Kundalini and the Art of Being ... 49in the creek and bringing them back to the circle, gearing up to some-
how combat the fire. At one point we were informed, by someone
who sounded fairly authoritative, that the Forest Service was coming
in with a bomber to drop some kind of chemical onto the fire, and that
we had to be prepared, in case we were hit by any of the stray powder
drifting in the wind. Those of us in the circle were being advised to
cover our faces with something to filter out both the impending chem-
icals and the smoke, and then squat down with our heads between our
legs, our hands covering our necks. Why exactly we needed to do all
this was never made fully clear. It seemed that simply covering one’s
face with a bandanna and then keeping one’s eyes open would do the
trick for the time being, which was what I did.
After twenty or thirty more minutes of this progressing pandemo-
nium and no sign of the bomber, I realized that we weren’t all going
to be bombed quite yet and, in the meantime, I wanted to get some
pictures of the momentous event taking place.
I ran back to our campsite (fortunately in the opposite direction
of the fire), grabbed my camera and daypack from my tent, and then
hurried back to the meadow and started discreetly taking photos,
keeping my bandanna on and one eye open. Although the smoke
filling the sky above the forest was steadily increasing, along with
the sounds and smells of burning trees, the fire seemed to still be a
ways back in the forest in an area where, fortunately, there were few
people camped. It was not yet, at least, bursting forth to burn every-
thing down around us.
Eventually, I heard another report of a bomber coming in. We all
waited in anticipation. A short time later, sure enough, a plane was
spotted in the distance, coming over the trees towards us and headed
straight for the dark cloud of smoke. It roared overhead, and dropped
a huge load of orange powder into the trees above the fire. A little
while later, yet another bomber roared overhead and dropped its
load into the billowing smoke. A huge cheer erupted from all of us.
However, we soon heard unfortunate news: both planes had actu-
ally missed the fire with their loads. And there would be no more