soul

The homework in Purpose Discovery had uncovered my co-dependence with certain of my family members. Ironic that everyone else in the course was on their Soul Quest this exact weekend I had selected months ago to host my uncle's party. My plan was to leave immediately after this event and head to the cabin I'd rented in the Angeles Forest to take my quest. I viewed this party as a last hurrah with my family before starting a new era of loosening its grip on me.

The first morning of my quest, I awoke to a text.  My brother had gone by ambulance to the hospital in alcoholic withdrawal. That explained his shaking hands over the weekend — the bizarre story about workmen trying to break into his motel room by removing the hinges from the doors. Hallucinations brought on by delirium-tremens.  

I dispatched a text to my sister-in-law – “I’m on silent retreat, I cannot talk.” I left my phone in the cabin and set out for my sit-spot. I would tell time by the sun and not be tempted to follow the unfolding drama. 

My quest was to receive a Mythopoetic Identity. One symbol came through with clarity that day — an arrow. First in the water offering I made to the land, which soaked into the thirsty earth leaving a damp patch that pointed north  — an arrow, fat and purposeful. The second was under the pine tree where I squatted to pee. I saw a configuration of twig and pine needle and thought “Arrow.” The third hung from the branch of a tree — a pod pointing downward. The word rose unbidden: Arrow. I rolled the image in my mind. Arrows have targets. Arrows point the way. I liked the idea of it … the sound of it. Arrow. 

I returned to the cabin and a message that my brother was in ICU, intubated because he was not responding to the medications designed to soothe his shaking body. My sister-in-law wanted to talk. “Sorry, not advised,” I typed. The details came in a chain of texts … delirium … going into the kids’ rooms all night spouting nonsense … looking for oranges in his daughter’s hamper. 

I drank a mug of vegetable broth. I did not want to eat too much. Hunger, I had been told, increased longing and visions were more likely when the brain was deprived of food. My brother and I had much in common. But I was seeking helper spirits while he chased demons. I ate a blueberry, squishing it in my mouth to release the juicy sweetness. Delicious. Now one slightly salted cashew. So grateful. 

I arose at 4 the next morning with the intention of watching the sunrise. No new texts. I packed my backpack, donned my wearable sleeping bag and left the cabin. The wind banged an unsealed shudder. I turned on a flashlight and started up the trail to the plateau that gave me a 360-degree view of the surrounding mountains. The wind whipped at the edges of my hood. The tire swing — my chosen threshhold — danced on its long rope. 

Light was appearing in the eastern sky, turning the clouds dark gray — an upside-down time when clouds were dark against a light sky. I entered my sacred circle, facing east. Clouds pinkened, the color spreading from one to the next until the pink stretched across the low-hanging clouds from north to south. I closed my eyes. Who am I? What is my purpose? When I opened my eyes, the clouds were light gray. Still the sun did not peak its head from behind the mountain. More prayers. 

When I next opened my eyes, the clouds glowed vivid orange. I laughed aloud. Then the sky brightened and the clouds turned gold — a gleaming, golden bounty. And the bare sky paled yet again, turning the clouds yellow. Then the sun crested the mountain and I had to turn away so the brightness wouldn’t hurt my eyes.

I realized my backpack was missing off my scooter. Did I forget to bring it with me? I didn't want to go all the way back to the cabin for it. But it held the vessel I'd made for today's water offerings. The flailing branches of two pines caught my attention: Go back, go back. I got on my scooter and started the trek toward the cabin. I found my backpack where it had fallen, just inside my tire swing threshold. 

To be complete, my mythic name needed a second part. It was like two points on a line. The first was a starting point, but the second determined trajectory. Back in my circle, I prayed. I watched. I waited. I thought to journal but was missing my pen. I rooted in my backpack and grabbed another, tried Jungian journaling. My leg hurt. I laid on my back and watched the vapor trails from planes to see if they would make arrows. I spotted two birds flying in tandem, very high, then realized they were stealth jets flying in tight formation — no vapor trails, no sound. 

I curled into a ball, trying to keep warm. I wondered if my brother would finally surrender — to admit he couldn’t fight this battle on his own, to ask for help. I had tried to help him but succeeded only in angering him. He didn’t understand the problem was his thinking, not his drinking. Alcoholism is a disease of perception. But don't we all suffer from some degree of distorted perception that keeps us stuck within learned limits?

A bird called: Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?

I sat up, shifted my cushion to face north and spotted a piece of blue plastic on the ground. Where did that come from? I picked it up, turned it in my fingers. Printed on it was the word “Pilot.” It was the clip from my pen — not my chosen pen — but the one I'd rooted from my recovered backpack. 

Pilot. 

I have an affinity with that word — a psychic had seen one in my future. 

I said it out loud: "Arrow … Pilot?"

Is that right? If that was the name I sought, I wanted a sign. Show me something. The wind surged and caressed my face bringing the name to mind with the ease of a well-practiced fact: Arrow Pilot. 

A plane made its way across the sky, leaving a vapor trail. I had seen many planes the day before — had, in fact, rued that my sit-spot was not further from the evidence of human activity. But perhaps it was the exact spot I needed to be to understand this about myself:  My purpose was to pilot the arrow toward its target. What remained to be learned was how.

On my drive home I debated if the name received was true. Is it helpful? Is it fantasy? 

What color are clouds?