Thus it was this morning, I read in two different journals of the ''world's second cloned baby'' born ''Friday to a Dutch woman.'' Of course, everyone views this with great suspicion, for the organization claiming responsibility won't even let them do a DNA test on the supposed first closed baby. Clonaid, established by the Raelian movement, further declares four more cloned babies will be born by the end of January.

The Raelian movement is a religious group that believes aliens landed on Earth 25,000 years ago and started the human race through cloning. No doubt, it's just a bunch of woo woo loonies.

And that he could enjoy now the full delights of his life, never dreaming falsely of the old one, centuries ago. And PASSION! How I love that the WRITER, Anne Rice, has captured it, and knows passion!

How I love the MIND, from which all these things spring! And then I cry, remembering LAURA, for no other mortal I've met in the flesh evinced so much PASSION! She'd try to tell me of it, that it was what we needed in our lives.

I, still of the shy words and hesitent understanding, didn't fully realize. I still may not ever fully understand. It may be only a great cresting wave in my mind, that remains mostly there, that does not see print, that does not see its way pushed out of vocal chords and into other actions. I still toy at it cautiously, at times.

But that it explodes in my mind, with full technicolor, it does, and I can only hope to fully actualize it. Do we ever? Ah, but the AUTHOR of this fine book actualizes it in every book she writes. It comes to life, it is transformed from the entrapment within a mind no one sees.

Can I do that? I hope to, I toy at it, get some vague fuzzy dabblings of it that might approximate it here in print. But do I REALLY get at it? Do I really tear this excellent thing from my own solitary self and transform it?

Or am I only JUST BEGINNING to understand what true power is, and how I might achieve it? Reason, the observer which attempts to be objective, tells me this is the case. I am only at the perilous stage of BEGINNING. If I let illusion or ego or anything else, timidity, 'humility', any FALSEHOOD sway me the least, I will not achieve it.

It will derail from the path it COULD have. And this is the only triumph: THAT I TRULY KNOW IT COULD BE.

And how I pray it SHALL be.

The imaged strains of UGO FARELL singing ''Pavane For A Dead Princess'' go through my mind. I play his CD often. He must have must another by now. But, oh, the perfection of his young, passionate voice on the first CD. Oh, there we are, again, PASSION. Around and about and through, I turn to those things expressing its purity.

And, again, I share one more quote of one artist advising another:

Only those who come to literature as they might to religion have what it takes to really become writers. --Mario Vargas Llosa, "Letters to a Young Novelist"

Ah, there's so many levels of interpretation for those words. Come to writing, as the seeker seeking Knowledge, Revelation, Transcendance, Salvation, YES! Come to writing, taking your rational mind along, evaluating with the cool outside eye what might become otherwise disordered illusion.

Come to it freely, with all your heart, seeking the sweetness you know it has to offer. Come to it with a joyful heart, gratefully accepting the revelations that first appear in your solitary chapel of soul. Come to it with a quiet understanding others may not take to the things that make you rant so, with such fevered devotion.

Come to it, sharing your revelations, freely, but of a happy humility, not with ego's demands. Say, I have been blessed! Seek not to draw converts, like the tiresome leechs that annoy people everywhere. Let SPIRIT draw those who would find your revelations. Know you are part of Something BIGGER than yourself.

But no sad diminuation of Self exists there, for you are grateful for your own Divine Spark. And, oh, to see it in others, to cherish their visions and revelations, oh, gifts of the Spirit truly, that, too, has a religious fervor. They share their Holy Water, and I drink. Was I supposed to drink? Is that what people do with Holy Water? But I DRINK, with the thirstiness of the vampire. Yet I hope to give something of my OWN in return.

''See, here, as you drink, see my visions,'' I would tempt the innocent. And are we all innocent, and have we but merely to learn it? Yes, this must then be our saving salvation.

GET JESUS OFF THE CROSS! It was supposed to only be for three days anyway. Suffering comes, but it passes. Is that not, too, a lesson of the ages? A lesson from those aged and wise, passed down through time. I hear it. Do you?

Needless to say, in that state, I turned briefly to the MUSE and she said, ''NADA, DON'T BADA!'' So I didn't bother and hope today will be better.

I briefly touched the hem of the lady, who could have been famous in her world.

But I can't imagine this kind of fame. Mr Blackwood, the FASHION JUDGE of the world, has seen fit to pronounce judgment on a certain author who's works have receiving my attention lately. Yes, right up there with Anna Nicole Smith and Princess Anne, my favorite author, dear Anne Rice was singled out for his barbs.

Personally, ''a cross between Queen Victoria and the Vampire Lestat!'' sounds rather lovely to me. But what does a poor pedestrian person like me know? Actually quite a lot, if you ask ME! Just don't ask Blackwell.

Still for all of her fame, and all of my non-fame, there may be a brief brushing of our fates, however remote. Reading her bio, there is a minor bit player who sounds very much like a minor bit player (actually not quite so minor) in LAURA's bio.

Read now, the description of when Anne and Stan got married:

''Anne wore a blue brocade shirtwaist dress with long sleeves and a flared skirt, size five. Stan wore a suit. The JP was a one-legged Baptist who walked with a crutch and held a Bible in his free hand. He was warm and open, enjoying the unusual setting. The wedding party stood in front of a large fireplace, and the Ritters silently prayed that the occasional scorpion that came down the chimney would not show its face.'' from PRISM OF THE NIGHT, by Katherine Ramsland

Now read the description of a man who'd helped Laura get her first job, many years ago.

''I also met One-Legged Johnny at Lamson Business College. Johnny was Jan's friend. He was tall, 6'2'', skinny, with a movie villain's narrow, pockmarked face. His reputation was as nasty as his appearance. Whether due to his missing leg or because he was plain ornery I didn't know, but he could be one hateful bastard. Leastwise, if the stories about him were true. I was used to a father who was a hateful bastard, so I liked him anyway. Johnny, however, hated me. He came from Texas and we were always ragging each other about our home states. He'd say things like, ``Texas is still paying sales tax for Pennsylvania.'' I'd quip in return, ``Texas is fish dung washed up from the Gulf of Mexico.'' I thought we were joking, good clean fun, and assumed he thought the same . . .'' ''. . . After that Johnny and I became stout friends. He trusted me as he had never trusted anyone. That's what he said and I believed him. It was One-legged-Johnny who was instrumental in getting me my first decent job, a NCR 3000 operator at the Valley National Bank. A NCR 3000 is a bookkeeping machine designed to do ledgers and statements on checks and deposits. When I was hired Emil Schuster, the supervisor, informed me I had an exceptional friend in Johnny. The only reason I had been hired was because Johnny wouldn't stop badgering him.'' from IN THE ARMS OF A RAINBOW, by Laura Lansberry

I wasn't able to find it in her bio, but Laura had said many times, when telling tales of the past, that Johnny reformed his past criminal ways even further and returned to Texas to become a Baptist preacher! Anne and Stan got married in Texas, in 1961, which was about four years after Laura got her first job.

Now how many one legged Baptist preachers in Texas could there have been in 1961?

I say their JP and Laura's friend were very likely one and the same!