Chapter 13: June 6-15, 1996 A Vision of Death, A Song of Life

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
and loses itself in the sunset.

Crowfoot
South Dakota, June 6-8 Crying for a Vision

Dreams are the answers to questions that we haven't yet figured out how to ask.
Fox Mulder

At the end of the feast to celebrate her acceptance as a new relative, Ominotago, as Courtney would now always be known here, brought the sacred pipe to Gaho. Handing the pipe to the medicine woman, Ominotago asked her for a vision. Gaho said that she would help and rose and spoke a prayer of cleansing. She also told her that now that she was on a Vision Quest she must fast and take nothing but water and a small piece of Wasna.

They returned to the house and Gaho went over the last instructions with Leotie and Ominotago so that they might start on their quest in the morning.

"Ominotago, now that you have had a chance to get used to our ways and the outdoors, you need to make a decision, The Vision Quest was originally intended for young warriors and in its traditional form is very physically demanding. Basically, it involves staying day and night in a circle, with just cedar boughs and a blanket. You will have a good supply of water but just a very small ration of wasna. Your only clothing is your moccasins and a buffalo robe. I believe that the purer the experience the better the result. Do you think you can handle these conditions?"

"Let me ask you a question. Do you believe that doing so will likely help me resolve the problems which have taken away my joy of life and my song?"

"Yes, I absolutely do."

"Then I will sit naked on a hilltop for a long as I have to."

"Two possibly three nights is what it usually takes."

"How will I know I have had a vision and not just an ordinary dream?"

"By the power and clarity of the dream."

Gaho chuckled, "It's a little like asking if you've had your first orgasm. If you have to ask, you probably didn't have one. You'll know when you do. Also there will probably be an animal or a spirit guide."

"What's that?"

"Often an animal or occasionally a spirit will come to you as part of your vision. The type of animal will suggest a direction for your life. This animal will become a totem, something like a good luck charm for the rest of your life.

Now go get a good night sleep in a bed while you can. We'll get all the gear ready tonight so that you and Leotie can get an early start tomorrow. "

In the morning, the horses were saddled and packed for the journey. Ominotago missed the usual huge Gaho breakfast, although real hunger had not set in yet. Leotie explained why they were riding further than they had on previous trips.

"Traditionally these quests were held on mountaintops, but unfortunately mountaintops are in short supply in this part of South Dakota. We are riding out to a reasonably large natural butte which we use since it is the highest point in the immediate area."

By early afternoon they had reached the spot, and set to work getting it ready. First they laid out a circle, symbolic of the Lakota way, where everything is circular in the journey of life and death. Four small posts were set up around the circle. The number four is an essential symbol of Lakota spirituality. Here it represented the directions north, south, east and west. Four also represents the elements earth, fire, air and water and the seasons, winter, spring, summer and fall. They had brought the cedar boughs with them and set them up covered by the blanket. They unloaded several canteens and Leotie showed Ominotago the location of a spring in case she needed additional water. She waited while Ominotago removed her clothes and then packed them in a saddle bag, leaving her just the buffalo robe and moccasins.

"Is there anything else before I leave? I will always be where I can watch you, although you probably will not be able to see me. Just remember that you're not alone, and that you are safe. If you're in distress, just wave your arms over your head and I'll see you, but to be successful in your quest, you'll need to be alone and on your own."

"Thanks, it helps to know you're watching out for me. It's a little bit scary to be here, all alone, naked on a hill top; no actually it's a lot scary. I guess the only thing I really need before you go is for you to rub a lot of sunscreen on my back."

Leotie couldn't help but admire the beautiful nude body of the singer. It was a bit surreal to see her standing there in her pale perfection, surrounded by nothing but countless miles of featureless prairie. She gently rubbed the lotion into her back and legs and then gently kissed her on her cheek and whispered in her ear, "I pray that the spirits grant you a vision that heals your pain." Then she mounted her horse and rode until Ominotago could see her no more, although she felt her presence.

In the first hours she went through a cycle of feelings; at various times experiencing great loneliness, fear, a feeling of ridiculousness, a feeling of futility and sometimes hope. Finally, she settled down and prepared herself for the long ordeal ahead. It had been a full day without food and for the first in her life she experienced real hunger pains. Two tools helped her get through the endless hours, and prepare her mind to receive a vision. She had studied yoga for many years and the relaxation exercises, especially breathing and meditation were a huge asset. The other was her music. Although the quest was to be conducted in complete silence, like all good musicians, she could hear any instrument or any song in her head. She even started a new song to record the experience of the Vision Quest. To her surprise, the rest of the day passed quickly. The discomfort in her empty belly actually seemed to ease instead of getting worse. After nightfall, she curled up in her blanket and buffalo robe and was soon asleep. A quiet and restful night passed but it was a dreamless night.

The next day when Ominotago awoke she found she had changed. She felt like she belonged here now. Her hunger pain was gone and instead, her entire body had a new feeling of lightness. Her mind had great clarity and was very receptive and focused. She spent the day for the first time defining what exactly she wanted to learn. What did she need to change about her life? Where did Darryl fit into her life? What did her music mean to her? What did her fans mean to her? What did she really want from life? She didn't have answers, but at least she at least was beginning to have questions. Most exhilarating was a feeling that she was going to get answers, and soon. She took occasional sips of water and spread more sunscreen on her body. She noticed the world around her in a way she had never taken the time to before. The birds, the rays of light in the dust blown up by a mild breeze, a butterfly looking for prairie flowers, even the flies buzzing around her and the sweat droplets running down her skin in the heat of the sun, all were so much clearer than she'd ever noticed them before. The day passed remarkably quickly and before she knew it, she was looking forward to another night.

The sunset came and went with the typical haste of the prairie twilight. The night sky appeared with crystal clarity. She had never seen so many stars in the sky or the Milky Way standing out so distinctly, it dazzled her senses like the sparkling of diamonds. She understood why it was considered to be a trail across the heavens by so many earlier people. When a full moon arose, it robbed the sky of some of its splendor, but in return painted the landscape in an ethereal glow. She realized that just seeing this, was worth the trip and would touch her in some way. She almost reluctantly lay down to sleep, in hopes of more than sleep this night.

On a low ridge just within viewing distance Leotie continued the vigil that she had faithfully maintained on Ominotago. She heard a horse coming quietly up behind her. She waited as Gaho dismounted and came to lie beside her.

"It is time then?" asked Leotie.

"Yes." Answered Gaho

"So soon? It is only the second night."

"She has remarkable powers of concentration and connection to the spirits. I could probably make a medicine woman out of her, but she already has an important job."

Sitting beside each other, arm in arm, they fell silent and waited. Leotie's sharp young eyes spotted it first. She pointed and Gaho saw it too, its distinctive gait identified it before its features became distinctive.

"A wolf? I would not have guessed a wolf," said Gaho.

"You think it is her animal guide?"

"Yes, I am sure of it."

"She will be terrified."

"I don't think so."

"Wolves are very rare this far south."

"Another sign of how powerful her medicine is."

The wolf went directly to Ominotago; it sat on its haunches and watched her for a several minutes as though determining whether she was truly asleep. When the woman didn't stir the wolf moved closer to her where she (for it was in fact a female) started licking the human's feet. Ominotago gradually woke up and opened her eyes to the sight of a wolf standing over her. She somehow knew that she had nothing to fear. She rose to her knees and extended an open hand as you would to a dog or maybe to a friend. It seemed to work, the wolf came up beside her and let her put her arm over her. Ominotago laid her head on the wolf's back and listened to the animal's heart beat. Gradually she entered a state, not awake and not asleep, where she could feel with the wolf and see with the wolf's eyes.

On the hillside watching, Leotie turned to Gaho. "You were right, she has no fear of the wolf, I underestimated her courage."

"Did you listen to her story of her life? Every step she made, right or wrong, took courage. Think about it, anyone who can stand in front of 20,000 strangers and perform has courage. This I never doubted. In a minute the spirit of the wolf will try to talk to her mind. This is so far beyond what most people accept as the real world that they cannot hear it at all. Let us see how open her mind has become."

Ominotago and the wolf breathed as one. She wasn't aware of awake or asleep but she felt a very real connection to the spirit of this animal.

'You are unhappy'

'Yes I am, are you the wolf, the spirit of the wolf, or myself reflected though you?'

'Does it matter, what matters is I speak to you'

'We are so different.'

'Are we? We are born, we die, we eat, we sleep, we mate, we love, we hate, we are both female, we give life.'

'Have you offspring?'

'Yes, I have pups'

'Are they important to you?'

'They are me, they are life'

'I don't understand.'

'Our lives are brief shadows on the land, we cannot make too much of them, what is important is those who we leave to follow."

'And your mate?'

'The other half of you and all that follow you, choose him well'

'So family is important?'

'Family is everything, it makes everything else possible, and gives a reason for everything else'

'Is that why you sing'

'Yes, I sing to my family, come sing with me'
OOOOWWWWWWooooooooooooooooooHHHAAAAAWWeeeeeeeee

OooWWWWOOweeohhhWWWeeeeeaaaaYYYeeeeeeAAAAAAAhhhhhhh

'How did that feel?'

'It felt good'

'Doesn't it feel good when you sing?'

'It did, but the joy has gone out of my song'

'That's because you have forgotten who your song is for'

'I sing to many thousands, sometimes several million,

'Your voice can sing to many, your heart can sing to only one'

With that, the wolf curled up at her side and went to sleep. Ominotago pondered the wolf's words and saw the wisdom there. Then she curled up with the wolf, resting her head in the cradle of the wolf's forelegs and went to sleep. This time she fell into a deep sleep and had a dream. It was much like dreams she had before except for the vividness and there it was like comparing IMAX to a television. She, in fact, did not have the dream as much as she was in the dream.

She was sitting alone on the dock at the lake. The other side of the lake however was a distant and unfamiliar land, rugged with mountains in the background. It seemed very far away and yet somehow she could clearly see people. She saw Darryl, some Afghan people who didn't seem to come into sharp focus and two women. One, an American woman, a photojournalist, and her interaction with Daryl seemed warm but strictly professional. The other, a remarkably striking and beautiful Afghan woman, seemed to be acting as Darryl's assistant, and though their behavior was perfectly correct she found herself feeling quite uneasy, even jealous. Her feminine instincts detected signs in the woman of a deeper interest. She had a rival. If she wanted Darryl back, she might not have unlimited time at her disposal.

The last person was perhaps the most interesting of all. She was a beautiful little girl, perhaps ten or eleven years old sitting on the ground with a lute like musical instrument obviously too large for her to hold in the usual way. The instrument was, in fact, a well used Oud, an instrument popular throughout the Middle East. It was a gift from her grandfather since she was the only one in the family who'd learned to play it after his arthritis ended his musical days. Other than the clothes on her back, the Oud and a cheap portable cassette player were her only worldly goods. The girl, whose name was Nura, raised extra food to sell at market to buy strings for the Oud and batteries for the player. She could not read music but she had a cousin who made bootleg cassette tapes from recordings he made off his radio. He sold these in the market with a total disregard for copyright and the confidence that no one was likely to enter this hell hole to catch him. His little cousin Nura, he supplied free as long as she brought back the tapes to be reused. Nura listened to the tapes and learned to play the songs by ear memorizing each with almost uncanny accuracy. She could even learn, by rote, songs in languages she could not speak.

The odd thing was that Ominotago could hear Nura's singing, although she could not hear anything else. She also found that if she sang, Nura would look up as though listening but no one else would react. Ominotago kept watching the scene and started noticing nuances she had missed, Colors that showed anger and love and frustration and other emotions that followed people like clouds of colored gasses. There was a lot of fear, sexual tension, and sexual frustration traveling in that convoy, she realized. A volatile mixture. But that was not what had her attention. There was a very dark, ominous, cloud hovering over Darryl and she needed no help interpreting this one. She smelled death. No one in the group there saw it apparently but the shadow did not like Nura and her music. When Darryl would approach her, the shadow would retreat only to return when he walked away. Nura didn't seem to see the cloud, but she affected it. Perhaps she had defied death so much in surviving as a symbol of life and hope in her war ravaged homeland that death itself had learned to respect her. Ominotago also found the shadow did not like her singing but she was too distant to drive the shadow away, she only antagonized it. Finally Darryl got ready to leave and the further he got from Nura the lower and closer the cloud approached until it wrapped around him and suddenly he was gone and she felt a cold emptiness.

The distant land faded away and it was just the lake again but it was the lake in May of 1982. She saw herself sitting beside Darryl and beside her was the Golden Album of the best pictures Darryl had taken of her as she was becoming a woman. It was his farewell gift at the end of the summer. The young Courtney was taking up her guitar and she knew exactly what she would hear. It would be the very first performance of Song of Thanks written as her gift to Darryl. As she listened, there were tears in the eyes of both the younger and the older women, if not for the same reasons.

The next thing she was aware of was opening her eyes to the dawn. The wolf was gone and she was alone on the vast prairie. Then as she recalled what the wolf had told her, she realized that she was going to be lonely and incomplete always until she found a way to fix the life that she had broken, and she wept.

Within moments Gaho and Leotie rode up and the first thing the starving Ominotago noticed was the wonderful smell of breakfast. Leotie dismounted first and before uttering the first word, handed her a thermos of hot coffee and a plate of freshly cooked bacon and eggs. By mutual consent, conversation was postponed in deference to hunger.

"Are you all right?" asked Gaho.

"Yes, but hardly unchanged. Tell me, was there really a wolf here last night, I mean physically, or was that part of the vision?"

"I'm not sure if I can answer that. Leotie and I both saw the wolf come but we never saw if leave, it just became the night. We all heard it howl, but this morning there are no tracks. Wolves are almost never seen this far south, but then wolves are not generally known to have spiritual discussions with humans either. If you mean was it a wild wolf. What we all saw was in some ways less than a wolf but in other ways a great deal more than a wolf. If you think of it as the spirit of the wolf, that is possibly as good a concept as we are capable of."

"Did we both howl?"

"Oh yes, my dear, you reared back on your haunches and howled right along with it."

"With her, she was a mother with a lifelong mate as she kept reminding me in a somewhat superior manner."

"It sounds like the two of you didn't get on so well."

"Oh no, all too well, like a wise grandmother, she saw right through me, and sorted my priorities out in quick order."

"Did you have a vision?

"Yes, about Darryl, and a very frightening one, full cinemascope, 3-D and I think I understood most of it but if you're willing I'd like you to go through it with me."

"We've got a long ride today that should give us plenty of time. Let's get some clothes on you, some more breakfast in you, and head on back."

While riding back Ominotago described her vision in complete detail to Gaho and Leotie with them asking questions to fill in any fuzzy spots. While the horses were being put away Gaho asked for a little time to analyze and pray before giving her recommendations. Odakota had been left in charge of having a hearty meal ready for their return. They were half way through the meal before Gaho joined them. She insisted on holding off all questions until the meal was finished. Then out came the coffee and plum cake.

Gaho looked at her notes and then started.

"Ominotago, your vision was probably the clearest and least ambiguous I have ever encountered. I have spent most of my time checking to make sure we weren't missing something or oversimplifying. I think you figured almost all of it out for yourself.

"I was surprised when your animal spirit guide turned out to be a wolf. That is a powerful symbol. Wolves are regarded as teachers and can impart many qualities but I believe it is clear what was intended in this case. Wolves are fiercely loyal to their mates, and mate for life. They have a strong sense of family while maintaining individualism. I think a key issue is whether you can have a strong mate, a family and still be yourself and maintain the independence to pursue your career. The wolf is telling you yes. A message she reinforced several times in talking to you. But she never compromised on the issue of the family being the key to a rewarding life. Remember the wolf telling you that you must separate your connection with your fans and the satisfaction that brings you from your connection with your mate and the satisfaction he brings you? One feeds just your ego, the other feeds your heart and soul. Maturity is recognizing the superficial nature of thrills that only fulfill you ego. The wolf summarized it beautifully with, you can sing with your voice to many but you can sing with your heart to just one."

"The Afghanistan vision is also remarkably clear. Apparently Darryl is or soon will be traveling in the company of two females. One is an American journalist and the other an Afghan woman of some considerable physical and mental accomplishments. There are two threats to your mate. One is a growing affection the Afghan woman holds toward him. She may want him as hers and even if she knows about you, she may feel that you've given up your claim. The other is that at some point in the future they are going to be in contact with a young Afghan girl playing a lute like instrument. At that point, Darryl's life is physically threatened; a threat that can be reduced if he can be kept near the girl with the lute. It also can be affected by Ominotago's singing. In the vision, she cannot reach him directly by singing but seems to be able to reach the young girl. Then the vision closes by pointing directly to a particular song, one written just for Darryl, and never released or intended for release."

"In visions you usually receive warnings like this in time to forestall disaster, if you move quickly and effectively. Any significant delay or misstep could be fatal. My interpretation is that you have to find a way to get your song written for Darryl, into the hands of this young girl so that she will play it and dissipate the shadows. If the little girl picks it up, Darryl would recognize and react to it. The question is how to get it there."

"Olathe will be the best one to work out the details," said Ominotago, "but a worldwide release without licensing and no copyright will get it out the fastest. If I pay for promotional production and distribution it'll go faster still. We'll target the Middle East but it's hard to get much penetration in a Muslim market. They aren't big fans of western music, but if I keep it simple with just my guitar it will do better there."

Odakota looked thoughtful. "This seems awfully hit or miss at best. Wouldn't it make more sense to put the effort into tracking him down and just warning him directly?"

"It wouldn't help," Gaho said. "The people in the vision were not able to see the danger even though it was visible among them. That means that it is a danger that they have already been warned of and yet are unable to see and prevent. Another warning would still leave them blind and defenseless. No, the vision tells us that for some reason, the song provides a crucial distraction, or change in plans that prevents the event from happening."

Odakota still looked troubled. "I see a lot of problems. How does a little Muslim girl in the middle of nowhere get her hands on the latest release? Would she be doing American music anyway?"

"I have no good answers there," said Gaho "If we live in a world that has no magic, this can never happen. But visions don't show things that you cannot do. You must do the best possible job of getting the song out there. Then at some point, you place this in the hands of the Gods, and count on the magic."

"I'm going to play the devil's advocate," said Leotie gently, "though I have no desire to bring up painful memories. If Darryl hears the song, he will know it's from you and he will react. But will he return to you? Didn't you use the song to call him once before? And things did not work out. Why would he come again, especially now that you have such a beautiful rival?"

"I don't know Leotie, how can I compete with someone like that from half a world away? I may have to accept that I will save Darryl's life only to have him spend it with someone else. And perhaps she does deserve him more."

"Ominotago, I want you to come take a walk with me," said a rather disgusted Gaho.

Gaho led her away from the house to a small clearing where they could speak privately. She sat down with her where she could look her in the eye.

"Ominotago, I have spoken to you as a teacher, as a spiritual councilor, and as a Lakota holy woman but today I speak to you simply as a Lakota woman. Remember you are now a Lakota woman too. I do not know how the women of your people react when something or somebody comes between them and their man. I will tell you how a Lakota woman reacts. We fight for our man. We fight until we win him back or we can fight no more. Darryl is your man. If you do not fight for him, you are no Lakota woman and you shame me, and my people.