Three or so months ago I was walking,
as I often do, back in Nisene Marks State Park on a part of the trail that
eventually leads to Maple Falls. Ahead of me I saw an older man clinging onto a branch with eyes closed, breathing heavily with a very pained expression on his face. I thought he might be having a heart attack. I stopped next to him and
said in a loud voice, “How we doin’?” He, without opening his eyes, responded in a surprisingly strong,
resonant voice, “OK. I’m just catching my breath, so you can go on ahead.”
Feeling uncomfortable leaving him, I lingered a bit. Opening his eyes and noticing my UCSC T-shirt,
he commented on the “Fighting Banana Slugs” and we both agreed it was a funny and most impressive mascot name for a college. Then he said, “I’m
moving slower, so you best walk on.” He seemed much better now and was walking
on his own, I imagined, to the bench not far ahead at the Porter House sign. So
I proceeded to fall back into my regular pace and then, from twenty feet
away, he yelled out a riddle to me, and I stopped to listen, also realizing
that he didn’t want me to walk away but to walk with him. I stopped and he
approached me, telling me jokes and riddles, at which I laughed. We arrived at
the bench where he sat down. While walking, I recognized his face and his voice
though I couldn’t place it. I told him so while he sat but he couldn’t recall
me. He told me his name, which I remembered; he and his wife (at the time) had once, 35 or so years earlier,
been my clients when I was a financial advisor. He later remembered me from est
and his decision that he could trust a fellow est member with his financial
information as well as his finances. Alan told me of his chiropractic and “healing”
work, I told him of my various serious and chronic physical aches and pains, he assured me that he
could “take care of that,” and I decided I would go and see him. I also noticed
that the chronic pain in the occipital nerve in my head, and the level of pain
in my neck and back had actually subsided in Alan’s presence as he sat on the
Porter House bench. Alan told me that he often walked this trail at Nisene
Marks and that he was getting better and better at it. He said he had walked
one day for six and a-half hours and had the intention of hiking all the way to
Maple Falls. At that point we parted, with him proceeding up a very
steep hill and me looping down the hill to the fire road, over the bridge and back
to the parking lot. Those few minutes with Alan inspired me to hike to Maple
Falls the following week, which was harrowing and exhausting, shutting my body down
for the next few days. I realized that I didn’t much care about going through
such an ordeal but that I “did it for Alan,” which surprised and pleased me. I also absolutely enjoyed the falls; stripping down and standing under them.
From Alan’s weekly treatments for a
few months I felt some improvement in body and mind. I believed that Alan was
gifted in his intuitive and technical understanding of the body. My wife, Amy,
felt that Alan was a breath of fresh air and loved talking with him and sharing
his presence, as did I. We had him over to our house a number of times over a number
of weeks for very lively discussions. Alan demonstrated that he was a person of "big mind"; he saw life in cosmic terms and great context. He was one who "prayed to God" with much faith and love. We joked about "knowing so much of everything and so little of anything." Alan was our dearest friend. We loved him very much.
A few days before the day of his
death, I invited Alan to our house for some good conversation and some food.
Alan, however, wanted me to first bring him to my “perch,” a redwood trunk not too
far in from the fire trail "road" on the Aptos Ridge Trail. It was a short 15-minute walk from the fire
trail, with some uphill hike on the way and a lot of downhill coming back. Alan
was waiting for me when I arrive on 9:45AM on September 12. He hadn’t been on
this trail before and he loved it, exclaiming again and again how beautiful it
was, finding a redwood “throne” to sit on and claiming himself to be “king.” He
was so thrilled and so much like a little kid that I said, “Alan, you’re just
like a little kid. You have such wonder!” Alan smiled and said, “Ye must become as
little children to enter into the kingdom of heaven!” I replied with my own
wonder at his statement, “Then you’re right at the very gates, my Friend.” Alan proceeded along
the path impressively, stopping two or three times to rest and seemingly not winded at
all. We got up to the perch after 45 minutes and Alan stretched out on the large
trunk with all the self-satisfaction of a little kid or a cat finding the
perfect spot. He said, “This is now MINE. You have to wait your turn and I will
NEVER leave.” I told him of my instructions to my daughter to inter my ashes
in that very trunk upon which Alan sat so that I could “haunt” that spot forever. Alan said, “Well
now it’s MY place too.” I said, "I suppose our ghosts will have to share this place eternally." He looked at me and smiled. I was so pleased that I
had been able to share something with Alan that he so loved. On the way down
from the perch, I told Alan he was mensch, a good man, one with a "good heart.” I think Alan was
touched; for the first time, he said nothing.
I miss Alan. I felt like a child with
him; we played like little kids in the forest. We laughed; we understood each
other. We accepted and appreciated each other. He was a twin soul, my soul brother. Amy, my spouse, loved him too. I was
overly critical of him in his passion and energy. He was so enthusiastic, so bhakti, so trusting and believing. I came to the realization that I saw in Alan
myself as I had been a long time ago. He believed! He was inspiring! After
forty years of Zen practice, I had come to neither be a believer nor a
non-believer, “seeing through” both without great passion. Alan told
me that he was a boddhisatva, to
which I asked, “And why did you wish to be reborn?” Alan
responded, “So I could have a body again.” In all my supposed “great wisdom,” I
reprimanded him, saying: “I doubt whether any boddhisatva boasts of being one and I
don’t think they do it just so they ‘can have a body again’.” In retrospect, I
have to believe that perhaps Alan was, after all, a bodhisattva. He lived a
life of service and healing. He taught me much about “being as a little child.” Alan was oil to this Tin Man.
Alan told me that he considered
himself to “be Zen” more than anything else. He extolled Zen to me all the time. When I shared my own worldview
with him, he wrote to me that it was “morbid.” I concluded that Alan was the
quintessential “light seeker in the light.” My own was more "light seeker in the dark,” through paradox and irony, the contemplative via negativa,
the apophatic (or “hidden”) perspective. Alan seemed to neither fathom nor agree in his
light-filled state of mind and being. 22 years ago I wrote a Masters Thesis, The Rebirth of the Christian Apophatic
Spirit: Embracing the Dark Night of the Soul, in which I explored the
writings of St. John of the Cross and Buddhist parallels as well as Western
mystics such as Meister Eckhardt.Twelve years ago I wrote a Doctoral
Dissertation, Forty Days and Forty Nights
in the Wilderness: Comprehending Myth in Today’s World, in which I
recognized and described various essential and elemental archetypes of Nature
and Being that presented themselves to me during my ordeal. Nine years ago I
published a book, Depression’s Seven Steps
to Self-Understanding: A Guide to Comprehending and Navigating Your Inner
Journey, in which I recognized and explored depression as an expression of
the soul’s needs in its journey through our lives and us. Alan was in the
process of reading the latter two of these writings, which we had begun to
discuss.
I never met anyone with such
enthusiasm, faith, love, and passion. Alan truly believed. He was such a mensch, such a good person. Alan had FAITH! Alan
was INSPIRING. Amy and I loved him. We do and will miss him. As already noted, Alan said, he would "like to be in a body" again. Even as I write this, almost a month after his death, I can envision a little baby somewhere, smiling already, and bringing hope, joy, love, and great heart and mind once more into the world.
