Byron Bay is still the spiritual bubble it has become famous for. Urban and rural Shamen dance in the streets. Yogis high on Asana embellish the beach. Chanters and Channelers galore, Sirians and Pleiadens, Lamas, Zen Teachers, Tantric Gurus, Techno Wizards and Sex Magicians.

For this budding sex magician, the Epicentre out along Belongil Beach at the outskirts of town is the perfect place to hang out in. The wealthy and eccentric family that bought the erstwhile slaughterhouse has turned it into an artist colony. Over the last few years a series of exhibitions, spiritual festivals and other exorcising events have washed the blood off the massive concrete blocks that make up the compound: The Big Space for events like visits from the ‘Holy Mother’, for outrageous art installations, devotional chantings, or for ecstatic all-night rave parties where young ‘ferals’ outdo their hippy parents in the hills. Then there are the galleries, gardens, yoga room, restaurant, toilet block, the huge run-down middle block for studios and ‘art school’ and at the far end the even more derelict studios, giving the place its squatter’s image. 

My niche is in the nursery at the end of the far end, potting on the little trees for the Epicentre gardens and beyond.

The colony is in upheaval. The owners – tired of the struggle with the council for their untraditional approach and bored with the impossible pursuit of extracting rent from the assortment of geniui that populate the place – have signed a lease with a very exotic character indeed. Ibrahim is born in Sudan. His Muslim family moved to Iraq where he careered in Saddam Hussein’s army until he had to do the bolt. Having obtained a business degree at Sydney University and having run a corner store in that city, in his mid-thirties, uncanny judgement has brought him here to organise this unruly lot. 

Am grooming the gardens to welcome him on the sunny morning he takes over: 

“Congratulations with the lease.”

African features still dusted with desert sand, a walk that feels most comfortable in djellaba, he is undeterred by the third world conditions in which he has to raise the couple of grand a week he has signed himself up for. By the evening, the dormant restaurant is reopened.

Economic Rationalism has finally caught up with this bastion of alternativity. In the process of trying to transform this intensely spiritual place into a viable enterprise, he takes some hard measures and is getting quite ruthless. 

The nursery in the quiet of its surroundings is becoming a respite from the commotion. People get hurt and flock to our potting bench. One of the local goddesses who hails from Jamaica, strides into our ramshackle. Sharing roots with Ibrahim, she has championed him more than anyone and is all the more disenchanted. Regal, serene, turquoise eyebrows, red dot for third eye, voodoo queen, body full and aware of every delicious bit of itself. Her normally blissful look of the Gopi gazing at Krishna is disturbed:

“He is unethical. We came here to establish a place of healing. We can’t have a callous money-hungry tyrant running us around!”

Without a trace of my natural shyness, express my admiration for her beauty before offering an explanation:

“Where he comes from, bargaining is the norm. He may come around to a more mild approach.”

“Tell me more. Are you a hero?”

What a pertinent question! Hand her my just completed ‘Moonchild’s Odyssey’, a journey through the Thoth Tarot.

“A hero in my own story.”

Browses it with a smile:

“Am a bit of a moonchild myself.”

Is not as intimidated as most by the infamous Thoth creator. Fondly, calls him ‘Aleister’. Understands Magick from within:

“Too tiresome. Too much hard work to be God!”

Wishes me well with a chuckle. She senses that my need for literary support outweighs any other:

“You want an artist. Someone to help you design your own Trumps.”
Unspoken, her words, twinkling with psychic content, mysteriously reveal the identity of the artist she has in mind.

*

She stands apart – berated by the entirety of the ‘Art School’ she has been part of. However, the sounds she cranks out of a crook piano that come out of her window at the derelict end of the compound hint at the cause of the chatter: Too talented.

Tiny, she looms large in her ever changing garb of extravagant op-shop outfits. Something in her shoulders that carries the world. Husky mop of hair, unbrushed, eyes in an upward angle, feline glint, skin of her face weathered by tobacco smoke, as are the teeth in a determined mouth, around which the few hairs and the mole on the chin complete the  aura of a witch. Her work adorns the reopened restaurant ‘The Epicuronian’ where we run into one another in the hot days of early ’96. Her paintings are intense, emotional, lusty; hands on bums, in crotches. Take the initiative:

“You don’t have to go far for your coffee, do you?”

“Neither do you. Was just about to have a spliff. Would you like to join me?”

At her table out in the leafy shade, pleasant sea breeze, we connect easily. Preferring her to relate to me as a writer rather than to my flesh and bones, mention my story straight away. She has studied literature, been a professional editor:

“Writing is my second love.”

“Well, would you like to have a read of it?”

She would but is distracted. The recent developments have also put her in strife. Things are getting too hectic around her and she is just about to move.

“Like to come along?”

Follow her on her foray into the depths of the dero end. Precarious grace of goat steps, resolutely stepping through the debris in the bowels of the former abattoir. In the look at her accomplice the feline glint melts into warm affection. With the power of a spell.

Turns out the space she’s after is the one adjoining the nursery.

We sit there for a while, consecrating it with another smoke.

Back at the potting bench, hear about a claim from the ‘art school’ for the same space. Pass it on to her when she passes by to bring in her radio. She flares up:

“Keep ‘m away from me!” adding: “It’s too hot” and stomps off.

Though a little worried by her fierceness, am pleased with the intimacy inherent in her appointing me as one of her officers. My loyalty is hers.

Five minutes later, dripping wet from a hosing she has given herself, dress and all:

“I’m cooled off now.”

Delighted with the ease with which she has gotten over it, take her wet self in a spontaneous hug. Towards the evening she passes by again to share some nuts. Asks me about my sleeping arrangements. A friendship is taking hold.

*

Have been sleeping all over the place. Started off in the ‘mural room’, my bed on a landing between that room and the hole in the ‘killing floor’ above, through which the carcasses were hauled down to be processed. Though the peaceful murals give colour and light, the shape of the floor is undeniably a blood drain. The first night there am spooked by an awful nightmare: The entrails of my pet dog as a child are scattered all over the slaughterhouse. Awake with a devastating sadness. Initiation Chamber.

After Ibrahim’s arrival and the ensuing economising process, have had to let go of the mural room. Have been crashing here and there on the huge killing floor itself where the remnants of the art school have found domicile. But my home is in the hills where my sizeable and unwieldy piece of land needs attendance at least a few days a week.

When back again at the nursery, follow the sounds from her decrepit piano and find her within a true sight to behold. Her work covers every bit of the concrete, along with the easels, improvised work tables, chairs from recycling, all infused with her continuous burning of incense. Her paintings as vibrantly alive as her environment. 

Hand her my manuscript.

With art as her religion and no schooling in the occult, introduce her a little as to what to expect while she’s looking for her reading glasses. She stops me with that delightfully straightforward intimacy that comes with her strength:

“Don’t tell me about your script. Help me find my glasses!”
Her critique will be on aesthetics more than the subject matter and it will be severe.

*

After a few days it is becoming apparent that it is going to take her a while to get through it. Takes it on her coffee-runs, which is often, where more than likely her energies will be diverted, her social life not as insubstantial as imagined.

The strategy of relating to her as writer is dismally failing as well. We get on too well. Takes me into her circle. While having a session with her friends, Ibrahim wanders by her studio, showing someone around. When he proceeds into the nursery, get on my feet and head for the door:

“Better go look after things.”

“Are you a man or a mouse?”

Smiling inwardly about the lack of effect of her words on my ego, keep on walking. Passing by her window, she leans out, apologises, expresses her concern:

“That what hurts you, hurts me.”

“I know.”

Love between intelligent people is so easy. We are all leaves on the same tree. Why waste time on not accepting the other as they are?

Catch up with Ibrahim:

“Nice nursery isn’t it?”

“How’s business?”

“Bit slow, just building up momentum.”

“None of you guys is fully into this nursery, all of you have other interests.”

He has a point. We are a loose jingle of green thumb cosmics.

“You reckon we should be open seven days a week?”

“Exactly!”

His idea is to open the whole compound to the public: create a leisurely walk through a fun garden dotted with market stalls, drawing in the crowds. For the moment he gives a bit of a squeeze for the rent:

“Have been good to you guys but now you’d better, or…”

Sparkle of disarming smile, laid-back eyes all the way from the cradle of civilisation.

Leaves on an appreciative note:

“It is a beautiful nursery.”

Over the derelict end that now houses my new friend, agreement between him and the owners is not quite reached yet. It is so shabby, that it is dangerous. As one of the owners, the thoroughly camp patron of the arts who was the partner in my imaginary sex magick that got us the nursery puts it:

“We don’t want the only artist that could become famous hit by a piece of tin.”

Cyclones of course are a bit of a worry to them. Rejection of many of their development applications have to do with the proneness to erosion. It is the lowest part of the beach. That’s why here the whalers dragged their catch ashore before it became an abattoir. It’s here that the dunes will break. Who is taking responsibility, is paying for the insurance?

Am in there with her when the demolishers, dismantling next door, yank the tin across her roof onto the concrete, making a hell of a clamour.

We settle down with a smoke. Will she be next? We actually enjoy the comi-tragedy of the situation. Wonderful to see her giggle at the epic impermanence of her surroundings. Radio tuned to Bay FM, her feet tapping to Grace Jones’ ‘New York, New York’, the screech of metal on metal only a minor disturbance.

The sounds subside. We ponder the possibilities. She says:

“If only someone could turn Ibrahim’s head.”

Next day, the demolishers are dead quiet. Ibrahim has taken responsibility. She can deal with him. Calls him Ibri Amin.

*

The crack of Ibri’s whip reverberates throughout the compound. In the middle block, the ‘art school’, adept at painting the old masters but unable to bring up the quantum leap in rent, is rescued by a young local entrepreneur who convinces the bewildered artistes to move to the top floor, divide the enormous ground floor and open the rest up to some adventurous backpackers. Low priced bunk beds in exchange for a little work around the place. Within weeks the looks of the Epicentre have so improved that the council turns a blind eye for the moment, gives us scruffy bunch some leeway.

Pressure does not always bring out the best in people. When in strife we turn mean. Soon the entrance to the top floor bears a whopping sign: ‘Private Studio’. There is a brisk succession of restaurant management. Even the peaceful nursery heads clash. When about to pot on one of my favourite species, am being told:

“They don’t sell”.

Walk straight over to her studio and air my woes. She agrees:

“Art first!”

The ones least troubled by Ibrahim’s ways are the ‘feral’ folk. The local rave tribe has been growing steadily. Their forest raves are organised from here. It is becoming more and more a hang for musicians, D.J.’s, light show technicians, candy men. Used to live in humpies, being able to do without the ‘modern’ comforts of society – as long as there’s a place to have a fire going and play the drums all night – they are less perturbed by the harsh deals, get on with the business at hand: Having fun, the art of dance, trance and getting off the planet.

*

At home, her face starts drifting into consciousness regularly. Not just the face as seen, but a myriad of extrapolations, unseen expressions from impossible angles. An astral link is evidently being forged.

Gusty winds and heavy rainfall draws me out of the hills to check on her. Catch her just as she is crawling through the hole in the wall with the makings of a chimney and fireplace. One has to be resourceful. The roof leaks like a sieve. Only dry spot is around her bed. Her paintings sit on bricks and bits of wood to keep them out of the water. We joke about the blood drains in the floor for easy run-off:

“At least there’s no mopping up”.

She’s tough. To be living in such extraordinary circumstances she is willing to cop some discomfort. Has a tropical ulcer on her foot:

“It’s nothing.”

Lot of stress going around. There’s a rent payers meeting on that she feels she has to attend to. Spur her on with a tad of irony:

“Go on then.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

Her beauty: The immediate expression of her emotion. Has overcome a lot of restriction. Is adamant about doing her will. In fact, she hasn’t been painting much lately. Her talent is reaching out from the canvas into philosophical dimensions. To me it looks like the act of ‘Doing her Will’ is the core of her art. When she gets back from the meeting:

“Go over and have a look for yourself.”

Being a threat to their territory, Ibrahim is being accused of monstrous territorialism. The overall sentiment:

“Tar and feather him, chase him out of town.”

Blind to the implications of ‘Private Studio’ on their own door, the pampered artists are especially enraged. They have been digging for some dirt from his past:

“Let’s expose the bastard!”

When back in her studio, find her entertaining some of her male friends. Interestingly, the absence of male competitiveness is actually tangible. No one feels intruded upon by anyone. Invalidated by one of her evident qualities: Total impossessability, her sexuality – as she herself points out – of a transcendental nature. A fine instigator of brotherhood.

After they’ve left, roll out my swag on the dry spot next to her bed. Puts one of her coats over me. Unthreatened, fall asleep easily.

*

The dirt diggers have come up with quite a list. Friends with local identity, Fast Buck$ – colourful activist against corrupt development – they manage to engage him. One of his feared ‘pink pamphlets’ hits the streets: Boycott The Epicentre.

He himself is handing them out. Runs into Ibrahim’s lawyer in front of the local pub where Prime Minister Paul Keating is just having one of his last election dos. The insults turn into fisticuffs, causing a racket. Who knows wether that fight in front of the ‘Great Northern’ wasn’t the battle that tipped the scales and had Keating’s stand for decency thrown over by the incoming regime of dog-eat-dog rationalism.

The Epicentre is eerily quiet. When entering her space, she reaches for her sunglasses. Dressed in black, distressed, in a very dark mood indeed. Not so much by what is going on around her:

“It’s existential.”

Make her a few smokes which picks her up. Tells me it’s good to see me. Asks me to bring some chocolate back from my stroll into town.

Come back with a bottle of bourbon for the night. Nervous not only about the dawn raid which is expected to occur. A strange chasm seems to be running through everything. In the middle block – recently dubbed ‘Vortex Village’ – several of the backpackers have taken their clothes off and are having an orgy, as if to bridge the shifting sands.

My Muse has built a fire in a big earthenware bowl, the smoke drifting vaguely in the direction of one of the windows, through which she has to climb out to get her water, through the dark nursery crawling with little red-bellied blacks, half torn-off pieces of tin overhead flapping in the wind, uncertified electric leads, toilet block a hundred yards away. Could the severity of her life-style be instrumental in keeping the Epicentre ticking?

She is there where Art and Magick meet.

Quiet evening over good bread and olives in the mythology of her surroundings.
Retire on a mattress, but sleep is elusive. Mosquitos, nearness of ocean, intensity of the place. Waiting for the dawn.

*

Jarwin a local Aboriginal man is moving in. He is a teacher of the mystery and technique of the didgeridoo. Teaches on video how to play them. Has a big mob making them. They do the markets where anyone can make their own. He is breaking the tradition of keeping didgeridoo strictly male business and exports them all over the world. Says he is on the side of the didge.

Ibrahim has given him the middle block and the task of giving the art school eviction notice. He comes down the steps from the ‘private studio’, visibly upset by the indignation with which the painter of old masters has no doubt responded. To one of his mates:

“Give me a cigarette. Need to go for a walk.”

Over the next few days the changing of the guard takes place.

She is now the only one of the original bohemians still hanging in there. Hang with her, looking out over the nursery. There is a sense of new freedom. It has made her frivolous even.

Some of the backpackers stay for a while but Jarwin has come with quite a mob, a loose-knit band of colourfuls from all over the Pacific Rim, most of them big, tattood and fresh out of jail.

Ibrahim comes by to show us the pamphlet that now is out against Fast Buck$. With the grin of a ju-ju man:

“It wasn’t me.”

He reckons it is time to have a lease signed with the nursery.

*

Several weeping figs have grown through their pots into the ground and will have to be dug out. Faced with the dreaded task of moving them, someone mutters:

“We need a seven foot giant.”

She appears in a green lacy op-shop ballroom extravaganza, accompanied by a well-known yogi around The Bay, well over six foot and the figs are in place in no time. She also brought me the Secret Dakini Deck to have a look at. A woman’s variation on the Tarot. One of the cards is called Scarlet Woman. Time to tell her she is my Scarlet Woman at the moment. We sit down and do a reading. My card is ‘Taking on Arms’ which – with typical ambiguity – could suggest to take on the nursery business, as well as to stay clear of compromise.

Later in the afternoon – less dubious – a little snake cruises towards the spot she has just been sitting on, sniffs it out and curls up. Her card had been ‘Serpent Power’.

At dusk a derelict bus appears and parks too close to her doorstep for her liking. Storms out with the joint we’ve just lit and waving it around convinces the heavies to move on a bit. Little trooper.

At night she lets me in on some gossip from the art school’s bohemian past. Wears a touch of lipstick, setting off her elegance, her warmth, kink, obsessive eccentricity.

*

Have a wet dream in the comfort of my bush shack. She is walking around in her studio, only a top on, her bare little bum remarkably round. Lays on top of me, the tide rises, oh no! Wake up and catch my discharge, savouring her fading presence. Comes as a bit of a surprise. Though excited by her wicked ways, her ferocious independence had made me not look at her in that way. Greets me with:

“How was your week-end?”

Give her a hint:

“Did you pay me an astral visit?”

Don’t really want to go too far, before knowing her opinion on my writing.

When asking her where she is up to, she has one of her outbursts. Hates my attachment to my story and her having to pass judgement on it:

“Your ego is in the way of my freedom.”

And to really twist the dagger around:

“It’s a good story but not great.”

Making me feel a little sad with the premature loss of a Scarlet Woman:

“Well, if it isn’t great, the honeymoon is over, isn’t it?”

*

Spend a few days moving trees around, clearing an area to set up a humpy. She draws my attention to the former ‘middle block entrepreneur’ who is preparing his caravan to be rented out. We come to an agreement and get it moved onto the cleared site. Amazing, and at the Equinox at that! At least our magick is still working. 

Equinox is big at he Epicentre. No matter what wild and wonderful ways spirituality takes around here, what we all share is our Pagan roots. People come out of the hills hours before the doors to the Big Space are due to open. The car park slowly fills up. Vans, buses, station wagons, settling in, in festival atmosphere. This is no ordinary commercial venue in town.

The event starts off with a chanting. Drapes, banners, symbols, create a very temple. The Western Esoteric Tradition in flying colours. Hearts open, the crowd is happily guided through a ritual invocation in Kabbalah lingo. An all-night trance dance follows.

Outside on the steps am joined by Ibrahim, a long awaited opportunity to have a chat about the significance of the place. Make it clear to him that it is a place of worship, a latter day Stonehenge, a mosque. Point out how the raver’s mistrust of alcohol matches his own. Tell him he is priest as well as businessman, the way this venue is obviously meeting a strong spiritual need.

Anyway, it is a large crowd and the dough is rolling in. Few things as profitable as religion.

We huddle together on the concrete, linked in sympathy, touching in Arab closeness. Bedouin brothers. Fellow Nomads.

*

So at home and relaxed, that next morning, walking into her studio, the eroticism of her work fully impacts on my unsuspecting physique to the point of erection. Voluptuous, wide open mamas on the wall, hands on vulvas, fists around cocks. One painting in particular is very enticing: A nude, her back towards us, leaning over the back of a chair. Am tempted to open my sarong and show her my reaction. However, with her lukewarm reception of my story in mind, don’t want to risk her response to my bare flesh:

“Nice painting.”

Less inhibited, she lays the painting on its side, gets some charcoal and in one graceful stroke accentuates the cleft between the bum cheeks. Is she telling me something?

A regenerative sex act. Art as medium for her passion.

Our mental intimacy gradually deepens. She is aware of my chronic need to look at the world through the Cosmic Eye, and its hassles:

“It makes you gullible.”

Her physical presence is not as transcendental as she makes it out to be either. To get to the second floor, she shimmies up the drainpipe by the strength of her arms alone. The hard intent of her body when shifting struggling fan palms to mark her territory around the studio is very attractive. Sweating:

“I’m itchy.”

Have just connected the water on a secluded spot in the nursery between her and my place:

“We’ve got a village well where we can rinse each other off.”

Back from hosing herself, drying her hair:

“That was a bit cheeky, wasn’t it?”

Then a work shirt appears by the caravan and inside, a black silk Christian Dior. 

*

Gets to show me her progress with the script. Has taken it pretty seriously. Pencil marks scrawled all over:

“Does it hurt your ego?”

“Am rather pleased you’ve given it that much attention.”

She also gets me to read some passages she has underlined in a book on mysticism. It is a psycho-analytical view on how the need for introversion can lead to self absorption and even to auto-eroticism. Very interesting indeed!

But there is trouble in paradise. There has been a spate of thieving. There is a lot of drinking going on and we find discarded syringes all over the place. Musicians lose their instruments, there is a burglary at the nearby Belongil and a truck has been trucking our palms out of the nursery. There are several fights among the rugged mob in the middle block. 

We spend a few hectic days ferrying in our trees, bringing them within our boundaries, fixing the fence, putting them under lock and key. The patron of the arts stops paying for the power that runs the irrigation and the wombat that gets hold of the power bills starts throwing his weight around. 

Have a bit of a break of it all and stay in the hills for a while, during which a freak storm ravages our Belongil Beach, ripping into the dunes so violently that the beachfront is remodelled into a cliff face of rock-hard sand.

*

Jarwin and his mob have moved out. Just packed up and left, without a whinge. She now just about owns the place. Friends have moved into the middle block, setting it up as an undefined studio space under the dub ‘Rock ‘n Roll Ashram’, the renovation of which provides us with our firewood.

She has acquired a copy of Crowley’s ‘Moonchild’. It being from the pen of the man himself she is determined to read it but isn’t impressed. Uses the cover for joint filters:

“Am more interested in you.”

A sexual charge is inexorably building between us. One of her old mates comes by our table in the garden of the Epicuronian, jokes around a bit and leaves with:

“I can see your pubic hair.”

She grabs the ceramic salt shaker off the table and hurls it at his disappearing back.

Her remorse is obviously solely inspired by reason:

“Probably shouldn’t have done that.”

Can see why she had to do that. My respect for her will keep me on the right side of her.

Bring my old Apple II GS over and we have a bit of a celebration: fresh vegies to cook over the open fire, wine, grapes, expensive chocolates.

We top it off with the coffee bar, her home away from home. It has been extended and is facing the ocean, her work is on the walls. A sculptor friend exhibits tonight. He has constructed a chastity belt, a concept of many dimensions.

Back at her fireplace, we evoke the sensitivity of youth, a first touch. The chastity belt as an instrument to bring that sensitivity back.

“Imagine taking it off!”

We both have been celibate for some time. For the moment happy to just sit there on her dilapidated couch, looking into the flames, her head on my shoulder. Rejoicing in her utopia: A world without words.

*

Another glorious morning in the Byron Bay sunshine. Both of us contemplation junkies, our set-up is ideal. The caravan tucked away in the greenery at shouting distance. From her window:

“Have you had a joint, yet?”

Great day for a swim. The beach is so dramatically eroded that no ordinary citizen dares to make the steep descent onto the shifted sands. The new cliff-face is becoming a private public gallery, sculptured and engraved all the way to Main Beach. A Feral Shangri-La.

Eccentric as she is, her approach to the carnal is rather conventional. While having dinner with the crowd at the Epicuronian she asks for a massage:

“Would you be able to massage the stiffness out of my neck tonight?”

Both knowing we have come too far for this massage not to have sensuality bursting through the seams.

After dinner, a mob of ravers on their way to a Mignon Falls rave come by to browse her reputable wardrobe and it makes me proud to see how enchanted they are by the other-worldly atmosphere, her paintings drifting in and out of the smoke from the hearth.

After they’ve gone, we snuggle up. Deep in the night but wide awake. Turns towards me:

“Something you should know. I do have the occasional bout of epilepsy.”

When putting my hands on her back, let them lay there for a while, letting the flow of our energies meet. Her skin, tight over her bony little body, as responsive as her whole being. Find the stress around the shoulder blades which gives her her particular stance of carrying the world. Work it gently and gradually the affliction moves and melts into wax, the knot disentangles with the effect of a bursting dam. Too excited to stay face down, she rolls over, covered in goosebumps, nipples hard.

My hands over her front and sides, she tenses into a spasm, mentioning an excruciating sensation of electricity flaring out from between her fingers. Clasps my hands, my fingers between hers, as if to earth herself.

Assuming it is the onset of an epileptic fit, hold her as calmly as possible. After a while, to my astonishment:

“Try again.”

That’s her, alright!

Having the impression that her sexual arousal will either bring on a fit or take her into unimaginable realms of pleasure, it feels like being in a dally with Eros and Thanatos:   little death and big death. Love as a game of Russian roulette.

Undeniably excited, touch her again. When electricity flares up again, hold her with all my tenderness and just stay there. When she’s just about to fall asleep, retire to the caravan.

*

Back from her morning visit to the coffee bar, she reports that Ibrahim enquired wether she had me staying with her. That’s how well the caravan had blended into the landscape. She had to tell him that it was even there.

He passes by later in the day. Asks me with a great big smile, while he keeps walking:

“What’s the story? You’ve got a house here!”

It is his task to extract rent from wherever he can but obviously appreciates the subtlety with which someone has created an almost invisible abode in the middle of this most eyeballed piece of real estate on the North Coast.

Last night’s excitement turns out to have had nothing to do with epilepsy. Pure electrics. Overload of pleasure.

In the evening, embrace comes naturally. The rubbing of aroused genitals. She takes off my belt:

“I want to feel you inside.”

Moment of moments. Most creative of all acts. Epicentre of existence. She doesn’t worry about the latex, apparently we’re in it for the exchange of the bodily fluids.

For a sex magician spontaneity can be a problem, motives and circumstances being as significant as the act itself. The decorum of the place sure is adequate but what is her intention and what is mine for that matter? Hesitate and evade her reach, but not too much. She urges on. Evade some more. She can’t believe it, shakes me by the shoulders:

“It’s supposed to be the other way around!”

Hilarious. The woman who doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer sitting on the man who can’t let go without formulating the object of the Operation but is having great difficulty in getting this across to her. Enjoy the rubbing as long as she doesn’t take offence for not putting it in. But she does:

“Alright then, we wont have this. We’ll be like brother and sister.”

Me, still flirtatious:

“As long as there is a place for incest.”

We quiet down and disentangle. To my own bed, slightly anxious: Did we get too close or not close enough? In Sex Magick there is a third party as it were, a presence that needs to be acknowledged and revered but it is clear that she is totally uninterested in this.

*

Of course last night opened a Pandora’s box of projections. Find her fumbling the mull bowl:

“It’s better like this. Better for my freedom. I’ll just take a lover.”

Is this for real? Grab her, and my jade stem duly hardens. Put her hand on it:

“Why not enjoy the erotic tension between us?”

Jerks back her hand:

“That was yesterday.”

Pursue in offering her the evidence of my passion:

“You can see that it’s not about not being excited by you.”

“Well, it wont turn me on anymore.”

We clean house a bit. Place the Apple on its grand desk in her dressing room. Point out the erotic charge of our fabulous environment. Mention the day when getting hard merely by entering her sphere.

She goes and sits outside. Watch her for a while, unnoticed, filled with fascination for this little witch of a woman. Assuming she will come around, leave her for a stroll into town.

In the late afternoon she has slipped into a darker mood though, is wearing a long black coat. Understands about extension of gratification but has no time for it:

“Still respect you. Still want to help you with your work but I’m not into that trippy, tantric thing.”  And: “I’m cold; I’m out of here for winter.”

This gets me sad. Talks about men who see women as either maiden or whore:

“Don’t abstract me, don’t worship me.”

Well, she has a point. But we missed our moment it seems, and any suggestion for having another go only brings us further into a spiral of misconception. In fact the chaos of mutual projections brings her to tears, then she shrugs it off, pencilling shadow around her eyes:

“Words will make it worse. Have to go out there and lighten up.”

She sums it up: 

“Moon in Capricorn.”

Will bring my tennis rackets. She has expressed a wish to set up a tennis court on the open space between her studio and the middle block. If competitiveness is unavoidable, we can turn it into a game.

*

Project for the day is landscaping the area around the new extension of the coffee bar towards the ocean. It’s very lively at the sidewalk cafe already. She is there, of course, laughing and carrying on with a new kid on the block. Has she gone on and fuck someone just to wipe out the ‘rejection’? Can’t believe it hurts so much. Manage to put on a casual air, thanks only to the tennis rackets.

Ibrahim, who is more and more at home and relaxed – alien amongst aliens – takes her by the hand and leads her away not to keep us from our work. She is away for most of the day which makes it all the more plausible that she is embroiled in an affair somewhere.

Alas, the Sun is out, we have an admiring audience.

At night, back in the intimacy of her studio, tell her about my jealousy which gives her such a lift she is compelled to grab my ass.

Long hours in front of her fire. More reminiscing about projection. Try and persuade her to play our relation as a game. Projection by choice and being aware of it:

“Everything that is beautiful in me I can project unto you.”

Doesn’t want a bar of it:

“Take your projections back!”

Wants to be seen as the real her and has decided that ‘we can have everything but that’:

“It creates a stronger karma, especially for someone as sensitive as you.”

Part for my caravan with:

“You can always come and play with my body.”

“I know. Thanks. But not now.”

Funny enough, the Epicentre is soon to host a seminar on Tantra.

*

In the morning we install the Apple together. We design a little graphics and text number, showing her – who is new to this – the ins and outs.

A stroll into town to celebrate this major achievement. Passing the coffee bar we are met with a very lively scene. Our landscaping has constructed ample spots for repose and has very much beautified the ever extending side walk cafe. Very communal, yet extremely spacious, the ocean right behind the dunes. It is becoming a favourite hang for the ‘Rosebank Rainbow Ferals’, radical colourfuls so radiant as to hurt some of the eyes of even the so notoriously tolerant Byron Bay folk. The mood is bright, the air charged with excitement. A parked van has its speakers out and the music loud. Do a little dance, catch up with some people.

Right then – unusual around here – a police car appears, slows down, giving us the look over. Can’t help being cynical:

“As soon as there is too much jolly, authority arrives.”

She scorns me by waving at the police car.

She looks stunning: Dressed royally – or rather eminently – in a red velvet body suit, a sizable Gnostic cross hanging over her chest, the red in her hair.

“You are so scarlet, I’ll listen to your every whim.”

Shopping. Drink at the pub. Tipsy walk back over our magnificently wild stretch of beach. We cross the car park while the ending of the play ‘Immaculate Deception’ releases its audience to the sea breeze. The play is on an amalgamation of all the ‘Messiahs’ this planet has produced so far. In the theatre crowd is her Astrologer friend who comes along for a nightcap and a chat. Inadvertently find out her star sign. Have always told her not to tell me, not to give me any preconceptions.
A Virgo. The Vicious Critic.

*

Up at the break of day. Catch her still in bed with coffee and joint. She’s still in her red velvet. Converse warmly, snug, hands on one another casually, as dear friends, androgynous.

Comes back from her tobacco hunt, upset about the presence of one of the resident gods, a datura casualty:

“Have no time for mad people. Am too close to the edge myself.”

It is here that she points at the basic incompatibility that we are faced with. We are both too close to the edge. Both need someone to ground us, not someone to pull us over.

The crowd of young ferals that is moving into the ‘backpackers’ that has sprung up at the dero end, has indeed a phenomenally high content of messiah journeys going on. Some of them full on, larger than life, in their animal skins, tattoos, talismans. At the moment we have an actual ‘J.C.’. For another a simple ‘J.’ will do.

Quite ambient, this conglomerate of divine madness and am actually totally at home here. However, there is a problem. We’re all on the same power line and it is not uncommon that when they put on the kettle we end up in the dark. Not good if that line is essential to your tool of trade.

Boot her up the ‘Tour through the Apple’. She mouse-clicks Ernest through the tunnel that will get him into Apple land, until he falls in the water and a loop in the circuitry prevents him from getting out. Give the machine a few good whacks and – incredibly – Ernest gets onto the rope that will get him out. Have a surge of spiritual satisfaction. Within seconds the power is off. The feral mob has once again pulled the plug.

Our lives at the Epicentre are built on sands as quick as the Belongil coastline.

A troupe of fire dancers moves onto the killing-floor. The heart of feral culture on top of the town. For me however, it is time to get my sweet self back to the land.

*

Our story caught and brought down on paper, revisit her. It is a year since we met. Full Moon in February. Timothy Leary, who considered himself to be Crowley’s successor in preparing the world for cosmic consciousness has passed on and permanently settled in cyberspace. Terrence McKenna, dubbed the ‘Tim Leary of the Nineties’ by Leary himself, is starting his Tour Down Under tonight at the Epicentre. Crowley’s grand successor so to speak. He is touring the ‘rave circuit’ and will speak at the region’s mega rave ‘Beyond the Brain’. The cosmic grid expanding into time as pertinently as into space. To have this cosmic relative visit my home away from home today is beyond amazing. It feels a lot like the sensation of being in San Diego when Leary was released from San Diego jail. My sex magick may not quite measure up but there has got to be something to this Moonchild business.

Her life has moved on. Has found herself another intimus. They are sitting at one of her tables. Present her with this here story of our encounter so she can read it before it goes anywhere, apologetically, as something that has to be done:

“Always told you that it was all about the story.”

As cool as ever:

“I can read it now. At the coffee bar.”

The Epicuronian has changed its name but the garden is as lovely as ever. Entertain some of her friends who have come to see the new high priest of psychedelics while she gives my portrait of her her uninterrupted attention.

Receives my views as level as only she could. Just asks me to alter a page or two.

“No problem.”

“Thanks.”

Something else must be going well: Fast Buck$ has arrived for dinner.

“First time since his pink pamphlet.”

The master of making trouble has given up his boycott.

By midnight the multitudes have gathered. Excited faces. Kundalini Rising. Buses have come up from Sydney for the event. People everywhere.

Safe in our little haven in the garden. 

The sounds of the rave meeting the sound of the ocean, in the full shine of the Moon.

***