December 2000

Snake medicine is transmutation. It is the life and death cycle as exemplified in the shedding of the snake’s skin. It is the knowledge that all things are equal in creation. It is the energy of wholeness, cosmic consciousness, and the ability to experience anything willingly and without resistance.

Bear medicine is introspection. It lies in the West of the medicine wheel. It is said that our goals can be found in the West, also. To accomplish our goals and the dreams that we carry, we must use the art of introspection. The Medicine Cards book (J. Sams and D. Carson, published by Bear & Company) tells of Bear medicine like this: “For eons, all seekers of the Dreamtime and of visions have walked the path of silence, calming the internal chatter, reaching the place of rites of passage . . . From the cave of Bear, you find the pathway to the Dream Lodge and the other levels of imagination or consciousness. In choosing Bear, the power of knowing has invited you to enter the silence and become acquainted with the Dream Lodge . . . “

****

I have a home. I have never had one before, no matter where I lived. It is an older house, sitting on a cliff and weathered by the storms that blow in off the Pacific Ocean. In it, the wood is dark and warm. In the kitchen, garlic strands hang from a wine rack and tomatoes grown in my summer garden ripen on the windowsill. There is a study, and a fireplace, and computer where I write. And there are books on shelves built in the walls. My pipe rests in its holder on a stand next to a dark leather reclining chair. A cup of spiced tea steams beside it. And there is the slightest scent of burning white sage wafting in the air.

This home is only in my daydreams, and the chair is empty. But someday I will live in it, and I will write the rest of this story at the computer. And when I am taking a break from writing, I will sit in the chair with my pipe and tea and read a good book. And the winds outside will never blow so cold again.

****

It took two weeks for Klondike’s paw to heal. Near the end of that time, I had to return to Colorado Springs to tend to the dissolution of my company. This project has gone back to its original plan, that of a quest for personal truth, and that alone. The restructuring forced me to liquidate everything I had of value to meet my obligations and continue on this journey unobstructed.

When I began, I sold my truck. I now head into the winter of north New Mexico with no dog, no cameras, no lap-top, no cell phone, and a bank account that consists of a few bills folded in my pocket.

The morning I met Bear on the bayou in Florida, I knew she was passing her medicine along to me. I knew she was telling me introspection, but I couldn’t apply it at the time it was being gifted to me. Nor could I fully apply Snake’s. It is only now, after all of the recent changes, as I write this in the hours before I return to the road, that I understand what both were telling me.

It is time to enter the silence to become acquainted with the Dream Lodge, and to experience it willingly and without any resistance.

I now step into the field of infinite possibilities.

And someday I will go home.

But not yet . . . not . . . yet . . . .

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