There's a place way down at the bottom of the of the human experience where the soul lives. During my lifetime folks have stumbled across it with the help of psychedelic drugs, meditation, prayer and lots of other devices. Ray Charles and Etta James found it while killing themselves with heroin. Robin Williams knew the spot all too well. His heroes, Jonathan Winters and Lord Buckley, had been well acquainted with it. Yeah, these saints were funny. Watch them on You Tube and see how much they knew about the heartbreak of humanity, too.
It all runs together in that sacred place. Of course it would be naive and egocentric to think of it purely in modern terms. Buddha knew it. Jesus tried to tell his pals about it. It seems that Kurt Vonnegut was, unfortunately, an expert on the subject.
Maybe the concept can never really be described, much less explained. I suppose that we tend to think of the ones with the connection as enlightened. They're soul singers. Truth tellers. Lunatics. Sometimes we form cults around them. Say it too loud and they'll nail you to a cross.
That cranky little Jewish kid who wanted to be Woody Guthrie fell off his motorcycle, conked his noggin and hurt his neck and decided to croon love ballads after dancing too close to the flame for awhile. Good for him. We don't need any more martyrs.
It's a dark, weird, lonely place down there. Of course it's where all the big women slip on banana peels and everybody's his own grandpa, too.
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