Why we live in a cabin in the woods

World Changing Events. Chapter one—Meetings with Larry Ajola

Sandra and I have been living in a self-built cabin in the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee since July 2023.

In this new series of articles, I want to trace the reasons and motivations behind this choice, the years-long plannings and preparations, the difficulties and challenges it poses, and obviously the rewards—not just the satisfaction, but the peace of mind, knowing that everything is taken care of, everything is as it should be.

This can also become a resource, a motivation, an inspiration maybe to you, a reason and an understanding, a coming to consciousness of the need and urgency for a move that you either feel and can’t articulate, or else fear and push back down into the underworld of dreams and imaginings.

Meetings with Larry

I once had a friend called Larry Ajola. This tall, striking individual with a direct and disconcerting manner walked into a group of friends—mostly people I had come to know from a J.J. Hurtak conference in Switzerland who continued to meet up in Amsterdam to talk, study, discuss the Keys of Enoch, listen to the exposition series of tapes we had collectively purchased, also to drink tea, chat about astrology and theosophy, and generally hang out with people as weird as ourselves.

Larry was, as I said, a tall, disconcerting figure. His possessions were a large duffel bag piled full of esoteric and spiritual books, and clothes that he dragged along with him around the world. He pulled out his recently acquired copy of the Keys, which he had already liberally decorated with margin notes and underlinings. He'd already read the 622 page book of spiritual-scientific knowledge and prophetic teachings¹ several times, marking long passages with pencil underlinings and side notes.

From what I could gather, Larry had once been a Professor or teacher of English Literature somewhere in New York, but had quit his job after some kind of enlightenment experience, to hitch around the world with a bagful of esoteric books and a girlfriend, who we incidently knew already from a rebirthing weekend in Limburg.

Larry had a strange way of breaking through people’s social armor with bizarre statements and behaviors. Once, sitting around an outdoor café table in Gstad in tbe Swiss Alps, with a group of rather too serious Krishnamurti followers, I saw him order a glass of tea—actually a glass of hot water with a tea bag next to it—dip the tea bag into the water, then put the teabag into his mouth. Everybody pretended not to notice this terrible faux-pas, and an embarrassed silence followed, until Larry broke the spell by nonchalantly removing the teabag from his mouth and delicately laying it on the saucer. This group of too-serious people carried on with their polite social behavior as if nothing out-of the-ordinary had happened (except for Connie, who looked at me with the recognition that I too had enjoyed this wonderful Larry moment).

Larry also had a habit of telling people matter-of-factly that the world is going to end. He would drop it into a conversation casually, then put his hands to his eyes like a horse’s blinkers. I remember another scene from the Krishnamurti event in Switzerland, when he knelt down in front of a tiny Vietnamese woman half his size, looked her right in the eyes, and told her: “The world is going to end”. “But Larry”, she replied, “how do you know that? How do you know tbe world is going to end?” He looked right back at her, held up two fingers, and replied:- “ I read it in two books!”

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1. https://keysofenoch.org/shop/product/the-book-of-knowledge-the-keys-of-enoch/