I remember....  The lepers danced for beer.  They danced with abandon, as the moonlight filtered through thatch and left henna patterns on necrotic flesh.  After their pathetic jerking choreography, they would quaff their thirst with banana beer poured through raw, red slashes across faces ravaged by the bacillus.  They were dressed in shukas--gauzy shrouds that hid the horror of a child's worst nightmare.  They danced for beer.  And that was....normal....then.

I remember....  I was dust-caked, burned darker than a Somali whore, gaunt and totally unhinged.  Out country and in the bars of the wild-west African towns, they didn't call me an American--they would lower their voice and respectfully refer to me as a Traveler.  I was comfortable in those dark warrens where people came to drink, listen to Mama M'binga sing....and to forget.  

I remember....  I drank pombe with expats, most of whom had acquired a strange venereal disease that always killed.  Skinny Man's Disease, they called it then--that before it had the name of, AIDS.  They sat at the bar, spiritually fatigued and resigned, despite the beat of the music as it played on the ancient radio that sat precariously on a broken table behind the bartender.  Once they, too, were also wild and unfettered, but now, they were only free....to die.  I studied them like specimens in a zoo.  Thankfully I had kept my dick in my pants, and Africa had seen fit to reward my chastity with my survival.  Little did I know then that Africa was only saving me for greater sport.

I remember....this always when I hear that African Soucous--JuJu music or samba.  I cannot....not remember.  So, this past weekend, there at the Bourbon Theater in Lincoln, Nebraska, tears of that remembering ran down my cheek in the dark as Ashanti played their music.  

I remembered . . . . that I was alone, deep in a strange, dark land.  And I had never found a way to come back.

*******

3-25-10: Forty-two years ago I was trying to wrestle the shotgun away from my best friend.  His mother, bruised and bleeding, silently wept as she sat on the sofa, oblivious--completely broken and resigned.  Her boyfriend stood there, chest out, crazy-eyed, drunk and defiant--daring a high school kid to step into his raging world.  My best friend wanted to kill that drunk who always beat his mom.  But I was not about to let him go to prison for the rest of his life, so I fought him for the gun.  Having succeeded in taking away the shotgun, I told him, "Now, go beat the shit out of that son-of-a-bitch.  I'll back you up if you need help."

I knew he wouldn't need help.  I had seen him fight.  Many times.  And many times we had fought together.  He beat the shit out of that son-of-a-bitch, and I watched.  He and I threw the unconscious man out in the alley and went back into the house to check on his mom.  I could see the disapproval in his eyes as he helped patch her up.  It was a hard thing for me to watch.  Harder yet to be that way.

For years he and I had been best friends--fighting, drinking Old Milwaukee beer, smoking weed and listening to this brand new singer that no one had ever heard of....James Taylor.  We ran what was for all intents and purposes, a protection racket in high school and kept a bottle of wine and sometimes a skinny reefer in the locker we shared.  The weekends were reserved for fighting and trying to pick up women--accompanied, of course with Old Milwaukee and an occasional spleef.  We were good at fighting, but were not so good at picking up women.

My friend, whose name is Tom, was not that happy of a high school student.  He saw no purpose in applying himself, so he didn't get the best grades, and he didn't leave the best impressions with his teachers--with the exception of a kindly Biology teacher, Dr. M. who had kindly taken Tom under his wing.  Of course, Tom had only his mom at home, and she really didn't give a good goddamn about her son's academics, so....

Tom's miracle happened one morning in 1967.  We were sitting together in Home Room, and Tom had done something to piss off our Home Room teacher who was also our High School Counselor.  Mrs. H didn't like Tom.  Of course, Tom didn't like Mrs. H either.  But I must admit that I was surprised at the vitriol of their interaction.  Mrs. H verbally flayed and quartered Tom--told him he was garbage and would never amount to anything.  And she eloquently did so....in no uncertain terms.  Everyone in class was flabbergasted to hear Mrs. H's exceedingly vicious diatribe.  Tom sat there and took his beating.  I knew it had hurt him--had cut him deeply.  But unknown to us then, that event was destined to be Tom's miracle. 

The remainder of our high school years were spent, to a large degree, in Tom's basement listening to the Beatles' new releases, Sweet Baby James, Iron Butterfly, CSN&Y and a holy host of musical geniuses as we waxed eloquently, fueled by Old Milwaukee and ditch weed.  We cruised around town, hormones raging, fighting, drinking, smoking doubage and Swisher Sweets as we searched for a path with deeper meaning.

At the University we remained best of friends.  It was then that Tom excelled.  He seemed to find his path.  Despite we still sometimes acted like hoodlums, we were then at least, philosophical hoodlums.  We snow-balled Presidents, rigged student-senate elections, and a number of times were called to meet with the Dean of Student Affairs--forcing us to postpone our lectures to the pretty waitresses who worked at iHOP.  And more than once, we graced the police department with our presence.  Those were gloriously....wild times.

After college, I embarked on an adventurer's life full of exotic places, danger and unbelievable inspiration.  Tom embarked on a life in Educational Administration which was itself, full of danger with its politics, and academic knife fights.

Over the decades I kept track of Tom as he rose in academic prominence.  We occasionally talked and more often here lately, have exchanged our epistles via email.  Simply, Tom has achieved--he has excelled.  And in conversations and over an all-too-rare dinner together, Tom has always been clear that he owes what he has achieved to-date to his miracle....the scathing rebuke delivered to him by our high school counselor, now forty two years ago.  Tom had truly morphed that incredibly hurtful incident into a miraculous tool of motivation.  It was Tom's secret weapon.  His miracle.

A few days ago I received a fancy envelope which contained an invitation to the inauguration of a new University President.  And that President is my friend....Tom.

Mrs. H you were so wrong about Tom.  He navigated the truly mean streets of his past, and is engaged in performing a sacred alchemy--changing the lives of tens of thousands of young people.... ....every day.

Tom, I am so very proud of you.

Salama my friend....

*******

3-9-10: I can remember the day that my brother brought home a copy of KING SOLOMON'S MINES by H. Rider Haggard.  He was reading it for an English class at Lincoln High School.  I was a 8th grader at Whittier Junior High.  One would not think that an Elizabethan novel would have any appeal to a boy living in a rough neighborhood during the 1960's.  But regardless of reading demographics, I was hooked on the first page.  The book took me to a wildly exotic and heroic place that was not limited by income or the mean streets of a neighborhood that smelled of its poor.  I grew to understand that that place was a place....within me....it was who and what I was meant to be: An Adventurer.

    Some years before, as a ten year old--and after reading Thor Heyerdahl's Kontiki and Aku-Aku, I had sworn a blood oath to, one day....become an adventurer.  I was alone in the vacant lot off of 22nd and Sheldon when it was all decided.  And I was serious.  I swore with my own blood on that Spring day that people would, one day, read about my adventures.  And with that surety and oath, the immensity of a wildly exotic world became to me somehow possible....  

    Forts built of refrigerator boxes and brush became stone forts on the coast of the Indian Ocean.  Squirrels, starlings and rats became lions, ibis and elephants.  And Ralph Chang Bazaan's rival gang on "Y" Street, became wild Maasai with long spears and shields rather than the switchblades and lead pipes of Bazaan's troop of ethnic mongrels.  

    With that having been decided, King Solomon's Mines helped me focus on where my first real adventure would be: AFRICA.

    Only ten years after reading King Solomon's Mines....

I had been on the first climbing expedition to repeat Mackinder's 1898 approach and climb of Mt. Kenya....

I had been on the first attempt to canoe down the Galana River....

I had swapped jokes and drank whiskey with George Adamson while sitting around a campfire surrounded by lions and hyenas outside of Narok....

I had ran foot races with Maasai warriors across the Mara, and later, had run with death's desperation from Somali bandits North of Lamu....

I was witness to hideous and violent death, and violently defended my own life....

I Saw Heaven on earth....

And saw its Hell, as well....

I was never the same again.  Irretrievably....different....

And after that first adventure, there were so many that followed....

Many trips back to Africa....

Banging all around Europe, South America, Asia, Australia.... 

So wild.... So free.... All normalcy....gone....forever.

And to think it was largely due to having read one book as a twelve year old boy.  

Today I hold in my hand an edition of King Solomon's Mines signed by its author, H. Rider Haggard.

I do not have words to describe this....

*******

2-14-10: The Vietnamese New Year--Tết --begins this year, today--February 14th--the Year of the Tiger.  Forty-two years ago, in 1968, we were set to celebrate Tết Mậu Thân--the Year of the Monkey.  The North Vietnamese had announced a two-day cease fire in their war with the governments of South Vietnam and the United States.  As Tết Mậu Thân approached, my old friend, Jon Canaday--the inspiration for my literary character, Jimmy McCann--was stationed off of Phu Bai which was in the I-Corps Tactical Zone.  He was busy--snooping and pooping in support of the Third Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF) which had set up housekeeping in the northern regions of South Vietnam.  

On the first day of Tết  in 1968, the Viet Cong and NVA struck many cities,and military bases from the DMZ to the Ca Mau Peninsula far to the south.  Not far inland from Canaday's ship, the North Vietnamese flag flew in the morning air over the city of Hue.  Hue had been captured by the NVA, and a Marine compound there had been surrounded and cut off.  In capturing the city, the Communist NVA rounded up ARVN and U.S. sympathizers--as well as innocents caught up in the horror.  Then, over the following couple of days, over 3,000 civilians and government bureaucrats were executed and buried in a mass grave along Highway 1.  In 1968 the Year of the Monkey began as a nightmare for many.

All this to say that on this Valentine's Day--this Tết--the New Year of the Tiger.... 

It's the Veteran, not the reporter, who has given  us the freedom of the press.

It's  the Veteran, not the poet, who has given us the  freedom of speech.

It's  the Veteran, not the community organizer, who  gives us the freedom to  demonstrate.

And, it's  the Military who salutes the flag, who serves  beneath the flag, and whose coffins are draped by  the flag....that allows the protester to burn the  flag.

WE  LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE, ONLY BECAUSE OF THE  BRAVE!

Jon, had to say this since you were otherwise occupied....  We miss you.

1-7-10: For years--decades--I thought he was dead.  Phil Snyder was the quintessential wild guy.  Truly and irretrievably wild.  Phil was born in Montpelier, Ohio to a farming family.  He got a law degree and somewhere between law school, marriage, fatherhood and climbing in the Sierra, he found himself on a tramp steamer out of New Orleans to Papua New Guinea....via Mombassa.  He never came back.

In 1970 Phil found himself on Mt. Kenya training a rag-tag group of ex-Mau-Mau rebels how to climb and how to rescue climbers.  I met him in 1973 when I was climbing the North Face Direct on Mt. Kenya with a group of NOLS instructors.  Phil sported a Fu-Manchu mustache and a ponytail.  He was the hardest of hardcore.  Once, he performed direct heart massage to a dead/dying climber--using a skinning knife to open the victim's chest.  Phil was well established out there on the edge of reality.

(Upper Left) Phil Snyder: Summit of Mt. Kenya (Others) Mt. Kenya Rescue Team

A few years went by before I met Phil again.  In 1978, when I died on Mt. Kenya, it was Phil that rallied the African rescue team to fetch me down from Shipton's Caves.  He flew his Piper Cub over the team and dropped notes in bottles, urging the rescuers to get my ass down, and get it down pronto.  He wanted no American climbers dying on his mountain.

While I was in the mission hospital in Nyere, Bill, my climbing partner, stayed with Phil who was by then Superintendent of Aberdare National Park.  When I was released from the hospital, I joined Bill at Phil's bachelor's house deep in the forest of the Aberdare.  While there we went on an anti-poaching mission with Phil.  Phil was passionate about flying and killing poachers.  He had pimped out an ultra-light plane with twin shotguns and a Velcro loop that held his Walking Tall baseball bat.  Phil would hang like a falcon over the forest and reconnoiter an area for poachers.  If any were spotted, he would drop down out of the sky like a big goddamn bat--with shotguns blazing.

Just the sight of this long-haired flying devil coming for them took most of the starch out of the poachers.  If any did resist arrest in any way, they were either shot or nearly beaten to death with the baseball bat.  Phil made his own rules about use-of-force.  And the news of this expat's concept of justice and arresting procedure spread quickly throughout the poachers and ring operators.  Back in '78 poaching had taken a nose dive in the Aberdare.

Phil Watching His Herds: Aberdare National Park-Kenya

When I went back to climb on Mt. Kenya again a few years later, I was staging my climb at the Naro Moru River Lodge.  There I ran into John Omirah--the leader of the team that Phil had trained and the guy who had led the rescue that hauled my ass off that hill.  John Omirah had stood vigil at the foot of my hospital bed back in '78.  Later, he played Sigorney Weaver's tracker, Sembagare, in the movie, Gorrillas In The Mist.  John had become a bit of a celebrity.  He carried bad news.

John Omirah Miluwi: Played With Sigorney Weaver in Gorillas In The Mist

Seems that Phil had gone to the Sudan to establish a new National Park on the remote Boma Plateau.  John said that Sudanese rebels had invaded Phil's camp, taken hostages, had shot and killed many workers.  Phil was surely killed, but his body was never found, and there were no ransom demands for his return.  Phil Snyder was dead.

Boma Natl Park-(L) Phil's 1st HQ with rescued leopard---(R) Murle Warriors

Phil's Boma National Park HQ after Rebel Raid

Sudanese rebels operate freely in South Sudan

A few years later I was back in Kenya.  At Fig Tree Camp in the Maasai Mara I ran into another one of the old Mt. Kenya rescue team.  Over Pimm's Cups at Fig Tree's alfresco bar, Muneje claimed that Phil had not been killed, but had used the raid on his camp to conveniently....disappear.  Rumor had it that he had rejoined his old girlfriend in the White Highlands north of Nairobi and that she had bought him a plane and he was managing the N'gobbit Fish Camp--doing so incognito.  As improbable as that may have sounded, it was just like Phil.

The next year I found myself sitting at the Naro Moru River Lodge's bar when I saw a guy who was the spitting image of Phil--despite he was sans mustache and had close-cropped hair.  I approached the man, extended my hand and introduced myself--"Hi, my name's Gary Gabelhouse.  Is that you, Phil?"

The man denied he was Phil.  Flatly denied it.  For years I felt that man in the bar was Phil, and that for whatever reason, he did not want any attention to come his way.  So, Phil Snyder remained dead--although there were plenty of rumors and whispers to the contrary.

Then, late last night an email found its way to my computer--someone with an URL of iwayafrica.com.  I sat there slack jawed as I read a note from....Phil Snyder.  

He was back in Nairobi.  He had, for years after the raid on his Boma headquarters, been on a strange and circuitous path.  Though he didn't go into many details, he talked about his acting as a guide and tracker for U.S. Delta Force operators in Sudan.  He was trying to put together his memoirs, and offered a look at what he was doing with regard to publishing.

I also learned that John Omirah, my Mt. Kenya rescuer and our mutual friend had cashed in on his movie largess and purchased a ferry boat operation in his hometown on an island of Lake Victoria.  He had settled down with a few young wives and was enjoying the high life when a storm destroyed the ferry.  John moved to Nairobi where he lives on the grounds of Nairobi National Game Park.  He still takes frequent trips to Mt. Kenya.

And, Phil is not dead.  He is writing his memoirs, and is back in Kenya.  Perhaps one day we will meet again.  Ah, what a strange and wonderful world we live in.... 

1-5-10: It has been over a month since my last post.  Apologies.  It's not as if nothing has happened worth the words.  Over the holidays I again instituted PROJECT BLESSINGS with my friend and cohort, John Harris.  John has a program--ENCOURAGEMENT UNLIMITED, and is Associate Pastor at Christ Temple Church.  In addition, he also works as the Church Coordinator for the PEOPLE'S CITY MISSION here in Lincoln.  Each year I work with John to find families that....fall through the cracks of social service.  Without PROJECT BLESSINGS, these families would have no Christmas.  For the most part, they live in my old neighborhood: the Clinton/Malone district of Lincoln.  This year we sent out thirty-five, $50 WalMart gift cards for each of the kids in nine families, and gifted another family $250 so they could pay their utilities bill and avoid the utilities turn-off, and a resultant homelessness.  I know that I am attacking symptoms--and that these families will probably find themselves, once again, in dire straits.  But at least for one day--at least for Christmas, there were good-quality gifts for 35 kids.  And nine mothers and a few dads found a bit of joy in giving gifts to their sons and daughters.  And for that I am thankful.  For that I am blessed.

The Shingon monks are at it again--playing Santa Craws.  I received another package from Koyasan, Japan and the Kongobuji Monastery.  It was the two main mandalas of the Shingon Buddhist sect: The Kongokai (Diamond World) Mandala; and, the Taizokai (Womb World) Mandala....

These two mandala represent to Shingon practitioners, the entirety of reality.  The Diamond World Mandala (Left, Above) represents the male reality with the Womb World Mandala (Right, Above) represents the female element of all reality.  I have also been invited to the annual Kechien Kanjo Kongokai which is a Shingon initiation held at the beginning of October in Koyasan.  The Kechien Kanjo Kongokai has been an annual initiation ceremony held in Koyasan since the 9th Century.  

During the Kechien Kanjo Kongokai, the priests of the Kongobuji Temple parade from the Garan of Koyasan to the Kondo (Golden Hall) where they instruct the adherents in finding their own personal Buddha.  The initiate finds their personal Buddha by throwing a white flower onto the Diamond Mandala.  The Buddha that the flower petal lands on is the initiate's personal Buddha, and the representation of Dainichi Nyorai--the primary Buddha of the Shingon.  Perhaps I will go.

As some of you may know, for the last 41 years, I have made purposeful meditation a part of my personal spiritual path and ceremony.  I started what I call purposeful meditation in 1969 when I was initiated into Transcendental Meditation by Bill Witherspoon.  I was very active in the TM movement and became a lecturer and eventually a teacher.  My teacher training and advanced practice was not orthodox.  Basically, in the mid 1970s I crashed a TM Governor's course that was being held in Leysin, Switzerland.  At that same time I was working and climbing at the International School of Mountaineering with Alex MacIntyre and Dougal Haston.  Coming back from an amazing climb of the Mirroir Wand (Mirror Face), I saw that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was staging advanced classes at the International School in Leysin.  Forgoing a wine and cheese (and white chocolate) dinner with Alex and his buxom and new-found, Australian friend, I literally walked into the room where the diminutive Yogi sat on his satin pillows.  The Maharishi and I immediately got on well with each other.  And once the Maharishi's toadies found out that a bona fide Swiss climbing guide was a TM'er, well, it was a....love in.

As I had foregone much of the teacher doctrine, and had gone straight to TM GO, I was unaware of a lot of things about the historical roots of TM and its founder, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  I continued to meditate and to integrate some of the advanced techniques I learned in Leysin.  I would say that I found my TM practice to be completely fulfilling, and for that reason I continued that practice.  But as I gained context and background in theology and religious ceremony, I began to see TM as something a bit....deceptive.  Some things were not ringing true.  At least to me they were not.  And for that reason, I quit teaching TM to others.

Dying on Mt. Kenya was and is, for me, the pivot point of my life.  When I dreamed my life back, my contemplative practice was, as all things were....up for grabs.  So, I modified my practice a bit--so that it best fit into the new reality I had made for myself.  I continued to meditate in this way for the next decade.  

In the late 1980s I was deeply involved in martial arts.  It was through the arts that I began to practice Zazen.  I was taught Zen meditation by a Zen monk who had moved to Lincoln from a sangha in Washington state, and who was a very senior student within the dojo.  The adaptations I had made in my TM techniques meshed with my Zen practice, and I found this hybrid form of meditation to be incredibly rewarding with regard to my spiritual growth.  And to this very day I continue on my path with purposeful meditation as an integral part of my spiritual practice.

And so, last week as I was developing a Meditation Primer for the audience of a radio program I work with--searching for copyright free images on the web--I was suddenly stopped cold.  Stunned, I read a letter authored by a man I had met in Leysin over thirty years ago--both of us at the advanced TM techniques sessions with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  

The letter contained a litany of negative claims against TM and the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  Basically, and according to my fellow initiate, TM appears to be a huge cult-like scam, where initiates are purposefully deceived.  Despite they are told that TM is not at all religious in nature, all of its mantras are actually invocations of Hindu deities.  And all initiation ceremonies are just that--Hindu ceremonies that worship and invoke the three major Hindu deities: Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu, and pray for the deification of Guru Dev--the past teacher of one who independently, and undeservedly claimed the title....Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

I did not anticipate I would feel the way I did.  It was as if I had been set more free than ever before.  It was joyous.  It was as if I had received a divine answer to a question I had not known enough to ask.  I do feel badly for any TM initiates who may have suffered due to deception or delusion.  But I feel absolutely set free by the new reality I made for myself in August of 1979, as I lay in the elephant grass and on the cold, wet basalt of Shipton's Caves on Mt. Kenya.

Trust in your intuition--your own spiritual sense.  Trust in yourself--not those who would be paid to teach you to be....