My Family's Dirt

Living in the country is supposed to heal our souls. The air is rather different, animals never far, but my grandfather never told me about his only neighbor. They only come out at night, make such a racket I jump in my sleep, and litter our fenced in yard with dozens of pellets. I wish my grandfather had just told me about this owl before I came here. I wanted to sit in the dirt, hunt my food, and avoid the real world. Rather than be haunted by my addictions though, I was now haunted by yellow eyes and cries. Cries of the winged predator, cries from its prey, and my own cries as I fail to find slumber from nature’s war games outside my window.

Just as I begin to be taken by sleep the owl’s hoot cuts sharper, and my tears fall thicker. For as hard as my father worked to keep us from returning to the dirt he rose out of I always felt myself drawn to that simple way of life. There had been no external reason for me to be so miserable as a child, but it was the rolling in the grass rather than computers that brought me joy. The dirt under my nails, rather than the new movie that ignited my imagination. It was running with no shoes across a rock bed that quenched my spirit, not pickup basketball at the park. My grandfather was the only one who seemed to understand the way I reacted to nature.

He had built his own home at the heart of his eight acres. Cut off from the world, green needled neighbors, tall grass for the miniature tigers to stalk their prey, and no internet. This was my grandfather’s Eden, his way of healing a small pocket of the Earth. His penance for the mistakes he breathed into the world. I never understood how addictive we all were until I left home. The way I knew not to take another sip, to say no, to climb out of the hole, but to only find myself deeper into the darkness with each party. Parties with crowds that made me feel like a king became isolated nights of smoke and my wet brown friend.

I had heard others talk about rock bottom, but where the rock bed stops the clay begins. Rock bottom only exists for those who’s cores aren’t poisonous. For those of us who’s crust, mantle, and spirit are tied to the poisoned well there is no escape. This was why my grandfather stayed alone in the dirt.

He knew the secret of his core. The core which my family shared. I came to live with him to learn how to handle my own spirit. He had learned how to live with this truth, surely I could too. For all my tear filled nights awake in the darkness he was able to heal beneath the owl’s nightly cries.

Even as the work made my body stronger, I was no closer to enlightenment. No wiser on how to heal my core. My grandfather spoke of the spirits which taught him, the ancestors who spoke to him, the red clay hands which led him. I saw, felt, learned nothing. After a few months of my self appointed rehabilitation in the dirt my father escaped from, I questioned if my grandfather was as crazy as others said. If nothing else his stories of winged spirits, ghost bears, and my inner wolf kept my attention. I had never seen a spirit, but he had. How could I be so attracted to knowing for it not to be real? Why did my ancestors speak to my grandfather and not me?

We prayed before meals, and sweats in Lakota. We sat in the mud beneath the blanket tent, with a fire between us. I would pray for my demons to fly away from me as my grandfather would tell me of the spirits who visited us. I never saw a thing. No bears, no wolves, no eagles, no deer, no badgers, no fox. I wanted to scream out for the spirits to show themselves, but when I laid in the dirt I choked in silence.

My grandfather taught me the prayers of grace, of thanks, of health, but never how to call the spirits. He had never taught me how to invite them into me. As I lay awake on the cot my dad once grew on top of, I begged for the healing call of my ancestors. I wanted to know how they handled these demons in our core. The only thing I ever heard was the owl’s cries as it filled its nightly hunger.

As summer turned to fall, my grandfather taught me how to greet the moon. He told me about how the moon governed our family. I was told that it was in the darkness where we thrived, under the heaven’s spotlight. He told me I would grow in this darkness. Our nightly ritual of prayer and tea moved outside as the snow began to fall. Our sweats became daily, and rather than constant chores my grandfather spent more time teaching me our language.

As fall grew to winter, the ground froze, the moon stayed longer, and our fires grew hotter. One night as I laid awake I heard the shuffling of chests, and feet from the other room. In the absence of light my grandfather crept to my cot’s side and rested a hand on my shoulder. He asked me to rise in a voice softer than the snow. I followed him into the yard empty handed before he offered me with a stack of blankets. He collected a single shovel before turning towards the darkness. I felt the snow drip into my boots as we left the fenced yard.

Using the shovel’s edge he cleared large branches from our path. The only noise that wrapped around the silent night were our heavy breathing, and the swift fall as he cracked down branches. My grandfather filled his hands with branches as he led me forward. Once he held his fill, he would point to newly cut limbs for me to collect until my own hands ached from the load.

Without words between us, we stopped in a small clearing. He dropped his wooden arms at my feet, and began to search the earth around us. First, I took the tallest branches and began to lean them against one another. Each meeting in the air above the ground, angled out to allow room beneath its crest. Then, I reinforced the thin polls with the remaining crooked branches. Finally, I covered the wooden structure with the blankets. Being sure to cover any holes or gaps. The pop of fire began to fill the air as my grandfather loaded rocks into the newly birthed flames. We silently removed our boots, our pants, and our shirts as the rocks baked before us.

My grandfather opened the leather pouch he wore around his neck. Removed a shell stained by smoke and ash, a feather, a pipe, and a second smaller leather pouch. He first removed a white material from the smaller pouch, and whispered a prayer as he lit a fire within the shell. The sage filled my lungs as he used the feather to wave the smoke beneath my face. I leaned my face closer, swallowed the scented air, and repeated the Lakota words I heard my grandfather whisper. He handed me the shell, and I spun the feather in the air just as he had directing the smoke towards him.

As we stood in our underwear our frozen bodies shuddered, my breath hung like clouds in the clearing spinning around us. He held the shovel and carried the glowing red rocks to the heart of the blanket covered structure. I entered first as he lifted the blanket door for me. I crawled across the frozen dirt, and my body began to thaw from the rock's heat. As my grandfather entered he grabbed handfuls of snow from the entrance. Dropping the frozen water onto the stones as he sang out the prayers of our family. Steam filled around me until I was blind. The intensity of the heat rose until peaking, and my breathing was choked. He closed the entranceway, chanting as he crouched into his place in the dirt. As he sang out his prayers, the cries of the forest rose around us. With each completed chant another fist full of snow met the rocks.

My ability to breathe deeply was gone, only panting gave my lungs any relief. The heat swam across my body, the warmth was too much for my eyes. I squeezed them tightly shut as more prayers sung around me, and more crackling of snow on the stones called each new song to order. As my head grew lighter, the crackles turned to drums inside my head. With my eyes closed the warmth of the stones glowed as shifting orange lights behind my eyelids.

The steam choked me from being able to sing out, but I had known each song my ears heard. The words sang in my head around the orange swirl like ash around a fire. I heard the flap move again, but no crackle of snow to stone rang in the breath beneath the blankets. Without opening my eyes I felt the pipe be lowered to my hand. In darkness I raised it to my lips as I knew to do, and as I breathed deeply the cut of a match burned the bowl. One hit, then two, and the sweet earthy smoke poured out of me.

Remaining in darkness, I heard the sounds of another breathing the medicine of the pipe. The snow crackled onto the stones, and the entrance was closed again. The crackle rose into drum beats within my head, the exhalation of more medicine being received continued around me. The sounds of breathing grew with the heat. Behind my eyes the orange swirls became static, they massaged into a bright yellow. The cries of the owl broke through the prayer song of my grandfather. He sang louder, more voices joined him, and the owl’s cries grew with them.

As the cries of my family, of my ancestors, and of the owl filled the breath around me I felt tears pour out of me. Tears grew to sobbing, short panting attempts at breathing failed to find cool air. I felt my body gasping, shaking. My blood burned, the fire felt as if it were inside me. The drums beat louder. I choked for life, for comfort, I cried out with tears falling harder. Consumed in darkness I knew my face was leaning above the stones as my tears fell like rain onto the fiery stones. The crackles rang like rain on a tin roof. I did not see the lights anymore, I saw the night sky, the snow covered earth, the heaven’s spotlight lighting my path.

I knew to outstretch my arms, which were light as feathers. I pulled them to my waist with my head pointed straight. As I sang out into the night sky, the chanting prayers rang in my head. I did not hear it with my ears, but deep inside my own mind. I soared above trees, above hills and valleys, alone beneath the moon’s glowing light. Ahead I could see clouds birthing from the trees. I dropped between the branches, floating towards the cries I now heard echoing from the clouds.

Gaining speed now, I saw a small mass, in a small clearing. The drums were all consuming in my mind now. With each thunderous beat I pushed my arms to my waist harder, and harder. Singing out exhaustedly, my speed increased. I was spiraling towards the small hut before me. Just before I found myself crashing my eyes opened.

My screams escaped from my entire body. From my deepest core I sang my cries into the night, the owl’s cry sang with me, my grandfather’s chanting swirled around me, and the sounds of drums rang inside me. Strong, but old and wrinkled arms reached out for me. Pulling me tightly, gently praying into my ear my grandfather held me and wept with me.

He did not release me, or stop his prayer until the light of the rising sun shared itself through between the trees. He picked me up and carried me from the tent. We laid exhausted on the frozen earth. Our bodies melted the snow beneath us, the dripping water softened the hard ground revealing patches of green. My grandfather estimated I must have slept on that dirt twice as long as he had before rising to see the world around me.

We returned the earth to the state we had found it. Carried our clothes, blankets, and shovel back to the yard. We washed ourselves, gathered wood to heat the stove, and returned into the safety of the house. Finding slumber beneath the owl’s cry never flew from me after that night. I had finally accepted, and began, my journey to learning about the poisonous core my family lived with.