SEVENTEEN

We would have our daughter at home, and expected an easy birth as had been the case ten years earlier with Shaya. Then, we’d just eaten dinner at Mo’s Restaurant, during which Diana thought that she was ready to have her baby, strolled a block to our apartment, phoned the folks that wanted to witness the birth, and the midwife of course, and a few hours later Shaya rather effortlessly (at least on my part) appeared. A little smack on his behind, that first cry, and we knew he’d be fine. Nastassia’s birth, however, turned into a two-day ordeal of pain that was my fault. As before, the midwife arrived on time, however I was told by one of the ‘guides’ that Diana should not give birth that day; the baby was not fully formed and would be born with webbed toes if the birth continued. The midwife was no stranger to new-age thought, and left only after much protestation at this supposed spiritual insight. She returned the next day to perform her task, forbidding me to contact any spirits. A long and extremely painful birth process produced our healthy daughter, who needed no smack for a cue to start crying.

“Told you it would be a girl”, I remarked, but this was not unexpected due to the characteristic basketball shape during the pregnancy. The ‘guides’ were correct as well, a feather in their cap. But was this the reincarnation of my mother? There was no way to tell, of course. And now residing in a living body, Norma remained unavailable to channel. Often parents will count the fingers and toes of their newly hatched; I looked at her toes first and observed not a trace of webbing. Being at Diana’s side during the lengthy birth process deepened my love for her. Each time she squeezed my hand and screamed with pain I cried tears of shame at how I’d treated her, she who was indeed my ‘soul mate'. Plus her grip really hurt; I never realized how strong this diminutive gal was!

Nastassia’s birth took place a couple of months after another one at our place. We had an ornery cat that Diana called Mama Kitty after a cat from her youth. I’d picked it up at the pet shop in the Medford Mall, but she was never a personable animal. The ‘guides’ said to call her Nishna, although I forget what they said that name meant. We also called her ‘Nish’ or ‘Knish’ for short. We fed her outside on the little deck that came with the apartment, abutting a creek and large field, which meant that we also fed a host of wildlife including raccoons, possum, deer and other cats. One of the latter was a big, old, injured Tom that we tried to nurse back to health and apparently Nish also participated in that. She gave birth to four little ones; two were the image of her, skittish and unfriendly. The other two, one black, one grey, were fantastic and loving kittens. We fell in love with the black one and named him Zeus.

Our former Zeus was born at the redwood stilt house and lived about twelve years. While we lived near the Wow Hall, we’d witnessed him getting run over by a kid on a fat-tired bike. His injuries didn’t kill him at that time, and Diana was able to nurse him back to health using brewer’s yeast. We took him to the vet when he stopped eating, not suspecting that he was dying, and had to leave him there so that he didn’t make the move with us to Ashland. He had damage to multiple organs, and this somehow put the fear in me that perhaps I might die the same way. Diana was crushed when I told her Zeus would not be making the trip with us; he was like our little Moses, not being able to enter the Promised Land. After nursing her quadruplets for a minimal but sufficient time, Mama Kitty lashed out at them when they tried approaching her, then ran away never to be seen again. The new Zeus remained as part of our family, but Shaya paid the toll for all the catty activity in the house, his asthma permanently returning.

Asthma was never an issue in Florence with its clean air except at Grandma’s closed-in house with a wood stove and no ventilation. But in Eugene, Shaya would have to be taken to the hospital twice when breathing became difficult. Albuterol, the same drug I occasionally used, became an easy solution for him, when necessary. But throughout Nish’s pregnancy and afterwards, Shaya’s condition worsened, and if we had any sense to speak of, we would have never had any more pets after the old Zeus passed away. But sense was sorely lacking in a household that “did whatever the little voices asked”. We did try years of injections, but only Shaya’s move after high school to a pet-free environment near the coast would eventually bring him relief. Still, we all loved that second Zeus so much, who lived about 13 years, dying of diabetes.

    Nastassia, named after my mom and inspired by the actress Nastassja Kinkski, was a beautiful, happy, healthy and smart baby, a total gift of G-d. From all outward appearances we were now a normal nuclear family. Although what's normal in Ashland is subject to interpretation.

“The Christ” threw me a curveball the day he told me that it was time for me to become a Christian. He’d been teaching me for months about how love was the most important thing, a concept straight out of the New Testament that I still had not read at this point. He’d been telling me to read the Bible, and I admit that I was curious to read the forbidden 'New' section of it, but I was only somewhere in Genesis. I asked whether I should start with Matthew, but 'The Christ' said no, to begin at the beginning. Nevertheless, when I’d pick the Bible up and start reading it, he’d usually begin a channeling session, or else I’d fall asleep. 

    How can I be a Christian, I asked, when I am a Jew and do not recognize or care to recognize its leader Jesus? Plus, Christianity is represented by those greedy, ignorant, lying preachers on late-night TV, I argued. But I was being called to be a 'true' Christian, to teach Christians the truth as he was training me to do. He told me that Jesus was an evolved spirit, the avatar of Planet Earth, yet I would go on to do and teach greater things and I was not to be dissuaded by a mere avatar of only a single planet. The first thing 'The Christ' asked me to do was to stop hating Christians.

I didn’t hate Christians, per se, but hated people that were pushy, shoving their religion down people’s throats. I knew precious little to nothing about Christianity, but knew that it was oppressive and hypocritical. How could these people, who tortured and murdered Jews for centuries, be arbiters of morality? I was on a search for truth as it were, but Christianity was nowhere on my list of ism’s that bore checking out. Hate came easy for me; I hated lots of other people, too: anyone in authority, rich people, and fans of lame music, The Eagles and Elton John in particular, unless it was a pretty female that I could sway to my superior taste. I wondered how people could waste their precious life listening to mediocre, lowest-common-denominator drivel that the music industry had programmed them to think they liked, when there was a whole universe of truly great music out there. Even now I squirm when accosted by The Eagles’ music at a restaurant and digest my food with difficulty. These days I pray for the Eagles, confess my musical prejudice as a sin, and try my best to ignore 'Hotel California' for the billionth time.

As an exercise in loving Christians, the entity asked me to start attending church and to be baptized. Church was, after all, the place where people needed most to hear the truth. They believed that Jesus, a man, was G-d incarnate instead of worshipping Wotan directly. Furthermore, it was an exclusive religion and needed to open its doors to all people. My simple message to the Church was to be that G-d loved everyone and somehow I was to infiltrate with this message. When I first started attending, I was surprised to hear the preacher say that very thing; G-d did love all His creation, but...there was always a 'but'. I asked if I should stand up, in this room of 700 people, and correct the pastor! Wotan told me to wait until the proper time; he’d let me know what to say and when.

The next step in my new Christian 'walk' was to confess my sins to Wotan, aka 'The Christ'. On my knees I confessed such things as hating people, lying and cheating, then was asked to head to the bathtub for my baptism. Wearing a bathing suit, I dunked under the water, holding my breath until he said I could come up. I was now officially Christian and baptized into Wotan, swearing to honor and obey him forever. I was to eventually have a public church baptism as well, after finding a church to attend. How was I to do that? There were dozens of churches, even in new age Ashland. "Ask your Christian friend Debbie", was the answer I received.

A year earlier, I’d been hired as an expert on the value of rare records by a woman in the process of being divorced, so as to fairly divide their possessions. She was more a client than a friend, and was very surprised when I phoned her for her opinion on a church. I was told to ask where a good place to be baptized would be. “That’s an unusual question”, she said, knowing I was anti-Christian if anything. “Why do you want to baptized?” I think I want to be a Christian and I’m just trying to figure out the best place to do it, I replied. She wondered how I knew that she was a Christian; she’d never told me that. I said that I was told she was a Christian; she wanted to know by whom. But shortly, perhaps semi-convinced that I was sincere, she suggested two possibilities, including the church that she presently attended. The latter would become my target.

I’d been to one other 'church' previously, a Unity congregation that met in a city-owned log cabin on park property. The entire meeting concerned tips on making money, quite a departure from the services I was used to at synagogue! 'The Christ' asked me if I was willing to stand up and say something to this group, right then in the middle of their presentation. But he didn’t force me to, thankfully. On my first visit to Ashland Christian Fellowship, I just listened and observed. I expected to see a few people I knew there, but I recognized no one. It felt funny being inside a large Christian edifice. Once before, I’d peeked inside a big church during a trip to Montreal with Ellen. The World’s Fair had been held over and renamed “Man and His World”, and we vacationed up there traveling by bus. The driver decided to stop along the way, somewhere in northern New York State, at an old Catholic church as a treat for his passengers. It was loaded with stained-glass, and there were statues on the inside. We were afraid to go in, and just a peek inside the door positively creeped me out. I felt weird entering this church in Ashland as well; what was a Jew doing inside a place like this. But people were super friendly, so I found a seat in the very back and realized there was nothing here to fear. After the service, people were invited to be baptized in the creek running alongside the building. Wotan said that my bathtub baptism had been sufficient, but that eventually I could be baptized in this creek as well.

I continued to be obsessed with where we ought to move, however. We’d lived in Ashland for a few years and I was constantly thinking about where to go next. In my ‘New Age’ dream, I envisioned myself as a leader, perhaps a priest of my own church, a teacher to guide others into the true light that the ‘guides’ had revealed to me. After letting me know that he was getting tired of my consistent returning to this subject, Wotan finally advised me to move to Snoqualmie, Washington, where there was a congregation I could take over that would be open to our message. Diana, however, nixed this plan, unwilling to move someplace colder and snowier than where we already lived. Still, I continued to plan for the time that I would be able to lead a 'true' Christian church based on the 'new' teachings of 'The Christ' that I was receiving.

As a 'Christian', I felt I now had to change some things about my business. I made a list of artists that I felt were too negative to sell anymore and asked Wotan about each one, but he said to figure it out myself and not bother him with things I already knew what to do about. So I discontinued selling Guns ‘n Roses because they had allegedly made a remark disparaging of gays; then the Sex Pistols had to go because of their moniker. I made up for this cleansing by adding more 'positive' things, and boasted the best selection of New Age and feminist cassette tapes in town.

    I was forbidden, however, to charge any money for my advice or any past-life readings I might do. I took an ad in one of the local alternative health publications offering to do free readings. I wondered why other mediums were allowed to charge for their services, but I was not. But I accepted my fate and went along with this rule. How much can one argue with the 'creator of the universe' after all?