Finding My Sacred

Cloud Of Darkness (1987)

In my personal belief system, I believe there are many realms, meaning other complete worlds that exist. There are three that are meaningful to me. The first is the earthly realm, where humans and animals reside, where time is overbearing and always dictating our lives. Then there is a realm where the spirit world and earthly world co-exist. I call this, the spirit world, it's timeless. Lastly, there is the heavenly realm where angels, spirits and the creator exist in unison.
When I was a teenager, I had barely started driving at sixteen, the terrible dreams started happening. I couldn't remember the details, but I knew there was an unsettled heaviness that surrounded me. A black cloud descended upon my surroundings, which tainted me with despair and isolation. My first encounter with anxiety. I was doing well with a job, a car, good grades, yet I was out of balance.
I was angry, and I would argue with my parents. I remember one argument because I had come home after 11 p.m., past my 10 p.m. curfew. I told them the truth, that I lost track of time talking to friends at the mall, and they scolded me. It angered me! I could have lied to them and told them I was at a pottery class or busy doing homework at a friend's house. Instead, I was honest with them. In a moment of anger, I yelled at them, slammed the door, and wandered out into the darkness for about an hour. On my way home, I was five houses away, and I glimpsed a figure coming toward me. At that same moment, my mom and dad appeared with their car. They had been looking for me. The figure was all cloaked in black with a hood, hunched over walking slowly. I glanced up at it, as my mom's headlight focused on me and the shadowy figure. The face looked like that of a witch, which startled me. I ran to my mom and dad's car, out of fear.
"Who was that?" my mom asked.
Fearing for our safety, I told her I didn't know and begged her to just get home. I was puzzled as to who would be running around in the darkness in a costume? Were they trying to scare me? If that was their purpose, it worked. At the time, I brushed it off as a mentally disturbed person, out to scare people. Now as I look back, it seems to fit in the realm of witchcraft or shadow people. A realm which I don't want to encounter again, which to me exists and has it's good and bad forces within it.
For a week, I would wake up in a sweat and be frazzled for the rest of the day. One night, I awoke and quickly turned my bedroom lights on. I saw my dad bent over putting something in my shoes. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was having bad dreams about me and my car. He told me he was sprinkling corn pollen from his medicine bag into my shoes and on top of my car to protect me. I thanked him, but in the back of my mind, I thought it was a strange thing to do. How could yellow sprinkles in a bag help me?
The next day, he gave me a medicine bag and we went outside, he told me a prayer to repeat and explained that the medicine bag was powerful and sacred. He directed me to always sprinkle to the east first, because that is the starting point of life, that is where the sun begins to rise, where all directions begin. Then he sprinkled it toward the other three directions. He taught me the significance of the number four. There are four directions, four seasons, four elements, from that point on I loved the number four. He told me anytime I felt unsafe to ask the Creator for protection and guidance. I agreed with a little reluctance. I was still skeptical about having this little bag for protection, yet I trusted my dad.
My dad was into more traditional teachings than my mom. He told me about sage and how to light it and how to say a prayer. He also told me about medicine men and how they sang with prayers and blessings. I learned about taking snow bathes and how it was good for the circulatory system and how it prepares you for the hardships in life. I only half listened; after all, I was growing up trying to fit in with my Anglo counterparts. The last thing I needed as a teen was to be different than everyone else. I trusted my dad and clung onto the medicine bag he gave me.
The next night, I awoke in fear upon hearing a large gathering of crows screeching outside. They were squawking loudly and banging against my window. I listened to see if this noise awoke anyone else in the household? I pinched myself to figure out if I was dreaming. I wasn't. I peeked into my brother's room, called his name, and heard him sound asleep. Nobody in my house was stirring. I carefully took out my medicine bag and held it to my heart, which was pounding hard, then quickly walked outside toward the squealing crows. The wind had picked up, and the chain to the tetherball pole began to clank loudly, along with the shrieking birds. What was wrong with them? What made my heart race even more was the sound of a swarm of bees somewhere nearby. I nervously took out my medicine bag and did the prayer my dad had taught me. I swear, as soon as I finished the prayer, I felt a sudden gust of wind blow through then everything was silent. The flock of birds flew away, the wind subsided, the bees went silent, and the clanking stopped. There was a sense of peace and an eerie silence that came about. I took a deep breath and my sense of well-being returned. I scurried back to bed and was able to get a good night's rest.
The next day was a Friday, I remember it well. I had to work until closing and we happened to stay open an hour later than usual with my friend and co-worker Brad, who before I owned a car was my ride home from work. We did extra prep for the next morning and stayed open later to accommodate a big Saturday crowd. We left the store around 11 p.m. He walked me to my car, and I embarked on my drive home in my blue Camaro with a nagging sense that I needed to drive slow. I remember it well. I was eight minutes into my drive, halfway home.
As I approached a green light, a loud inner voice screamed in my head, "Stop!"
I glanced at my rearview mirror to see if anyone was behind me, but I saw no one. My Camaro was at a crawling pace as I approached the green light. Within an instant, a lifted black pickup truck zoomed through what would have been a red light coming from my left side. Then a second later the light turned yellow, then red. I couldn't believe what had happened! It felt like the longest red light of my life. The red reflection lit up the inside of my car, as all the what-ifs of my past raced through my mind. My poor parents, I hadn't accomplished anything. Why did that happen? That asshole! Was he drunk? Then the light turned green, finally, I could go home in peace.
"That was it!" I said aloud.
Then the thought, "It's not my time" came to mind.
The realization that I was almost hit at sixty mph from the driver's side, devastated me.
From that moment on, I told myself, "You must listen to your intuition, listen to that inner voice."
Up until that night, I had a feeling of invincibility, I'd test myself in dangerous situations with no fear in confronting them. I'd dive into the lake at Lake Powell, jump in with rocks, seeing how far I could go before I ran out of air. I'd climb rocks when we went camping, I'd participate in reckless dares and push my limits to the brink. I had an inner cockiness that came about by hanging out with all boys growing up. I remember playing football with a group of guys, and one tackled me so hard that I lay there with the wind knocked out of me. I popped up pretending it didn't hurt, finished the game and earned a lot of respect that day. I loved watching the Indianapolis 500; it was bold, brash, challenging, just plain badass. Someday, I'd see the pagoda in person, I told myself. I wanted to live with fearlessness for a while, I did. I wanted to push my limits, raise the bar. My uncle Gordon Stump taught me how to play on a pool table, drive a boat and how to shoot a shotgun. Forget nail polish or makeup; yet, I was still daddy's girl.
I always felt that I had something to prove, not only to myself but to others as well. My dad had a saying, "Don't tell me about it; Just do it."
I think that basketball shoe company stole his saying and made millions from him.
Those words came back to bite him. At the age of seventeen, I made the decision to enter the U.S. Air Force. I gave my parents a few weeks' notice about my decision. They walked around with a look of worry, as they were not ready to let me go. I wanted the challenge, and I would leave as soon as I graduated high school. It was a brash decision for someone who had never left her family before.