"Oh, can't you feel it?
Stoned love
I tell you I ain't got no other, ooh-ooh
Stoned love, oh, yeah
If the war 'tween our nations passed, oh, yeah
Will the love 'tween our brothers and sisters last?
On, and on, and on, and on, and"
- “Stoned Love” written by Kenny Thomas and Frank Wilson. Performed by the Supremes. (1970)
Imagine all the people. I imagined a couple.
Terrified, frozen in fear, remembering early parts of the night, one of the best nights of life.
Your love was with you. One trusted. One true. One with tender eyes and a warm heart. Yours. Equal; gave as good as got; moonshot.
She loved rave parties and techno; dancing all night, sounds bouncing from desert to sky.
A birthday present. She's the one. Propose. Tonight.
They raved. They drank. They took an assortment of good drugs and lived in clouds of heavenly peace; love enhanced by drugs; life free.
Senses and emotions heightened; night perfect. Together, with other ravers, experiencing techno in the desert, with goals of reaching nirvana, strings of life come together to form a perfect, unbreakable bond. Burning Man without burning.
The stoned-in-crowd let thoughts drift: extraordinary taste of a chocolate chip cookies melting in mouths, relished more than before. This chocolate has feelings; sensation extraordinaire; chocolate telling you stories of bliss.
The stoned-in-crowd lets music take extended tones and lingers. Remarkable what the brain says, slightly delayed in understanding the beat, but taking it in, slow. What music does to normal ears, becomes cacophony as plot; the meaning of the world revealed.
Drugs are key when escape warrants, used in hospitals to numb pain. Morphine as method to deaden “knives” stabbing the stomach; gut pain gone with miracle morphine. When done right, and in right situations, everything feels good; drug brain switches pain to objects to be ignored.
There is dislocation with reality when you enjoy psychoactive drugs. Experience and normal stimuli changes. Things become weird, by design, by intent. “Did you really feel that, or was it the drug?” or “Maybe that really didn’t happen. Did it?”
The brain tries to explain, before the brain “gives way”; the drug now in control, the brain functions off, temporarily. Sex becomes something different, more pleasurable. Maybe that’s why drugs are so sought after: “Bring me a higher love.” said Mr. Winwood.
“Did you hear that noise downstairs?” “No, I didn’t.” “Wait, there’s that noise again! What could it be?” Paranoia! The part of psychoactive drugs producing ungodly, unfortunate side effects of panic.
The brain struggling, knowing there is no disturbance, no “intruder at the door”; the drug mind floats the idea and lets the flow continue, “there is someone at the door, someone here to hurt you, someone who will do you harm.”
The brain intervenes. “There is nothing there! You are only *thinking* someone is there. Stop.”
The drug speaks “How do you know? Sure, nothing ever happens on this street, but what if it did. Tonight! There’s always the possibility!”
A subtle battle, followed by other strange side effects: “shakes” and “chills.” Paranoia slowly fades…
The lovers now in a tantalizing state of bliss. Warm October breeze, pulsing beat of music; feel-good-all-time-feel-good and you are in the groove. The sun comes up on the horizon, a glorious morning.
Then screams and fingers pointing to the sky; the brain conjures images that cannot be real. “What is this?” or “This can’t be happening, not now.” Paranoia meets reality, much worse than paranoia visions.
My colleague, in Israel, mentioned a video circulating, of the Hamas terror attack. “I’d like to see it,” I said, nonchalantly.
“No you don’t. James, this is not stuff you can unsee.”
“C’mon, I’m adult, I can handle it.”
“O.K., please do not share this with anyone; especially not children.”
He sent me the video.
After watching it, I could only hear Mozart’s requiem in my brain; my instinct to scream at the top of my lungs, eyes bulging. I didn’t scream. I sat in stunned silence for a long time.
More than I could handle, cruelty beyond; barbarism defined. Hardened journalists and experienced police officers cry at images defying basic codes of anything. My head keeps shaking.
I wonder what happened to my imagined (but possibly very real) couple. Did they escape, or were they slaughtered like beasts clubbed in cave man times? Did those drugs triggering harmonic, happy thoughts, turn to amplify atrocities; methodical massacre meets nerve sensitivity as never before; tantric titillation pivots to total terror instantly: white heat whiplash into hell. Good God!
Incredible, this irony of progressive people, dancing in the desert, coming to commune with a chorus of peace and love, attacked by a hideous overwhelming army of Hate.
New words are needed to describe this intense cruelty; cruelty so severe existing words simply don’t. They just don’t, nope, nope.
This picture I took in 2017, the Elvis American Diner in Neve Ilan, Israel: In a small town outside Jerusalem, a roadside diner devoted to all things Elvis Presley. It was as improbable to me as thoughts of peace in this region.
Are we entering an era where extreme carnage causes reconciliation to become obsolete?
Stoned love a chimera, a mirage; a trance-dance blown away by the wind, across the desert.