Chapter 1: A New Life

It all sounds crazy now. At the time, my life was crazier than I recognized. I was lonely and directionless. I yearned for the secret to life; the secret to me. Tsunamis of change swept the country, even Northwestern University, where I pursued – not so much a B.A., but something more elusive. The upheavals of that time opened intriguing possibilities to the seeking heart. Civil rights marches and anti-war protests offered purpose. Timothy Leary held out the hope of instant enlightenment in a tab of acid. Psychedelic music swirled with mystery and transcendence. New age religion promised release from the material world.

I left Northwestern for the summer but never returned. Drawn by tales of the Southwest as a spiritual center, I applied mid-year to University of New Mexico, moved to Albuquerque, stayed there for a month, then left with Jim Walworth, a recent geology graduate from the Deep South just passing through town. We headed off in his silver-painted VW bug to homestead in Canada. Daunted by the complexities, we moved instead to northern California, living in a broken-down shack on the property of Jim’s friends. Our new surroundings filled me with awe – mountains covered with Douglas fir and chaparral, steep tracks down to a river dancing over huge mossy rocks. Daily, new discoveries delighted me.

A city girl, new to gardening and raising livestock, I let Jim do the planning and hard work while I was his happy assistant. We raised chickens and a goat and a massive vegetable garden. When a deer jumped over the eight-foot-fence, Jim shot it and tanned the hide, and I made deer stew. Life was a constant adventure, filled with new activities. For the first time, I milked a goat, chopped wood, cooked on a wood stove, cooked a raccoon who broke into our chicken house, and explored rivers and trails. On the warm summer nights, we slept on top of our VW van. The black sky, spangled with innumerable stars, tantalized with its mysteries – a comet, or a slow-moving red glow. Meanwhile, my pursuit of meaning continued with practices of yoga, astrology, and meditation – interests that Jim didn’t share. Certain that truth must lie in the wisdom of Eastern religions, I read all I could find.

I assumed Jim and I would marry eventually, though we never discussed it. One day without warning, Jim walked off with Jill, who had been visiting our neighbors with her husband. While I cried and couldn’t eat, on my own in the lonely little cabin, Jim and Jill built a house on the land Jim and I had bought with my trust-fund money. In a move of either defiance or Buddhist acceptance, I moved to that parcel of land also. My “house,” on the other side of the garden from them, was an eight-foot-wide octagon, designed by me and erected with help from men that passed through my life.

That air of transience marked everything in my life then. My beliefs as well. I believed in Buddhism, in Sikhism, in Hinduism – whatever I was reading at the time. The teachings of Yogananda and the Self-Realization Fellowship influenced me deeply because of three of his disciples – Jim (yes, another Jim!) and Marlene and their friend Craig – three beautiful people who settled on our mountain. They exuded peace and wholeness. They built solid and delightful homes; they came and went, like the breeze. They smoked strong and good pot. They meditated. They always had interesting visitors. When I walked the long distance to see them, I was welcome. We smoked and listened to music and read Yogananda’s teachings.

My heart broke when Marlene left Jim to be with Craig. I had seen their life as perfect; disillusionment followed. Did Yogananda offer the solid answers I sought? Christa, another Yogananda follower, stayed with me in my cabin for a bit. She suggested I set up an altar there, with pictures of enlightened ones. Something stirred in me. I mentioned Jesus. She said I could put a picture of Jesus on the altar as well. I felt strongly that that was wrong, a betrayal. Maybe he was drawing me, even then.

Winter approached. The few stalks left in the garden bent, brown and ice-covered. I was alone. Days passed in reading spiritual books, meditating, playing guitar, and taking long walks. I immersed myself in visions of the upward spiraling journey of the soul as it strives for perfection — up through a succession of lives until the blissful merging with God. Yet in moments of honesty, I asked myself – was I any nearer to this elusive God? My meditation did not seem to take me beyond the confines of earth.

In the hard winter, my house was frigid. The Franklin stove I used for heat was meant for coal, not wood. A fire smoldered in its small belly and cast little warmth. I shivered at night in an orange mummy bag from which down feathers escaped and floated onto my face. I woke and read from the books on Hinduism given by a friend. Seeking truth, I found only more emptiness.

One morning after five inches of snow had fallen, I woke in my icy house overwhelmed with desolation. Putting on snow boots and a poncho, I set out for the house of the Yogananda people – now just Jim’s house. On the way out the door I grabbed Mystic Christianity, the book I was reading. I slogged through the snow, barely able to identify the road. As I crested the hill and sighted the house, my heart sank. No smoke curled from the chimney. A glance told me the place was empty. I opened the door—never locked—and called just to be sure. No one answered.

Upon entering, I found myself looking into the mirror that hung on the wall directly facing the door. A trick of light and shadow reflected my young face as a skull, with deep hollows for eyes. In a flash, I saw the endpoint of the path I walked. All my efforts at enlightenment would lead nowhere. My visions of the upward progression of lives into pure light were a cruel deception. If my life proceeded as it had so far, I was as good as dead right now.

In that moment of cold realization, I thought of the Rising Son Ranch – a ranch some five miles away, recently purchased by some sort of Christians. I’d had a mild interest in it, mixed with repulsion. Several times I’d passed its truck on the way to town, a flatbed filled with kids a little younger than I, shouting “Praise the Lord” and “Hallelujah.” Jim and I had visited the place once out of curiosity, and a girl took us on a tour. We saw an old farmstead with electricity and running water, converted into a commune of some sort. I thought it might be a cult.

Later, though, my interest kindled unexpectedly when I saw Kathy walking down the street in the town where we shopped. She was with a couple of other girls. She saw me and said, “Praise the Lord!” like those kids in the pickup truck.

I had first seen Kathy when she walked up a hill wearing nothing but granny glasses, hiking boots, and heavy socks. Jim and I were there to buy her goat Pearl. Her unselfconsciousness impressed me. (I came to emulate her daring nakedness as well, considering clothing merely a rigid societal restriction. Were we not meant for an innocent Edenic life that society’s mores had stolen from us?) Later sightings found her and her boyfriend naked on a rock in the middle of the stream, stoned and barely coherent.

Now her eyes, dull before, were bright and lively, her smile contagious. She exuded energy and joy. The change was remarkable. I learned that she now lived at the Rising Son Ranch.

I understood nothing of this phenomenon; but on that snowy day, confronted with my dire vision, I decided to pay a visit to that ranch. I’d been raised in the Roman Catholic faith before my attraction to mysticism, but it seemed to me to be all rules and no reality. All the Western religions, as far as I knew, were simply dead rituals. Still, something drew me to the place.

When I arrived at the ranch, the only person there was Kathy. She greeted me enthusiastically and told me all sorts of things about the Lord’s second coming, the tribulation and the rapture. I didn’t understand a word. But I was here with someone who was glad for my company. We sat in a cozy suburban-type living room with a warm fire burning. I told her about Mystic Christianity. She played me a Christian rock album, the first Christian music I’d heard besides hymns and Gregorian chants.

Kathy invited me to help her cook supper for the others, who would be returning soon. Just being with another human being was balm to my soul.

In the darkness of late afternoon, people came piling into the dining room, but not like the usual hippie mountain dwellers. There were three “older” couples (maybe in their 30s), one with two cute children. The younger people wore jeans and overalls like everyone I knew, but their smiles and hearty greetings reminded me of a bygone age. They sang songs and said a prayer before tackling the food with gusto. The table hummed with conversation and laughter.

The amazing thing was, I felt welcomed and happy and right at home. I hadn’t felt that for a long, long time. Maybe never.

I stayed for several days, working in their leather shop and learning to make sandals with tire-tread soles. The way they worked together, and seemed to care for one another, touched me. They joked and talked—not at all like the people I’d been around, who were often silent, or stoned – likely both.

When I left, Kathy walked with me the five miles back to my house. She asked if I was ready to pray to receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I said no. I wasn’t ready for an exclusive relationship.

After she left, I thought a lot about those people who had something I’d never seen before: love among a group of people living together. But I still wasn’t sure – was this what I would find at any commune, be it Buddhist or Hindu or – Christian? Yet I wrote a simple song about Jesus, to the accompaniment of my guitar.

Christmas was approaching, and my mother lived with her second husband in southern California. I hitchhiked down to spend the holidays with them. A pickup truck stopped to give me a ride. I hopped in back. I shivered at the touch of the cold metal. The December wind chilled me. Burrowing under an oily tarp, I thought again of the remarkable few days I’d spent with the Christians. I formulated a question to Jesus, something like a question Kathy had suggested: “If you’re real, please show me.”

At that moment, I felt like a glove that finally had a hand inside. I felt another person with me—but on the inside, closer than any two people can be. Wonder and amazement and utter thankfulness flooded every cell of my body. The Lord Jesus was not only alive and real, he was with me personally. He – coming to live in me in some mysterious way – was a treasure I could never have imagined in all my searching for spiritual enlightenment.

This may seem amazing but . . . I still had doubts. I didn’t want to “commit” to those people on the ranch until I had at least checked out a commune I had read about in New Mexico. It was centered around Baba Ram Dass, the former Richard Alpert – Timothy Leary’s partner in researching LSD. He had written a simple yet to me profound book called Be Here Now. I thought that his living room might be just as cozy, and his followers just as full of love.

After the holidays, I rode a bus to Taos and hitchhiked to the post office nearest to that commune. Arriving in the middle of a bleak, cold afternoon, I learned to my dismay that the commune folks had already picked up their mail for the day and would not be back until tomorrow. Faced with a night outdoors in sub-freezing temperatures, I reluctantly hitched back to town and, the next day, headed back toward northern California. Looking back, I view that as a door that God decisively closed. He had claimed me, and I was His. He was not going to let me wander off in my ignorance.

It was Sunday when I got to the town where we shopped. Eager to see my new friends from the ranch, I hitched a ride to a small church that I had heard they sometimes attended. I arrived in time for the service.  Though disappointed not to see anyone I knew, I stayed. If my appearance—patched jeans, hiking boots and a jacket permeated with wood smoke—caused any alarm, the well-dressed congregation hid it well. Unexpectedly, I wept as we sang hymns that I’d sung at chapel in my private school. Now the familiar words penetrated deep into my being and called forth a response from my newborn heart. I knew the One the songs honored!

After the service the young pastor, shaking hands at the door, welcomed me and asked if I was saved. I said yes. He kindly asked me to wait in his office until he could get away. As I waited, a plump, dark-haired woman named Celine joined me in the small room. She  prayed for me in a lyrical language that resembled Italian. To me it sounded like angel speech. I was enthralled. In time, the pastor came in and Celine left. Though I told him that yes, I was saved, he led me through a small booklet called The Four Spiritual Laws. We prayed. It was official.

He and his wife invited me to lunch with their family in their split-level ranch. Afterward they offered to drive me home – a true sacrifice because it was a long distance on twisting roads that ultimately became rutted dirt tracks.

As we started up the mountain, we passed the ranch van and I waved excitedly. We stopped and I ran to join my friends. I told them about my encounter with Jesus. They told me they were on their way to baptize a new Christian and asked if I’d like to be baptized. I said I would. Having been baptized as a baby, I didn’t understand the significance, but to me it sounded like the best thing in the world. We drove to a stream—ice-cold in January—and one of the “older” men spoke words to me and laid me down under that water. In the excitement of it all, I didn’t feel at all cold. I was wrapped in towels and we drove back to the ranch, which they and I both accepted as my new home.

That evening, sitting around the dining room table after dinner, I knew my life had completely changed. I knew nothing about Jesus or what all this meant. I knew only this: Jesus is real and I have met him and he is good.

I imagined that from then on I would live in the state of ecstasy I felt at that first contact with Jesus. I thought shortcomings and cravings would disappear instantly. Of course, that was not the case. But the treasure was given and received, safely stored within my heart.

The events of this story took place in 1970 and 1971.