Four Quarters of Light (45 page)

Back in Fairbanks, two days in advance of schedule, it was like coming home except that Audrey and the boys wouldn't be there. I had contacted them and asked Audrey to drive the
Pequod
up from Anchorage to meet us. I couldn't wait, but was glad all the same of the day and a half's breathing space.

After I had deposited my belongings in my cabin in the woods, Debra suggested I should come out to her home. She only lived a few miles away and would pick me up. I was glad of the invitation. Being alone in this borrowed cabin I had come to think of as my own didn't seem so attractive. I knew there were unfinished things that twenty-four hours alone in my cabin would not resolve, and I knew that Debra's invitation carried with it an understanding of that. We had talked much during our time together but there were still lots of empty spaces. There were several questions I felt the need of answers for, but I didn't have the right formulation of words to ask them. Sometimes words get in the way. They put more trees into the wilderness when you are trying to see your way through. I had sensed that Debra intuitively knew what was running around in my head.

Debra's home was a splendid octagonal log structure. She and
her husband Dennis had designed it themselves and had built it in a wooded setting. Years ago, Dennis had built a large two-storey annexe on one side. Outside were the inevitable outhouses. The smallest of these housed cut timber for heating, and there was a much larger enclosed shed for ‘all the stuff we need to survive up here', Debra explained. The largest of the outhouses contained cars, four in all, each of them vintage classics. ‘But,' Debra continued, ‘he keeps telling me there is room for two more and the jury is still out on that one.'

I thought of the roads I had driven in the RV, then commented, ‘There's not enough roads here for anyone to need any more than one vehicle, unless it's a giant bulldozer with snow-shifting attachments.'

‘Exactly!' Debra concurred.

I knew that one could really only use the roads for three months of the year. Each of Dennis's superbly restored vehicles would probably only get an outing a few weeks a year. Still, I loved this Alaskan eccentricity, and the fact that everyone was a collector or a hoarder. Obviously Dennis had refined this curiously Alaskan preoccupation. I admired him and his collection, and was curious about what he intended to fill the two empty spaces with. But I also felt it would not be a good conversation piece with Debra.

Inside the octagon, Debra showed me round. I was impressed by her and her husband's art collection. Dennis's taste in line and colour had been apparent in his vintage car collection, and it obviously did not stop there. Debra also had an extremely interesting collection of native artefacts. I remarked how her present home was a huge difference from her first. She agreed, but at the same time explained that the original homestead was still there and she still visited it when she could. She hinted that the spirit world was really her true home and she increasingly found herself travelling in the spirit plane. She looked casually at me as she insisted that deciding to go on such a journey was not a decision that should be lightly taken. Nor is it one we can turn back from. We may refuse the call for a while, but inevitably, if we
are true to ourselves and to what is meant for us, we will be empowered to achieve this end. I sensed again that she was not simply passing the time of day with me. It seemed a good opportunity to discuss things further with her.

I remembered her telling me that she had chosen to leave the visionary world of her childhood as she was growing up but had promised herself that she would return to it when she was older and perhaps better able to understand it. I was always anxious with Debra. I did not want her to feel concerned by my questions, or that I was prying, but I should have known better. Debra probably knew me better than I knew myself. She complied with my request with no more hesitation than it took to collect her thoughts.

‘Shortly after my son Keenan was born my life started to not go so well. Not from anything external – Dennis was grand, my life looked good. What was wrong was all internal; I just had a profound sense that something was wrong in my life. I started to be sick all the time, I was becoming chronically tired and depressed, not my normal self. I became worried because I knew it was not a disease of the body but a dis-ease of the heart, and I didn't know what to do about it. Then I saw some Japanese drummers and I walked away knowing that if I made a drum I would be healed. I didn't know how or why, I just knew it. It took me two years to make a drum, something I can do now in one evening.

‘As soon as the drum was completed I started having waking visions and unusual dreams even though I still didn't know what to do with the drum. This went on for months. Finally, I waited for when Dennis went on a hunting trip and I had a whole week to myself. I shut myself away, lit candles and spent the time meditating and asking for guidance. About two days into this, I sat down to meditate, closed my eyes and saw an animal staring me in the face. I opened my eyes and it was gone. I closed my eyes and it was back again. No matter what I did, whenever I closed my eyes there was the animal looking at me. I knew immediately that this was not like any meditating I had ever done before. The animal turned and made motions for me to follow it. After this
happened several times, I decided to follow. This was my first shaman's journey, before I even knew what that was. It was completely beyond anything I had ever experienced, and I had been meditating for twenty years at the time.

‘I followed the animal for three days and two nights. We spent the night out in the cold huddled against the wind until finally we climbed a high mesa, and at the top was an old man seated at a campfire. I cannot say everything that went on there, but he did leave me with four gifts and he said they were not given to me for my own glory but to be used to help others. He said if I used the gifts to help others I would be healed, but if I didn't, I would get worse and worse and maybe even die. At the time I thought, “Well, that's not much of a choice!” I was completely confused by it all. I even wondered a bit if I was going crazy, though I thought I knew in my heart that I wasn't.

‘I had a rough couple of months after that trying to figure out what happened to me and what it was all about. It was so unlike my usual thinking and knowledge and so foreign to the imagery and concepts that I had to go outside myself, to other sources, to help me. But because I chose to go for it, everything fell into place. Everything went smoothly when I let go and let it all happen without trying to stop it or block it. I just said, “Okay, I feel a little bit crazy but I'm going for it,” and it all worked. I did get better. Every time I shamanize I feel well and good, and when I stop shamanizing I start to feel bad again and my life doesn't go as well, even until this day. People think I am helping them, but I am really helping myself. It's a win-win situation! When we work with powers of the universe it should always be a win-win situation.'

At first I was struck by my friend's openness; after all, we had only known each other a few weeks. But then I corrected my thinking. Debra had contacted me, a complete stranger, over seven years ago. She had an interest in the psychic powers of the blind musician I had written about, had read about my university lecture in the local paper and had attempted to contact me in pursuit of her interest. And after all that time we had met up
again. My friend Pat Walsh knew of her interest in the spirit world of the Inuit and had contacted her about becoming my guide, even though Pat had known nothing of Debra's letters to me. Debra was my guide into the Arctic North, but she was also another kind of guide, and her candour was as much instruction as it was storytelling.

I was studying a beautiful skull Debra had shown me as she spoke. She must have been watching me as I tried to take in what she had set out for me. Then I heard her suggest that we might do some more ‘work'. ‘You will be leaving tomorrow and there is much that needs to be done,' she said. ‘It is unfortunate because I usually have more sessions with people.' Debra had a way about herself. Maybe it was the openness with which she spoke of her spiritual life amid all the other curious coincidences that made me trust her completely.

I agreed, and we passed from the octagon into the great halllike structure that had been annexed onto the main building. At the far end of the room Debra spread out a small blanket then left, leaving me to ‘prepare myself' in whatever way I thought fit. I kept thinking about how quietly serious she was. I thought about something she had spoken to me about: ‘Maybe you don't need to shamanize like I do, but the universe has called you to a task and it will make you well if you choose to do it. Carolan was the spirit that called you to your task, but as we move through our life we must never forget our allies, our helpers, like Carolan, who guide us and call us to our true tasks. And we mustn't ever forget that when we are called by the universe to do a task it is never for our own glory but for the “upliftment” of man. In the process we become uplifted ourselves. That's a pretty neat situation, don't you think? We all win on this one!'

Debra returned with a bag and a wooden box. From these she extracted a collection of feathers, some bones and incense. In the bag was her drum. She also showed me her shaman face veil, which was tied across the forehead and covered the eyes and nose. She also produced a rattle and some stones, explaining them away as ‘aids' and ‘props'. In reality, she didn't need them, but they were
traditional tools for her work. She compared them with a psychiatrist's ‘Rorschach card, word association or even hypnotherapy'. Some native people with whom she had ‘worked' were happy with her shaman's tool kit. She continued to use them because she always had, and they made the transfer from this reality to the spirit realm more immediate and intense. They were familiar to her, and in her own words, ‘what works best for you is what you work with'. But I was sure it was as much about honour and respect for the tradition of shamanism as it was about creating altered states of consciousness.

We spoke for some minutes about what things I might seek assistance from the spirit world about, so that we could focus our journey. Debra wanted to give me some basic instruction on how to begin to locate my ‘own power and animal spirits'. I sensed that Debra was anxious over what she was about to do. ‘It really needs more time and more sessions to set this up right, but today is all we have so we shall have to make do.'

She placed her props around the blanket. The incense was already perfuming the room. Debra donned her face veil and told me to lie back and empty my mind. After a few minutes she would give me some instructions to focus on and hopefully I could take my first small step into the unknown. I listened to Debra's instructions and followed them. I knew we were sensing out a portal, a place where two worlds cross. From there I could go and return on my spiritual quests.

Out of the quiet I heard the dull chink of bones, then the sharp noise of her rattle. Debra's voice was low behind me. Then the emphatic rhythm of her drum reverberated around the room; Debra's power chanting accompanied it. I lay back and let whatever was about to happen, happen.

Suddenly my guide's voice changed. It was clear and bright, completely different from the soft, melodic voice that had been building up the power chant. I knew immediately that she was speaking in a disassociated state, speaking her vision to me. She spoke of seeing a young child. He was alone, and seemed profoundly sad. Then she saw a frightened adult hiding behind the
corner of a wall. At moments her voice became low and strained, as if the effort to speak was too much or what she was ‘seeing' was painful to articulate. I tried to listen intently but could make out little. Still, I sensed the pain and distress of it. It wasn't frightening or unnerving, but it did make me feel very close to my guide. I wanted to help but didn't know how.

Just when the whole thing seemed too unbearable, Debra's voice called. This time she saw another bear. It was a huge creature. Now it was carrying a child and the lone boy. It was very protective and caring. A moment's silence followed, and Debra's voice changed again. This time it was full of wonder and enchantment. The place she was in was variously described as being beautiful, peaceful, filled with such content, and radiating with such harmony. The words themselves tended towards the banal and sentimental, but I could feel the heat coming off them as Debra spoke. She fell silent, and for a few moments I could only hear her languorous sighs. Then it was over, and we sat in silence, letting the moment retreat from us.

When the room had calmed and reality returned, we shared our experience, trying to piece together what we had separately seen and felt. Normally such other-worldly intimacies can be awkward, but neither of us felt that. The power of the moment had been reassuring. ‘When I do soul retrieval,' Debra explained, ‘I actually see the soul piece at the age it was lost, many times in the very setting where the loss occurred. When, say, I find a four-year-old in a certain place doing a certain thing I actually see it as if I were there and it is very real. Sometimes those journeys are very long. The big bear was carrying yourself, the child, to protect the child/you. You had a need to feel safe which was carried over into your adulthood and was exacerbated by your “lock-up”. In actuality, the bear was a type of power wrap, a lorica from Celtic wisdom that you could call to you. You were very much in need of this.' I looked at Debra questioningly and she looked up at my unspoken query. ‘Yes, Brian, you are carrying a lot of pain and have been for a long time. But I know you intently understand this as I say, ultimately we heal ourselves with the help and advice
that is given to us. Really we should be doing more work together on this. But it seems as if it is not to be. I can still watch out for you, but only if you give me permission.' I knew Debra was not making any demands. The best of guides don't only show the way, they help you when you stumble. Debra had given me a lot to think about, and though I knew as I left her home that we would be unlikely to meet again, I also knew it was not the last time we would speak.