meeting we had decided to get married. Yes, it was fast. But somehow we both seemed to know, almost right away. After all, I'd been dating for years and had a number of very satisfying relationships, but – I'm thirty-six years old, and I had never before met anyone I had even thought about marrying! I'd wondered if I was afraid, or too much a perfectionist, or too much an idealist, or simply hopelessly neurotic. After wondering (and worrying) about myself for a while, I'd settle back comfortably into accepting my situation, until some event would bring on the self-questioning again, usually some event that made me doubt my "normality." Other people falling in love, getting married, being in relationships....

I suppose a part of each of us wants to be "normal" so we can be accepted. I know as a child I never wanted to attract attention for being different, and yet I wound up living a life that could scarcely be called normal. A normal education at one of the seven sisters colleges, a year of teaching, a normal M.A. in English literature, but then a sudden veering away from that path with a passion for environmental causes that led me to the mountains of Colorado. Environmental work, skiing, assorted odd jobs, teaching skiing. Then another unexpected, sudden change in direction. Born out of a deep longing for something I was at a loss to describe, a bicycle trip to Scotland took me through Findhorn, a spiritual community east of Inverness. There I found an answer, or part of an answer, to that longing, and there I lived for three years. I learned to recognize that longing as a spiritual longing, and there I learned various ways to begin to honor that need. That insistent call from within. I left only because friends called on me to help start another unconventional center [Windstar], in Colorado outside of Aspen, where I hoped my spiritual and environmental concerns could intertwine. From there on to graduate school, but again an unconventional one stressing interdisciplinary East/West and transcendental philosophy and psychology [the California Institute of Integral Studies].

It was there I first read the works of one Ken Wilber, considered by many, I heard, as the leading theorist in the new field of transpersonal psychology (a psychology that deals with all the things orthodox psychology deals with, but also studies the psychology of spiritual experience). He was already being called "the long-sought Einstein of consciousness research" and "a genius of our times." I loved his books – they illuminated many thorny issues I'd struggled with, illuminated them with a clarity I found refreshing and inspiring. I remember liking the picture on the back of one, A Sociable God. It showed an elegant-looking, shaved-headed man with glasses accenting an intense, concentrated look, the background a solid wall of books.

In the summer of '83 I went to the Annual Transpersonal Psychology Conference and heard that the famous Ken Wilber was there, but would not be speaking. I saw him from a distance a few times – hardto miss at six-foot-four and bald – surrounded by admirers and once sprawled by himself on a couch, looking lonely. I didn't think much of this until some weeks later when a friend, Frances Vaughan, who'd been with my travel group in India, called to invite me to dinner with Ken.

I couldn't believe that Frances and Roger had finally agreed on somebody. Terry Killam. Very beautiful, extremely intelligent, great sense of humor, gorgeous body, fellow meditator, enormously popular. This was all sounding a little too good to be true. If she's so great, why wasn't she with somebody? I was skeptical of the whole thing. That's all I needed, another blind date, I kept thinking as I phoned her. I loathed this whole dating routine; it was right up there with root canal. So what was so wrong with dying alone, miserable and wretched? Beats dating.

I had been staying with Frances Vaughan and Roger Walsh for the better part of a year, in Frances's lovely house in Tiburon, where a downstairs room was made available for me. Frances was an altogether remarkable woman – past president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, soon-to-be president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and author of several books, most notably The Inward Arc – not to mention the fact that she was quite beautiful and looked a decade younger than her mid-forty years. Roger was from Australia, but had been in the States for the past two decades. He was teaching at the University of California, Irvine, during the week and flying back on weekends to be with Frances. Roger, who in Australia had gotten the equivalent of an M.D. and a Ph.D., had also written several books, and he and Frances had coedited the most popular (and best) introduction to transpersonal psychology, Beyond Ego. Roger felt like a real brother to me – something that had never happened before – and we had all settled into Paradise Drive like a small and cozy family.

Except, of course, we were one person short – a partner for me – and so Frances and Roger dutifully looked around for any likely candidates. Frances would come up with a woman, and Roger would comment to me, "She's not terribly good-looking but then neither are you." Roger would come up with someone and Frances would tell me, "She's not very bright but then neither are you." What I remember, at any rate, about that year, was that in all the various dates I had, it seemed to me that Roger and Frances never really agreed on any of them.

After a year of this, Roger came in one day and said, "I can't believe it, I've got the perfect woman for you. I can't believe I didn't think of this before. Her name is Terry Killam." Sure, I thought, I've been here before. Think I'll take a skip on that.

Three days later, Frances came in and said, "I can't believe it. I've got the perfect woman for you. Can't believe I didn't think of this before. Her name is Terry Killam."

I was stunned. Frances and Roger agreeing? And not just agreeing but enthusiastic? This must be, I thought, a beautiful woman who is good for my soul. I looked at Frances, sort of kidding, and said "I'll marry her."

Our first meeting was unusual. Scheduling problems abounded, and we finally wound up getting together at the house of a mutual male friend who was dating a friend of mine from school (who was also a former girlfriend of Ken's). I came after 9:00 P.M. since I was seeing clients. Ken and I just barely had a chance to say "hello" when our two friends began to bring up some very deep problems in their relationship. Ken was asked to be facilitator, or "therapist for the evening," and the next three hours were spent dealing with their issues. You could tell this wasn't exactly how Ken had wanted to spend the evening, but he stayed right there, fully present, and was really wonderful, working with some extremely deep and difficult issues in their relationship.

Ken and I didn't say much to each other – we didn't have a chance! I spent most of the time trying to get used to his shaved head, which was disconcerting to me. I loved the way he looked from the front, but the side view... well, that would take some getting used to. But I was very impressed with the way he worked, with his gentleness and sensitivity and compassion, especially when it came to the woman and her agonizing issues about relationship, specifically about wanting a child.

At one point we all went into the kitchen for some tea. Ken put his arm around me. I felt a little uncomfortable since I hardly knew him, but slowly I put my arm around him. Then something moved me to put my other arm around him too and I closed my eyes. I felt something indescribable then. A warmth, a kind of merging, a sense of fitting together, of blending, of being completely one. I let myself float with it for a moment, then opened my eyes, surprised. My woman friend was looking straight at me. I wondered if she could see, if she could tell what had just happened.

What had just happened? Some kind of recognition, a recognition beyond this present world. It had nothing to do with how many words we'd shared. It was spooky, eerie, a once-in-a-lifetime feeling. When I finally left at 4:00 A.M. Ken held me before I got in my car. He said he was surprised, he felt like he never wanted to let me go. That was just how I felt, like I belonged in some almost esoteric sense in his arms.

That night I dreamt about Ken. I dreamt I was driving over the [Golden Gate] bridge from the city, as I had the night before, but I was driving over a bridge that wasn't really there. Ken was following me in another car and we were to meet at a certain rendezvous. The bridge led to a magical town, a bit like a real town but with an ethereal quality that seemed suffused with meaning and import and, especially, beauty.

Love at first touch. We hadn't said five words to each other. And I could tell by the way she was looking at my shaved head that it definitely was not going to be love at first sight. I, like almost everybody, found Treya quite beautiful, but I really didn't even know her. But when I put my arm around her, I felt all separation and distance dissolve; there was some sort of merging, it seemed. It was as if Treya and I had been together for lifetimes. This seemed very real and very obvious, but I didn't know quite what to make of it. Treya and I still hadn't even talked to each other, so neither of us knew the same thing was happening to the other. I remember thinking, Oh great, it's four in the morning and I'm having some sort of weird mystical experience right in the kitchen of one of my best friends, merely by touching a woman I've never met before. This is not going to be easy to explain....

I couldn't sleep that night; images of Treya poured over me. She was indeed beautiful. But what exactly was it? There was an energy that seemed literally to radiate from her in all directions; a very quiet and soothing energy, but enormously strong and powerful; an energy that was very intelligent and suffused with exceptional beauty, but mostly an energy that was alive. This woman said LIFE more than anybody I had ever known. The way she moved, the way she held her head, the ready smile that graced the most open and transparent face I had ever seen – God, she was alive!

Her eyes looked at, and through, everything. It wasn't that she had a penetrating glance – that's much too aggressive – it was simply that she seemed to see through things, and then perfectly accept what she saw, a kind of gentle and compassionate x-ray vision. Eyes committed to truth, I finally decided. When she looked directly at you, you could tell unmistakably that this was a person who would never lie to you. You trusted her immediately; an enormous integrity seemed to permeate even her smallest movements and mannerisms. She appeared the most self-confident person I had ever met, yet not proud or boastful in the least. I pondered if she ever got flustered; it was hard to imagine. Yet behind the almost intimidating solidness of her character, there were the dancing eyes, seeing everything, not ponderously, but wanting rather to play. I thought, this woman is game for anything; I don't think anything scares here was a lightness surrounding her, sincere but not serious; with her superabundance of life, she could afford to play, she could shed density and float all the way to the stars, if she wanted.

I finally drifted off, only to awaken with a start: I've found her. That's all I kept thinking: I've found her.

That same morning, Treya was writing a poem.

A lovely evening last night, well-laced with brandy on all sides,
The conversation punctuated by refilling glasses,
making coffee,
a kind of minuet of words and small actions
interlacing with delicate probing and a deep caring,
as he worked with their relationship.
A gentleness, a softness, a willingness to support through asking tough questions, probing deeper,
panning for the gold of truth, coming up with bits of dust, small pebbles, going slowly deeper to the mother lode,
and finding it.
The whole process was lovely, how he continued on, probing, caring,
and then that lovely resolution, the softness in the air, between us all.
I feel my heart open at the memory of it,
as it opened last night.
To be touched like that,
like he touched me,
first through his words and what it showed of him,
the soft depths of his brown eyes,
and then an easy melting body to body, something clearly
happened there,
I closed my eyes to try to sense it, beyond words,
but palpable, real, even if mostly
inexpressible.
I feel my heart open,
I trust him more than
I trust the universe.

As I lay in bed, I noticed a series of subtle energy currents running through my body, which felt very much like the so-called kundalini energy, which, in Eastern religions, is said to be the energy of spiritual awakening, an energy that lies dormant, asleep, until aroused by an appropriate person or event. I had felt these currents before – I'd been meditating for fifteen years, and these types of subtle energies are common in meditation – but never were they quite this clearly defined. Incredibly, the same thing was happening to Treya, and at exactly the same time.

Fascinating lying in bed this morning. Feeling little wavelets of vibration, very clear and distinct. Sensations in my arms and legs, but mostly localized in the lower half of my trunk. What is happening when this goes on? Are things loosening up, held tensions from the past dissolving?

I focused on my heart, felt an opening very, very clearly, from thinking of that sensation I had with Ken last night. An amazingly powerful surge from my heart, that then goes down into the center of my body, and then up toward the top of my head. So pleasurable and blissful it's almost painful, like an ache, a longing, a reaching out, a wanting, a desire, an openness, a vulnerability. Like how I would feel perhaps all the time if I weren't protected, if I dropped my defenses... and yet it feels wonderful, I love the feeling, it feels very alive and very real, full of energy and warmth. Jolts my inner core alive.

Just to make sure it's clear, Treya and I had not slept together. We had not even really talked. We had simply put our arms around each other, once in the kitchen, and once shortly thereafter, right before she left. We had had fifteen minutes of conversation. That was the sum total of our involvement at that point, and yet we were both startled by what was happening. It was all a bit much, and both of us tried to put a more sober and restrained face on the situation. With not much success.

I didn't see Ken for a week after that. He had told me he had to go to L.A. and would get in touch when he returned. I dreamt about him twice more while he was gone. I clearly knew on some deep level that this was a remarkable meeting of some import, but consciously I tried to play it down. I could be imagining things, I could be building castles in the air, after all there had been so many disappointments in the past. What did I have to go on, anyway? A few embraces, a few dreams.

When we finally did go out on our first real date a week later, Ken talked all through dinner about this girlfriend he'd gone to see in L.A. It embarrasses him to be reminded of this now, but I remember feeling comfortably amused. Turns out he was trying to hide his feelings by talking about somebody else. But we were together from then on. If we spent any time apart we knew what the other was doing. But we were mostly together, and we didn't like being separated. When we were together we liked being close together, touching. I felt somehow like I had long been thirsty for him, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. The only way to begin to assuage this thirst was to be together as much as possible. I just drank him in on all levels.

One lovely early September evening, we sat on the deck of my house at Muir Beach, drinking wine, surrounded by the smells of the Pacific Ocean and the eucalyptus trees, softly serenaded by evening summer sounds, the breeze through the trees, a dog barking in the distance, waves breaking on the beach far below. We somehow managed to drink our wine while staying perfectly entwined in each other's arms, no mean feat! After some moments of silence Ken asked, "Has anything like this ever happened to you before?" It took not a moment's hesitation to answer, "No, never. Nothing like this. How about you?" "Never, not like this." We began laughing and in an exaggerated John Wayne voice he said, "It's bigger than the two of us, pilgrim."

I became obsessed with the thought of Ken. I loved the way he walked, talked, moved, dressed, everything. His face was with me every moment. This led to not a few mishaps during this period. Once I'd gone to a bookstore to buy copies of some of his books. Thinking intently of him, as usual, I pulled out of my parallel parking place directly into the path of an oncoming van. In all my years of driving I have never had an accident. Another evening I was going to meet Ken, again obsessed with thoughts of him and oblivious of all else. I ran out of gas near the entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge. That brought me back to earth in a hurry, though I arrived hours late.

It seemed, to both of us, like we were already married, and all that was required was to let people know about it. Treya and I never once talked about marriage; I don't think it seemed necessary to either of us. It was simply going to be.

What amazed me was that we had both given up finding the mythical "right person." Treya hadn't accepted a date in over two years; she had resigned herself to going it alone. I felt the same; and yet here we were, both so sure we would be married that we hadn't even felt it necessary to discuss it once.

But before the formalities – before I actually asked her to marry me – I wanted her to meet a dear friend, Sam Bercholz. Sam was living in Boulder with his wife Hazel and their kids Sara and Ivan (the terrible).

Sam was founder and president of Shambhala Publications, generally regarded as the finest publishing house in the world for East/West studies, Buddhism, and esoteric philosophy and psychology. Sam and I went back a long way. In addition to the publishing company, which was then located in Boulder, Colorado, Sam had started Shambhala Booksellers, an altogether extraordinary and now rather famous bookstore in Berkeley. When Sam first began the bookstore – at age twenty – he used to fill mail orders himself, working in the basement late into the night packing and shipping books to various customers. And once a month, like clockwork, he would receive a huge order from some kid in Lincoln, Nebraska. Sam kept thinking, "If this guy is actually reading all these books, we're going to hear from him."

I actually was reading all those books. I was twenty-two and right in the middle of completing my graduate studies in biochemistry. Originally I had wanted to be a doctor, and had entered the premed program at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, which I pursued for two years, until I decided the practice of medicine wasn't creative enough for my intellectual tastes. One simply memorized facts and information, and then rather mechanically applied them to nice unsuspecting people. It struck me as a glorified plumbing job. It also struck me as a not-nice way to treat a human being. So I left Duke and returned home (my dad was in the Air Force; he and Mom were stationed at Offut Air Force Base, right outside Omaha, Nebraska). I took a double major (one in chemistry, one in biology) and then went to graduate school in biochemistry at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. At least biochemistry was creative; at least I could do research; at least I could discover something, or bring forth new information, new ideas, new theories, and not merely apply that which had been taught me.

Nonetheless, although I graduated with honors, my heart wasn't in it. biochemistry, medicine, and science in general simply were not addressing the questions that were becoming of fundamental importance to me – silly questions like, "Who am I?" "What's the meaning of life?" Why am I here?"

Like Treya, I was looking for something, that science simply could not provide. I began an obsessive study of the world's great religions, philosophies, and psychologies, both East and West. I read two and three books a day, cutting biochemistry classes and shortchanging my laboratory work (which consisted of the positively revolting task of cutting up hundreds of cow eyes a week so as to perform research on the retinas). My wandering interests greatly worried my professors, who suspected I was up to something no good – that is, something not scientific. Once, when I was scheduled to give a biochemistry lecture to faculty and students on something fascinating like "The hotoisomerization of rhodopsin isolated from bovine rod outer segments," I instead gave a two-hour lecture brashly entitled "What Is Reality and How Do We Know It?," a scathing attack on the inadequacy of empirical scientific methodology. The assembled faculty listened very intently, asked numerous intelligent and thoughtful questions, and followed the arguments perfectly. Then, right as I had finished the presentation, came a whispered but clearly audible comment from the back of the room, a comment that summarized virtually everybody's feelings: "Whew! Now back to reality."

That was genuinely funny, and we all laughed. But the sad thing was that what "reality" meant, of course, was empiric-scientific reality, which basically meant only that which could be perceived by the human senses or their instrumental extensions (microscopes, telescopes, photographic plates, and so on). Anything outside of that narrow world – anything that might have something to do with the human soul or Spirit or God or eternity – was deemed unscientific and thus "unreal." I had spent my entire life studying science, only to be met with the wretched realization that science was, not wrong, but brutally limited and narrow in scope. If human beings are composed of matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit, then science deals handsomely with matter and body, but poorly with mind and not at all with soul and spirit.

I did not want to know more about matter and bodies; I was choking on truths about matter and bodies. I wanted to know about mind, and especially about soul and spirit. I wanted some meaning in the mess of facts I was ingesting.

And so there I was, going through the mail-order catalogue of Shambhala Booksellers. I had left graduate school, cutting short my doctorate and taking a master's instead; the last clear memory I have of the place being the look of horror in my professors' faces as I told them of my plans to write a book on "consciousness and philosophy and the soul and stuff." I took a job as a dishwasher in order to pay rent. I was making $350 a month and sending $100 of that to Shambhala for mail-order books.

I did write that book. I was twenty-three years old; the book was called The Spectrum of Consciousness. Fortunately, the reviews were enthusiastic. It was largely the positive feedback I got on Spectrum that kept me going. For the next five years, I washed dishes, bused tables, worked at a grocery store, and wrote five more books[i]. By that time I had been practicing Zen meditation for almost ten years; the books were a great success; I was quite content. I was happily married for nine years, then happily divorced (we're friends to this day).

In 1981 I moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in order to try to salvage ReVISION Journal, a journal that Jack Crittenden and I had cofounded three years earlier. ReVISION was in many ways a remarkable journal, largely due to Jack's guiding energy and insight. At a time when cross-cultural philosophy and interdisciplinary studies were largely ignored, ReVISION was something of a beacon to many scholars and intellectuals interested in East/West studies and the interface between science and religion. We were, for example, the first to publish extensive papers on the holographic paradigm, with contributions by Karl Pribram, David Bohm, Fritjof Capra, and others. I later drew these papers together into a book entitled The Holographic Paradigm: Exploring the Leading Edge of Science.

Incredibly, ReVISION was a two-man show. I did the general editing from Lincoln, and Jack, in Cambridge, did absolutely everything else, from line editing to pasteup to assembly to printing to mailing. He finally hired an extremely intelligent (and very beautiful) woman to be the subscription department, and then promptly married the subscription department, who promptly got pregnant. Jack had to leave ReVISION in order to get a real job, and so I soon found myself on the way to Cambridge to see if I could rescue ReVISION.

It was in Cambridge that I finally met Sam in the flesh. We hit it off immediately. A hefty man with a beard, a genius for business, a globally inclined mind, and an extraordinarily warm heart, Sam reminded me of nothing so much as a great big teddy bear. He was in town to check out the possibility of moving Shambhala Publications to Boston, which he eventually did.

But by the end of a year in Cambridge, I had had it. My friends all thought I would love Cambridge because of the intellectual stimulation, but I found it not so much stimulating as irritating. People seemed to confuse the sound of grinding teeth with thinking. ReVISION was eventually salvaged by moving it to Heidreff Publications, and I fled Cambridge for San Francisco – Tiburon, more precisely, where I lived with Frances and Roger, who, a year later, introduced me to Treya.

Sam was back in Boulder with his family, and – before I proposed to Treya – I wanted Sam and Treya to check each other out. And so on our way to Aspen to meet Treya's family, we stopped in Boulder. After talking with Treya for about five minutes, Sam pulled me aside and said, "Not only do I approve, I'm worried about her getting shortchanged."

I proposed to Treya that night, on a sidewalk in Boulder, outside of Rudi's restaurant on Pearl Street. All she said was, "If you didn't ask me, I was going to ask you."

I had previously planned a visit to Colorado with my parents. Although Ken and I had known each other less than two weeks, I desperately wanted him to meet them. We arranged for him to combine a business trip to Shambhala Publications in Boulder with a visit to Aspen. I flew out first and, throwing all caution to the winds, spent three days raving to my parents and old friends about this wonderful, unique, totally lovable man. I didn't care what they thought, even though I had never raved about a man in my entire life, and even though I hadn't even dated a man in over two years! I was for some reason unafraid of making a fool of myself; I felt certain of how I felt. Many of these friends had known me for well over ten years and were mostly convinced I would probably never get married. My mother couldn't control herself, she simply had to ask if I thought we'd get married, even though I hadn't mentioned that possibility and Ken and I had never discussed it. What could I say? I had to tell the truth. Yes, we would get married.

When I flew to Denver to meet Ken at the airport I was suddenly terribly nervous. I had a drink, very unusual for me, while waiting for him. I nervously watched everyone get off the plane, somehow secretly hoping he wouldn't be there. Who was this tall, bald, completely unusual man I was expecting anyway? Was I ready for this? No, at that moment, I was not ready.

And he was not on the plane. That gave me time to reconsider. From the fear of his arrival to the relief at not seeing him to disappointment to near panic that he would not show up. What if he turned out to be some figment of my dreams? What if he was real but had stayed on in L.A. with his old girlfriend? What if... I suddenly wanted wholeheartedly to see him again.

And yes, there he was, on the next plane. Unmistakable, impossible to miss. With a mixture of nervousness, embarrassment, and pure delight I greeted him, still unaccustomed to the attention his striking looks always attracted.

We spent the next few days in Boulder with his friends. Since Ken and I were always somehow physically attached to each other, in public or in private, I began to wonder what his friends thought of me. One evening after dinner, standing outside the restaurant where we had just eaten with Sam and Hazel, I asked him what he had told Sam about me. He held my hands and looked at me with those huge brown eyes and said, "I told Sam that if she'll have me, this is the woman I want to marry." Without a moment's reflection or hesitation I said "Of course." (I was thinking – or maybe I said – "I was going to ask you.") We all went out to celebrate with champagne, a mere ten days after our first date. It was a lovely, windy late-summer evening, fresh, clear, charged with energy. I felt the presence of the Colorado Rockies looming behind us, witnessing this promise, conferring their blessing. My favorite mountains. The man of my dreams. I felt delirious and dizzy with happiness.

In a few days we went to Aspen, where I had lived for almost ten years. My parents loved him. My brother and sister-in-law loved him. All my friends loved him. One sister called to congratulate me. The other called, concerned, to ask me questions she felt would reveal if this were genuine or not; I passed. Ken and I walked along my favorite path, up Conundrum Creek, flanked on either side by beautifully sculpted mountainsides. A perfect glacial valley filled with graceful aspen trees and strong evergreens, with rock outcrop-pings leading to complex ridgelines etched against the crystalline deep-blue sky. This was a path I had walked and run many, many times in the past. This was the valley I always visualized when I needed to feel at peace. And here we were, the peaceful murmur of the stream accompanying us, an occasional hummingbird darting by, the gentle rustling sound of the aspen leaves filling the air around us, Indian paintbrush and gentians and asters and cow parsnip and columbine, always the lovely columbine, scattered all about us.

That evening we went for some quiet time alone to a little cabin in the aspen forest. You might think gnomes or elves had built it. A large, reddish, lichen-covered rock formed one wall; its corners were living aspen trees and its other walls made of hand-hewn aspens. A person could walk by this cabin without noticing it, it blends so naturally into its surroundings. The chipmunks are as much at home inside as outside. There Ken and I talked of the future and fell happily asleep in each other's arms.

We are alone, sitting in front of the fireplace, fire blazing against the cool night, the electricity in the house, once again, not working. "Right there, on your left shoulder," Treya says. "Can't you see it?"

"See it, no I can't see it. See what?"

"Death. It's right there, on your left shoulder."

"Are you serious? You're kidding, right? I don't understand."

"We were talking about how death is a great teacher, and suddenly, on your left shoulder, I saw this dark but powerful figure. It's death, I'm sure."

"Do you hallucinate often?"

"No, never. It's just that I saw death on your left shoulder. I don't know what it means."

I can't help it. I look at my left shoulder. I don't see anything.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-28