Forward

Forward

               I had a strong sense I should go to Wupatki to talk with the spirits about the macular hole developing in my left eye.  It will be hot there, I thought.  Then I brightened – like the sweat!  It would be like going into the lodge for a ceremony.

               When I arrived, I covered up from head to toe against the sun. I paused among the junipers and looked around.  The sky was blue, with a few, thin clouds.  All was silent, and I felt the spirits. 

               At the edge of the drop-off into the tangle of tributaries to Dead Man Wash, I stopped to offer corn meal, tobacco, and water.  Unexpectedly, grief gripped my heart.  We took the lodges down last fall when we moved.  The days and years of sweat lodge and vision quest were done.  This time of grand adventure, of challenge and discovery -- the best chapter of my life up until now -- was over.  Ah…ah…ayah! In that moment, all over again, I couldn’t stand it.  We had to do it – and I knew it was time -- but it still seemed irreconcilable.  Out there on the rim that day, I felt the impossibility of that ending.       

               Ah….ayah!  Tears ran down my face.  I descended into the canyon, praying for assistance on this matter.  I walked through a patch of soft, sandy, soil.  There were fewer rodent burrows than in the past, and three coyote dens.  I didn’t see any coyotes, for which I grateful.  Their absence said, “This will be straightforward.” 

               A strangely dense juniper marks the turn in the canyon where the rock ledges and overhangs begin.  It wafted a warm “hello” as I passed.  I felt comforted.

                It had rained recently.  The potsherds blanketing the ground were washed clean.  The air was soft and fresh, the vegetation newly green, and a pothole in the rock was half full of water.  I needed to build a smudge fire.  Down the canyon over there, I thought, that is the right place to get some sticks.  I wanted to do what I was told, so everything would be right.

               The fire started instantly.  It had been a dry winter, and things were still dry.  Smoke from the smudge mix swirled away on the air currents.  I smoked the pipe and was filled with love for the spirits.  I asked for help, and lay down in the shade of the overhang amid the accumulated gravel, dried weed bits, dust and dung.

               This place has always had a sense of the feminine about it – very old, very wise, deeply vital, and completely in the present.  “Forward, forward, forward!”  The energy was powerful, and the message uncompromising.  Then I understood.  I had reached the end of my possibilities as the person I have been, latched tightly to my attachments, limitations, and pain.  I had done well with what I had, but it was finished. 

               “Forward!” 

               “What exactly do I need to do?” I asked.  At that precise moment, my glasses frame sprung apart and the lens fell out.  The temple screw disappeared into the debris.  Bemused, I put the lens with the East pipe stem, standing for new beginnings.  I looked around for the screw.  I looked out across the valley.  I must need to see things differently, I thought – surely the message my poor left eye was trying to convey.  I looked again for the screw.  There it was, right in front of my nose.  “Thank you spirits,” I said, “I really appreciate that.”  I put the frame, the lens, and the screw on a bandanna in preparation for assembly, and waved the feather over it.  “Blessings on whatever this is.”

               Later that day I walked out under a cool, shading cloud, which I took to be a kindness from the spirits.  My grief had eased; the spirits had caused something inside to change for the better. The sacred objects were adamant: “There is something different for the two of you to do now.”  Subsequently I discovered my compass was broken, with shattered glass all over the bottom of my day pack.  My watch also stopped.  “Forward,” from this point on, was clearly going to be a different matter than before.