Our Rebirth

As many of you know, Cheryl and I have been together for 18 years, this August 7th. We were the average American family…two kids, a dog and a cat, a nice home and all of the accoutrements.

Four years ago, I was diagnosed with a disease called Reiter’s Syndrome. I had a genetic defect that produced too many white blood cells in my body. Normally, white blood cells fight infections and illness. But since I wasn’t sick, they settled for the next best thing and settled into all of my joints and I developed Reactive Arthritis through my whole body. Every joint in my body was inflamed. My shoulders felt like they were dislocated at the sockets and I had horses pulling me in opposite directions. My elbows were swollen like elephantitus. My knees, feet, hands, neck and hips were throbbing constantly in pain. I was a mess. I hated myself and literally wished I would die.

Luckily, and I use that term loosely, the mill that I worked at shut down in April of 2001. I was now unemployed, but my body actually went into remission because I wasn’t putting so much stress on it. We had a great summer but when fall came, it came back with a vengeance. I had been taking medications, starting with 800mg Ibuprofin and moving progressively upwards through 7 different meds. The Indomethicin made my stomach and intestines bleed. The next level of medication would be liquid Morphine and then Chemotherapy to kill off the extra white blood cells. In the meantime, I also developed Bronchitis and kept it for 4 months. I finally kicked that and my daughter brought me home Strep throat and shared that with me. You can see I was pretty messed up. I actually bought a television and put it out in my shop area and stayed out there, hugging my shoulders and crying out in pain. I didn’t want my children to see me like that, so I stayed out there night and day. My daughter was in Junior high and going through changes for independence. Her and I fought constantly. We did not like each other very much. Our family was in bad shape. I almost lost them, because they could not understand just how bad I was, and I didn’t help things either. I was short tempered and acted out in pain.

Thankfully, we had new neighbors move in that summer and she had MS. She had got to the point where she couldn’t function and was having to have someone take care of her, when a friend of hers suggested this purple powder called OPC-3. It is the top 3 anti-oxidants in the world. She started taking it and within a few weeks, she literally got her life back. She told me that it works on all different ailments because all it does it make your cells function the way they are supposed to, so they can combat the illness. I had nothing to lose at this point and bought a bottle from her. After taking it for one week, I noticed that I had more energy. The doctor told me that I had to work through the pain. Easy for him to say. Every night at about midnight, I would feel good enough to say tomorrow I was going to exercise. I would wake up the next morning and feel miserable. After week two, the swelling started to go down throughout my body. After week three, I became the person that those of you who know me see today! I actually got my life back.

One blessing during that time was that I was receiving full unemployment for 2 years and was able to go back to school for retraining. Now that I could function again, things were starting to look up. I was able to start becoming a human being again and was able to listen to my families needs and be there for them. We all had a second chance together as a family….

During that time period, I had watched the movie Blade and really liked the soundtrack. I had grown up in the 80’s and was an old New Waver turned to domestic Dad and husband. I still listened to my 80’s techno, but this stuff was pretty awesome (intro to trance). I found Paul Oakenfold first, then moved on to Psy-trance. I was sharing this music with our friend Ellen aka Princess Honey Bee and last summer (2003) she heard about this outdoor music festival in Eugene.

We didn’t know what we were going to experience when we got there, but we knew that we needed to get away for a few days and this would be the perfect opportunity. Since I wasn’t working yet and my unemployment had run out, Ellen said that she had a friend that could put us on a list to get in for free. That was just the price we could afford, minus gas.

Cheryl and I had a great trip to Eugene and we were in great spirits when we pulled up to the gate. I roll down the window as the girl comes up to us. She says it will be 80 dollars, so I tell her that we are on a list. She says what list is that. I say, I don’t know, our friend told us to come to this event and that we would be put on a list to get in. She looks on her list and no US. She starts spouting off about people wanting to come down and try to get in for free. She then asks me what we thought we were coming here to do. I told her that we came down to listen to some music and the only reason we came down there at all was because we were having financial difficulties and we were invited, and were told we would be taken care of. Then the guy who was working the gate with her had come up by this time and says “your drive a pretty nice vehicle, looks like your doing all right to me. You can listen to music in your vehicle.”…..Now I’m pissed.

I replied, “I don’t know what is going on, but your being very rude, I’m going to pull off to the side and see if our friend shows up and can figure this out.” They said, “You do that.”

We parked and were wondering what the hell was going on and were just about to leave when we see Ellen walking towards the gate. She had seen us pull in and came out to meet us. We told her what was going on and she went over to talk to the people at the gate. She came back over and said that the girl was being a bitch. She said that she could pay for one of us if we could take care of the other one. We figured what the hell, since we really wanted to see what this was about, so we gave her the money and we were let in. (Imagine what would have NOT happened in the last year if we had left).

We parked and started unloading all of our things. Cheryl always laughs at me, because I bring everything except the kitchen sink, and this time was no exception. It took me about 3 trips with our son’s old 3 wheeled stroller and I got our camp set up nicely (inflatable mattress included!)

Ellen introduced us to her friends from Portland, Katie and Eric and we all hung out and got to know each other, while keeping cool (it was about 100 degrees that day!) The only problem was that when the sun went down, I got down right cold! I didn’t realize that up in the mountains the temperature dropped pretty severely at night and wasn’t prepared at all. I had only brought shorts and tank tops to wear!!! Luckily, Katie and Eric were able to round up some warm clothing for us and now we were doing much better!

Ellen and I had discussed her new experience with “E” and now we were ready to try it ourselves! We were old potheads, but I had to give it up to look for a job, but we had never done anything stronger than that. Eric proceeded to tell us all about it, how it worked, what possible side effects were, and what to expect. He also gave us something called 5htp. He told us it would replace the seritonin levels that the drug would deplete. We thanked him and then went with Ellen to find the person we were supposed to get it from. It was about 10pm by now. We were told that the person was sleeping and to come back around midnight….(but we wanted it now!) Two more of Ellen’s friends had come up from San Francisco and at about 10:30pm we were able to take our first dosage! It was a blue tablet with a unicorn pressed into it.

Now it was time to head to the music! As we walked over the short bridge and came into the main field, what I saw…blew me away! There was a giant laser in the parking lot that was being projected onto the mountainside at the back of the field and used the mountain as one giant screen! There was a fire cannon shooting huge burst of fire, 50 feet into the air, there were people spinning fire, there were lights, fluorescent structures and the most fucking incredible music I had ever heard. That was my first introduction to Psy-Trance. I had found trance music, but this stuff was awakening something in me that had laid dormant my whole life! We went over to the dance area and just as we got there, about 20 elemental dancers came out and formed a circle and began, one at a time to dance in the center of the ring in wild abandonment. It was surreal. The music changed and the most incredible visuals were now being displayed on the screen behind them. There were images of Ganesh and Shiva moving throughout the fantastic morphing screen.

I happened to look over at Cheryl and she was shivering from the cold. Worried about her, I told her to go and cuddle up with Ellen and I would go get her a blanket. I proceeded to run back to our camp and started to get the chills myself. I remembered seeing a fur coat hanging on a post at Ellen’s friend’s camp on the way back to ours. It was still there and I grabbed it and tried to put it on. It didn’t fit. So I put my arms through the sleeves and pulled it over me as best as I could. I made it back to our tent and wrapped a blanket around myself and grabbed one for Cheryl. I ran all the way back to the dance floor to find Cheryl and I thought that I found her, but it wasn’t her. I turned around and all of our new friends were laughing along with Cheryl at the panicked look on my face. Cheryl said that she was fine as she had started to dance and warm up. I realized that the “E” had taken effect and instantly my mood turned from panic to “let’s have some fun!” I gave everyone a big ‘ol hug! It was like a switch turned on and I was feeling fantastic! Cheryl had borrowed a furry hat and coat from Ellen and I was looking at a Goddess! I always knew that she was gorgeous, but damned woman…..she was looking fine!!! We danced for a little while and then it was time for a bathroom trip. We told everyone we would be back and off we went. As we made our way across the field, there was a fairy spinning fire in front of us. She put on a wonderful display for us and when she was through, we went up to her and thanked her for a wonderful experience. She started to prance around us, saying “Una, Una, Una, Una….Thank you!” Then she pranced away!

When we came back, everyone had gone. We looked all around for them, but they were nowhere to be found. We wandered around for a while looking for them, doing about 20 labs around the field, strolling with our arms around each other and just enjoying the atmosphere and each other’s company. About 4am, the mist started rolling in. We had both just finished reading “The Mist of Avalon”, so this was just one more addition to the surrealism of the night. The music was playing, the stars were out in all of their fullness, the mist was there, the lasers, the lights…everything was beautiful and wonderful.

Eventually, we watched the sun come up and knew in our hearts that we were changed forever. We had discovered a whole new world of people and beauty. We were home.