Heya Halai

“Heya Halai!”

“Brother welcome!”

A group of long haired Americans in various beige linens stood in a circle, around a fire. Someone had, and was playing, a drum. They moved towards each other, and stepped back, their arms and upper bodies billowing with the movement. The group expanded and contracted like they were breathing, like they were one thing.

And that’s what they believed, too.

“Heya Halai!”

A relative newcomer, and absolutely starstruck, I stood to the side. Watching, narrating. I had read his book, watched interviews, but I had never seen the man in the flesh. He was glorious.

“Heya Ha…”

I started and stopped, timidly.

Glador Maxwell was his name. He was a modern sage, in the Western tradition, which is to say a person who has adapted Eastern things and brought them to a group of westerners. He stood out in the breadth, and not the depth of his knowledge accumulation. He seemed to have taken things from most of the major players: India, China, Japan. His books numbered almost a dozen, and I had saved up to buy about 7 of them. They weren’t cheap.

“The New Western Tradition” was a classic, canonical. “Going back East, way east; The Teachings of Glador around the world”, was the book I had finished most recently.

Naturally, being the fan that I am, I was also subscribed to the email newsletter, and it was this subscription that brought me here.

“Calling YOU!”

The text read above an image of group members circled up, not unlike they were today. The email went on to describe the intentional community that they were building. Glador promised to help me cast aside my sorrows, all of which had come to me not through any wrongdoing, but the pressures of capitalist America.

I was once an economics student. The irony of my choices aren’t lost on me. After a year in medical school, I decided pill pushing was a scourge, and I released myself onto the general public for general consumption. A lot of my new ideas came from the internet. Forums, youtube.

“Direction is a Construct on a Globe; Why the Far East is a State of Mind”, was written on a banner, hung on the front of the house. Seeing this sign here in person was endlessly exciting for me. There wasn’t even a press release about this one yet!

The rest of the night was more of this: sheepish watching, almost participating, being awestruck. Inside the house a young girl showed me my bunk.

“How long have you been here?”

Her manner was so light and joyful, and it made me feel at ease.

“About 5 hours”

“No shit! Welcome, heya halai.”

“What about you?”

“5 years.”


“No way, that’s a long time. You hardly look 20!”

“That’s good ‘cause I’m not. This bunk’s yours. You can talk to the boys about dresser and closet space.”

“Thank you, what’s your name?”

“I’m Jillian.”

“Thanks Jill, I mean heya halai.”

“Heya Halai.”

_____________________________________________

Time went forward as it is so wont to do, two weeks, and I got to know this place and these people.

Unexpectedly, a seed of skepticism had grown in me. Many of the people here weren’t idealists at all, but seemed to be here under some sort of loose shelter-for-labor agreement. Various vagabonds from around the country, one step from nothingness, these people seemed. The enchantment of an imagined place is never reconciled too easily against its real life version.

I appreciated them, and they accepted me. They did take on the behaviors of the group, it was just that the behaviors lacked an intellectual structure behind them. Many of my brothers ran with the flock to not get left behind, not because they wanted to get somewhere. I fancied myself a true believer. That is, I ran with these sheep because I believed in where we were going. I guess it takes all types Developing this kind of subtle superiority complex was not unfamiliar to me. In fact, it had just occurred to me, this was exactly the kind of thought that had brought me to this group in the first place.

I wondered then, extending the analogy, where this new complex could take me next. Would there be some group that I truly identified with, a people, even one person, that I might not inevitably strive to extricate myself from?

Clearly, at this point anyways, I had hoped that Leader Maxwell would be this person. These commoners, their situation I understood, but surely Glador himself believed, right?

“Can you help me get the water?”

Jill crooned. She remained one of the few I hadn’t placed myself above yet. Her nature had remained consistent with my first impression, and this I really valued about her.

“Of course my friend.”

I spoke this way to her to veil the way that I really felt. The way I really felt was in love.

We carried buckets up the hill together to where the spout was. This was the highlight of almost every day for me. Several enjoyable minutes of silence followed this. The spout was under a pear tree, one of several around the property. She filled a bucket, and set it to the side with so much grace and form. She was a vision of vitality, at least I thought so.

_____________________________________________

This night was a very special night. It was the party for the release of the new book! The one on the banner. By 10p I one observed the de rigueur behavior: drum circle, drinking, chanting. Jill was notably missing.

I’ve neglected to describe Mr. Maxwells house. He was in his own house of course. Not among bunk beds and former-vagabonds. Not too nearby either. He had a small house on the hill, where he lived mostly alone. It seemed that he was there now, and I worried that Jill was too.

Full of drink and driven by jealousy, on a sudden impulse I began walking toward Gladors house. How bold! Part of me was surprised, but by body moved with conviction, and the walking felt fine and right. Soon I was at a sturdy and well-worn door, ajar.

I pushed the door open. Two men in cloaks stood astride a table, and one more stood at the center of the room, with arms outstretched. I gasped almost audibly as I comprehended the whole of the situation.

Jill lay naked and still on the table. Before I could express anything to the room, or even be notice, she rose into the air. Hips first, she seemed to be hoisted by invisible arms.

I turned and ran. I ran down the front steps, through the yard, through trees. Ran for my home, ran for my mother. Looking down eventually, I found myself at least 30 feet in the air.