My brother Jay\u2019s birth announcement!<\/p>\r\n
(At the time, Jay was known as Joaquin.)<\/p>\r\n
This handwritten letter was from Peter to at least two of his brothers, maybe all three. I\u2019m sure there was a telegram or a phone call or something to George and Helen, but I don\u2019t have a paper letter to them with this news.<\/p>\r\n
After the birth-announcement part, Peter goes on to talk about what\u2019s up with him.<\/p>\r\n
(The letter is ten pages long, but handwritten on 7\"x9\" paper, so it\u2019s about 900 words.)<\/p>\r\n
Content warning for vivid graphic description of boils, enemas, and other physical ailments and processes.<\/p>\r\n
I\u2019ve redacted a few bits of this letter, at Jay\u2019s request.<\/p>\r\n
In the first main paragraph, the word VERY<\/i> is written in astrological symbols that look sorta like the English letters V-E-R-Y. Specifically: an upside-down Leo symbol; a sideways Scorpio symbol; a distorted Pisces symbol; and an Aries symbol. Marcy was a Leo, Peter was a Scorpio, Jay is a Pisces, and I\u2019m an Aries; I suspect that Peter was very pleased with himself for turning our four sign-symbols into something that looked like a word. (The capital H<\/i> in the phrase His name<\/i> is also a Pisces symbol.)<\/p>\r\n 5 it\u2019s raining<\/p>\r\n o my brothers\u2014\u2014<\/p>\r\n forgive me please for being JOYOUS<\/p>\r\n BIRTHDAY<\/p>\r\n !<\/p>\r\n His name (as near as we can get):<\/p>\r\n JOAQUIN Rest of name redacted.<\/span><\/p>\r\n born saturday morning, Date redacted.<\/span>, at home, with a little help from {our, his} friends, a couple of (doting?) parents, his 23-month-older brother, and a lot of joh-rei\u2026 the membrane had broken wednesday afternoon, a long time before, and the labor was long & difficult, though not obstructed (his head is smaller than jed\u2019s was, & marcy\u2019s muscles had already been stretched sufficiently\u2026) he\u2019s pisces with moon & neptune conjunct at midheaven in sagitarius & eleven degrees of aquarius rising\u2026 with jupiter retrograde in scorpio in the ninth house in opposition to saturn in taurus and trine the sun, & mars in aries sextile to mercury rising\u2026!!<\/p>\r\n so, you can imagine, we\u2019ve all been kept pretty busy\u2026 \u201clady madonna, children at your feet, i wonder how you manage to make ends meet\u201d \u201cwe get by with a little help from our friends\u201d went through a hospital scene today, taking joaquin for a bilirubin & hemoglobin count, \u2019cause he\u2019s looking a little bit jaundiced \u2014\u2014 marcy may have to stop nursing him for a few days until his liver is more developed \u2026 but we found out he\u2019s o.k. \u2014\u2014 OKAY? \u2014\u2014 he\u2019s BEAUTIFUL, healthy, has great ears, an outstanding nose, & wise alert eyes, a strong grasp, a strong suck, a penetrating cry, dark hair, & (had) long fingernails which we cut right away so he wouldn\u2019t scratch himself \u2014\u2014 when he came out, he breathed & cried as soon as i pulled the membrane off his face, what a numinous miracle, that changeover from navel-fed to mouth-fed and to air-breathing \u2014\u2014 & then i tied off the cord & cut it (what a privilege & honor!) after we\u2019d aspirated his nose of mucus (not much) \u2014\u2014 we welcomed him to the planet with joh-rei & tears of joy\u2026<\/p>\r\n plus i\u2019m going through the usual extraordinary scorpio changes \u2014\u2014 just finished repelling an invasion of particularly persistent Redacted.<\/span>, only to experience an incredible vesuvius of a poison-bubbling boil Redacted.<\/span> (the yellower & greener the toxins, the older they are \u2014\u2014 these seem like poison-ghosts from the past, exorcised from their long haunting as a purgative effect of a three-day purification: drinking the juice of five grapefruit, 3 lemons, and 3-4 oranges (diluted to half-strength with 2 quarts water) daily, starting each day with a hot cup of \u2153-strength PLUTO WATER (!), \u201cAmerica\u2019s Laxitive\u201d, \u201cconcentrated mineral water\u201d \u201cmade in French Lick, Ind.\u201d (with a picture of a red devil on label), and ending with a (2-qts.-water + juice-of-one-lemon)-enema (i found i could draw the water into my stomach through nauli: back-flushing)\u2026 this very cleansing regime i found in a book on raw vegetable juice therapy \u2014\u2014 on the fourth day, saturday, i had carrot-and-spinach juice (5:3 ratio) as medicine for the boil, and also, monday & sunday \u2026 which together with much joh-rei and much cleaning and bandaging by marcy has brought it to point of being nearly then last tuesday i began a computer-programming course at the free u of berkeley \u2026 costs $20, refundable upon completion of the course\u2026 also, bought a beautiful new toy \u2014\u2014 it\u2019s a (learn-to-play-guitar)-kit called COLOR GUITAR \u2014\u2014 color tabs pasted at each fret under each string well, if you consider besides all the above changes, the kitchen-yoga of maintaining an orderly household (the $25 wringer-washer we bought at st. vinnies turns laundry from a spectator to a participant sport\u2026) (veggies through juicer, juiced pulp to stock-pot, stock to soup & bread \u2014\u2014 stock squeezed out in juicer, what\u2019s left into organic garbage for compost heap) (garlic, onions, radishes, & carrots growing in garden so far), (visit from groovy social worker today) (cleaning house, washing dishes) (child\u2013care) \u2026 and you\u2019ll see why to get this* written i had to stay up all night! so what\u2019s nu with u? love, love, love, peter, marcy, jed & what\u2019s-his-name o yeah wah-keen<\/p>\r\n In margin:<\/span> (shopping is another whole trip about which more later)<\/p>\r\n In margin:<\/span> (*1st<\/u><\/sup> written birth announcement)<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n Some notes:<\/p>\r\n\r\n
4<\/strike> March 1970, 4 a.m.<\/p>\r\nalways<\/strike> often so late \u2014\u2014 you know i always come through in the end, but sometimes it seems to take me so long to get it all together \u2014\u2014 anyways, we wish you all a VERY<\/p>\r\nthrough<\/strike> finished draining, thank the Lord\u2026<\/p>\r\nand<\/strike> so that same note (& octaves thereof) is same color over whole fingerboard\u2026 then a color-matrix is put behind punched-hole sheets to show scales, chords & fingering in terms of colors: strings are tuned each a fourth apart from adjacent string(s), so that fingering for a particular chord or scale is not different, no matter where on fingerboard it\u2019s played\u2026 twelve tones, twelve colors, around a spectrum circle, CAN you DIG IT? \u2014\u2014 i have only just practiced about 2-3 times so far, but learned a lot already, it\u2019s so organic, a very beautiful idea, well worth the $15 \u2014\u2014 available from whole earth catalogue, portola institute, 558 santa cruz, menlo park, cal. 94025 \u2014\u2014 there\u2019re color tabs for two guitars, & the lessons are separate sheets, can be shared\u2026<\/p>\r\n\r\n
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