Chapter 4

For the next days, the doctor got more and more depressed and more and more anxious. As he drove his government jeep to the hospital his world started to fall apart. First, he noticed that the gray government houses, started to become blurry when he looked at them, and at the same time, the orange red mesa rocks behind them became clearer and cleared. Then as he drove there was a strange quiet and and slight shaking of the jeep. Then, he would get to the hospital  and see the Indians lined up in their plastic chairs waiting their turns to see the doctor and the hall would get wider and darker and he would find himself looking out of the large windows at the end of the hall at the clouds blowing across his life.

And, he was having his dream again, and again. In the dream, the earth was cracking apart. He saw clearing the crack, the jagged edges appear on each side, the rocks falling down into the abyss as the crack widened. And he could see the red light of what appeared as fire below. he could hear the cracking noise like it was an egg opening but a huge egg made of rock and he could feel the fire’s enormous heat and smell the sulfurous gasses emitting from the new crack. But in the midst of this upheaval, he was calm, almost beyond calm, restful, at peace and even happy. In in the center of the calm quiet space he heard a woman’s laughter. The dream was coming more a more often now, after the visit of the medicine man, it seeming his nights were spent with the deepening crack and woman’s laughter.

One day, as he left the hospital  and started his drive back to his house, he found himself turning left instead of right at the turn toward the housing where he lived. The road left went off the reservation towards new Mexico and led really nowhere for a long way. He drove without knowing why and without thought and suddenly felt himself turning right on a dirt path that was more a track then a road. It led towards a hill ahead and turned, went into huge puddles of water and mud, turned again. To either side were cactus, huge boulders, red earth and the distant mesas rising suddenly like walls to either side. He realized it was becoming a box canyon and it was getting narrower and narrower as he drove up the canyon floor. Then a stream appeared on the right of the track  and got larger as he drove further and further.  He could hear the noise of the water in the stream even over the whirring of the engine. He drove up this canyon, with the stream gurgling beside him, with the sun now getting lower in the sky until it hit the top of the mesa to the right. Then, he saw, two people in the distance. They were sitting on a big bolder on the side of the track. They were Hopi Indians, he could tell this from their dress, as he got closer, he could see it was a man and a woman and as he got even closer he recognized them. The man was Povagi an elder who he had treated in the hospital  for diabetes. He did not knew much about this man, but knew he was involved with a breakaway group of elders who were are a path different from tribal council. He remembered that he had originally picked up this man hitchhiking on the highway and he had told him about the Hopi prophesy. With him was a woman, she had been with him each time he saw her in the hospital. She had never said a word, he did not know if she even spoke English, she was always in front of him to one side and seemed powerful.

The man spoke, “Hey doc, what are you doing here on this abandoned old road where no one comes. Then, he laughed and the woman laughed too. The laughter was a lot like the laughter in the dream. This put him in a strange state where he was losing track of reality. He said, “ Hello Povagi, I remember you of course from the hospital and from your teaching about the prophesy when I gave you a lift that day. I was just driving home and found myself driving here instead. I don’t know why.” Povagi said, “Doc, we were expecting you here. Me and the woman were waiting for you here. You are supposed to go on the path, follow it until you reach the clearing and then follow the signs. We will direct you from there. this is important, it is time now.” And Povagi and the woman started walking away from the road across the sagebrush and cactus and berries towards the high mesa walls. A small dog came from behind a rock and came up to the doc and stood by his side.

Doc went back to his truck and the dog jumped in next to him. Doc let him, it seemed like that was supposed to happen. As doc drove he started to get more and more sleepy and dreamy. Then, the dog started barking and would now stop. He watched the dog and watched what the dog was barking at. And he looked up and  saw an eagle circling above. It was a white headed bald eagle, it circled very high in the sky, almost beyond vision. Without the dog, he would have not seen it at all. And then another eagle appeared. It flew with the first one, they were outlined on the canyon walls beyond, their shadows making them double visions. They circle lower and lower until they were not far away. One of the eagles dove down and narrowly missed his jeep and then shot up in the sky again. Ahead the road forked and doc did not know which turn to take. The eagle flew clearly to the right and he turned right. This happened again and again, there was a fork in the road, one of the eagle couple would drop, fly over one side of the fork and he would follow. This dance was beginning to appeal to him and went directly into his heart deeply. He felt now he was on the path of the elder and the eagle and was in some kind of ceremony.

Finally he reached an area where the single track opened up into kind of a circle. It was like a clearing and then after the track seemed to end. This was the destination of the path and the place Povagi had directed him too and he felt it’s energy in his heart immediately. Then without waking up, he got out of the jeep and started walking to a small wall on one side of the clearing. He could see when he arrived that the wall was actually one of many that went beyond the clearing into the underbrush. He walked over to the wall and stopped. In front of him, he could see the flat area like a courtyard or square. In the center of of it was a depression. Next to the flat area he saw a woman.

She was young about his age, dressed in informal camping clothes that were elegant, she looked like she was from a magazine. She had long blond hair, a hat, and a small backpack. She did not look up when he looked over the wall. She seemed to be intently looking down into the depression in the flat area. He climbed over the wall and walked over to her. It seemed to him like it was natural that she would be there, like she was part of the story that was emerging in front of him. She looked up at him, also not surprised. He said, “Hello, how are you today?”, small talk, insipid and remote, as if he was putting out a feeler tentatively. In fact Doc was shy and at first did not speak much. She looked him directly in the eyes and did not look away. She said, “ I am looking down into this dark area below. it is very strange. I am drawn to it deeply.” The eagle circled over us and was joined by the second eagle. They started to circle together first up very high, then dropping down in the circle slowly towards us. The dog came up behind us and started barking.  The eagles landed on the center of the depression where the darkness came from. It was getting dark now, the light was fading and it was getting hard to see clearly what was happening. The dog went directly over to the eagles and sat beside them. They seemed to be talking together like it was a meeting. As it got darker, they noticed a light coming from between the dog and the two eagles. The light seemed to come from a whole in the earth. It was not a normal light, it was moving like it was shaking and alive and it became brighter and dimmer in a rhythm.

Together they walked over to the source of the light. It came from a hole in the earth. The hole was square and made of stones. They could see now, the the hole was actually on top of a small mound or rise in the earth. It looked like a navel in a pregnant belly. It was clearly not natural, it was made by someone and it looked ancient and abandoned. They walked over to the mound and climbed it’s gentle edges and now looked down into the square hole. They looked into the red pulsing light and could not see anything. As they looked down, doc felt his body vibrating and becoming warm. He felt light and almost not there. his mind was above his body and he could see the whole scene like it was in a film, like he was looking at himself from far above.

Awatovi he heard. Awatovi he heard, over and over again. And then he had visions, quickly before his eyes he saw a huge pueblo. He looked down, he saw a whole village with houses and paths between them. He saw people dressed in Hopi clothes but different walking between the houses. He saw children, women, men elders, people sitting on wood benches between the clay pueblo buildings. In the center of the village was the mound and the square hole. He could see a ladder sticking up through the hole and smoke rising from inside through the opening and drifting upwards. He could smell the smoke, it was aromatic from cedar and sage and it went up and up to the sky where he was looking down. It drew him down towards the hole. As he drifted down, he could see his body standing next to the opening and also see a woman standing next to him. But he was not himself, he was an Indian dressed in ceremonial dancing costume of a Hopi bear kachina . And she was not herself she was dressed in the same ceremonial costume of a Hopi bear kachina. The two figures were kissing.