The Sacred Order

The Georgia peach had taken Stan that night down to the dome by the road in the arroyo leading up the hill to the mesa. It was there that Stan found the Georgia peach had a sister who’d stopped by the dome to see a friend. The friend that lived in the dome was someone I hadn’t met. He wasn’t the one who'd built the dome: he was just living there after the original builder had moved on.  It was a beautiful building made in the manner of the domes in Drop City out of Trinidad Colorado. It was heated by a converted fifty gallon drum stove like all the others. However, the heat went directly up to the loft where a giant sized mattress could accommodate several people but was of no comfort to those shivering on the couches below.

     It turned out that Stan had it made from there on because the guy the Georgia peach sister was visiting moved on after the short visit and poor ole Stan had to meet the needs of two young women. He was young enough though so he could keep up. However, it isn’t like it was a pornographic dream come true for Stan. It was a natural situation whereby the three got along in and out of bed. These things happened back then because people were earnestly seeking out alternative relationships and, for the first time after the Eisenhower, “Leave it to Beaver”, era the door was open.

     Sunflower left the next morning back to Mordar..., L.A., in the VW with her two other friends. My heart wasn’t exactly broken but I felt as though she would be my only chance to stay at Morningstar. I did not want to stay; no matter how much I loved the people and the place, if I was not going to have a woman at my side to help each other like the couples I admired from my squat in the goat pasture. I wanted to have children, o build perhaps a hogan of my own and to become settled. I longed for the relative stability of a natural New Mexico country hearth. I thought I had meandered around the urban drug scene enough and had found a slice of heaven. I would find out later that my wandering had only begun. I wasn’t at all ready for such a mate or a home; I had far too many demons to expel before a partner or home was for me to have and hold. Anything more than a few blissful nights at a time would be all I would have to hold onto hope for almost a half-decade.

     There were the children… I have often thought of the children raised on the mesa in the very rough back-to-the land communes like Morningstar. I remember more of the children than I do some of the adults because there were several and they were all over the place… very precocious and into everyone’s business much to the delight of anyone with a heart. I needed not to worry however, they would grow up into well adjusted adults as far as I knew. A three year-old Andre was one… Siddhartha was another… and a few I saw all the time but don’t know much more at this time. Those were the boys and I don’t remember the any of the little girls for some reason… they certainly had to be there. Any names I could come up with now wouldn’t be from my memory as much as from what I could glean from some of the histories and tales told by Pam Hanna (Read) of her midwifing in various posts and blogs: i.e., Morningstar Scrapbook web site and from Iris Keltz (Scrapbook of a Taos Hippy).

     One incident seared Andre’s name in my consciousness when somebody hanging out in the Kiva decided it would be a good idea to give Andre a hit of acid. There were some very misguided and sick folks back then who saw no harm in turning anyone on to acid whenever the urge struck them. I don’t know who did it but I did hear about it as soon as Andre’s mom, Beatrice, found Andre acting strange. These mothers were anything but irresponsible and Beatrice went mama-bear ballistic. No one copped to it but the whole Kiva was to find them selves facing the ire of Beatrice. The women of the pueblo took turns helping Andre through his experience and he seemed to be perfectly fine afterwards but everyone got the point: Don’t even fuck with the kids!