In Search of White Gold (Part III.)

“Shuh No one Knows”

Every morning we took our places on an assembly line to harvest “white gold.”  We all played our role on the conveyor belt — sifting, cleaning, and mixing the golden crop — though it was never clear when cryptic healing formula would be ready.

The nutritional sorcerer claimed we were harvesting hundreds of thousands of dollars of monotonic gold that he discovered in the Rocky Mountains.  According to Jubb’s research, this compilation of small atom clusters consisted of ruthenium, copper, iridium and other elements that penetrated and rejuvenated the cell in a revolutionary way.  White gold was said to repair the DNA like no other mineral concoction.  There was a whispering campaign around the night fires to reassure the infidels that this treasure chest would soon bring us all great wealth.  It seemed strategic for my co-conspirators to seek part-time work in the meantime, before we cashed in on our pots of white gold.

One Kitchen, One Ego

The owners of the home were the well-to-do, old money Arizona families, the Schners and the Shnedleys.  They established strict rules about the rental, unsuspecting that a mad scientist was opening their property up to a commune of rutabaga fermenters and urine drinkers.  Jubb’s wandering family lived under the threat of being discovered and kicked out by the police at any moment.

Though he had set up shop on rented property, with someone else’s backing, Jubb called all the shots.  To venture outside of his routine brought consequences.  When the patriarch was not in the kitchen, Sitting Moose made cherry electrolyte lemonade with the Vitamix.  The Life Foods chief stormed into the kitchen and yanked the blender out of his hand, insisting “Sitting Moose: electrolyte lemonade is not sustainable for the entire collective.”

Nothing was transparent at our fort.  We tasted raw strawberry cheese cakes, quinoa lasagnas, quinergy pizzas, probiotic beverages, white gold and evacuees (a grounded power of root crops and vegetables) but we never learned what went into these elaborate concoctions.  He was careful to protect his exact measurements and concoctions, remaining forever paranoid that someone else might master his potions.  I picked up the tidbits that I could but so much of what we ate remained shrouded in secrecy.  After the fact, we learned that our cheeses were cultured with the most lively Life Food of them all, breast milk.  But we never learned how to culture and integrate the healthy enzymes into the almond and pumpkin seed-based cheeses.  We feasted on plates that cost $50 at one of Manhattan’s two or three raw food restaurants. But no recipe was ever written.  Why was Dr. Jubb maintaining a monopoly over the healing secrets?

There was only one meal, dinner.  It was served any time between 9 pm and midnight. Jubb then served an extravagant desert, such as coconut-based ice cream, peach cobbler or blackberry strudel.  Sitting Moose and Raining Dance infamously woke up early to raid the refrigerator and stock up on the previous night’s left overs.  This was the only hour they could sneak into the kitchen unchaperoned.

We lived off of 100% Life Foods at the campsite.  No other food was tolerated.

‘Maybe we are a Cult’

We rarely adventured off of the land unless the local healing community or University of Arizona organized public events for the good doctor to speak at.  We were his private army of Life Food elves.  With our name tags and varying commands of the Life Foods gospel, we were at his beck and call.  We passed out samples of Brazil nut milk, life dogs, and fermented drinks.  As we signed people up for consultations, cleanses and orders, I realized there would never be any follow up.  There was no centralism nor professionalism.  There was only the promise of now.

Jubb was a charismatic, humorous speaker with a unique dominion of the English language.  His invention of words and new grammatical rules was limitless, eloquently incorporating them into sentences that had a life of their own.  Here before us in the flesh was a born entertainer.  He was on this earth to take the stage.

Upon cleaning up after dinner we sat around a table under the stars posing questions about quantum physics and consciousness, cosmic numerology, social anthropology, & the proper mechanics of exercise.  We listened to his whirlwind responses that navigated every topic under the sun.  Is there a book he has not read?  Is there a question he has not pondered?

His response took us to Atlantis, Sri Lanka, Sweden and beyond.  Fifteen minutes later, he took a puff on his peace pipe, having sown more confusion and curiosity than clarity.  When he took his habitual puff, Sea of Sands chimed in with two sentences to address the question the twenty year-old had originally posed about what it means to derive energy, survive and thrive off of the Amazonian basin, precluding the need to consume food.   Happy Face claimed he had survived off of the land for two years without eating.  A camera crew and news network tracked his journey.  Sun gazing afforded him the energy he needed to perform exercises that built up his muscles.  Such elaborate tales kept the jaws of the clan members agape, hungry for more.

Lost in the Desert

Each personage has their own spiritual outlook, their own eccentricities and their own imbalance.  Some people were open to reason.  Others were closed and accepted every teaching as unchallengeable.  There were those who realized that they were contradictory individuals and sought to come to terms with that.  Others had no interest in plunging deeper into their  shortcomings.  The latter were a dangerous breed.  They spewed out lesson after lesson but when it came time to travel deeper into their own story, how quickly their defense mechanisms surfaced!  It was a waste of breath to engage souls who were not open to growth.  These were not breatharians.  These were exhalarians, blocked off from inhaling growth and healing.

There were Jubb prodigies who regurgitated his words and mimicked his style.  This parroting of Jubb’s teachings and mimicking of his eccentricities presented an awkward picture to outsiders.  Others learned not to lose sight of the teachings because of the all too human flaws of the teacher.

Even when Jubb was in the big house, Fire Glacier remained loyal to the holy Life Foods gospel.  He had not reached out to his family in eight months.  An older companion challenged Fire Glacier: “Young Blood: your messiah sleeps in the big house.  You don’t have to talk like that to us out here in the forests.  Think for yourself.  Take it all in but remember who you are too.”  The elder nutritionist encouraged him to reach out to his family back east in Pennsylvania, who he had become estranged from for the past year.  How worried they must have been, knowing only that their son had hitchhiked west to join a raw foods commune.

The all-knowing Jubb claimed that the organic tobacco and weed were good for the lungs.  Yet those who followed his ways remained short of breath in the canyons.  The youth-enhancing lifestyle that was said to produce real life Benjamin Buttons involved no physical activity.  Jubb set the pace and if something was out of whack, he just explained it away as part of eco-sterilization and other incomprehensible theories.  He put fourth convoluted concepts that no one dared challenge so as not to confront the imbalance of it all.  The great orators, spokespeople and proselytizers did not believe that listening was also a great skill.

Disharmony

Spectral Gaze and Humble Elk made a beautiful couple but they were constantly at each other’s throats. Because Spectral Gaze was Filipina from Hawai’i and Elk was Puerto Rican, they made matching t-shirts for their children that said “Hawai’a-Philirican and Proud.”

The past four years were a series of ebbs and flows for the Hawai’a-Philirican family.  They emitted a complete sense of resentment and tension.  Anyone in their presence could feel the disconnect.  They had a four year old girl, Purple Tree, a three year old boy, Fury Vision and a newborn boy, Selfless.

Spectral Gaze was aloof and detached.  Her trauma and mental illness hid behind her escapes; she only responded to life when she successfully “bummed” marijuana off someone.  Even then, the couple argued over the joint and how much should be allocated to who.  Her silence — pregnant with self-hatred — threatened to explode and hurt someone.  Would she hurt one of her children but make it look involuntary?  Spectral Gaze reminded us that hurt people take their pain out on those who are closest to them and most vulnerable.

For over a year, the couple bounced from home to home. They took advantage of unsuspecting families who took them in with their three beautiful children for a weekend that quickly turned into a month.  The couple launched into arguments blaming one another for their plight.  When questioned by their hosts about when they were leaving and why they do not pursue work opportunities, they lamely repeated: “This is what the universe has given us.”

Toxic Yoga

Sprawling, open fields were nestled in between awesome, fire-orange canyons of jagged geometrical proportions.  This was the land of the grazer, the adventurer and the hunter of destiny.

Humble Elk and I descended into the lush verdant valley for shaman training.  Barefoot and bare-chested, only Humble Elk’s arrogance separated him from the earth.  He swore he had everything figured out.  We began two separate yoga practices.  We exchanged light banter as we breathed through different poses.

In reverse warrior position, I inquired about his plan for his family.  Launching into a diatribe that blamed everyone else for their plight, his voice pierced the mountains.  Instead of reflecting on a logical plan, his penned-up fury against his partner, Spectral Gaze, bellowed out across the valley: “How can she reason?  She doesn’t even poop!  Compact fecal matter!  Compact fecal matter!  That is the problem!  Until she poops, we’ll never understand one another!”

The root causes of a relationship, in dire straits, was reduced to a lack of bowel movements.

Gobsacked, I nearly fell out of the downward dog I had cartwheeled into. This would have been hysterical were our dear healer not completely sincere in his denunciations of his non-pooping companion.  Convinced I could never make headway before his one-dimensional stubbornness, I retreated back into my breath as he continued his ranting.  I left him alone with the breathtaking mountain landscape, capable of absorbing his swarming anger better than I was.

Banking Reform

Dr. Jubb resented when people focused solely on the nutritional aspects of his teachings.  Recently, he put forth the theory that all social ills were rooted in the banking system.  In a hushed, conspiratorial tone the shaman emerged from the darkness, passionately pledging war on the banksters: “Mate: We will not rest until the people reclaim the money supply!”  As his tone intensified, the audience tuned in to the latest pronouncements on the pending appropriation of the banking industry.  Estranged from reality, the communards fervently swore to topple the Rothschilds and their banker cliques.  Here assembled before my eyes was a revolutionary army like no other I had ever seen.

At any moment, the chief spiraled off onto sweeping tangents, pledging to lead a moratorium against the bankers that would be the basis for a social revolution.  “All we have to do is check the box for a moratorium.  It is a box, mate. Check check.”  I looked around at the burnt-out crew, sipping their eighth tea of the day and puffing on their ninth joint.  I was worried about humanity’s fate if it was in their hands.  Still, Jubb’s inflections and eyes bedazzled the audience.  Even if you knew it to be pure hullabaloo, his emotions drew you in as they rose and contracted.

The teacher had a volatile side as well.  I committed a blunder one night.  Through another one of Jubb’s students, I learned that a couple in Idaho sold 60 pound tubs of raw honey for $189.  Because two pounds of unheated honey sold for $30 dollars, buying in bulk made sense.  Salmon Valley honey had been my supplier for the past few years.  I shared this brilliant deal and passed the information along to others.   I received an ear full from Jubb for divulging the secret of the treasure chest of unrefined honey.  Jubb insisted that they were his exclusive contacts, not to be shared with anybody.  He denounced Whirlwind and I for daring to pass along “his contacts.”  “Mate you must tell Whirlwind to never give out those contacts. That is nooooot correct mate. I do not expect this to happen again.”  Incandescent from the anger, he lectured all of us on respecting his command over the Life Foods mothership.

The Human Connection

Paranoia and inner-compound arguments were common.  The Life Foods movement never grew beyond a few dozen followers spread out across the globe because there was only room for one messiah.  Other self-anointed saviors emerged to set up their own kingdoms.  The unwritten rule was one massive ego per encampment.

I stayed clear of any disagreement or confrontation, focusing on the human connections that united us all.  I recognized that this was not a temporary, entertaining escapade for everyone.  I listened to everyone, drew out their story and offered insights on how to go deeper into forgiveness, healing and self-love, with the ultimate aim of rising up on the system that was responsible for our suffering.  I questioned the worth of individual cleansing if it was disconnected from the healing of the unhealthy, absurd society we lived in.  The point was not to withdraw permanently, like vegan hermits into the mountains, but to remain within the insidiousness, sharing Life Foods healing so that others could take power back over their health.  Until the nutritional world was connected to the broader mission of overthrowing oppression and seizing power, who did it serve?

I trusted that material reality would prove to be a superior hypnotist and guide Jubb’s troops away from dead-end conspiracy tales towards the only denouement that can ever liberate us all from our common foe — struggle, class struggle.

He Never Stopped Teaching

As soon as Dr. Jubb reached for his pipe, I had my questions ready: “How do we understand schizophrenia and heal it?”  “Tell us about autism”  “Is there any cancer we cannot heal?”  The wilder the question I posed, the more unpredictable the response it elicited.  Dr. Jubb’s pedigree and knowledge were inspiring.  It was bedeviling to gather at his side for hours and only understand a fraction of the words I was enmeshed in.

The roving, playful medicine man had no interest in stability.  Nature was his element. He was in Nebraska one week, and then suddenly hitching a ride off to the Rocky Mountains.  He made a brief appearance in Tasmania until he made an impromptu trip to set up shop in Mexico or Malaysia.  He lived on the run.  He hid out and reappeared.  Some of the forward-thinking campers urged him to open a bank account.  He refused.  He advised his followers not to pay taxes or work.  He lectured on common law and how to outsmart the courts.  He designed documents to win land grants from the government. But he, who would lead us all over the horizon towards a new human epoch, did not have his own house in order.  He, who charged exorbitant prices for all of his products, did not have a dime to his name.

Was this Spiritual Materialism?  What working-class person could spend hundreds of dollars on cleansing products?  He was uncompromising about his prices but only sold an occasional jar of almond milk or probiotic rutabaga.  Giving away his delicious recipes in the course of the extravagant collective dinners and lectures he hosted, the control freak was at the same time a sentient, giving being.

We were all part of Something Special

It was unpredictable who might make an appearance at the Eagle campsite.  We hosted a full spectrum of visitors — leading scientists, a local medicine man, actors among them Woody Harrelson, the model Donna Karan, music producers, a contestant for Mr. Universe and patients recovering from cancer or Lyme disease.  Hip hop performers from Wu Tang Clan and other rap groups dropped in for a visit, looking for their own healing and answers.  That was the fun of it all.  You never knew who would wander in over the canyons next.

I asked Jubb to reveal the names of some of his past clients.  He retorted: “Mate do you think this is about me mentioning the prime ministers, Olympic athletes and kings that I have worked with?  You want me to drop names? That is not who I am mate.”

Despite his inner-contradictions, from which none of us are free, David Jubb was a warm, kind, generous, sweet man.  I felt his love for all of us in his gentle words and actions.  He took care to integrate everyone into his Life Food operations.  One minute he read us a poem before shifting to pick up his drum and flute or retrieving a bottle of Black Gold and teaching us how to massage one another’s’ injuries.  There was never a dull moment.

Jubb paid attention to everyone and met them where they were at.  The partially literate Sitting Moose became his video man.  He beamed with pride after putting together a video clip about sun-dried sea salt and it’s functioning within the cell.  I asked Sitting Moose where he was a few months ago and how he felt now.  His response was: “A year ago I was fresh out of prison and addicted to Crystal Meth.  Now? Well, fuck I’m bored and freaked out by all the hippies but I know that I am onto to something worth checking out.  Since I was homeless and hungry, I said what the fuck!”

A unifier, Jubb had a way of bringing us all together.  Reading people’s energy and bodies like a book, he popped up out of his chair mid-sentence and attended to someone’s aching injury.  A story teller of the first sort, did he separate fact from fiction?  One dawn, as the dew spread across the front lawn, the omniscient chief described how Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky were Brooklyn school boys the Rothschilds had whisked into St. Petersburg in order to keep Russia in the hands of the bankers.  As a student of Russian history, I wondered if I should laugh or if he sincerely believed his own wild tales?  He was dead serious. Had the years of hallucinogenic experimentation altered his mind?

We huddled around the camp fire one last night.  Jubb’s drum transported us back to the ancestral Lakota homeland.  It felt like I was back at my aunt and uncle’s house where my family congregates to celebrate Christmas.  There was a deep sense of community and an overpowering feeling of love and solidarity.  I had to leave and return to my son, my classroom, my home and my reality; it was tough to pull away from this parallel universe.

One month after my departure, the Schners and the Shnedleys, the old German scions of wealth who owned the property, contacted the state police, reporting that a druggie commune had squatted on one of their properties. The police descended on The Return to the Eagles’ Nest and the eviction began shortly after. Once again the road called. Jubb and his faithful followers departed into the night. Where would the shaman set up his next encampment?