Psychedelic Realms

By Andie Kirkdale

A collection of colorful short stories, poems, and digital photo art featuring adventures in dream worlds and a queen of the psychedelic sea who wants to bring her consciousness-expanding waters to the realms to liberate them from the forces of dryness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716734908

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Copyright

Psychedelic Realms

Copyright © 2020 by Andie Kirkdale

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-716-73490-8

No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, scanning, recording, printing, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without express written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, products, organizations, and incidents are creations of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, products, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover: digital photo art by Andie Kirkdale

Waters of the Soul

The Queen’s Arrival

One day, when we weren’t looking for it, the psychedelic sea flooded our town.

The night before we consulted the newspaper, the news station, and the news net. They told of rain, perhaps wind. There was no prediction of the giant multicolored wave that now rose in the ocean and headed toward us.

In advance of the wave, a troupe of four sea lions swam ashore. Holding horns and drums in their flippers, they trooped in a line down the beach and stationed themselves in front of us. With a series of honks, bangs, and barks, they announced,

From the psychedelic sea

Rushes a wavy daze.

It’s a marvelous phase

That leads through the maze--

It opens the ways.

They concluded their song with a cacophony of chords and a tossing of their instruments up into the air. When the instruments landed in the sand, the sun glinting off brass and drumsticks with yellow flashes, the sea lions nodded and applauded each other.

It was supposed to be a light rain, we said.

The Queen of Akvo arrives, barked the sea lions. Stand by for psychedelic wisdom.

Life made more sense when you lived at the aquarium, we said.

The sea lions let out barking laughs and slid back into the sea, leaving behind their drums and horns half-buried in the sand.

We considered picking up the instruments, thinking what a good price they could fetch when advertised as vintage pinniped noisemakers or marine communication devices.

But no sooner did we walk forward when the colorful wave roared onward. We braced for impact, ready to be washed away.

When the water hit us, we felt lightened instead. Insight dawned: the water waves were turning into light waves.

The waters of light crashed down on the shore of our expectations, washing them away, pulling them back into the sea to mix with life forms we didn’t know were possible. Colors of infinite vibrations poured over us, then through the streets. The light waters rushed through town, leaving buildings intact but changing ontological notions of ourselves.

Our minds opened. Consciousness shifted.

The sky turned purple; the sun burned orange. Unfolding from our huddled position like newborn flowers, we stood up.

The Queen of Akvo paddled a seashell boat over the light waves, her long silver hair flowing behind her. The sea lion at her side wore a space helmet and barked at us as she passed by.

As the Queen sailed on, a set of stories traveled with each wave. The stories beckoned with thought brochures typed with an alien alphabet that engulfed us with details of exquisite trips. Minds from realms beyond our own manifested themselves.

The realms called to us, asking for help: Our colors are fading. Keep the sea psychedelic! In the waves around us, bottles with messages popped up, glass twinkling with rainbows.

Refreshed by the light waters of gnosis, we left our usual state of being to experience adventures in psychedelic realms.

Tour of the Realm of Origin I

Welcome back to the Realm of Origin, the heart of Big Bang, the pleroma of possible generation. I am X’al’a, your xenagogue to this land of imagination and creation.

Ordinary life is too often a place of forgetting. Therefore, I work as a guide to help people remember their awareness of realms beyond their own.

You were born here in a community named Not-where, population artichoke dipped in cheese sauce.

Nonsense, you say? Why, nonsense was your first language, your native artichokian speech.

Let’s climb aboard the tour yak and gallop along the shore of the psychedelic sea. Hold on to his mane of manifestation and enjoy the visions.

Notice the multi-colored waves where all beings came from. Once you have experienced this psychedelic sea, even the smallest of your tear drops will have a generating power.

Be careful to balance on the yak as we climb into the Happy Hills. Here, the People of Cheer toast their marshmallows over the Fires of Creation. Note how they call to you, their eyes ablaze with reflected fire patterns, their figures twenty feet high casting long shadows that dance on the purple rock ground. You will understand their language once you have reached midlife and spend an afternoon in a café listening to a zither player who will strike the right note at the right time.

Now, to your not-right, you can see the Dance of the Cockatoos Who Remembered Their Locker Combination. It’s a solemn, yet upbeat traditional song that you once heard in your dreams after falling asleep in geography class. One Cockatoo retrieves her math notebook containing pages of equations alternating with pages of fan fiction about a boy bird band that flew across television screens late at night when the nation needed hope.

Then, to your not-left, please observe a group of gerbils re-enacting the Ritual of Oo-op-oq, which you performed that one time when you played a prank on the old man. See how the gerbils jump on the box with gusto, their squeaks proclaiming victory until they forget why they’re jumping. They break into huddles, discuss, and jump again, happy because they’re making art.

Confused between your not-right and not-left? Yes, it’s a common problem among the artichokian speakers, as your language has different concepts of spatiality.

To the immediate front is a rare Uk, who doesn’t know it exists. It floats among the biddleberry trees until its tail catches on a branch and down to a planet it goes where it manifests as a vague feeling of having forgotten something, not remembered until five years later.

To the immediate behind is a common Ku, who is quite aware it exists and eager to tell you. It stomps around the mountains until it climbs up to the roof of the universe where it manifests as a public broadcast system informing everyone everywhere every day that it has a headache.

Now look to the distant fields of Sha-Ke-Plo where the Dogs of Wisdom wait for their visitor. They walk among the incandescent daffodils and write thoughtful notes which they send by hummingbird to those who need it most.

Beyond them yet are the Chartreuse Mountains where the psychedelic sea originates and where the Inter-Realm Tribunal metes out justice.

More nonsense, you say? But this was once your home.

Let’s go to when it all began.

Creation Story

In the moment after the Big Bang, all the realms rushed out into the expanding universe.

The realms traveled on the waters of a psychedelic sea, rising on the tops of multi-color waves that illuminated the dark of space. The waves crashed down into empty spaces and generated worlds, many of which will be known and some of which will always remain a mystery.

The first realm lined up. The second realm squared up. The third realm was spherical but still empty, so Bang sent out the imp quarks.

The imp quarks raced outward and sang:

Boo la hey,

Boo la way,

Boo la say.

Proton, electron, atom,

Hydrogen, ho!

Around them, galaxies with planets formed. One planet and its two moons third from the sun had the perfect conditions for a variety of life. The imp quarks danced new beings into existence.

On the planet’s surface, a tiny creature jumped up and squeaked, I do believe I’m a flea.

I’m more of what you’d call a stoat, said a furry creature.

The flea jumped on the stoat which began to scratch itself.

I am a rhinoceros, said a