Book I : A Pass in the Appalachia

Chapter 1  A rumble in the clouds


The cold mountain air gripped Charles as the car maneuvered on the wet narrow roads on the slopes. The crisp air revealed a featureless landscape of brown shrubs and dried trees. Above, the sky seemed to rumble incessantly above the thick, billowy clouds as they crested the mountain peaks in the surroundings.

He pulled on a cigarette and brought down the window a little.

Outside, there was an unearthly silence in the stillness of the high autumn season. Winter was just around the corner and he spied the frost line beyond the lone cabin that came into his view. A short distance away, a house or barn had apparently burnt down sometime back, its black, darkened wood still standing like a reminder of something unfortunate.

As he turned to the road again, he realized the car was heating up. The meter was inching into the red zone. No water in the radiator.

He figured he'll go up to the cabin and get some. He turned the car into the gravel road that led to the cabin, moving up a slight incline to a ridge above. He stopped just in front, reached into the glove compartment and took out the .38. He tucked it into his belt, under his sheepskin coat.

He checked in the boot and found two empty water bottles. Holding the tips of the bottles on one hand, with his right hand free, he walked up to the wooden cabin.

He knocked on the door and almost instantly it opened. Charles's hand instinctively went for his belt when he saw an old man holding a shotgun with his left hand.

“My radiator is dry,” he began. “I will be needing some water?”

He seemed to be peering at Charles from behind a face that hid behind a long white beard and hair. His body however was stout with a small belly bulge. His brow broke into ripples at the corners, as his soft blue eyes gave way to a pleasant smile.

“Come on in,” he welcomed Charles. His voice was gentle with a hint of eagerness as if he liked the idea of someone visiting. Charles walked into a one room cubicle with the kitchen on one side, a bed at the corner and a dining table in the middle. The room had the mixed scent of tobacco, cooked meat, coffee and perspiration.

“You're visiting someone in these parts?” he asked in a tone that almost answered the question he was asking.

“We're doing a dig in Crow's Pass,” Charles answered. He was warming up to Tom's easy manner. “It's a burial site of the folks who first lived in these parts.” Charles's academic manner, in his way of expression, was a matter of reputation in the university.

“Before the Algonquin?” Tom queried, handing Charles the water bottles. They walked down to the car.

“10,000 bc,” Charles announced, not without some pride in the voice. He quickly regretted it. “ Early Scythias is what we reckon. Its the first time we are responding to notion of the Scythias coming this far west.“

Tom continued, a little pleased with himself. “ What do you hope to find in the graves?”

“ Our history,” Charles replied, as he emptied the bottles into the radiator. “The world relies on a history of 5,000 years for its realization of its identity. As a nation, we are new in the world. This gives us something to base our own sense of our genealogy.” He stopped to wipe the perspiration on his spectacles.

Tom looked away at the ridge of the hill before he spoke again. “ Moving up in the world then?”

Charles brought down the hood with a slam. “ Just trying to get it right,” he replied.

He shook hands with Tom. “ Much obliged,” he stated, then, absent-mindedly, he pointed at the burnt out barn. “ You had an accident here?”

Tom pondered deep as he groped for a way to respond in the right way.

“ It was an old Appalachian family,” he began in a distant off the cuff way. “ Ran into debts in a big way....nothing seemed to be going right. Then one night the father chased the son out of the house, shot the mother and then set the house aflame, before he shot himself.”

Charles found himself staring at Tom in a strangely curious way.

He opened the car door.

“What happened to the son?”

Tom looked at the ground for a while and then up at Charles again. His eyes were firm as steel.

“Well, for now he helps out with car owners who have run out of radiator water,” he smiled weakly. “I have a garage in the little hamlet you passed coming up here.”

Charles suddenly couldn't move. He seemed to be drawn to stay a while and chat.

Perhaps Tom sensed Charles's own need. He moved again with that quaint, fatherly enthusiasm for visitors.

“I guess you'll be around here for a while....on the dig?” Again that same questioning and answering manner.

Charles's felt the welcome flow over him like a wave.

“I might be,” he replied. “ If I come by this way again.....maybe....,” he trailed off.

“Come,” Tom gestured, as he turned back to the cabin. “I don't get much friends coming to visit.”

Charles turned the car on the noisy gravel and returned to the road. The road continued to climb to the ridge in the distance. He felt a stir of enthusiasm rising.



Chapter 2   A man of unusual means



Tom walked back to the cabin. His mind was in a daze. In the mountains, everything happens for a reason and at a certain pace.  But generally, whatever the pace is, that was it.

Instinctively, he walked to the back of the cabin and viewed again the remains of the burnt out home in the dim light. To have someone share in the thought of something, appeared as important as sharing in one's feelings.

He had thought that it was the ghosts of the Algonquin that had helped him with the crunch in his feelings about the family. For almost two years, a few summers back, he experienced a series of images about his father and mother that reshaped the experience of his childhood in the home. But he hadn't been sure.

When he heard from Charles about ancient Scythia, he remembered something he had read on the net about the way the Scythia buried gold figurines of animals  along with the deceased.  Would be fun to think that there are Scythia graves in the Appalachia with gold buried in them, he wondered aloud.

He recalled how his mother was a decisive and effective person in all that she undertook. But she needed someone to share her life, in a special way, in the world that she lived in, away from the life of the American society that was rising as the leader of the free world. She finally couldn't deal with her world and take responsibility for the reality of the modern world they were living in. It was too much.

It confused father and eventually he moved from platonic to stoic, evading the torrents of impulses that rushed at him like water down a mountain. He kept trying to get back to the top and stay on top of things but each time, it meant a swim upstream that was getting longer and further. Finally, he gave up.

Tom took his love of cars and converted that into a career. For a while it thrived but the towns in the vicinity were growing and it became a competitive business. It was no longer a way of life that you lived with people that you identified as a community.

His thoughts returned to Songnat, the Laotian he employed in the garage. It  was a miracle the way he seemed to take away from Tom the burdens of the world and allowed him to live as himself. Speaking in what passed for the English language, through teeth that was stained and crooked, Songnat's life, that survived the Vietnam war and the killing fields of Cambodia represented to Tom a life of purpose. For him, Songnat would always be his Christ.

He built the cabin himself after the police released him from any involvement in the deaths of his parents. It had no electricity or running water. He was married briefly but she left to go to her sister's in Ohio and never returned. He never had any children. Perhaps that explained the way he related to young people as the continuity of life, in an lifetime that threatened him with the possibility, always, of extinction.

From Songnat, he inherited a leafy kingdom of the birds, trees and animals. He came to hear how mynahs are very forceful in their habits and drive away other birds from places that they habitat. How a person would catch a catfish with the fingers placed carefully around the stingers. That in a miraculous way, a rotting fruit is the mother of the worm, an anima that is born in fruit, in what Songnat calls the magic of the white serpent.

Curiously, in growing up in the mountains, Tom figured he had experienced the same things but here was an individual from another part of the world, a man like him, who experienced the same phenomenon like a smurf or a pixie that lived his life as a part of the life of birds and the trees.

It raised a strange sense of being in him, something he thought he had lost when his parents died and his home was burnt down. But he wasn't yet relating to it as an individual. The experience left him a little lost, feeling like a native sometimes of the ancient days when man identified himself with animals.

He had taken an instant liking to Charles. Here was a man in his thirties, possibly of mixed parentage, with a keen sense of observation, living a life to prove something about himself. Tom had felt his mind move again by what he translated as a collective purpose.

When he had met Sally and in the years following their marriage, he had felt purpose. It affirmed his own experiences as a child and overcame the gap of the loss of his home. It felt more real with Sally, but the world had just been too much. Like his mother, he realized he couldn't live his life for everybody else.

On some strange nights, when the loneliness became  the spine of life, he would encounter possibilities of survival that went beyond anything he saw in the world. That's when the voices began. It disturbed him.

However, in a 1995 issue of the Readers' Digest, he encountered a painting by the Filipino artist, Vicente S. Manansala, that resembled a strange dream he had, in which the voices had told him to find a guide from within himself. Gradually he started to take it more seriously and stopped trying to avoid the experience.

He eventually met some such person in himself who claimed to resemble the principle of true love. He called himself CP. CP was much of the time like a little child, but after two years, Tom was coming out of his dementia and was soon able to relate better socially. The headaches slowed down.

The experience helped him relate to his childhood better. Just about then, Songnat had turned up and it soon snowballed into a live one.

His love of the woods had returned. He went back to fishing and hunting and would spend days camping out in the forest listening to the voices and his own responses to them. One time he had thought he had met the captain of the star-ship Enterprise, that was popular as the TV series, Star Trek.

But in all that time, he had not figured that there was a line of history linking the soil on which he lived with the history of the world, beyond the world of the native Americans. The suggestion had a profound effect on his mind. It reminded him of his father's talk of the Levi as the Source and as manifest destiny in American affairs.

As he went in to fix a cup of coffee, he was reminded of the legend of King Cepheus of the constellations. The legends report him as saying, “ I am the home. Find me.”

Tom smiled broadly. In an experience of the greatest irony, he realized that his father, who always appeared like a leafy king, may have been right about some things.  But when all is said and done, a person might have suggested that his father had begun too early a home.

Chapter 3   A class in the field



“Hi, I'm Charles Mohan. Glad to meet you,” he stretched out his hand.

“Susan Hauser, glad to meet you,” she took his hand.

Charles always had a steely hold. He deliberately kept it gentle with the ladies but it never passed their attention and made them peer at him curiously.

“Meet Bob Mulberry,” Charles waved, as they shook hands.

They were standing in a tent they had pitched at the burial grounds. Bob made some coffee on a camp stove and brought in three steaming cups.

They sat around a collapsible plastic table and went over the project proposal reports.

“I believe Dr. Fronberg has confirmed your change of dissertation?” Charles inquired.

“It was all last minute. I just got the confirmation last night and put everything aside to drive up here today.”

“We had a change-of-heart situation with the previous graduate student,” Bob offered. “ We are here one week and suddenly she has....... nightmares......,” he paused, hesitatingly, to look at Charles.

“Her graduate thesis was on lucid dreaming. The department thought it was a natural extension for her to apply that to anthropological studies. It's a new area.” Charles portrayed a focused perspective on the work.

“That's being applied to psychological concepts of reality and illusion,” Susan offered. “Its still experimental.”

“Our study is of people in 10,000 bc,” Bob took up the initiative, “ what we have are artifacts and wooden carvings that symbolize social norms in behavior.”

“These people lived in ritualized dream behaviors that involved animals and forces of nature. They regulated their behavior on the basis of fundamental logical systems of animals, such as family, survival, food orientation and organization of the society. We learnt by looking at how animals did it.” Charles said as he lit up a cigarette.

Then he continued, “ The Russians have well documented studies on Scythian burial sites, also in and around the same 10,000 bc period. This is what's interesting. Our sites uncovered stone artifacts, in the Caucus mountain areas, it was wooden and then in the Altai region, they found gold figurines.”

Susan raised her brows in surprise.

“Another feature we detected is the animal species. In Asia, its tigers. In the middle-east, monkeys and apes. In North America, its bears.” Bob reported from his brief.

“There's been studies that indicate relations between that and modern societies in each of these regions. We haven't done much in that area. We are just starting to look at the phenomenon.” Charles seemed thoughtful.

Susan was responding to the clarity there were raising and seemed eager to participate.

“ Has there been any direct correlation that way?” she asked.

“The North American experience is quite revealing, just from a historical basis,” Charles started, as he referred to the brief. “ We are puzzled for instance as to why the native population continued in tribal conditions all the way until the 18th and 19th centuries, while the same regional experiences of people from that age have moved into urbanized conditions.”

“The European migrants caused a major shift in attitudes when they came. So we figure there's a schism between the prototype native population, still in development, and the urbanized social behaviors. That dividing factor is viewed as a 'ripper' effect and is highly divisive on the issues. We're attempting some rage measures on the 'ripper' and it looks alarming.” Charles's face had worked into creases and he suddenly appeared very exhausted.

“The 'ripper' effect substitutes for the ' god factor ' that unites the two sides in other societies,” Bob said, looking  a little grim.

They sat in silence for a few seconds as they considered the possibilities.

“It has served to grow our societies in many ways but it is also a severe hindrance on many issues. In a final analysis, if we cut to the chase, it is a survival of the fittest on the basis of individual behaviors,” Charles said.

“Dr. Mohan figures we'll call it the 'Mad Max' syndrome of the lonely road warrior,” Bob said, smiling mischievously.

The doctor he referred to smiled sheepishly and did not appear pleased with the suggested outcomes.

“Its better than naming it after us,” he offered.

Susan couldn't help smiling herself.

“It is a choice our society has chosen for itself,” she began, her own independent nature was quite apparent. “ Will we as Americans be any different?”

“We think the answer to that lies in the ground below us,” Charles replied as he stood up.

They carried their coffee mugs and made their way to the digs. The sun was at its peak in a sky that was azure blue. It felt like a glorious day.

Chapter 4  A stir at the burial site


The next two days was without incident. They completed the excavation on one of the pits and discovered an adult male. He had been buried in the animal skin he wore, two feet deep in the ground. Some artifacts emerged unbroken. One that resembled a deer was from rock that was deeply striated, bearing marks like the rings of a tree.

Bob suggested that they move on the scope of study and start the next phase of the project on the investigation into the environment and the cultivation of the peripheral understanding of the site. It is common behavior among habitat members in any locale to raise their experience of the physical environment into an understanding of the cosmology of their lives. The Australian abo is a continuing example of the experience. They form relations to the nearest river as source of water and transportation, the mountain for a relation to the sky and personal strength. Thereafter, the community would identify and locate their home in connection with the closest wetland area as food source for fowls and small game.

In the Indian community this was the basis of the standard conceptualization of the Siva myth.

Bob suggested he might take off on a camping excursion around the environment the next day. It was meant to be a general two nights, three day trip as a mapping exercise.

The following day, Charles was standing knee deep in the only open pit they had excavated, when he caught sight of Susan hurrying towards him in fearful consternation. She almost tripped over the ground in her hurry and Charles called to her to slow down.

“I think Bob's had an accident,” she blurted, “or he's been attacked by a bear or something. I....I....heard something before the line went dead... .” She was in shock. Her eyes were crimson and watery, her lips dry and as Charles checked with his palm on her forehead, it appeared that a fever was coming on.

Charles squeezed his hand on her right shoulder, as she sat on a boulder. He brought his face close to her and spoke in a calm, quiet manner.

“Susan, we are in an alien location. Its not our normal environment.” He confined himself to short sentences as a start.

“ We have to manage our own shock effects or we are going to be exposed to the body's own contusion with regards to its normal handling of itself.  Don't allow yourself into a confusion!” He chose his words carefully and spoke with calm deliberation.

She relaxed a little. Her pupils reduced their size and she was soon breathing normally. Charles offered her a candy he always carried in his pocket and encouraged her to take it.

“It substitutes for the loss of sugar in the body. It stabilizes your natural feel good experience.  Keeps your responses cognizable to your mind for you to be able to respond normally.” He checked her pulse and found it slowing down.

“ Thank you,” she muttered, with an intuitive sense of his actions. “I think he's in trouble,” she concluded. “ We were talking, I heard a growl like a bear, Bob yelled and then the line went dead.”

They covered up the dig with the canvas and made their way back to camp. Charles found his mind racing.

“Make some coffee,” he said in a straight manner and went into the tent. The cell phones didn't work properly, way out here.

He went out the other way and was speaking to himself, “You can't handle yourself and her at the same time. Send her away....okay....to Tom's place.” His eyes groped with a mental picture of each situation. “ You are new in this environment....stick to individual impulses. Keep the gun....” but he already knew.

He walked back in. His thighs felt firm.

She brought in the coffee.

“You'll have to leave,” he announced with a trace of chauvinism. She flashed a resentment but didn't say anything. “I met a nice fella about a three mile distance on the road. You could go there. Tell him we have a situation and whether he can send some people out to help. Stay there, reach me on the cell.”

“Okay,” she responded with some relief. “Shall I call the police?”

“They won't respond until he's been missing for three days,” Charles spoke with an absent-mindedness as he packed a haversack with some canned food, strapped the bowie knife into his belt and took out the .38 from the case.

Then he suddenly realized what he had said and in a half apology said, “I'm sorry, I heard that one on NYPD Blue. “

He looked sheepish and smiled a ' wild Tom Cruise ' in his head. She on the other hand, appeared incredibly demure, her eyes had grown dark hazel, and she made the most endearing remark.

“I would have said the same thing.” Then she pushed on the canvas and they went outside.

Charles took off in the same direction as Bob had taken. As he brushed aside the shrubs, he told himself that he was now also an object of survival. It wasn't going to matter very much whether he saves Bob, or whether Bob needed saving. He was getting into a situation, he didn't plan for. And he needed to return to finish the research on the early Scythia society. He felt strongly that the country needed it.

Susan started the car and steered it towards the road. Soon she was on the main thoroughfare headed back to Tom's cabin below the ridge. She looked at her hands on the wheel and was surprised by a strange sense of calm. It felt nice to work in a team.


Chapter 5  Scythia Social Development


“Dr. Wang?” Susan spoke into the cell.

“Yes, I am Wang,” came the reply.

“This is Susan Hauser with Dr. Mohan and Mr. Mulberry at the Appalachian site.”

“Yes, I know that,” he affirmed.

“There's been an accident with Mr. Mulberry. Dr. Mohan has suspended the work until we can locate Mr. Mulberry again.”

“Has Mr. Mulberry gone missing?”

“He was on a scouting expedition to map the habitat. We haven't heard from him and he cannot be contacted by phone.” Susan was surprised at her own sense of avoidance of any relation to the issue.

“You think something has happened to Mr. Mulberry?”

“Frankly, we don't know.”

“Well, call me again when you have more information. Has the police been informed?”

Susan made a face and then said, “We understand that they won't take action on the issue until he's been missing for three days.”

“I know that,” came the reply.

She hung up.

The car eased down the slope from the ridge and she spotted the red roof of the cabin. She turned the car into the gravel road and drove to the cabin door.




Bob peered from behind some bushes. He was panting heavily. He was sure the bear had lost interest and had gone away. He turned to look at his ankle. It was swollen.

He wondered about going back to the place where he fell to search for the cell phone but he couldn't move his left foot.

He reached into his bag and took out the water bottle. A quick review of the bag's content brought a satisfaction to him. The loaf of bread and the can of pate would have been missed badly had he lost the bag in the chase. His favorite Irish coffee and that can of smoked salmon caused him to jerk his brows. He still had the lighter he brought for the fire.

Nothing worse than having to rub two sticks together to create a fire, in a grand remake of the great survivor, he muttered under his breath. His upper middle class upbringing was the greatest part of his personality and he had never apologized for it. His brow was in a rare state of perspiration under flailing blond hair. His roman good looks settled quickly into a plan until he was going to be rescued.

Figuring he'll set up camp nearby and get warm, he rose slowly on one foot, hopped about until he found a short branch to support his left side.  Before it got too dark, he had a fire going and had a chance to have a sandwich.

Feeling tired, he climbed into the sleeping bag but became startled by the sound of something approaching.




Once Charles got into the forest, he recalled the discussions he had with Bob on the landscape surrounding the area of the burial site.

In going over a map of North America with the elevations illustrated, they had identified the early migration from Asia through the Bering Straits and moving south along the rocky mountains, where the early arrivals may have settled down. However a society forming in the Eastern part of the territories, would have involved later populations from the Scythia experience in Asia. In addition, it is possible that breakaway groups from existing settlements may have moved east in attempts to preserve new experiences and advances.

The area of the Appalachia in western New England states, were expected to have commenced in a later part of the migration, possibly 5,000 bc. This period coincided with the Sumerian civilization in Asia and the subsequent advances into the Egyptian in 3,000 bc, the Indus and Hwang Po in the 2,500 bc periods.

The territories in Asia were subject to constant warfare and conquests and caused regular migrations away from the area, of which the migration that established the Japanese experience is viewed as being significant.

In terms of development of the mind, Indic experiences indicate advances consistent with nature worship in the period between 2500 bc and 1500 bc. Beyond this period the references are to the human orientation of mind, commencing with vedanta and the epic mahabarata in 500 bc.

The comparison with the Scythia development in the eastern board of the North American experience is significant for a total lack of developmental and urbanization experiences consistent with the development of mind.

Charles had proposed considering that the early Scythia in their burial sites were therefore more advanced than other native populations in North America but less than their counterparts in Asia.  This mattered in their assessment of the Scythia community they had been proposing to study.

In keeping with human based developments, societies have always diminished the personal nature of past relations to leadership. So Charles and Bob had concluded that by placing the burial ground at a lower elevation, the Scythia community in the area would have a ritualized method for diminishing past dependency.

That meant that the Scythia community would have placed their village above, close to the ridge. That is where Charles surmised Bob would have gone first in his scout of the area. From here, he would have moved in search of the wetland area, where the society did their hunting. Rivers flowed from peak mountain areas and Charles spotted the closest peak several miles away. He figured Bob had to be there on the second day and headed in the direction.

Just as the sun was setting, Charles managed to spot Bob's campfire and walked into camp just as Bob was getting into his sleeping bag.

Bob was visibly relieved.

“You're a sight for sore eyes,” he stated. 

 Charles examined the swollen ankle and said that it’s possible to give it some relief. He took off and searched the wetland area for some berries and roots. He heated up the crushed contents, poured some whiskey into it and put them in a handkerchief to tie around the ankle.

Bob was going  on about the encounter with the bear and how close he had come to buying the farm. In comparison to his urban upbringing, he was pressured to think how bizarre the incident was. As he went on late into the night, Charles realized how the human condition could not view itself as food for another. The next morning, the poultice produced a powerful odor, but it had brought down the swelling.

Bob confirmed the possibility of settlements in the location they had identified. They spent the day  scouring the wetland area in search of tools that may have been used by the Scythia.

The next day they returned to camp. Charles drove to the ridge to get a signal to the cell.
                       
Chapter 6  The Leap


They laid out the body from the pit on a table in the middle of tent. The collection of stone artifacts were placed on a table next to it.  Bob joked that it reminded him of the death of an uncle who thought he could take it with him.

“Well actually the police didn't mind too much that we withdrew the missing person report,” Susan spoke as they moved about setting up their collection. “But Tom's boys from the garage had some problems. They used a customer's pickup that was sent in for repair and along the way it fell into a ditch and the entire left side was totally crushed.”

“Where do you want the arrowheads?” Bob cut in.

“Set up another table,” Charles advised.

“Drunk,” said Bob, looking at Susan.

“Tom is a curious sort of fellow,” Susan chipped in. “ He's into this new age thing about fairies and goblins. He thinks Obama is a fairy prince from another time who's finishing up something he started previously.”

“What's he finishing?” Charles asked, lighting up a cigarette.

“Well he says the American experience is a role model for the creation and cultivation of the world idea.” She seemed quite pleased saying it.

“We don't have another table. Can I use the one in your tent?” Bob asked Charles.

“Go ahead,” Charles offered.

Bob left the main tent to go to the sleeping area.

“ It's all about the mysterious forces that cultivate life and how they influence the living experience to engage our energies to finish what was started a long time ago.” Susan continued.

“ Can you handle the photos,” he asked her.

“Yeah okay,” she said.

“Check in the crate. I don't think we have unpacked it.”

Bob walked backwards into the tent with the table held out in front of him and positioned it near the main table.

Susan returned with the digital camera and some notepads.

“I'm doing the catalog?” she inquired.

“Could you?” Charles responded.

“How about a scaled miniature model of the landscape,” Bob asked, very pleased with himself.

“An excellent idea, Mr. Mulberry,” Charles responded with equal enthusiasm. “ A powerful way to built a picture of the life that went on in these parts.

They broke for lunch, Charles brought in more wood for the fire.

Bob went over to Charles and whispered something in his ear. Charles turned to Susan and asked,

“Susan, did Tom give you anything when you left. Like a jug or something?”

“Yeah, but you can't possibly drink that thing. It burns.”

“I'll have the keys to the car if you don't mind,” Bob asked rhetorically.

“It's in my tent. I'll get it.”

“ We're facing a national crisis without beer but she'll only drink 12 year blends?” he spoke in a hushed tone to Charles.

“Unaccustomed to life's usual rigors,” Charles commented dryly.

Life in the camp was not without the usual comforts of home. A generator set supplied electricity, a freezer kept food fresh, three computers, TV and a dvd player ensured that they didn't face a great deal of disorientation while in the field. That was an important factor in staying stable on issues.

Bob did some painting and though much of it was amateurish, it provided a welcome relief from the work for him.

“I get curious visions,” Bob once said to Charles. “ I see a little kid talking to god and telling him what he ought to do for the world.”

“Its a painting in Carl Jung's red book,” Charles responded. “ Have you seen it?”

Bob shook his head.

“He used bright bold colors in his depiction. It included a tree stump and other things. But he portrayed god as stiff and unmoving, creating  favor for the mind of the child that was the active component in the painting.”

Bob seemed amused, but didn't say anything. He preferred instead to deal with these issues on a personal level and would not be engaged to speak freely of it.

The moonshine was great, and everybody thought Charles's rendition of  the Andy Williams great  ' Moon River ' was stunning.


Chapter 7 Lunch with the Algonquin


“I'm Charles Mohan. this is Susan Hauser,” he waited while they shook hands. “ Bob Mulberry,” he said waving at Bob.

“I'm glad you agreed to meet with us,” Charles continued.

They say down at the table as the waitress brought the menus.

“I've been studying the Algonguin language for sometime,” Nahmakanta began. “ As I mentioned on the phone, the Nanticoke Indian population in the country is just about a 1,000 people and everyday, they continue to be assimilated into the mainstream society. I'm not sure how much I can help you with, but I'm prepared to give it a go.”

They selected their orders and the waitress took it down.

Charles began tentatively, “Our field site is about 15 miles north east of Bethel. It is a Nanticoke burial site. That's confirmed by the Delaware department of state.”

“Its a lovely location,” quipped Susan in a breezy voice,” beautiful scenery. Its wonderful to be working on the project.”

It was a powerful ice breaker and Charles felt himself relax instantly.

“Its Delaware,” replied Nahmakanta,” its the Nanticoke heaven.”

“We have unearthed one adult male and have been recording our observations. We are attempting to confirm our hypothesis, that the Nanticoke have a tradition that is highly oriented to the development of human personality and identity. We are comparing that with the Cheyenne, that is traditionally viewed with that reputation.”

Nahmakanta smiled pleasantly and said, “ The Cheyenne have always been associated with good looks, but the understanding of human qualities must go further than that.” He seemed very satisfied with that response.

Bob took out some papers from his case.

“We have prepared a questionnaire to create some measures of the personality traits of the present generation of the Nanticoke and we hoped you could help us with it.”

He passed the documents to Nahmakanta. He flipped through the pages as the waitress served their orders.

Charles figured he'll move into the issues with both feet.

“We've been creating references to the journals of James Eliot who made some very lucid comments about the early relations of the immigrants with the Algonquin. In particular, he was referring to the sachem Passaconaway whom he described as a wise and astute gentleman. He described him as possessing a mind, capable of grasping and comprehending the truths of religion. ”

Nahmakanta nodded in a continuous fashion at the words spoken and seemed to be well informed of the issues.

“Can I speak freely?” he asked.

They indicated by their manner that he would be free to do so.

“Okay, I need to ask you a personal question,” he said looking at Charles. “Do you have native American ancestry?”

“I'm not sure of that,” Charles replied, “ but my father is Tamil from South India and my mother is Irish America.”

“East Indian,” said Nahmakanta,” I'm sorry, I was starting to feel that as a person with mixed native American parentage, you were being a little distant from your own cultural identity.”

“That must happen a lot with people these days,” Bob suggested.

“Its the usual expectation of what pays better,” he suggested. “ A matter of what works and what doesn't. But what we are also facing in our societies is a recovery of our early ancestral experiences that we need to rationalize with the modern world.”

“ Is this something that you have personally encountered in your own experiences?” Susan inquired.

“Its a matter of understanding the different imagery of the experiences and to find a way to validate such experiences as being bona fide development in what we are. I would consult my elders in the community about some of our experiences and be guided by that. A Christian would see their church leaders about something similar.”

He continued with his apparent chain of thoughts, “I would like to think that my experiences are leading me to something quite profound and extraordinary, but there's fear that our modern society is finding a way to lump everything in terms of survival and the consumer habit.”

“That's a way to reduce everything to a common view, but it may not always be right,” Bob offered.

“Its quite considerable in terms of size and scope of experience,” Nahmakanta replied. “I don't know whether there's anybody out there who understands the workings of the world spirit in this age. Its not only a matter of religion but also common sense.”

“The world certainly has an interest to balance common identities with individual qualities. It would be a matter of harmonious development,” Charles proposed.

“I hear you,” he nodded. “ It may be a matter of old wine in new bottles, but the experience is still quite staggering in scope.”

“Do you share these with your wife?” Susan asked.

Nahmakanta took a moment to consider and Charles thought he caught a glimpse into the man's powerful sense of contrivance of issues, kept orderly by social mannerisms.

“We have been separated for about 5 years,” he said, without any bitterness. “ It takes a great deal to be able to live with someone these days.”

“The demographics indicate that 40% of the household in Bethel are separated in some way,” Bob pointed out.

Nahmakanta seemed surprised. “ I had thought that it might be more.”

“That's data from the 2000 survey,” Charles clarified.

“It could be higher now,” he said with some conviction of belief.

They finished lunch and Charles suggested that they continue at the bar.

Susan informed that she had to get a bunch of things for the camp and will join them later.


Chapter 8 The many faces of beer


“Its my view that the native population experienced a personal disappointment with the American leadership to date. We had thought that you were the perfect substitute for the world spirit. But there has to be more, “ Nahmakanta leaned back in his chair to ponder the impact of his comment himself.

“I think you are representing a personal account of the experience, the way that your folks would have practiced that in your group,” Bob responded. “ The fact is the American world experience is based on freewill and democratic principles. That is not always easy to see in a public context, especially if you are only viewing the world in a deeply personal orientation.”

“Its the impersonal view of the self, “ Charles offered, “ like Zen. The East Indians have as much a problem viewing their world experience.....too personal in orientation.”

They were knee deep in beer and the trout was suddenly plentiful.

“ I want to come back to my earlier proposition that some of your folks may have come from the Scythian or what is sometimes described as Neolithic experience in Asia, bringing with them studies of human understanding in the early Scythian experiences.” Charles as usual had his mind on work.

“There's quite a bit of that on the web,” Nahmakanta said, “ but our folks are not relating to it.”

Charles produced a paper from his pocket and gave it to Nahmakanta. It listed the names of several sites in the Appalachia that corresponded with Sanskrit/Persian phonetics in their pronounciation.

“We checked with other words in the Algonquin and had one curious result. The SanskritPersian phonetics refers only to words that are engaged in the landscape, such as Katahdin, Nahmakanta, Swatara, Manassas, Kanawha, Nanthahala, Harriman and of course Nanticoke. This is consistent with new leadership that breaks with the past and introduces new practices but they usually do not change names of locations because of the profound need to relate to the physical environment.”

Nahmakanta responded with an unexpected and spontaneous curiosity in the discovery.

Charles continued, “ The changes made are normal. What we are saying today is that a person who seeks an experience of their source and genealogy would do well to understand the historical changes that may have taken place before, otherwise, their past denials will continue to thwart them.”

Susan joined them.

“Are we having fun yet?” she asked.

Charles sat back to allow Nahmakanta to respond, realizing that his state of consternation would be very revealing of his own personal qualities.

“This has been very interesting,” Nahmakanta said. “It creates more choices in the mind of the native American in his perceptions of the world.”

“You mean viewing himself in relation to issues outside the country?” she asked deftly.

“We have been creating too close a view of matters in a way as to exclude every other consideration.,” he said with great deliberation on the words.

“You think this might have helped you in your own personal search for understanding?”

“I don't think it has hurt it,” he replied tactfully.

“The questionnaires are designed to solicit responses in some of these areas and it would be so helpful to us to clarify these issues in the research. We think programs based on this study might be able to help reduce some of the alarming social statistics that we are seeing.” Susan spoke calmly.

Nahmakanta took a deep breath but before he could continue, Charles cut in.

“The Nanticoke word, Harriman may be drawn from the Persian Ahriman. This may be what you referred to in your experience as the expectation your people had of the American government. The concept refers to the self of all and any suggestion that, that refers to the Americans is something the world's thinkers would consider as a most extraordinary suggestion.” Charles said with a smile.

“When did your people settle in these parts?” Susan asked.

“Its been about 6,000 years,” Nahmakanta replied.

“Have you lived in Bethel long?” Susan continued.

“ I was born in Seaford but moved here to set up a business. Its a small town with about 100 households. Its ….like a common village, except that we live in homes, not teepees. Everybody knows everybody else.” Then turning to Charles, he said, “ you might want to place a classified ad in the Seaford Star regarding the survey.”

Charles nodded.

“We thought that might cause some distortion of the data on account of the close relations, especially in small towns,” Susan went on, “ but the greatest phenomenon of change is in the small towns. In the cities, they manage it by the sheer indifference they create to others.”

“Quite right,” he said, “ you'll find that folks here .......” he struggled to find a word, “create a greater commitment.”

They left the bar and walked out into the sunlight.

“Has Nanticoke always been spelt that way, could it have been Nanticuk? Nantiuk?” Charles asked.

“Well the original is in Algonquin. But I see your point,” he said.

He waved self consciously and said he'll call soon with some news on the survey.

“What's Nahmakanta in Sanskrit?” he called. His voice carried a teenage enthusiasm.

“In the name of the one who loved the world,” Charles responded.

They watched him walk away as Bob turned to Charles and quipped about the meeting.

“ Victory favors those who are prepared,” he said.

“Not that much,” replied Charles. “ I thought Susan was a natural.”

She waved a finger as if to deny either view. “ From my perspective, its all about the study.”


Chapter 9  A Delaware Heaven


They took the highway and headed north east. It was a clear day and the crisp air provided an added dimension to their experience of the scenery. Above, the baby blue sky descended lightly with a soft white light that played with their faces.

In the two weeks plus that they had been here, they couldn't avoid the sense of magic in the beauty of the place. It was as if, heaven had created a location for the man who wanted to achieve his dreams. It gave strength to a person's grasp of the ethereal and persuaded in him a faith in the joy of the experience. While it favored combining the sensation with an experience of reality, it seemed to be in no rush to do so.

It was still early evening, as they approached the ridge. Tom's cabin came into view, its red roof, commanded one's attention in stark contrast to the feeling of a pastel colored romance in the air. As planned, they slowed down and turned into the gravel road. They spied him at the back, chopping wood.

“This guy is coming close to 80,” Susan said, implying that he was still very active and strong. As they stopped the car and came out, Charles broke into a ' wild Tom Cruise ' and couldn't stop. For some curious reason, he suddenly remembered a comment Bob had made about the shape of the map of Delaware.

“What's so funny?” Bob asked. Susan's eyes searched for a picture of explanation and she smiled expectantly.

“Its nothing,” Charles responded, but he realized he would have to say something else quickly.

“I suddenly thought of Peter Pan coming to Neverland and meeting up with Tiger Lily.” He hoped it would pass.

They figured on Tom as Peter Pan and joined in laughing. The beer after lunch helped.

“Feels like a day for it,” Bob replied.

“Welcome pilgrims,” Tom called, with a hand raised.

They stood around while he finished chopping and then went in.

“Don't worry about it,” he was telling Susan. “It just takes some knocking out and paint job and the customer won't know the difference.”

Susan had bought a small crystal vase, while shopping and placed it on the dining table. Bob offered to pluck some flowers from the outside and Charles joined him in the stream of activity that they seemed to have fallen into.

When they returned with some wild flowers, Susan took them, cut the stems and got some water into the vase. They sat around the table and realized that the vase had come to occupy all their attention in the room.

“Its lovely,” said Tom as he smiled at Susan.

They drank the coffee but were suddenly consumed by an overwhelming feeling of impeccability of the moment. They sat in silence, their active natures ensnared in an apparent fulfillment of the moment. It was as if the Delaware heaven had delivered on its promise in the collective way in which they seemed to relate to Tom's individual lifestyle.

Tom broke the ice.

“So you survived a bear attack,” he asked or rather informed Bob.

Bob was only too pleased to relate the entire story again. Every time Bob told that story, it got a little better in terms of the nuances of the experience. It became a product of his thoughts, it included elements of the struggle of life and the enthusiasm that we bring to what we do.

He mentioned Charles's poultice, which made Tom nod his head.

“Its a mild form of acid,” he said, “ it diminishes the blood clotting and kills bacteria forming in the infected tissues. It helps with the body's immunization.” He looked at Charles.

“My father's recipe,” Charles said in anticipation of inquiry.

The talk eventually went into the research. Tom was curious as to how they would apply the research findings in resolving some of the social issues.

Charles responded that it is based on their contractual obligations with the university. That some form of arrangement would be agreed to with regards to their own continued participation in the outcome of the research.

“Commercially, there are opportunities for product branding and design, where a customer may respond better to a retail outlet that is named Manassa, for instance, that retails native souvenir products, cultural artifacts etc. because the customer has a unconscious relation to that word from an earlier time.”

'Wow!” Tom exclaimed.

Susan began,

“Its possible to design social programs that help the native population introduce new ritualization practices, to advance their cultural evolution, while participating freely in the economy. They would need assurances that we all have a self built system of defenses against changes to subtle experiences. These exist in everyone as platonic sensations and only allow changes by the will of the individual.”

Tom looked at Bob in anticipation.

“Political administration of native issues, understanding decision making and the avoidance of speech and design conflicts so as not to reduce the significance of existing phonetics in language and logos based perceptions.” Bob rattled it off like a list. His mind appeared elsewhere.

The sun was just setting when they left Tom's place. As they maneuvered over the narrow road, its rays reached out to the ridge in that final moment of descent, as if making its greatest struggle at the end, before leaving. Then, the sky turned purple


Chapter 10  A Story Board


The meeting was held at the Nanticoke Preservation Society in Seaford. Bob had prepared a powerpoint presentation on the salient features of their proposal. He went over the presentation slowly, ensuring that he create the picture experience of their original source in the neolithic age, and its relation to Asia.

An estimated 50 people attended the session. Nahmakanta had said that it may be possible to reach others through them.

The questionnaire was divided into 5 sections. The first requested personal and family particulars. The second was used to establish the norm standard of behavior and deviations from it. The third referred to their national views. The fourth to worldviews and finally the fifth was to individual perceptions.

Bob went over some of the questions in specific detail, to clarify the nature of the inquiries and to ensure that they received accurate answers.

For instance, the word Nanthahala in Sanskrit, means 'the direction of the self.' In the forms, respondents were asked to select from 5 drawings, that which they thought represented the closest answer. These were pictures of a road, a man in worship, a man with a friend, an obstacle on the road and the sky. Each represented the possibility of a continuing change n their perceptions.

The responses were collated to reflect the average perception of the community as regards the phonetic sound and the measure of the community's relation to the original meaning. In the focus interview, accompanying the survey, the respondent is asked to provide an accountability for their selection. This is recorded as supplementary data on the survey. An observation is made of the refinement of the experience or the movement away from the original meaning.

In another question, the respondent is provided with a picture of a turtle and asked to select their choice of answer. The responses test the tribe's understanding of the meaning of the turtle as the symbol of the Nanticoke-Lenape tribe. The choices provided include the terms, rebirth, original people, changes, a star and the earth. This is compared to the Sanskrit use of the symbol as a sign of the original people.

In their national views, respondents are asked to provide responses on cultural traits, unique to Nanticoke community and to others. For instance the question, what other qualities do you relate to in your daily activities?. The choices provided include family orientation, sports, rationality, love emphasis and practical orientation.

In their world views, the question on the delayed urbanization experiences of the native people, is provided with choices of answers as, love of nature, cultural commitments, design of cosmology, lack of skills and introspective cultural emphasis.

In the experience of individualization, respondents were provided with a self assessment review of their actions. Choices provided were: pragmatic, traditional, global, rationale and self made man.

The community appeared to be somewhat anxious at suggestions of a foreign source of origin, until Charles explained that in studies of ethnicity it was not unusual for respondents to experience vast displacements according to time. Due to this, there has been no clear and absolute standard of definition in any research study of cultural divisions. What is important in studies of ethnicity is the relevance to the issues existing currently. The solutions to the issues may differ from time to time and expectations created of the same cycle of experiences,as before, may at times be wrong.

He informed them that his team will return to them with a draft of their findings before these are engaged as practical measures for further action.

He commented on the fact that past ritualization practices that sought to preserve group identities without advancing them in the light of modern experiences, may come under review as a result of these studies. He therefore asked for the cooperation of the community elders in participating with the research for the identification of the new ritualization practices themselves.

For instance the identification with brother bear extends to an understanding of the mind in relation to the cosmos and the design of the constellations, where Ursa major, the bear is a significant part of the experience. This could receive a greater emphasis in the community.

The progression of social changes as observed in the Hindu community, began with the male son sacrifice in the 5 th century bc, and thereafter, the practice of the peacock dance in the 5 th century CE, gave way to the chicken dance in the 12 th century. This advanced to mother worship in the 16 th . The practice of mother worship, bears close resemblances to the Catholic faith. Beyond that, the refinement and optimization of the self sacrifice by the male son is rationalized for the attainment of the father identity.

“At this time in the community, the practice of mother worship, as a productive force of the universe is expected to be of major importance to the community's development,” commented Charles. “ But the form and shape of the experience may well be designed to meet with the unique and specific needs of each community.” Charles reported as a matter of interest. “We look forward to the research outcomes to validate this view.”

“Is this study being funded by the American government?” asked a well groomed quiet looking man sitting at the back.

“As a matter of interest, I'll answer the question,” replied Charles. “The study is undertaken over a two year period. It is the result of several recommendations that was adopted by the World Inter-Faith Society, at its meeting in Geneva in March last year. The principal funding is being provided by The Koloukulos Foundation in Athens and the Nepal Royal Society in Kathmandu. So to answer your question, no.”

The news was received with a thunderous silence. Bob suggested that they break for lunch.


Chapter 11 A metaphorical reality


The study of psychology grew as a science under the guide of the pioneer in the field, the Austrian doctor, Sigmund Freud. Today it forms a basic guide to the study of the eros and psyche impulses of the human condition.

Charles had always been a pro-Freud advocate while Bob was a pro-Jung supporter. However, both researchers provided good support for each other's theories and is today applied in a mix of content regarding the human psyche.

In general, Freud's theories are considered the study of the male psyche while Jung's contributions bring great understanding to the behavior of women. Freud focused on archetypes while Jung contributed to the understanding of the social self. Curiously it was Jung who refined the studies by Freud on the archetypes, a view that is not supported by Freud's definitions of his work.

Today, an average human experience is expected to comprise a combination of the metaphorical and physical experiences. When separated, these can produce experiences that comprise the sensations of ecstasy in the individual, identified as Eros impulses or birth impulses and the opposite sensations of suffering that is identified as Anteros that is tragic and is identified with the death impulse.

They were discussing the data collected from the survey, two weeks later, when Bob suddenly threw the survey results on the table and walked out of the tent. Charles followed him outside.

In the month following the bear attack, Bob was displaying an uncharacteristic attitude of lethargy and loss of focus in the work. This placed some unusual pressures on Susan who tried to substitute for his loss of meaning and purpose by cultivating him into a cuddle. That wasn't too hard to do with Bob. His appeal, where it was an archetype of a Roman god, had given way to a young Jason who seemed to be in self doubts.

Charles had thought it was a new style but there was something deeper. When asked about Charles's future plans, he had replied that he may not pursue a commercial interest in the project but may take a job with an Asian university to search his roots. Susan had joked then that the Charles's tenure at the university may pass on to Bob, to which Bob had glowed in rage.

“You okay?” asked Charles.

“I'm looking at it plain as day,” Bob answered. “ I had a fright with the bear, but what the heck, I'm looking at every shadow, every movement in the trees......this isn't what I am,” he said emphatically.

“Its could be delayed response syndrome, the kind that Vietnam vets dealt with when they returned,” Charles suggested.

“What's the remedy?” he asked.

“It depends on whether there are other destabilizing factors in the individual. The simplest is to take up hunting and face up to a recurrence of the event and overcome it.”

“The worst?”

“The shock of birth encounter. That could be undertaken in many forms, from a re-baptizing experience, to engaging in a war, dropping out, drugs or enter a new faith.” Charles spoke thoughtfully. “The variations of the experience depend on the external stimulus.”

Bob was pacing beside the fire, stopping to stare into it and then pacing again.

“When the research is finished, you ought to be able to reorganize your interests a little. There's good money in branding and government programs.”

“Why are you giving up the branding?” he asked.

“I have a previous engagement.” Charles replied. “I've always known that my demons were waiting for an opportunity to express themselves. So I made an early discovery of the issues and we came to an understanding regarding matters. When I was convinced that the project would bring in big money, I lost my defenses. I can't go on postponing the inevitable. I figure I'll take on a two year contract in India or some place and sweat it out.”

“Just like that?” Bob exclaimed.

“If I fight it, which is usually in the form of a denial, it'll drag me through the mud and find a way to humiliate me. Its karma, the result of our past actions. You've got to pay the piper sometime.”

They sat there and pulled on their cigarettes. After a while, he said,

“Its too much to give away. I'll have to fight it.”

Charles listened to him, betraying no emotion other than biting on his jaw.

“Arthur Conan Doyle,” he began,” he said, when you have examined all the possibilities and found them to be false, then the one remaining option, no matter how incredulous, must be the only true course of action.”

“It refers to madness,” Bob said.

“It cuts the bonds that bind you,” Charles answered.

Bob stared at the ground in front of him.

“My father and mother divorced when I was 12. I didn't realize what the concept was. He's married someone half his age. I feel like the guy who rolled a rock up a hill, let it fall and roll it up again, incessantly. Its always been the chase, not quite getting anywhere. Now I have to learn something new.”
They heard a car and looked up as Susan slowed down to stop. She alighted and waved a piece of paper at them.

“We got it,” she exclaimed.

It was the Unmarked Graves Act of the state of Delaware. They had been digging around the community housing area when they discovered another grave site. They figured it was an older practice to bury them above the housing area. It was an act of veneration. They had applied and received approval for another pit at the new site.

“Work beckons,” called Charles getting up.

“And so it does,” replied Bob, and stopped the pacing.



Chapter 12   The Madgen


“Result is not important, work is important,” Dr. Wang said in translation of an old Chinese saying.

“There's still enough here that is credible for commercial applications,” said Bob.

They were responding to Dr. Wang's anxieties on the issue of proof.

In the final draft of the report that they presented to Dr. Wang, Charles, as the supervisor on the dissertation, had endorsed the findings on the language issue, personal responses on the survey, the focus interviews and the confirmation of human development tendencies that diminished past exalted experiences in favor of new ones. His comments had stated that there was sufficient content in the study to favor the perception, that the hypothesis is a sound indication of the early experiences of the Algonquin.

However, Charles had also indicated the limitation on the study as, lacking in solid facts. There were no objects or artifacts in their collection that is proof positive of such a link. The turtle and other modern symbols cultivated by Algonquin tribes may have been the influence of subsequent growth in understanding, human values that have come to correspond with like minded attitudes, that is in keeping with the times, and found elsewhere in the world.

The Cheyenne team concurred with the findings, producing an outcome that was similar. However, in the section that compares the differences between the two groups, Dr. Wang had suggested that they rework the entire part of the report. He said that he was not convinced on the issues.

They left the meeting and returned to Charles office.

Susan seemed apologetic about her attitudes for not bringing a greater support, but Charles brushed it off. He realized that her own condition had evolved along with Bob and in the 18 months that they spent together, she had grown to highlight her own needs along with Bob.

“ All I'm saying,” she was speaking to Bob, as they walked back from the dean's office, “ is that some solid evidence would have made a difference.” Charles was thinking about the responses of the sponsoring institutions in the findings of the research.

“There's enough stuff in there for a solid social program,” Charles affirmed.

Susan received it well, but her manner implied that it was merely recommendations. Someone convinced of the report's credibility, would have to apply considerable work and cultivation to make these issues popular and to bring them into common acceptance in the form of programs.

“I agree,” Susan replied, in a curious and subtle sense of contradiction that she had grown into in the past few months.
Bob continued to eyeball the opportunities in the governmental sector but was concerned whether the usual politics in Washington and the budget issues necessary for its promotion, would be forthcoming.

“My father was going on about land deals in native territory, mining and so forth, which he thought would be useful areas for the application of the research. Negotiations, contracts and deals made would require a keen understanding and relations on the issues.” He spoke in a tone of finality, as if the whole thing was already settled.

“Are we meeting up for the tribe comparison issues?” Susan inquired.

“ I'll have to speak to Karen first on the measures for the human definition model, we are using,” he responded. “The motivation and decision making models, we used is okay but if Dr. Wang says its inconclusive, then that's that.” He was referring to the supervising assistant professor on the Cheyenne team.

Charles returned to his room in the three-storey staff building of the department. Some students were in the corridor searching for names on the doors. It was a new semester and Charles was starting to feel the nature of the cyclical motions of life. He stood at the window and lighted up a cigarette. He took a long view of the lawn beside the building and the students sitting in the sunlight.

He recalled how the picture of the lawn and students was one of the reasons he had decided to enroll for his own P hD program. Life in the ivory tower wasn't all that it was made out to be. The money was all right but he felt he had to sink his teeth into something.

To leave the place after the completion of this dissertation was a thought that he had played with for some time. He was starting to dream about India and the kind of stuff that continues to lay buried there.

At 47 years of age, he figured he had to put the apex on the pyramid that he had been building and it was important for him to take to the next stage. He wondered about his own family attitudes and his daughter who had finished her undergraduate studies and was moving into the workplace. He wasn't there for them at this time but he kept up the pressure of avoidance of the issues.

A wind had picked up in that late May season. The chatter among the students outside, drew on his own social attitudes and a picture of the continuity of life came into view. He held that in place and realized that he may have passed the social standards in terms of his general societal responsibilities but he took the separation from the wife as a matter of personal failure. The effect depreciated him and made him restless for achievement.

He remembered a conversation he had with Bob, on the issue of what they termed as the Madgen. It referred to the experiences of mad geniuses in society and it was apparently taking over from the X generation.

“We cannot know everything,” Bob was saying, “its the way we combine a multitude of factors in arriving at a path of least resistance. But the way we come to know things is a lark in most cases. It comes and it goes.”

Charles concurred. “ It combines passion with reason and we seem to be finding a way to refine the experience better and better.”

“The early Egyptians made the remark that someday they will come back to life and it seems to me in some way, that such a return is mixed with the concept of the world experience.” Bob mused.

Charles had laughed.

Freud had said that sanity is defined as knowing the difference between reality and illusion, but he didn't define which is which, leaving it to the individual to do so.

He recalled the comment by a pastor he had got into discussions with, in his teen years.

“God permits man to exercise freewill for the discovery of the good and bad of things. As long as we maintain the covenant with him, no matter how screwed up we ever get, we ought to find our way back.”

Amen, muttered Charles under his breath, as he called Karen on the phone to set up their meet.


Chapter 13 Red Heads and Tobacco


“We did a focus interview with one of their shamans,” Karen said. Charles lit up in surprise.

“It was so interesting. This guy knew what we were doing with the study and said its the work of the world spirit.” She continued.

“I missed that,” Charles said with regret, referring to insight that he might have gained from a Nanticoke shaman.

“Well,” Karen quickly moved to lift Charles's mood. “It gave us a tremendous perspective on the issues, but I'm not sure how much of that we can use. Its totally unsubstantiated.”

“For example?” Charles asked.

“Okay,” she leaned back on the chair to recall. When she spoke, she did it with a subtle smile. “On the food issue. he said that the tribe preparation of the food would include drying corn and scrubbing off the corn germ. Its the seed that develops the corn plant. Like whole meal bread, the seed in the cereal has the effect, when consumed, of exercising an impact on the mind of the individual. It contains the DNA of the cereal and blah....blah.....blah it combines with the human reproductive experience to stimulate our own thinking, sometimes too strongly, creating a loss of self will in the individual.”

Charles stared at her, without comment. Her flaming red hair was kept short and it tossed about like the ocean of tea in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

They were in the cafeteria and the noise from the other students was building up and drowning out their voices. Yet they remained there in discussion on very specific areas of their study. Charles felt good about being able to combine some of their deep discoveries with the everyday life of activities.

The noise helped to mitigate the sensation that made Charles feel like an excavator with women, in general, creating a probing attitude, so that they can come to verbalize their thoughts into communication. At other times, he thought, they always made him feel like a child. In response, the male attitude in him, tried to compensate by turning into a narcissistic vanity about himself. On balance, he figured, he would rather be treated like a child and deal with it.

“We could use that,” Charles suggested. He wasn't sure if the Nanticoke did the same thing with their corn, but he could check.

“Not in the survey. There's no data support.”

“Okay, we could report it as observation.”

“I guess,” she seemed to be saying. “Okay, with the data on types of food consumed?”

“We had a large number on a diet of hamburgers.” Charles recalled.

“Yeah, same here,” she said. She relaxed a little and Charles realized that even the women moved into narcissistic tendencies as defense.

They turned their attention to the sandwiches on the table.

“What do you think happened when they migrated to the plains and the south?” Charles suddenly declared like he had an epiphany.

“Food and water sources,” she suggested. “ Have you found anything on the reasons for the breakaway groups.”

“Too profound a cultural orientation in the beginning, when the mind is identified with the bigger aspect of what they were in the metaphorical. Its the same experience in the cultivation of the East Indian experience. They settled at the Indus and found their societies growing too patriarchal with metaphorical power structures. They broke away to the Ganges where they reorganized themselves in the mahajnanapada experience for a greater experience of physical reality.”

“The legend of the mahabarata? She intoned. Charles nodded.

“Its a cultural evolution of experiences,” she said looking at the table with a frown. “Whatever group discovers something new, it always brought it back to the previous group to share in the advancement. It is an imperative in the oneness experience.”

“ It relied on practices of mother worship to unite themselves again after the previous fracas,”Charles was thinking out loud. “Hence the transformation to child qualities to create the acceptance.”

They paused.

“I'm going back to Delaware to record the observation on food,” Charles informed.

“Same here,” she replied.

They arose and walked through the cafeteria, amidst the keen looks on the faces of the students. Outside, the clear blue skies of Southern California greeted them like an aphrodisiac for all ailments.

“There's talk that you might be leaving at the end of the semester,” she asked.

He confirmed it.

“Its been quite an experience for me to come to realize the implications of the east Indian experience. I never gave it much capital until recently. I figured I might take up a deeper look at the issues.”

Then as an after thought, he asked. “How's mother doing.”

“She's into gemstones or something.....how Ireland actually represented a crystal like experience on her thoughts. She keeps worrying about you. She told me to tell you to reduce your smoking.”

“Tell her I'll be coming around before I go to India,” he said.

He kissed his sister on the cheek and walked alone to the car park. He turned on the ignition, put it into gear and took off for his apartment.


Chapter 14 An unearthly encounter


Charles went over the draft report again on the plane. The comparisons between the Algonquin and Cheyenne turned out to be a non issue. It was based on gratuitous references created by the American writers in their literature about the Cheyenne. The issue of greater humanistic development between the two groups was not in that way conclusive without a clear definition of the human model. He was starting to feel a little hot.

His own Tamil lineage was often compared to the Hindi population in India and while the Tamil population in the south showed advances in music and song, this was as yet an insufficient basis for defining their progress in human values.

The issue of humanistic development was also being taken up, in a haphazard way, as a matter of human rights, by the lobby groups in Washington DC, to shape the design of American foreign policy.

He rented a car and drove to Bethel to meet with Nahmakanta.

“We ran into a complication,” he began. “At face value, there are indications to confirm that the Algonquin retain a greater share of their older development in human values. However, in Cheyenne's case, while there is less indication of something older, it may be substituted by new experiences that is drawn from the American system. We are not in a position to create a view regarding that on account of the lack of references on the issue.”

He referred to the food issue and Nahmakanta confirmed that they do not especially prepare wholemeal corn preparations or remove the germ for any particular reason.

“It depends on the way the ladies prepare the meal,” he said. “ Its an unconscious work ethic. My wife seems to remember how her grandmother used to insist that the corn be scrapped thoroughly and then washed but nobody explained to the girls today about why that was important. These days, we get corn from the can.”

He brought Charles to a Nanticoke cafe in the area and they spoke to the chef. He didn't seem to take note of the corn germ issue and prepared his corn meals the way he's been always doing.

They spent the rest of the day in the bar and Charles responded as well as he could on the issues Nahmakanta raised.

They left the bar in the evening and Charles drove off to their previous site at Crow's Pass. On the way, he stopped at a gas station and bought a bottle of Captain Morgan.

He was drifting in a tide that he was unfamiliar with. It seemed to be pointing him at many things that had suddenly torn away from their moorings and were floating in the sea of his contemplation.
Something was drawing him to the site. He passed Tom's place but didn't stop. When he arrived at the site, the dusk was already gathering. He parked the car at the former camp site, took out the .38 and carried the bottle of rum as he walked around the place.

He felt an implication that he had missed something, but he didn't know what it was.

He heard himself say, “ I ought to be putting up in a hotel tonight,” but it didn't mean anything in particular. The rum was warming him up and it brought a queer sensation of instincts that he couldn't identify with. However, he was able to relate these to his feelings as a child. It was the sort of passion that rose to bring many things to one's understanding, but will not state a validated position on any issue. That would have to come from a matter of self analysis.

Suddenly, his feet pulled away and he walked to the community housing near the ridge. He brought the torchlight from the car. It started to drizzle as he was half way up but he ignored it. Just as it was getting dark, he reached the other pit. His clothes were taking a soaking but it didn't feel too cold.

He sat with his feet in the pit and continued consuming the rum, wondering how something from sugar cane can make him feel so exuberant. The torchlight shined into the pit, indicating the fall of the raindrops, one by one. He wasn't sure how long he was there but the rain had picked up and in a state of morose lethargy, he rose to go back to the car. The woods in the surroundings gave out a loud scrapping sound on the leaves, as the rain picked up.

Just then, he felt the ground slide under his left feet and as he grappled to maintain control over his balance, his right feet went under and he crashed into the pit. He had tossed the bottle as he fell, so his right hand was free to cushion his fall.

The ground in the pit was collecting water and he managed to pull himself up, pick up the torchlight and sat in the pit to ward off the shock effect. The torchlight picked up some dry leaves in the pit and as he ran his eyes around edge, he noticed a black beetle. He seemed to recall a dead black beetle when they were excavating the site.

In the slow and debilitated state of mind that he was in, he was unwilling to dismiss the beetle this time. He reached out and picked it up. As his fingers pressed upon it, he realized that it was quite solid and was not what he thought of it previously. He placed the torchlight on the grave bank, took out his pen knife and scrapped on the skin of the beetle.

Something inside shone a yellow light. He brought the torchlight to it and realized that it may be gold. It was the practice of the Egyptian ladies to wear necklaces with the gold scarab designed as jewelery. The remains in the pit had been a woman.

He stared at it for a while and felt the rain drops drip down his face, as a deep sense of realization rose in his body. His lethargy lifted and his state of mind was starting to soar.

He continued sitting there for a while, cherishing the implications of the find. All that he went through in his life, till then, came rushing back to him in an indication of the purpose of his life. He was in a fountain of content.

He thought of the study, the Algonquin and the Delaware State Department. He surmised that what he was engaged in was a long-term evolutionary and human development process. Nobody was going to be convinced in one argument about what the issues are. It would take an age to affirm the experience.

He was breaking an important rule regarding the scientific research and the laws of the state, but he pushed the scarab deep into his pocket, took the torchlight and walked through the dripping night woods to the car.

He knew what he was about and what he's doing. That had to be enough.


Chapter 15 A separation


It was a 14 hour flight from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur. The India plan didn't work out. However, the invisible hand of providence had come to steer the issues into a new arena for their continued advancement.

The completed study had picked up interests in UNICEF and Susan was awarded a two year contract at the Sorbornne for the development of a curriculum in the teaching of a new subject in cultural evolution, that pertains to an understanding of self.

Bob was working out a deal with the white house for an appointment as the adviser to the president on human rights. His father helped.

Charles found a new sponsor for his research through the offices of the social development policies of the Sultanate of Brunei. They worked out a deal for him to take up a two year contract at University Malaya. They had proposed a new area of research for him that engages the issue of social themes in public media communication, with an emphasis on comic characters and cartoons, that play a role in the artificial stimulation of the mind.

In the last month, before leaving the US, Charles was pressed into several issues that he never knew was there.

Bob had come to define himself in many ways during the course of the study and this was undertaken in a relative identification of his role in the research team. He had filled in quite nicely. With Charles leaving for the East and Susan for Paris, Bob, like any good political appointee, was left to his own devices in Washington DC. However, he felt obliged to show that he might miss them.

Susan later provided one of his quotes about the separation as,” We shouldn't have planted the apple tree in autumn.”

To Charles, he was almost warm, with the line, “ Two brothers couldn't have had a more amiable relationship.” And, “ What I'll miss most about you is your sense of humor. You didn't think I noticed, did you?”

Charles was somewhat stunned. There was always something about the American experience that is unique and self defining. It would never be imitated any where else.

With Susan, Charles realized he wouldn't be able to hide what he felt and therefore didn't try.

“I think I have been in love with you in some way,” he declared.

“I might have noticed,” she replied. “ Don't be a stranger.” They kissed on the cheek.

“What's the research issue in Malaya?” she asked, combining the name of the university with the country.

“You'll laugh,” he defended himself.

“I could do with a laugh about now,” she said.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the impact they create in changing archetypical behavior in society. With an emphasis on consumer habits,” he added.

She laughed.

“It would be a break from the pow wow that we have been through,” she added.

His mother, on the other hand didn't allow him to be humorous. Looking frail since the stroke she had the previous year, she had come to herself, since the death of his father 15 years ago.

“Cut down on the smoking,” she called as he left.

Karen was seeing somebody new since the divorce and Charles wished her good luck.

In Malaysia, Charles was appointed to the position of lecturer in the school of business studies, University Malaya. His MBA combined well with his PhD dissertation on the impact of the Mahajnanapada movement on the Indian psyche beyond the Vedanta period. His contract called for the publication of a research thesis on public media influences.

The faculty campus was located in another town. Malacca, with a population of about 1 million people was located about 2 hours drive from Kuala Lumpur. It was a historical city with early colonization by the Portuguese, Dutch and the English. Some of the old administrative buildings still stand in town. It was a major port in the area about 300 " 500 years earlier and was a point of migration for people from China and India. From here, it was a 3 hour drive to Singapore in the South.

The native population in the country comprised Malays from the surrounding regions. It had a good sized population still living in the forests as aboriginal tribes.

As Charles got into session with the classes, he started to notice a poor development in the area of communication by the students. A society expresses itself best on the basis of the rules of ethos. It was the standard in Athens.

He found that, while the Malay population did so in their communication, the Indian population indicated a preference for pathos based thinking and relation. This is typically the position of the gods. The Chinese population relied on Logos as the fundamental reference to lexicon and indicated a breezy view of life founded on money and its constructive power in society.

However, in a balance created for harmony, a convention on speech that relied primarily on rhetoric, had come to occupy their exchanges in social customs. That held the relationships on level ground on certain issues and permitted a greater experimentation with others.

It was quite a melting pot and in the long run, would cultivate a mutation in social customs that is adapted to combine elements of other cultures, while maintaining the dynamics of the society.


Chapter 16 A Mithra's summer


At the library, some weeks later, Charles ran into a pleasant surprise.

“Aren't you Charles?” he heard, as he passed someone near the shelves.

He turned to look at a petite lady about his height and age who was smiling as if in recognition.

Then suddenly, he remembered. “ Saint....no.....Santa....wait,” he gestured for time, ' Sunder.” Saved at a moment of the greatest self revelation on true friendships.

“What are you doing here?” she continued, as if all the years, between the time they spent on their undergraduate programs at UCLA, and now, had suddenly disappeared.

“I'm on a UNICEF program, teaching business studies.”

They walked over to the staff cafeteria.

Sunder Kaur was not an Indian. She was Sikh. The community subscribes to man's early experience in the days when the single minded personality of the barbarian, Rama, ruled the day. They had met in UCLA 36 years before. They had both lost their virginity for their first time, that night in Yosemite, when they had gone camping with some other students.

She had kept herself well all these years and Charles couldn't help remembering fondly the great companionship she provided during their college days. But she had returned to Malaysia after the graduation and any suggestion he may have made, that they could carry their relationship into marriage, fell on deaf years.

“I can't disappoint my father,” she finally said, coming close to tears. The Sikh tradition and sampradaya was severe about only marrying another Sikh. They had broke up after that.

“Three kids,” she said, “ two girls and a boy. What about you?”

“One daughter, but I'm separated from the wife. We're both too independent.”

She had returned to college, after a life of the family, to do her masters program. Her husband ran a successful truck rental business.

They spent about half a day chatting and left thereafter.

In the days that followed, Charles began to collect whatever information he could find on the storyline of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT). As a preamble, Charles figured that it was a presentation of the way, the average individual preserves their harmony in society.

This is illustrated by the master of the turtles, the venerable Splinter. The master is a giant rat. In the annals of the legend of Siva's son, Ganesha, he battles a rat constantly, who tries to steal from him in terms of his learning and claims that such knowledge is the property of someone else.

For both of them, as are the practices of our society, learning is undertaken on a unconscious or subconscious manner. The conscious, is an instrument that serves the 5 senses of the body and may be relied upon for an independent second opinion, on issues undertaken by the unconscious.

In the case of TMNT, the master is served by not one, but 4 members of their group, representing in effect, the 4 major cultural divisions in the world. In a broad summary of the message, the human condition is described as being unconscious and relating to 4 divisions of itself in its world experience.

In the full development of the human condition, the position reverses itself. The human is the conscious and he supports the activities of the 4 different members of his experience, who represent the world. Each of these is 4 members are drawn from a historical time line in the world.

Freud referred to this condition, as it is practiced in the world and therefore did not restrict the definition of sanity to one fixed world view.

With the brief, Charles had a way to design a research study that would indicate how the mind swings like a pendulum, and then reverses itself, for this achievement.

The phone rang. It was Sunder.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing much,” he replied.

They met up for drinks, at her suggestion, in the resort area in the northern part of Malacca. Both knew what was to follow.

As they undressed in one of the rooms, Charles started to feel a little strange. She realized he couldn't.

“Not the same ' devil-may-care ' Charles,” she said.

“I grew up, “ he replied.

She didn't seem upset, but it was as if, she found an answer to something she was looking for. Charles recalled how the Gurkhas of Nepal would not put back a drawn kukri, without it drawing blood. He felt the same way.

They compromised by leaning back to back and got it off in the opposite direction. It was highly stimulating, especially in the place where the sun don't shine. It was a new experience for both of them and while it wasn't the proverbial cigar, it bridged many different sensations of the human experience, without having to live in a farm.

They left together. She said that she had never cheated on her husband before, but something that was remnant of their own relationship previously, had been in that way, persistent. Charles reminded her that the incident may not qualify as an infringement of the usual rules.

On his way back, the sky broke and the rain fell in torrents. Charles was suddenly reminded of an ancient friend who had given him a present of the golden scarab.

Sunder never called again.


Chapter 17 A reversal


Susan lay in bed and looked lazily out the window. A white butterfly fluttered near the shutters and in a haphazard manner, came into the room. As she looked out at the window across the street, she had a vague sense that someone was lying on a bed there, waiting to get up.

It caused her an anxiety which pushed her to get up. She sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. The sensation had caused a fear in her and she immediately found herself remembering the incident of Bob and the bear, in the Appalachia. It had consumed her attention thereafter, especially when she found herself in a pit of great empathy for Bob.

She went into the kitchen to make some coffee.

The emotion carried her backwards in time, to her home in the valley, in Northridge,

Her mother had been at work that day. Her brother was in the living room watching the cartoon, Yogi bear, on TV. Her father who spent a life time working as researcher at the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico, had been laid off work, over the previous 2 years.

The events that followed, still held a rigidity that she couldn't penetrate. It seemed to her, that he had locked all the doors, told her and her brother to stay in the TV room, called her mother on the phone and had threatened to shoot her and her brother and then himself.

The police arrived, in what was a typical hostage situation, the negotiations were begun to have the father release the children.

Suddenly, she jumped, as a car backfired outside and caused her to lose her train of thoughts. Carrying the coffee, she walked over to the table where her notes lay in disarray.

As a child, her brother was diagnosed as suffering from meningitis. It was considered a mild form of mental disorder and was capable of subjecting the patient to great bouts of imagination and mental imagery, causing an acute lack of focus and concentration.

Susan had relied on her father as an anchor in the way that she managed herself and her perceptions of the world. In the months when the father was unemployed, he was in a state of distraction and caused her to lose focus on the issues. In his place, her brother had taken over but he was constantly imitating Yogi bear, as a wise cracking survivor, in the way that he related to her. It destabilized her even more.

In the last two years, when she had come to know Charles, she felt a great relief in her mind. He was always on top of things, had a response to everything and maintained a consistency in his actions. She related to that positively and for a while, had viewed him as a father image. But he had brushed it off.

She empathized with Bob's situation and was glad that her relationship with Charles remained unchanged. However, when Charles had told her about his proposed study into the archetype images in TMNT, she had felt an anxiety, in the same way, that she had thought her brother, was always full of Yogi bear nonsense.

Years later, she had visited her father in the correctional facility and had a pleasant exchange with him.

“I sorry about the mess,” he had said, “ I'd been under a lot of pressure.” Tall and lanky, his face had carved into creases that reflected the weight of concern he had about his own integrity of issues.

He had told her then that he was reading the book, ' Moby Dick ' by Herman Melville, and he found it incredibly useful as a way to view his own actions. He seemed contented somehow but did not want to return to a reconciliation with her mother.

Her mother had not remarried but will never bring herself to speak of the incident in the hostage situation. She had continued working and spent her leisure times doing cross stitch.

Meeting Tom, while researching on the Algonquin produced an incredible balm in her feelings. In Tom, she saw a person who had learnt to organize and manage his thoughts on the issues. But the loneliness that she perceived in Tom, was something, she was glad she was spared.

In going over her notes on the curriculum preparation, she realized that she was using one, or a combination of the men she had come to know, as being representative of the average individual in the world, and in some ways, herself. Our lives are in a process of self discovery, she figured, and the purpose of education and learning is to address such concerns. She aimed to write a curriculum that addressed the needs of such an individual, as it exists in society today.

She took another sip from the cup and went over her notes again.



TMNT, Charles surmised, was a work of faith by its creators, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It referred to the master of the group, as the perceptor of all actions and the one who brought a perspective to life. They fought an evil man called Shredder, who was not unlike the ripper, that Charles identified, in the destruction of faith in individuals.

The 4 mutant turtles had the name of famous artist from the world's past, intimating the need for individuals in society to apply a creative and artistic flair to their handling of situations and the cultivation of responses to them. A little handling from a katana, where that might be necessary, helped.

Charles viewed the work as a way in which modern society brings older teachings in our faiths and finds new ways to affirm and renew the experience. In particular, he was keen to show, how the new images may have the impact of distorting or shredding past images of faith and to re-cultivate the experience into a new phenomenon of life and understanding.

The way that Splinter views the world is a reflection of the normal situation of an individual. The world itself is represented as an archetype experience in the life of April, as the living individual in the story. The life of the individual is therefore viewed as the attempts to bring a metaphorical representation of our thoughts and to develop that into a rational, conscious perception of the individual in the world.

Like Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, Beauty and the Beast or any of the growing expressions of the experience, TMNT indicated a far greater push for the actual physical achievement. To get on with it, and stop giving excuses. The turtle, as Charles observed in the study of Indic civilization and the Nanticoke, had a powerful unconscious effect on individuals.

Each individual, thought Charles needed to write his own story as a perception of life in the world. In that they would come to understand themselves as both the archetype and the social self, in a life that unfolds daily.

It seemed to Charles, that in some way, he was doing exactly the same thing.


Chapter 18 Bob's arch


Bob sat in the oval office. He was completely at ease. As far as he knew, this was the first time, that a man who survived a bear attack, sat in the oval office, but he figured, that was not important.

He had developed a scope of perception that was like the St. Louis Arch. It stretched as far as the eye can see, perhaps all the way around the world. The award of the PhD helped.

Sitting on the other end of the sofa, was the secretary of state.

The president sat facing them. As was usual with him, he had tossed aside, the brief Bob had provided on the racial riots in the Xinjiang province, in China. He preferred instead to form his own perceptions and not be influenced by the august recommendations of documentary reports and analysis.

“Bob thinks it may be possible to predict hotspots around the world by an understanding of archetypical behaviors in the population,” the President announced.

“I don't think we have problems with the Nanticoke,” the secretary responded. As always, her homework was impeccable.

“ We are using the study in a way to extrapolate the effects,” Bob said, sounding very academia. “We think there's a possibility in this country, of a major shift in faith, to something that is entirely tech based.”

She engaged a platonic look, in an attempt to discourage raven thinking and continued,” Xinjiang, is settling down. We have every assurance from Beijing that they have the situation under control.” She was looking at the President.

“What's the extent of our involvement?” he asked.

“The Chinese take a distant view of all faiths. Their record on the matter, is whether such knowledge of faith, has an accountability as regards the issues. We think they are steering towards genetic research as a basis for such perceptions.”

The President looked at Bob.

“That's absolutely correct,” Bob replied.

“There's international cooperation to help train China for a genome research facility there and there's effort now in particle research to set up a International Linear Collider there in the coming years.” She was ebullient.
“So you are speaking of a greater reliance on tech natures, as a way of affirming faith, in our knowledge of physical reality?” The President looked her straight in the eyes.

“Well Bar, I have to say,” she softened up quickly,”the issue of faith is something that needs to be looked at by the people concerned. Our job at this point is to set the directions of where that might go.”

“I don't disagree with that,” said the President,” but as the leader of the free world, we need to look at matters beyond the distance of our nose.”

“I understand that,” she conceded. “I'm not trying to discourage anyone from a greater understanding of what this government undertakes as responsibility. I realize that the possibility of a greater personal relation to tech is taking root in the American psyche. But the world is reliant on home issues, food and the continuing development of women. This is what constitutes a real and social experience of the people.”

Bob warmed up to her and realized once again the tremendous communication talent that is wielded by politicians at a personal level. Its certainly beyond the scope of the average man.

He nodded perceptibly and realized he may have oversold the President on some aspects of the archetype issues.

“I'm certain the people engaged to transform such an experience to faith are bringing the right focus to the issues,” Bob offered. “ The archetype nature of the individual is a package of bi-polar magnetic senses combined with motor nerves and the propensity of the human quality for companionship. It is a viable definition of the term, tech, in the human, as much as in the elements and genetic content.”

“I see your point,” the secretary replied, but before she could go on, the President cut in.

“That's simply saying that we need to come to understand ourselves better. We have an incredible catalog of every component in the human condition right down to its atomic level. What we need to do, is to understand how we may steer that, in an organizational context, to accomplish our goals.”

“That's absolutely correct, Bar,” she offered warmly, and then quickly added. “If I may refer to one other matter today.”

“Certainly,” the President said.

“I have here, my department's assessment of the Chinese appointment of the Dalai Lama in Tibet. You realize that it is an object of great veneration in a large part of the Buddhist population of the world, “ she continued uninterrupted. “ It will cause a distortion in the mind of Buddhists everywhere to think that its a political appointment, not in the way that they perceived it traditionally, as a special boy born to lead the world thought on issues.”

“So we are still on the issue of depreciating faith values in the world?” the President inquired.

“Absolutely,” she replied, then turned to look at Bob.

“I'm in full agreement as regards the implications of such a move, by China. Globally, its indicative, of the growing tendencies, of our communities, towards the ideals of institutionalized faith.” Bob fell back on his natural accent, emphasizing and thinking deeply into each issue as he spoke.

It was the way he brought his body mind into contact with the issues, in a unique skill, practiced by those perceiving themselves as the administrators of the world empire. To care is to create an initiative.

They wound up the meeting thereafter, as the President's next appointment was due.

He called to them to keep the issue warm and that he would appreciate a long hard look at it again. They left the oval office together.



Chapter 19 A commonwealth


“Come to the department, we'll talk,” the secretary said in that combination tone of gruff and silk. They shook hands.

“I'll be glad to,” he replied, “ Our attitudes are based on what we know at this time.”

She had taken two steps forward, but turned with her face at an angle to say,” It's what anybody knows.”

Her staff closed around her and the secret service led her away to her car.

Bob went to his room.

“How's Goliath today?” David, another staff member, that he shared his room with, asked.

“She wore a green dress,” Bob replied.




Charles figured his research on TMNT would be desktop.

“An in-depth assessment of TMNT on its reliance of neolithic images as a tool for the refinement of archetype traits in the human population,” Charles said it out loud, “ and,” he added after a while,” an evaluation of its effectiveness.”

He needed to engage a model that would form a basis of past such schemes. He looked at all the pictures and notes he had organized on his wall.

“Zeus?” he asked with a note of incredulous nature, “maybe Herakles and the family. The sister?” It went on that way for a while. He recalled what Karen had reported about the Cheyenne shaman's comment on the world spirit.

“A little too much,” he said playfully,” I'm getting too old for this shit.” He was repeating a line from the movies. His playfulness helped him think.

But the idea intrigued him. The legend of the Zeus family, certainly, was not a scientific model. It referred to an attempt by the thinkers of the past to bring to the human psyche, a way of viewing the world, past the great flood and the age of possibilities.

It aimed to cultivate in society a common relationship between people and their ability to carry on, effectively, with life. He thought that he might substitute for the experience with the management grid model. It measures productivity and cohesiveness in the workplace and continues to be engaged as a viable model of effective management at this time. He went for his book shelf.





Susan's curriculum development exercise engaged two aspects. First, she had to report on the prevailing needs of the community. Next, she had to create a focused argument as to how her curriculum would address those needs. She had to start with what the present generation knows and then lead them from there.

She reviewed the work by Dr. Steinberg on his dissertation, ' Evolutionary studies and its basis for religious practices,' through the university's subscription to ' Made Academia,' an online library and journal for research into the humanities.

She finally located Dr. Steinberg in New Zealand where he was on a sabbatical to rest and tender to new research possibilities.

“Dr. Steinberg? “ she asked into the phone.

“Who wants to know,” came a nose coned voice of reply.

“This is Dr. Susan Hauser of the Sorbonne. I wondered if I may speak to you on your dissertation?”

“What's there to speak?” he had asked. There was an interruption to the line as expressions of ' God damm ' and ' Fark ' came through discernibly.

“Dr. Steinberg, are you all right?” she called.

“I've burnt my beans,” he said. “ I tried to take it but it fell into the fire.”

“Turn off the stove,” she offered.

“Well, there's still some in the can,” he was muttering, ' but I can't reach the can. Maybe I could use a stick.”

“Dr.....Dr. Steinberg,” Susan intoned into the phone,” shall I call you back?”

“You caught me on time,” he said, “ I don't carry the phone around on the mountain treks.”

“Can I come to see you?” she asked.

“Yah...yah....,” he said like he was handling something hot, “ bring a sleeping bag,” he said.

She became curiously puzzled and surmised that the situation was not an ordinary one.

“Are we camping out some place?” she asked.

“Yes....,” he seemed hesitant,” I'm going to give you the address, take it down.”

Susan grabbed a piece of paper.

“Okay?” he asked. She affirmed.

“All right. It's camp no. 2, 5th billabong, MacAdam's peak 32 degrees west, Off the North South Highway, South Island, New Zealand. Look it up on the map,” he advised.”

“Okay,” she replied, with a hesitancy in her voice. They hung up. She realized that she hadn't told him when, but an inner voice told her surreptitiously, that it didn't matter.


Chapter 20   You are here


He looked at her with an incredulous stare.

“Madam,” he said in a tone of irritation,” I made that up.”

“But it's possible,” Susan replied. She was at wits end and had got red in the face from all the strain of traveling through the New Zealand countryside.

“I'm saying,” he repeated, “ that Moby Dick is a work of fiction. So when I told you just now that Captain Ahab actually killed Moby Dick at a location, 20 nautical miles south of the island, that is an absurdity.”

“Yeah, okay,” Susan replied. “But you said the author's notes ….....” Her voice had grown shrill and trailed off.

Dr. Steinberg had got up to boil some tea on the fire.

“Would you like some tea?” he offered.

“Don't mind if I do,” she answered, feeling encouraged about her own handling of the situation.

She thought it strange that a person would want to cook that way. The fire was on the ground, and a person cooking had to constantly bend over the fire, to stir or to add ingredients to the food they were cooking. It engaged a manner of standing over the fire, with the back bent and the legs set apart for balance.

When he finally rose, it was not without some indication of a back ache that he breathed hard on to adjust and mollify.

She took the tea from him. It was in a can.

“Thank you,” she said.

He took out, what looked like expensive cigars from a box and lit up. He offered one to her, but she declined. He lit up, dragged on it and took a sip from the tea. He seemed in some way, peaceable.

“I have a daughter who's about 32 years of age. She's into new age music and has been trying to break into the music industry for some time. As a father and as a scientist, I have certain obligations to both of these, to ensure that I stay true to them in my commitment.”

He sipped on the tea again.

“When Alice, of the wonderland fame....” he looked at Susan. She nodded. “When Alice of the wonderland fame came to see her father to sort out something, the father was in a heightened state of his own marriage and the nuptial load of obligations. He was at that time, the mad hatter, a man of many personalities. He was learning how to manage that productively but he couldn't help her.”

Susan creased her brow into a squint in her eyes. She had thought at the outset that it may have been a mistake to call Dr. Steinberg. The academic community is full of self fulfilling prophecies, always communicated with self conviction on the issues.

The address he had provided her was a maze of puzzles. She on the other hand was accustomed to maps that say, ' You are here,' and then guide you from there.

“Out here, in the Maori synapse of territories, a woman feels herself in a strange place and falls back to an accustomed manner of behavior,” He continued.

“By coincidence, that relates to my relationship with my own daughter.” He pulled on the cigar. “I am a Christian. I adopted that faith when I discovered that Jesus undertook an appeal to the masses in Judah at that time.....people with long flowing beards.....who were keen to pass themselves off as serious in their manner.” He paused to look at her again.” He had posed himself as the son to bring to the attention of Judah, that one doesn't have to create a semblance that way. “

Susan adjusted her seat on the log for greater comfort, but listened quietly.

“He communicated in a certain way to get his message across. It comprised a certain creative sense of the understanding of things, which might otherwise be complicated. Judah wouldn't budge in their customized manner of adult behavior. Not too long before that, they had enemies in Assyria, Akkadia, Egypt and the surrounding areas. They were a friendly lot and folks took them to be weak.”

He paused again to sip on the tea.

“It didn't work....what Christ hoped would be the honest, straightforward way of life of a people. “

“If you are seeking to bring such studies in a course program to the young generation today, you have to consider the rate of advances in our societies and the haste in which people seek to create an achievement for themselves, before their time.”

“It has to be undertaken with a clear flair for the art of communication, sympathy for your student's own past and present positions and to take into account their hurried sense of achievement. Its about not wanting to be left behind.”

He paused and laughed to himself. She smiled back in anticipation.

“I was thinking about my lecturing attitude,” he said. “ I'm out here in the mountains of New Zealand and I'm still lecturing.”

“It's all right,” Susan said. “ I appreciate the help you are giving. Its just that, it's not like any other curriculum development. This is about life itself.”

“I appreciate your position,” he replied. “ You have to bring some of yourself into the equation......be yourself.....be the woman that you are...the daughter to your father. Don't you see, a message from a woman, any woman, where it is reflective of her condition, is also a representation of the life of the society, in the life of that one woman.”

Susan felt a large part of her doubts clear up.

“I'm not as active as I used to be,” he said. “It takes its toll, on the heart, mind, one's loves, relations....its been a long haul. I want to simply relax and put myself in the hands of the one who guides all of us when we truly seek to know.”

He turned to look at the mountain peak and then turned back to her.

“There's no reason for you to go alone on this. I know a Australian abo who can make better sense of the experience......you'll have to rationalize it.....but it will give you the support you need.”

Susan thanked him. It felt a little like Alice getting pushed around from one person to another with no solution in sight. She had brought some notes with her and he agreed to look over them, provided it was only for one day.

East of the camp, Mt. Adam looked bold and fierce-some, after an age of having moved away from the proverbial garden of Eden. It seemed to have adjusted itself to its new conditions of life, and was looking forward to completing, what it might have started, a long time ago. The work was being carried out by even younger people today. It helped. It is about life, one ought to have some fun doing it.


Chapter 21 The ripper


Mr. Krebling Singh drove up in his 5 tonne lorry and parked it outside the cafe that they were to meet. He was a big man, about 5 foot 9 inches in height and may have weighed in excess of 250 pounds. He swung down from the driver's seat and slammed the lorry door.

He walked into the restaurant that Charles was in, causing Charles to look up, at the way the light from the outside, was blocked out.

With a grunt of acknowledgment, he sat opposite Charles, at the table. His balloon-like belly rested on his thighs.

“I'm on a serious matter,” he said. Charles already knew that when the man called on the phone.

“You brought my wife to a hotel and fucked her.”

He pulled at his shirt which was pasted on his chest with sweat.

“We didn't actually fuck,” said Charles in his defense.

“How can you say that?” the man asked, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. “She told me about this yesterday and cried. She has never been unfaithful to me.”

Charles raised his palms and placed them back to back and he said, “ what we did was to lean on each other's back and jerk off.”

Mr. Singh considered that for a moment.

“Achah,” he said in his native tongue. “But you should not have touched her that way. She is a married woman.”

Charles denied touching, as the sensation of touching with hands was something special.

“We merely let our backsides touch each other.”

Again Mr. Singh paused to consider the situation. He thought of the many times he himself had touched his back with others, like in a crowded mall, bus and so forth. The matter appeared most puzzling to him.

“You shouldn't have taken my wife to a hotel,” he said.

Charles replied that they went there for a drink.

Mr. Singh shifted his position on the chair, a few times, as he spoke.

Charles realized that he had to be more forthcoming.

“Your wife and I were students in UCLA. We had a brief love affair. I wanted to marry her but she had other plans. When we met again recently, it reminded us of the love that we had for each other.”

Mr. Singh kept shaking his head from side to side, but he didn't say anything.

He had left after that, in a manner that can only be described as tentative and in great uncertainty of the issues.

Three days later, as Charles parked his car at his apartment, he spotted Mr. Singh's lorry parked a short distance away. He walked towards it and spotted Mr. Singh in the load area, grappling with some metal objects, that clanked loudly on the bed of the lorry.

When he spotted Charles, he immediately, covered, what appeared like machetes, with a canvas.

“Mr. Singh,” Charles called out. “What are you doing here?”

He alighted from the lorry and stood belligerently facing Charles. His eyes were blood shot and the weight of his body heaved in large gulps as he seemed to be grasping for air. His breath carried the vapors of beer like it was a freshly opened bottle.

“Mr. Mohan,” he called loudly. “I haven't been able to sleep, eat or do my work. I have become very upset.” He pulled on his shirt that had pasted itself on his body.

“I don't know what to say,” Charles replied.

“I spoke to my brother-in-law who is visiting us from America,” he said. “He told me that everybody in America is doing it. I told him not to speak about my wife that way. She didn't do anything. I love my wife. My mother loves my wife. Now I think we cannot live with my mother anymore because of what happened.”

He paused for breath.

“My wife has gone out to look for a duplex house, this morning. “We are both very upset.”

Charles realized that the man was unable to manage his emotions. He had to be distracted.

“Where are you moving to?” he asked.

“Its a new housing area, near the school, in bear mountain area.” He said without hesitation.

“I'm from America.” Charles said,” I am here to study how we are modernizing our ancient beliefs. Your name is not a popular Sikh name, these days,” he enquired. “What does it mean?”

He was stunned for a while but replied, “Its Krebling,” he said, “ its an old name. It means the baby that was born in this house was exchanged for a baby that was born some where else. It was an ancient culture between the the Indians and the Bactrians.”

“That's changeling culture,” Charles said, then with an after thought added, “ its a crib....its cribbling. That may be the actual spelling of your name.”

The effect was quite startling. A man's name in Asia comes to carry a great deal of attention as to meaning, in his mind. He suddenly calmed down. Charles reflected about the phenomenon we sometimes encounter, which refers to our understanding of who we are. It obviously had a powerful effect on mind and body.

“You may now be moving from the house that you were born in, to another house,” Charles said. “ Its a big matter and a big change in a person's life.”

Mr. Singh was silent and considered what he had just heard. Traditions come in all shapes and sizes these days and cannot always be anticipated or resisted against, on account of the new way that they present themselves.

After a while, he nodded.

“This feels like I have died and my wife is being looked after by my brother.” It was an ancient custom among the Scythians, for the brother to marry the wife, when the husband has died in battle.

They left the matter there. Mr. Singh got into the lorry and drove away.


Chapter 22 The American see


Charles smoked marijuana in college. But he hadn't touched the stuff since taking a teaching position in UCLA.

So when Krebling's American cousin, Clark Norman, offered him a rolled stick, he was curious enough to try it again.

“Krebling is an innocent,” he said. “Just grew up that way. He told me that he had adopted you as a brother.”

The vernacular name for Sikhs everywhere, is the word, ' bhai.' It means brother.

“I feel poorly for the man,” Charles said,” there's one part of the world today that's changing marriage laws, while another part is trying so hard to preserve their existing marriages. Its hard to know when you are going to run into an opposite number.”

Clark agreed. Their eyelids had started to get lazy and the sounds seemed to reach every cell in the body. The feelings rose with a unique sense of the infinite, in what they are, and seemed to refer to all possibilities in an issue. The mind appeared relaxed and not in great haste to arrest such tendencies and direct them to the physical imperatives of the surroundings.

Along with the growing general euphoria, Charles was facing a curious sensation. He wasn't quite sure whether it was hunger or a sexual arousal.

They muddled about in their conversation, with speech that got incredibly slurry at times and in contact with issues that had no apparent rhyme or reason. Then Clark surprised Charles with the following comment.

“My wife's family comes from the Sind province in Pakistan. During the partition of India, they had to move all our belongings to Gujerat, where her parents still live.”

“Krebling was mentioning the changeling experience with the Bactrians in the old days,” he offered, amidst the haze and lethargy of his perceptions.

Clark seemed to nod but didn't say anything.

“There was a palace up in the Kirthar Hills, in a fort that is 16 miles in circumference. It still is the largest fort ever built in the world. Its called Ranikot today. In the old days it was referred to as ' Ala Sindh,' translated as ' high Sindh.' It was the palace of the Scythian queen, in an age when man was converting from fur skins to Hyacinth fibre cloth.”

Charles kept going, it appeared, more for himself, than anyone in particular.

“This was in and around 3000 bc. Sometime later, the queen's rule fell and produced a schism in the mind of man that caused a division in our experiences. It produced the legend of Hyacinth and Apollo in the west and Kalima in the east. When it began, the Kalima cult was a wicca-like organization, but in the years that followed, it led to the cultivation of the Siva family. In the west, Apollo led to the development of the Mycenaean and Hellenistic civilization.”

They paused to pull on the stick.

Clark didn't seem to register the significance of what he was saying. He was a man in the academic tradition himself but his specialization was in communication.

“You have an interesting field of study,” Clark suggested.

“I'm trying to bring an education to Krebling,” he spoke with a note of concern. Charles was enjoying his new found attitude of passion about people.

“Well, what is curious is the fact that we are descended from the Scythian experience. The ' ala Sindh ' cosmology is that of the perfect, one male. In association with society, it cultivates the subtle sensation that you are the only man for all the women in the world.”

Clark laughed and lit up the second stick. The smoke spiraled into the air with a thick, sickly scent. He offered the stick to Charles.

They had sat at the park opposite from Charles's apartment. The sun was setting and produced a brilliant show of colors in the tropical sky.

“It sounds like what you might come across as attitudes in America,” Clark casually informed.

“In an untrained mind, in a pastoral experience, in someone who did not finish their schooling,” Charles responded.

“Red neck,” said Clark.

“You might call it that,” Charles replied, reluctantly.

“Where were your parents in the US?” Clark asked.

“Southern California. I was born in the US but beyond that, I'm not sure if that represents a specific cultural identity. That would explain why the Americans tend to put up with everything, as a matter of curiosity.”

“That's why you are here?” Clark seemed repetitive on the issue.

“Trying to find my Indian roots,” Charles replied.

They sailed on wobbly feet back to Clark's car.

“Just wanted to know what all the fuss was about,” Clark seemed to be saying, referring to the situation with Krebling.

“An old love story,” Charles summarized the experience.

Clark waved as he left. He was leaving for the US the following day.

The effect from the marijuana had peaked in Charles. It mixed with his thoughts and briefly brought to him, the sensation of being the only perfect male in the world. He smiled.

Its an attitude of the mind, that expresses itself with platitudes. It leads to a platonic relationship with others. It is the archetype in the relation of a brother to the sister.

In the Mahabarata, the Indian guru, Vasudeva, had explained a manner of training the mind that involved diminishing the ' ala Sindh ' sensation to that of a potency, to be fully achieved someday in the future. Its after all, a collective will of the world, as it moves to its perfection.

Charles postponed the sensation. For now, he had to get something to eat. He was hungry.



Chapter 23 Pictora


In the lexicon of the west and the east, the name of an individual, its phonetical pronunciation and meaning, creates a high ritualization effect on the mind of the individual. It is a daily practice and cultivates a cognizance of the name of the individual in whose name, the life undertakes its activities. This is representative of the diamante, which is created matter.

The name Charles Mohan, derives its meaning from two sources of culture. The family name, derived from an Indian source, refers to the sanskrit term, mogam. It is the experience of lust or unrequited love. Charles may be derived from the phonetical sound of 'chared ' and ' lass.' This would appear to awake in Charles's constitution, the nature of the diamante, a fallen and resurrected life force, that acts as a self regulator of itself.

In its self regulation, the diamante reflects on life around the individual but does not constitute a knowledge of the self, relying instead on other sources to create that experience.

In the experience of love's ambition, the diamante views itself as immortal nature, with no end or beginning in her identity of herself. In addition, she is representative of the source of all the denizenry and created matter. She is the mother of them all.

This brings to one's view, the perception of all people we encounter as being equal and are members of the same family. However, on account of differences, in physical experience, we cause a sensation of separation from each other. But it is incumbent upon everyone in the division experience, to find a way to unite again.

The story of TMNT is indicative of a period in the life of the individual, when the experience of the division may well be at its peak.

This refers in particular to the experience of father and daughter. Casey Jones in the story, a variation of the name ' Davy Jones Locker,' representing an approaching end to life, is matched with April O'Neil as the daughter. April as the manifestation of spring in our seasons, looks forward to life and its possibilities.

When they come together, it conjures the sense of opposites and Shredder, as the proverbial destroyer, is the original diamante experience, now fallen. He brings his chisel to Casey on account of Casey's avoidance of issues and to April, to shape and mold her to life's adaptation of issues. He seeks to resurrect himself.

The ninja turtles represent the constructive aspect of this experience. Positive in nature, with creative solutions, a sense of humor and strength, they represent the condition, governing the relationship between father and child. The giant rat is the Pollyanna, who attempts to dream a happy solution to life's difficult issues by combining the opposite qualities of good and bad, into a mix in the life.

By coincidence, the creative talents behind the story, represent the semblance of a father and son relationship, as observed in Eastman and Laird. Other contributors, such as Stan Sakai, bring an eastern perspective of the living experience.

Sergio Aragone, the successful cartoonist for MAD magazine, brings a curious relation to the experience as the mentor and the individual who affirms the medium of cartoons as a way of regenerating impulses.

Together, the reality of life as perceived by these individuals, reflects in their presentation of the TMNT phenomenon, as an entertaining thought of life's potential solutions.

The key to the healing of the Pollyanna in individuals, is the way in which we are able to cultivate picture imagery that is positive and life affirming. This begins very early in the life of a child, as the coloring book experience.

The pictora effect raises the sensation of logos based perceptions in the individual and is able to activate the diamante to respond to the vision and perceptions that we have created of life. It moves into our dreams, our expectations, promises and pictured ambitions and stimulates them to be faithful, with the support of reason.

In the period accompanying this experience, the individual will develops qualities of pathos and sympathy for issues, understanding the true nature of the difficulties involved. Thereafter, the individual moves further, with an actual application of their emotions into an ethos based understanding of their actions.

All these, is undertaken in a climate of rhetoric thought and speech that moves the experience along. The Pollyanna when healed, transforms into the global mahimorata and the daughter refines her experience as the individual innamorata in relation to it.

Where father and daughter come together again in a relationship, this may lead to the rediscovery of faith. However that faith needs to be founded securely on the bedrock of knowledge. Shredder destroys past concepts, cleans out that which is no longer working and allows for the input of new perceptions.

Such is the way the one house and family works with an understanding of each others' needs and imperatives.

The force and aggression experienced is that of the injured Pollyanna. It is the daily engagement we experience in these times with the public media and this adds to the reality-sensation of our experiences within. The experience goes deep into our eros and psyche impulses, digs out that which is hidden and exposes our lies and conceit so that we may face up to it in our lives.

It is the theater of the Lido or libido, where we stage the moulin rouge, as the arts of the daily life we live. It forms a play or drama with which we come to participate, as a living member associated with the diamante.




Charles was polishing his draft report when Susan called to say that Bob is coming down to Lucerne, for a meeting, in the spring. She planned to meet him there and wondered whether Charles might be able to join them. He agreed to meet up.

After almost a year and a half, the team that dug up the Algonquin in man, may well come to terms with the reality of their discoveries. Their own relationship was founded on the ideal of the one world, and whether or not it continues to be a matter of faith in them, would be an issue of great curiosity.

Charles looked out his window and saw Krebling Singh park his lorry. He let out a soft groan and took to the stairs going down. In the past year, his ' brother ' had dropped by at least once a month, to moan his loss.

Charles recalled a comment by a Czech, some years ago, as to whether he considered the Russians as his brother or friend.

“Brother, of course,” the Czech had replied. “ You choose your friends.”


Chapter 24 An alpine holiday


They sat in an open air cafe in Denkmalstrasse, in Lucerne, across from the monument of the dying lion.

Susan looked fresh as a rose. Bob carried sleep bags under his eyes and looked distinguished on account of it. Charles had come to keep a walrus mustache.

There was a slight breeze in the air that carried the perfumes of the tourists at the site mixed with cheese from the cafes. It redefined the experience of the day and produced an effect that awakened the mahimorata.

Susan looked relaxed. She had finished the curriculum, with a complete satisfaction of the results and had come into a picture of confidence about herself.

“Just a little slow,” she said, in answering Charles about working in Europe. “ I have to practice a culture of waiting for others to say it first.”

“How's TMNT?”

“They need to update their work, which I think they are currently doing. They need to make the suggestion that Shredder will, in time to come, be a integral member of the family and unite with him the qualities of passion and reason. The Hyacinth-Kaliama relation from the early Scythian experience is today coming back into coalition with each other.”

Bob was in stream of platitudes since they met the day before. “People say Washington is about money politics. The truth of that is more significant than most people realize. We need to combine the studies of economics and anthropology to create a new discipline and the sooner somebody does that the better.”

“The French police got in touch with me to profile a killer,” Susan suddenly blurted out. “Somebody has been killing adult men by cutting off their penises. So I did, and they caught her within the week!” she exclaimed.

They were joined in later by an Algerian gentleman that Susan had been seeing. He introduced himself as Alkorda. He had a smooth spotless complexion, while his clean shaven cheeks carried a shade of subtle green. He sat with a straight back and rested his right arm on the table.

“The police in Paris are very efficient,” he spoke with a slight French accent,”Susan was incredible, just knew right off what the killer must have felt about men.”

“A serial killer?” Bob suddenly lighted up.

Susan nodded.
“I went back and shot the bear,” he answered as if in response.

“In Crow's pass?” Charles asked in a tone of the incredulous.

This produced a laughter in Bob. “Got the sucker,” he said, his voice almost a whisper” right between the eyes.”

The tourists buses kept arriving and after a visit to the monument of the dying lion, they came around to the cafes across the street. The place was getting filled up.

They paid for their drinks and took a walk along the scenic route.

Susan announced that she was going to take some time off and tour Europe on a motorbike. “It's starting to feel like a Delaware heaven again,” she complained. Alkorda was apparently not going along.

“I have to attend to my father's business in Paris,”he moaned.

“How's Clark doing,” Charles asked Bob. Charles had worked out an invitation for Clark to one of the President's parties through Bob.

“He's cool,” Bob replied. “A party animal. Did you know that he had to marry a Sikh because his brinjal reminded his American girlfriends of Mount Rushmore?” he asked.

Charles raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“His brother-in-law in Malaysia reflected on it once, purely as a matter of reputation,” he affirmed.

“So what's the next research study?” Susan called from the front.

“The relation of Vampires to archetypical behaviors and the impact on human body immunization,” Charles offered tentatively.

They walked past the river in Lucerne, as it flowed through the town, carrying the load of the past winter from the mountain areas. All around them, the sights of an ancient fairyland greeted them like a fossilized celebration of life.

Alkorda suggested later at lunch that Susan was indeed fortunate to have such good friends.

“She has to be on the move all the time,” he told Charles and Bob.

“Its about a mystery man I think I might meet,” she said in response to Alkorda's apparent exhortations. “I have this strange fascination about him and I can't take it out of my mind.”

“I might be going back to the wife,” Charles suggested, to Susan's inquiry. “See if I can make it work this time.”

“Married to my job,” said Bob, when asked, “ she's like an aphrodisiac of power.”
Later, in one of the souvenir shops, Charles inquired of Susan about the road trip she was taking.

She passed her hand over her brows and spoke with eyes that were fixed on the spot.

“It was the police case.....all those pictures.....the mind of the killer.....I think I saw something....”she trailed off.

Charles stood next to her and held her shoulders with his hands, but didn't say anything.

“Its my father isn't it?” she asked, but saw from Charles's expression that he already knew. The father is always in the traditional role of the Pollyanna.

Charles reflected on the way things had turned out. Their ideal and enthusiasm for living was intact since they had last been together. It seemed likely that it may stay that way for some time. The thin mountain air, on the other hand, produced a quick response of excitation, at the suggestion of haste.


Chapter 25 Love's ambition



True love, Charles figured, comes in two different ways. Firstly, it expresses itself as the commitment of one individual to a course of action that preserves the sense of the joy and pleasure in one's experiences.

Secondly, it comes to be expressed as a consensus in a society or organization, for the cultivation of a common good and giving.

There is a significant discerning quality between the two, and in time, grows to indicate a clear line of separation in that which we had perceived as being one. The experience is quite a stir to one's state of mind and existence.

The issue of identifying the physical, simply engages a pointing finger. The issue of what are passions involves, bringing your hand to bear on issues.

However, the two in combination with each other, do not represent the all of our experiences. Neither does it connote a sense of reality. For that, one has to journey further in search of what we ourselves, as the human experience, bring as determination to these issues.

Charles, as was his practice, steered his bicycle around in the campus and moved about at random. He had completed the report and had submitted it to the administration office of the Brunei Sultanate. He was scheduled to leave Malaysia for India the following week, but was awaiting confirmation.

His proposed study into the Indian psyche intimidated him. The Indian pundits who were conferred with titles like Cakravarthi, meaning Emperor, by the Indian government, were men who resembled the sages of old, who wrote the vast literature on life, called the Puranas. In the living, this came to relate to our creation and destruction. Such literature continues to be poured over by the minds of the new elite and has to a large extent, stood the tests of time.

However, Charles was convinced that it wasn't the work of merely the Indic identity. At the time of the Mahabaratha , the region that produced the work, is reported to have spoken Aramaic and Greek. Even earlier, at the time of the Vedanta , which based itself on the Avesta of the Zoroaster tradition, the language may well have had a relation to the Semitic population.

To take to such a study, a student needed to walk on carpets that was constantly pulled from under their feet. The challenge would in many ways resemble a pretty baby contest, with all the mothers fussing for an approval of their tutelage.




Bob paid for the sandwiches and walked over to the benches by the trees. As he watched the cars drive by, he realized that his constitution for the day would not have taken to a sit-down meal indoors. He was that way and it continued to fascinate him in the way that he brought a sense of esteem to his work but it was always steered into other directions by others.

He pictured the Mad Hatter's tea party and viewed in his mind's eye, the many cups of tea that was placed in front of empty chairs at the table. Effectively, the party was being led by only three people and a little companion who was prone to sudden anxieties.

The engagement of willful stimulation to one's experiences of life's phenomenon, is not in itself a matter of great concern. One has no other choice in the matter. But how to steer and administer to the output from such a stimulation would be a matter of great interest to everyone.

In considering that one is putting one's back into the experience, is an assurance of the integrity of the output, however, such a back, in such a phenomenon, becomes difficult to control. Certainly, a bull in a field, munching on its meal and feeling aroused, may be excused for experiencing both aspects of love's ambition. However, when it brings such an ambition to the cow , it may involve a lesson in the propriety of pleasure, where such a lesson creates acceptance of another possibility of the true.

In the spring, when the pollen of flowers and the viral nature of the human effervescent is in the air, such acceptance, merges with the living individual in his endeavors, in a correct understanding of one's literal compliance with the will of creation.

His way ahead was clear but it would take a route that would be a high integration with the stimulation of the environment. He had to decide if he would allow for it.




Susan never believed that an individual will or knowledge may in that way be engaged for effective action. In the mind of a woman, there are an infinite number of things that come together, between both the self and the environment, that produces the result suitable for the society's continued survival. And it concerns her personally, on account of her involvement in it.

She knew now why the lady serial killer in France, was chopping off the pricks of men. It would not be possible to persuade them to quit the obsession with the mastery of love and to cultivate a collective social responsibility of love.

She was in Spain as the first leg of her tour around Europe. She hoped to go to Portugal after that.

She thought of the writer, Ernest Hemingway, who traveled in the area and wrote of his impressions, as expressed through the stories, in the lives of the people, he may have encountered. However, his method was one of taunting the bull into a provocation to act.

Failure in such situations is not an option, the male individual would care to exercise. Hemingway sought to love with the sense of love's mastery. She thought, he should have brought himself to merge in the ambition of the world itself and draw from it such loves that it had a mind to share.

This, Susan figured, is the experience of her father. In relation to this, she wanted to discover her own role in making that process succeed. To persuade the father to view the world experience collectively, rather than singly.
To do so she would have to bring herself to a greater management of the issues. The BMW motorcycle, she was riding, was a delight to handle. However, she wondered about a Harley Davidson. Or maybe someday, if the company ever considered it, a Rolls Royce.




All three are the product of the new generation in the world, come into a maturity of the new experience of life, a product of our own efforts over the centuries. What it took, was to discover in a global context, what the will of mankind has been about. In that we are ensuring the best security for our own personal safety.

Born into great heights of thought and passion in these times, the current and future generation must be viewing themselves as mountain dwellers, in search of a balanced and comfortable life. In seeking such an objective, they would do well to look for that pass in the mountains.

End of Book I