Well in Time (43 page)

“That’s a possibility, too.”

Calypso lay thinking about what little was known of the Black Virgins of southern France. Local myths told that many of the Black Virgin statues were discovered in natural settings like caves or grottoes, or hidden in trees, or buried in the ground near springs. Farmers plowing their fields sometimes turned one up or were alerted to its presence by the strange behavior of their animals that refused to cross the spot where a Black Virgin was buried or were unusually attracted it.

As she explained this to Javier, Calypso remembered that it also was said that a Black Virgin brought from the spot in which She was discovered and placed in a Christian chapel would disappear. Then somehow, She would make Her way back to the place of Her discovery, as if She could not bear to leave Her association with the earth and its life-giving waters and vegetation.

“So if you move Her from here, She might just return anyway?” Javier felt deeply, unaccountably moved by these stories.

“It’s possible. One thing I know for sure—if I’m supposed to do anything besides leave Her where She is, I’ll know about it.” Calypso dangled the locket in the candlelight. “This thing won’t let me rest until I do what’s right. In fact, I feel like this locket’s a homing device and it brought me here in the first place.”

“It’s very strange, Caleepso. Strange and wonderful.” He pulled her close to him and they lay in candlelight, listening to the sounds of the night that flowed through the open windows.

“What will we call this place, Caleepso?”

“Ummm…how about
Notre Dame des Bénédictions Terrestres
?”

“
Our Lady of Earthly Blessings?
It’s kind of long—and besides, it sounds like we’re living in a church.”

“Are you sure we’re not? Anyway, it will have to do until morning.”

They lay quietly for a space. Then, “There’s an excavation of a Roman villa just a few miles from here, did you know?” she murmured, snuggling closer under his arm and pressing her cheek against his chest. “Right now, this moment, is so timeless, I feel like we could be Romans in a villa two thousand years ago.”

He pulled her closer. “Maybe we are,” he said pensively. “Maybe we are.”

“One thing I know: we are blessed, my love.” She sighed and flung a sleepy arm across him.

“Yes,
mi corazón
, we are.”

A gust blew through the window, flouncing the drapes and snuffing the candles. In the darkness, wind spiraled through the room, dispersing the fragrance of flowers and wet earth. Out in the branches of the plane tree, an owl gave a short, whistling hoot. Somewhere in the garden, the old tortoise was dreaming his earthen dreams, while the water of the spring trickled endlessly from its fountain like muted laughter rising from the depths of the earth.

Between the healing waters and the valley of death were the winds. They rose up in black, whirling columns, as tall as those on the portico of the temple. She counted thirteen in all, each with its separate voice that whispered or screamed, chuckled or wailed. In her memory, there had never been so many—and her memory was long.

When humankind became riled, nature did, too. This she knew. Political intrigue, social injustice, bigotry, religious intolerance, astounding greed—these were just a few of the ills that stirred within her culture like an evil potion brewing and bubbling on the back of a mighty magician’s stove. The spirits of the natural world were rising up in complaint against the human miasma.

She faced the whirlwinds and bowed deeply. The voices of the wind bade her and she knew what she must do.

“I will do what I can,” she spoke into the turbid air. Turning, she walked back toward the river, her white linen skirts billowing about her in the hot wind.

Once in her priestess’s chambers, she refreshed herself with water, bathed and put on a fresh linen tunic and skirt. Wending her way into the heart of the temple, she came to the holy of holies, with its tall diorite image of the goddess and her son. Prostrating herself on the stone floor, she prayed for wisdom and for the power to manifest it.

She had not lain long, prostrate at the feet of Isis, before her mind was flooded with an image. A golden locket dangled in her mind’s eye and a voice said, “Make this and I will do the rest.” She studied the image until she knew every detail and then it slowly faded.

Rising, she bowed deeply to Holy Mother, backed from the chamber and then hurried away in search of her friend. She found him in the royal goldsmith’s shop, where coals glowed red on the forge and bits of gold work in various phases of completion littered the workbenches.

She explained her mission to him and sketched in great detail the image she had been shown. When she withdrew from the studio, it was with assurances that her project would take priority, but also with the warning that it would take many months to accomplish what she requested.

Months passed.
Peret
, the season of growth and
Shemu
, that of harvest, finally faded into
Akhet
, the months of the annual inundation by the waters of the Nile. As the waters receded and the green sprouts of barley began to show across the fields, she kept her vigil still, praying and performing ceremonies of power. A holder of the wisdom of the true lineage, she abjured all that did not pertain to her project. She ate no meat, drank no beer, abstained from sex.

Peret
was again passing when her friend summoned her to his shop. With pride, he handed her a box of sumptuous beauty, inlaid with ivory and precious stones. A look passed between them. Bowing, she left the goldsmith’s studio, wrapping the box in her veil as she went.

For the following week, she performed the ceremonies that she had prepared, scrupulously following the old methods. She let her heart open and felt the flow of love pass through her from above, into the object in the box. When she slept, which was infrequently and for short periods, she wore the object around her neck.

At last, she made ritual ablution once again and with the locket around her neck, went down the long stone corridors of the temple to the inner sanctum. Prostrating herself before Isis, she began to pray.

When the power took her, it was as if she had been struck by lightning. Her body was galvanized by a pure current that flowed through the top of her head and up from the soles of her feet, to blend their currents in her heart. From her heart, the combined flood erupted, turning the locket burning hot against her chest, as she lay in a rictus of wonder and terror.

At last, like the Nile at the end of
Akhet
, the energy ebbed, leaving her panting at the feet of the goddess. A voice, motherly yet regal, said, “It is done. Beauty can never be destroyed, only lost or hidden for a time. My wisdom is eternal. In every generation, there now will be one who partakes of it. You have done well.”

The priestess rose to her knees, kissed the locket, and bowed to Holy Mother. Then she backed from the room and went her way beneath the gaze of the Sphinx and within the shadow of the pyramids.

The dust of centuries blew over those proud monuments. Dynasties rose and fell. Egyptian pharaohs were succeeded by Greek rulers and they in turn fell to Christians, who in time ceded powered to Muslims. Cultures crumbled, bitter wars were waged, fortunes were made and lost, emperors rose and died.

Through the centuries, the locket traveled on, worn about the necks of both high and humble, noble and peasant, but always seeking its own—that woman in whom love ran pure, and in whom the love of the Goddess manifested a life of service to Her greater goal.

Each dipped into some small portion of the living river of Her bounty and Her love, as it flowed through the ages. Imbued with magic from the beginning of time, the locket moved through cultures and across oceans and continents. It is moving still. Therefore, be without fear. All is well.

First, many thanks to publisher Lou Aronica, who has brought
Well In Time
to life through his new and exciting brain child, The Story Plant.

Thank you to all who helped in the creation of this book: John Van Dam for technical support; Write On Women Ellen Stewart, Patricia Harrelson, Shelley Muniz, Ann St. James, Cynthia Restivo, Blanche Abrams, and Carol Biederman, for their comments on the manuscript; Steve Weldon for technical climbing expertise; Linda Nielsen for her excellent interview; Mark LaPorte for his expertise in wine; Melanie Stewart for webpage design and Mic Harper and Kath Christensen for the author’s photograph.

Thank you to Jeffrey Kennedy and Jean-François Martin of magical La Missare, in Brignac, France, for their graciousness as hosts, their depth of knowledge of things French and their generosity of spirit in sharing their lively friendships, the beauty of their region, and their many refined and eclectic interests.

Thank you to Cécile Pradalié and family for their hospitality at their home and ateliers and for the mesmerizing hours in their marvelous eighteenth-century garden at Fouscaïs.   Thank you to Alain Maulat, Jerôme Prevost, and Tom Garnier for a lovely afternoon of tea and conversation in their magical apartment in Saint André de Sangonis.

Thank you to John Gibler, whose
To Die in Mexico
and
Mexico Unconquered
were invaluable resources; to Richard Grant and his
God’s Middle Finger,
who comes as close as anyone has to explicating the madness that is the Mexican Sierra Madre; to Dr. Tom Soloway Pinkson, author of
The Shamanic Wisdom of the Huichol;
and Jay Courtney Fikes, author of
Unknown Huichol: Shamans and Immortals, Allies Against Chaos
, both of which deepened my understanding of that mystical people.

Thank you to the Dream Girls: Gael Amend, Debbie Dodge, Marianne Jacobsen, Pam Marino, and Sandy Alarcon for the many years of friendship, laughter, struggle, and honesty that have buoyed me through long months of writing.

Thank you to Renaissance women Reggie Hein-Dossi for her intimate understanding of the creative process and her wonder at the workings of the psyche; and Gwynne Popovac, whose sensitivity to the natural world enlarges my own. Your support is life giving.

Thank you to the students of my former prison writing classes, and especially to Madniz, whose great spirit electrified those gatherings and gave us all hope. Gentlemen, your stories are altered here but the spirit of contrition and the harrowing wisdom that you demonstrated are, I hope, unchanged.

Thank you to those men who appear herein as Father Keat, Cat, Icepick, and The Knife, unknown and unsung warriors and heroes of the Cold War: I do not share your politics, but I have tremendous admiration for your courage and expertise. Living shadow of American might, the Ghosts exist because of you—and I hope you find as happy a finale to your own complex lives.

And, thank you to your polar opposite, Father Roy Bourgeois, campaigner for social justice and fierce adversary of the School of the Americas. Thank you to Javier Aguirre for traveling with me through Mexico, and into the heart of Chihuahua’s Copper Canyon, and for the years of adventure for which
no hay palabras,
and to his family, for welcoming me so graciously into their homes throughout the region.

Thank you to the many friends who sent encouragement during the writing process, among whom are Roxanne Williams, Hope Werness, Louise Jolly, Greg Ford, Julie Loar, Carol and Hubert Culpepper, Vonna Breeze Martin, Alexander Chow-Stuart, Susanne Nishino, Glenn Taylor, Barbara Briner, Marsha Van Winkle, Cindy Surendorf, Wang Kai, Sylvie Carnot, Lloyd Battista, Tammy Horn, Anthony Dossi, Ted Denmark, Marjorie Thoman-Lomas, Erik Nielsen, Christel Zaluga, Sarah Cohelo Webster, Cristie Holliday, Pam Horner, Karen Kress, Rick Shears, Susie Carrington, and my beloved sister, Carolyn Takhar. The world would be a bleak place without you.

Thank you to my adorable fur children, Sophia Rosemaria whose glorious sunning of her belly is the acme of sensuality; Maclovio, who brings the fearlessness of Chihuahua to his daily battles with marauding Mr. Sniffles; and our dear, departed Panda, whose mischief is sorely missed, for all the love and comfort their pure hearts provide.

Finally, to my husband David Roberson, without whom this book would never have been finished, and who has given with such generosity of spirit and loving kindness more than he will ever receive in return, the eternal thanks of my grateful and loving heart.

Talk a bit about the title,
Well In Time
.

When I first conceived this book, I saw it as a kind of diagram or map, with a horizontal plane representing present time. In the middle of the plane was a deep, narrow V, showing the plunge through successive generations, into the deep past. That motif was repeated physically in the deep chasms of river canyons and the descent into the cave, and culturally in Blanche de Muret’s plummet down the well into a community that was still immersed in a culture thousands of years old, or in Javier’s contact with the Huichol’s ancient ways.

I used telescoping narratives to bore ever deeper into the well of time. Everywhere in this story the crust of present-day reality is thin, and one false step sends the protagonists and the reader plunging down into alternate realities, in the same way that El Lobo was sucked into the siphon’s vortex. In a sense, I feel that we are never far parted from other times—that they are always fully present in parallel dimensions, so perhaps the well in time could be seen as what depth psychologists refer to as the collective unconscious, or metaphysicians as the akashic records.

Well In Time
is the sequel to
Fiesta of Smoke
, although it can certainly stand alone. What was the inspiration for this new book?

Well In Time
is a darker book than
Fiesta of Smoke
, influenced, I think, by the times we’re living through. So many people are suffering hardships, right now—loss of jobs, foreclosures, financial and health difficulties, not to mention generalized corruption, and class, gender and religious warfare. And of course, in Mexico there is the cataclysm of drug cartel violence that is disrupting the very foundations of the country. In
Well In Time
, I wanted to address these dark matters, but also give a broader and more hopeful perspective, found in the reassurance that life is eternal, that we live again and again, and also that there are other realms or dimensions involved, from which guidance and help of all kinds emanate.

The passage back and forth through the cave, especially the so-called “tube,” is very dark. What importance do you place on that?

Caves have been, since earliest times, places of initiation. By nullifying the everyday world, and blunting our chief sense of sight, a cave forces the psyche to rely on other, deeper ways of knowing to conquer primal fear. Other dimensions can intervene, in flashes of metaphysical insight. But none of this happens without terror of both the unknown and of our helplessness in the face of it.

I’m a claustrophobe, so for me the tube was the ultimate such passage—a real face-off with my deepest fear. In fact, when I was writing those passages, I would wake up in the night thinking about them, and the tube was so real for me that I’d panic, feeling like I couldn’t breathe!

Why is it important to put oneself through such a terrifying experience?

In order to grow, we have to face our fears. The passage through the cave is symbolic of that confrontation. Everyone has experienced that place in life where we’re face to face with the very thing that seems insurmountable. Some part of us knows that it’s really not. That just like the tube, there really is a way through, albeit a very narrow, frightening and humbling one.

Sadly, some people turn back at that juncture. I think of them as people still trapped inside the mountain, because they refuse the narrow passage. They’re the people with talent who never paint a picture or write a page; with intelligence, who convince themselves they’re too old or too poor or not smart enough to get an education; who refuse to fight back against disability or loss. That refusal of the narrow path holds them trapped in a kind of inner darkness.

And, it’s also a refusal of the help that will come, if we only have faith and set out. In fairytales and myths, it’s always
after
the hero has set out, faithfully pursuing his task, that help comes in the form of an animal who knows a secret, or an old woman who gives a gift, or an army of ants that helps to sort a heap of mixed grain. That kind of metaphysical help only comes
after
the act of faith, never before. For Calypso, it was the wolf Lobo and the gnome-like Rat.

So, facing the terrors of the cave signifies facing the difficulties of life, for which we feel unprepared and inept and paralyzed by doubt. Some lives, like Calypso’s, call for more than one such passage, and with each pass, new strength is born.

You’ve created a fantastic character, in Sa Tahuti.

Actually, I didn’t create her, at all. The Ammonite religion still exists, with leadership claiming lineage to the ancient pharaohs. And they also claim that there really is a Sa Tahuti—or Sau Tahuti, when in the masculine form—who can transcend death, and has lived, basically, forever. I hope I haven’t offended the Ammonites by using her in the book, and deeply apologize, if I have.

Her case is not isolated, either. I’ve read of a similar being, Baba Ji, in India, who is basically immortal, and have heard rumors of others. While this seems fantastic to us in our unenlightened state, it’s probably possible for the enlightened to concentrate their energies, so as to transcend death. After all, the entire Christian religion is based on the resurrection of Jesus, and he claimed that we are all as gods, and could do everything he did, and more.

What about The Ghosts? Are they based on actual persons, too?

Yes, in fact they are. Through unusual circumstances, I know men like The Ghosts. Some I met during my time teaching in prison. Others are involved in our government’s covert operations. I don’t share their politics, but I have tremendous admiration for their courage and expertise. They are men of action—tough, resilient, honorable to a certain code, and lethal. Yet, I know one, for example, who literally gave the skin off his back to a complete stranger, a little boy who had been badly burned. It is impossible for the average citizen to comprehend where these guys hang out in their heads. They live, basically, in an alternate reality, which is where I placed them, in
Well In Time
.

Calypso’s ride in the Cadillac is one of the wildest things I’ve ever read. Don’t tell me you have personal experience of that, too?

(Laughing) Yes, I’m afraid that’s drawn from my own experience. I’ve never laughed so hard, before or since. It was amazingly surreal.

The Children’s Crusade is a strange tale. Is it based in fact?

Oh yes! The Children’s Crusade actually happened in 1212. Modern scholars debate many of the details, but that the children, led by Stephen of Cloyes, walked the length of France in the expectation of marching to Jerusalem on the dried-up seabed, is a fact. I don’t know of any modern movement to compare with it, in which young people were totally swept up with passion, unless maybe it was the Beatles phenomenon.

Fire and fireplaces play a role in
Well In Time
. Can you say why your characters so often are placed before a fire?

Fire is primal. From time immemorial humans have gathered by the fire to tell stories, recount myths and histories, and make decisions. For the Huichol Indians, Grandfather Fire is the source of insight and vision, and for European peoples, time by the fireplace is time-out, when the business of the day is left behind and more philosophical or leisurely pursuits have a chance to surface.

I use fire in
Well In Time
to demarcate those moments when the protagonists’ lives are in transition, when new insights are revealed. There is, in a sense, a burning away of the old and a lighting of revelation of the new. There is safety, warmth and communion by a fire, as if the ancestors and the supernatural forces join us there, in moving forward the ongoing task of humanness.

The cave itself seems fantastic, running as it does between two river gorges.

The idea for the cave actually came from one of my prison students, who was from a place in Mexico south of Chihuahua. He told me that in his area there are cave systems running clear through the mountains, that were used to hide and move troops during the 1910 Revolution. And, of course, they’re used for drug smuggling, today.

The Copper Canyon area in Chihuahua is riddled with caves, many occupied by the Rarámuri, or Tarahumara as they’re commonly called. Whether any cave runs completely through the cliffs, I don’t know—but it’s certainly not an impossibility.

There are many metaphysical events in
Well In Time
. Are you using them as a literary device, as in magical realism, or more religiously or philosophically?

I personally have experienced many metaphysical events—visions, prophetic dreams, clairvoyance, apparitions, out-of-body experiences, ESP, spontaneous healing—a kind of smorgasbord of weird stuff. So I would say that I’m simply recognizing the existence of these alternate realms or dimensions by writing them into
Well In Time
. There’s nothing hypothetical or faith-based about it—it’s simply experiential. I do love magical realism, however, and I think it addresses the deep mysteries, the inexplicable, in a delightful way. If the reader wants to take those events in that vein, it’s fine with me!

I’m a firm believer that we’ve only scratched the surface of reality, and it intrigues me how these dimensions seem to flirt with us, ducking in and out of our perception in a game of metaphysical hide-and-seek. And I question: Does this flirtation have meaning for our lives, and if so, what is it?
Well In Time
is, in part, an exploration of those questions.

Talk about the violence perpetrated by the drug cartels in Mexico, and why you chose this as a theme in
Well In Time
.

It is clear to me that all the disruption and death caused by the drug mafias in Mexico are really to be laid at the feet of our own country. We’re the ones buying all these drugs, after all, to the tune of multibillions of dollars per year. Plus, our laws prohibiting use of recreational drugs drive up the price by diminishing availability, thereby fueling the competition among cartels for the illicit monies. Drug use is bad, but the violence and death caused by making drugs illegal is far worse.

There is a direct connection between US recreational drug use, laws prohibiting it, and the assassination and terror unleashed in Mexico. You could say that drug prohibition has been an informal way to impose American cultural colonization on our neighbor to the south. That’s not even to mention the allegations of CIA involvement in cocaine trafficking to the US, as a way of supporting counterinsurgency forces in Nicaragua and other places, as investigated by the US Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics and Terrorism.

The violence perpetrated by the cartels is so horrible as to be almost unspeakable. People are decapitated and dismembered, burned in barrels, disappeared. Their family members are murdered. No one is safe, and the fear becomes another type of murder. When I first started traveling in Mexico, years ago, it was safe to go out at all hours of the night on city streets, and people were open and friendly. Now, the streets are empty at night in some cities, and the happy din of culture is silenced. That kind of suppression through terror is murder of an entire culture.

Just days after one trip to Copper Canyon, a cartel attack took place just blocks away from the home where I was staying. You can see it on
YouTube
. I had passed through that intersection numerous times, during the days before the attack. It brought home how personal the problem can be.

In
Well In Time
, Javier trains his workers as a vigilante army, which is actually happening in Mexico, as people fight to retain their lands, homes and lives against encroaching cartels. It’s a deeply distressing situation, and at this point there’s no real answer, although legalizing recreational drugs in this country would certainly be a start.

What’s next for Suzan Still as a writer? What can your readers look forward to?

Well, I’m not making any promises, but I
think
I’m going to finish a book I’ve started, set in Malta. It’s very different from the adventures told in
Well In Time
and
Fiesta of Smoke,
or even in
Commune of Women.
I want to slow the pace of the narrative way down, and enjoy the deliciousness of each small increment of the male protagonist’s movement toward a new consciousness of women and the feminine. I have some delicious pitfalls prepared for him!

There are, however, five other partial manuscripts awaiting my attention, and one of them might tempt me away from the Malta book. And then, heaven forfend, there’s that moment when an entirely new idea insists itself on my awareness! I get about an idea a week for books, and I’d have to lead ten more lives to finish them all.

Is there anything more you’d like to add about
Well In Time,
before we close?

I wanted to present the terrible reality of drug violence in Mexico, and the suffering of the people because of it. There is much that we can do in this country to mitigate that, starting by simply educating ourselves to its reality, and to the causes underlying it. To this end, I would highly recommend John Gibler’s book,
To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War
. It’s tough to read, but it gives the real deal, that we don’t often get to hear.

I also want to say that it’s my hope that
Well In Time
will give readers hope, despite its dark passages. The world itself is going through a dark passage, right now, and it’s easy to become discouraged. I want this book to encourage people to look at the bigger picture, the one spanning not decades but millennia. In that context, humanity really is moving forward, becoming more just, better educated, more aware of itself as a force for good or evil.