Anything can happen at HDBC -- and usually does.

"We think we are conscious, but we aren't. We are asleep, hypnotized, sleep-walking -- the metaphors vary, but they all mean that we can't see outside our conditioned reality-tunnel. When we begin to awaken, we perceive that the world is nothing at all like the myths and superstitions our society has imposed on us." Robert Anton Wilson interpreting George Gurdjieff's take on reality from his book, Beezlbub's Tales to His Grandson.

Illustration: "The Evening" by Sergei Chernenko, or as Dada likes to think of it, "Anything can
happen (even in the afternoon!) when with friends at the High Desert Brewing Company."

Last Saturday, at the High Desert Brewing Company (HDBC) in Las Cruces, Mrs. Dada and I sat at our usual table scanning the pages of the latest edition of Grass Roots Press with its progenitors, "Tom and Brenda." Having noted India Pale Ales were back on the menu (they were out of stock last visit), the afternoon's success was already assured.

Our waitress approached to take our order. "We'll have three 3 pints of IPA and an iced tea," we told her.

Noticing the Grass Roots Press with which we were all so engrossed, she said, "Oh, that's a great newspaper!"

Before containing my glee at her appreciation I blurted, "Well, this is it's publisher!" nodding toward "Tom." Obviously very pleased to be in his presence, to meet him, she returned the volley with, "Well, that's me in the photo on its front page!" Our glances all scurried back to the front page, to the photo.

"Oh, so you must be Cassandra then?" the fastest among us said after rereading the photo's caption. "Yep, that's me!" she confirmed.

The photo was of our waitress doing volunteer work at a community garden in a small El Paso desert suburb of Chaparral, just over the border in New Mexico. She was helping teenagers hired by the Youth Conservation Corps of New Mexico paint a mural on one of their garden's out buildings.

During the course of our HDBC visit, we learned Cassandra is one of those renaissance people of the 21st Century. Under employed, if one's definition of fully employed is a 40+ hour/week full time job. But with a BFA in art and masters in history she is plenty busy with at least three jobs as a part-time waitress, museum employee and social outreach worker in a small out-of-way community garden. (But this is a story for another blog, another time.)

I was struck, however, with how much in common Cassandra has with our friends "Tom and Brenda," i.e., all multi-talented without full-time jobs. Called under employed by the system (now destroying the lives of formerly full-time employed workers), Tom, Brenda and Cassandra are very busily occupied earning successful livings with varied endeavors tapping into their rich diversity of talents and knowledge. I feel privileged to be among such people. They may better survive the future rigors demanded of us all in the New World now unfolding.

So, what has this to do with anything? Well, if things go as planned, the new week is scheduled to kick off with another rendezvous at HDBC tomorrow afternoon. And I don't think it's just the great India Pale Ales they serve up there, but suspect instead the High Desert is a vortex that may engulf anyone at anytime who enters therein with serendipity, with synchronicity. As prelude to tomorrow, I have this afternoon already experienced a synchronicity - hint of what may follow tomorrow? *

Synchronicities like ours last Saturday with Cassandra and Grass Roots Press are not uncommon. We have had many wonderful moments over the years at HDBC. As far as "blogger" moments, tomorrow we are to meet again with a ball of light whom we met for the first time at High Desert last October.

And there have been a great number of rendezvous with "Tom and Brenda," many of which they have shared with us, like when we, along with Border Explorer and her husband, met for the first time (as Los Tres Bloggeros) with eProf2 and his lovely wife, visiting from Arizona in January.

But speaking to a ball of light yesterday, he hinted at living a life of enchantment in recent months. This only served to strengthen my anticipation for tomorrow with he, "Tom and Brenda" and the Dada's at HDBC.

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* Dada note: As I was reading a book this afternoon on ancient man entitled Supernatural and his development to include the use of symbols and their later employment by shamans, thoughts of this blog began distracting me.

Anticipating another visit to HDBC tomorrow, "I must relate last Saturday's HDBC synchronicity about our waitress!" I thought. Especially in light of a ball of light's recent serendipitous period within which he's now immersed.

Casting aside my book, I picked up one by Robert Anton Wilson. I knew it might be a good source for synchronicities, but checking its index, I was overwhelmed with the number of pages containing references to them. As I was about to relocate a bookmark placed therein from some many years ago to the index page referencing synchronicity, I thought better of it. "Better just check what my bookmark was there marking first," I thought.

What I read there left me more than slightly stunned and in much anticipation of tomorrow:

"But language and civilization are functions of the symbolizing or semantic faculty, which also produced that other great mystery: shamanism...!" which is precisely where I had left off in the book I had been reading. There was no need to look further for an example of synchronicity. I had just experienced one!