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psychedelicadventures.com
Marisa I'm
not saying I saw angels The
first time I did E (Ecstasy), it was so emotional that when I came
down off it, I cried. I couldn't believe it was over. Ever since then,
it was like "I want to do it again and again." I was sixteen and
did it with friends who'd been doing it for about a year. It's ironic,
because I was the one who was like "No, I will never do it. I just
don't agree with it." For
most people, the first time is the most amazing, but for me it got
better each time, as I understood more of what it's about. The first
time, I babbled away to people the whole time. We had these typical
Ecstasy conversations, where everything is so amazing. I always
have a wrap (gram) of speed when I'm doing pills (Ecstasy), taking
dabs to stay awake. There's nothing mental or emotional about speed,
and it's a hideous drug, but it keeps your body rushing.
People
always congregate in the toilets at clubs, especially at the Fridge
(in Brixton, south London), where the toilets are coed. Everyone's
sweaty and hot and looking at themselves and filling their water
bottles. You look at each other and you just smile. Everyone
is so beautiful. Even the ugliest person is somehow beautiful
to you. You start talking to them and it seems as if they understand
everything about you and you understand everything about them.
You just lose yourself for an hour. You can be talking to a complete
stranger about anything, chattering away, and suddenly you'll
get an urge to go and dance or you'll start feeling that it's all
a bit too much and you'll leave.People are always blowing kisses to
each other on the dance floor, like a girl will wave at you and blow
you a kiss, not in a lesbian sense, but just friendly. I'll often
look at someone and we'll smile at each other and then we'll stop
dancing and start talking the middle of the dance floor with everyone
dancing around us. A chance meeting. That's what it's all about.
With people you already know, you can have these heavy talks, but
with strangers it's intense in another way, because of the excitement
about making the connection. But then there are a lot of times
when it's six o'clock in the morning and you're on your come- down
and you see that same person and you're just like "Oh, my God, I don't
ever want to see that person again in my life!" I've spoken to people
and felt they were so cool and that we have had this amazing connection
and then hid at the end of the night, wearing sunglasses as
I slipped by them to leave the club.It's funny. You just know the other
ravers at eight in the morning, when you're coming home from a club
and sitting in the tube station or on the tube, and people are either
in their suits with briefcases going to work or strung-out clubbers.
You're looking at each other like "Oh my God. We feel like such
shit right now." It's very sad when the night's over, because you've
had this amazing night.For a long time, I thought, "Well, this is
fun, but it's really all very shallow. It's really just the chemicals
making these connections." But then I had this incredible experience
at Tribal Gathering.Tribal Gathering is a huge outdoor rave
with maybe thirty thousand people. I hadn't done any E in a while
and my best friend Jennifer hadn't done any in about two years. Finally,
I was like "Alright, I really want to do E again. This could be
a great time, a great opportunity for us." Jennifer and I are soul mates.
We'd been leading these parallel
lives before we even knew each
other. The first time I met her, her mother said to her, "You will
know Marisa for the rest of your life."So we decided to go to this
huge event which was being held on 25 May 1997 in Luton Hill, twenty
minutes by train outside London in the country. We got about six
pills. They're called Doves or Lovey Doves, because they have a reputation
for being very lovey. We arrived around ten at night, both of
us coming up on our Es, which were really really good, clean and quite
strong. We were coming up very nicely and everyone was just so happy.There
were all these tents, the Drum 'n Bass tent, the Detroit Techno
tent, etc., and we went to the Trance tent, where there was this
incredible energy. So many people from the Fridge were there. They
were coming up and hugging me, saying, "All the Fridgies are here!"There
are several different theme nights at the Fridge, but the one
that we all used to go to was called Escape from Samsara, on Friday
nights. We're called the Samsara people. There were pictures of
Buddhas up on the wall, and other flouro art work. Samsara was all
about karma – the circle of life and rebirth(I'm into Buddhism, practicing
meditation and yoga.) A lot of people wear Hindu bindies on
their foreheads and most of them shine under the UV lights – it’s like
you’re surrounded by all these shining third eyes. I
have this thing. A lot of people in the Fridge used to call me the Love
Heart girl. Love Hearts are these little sweets with writing on them
like "I love you," "Be my friend," sentiments for children, really.
There's a very childish aspect to the whole Trance/rave culture.
People go around with toys and play these little games with you.
There's a lot of mischief. I used to go around shooting people with
a water gun. They'd look around and then I'd shoot them again and
hide the gun away. Of course, there's always a little sexual flirtation
in all this.Sex is a whole other thing, though. When I went
to Amsterdam, there were all these dealers out on the street going
"Ecstasy. Good for sex." But I don't see E as a sexual drug at all.
It's definitely a friendly drug, but you're not interested at all
in having sex. When I'm on E with my boyfriend, touching is great and
kissing is the most amazing thing, but you wouldn't ever want to do
anything else. At least I wouldn't. Massaging someone's hands is the
most sensuous, incredible feeling. It's just so soft and you feel so
tender towards them. If you're with your boyfriend, all you want to
do is give each other kisses and hold hands. It's not like "Let's get
into bed."There are some sixteen and seventeen-year-olds like me at
the raves, but not a lot. In London, you don't have to prove you're
eighteen, so if you look old enough, they don't give you any problems.
I've been going to clubs since I was like fourteen. I've always
looked older and hung out with older people, so they never bothered
me. But when I'm on my come-down, I'm like a child. I just sit
around, really whiny, and all I want to do is watch cartoons and eat
cereal.It's a little crazy. When I'm not on E, I'm like "Why do I give
these Love Hearts to people?" It's because little gestures like that
make people happy. I give one to somebody and they'll be like "Oh,
Love Hearts!" and they'll read it with some excitement. They're like
Chinese fortune cookies in a way. They'll say things like "Call me."
And you're like "Should I?" If you want to talk to someone, you can
just go up and give them a Love Heart.When it all started happening
at this Tribal Gathering, I was dancing in the middle of the
crowd and started giving Love Hearts to people and it seemed that each
one I gave fit the person I gave it to. Each person got exactly the
right Love Heart. I gave one to a guy and it said, "Blues eyes." He
had blue eyes. I gave it to Jennifer and it said, "best friend." I gave
it to another girl and it said something like, "Will you be my friend?"
so we started talking. "Oh, my name is Doran. I'm here with my
boyfriend Tom" and he was the one I'd given the "blue eyes" to!
So we
started talking and babbling away. I'd been going to trance parties
for a while by that time and I had met lots of people, but I felt
that there was something special about this couple and just knew we
were going to connect. At that
moment I saw this guy across the floor
and I was mesmerised by him. I just
seemed to be drawn over to him
by some unearthly force. The first thing I did, without saying anything,
was gave him a love heart. And you
know what it said? “Marry
me”. After that I just went and sat down and he came after me and
sat down next to me. We just sort of sat there for a few minutes in
silence, together, listening to the music. What happened next, was something
that I had never experienced before. He
turned around and looked
at me and said “can I kiss you” and I said “yes “ without even thinking
about it- I didn’t even know his name or anything, but I kissed
him anyway. It felt completely
right. To this day, that was the
best kiss I ever had – I felt as if my soul had been reunited with
an old love. I am still with Clive and we are very happy in the knowledge
that our souls were reunited on that night. I feel so very lucky. Later
on in the night, I lost Clive in huge sea of people and I didn’t
find him for several hours. I kept
on thinking about him and wondering
why I was so obsessed by someone who I had only just met. When
we finally found each other, it was like something out of a film.
I was cold, tired, coming down - Lauren and I were on a mission
to get tea and we were walking across this field. Exactly opposite
me was this figure walking towards me – it was Clive. I just
remember him wrapping his arms around me and hugging me.
He felt
so warm and comforting. I knew that he had been searching for me too. I
carry this wonderful essence around with me, a hundred percent pure
peppermint oil, which I learned about from an aroma therapist. If
you put a dot of it on your forehead while you're on E and your skin
is so sensitized, it makes your face feel like there's a film of cold
air around it. I have a stall at the Fridge where I give massages,
and at the end of each one, I give them a dot of this peppermint
oil. and people are just in heaven from it. I never did a massage
for someone who didn't give me a big hug afterwards.People call
me the gadget woman, because I have everything from lollipops to Vic's
inhalers to peppermint oil to Love Hearts and sweets. I'm constantly
sucking on lollipops at parties. When you feel hot and muggy
from dancing for awhile, you put a lighter under the Vic's inhaler
to heat up the stuff inside, and then inhale it, and it completely
wakes you up. People have been doing Vic's for ages, but this
peppermint thing is new. When I gave it to people at clubs, they were
like "Oh, wow! Where did you get this? It's so incredible."So I gave
a dot of this stuff to this guy with the bad knee and he was totally
thrilled and before I knew it, I was giving it to like everyone
in the tent. People were literally lining up in a cue like, "Can
you please give some to my friend. It's so amazing." Meanwhile Jennifer
was giving out sweets to people. Somebody came up and said, "You
two are the mothers of this tent. You're taking care of us."You have
to pee like a hundred times because you're drinking so much water.
So we decided to go out to the toilet and then over to a different
tent. They had this machine that was sucking up all the shit
from the port-a-loos, making this horrible noise. When you're on E,
everything is so beautiful and soft and surreal, something so mechanical
making this ERRRR noise, it's so unbelievably offensive, you
can't describe it.We felt so connected to Doran and Tom that we couldn't
be apart from them. They had to be with us. The four of us linked
arms and walked through this huge field to see Daft Punk, these
two deejays, in the Planet Earth tent, which was much bigger than
the Trance tent. All the big names were performing there. Orbital
was playing when we walked in. I'd done two pills by then and we
were all very fucked up.There were thousands of people in the tent.
You couldn't move because there were so many. Somehow Doran just
led us through all these people and before you knew it, we were all
up front. A lot of times when I'm fucked up on E, I'll be in one place
and then suddenly I'll be in another place and I'll wonder how I'll
got there. It just sort of happens.Orbital was playing this angelic
trancelike music with no bass beats. It was really beautiful, really
slow, incredible music. The four of us were so taken in by it all.
We looked at each other and we were like "This is so beautiful." Then
Daft Punk came on and the four of us were holding hands dancing in
a circle and massaging each other's hands.We closed our eyes and continued
dancing in a circle. The people around us dancing by themselves
made space for us. We started to cry out of happiness. At first
we were choked up. I thought, "Oh, my God, I'm I can't believe I'm
going to start crying, This is embarrassing," but then I looked at
the others, and they were all exactly the same. We were just smiling
at each other and there was this incredible connection of energy
flowing between all four of us, and a feeling of love. The tears
just flowed.We decided to go outside. There were paper-lantern balloons
filled with helium on each side of the field. We thought that
one of them was the full moon that was supposed to be out that night.
It looked perfectly spherical, like a huge, white full moon. We
all just stopped and were like "I've never seen such a beautiful moon
in my life."But then Doran was like "It's swaying. The moon is moving"
and we all started getting a bit freaked out. Then I looked to
the other side and there was another one! I started flipping out. Then
I saw the real moon up in the sky and it was much smaller in comparison,
which shattered our dream. It upset us so much that we couldn't
deal with it. We were like "Alright, let's move on."We went back
to the Trance tent and for some reason I kept on losing things, first
my jacket and then my purple velvet pouch with all my money and drugs
and things. We had to dump all our water bottles and stuff on the
ground, because we couldn't check them anywhere. We were looking for
these things for a long time and then Jennifer would look down on the
floor and it was there. I was like "Oh my God, how did you find it?"
Later in the night she lost something and no one could find it, and
it turned up right by me. By the end of the night, Jennifer and I were
communicating telepathically. Tom and Doran said to us within an hour
of meeting us, "We've never met two people so in sync with each another."
We'd be sitting down and I'd say "You want some tea, don't you."
She'd be like "Yeah. Let's go get some tea."Around five in the morning,
most people were starting to come down from their drugs, but we
were still really fucked up on these really great pills. Groups of people
were building bonfires out of debris, even styrofoam cups, and huddling
around them, mesmerized like in this tribal attraction to fire.
The bastards on staff for Tribal Gathering didn't want burn patches
on the grass, so they went around with these vile extinguishers
putting the fires out. There were fires everywhere, twenty
or thirty of them. There were huge ones with maybe fifty people
around them and smaller ones with only eight people around. Jennifer
and I were running around in hysterics telling people, "Hide your
fire!" There was such a huge sense of loss when they put out the fires.Then
it started to get light out and people started to go around
in those silver mylar blankets, looking so miserable. Some of them
were wandering around like "I lost my friends. Where are my friends?"
It was really kind sad. This was the point where Jennifer and
I walked over to get some tea and I found Clive again. I said, "Jennifer.""Yeah.""Do
you know what I'm going to say?""Yeah."We both looked
at each other and I was like "We really are soul mates, you know.
This night did it for me: the way we knew what each other wanted
without words, the way you found everything when I lost it when
nobody else could." And although I didn’t realize it then, I know
that Jennifer was meant to be with me that night too because it was
the night I found Clive. It’s funny,because I used to be a little skeptical
about the trance/rave scene, but the whole experience at Tribal
Gathering made me believe in the spirituality of it. I'm not saying
that I saw angels, but I think that what I experienced was just
as valid. Everything
is going futuristic and cyber now. The music used to be happier,
but now it has a very edgy and dark feel to it. When I first got
into the scene a lot of people were dressed like hippies, but now everyone's
in their metallic or plastic clothes with short spiky hair.
It’s a symbol of the times changing towards the future.The whole
obsession with aliens Is insane. Everyone's got these alien things.
I have this little alien that's filled with liquid and blows bubbles.
We'll go into clubs and blow bubbles, and everyone will go "Oh,
the bubbles are so beautiful." I think the alien motif has a lot to
do with the millennium. There are more and more pictures of aliens at
the Fridge, and even the pagans at the Pendragon full-moon parties are
going futuristic, selling all these crazy UV things, futuristic glasses,
alien posters, and all this quirky plastic jewelry. I've had many
strange conversations about how everything is accelerating at a really
fast pace towards the millennium and that after that there are going
to be so many changes. They have clocks in London that tell the time
left before the millennium. It's an obsession.When the millennium
hits, I don't think anyone is going to want to work. A week
before the turn of the century, everything's going to shut down and
everyone will be out in the streets. Jennifer and I have made a pact
that we're going to be together, whatever city we're in. We just want
to walk through the streets and talk to people. Angels
tied up with Green Ribbons The
first time they came I couldn’t see them.
They told me about you,
but did not describe you. You were
not a tangible person then, not
even a thought, only a feeling. I was only six years old.
Even after
the angels after that first time, after they stopped singing, their
essence stayed in bed with me to stroke my hair. They stayed with
me for weeks after their first visit, whispered in my ear to tell
me they were with you too, told me they had taken a plane and flown
over the sea to where you were. I
laughed and said I didn’t think
that angels needed planes - they said that they fly on the wings
of planes and words. Words from whom? Planes owned by whom?
They
said that they were the words I put in planes to send to you, words
put in boxes and tied up with green ribbons. The
first time I spoke to you was about a year later, when I was alone
in my pink, childhood room. I had
just finished making one of those
houses that I used to make in my cupboard.
I turned out the lights
and pretended to make tea on my toy stove, lit only by the subtle
gleam of my plastic glow worm light - Mr. Boodles I called him,
with his orange waistcoat, brown tie, purple top hat and green googling
eyes. When the tea was ready and I
sat there crouching in the
corner, sipping it out of my wild strawberry teacup, I asked you if
you wanted a cup too. You said yes,
milk and one sugar, please. I
ran all the way down five flights of stairs and poured three drops of
milk into my inch wide pot. My
mother, knowing I never drank milk,
asked me what I was doing. I said I was getting milk for one of my
guests and she smiled, softly laughing at my fervent imagination.
“Is it for your fairies?”
“No,” I said, “it is for the one they told me about.” And
with that, I ran back upstairs to sit with you in the darkness of our
pretend house. After that,
sometimes I would make you tea, never forgetting
to fill the miniature teapot with a few drops of milk. And when
I had my first kiss, I imagined you watching me from somewhere, completely
forgetting about the fumbling disaster I was engaging in. I
always imagined you watching me; sometimes I even wanted you to go away
so that I could be alone, so I wouldn’t feel narcissistic looking
at myself in the mirror, in front of you. When
my breasts started
to grow, I was terrified that you would notice that my left one
was slightly larger than the right, and when I first discovered how
the running water in the bathtub could really feel against my skin
-- between my legs -- I wanted you to see. I couldn’t even do it without
thinking that you were watching me, admiring my girl body turn
slowly into a woman’s. I wanted you to notice wherever you were, in
whatever dimension you existed. The
angels said you were only across
the sea. Even
after I stopped thinking that you could see me, I never doubted your
existence from that first time I had poured you milk from my inch-wide
strawberry pot. Now, it was more that now you were just there,
waiting to be met, no longer a talking ghost in my room or my head. The
second time the angels came was on the night we met. It was all so
unearthly, so strange, like fate was knocking on the fragile walls of
my soul, waiting to finally be let in. I stood, one girl of many in
the front of that tent, talking to people, offering them sweets, smiling
at my best friend as she danced in the changing light, more beautiful
than a Boticelli goddess, perfect in her happiness and turquoise-blue
silk. It was early on in the night
- I was still waiting,
still sitting on the floor, watching the flow of moving legs,
calmly anticipating that bizarre moment when I start to understand.
Yes, understand -- it is the only word that can be used. It
is an understanding that starts somewhere on the very end of my fingertips
and slowly creeps into my stomach, into my bones, until I can
breathe its bizarre knowledge in and out of my lungs. I begin to see
the strangers and friends I am with open like flowers before me, slowly,
petal by petal. They are -- the
world is -- more delicate and
truly brilliant than any photograph that I could ever hope to take;
more stunning than any sensual film I have ever seen or could hope
to make. There
I was, waiting for all of this, standing at the front of that tent,
talking to this small, delicate girl and her boyfriend from New Zealand,
giving these new-found friends my sweets with messages embossed
on them -- this time the messages making more sense than ever
before. It’s the loveheart woman,
someone said, and I smiled at who
said it, feeling a certain joy in bringing this one man, this one acquaintance
of many, pleasure in my small gesture. The
small, delicate girl said there is someone I’d like you to meet. And
standing in the middle of these people, I saw you, a truly radiant
flower among the many seemingly radiant ones.
These were people
that I now loved to watch but several hours later would never want
to see again, ones that I thought I had much in common with now, but
several hours later would sit next to on the floor of a train travelling
home, leaving the field of tents and its three moons behind
–- you gently stroking the nape of my neck. But
that first moment, in this tent called Amazon, you are standing in
front of me, you, illuminated from above by the dappled green light.
I hand you one of my tiny embossed hearts, and you peer at it in
the palm of your hand, reading its message, silently pointing to me
that we should go and sit over there, at the front of the stage.
I
feel the music running through my veins, pumping beats into my body like
a new drug, sitting next to you on the floor, watching you hold my
tiny heart in your long hands, hands I had written about for years.
Will I kiss you? And for the first time, for a minute, I lose myself.
And that is when the angels come, bringing your lips to mine in
one tender motion of wings, riding their plane across your sea to mine. We
sit and laugh under the incredulous eyes of my best friend and yours,
wondering why they think it is all so strange. You just carry on,
telling me how this will be the most extraordinary story to tell everyone
when we get married -- fate written in the letters of a green
and pink loveheart sweet.
And so, my love, you were the one I spoke to in my dreams, my writing,
and my childhood homes lit by the light of the glowworm.
And
the next morning after meeting you, after losing everything a hundred
times and having it found by my best friend, searching for tea
with her for the non-existent “Rachel” -- your waiting friend in the
ice-white beanbag tent -- fanatically searching for the last remaining
packets of sugar in a last attempt to stave off the looming end
of understanding. Attempting to
resurrect the feeling of understanding
that was leaving my stomach, leaving my bones, leaving my
lungs. I looked at her and said, Lauren, we are truly soul mates and
she said yes, Cas, I know, I know. And
in that cold May morning, I
still didn't know that I had found you, found my other half, the one
the angels told me about, in the dim light of that tent, in the tender
waves of your kiss.
The angels came again when I came to New York, telling me to write
to you, send you words in a box tied up with green ribbons. Green
ribbons? Why green? Blue if you
like, they said - after all, what
is the colour of love? It is violet
in the morning, I said, cold
purple at dawn, like the rising of your silent skin from the white
of night. And? What else? They asked. Blue after breakfast, blue
after the crimson of making love. And? Deep green thought in the afternoon,
green-grey skies when I am away from you. And? Purple, gorgeous
purple when I see you again. And?
And? At night, when we sleep,
there is no colour, just light. But
what is the colour of this
light? It is light without colour, it is the light of the even after.
The even after? Yes, the even
after. The even after is the colour
of everything that we have ever been and will be. And after all
the colours are gone and we are no longer colours, then, what is the
colour of love?
The colour is you. The colour is even after you, after us. But
“us” never ends; it carries on in its own infinite colour.
As you
said, it carries on in its own infinite direction. When colours stop,
the angels will find us, flying the plane, surrounded by boxes of
words tied with green ribbons, flying over the sea of our destiny, choosing
which direction to turn, and finally, where in the sea to land.
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