Round Earth, Open Sky

By Kirpal Gordon

Round Earth, Open Sky is a psychological suspense thriller and Native American sci-fi road novel that doubles as an inquiry into the nature of human identity. During a mid-summer observance, Sky Man, an immortal, tricked by human sorcery, falls out of the sky and accidentally into a dead human out in the Sonoran desert. Seeking the location of the hole-in-the-sky ceremony so he can return to his sky people, he stumbles upon a boxcar family and more of the dead human he inhabits comes to light. When he finds a road, a car pulls up, and everywhere the driver takes him, more clues are revealed. Stops in the Hopi and Navaho Nations, Oak Creek Canyon, Detroit, Ontario and the Ojibwe Nation unfold different threads of the dead man’s identity, but much of the evidence contradicts, requiring Sky Man to call his host back from the dead before he can make his ascent to his sky people. “Part mystical vision, part cosmic joke, REOS is Kirpal Gordon at the top of his game, by turns lyrical and ironic, magical and subversive, moving past the vanishing point where Jack Kerouac meets Carlos Castaneda. Gordon is a consummate postmodern trickster, wanting nothing more than ‘to stir a little gray into the either/or, black-and-white world,’ leading us to laugh at what we think we know, and to humble ourselves to a world that will always be much larger than we can imagine.” Stephen-Paul Martin. “Gordon flirts with the borders of fantasy and science fiction to create a novel whose heightened reality entertains and illuminates simultaneously. When Sky Man literally falls to earth from a plane of existence beyond it, Moses becomes the first of many colorful and complex characters to try to determine what he is and whether his true nature lies in the heavens, the earth, or both. A highly entertaining journey.” Vernon Frazer. “In the middle of nowhere, a photographer gives a lift to a mysterious stranger and finds himself the passenger on a surprising, and sometimes sinister, journey toward discovery and self-revelation that carries them both through the perils of obscure Native American tribal rites to the portals of metempsychosis and the magical reality behind ‘reality’ which erases past and present and, at the same time, recreates them. Gordon unrolls a map that irresistibly lures its characters, and the reader, toward a spectacular life- and death-transforming climax.” Eric Basso. "Gordon's imagination is unsurpassed; his ability to draw the reader in with a mix of humor, mysticism, reality and tenderness is amazing." David A. Safran. "REOS has the clear potential to be a cult novel. It will attract readers who are on their own spiritual journey and who suspect that 'there is another world, and it's in this one.'" Dr. Michael Hogan. "Brilliant imagery, brilliant language, the strength of its characters, its storytelling; and the ride: wild and wooly; and fearlessly imagined by Gordon to depths rarely seen, or so effectively engaged." Denis Gray. "Altogether a marvellous read, constantly forcing me to readjust my grasp of its multiple narratives, to reexamine the nature of identity itself and to confront the mystery of 'mending the tear in the world.'" David Cope "By far, the best novel I've read of my generation: Gordon has created a work of holy parables." Jim Cohn. "Fast-paced and covers multiple genres and fulfills in each. Witty, deep, violent & sensual." Cheryl Townsend. "A perfect blend of yin and yang; entertaining, original, and has the strong personal voice of a talented writer." Steve Hirsch. "A fun, mystical road trip from the Land of the Hopi to Manitoulin Island." Paul Rosheim. "A remarkably inventive novel. The fusion of sci-fi & mystery together with indigenous elements make for an exciting first-class ride, flawlessly executed." Steve Voliva. "A fascinating portrayal of connectedness; textured characters involved in their own AND interrelated paths; spiritual and physical worlds interwoven through poetic language" J.A. Bellusci<

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kirpal Gordon
• Release date: Jun 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005998073

Book preview

Round Earth, Open Sky

Some praises for the first edition of Round Earth, Open Sky:

Amazing book, start to finish! The work draws its compassionate hybrid vision from American Indian, Buddhist, and Judeo/Christian mysticisms as well as its celebration of compassion and open-heartedness, elements of the author’s own aesthetic lineage and varied personal experience. But it’s the meta-elements of the work that are so profound, the great truths wrapped within magic characters in picaresque multiverse landscapes from the Arizona deserts to the lakes of Michigan wilds, and centered around the psychic trans-spiritual figure of Sky Man from whom we regain an eternal delight in the power of language we widely inhabit, which is also our world. By far, the best novel I’ve read of my generation; Gordon has created a work of holy parables.

—Jim Cohn

Naked, animal-like, a curious alien being slips out from the US-Mexican desert landscape to mingle on the margins of civilization, a sky-man inhabiting the body of an unidentified dead son. Like a new born unraveling the needs of its new form, his journey is both disorienting & very entertaining. He pieces together the meanings of our world & his own purpose for time spent among us, helped by his host-body’s lingering memories & those of a wild range of encountered characters. Shifting details of 21st C. life are everywhere evident. We get intimate access to a cosmic awakening. Round Earth, Open Sky is a remarkably inventive novel. The fusion of sci-fi & mystery together with indigenous elements make for an exciting first-class ride, flawlessly executed. Kirpal Gordon’s writing here seems the perfect salve for a US that has lost what little humanity it once pretended to have.

—Steve Voliva

A masterpiece of creative invention. Sky Man and Moses Abitol are an odd couple, to be sure. But Abitol, a New York freelance photographer (a visual person, a wanderer), is Gordon’s particular stroke of genius, by mating him with Sky Man, this mysterious, magical character, who drops out the sky, whose mission is to mend the tear in the world and return to his cosmic home. It’s a journey of enlightenment, where earthly values are often skewed when pitted against a competing universe of existing myths and legends and cultures, and other pathways not easily explainable, but ever present in the universe’s consciousness. A joy to read because of its brilliant imagery, brilliant language, the strength of its characters, its storytelling; and the ride: wild and wooly; and fearlessly imagined to depths rarely seen, or, for that matter, so effectively engaged.

—Denis Gray

(more reviews on page 175)

Kirpal Gordon

_________________________________

Round Earth, Open Sky

https://giantstepspress.blogspot.com

Copyright © 2011; 2020 Kirpal Gordon

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief quotes in reviews.

An early version of Chapter One appeared in Paul Rosheim’s Obscure Publications, 2002.

Gordon, Kirpal, 1952 –

Round Earth, Open Sky

ISBN: 9798614436179

Printed in The United States of America.

Cover montage by JT © 2011 www.johnmillstead.com

Back cover author photo by Paula Siwek © 2018 PaulaSiwek.com

Formatting and Technical Consultancy

Steven Hirsch

([e-mail])

Emily Rivera

https://emilyrivera846220394.wordpress.com/

Second Edition

GIANT STEPS PRESS

GiantStepsPress.com

Sometimes I go about in pity for myself 

and all the while

a great wind carries me across the sky

—Ojibwe saying

Act 1 / Sonora

The memory of the nights I had drunk blood and eaten flesh under the full moon became firmly lodged in me: a compulsion, a menace always waiting there, a grief and a fear too ancient, a sorrow bred into the essence of the race, a lodestone too old for any individual to fight away from, or even to know and place accurately.

—Doris Lessing, Briefing for a Descent into Hell

1

Hiking up out of an arroyo, Sky Man smelled fire on the wind. He crouched low on the lichen-niched shelf and looked to the west. Below a late afternoon sky, eight rusted boxcars sat in a semi-circle surrounded by wide open desert.

He closed his eyes.

During the waxing and waning of three full moons, he had camped by many sites where things materialized just like this, erupting from under the ground or out of the wind or down from the sky. Some turned out to be only the sun’s shimmering sirens, but other appearances changed form in front of him or coaxed him into singing and dancing their songs.

When he opened his eyes, the boxcars had not dissolved, taken flight or turned into something else. He took this as a propitious sign.

Sitting downwind under an outcrop of rock, he wondered about the ghost-like shapes that hung on a line of rope between two boxcars: dresses, tee shirts, pants, tube socks, bras.

He watched and waited. Clouds gathered at the horizon.

He considered that the U-shaped arrangement of the boxcars was a magnet of medicine drawing him closer. Tracing the U-shaped scar on each palm, he felt the presence of an ill, brown-skinned boy-human with jet-black hair and a cowlick. So Sky Man made himself visible, and when the boy arrived a little while later with a tin pot full of water, he told Sky Man in a confidential tone, I found Meester Spidee when I got you something to drink.

Sky Man had not spent enough time around humans to know what to make of these word-sounds. The few humans he had met in the desert were medicine people who were not deceived by his being in a human body. They accepted what they could not understand. What mattered to them was the healing.

The brown boy-human put one hand in the tin pot, pulled the daddy long legs out and blew on his hand to get the spider high in the air.

He gonna fall a long way, meester, but he don’t die, see?

While absorbed in its downward flight, Sky Man re-lived his own recent descent to earth from a hole in the sky. While gaining velocity, his fear had turned to awe because the ground he fast approached appeared to be merely a mirror reflecting his own particles of light dropping through space. Upon impact, instead of splattering into broken pieces or refracting into sun beams, he fell through the mirror, which was neither glass nor death but cool and delicious lake water embracing him as he slipped into a drowned human body.

Moved by the remembrance, the caring boy-human and the flight of the spider, a hot stream of tears ran down his cheeks. Grateful, he took the water to drink.

Such was his humble baptism.

As the boy returned to the U-shaped settlement, Sky Man made out faded white letters on the side of a boxcar. He did not know what Santa Fe spelled or meant, but he carefully traced the shape of the letters in the air. Only later would he realize that letters made the sounds that humans spoke, but right now he listened to the three children play and scream and shout, Ring-a-leerio: one, two, three. He heard vowels stretching the skins of their consonant clusters and then wearing out, like the kids themselves stretched on the ground, worn weary by the blazing heat, panting for breath or playing dead.

At the sound of their mother’s voice, they joyfully came alive again, running and jumping and shouting their way to a buckboard table. As they held hands over the food, the sun danced a last splinter of light on his canteen, and a memory from the dead human he embodied revealed someone looking just like him sitting at a maple table in a dress shirt and necktie eating Christmas dinner.

While the sun set in a crimson sky at one end of the horizon, a half moon rose at the other. From his medicine pouch he spread his bones and shells and talismans, made his obeisance to the four directions, stepped inside the circle, rolled out his poncho and lay down.

Burrowing into the darkest recesses of his rib cage, he curled himself up into a place only moonlight could reach. When that lunar disk burst her creamy petals inside his cranium, he awoke to see the shadow of the woman, lit from behind by the kerosene lamp, grow huge on the bed sheet stretched over the rusty boxcar’s broken door.

She extinguished the lamp, and he watched as she headed in his direction. Up close she was short and fierce, her brown eyes big, almost no lashes. Her fingertips smelled of soap and candle smoke, and she wore a long white dress and white sneakers with no laces.

When she was close enough to touch, he stood up.

No tenga miedo, she said trying to sound nonchalant.

His eyes did not blink; his mouth did not move.

She added, I’ve been praying you and presto: here you are.

Realizing that she was inside his magic circle of cositas, she made the sign of the cross and stepped back. Not expecting it to go like this, she took her hair out of its rubber band. Its shining black length fell to her waist.

She watched him closely, but he gave away no clues.

Sky Man saw the intersecting pictures of hope and fear his human disguise inspired in her mental field: a tall hunter with a ragged beard in a frayed straw hat; lost or maybe dropped off by an unidentified flying object; long and dark hair, tan skin, light gray eyes; possibly an escaped lunatic or killer; dressed in a dirty long-sleeved cotton shirt, dusty huaraches and a pair of pants cut from sacks of flour stitched together; wearing a necklace of long ago, putting down a spear and reaching now into his medicine bag to grab what—a gun, a knife, a tomahawk?

Instead, he placed in her palm a juju stone as a sign of welcome.

She kissed the stone and put it in her dress pocket.

I could use a hand around here for a couple of days, she said and raised her hands up in the air in a gesture she hoped would indicate a sign of peace.

He did as she did.

They stood there, two creatures from different worlds, mirroring one another as if together they held a passageway to a common world, their fingers almost touching. When she saw the scars on his palms and traced their U-shape with her finger, she cried out, Madre de Dios, and ran back to the boxcars.

Sky Man sat back down, watched and waited.

She returned with food, a book and the cowlicked boy.

Bless my Bible and heal my son.

The boy-human’s arm reached forward and touched Sky Man’s cheek.

As he had done on other half-moon ceremonies, Sky Man shook a rattle and sang a little prayer to the immortals who had taught him in a dream this healing technique. He placed two bones and three tubes on the stomach of the little boy and pushed hard on the bones while he continued to sing and rattle. Unbeknownst to mother and child, as he sucked on the tubes, shapes began to emerge in Sky Man’s body, like images coming to life on photographic paper. Picture after picture of the disease deep in the boy’s insides blushed open into Sky Man’s bloodstream. When the circuitry was complete and each picture ran into the next, he swallowed the bones and then spit them out. He repeated this cycle with the bones and tubes three more times before the boy’s ailment finally released its grip.

Though the woman did not see Sky Man’s spirit guides carry away the disease, the boy smiled when the session was over and said, Mommy, yo tengo hambre. Because her child never had much appetite, she took this as a sign that he was healed. She sat man and boy down and served them a thin stew ladled onto tin plates. She grabbed the book bound in old newspaper, opened it at random and read aloud: Who is this who comes from the wilderness, leaning upon his beloved? When I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised.

Struck by the passage, she loaded her son up with plates, told him to look after the other children and sat next to Sky Man, inside his enclosure of gris-gris.

Thanks for healing my boy, she said in a voice admitting more than gratitude. He saw her picture of him as a creature from outer space dissolve, and they watched the moon, close enough to touch, as it moved in the sky. Destiny finally emboldened her, but as she grabbed his hand to hold, her thumbnail accidentally pierced his U-imprinted palm.

Droplets of blood trickled out.

She whispered, La sangre de mi señor.

Although she thought this milagro to be the stigmata of her savior, it did not stop her tongue from licking the wound clean. Nor did it stop her tongue from sending her sexual charge through his skin. Nor did it stop her lips from whispering over and over, The blood of my Lord, Hey-sus Christay.

Sky Man watched the way the words formed from her lips.

Hey-sus, he repeated, astounded by his tongue, which was nothing more than a foolish piece of flesh in his mouth with a mind of its own, perhaps with no mind at all, like that other piece of flesh saluting absurdly out from under his pants.

She touched her lips to his until his mouth opened. When she swallowed his tongue deep down into the cave of her mouth, he knew his sex hunger was broadcasting his location to all who might be seeking to hunt and gather him.

The desert had shown him that each inseparable piece of the joinery, whether a unit of life or a spirit spun free by death, was hungry but could not eat itself. So it was hunting and gathering and eating all it could in preparation to be hunted and gathered and eaten by something hungrier than itself. To prove it to him, the desert had pitched her tent in his chest cave and taken over the image-making machinery in his brain to reveal her ancient ways of hunting and gathering in pictures so powerful he made himself a sacrifice to her. For only when he had been hunted and gathered, eaten and digested by the desert did her powers, following the ceremonies of smoke and cactus bud, break through the crust of his skin. Then the healing surged with the sun and the moon for the circulation of his heart and mind knew no boundary. Imbued by the desert that had devoured him, he walked the fragrance of the purple sage after the rain. Nothing was either inside or outside of him but in the spirit of the desert breathing, a breath that taught him to discern trouble.

He listened now for trouble, but the night was still and absent of all who would hunt and gather him.

She undressed him and laid him on his back. The touch of her tongue on his skin was moonlight calling up everything dead and buried within him to dance in luminous glow.

Hey-sus Christay, el cuerpo de mi señor, she said, stretched her shuddering body over his and took him inside of her.

Instead of dying in sacrifice as he had prepared himself for, she led him into a new understanding, one that bridged the phantasmagoric human mind with the silence of the desert and