A Promise Kept By H. Kent Craig ©2007

Prologue

I have thought long and hard about whether or not to post the full account of what happened to me the day and night of Tuesday 23 January 2007 into the following morning, or not. I had posted and mentioned it in my public blog soon after where I hinted at it around the edges of those events but it was simply too soon to post a full accounting even if I had wanted to.

So much happened during those hours that it has taken me a month and a half to process everything to reach this point where I feel at least somewhat comfortable talking publicly about them. I know I will be analyzing the arc of those events probably as long as I live. At least now I have a decent concept and somewhat detailed recollection as to what really did happen and how and when it happened and even a little bit of the why as well but the processing still continues as I write this.

As much as I have become a publicly-identified empath and empathetic healer these past couple of years by my own choice, what I experienced the night of twenty-three January two-thousand-seven was one of if not the most personally revelatory epiphany I've ever had. Because it's so personal I am almost reluctant to share it. Those of you really know me won't think I'm any more "different" than I was before and those of you who don't know me, well, maybe, just maybe, you might find a tiny part of what you are seeking within these humble words. It's a pretty good story by itself even if you don't believe a single word of it.

I don't claim any special insights came from this, I really don't. All I am doing is basically reporting what happened as it happened.

Remember: what we see in others is usually more of a mirror than a window.

Now, to the story . . .



Chapter One - Prequel To & My First Visit To Temple Mound

Back in 1980 I met and became a student of "Doc" Lorher who was an internationally-known spiritualist and healer. I will always be proud to call him a mentor and friend of mine for the rest of my life, even though I knew him only briefly before he passed on.

Doc told me way back then that for me to be ever cured of my severe rheumatoid arthritis (and some other more minor chronic conditions I have) I was going to have take of a tea made from wild creosote (think "tumbleweed") twigs. This made no sense to me because the wild creosote bush is full of sulphur and sulphurous compounds and I'm so highly allergic as in go into anaphylactic shock and die-allergic-almost-immediately allergic but I trusted Doc so much I promised him I would do so. His exact words to me were that "in order to be cured (emphasis mine because he didn't specify "cured" of what, I always assumed it was my arthritis because it dominated every moment of my life at that time) you'll have to take creosote tea with honor and humility." Spin your own interpretation of what he said. It'll make more sense shortly.

This was 1980. I couldn't find a source of/for creosote twigs, not for love nor money nor the proverbial all the tea in China. I continued to try as hard as I possibly could to find a source for them over the years but to no avail.

Jump to 2006. I made a new friend (who was and is now my accountant) and made another new friend through her who was a hereditary Micmac Indian chieftain who used his connections within the Native American community to obtain a baggie full of creosote twigs for me.

Then, as often happens with me and my life, absolute chaos upon chaos in my life prevented me from trying to achieve what I thought was my destiny. I lost access to the twigs for some months, even though they were just five miles away.

Greater forces were wiser than my wishes. More radical chaos and even more radical changes in my life.

My father had died that April at eighty-four, five days before his eighty-fifth birthday. I had lost the dream job of my career that I had for the past almost three years due to bankruptcy of the company in June. I went into business with two friends who were also former middle-managers within the company which was something I said I'd never do in a million years - go into business for myself in the heating and air business - let alone take on partners which I swore up and down I'd never do at gunpoint.

In early August, my third marriage of just over a year by then which had been on a downhill slide since February went to hell in a handbasket when my wife literally threw me out of our house for no apparent reason other than she was unhappy, this despite my very real efforts to save this marriage by agreeing to and going to marriage counseling once a week with her in my best of good faith.

A week later, one of my two business partners who had simply seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth in July which had been shock enough came back one weekend when I was out of town from wherever he had been hiding to literally steal everything that belonged to our company that wasn't nailed down. His "stealing" of our assets wasn't legally stealing since he was a full partner and you can't legally steal from yourself, but of course it left our company without any assets to use to generate income.

Two weeks after being thrown out of my house and a week after losing all ability to basically make a living because the means to do so had been stolen, I found "A", the person I then thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with even though she lived several hours drive away and I wasn't sure how I could pursue things with her with no company, no job and no money.

Still-legally-married-to-me wife found out about this and then threatened to try to have me at first then eventually both of us arrested for "criminal adultery" even though she didn't have a shred of proof and the fact no one had been prosecuted for adultery in North Carolina in a hundred and fifty years.

I was weak and needy at the time because of everything and it was my very un-characteristic weakness and neediness that eventually caused "A" the someone found whom I thought I was beyond bonded to me forever to ask not to be any longer on the following New Year's Eve.

She asked for and was given her release. The day after that, quite literally, a large part of the chaos and confusion and cloudiness in my life left, just went away. It wasn't because anything she had done and now was no longer doing to me but because I was no longer focused on the relationsip which in hindsight was very unhealthy for both us. Still, it hurt then and still hurts a little even now. The parting was necessary for me to move on, actually for both of us on many levels not realized at that particular moment but slowly being realized now as time passes and heals.

Then, without "M" my dear friend and accountant knowing any of this had gone on, it was like she somehow did actually know because I was immediately granted access the very next day on New Year's Day 2007, finally, not just to the creosote twigs but to a sacred Indian mound site owned by some friends of "M" that she had mentioned several times earlier the previous year and where I had almost been begging to go to for some months but had been politely been begged off each time I had asked. I knew the timing, the time was falling into place. It was simply time.

I tried to poo-poo the actual risk I knew I was going to undertake in my "taking of the creosote tea ceremony". I knew that, as allergic as I am to the active ingredients in wild creosote, that there was a probable 90%+ chance that I'd die that night. I told everyone concerned "you know I'd never do this if I thought there was even a real slim chance of me actually dying", one of the handful of true lies I've ever consciously told in my life.

I was not suicidal but yet I chose to keep the promise made to my mentor almost twenty-seven years prior, despite the obvious risk. When I modified and fibbed more than lied by crouching in a "50/50" chance of surviving it, it was for their comfort, not mine. I knew death that night was highly probable.

Yet, I had to "take the tea" because I knew if I didn't, I could never actually live again.

Now, the moment, "the moment" I had so often preached and taught to others on how to live in, my moment, was at hand. Time to do what not had to be done, but what needed to be done.

I arrived at Temple Mound around 4:30PM or 5-ish or so on that Tuesday evening.

I had brought everything I thought might need for that night's festivities. A sleeping bag rated down to twenty below zero, a bivouac bag for covering it, a ground pad, my digital camera, an old-style on-the-stovetop coffee percolator for boiling of the water needed to steep my creosote twigs in later, a small charcoal grill for providing the necessary heat to boil the water, two of my favorite combat daggers for protection and self-assuring talismans, some sugar packets and a small portable CD boombox so I could play some "Enya" for "Old Chief" who had requested that I bring both when we met previously.

A couple of weeks before this I had made my first trip down to what "M" and the owners/caretakers of the site call "Turtle Mound" but I call "Temple Mound" and had a very unique experience there.

With "M" as my guide initially, she showed me Temple Mound and I took a short hike up to the top as she stayed below in the pasture-like area below because she was "on her moon" and didn't want to break protocol by venturing into sacred space while so.

At the top of the mound I stood facing the sun and meditated a bit. Then I felt a hand gently cup and slap me friendly on my left shoulder three times, my ears very clearly hearing the audible sound of one-hand welcoming just as real as if you were doing it to me right now and opened my eyes to find the spirit of a long-deceased as in approximately three-thousand-year-old-gone Native American whom I've come to know and call "Old Chief" and his two wives who were sisters but one wasn't his wife in the sense we Americans would know, more like a companion than actual wife to him. Milling around them were six or seven other spirits also obviously identifiable as chiefs just by their demeanor all who smiled at me and flashed iconic images and thoughts and feelings and even occasional words and phrases in English which startled me a little that they would know any because all or most of them had died centuries before the white man arrived.

"Old Chief" welcome me and told me I was of "warrior-hunter" heart and he also recognized me as a "healer of stories and souls" which was their term for what we might call "shaman" or that silly term "medicine man" and also acknowledged I was a "collector and teller of stories" which is their equivalent of "poet" which is the center-point balance to my being of warrior and healer hearts and told me I was welcome to come visit anytime.

He also told me that next time when I would come back for a visit, he wanted me to bring him some sugar and a CD player so he could listen to some music by Enya. At this point I was starting to think this was all some sick joke being pulled on me someone or was all in my imagination but it wasn't. He was insistent on my bringing him some refined sugar for his taste and some Enya for his hearing the next time I came.

I told him, well, told his spirit that I knew he had never tasted sugar since that's a post-Columbian commodity and he had died three thousand years before Columbus never found North America and as far as Enya, how the heck could he possibly know about Enya? He flashed me bits and pieces of the taste of sugar and also an echo of Enya being played on the wind saying he thought she had the voice of what their culture would call an "angel". I just shook my head in near-disbelief (yeah, even for me!) and agreed to bring him both if and when I came back. He smiled and told me I needed to go back down to the temple "steps" (all trace of the finery of this mound has long been smoothed over by natural erosion over millennia of time) and see "M" and finish my introduction to the site.

"M" was waiting for me and smiled when I told her bits and pieces of what had happened. She was glad they had chosen to reveal themselves to me since they don't always do so and that Old Chief and I had a chance to talk some. She then said "let's see if you can feel The Vortex" as she took me to what was very obviously a sacred circle directly in front of Temple Mound. When we were more or less in its general vicinity, she simply said: "walk around some and see what happens."

Yeah, right. At this point, having the spirit of long-gone Indian chief just ask me to bring him snackfood and some cool New Age music next time I came back for a visit, let's just say that my skeptical filters were put on maximum. I was determined not to let anything else happen that afternoon, no matter what.

While there was a very faint outline of what I knew had to be a "sacred circle" just barely visible in the pasture grass, nothing, nada happened when I crossed over its boundaries, not even a single hair on the back of my neck standing up. Zilch. Zero. I walked and walked around aimlessly inside its more or less borders. Then "it" grabbed me. There's no other way of stating what happened, it literally grabbed and held me to within about a two-foot diameter circle.

First it spun me around clockwise for a few minutes. I thought to myself "hey, this is all my imagination and I need to step outside of the circle" but couldn't. I looked at my watch and its hands were spinning wildly fast-forward too along with my body. For a moment it paused and I wobbled there as my watch hands also ticked and tocked back and forth for a bit with me. Then it decided to send me back to "normal time" by spinning me back around counter-clockwise as my watch hands, clearly visible in the clear afternoon sun, also spun backwards along with me and then it released me from its grasp.

Thinking I needed to document the surrounding area, I knew the batteries in my camera were about dead since I had shot 50-60 frames as I hiked up Temple Mound just before and there wasn't even a single bar of battery power left in them. Yeah, right. When I cut my camera on hoping I could at least get a couple of shots out of them, the batteries were, and I couldn't have made this up if I had tried, fully charged. Yep, the same energy field, what I call "The Vortex" even though its energy flow from the ground upwards and not down into the ground like a real vortex would, had charged my camera batteries. Cool, way cool.

"M" and I walked back up to the main house where Ed and Deb, the owners and caretakers of the site were waiting for us. They asked what had happened if anything and I told them and they confirmed that basically everything experienced was within the stories that many others, not just recently but through the past centuries of post-Columbian occupation, had also experienced and recorded, experience and knowledge I had no way of possibly knowing before that day. Cool, way too cool.



Chapter Two - Sometimes Horses Aren't What They Seem - The First Test

Now, the moment, "the moment" I had so often preached and taught to others on how to live in, my moment, was at hand. Time to do what not had to be done, but what needed to be done.

I had so much gear with me that the son of Ed and Deb had put most of it on the back of his three-wheeler and brought it down to the locked gate that marked the boundary between the rest of the compound and Temple Mound & The Vortex and smiled and waved good-bye to me. I smiled and waved back, knowing full well he might be the last human being I would ever see while alive. I think he sense the possible danger I was about ready to undertake and I was determined to show him how a true warrior faced death, with joy in his heart and with a song of purity on his lips. I caught my breath for a moment as I pried my way through the fence's narrow gate opening and surveyed the site once more.

I'm not sure how long I stood there in what apparently became a meditative state because it seemed like seconds later the sun was lower and I knew I needed to set up camp for the night before I lost all sunlight.

Before I could even make way to the foot of Temple Mound where I intended to set up my stuff near a recently constructed firepit that had been used previously by others, out of nowhere came this huge chestnut stallion along with two mares, one white and one dapple gray and as they waited off to the side he stood proudly in the middle of the campground and began flashing me images and sounds and such the way horses do when they want to communicate with humans.

He said to me: "you think you are of warrior-hunter heart, then prove it to me."

I began reeling off a laundry list of what I thought were some of noble deeds done in all kinds of past battles but he just "chuffled" and shook his head "no" side to side.

"I told you to prove me to you are a true warrior-hunter. If you don't or can't prove this to me right now, I'm going to come over there and kick and trample you to death" and he was serious and he was a live flesh-and-blood horse and I knew he could easily keep this promise of certain death made to me.

So, once more I began a recitation of past actions and words and deeds of bravery which just irritated him and almost made him angry.

"No, you still just don't get it, do you? I don't care about what you have done in the past. Either you prove to me that you are a 'real' warrior or I will kill you right now, get it?"

Without knowing why, I immediately dropped to one knee and looked right at him and began praying very loudly "I know there is but one God, but one Creator who Created all things for all times everywhere and Creator loves me, loves you and loves all of His Creation and without Him neither you nor I would have ever existed and that I love my Creator more than anything else . . ." and just prattled on a bit more as the stallion looked and listened at me and then replied:

"Well, I'll be damned, you do get it, you are of true warrior-hunter heart . . . okay, you are welcome now, you may do here as you wish" and lightly galloped to the top of Temple Mound with his mares close behind.



Chapter Three - The Actual Taking Of The Tea & The Promise Of "Release" If I Didn't - The Second Test

I made my camp as such within a couple of feet of the firepit so I could get at least some warmth from the fire I was planning on building that evening. I knew it would probably get down to single-digit temperatures in that bottom area which was a couple of hundred below the top of Temple Mound just to my back. On the other side of my sleeping bag I placed the small charcoal grill that would be used to boil the water to make the tea the taking of which would then let me keep my long-held promise. The water I decided to use for the tea came from Mt. Vernon Springs outside of Siler City, a sacred healing spring that I had been going to for some years.

As dusk fell I finished building my fire to my left in the firepit and waited patiently for the water in the percolator to boil. I put out the packets of sugar and dug out my mini CD player and began playing some Enya that Old Chief had asked me to bring, Enya's truly spiritual voice echoing into the new night as night rose and the sun fell.

A group of obvious spirits though some were "fleshed out" enough to have shadows thrown on them from the fire meandered into my camp along with Old Chief leading them. He sat down beside me as they all plopped down around the somewhat smoky fire as it belched more smoke than warmth from its hearth, they making pretend wavings of hands like it was bothering them which of course it couldn't since they were spirits and weren't actually breathing air.

Someone who identified himself as "Ja' ana 'ta" sat down across the fire from me, his handsome face and oiled body very clear in the crisp cool of the early night. He wore a garment over his shoulders that I had never seen the likes of before. It wasn't a shawl as such and wasn't a poncho either. It was more of a full-sized shoulder-drape that covered his shoulders, upper back and arms down to his elbows and was made from what looked like an offwhite-colored buckskin.

He and I talked across the fire for a while. He told me that he was my equivalent of warrior-hunter "on this side" but he recognized me as being of warrior-heart and was looking forward to getting to know me better, both here and on "the other side" as well.

Then one of the successor chiefs who had come down from Temple Mound coughed a pretend cough and commented that the fire had "been built by {their word for} an amateur". I replied that I hadn't built such a fire in thirty years so indeed I guess it was built by an "amateur" to which they all laughed very loud and boisterous bellylaughs before rising to leave and head back up top and Old Chief gave me one of his three-times friendly shoulder slaps and looked me square in the eye and said: "it's time". I put on another Enya CD for him which pleased him to no end as the look on his face changed to an even more pleasant one as he listened to the melodies and lyrics of someone whose voice is apparently truly timeless.

We moved to the other side of my sleeping bag next to the charcoal grill and container of spring water still heating not quite boiling yet. Old Chief and I made small talk, well, small images and small emotional impressions and flashes along with bits of occasional English he knew as we prepared for me to keep my promise to Doc.

He showed me his war club that he had used in many battles. On one end there was a semi-spherical ball about the size of a modern softball which was designed to crush an enemy's skull and on the other end was a conical-spike-like piece of wood sharpened to a rough point which was designed to penetrate to ribs and bones and such when striking an enemy in battle, essentially temporarily impaling them and killing them very quickly if not instantly.

"As your 'second' it is my job to make sure you do what is necessary. You know that if you show the slightest bit of fear, the slightest bit of hesitation before drinking your tea, I will kill you instantly" he pointing to the wooden spike-end and I smiling and flashing back that yes, indeed I did know this for a fact. Just because he was in spirit form and so was his warclub made it no less real and no less potentially deadly and I knew he would maintain my honor as a warrior-hunter and as a man by killing me without fear or favor instantly if I indeed did show any hesitation to do what I knew I had to do. It was close to that time.

I poured the water steaming in the freezing cold of the night into the special coffee mug I had bought just for the ceremony (I don't drink coffee and didn't have a suitable glass or mug for the ceremony) and dunked the metal old-style tea ball full of creosote twigs into it, pulling it up and down inside it to leech the essence into the steeping water. After a few minutes, it was indeed time.

I took the mug into both hands and looked at it for a second. I wasn't afraid or nervous at all. I had been told that the creosote tea would taste like, well, absolute bovine dung, like asphalt, like river mud, would taste just plain horrible and I was dreading that more than any "negative" physical effects I would receive from drinking it. I put it to my nose for a split-second and smelled it. It didn't have any smell to speak of and Old Chief, thankfully, didn't spike me from behind to kill me because I had hesitated. I hadn't hesitated from fear but only from curiosity more than anything. I put the edge of the new coffee mug to my lips to take my first and possibly last sip and keep my long-cycle promise to Doc and . . . and . . .

. . . well, I'm here to write this right now, aren't I, Smile?

It didn't have much of a taste at all. If anything it was slightly "minty" in taste but basically was close to tasteless. I smiled, feeling complete, feeling at peace that, well, that.

I didn't get high or a buzz or feel anything, didn't feel any effects whatsoever from taking of the tea. Now, I did feel a sense of total peace, calm and serenity but that was from knowing, if there had been any doubt at all before this moment, that I had reinforced the fact I was a man of my word, a man of honor, a man, a warrior-hunter of his word.

Old Chief smiled at me as he dropped his warclub to the ground beside him, patted me once on my right shoulder this time and said in his most chieftain-like voice "you have proven your mettle, you have proven that you are indeed of warrior-heart, that you are indeed a warrior-hunter and I now adopt you into our tribe (yeah, like I needed to be adopted by another family again, but he was sincere and I took in the spirit it was intended, to be an honor to be me) as a warrior-hunter, responsible for doing what is necessary for the welfare of the tribe. I also now give you your name of 'Ten Knives' . . . " he flashing me images of the knives I had brought with me and all the knives and weapons I own ". . . which you will use when you are with us which will be forever because we shall always be in your heart and you in ours" and with that he picked up his warclub and made his way back up to the top of Temple Mound.

My new tribal name doesn't translate exactly to "Ten Knives" but it's close. Since their system of counting only went up the number seven, anything past that was called "many" so technically my tribal name is "Many Knives" but that's not correct 100% either, since he flashed me the tick-mark count of "ten" too when he was saying this.

"Ten Knives". On its face, what a perfectly hokey name, sounding almost like what some eight-year-old would make up for himself if he had been stuck playing the one Indian against the several other Cowboys, like "I am Ten Knives and my ten knives can kill all you palefaces!"

Ten Knives. I still smile when I say it to myself and hopefully always will. I am "Paul" to my first and birth family and "Kent" to my second family that I was adopted by and to the world that now knows me and am a couple of other names to a couple of other self-chosen families and now am "Ten Knives" to my third family I was adopted by and am equally proud of all my names and the respective identities within those families that they represent.

When armed terrorists eventually capture me and begin the process of torturing me to death, I shall scream at them with my last breath "I am Ten Knives, a warrior-hunter of the "S" tribe and I die with a smile on my face and a song of joy in my heart!" Well, okay, when faced with a gun pointed at me during a street robbery I'll say "look, I'm just a poor old Indian, you really want to rob a 'brother'?" as I hand him my watch and wallet to keep from being shot, Smile.

Ten Knives. I crawled inside my sleeping bag and slept the sleep of a warrior and healer, of battles won and healings done. I slept better than I had literally in decades.



Chapter Four - Don't Ever Screw With A Magician Because They Never Show All Of Their Tricks - The Third & Final Test Of The Night.

At a recently-turned fifty years old after a lifetime of fighting and winning and losing battles on many planes and in many ways I didn't and don't have a single thing to prove to anyone.

Like I like to say, if you don't sign my cheques or if you're not a member of one of my families, while I of course respect the equality of your soul to mine and usually like on a personal level the vast majority of people I met in this life, then if you don't like me or I don't care for you for whatever reasons then just leave me alone and I'll do the same for you.

In other words, if you're not important to me in my life, then what you think of me isn't important to me either, i.e., if you don't like my truth, which is my truth and not yours, then screw you, Sherlock.

I don't sound like much of a guru do I? I don't sound like much of a prophet or talky-walkie chant-mumbling healer or boring old Zen Master or anything else warm and fuzzy and New-Age-ish touchy-feeling do I? That's because I'm not.

I am what I am. I am warrior-hunter, provider-protector-nurturer, empath and empathetic healer and poet & chronicler. I am "Kent", nothing more, nothing less.

I had gone to Temple Mound because I had been given access to it by Creator so I could keep my promise and do what I needed to do within a safe physical place of healing that would allow me to make mistakes and not pay a heavy karmic price for doing so. A physical or mental price possibly, Yes, but not a karmic one. I had gone to Temple Mound not to be healed but to become a little more whole.

I had not gone to Temple Mound to be tested, twice already, geezzzz!!!, because I knew I could easily pass any test thrown at me and if I didn't pass one, then c'est lie vie, such is life or death. You need to test those who have never been actually tested under battlefield conditions, not those who have been there and done that and kicked ass and got some souvenir teeshirts off their dead enemy's bodies.

I was happily sailing my sleep-of-sleeps and having my dreams-of-dreams when I heard a neighing of the stallion and his mares atop Temple Mound who were spending the night with me now that I had passed his test (of course in hindsight the stallion was a physical manifestation of Old Chief as were the two mares which were his wives, they often showing themselves as physical horses because they enjoy doing so and can) which then brought me out of, and very irritatingly if I say so myself, my perfectly content sleep of sleeps and I was pissed. Then I heard it: rustling of leaves around me and the smell of unwashed and hungry canines and I knew something was up and not up to any good.

I had snuggled tight all night in my mummy-style sleeping bag to try to keep the single-digit cold at bay.

When I needed to take a piss, I would quickly unzip the bag just enough to be able to roll to one side of the ground pad, let it hang over the edge, piss and then quickly zip back up and be close to being almost mummified inside my sleeping bag, there being minimal airspace inside in it in order to protect and conserve what body heat I was generating. Inside my sleeping bag there wasn't enough room to breath hard, by design.

It was then I saw the first one, an alpha male coyote at the eleven o' clock position and then as I moved my head around a bit could see in the fading light of my campfire very distinct shapes of the rest of pack, counting at least seven or eight more spread around about a two-seventy-degree perimeter encompassing any possible escape route I might have thought about trying to take.

Sometimes it takes more courage to walk away from a battle than it does to stay and fight. This was a lesson my first sensei had taught me long ago and indeed I had walked away from a battle or two in my time when I knew that the odds of winning were so overwhelmingly against me that in order to fight another day I had to do so.

Now I was facing an entire pack of wild, hungry, looking near-starving coyotes and I was fresh meat for an early breakfast and it didn't look good. Las Vegas wouldn't have accepted a bet on this fight except for one and only one outcome and dinner would have literally been on me, well, it would have been me.

Even if I had a firearm with me which I didn't it would have been useless. By the time I could have unzipped my mummy-tight sleeping bag, gotten my arms free and somehow been able to ID' the targets in the dim light of a now almost-dead-as-I-soon-was-to-be campfire and then spot-shot one or two or even three of them I would still be dead because while I'm good no one is that good. Even a fifth-degree black belt can get his ass royally kicked by seven or eight untrained morons if they manage to get him prone on the ground where he's basically helpless and inside my sleeping bag if I had decided to make a move I would still have been helpless, even if everything went perfectly, for at least a couple of seconds and they, the pack, knew it. The alpha male of the pack, sensing I could understand him, flashed me:

"Don't even think about it. We both know inside that bag you're helpless. Accept you fate, let me come on over and I'll quickly rip your throat out and my female will then tear your liver out and we'll make your death as painless as possible."

The prospect of this happening didn't frighten me at all. It certainly did piss me off. I flashed him that I had my two combat knives on either side of my head and I knew precisely how to use them and if he did make a move to come over that I'd make sure he was the first to die even if I did buy the farm afterwards. My images flashed back to him didn't phase him, either.

Almost kind of admired him. He was an old warrior like me but I could sense a slight hesitation in his "voice", a slight weakness in his manner, maybe borne of hunger and starvation maybe borne of disease or something else but at this point I didn't care.

"C'mon, mutha-fuka, if you want to rock, then let's rock. C'mon, you worthless, scared piece of excuse of near-dog flesh . . . " I flashed him ". . . you want to tear my throat out, then c'mon you son of bitch, go for it, go ahead and rush me and we'll decide this soon enough. C'mon, you scared little puppy doggie-woggie-wog, c'mon and try to eat your dinner, your dinner dares you!" all the while flashing him images of my daggers piercing his body and my own hands being shoved into his mouth to grab and separate his jaws so I could break his freaking neck if he indeed was going to try.

"You human you, you think you're so brave and smart, fact is that you are trapped and we both know it and that's all there is to know, so go ahead and accept your fate. There's no way you could possibly get to your knives and hurt a single one of us. You're alive meat soon to be dead meat so just give up and I promise you an honorable and quick death, the way a warrior like you always wants to go. Don't even think about moving a single one of your muscles towards trying to get out of your bag and reaching for your knives. If you do, I promise you that your death will be slow and painful."

Now I was truly pissed which is not a good thing to be before a battle since you lose your needed focus in your anger and when you do that you've already lost before a single blow is struck. I got my emotions under control, still feeling I had a slight advantage somehow because the weakness I felt in the alpha male even though things definitely did not look good at the moment and flashed something in reply. I knew this had to be good or I was in deep doo-doo.

"You know what, mutha-sucka? If you are so brave you come on over here and leave your pack behind and face me one-on-one and we'll decide this right now. And I give you my word as a fellow warrior I won't use my knives at all, it'll be fist and paws and teeth and nothing else. I don't need any knives, any weapons to fight my battles with. I can fight my battles with my fists and feet and wits alone . . . " at which point I began flashing him some images from some hurtful moments in the months before and kept my intensity of images and feelings directed towards him up in high gear ". . . like my soon-to-be-third-ex-wife once told me after we had an argument and I moved all my weapons out of the house so she'd calm down and feel more comfortable with me, and this was one of the nicest compliments anyone's ever given me, she told me I didn't need to bother to do that 'because you're far more dangerous without weapons than you are with them', so what do you say, are we gonna rock or not?"

And with that, he moved one paw and then another and then shifted his weight and then turned and disappeared back into the dark of the night from whence he came, his pack following his trace in the distance.

These were not "spirit" coyotes, they were quite real. I saw a couple of pieces of their droppings left the next morning as I was breaking camp , they were very real indeed and they were very hungry and were determined to kill and eat me and I had mindscrewed them enough to where they backed down.

Don't ever think you can honestly screw with a true magician because magicians never show all of their tricks nor use all of their energy. A magician always one more unseen trick and one last gulp of energy left to where they can at least have a chance of escaping from almost any situation.

A third and hopefully final test of the night passed. I really didn't need a phoenix just showing up that morning and challenging me to an eye-pecking duel, not then, not that morning, nor did I need a dragon emerging from Temple Mound just to screw with me' head. Thankfully, none of those things happened as I broke camp and packed up and began to prepare to leave.



Chapter Five - One Woman's Words Might Be An Opinion, But Two Unrelated Ones Miles Apart Saying The Same Thing At The Same Time About Something Often Constitute A Reality - Epilogue.

I had asked Deb and Ed's son to please be at the gate to Temple Mound around eight or eight-thirty so he could put my gear back on his three-wheeler and save me having to lug it all the way back up to the house. By quarter 'till nine no sign of him so I sighed and began throwing my stuff over the gate in preparation of the half-mile walk back to the house when my cell phone rang.

Yes, I had carried my cellphone with me and had turned it off before crossing the gate earlier yesterday and now having turned it back on, damned if it wasn't ringing.

It was "A", my most recent significant other who had wounded me well, well, I had wounded myself with my then-neediness of her which had left her no choice but to ask for her release from her bond to me back on New Year's Eve 2006/7.

We hadn't spoken in a couple of weeks since she had used those then-still-wounding words "weak" and "needy" in a phone conversation with me where she was just gushing on and on about her new/old boyfriend in her life (she had been with him when, with his permission, she went on a date with me, fell in love with me, dumped him the next day and then in turn had dumped me four months later in order to try to patch things back up with him, that and I was those "two words") and I expressed very real human hurt at she treating me not like the man she was planning on spending the rest of her life with, at one time at least, but like one of her girlfriends. Out of hurt and anger I had asked her not to call me for a while and she hadn't. Now, after what I knew had been one of the most important experiences of my life, she was unexpectedly calling me.

I answered the phone with a slightly surprised voice that she was calling me then. She had but one thing to say, one question to ask: "what time did you take 'your tea' last night?"

Now, I had mentioned to earlier that month in the days between she asking for her release and my getting angry at her that "M" had given me access to both my creosote twigs and to the Temple Mound site so she knew eventually I was going to take of my tea but had zero clue when. Now she was on my freakin' cellphone asking me, in a truly concerned and calm and almost loving voice, what time I had taken my tea, like she actually knew that I had the previous night. She knew.

"Oh, I don't know, around seven, seven-thirty-ish, I'm not sure. Why do you ask?"

"Well, about ten o' clock last night, I felt your presence. I had just lain down to go to sleep, you were definitely in my bedroom and I felt a sense of peace and calm and serenity I had never felt before at all, felt this sense of peace and calm about you and I just knew you had taken your tea and survived it, that or had passed on and were calm and serene because you were finally in heaven. So, obviously you survived or you wouldn't have answer your cell" she chirped.

"You think so?" I replied with a sarcastic but sweet voice.

"Yeah, unless you're a lot better shaman than you give yourself credit for and can use your cell from the afterlife" she almost giggled.

"No, it's really me and I really did survive it."

"Well, good. Are you sure of the time?"

"I think so, why?"

"I don't know, it just seemed later to me and you know me, without my glasses or contacts in I can't see the clock next to the bed for nothing."

"Yeah, I do know you. I think it was around seven or eight-ish but I won't swear to it."

"I'm just glad you're okay. I just pulled into the parking lot at work now and need to run but we'll talk later, okay?"

"Okay" and with that she was gone once more out of my life.

I struggled with my backpack and gearbags but they were just too heavy to lug back up to the main house so I dropped them by side of the path with the intention of letting Ed and Deb's son to fetch them for me later.

As I reached the top of the path where the main compound is at, Deb and her son were out in the early morning air taking care of the horses.

"You look pretty good for a dead man" she quipped.

"Yeah, got the most restful sleep last night I've had in decades. That's pretty easy to do when you're dead, I suppose" I playfully replied back.

"So, what time did you take your tea last night?"

I know I had to have shot her a look of oh-my-God-what-is-she-getting-ready-to-say when she said that. I literally felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up and a chill run down my spine.

"Oh, I dunno, around seven-thirty-ish or eight, I'm not sure, why do you ask?"

Now, I couldn't have made up the following if I had tried. You know I always tell the absolute truth as much as the limitations of language allow but what she said next still gives me goosebumps. Verbatim, she then replied:

"Well, I had just gone to bed, Ed was still asleep and I was under the covers when I felt your presence, felt you in the room with me, and I felt (and, dear readers, if Deb didn't say these exact words and I'm lying in the least then I'm dying in the most) a sense of peace and calm and serenity about you, a sense of calm and peace that I had never felt before and I knew that you had just taken your tea and were okay. I looked over at the clock and it read nine-fifty, ten until ten, so I knew you were okay and I rolled over and went to sleep."

"Well, I think it was earlier but won't swear to it."

"Anyway, I need to feed the horses but I'm glad you're okay and that I didn't have to send the meatwagon after your remains. We'll talk before you leave, okay?"

Inside the main house Ed was getting up which was unusual for him since he normally stays up late and gets up later in the morning. He came over and gave me a hug. He's a very nice guy for an old fart and what Deb sees in him and why she puts up with him I'll never know but that's their business, Smile. I do know that Temple Mound is in good stewardship because of them.

"You look pretty good for a dead man" he quipped.

"Yeah, I've already heard that a time or two this morning" I replied to my friend also of warrior-heart.

"Yeah, I bet. So, tell me, what happened?"

As I began to more or less chronologically relate the events of the past sixteen hours he listened intently, making comments on and asking questions on this and that, confirming my experience generally fell within past parameters of the many past healings and happenings that he knew about. I asked him about the seeming time difference between what time I thought I had taken the tea and what time both "A" and Deb had thought I had taken it.

"Oh, that's easy to explain, Kent. Temple Mound is a sacred place of healing. It's a temporal distortion zone among many other things. Five minutes can seem to be five hours or vice' versa and as you saw with your watch in The Vortex the first time you came here, time literally can be moved around as The Creator feels it's necessary. Were you going by watch-time when you said you thought it was seven-thirty or so, or were going by sun-time, by how low the sun was at dusk?"

"By how low the sun was."

"I thought so. You were in a temporal bubble, it happens all the time down there. If had to say, it was probably closer to ten like Deb saw and "A" thought than it was to the earlier time you thought."

"Makes sense."

"Yeah, now tell me more about your evening down there."

After I finished telling him all the details that I could remember right then, and even now as I write this I'm still processing the events of that night so this recounting of what happened is apt to be corrected in the future as events and happenings of that night become clearer still, he then something that honored me forever. I'm paraphrasing him some now out of respect for him and the privacy of that moment but this is close to what was said.

"Kent, you have proven yourself to be yourself, to be who you said you were, so now you have unlimited, free access to Temple Mound and everything around here as you wish. You don't need to call ahead of time and ask, you just show up as you feel the need.

As of now, you're a 'spiritual mechanic', someone who knows how to and can use the specialness of this place and can be trusted to do so, to use your own abilities and the powers that reside here for good and to heal and to fight evil. You're now part of a special fraternity of which 'M' is also a part of and some others you've also met and others that you will meet in the future. Do you want to be, do you accept this? . . . " I doing my best not to outright gush "yes" in reply before affirming that I did indeed accept this truly special honor ". . . then welcome, my brother, welcome" as we hugged again.

Moments later I was back on the road to my other home back to Raleigh as a slim silver thread kept me connected for a while longer not to a place of my re-birth but to Temple Mound where I had just begun the process of finding something lost three decades ago, of becoming not some-thing or some-one new but of simply becoming what I had been all along and lost sight of, of becoming simply, once more, nothing more and nothing less than myself, nothing more or less than simply "Kent".


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