Blue Fox Shaman

Another ridiculous adventure in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell

[… Fox and Bärchen are surrounded by a low-lying marsh that spreads out before them. A brilliant Sun shines above and a cooling breeze carries the scent of brine and a slightly fishy smell…]

Bärchen: God! This is so like my dream!

Fox: It is your dream, sweetie. I’ve brought you here before.

Bärchen: Ah!

Fox: Feel the timelessness of this place, my love.

Bärchen: Unchanged for thousands of years?

Fox: Yes, and constantly changing. Evolving. We’re standing at the crossroads of Heaven, Earth, and Sea, after all. Don’t you just love salt marshes?!

Bärchen: I do. And holding you makes its beauty so much more immediate…

Fox: And the recognition of our finitude so much more poignant. But we have a little time yet, and Time can wait for a moment.

[…]

Bärchen: [sighing] I’m ready. Shall we head to Camp?

Fox: Of course. But things will be in a bit of disrepair, I’m afraid.

Bärchen: Why’s that? I thought there were campers every summer here.

Fox: Uh huh, but this time we came here for your Homecoming Week, so everyone else is gone.

Bärchen: Wait! If it’s Homecoming Week…

Fox: I’ll explain as we walk.

[… Fox and Bärchen turn and head toward the main part of the Island of Ogygia, which rises from the salt marshes through forests and wooded hills, culminating in a great mountain lookout. In a clearing, they come to a Sign Gate built of logs with a decaying placard at the top. The placard says “We… Cam… Ru… ok”…]

Fox: I see I have to fix that…

[… Fox snaps her fingers the Gate Sign is restored: “Welcome to Camp Runamok”. …]

Bärchen: How…?!

Fox: When it comes to your life novella, you’ve given me certain powers. Don’t you remember…

Fox and Bärchen: [together] It’s in the pre-nuptials!

Bärchen: Okay. You’d think that before I open my mouth…

Fox: What!? And miss the surprised look on your face. No way! [laughs] So, you have also been here before, many times. Each summer, in fact. But this place, and the events that happen here, exist in the novella version of your life, my love.

Bärchen: Like a Telenovela?

Fox: I hope not! I’ve tried my best to spare you that sort of “drama”. No, instead it’s a concise telling that forms the backbone of your Personality. Each trip here reflects a “summer” of your life. Just like Summer, in the mundane World, is a time of growth and change, interspersed with leisure and fun, and giving way to the harvest of Fall. Do you remember the first time you came here?

Bärchen: Uh, I’m not sure I have a “memory” exactly. I have this feeling you’ve got something planned, though.

[… Fox raises her arms and the scene changes. Now, they stand beside a rushing stream lined with granite boulders. A rustic stone and timber building is nearby. The sign over the building entrance says “Visitor Center” …]

Bärchen: This looks exactly like the Happy Isles Visitor Center in Yosemite National Park, circa 1970. And that’s the Merced River behind us, yes? With the “Happy Isles” dividing the down-rushing stream?

Fox: It is the place! Shall we take a look inside the “VC”?

Bärchen: After you, my love.

[… Inside the Visitor Center are dioramas depicting local animal and plant life and the geology of the Sierra Nevada. After winding through several such displays, the entrance to a small theater beckons…]

Bärchen: Can we watch the short film on John Muir?

Fox: If you like. But I prepared some special short films about your life.

Bärchen: Hmmm! This isn’t going to be like that time Lucy showed Charlie Brown everything he had ever done wrong, is it?

Fox: No, no, sweetie. This is the good stuff. It’s important to stop once in a while and take stock of where you’ve come from and how far you’ve managed to get…so far.

Bärchen: Can we watch the video about John Muir anyway?

Fox: Yes, my silly Bärchen, we can watch the video about him too. Before we get started, though, this Visitor Center was a significant place for you, even though you were just a child. It’s here that spent many happy hours while your Father worked as a Naturalist. And it’s the place you first encountered Nature Mysticism. Of course, you didn’t know it at the time, and it would have scared you out of your mind to think it, but it started here for you just the same.

Bärchen: It took me quite a while to acknowledge that in myself, at least in those terms. Talk about a slow learner.

Fox: Don’t beat yourself up. Life is like that sometimes. And maybe your acknowledgement of it now will help someone else recognize it in themself.

Bärchen: You mean someone who has also felt that Joy mingled with Awe when looking at the Natural World…

Fox: And that sense of Beauty that comes from Love. Yes. You now know it can be a sort of Mysticism which is completely “secular”, if you like. Actually, it fits nicely within Christianity, like you were able to do at one point… until you realized that those who could not see this, or would not, were actually apostate, and in more ways than just that.

Bärchen: Oh, but Jesus commissioned us to preach Capitalism to the Natives.

Fox: I’m sure He did. Just look at Acts 2:44-47[1] [grins]

Bärchen: Ha! My little Trickster, you can’t fool me, I know those verses.

Fox: Let’s sit down and roll the first video. [shouting] Okay, Bronte, start the first video.

Bärchen: My brother is here?

Fox: I needed someone to run the equipment while we watch together. He volunteered. Of his own free will.

Bärchen: Oh?

Fox: Yes, although there was that tense moment when Azar was glowering at him before he did so.

Bärchen: Ahhh!

[… Bärchen and Fox watch and discuss several videos, ending with the one about John Muir…]

Video Narration: “Climb the mountains, and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.” [music swells then fades]

Bärchen: Wow! Talk about your life flashing before your eyes. I have to admit, though, it left me with a bit of melancholy.

Fox: Why do you think that is?

Bärchen: Hmmm… Maybe it’s because I realize that, although the Beauty of Nature was, and is, something that keeps me… keeps us going on the Path, and even though I see it now in a broader context, well… it wasn’t “it”. Not entirely. I remember much searching yet to come, even after I could put a name to the Path.

Fox: Uh huh. You were searching for the treasure hidden in a field, and once you found the treasure, the field became… well, even more lovely for all that.

Bärchen: Yes!!! … Ah! And now I remember that there was something even before that that awoke in me.

Fox: You used to lie on the grass on your back, looking at the clouds, and wondering what “all this” was about.

Bärchen: You were there even then, weren’t you?

Fox: Of course. But I had to work with the raw materials I was given, and I know now that sometimes you have to get lost to find your Way.

Bärchen: One question, though–why did you call this Homecoming Week?

Fox: Well, once you got your release from here, from Ogygia I mean, you came Home, remember?

Bärchen: The story of my life overlapping with Odysseus again. That final shipwreck of the raft though, that was brutal.

Fox: But I love you in that scarf! Uh huh!… Hey! I’ve got another place to visit. For you and me, no trip to Camp Runamok would be complete without it. Let’s walk for a bit.

[… They exit the Visitor Center and walk into the forest. Subtly, the forest changes and they are back on the Island of Ogygia. After a while, they encounter a large, moss-covered stone which seems to grow out of the ground. They approach the Stone closely, and with Fox standing in front of Bärchen, they Invoke the Spirits of the Seven Directions[2] …]

Bärchen: How many Laws of Ritual did we break just now?

Fox: Oh, I dunno. Dozens?

Bärchen: I’m thinking in particular about forming the Protective Circle ‘gainst the Infernal Spirits, and dismissing the Heavenly Spirits in peace when done…

Fox: Right. But our two Families get along okay now that we’ve tied the knot… except for Family Game Nights, apparently.

Bärchen: I meant, in case anybody was watching. “Don’t try this at home” type of stuff. We don’t want anybody working without a safety net, of course.

Fox: Those nets get my tail in a tangle. Do you know what its like to try to comb out a tangled tail?

Bärchen: I get it.

Fox: Hey! Ready for some food?

Bärchen: Sure!

Fox: Well, I hope you don’t mind, but, speaking of Families, I invited both of ours for a picnic. Let’s head over and see if they’ve arrived yet.

Bärchen: Over where?

Fox: To the Great Barrow, of course. No better picnic spot around!

Bärchen: The Great Barrow, eh?! Full of dead men’s bones.

Fox: Yes, your Ancestors are invited too, of course, just like Dia de los Muertos.

Bärchen: “Lay on, Macduff; And damned be he that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”

Fox: Oh, that will be me, sweetheart. I can only take so many s’mores and I’m done. The Twins, on the other hand…

Bärchen: Always burn their marshmallows to a crisp!

Fox: Hah! That too. I can hear the music, they must be there already. Listen, Bärchen, they’re playing your song.

Bärchen: Is that “Rocky Mountain High”?

Fox: Yes, indeed, my little Nature Mystic.

Bärchen: It sums up that Path pretty well, doncha think?!… the Path of the Nature Mystic, I mean.

Fox: What else would you, could you, ever be, my love?

[… They hear the John Denver song as they walk …]

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Comin’ home to a place he’d never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door

When he first came to the mountains, his life was far away
On the road and hangin’ by a song
But the string’s already broken and he doesn’t really care
It keeps changin’ fast and it don’t last for long

But the Colorado Rocky Mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullaby
Rocky Mountain high (Colorado)
Rocky Mountain high (High in Colorado)

He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below
He saw everything as far as you can see
And they say that he got crazy once, and he tried to touch the sun
And he lost a friend, but kept the memory

Now he walks in quiet solitude, the forests and the streams
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake

Fox: Like me?

Bärchen: Exactly like you! Like us together–“Lago de Montañas”

---

[1] “And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.” (Acts 2:44-47a)

[2] The Invocation of the Seven Directions:

The Prelude:

[… they begin facing the East, palms together over their hearts …]

Bärchen: I remember Righteousness…

Fox: and Wholeness.

Bärchen: Understanding…

Fox: and Knowledge.

Bärchen: Justice…

Fox: and Humility… You are the Priest of the Great Mystery…

Bärchen: and you my Priestess.

[… they spread their arms in Orans position (palms forward, forearms outstretched, elbows near body) …]

The Invocations:

Fox: My Priest, invoke the Spirit of the East!

Bärchen: ΒΡΟΝΤΗ!

[… An earthquake booms and rumbles across the ground and large Green Dragon rises from the direction of the Sunrise …]

Fox: Arouse us to Righteous action.

[…both face South…]

Fox: Invoke the Spirit of the South!

Bärchen: ΑΣΤΡΑΠΗ!

[… A bright flash of light and fire shines forth and a Vermillion Bird rises from the direction of the Noonday Meridian …]

Fox: Purify our Understanding.

[…both face West…]

Fox: Invoke the Spirit of the West!

Bärchen: ΑΥΡΑ!

[… from the West, a gentle breeze begins then swells to a mighty wind and a White Tiger rises from the direction of the Setting Sun …]

Fox: Fill us with the Beauty of Wholeness.

[…both face North…]

Fox: Invoke the Spirit of the North!

Bärchen: `ΥΕΤΟΣ!

[… from the North, a rain of arrows descends and a Black Warrior rises from the direction of the Midnight Meridian …]

Fox: Fix us in the Ancient Wisdom.

[… they remain facing North…]

Fox: My Priest, invoke the Spirit of Below!

Bärchen: ΓΑΙΑ!

[… they look Below where dark, black fissures open to display a riot of soil organisms, decaying matter, and roots …]

Fox: In you are the Living, and the Dead, and those about to be born.

Bärchen: May we walk upon you in Humility.

[… they face the East once more…]

Fox: Invoke the Spirit of Above!

Bärchen: ΟΥΡΑΝΟΣ!

[… they look Above where the Dome of Heaven Sparkles a light blue …]

Fox: You are the Shepherd of the Stars, the Keeper of the Paths of Sun, Moon, and Clouds.

Bärchen: May we stand before you in Justice.

[… they keep silence for a moment …]

Fox: Invoke the Spirits of Within!

Bärchen: ΛΙΜΝΗ!

Fox: ΟΡΟΣ! All These fulfill Thy Desire.

Bärchen: All These obey Thy Command.

Fox: My Gift!

Bärchen: My Life! … Blessed,…

Fox: Blessed,…

Fox and Bärchen: Thrice Blessed are You, Oh Great Mystery.

[… they end with their palms together over their hearts once more…]