by Brian Keenan
The next morning Lena made it to the top of Oneson’s hill with less effort than me. She read Oneson’s name in the stone quietly to herself, her head all the time nodding as if she was agreeing with someone. Then she sat down and let the sunlight and the wind caress her. Once she turned her face up towards the light. She looked beautiful. The great earth mother, queen of heaven – all the names of the divine were only names for something that radiated out of her. I took her photo, and I have it still, to remind me of her and that such divine beings can still be found in the extreme wilderness. As I studied her, I thought how life and death are at such people’s doorstep every day. They deal with mortality daily. Lena’s seal skins, her fish racks and her hide house were testimony to the fact. But they respect the animal they kill. A host of rituals are played out to its spirit. They know the spirit has power over them greater than death could ever have.
I walked off to be alone, and to leave Lena to her thoughts. Debra also went off on her own. I saw her hunkered down collecting something, then she walked even further away from us and studied the land like an animal scenting the breeze. When I reached the spot where I had stood the day before in contemplation of the confluence of earth, sea and sky, I sat down. We would be leaving the next day, so I opened my mind to allow whatever memories, emotions or impressions that were buried there to swim to the surface.
I thought of the hours I had spent with Lena, teaching me how to skin and tan her hides. I laughed at how I had draped them around me and the impulse I had felt while trapped in the wolf skin. Then I remembered that only yesterday I too had been ‘skinned’ on a rack up here. It was some kind of complicated metaphysical irony I could not work out. I also thought of Oneson and why I chose his place. I couldn’t work that out either. The old raven had called us up the hill, but something else had made me stop there. Was it the spirit of Oneson, happy that we had come? The child who caused Oneson’s death had continually scolded others about the dangers of jealousy and wanting what others have. In the end he got what Oneson had now, loneliness. But there was something else that struck me. I recalled the almost eerie voice of Debra warning me about the danger of the ego as we had descended from this place yesterday. Was finding Oneson’s grave and learning his story a way of re-emphasizing her admonishments? In a way, Oneson’s death was the result of someone else’s, albeit innocent, ego.
But maybe my intellect was working overtime. I lay back and closed my eyes. The sun and the breeze washed over me like Lena’s luxurious furs. I sank into the exquisite quiet like a dream. I heard voices, but knew it was only my imagination. It sounded like Jack and Cal calling out to me from way off. I was remembering the story I had read to them so often about going on a bear hunt. Suddenly, I thought how the story had acted itself out with me yesterday. I had indeed walked through the swishy-swashy grass, splish-sploshed through mud, stumble-tripped through the dark forest, climbed the hill where the wind woo-hooed and had an encounter with a bear. Then I had run back, retreading the path I had journeyed up on, with the bear following me, speaking through the body of Debra. In the original story the escaping children lock themselves in their cabin. The bear cannot get to them and is left to wander off alone along a gold-dappled ocean – just like the one before me now. I had always insisted to Jack and Cal that the bear in the story didn’t want to hurt the children, only to make friends and play with them. My spirit bear also was a great fearsome creature, according to Debra, but he too was lonely and wanted to make friends and help. I laughed at the association I was making. It was irresistible, and I could only conclude that I had indeed been on a bear hunt. And that the bear found me!
Just then a voice called out my name. This time it was not my imagination. From the top of the hill Debra and Lena were waving. I climbed up to them. While I had been away, Debra had asked Lena if she would like her to perform a blessing, and Lena had agreed. The three of us sat in a crude circle holding hands while Debra called on the spirit world to look after and bless the life of Charlie and Lena. It was a simple thing in that simple place. And I wished it for Charlie and Lena also.
As we were standing to leave, Debra gave me a handful of bones which she thought might be finger bones and some feathers. This was shaman stuff and I asked what they were for. ‘You will know in time,’ she said. Then she asked Lena if she knew of any violent deaths that might have happened here long before Oneson was buried. Lena confided that the bones of a young child, a girl, had been found ‘way over there’ and that many, many years ago, ‘in older time’, there was much fighting and killing. I looked at Debra as Lena walked slowly a few feet in front of us. ‘I knew it,’ she whispered. ‘I could feel lots of them way over there.’
On our way back Lena seemed in high spirits. She skipped through the undergrowth like a teenager. She was smiling and full of laughter. The visit to Oneson and the blessing had worked quicker than I could have imagined.
When we got back to the cabin Lena went in to make something for Charlie. Debra and I walked round to the other side and sat in the shade of a few trees. I explained to her that I was still trying to sort through my responses to all that had happened, to get to the substance of what she had been explaining to me. Debra was consoling. ‘You must learn to walk before you can run,’ she commented. Without thinking, I announced that my youngest son Cal had learned to walk since we arrived in Alaska. She smiled. ‘Baby steps first, Brian, right?’
‘Okay,’ I answered.
But she was insistent. ‘You really have to be sure about taking this further.’
I was only sure that the way to understand this stuff was to take it further. By way of helping me, Debra explained her own early encounters with the ‘other world’.
‘I remember how stunned I felt when I came back to this world. I didn’t have a lot to latch on to because the symbolism was so different from my spiritual practice of the Hebrew mystical path that I didn’t know where to go or what to think. I felt a little crazy, but I knew what I wanted. I knew it was all real and I wasn’t crazy.
‘I didn’t know what it all meant until I found a book that had been given to me ten years earlier by a friend which I had never read. It was called Shamanic Visions, by Joan Halifax. The wonder of the book was that it was a compilation of first-hand accounts by shamans from all over the world instead of scholarly, anthropological accounts. Each shaman described in his own words the experience he’d had of being initiated into shamanism. Several accounts, the northern and Arctic ones, were almost exactly like mine, so when I read them I knew what had happened to me. It explained a lot to me and helped me move on. For several months, every time I closed my eyes to meditate, the animal was there, no matter how hard I tried to have a “regular” meditation. My animal always led me back to my grandfather teacher who kept teaching me and telling me that I needed to shamanize. I couldn’t imagine how I could do that, being a white middle-class woman, but he assured me I could and if I accepted the gifts they would take care of the rest. So I thought, “Okay, I’ll do it,” and to my amazement people started coming to me for healing work almost immediately.
‘A series of events occurred that led me to the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, which then led me to teaching as well. To me, the most telling was that I live in a very conservative town and I had received hate calls from fundamental Christians about my mystical path, but to this very day I have never received one about my shamanizing. After ten years I finally was curious enough to ask my spirit teacher why, and he said because I was doing healing work, they have protected me all these years by throwing a cloak of invisibility over me so that I can do my work unseen. It actually makes sense to me. It explains why I’ve been able to do this work without any problems, and even why it’s been so easy. I’ve had very few obstacles put in my way. In fact, it all seems to happen easily, as long as I remain committed to the work, stay impeccable, maintain my ethics and don’t take it personally. In other words, it isn’t really me in this, so I have to be very careful about not
bringing my ego into it. When I slip and the ego gets involved the work starts to become difficult. It is a path, and one can inadvertently start to wander. I always know when I’m being impeccable because all this shamanic work goes well for me. When I start to wander, it doesn’t. It’s really not so hard to stay on it when the path is so clear. It has not been that difficult a journey, and in the beginning, when I felt crazy, it was the most difficult. Now I don’t worry at all about shamanizing. If it is correct, the veil protects me.’
‘And do you still need the veil?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘I have spent so much time criss-crossing worlds that I know who I am and what I have to do. If I remain true to that then the powers give me all the support I require. But enough of me. I have been “working” on you since we left the hill yesterday. I have something to tell you. It’s bad news, but you need to know it.’
‘Okay,’ I said, trying to hide the apprehension flaring up inside me.
‘The scales have grown back. There are lots of them like small buds on your back. I don’t know why that has happened.’
I saw Debra look at me. The shock and the fear on my face must have been very apparent.
‘Don’t worry about this. It is often not easy to fix things at one go and it was incredibly strenuous work for me yesterday. But perhaps this has happened for a reason. Perhaps you still need your armour for a while. We shall see. But always remember you have great allies in the spirit world. I knew from yesterday and what I have been learning since. We will work together again. You can be my son for a while and I will teach you to walk on your own.’
No Place Like Nome
The day of our leave-taking was bright and hot. We were packed and ready to leave long before our boat arrived to ferry us back to Kotzebue. I wandered about the campsite and ranged about the land where we had climbed to Oneson’s hill. Then I took myself down to the river. The seal skin Lena had taught me to tan was still stretched in its wooden frame. Anyway, now the fish rack would be full of salmon hanging like dripping candles. All Lena’s buckets and basins were piled under the gutting table. Several of her ulus lay on the table with their queer half-moon-shaped blades, which she handled with such dexterity and finesse. I remembered the mischievous look on her face when she sliced a piece of raw seal flesh for me to eat. Life was simple and very hard, but I had loved being here and I would miss it. It had been nothing like what I’d expected yet it had been everything and more. I tried to find a suitable phrase to encapsulate my time here but I couldn’t. I had been blissfully content. I was about to leave this little piece of paradise and I knew that I would never return. I would not find anything to replace it, nor would I want to.
As I walked back to the cabin, I spied a particularly fine rack of caribou antlers still attached to the bleached skull of the beast. I walked over to it and took it back with me. When I reached the cabin our bags were stacked outside, waiting to be carted onto the boat. Charlie was sitting under his tree, just as he had been when I arrived. I was a bit apprehensive as I approached him with my find. It was like being caught in the orchard with an armful of apples. Before I could say anything, Charlie nodded sagely with the tiniest hint of a smile.
‘You take to your home,’ he said.
I noticed Lena and Debra standing in the doorway. ‘I would rather take Lena, she is a great worker,’ I said aloud, mimicking what Charlie had first said about Lena when he met her. Charlie just kept nodding as if he hadn’t heard me while Debra smiled and Lena chuckled.
Inside the cabin the CB radio crackled and a squeaky voice said something I couldn’t understand. Lena rushed in to answer the call and came back within a few minutes to declare that the boat would be with us in ten minutes. There was little else to do but say our goodbyes. Charlie stood leaning heavily on his stick and shook hands. His arm was still giving him a lot of pain, so our handshake was brief, and I hugged him slightly, remembering his damaged ribs. But for Lena I reserved the biggest, most affectionate bear hug, and unashamedly confessed just how much I would miss her.
‘Maybe you come back some time,’ she said with the kind of invitation that you know is a final goodbye.
‘Maybe,’ I returned, keeping up the pretence but speaking with heartfelt yearning.
The boat to take us back was not an open scull like the one that brought us. It had a small cabin area to the front, mainly as a windbreak and nothing more. We were soon loaded and waving our goodbyes to Charlie and Lena on their hilltop position. As the boat motored downriver and towards the open sea, I felt lost for words. Joe, the boat’s skipper, was in good humour and bantered us ‘white guys’ about going native.
‘It’s such a pity to be leaving so soon,’ was all I could manage.
‘Yes,’ answered Debra. ‘It’s always a pity to be leaving.’ She hesitated before adding, ‘It could be years before I see them again and Charlie is in such a state.’
The fact that she used the word ‘state’ rather than refer to Charlie’s illness or his injury suggested that perhaps she was hinting at something I could sense but hardly understand. I didn’t want to pursue the matter, because I didn’t want these dreamy days to be blown away so soon.
Back in Kotzebue we stowed our bags in the back of Joe’s truck. He took one look at my antlers and asked where I intended taking them.
‘To Ireland,’ I replied innocently.
Joe just looked at me quizzically. Debra volunteered an explanation. ‘We are going to catch a flight to Nome for a few days and then fly back to Fairbanks. We were hoping to ship them on to Fairbanks.’
Joe studied the antlers. ‘They ain’t gonna carry them. They have gotta bit particular lately. Won’t ship any antlers unless you have got them specially packed.’
I was heartbroken. These antlers were very, very special to me. Debra checked with the cargo handlers when we got to the airport. Joe was right. I walked out of the corrugated-iron shed, dumped the antlers on the ground and walked over to collect the rest of our baggage from Joe’s truck.
Suddenly I had an idea. ‘Joe,’ I said, grasping excitedly at straws, ‘if I pay you, would you pack the antlers and send them on to me in Fairbanks?’
Joe was still unsure. ‘Maybe you paid me and I packed them and they still didn’t take them.’
‘Well, then I won’t have lost anything as I’m going to have to dump them anyway,’ I said.
‘Except a few dollars,’ Joe was quick to remind me.
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘At least I would have tried.’
Joe lifted the last of our belongings out of the truck and carried them into the departures area where he deposited them with the rest. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Write down your address in Fairbanks and I will try and get them shipped to you. I know some of these guys who work here.’
I was almost ecstatic. ‘Great, Joe. Now, how much do I owe you?’
‘Nothing. If they get to you, you send me a case of Bud.’
I looked at Debra, unhappy to be shipping alcohol to a native community. She just shrugged her shoulders, understanding my dilemma. So I gave Joe a contact address in Fairbanks, still insisting that I should pay for the shipping advance. The case of Budweiser I would send on to him as a thank you anyway. But he was insistent that he would take no money in advance. I concluded that the case of Bud was just as important to him as the antlers were to me. So I left them with him and passed through the departure gates.
As we waited, Debra spoke again about her work on Oneson’s hill.
‘I know you thought it was a difficult job, my working on you, but the truth is, all the pain I felt was your pain. I felt a tremendous amount of sadness and I cried because I felt it, but it wasn’t my sadness, my pain, it was yours. It did take me over, but that was part of the healing. I took it on for your benefit and then I could let it go because I wasn’t attached to it. It was a long and major healing; you had kept so much for so long and needed to release it all. A lot happened. I remember I brought back at least on
e if not more soul pieces, lost parts of yourself. I can’t remember them all, it was all too much like a dream so it fades. There were many spirits watching, mainly spirits of that place, of the hill, the tundra, the wind, and many animals. They were all there to support you, to bear witness to your healing. It was a tremendous experience to have all of nature watching and supporting us. Mostly I was pulling dark energy from you and throwing it to the wind. So much old energy, old sad stuff that needed to go.
‘I knew I received a lot of info for you. I was told to teach you to journey, that you were a Dreamwalker too but a lost one. I remember the bear and how it came over the hill from the north and tried to keep hidden in the bushes, not coming out all the way. It growled and acted feisty but was immensely powerful and was willing to share its power with you. A very good thing.
‘Remember the bones? You were practically lying on them and when you sat up we saw them. They were a sign from your ancestors that they were with you, and would be your future allies. That’s why I told you to take them.’
There was nothing dramatic in Debra’s voice as she spoke, but I was filled with wonder and awe. I could have been my son listening to a fairy story. But I never doubted for a moment what my guide was telling me.
The drone of the plane’s engines and the flashing seat-belt signs ushered us back into another world. In ten minutes we would be on the earth again.
Mike Murphy, a retired sergeant in the Nome Police Department, was an old friend of Debra’s and had kindly offered to put us up. Nome’s short but colourful history unearthed a community that had been burned almost to the ground and pounded by Arctic gales blowing in off the ocean. Its population had been decimated by epidemics of influenza and diphtheria, and on occasion its extreme location had it on the verge of starvation. In 1900, Nome was the biggest boom town in Alaska, with a population of more than twenty thousand. In the good old days of the gold rush, anybody could pick up a fortune off the beach and thousands of dreamers flocked here from all over the Americas and Europe. But now, Nome is like any other well-settled small town in rural America. It looks staid and settled, but you just know there are hundreds of stories here waiting to be picked up and dusted down. I looked out of the window of Mike’s powerful Jeep. It could have been Punta Arenas set in Connemara countryside!
