Terry Persun's Magical Realism Collection

by Persun, Terry

“By pacing completely around the wheel, then travelling the crossed lines, I covered every inch of territory that was allowed. Like the wolf in my dream had shown me. I tried to be mindful of the quadrant of air, purposely noticing the feel of it, of wind, as I paced. It dawned on me how all-encompassing air was, always around you and inside you. With each breath, the intake of air was the Great Spirit. God. Without it, there was no life. It held you close, to comfort you, but we, all of us, have learned to take it for granted and not even notice its caress. No wonder there are hurricanes and tornadoes; the air is trying to get our attention. But when wind speaks loudly, all we do is become scared. Like background music, we have forgotten it is there, and no longer hear its voice, or understand its message.”

  Wolf heard no message then, but knew that someday he would. All that was necessary was for him to listen, continually listen. “Even now, I am conscious of the air,” he said. “Aren’t you? Can you feel it close to you. God is inside you, all around you. He knows all about you. Exactly. Everything.” Wolf stared, “Maybe you think I’m nuts.” He waited for a response but received none. “It doesn’t really matter in the end anyway, does it?”

  He continued his story. “I paced, slowly but deliberately, until evening. My feet, walking over the dirt, felt massaged and warmed; my hands became heavy; my head wildly free. To avoid monotony, I paced in a variety of ways and directions. I waited for the sensations that would tell me when next to pray, and where. Until then, possibly a message would come through the wind.

  “During the time I spent up there many things happened that you may find hard to believe. You might think the circle would become boring, but I saw and heard much. That first day, a hawk circled overhead, screeching every so often as if asking a question, or perhaps bringing a message I could not yet translate. Squirrels played at the edge of the woods, and snakes sunned themselves on rocks near the ledge. All this went on as if I wasn’t there at all; yet I began to feel less alone. Watching and listening kept me busy. And pacing, of course. Pacing. As much as one might think I’d count my revolutions just for something to do, I didn’t. I was too busy listening and watching.

  “Because of my long afternoon nap, I wasn’t tired. I made and drank more tea at sundown. I watched the horizon go through its change, moment by moment, in a fluid, yet dramatic, way. The magnificence of the clouds elevated the inspiration I felt from the passing of the day. I thought how gifted we are by God, that he brings us beauty each morning and then again each night before we go to sleep, to remind us of the beauty within ourselves. After all, the clouds, the color, the sky, it’s all part of the air. It’s God’s breath, which he has given us, and continues to give us every second of every living moment.”

  Wolf closed his eyes to recall the scene. “Like a kiss, the sunset spread over and through me. I could as much feel its beauty as see it, as much smell it as taste it. It overwhelmed and overtook me, became me. In the center of the air quadrant, I stood with my arms out. I too was the sunset, my arms were the stretching clouds, my head, the sun. We are all part of everything. Good and…evil.”

  CHAPTER 7

  I STOOD UNTIL THE SUN was gone completely and the darkness lifted over me. The stars scurried like ants onto the canvas of sky. My arms had become lead, but by choice of discipline I held them out. When I lowered them, finally, I sat cross-legged in the center of the circle and massaged my shoulder muscles. My mind wandered. I saw a shooting star pass between two large clouds. The aspens whispered behind me, the sound turning into a soft song, one which made me tired.”

  ***

  Wolf kept the fire going all day. Its warmth, the singing voices of the trees, the lack of food, all worked on him, making him sleepy. He only prayed in two quadrants: air and water, and had no compulsion to try a third. He had been unable to fake it as he had before, so he got the little blanket and stretched out on the ground. He remembered falling asleep while listening to the trees, thinking about how they could discipline or soothe, teach or torment. The trees, like people, do what they must to get a person to listen. Being part of Mother Earth, though, their maternal instincts seemed the strongest.

  “That night, in dream for the second time, I found myself near the water’s edge. My hands completely submerged, I released my negative self, and it turned to stare back at me like a reflection in the water. It was not a reflection though. It moved differently than I did. It looked slightly different, meaner. I could see it physically. At one point it growled, frightening me. I turned quickly away from the image and searched the ground for the wooden box. I tried to remember the chant without the box, but couldn’t formulate it in my mind. I knew the chant would protect me. Then I noticed my breathing, which had gotten very shallow. My heart raced. I was scared. The image began to reach its hand out of the water towards me. I knew I should be breathing deeper, but I wasn’t, and because of that, I knew that God was pulling away from me. He was leaving me. Air. Without air, I couldn’t live. My breathing became shallower as I became more frightened, and my negative self reached out to me. The wooden box! The wooden box! That’s all I could think. I was dying. And I knew it.”

  Wolf shifted in his chair. “Another dream?” He shook his head back and forth. “When I opened my eyes, I saw someone in the darkness, running away from the circle and into the woods. I heard the thwap, thwap of moccasinned feet against the dirt, loud, heavy, yet comforting. I thought I recognized the smoothness and flow of the person’s body. I sat up quickly, ‘Wait!’ I yelled, but the person I thought was Strong Elk had disappeared into the woods. It felt good to know that I was not alone, that I was being watched. I stared into the woods for a long while. When I finally lowered my eyes to try to remember the dream, there on the ground was a small wooden box wrapped in some sort of leather strap. Tied to it were a feather and a stone with a hole in its center. There were some leaves on it too, the leather strap held them to the box. My first impression was to open the box to retrieve my chant, but I could not allow myself to do that. So, I held it and closed my eyes. In a matter of moments, I began to rock forward and back. The chant came back to me, vibrating its own sound from within the box, through my hands, up my stomach and throat and out my mouth.

  “I was positive, then, that Strong Elk was the Indian I couldn’t recognize in the first dream. He was water. The way he moved, his disposition. Concentrating on my breathing, on God’s breath within me, I rocked and chanted for a long while.

  There was still no sign of the sun, nor light from it, so I decided to lie back down. I held up the box and waved towards the woods to thank Strong Elk for giving back my chant. It never occurred to me at the time that Strong Elk could possibly be in charge of, or have influence over my dreams, nor did I think he could read my dreams. Somehow, the feeling I got was that I did not dream separately at all. It was as though dreaming was only another aspect of being awake. It was all just as real. Only my perspective had changed.

  “Placing my hands over the small wooden box wrapped in leather strips, I lay on my back facing the stars. I didn’t want to lose my chant again. The wind blew cold that night, so I reached out with my mind to take a bright red coal from the fire and placed it inside my heart.”

  The tape recorder made a loud snap and Gary, for the first time, moved from where he leaned against the wall. After flipping the tape over and restarting the recorder, he returned to his original spot across the table. “It was cold. You mentally pictured a hot coal and placed it into your heart.” Gary repeated Wolf ’s last thought for the recorder, then nodded for Wolf to go on.

  While Gary was flipping the tape over, Wolf remembered the feel of the sun on his face, its warmth, even though there was a coolness in the accompanying morning breezes. Morning smells, feels and sounds different than night does. In spite of the hot coal, his muscles had stiffened from the dampness that crept onto him during the night. He remembered feeling hungry and knowing that the tea would curb the feeling. Still holding the box in his right hand, Wolf placed it in t
he center of the circle where the lines crossed, a sacred place within the circle, then retrieved the tea, cup, and water from the edge of the circle.

  “I should have known that the water container would be refilled,” he said. “Again, I raised the canteen in a toast to Strong Elk and right then knew he was no longer watching. At that moment, I realized I had called him and he had come. I thanked him verbally, knowing the wind would carry my thanks to him.

  “I threw another log on the fire and pushed the teacup nearer the coals. I sat back, leaning against my hands. Stretched across a small patch of grass was a spider web laden with dew, sparkling. While the water boiled, I scrutinized this new companion’s home. As with the ant the day before, I bent down close to it, stretching length-wise with my elbows on the ground near it. I reached and pulled the teacup from the fire, put the tea inside it and held it with both hands once it cooled a little. The cup’s warmth penetrated my palms and into my body. Sipping occasionally, I watched as the dew disappeared and the spider came out of its tucked-in home to bask in the sun on the surface of the web.”

  Wolf reflected for a moment, then looked at Gary. “Every living thing has its own ways. You can learn from each. The spider’s trap is its home. That’s where it hides and waits. When people come into your home, they become vulnerable. It is up to you how you respond to them. You can eat them, or welcome them. It’s your domain, your energy. We, as people, have a choice. The spider, instinctively, must eat whatever shows up. We don’t have to. Nonetheless, it is all so amazingly beautiful, how simply the spider moves, feels, eats. The spider has God’s breath inside it just as we do.” He raised his eyebrows, questioning Gary as he questioned himself.

  Wolf turned away then, looking at the recorder, drawing back into himself. “The tea hit the spot, and soon I not only lost all sense of hunger, but found renewed energy as well. Now that I was awake, I needed something to do. I couldn’t watch spiders and ants all day. I put all my things away except for the wooden box I held. Looking around, the circle suddenly appeared as a limitation. Nonetheless, I needed to wait for a sign to indicate when next to pray.

  “‘Nuts’, I thought. I was going completely nuts. But, even if I had gone over the edge of sanity, it was where I was, so I might as well accept it.

  “I needed some exercise, not just to loosen up my body, but to expel the dampness that had set in overnight. Imagining myself a wolf, which, to my surprise, came fairly easily this time, I ran around the power ring, first in one direction, then the other. I didn’t stop for what seemed like hours. Mid-morning, I placed the wooden box in the center of the circle again, got on all fours, and ran like a wolf. Exhausted, I stumbled and fell on my face, where I stayed, eyes closed, for a few minutes. Breathing felt good, and I thanked God, a second time, for my—His—breath.”

  Wolf spoke more slowly into the machine. “Eyes were upon me,” he said. “But, rather than get up to see where they came from, I waited, hoping that whoever or whatever it was would come closer. It’s amazing how you can actually feel attention when it is focused on you. I sensed cautious movement, though I heard no actual sound. Opening my eyes, I looked towards the woods. There, halfway between the woods and the circle, was a wild dog.” Wolf took a deep breath.

  “For a split second, I realized that I had become a wolf while running on all fours. As a brother to this intruder, there was a sense of camaraderie. The animal, it seemed, recognized me. As slowly as possible, I sat up and began to chant. You would expect me to tell you that the dog just ran over to me, but it didn’t. At first it retreated a few steps, then came forward again. Closer and closer it came, until finally, it sat down and just watched me. I tried to feel what it felt, become what it was, and for a while I think I did, but I couldn’t sustain it. Eventually, it jumped up, let out a loud yelp, and ran back into the woods—back into its mother’s arms.”

  Wolf found himself sitting in the southeast quadrant of the circle. “Standing to stretch my legs, I stepped into the Earth Mother part of the circle, and raised my arms. ‘Oh, giver of life, nurturer of all things, I pray forgiveness and thankfulness for your undying love and care.’ That’s how I began. I remember it clearly. I meant every word. I had seen and felt and, for only moments at a time, had become ant, spider, and dog. What had they taught me? I wanted to know, so I asked.

  “I was answered, not in words, but in images and feelings. I was to become patient like ant, to realize that what is mine will come to me without worry. To trust. Spider taught the web is like the wheel; it can limit, but does not have to. Above the web, I watched. Above me inside the power wheel, another watches, and above him another, all the way to God. This is what I was told. I was told to look for the symbol inside the web. It was showing me something. It spelled something out. Webs are a form of writing.

  “I wanted to run to it and look, but I couldn’t. It would break the chain I had made at the moment, the links between me and the Earth quadrant. So I waited for the answer from dog. Loyalty. That’s what it was. Dog is wild, but through even its most wild acts, dog remains loyal. Even if beaten, dog is loyal to its owner, its family, its own life purpose.”

  Again, Wolf closed his eyes and brought his hands to his face. “God knows I have not been loyal to anyone, particularly myself. I needed to ask myself some serious questions about my loyalty to my friends, then my loyalty to my own goals. Where had I failed? Everywhere. I failed everyone.”

  He lowered his hands and opened his eyes as though he were facing himself. “Praying with all my heart and sincerity, I kneeled and wailed out for forgiveness. I would change. I had asked to know what the symbols meant and, being told, being aware, made me responsible. Yes,” he slammed his fist to the table, “I have always been responsible. We all have. But now even more so, I had to change.

  “When I was through, I went back to the spider’s web and kneeled, lowering my head close to it, in search of a symbol. Again, I got so caught up in the spider itself that I watched it instead of the web. For hours it seemed busy with its own life. In its body I saw infinity, the symbol. Two body lobes crossed in the middle. And eight legs. What did they mean? For a long while I saw this whole spider universe as a symbol of all else in the world. I no longer felt like an individual, but like part of the whole, connected, even to this spider, its web that reflected the power circle, which reflected the web of life, which reflected the sacred circle of Mother Earth, the solar system, the universe, even God. You see how it works?” he asked Gary. “All things—one thing. We are a part of it all, not separate any more than the trees are separate from the ground.

  “When I sat back up, it was easily late afternoon. Time had disappeared like shadows at noon, crumpled closely together and taken inside as experiences. That’s what time does. It’s a form of energy that turns into experiences. Like fire produces heat, time produces experiences.” Once again, Wolf spoke directly to Gary, not expecting a response, but wishing for him to hear the words. “You can waste your heat by opening the window, by standing away from it, but it is still produced. You can do the same with experiences. Awareness is the window.

  “But enough of all this. The web. I got no symbol. When it came time for my tea, I knew I had to approach it differently. I made the tea as though it were a sacred act, aware of every aspect of the making. For the second time that day, I took my teacup in both hands and went back to use my time energy to experience the spider and its web. This time though, I decided to view it from new angles, really analyze it. Figure it out. Kneeling on the opposite side from which I had originally viewed the web, I searched. But it wasn’t until I lifted the cup to my mouth, losing focus, that the sun sparkled against the web at six distinct points. Refocusing, I saw it. Simple. Impossible to miss really. A star. A six-pointed star for the six directions: north, south, east, west, up, down. Or is it outside and inside?

  “Reiterating what I learned earlier, but in a new way, the image told me that all things, all directions, are linked. All is one. I’m sta
rting to sound like Joe, but I don’t care. He’s been right all along.

  “Right there and then, I thanked the spider, the web, and God, the Great Spirit, for the message. So much had happened in so little time. I felt exhausted. I finished my tea and replaced the cup in its proper spot, grabbed the wooden box, and stoked up the fire.”

  Fire was the final quadrant, Wolf thought. He remembered looking over at the image of flames that had been etched into the dirt. He could still see that image. “I knew I’d dream of fire that night. Every night so far, I had awakened at least once, pulled from sleep by dreams to another perspective.

  “Lying on my back with the small blanket over my chest and the wooden box clasped between my hands, I stared at the sky while sunset rolled easily onward. The stars came out, brilliant and thick, and each seemed to have six points. I don’t know many of the traditional constellations, but I spent a long time making up my own—of course there was ant, spider, and dog; then tree, bush, flower, and grass; bear, squirrel and raccoon. And just prior to nodding off, there was hate, fear and pain, and love, peace and joy.”

  Wolf recalled the abstractness of his thinking while inside the circle, and the way fantasy and reality seemed to merge and interact. “In my dream, the forest caught fire from something I’d done. Not from a physical thing like a spark or match, but from an emotional thing. It ignited because of how I felt, from a source deep inside me that I couldn’t quite find. I just knew it was in there. I saw flames climb up tree trunks, shoot out from one tree to another as if alive. All around me the ground smoldered and ignited into flame. There was no way to stop the fire but to find the feeling inside me that had created it and put it out there, at its beginning. It was the strangest dream, in that I spent time, physically, inside my emotional body. I was able to touch my intentions. I could actually see them. The physical world had become my emotions, and my emotional world, physical.”