The Fires of Spring

It requires nothing more than a passing recollection of the night and sitting cross legged on the cold ground at the time warmth struggled to re-assert itself in the world. This feeling overcomes me as I tell this story again. A feeling of deep communion with this time and a spirituality that pales the ghosts of fall.

Inside our place of living the same tales were being told of old heroes whose lives never grew larger than the place those lives were recounted, so I worked my way outside. The warmth hadn't completely reclaimed the ground so I started a fire then labored to sustain its life. When I was sure the fire knew it's own way I sat before its warmth. The moon was half circle and high in the sky. I was seeking a vision, and this alone was enough to distract me from what waited in the blue shadows. Closing my eyes, trying to feel the earth and its spirits this moon asserted itself first. The front of my body was the lighted side of the moon warmed by the sun. An engine of incredible strength moved rivers of molten silver, heated by the sun to the far side of the moon. The heat was dispersed and then quickly dissipated by the relentless cold of the dark side. My mind searched for a place of comfort on the edge of this darkness as I stirred the fire.

I looked back at our dwelling, dim ghosts flickered at the door and quickly disappeared into the night. In the fall, their passing my way was well marked by fear, now after a hard winter they wouldn't even dare to take a place by this fire. I turned back to the flames. Beyond the light of the fire even the stark blue of the moon was unsure and the thing that now moved in its shadows seemed equally unsure. A vision, a spirit, a demon? To timid for any of these, my apparition stepped back into the dark. The desire for a vision has faded quickly with the dread of its realization.

As I looked back to the moon for a distant and by its distance a more comforting vision, a hand touches my shoulder. I had been told as a boy that death always lurks a few paces behind you , turn too quickly and you may meet him. I sat motionless. A voice breaks into my heart and I acknowledge the touch.

"A rain is coming" she says.

"There are no clouds and the moon is without a halo" I reply.

"Still there will be rain, you should cover yourself".

"Why do you concern yourself with my comfort? I think. "Surely a vision has more important things to relate."

"Yes a vision should act this way, though you are my vision and you talk small." she says.

"Me... your vision, how so?"

"I know your thoughts even though you don't speak, you can enter my mind so you must be a spirit." she replied.

I realized I hadn't spoken even though my feelings seemed to be related to her in the usual fashion. "This must be a trick, a malevolent spirit with the desire to confuse me" I thought.

"I don't wish to confuse you or anger you and I am surely not a spirit." she pleaded. " I was led here to warn you."

"Warn me, of what?"

"My time here is brief, will you hear my story?" she begged.

In the back of my mind I agreed.

The light of the fire gave way to a vision of her journey to this place in time.

Usually the elders had led the young men of her village down the dark and cramped passages of a cave to seek their ancestors and learn stories of the past. These journeys were rights of passage for the young men and hopeful forays into a spiritual plane that might contain secrets for the tribes survival. The way was lit by lamps of animal fat. The more ferocious of these animals still frequented the passages. Many a time, young men confused these beasts with a vision and passed on to the next world quite unintentionally. Most returned with stories of successful hunts and talk of a land with plentiful game that lay just beyond the horizon. But one time a young man returned with a story of the distant future.

In his recounting of the vision the tribe eventually faltered. A powerful new tribe from a place beyond the circle of the world came to their land and displaced them. Game became scarce and the waters ran foul. Even though the new tribe came to speak their language they did not know the true meaning of their words and corrupted everything spoken to their own meaning. So in time even a call for peace sounded like a cry for war to the new tribe. The new tribe used this as an excuse to wield superior power and obliterate our people. When asked by the elders for the time of this tragedy the young man replied that the vision had come after a long sleep in the cave. The elders knew this meant that it was far ahead in the tribes future. Most considered it beyond their concerns being so far away in the line of time. Some others felt the tribe had an obligation to warn their descendants of this trouble so that they may prepare. In the tradition of the tribe, young men had made the journey through the cave to communicate with the past and view the future. There was no known method to communicate with the future.

My father was the one to suggest that a woman may be the one to communicate with the future since the women are the bearers of the tribes future. This idea was meet with much doubt and almost rejected until one of the elders suggested that to prove his sincerity my father offer one of his own daughters to prove his idea. He turned to me knowing I would be the only one of his children not afraid of what lay before me. So it was decided that I would make my way through the cave and try to contact the future elders of my tribe. My father warned me that the journey would not be without its perils. Spirits, human and animal would try to prevent me from disturbing the line of time and connecting with the future. I assured him these apparitions would not frighten me. The next day I took part in the drinking of the sacred water and entered the cave.

The walls of the cave at first seeming ordinary and gray gave way to more complex shapes and shades. In the damp contours of the cave, panoramas of tribal life started to emerge. Tribal members fishing on broad rivers teeming with life ran across the face of the rock. Relatives known, remembered and some only spoken of acted out the daily activities of their lives. Scenes of familiarity gave way to images of vague recollection and those were replaced by stories of legend. The deeper the decent into the cave the further into the past I traveled. But this seemed the wrong direction for I sought the future.

I walked then crawled for over a day. At the end of that day I rested. This was the point at which my journey reversed direction. In my sleep I floated up through the rock that contained me. I was carried up into the sky until I floated high above the earth. Suddenly the earth began to spin rapidly. So rapidly that day and night changed places twice in a breath. A hunting season passed in what seemed half a day. Years passed so fast I was afraid to look at my skin for fear that it was wrinkled beyond recognition. When the earth started to slow, I descended back down from the sky, back down to where I had lain when I fell asleep. It appeared that the rock that had surrounded me had worn away to a pile of stones. I arose and started to wander. Just when I felt completely lost I came upon your fire.

I looked at her in amazement; it had started to rain.

"You must be a vision from the future " I exclaimed. "You predicted the rain"

"High above the earth I could see the clouds gathering above this place as I was descending." she assured. I am not from your future."

"Even if you are from the past you have traveled too far, this time is not the one with which you wish to communicate. The other tribe has already come and worked its destruction on our land and our people. This is already so far in the past that our blood has intermingled with theirs for generations. Our history subdued and our ways diluted. I once may have been one of your people, but not any more."

"You must be my descendant, my purpose must be true. I must help deliver our people from this devastation" She insisted.

"Even if I am a descendant of yours you still have arrived too late. Your message is as old as so many broken promises."

She replied. "My father warned me of this. He told me if you resisted my help to relay one thing to you and then return to our time".

"I have heard too many tales of deliverance since the ghost dancers and none of them have come true."

"This is not a tale of deliverance but one of struggle" She warned.

"What is this one thing that your father wishes us to hear?" I asked.

"This malevolent tribe comes from far beyond the circle of the world. Watch for the lights from the sky."

"There are lights in the sky all the time now. It is the way we travel." I insisted.

"Watch for the lights from the sky." She repeated.

The fire flared briefly and she was gone.

This is the third spring since that vision. Each year at the same time I make a fire of fallen winter branches amongst the remnants of the snow. I reach out to the fire and its warmth and cast a cautious eye skyward. I think the people that now claim this land as their own may not be the last tribe to come this way.