Protector - Short Story

to me PROTECTOR Dan sat in silence as he drove his ’87 Ford F250 towards the Sun Dance grounds outside of St. Helens, Oregon. It was his “sweat lodge” truck that he had lovingly named “Crazy Horse-Power” since it had far outlasted his expectations for longevity. It wasn’t pretty to look at, bronze with a brown interior, but it had hauled many cords of wood for the people that it had served, a rag tag group of Natives and non-Natives that had been drawn for disparate reasons to “the old ways” of Native American ceremony. Most had bloodlines at least partially from the Northwestern tribes such as the Siletz, Modoc and Salish. Others claimed the more universally renowned tribes such as the Blackfoot, Lakota (Sioux) and Cherokee. Dan always enjoyed it when in the dark of a sweat lodge, the Sun Dance chief, Sam Fastbuffalohorse, asked each person to state their name, their heritage and why they were there. At first, Dan felt chagrined that he had no Native heritage, no experience until mid-adulthood with anything remotely Native. “My people are from Wales, Ireland and France,” he had almost whispered the first time Sam had asked. Over time, after hearing Sam talk of his disdain for racism of any kind whether from Natives or non-natives, Dan had begun to feel a deeper allowance of connection with his personal ancestry. A geneological research project had introduced him to ancestors that had fought against tyranny, that had been persecuted for religious beliefs, that had led rebellions. It was easy to imagine distant ancestors sitting in sweat lodges in Europe, following their own traditions they had left behind in the Old World. Now, when his turn came to speak of his ancestors he did so with pride even though he knew that to the Natives, the whites had been the beginning of their problems. Still, Dan had been accepted among them. They had seen his work around the sweat lodge and seen him suffer with them during the Sun Dance, a ceremony of such sacred brutality that it is not openly shared with the outside world. They saw him split literally dozens of cords of firewood. He was one of their best woodcutters, even though he was in his late thirties with greying temples. Most importantly he gave freely to those who had less, and seemed to know his place in the tiyospaye, the clan. He was one of them, no matter his ancestral history. Dan thought of his reason for coming to the ceremony on this particular day, his “prayer”. He knew that within a couple hours he would stand in line waiting his turn to enter the humble lodge. When it was his turn, he would acknowledge the four directions, his Mother Earth and Wakan Tanka, the Life Force, Animator and Creator of all things. Then he would kneel on the cool ground and enter the dark lodge where superheated stones would be brought in as “grandfathers” and teachers. The door would be closed and the only light would come from the ominous orange glow of the stones. He knew that cool water laden with herbal “medicines” would be thrown reverently on them by Sam as a man named Joe sang songs in an ancient tongue and the rest tried to follow along, with varying success. As the stones cooled, complete darkness would hold him and give him permission to let everything go, and welcome everything in. He knew that he might dream in the lodge, that he might see mysterious lights from Sam’s direction, that he might have epiphanies and answers to his prayers there, and that profound peace and a feeling of belonging to the earth would fill his heart. But most of all his thoughts revolved around the woman that sat next to him in his truck on her way to her first “inipi”, his fiancee’ Annie. Annie was in her early thirties, dark haired and dark eyed. Combined with her olive skin, it was easy to imagine her as having Italian ancestry. But Annie wasn’t Italian. Her only European ancestors had come from Ireland. The rest, as far back as anyone in her family could remember, had come from the Blackfoot and Cherokee tribes. She was sitting quietly, listening to a CD that Dan had placed in his stereo. The music soothed her. Something about the chanting in tongues that her relatives might have understood combined with flutes and soft drumming spoke in a way that was both foreign and familiar to her heart. It was the same with much of what Dan had introduced to her. Foreign, but familiar in places that opened to places of tentative safety, as if she were stepping onto a new planet, with new rules and new dangers. More than anything else she had developed in six months of dating Dan a sense of his protective nature. Something about his word seemed sure, about his walk seemed strong, about his masculine nature seemed gentle. It was as if she knew from personal experience that he could be trusted, yet they had only met. A shy bird had settled on her heart and rather than scare it away as she had often done with other men, she fed it, allowed it to stay, wanted it to stay. And it had. Still, when Dan glanced over at her, he noticed that upon the small bundle of clothes that were on her lap, her hands were clasped tightly. Their eyes met, and they smiled. “I’m nervous,” she confessed again, almost apologetically. “I know,” he smiled back reassuringly as rare February sun strobed through the trees that lined the Northwestern Oregon backcountry road. “I’ll be there with you, though. And Heather should be there, too. If there’s anything I’ve forgotten to tell you, she can help. Sam’s Blackfoot, so his lodges are a little different than Lakota. In Lakota lodges the altar is outside, so even though men and women sit on separate sides of the lodge, where the men end and the women begin one man and woman sit next to each other, holding the balance between feminine and masculine. Instead, Sam himself sits there in his lodges. Otherwise I would sit by you.” “Well, can’t he make an exception ?” Annie smiled, only half jokingly. Dan chuckled. “Not likely.” Then he added, “Heather will help you. If she’s not there, Char, Pam, or Jeannie will step up. But I think you’re pretty ready, don’t you?” “I know we’ve talked about it. I’m just looking forward to doing it, seeing it for myself. Why are there so many rules around it?” Smiling, she added, “Why couldn’t we just go to a sauna and call it good?” Dan laughed and looked over at his companion. “I know you know this, but there aren’t too many rules if you’re just showing up like we are. For Sam, there are a lot of rules because he’s holding the spiritual space. The altar must be set up just so, things done in order, songs sung correctly. The spiritual energies that follow him show up at his ceremonies; not because he’s perfect, but because he is consistent. Because he’s consistent, its a safe environment even though it’s powerful. Just wait. You can’t screw it up, really. You and I are just showing up this time. Besides, saunas are no fun… they’re so clean!” Annie chuckled but didn’t say anything. “We’re here,” Dan said as he turned down a steep, forested decline, still damp from rain that fell a days ago. The road looked like little more than a rocked trail into a heavily wooded area. Smoke wound through the trees like ghosts. Annie felt like they were descending into another world. Her heart skipped a beat. Dan looked solemn, like a man who could see through threatening clouds. ____ “Hey, Austin Powers!” a smiling, dark skinned man with long, glistening hair approached the truck, yelling the tune from the Mike Myers movie. “Do you see a Mini Cooper here?” Dan replied in mock frustration. “No but I know you own one, Austin, and that’s good enough for me!” Dan laughed. “Adam, this is my fiancee’, Annie.” “Hey, nice to meet you, Annie.” Adam extended his hand. It felt warm to Annie. “Nice to meet you, Adam,” Annie smiled warmly. And then to Dan, Adam said, “See? Austin Powers always has beautiful women around him, too!” Dan just shook his head and said to Annie, “I made the mistake of bringing my Cooper to a sweat once because the truck was in the shop. Now all I hear is the Austin Powers theme music every time I pull up.” “Yeah and you Sun Dance like him, too!” Adam laughed as he started jogging towards the opening in the trees where Dan knew the inipi stood. Shouting back, Adam said, “Stones should be ready in about 15 minutes!” “Oh, boy,” Annie muttered. Dan smiled at her, and then reached into the truck to get his two bags; one that held his “sacreds” and one that held his sweat clothes. In his sacreds bag there was a pouch of tobacco for Sam and a smaller bundle for whomever was packing the grandfathers, the stones or “wakan inyan” between the fire and the lodge. There was also two pieces of cardboard tied together with eagle feathers safely pressed inside; the one he Sun Danced with and one he had gifted Annie on the night he had proposed to her. They would be placed in the rafters of the lodge during the ceremony. There were scissors, red cloth, string and some “medicine necklaces” that he often prayed with, and two small lines of prayer ties they had tied the night before; hers multicolored (because she thought it would be cheerier) and his red. The only other item in the bag was the most important of all, the portable altar that he sometimes he called a Being, his sacred chanupa. “I’m going to change behind the truck. You can have a little more privacy behind the woodshed over there. That’s where the women usually change.” “OK,” Annie said as she started walking. As Dan changed, he watched the bustle of those with whom he would be praying and suffering milling around the fire. He could see in the distance his close friend Jerrod Bearpaw talking to Angel, Adam’s sister that was in recovery and that still wore an ankle bracelet. Dan smiled at the prospect of seeing her. He felt a pride on her behalf for coming so far in her healing journey. Then there was Char and Heather and a small group of younger men he recognized but did not know. A familiar excitement began to settle on him, a glow from the inside out that came with anticipation of ceremony. It was a nod to the most trying of all the ceremonies in which he had participated, the Sun Dance. The excitement he felt for lodge was not just for the inipi itself. A great portion of it was because this was one more lodge that would hopefully purify and prepare him spiritually for what would happen in July, the great Dance itself. And of course, he hoped all would go well for his dear Annie. Dan could feel a sense of destiny, of “rightness” about this day. This was not an unfamiliar feeling, but it was welcome. And today, it was intense. “I’m ready, I think,” Annie said, startling him out of his reverie as she threw a duffel into the back of the truck. “Do I bring both my towels down there?” Annie was well traveled and had seen many cultures. She had accomplished much in her life. An RN, she owned a home, and a car outright. She had proven well that she didn’t need anyone. But Dan had introduced her to ways of being that had shaken her deeply. Everything that had seemed solid and that she had counted on, which was all she could see, now seemed to be floating on something vast and unknowable, a reality that held what she thought she knew in the palm of its hand. In many ways, maybe most, she did not like it. But she was drawn to the exploration of this new, very ancient reality like a downy feather to the earth. And Dan was her guide. It was in most ways so unlike her - her friends commented on how she was changing - but she now stood in hopeful anticipation of reassurance from the man she had grown to trust in this new situation for her. As always, she was not disappointed. “You look beautiful, Annie.” Dan said as he shouldered his sacreds bag and two towels. Where were his shoes, she wondered, but didn’t ask. “I don’t feel too beautiful, but thanks.” She smiled and added as they began to walk towards the fire, “What if I can’t make it all four rounds?” “If you get too hot, just say, “mitakuye oyasin”, “all my relations”, or “my hair is on fire” and we’ll get you out.” Dan smiled at her and then laughed when Annie gave him a stoic look that said she wasn’t really kidding, which he knew. “It’s not about being tough. When it comes to the discomfort, it’s about learning to give it to the Beings that we forget we depend on; in this case, the grandfather stones and Mother Earth. Just stay in your prayer. If you think it’s getting dangerous for you, then by all means say something. If you can wait for between rounds, do it. If not, don’t.” “Have you ever asked to get out?” Annie asked as the faces of the people and the lodge itself came into clearer view. “There have been times when it was so hot for me that I didn’t go back in between rounds. Funny thing is I don’t really know what makes some sweats more difficult than others. I’ve been in some that didn’t seem that warm to anyone but me, and I was dying. I think it has to do with what you bring in, what your prayer is, sometimes. Of course physical health has something to do with it, but I think that’s not the whole story.” They walked the last 50 yards in silence, each with their own thoughts. Dan’s bare feet sunk in places in the cool February mud. He liked being barefoot as much as he could; it helped him feel connected to the earth, as odd as some felt that sentiment was. Annie picked her way around the muddiest spots, but the ground never seemed to dry in Western Oregon this time of year. She was sure she would be sitting on moist ground if Dan hadn’t suggested a towel to sit on. Another point of gratitude sparked for this man that she had trusted to keep her safe in this new experience. As they rounded a small clump of trees, the whole scene came into view. A large fire roared in the center of stones that surrounded it. One man seemed to be adding wood to the fire, while others stood outside the circle talking, smoking, laughing. Some drank water. A dark skinned, somber man with long twin braids drummed and sang to himself in a language she did not know. Annie suddenly wished she had drank more water before she came. Towards the back of the milling people and the fire stood a small, rounded structure covered in what appeared to be canvas. It was not showy in any way, appearing to rise out of the soil itself. To Annie, it was both welcoming and foreboding. It seemed to say, “Welcome daughter… come see what you’ve missed, how welcome you are, how strong you are, and how weak.” Cold fear began to rise within her, and at the same time she knew she was in control; she could leave at any time, right? And frankly, many of the people she saw didn’t look nearly as healthy as she. If they could do it… But still, there was something that had come to her the previous evening that she hadn’t even shared with Dan as she was making her colorful prayer ties. A memory, so dark and evil that it brought tears that she had surrepticiously wiped away before Dan could notice. She knew it had affected her life in many ways, and that she had blotted it out as she had her tears in many ways before last night. It seemed to want to be seen, even though she had nearly forgotten about it, at least consciously. So she had asked that it would go away. She had felt, as she monotonously tied the prayer ties and prayed, that they would. The smiling, colored ties that looked to her like small, stern but welcoming grandmothers seemed to say so, anyway. Dan introduced her to Jerrod, who politely shook her hand and smiled shyly. He had a large bear paw tattooed on his face, and two tears tattooed under one of his eyes. He looked like he had once been someone she would not want to meet in a dark alley, and taken together, she still wouldn't. That is, if his presence was not so full of laughter and kindness. Dan and Jerrod hugged for a long time, whispering greetings. They both looked like they had stumbled upon long lost brothers in the other and began an animated conversation. She watched their joyful interaction while taking in the bare trees silhouetted against the clear February sky and felt the heat from the fire, noticing again the understated but somehow crypt like lodge that seemed to smile at her. She was nearly overcome; so much seemed hopefully new and so potentially pivotal. Lost in her thoughts, she started when Dan’s friend Heather approached her and touched her on the arm. They had met just once before, but from Heather's warm welcome, one would have thought they were sisters. "Hey, Annie," Heather exclaimed as Dan looked over and smiled a greeting at her as well before returning to his conversation, "so great to see you here!" Heather hugged Annie warmly and Annie reciprocated, some of the tension melting away by her very presence. She was grateful to see another familiar face. Heather took her by the hand and they began walking to where other women were gathered. Stopping, Annie held her by her two hands and looked into her warm brown eyes and said, "Thank you so much. I'm pretty nervous. Dan says I can just get out if I get too hot. Is there anything else I need to know? Can I sit by you?" Heather flashed her shy smile, white teeth looking even more so against her dark Lakota complexion. "I was hoping you would! Just stick with me and I’ll help you… or you can help me,” she said in the humble way that endeared her to so many. Heather had worked tirelessly for the benefit of the Sun Dance. It was widely believed, but seldom spoken, that the Dance wouldn’t go off it it weren’t for her efforts. Others came and went, but Heather’s frequent communications and behind-the-scenes efforts provided the tiyospaye (family) with a sense of connection with one another in spite of their own dramas and sometimes overly-complicated lives. Heather was one of the women that knew how to set up Sam’s altar. Seldom speaking, she would just do it without asking. Often she would be one of the first at the sweat ceremonies, but aside from doing a few necessary things, she would just fade into the forest or walk down to the Sun Dance arbor alone. In a word, Heather had a stillness about her. And it was exactly what Annie needed in that moment; feminine presence, knowing, love. Her presence seemed so much like the lodge itself - which Annie could see just behind Heathers shoulder - in that she was simple and unassuming, the embodiment of femininity, but with a sternness that existed just out of view. Just then, a slim, dark man walked to the front of the lodge and cleared his throat. It was Sam Fastbuffalohorse, the Sun Dance Chief. Annie had not been introduced, but she could tell who it was by his demeanor. He was a stern looking man, but she sensed that a hard life had endowed him with compassion as well. She hoped she would see more compassion than sternness. From what Dan had said, he was certainly capable of both. "It makes me feel good that so many people are her to pray today. The stones are almost ready, so we'll go inside in a few minutes. Are there any pipe carriers here?" A few hands went up including Dan's, but no one spoke. "...two, three, four..." Sam counted. "Ok, Steve, can you pack stones for us?" A large, tattooed Native American man nodded, arms crossed. Annie noticed that it was the same man she had seen tending the fire. "One last thing I want to stress because we have some new people here, and that's that we are all here to pray. There are no colors here. I won't tolerate any judgement. I don't care if you are black, white,red or yellow, gay, straight, transgendered. You are welcome here. I don't want to hear anything that makes someone feel unwelcome. Spirit welcomes us all. We've all felt like outsiders. That doesn't happen here. Except for me... I'm an outsider because you're all ready and I'm standing here in jeans," he said with an almost nervous smile. "I'm going to change and fix that, though. We should be ready in a minute." With that, he walked past the crowd and around the corner. The crowd, now divided by gender on either side of the fire, broke into conversation as he walked past. Annie glanced at Dan, who was already staring at her, a smile on his face. "Love you..." He mouthed to Annie. She smiled back, and then laughed as Jerrod mouthed the same thing, who was playfully mocking them. Too soon for Annie's comfort, Sam came back around the corner, acknowledged the Four Directions, the sky and the earth, got on his knees and, shirtless like all the men, crawled into the cavelike opening. "Ladies first!" He shouted from within the cave. And with that the women began moving forward, one at a time. Each one did as Sam had done, standing in front of the opening of the earthen temple as she turned first to the west, then north, east and south. After that the earth and sky were acknowledged. Annie was struck that each woman did this alone, but in front of everyone. No one seemed overly shy about it. It felt right that this seemed both a private and a public declaration of love for Creator as each understood that force to be. When it was Annie's turn, it was with a mixture of very real shyness and gratitude that she raised her arm to the western sky to acknowledge that power, that direction, the direction of storms, of lightning. What she did not expect was a simultaneous feeling of filling, of rightness and beauty that overcame her. Pausing in the power that was washing over her, she turned then to the north. What had Dan said? The north was about suffering, and the wisdom that can come from it. She knew, knew with all she was, that she was about to suffer. Tears began to fill her eyes, not with fear, but with gratitude for the opportunity to learn what wisdom might come to her in such a place. A notion of her ancestors came to her just then, something she had not much thought about for years. Turning to the east, she was reminded that the new sun arose after a night of darkness. She thought of being alone and cold after a long night camping at the bottom of a canyon ill-prepared, and how good the sun felt when it finally came. Dan had told her that for him, the east was where hope lived. It was where his favorite helper animal the owl lived too; a being of transition, of seeing in darkness. By the time she turned to the south, tears falling freely To the ground, she inherently knew what south meant: it meant light. It meant respite. It meant mercy, joy and harvest. Kissing her hand to the sky she smiled at what she felt was a kindly man looking down on her, but at the same time, surrounding her. Kneeling down, her prayer ties touched the earth before her hands did. She wondered if that was ok, but simultaneously decided that it didn't matter. She placed her forehead to the wet earth and said, "thank you, grandmother". Taking a breath as she looked up, she was happy to see Heather waiting for her. Whispering "all my relations", Annie crawled into the lodge. --- The first two rounds had been bearable, but certainly hot. Annie sat in the back row of two rows of women on her side. From time to time she caught glimpses of Dan when the door was open as he "caught" and placed the stones that were handed into him on a pitchfork from the big man that had been assigned to bring them from the fire into the lodge. He used deer antlers to pick the red hot stones off the pitchfork. Each time he did so, he whispered something to them, but she couldn't hear what he was saying until the stones were being passed in just before round two had started. But finally she heard him say to one of them, "welcome, grandfather" and realized that was what's he was saying to all of them. Now two full rounds had passed. Annie was soaked to the skin with her own perspiration. Her body felt the need for water in an intense way, but it was bearable. Her skin, or just beneath it, tingled with an aliveness that was akin to the kind of exhilaration she had felt when she had zip lined above the canopy of trees in Costa Rica, or when she caught her first wave over six feet. But it had a stillness that made the experience different than that, too. It was those feelings mixed with the time she had held her grandmother's hand as she passed, and the time a bear sow and her cubs passed just feet away from her sleeping bag as she awoke tentless and alone in a late summer mountain dawn- the way the great bear had regarded her with something that felt like knowing, like kinship, before moving on unhurriedly after her bouncing offspring. All those things had passed through her, taking with them questions, bringing deeper ones, and leaving a rawness that made her feel more spiritually alive, more deeply connected to Life, than she had ever felt before. She was relieved to hear Sam ask his helper Joe to pass some water around. Joe dipped a gourd into the water bucket, stirred it, and removed it, dripping with sparkling life. He lifted it, offering thanks to Tungashila, and then spilled a little on the still hot rocks while incanting to "Grandmother". The men passed it on to the women, who sipped it respectfully, taking just enough to show gratitude and feel the blessing of cool water. It returned to Joe three times before all the women and men had had enough. "Everyone get enough water?", Sam asked. A couple people said yes, and Sam said, "ok bring in the rest of the stones!" Annie was surprised to hear him say this. Shooting a glance at Dan, she saw his eyebrows raise as he glanced at her. Their eyes met. Something was exchanged, but Annie didn't know what at the time. If you would have asked her at the time, she might have said he looked nervous, or anxious somehow. Certainly, as the stones came in, over twenty in all, the heat began to be intense. Heather glanced at her, made a face that Annie took to mean that she was suffering, too. Annie returned her gaze to Sam, who was explaining that the third round was going to be uncomfortable, and that everyone should ground into the earth and pray hard. But Sam wasn't speaking at all; he was just staring intently at her, a surreal ventriloquy as his voice continued. His eyes seemed to grow too large for their sockets, and she felt as if she were falling through a dark tunnel. She heard something like a little girl crying. Blinking hard against darkness that seemed to be encroaching quickly from the sides of the lodge, the sound of the crying went away, morphing into the sound of water hissing against the grandfather stones. Things came back into focus although she hadn't realized they had gone out of focus in the first place. She was confused and slightly alarmed when she realized that Sam hadn't been looking at her at all. However, Dan was. He looked concerned, as if to ask if she were ok. Annie tried to smile and nod, but it wasn't very convincing to Dan. He was still looking at her when Sam finished his soliloquy and said, "OK, close 'em up!" With that, the inipi went black. Heat like she had never experienced assaulted every exposed pore, but on her face was the worst. It briefly felt like the steam from a hot iron on her skin. Drumbeats and yet another unknown song filled the air, with raucous singing and hoots from the men. She felt Heathers head hit her shoulder, and her hand urge her own head down towards cooler air. To say it was cooler, however, would be to misrepresent the level of comfort that a foot of elevation could give. However, it was enough to give her some respite and it was welcome. The drums kept sounding, and they got louder. Something lurched inside her. She heard someone vomit from the men's side of the lodge while the singing continued. And then, inexplicably, the heat was gone. On some level, she knew it was there, knew her body was suffering in some place and plane. But Annie's body was gone. ------------- Dan was doing well. Had been doing well, that is, until the stones were handed in between the second and third rounds. From his past experience, there should have been fourteen stones - still well more than he was used to for one round - but Dan stopped counting at seventeen. The pile of superheated stones was now high in the lodge and his back hurt from the weight of some of the larger ones. Where had the extra stones come from, he wondered. He refused the water the first time it came around, but on the second pass, he took it. Even though they were between rounds and some light banter had ensued as they all rested, Dan was starting to suffer. He wondered why, during the first two rounds, he had felt so at ease although he sat directly in front of the stones. In the darkness of the lodge, in the heat of his prayer as he sang and whooped encouragement to the others, he even got on his knees so high that his head hit the top of the lodge and he hovered over them. No one could see this, the corporeal manifestation of the strength of his prayer, and the power of his offering empowered him. The heat hadn't touched him. He felt entirely in control of his body, vis a vis his giving up of control to Creator. His elation was full, he felt enfolded in the darkness, a part of masculine energy and a part of all directions simultaneously, yet supported by the cool, divine earth. But now things were different. He was reminded that the brutality of the Sun Dance for him had often been the breaks during the day in the Dance itself. During the heat of the dance, supported by prayers of the onlookers and the insistent drumbeat that felt like the heartbeat of Life itself, if he got tired he could lean back on his rope and feel fed by the tree of life in front of him, by those prayers, by the ancient songs. But during the breaks there were no drummers or onlookers praying. And those breaks, especially when he had danced on Eagle Mountain in Northern California, had brought him to tears more than once. Maybe this break in the lodge had disrupted his prayer just enough to make him suffer and to remember next time that even during breaks in the sweat lodge he needed to remain with the Spirits, crying with them. But for now, with the door just now closed and his sweet Annie looking different than he had ever seen her just before it did, he felt a wave of concern wash over him. Annie... How was she doing, really? Dan wondered, almost physically pained. The lodge was darkened for the third round, the drumming started, and Sam and the others began singing their ancient Lakota and Blackfoot songs, coaxing the spirits inside, to hear the prayers of the suffering petitioners. Dan opened his mouth to sing, and two things happened simultaneously. Not all of what I am about to describe happened in a literal way to Dan, but in a spiritual, almost metaphorical way it did. In fact, what happened to him can't be described in our language, but I will do my best. When Dan opened his mouth to sing, he simultaneously saw and felt a slit open to his left in the darkness. His body slipped inside and it closed behind him. For a moment, Dan saw nothing but deep blackness, and then a face appeared in front of him, with a name whispered in his ear in the same instant. The word was "protector". The face was Annie's. But it wasn't Annie's face that he remembered from moments before when he saw her questioning looks from the other side of the lodge, not the face of the woman who had ridden to the ceremony, with whom he had fallen in love. It started that way but didn't stay there. Her face became younger, younger than he had ever known her to be in this life. The word came again. Protector. Her face clearly visible inside his mind, it occupied all his attention. It was the face of a young girl, a young girl he recognized from a newspaper clipping that was pinned to a cork board in Annie's home office. It was a picture of herself as an eight year old child, with a note to Santa Claus underneath it that had been published many years ago along with those of her classmates in a local paper. But it was this picture, his Annie, full of youth and innocence that floated in front of him now. Protect her. ------- Annie drew in a sharp breath. "No," she whispered. Heather felt it more than she heard it. Beneath the drumming, the singing, the voice of her own spirit helpers whispered to her to respond to Annie and her limbs automatically responded, even though Heather's mind had no idea what her arm was doing at first. Earlier in the round she had drawn Annie's head down a foot or so to get her face out of the initial searing heat and she had remained there. But this was a new command, and she obeyed reflexively. "Get her to the Mother, Heather," was what the voices told her mind even as her arm was reaching for Annie's hand. At her touch Annie collapsed all the way to the dirt floor, sobbing as her mouth passed Heathers ear. "Not here, not now... Please," her tiny voice whispered to the cool earth beneath her. It was not her voice. Not her grown voice, anyway. It was the voice of an eight year old girl. Across the lodge at that very instant, Dan saw in his minds eye a man approach a little girl in a darkened room. His face was hard. His belt had often been taken out of its loops to whip his daughter for indiscretions that varied in seriousness depending on how much alcohol he had consumed before her actions enraged him. But this time was different. Anguished, Dan let out a silent scream that, had it been vocalized, would have stopped the ceremony. "Please... Please... Not here," he plead. "Protect her." Reaching his arms out to the little girl even as he remained motionless, Dan saw her rise from her bed and leap into his arms, melting into his warmth, his safety. He took the child up, up and out of the room through the the ceiling and into a green, lush meadow that he knew from his own childhood as her father approached her bed in the darkness in another time and place. Annie sobbed into the earth. Why had her prayers not been answered? Why had she to live through that hell again here, in this place? Hadn't her cheery grandmother prayer ties worked? Did she do something wrong? A warmth settled within her, apart from the heat that seemed only to increase in the lodge. "Granddaughter," a grandmotherly voice came to her. "You prayed to be able to forget. But you must see this now so you can let it go. See how it has affected your life, from behind your eyes..." With that, a series of pivotal decisions flashed in frontof her, all wrong it seemed to her, all affected in some way by the abuse she had suffered that terrible night. The men she had dated, the feelings she had struggled with regarding her own body, the guilt she felt when men looked at her a certain way, even the guilt about that horrible night and the divorce that followed soon afterward. All this had their ties to that night, the night she lost her faith in so much that could be good, so much that could be healthy. Seeing this clearly for the first time, anger leapt inside her like the flames she had seen in the sacred inipi fire before she came into the lodge. But in the instant they were acknowledged, they were also somehow diminished inside her. They became, and would be for years afterwards, manageable to her, visible as needed, useful. And in that same moment Dan screamed in silent anguish for the second time as a part of himself held the young girl in his arms, in a place far away. A sense of peace washed over Annie. It was not complete, but it was real. And inside it was the tiniest seed of compassion for her father, who had died estranged from his family, including her. She hoped it would grow, hoped it would not die, although she felt she could never hope to understand him. And with that thought her body discharged what seemed like a bucket of tears into the Grandmother Earth. She wondered how she had any moisture in her body at all. She wept, and seemed to be simultaneously drinking up strength, beauty and love from beneath her. A few feet away, Dan saw himself tucking a little girl into bed, safe and sound. The terror ended for him as he comprehended the futility of the comprehension of time. He had been with his Annie that night, in some place and plane. She had suffered, but he had assisted his Annie in some way. Had this happened retroactively, or Had his soul literally been there with her? He was certain he would never understand. The darkness faded, and he saw lights in the direction of Sam's voice as the singing stopped. The heat assaulted him again and the round mercifully ended a moment later when Sam said, "OK let's open the door!" and the battered supplicants answered in unison with a joyous, "Aho, mitakuoy oyasin!" The fourth round was as intense as any of the previous ones, but both Dan and Annie found it purifying, not to mention refreshingly short. Dan stayed inside and help dissemble the altar, helping him ground back onto the earth and collect his thoughts. When he came out, Annie brought him a towel and a jug of water as the people milled around them. "How was it?", Dan asked with a wry smile. "Pretty hot," replied Annie, smiling shyly. Her eyes glistened from within her. “I think I need to do this some more.” And with that, they embraced as intimately, warmly and and intensely as two halves of the same soul. --Eric Marley February 2015 NOTE: Basically, this is a true story.