Stephanie Dawn… Hrehirchuk

Initiation

I saw the women. They brushed each other's hair, adorning one another with flowers. I saw the men, below by the pond. The hilltop hosted a ceremonial site, not for dancing and music but for women's ritual, perhaps a rite of passage into womanhood or where they met to prepare a girl before she was to be married.

I stood in the middle of the exposed patch of earth on top of the hill. It looked like a scar among the wild grasses and flowers. A community of birch trees stood watch over the old wound. It was the first time I walked the hill. Something had called me from the path around the pond, my usual walking trail. Barbed wire enclosed most of the hilltop, saying keep out. I had entered through a broken section in the fence. Snuck onto the land, a stealthy visitor.

The soles of my feet began to hum. I took a deep breath and held position. Vibration increased as if I stood on an electrical field. Harebells, what many would call bluebells, covered the hilltop, gently bending in the breeze. Taller flowers with big red centres like bulging buttons and yellow sunflower-like petals stood in the middle of the scar and dotted the hillside.

The hill told me a story and I saw it clearly: the teepees, the long dark hair of the women, and the deerskin dresses. I heard them laughing, a group of giggling girls, such love for one another as they caressed each other’s hair with each stroke of the comb.

As I moved across the patch of earth — maybe four feet across and ten feet long, not clay or soil like the rest of the dirt, more like wet chalk — it felt as if someone was buried there. I stared at the earth. The tiniest ants moved in the longest line in perfect formation across the bald patch.

The scene returned. A deep knowing filled in the details. The First Nations community had come to the pond and the hillside in summer. They moved closer to the river in winter. I felt the energy through my soles, as if there was something there, just below the surface.

The railroad came and they moved, West perhaps. I stared at the train tracks below and the vast range of Rocky Mountains in the distance. I saw how the land looked before the trains. I stood in that time.

A great, great-grandmother, an elder-woman, was buried there in the patch where grasses didn't grow. The stand of red and yellow flowers marked her site. A visionary, a seer, she counselled the women and the community. She didn't know they'd left. She was suspended in a timeless place, waiting for their return in summer. She was still there: her spirit just beneath the soil.

Before I knew it, I had dropped to the earth and began to draw in the damp dirt: Sei He Ki, the Reiki symbol for emotional healing and to help those transition from one life to the next. I outlined the entire canvas of bare earth, using a small stick as my paintbrush. I leaned over to pick a single bell from a stand of harebell and place it on the patch to honour the Elder but the whole stem came up: two full blossoms and one small and withered. The grave proved home to more than one soul.

I recited the Reiki symbol aloud — a puppet, the universe, my puppeteer — and lay the harebells on the ground as I stepped off the patch of exposed earth.

“They are not here anymore,” I said. “They have gone. It is time for you to go too.” The elder-woman with her long silver hair arose from below the surface with two younger women who joined her in the sky. Their shiny, long black hair merged with the silver of the great, great-grandmother as their spirits entwined into one.

Not one to ask for many things, particularly from the spirit of a First Nations Elder, I suddenly requested her consideration of granting me a gift.

“Will you grace me with your gift of seeing,” I blurted, “of vision?”

In the moments before she merged with the cosmos, I received no indication of her response.

My hands shook as the gravity of my request sank in. I had not meant to offend her or overstep. Why did I ask that of her? I had no right to ask. But I need to know my purpose in life.

On my knees ‘fore you

Who AM I to set you free?

Who AM I, not to?

Normal

Every night I walked. Between dinner and the kids' bedtime I walked around the pond. I entered the path on the northeast side of the water. That night a man walked his dog on the south side, heading in my direction. I recognized his energy. It was Leo. I met up with him and we walked together.

“Leo,” I said, “have you ever had something happen and it makes no sense? Something that seemed so real to you when it was happening, but you knew it wasn't possible? Something really bizarre that had you saying What the fuck?”

“Yep,” Leo replied. “Just tell yourself it's normal.”

“What?” I stopped on the path and faced him.

“Just tell yourself it's normal. How do you know? Maybe it's normal. If you accept it as normal, there's no problem.”

I was becoming familiar with Leo's approach to things: his stories with no endings, his simple solutions. They often frustrated the hell out of me, but I was becoming familiar with them all the same. Leo was a shaman. He was sixty-four years-old and his full head of fluffy grey and dark hair along with his weathered skin from time spent in the sun in the Southern States, made him appear Native American, though I believe his ancestry was Italian.

Leo had chosen a life of no fixed address, allowing Spirit to guide his way. He had a community of good friends both in Canada and the United States, and he spent months of the year in each. He had spent time with Native elders in both places but most of his stories were from time with his teacher in the South. He had been buried in the ground up to his neck, sealed in a cave, and walked the desert for days. Leo always gave me a different perspective, even if I had to fish the meaning from his stories.

I shared a few details of my experience on the hilltop, with the scarred earth and the elder-woman. When I finished, Leo paused and said, “Hmmm, you are not done there. Go again.”

We had circled the pond, crossed the road and climbed the hill back to our perspective homes. I gave Leo a hug and the dog a scratch on the head. I walked the remaining couple minutes to my backyard and stood, looking off to the mountains.

“Just tell yourself it's normal,” I repeated Leo's words. What if it is normal?

Whose rules have I learned

Nature holds her tongue no more

I AM listening

Tiny Storytellers

Days before my vision on the hill, I had invited Leo over for tea and to give me a reading. He was house-sitting for my reiki friend, Sophie, who was on holiday with her family. Leo looked after her dog while she was away.

“What is my purpose?” I had asked him. “I mean, I know I'm to look after my family, write, and teach. I feel like there is something greater. Something I've not yet considered. Something I came here to do.”

Leo shared yet another cryptic story with no ending. Probably something that went a lot like, “There is a duck. In a pond. There is a farmhouse across the field. You need to get to the farmhouse, but you can’t fly. You’re the duck. A man standing under a tree has a wheelbarrow. Inside is a teddy bear. The teddy bear is angry with you…” It was always for me to make sense of how the story applied to my situation and my question. Leo had little interest in explaining any of it. I liked that about his stories. His ego wasn’t interested in deciphering his visions so that they made sense to me.

“Go outside every day and walk,” he had ended our time together with this instruction.

I had sat in my yard that next day, ready for my walk. The new addition to my garden had caught my attention. I sat on the cool patio, eye level with the bright white wild anemones who had blown in one day and volunteered to cradle my stepping stones.

I suddenly remembered the exercise Leo had led our group through on the last day of my year in yoga, months earlier. He had taught us the practice of eye-gazing. It had had a profound effect on me that day and I decided to try it with one of the little white blossoms. I sat comfortably and engaged the bloom. Like star-gazing, I found myself deeply absorbed in plant-gazing.

I blinked when I needed to, and I held my gaze steady for what felt like ten or fifteen minutes. I was beginning to think about concluding the practice, no earth-shattering effects had emerged, when the petals began to glow. The entire blossom became luminous. The light extended past the petals like an herbal aura. I held my gaze fast to the light, so white it took on a bluish tinge, like the full moon on a clear night. I had no idea of the connection formed in that practice.

I had followed Leo's instructions and every day I walked, usually around the pond. Until that day, the day when I was pulled to walk up the hill. That day the flowers began to show me stories. Stories like that of the elder-woman.

* * *

The next evening, after Leo had told me to return to the scarred earth, I walked along the path to the pond, intending to return to the hilltop. Instead I circled the pond and took up residence on an inlet in the middle. It's called Two-toed Pond because its shape resembles that of a deer's hoof print. I sat between the toes in meditation, watching the ripples of the wind on the water and the reflection of the homes on the ridge in the distance. I sat between the worlds of nature and man.

I stood to leave, not wanting to stay out too late, when I noticed feathers at my feet. I bent down to look at them. Normally I would take them home and plant them in my garden as prayer sticks, but they were small: the feathers of ducklings. I intended to leave them, when I felt compelled to place all four of them in my jacket pocket.

I headed across the road and started for the hill home. I was pulled in another direction. In fact, I stepped right off the path and began to find my own way through wild grasses across the lower ridge of the hillside. I dipped down into a small valley and stopped short, senses heightened, hairs on the back of my head prickled my scalp. I noticed a distinct change in not only vegetation but the feel of the land.

Several shrubs that I had never seen in the area squatted to one side. I saw a small pond or slough that did not exist. This is normal, I assured myself. I saw a farm or ranch just up from the slough. A house of settlers. Just then, a real red-winged blackbird flew to the top of one of the foreign bushes and screamed at me. I shivered. The area felt icky and dark, an energy I had yet to encounter, and if I lingered it would swallow me. I wanted to get out of there fast. I jumped over the lowest point in the valley, keeping my feet from making contact with this dark point in the earth, and quickly ascended the hill on the other side.

Harebells filled the hillside. There had been no flowers in the tiny valley, but they flourished along the hill. The harebells became First Nations children, running, laughing, and playing in the grasses, heading for the water. A joyful summer day of play.

Out of nowhere, they were ambushed, the children cut down, along with the women who ran to their sides. No one saw it coming. The men were not there. I could not see who attacked. That information wasn’t available to me. I sensed it was another band. Blood ran down the hillside as tears ran down my cheeks. I reached inside my pocket and felt something soft. I pulled out the four duckling feathers I had forgotten.

Re-enacting the ritual Leo had me perform when clearing the energy of my home weeks earlier, I addressed each of the four directions, offering a duckling feather to each in turn.

“There is no pain or sadness here,” I said. “It is time to go home.” The feathers drifted from my hand to the ground, along with my tears, and I continued to make my way up the hill. It seemed many more were trapped in time. Spirits solidified in the landscape.

The wind suddenly spoke, Walk the coulee. All the way around. I stopped to listen and tried to understand. How was I to walk the coulee? I’d visited stretches of the long stream in the narrow valley near my home. I wasn't even sure it could be done; if it was possible to travel the whole way around the community. Never mind the fact that it would take me the better part of a day, or more. The message was so firm I had to comply. I wasn't sure how or when, but I was sure I needed to follow the gale's instructions. I didn't want to stop whatever had started when I found the scarred hilltop and asked its elder-woman for her gift of vision.

Walk, whispers the wind

Move your feet across the earth

Every cell complies

We're Not Going Away

Steve and the kids came for a walk on a Saturday afternoon, an adventure through the coulee for my family. We took the path along the ridge with views of the mountains to the west and downtown Calgary to the east. We headed toward the city skyline. The sun stood high in the sky. At the end of the paved path we descended the steep hill into the coulee, away from neighbours and houses.

At the bottom, we found a small creek with great trees lining either side. A large, sturdy tree leaned over the water. Evidently popular with the locals, a thick, knotted rope hung from it: a playful way to cross to the other side.

Steve stretched his strong six-foot frame over the creek and pulled the rope to Michael. Eyes wide, the six-year-old grabbed onto the knotty handle and swung across the water, landing on the far bank. Steve helped Khali swing back and forth a few times before guiding her to the water's edge. He plucked the smiley near-three-year-old from the rope and set her down.

We decided to follow a small worn footpath along the creek through the coulee. I had not taken that path before and marveled at the changes in scenery as we ventured forth. I felt as though I passed through many time periods and as many territories in one small coulee.

Birch trees dotted the hillsides and chickadees flew from branch to branch. We turned a corner and the temperature dropped as we slipped into the shade of tall evergreens that lined the creek and hill as if I'd stepped onto a mountain path. Further along and another corner gave way to rocky outcroppings and exposed geological layers topped with wild grasses, like slices of Earth's history on display. All the while the small creek babbled and chatted next to us.

Walking the path through the coulee, I began to plan the route for my homework assignment. I realized I could take my bike on the path and cover as much ground as possible in the three hour-window available with the kids in summer camp. I wouldn’t be walking, as the wind requested, but it was the best I could do.

Michael and Khali came alive in the coulee. Walking the paved path on the ridge or to school produced endless complaining and dragging of feet, “I'm too tired to waaaaaaalk.” Yet the earthy path winding through trees and alongside cool water energized the kids as they climbed rocks, jumped the stream, crossed back over on fallen trees and explored off-trail terrain. It was a grand adventure for them and for me. I soaked in the fresh air and the beauty of the landscape, feeling removed from the busy city streets.

Everywhere I saw flowers, I saw story. Three stunning red wood lilies, poised between two poplar trees on the opposite bank of the water, caught my attention. I paused while they morphed into First Nations women washing their hair in the stream. I gawked at the scene as Steve and the kids explored the trail ahead.

What surprised me in the coulee, more than the vast changing terrain and how we all came alive there, was that I could still see the stories with the kids and Steve present. I had assumed they were only available in silence and solitude. I felt as if I walked with one foot in one world and the other in a second, yet both seamlessly alive. I felt more and more at ease on the bridge between worlds. It was becoming normal.

We see you see us

Your eyes do not deceive you

You asked for this world