Painting a Picture

All is quiet here for now. Arrived late last night, around 11 pm. What a drive. Seems the older I get, 48 this year, the harder the road gets. Then again, I don’t remember anyone saying this was going to be easy. Life, its either something you do, or something that gets done to you. The interesting part is many never figure out they have a choice. Too busy wallowing in the pain of yesterday, remembering their lives. Or captured in the fantasy of tomorrow, imagining their lives. Somehow they forgot all about today, about this one moment, and without a notice it passes them by.

This morning I met the neighbor of the friend I have come to visit. Intelligent, with deep insights and a passion of philosophical discussions. Are there any other kind? Maybe, if the so called Leaders of this world delved into a few, instead of pontificating on how it will be, they might actually come to a conclusion and rectify some of the hell most of us live in. But that’s a philosophical discussion in itself, isn’t it?

We were discussing mental illness, and those who suffer from it. The sufferings perception. She was informed by a close member of her family, recently diagnosed as schizophrenic, she went crazy because God came into her mind. Wow. The idea makes such perfect sense. What human mind, operating at 10% capacity, could host the intelligence of a superior existence. Reality would crack.

This conversation took me back immediately to the first time it happened to me. I have known all my life I am a First Nations descendant. I can remember conversations as child, being instructed to never forget. Although I did not grow up with my siblings, in a family of us, I remembered those instructions. I have never forgotten. The first 30 some years of my life, I did absolutely nothing with that knowledge. Like the color of my hair, the color of my eyes. Something known but never deeply pondered. I was the opposite of what is so prevalent today. I was a Native pretending to be a white guy! Married the perfect white woman, had the perfect home in the suburbs, drove the perfect vehicle.

In 1993, that changed, and drastically. My home at the time had a furnished basement, which I used as an office. I was there one Saturday afternoon, around 2 pm, working on the books for my business. Suddenly, I wasn’t there anymore. I was standing on the prairie. Buffalo grass to my waist, blowing gently in the wind. A clear summer afternoon. I looked to the West, and fear encircled my heart with an icy grip to rival that of the Reaper himself. I could not see the west for the Thundercloud coming to me. Not over it, below it or around. It was the West. Utter darkness stretching from horizon to horizon. Lightning, wind, rain and hail. Leading this horrifying visage, coming straight at me, was the largest, blackest bird I never imagined. Flashing eyes, a beak designed to shear flesh from bone. Later I would learn it was a Thunderbird. Just before this Thunderbird hit me, my fear building as though I were watching a needle get closer and closer to my eye, slam, back into my body.

I was left dazed and confused, sitting in my basement. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I had done nothing to initiate it. I had no frame of reference. I have since learned many thing about what happened to me then. The journey to that understanding has been, lets say, interesting? Momentarily I hosted the intelligence of a superior entity.

Did it make me crazy? Did I lose my mind? Some would say, oh hell yeah! Mr. hawk is, if nothing else, bat shit insane. Maybe its true crazy people don’t know they are crazy. I certainly don’t think so. Nor do I think this journey, my vision of a unity of the mix bloods is insane. I absolutely believe its possible. I see it, feel it, taste it. I comprehend the effects, and the beauty it will render, to all our relatives. I wonder, is there a way I can paint this picture for you?