WANDERER AND ME
"How did you two meet?" This was asked by the kindly, old man, quietly tending his garden while we talked.
"We first met in a dream. I was trying to get up my nerve to steal this knife. Right then, this old bum came into the shop, looked over my shoulder, saw what I was up to, and told me how to do it. So I did it. Then he and I walked out of that place together. We first went out to my place, but then we traveled, never stopped."
He saved my life once, when we were climbing and I fell to a ledge below. He threw me a rope then and showed me the way up. He wasn't used to cities or many people. He was a simple man. His biggest happiness came from seeing a deer up close and friendly. Or walking out into the mystery with Coyote. Or hanging with Woodpecker and realizing the world is illusion and yet a fun game.
Like I said, we traveled. We had an old van, and we drove it cross country and back, running on miracles and making lots of stops along the way - Rainbow Gatherings, the Farm in Tennessee, lots of apple picking, from Iowa and Idaho to the states of Washington and Oregon. We met many fine folks along the way.
We determined ourselves at this time. Watching how everyone related to us, we began to see who we were together. I was no longer the intellectual, book learning, young man. He was no longer the grizzled, old bum. We had a look. Folks would approach us. They knew we had something. They didn't know what. We were just beginning to find this out ourselves.
We found we liked traveling on foot best. Traveling in the van was an adventure, but we couldn't do it and focus on what we had come to see was to be our main work together. We had found that we tripped well together, and soon this became our major occupation. We decided to stop tripping in the cities. Instead, we started going to a magical place in the High Sierras, a place I had been shown once years before.
Our camp at Dinky Creek was at the junction of two creeks, Cow and Dinky. These two creeks were really different; Cow was a little, wandering mountain stream. Dinky, on the other hand, came rushing down from high lakes, flowing for most of its journey over granite. It was filled with pools, large and small, as well as slides and waterfalls and magical perches under the nearby Juniper Trees. We did a lot of medicine there, Wanderer and me.
We'd usually sit under this old Juniper tree until we felt solidly on, and then we'd ramble about, usually over to the big pool. Once we had dove into its icy waters, we instantly became fully awake and aware, fully in our bodies. Then the world would show us its mysteries.
Those days, we lived for the mystery. We wandered in it, tracing our ways through by our dreams.
Then something terrible happened! Somewhere along the way, we became separated. We lost touch and couldn't find each other. I struggled on with what I called my life, trying to fit into a reality I had laughed at when I had been with him. He continued to wander through the darkness as he had once, years before he and I had first met.
Once, we saw each other at a distance, but before I could reach him, he had vanished. I had begun to believe he and I would never be together again.
"But you are together now. What happened? What brought the two of you together again after you had given up on ever seeing each other?" The kindly, old gardener was genuinely curious.
"One day recently, I was alone, doing medicine. I had just been thinking of Wanderer, when all of a sudden I felt his presence. I looked about and saw a large but ephemeral image, the head and shoulders of a man, hovering above me. It was Wanderer! He asked if we could be together again. I said yes, of course, and he descended onto me as he had once before. When this happened, when we were together again, I realized how empty I had been without him, how full I now was. He asked if he could steer our lives, as he had before, said I could be the witness again. I said yes. I have always liked it best this way. He is definitely closer to Spirit."
By Eugene Marks