In an instant I found myself lying faced down in a shallow stream. Soaked and cold, I choked on gulps of water, reviving me from unconsciousness. The experience of my encounter with Moise was still vivid in my mind, but for the most part I wasn’t able to determine if it had been real or not. I pulled my stiff body out of the chilly stream waters. It was a laborious task. The gravity of the earth was excessive.
My head throbbed. Each step I took was a complete effort because my muscles were rigid. I still found strength to stagger in the shallow stream, coming upon a gap in the foliage. I hoped it was the trail to the settlement. The waist-high grassy meadow I stood in before was nowhere to be seen so I was completely disoriented. The day had filtered into the crepuscular of dusk.
With no other sense of a route to take, I instinctively followed on the path eventually recognizing the way by the familiar arrangement of the foliage about me. Eased by familiar territory, I tried to sort out what had just happened. If in fact this was an indigenous dreamtime experience, and the mysterious Moise explained my dream as the means to find the lost Mayan temple that contains the Soul Chamber, to go there would mean the price of human life.
Was I divining my own end? What could I tell Hornsby or for that matter confide in Cassarina? As much as there was a startling revelation, understand that I was even more confused and unsettled by Moise.
Montezuma, the Aztec priest of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, had several boding evil omens appear about a decade before the arrival of Cortez. It was recorded that fire shot out like a huge spurt from the sun; a divine temple burned down; a mysterious lightning bolt was seen devoid of a thunderclap that caused another temple to be consumed by fire; water boiled by a fierce wind that flooded villages; an unseen woman cried out at night with a lamenting song for the people; a strange bird with mirror-like plume was caught in the fishing nets that made Montezuma see a war in the future, and then two-headed deformed men started appearing before the people, only to disappear when brought before Montezuma.
When the first Spanish Conquistadors arrived in the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, Montezuma sent his magicians and wizards to put curses on them to no avail. Thinking they must be deities from the heavens he sent captives to be sacrificed as an attempt to appease the supernatural gods. This only repulsed the Spanish further. Just as Montezuma was overwhelmed by doubts and indecision to the foreboding doom of an invading danger, I as well, was stuck in a cauldron of perplexity. It was dark by the time I arrived back at the settlement.
Cassarina confronted me as I entered our campsite, shining a bright flashlight in my face. She was livid with a mix of anger and worry.
“I hope that something deathly important caused you to wonder off for three days!”
“I’m surprised you noticed,” I said cynically. Then it dawned on me that she had said “three days.”
“I started to go looking for you but Jorge wouldn’t allow me. There was a jaguar prowling outside the settlement. Besides, Dr. Hornsby is probably right. You’re becoming irresponsible.”
I would have been more grateful for some supportive words, but instead, Cassarina was back to her ridiculing self.
“Put a cork in it,” I spewed out at her, taking refuge in my hammock under my lean-too, draping the mosquito net about me. I was famished, light headed and so physically exhausted, I fell fast asleep in my hammock.
For the ten days that followed, awaiting Dr. Hornsby’s return, little was spoken between Cassarina and I. I continued to document her plant collections, dutifully so as not to interrupt her progress. During my idle time, I stretched out in my hammock meditating on the sound of raindrops during passing cloudbursts or playing with the Lacandon children in the warm sunlight.
It seem that she had abandoned any respect for me, feeling betrayed by my silence about my unusual disappearance. Certainly our working arrangement was strained, as I had taken off without prior word to her. The longer I kept silent and resigned the more convinced she became that my expulsion from the settlement was best. Never did she suspect that I was in shock from an unbelievable experience that did not contrast with anything I had ever known.
To even find the words to explain the appearance of Moise would most likely cause Cassarina to suspect that I was taking some of the hallucinogenic Datura inoxia she had collected. And after my denouncement of any credibility of dream interpretations it would be hypocritical to try and retract my position. Anything I would say that looked like I was trying to reinstate myself would be seen as a far-fetched attempt to cover up my foolishness. I had plunged myself into a self-incriminating pit by not telling the truth.
I couldn’t see my way out, except to leave the expedition. Cassarina found it best not to voice her righteous thoughts on the matter of my disappearance. She recognized it would have been impossible to open me up as I avoided her like the plague around the settlement.
Regardless, she couldn’t confirm the reality of my dreamtime experience being a medical doctor and not a psychologist. That was the crux of the conflict that built up an animosity between us over the past two months. I was kept at bay, silent and guarded in an exiled angst. The days dragged on into an eternity of monotonous waiting for Hornsby.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
CHAPTER SIX: DREAMTIME - CONTINUED
At the grotto’s entrance sat five puma’s. I suspected them to be the guardians keeping vigil for intruders. They all roared at my presence, then went silent by the wave of my guide’s hand.
We continued downward along a long corridor inside the cave. The air was filled with the smoke of copal incense. I noticed numerous tunnels leading off into shadowed darkness on either side of me. The sound of trickling water infiltrated the damp air. Deeper we went with only the flickering flame of his lamp to see by.
Eventually we came to a large grotto with a large stone alter in the center. He motioned me to sit down on piles of fresh water shells and terrestrial snails. Obedient, I did what I was told.
In the flickering shadows about me, I noticed the grotesque shapes of Mayan deity faces sculptured on what Lacandones called, lak-il k’uh or copal incense burners. More than that, I noticed anthropomorphic art on the walls of the cavern becoming animated.
“La’in ka, Moise,” the old aborigine said with sincerity, squatting across from me. He was speaking a different tongue than Hach Wink. I surmised he was telling me his name. My whole perception was a pulsating field of panchromatic molecular energy. A thousand eyes surrounded me, peering out from the darkness of the chamber.
“Xibalba,” Moise said. “Aqui.” He was telling me I had entered the Underworld of Mayan mythology.
Moise reached out quickly to grab my hands. He inspected the fingertips of each hand delicately touching the contours of my fingernails like reading brail.
“Chal balum.”
This time I could make sense of what he was saying. He spoke the Hach Winik word for “jaguar” releasing my hands. I realized that he was determining my onen, the particular animal ancestry I was related to, necessary in interpretation of dreams. The shape and texture of the fingernails was the key.
“Que socaste?” Moise asked me. He spoke perfect Spanish. How I found the words or even the ability to communicate with him, I don’t recall. The moment after he asked me about my dreams, a jolt of energy ran from the bottom of my spine up through my body and out of my head. I felt the emission of a warm surging vortex type beam just above the brow of my eyes.
My nightmarish dream played out like a holographic projection within the cave. There was the beginning scene of the sun rising in the eastern horizon, illuminating the jungle canopy. The landscape opened up in a vast distance, almost as if I could see the breath of the Maya Forest that covered southern Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula and northern Guatemala spanning off to the shores of the Caribbean.
As the sunlight became more pronounced, the luxuriant jungle vegetation was dotted with pinnacles of magnificent stone temples and acropolis palaces. Shafts of radiant golden morning light prompted Moise to say, “Ah kin” the Mayan name for Sun Day or loosely translated by the Lacandon as “Prophet.”
The celestial night slowly became extinguished by the vibrancy of the sun’s crimson rays illuminating against towering white clouds about the skyline. As the sun rose further in the sky, the vast openness of the jungle became visible. All was extraordinarily peaceful.
There appeared a long ornate stone causeway running through the jungle’s vast expanse. The causeway connected three major temples that were separated by hundreds of miles in direct alignment. Here was the colossal wonderment of the Maya dynasty as it appeared over a thousand years ago. As I looked closer at the causeway, I saw the busy activity of a populated civilization.
“Yaxbe,” Moise said, pointing to the stone causeway’s image suspended in mid-air before me.
He had spoken the Yucatec Maya word for “green passage.” Moise’s crooked index finger stretched out from his hand. When the tip of his finger touched the image, it rippled momentarily, liked the surface of still water when disturbed by a gentle breeze. Turning to smile at me, Moise glanced over at a specific location. There was a large river basin closest to the temple near me at the base of a mountain range. The farthest temple seemed to be located on the Yucatan peninsula and the nearest by the Chiapas Highlands.
“Yaxchilan,” Moise pointed to the nearest temple to the south. Then he directed my attention to the furthest temple and said, “Calakmul.”
Below Calakmul, among the temples directly to the south he pointed one out as, “Masuul.”
Then directing my attention toward what would be north central Guatemala his elongated finger pointed to a temple called, “Cancuen.”
But what caught my eye was a prominent temple situated midway in a direct line between what Moise had pointed as Palenque and Calakmul. It was engulfed in a purplish color. The whole structure was transparent with three glowing geometrical orbs contained inside of the pyramid.
“Yaxkin,” Moise said pointing to this middle temple of pulsating light that shot a beam of radiance straight up into the heavens.
But at that second the sky dimmed. The sun was being eclipsed. Then, I heard a large rumbling sound deep within the earth. The causeway shook. The people wavered, trying to steady themselves. Than they ran scared as the causeway stone crumbled from the shifting earth beneath them. Some of the temples fell to ruin, while the jungle accelerated in tropical growth. The three-orbed illuminated temple disappeared.
I could see many people falling between gapping crevasses. Others tried to save them but it was in vain. A vicious upheaval knocked them back. Lightning bolted from the darkening sky. Thunderclaps echoed against the very walls of the alter chamber. Some of the natives struggled to their feet only to fall again from the earth’s violent tremors. The causeway buckled and broke apart like dried sticks being snapped in half and then the ruinous rubble was swallowed in a terrible convulsion of a natural disaster. The day turned into a pitch-black night.
“Kisin,” Moise muttered.
He was referring to the Lord of Death. Moise was right. I knew from Lacandon dream interpretation that the eclipse of the sun meant the death of someone. But here my dream ended.
We continued downward along a long corridor inside the cave. The air was filled with the smoke of copal incense. I noticed numerous tunnels leading off into shadowed darkness on either side of me. The sound of trickling water infiltrated the damp air. Deeper we went with only the flickering flame of his lamp to see by.
Eventually we came to a large grotto with a large stone alter in the center. He motioned me to sit down on piles of fresh water shells and terrestrial snails. Obedient, I did what I was told.
In the flickering shadows about me, I noticed the grotesque shapes of Mayan deity faces sculptured on what Lacandones called, lak-il k’uh or copal incense burners. More than that, I noticed anthropomorphic art on the walls of the cavern becoming animated.
“La’in ka, Moise,” the old aborigine said with sincerity, squatting across from me. He was speaking a different tongue than Hach Wink. I surmised he was telling me his name. My whole perception was a pulsating field of panchromatic molecular energy. A thousand eyes surrounded me, peering out from the darkness of the chamber.
“Xibalba,” Moise said. “Aqui.” He was telling me I had entered the Underworld of Mayan mythology.
Moise reached out quickly to grab my hands. He inspected the fingertips of each hand delicately touching the contours of my fingernails like reading brail.
“Chal balum.”
This time I could make sense of what he was saying. He spoke the Hach Winik word for “jaguar” releasing my hands. I realized that he was determining my onen, the particular animal ancestry I was related to, necessary in interpretation of dreams. The shape and texture of the fingernails was the key.
“Que socaste?” Moise asked me. He spoke perfect Spanish. How I found the words or even the ability to communicate with him, I don’t recall. The moment after he asked me about my dreams, a jolt of energy ran from the bottom of my spine up through my body and out of my head. I felt the emission of a warm surging vortex type beam just above the brow of my eyes.
My nightmarish dream played out like a holographic projection within the cave. There was the beginning scene of the sun rising in the eastern horizon, illuminating the jungle canopy. The landscape opened up in a vast distance, almost as if I could see the breath of the Maya Forest that covered southern Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula and northern Guatemala spanning off to the shores of the Caribbean.
As the sunlight became more pronounced, the luxuriant jungle vegetation was dotted with pinnacles of magnificent stone temples and acropolis palaces. Shafts of radiant golden morning light prompted Moise to say, “Ah kin” the Mayan name for Sun Day or loosely translated by the Lacandon as “Prophet.”
The celestial night slowly became extinguished by the vibrancy of the sun’s crimson rays illuminating against towering white clouds about the skyline. As the sun rose further in the sky, the vast openness of the jungle became visible. All was extraordinarily peaceful.
There appeared a long ornate stone causeway running through the jungle’s vast expanse. The causeway connected three major temples that were separated by hundreds of miles in direct alignment. Here was the colossal wonderment of the Maya dynasty as it appeared over a thousand years ago. As I looked closer at the causeway, I saw the busy activity of a populated civilization.
“Yaxbe,” Moise said, pointing to the stone causeway’s image suspended in mid-air before me.
He had spoken the Yucatec Maya word for “green passage.” Moise’s crooked index finger stretched out from his hand. When the tip of his finger touched the image, it rippled momentarily, liked the surface of still water when disturbed by a gentle breeze. Turning to smile at me, Moise glanced over at a specific location. There was a large river basin closest to the temple near me at the base of a mountain range. The farthest temple seemed to be located on the Yucatan peninsula and the nearest by the Chiapas Highlands.
“Yaxchilan,” Moise pointed to the nearest temple to the south. Then he directed my attention to the furthest temple and said, “Calakmul.”
Below Calakmul, among the temples directly to the south he pointed one out as, “Masuul.”
Then directing my attention toward what would be north central Guatemala his elongated finger pointed to a temple called, “Cancuen.”
But what caught my eye was a prominent temple situated midway in a direct line between what Moise had pointed as Palenque and Calakmul. It was engulfed in a purplish color. The whole structure was transparent with three glowing geometrical orbs contained inside of the pyramid.
“Yaxkin,” Moise said pointing to this middle temple of pulsating light that shot a beam of radiance straight up into the heavens.
But at that second the sky dimmed. The sun was being eclipsed. Then, I heard a large rumbling sound deep within the earth. The causeway shook. The people wavered, trying to steady themselves. Than they ran scared as the causeway stone crumbled from the shifting earth beneath them. Some of the temples fell to ruin, while the jungle accelerated in tropical growth. The three-orbed illuminated temple disappeared.
I could see many people falling between gapping crevasses. Others tried to save them but it was in vain. A vicious upheaval knocked them back. Lightning bolted from the darkening sky. Thunderclaps echoed against the very walls of the alter chamber. Some of the natives struggled to their feet only to fall again from the earth’s violent tremors. The causeway buckled and broke apart like dried sticks being snapped in half and then the ruinous rubble was swallowed in a terrible convulsion of a natural disaster. The day turned into a pitch-black night.
“Kisin,” Moise muttered.
He was referring to the Lord of Death. Moise was right. I knew from Lacandon dream interpretation that the eclipse of the sun meant the death of someone. But here my dream ended.
CHAPTER SIX: DREAMTIME - CONTINUED
I left the settlement in the chilly pre-dawn morning, heading blindly out into the mist shrouded highland jungle. I thought that a brisk hike would help me gain my composure and face the fact of my inevitable expulsion from the expedition.
I hadn’t gone far when a distinct rustle in the bush stopped me dead in my tracks. “Jaguar,” I thought as my heart skipped a beat.
Having come to the edge of a stream, I could have inadvertently come upon its watering hole. I froze, scanning the stream’s lush green embankment. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a fleeting dim glow through a thick tree stand. Squinting up my eyes, I tried to see what was lurking there.
Another rustle and the distant growl of a jaguar caused me to run into a waist-deep grass meadow behind me. The mist filled emptiness about me bore an enchanting landscape of a dark-faced pensive jungle. Suddenly, several glowing spheres of various sizes appeared, floating in mid-air. I stood transfixed with immobility. The thick mist faded as the iridescent geometrical orbs sharpen in form. There was a momentary blinding flash. When I could see again, a short old man stood before me in statuesque repose.
The grass blades dew glistened as the sunlight broke through the fog, a beam of its rays surrounding his appearance. I curiously eyed him, composed of pulsating luminous ethereal spheres that held his holographic existence. A hush had fallen about the whole jungle as if it was held in suspense of uncertainty.
The light about him was most intense at a yard’s length from his upper body. He glanced about the grass meadow filled with what seemed like billions of energy fields in the form of shimmering filaments. The luminous spheres expanded, engulfing me, as he pointed in a deliberate direction for me to follow him. I felt a rush of electrical current through my body. The dense fog that had retreated toward the edges of the jungle about us was surrounding us. The luminosity of the sphere engulfed him that contained an electromagnetic force I couldn’t resist.
At first, I trembled with every step I took, trying to keep up as he moved stealthy through what had become a dense fog. Such an impossible phenomenon was thrust upon me so unexpectedly. I was caught in terror of what had possessed me. The shape of impending danger was all about me as I moved into a territory I was unfamiliar with. This mysterious man’s presence was overpowering any of my fears.
Every distinct odor of the jungle filled my nostrils. My eyesight became crystal clear taking in a full 180-degree peripheral range. Each sound I heard about me, resonated as a voice speaking to me. My body felt electrified with sensory awareness. I wanted to get a sense of my location, but he showed no concern to stop. All I could tell was that we were climbing up a steep craggy mountainside in a thick vapor exhaled by the forest itself.
I was acutely aware of an earth breathing beneath my feet. With each step, I realized my movements were effortless. No longer was my heart pounding from exhaustion. No longer did I feel the fatigue in my muscles or gasping out-of-breath. His supernatural spell gave my body the ability to nimbly race. But the aboriginal sorcerer eluded me with the quickness of a cat, slowing just enough for me to catch up. It became a cat and mouse game.
As soon as I got with a few feet of him, he would shape shift in a bright blur spinning out of sight and reappearing a few hundred yards in front of me. I jumped after him. The sensation was incredible when I moved. Electrifying impulses surged through every muscle fiber, giving me the strength and agility beyond comprehension. On and on we went like this until we arrived at the entrance of a cave. It was then he stopped and turned to face me.
Finally, I got my first close look at him. He stood no higher than my breast. His piteous sight repulsed me. My blood ran cold as I realized his flesh was a mottled melanin and the irises of his eyes were clouded blind. A swarthy, withered face that hid behind dangling strands of long bleached matted hair enhanced his demur appearance. He appeared like a pathetic beast, an unlawful soul of the earth rather than the admirable sage I had witnessed in the grass meadow. He stood in a disguising pose, his murky eyes starring at me.
The old barefoot aborigine was perched on top of a heap of bones, fragments of which were strewed all about the darken cave’s entrance. Along one wall of the rock entrance was a row of human skulls. Their cranial foreheads were more flattened than modern skulls. Broken shards of clay incense burners were mixed about the debris making this an obvious ceremonial chamber. I was convinced I had been lead to the edge of my own destiny, whose passions appeared pitiless in the face of this abnormal entity standing before me.
Was I lost in the suggestiveness of my own dream, the nightmare of my own soul to be sacrificed by a wild savage tribe lost in the Maya Forest? I was not prepared for what came next. Out of the cave tramped a wretched looking mangy dog. It roamed around me uninhibited, its bony frame protruded through its skin, sniffing me as if approving my existence.
Believe me or not, I stood there in shock, as it completed its task, growling momentarily before giving an approving “yelp” and trotted off. You might think me mad at this point, but by heavens, I am telling you the ordeal that followed lead me to the inconceivable mysticism that Hornsby knew about.
The mangled bony white-flesh hand of the blind aborigine grasped my arm. His grip pulled on me. As I said before, my sensory awareness was acute. I felt I was moving outside of my body as we entered the limestone cavern, lit by the flicking flame of a small terracotta pot he mysteriously acquired in his hand.
I hadn’t gone far when a distinct rustle in the bush stopped me dead in my tracks. “Jaguar,” I thought as my heart skipped a beat.
Having come to the edge of a stream, I could have inadvertently come upon its watering hole. I froze, scanning the stream’s lush green embankment. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a fleeting dim glow through a thick tree stand. Squinting up my eyes, I tried to see what was lurking there.
Another rustle and the distant growl of a jaguar caused me to run into a waist-deep grass meadow behind me. The mist filled emptiness about me bore an enchanting landscape of a dark-faced pensive jungle. Suddenly, several glowing spheres of various sizes appeared, floating in mid-air. I stood transfixed with immobility. The thick mist faded as the iridescent geometrical orbs sharpen in form. There was a momentary blinding flash. When I could see again, a short old man stood before me in statuesque repose.
The grass blades dew glistened as the sunlight broke through the fog, a beam of its rays surrounding his appearance. I curiously eyed him, composed of pulsating luminous ethereal spheres that held his holographic existence. A hush had fallen about the whole jungle as if it was held in suspense of uncertainty.
The light about him was most intense at a yard’s length from his upper body. He glanced about the grass meadow filled with what seemed like billions of energy fields in the form of shimmering filaments. The luminous spheres expanded, engulfing me, as he pointed in a deliberate direction for me to follow him. I felt a rush of electrical current through my body. The dense fog that had retreated toward the edges of the jungle about us was surrounding us. The luminosity of the sphere engulfed him that contained an electromagnetic force I couldn’t resist.
At first, I trembled with every step I took, trying to keep up as he moved stealthy through what had become a dense fog. Such an impossible phenomenon was thrust upon me so unexpectedly. I was caught in terror of what had possessed me. The shape of impending danger was all about me as I moved into a territory I was unfamiliar with. This mysterious man’s presence was overpowering any of my fears.
Every distinct odor of the jungle filled my nostrils. My eyesight became crystal clear taking in a full 180-degree peripheral range. Each sound I heard about me, resonated as a voice speaking to me. My body felt electrified with sensory awareness. I wanted to get a sense of my location, but he showed no concern to stop. All I could tell was that we were climbing up a steep craggy mountainside in a thick vapor exhaled by the forest itself.
I was acutely aware of an earth breathing beneath my feet. With each step, I realized my movements were effortless. No longer was my heart pounding from exhaustion. No longer did I feel the fatigue in my muscles or gasping out-of-breath. His supernatural spell gave my body the ability to nimbly race. But the aboriginal sorcerer eluded me with the quickness of a cat, slowing just enough for me to catch up. It became a cat and mouse game.
As soon as I got with a few feet of him, he would shape shift in a bright blur spinning out of sight and reappearing a few hundred yards in front of me. I jumped after him. The sensation was incredible when I moved. Electrifying impulses surged through every muscle fiber, giving me the strength and agility beyond comprehension. On and on we went like this until we arrived at the entrance of a cave. It was then he stopped and turned to face me.
Finally, I got my first close look at him. He stood no higher than my breast. His piteous sight repulsed me. My blood ran cold as I realized his flesh was a mottled melanin and the irises of his eyes were clouded blind. A swarthy, withered face that hid behind dangling strands of long bleached matted hair enhanced his demur appearance. He appeared like a pathetic beast, an unlawful soul of the earth rather than the admirable sage I had witnessed in the grass meadow. He stood in a disguising pose, his murky eyes starring at me.
The old barefoot aborigine was perched on top of a heap of bones, fragments of which were strewed all about the darken cave’s entrance. Along one wall of the rock entrance was a row of human skulls. Their cranial foreheads were more flattened than modern skulls. Broken shards of clay incense burners were mixed about the debris making this an obvious ceremonial chamber. I was convinced I had been lead to the edge of my own destiny, whose passions appeared pitiless in the face of this abnormal entity standing before me.
Was I lost in the suggestiveness of my own dream, the nightmare of my own soul to be sacrificed by a wild savage tribe lost in the Maya Forest? I was not prepared for what came next. Out of the cave tramped a wretched looking mangy dog. It roamed around me uninhibited, its bony frame protruded through its skin, sniffing me as if approving my existence.
Believe me or not, I stood there in shock, as it completed its task, growling momentarily before giving an approving “yelp” and trotted off. You might think me mad at this point, but by heavens, I am telling you the ordeal that followed lead me to the inconceivable mysticism that Hornsby knew about.
The mangled bony white-flesh hand of the blind aborigine grasped my arm. His grip pulled on me. As I said before, my sensory awareness was acute. I felt I was moving outside of my body as we entered the limestone cavern, lit by the flicking flame of a small terracotta pot he mysteriously acquired in his hand.
CHAPTER SIX: DREAMTIME
Early the next morning, Hornsby promptly informed me that I would have two more weeks at this settlement at which point I would return to San Cristobal de las Casa for further instructions.
“Every time I visit this settlement,” Hornsby complained, “you’ve been ill prepared. You have an obligation to produce something more sufficient to at least validate your graduate work, which I might add, I’ve signed on as your advisor. I am beginning to wonder what you are doing here?” Hornsby was indignant.
“Yes, of course,” I sheepishly replied.
I wanted to counter with complaint about Cassarina taking up my time, cataloging her plants, but I could see Hornsby had a short fuse to a big stick of explosives.
“To speak plainly, Jules, I can’t afford your tone with me.” Hornsby turned and marched off.
I stood there swaying in perplexed emotions, feeling that the man wanted to shoot me, but I didn’t want to judge him that harshly.
“What can he expect from me?” I thought.
For the most part, Cassarina had over heard our conversation from the field station tent. She was unusually silent the rest of the day, keeping her distance. I emotionally withdrew. I kept out of her way. Why is it that those who have suffered much, cause others to suffer? Even the villagers sensed my compunction and kept their distance. Later in the evening, as Cassarina and I ate our meal of paella and tortillas, she broke the daylong silence.
“Don’t be so penny wise and pound foolish. You ought to apologize.”
“It’s not my style.” I didn’t want to dare hint at the very thing that had caused the riff between Hornsby and I.
“He’s a bit mad, you know.” Cassarina set down her empty bowl on the table before her and leaned back against her camp chair, relaxed and cross-legged in the lantern light.
“He’s not mad.” I protested.
For a few moments, she twirled a long curl of her long dark hair, contemplating her thoughts. My colleague spoke frankly with me with a pose of magnificent eloquence.
“You could have looked through your analysis microscope to see it. But then again, you’re in the petri dish along with him, so how could you?” Cassarina fell silent for a moment then said with frankness.
“He really can’t go back.”
“Back?”
“The university -- Cambridge and his tenure. It’s much too desolate for him. This is where he belongs.”
Cassarina words dissipated the blinders about my eyes. She was absolutely right. Hornsby had crossed over. How could one expect him to re-adapt to the occidental milieu after immersing oneself in the aboriginal world. And more so, as Cassarina pointed out, he is a solitary man.
“I can see it in his eyes, Jules. During our meetings, he was always looking hopefully at you, like you were his protégée. His tough exterior is just ornamental.”
I had no conception of this. Her counsel fascinated me and echoed within me the truth of Hornsby’s aching solitude. At the core of it, his wilderness was my wilderness.
“The two of you are like two ships rafted together in a becalmed sea, impatiently waiting for a stiff breeze to fill your sails,” Cassarina philosophized.
I put down my bowl, wondering if she wasn’t just patronizing me. Cassarina reassured me that not all was lost. She dared to say that she would advocate for my continuance with her, as I had proven to be a reliable assistant for her work.
“Cassarina, how can you compare me to him?” I ventured to understand her motivation for talking with me in such context. “I don’t have the same abilities as him.”
“You both are insurgents to social change. However, one is more seasoned than the other. But each of you keep each other alive, that’s enough.” Cassarina turned to look out at the shadowy jungle brush about the field station tent where an uncommon rustling was heard. “I’d hate to see him abandoned. A man with such ideas, vision,
he needs you like an antidote for poison.”
Lost for a thoughtful reply I excused myself for the evening, retiring in my hammock under the lean-to I had constructed. I didn’t sleep, but lay awake fidgeting in restlessness, watching the passing of a golden slice of moon augmented by glittering stars moving across eternity. The luster of the celestial sky, the Milky Way, was crowded out by the long shadow of gloom pressing upon my heart.
All the while that Cassarina had been talking, I was slipping down a steep emotional ravine. The dream, that confounded dream that I had for several nights in a row, I couldn’t belie its existence. I forced myself not to talk about it. I was fearful that it would prove prophetic. I knew this without a doubt. But the more I tried to keep its secret the more it tried to creep into my conscious reality.
Its phantom presence was now overshadowing my every daily thought and action. I could hear the dream’s voice whispering when the Lacandon starred into my eyes, tacitly knowing. I sensed that their telepathic powers slipped through my mental shield of denial.
These indigenous people didn’t tolerate lies. No, such cunning was considered dishonorable. One must shoulder the burden of their vicissitudes no matter how bitter the taste of its truth. Least of all, I would get no absolution from them if I continued to harbor the danger to my situation because they would consider my silence as bringing ill will upon them. By daybreak, I had had the fill of my distraught emotions that conflicted with my inscrutable purpose to be honest with myself. I was desperate to find a resolve to this nightmare.
“Every time I visit this settlement,” Hornsby complained, “you’ve been ill prepared. You have an obligation to produce something more sufficient to at least validate your graduate work, which I might add, I’ve signed on as your advisor. I am beginning to wonder what you are doing here?” Hornsby was indignant.
“Yes, of course,” I sheepishly replied.
I wanted to counter with complaint about Cassarina taking up my time, cataloging her plants, but I could see Hornsby had a short fuse to a big stick of explosives.
“To speak plainly, Jules, I can’t afford your tone with me.” Hornsby turned and marched off.
I stood there swaying in perplexed emotions, feeling that the man wanted to shoot me, but I didn’t want to judge him that harshly.
“What can he expect from me?” I thought.
For the most part, Cassarina had over heard our conversation from the field station tent. She was unusually silent the rest of the day, keeping her distance. I emotionally withdrew. I kept out of her way. Why is it that those who have suffered much, cause others to suffer? Even the villagers sensed my compunction and kept their distance. Later in the evening, as Cassarina and I ate our meal of paella and tortillas, she broke the daylong silence.
“Don’t be so penny wise and pound foolish. You ought to apologize.”
“It’s not my style.” I didn’t want to dare hint at the very thing that had caused the riff between Hornsby and I.
“He’s a bit mad, you know.” Cassarina set down her empty bowl on the table before her and leaned back against her camp chair, relaxed and cross-legged in the lantern light.
“He’s not mad.” I protested.
For a few moments, she twirled a long curl of her long dark hair, contemplating her thoughts. My colleague spoke frankly with me with a pose of magnificent eloquence.
“You could have looked through your analysis microscope to see it. But then again, you’re in the petri dish along with him, so how could you?” Cassarina fell silent for a moment then said with frankness.
“He really can’t go back.”
“Back?”
“The university -- Cambridge and his tenure. It’s much too desolate for him. This is where he belongs.”
Cassarina words dissipated the blinders about my eyes. She was absolutely right. Hornsby had crossed over. How could one expect him to re-adapt to the occidental milieu after immersing oneself in the aboriginal world. And more so, as Cassarina pointed out, he is a solitary man.
“I can see it in his eyes, Jules. During our meetings, he was always looking hopefully at you, like you were his protégée. His tough exterior is just ornamental.”
I had no conception of this. Her counsel fascinated me and echoed within me the truth of Hornsby’s aching solitude. At the core of it, his wilderness was my wilderness.
“The two of you are like two ships rafted together in a becalmed sea, impatiently waiting for a stiff breeze to fill your sails,” Cassarina philosophized.
I put down my bowl, wondering if she wasn’t just patronizing me. Cassarina reassured me that not all was lost. She dared to say that she would advocate for my continuance with her, as I had proven to be a reliable assistant for her work.
“Cassarina, how can you compare me to him?” I ventured to understand her motivation for talking with me in such context. “I don’t have the same abilities as him.”
“You both are insurgents to social change. However, one is more seasoned than the other. But each of you keep each other alive, that’s enough.” Cassarina turned to look out at the shadowy jungle brush about the field station tent where an uncommon rustling was heard. “I’d hate to see him abandoned. A man with such ideas, vision,
he needs you like an antidote for poison.”
Lost for a thoughtful reply I excused myself for the evening, retiring in my hammock under the lean-to I had constructed. I didn’t sleep, but lay awake fidgeting in restlessness, watching the passing of a golden slice of moon augmented by glittering stars moving across eternity. The luster of the celestial sky, the Milky Way, was crowded out by the long shadow of gloom pressing upon my heart.
All the while that Cassarina had been talking, I was slipping down a steep emotional ravine. The dream, that confounded dream that I had for several nights in a row, I couldn’t belie its existence. I forced myself not to talk about it. I was fearful that it would prove prophetic. I knew this without a doubt. But the more I tried to keep its secret the more it tried to creep into my conscious reality.
Its phantom presence was now overshadowing my every daily thought and action. I could hear the dream’s voice whispering when the Lacandon starred into my eyes, tacitly knowing. I sensed that their telepathic powers slipped through my mental shield of denial.
These indigenous people didn’t tolerate lies. No, such cunning was considered dishonorable. One must shoulder the burden of their vicissitudes no matter how bitter the taste of its truth. Least of all, I would get no absolution from them if I continued to harbor the danger to my situation because they would consider my silence as bringing ill will upon them. By daybreak, I had had the fill of my distraught emotions that conflicted with my inscrutable purpose to be honest with myself. I was desperate to find a resolve to this nightmare.
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