Visited by Rastas VI

When Laurie introduced us she mentioned that it would be proper to address Brothers James and Matthew as Jim and Matt. Like those of us at GoE, they seldom used their last names or needed to. Once we were introduced, Laurie
left, to return later in the day. Jim and Matt and the seven of us who were up and about at the time of our visitors' arrival gathered at the big round
table in our dining/conference room. Without a word or any hesitation, Jim
got right into the large bag and brought out some of the most beautiful
cannabis I'd seen,(or smelled). He started taking the budds apart and Matt
started rolling the parts into spliffs. Actually,as it turned out, 9 spliffs
One for each of us at the table.For Starters. That's like 6to8 joints per.
And of a quality at least as good as that to which we were accustomed. One
could pretty safely predict a high day ahead. It didn't disappoint meeeee.
After a couple of hours of burning Kali, (Rasta name for the flowering
cannabis plant) studying the bible, hearing Rasta chants(including some
that mentioned Nixon by last name only) and went along way in our discus
sions toward solving some of the world's most pressing problems. So many of our problems then, seemed to be connected to the Vietnam War and we could
see that ending it (which we thought would, by itself vastly improve Amer-
ica) was nearly impossible, any time soon. We also had some breakfast
before deciding to take our visitors outside to see some of our local
neighborhood and meet some of our neighbors. When we reached strteet level
our work shop and display areas were open for the day, so we took Jim and
Matt in there first. What they saw there that day was typical: eight or ten happy hippies (the Rastas called us "tall hairs")busied themselves at one
or another of the several carpet tables or sorted and distributed recently-arrived materials to the sculpting area or paint shop or to the carpet
tables. In one area, two wood-workers are building a cabinet. Nearby, two
other guys work on a similar cabinet, installing lights, timers, rotat-
ing and stationary mirrors and tiny drive motors. Kinetic Light Sculpture
is what it was. A finished unit stood with a boom-box sitting on top
playing a Jimmy Hendrix album. With everything in the KLS turned on, the
image on it's screen seemed to "dance" completely in sync with any music
played.We spent perhaps another hour in the shops before resuming our
just-begun visit to the neighborhood. Jim and Matt loved the place. They talked to everyone, asking lotsa questions and showing a genuine interest
in how our place worked and how we liked what we were doing. They also
shed some light on how their days at their compound on Blue Mountain went
and pointed out some of the similarities between us. We were all in a
very up mood as we left the GoE shops and made our way up "D" st. on our
way to Alta Plaza.