The Journey Begins / Chpt 1 & 2

I am going to follow God,

I am going to follow God,

I am not coming back"

- Peyote Prayer

"A journey of a thousand miles

begins with a single step".- Lao Tzu

Chapter 1,

Section A:

Winslow, Arizona, USA
(Winter of '73 - '74)

To all the people living then and now on 3rd Mesa..."Qua-qua!"

The journey begins..............

"Let me walk in beauty,

and make my eyes ever behold

the red and purple sunset...."

-Hopi Prayer

"We who are clay blended by the Master Potter, come from the kiln of Creation in many hues. How can people say one skin is colored, when each has its own coloration? What should it matter that one bowl is dark and the other pale, if each is of good design and serves its purpose well."

~Polingaysi Qoyawayma, Hopi ~

1972 in Nashville, Tennessee, I had just opened a letter from the Hopi elders informing me of the passing of a Hopi Grandfather, Chief Dan Katchongva (Sun Clan) son of Yukiuma. The letter was in response to a letter I had previously written to Chief Dan.

I had some time previously asked permission, via letter, from Chief Dan to visit 3rd Mesa and the Hopi took time to send a response to my letter and sadly informed me of the Chief's passing.

Just a young man of 16 years. How could I even think to write the Hopi? I had never even been out of Tennessee, except on occasional vacations with my family to Florida or Mississippi. All my buddys were playing ball, going to movies, malls and chasing girls.

Why now, at this time and place? Only time would tell.

I only knew I had to follow my heart. It was my destiny to go to Arizona, to Winslow, to 3rd Mesa.

Whatever the reason, I will never regret it. One day I hope that I shall once again return to visit the people and the land. Somehow, I feel in my soul, I will.

Although I had made plans in late 1972 to visit the Hopi, it would be winter of 1973 before I ever made my way west and as fate would have it meet with the people that would eventually open the way for me to stay with the Hopi on 3rd Mesa. Hotvela-Paaqavi, Hopiland, the "center of the universe."

I had left Nashville, Tennessee on a Continental Trailways "Silver Eagle" for Winslow, Arizona. I-40 through Tennessee-Arkansas-Oklahoma-Texas-New Mexico-moving onward to Arizona.
A young man of 17 years. Unannounced, without warning and with no apprehensions. Wide eyed and full of youth and dreams. Searching for knowledge, searching for myself, searching for the Creator of my very soul. With only my backpack and guitar I set out for the great west.

Back in Tennessee, I had been reading "The Book of the Hopi" by Frank Waters (Viking press 1963) . I studied it, re-read it, carried it with me. Somehow it struck a known chord that reverberated through my very being like an old familiar hymn. Who could read such a book and not have a desire to go and touch the earth, breath the air and walk the path the ancient ones walked. The first people of this great land. The remnants of an all but forgotten people. The "People of long ago", the "Old Ones" the Hisatsinom (1200 B.C. to A.D. 1300 ) or as the Dine' call them "Anasazi".
My first initial thoughts to visit Arizona proceeded from earlier experiences that I encountered with friends in Tennessee under the guidance and suggestion of one I will call "Ken" .
Ken and his wife had frequently made mention of a "medicine man", a close friend, he called by the name "Ed" who lived outside of Winslow, Arizona and suggested that I should visit him.

"Ed" was a keeper of the "medicine way" , a spiritual and wise man who lived and breathed the land. He was well respected in the Indian community and had many Native contacts among bothe the Dine' ("Navajo") and Hopi people.

I later would find that Ed had a great abillity to unlock doors that had remained closed (or had never even been opened) in my mind for a long time. His ability to make one "look inside" was amazing. Perhaps it was the environment and the absence of all the media, noise and material "comforts" of living in the city, all that clutter that invades body and soul when one gets out of touch with the earth. At times, it was a feeling of paranoia, a fear of the unknown, or in many cases, the known. Whatever it was, my perception of the world, of myself and of life as I new it was changed forever.

Ed and his his family, I was later to find, lived in the desert along the Navajo reservation fence row, in a Navajo Hogan somewhere off Leupp Rd.

As I walked off the pavement and treaded across the rough desert terrain, I saw a lone mobile home in the desert that looked to be abandoned. As I approached, I could see that the windows were all broken and the front door was flapping back and forth in the wind.
I could hear the sound of paper fluttering on the inside and looked in to see a pulpit at the front of an empty room upon which rested, what appeared to be, an open bible with the pages turning in the wind. Upon a closer look, it was not a bible, as I was very familiar with the books of the bible and did not recognize any of these chapter names. "Nephi", "Mosiah", "Alma" ? I closed the book and turned it over to read along the spine "THE BOOK OF MORMON". This was my first encounter with "The Plates of Nephi" translated by Joseph Smith . I later learned from Ed that Mormon missionaries used to stay near here and sometimes small church services were held in the trailer. It would be another 3 years before I took another serious look at the writings of the Nephites but the seed had been planted in fertile soil.

(see my post titled BOOK OF MORMON: "A CRY FROM THE DUST" )

When I first met Ed, he was walking towards me, way off in the distance, in the desert . Once we met, I introduced myself and he said he had been expecting me and that I looked just like his dream (I later discovered that no one had ever notified Ed or his family that I was coming to Arizona). He invited me to stay in his hogan and had me sit down on a large sheep skin rug on the red dirt floor near the wood stove. He sat a tin cup full of cold water and some large gallon jars of dried fruit and nuts in front of me and said "Here, eat something, when we return from Winslow, the wife will cook up somethin', Just make yourself at home until we get back".
His family was so hospitable and their faces seemed to glow with kindness. I felt as if I had just returned home from a long journey. Although I new I was supposed to be in this place at this time, I still had concerns, as a young man would, that I would not be accepted by the people and be sent on my way. After speaking with Ed, all those fears were washed away from my mind.

The family drove away driving through the desert in an old rusty red 1960's International 3/4 ton pick up. I stood and watched them drive off in the distance as the children were all smiling and waving back at me. I went back inside the hogan, sat down and had a bite to eat. I poured more tea from the pot on the wood stove. I had finally arrived, this was where I belonged.
Ed and the family later returned about dusk. I was standing outside the hogan looking across the vast desert and way off in the distance saw the headlights of the old pick up bouncing up and down as the truck made its way across the rough terrain. They all got out and Ed, with a nod towards the hogan, motioned for me to go inside.
They had bought what looked like groceries for a month (mostly canned and dried foods that required no refrigeration as they had no electricity) and had bought special treats (fresh fruit, etc.) to share.

I told him they didn't have to get so much on account of me and Ed chuckled and said, "Well, we don't get into town much."
I handed some treats over to the kids, who were more than willing to share.
The woman had bought a new long dress and to my amazement just changed right in front of me without seeming the least bit apprehensive about my being in the room. There was a special feeling of innocence about the whole encounter but I wasn't used to that sort of thing back home. I guess Ed could sense I was a little uneasy and just looked at me and smiled raising his eyebrows twice, acknowledging all was ok and took his pipe out of a bag from an old wood table near the bed.
Ed, was relaxing, sitting on the edge of the bed and filled an old tobacco can with new tobacco and proceeded to fill his pipe.
Ed's oldest girl, who was sitting next to me, jumped up from my side and ran to Ed with wooden matches she had grabbed from near the cast iron cook stove to light his pipe. This seemed to be a special treat for her. A privilege that she had been awarded as the oldest of the two girls.
I was so happy to be in this place, at this time I could hardly contain my joy and excitement. It was a peace of mind that would always be in my memory.
This was a glimpse of a true "American family", not found in the city. There was a "synchronicity" present in every moment in every action, in every sight, sound and smell. I could sense that my consciousness was evolving and all I had to do was just hang on and enjoy the ride.
I felt as though once I left the pavement of Leupp Road and walked across the red earth that I had not just crossed over into desert but had crossed over into another world, another dimension of space and time.
A time long forgotten when each family member was co-dependent on the other for survival and time seemed to slow down, if not stand still. A time of introspection and searching. "Immeasurable time". A time when all things would come into focus and would forever provide a scale in which all my future endeavors could be weighed.

Andy's Hogan: "Mormon Tea" (Ephedra viridis) "Chaparral"
(Larrea divaricata), a gift of a single hawk feather, prayers under the night sky, and being asked to add a special touch to the walls of the hogan to remember me by...

(to be cont.)


___________________________________________________________________

Chpt. 2:

"Hoatvela"

"Place of the Cedars"

( Hotevilla , Arizona)

Third Mesa

"The one who tells the stories

rules the world."

-Hopi

It was winter (November) 1974, I was actually sleeping on 3rd Mesa in "Hopiland" with the Hopituh, the Hópitu-shínumu, 'peaceful all people' ("Hopi" for short) ......
The morning air was cold and clean as I took a deep breath into my lungs . Twelve degrees below zero and I had just awoke from a restful sleep inside a 20ft tipi that "Kenneth", one of the Qua-wungwa (" Tobacco Clan") elders had permitted us to place on the edge of a cliff atop the mesa overlooking the wide open desert as we assisted in building his new stone home. My dark blue, goose down "mummy bag" and the "keeper of the fire" kept me warm through out the freezing Arizona night.
As I looked out over the desert I couldn’t help but think that what my eyes now saw was timeless, this landscape probably had not changed for hundred’s, maybe thousands, of years.
The snow from the early morning dusting had made the Arizona air smell so clean and fresh and the scent of cedar or juniper trees and sagebrush was on the wind along with the smell of woodsmoke from the early morning stove fires from the Hopi village.
I was only 17 years of age and this was my first time away from my home and family in Tennessee.

THE WAY OF THE SACRED

WUWUCHIM: November /

A preparation for the birth of the new year. Wuwuchim also is a reflection of the first invisible preparations for a universe in dark space

"That time is not far off. It will come when the Saquasohuh (Blue Star) Kachina dances in the plaza and removes his mask. He represents a blue star, far off and yet invisible, which will make its appearance soon. The time is foretold by a song sung during the Wuwuchim ceremony".

The fire of life is now kindled honoring the Hopi emergence from the underworld(atkya) I arrive in Hotevilla. This village was settled by the "Fire Clan" from Oraibi after the 1906 split.

SOYAL: December/

Comet Kohoutek / Kachinas emerge from the kivas

I was here in the sacred land of the Hopi people, standing on 3rd Mesa looking toward Orayvi ("Oraibi"), the oldest continuously-inhabited village in North America. Comet Kohoutek was making it's way across the night sky. Was this Kohoutek the "Blue Star" dancing in the plaza as prophecied by the Hopi elders? Will Saquasohuh remove his mask? Will this be the begining of an emergence into the fifth world?
This was already my personal "emergence" into the Hopi "fourth world". All that I had read or heard about the Hopi people would no longer be from 2nd or 3rd hand information but al had now entered the realm of 1st hand knowledge. I was here and now standing at the center of the kosmos and from this point on I would never view life on this earth in the same way. I had discovered the "Sipaapuni" of my very soul and was to experience an emergence from my own "underworld" of conditioning, "education", belief systems, right and wrong, above and below, all concepts of time and space. Seventeen years of living in a controlled environment some call "civilization". I remember well the Hopi Elders had brought us an iron kettle full of "Noq Qui Vi ", a hominy stew with lamb which tasted so good and warmed our bodies from head to toe. I can still smell the aroma as we opened the lid to the kettle as the hot steam rose to the top of our tipi and we all looked at one another with big smiles on our faces. We were told that this was cooked below the earth in an iron kettle on hot coals. The Hopi stew along with some hot mint tea and Hopi bread made the freezing winds across the mesa not so cold that night and I cannot recall ever having a better meal or such a good night's sleep since. (to be cont.)

To learn more of the Hopi tradition and culture, click on link below:

http://www.hopiculturalcenter.com/

http://www.thehopiway.com/content/messages/techqua/issue_37.html

http://sandino.vala.arizona.edu:8080/ramgen/diskC/glogoff/lisaw.rm

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