Wayne Huxhold’s Weblog

It has been a long while since I have written.  My last post was May 23^rd.  Since that time I have danced with Cannibal Raven.  I have embodied the Tree, my roots have dug deep and made contact with the mycelium mat, my branches have reached high and interacted with the Bird Kingdom.   Cannibal Raven entered the opening in my trunk into the hollow.

The mycelium has feed me the unseen nourishment I needed and allowed me to share the abundance of what I have to offer with others, allowing me to grow.  The Bird Kingdom has feed me the material nourishment I needed and allowed me to share the abundance of what I have to offer with others, allowing me to grow.  

Crooked Beak metaphorically cracked open the hard shell of my heart, my life and picked the flesh of what no longer feeds my Soul clean allowing new life.  Huxwhukw metaphorically cracked open my skull and ate away all the useless mind chatter providing me with silent awareness.  Cannibal Raven metaphorically entered the wellspring of my deep body and ate away my old, tired and skewed vision opening a new vision of clarity.

I, the Tree, have grown greatly, finally breaching the canopy of the forest, seen that I am the heart of the forest, and the forest in all of it’ s vast diversity is me.   From the center of me I see down through the root bed, up into the stars, feel all that mingle within my roots and branches and find that I can breath.

You may wonder why I added the last post, of my quitting smoking adventures, to my Huxwhukw story.  I wonder myself.  The question I am beginning to ask is if Huxwhukw is the subject in this writing, or the catalyst.  So far, the subject seems more focused on finding a space where I can breathe.  And so far, it seems like Huxwhukw has always showed up right before shifts in my livingness that allows me to do so.

Let’s go back to January 2004, back to the point in time right after my discovery of Huxwhukw and the Hamatsa story.   Once Dianna and I where back from our honeymoon, I was ready to begin working with Huxwhukw.  Or,  more accurately, allowing Huxwhukw to work with me. 

My interactions with the unseen world, at that point, had been asking Brighid to open my heart center and to take me and help me embody the Tree of Life.  I would then ask to feel the unconditional love of the Tree and ask it to reweave me.  I would allow myself to feel myself traveling down into the roots, or up into the branches, trying to keep my mind quiet enough to stay out of the Trees way.  Always trying to find that elusive silence, while allowing the Tree to transform me. 

I first tried to work with Huxwhukw the same way.  I would ask Brighid to open my heart center and take me to Huxwhukw.  I would then ask Huxwhukw to reweave me.  After a few days I realized that this didn’t seem to work.  I switched up a bit, I tried asking to Brighid to help me embody the Tree, then asked the tree to take me to Huxwhukw.  This didn’t seem right either.  I tried going directly to Huxwhukw, nope.  Ask to embody the dancer, nope again. 

After about a month of my trials and errors with Huxwhukw, I spoke with the wise man that I refer to through out my book.  I was very excited to tell him this story and he seemed excited to hear about it.  I eventually told him that I couldn’t seem to figure out how to work with it.  He first reminded me that I wasn’t working with it, it was working with me.  He then meditated, for just a few moments, and then asked me if I know why I had seen so many people wearing feathers on there heads in so many representations of indigenous tribes from all around the world?  I told him that I recognize this to be true, but had never stopped to think about why. 

In the course of that conversation, he asked me many questions in an attempt to answer for myself the way Huxwhukw wanted to work with me.  For whatever reason, as crafty as he can be, I could not seem to get it.  Finally, he asked me to embody the Tree.  I did.  He then asked me to invite Huxwhukw to land and perch in the top of the branches.  Once I did, there was a woosh, then I immediately fell into the deepest level of silence I had ever encountered.  Huxwhukw had eaten my brain.

I no longer smoke.  On Tuesday, March 11, 2008, while pondering a space where I could breathe, I drove to Oakmead Street in Perrysburg, Ohio where Dr. Dorian Birch put six needles in my body to disrupt my addiction to nicotine.  The birch tree represents new beginnings.  I needed one.

I am 46 years old.  I have smoked since I was 15.  I enjoyed it for 30 years, I mean really enjoyed it.  I could write much on what I loved about it, fond associations, different representations, all of the glorifications I used as an excuse to continue, but I won’t, that’s not the point.  I didn’t enjoy it this last year.  I couldn’t breathe.  Actually, I take that back, I did enjoy smoking this last year, what I did not enjoy was my inability to breathe.

Spring sprung at 1:48 this morning.  I woke up to Dianna’s alarm at 5:15.  I awoke from a dream of which I had asked Brighid what I could do for Her.  She asked me to rebuild the small nature shrine that I had built twice before.  I saw Dianna off and got right to work.

I knew what to do.  Although I have now experienced this many times, I am still fascinated at the complexity and depth I receive from Her silent instruction.  Imagine, if you will, Her handing me a small note that says, “please build me a small nature shrine.”  That would not be accurate; you can throw that note away.  Now imagine Her handing me a small note, but when I look in my palm, I see a multi faceted disco ball of information on what size, what materials, construction method, placement, site preparation, installation instruction, ritual to bring it alive, the list goes on and on.  I love the feeling I get when out of the blue; I just know what to do.

I was so glad to do this.  First, I love my relationship and interactions with Brighid.  Second, this was the first time, since I quit smoking a week and a half ago, that my thoughts have not been completely absorbed by the focus I have needed to simply not smoke.  I can’t believe how hard, exhausting and all consuming this has been.  There have been so many times that I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it. I was glad to have this temporary reprieve.

I had all the material I needed, except for leather cord.  I knew I was to use branches from the pile of oak wood a friend had dropped off earlier in the fall.  Dark eyed juncos and purple finches had used the pile for shelter all winter long.  They had recently headed back north.  I headed south, towards Amish country, to pick up leather cord at the harness shop.

Once I got in my truck and began to drive my no smoking tensions flooded my system again.  I have rarely smoked inside any buildings, and never in my home, so, especially in winter, I would often go out and smoke in my truck.  The association was maddening, and I have to admit, I was frustrated and feeling a bit defeated that I was still struggling so hard after a week and half. 

Suddenly I saw something that just broke my heart.  Just ahead I could see the white barn, out buildings and house of an Amish farm, and next to it, in the middle of the road I could see a small dark animal leaning over something.  From a distance, I thought it was a vulture lurking over a possum or something.  But as I got closer, I saw it was a little black pinscher puppy that was leaning over a white and brown one that had just been hit. 

As I approached, the black puppy wouldn’t leave the others side.  It was obviously upset, as if it were saying to the dead one, “hey, come on, get up, what you doin, get up.”  It didn’t understand.  It, didn’t know that the white and brown one would never get up. 

I just burst into tears.  I suddenly realized that a part of me that I have loved was lying dead in the middle of the road.  The smoker and all that I loved of him that I didn’t write about in the second paragraph would never be able to get up again.  I sat there and cried.  I grieved my loss, the puppy’s loss and drove on. 

I bought the leather cord, went home, sat down on the ground and built the shrine for Brighid.  My mind felt clear and my body relaxed as I focused on the task.  For just a while, I was in a space where I could breathe.

On the ferry ride back to Seattle, reading the book, I focused solely on Huxwhukw.  It wasn’t until the plane ride back to Indiana that I read the Hamatsa story. 

There were some connections that were obvious to me.  The experiences that led to the writing of my book was my journey into the wilderness.  That seemed to fit.  Also, in the first few chapters of my book, I told of living in an apartment, that I fondly referred to as the nest.  I shared this apartment with Frodo the African Grey parrot.  About a couple of months after moving to the nest, I was asked by an avian rescue group to care for a Starling, affectionately named Brighy, who had a problem processing iron.  The condition forced the abnormal growth of her claws and beak.  Her beak grew out of control and would twist so she wasn’t able to eat.  I fed her a special diet and every few days I would have to trim her beak and nails.  After seeing the images of Crooked Beak, I realized that I all ready had an intimate relationship to both the big and small. 

I also recognized a synchronicity with Root Woman.  From Roots to Branches Begins with a poem, Becoming Aware, that sprung to life as I imagined digging my toes into the forest floor.  I wrote of how it was actually a revision of a poem that I had previously begun.  In the book I wrote:

Within a few days of that meeting I was compelled to do something that seemed odd.  I wanted to go deep into the woods, sit down on a log, take my shoes and socks off, and dig my toes as deeply into the Earth as I could.  I didn’t do this, but I thought about it, and began to rewrite a very dark poem that I had started while focusing on what it would feel like if I had my toes buried in a forest floor.  The poem then began to take an entirely different route than I had originally intended it to take.  When I finished it, it was the first personal piece of writing that had come out of me in seventeen years.

            Not only did it come out, it came out in a different way than anything I had written had ever come out of me before.  The poem that had started on a path leading into darkness had, not from my mind, but from a much deeper space, changed course and was now leading into light and new possibilities, not towards the way things had always been.

In the book, I never described the original path of the poem.  Originally, before feeling into the act of digging my toes into the forest floor, I wrote of digging in and becoming trapped.  Influenced by the heartbreak of Richard Brautigan and the dark writings of H. P. Lovecraft and Tom Waits, I became trapped in a tangle forest, strangled by vines, surrounded by briars and grown over with lichen and moss.  From my strategic mind, it represented how trapped and burdened I felt in my life at that time.

I could see obvious connections, but that’s all I could see, connections.  I had yet to discover my role in the story.  I had not lived the story out yet.

It was a rough ferry ride from Seattle to Victoria.  The wind was howling, the water was choppy and the ride was like an amusement park ride.  It was obvious that many people on board didn’t like amusement park rides.  There was a lot of fear; a lot of tension, a lot of sudden shrieks, and the color of many faces were ashen to pale green. 

Dianna and I were enjoying ourselves.  We were very excited about the recent events and had much to talk about.  One woman even snapped at us, “How can you laugh like that at a time like this?”  Not realizing she was safe, she feared death, we felt alive. 

As soon as we docked, as soon as we stepped foot on the Island, we knew we were home.  Dianna felt what I felt years ago and was feeling again, a space were we could breathe.  We had a map, but didn’t open it.  We somehow instinctively knew where to go. 

First stop, the best meal of our lives.  Fresh salmon, mussels, clams, scallops, crab and shrimp in an amazing broth with fresh bread and butter to dip.  Yes, we were locked in a mystery, but it was our honeymoon. 

After our honeymoon meal, we headed for the galleries.  We saw Huxwhukw, we saw Salmon Boy along with many other masks and totems that now resonated deep within us.  I found a book that explained the symbolism of much of the art, but most important, Dianna learned more of Salmon Boy and I found the story of which Huxwhukw played a major role.

The Hamatsa Story:

A young man, driven by the desire to learn the mysteries of the spirit world, sets out into the wilderness to find Bakbakwalanuxsiwe, the cannibal at he north end of the world.  He first encounters Root Women, a woman who had become lost in the forest and had sat for so long that she had become rooted to the forest floor.  He asks her about the cannibal at the north end of the world.  She tells him that no one has ever seen him, but tells him to look for a giant hemlock tree.  In the tree you will find four birds from the unseen world, Huxwhukw - the brain eating cannibal bird, Kwakwakwalanooksiwae – cannibal raven at the mouth of the river, and a large and a small Galukwiwe – crooked beak of heaven.  These are the guardians of Bakbakwalanuxsiwe’s house. 

The young man searches the wilderness for four years and finally finds the giant hemlock and the four birds.  He learns to speak with the birds and eventually forgets his own language.  He never sees the cannibal at the north end of the world, but suddenly realizes that Bakbakwalanuxsiwe’s spirit is within him.

Knowing his journey into the wilderness is complete, he returns to his village clothed only in hemlock boughs.  He has forgotten his language and when he returns he can only speak the language of the birds, the language of the cannibal, “haap, haap, haap,” calling for raw flesh.  He shakes violently and is wild.  The birds have followed him back, guarding the spirit of Bakbakwalanuxsiwe within him.  The birds snap their beaks with the sound of thunder as they dance for Bakbakwalanuxsiwe.  These dances, along with songs from the village’s chiefs, tame Bakbakwalanuxsiwe’s spirit within him, the cannibal spirit within each of us, the spirit that separates us from harmony and balance, and he becomes a member of the secret society of the Hamatsa.

A year prior, at the moment that the year 2002 surrendered itself to 2003, I was standing before an immense tree asking it, “Who are you?  What do you mean to me?”  Questions that no one could answer for me.  Questions that no book could answer.  Questions that could only be answered by paying a close attention to the mystery unfolding before me, birthing out of me, changing me, reweaving my reality.  It did, and now I was asking those same questions to Huxwhukw.

I had finally discovered that my journey through the Tree of Life, and all that mingled within its roots and branches, was actually a journey through me.  When I had stood before the Tree, asking it those questions, I didn’t know it at the time, but I was asking those questions to myself.  Armed with that knowledge, now looking at a brain eating cannibal bird, I knew I was looking at a mysterious aspect of myself, something that had lingered, gestating, right below the surface of my consciousness for years, that was ready to be birthed into the world.

On an intellectual level, I had a feeling that I knew what the metaphor might represent.  Prior to our honeymoon trip, Dianna and I had attended a workshop on techniques to quiet the chattery portions of our minds.  While writing From Roots to Branches, I had learned the importance of and power of finding silence.  It wasn’t an easy task for me to do, but when I had found it in the past, amazing things seemed to happen in my life. 

The workshop spoke of the brain, not as the primary source of thought, but as a processor for thought.   It spoke of the interaction that takes place with the strategic aspects, the emotional aspects, the patterning aspects, the emotions wrapped around experiences and the old reptilian flight, fight or passivity reactions, and how they all interact to write the stories in our heads to form our realities based on these stories as we walk through the life we are living when we use our brain as our primary source for thought.  Whew!  It’s exhausting just to think about it.   The workshop focused on opening our heart centers, moving that energy to our underused, often under-developed pre frontal lobes, allowing the prefrontal lobe to act as a governor to quiet the automatic brain responses so we may begin to access our thought from our deep bodies. 

Prior to the workshop, prior to writing my experiences with the Tree of Life, the way I meditated was to bring my awareness to my heart center, ask it to open and quiet the parts of my mind that needed to be quiet and stimulate those that will connect to my deep body and reconnect to my Soul.  During my journey, I discovered that I needed help from the unseen world.  I would ask Brighid to open the wellspring, the quiet pond of my heart, and help me embody the Tree.  On the occasions that I fully embodied the Tree, fully connect to my Soul, I would find an amazing, vast sense of expanded silence.  I believed this new work with my pre frontal lobe could greatly increase my rate of success for finding the silence within me.

I believed Huxwhukw could help.  The brain eating cannibal bird of the north, was it a cannibal, or did it eat the brains of cannibals?  I knew better than to try to just figure it out, whatever I would come up with would be from my known world.  I was once again stepping into my unknown world.   I had to form a relationship with, both, Brighid and the Tree of Life, and allow them to teach me before I found how they could help me.  I knew I now needed to form a relationship with Huxwhukw and invite it into my life.

For those hoping to read this story in a chronological, lineal order, you will be disappointed.  As I have said before, I believe chaos to be self-organizing, so I intend to throw my stories, associated with Huxwhukw, onto the page as they come to me.  It is my writing and learning process to allow the stories to organize themselves.  That being said:

In the spring of 1982, the ship I was on pulled into the port of Esquimalt, British Columbia on Vancouver Island.  I remember being mesmerized by the beauty of the Straits of Juan De Fuca.  A spectacular, yet haunting beauty surrounded me as glimpses of dark pines and cedars on jagged shorelines appeared out of the mists then disappeared back into the fog.  It was like trying to remember a dream but just when you think it’s coming back it goes away again.  I had been to just about every major port city in the North and South Pacific and the Indian Oceans, yet nothing felt more exotic to me than this place.

I took a boat over to the city of Victoria and was surprised at my own actions there.  You have to keep in mind that I was 20 years old, a sailor, and apt to do things that 20 year old male sailors, with pockets full of money, unfettered by family or social responsibilities, in the midst of sewing their wild oats, are apt to do.  Somehow, this stop was different.

This sounds so clichéd, but as I stepped off the boat, I somehow felt at home.  I remember thinking of a line from a John Denver Song, “coming home to a place he had never been before.”  I explained it later as finding a space where I could breath.

I had two days off.  Instead of the usual conquests, after just a couple of drinks with my mates, I checked into an Inn.  I was excited that it had a kitchenette. I went to a neighborhood grocery, bought food, and went back and cooked a wonderful meal.  The place had a feather bed.  I had never slept in a feather bed.  After eating, I nestled into its folds and slept through the afternoon, evening and night.  (I realize that this may not sound like the most exciting of sailor stories, but that’s the point, please hang in there with me.)

The next day I kicked around downtown.  I was cold, I was used to the tropics.  I found a shop, that carried items made on the island, where I bought a wool sweater jacket that I would end up wearing for as many years as the wool was willing to be woven.  I’m sure I was surrounded by the islands art, but at that time, it was of no interest to me.

I was more excited about finding a bookstore where I was able to complete my collection of Richard Brautigan’s books.  Including the illusive “Willard And His Bowling Trophies,” a book about a large red, black and blue papier-mâché bird with a stork like beak who held possession of the stolen bowling trophies of the three vicious Logan brothers. 

This was a totally different port for me.  For whatever reasons, I broke away from my usual routines to feed myself, cloth myself, and to rest in that luxurious bed.  I didn’t know it then, but looking back, this was a place of nurturing for me.  A place to lay down burdens, rest and recuperate, a place where I could breathe.

The next day, back at the ship, there was a bit of excitement because of a Great Horned Owl that had settled on the aft mast.  We pulled back out through the straights and that owl rode with us all the way down the coast, around the Baja into the Gulf of California and to the next stop at Mazatlan, Mexico where it finally took off and headed towards the desert scrub.  I went back to being a sailor.  I always wonder what happened to it.

Twenty-one years later, after writing the last line in my book;

Was that the whinny of a screech owl?

No, I’m sure it was laughter.

Dianna and I changed our plans from going to Mexico, went to Seattle, and was boarding the ferry for Victoria, British Columbia, a place were I could breathe.

If you haven’t done so, please read Huxwhukw, Part 1 before continuing.

As I said, I was in awe.  For a few moments, the world completely stopped and I was amazed at what was unfolding before my eyes.  At that time, though I knew it was a space that I wanted my mind to be in, I still didn’t trust the expansive feeling of silence and wonder that I felt.  I wanted to, but as I had often done in the past, it felt like it was too big of an experience to handle and I kicked out of the feeling and allowed fright to settle in.  I needed to stay calm and centered, feel the intimacy of this moment with this mask like I had done while encountering the deer while hunting mushroom, like I had done while working in the studio with Dianna, but instead I encountered fright.  Fright, that sweet mix of excitement and trepidation, knowing that I was stepping into the unknown, knowing that if I could walk towards this unfolding mystery my life would forever change.   I allowed fright to take over.

I didn’t quite know what to do.  There was no explanation handy, beyond a brief description.  Huxwhukw was described as the brain eating cannibal bird from the North, one of three cannibal birds of the Hamatsa Ceremony, along with Crooked Beak and Cannibal Raven.  It was a bit disconcerting.

I remember thinking, “Great, Dianna gets this beautiful story of Salmon Boy, and I get a brain eating cannibal bird.  What the hell is this all about?”

It was an odd mix of emotion, I felt excitement from the discovery, yet, at the same time, I remember a flood of trepidation emerging through me.  I had recently completed my journey with the Tree of Life, the set of experiences that is the story of my book From Roots to Branches.  A journey that shattered the identity of who I thought I was and my illusions of how I thought the world was supposed to be.  In that journey I encountered and walked through plenty of fright.  I had walked through the depths of my emotions, the depths of my beliefs, and the pain associated with letting go of all that I had thought was real, so a new, much deeper reality could finally emerge.  Yes, it was wonderful and yes, it was the most powerful and profound experience I had ever had, but it was exhausting and, at that time, I still viewed it as very painful.  It was an odd mix, I was wanting to share the beauty of my life changing experience with the world, yet felt an incredible amount of fright as I stood there thinking, “Oh God, here I go again.”

In fact, I am experiencing a nice dose of fright right now while writing this.  Why?  As I have said, From Roots to Branches (A Journey Through the Tree of Life) is my story of radical transformation.  What you may not realize is that I didn’t change and then wrote a book about it.  It was the act of writing the book that changed me.  It is a book about breaking my beliefs and breaking the patterns I had lived of being who I thought I needed to be to maintain the approval of those I felt I needed it from.  In the act of writing it, I confronted and walked through my fears of having love, friendship and support stripped from me simply by sharing my authentic self.  Me, all of me, even those parts I had tried to hide.  The transformation came in the act of writing the book.

 So why am I experiencing fright right now?  Even though these experiences with Huxwhukw began to unfold years ago, they have been floating around inside of me as fragmented thoughts and memories.  The journey begins when I begin to express them, birth them out into the world.  Allow the chaotic thoughts and memories to form up into a cohesive story that will reveal truths and wisdom to me that I will not be able to deny nor ignore.  Truths and wisdoms that will challenge the identity of who I think I am and what this world is about, and what it is I am here to do.  An act that may transform me.

The questions come.  How will I make the time to fully engage in another journey when I have to make money to live and while I have a book to promote?  What will I have to walk through?  Who will I have to become?  What will I lose?  Do I have the courage?  Do I have the energy?  Do I have the constitution?  Will I offend the First Nation people who hold claim to this mythological entity, this deity?   Will people think that this white man from Northeast Indiana is crazy thinking that he holds the namesake and the energetic story of an indigenous Pacific Northwest people’s brain eating cannibal bird?  Will people even believe me? “Oh God, here I go again.”

That’s fright talking.

 Or 

Oh yea, I’m about to delve into something amazing, will open new worlds for me, will show me things about myself that I didn’t even know existed! 

That’s Huxwhukw talking.

I wonder whom I will listen to.

This week, I sold the painting I painted of Huxwhukw.  For several years it has hung above my writing desk.  As soon as the art show comes down, it will leave my possession and head out into the world to do what it will.  The Tree has fallen.  Huxwhukw has been bumped out of its nest.  This journey has all ready begun.  It is time.

I’m not exactly sure when I started drawing it.  I don’t know if I was 8 or 9 or 14 or 11.  I can’t even remember if I originally drew it or if it was my friend Jeff.  What I do know is that after drawing the bird once, over the years, I must have drawn it several thousand times.

It became my doodle.  A long slender beak on a big eyed round head, a bushy collar of feathers around its neck.  The bird stood on skinny human legs.  One leg straight with the human foot flat on the ground, the other one bent at the knee with the toes and ball of the foot on the ground, heel pointing up.

It was cartoon like.  A lighthearted gesture that my family began to expect after my signature on Christmas and birthday cards.  Looking back, I guess I could say it had become part of my signature; it always followed right after my name.

For the next thirty years or so, at various times, it came into and went out of my awareness.  There was even a period of about seventeen years that I’ll bet I didn’t think of it once, but then suddenly it appeared again, flowing out of the tip of my pencil.

In the autumn of 2003, my then soon to be wife, the lovely Dianna, and I were preparing for our wedding and planning our honeymoon, while also experiencing a great flow of creative outpouring.  I was finishing up my first book, From Roots to Branches, while she had begun a series of intriguing ceramic sculptures.

She sculpts intuitively.  Instead of sketching and planning then executing, she simply takes a chunk of clay, meditates with it while moving her hands to see what begins to take form.  She had been surprised and a bit baffled that the pieces where taking the form of salmon with human attributes.

For our honeymoon, we had begun to make the preparations to go on a shaman-guided trip to the former Mayan capitol of Teotihuacán.  We were excited about this.  We wanted to begin the beginning of our union with a profound experience.

About six weeks before our wedding and trip, after a meditation I had an odd feeling.  For some reason I suddenly felt that we weren’t going to Mexico, we were to go to Seattle.  I got home from work, Dianna met me at the door and I sheepishly announced that I felt like we weren’t going to Teotihuacán.  It floored me when she said, “I know, we’re going to Seattle.” 

We were not sure what was happening, but it seemed amazing that we both got the same nudge from the Universe and were excited to have the opportunity to play it out and find what we were being guided towards.

We got to Seattle late in the afternoon, checked into our hotel, got a bite to eat, walked around a bit and then went back to the hotel after a long day of travel.

The next morning, the first thing on our list was the Seattle Art Museum.  We got there as soon as it opened, went in to find an exhibit of indigenous Pacific Northwest art.  Neither of us had every explored this marvelous art much, but we were very intrigued by the carved masks and totems.

As soon as we walked into the hall something caught my eye and I went towards it.  I can’t remember what it was, but I was excited about it, turned to look for Dianna, but was surprised to find her obviously sobbing while looking at something on a wall.  I went over to her, put my hand on her shoulder and asked her what was happening.  She pointed to what she had been looking at.  It was a piece of art that was a salmon with human attributes.  She told me to read the associated story.  It was the mythology of “Salmon Boy.”  We were both astonished, knowing that if you laid this story over Dianna’s life, it was a perfect template. 

It was a profound event, we rested with it for a while, talked about its significance, and then finally moved on. 

I was intrigued by a blanket, which had a Tree of Life image on it, when Dianna called me over to see something.  She took me to a glass case in the middle of the floor and said, “Look at this.”  It was a huge, carved wooden mask of a great bird.  It had a very long beak, about 5 feet, on a head that would set on the head of its bearer.  It had strips of cedar bark attached to the bottom of the head to conceal the shoulders of the person wearing it.  It was beautiful, astonishing, and seemed so familiar.  She then told me to look at the tag.  I did and was floored.  Its name was Huxwhukw.  My name is Wayne Huxhold and at that time, this was very similar to my email address.  She then told me to look at a picture.  When I did, my knees got wobbly and I began to shake.  It was an ancient photograph of a dancer wearing this mask while performing the Hamatsa Ceremony.  It was the picture I had drawn over and over again as a child.  I was awed.

More on this soon!

One spring morning I was bird watching just north of town in a Fish and Wildlife are where I would later have the incredible experiences with the Tree.  I was at the southern fringe of the property in an area that had once been a juvenile detention center tucked up, out of sight, amongst the trees.

The buildings had been knocked down leaving random foundations surrounded by landscaping left to go wild.  Nature was reclaiming it.  Arborvitae and juniper now reached high for the sky.  The roads were crumbling with plants ever widening the cracks and reforming the once sharp edges.  Former lawns had broken free of the shackles of control, now knee high and waving with the breeze, protected from intrusion by thorn-armored briars.   

The place had a hauntingly odd quietness about.  It’s as if it had felt too much pain for too long of a period of time, and was now retreating into itself, guarding itself, almost hiding itself in order to curl up and lick its wounds and heal.  I liked it.

I was walking through a small stand of white pines that grew just to the south of the road that approached the former complex.  Now more seasoned as a birdwatcher, I was practiced at the art of walking fairly silently, yet with my eyes focused up into the trees as opposed to watching the ground.  A warm front had moved through the night before and I was hoping to find a batch of warblers that may have ridden up on the winds.

Practiced, but not perfect, I stumbled a bit on a branch that was hidden beneath the leaves and needles on the ground.  When I righted myself, I was very pleasantly surprised to see I had knocked over a mushroom when I kicked the branch.  It wasn’t the prized morel, but it was the next best thing, a spike, and my mouth began to water with the thought of a batch of these wondrous fungi being sautéed in butter.

The mat of leaves and needles was fairly thick and I realized that if I were to find more, I would have to search through the leaves to find anymore.  I picked up the branch I had tripped over.  It made a wonderfully crooked walking stick.  While trying not to disturb the quietness, I began slowly moving through the trees, gently stirring the floor before me in hopes to knock over more.

It was slow, methodical work, but I was really enjoying the focus of the process. I was relaxed.  I was happy and very pleased when I would discover yet another mushroom.

I suddenly got that feeling that I wasn’t alone.  I looked to my left and could hardly believe that a doe was standing about twenty feet from me.  I knew, from encounter birds, to stay calm.  If I got too excited, or paid to much attention to it, it would bolt.  So I looked back down at the ground and continued racking through the leaves.  With occasional glances, I realized that she was doing the same thing I was doing.  I think she had the added advantage of being able to smell the mushrooms because she seemed to be sniffing the ground, then occasionally, pawing through the leaves with her hoof and then eating her harvest. 

The mushrooms seemed to be confined to the area of the pine stand so we never got to far from each other.  We were never closer than twenty feet, but I don’t believe we were ever farther than fifty.  We coexisted together for about twenty minutes, circling around each other, staying focused on our task, but very aware of each other’s presence.

It finally, organically, came to an end.  She looked up, I looked at her, and she slowly walked off into the woods.  It was one of the most amazing experiences I had ever had in my life.  One that, for at least a quarter of a century, I wished I could recapture.

I felt that feeling again last summer.  My lovely wife Dianna spent the summer sculpting clay in preparation for a big show she was having in the fall.  She was working 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, in order to meet the requirements for the show and the grant that she had received.  If I were to spend time with her, it was going to be downstairs in the studio.  (The studio is our basement that we once called a den of sickness, but spent more than year reclaiming, restoring and turning into a sacred place of creativity.)

I didn’t want to disturb her work.  I knew she was in the midst of a very powerful experience, was enjoying it, was creating, learning and growing at a phenomenal level.  I was very happy to support her, yet I missed her.

I pulled out my brushes and acrylics, cut some masonite, and populated my space at my painting table.  She sculpted, I painted.

It didn’t take very long to rediscover the feeling I had that day in the woods twenty-five years prior.  We coexisted together, staying focused on the tasks of our creative passions, but very aware of each other’s loving presence.  Occasionally I would look up and smile and occasionally she would do the same.  As passionate as we are for each other, it became the most intimate experience we would ever share.