Kundalini and the Art of Being ... notice that she seemed a little distant and melancholy at times. What
was quite unnerving, however, was that over the next few days, Julia
went completely crazy.
We all noticed that she seemed to be getting more and more dis-
tant each day, but we were all rather distracted by our own lives and
didn’t make too much of it at first. It was when she started wander-
ing around the house naked, muttering and singing to herself and
unable to carry on a normal conversation with anyone, that we all
realized something was definitely way out of the ordinary.
This was on a Friday, the final day of my challenging fast as well
as the day that Amy called with an unusual personal scenario of her
own. Her friend Lisa, tired of looking for a job and not finding one,
had left Portland a few days before with some other folks they’d met
at the Rainbow Gathering, and headed down to Santa Cruz, Califor-
nia. Amy had stayed behind in Portland because she’d already found
a part-time job. Her plan was to meet up with Lisa after she’d made
a little money. But Lisa called only a few days after leaving to say
that the people she’d driven down to California with were turning
into freaks, she hated Santa Cruz, and wanted to drive back home
to Texas right away. Amy decided to quit her job right away since
she had the car. She was headed out the door right at that minute, to
drive down to Santa Cruz and rescue Lisa.
I was heartbroken at her sudden departure—even more so because
she didn’t seem terribly concerned about leaving behind our blos-
soming relationship. I understood that her concern was for her long-
time friend and that she’d only known me for a few weeks. But it still
hurt, because I realized that I’d made more of the relationship than it
seemed it really was. But, at least, she said that she could spend that
night with me in Eugene before continuing south down Interstate-
the next morning.
She showed up at my house late that evening, to find the weird
situation that I’d forgotten to mention over the phone. Julia was wan-
dering around the house naked, singing to herself, carrying on conver-
sations with nobody, and generally acting like a crazy person; while