I dreamt again of a young boy cradled in the wings of angels, while ancestors moved gently into the light.
In my recent ceremony of sound healing, I saw the boy again in my trance. It was a beautiful moment, a healing moment. As I went deeper into calmness, I heard the hum of the universe.
It is this boy I traveled with in many dreams. Three-and-half years of moving through troubled terrain and situations. I stepped in and out of relationships always mindful of the child’s care. It is a sacred reality, these dreams.
Later in a trance dream a woman who always eyed me with suspicion took on a gentler demeanor as I lit matches in a darkened place where she prepared a bath for her child. I lit candles and purposely avoided kerosene lamps. She took comfort in my effort. I saw grime and beauty in the night’s low light—a comforting place.
Earlier that day, my lady love and I drove a worn Cadillac onto a rough but well-used dirt road out to the edge of a chasm so wide and fertile. Down a steep hill we took a shortcut. She drove with ease and confidence. I held faith. She handed me my truck keys and said she would stay with the car. She motioned me ahead. She said I started out on this mission alone and alone I must finish it. She waited with the Cadillac there on the rim.
At an intersection of a town, I found me in a left turn lane.
To avoid something or someone, a man threw a chunk of rock onto the hood of my truck. It was not personal, just an unavoidable situation in his mind and I don’t think he even noticed me there.
A gray metallic truck is what I saw in that fleeting moment as the man peeled out. I followed him until a limping dog delayed me as I yielded to its crossing. I pulled off onto a grassy strip and mistook some young men for the rock thrower, but all they were tossing were crushed empties. They took it well as I apologized. I traveled east and drove until I realized my quarry was long gone and I was too distracted to hunt the man down.
I forgave him. I had a journey to complete.
A child in my passenger seat squealed as I pulled into a driveway somewhere strangely familiar.
A young mother rushed out and scooped up the child and hugged me in tearful gratitude.
“You brought my baby home! Thank you, thank you.” She soaked my shoulder in tears—she in her prairie dress, an image from another time.
I caught a glimpse of the Madonna in the gentle shaft of light from the yielding roof. I saw years of our dramas without knowledge, culminating in the magic of this one single shaft of light. I decided to stay for the child just one night. I had journeyed years just to get here in a darkened place. I lit the candles, four in all.
Soft strumming of an acoustic guitar tickled from the dark corner, and the light from a wood stove cast dancing shadows on a cribbed log wall. I caught fragrance of yucca root soap.
Outside, a hungry little puppy at my feet yelped and I fed it fat from the cast iron pan cooling by the door. I fed him a piece of a’chii’ (cooked sheep intestines) and an angry man’s voice immediately admonished me, trying to get the piece of meat back. A mean man, he swung a kick at the puppy and missed. I punched him.
“The poor puppy is hungry and you don’t want to feed him?” I said. “You heartless bastard!” I punched him again and he fell dangerously close to an open fire. I saw an angry face twisted in hate there in the firelight.
A woman’s arm pulled me back into the warmth of her shelter. The guitar picked up the tempo and a song of longing filled the place comfortably. I looked at her and she was pleased.
A girl’s voice from the corner cried out, “Come on … sad music ruins everything!” There were more people in this shelter. The corners squiggled with new movements.
The woman who always eyed me with suspicion smiled and nodded her approval of the sounds of longing. The corner girl left in tears trailing a fragrance of perfume named Intolerance, I was told. The infant squealed in innocence and I knew his safe return was my mission. Accomplished. I am in a place I wanted to linger a while for the child and the puppy needed me as well. Later, I rendezvoused with a Cadillac and someone special.
When I was a young boy, 8 years old, my brothers and I would build a bonfire out near the slick rock and play far into the night. We built sheep camp villages and we populated them in found materials. I made figures with strategically tied cloth and earth. Painted faces on them. They loved it.
One very dark night, my four brothers decided to go get some toys that were important. Five hundred yards to our hoghaan, I was left alone there on the edge of the sage field. Sometime into their absence, I felt a presence with me. It was not a frightful form of mystery.
I turned in the direction of my touch. There in the boughs of a young pinyon tree, a maiden stood suspended from the earth. From the bough’s cradle, she gazed deeply on my youth and innocence. Wrapped loosely in the Tonalea storm pattern rug, she faded back into the tree’s embrace. I knew I saw gifting that night. I felt knighted by the goddess we all know.
My brothers returned eventually, jubilant in their mission.
I never told them what happen that night, 55 years ago. It is only for the little boy I am saving still.
