He Who Lives Above Ahtunowhiho

My Father and Grand Chief, Adistan, is the wisest man I’ve heard. Although he would never directly admit it, he appreciated some of the white man’s culture and allowed the constructive aspects to prosper after The Great 2069 earthquake.

The Great 2069 was the largest earthquake recorded in human history. Up until that point, no earthquake was ever supposed to be higher than 10.0, but scientists agreed to measure it at 12.7 because of the destruction it has caused to the earth, particularly the Americas. Only thousands in North America survived the 2069 to the millions that had died. It triggered Tsunamis and vibrated the whole earth.

After The Great 2069 earthquake, The U.S empire had fallen. This had a devastating impact on the economic structure and ultimately the federal reserve had failed. Many people who were affected by this blamed the system and abandoned many aspects of the white man’s culture in America. With the destruction of their physical world, people sought answers spiritually. My father filled their void as people started to realize he was a shaman who was able to hear for people.

I think people feared the earth after 2069. They no longer could trust the earth. My native people always understood earth the way no others could, we understood her as our mother, as our master. American society no longer sees science as the definition of the world, but more like a mathematical guide to what we observe. My father wrote the Ahtunowhiho de Aiyana. (He who lives below the external bloom) His book detailed the events of history and the spiritual propellants behind it. He talks about what the colonized cultures lacked in terms of their understanding of the world around them. He thought there were several reasons as to why people did not see the parallels between the symbolic signs and the life around them. He thought religious mythology lacked the totality of storytelling. He analyzed that languages derived from Anglo-Saxon and Germanic languages and concluded that they lacked the fluidity and artistic expression of nature and therefore made human thoughts and logic appear to be more robotic and unnaturalistic. He analyzed the events around global warming. There was some speculation that global warming was the cause of the earthquake but my father debunked the theory, stating that global warming was the symptom of a much larger and spiritual issue and that the earthquake was used to ‘shock’ consciences into the focal point it was designed for. Quoted from my father’s book, “The universe is a wave, and we, including earth, are riders of that wave. Our previous understanding would have you think the earth is a rock, but the earth is alive. She has a pulse and if you want to look for the ' scientific evidence’ of this pulse, cut into a tree. Within that tree you will find rings of waves. Ask yourself, then where do these waves come from? They do not come from the dirt, they come from the earth. Look at the shape of that tree, antennas on both sides, that's input and output on that tree.”

My father gained traction and mobility from the new followers he attained after he published Ahtunowhiho de Aiyana. However, after the events of 2069 came the counter to my father’s movement, The Chinese Empire. Because their economic empire was able to sustain and maintain their structural institution remained intact.

“Motega,” my father called me. “We must not get carried away at story time. The elders are telling me you are trying to S.P.E.L.L again.” He stroked his chin while shaking his head. He was contemplating reasons why I shouldn’t be spelling. I was ready to defend my ability. “It is still experimental, son. You don’t know what you are doing or conjuring. If you spell a curse, I am not sure what the countercurse should be… I wish you would wait until----.” “But, father," I said. "I know you, your council of Geo Patwin, are studying ancient text to understand the energies of the language, however you’ve said it’s not always good to look behind you to see into the future,” I said firmly. I locked eyes with my father and found the strength within the ground to stand it. I let his reflective gray eyes look into my soul so he could see my truth. Unbudged, my father invited me to the Qaletaqa council meeting, where I could argue my case with the Geo Patwin’s myself.

The Qaletaqa council meeting took place every new moon at sundown, which is probably why my father invited me to go because it will be tonight. I will have no time to prepare for my argument. That is one thing that always puzzled me as to why my father appreciated the white man’s argumentative philosophy. The council meeting was viewed by our tribe as the sacred understanding. In some of the earliest meetings the council held, a few members of the council painted portraits surrounding the concept of Einstein’s theory of relativity and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Oddly enough, our people understood the pictures better than the written version of the theories themselves.

I need to flush my mind from these thoughts. So I lay in meditation until, until well, my alarm goes off.

Zzzzz Zzzz WOOMP WOOMP Zzzzz Zzzz WOOM------I quickly reach and press OFF on my alarm. I am startled from my peaceful meditative state. I feel anxious because I may have to speak in front of the council, but still I land on the ground beneath my feet and it balances me. My father calls out to me from my hut, “Motega…. Time.” I acknowledge my father and reply, “ALO.” Letting him know I will be outside shortly. I pull back the cloth in front of the tent and catch my father’s eyes. He nods to me and we walk in two rotations to The Qaletaqa. On the way to The Qaletaqa there are four guards standing watch. My father greets each one different in a ritualistic manner. Before we enter he informs them of my attendance. They look at my father and nod in acceptance. They all shout, “Cha'tima!” and we walk inside. There is one room in the Qaletaqa and at the center of the room is a large crescent shaped desk with 12 wooden chairs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… I count about a dozen council members and several of their family members.

My Father heads to the top center of the crescent shaped desk and quickly starts the meeting. At this point, I am sure he is adamant about his perspective of me practicing spelling and casting. He starts off by getting everyone’s attention and asks the council, “How do members of this tribe come to understand why we don’t S.P.E.L.L.” The council looked baffled that he would ask this question. A moment of silence passed and council member Chayton asked father, “Do you know an understanding about spelling we don’t?”

“No, my perspective on spelling is unchanged. However my son has been spelling during our sacred story time. I try to warn him of the dangers. The vibrations of the word, the roots of the symbolic and the energy it creates is still beyond our understanding,” my father explains to the council. “My word is not strong enough to keep him from spelling, so I invited him here so we can explain to him,” father conveyed to the council.

Several members smirked and tested my stance with their eyes to see if I would falter. I did not. Council member Minda approached me. She put her arm around my shoulder and said aloud, “The reason we don’t spell is because of the dome it creates.” I paused and gave her a look to further explain what she meant by this. “The dome is a subsequent effect language has on our metaphoric understanding. Haven’t you studied your father's Ahtunowhiho de Aiyana? Both in section 27-2 verse 4 and 6-62 verse 47 elaborates on the concept of language limitations and boundaries.” Minda explained.

The council members looked in agreement and turned to reexamine the sections Minda suggested would give me the answer that would explain why I should not S.P.E.L.L.

“My shadow is not with me, I do not understand this,” I uttered. Council member Chayton cleared his throat and asked me, “Why have you not traveled to The Asias and gone to find gold in the Chinese Empire? It’s because you see the hoax of their tale. Spelling is not meant for understanding but for story telling. When the story becomes too real you lose sight of what the universal wave is strumming.”

My father nods his head in agreement and adds, “our enemy, that empire, has been spellbinding their citizens for ages.” Suddenly, Minda starts flickering her hands near her chest. She gets the council members' attention. She takes several loud moans, silencing the whole room. She then lasers her eyes on me and says, “Motega, show us. I feel your energy. You are concealing something.”

My father looked concerned that the possibility of me not telling him what I’ve already done had not crossed his mind. My father sternly says, “Show us Motega, show us.”

I am beginning to get nervous, but I have been practicing to show them for months now. I walk away from the crescent shaped desk. I grab a wooden chair and sit with my hands on my thighs. I breathe heavily for about ½ a rotation. I then begin to dance my arms, interweaving them from my chest to my head. “F-ea-ah-ther, FE FE FEA AH THER,” I chanted. I then took my hands from my chest and projected them outward towards my father. He lifted several inches from the ground. The council members were in disbelief.

Chapter 2:

The meeting ended quickly. My father and the other council members stood in an awkward silence. It was almost as if their chest became deflated as their pride to be insightful turned out to be a lesson for them. My father adjourned the meeting, placing a crow's feather outside of the doorway, waiting for the wind to catch it. After the meeting was adjourned my father waited for me and we walked back to our villa site. I tried talking to him on the way back, but my father answered with more honesty than I cared for. “Mortega, you worry me. You worry the Elders, the Geo Patwin, the council members. You know the last member of our tribe to conjure a spell was my father, your grandfather.” He explained. “We started to believe that the spirit took our abilities of spelling away from us because of the evils of our human race.”

I felt like they were more worried that they couldn't spell than the fact that I could. Weeks passed and no one wanted to mention the fact that I cast a S.P.E.L.L. My father seemed sick to his stomach, only eating Awi meat and brussel after fasting. We seldom speak. My father needed answers from the spirits until he found ways to address me.

When he did eventually speak to me, he told me, “Mortega, the spirits at Nootau Mountains are calling to me. I feel you and I both have much to learn from the fire-rock. You have been given the flame and I must do what I can to guide you to the light of the flame than to the ashes of it.”’

My father was a living, talking, breathing version of his book. Never have I seen someone write a poetic perspective on life. It was although he took a paintbrush and wrote the world in a typographic image.

My father would never name our moving village but I've always called us the poetic nomads. We stayed in places no more than a full lunar cycle at a time, a 28 day cycle. We had several canines with our pack to help us cover traces of us in the lands. We would find an open space throughout the west of the Americas and travel between the equator and Canadlands. We had some technological advances thanks to my father's acceptance of it from the white man’s culture and used solar to power the devices. Our village over the years grew in numbers from those who wanted to follow while we traveled. The most difficult part of the trip was the travel to the most west of the Americas, The California Islands. Although I’ve never seen it with my own eyes, my father told me the islands were once connected lands. But what was once connected lands was now a lot of island waste land. The droves of islands, all filled with dense forest and a colorful thicket. “The water is toxic,” he explained. “Growing up I knew of only an evergreen forest. The water scorched. the plants and the plants started to show new colors. The Leaves started to become dark red, deep blue and violet.” My father said,

Our tribe mapped out our route at night. We traveled every 14 days. Since my father’s follower awakening, we’ve have established several swing villages

When we finally arrived at the Nootau Mountains, he told me the story of how his Grandfather survived 2069. When the earth started to shake, the volcanoes in the northwest region of America started to activate. According to my late great grandfather many of those who died inland died from the black ash rain. They're lungs were captured by the dark spirits who spewed out of the volcano's. My great grandfather was led by an eagle spirit upwards. He was summoned to the Great Yosemite mountains where he and his tribe sang and danced around the ashes from below. They were blessed by the spirits and survived to tell their stories.

We traversed through the iron color river with our Tuckee warriors. These warriors were decorated spirit eyes that my father picked to guide him on his travels.