Page 145 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2
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I was stunned and disheartened by the griffin’s fierce message. It was not what I had expected or
hoped for. I was wary too, initially, for I had never met a spirit quite like this before. I did not want to
believe that what he said would come true. Yet a part of me already knew, what my own spirits now
gently confirmed: the griffin was no trickster spirit, teaching with pranks and lies, but one of the truth-‐
tellers.
I finished out the night with a sacred song calling on the ancestors for guidance in how to meet so
bleak a future. Environmentalists and indigenous people had been fighting for years with our
governments and corporations trying to stop the poisoning and warming of the earth. Might these
efforts save us from such a devastating future? If not, what else would it take? And how many years
would we wait before the humans would come to that tender-‐hearted place of remorse for all the
harm that we have done here, all the injustice we have inflicted upon other species, the lands, the
waters, one another?
When dawn came, I placed my Pendleton Circle of Life blanket on my shoulders and sang a welcome to
the returning light. I left an offering of a turtle necklace on the blasted tree, with one last prayer for
healing for us all. Then I descended the mountain uneasily, knowing I did not have enough water for
the trip, and that my body was still battered from the hard climb the day before. I hiked the direct,
steeper trail down, hoping to save time, but it was equally grueling, every step a jolt to my agonized
joints and ravaged muscles. The last hour of the trek I cried most of the way, due to the pain in my
body, and the grief of my vision. But there was also a moment when the spirits made up a silly song,
with the words “Walk like a Bear” which we sang over and over to distract me from the terrible knives
in my joints. I laughed then, grateful that the spirits were keeping me going when I wanted to give up.
By the time I staggered to the trail’s end, I had so much rampant inflammation I begged two middle-‐
aged campers to give me a ride from the lake’s edge back to my car at the trailhead. They glanced at
me suspiciously, but when I explained how much agony I was in from my four-‐hour hike down the
mountain, they kindly provided a lift. Afterwards I drove to the lake, knowing I needed ice for all the
swelling and the lake would provide it. I gratefully soaked in the river-‐chilled waters and my suffering
eased. What I didn’t know yet was that these were not mere muscle and joint aches of over-‐exertion
but the first flare-‐up of the rheumatoid arthritis that would shatter my life within the next few years,
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