If you are visiting my blog for the first time, you will see that I am entering a short novella called Albert’s Manuscript. Just back up to see parts 1 and 2.
Day Two
Morning Recording Session
Albert’s Notes
I slept last night without a wiggle. I thought the telling of my vision would bring the dreaming back, but it hasn’t, not yet. After my two-day journey, I gave up the booze, but I like my morning coffee to kick a little. Jilly knows that and comes in, hot mugs in hand, looking like the morning star.
“What are you writing, Grandfather,” she asks?
“None of your business,” I tell her.
She laughs, and her laughter clears the morning air of night. She sips her coffee and waits for me to finish writing whatever it is that is none of her business. Jilly knows I bark, but I don’t bite-like Hound Dog. Before I speak, I want to remind my granddaughter and others that these are not my words. I am not wise, despite my great age, and I certainly wasn’t wise enough at age twenty to make up First Man’s story. I tell it as it was told to me. I have learned that when there is true wisdom in the world, it always comes from the other realms-and not from the minds of men or women. They have only heard it.
“Are we turned on, Jilly?”
“Yes, Grandfather. We’re turned on.”
“Good. I will now tell First Man’s story as he told it to me.”
First Man’s Story
My name is First Man of the Wind of a Thousand Years. I am from the realm of the ancestors. There are other worlds, other realms, and I don’t speak for them except to say that the Wind originated there. We, like those still in the land of the living, are subject to the power of this great wind.
I was a boy, living in what you know as the southwest, when first I felt the Wind. I lived a simple life with my parents, and my people. We existed much as we had lived from the first memories that came down to us from our ancestors in the stories that we kept. Evening was my favorite time of day, the time of hearing my parents and grandparents tell the stories of my people, stories of spiders weaving, and of my people climbing up through the realms to emerge on earth as First People. I listened carefully, as I was instructed to do, so that one day the stories could be passed down in a good way to my children and grandchildren. It was inconceivable that anything would happen to change that long, slow, unfolding history.
Until the Wind came.
With the first kiss of this mighty Wind came the drought. In just a few years, our lands were sucked dry of all moisture and food was scarce. Our people were suffering, and they began to break into small groups and travel out from our main village. The wind continued to blow until the hot sun baked the earth into crust. The people began to protect food instead of share it. The fear came first and then the anger. People began to build weapons with which to defend themselves. At last, the peaceful way we had lived for thousands of years was shattered.
One day another tribe came from the south and attacked my family’s village. Their storm was violent and quick and, when the dust settled, my small body lay on the ground, broken, bloodied, sandwiched between the dead bodies of my parents and surrounded by my dead village. Death was all around. This event so shocked my young spirit that it left my body and fled to the high rock pinnacles surrounding the dead village and perched there, staring down at the horrible sight below. I sat, still and unmoving, watching as the carrion birds and the wild dogs below cleaned the bones of my relatives.
For decades the sun rose and fell, and rose and fell, until it had bleached the bones white. Still, I sat. I didn’t know enough to travel alone to the ancestors, and none came to claim me. It was not known to me until much later that this long period of stillness, perched and waiting, was my initiation into becoming a Watcher. I also didn’t know that in other parts of the world similar terrible events were unfolding and being witnessed by other Watchers across the earth.
The Wind of a Thousand Years had begun.
Eventually, the rock on which I perched began to grow. It rose so high above the earth that soon I could see other nations of people living on other lands. I could see far south into wet jungle lands and torrid areas. I could see north to frozen, icy lands where bands of people in small clusters were moving across snow and ice in their fight to survive the harsh land. I could see east and west across great bodies of water to other lands and everywhere I cast my eyes, the people were moving; walking, walking out across the land. As my perch grew higher yet, my eyes could no longer see the bare bones of my parents but only the travelers which I later came to know as The Walkers.
I no longer shivered, no longer curled into my spirit body but looked out upon the world. As I looked out, I grew curious about the massive, moving bodies of people. I wanted to understand what was happening. My questions grew-just as yours have, Albert.
Finally, I stood high up on my rocky perch, raised my arms up to the heavens, and prayed. It was the first time in all the years of watching I had prayed to the ancestors to show me what was happening.
And then, a miracle.
They came for me. The ancestors came and took me home, much the same as they came to get you, Albert, and for a similar reason-to teach me how to see. And how to interpret what I had seen so that one day, a thousand years later, I could tell you this story.
So, Jilly, that is First Man’s story. He was a tiny, sinewy little man. It was easy for me to picture the boy’s spirit perched like a bird on a rock watching the land below while his spirit aged. Waiting. Watching. The story of his family evoked images in me of my own family, of my own people scattered across the frozen land at Wounded Knee, of my father’s body dead of a gunshot. I did not think I was going to like First Man’s story. And I don’t, even to this day, although I understand its meaning.
Oh Jilly, the question I asked First Man then still embarrasses me and I hate to have you record it, but don’t shut the machine off. Not yet. I must say it.
I asked First Man, “Why me? Why have I been chosen to hear your story?”
His answer was simple. He said, “So that you, too, will become a Watcher. One day, you will also tell others what you have seen and heard. This story and your own.”
I was sharply aware that I did not want to be a messenger, a Watcher as First Man called it. There was no desire in me to translate unknown things. I was a young man-no, a boy. I wanted no such responsibility. Look at how I had treated mother, how I had failed at being the man she needed me to be. Look at how I had failed my sisters, my father, my people by being drunk and angry. No, I was not a reliable messenger.
First Man seemed to read my mind. “You have chosen it, Albert. It has not chosen you.”
When he said those words, I remembered. In quick, flickering scenes, I saw that I had crossed many times already between the spirit and the earthly realms-in my dreams and thoughts, in my childhood fancies of flying and traveling, in my questioning and in my running away. And certainly, death was not unfamiliar to me. The death of my father, which I had felt so keenly, like a knife in my belly, was just one of many, many deaths that had pushed my spirit up on to the high peaks to watch, and wait, just as First Man had watched, and waited. I had, in my spirit, already been a Walker-in training to be a Watcher.
It was my father’s death that had pushed me into this realm even while my broken body remained in the other world. At least I hoped that was so-that my body beneath the grove of trees was still waiting for my return. First Man said I had chosen it.
I said nothing, just nodded to First Man to let him know I understood and he should continue his story. When I gave him that nod, another layer of understanding filled my mind. I understood that First Man, too, had chosen this. He too had jumped in and out of many lives, many bodies, even while a part of his spirit remained high on a perch above earth.
And suddenly, I knew that my spirit, too, must be perched on a high point and had been watching the progress of the world. This, probably, was the first real lesson I got during the twenty hours of speaking, and the next twenty hours of listening.
I must speak this clearly. I had believed, if I thought of it at all as a twenty-year-old, that one body contains one spirit, rather like a body is given one portion of arms, another portion of eyes and ears. Never had I understood that spirit was a fluid thing, like this world I now visited, that spirit could be simultaneously in the body, and perched high above the earth, or perhaps even living other lives in other lands.
I am not sure if First Man taught me this, or if I just finally understood it. Our way of communi-cating had gone beyond words, rather like ink in water, one blending into the other. It seemed pointless to wonder what came from his story and what simply bloomed in my mind. I said to him, “So, you were taken to this realm in a similar way?”
First Man smiled at the way I tried to tie his story down like a pony to a stake. He said, “Yes, I was taken into the council of Elders. They told me about the cycle of learning, that each of us must complete this cycle, but that mankind as a whole must also complete the cycle. And that is why the Winds have come. The Wind of a Thousand Years has come to scatter the many tribes of people into one another so humankind can complete one cycle and begin another. You see, when each cycle ends, a new one begins. Over thousands of years it forms a spiral-not a circle.”
First Man was speaking slowly and watching me. He explained that the spiral of life always contains four movements, and these four movements coincide with the natural forces of heaven and earth. There are four directions, four seasons, four parts of each day, and always the closing of one cycle opens another. He brushed a place in the dirt, took a stick and drew a circle but, just as he was about to close the circle, he skipped past the connecting point and began a spiral. “You see?” he asked.
I nodded and said, “Yes, I see.”
“Good. Each movement has its own energy, a force contained within it that drives the spiraling outward. The four energies are gathering, be-longing, separating, and standing alone.”
Whatever I expected in this great teaching, it was not the simple words that First Man spoke. I must have looked like the wind blew me over because he laughed so hard he rolled onto the ground holding his sides. That was the only time I wondered if a great hoax was being played on a poor drunk kid who couldn’t stay atop his horse. I couldn’t possibly have gone through all this, yanked into the spirit world to be given such a school boy lesson? Gathering, belonging, separating and alone?
Finally, First Man quit laughing and came back to our small circle of firelight. “Sorry,” said First Man. “The look on your face, it reminded me of my own reaction when I got the same lesson. But trust me, those four movements within the spiral contain the natural world-and the wider realms as well. Pick up that stone, Albert.”
I looked around and saw no stone. Then I looked again and we were in a circle of small, smooth stones as white as snow. I was getting used to the fluid ways of this reality. I picked up one of the stones and held it. It felt good, as though it belonged there in my hand.
“Now, let it go again,” First Man said.
Oddly, I was reluctant to let it go, but did as I was told. My hand was empty once again.
“You see?” said First Man. “You take it up, hold it but a moment, let it go again, and your palm is empty once more.”
He must have seen my confusion again. “Don’t make it a difficult lesson, Albert. It is simple. We gather, hold a moment, let go, and are alone again. You came from the spirit world, you gathered or were bonded into a family, you stayed awhile, then you move away to find your aloneness once again. The cycle is endless. Everything we take, everything we bind ourselves to, we must eventually release and stand alone again.”
“I don’t understand, First Man. What does this have to do with the Wind, or with life?”
“It has everything to do with the Wind, and with life. Do you remember why you came here?”
“To find my father.”
“Yes, because you could not separate, could not bear to be alone. This is the breath of life, coming in, staying a moment, releasing, and then going out again to regather.”
A deep silence settled around us. The thrum-ming of the drum stopped, the animals ceased their chattering, and the very air around me seemed to stall. I thought hard about First Man’s words. In the edge of my vision, a gray pall began to descend. “But to be alone, First Man, it is unbearable.”
“Yes, it is. And to be permanently bound, held to one place or person, it too is unbearable.”
I was silent, staring into the flames and, in the moving light of the flame, I saw scenes unfold-of an infant letting go of the womb in his slide into life, the child letting go of its mothers hand, a boy letting go of his father’s bleeding body. Gathering, belonging, separating, and alone.
First Man nodded. “All are necessary in the wider movement of life. All are equally powerful forces. And what is true for the single soul is true for the greater soul. Your ancestors said it well. As above, so below. A cycle closes on earth now, Albert, and it is necessary that the human race sees this cycle, and accepts it now if they are to survive as a species.”
“Jilly? Are you okay?”
“I am. But what did he mean, Grandfather? If we are to survive as a species?”
“It will become clear, my dear girl. But first, a break.”
Albert’s Notes
I saw the shiver enter Jilly’s body from First Man’s words. When I looked up from my many scraps of paper, her eyes were wide, dark disks in her face. Oh, how I longed to wrap these old arms around her, but that is not what I had been instructed to do. These intense moments, of awakening-from dream, from sleep, from illusion-are exactly what we need now. We need to feel the truth of First Man’s words and cannot freeze the cycle without freezing life itself. I told Jilly there is no need to fear our aloneness because it contains the greatest of all gifts. It is in alone that we enter the next cycle, the gathering.
She was not listening to me. Her soul had retreated to its own tall peak to scan the landscape below. My Jilly knew about alone. Both of her parents had died of alcoholism before she was ten. She had lived with me for a decade, and with an auntie since. When she was born I had a vision of Jilly, and knew her aloneness would make her a Watcher, and that one day she would lead others to the high places of earth where they could see clearly. I trusted that vision. “Go. Take a break, Jilly. I need to gather my thoughts,” I told her. I must have sounded a bit abrupt. Her feelings played across her face like winter skies. How difficult not to soothe, not to say more to ease her pain. She went quietly off and wandered out into the sunshine. I smiled again to myself. She knows from which direction her strength comes.
For years after my journey I forgot this part of First Man’s story. Then one day I witnessed a tornado. It hovered a moment, placing its pointed toe on the earth, and then flew off again to the north. It had looked like a great being, and then I remembered the spiral-that gathering at the base, that wide, whirling, opening at the top, and all things moving up the spiral. I think First Man must have sent that tornado to remind me.
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