PACHOU: The Beginning of the Past

By Karen Garner

Pachou is a member of the Chauquapehkwinah Tribe, which is one of the first tribes to exist upon Earth Mother. Pachou has no written documents of religion to limit her view of the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit always rests within Pachou's heart. Knowledge can only come to her through the eyes, the ears, and the hands that will unveil all that surrounds her. Wisdom is bestowed upon her by the Earthworn Great One, the eldest member of the Tribe.  Pachou seeks to leave the Tribe and find the river's end, a dream never to be attained by the aged one. Her journey presents curiosity, danger, and friendship all to be sketched upon the silent walls of time. Could Pachou have really existed?  Will her Spirit of Soul never die? That is for the reader to decide. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Escarpment Press
• Release date: Jan 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781502255280

Karen Garner

Karen S. Garner is a woman of humble beginnings, raised in a one-bedroom, one-bathroom house along with three older brothers and her parents.  In the winter, she and her brothers slept on roll-a-way beds in sleeping bags in a single-car garage with a dirt floor. In the summer, blankets were placed over clothes lines and poles to provide cover for outdoor sleeping.  She was never aware of her family's poverty, because of the love surrounding her. She was born and raised in Nevada where the mountains rest tall to the West and the colors of the desert are exhibited in fullness to the East. Music and writing are her primary hobbies.  She is the baritone part in a barbershop quartet that sings for free to disabled, ill, or homebound individuals. Karen's favorite book is Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. Her retirement years have been spent in volunteer work and writing books. You can contact her at [e-mail]. 

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DEDICATION

Alohteh Nillakoulakehtaw

Never let our minds get in the way of what our hearts have become.  The older we grow to be, the younger we feel inside.  The greater our wisdom, the more we realize how little we actually know.  The deeper the extensions of our dreams, the more fundamentally straightforward and uncomplicated become our goals.

This book is for you, Nillakoulakehtaw.  I dedicate it to Friends in Soul—the everlasting connection to unselfish love.

Coeurteh Tamorah

Ci Ci Pachou

INTRODUCTION

A Place of Dreams

She was just a child, sitting alone on the crossbar of the old, water-worn wooden craft.  Parched by daily heat from the large circle in the sky, the dark-brown wood became light tan.  Marked by age, crevices were deeply etched in all its sides.  The bottom was stuck in the dried, muddy water just beyond the edge of the flowing river.  Long grass growing around it held it gently in the soft, cushioning wind, like an eagle’s cradled wings of love caressing the morning sky.

Within the remnants of the tattered, frayed, and rugged vessel rested many stories of long ago, waiting for an inquisitive young mind vividly to imagine and create.  What journeys had it endured?  What places had it seen?  Had it stayed firm and strong, as it battled raging currents to carry tribal members upstream to greater hunting grounds?  Did it float peacefully downriver, as it dreamed of places not yet seen and journeys unknown?  Could it build its own pathways, as it carried many eager eyes and hands, seeking pools of fish that would ensure food when the ground turned white and cold?  Most importantly, how had it died?  Did it know when its purpose was done, and it ran its full course of life, never to feel the touch of the brisk, running waters again?

Oh, if she could only teach it to speak to her, so she could enjoy, with great pleasure, experiencing in that moment the magnificence of the wooden craft’s past.  She felt enfolded by all it had been every time she lifted her little leg over the side and planted herself on the crossbar.  How special it must have felt to have been created.  How greatly it must have served the tribe’s needs.

Would she ever grow old enough, or wise enough, to feel inside her the charisma of events of the past or the grandeur in companionship of the present?  Would she, perhaps, be touched by the lure of wonder of secrets held for creation of days still to come?

She loved each day, but she wanted to know the full circle of all that her eyes saw and her ears heard.  She wanted to know the birth of every single living thing, of the value and eagerness of purpose in all thought, and of the passage to come at the end of the journey to the Great Spirit.

She came often to that place.  It brought her peace and filled her mind with curious admiration.  Pachou felt a personal connection to that perfectly aged watercraft.  She listened with her heart, as her inquisitive mind beckoned, creating visions of its past.  The stories came to her in the same way as pictures in clear water.  The reflection of its journeys ran through her mind, as if each adventure completed were the present, laid out before her.  She felt and saw the images like dreams that came in perfect color when her eyes closed in peaceful surrender to darkened skies.

Pachou had a vivid imagination.  She let her thoughts run freely, as one might expect a river to flow after frozen waters melted and filled the deepening edges of the dirt banks.  Life was a miracle.  There were so many questions waiting to be asked.  Would the old wooden vessel share its secrets with a friend?

1

Big Circle, Small Circle, Shining Lights

Silence unfailingly hovered over the meadow while awaiting the first glimpse of light.  There was a peace within that silence unlike any other moment in lighted or darkened skies.  Silence always came just before the big circle entered the presence of Earth Mother.  The sparkling eyes of the Great Spirit would close, and, at that instant of quietness, all sounds of life ceased.  The strength and warmth of the big circle’s presence then became known.

Pachou awakened while the shining lights were still in the sky.  She walked to the old boat and again sat on the crossbar.  Wanting to be fully present, she stilled in anticipation, with her large, hazel-brown eyes focused on the sky before the big circle appeared.  It was essential to arrive before the silence.

Pachou wanted to be ready to be presented to all that surrounded her meager frame of spirit before the silence enveloped her.

As she sat on the crossbar in the darkness, shortly before the beginning of light, she closed her eyes, so her ears wouldn’t be interrupted by sight.  She concentrated on the vibrant, musical sounds of life.  Pachou listened to the melodies of the birds’ gentle voices in tree and sky.  Throughout the grasses that stretched far and wide in every direction from the wooden craft, she heard the rustling of small animals playing and searching for food.  Fish jumped from the river as if trying to catch bugs, display themselves before the Great Spirit, or hoping to see beyond their limited surroundings.  She heard the splash of their return to the water and imagined the rings created from their entrance.  The moment of silence was almost born.

Just before the silence began, with her eyes still closed, she heard a water snake slither across the bow of the boat, as if the craft were just another obstacle to conquer in the snake’s longing to find the endless green grasses on the other side.

Pachou savored every particle of the sounds of life and Earth Mother.  She heard the gentle winds speaking to the branches on the bushes and trees.  They moved as if unstoppable laughter touched them and released their inhibitions.

When every living and nonliving thing knew what was going to happen, pure silence came.  Birds stopped singing.  Small animals sat up, waiting for warmth.  Pachou opened her eyes and saw fish settle into the depths of the river.  Even the snake stopped moving in total abeyance of the coming of the big circle in the sky.

The winds subsided in acknowledgement of a sacred power still to evolve.  Earth Mother submitted, as if on bended knee with bowed head, in the peaceful acceptance of the beautiful coming of the Alma Chekka, the warming power from the Great Spirit.

Pachou lived that moment of silence manifold.  She knew to expect the absolute stillness of  Earth Mother.  That solemn respect was something that could be felt only in the privacy of the part of the Great Spirit that lived within.

As if it were planned, Pachou also knew at the moment of full light, activity would return to all of Earth Mother.  The morning light and warmth of the Alma Chekka would say, "Alohteh, or, Peace welcomes this day," in total respect for all that awaited it.  Birds would begin singing.  Small animals would continue the search for provender.  Fish began their day’s swimming journeys, replacing their joyous leaps from the water with a retreat to the seemingly bottomless riverbed.

On that morning of light, the water snake’s spirit awakened from its sustained motion which allowed it to continue the journey to the edge of the bow and fall gently into the welcoming grasses below.  The breezes began, cooling Pachou’s face to an awakened crispness and a gentle touch of love unlike any other part of the day.

That morning was no different.  Activity, silence, and the return to life occurred as they always had.  It was Pachou’s favorite part of each day.  Seldom did she sleep beyond the time of quiet and perfect peace.  Never would she want to miss such a personal greeting from the Great Spirit’s warming light.

As the Alma Chekka introduced itself to Earth Mother, Pachou looked at the sentry.  On her far right, a towering, sky-high rock sat patiently at attention, in light and darkness, rising above all valleys and passageways, peering over the lands below.  It needed no eyes, for it was responsible for knowing all.  Eyes saw in only one direction.  The sentry was omnipresent.  Its eyes were on the inside, not the limited outside, like Pachou’s.

The rock’s stable stature meant it had something special inside, a precious, born-within inspiration that let it gather all unto itself.  The sentry guarded and protected everything that lay before it.  Its presence brought a sense of awareness and comfort to every aspect of life in the meadowland valley.  As Pachou sat on the crossbar, she saw the outline of the large sentry rock against soft clouds, colored in layers, in the distant sky.

Pachou loved to watch Alma Chekka’s coming.  She always knew how the circle of the day sky would be.  It would come and leave looking the same each day.  Although hiding occasionally behind clouds, it never became smaller or larger.  It moved ever so slowly in distance from the sentry rock.  As the heat of day rose, the ruling light of the day gradually came up farther and farther away in distance from the sentry’s outline.  When blossoms adorned the trees and bushes, or cold winds colored all leaves, the circle for the day sky rose from behind the sentry, closer to where Pachou sat in the old vessel.

When it seemed to take forever for the circle of warmth to appear in the morning sky, Pachou had to turn her head to see the large circle rising just behind her shoulder.  The white frozen water gently floated down to the ground.  The severe cold days and nights lasted long, for the Alma Chekka rested then.  The big circle was presented each day for only a little while.  The lights of the night sky ruled when all was white.  Elongated darkness shadowed even the elder sentry rock.

Pachou tried to spend the beginning of each day sitting on the crossbar, watching for the light to come out of the darkness and enfold the sky.  It was sacred and peaceful.  One could actually see the movement of spirit in the arrival of light walking across the land.  It was the arrival of the Great Spirit’s presence, always known in perpetuity.

It was enough knowledge collecting for Pachou to have seen the rising of the large circle of light right behind the huge sentry.  That meant she had many chores to complete.

She got out of the old vessel, said, Good-bye, ‘friend of the ages,’ and scurried to find her gathering baskets.  Her value to the tribe was in picking berries, gathering long grasses from the meadows, finding small sticks and dried leaves, and presenting them all to the elder tribal members.  She was proud to be given such trustworthy, valued, and honored responsibilities.

Even though her eyes saw fewer small circles of full light in the night skies than the elder tribal members, the Earthworn Great One told her she had qualities of completeness.  Her name, Pachou, meant Total One.  She received distinguished honor from others, as she accepted treasured obligations.  The greater her responsibilities, the greater her excitement in knowing and experiencing the total confidence in her from the tribal members, the Earthworn Great One, and the Great Spirit, the supreme ruler of all that ever existed and would ever be.

Pachou picked up her baskets and walked to the edge of the river.  From there, she saw the full length of the grassy meadow, where she watched the rising of the Alma Chekka.  Her friend of the ages, the wooden