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Trailing Sky Six Feathers

One Man’s Journey with His Muse

Ian Prattis

Copyright © 2014 by Ian Prattis.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906158ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4931-9678-4 Softcover 978-1-4931-9679-1 eBook 978-1-4931-9677-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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CONTENTS

Publications By Ian Prattis .......................................................................7Praise For Trailing Sky Six Feathers ...........................................................9Acknowledgments .................................................................................11

PART ONE: THE MUSE

Chapter One The Raid ................................................................17Chapter Two Renewal ..................................................................41Chapter Three Traversing ...............................................................54

PART TWO: THE MAN

Chapter Four Remembering .........................................................67Chapter Five Healing and Transformation ...................................89Chapter Six Rainbow Bridge Calling ........................................107Chapter Seven The Compass Changes .........................................128

PART THREE: THE UNITY

Chapter Eight Consciousness and the Muse.................................149Chapter Nine The Circle Closes .................................................169

Appendix I Shamanic Journey .................................................185Chronology Timeline ...............................................................193

The Author .........................................................................................197

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PUBLICATIONS BY IAN PRATTIS

• Anthropology at the Edge: Essays on Culture, Symbol, and Consciousness

• The Essential Spiral: Ecology and Consciousness After 9/11• Failsafe: Saving the Earth from Ourselves• Earth My Body, Water My Blood• Redemption• Eight e-books, 2011-2012 on Amazon Kindle• 2 CDs• 2 DVDs• 4 films• 100 professional articles/chapters/book reviews published in

world journals• 10 scientific and technical reports• 26 electronic publications of television courses broadcast at

Carleton University and by TVO• 50 articles in Pine Gate, an online Buddhist journal• 150 articles in newspapers, community magazines• www.ianprattis.com

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PRAISE FOR TRAILING SKY SIX FEATHERS

Dawn James, author of Raise Your Vibration, speaker, consultant, sound healer, teacher www.raiseyourvibration.ca

“I feel what they feel; I hear what they hear” . . . as Ian Prattis

eloquently captures the inner dialogues of his characters as they face

emotional upheavals, unplanned events, and brilliant realizations

of personal and spiritual power. In Trailing Sky Six Feathers: One

Man’s Journey with His Muse, you find yourself walking beside each

character with each turning page, joining them on their journey until

together, we reach the final destination of discovering our true nature

and purpose in life. A must-read!

Dr. Tom Hynoski, philosopher, chiropractor, community builder

I look forward to the exploits of this time traveler, Eagle Speaker,

who lives in the far-off mountains of inspiration. Trailing Sky’s final

words to her husband chilled my body and warmed my soul. Love

is interdimensional, and Trailing Sky will follow it just as the great

migratory flocks follow the unformed path across the sky. Much

thanks for sharing this with me. Namaste.

Bob Allen, founding CEO and chief storyteller at the independent film studio i.d.e.a.s. Orlando, an offshoot of Disney; VP, Disney Production Services, Orlando, 1992–2001

I am familiar with both Ian’s oral style and his writing as a mentor

and Buddhist teacher. But this is a new voice, a very fresh and

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captivating voice, and it offers a narrative that will engage audiences.

Ian’s character—for that is really who the teller is here—permits

him the objectivity of time and distance, and he rewards us with a

transparent honesty that makes us part of this journey—which of

course we are all on.

Melissa Studdard, award-winning author of Six Weeks to Yehidah, editor of Criterion; professor of English literature; radio show host of Tiferet Talk Interviews

A thrilling adventure spanning four centuries, Ian Prattis’s Trailing

Sky Six Feathers: One Man’s Journey with His Muse renders nothing

less than a complete transformation of karma. In addition to

weaving a narrative that will captivate readers from the first page

to the last, Prattis tells a story of depth and substance, one that,

through example, has the potential to activate healing and promote

understanding. This is the story of determination, of humanity’s true

nature and greatest potential, of how we can live in harmony.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

IN THE SUMMER of 2010, my friend Joseph Kennedy and his wife, Helen, offered their secluded cottage on a beautiful lake so

I could begin the work on this manuscript. In the solitude, a first draft about four centuries of my consciousness began to emerge. Their repeated kindness in providing the perfect locale to write is deeply appreciated. This book has been percolating in my mind for over two hundred and thirty years, yet how do I write about the Muse, Trailing Sky Six Feathers, my Native American wife and medicine woman in whose arms I died in 1777? She vows to find me in a future time, despite the overwhelming resistance from my intellectual mind to remember her.

All traces of me from the manuscript were removed for a while after that summer. Two years passed by. In the spring of 2012, I returned to the remote cottage and manuscript. I began to absorb what I had previously written and transmuted it to another level with copyediting advice from my wife, Carolyn. Her contribution to the manuscript was immense, as the collision of past life with present time influenced her as well as me.

I had immense support and encouragement from many sources. The biggest impact on my “remembering” was Trailing Sky Six Feathers herself. Past life memories collided head on with my present life, all thanks to her persistence, the Muse who refused to give up. The relentless shadowing by this engaging Muse from the eighteenth century brought understanding not only to me, but to anyone striving to overcome the darkness of their past.

In the spring of 2013, the lure of a writer’s retreat in Sedona was irresistible. My companion writers arrived as strangers, and we left as a tight-knit family. Their talent and bravery to bring forward deeply

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personal issues in their writing impressed me. As did our day on the land with a gifted guide, Clint Frakes, which culminated in a medicine wheel ceremony that deeply affected every one of us.

EagleSpirit, a contemporary shaman from New Brunswick in Canada, took photos of the medicine wheel after we had left it. She caught a light beam right in the middle of the medicine wheel, exactly where I had been standing. With her permission, that photo adorns the cover of this book. Also on the front cover is a superimposed photo of a statue of Sacawajea sculpted by John M. Soderberg. My humble thanks to EagleSpirit and John for their gifts to this work. My niece Theresa Kelly and her partner, Steve da Costa, sculpted these two photos into the front cover for the book. I offer my appreciation of their skill and care.

I benefited enormously from my fellow writers who bared their souls in beautifully written and courageous prose. I could do no less. My thanks to Lydia Ramsey, Gary Finnan, Randy Webster, Daniella Panet-Raymond, Diana Howe-Richards, Krista Houstoun, Susan Mullen, Mary Beth Robinson, Dana Srebenick, Mary Enright-Olson, Darlene Simmonds, Lori Morrison Novoa, EagleSpirit, Pat Knauss, Charisse Webster, Pauleen Robertson, and Arlene Dreste.

The keen editing eyes of the brilliant facilitators, Lisa Fugard and Julie Colvin, led me to cut prose that I liked but did not need. In the rewrite, I introduced, where necessary, a harsh and somewhat ugly honesty that brought the missing edge to the adventure. Throughout the manuscript, the footprint of Trailing Sky Six Feathers danced lightly. Though sometimes she needed heavy wooden clogs on her feet to kick my backside so I would fully wake up to her presence.

I also attended the fall writers retreat in Sedona with the same facilitators to create the final refinements to my book. It was a privilege to share excerpts from the work with gifted writers and facilitators. My personal journey through four centuries of consciousness seemed to strike a chord. That insignia continued once the retreat finished, as Carolyn joined me for a further week to explore the extraordinary terrain of Red Rock Country. Clint Frakes took us out on the land, walking in to Cathedral Rock from Red Rock Crossing at sunrise. We climbed a

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vertical cliff to a hidden space where Clint conducted a sacred ceremony for us in front of two soaring slabs of pictoglyphs, painted and carved.

We left hours later, transformed and imbued with the reality of Trailing Sky Six Feathers. Walking the land evoked the latticework of vortex energy, challenging us to be the best we can. Later in the day, just before sunset, Clint provided an awesome medicine wheel experience for us. He had rebuilt this wheel many years ago, and before we left this sacred place, he took out a stone, the size of my hand, from the medicine wheel and gave it to me. A gift to call us home to the awakened self that has been sleeping. My debt to Clint and to the land of the Red Rock Country is completely beyond words.

The integral person of my book, Trailing Sky Six Feathers, was everywhere. Nowhere so strong and beautiful as when Carolyn perused the Kopavi Gallery, just across the road from Tlaquepaque, Sedona’s most exotic market. In the Kopavi Gallery, Carolyn was shown an eagle feather pendant in 18K gold. It was intricately hand-carved by John Coochywpten of the Hopi Tobacco Clan, a master goldsmith who blessed each of his pieces with prayer and ceremony before they went to market. The pendant was small, approximately one slim inch long. The foundation was a beautifully crafted eagle feather in gold. John Coochywpten placed a medicine wheel at the top of the feather and rested an eagle head with an all-seeing diamond eye upon it. The two diamonds at the bottom of the feather depicted two travelers through time. The pendant had a simmering power to it that Carolyn felt deeply. She gasped with surprise the moment she saw it, as it was a symbolic reflection of this book and the modern-day adventure she and I were exploring. This gold and diamond pendant spoke of Trailing Sky Six Feathers’ legacy to us.

While Carolyn was upstairs in the Kopavi Gallery, I had been sitting outside on a wooden bench, taking in the sky, the moving clouds, the sound of Oak Creek with traffic as a background hum. I was inadvertently ready for a sign, which came in a totally hilarious manner. I meditated, and after a short internal dialog with Trailing Sky about my next steps, I opened my eyes. I saw a white utility van slowly approaching

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the round-about right in front of me. Emblazoned in bold, red capital letters on the side panel was the logo “YOU GOTTA DO IT!”

I laughed out loud at that and later wondered how Trailing Sky had managed such perfect timing. I went upstairs to join Carolyn in the Kopavi Gallery. She was telling the manager of the gallery the story of my book and why the eagle pendant had spoken so deeply to her. I could see how elated Carolyn was, with that secret smile she saves for rare occasions. And there was the talisman of Trailing Sky Six Feathers and Eagle Speaker in minute detail and provocative power. I looked at it for a long moment. Carolyn softly asked me if I saw and felt its resonance. There was no hesitation on my part. After all, I had just received the message “YOU GOTTA DO IT!” Carolyn knew intuitively that the pendant symbolized my book and our twenty-first century adventure. We were glowing with confirmation.

Carolyn and I were forever changed by this gift. I offer homage to the Hopi goldsmith, as John Coochywpten suffered a stroke after completing this incredible piece of art and lost the use of his right arm. This was the last piece he ever made. I can never thank him enough for creating the symbol that provided Carolyn and I with such startling confirmation.

PART ONETHE MUSE

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CHAPTER ONE

The Raid

“PUT YOUR WEAPONS down, my husband,” Trailing Sky said quietly with steely insistence. Her voice penetrated Eagle

Speaker’s mind. There was an authority he had not heard before.“The Sky People taught me how to make myself invisible.

Concentrate and look only into my eyes so you may not be seen. Otherwise, we will both die.” Eagle Speaker hesitated, then laid down his long rifle and hunting knife on the floor of their simple dwelling.

“There are too many of them,” she said. “We will fight a different way, another time. Look into my eyes and no place else.”

Trembling with rage, he fixed his gaze upon the face of his wife as she began to chant quietly. Her dark eyes penetrated right through him, and her soft voice was all that registered. The cries, screams, and gunshots around them receded. Only her chant penetrated, only those blazing eyes holding him in thrall. Time stopped as she gathered energies from domains not known to him. They sat facing one another while the Tonto Apache raiding party took their deadly toll.

Their enemies had come silently, before sunrise, from three directions. At the north end of the summer settlement on the verdant river fringed by oak and maple trees, a dozen newly traded horses were tethered. A party of warriors slit the throats of the boys on guard. Two Apaches led the horses away to the east. The remainder brought their guns and savagery to the outlying dwellings. Another party of ten heavily armed warriors came without a sound from the south, while two dozen crossed the river from the east. They were deadly and killed without mercy, save for young women taken as captives.

As the screams and gunshots gave way to an eerie silence in his mind, Trailing Sky said, “Bury your gun in the trench I have dug at the wall.

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You will not be able to use it where we are going. We must return to the old ways that your grandfather taught you. Follow me. Concentrate so that your rage and grief do not overcome you.” She paused and entreated her husband with her eyes. “They will return, they have the horses and the young women. They will come back. We must go now, like ghosts in the darkness.”

They left their summer dwelling. He looked around him and saw the slain elders, their heads smashed. Children lay dead with slit throats. The rage swelled in his chest.

She called sharply to him, “Look only at me or we will join the dead. We must escape with our lives.” Her voice was both a plea and a command. He saw the tears streaming down her face and steeled himself to look only at her.

Trailing Sky led her husband to the river. Alert and watchful, they made quick progress, wading along the river that had sheltered their summer settlement. They frequently paused to listen carefully. All they heard was the murmur of the river as it poured over rills of rock, and the pounding of their hearts and breath. The canopy provided by the large oaks and maples kept them from view once the river turned sharply upstream, narrowing through red buttes that soared on either side. Pinon pines dotted the unique rock formations as Trailing Sky looked for the cut through the rock wall.

After several hours, they found it, left the river, and headed to the sacred canyons to the west, climbing to the ponderosa pines close to the canyon rim. A vantage point to stay concealed from any attackers. Once clear, they descended. The ponderosas gave way to juniper and pinon pines, then to desert scrub with cactus plants and sandstone rocks. With little cover, they quickly traversed the open rock faces. She found a deer trail that veered to the north, and they took this route, again climbing higher above the river plain before crossing two canyons to the west by nightfall.

Instinctively, Eagle Speaker followed the slim form of his wife though his heart and spirit were heavy, full of sorrow, shame, and anger. She was elegant and surefooted. She knew where she was going. He felt in awe

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of this woman he was bonded to by threads of time of which he had no understanding.

As night fell, they settled under a large rocky outcrop sheltered from view by a clump of juniper trees. Safe from the raiding party, it had a clear vista of the steep path that led to this sanctuary. The night was warm. A curious desert badger inspected them, grunting and growling. They saw the outlines of mule deer in the valley below, as they listened to the evening chorus of insects, toads, and lizards. The deep coughing sound of a cougar caused him to stiffen and regret that he had no weapon. He looked around for rocks that would fit into his fist and glanced up in the evening light. A golden eagle had settled in the high branches of a tall pine. He relaxed, suddenly feeling safe with this night companion confirming affinity since his childhood.

In soft voices they at last spoke to one another:“You knew this was to happen?”“No,” she replied. “Not this. Not even I could see this. I knew

there would be an end to how we lived. My spirit guides warned me, instructing me to prepare. I found a cave, high in the sacred canyon, very close to where we are sitting. During my last six moon times, I did not join the other women. Instead, I carried seeds, plants, tools, and blankets to the cave to ready our new home.”

He remembered how tired she was, returning from the seclusion of her moon times. He had not asked, as this was women’s concern. He simply made her comfortable with extraordinary tenderness. Trailing Sky treasured that care, as she could not say what she was seeing, hearing, and sensing. She journeyed six times to the sacred canyons, ensuring that when the inevitable catastrophe befell, they would be able to flee lightly. Overwhelmed by her grace and strength, his rage and sorrow broke on the altar of this love. He understood where his bow, arrows, and spear were and the disappearing baskets, blankets, and clay pots. He glanced at her and pulled her gently to his chest.

“Come, let me warm you. I will stay awake while you sleep.”During that long night, Eagle Speaker’s thoughts turned from revenge

and rage to quietness vaguely remembered. Then he recalled how he felt

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when learning the old ways from his grandfather. His anger, fear, and shame fell away, and when Trailing Sky woke in his arms and looked into his eyes, she said, “You traveled through the darkness while I slept,” she said.

“I did.”Ever so lightly, she stroked his cheek with her fingertips and laid her

head on his strong chest.“We must go now,” she murmured, “and take a devious route in case

our tracks are found. There is something new to create by remembering. I feel it though do not know what it will be.”

They left their rocky outcrop and walked stealthily as the sun climbed high above them. From his grandfather, he knew how to extract water from the nearest saguaro. She thanked the giant cactus for the refreshing taste of water. They continued to climb higher up the canyon until they were there suddenly at the cave. The entrance was small, yet opened up into a wide expansive cavern. The recess of the cave had air outlets to the other side of the canyon. Water that filtered through from rain and morning dew collected in a rock pool below these openings, the overflow carefully draining into the pots she had placed next to it. The daylight coming through the air vents and entrance enabled him to see the wonder created by her. Dry wood lay next to a small fireplace at the rear. Baskets of seeds and plants surrounded the rock pool. A blanket was thrown over bundles of reeds for their bed. His bows, arrows, and spear were on a rock ledge next to sharpened staffs, some with cloth dipped in fish oil to provide light when needed. Beneath a rock cache, dried meat and fish had been stored, with maize, beans, and roots to sustain them. He paused, looked around him, and silently gave thanks to her.

Sitting on the lip of the cave, she watched him inspect their new home and saw his relief and wonder. “When I first found this place, there were many creatures here. It was their home. I prayed to the Creator and placed sweet-grass for all of them by the entrance to the cave. I then sang a request that they permit us to share their home. By the time of my third journey here, most of them had vacated it for us, even the scorpions.” Trailing Sky smiled. “You now know who is biting you at night, it will be me.”

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He roared with laughter at her words. He so desperately needed to laugh out loud. She shushed him to be quiet. They both laughed softly together, holding one another for a long time. Their laughter quickly transformed into tears and sobs. They were now safe and could grieve their slain people.

Soon after they had settled in the cave, Trailing Sky was collecting herbs and berries before dawn when she noticed a woman last seen at the summer settlement doing the same. She cried the small grouse call, a woman’s call. The answer came quickly, and she was swift to re-unite with Long Willow, a tall angular woman known for her sharp tongue. There was nothing sharp left as she wept in Trailing Sky’s arms. Long Willow’s husband had been slain early in the raid along with her son. She had escaped from the attackers with her husband’s two guns and his stone-headed battle-axe. Two raiders tracked her to the trail leading to the west of the settlement.

She knew the terrain well and lay in wait. She was completely concealed from view, shooting one in the head with the long gun and the other twice in the belly. The stone-headed axe crushed the skull of the one still living. She took their guns and weapons, hiding them in a rock cleft that she filled with stones. Long Willow dragged their bodies into the arid scrub that adjoined the trail. For days, she had wandered the sacred canyons, surviving on berries, roots, nuts, and water from the cactus plants.

After Long Willow collected her weapons, Trailing Sky led her to the cave. She marvelled at its size and carefully hidden nature. It could not be seen from the trails below, as a large rock spur on the east side shielded it from view and the small cave entrance looked like a natural shadow on the high canyon cliff from all directions. The three of them settled easily into a rhythm.

Eagle Speaker left before sunrise to inspect the snares set the night before some distance away, to see if any small animals offered their lives. Taking his bow and arrows for the silence they permitted, he was always on the lookout for bigger game. During these walks, he remembered the teachings of his grandfather settle even deeper within him. He carefully

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came to know each animal tracked, where it stopped to defecate, where it ate and drank from a small pool. A thread of experience linked him to the animal that would keep his family alive. When he tracked and killed a deer, he offered prayers over the dead creature. Then, carefully skinning it, he distributed the parts not to be eaten to the four directions. The coyotes, vultures, and cougars could scavenge for it. Always, this was done a great distance from the cave.

Trailing Sky and Long Willow also left early each morning to collect water, herbs, and berries. They checked on the small areas they had planted with beans and maize. The plots were not visible from the trails that threaded the sacred canyons. During the heat of the day, all three would be home in the cool shelter of the cave. And there, they talked, fostering their friendship and knowledge of one another as they shared ideas for the new village they would create.

“There is something you may not know from my upbringing in the Sacred Mountains to the north of these canyons,” Trailing Sky said on the first day they were together. “The knowledge of the elders, shamans, and medicine people is in me. I know the annual ceremonies and ritual passages that will provide stepping stones for boys and girls to mature into adult men and women.” She stopped, collecting her thoughts into the right vessels for speech. “Can we establish a new village based on the fact that the Great Spirit is in the wind, the sky, in everything around us? The plants and animals we eat, the materials for our winter and summer homes are all sacred. This is our guidance for how to live.”

There was a long silence as Eagle Speaker and Long Willow waited for her to continue.

“I feel strongly that women must decide on planting and harvesting cycles because they know the behaviour of plants. We must educate our people about the sacred connections to all of nature. They easily neglect this, walking through the connections as innocently as children running through a spider’s cobweb. I see the year-round cycle of ceremony creating daily life from a deep spiritual link with all that the Earth Mother provides for us. These are my thoughts”