- These pages are records of trips taken on the search for the whole self, visiting the ancient Bristlecone forest.
Caroling tells how she kept the natives from leaving. Then she finds herself joining the wheel as a storyteller.
I'm meditating on a vision of a sponge. Or it might be a raisin with holes in it like a sponge. Suddenly, a Bristlecone tree appears. The tree is showing a flow through the holes in a sponge. The tree says that what is important is actually unseen--yet it flows through. It is a white river gushing, the secret of the Bristlecone. Hard to imagine the structure of the raisin coral of its banks, bed, and sky. But that is it. That is the message of the Bristlecone Medicine Wheel tribe. I sit and wonder if it is a temple in itself or a raw material to send to beings or what?
The tribe is fully awakened and preparing to take off. "No." I yell. They communicate that everyone else has left, their message has been passed on, they are ready to rise. They are going. I'm furious. Sometimes I'm wowed by the needs of others and fail to communicate my own. But I need these people to stay. I can't get the meaning of their message unless they stay. I yell out loud, "Stay here, I need you to stay. Stop. Don't leave!!!"
This is in vain. They are forming living sponge vehicles something like the raisin sponge I saw around the Bristlecones. These crenellated formations are blooming out like a paraglider canopy buoyed by the wind. I have to fight for them. I fight furiously. This cannot be described, except to say I became totally convinced that I was right to ask for what I want and fight as hard as I could for what I wanted and I had to win. The fight was to earnestly feel my need and know that I needed to fulfill it and go for it. This is a totally virtual, mental battle, but seems eminently real. And suddenly I know I won. They stayed.
The natives in this wheel are still here and accessible. I'm tentative at this point, not knowing what I have to do to keep them here. Now that I know that they know that they can go, how can I trust them alone? Weird, but I feel that if I can get the sequence of pictures of the wheel so I can crudely animate a walk around it, that that will somehow fix them in place. Creating the manifestation of the story is a magic act that will enable the meaning of the story to manifest. And the meaning of the story is an aspect of reality that we need to know about.
In desperation, I opened Netscape and scrolled through the images. One struck me: the storyteller. I see a small log at the bottom and took it for me. That must be me there as part of that station. Now I've got a place in the wheel, I've got a chance of keeping tabs on what is happening and keeping in control. One thing I'm sure about. I want to keep control of this wheel. At least for now. I'm so glad I'm part of the vision hatcher/storyteller. Yes, that is me. And I think that the tribe will listen to me because they need my part of the story. That is I need to tell them about their need and my part in it.
I got two messages. One is dependent on my newly realized freedom in time. I need to go back and do a pictograph. It might be on the other side of the rocks from where I went at Chalfant. Whew, this is hard. I need to do it at the right time so it becomes part of the native consciousness. I think Einstein might help me. I just flashed on his appreciation of gathering all consciousness factors into creativity.
The other message was about storytelling. By tuning into the Bristlecone Medicine Wheel story, I've tapped into an ancient tradition. In our culture we generally portray stories told in a circle, around a campfire, by one to many. But part of the tradition was to tell the stories on walks. Since people were not permanently settled, or if they were, they still had to walk long ways to gather food and materials to support life. During that time they told stories to each other. It must be possible that they developed stories interactively with each other. But stories were revered. And they should be kept. So usually one person would preserve and transmit the stories. I think they could come from anyone though, be passed to others, and eventually kept in retelling form by the storyteller. In this case, I'm the storyteller's assistant. The pictures for the stories are the pictographs.
On my walk today, I'll envision myself walking to the rock site and creating the pictograph. While walking, I'll tell the story of what I'm doing. But the pictograph is to tell the story of the wheel and the guidance to stay. It might look like this picture. What I need to do is experience what it is like to actually do it, as realistically as I can.
Is this a flip or what? Creating reality from the imagination? Usually, I create the imaginary from reality. Also, this is tricky because it is in the past, I think it has already happened and all I have to do is remember it. But I have to continually remind myself that it does not happen until I make it happen and that hasn't happened yet. I can't remember it. Maybe I can remember another part of the space, such as the rocks and what it is like to be there. But that is tricky too. I'm trying to gather the most comprehensive picture possible. This includes a request and effort to include other free-in-time elements that haven't yet been initiated. So I must concentrate and be as nimble and quick as I can. Is this like jumping over a candlestick?