Oracle of the Northwoods

By Damia Xochil

A love story, a tragedy and a roadmap to navigate both.

 

Free spirited, nature lover, Dax, is perfectly content raising her adopted son on her own in the UP of Michigan. However, something deep and unexplainable changes inside after meeting the beautiful and educated Quinn.

 

Their encounter brings to life a love that Dax never knew existed.  All she wants is for Quinn to be happy...free from a past that haunts her mercilessly. The baggage remaining from Quinn's childhood would send most packing.  But Dax is not 'most'.

 

Ecstasy is impermanent. When tragedy strikes and leaves Dax alone once again, she is hurled into the discovery of an unexpected truth, both mystical and obvious.  Now, it's up to Dax to recognize the true source of happiness--through awareness, compassion and wisdom.  Can she escape the alluring web of fantasy and romance to face the demons of her own past and finally discover enduring love?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Damia Xochil
• Release date: Mar 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393940609

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Note

After All

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

January

February

March

April

Quote

Bibliography

Copyright

To the unfathomably beloved creature

within each of us

⁣

100% of the proceeds from this book are donated to the development and operating costs of trauma recovery and Vipassana meditation communities.

Go ahead, push your luck –

Find out how much love the world can hold

Once upon a time I had control and reined my soul in tight

Well, the whole truth is like the story of a wave unfurled

But I held the evil of the world

So I stopped the tide, froze it up from inside

And it felt like a winter machine that you go through and then

You catch your breath and winter starts again,

And everyone else is spring-bound

And when I chose to live, there was no joy

It’s just a line I crossed

It wasn’t worth the pain my death would cost, so I was not lost or found

And if I was to sleep, I knew my family had more truth to tell

And so I traveled down a whispering well,

To know myself through them

And sometimes I think my father, too, is a refugee

I know they tried to keep their pain from me

They could not see what it was for

But now I’m sleeping fine –

Sometimes the truth is like a second chance

I am the daughter of a great romance, and they are the children of the war

Well, the sun rose, with so many colors it nearly broke my heart

It worked me over like a work of art,

And I was a part of all that

So go ahead, push your luck – say what it is you gotta say to me

We will push on into that mystery

And it will push right back, and there are worse things than that

’Cause for every price, and every penance that I could think of

It’s better to have fallen in love, than never to have fallen at all

’Cause when you live in a world –

Well, it gets into who you thought you’d be

And now I laugh at how the world changed me

I think life chose me

After all

Written by: Dar Williams

After All lyrics © BMG Rights Management

Love comes when you’re ready

Love comes when you’re afraid;

It’ll be your greatest teacher

The best friend you have made

Written by: Kate Wolf

Give Yourself to Love lyrics © BMG Rights Management

here’s Laren?" I question the visitor standing by Laren’s expansive living room window, shifting sunlight dancing across her shoulders. She cradles a neatly trimmed rust-and-black-tinged terrier; the radiant picture of health.

Leaning a little to see fully around her asymmetrically styled blond hair, she answers, I don’t know. Do you need them? Her face is strong, round, and clear and she is clothed in a simple style. I notice that her colorful socks match every part of her meticulously attuned outfit, which, in turn, matches her strikingly blue eyes. There are no pretensions or discrepancy visible in any part of her. She fits together like a carefully crafted work of art.

‘Them’, is Laren...an androgynous teddy bear of a person who requests the pronouns they and them. I have never known Laren to have a houseguest before, since they are more than a little reclusive. In fact, Laren is nowhere to be seen, but the easy use of this pronoun establishes an odd familiarity and authorizes the houseguest’s presence.

I have always assumed Laren was gay, due to the absence of identifiable gender...but I have realized recently that that assumption comes from a very limited and stereotyped set of options. Like many of us who have been bombarded by oppressive gender assertions in childhood, I think Laren has simply chosen to opt out of the human sexuality game, directing their compassion and connection more toward animals and other elements of the natural world.

I just came by to drop off a book...

The eyebrow that I can see rises questioningly. A little embarrassed, I hold up my copy of: How to Win Friends And Influence People.

Is it good?

Grateful for the opportunity to explain, I answer, Very. It’s a text for a life coaching class I just started. It sounds a little sneaky...like how to trick people, but it’s not that. It’s about how to communicate in a way that builds receptivity and appreciation.

You are studying life coaching? I’ve been thinking of doing that. I just finished chiropractic school two years ago and wanted to move into some other area of natural healing or counseling.

You are a chiropractor?

Well, yes, but I’m not practicing. I work in a preschool. I enjoy working with kids, she explains simply. I’m Quinn.

I step inside the doorway I’ve been standing in and close the door behind me, taking in the buttery, nutty smell of teff (Lauren’s favorite breakfast cereal), warming and nourishing the room. About Quinn’s job choice…she seems gentle and humble, and I decide that she is just going where life needs her most, rather than to the place of highest social status.

I’m Dax.

Where is your life coaching class?

It’s online, mostly, but I will be having weekend workshops in Detroit, I tell her.

Where will you stay when you come down?

I don’t know...I was hoping to connect with some local classmates.

Well, I live in Detroit and have a guest room. You could stay with me. I’d like to talk more with you about what you are learning.

I would like that.

I don’t feel the Earth shift, but something is distracting me enough that I leave with my simple mission unaccomplished, the book that Laren requested still clutched under my arm.

And that’s it...until a month passes, and it’s time for my weekend in Detroit, and our second meeting.

She don’t see her perfect

She don’t understand she’s worth it

Written by: Alessia Caracciolo / Andrew Wansel /

Coleridge Tillman / Warren Felder

Scars to Your Beautiful lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

hen I come back from my first day of class, Quinn is quietly enduring a migraine. I offer a head massage, and she accepts.

She lies on the rug and I cradle her head in my hands, drawing on past massage and meditation training to summon what healing I can. I try to feel her pain. I fail at that, but am startled by images flooding through my mind, and words speaking through my mouth – a channeling of what I see and feel:

I feel this little girl...so hurt...so unseen, unknown, unknowable. She does not fit in with these people in her world, and they will never understand her extraordinary beauty. These people treat her as though she is wrong, bad, broken...but she is not. She is different from them...she is whole...she is perfect....

For an hour or more we go on like this. I don’t know where it’s coming from, or how she feels about it, but it just feels right.

There’s a room...in the basement.... It’s a scary place. Stay away from there. Grandma is safe. Grandma wants to help you hide. She knows that you are perfect. You can trust her.

We move to the sofa and I hold Quinn in my arms, curled in a ball...whispering to each other and soothing this energy that has been stirred up out of nowhere.

Do you get migraines much?

I used to. My mother passed away two weeks ago. I thought maybe I wouldn’t get them anymore, once she was gone. I have been haunted by my biological family. I never want to see any of them again.

Do you want to tell me about what happened with your family?

I...I don’t remember most of it. I just get little fragments and random memories here and there. What you were saying seemed almost more clear than what I can remember myself.

I’m sorry if that was weird. It has never happened to me before like that....

No. It made sense. I always felt like the ugly duckling...living in a family of ducks. But I’m not a duck.

It makes sense to her. Good enough. I can’t say that I understand it.

I think back to my eight-year-old self. Me, my sister, Darli, and the neighboring family’s three kids have decided to put on a production of The Sound of Music. I want the leading role. My best friend Lisa (who is also Darli’s best friend) has put herself in charge of our show.

You are not pretty enough, she confides to me on the side. Darli is the pretty one in your family...and she can sing, too!

Until that moment, I believed I was adorable! My takeaway: I am not beautiful or attractive, and even if no one says it, they think it.

Thank you, Dax. I’m not sure what just happened, but the migraine is gone.

Well, I’ve got class tomorrow, I hear myself say, still entranced by the evening’s unfolding. I’d better go to sleep.

Are you sure? You want to sleep in the guest room?

Yes. I’m tired. Big day tomorrow.

I’m also confused and overwhelmed. Does she like me? I can’t even dare hope.

This kind of romance doesn’t happen to me. I have been attracted to women throughout my life, but for whatever reason the feeling has never been mutual, and the trying has weighed heavily on me. I tried dating. I was even married to a man for a while. It didn’t work out.

Now, middle-aged with a teenage son, I have not, for a long time, even entertained those thoughts.

She’s so real, radiant, in touch with herself. She’s ten years younger than I am.

What could she possibly see in me? I will not make up what is not there. I will not want what is not offered. She is feeling emotional over the loss of her mother, and I have no desire to trespass on what she has tenderly confided.

In a cloud of emotional fatigue, I excuse myself to my assigned space.

As I’m returning from class the next day, Quinn is just arriving home on a red bike, Simon riding proudly in the back basket. Simon goes right to work, jumping out of the basket to bark at me. Quinn snaps her fingers and he retreats to her side without question.

Wow! I exclaim. Did you take him somewhere to get him trained, or was he trained before you got him?

He was a rescue dog. I did all his training. She lifts her hand into a cup, silently, and he settles into a sitting position next to her. Simon is clearly a dog who knows his purpose.

You are a dog whisperer!

I don’t know about that. Quinn smiles modestly. But I do know how to take good care of them. Can you guess how old Simon is?

Well...he looks like a young dog, but he sure doesn’t act like one....

He’s seventeen...but he gets lots of exercise, and only the best food…and emu oil! I think he might live another ten years.

I don’t know whether that’s possible, but I believe it, anyway. She is obviously doing everything right with him.

Does Simon go everywhere with you?

He’s a support dog. It’s all part of his training. He keeps me calm. It seems to work. She is the picture of poise and balance.

I look around for the car that she drove to visit Laren.

Where do you keep your car?

That’s one of the great things about living in the city – I can bike everywhere. I’m part of a car co-op...that’s how I drive when I need to, but mostly I don’t need to.

That is the best argument I’ve heard for city living. I wish I didn’t have to drive so much. But I still couldn’t live in the city!

For the remainder of the weekend, while I’m not in class or burrowing into my studies, we enjoy each other’s company in a cordial way. We plan to meet again when I come back for my next class, at the end of the following month.

On the route home, I take a detour of about twenty miles to pick up Jason, who has been staying with my parents for the weekend. Five years ago, my mother and father moved from the small town of Waabizii, Michigan, where I grew up and where Jason and I now live, to an agricultural area three hours south of us, to help my father’s comrade Jimmy, on his farm.

I have no love lost for Uncle Jimmy. In fact, I didn’t even attend his funeral when he passed, a year ago. Best to just let dead dogs die, is what I figured.

My parents have stayed on, in that same house we visited regularly throughout my childhood. It doesn’t stink of Jimmy anymore...my mother, New Englander that she is, has cleaned it up and made it comfortable, which is the only reason I let Jason stay with them.

Jason is now a sophomore in our local high school. Until moving back to my hometown for the public-school social experience, I homeschooled him for most of his childhood. Jason is moving into his man-body, before my eyes. He grows taller daily, and has just passed my own height, a fact that he is especially proud of. It seems like I could just stand there and watch him grow, like a squash plant in midsummer.

I often wonder how long Jason will choose to live with me. I myself went screaming out of the nest at sixteen, propelled by the power of my own darkness and on a journey to illuminate it with the light of day. I needed to understand my demons in order to release their hold on me.

After five years of college and two decades traveling to try on various occupations, I landed at a California meditation center. Sitting in meditation and serving courses there for a few years was the best preparation I can imagine for parenthood. I was ready by the time Jason came around.

I might not have returned to Waabizii, if my parents were still living here.... Not because I don’t love them, or am even really trying to avoid them, but because my own path has felt so precious and ambiguous. You know how it is when you’re trying to sing in harmony, and if you’re too close to the other singers, you start singing the wrong notes, which aren’t really one part or the other? It’s like that. Because of this, I have often found it hard to identify my own needs while living close to other adult people.

I also wouldn’t have come back to Waabizii if it weren’t for Jason. At fourteen, he announced a desire to go to real high school. This was our compromise: a real school in a tiny town, with my lifeline to the wilderness close and accessible.

It’s late when we get home, but we need to finish Jason’s spelling homework, due tomorrow, which he avoided doing all weekend at his grandparents’. While he has historically been a great speller, he is getting increasingly frustrated.

Photosynthesis, I challenge him.

F...no...P-H-O... He trails off.

How do you spell photo?

P-H-O-T-O...but I can’t hear the rest.

Hear?

It was easier for me when I was little, back in Idaho, when we played the spelling game at night. After the sun went down, I could hear the spelling better.

Ha! I never thought of it like that! Things are really different in the world of electricity, aren’t they? Such a carefree time that was, only a few years ago – living immersed in nature.

I really miss that too. Let’s try it!

We turn out the lights and lie down in the dark, on the living room rug.

Photosynthesis, I say again.

P-H-O-T-O...S-Y-N-T-H-E-S-I-S! I can hear his pleasure.

Rhythm.

R-H-Y-T-H-M.

How about that! I congratulate him. Maybe when you’re in school, you can just close your eyes.

In the darkness, I can hear the breathing of that wild, tree-climbing boy, his long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. I reach over and tousle the roguish teenager mop that he has left and, basking in the warmth of love, appreciate.

Two weeks after my return from Detroit, the phone rings. It’s Quinn. An unexplainable happiness floods my veins. I’m coming up to visit Laren again. Will you be around?

Sure. Jason’s got school. I’ll be here. And even if Jason and his school ceased to exist, I would still be here, to see you.

Well... actually... Laren has been having allergies to Simon. I was wondering whether we could stay with you?

Uh, sure! I try not to gurgle out loud. Something is grabbing me in the throat.

Are you sure? Do you have room? I won’t be in your way?

No... Yes!... That would be fun.

And then she’s here. Standing in my kitchen with Simon obediently by her side. Jason is at school, and the moment is ripe, open and undiscovered.

I felt great when we were making those smoothies for breakfast when you visited...clean and energetic. They kept me going all day! So I brought things from the city to make them.

She unpacks blueberries, coconut oil, and ginger from the Detroit health food store, eggs from the farmer’s market. Do you have goat kefir?

You know I do! I never go far from a source of raw goat milk. I am a backwoods hippie at heart (a.k.a. crazy, health-nut bohemian, if you ask my kid). I always planted a garden wherever we landed, raised goats and chickens, built our home, and tried to selectively filter Jason’s home-education…to best prepare him to walk in a balanced way in the world. He not only walked, but ran through the mountains of Northern California and Idaho in home-made deerskin moccasins.

We make our smoothies and drink them out on the back porch in the sun, Simon following along as Quinn’s ever-present silent shadow.

Did I tell you that my job will be ending in a month? she asks. The preschool site is getting shut down for code and safety violations.

No, I say, even though she had. This subject feels like an opportunity, and I want to talk about it. Do you know what you will do next?

I know a lot of families from the school that need help... The folks across the street want me to work for them as a house manager.

Do you think you will? Do you like them?

I do. I think we are a much better match than the school.

A rush of sensation hits me as I realize what I want – more than anything. "I need a house manager!" is what hurls out of my mouth.

What am I talking about?! I can’t hire her! Okay, it was said in a way that she can just laugh