8284. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, #83

83. NORTHERN 

DISPENSARY

Sometimes I was just gliding

along, intent on knowing that

all things will take care of 

themselves. Even the 'correcting'

of my dumb mistakes. Follies:

I never believed in 'Medicine'.

At Waverly  Place each day, I'd

pass by this little triangle in the

street  -  not little, really, that's

a misnomer. It was a triangular 

square, of the sort that you only

find in Greenwich Village, mostly,

not only. Large enough for a small

building. When they laid down

the grid plan, in 1800, all of the

area of the city, up above this,

was still pretty bare, so the grid

worked  -  all new streets and cuts

and stuff. But here, in Greenwich 

Village, which pre-existed all that,

as did all of 'downtown' below it,

they often had to, instead of the 

rigid 'grid', go with what things 

were often already in place  -  

houses and gardens, lanes and 

buildings. So, in many spots, 

where streets were already in 

place, they sort of had to make 

things 'fit' and adapt themselves

to the pre-existing format. So 

there are all sorts of cut-offs 

and alleys and lanes; things 

like Patchin Place, Greenwich 

Mews, MacDougal Alley, 

Minetta Lane, and Minetta 

Street too  -  where once

The Fat Black Pussycat was

located (my days), the bar

in which 'Blowin' In the Wind''

was written  -  about Dylan's 

girlfriend Suze Rotolo doin' 

him in a storm. Ok, just a joke. 

But it was written there. (You 

see this banter, this is the very 

sort of stuff people used to do 

here, sit around in all these 

dark little bars and cafes and 

go endlessly on with witty 

stupidities and endless 

harangues. Including Bob 

Dylan and Victor Maimudes

and Ramblin' Jack Elliot too). 

ANYWAY, class, back to 

the lesson plan. The point 

here was my distaste for 

'Medicine', the whole 

profession, the very idea,

blows. The precious and the

vital consciousness of the 

'Body' will heal or repair, 

or cure itself, one way or 

the other, if just left to be, 

and tended to correctly and

spiritually, by developing a

presence, not a crutch. Filling

the body up with toxins and

poisons, in order to heal (?)

simply confuses the divine 

order within, and begins the

layering of the complications,

which then become the 

affliction. It's all too

confusing, and it's just,

after a certain point, a

'business' from which to

make money. Ever see a

Doctor in a heap, or even

in a Volkswagen? No, of 

course not, you're always 

paying for lifestyle. On

this little triangle of land, 

still standing (oh, watch 

out, little building, I am

the kiss of death), there's an

old brick building  -  right 

now it's all in bad shape and

neglected. It's very old, NY 

old anyway, like 1830 or 

something, and it's called

'The Northern Dispensary'.

The lettering is still up on the

now abandoned building. 

(You can look it up, and

see photos of it too). It had

(then) a nice little stairway

and porch thing  -  I know, 

because I slept cuddled 

along it a few different 

nights that first Summer  -  

and in its original days it 

was an emergency, walk-in 

clinic for ill people of that 

day. It was called 'Northern' 

because, back then, it truly 

was  -  at the northern terminus 

of the city, even outside of 

it for a while. (Greenwich 

Village was an actual 'village', 

a place of its own, later 

absorbed and swarmed by 

the city proper. It was a 

place to which, during the

smallpox epidemic of those 

years, the New Yorkers from 

the base of the island (today's 

financial district) fled for the 

open and fresh air and sea 

breezes. It also had the original

Potter's Field, for all those dead, 

epidemic or not, and which is 

now Washington Square). It

was called 'Dispensary' because

that's what they did  -  whatever

they diagnosed you with, they'd

dispense to you medicine for,

whatever the 'drugs' were in 

those days, natural stuff, I'm

sure, simple remedies and 

nothing synthetic. It was for

everything, toothaches to 

bad eyes, and for everyone.

Edgar Allen Poe, who lived

just up the block, was treated 

there. (He lived in any number

of NY places, mostly still 

existing and making some 

note of him. The one near 

here, NYU has long ago 

taken over and built on, 

leaving only the falseness

of the fake and 'recreated' 

facade of the original  -  they 

claim  -  red brick building 

of his day. It's bogus. The 

community had a fit over 

this, but NYU, in their 

usual 'Good Neighbor' 

Policy, could not have

cared less. No matter, now.

There's another dumb-shit

something pretty to look at).

-

The Dispensary is one of 

those timeless landmark 

things that, if you know 

how to feel and read the

past, can still come alive 

in your presence. The old

building is all locked up

and sad now, but I used to

sit there and know the 

open-door breezes that

slid across that little,

polished wood hallway

which brought you in  -  

two entrances, three or 

four steps up from street

level, and one from down 

below, a few steps down, 

and up through the cooler 

concrete. The windows 

went up and down, and 

attendants lurked. The

strange locals came and 

went. A different world,

yes, for sure, and so often

I had one foot right into it.

I really should have 

jumped in.

-

What we try to define as

'place' and as 'time' aren't

really either one. I learned

that, at least that, in my 

time in that city. My 

world was fluid, and 

I kept it that way by 

force. It's all so easy

to, almost accidentally,

start to make things begin

reading, or sounding, as

complete crap, but this is

all I know and this is what

I did. Life lessons, so to

speak. It's all so bizarre.

Consider this: In 1967, the

physicists of the world, the

real world, were just coming

to the acceptance-conclusion

of 'parallel worlds,' of things

that could be and not be, at the

very same time. Quantum

leaps, invisible particles, 

more psychic than real, 

inhabiting no 'real' space 

or time, and moving off,

dissembling, or disappearing

upon being examined. A

sort of 'magical' particle 

physics in which there 

were no 'particles' and 

certainly no certainties.

That was then  -  things

being and not being, 

together at the same time. 

Back then they considered it

a big deal to proclaim that,

for this reality, there was

one other reality, a parallel 

universe. Now, 50 years later,

and  -  I find  -  only affirming

all I've learned alone in my 

own life  -  there are, just 

as these 'Physicists' now say,

endless layers of parallel

universes, in which we are

each involved : layers of

realities, of both positive

projections, and of 

deceptions and all those 

black darknesses of death

and bad power.  The 

negatively-engaged 

aspects of each of us, as

one; mass-induced and

thinking organically.

Creating wars and battles.

Inducing conflicts and the

dark  -  kids growing up

on war-games and hand-held

destinies they don't even know.

Even these physicists of today

are astounded by what they

keep finding. All things exist,

and nothing does. We are apart

in a world together. Live is

the force of Love and Goodness,

the mad chemical bond that holds

things. If, back then, I had the

chance, and if I'd reached the

prime portal for myself into that

other 'place', I'd have stepped 

through it, believe you me, again,
and never-more have been seen.
--------
["Putting this as simply as possible, your actual 
experience is far too vast for you to physically
follow. Your particular kind of consciousness is 
the result of a specialized focus within a
particular area. You imagine it to be
'absolute' in that it seems to involve an
all-inclusive state that includes your
identity as you think of it  -  only to give
it boundaries like a kingdom. It is, instead,
a certain kind of organization that is indeed
inviolate even while it is itself a portion of
other kinds of consciousness, with their own
points of focus. Your body itself is composed of
self-aware organizations of consciousness that
escape your notice and deal with perceptual
material utterly alien to your own ways. There are
affiliations of a most 'sophisticated' fashion that 
leap even the boundaries of the species. You look 
upon your cultural world with its art and
manufacture, its cities, technology, and the
cultivated use of the intellectual mind. You
count your religions, sciences, archeologies,
and triumphs over  the environment, and it
seems to you that no other consciousness has
wrought what man's has produced.  Those 
'products' of your consciousness are indeed 
unique, creative, and form a characteristic mosaic
that has its own beauty and elegance. There are
organizations of consciousness, however, that 
leapfrog the species, that produce no art or
sciences per se, yet these together form the
living body of the earth and the physical
creatures thereon.  Their products are the seas
upon which you sail your ships, the skies through
which your airplanes fly, the land upon which
your cities sprawl, and the very reality that makes
your culture, or any culture, possible. Man is a part
of that trans-species consciousness also, as are the
plants and animals. Also, part of man's reality
contributes to the  trans-species organization, but 
Man has not chosen to  focus his practical daily
consciousness in that direction, or to identify his
individuality with it. As a result, he does not
 understand the greater natural mobility he
himself possesses, nor can he practically perceive
 the natural psychological gestalts of which he is
a part, that form all of your natural  -  meaning
physical  -  world.  In dreams this relationship is
often revealed. The truth behind such relationships is 
inherent in all God-Man, God-Woman, God-Animal,
or Animal-Woman legends and mythology. There are
connections, then, between man and the animals and
the so-called gods (in small letters) that hint at
psychological and natural realities. Any section of land
has an identity, so to speak, and not just symbolically.
Such identities represent the combined organizations
of consciousness of land, man, and animal, within any
given realm. Simply enough put, there are as many
kinds of consciousness as there are particles, and these
are combined in infinite fashions. In the dream state
 some of that experience, otherwise closed to you, forms
the background of the dream drama. Your 
consciousness is not one thing like a flashlight, that
you possess.  It is instead a literally endless
conglomeration of points of consciousness,
swarming together to form your validity  -  
stamped, as it were, with your identity. Whether
dispersed, concentrated in tight grouping, appearing
'alone' or flying through other large swarms, that
particular organization represents your identity."]
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