Spring? Is that you?

I haven’t ventured out yet today, but the Internet is promising clear skies, moderate wind and a high of 20 (68 F.) on the farm. Before I verify this (the Internet has lied to me from time to time), I wanted to share a blast from my past: my attendance at the Harmonic Convergence.

In 1987 I was working in Los Angeles and living in an old Mercedes, because I only sleep in the best. I was a peripheral member — observer, really — of the New Age crowd, too poor to be a player because the vibe of the L.A. version was “my crystal is more sparkly than your crystal”.

Nonetheless, I attended a few meetings about the event, which allegedly would happen August 16-17. The sun, moon and six planets would align, ushering in an era of peace and love. There were “power centers” on the globe where the energy would be so strong, people would levitate. One such was Mount Tamalpais near San Francisco, but I figured the snobs of Marin County would deny me entry because I didn’t have a late model car.

So off I trundled in McCambridge, my Mercedes, to Mount Shasta near the Oregon border. Shasta is a potentially active volcano at the southern end of the Cascade range. Indigenous lore posits that the mountain is inhabited by Skell, Spirit of the Above-World, who fought Llao, Spirit of the Below-World.
Shasta also supposedly contains a hidden city of Lemurians, refugees from a continent that sank in the Indian Ocean.

Intrigued by this cast of characters, I drove to the end of a gravel road about 10,000 feet up the mountain. Skell, Llao and the Lemurians weren’t around, but about 200 people were, confident that they would soon be levitating. I mingled a bit, but, not being a True Believer, returned to McCambidge to sleep. It was getting cold. Through the night, I kept waking up to heap more blankets over me. I figured the crowd would wake me up for anything of consequence.

I woke up at 10 a.m. and everyone else was gone. Everyone. I briefly considered that they had all levitated away, but their vehicles were gone as well. There were no signs of struggle, so I ruled out Skell-Llao-Lemurian contact. I ate breakfast from a blackberry bush and headed back to L.A.

The trip wasn’t a total bust. I found an out-of-print Tom Robbins novel I’d been searching for in a thrift store on the way back.

P.S. In 2009, a group of hikers on Shasta encountered a being “as stocky as Hulk Hogan with leathery wings fifty feet from one end to the other and the face of a bat.” If only I had waited.