My first year in the group… well, in the beginning, I loved it. I loved it. I loved the group thing. I loved working together trying to achieve things. I wanted to help, help, help. A friend teases me because at one point I told him, “I’m here to help” and he made so much fun of that. But I did get off on that…. so much. And I was like a dynamo. I felt like Superman. The thing is… I got to do that a little at the beginning.. but then Angelo started grabbing me and I could only be hanging out at his place. So I remember hanging at his place for hours and hours at a time… where I’d be doing nothing but sitting in there, silently, while he was on the phone or doing his thing. And I’d say, “Well, they need people over at the Zither House for service.” And he would get indignant and say, “How dare you! You’re here with me.. you’re doing the highest thing you could do with anybody. Just sit there.” So that was it. I was just a body in the room a lot of time. Martina was doing a lot of the “personal assistant” work back then. I was just like a poodle on the pillow. And that’s the way Angelo wanted me to be. And I think he wanted me to feel superior a little… and special. But I didn’t have that. I don’t have that in my makeup in that way. And I think that bugged him a little. I had a more Communist mentality at the time. He wanted me to be ‘the special one” and it just never worked. So I had anxiety about wanting to be with everybody and him wanting me to just be there with him. But I took it as a spiritual practice… “This is where I need to be and what I need to be doing.” So I just stayed in meditation as much as I could and watched him do his Mr Rogers thing… slowly moving from this to that…”OK, you can go now”. That’s the way it started.
The first time I remember Angelo getting physical with me was in cleansing (in his L.A. apartment.) After cleansing, he’d always want a hug and then I’d be on my knees at his feet, having open-eye meditation for what seemed like hours. It could have been an actual hour. He’s looking down at me… and I’m staring up at him and right past him is the light bulb of his lamp. And it was torture. It was staring into a light bulb basically. But I was using everything as my spiritual practice… drop it, drop it. Drop it that your knees hurt. Drop it that your eyes hurt. Drop it that you want to blink. Drop it that you can’t. And here and there, there were actually moments of stillness. That was the typical routine. One day, after one of the hugs, he leans in and says, “Do what you want to do.” And I knew what he wanted. It happened in such a progression of… he really is a master of chipping at you and breaking you down… and knowing when and how far to take things. So I was like, OK. And we kissed and that’s all it was the first time. And I was thinking it was to drop my mind… or that there was a higher reason I was doing it… of course he’s not sexually into it or anything like that. He’s doing it for some other reason. But it was one more weird thing in a series of all kinds of weird things. I was totally disoriented. I had no reference anymore. Everything was so weird. But the strongest feelings I had I think were when I got to leave… I loved being done… and leaving… and just feeling so free. Whenever I left his place, I’d be walking to my car and just feel so free. And strong. Because I was doing it. I’m getting thrown into this uncomfortable, unfamiliar situation and I’m able to get through it by hanging on to this meditation. Dropping my mind, my ideas, my references… only God… like that. I’m learning how to operate in situations that are totally crazy… and so I would leave there with that kind of feeling. I just felt so free getting out of there… the air, beautiful California -- and being able to go to my own place. I felt great. Like I did my part, I paid my dues. Now I get to... it can go less intense for a while. Around him it was heavy intense… and leaving meant it would be less intense for a while. And it was all about conditioning myself to become this super human. Which we were calling the “being-ness” but it was just conditioning ourselves… learning how to deal with f.cked up situations.
I stayed the Poodle on the Pillow until Martina freaked out. Then I became Fill-in-the-Blank Guy too. The Poodle, PLUS the personal assistant. And to tell you the truth, I’m really good at stuff. I can play all the roles… and I wanted to be everything I could be. I wanted to help out basically. To keep this thing floating… to keep it alive. I thought there were so many beautiful people here having such beautiful experiences that this HAS to be it. There was nothing else to compare to this. The world was that place I was totally afraid of.. that had nothing but AIDS and f.cked up stuff going on. But I get to be in this place where everything is kind of structured with rules. And that was what I was wanting. Someone to tell me, “This is what you need to do.” Remember that I was at the point where I wasn’t trusting my instincts anymore. They kept leading me to darker and darker situations. And here, it didn’t matter. Because decisions were made FOR me.
I loved meditation though. Shakti? Shakti, schmakti… I didn’t feel anything when he first started giving me Shakti… it was my focus on breathing in and out love that was the thing that changed everything for me. And like I said, I closed my eyes by myself and saw that blue light. And now Angelo is telling me it’s called the blue pearl and it’s a Hindu thing. So I thought (even my ego thought) that I HAD this meditation thing. I was pretty far in. Because I never struggled with falling asleep in meditation. And I had a nice little experience right off the bat. Basically, that was my little reference point.. my charging point.. but then as time went on… it also became my place to hide from what was going on. So it really turned into something else.
