Portals to the Vision Serpent

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ILLUMINATION Book Chapters

20 min readNov 29, 2021

Interior and cover design: Kubera Book Design. Cover art: ©2013 Carla Woody.

Chapter Eleven

Six months passed with no word from Gabe. Sybilla’s time filled with caring for PJ and planning a future that left no time for nostalgic sentiment — real or imagined. In fact, she preferred to focus on the bad times with Gabe, the frozen clutch her body held walking on eggshells around him, and she found the memory spurred her on. The side of Sybilla that would later be described as shrewd and hard-nosed began to emerge. She consciously sought to re-invent herself from who she was raised to be. And certainly beyond the one who obediently followed Gabe’s lead on their cross-country odyssey, intermittently opening up to the wonders she experienced and contracting when faced with uncertainty.

At night, after she tucked PJ into sleep, Sybilla would sit outside and stare into the desert at its ghostly shapes, her eyes not searching for Gabe as they’d done so many times, but allowing the desert to open a vast inner landscape. Then she’d raise her gaze to the inky sky and find stars winking a message of inspiration. This ritual became her practice, a source of strength. She contemplated the woman she wanted to become and viewed that person as her opposite. She would be, Sybilla decided, someone who was fearless and lived by her passion, whose work was respected and life meaningful — and began the process of stepping into that potential. She kept the vision to herself — held it close — away from others who would think it romantically unrealistic and lofty. But who did she have to tell anyway? She’d cut off her family without regrets and had made no close friends. Gabe was gone, and he was the one who would have understood. But then it was quite likely because he’d vanished without a trace that her determination was showing itself, having been there all along — waiting patiently.

Sybilla was touched, not by ambition, but by the thought of making a difference. She paid attention when Gabe had spoken of glorious things he saw in his travels, and the worst injustices. She’d heard Doña Flora when she bemoaned the plight of her people and what was being done to their land in the name of progress, really just plain greed. Sybilla wanted to document such things, wake people up, show them what’s important. Just like she was awakened when Gabe came into her life. She did thank him silently for that but didn’t dwell too much on the important role he’d played, aside from being PJ’s father. If she did, then the worry she’d roughly cast aside would cozy up to her and find a tight companion, and the hollow feeling she’d tucked into a hidden pocket would discover a way out. So she busied herself instead with how to provide for PJ and, at the same time, live up to her vision. Sybilla found it a challenge to juggle everything and give PJ the care he needed. At the end of most days she just felt exhausted, until she could take a breath of the night sky to fortify herself for the next day.

Sybilla began to consciously shed the Georgia inflections in her speaking patterns. She mused that being seen as a stereotypical Southern belle would do nothing to help her career goals. She wasn’t able to do anything about her striking patrician features or petite frame. She supposed her green eyes to be an asset in any world, unless she wanted to go unnoticed. Just as Sybilla was undergoing a metamorphosis so was the face of Mother Lode. Long the home of artisans, a smattering of Native people, and a plethora of off-beat characters who fit in nowhere else, a well-read national magazine had run a story on the small town in the desert. They called it a mecca for artists and new thinkers — the “Village” of the Southwest, likening it to the one in New York City. Opportunists opened galleries, quick to see an advantage. Trendy cafes sprung up which, in turn, attracted curiosity seekers from out of town — and people with means who bought art. Some of those visitors stayed and took up residence. The locals grumbled about interlopers but found they prospered in the wake of the intrusion. Sybilla was one of them.

After spending long hours poring over hundreds of black and white images she’d shot over the last few years, she selected the most expressive for her portfolio. It took but a few inquiries to get accepted at a small tasteful gallery just off the main street, an area becoming known as the arts district. Sybilla felt she’d fallen into a wellspring after learning the owner also had two larger galleries. If she sold well in Mother Lode, then she was promised placement in Tucson and Santa Fe. Investing some of her dwindling funds in mats and simple frames, she also wrote prose, a short tale for each image, sensing people would be more likely to take her work home if they connected with it. She convinced the gallery owner to display the descriptive passage beside each piece. Her intuition served her well.

A part-time job opened at the town newspaper, and Sybilla wrangled for the post. She took it on, seeing the chance to dip her toe, somewhat safely, into the waters she sought as her lifework. Her task was to write a weekly human-interest column and to shoot any accompanying photographs. She wrote about the old-timer who lived half the year on the edge of town; the rest of the time he vanished into the Bradshaw Mountains to live alone in a tent and pan for gold. He wouldn’t say where his claims were. Then there was the couple with a rescue sanctuary for burros, and a dowser who was known to have a sixth sense about finding water sources in dry land, as well as lost objects. Between penning the column and keeping the galleries stocked, Sybilla found that, while she wasn’t getting rich, she was able to eke out a living. When she stopped to exhale, she looked back with satisfaction to see how far she’d come from the girl she’d been. Small successes built upon each other. And before she realized it a year had passed since Gabe had gone.

Sybilla didn’t feel successful where PJ was concerned though. She was lucky she could work at home. Even so, she was guilt ridden about not spending more time with him. There was always some deadline. I’m doing all I can, she told herself. And he’s such a quiet child and has his own inner world. One day she recognized just how much PJ had started resembling Gabe, had taken on some of his mannerisms, and it gave her painful pause. Why he looks just what Gabe must have at his age! There were times when he gazed so intensely at her with those ice-blue eyes that her breath would catch; she’d see Gabe all over again. How was it that her child could see into her soul? More than once she’d take a break to check on him and find him talking to thin air, immersed in a conversation — and she worried. She knew that lonely children made up playmates. Soon, he would enter pre-school, but Sybilla didn’t anticipate things would change. PJ already shied away from the neighborhood kids. The only person he lit up for was Doña Flora who still came by regularly. Truth be told, Doña Flora was the only person Sybilla felt close to. Over the last months she’d become family, providing a sounding board and childcare that was increasingly needed. It was she who Sybilla consulted about her son.

One morning Doña Flora stopped by with fresh tamales, the comfort food PJ craved on a weekly basis. He grabbed one on his way out to play. Sybilla brought coffee over to the kitchen table and watched her load it up with sugar. Sybilla liked her own coffee strong and black. She learned to provide a sugar bowl and a little pitcher of water for her guest, so that she could dilute it to her liking.

Stirring thoughtfully, Doña Flora gazed silently at the dark liquid. Sybilla joined her in silence, sipping her coffee, watching PJ sitting on the ground out where Gabe’s sanctuary used to be. He was gesturing into the air. When the midwife finally raised her eyes, they were filled with sadness.

“What’s wrong, Doña Flora?” Sybilla couldn’t bring herself to drop the title of respect, even though her friend had asked her months ago.

“I have very bad news from my home. Many bad things are happening,” she went on, shaking her head slowly, “I say these things can’t be true. They are supposed to end with this new government in my country since five years ago. There are too many stories coming!”

Sybilla urged her on with a dip of her head. She knew that Doña Flora fled from the Guatemala highlands in the mid-1980s with some family members after government soldiers cut a swathe through Maya villages, massacring large numbers. She was particularly marked due to her status in the village as a healer and midwife; her safety was in peril, even though she went underground while still in the region. Fortunately, Doña Flora had a cousin who emigrated some years prior, eventually settling in Arizona and becoming a citizen. He sponsored her when she sought political asylum for herself and the few family members who accompanied her.

“I got a letter from my sister. A month it takes to get here! And she say that a spiritual leader in the next village is killed! That some men come in the night and drag him from his home! So terrible I cannot tell you! I know this old man,” tears came into her eyes, “He is a good, kind man and healed many people. He helped my father when even my mother could not help. And it is said that three healers are missing from other places not so far from there! People are scared in their own homes, my sister say. People think it is either the government or the new church that is coming into these areas! Maybe they are the same people. Ah, you see that these spiritual leaders, these healers, have the trust of the people, powers that those bad ones want. What can I do? I am here.”

Sybilla felt the weight of Doña Flora’s distress. It certainly put her own concerns in perspective considering what she just heard. When she opened the door to Doña Flora, she’d felt relief and had planned to speak to her about PJ. He said Gabe was appearing to him in his dreams. And she’d experienced odd occurrences herself that she couldn’t explain. Several times she’d heard Gabe’s voice, unintelligible snatches rising slightly above the wind, or humming along just above the music from the radio. It was easy enough to dismiss as her imagination, except it was happening too frequently. Then there was PJ and his nighttime stories. But after hearing Doña Flora’s news from her homeland, she decided to raise her worries another time.

“And you know there are other things. In the north they are logging the rainforest and these people go in and look for oil. I think these are greedy people. They don’t think what they are doing to the Mother Earth, to the world. How can they not know? The animals and birds are disappearing! The trees and plants are gone! So many medicines come from these! All these things make me sad. I ask always, what can I do?” Doña Flora ended her monologue, not conceding defeat, but entreating the forces that guide her for answers.

A possibility popped into Sybilla’s head. But it seemed so insignificant she hesitated to voice it, especially since it could appear self-serving in the face of Doña Flora’s anguish. Such subject matter was exactly the kind of topic Sybilla hoped to cover on a regular basis, not to say she didn’t appreciate the human-interest stories she pursued. She just wanted more dramatic ones. Her most secret self held up Rachel Carson and Margaret Bourke-White as role models. She intended to put herself in places where she could pull off exposés, be on the front lines — eventually anyway — and catapult change.

“I have an idea,” Sybilla offered haltingly, “Why don’t I write a column on you and how you came to be here, how some of these things are still going on? More people need to know these things are happening. I didn’t know until you told me your story. It could be a human rights and environmental piece.”

Doña Flora raised her eyebrows, then broke into a broad smile. “Yes, this is a thing we will do.”

Sybilla’s excitement knew no bounds. Somehow she sensed this was her break. She overrode a gnawing doubt. How was she going to convince Mr. Devry, her editor, to run this story? She didn’t have license to include any political statements in her column or do any hard reporting.

Sybilla decided the best tack to take with Mr. Devry was to focus on Doña Flora’s midwifery skills and how she had adapted to living in the US, so different from her homeland. That way she could still weave in some copy about circumstances that had caused Doña Flora to come to Mother Lode. If she was clever enough she could leave readers with an understanding, if not an outright call for action, toward the horrific situation in Guatemala, between the words, and couldn’t be chastised for being too “progressive” — or worse yet, have the article yanked before it saw print. The region’s mores in 1996 were still backward in as many ways as they were forward thinking. Not nearly as bad as Johns’s Wake though, Sybilla noted. Still, she was learning to walk the line between the two factions. At least for now, she promised herself.

She was a couple of weeks ahead in her column submissions. So she had the luxury of taking more time than usual interviewing Doña Flora. They agreed that Sybilla would come to the midwife’s home to gain a flavor of how she lived. Although she’d been invited before, Sybilla hadn’t accepted. Too much to do, she always told herself. But the truth was that she was uncomfortable out of her own environment, around people so different than she was. She was secretly ashamed. She hadn’t yet been able to shake her upbringing. But now she pushed herself, having good reason to step outside her comfort zone.

Doña Flora lived on the far edge of town in a neat adobe with her husband and their daughter’s family. As Sybilla approached, children played with noisy abandon in the front yard, and the family dogs all began barking. Putting her hand on the gate, she smiled tentatively at them. A young girl scooted inside calling, “Abuelita!”

Her friend emerged through the door, wiping her hands on a towel. “Ah yes! Come! Welcome to my home. Here are my grandchildren. Maria, Alberto and this little one we call Grillo because like a cricket he jumps a lot.” They all stared inquisitively at Sybilla with huge brown eyes, then immediately resumed their boisterous game. No shyness there, Sybilla noted.

Doña Flora ushered her inside where it was comfortably cool, thick walls providing a natural buffer from the scorching heat outside. “Everyone is at work and the children will play outside. So we will have our time just as we like. Maybe you like some lemonade? I make it fresh. We have our lemon tree in the back.”

Sybilla settled herself on a wide couch and noted her surroundings, while Doña Flora went to get refreshments. The room had a comfortable lived-in feeling, equally as neat inside as outside despite the young ones living there. Against one wall there was an elaborate altar with candles and religious statues. A sole flame was lit. Icons hung on the wall above. A few small bowls containing items she couldn’t see sat in front of the candle. She didn’t want to appear too nosy, so pushed aside the desire to inspect the contents close-up. Her host returned carrying a small tray with two glasses of lemonade and a plate with small cakes that she set on a low table in front of Sybilla.

“I think you will like to try this cake. It’s traditional in my country. The children especially like it!”

Sybilla took a bite of the sticky, moist cake and could see why. “Delicious!” she proclaimed. “I’m really anxious to get started. I think this will be an interesting article. Not the usual thing the paper publishes. And I hope we can bring some things to light. Is it okay to record?” She removed her notebook and a small recorder from the bag she carried.

“No problem for me if you want to record.” Doña Flora sat in a well-used loveseat a few feet away.

After Sybilla set the device up on the table between them, she took a big breath and realized her heart was racing, just like when she’d interviewed for her first article. Maybe it’s because this piece is so important, she thought.

Doña Flora smiled affectionately at her. “We are just friends talking.”

“Yes, of course.” Sybilla relaxed a bit and picked up her tablet, scrutinizing the notes she’d jotted down over the last week. “Why don’t we start with how you came to be a midwife?”

“This is perfect for me,” Doña Flora leaned back and settled in to tell the story. Gazing down at her lap, she silently smoothed her skirts, perhaps brushing aside the present. Finally she looked up, nodding to Sybilla but rested her eyes at a point just beyond, one through which she saw the past.

“My mother and grandmother were midwives in my village. As far back as I knew there was one or two in each generation of my mother’s family who had the calling, and received special ways of healing and Sight. This is the way it is given. It’s not only for the women to have the gifts. Men can have them, too, coming through their mother’s ancestors. They don’t do the childbirth healing just for women, but they can have the way of speaking to the gods and ancestors. This they can do. And the people will come to them for their powers when they want help.

“But my mother had eight children and I was the seventh one. She never talked to me about this possibility and I did not think it was for me either. And my grandmother had ten children. So there were many others and a boy cousin already received the visions very early. Such a calling is from the gods. No one just decides. When it comes there is much responsibility, much work. I saw this for my mother and my grandmother. They were away from home to care for other families and long times in prayer to prepare. It was sometimes hard for them and my father and grandfather, too. When the signs come that person must say ‘yes’ or there will be sickness and accidents.” Doña Flora took a long drink of lemonade.

Sybilla’s eyes rounded and her mouth hung open as Doña Flora warmed to her subject. An innocent opening question had taken her into totally unanticipated territory. Now how in the world am I going to write about this? This stuff will never go over with Mr. Devry! Once again Sybilla’s heart was thumping. Do you want to take a risk or not?

“Uh, tell me what you mean about ‘sickness’ and ‘accidents,’ ”Her eyebrows knitted.

“Well, you see, in the ways of my people the gods send this invitation. But I think this is so for everyone. The gods send something, maybe it brings alive something that has been asleep inside, a thing that came through from the Other Side at birth. And the person must know it and serve this calling. If they deny it, then there is a wound.”

Sybilla nodded slowly. She understood what Doña Flora said with regard to herself. Something had opened inside her. It wasn’t ambition that compelled her to work long hours, but something holy that she couldn’t put into words — her innermost expression bursting to be known, in a way that somehow, to someone, would make a difference in the world. At the stillest point in the night, when the noise of the day no longer held back the worried voices in her head, the ones that questioned what she was doing, and why she didn’t scuttle back home to Georgia, she found the strength to soothe herself and send a promise up, like a prayer, to remain true to this element she so recently discovered — one that had no words. If she didn’t, then she knew she’d wither away inside, even if, from the outside, her shell looked basically the same.

“My people know this to be true in a way that they don’t know it here,” Doña Flora paused for effect, “Yes, there was a woman in the next village who received the dreams, but it is said that her husband had no respect. He treated her badly and wouldn’t allow her to help when women came to her. She got sick with terrible pains and nightmares. But the doctor at the clinic there in the village could find nothing wrong. Finally, she went to the curandero, what you would call a curer or shaman. He told her that she would die if she didn’t serve the people like the gods wanted. Still she didn’t do it because her husband wouldn’t let her. She was afraid — and her illness got worse.

“Then one night she had a dream that she must take all her children and go visit her sister in the next village. The dream was so strong that she did it. The night after she went to her sister’s, the husband said the dogs woke him up barking outside. And when he woke up, his bed was on fire! He said his wife’s grandmother was standing in the doorway with a torch. But this was not possible because the grandmother had gone to the ancestors years before! He put the fire out, but it scared him so bad that he left the village and never came back. The people didn’t like him anyway, you see. When his wife returned with the children, she didn’t deny her gift anymore. Her sickness went away, and she helped birth many babies. I think she still does. She was better off without him anyway. He was a bad man. He had no respect. This woman’s family didn’t suffer because the people gave her what she needed for herself and the children. She birthed their babies. This is how it is done in the ways of my home.”

Sybilla sat mute, eyes still round, which Doña Flora took as a sign to continue.

“For me, it started like this. When I was thirteen years old I had a dream. I was walking through my village like I was going somewhere, and I needed to be there fast. But every place I passed, it wasn’t the place I was supposed to be. Then suddenly the road wasn’t dirt anymore. It turned into a creek, and I was floating along, being taken with the waters. But it was gentle. I wasn’t afraid. I could see there were many fish in the creek swimming all around me. And still the water took me past many houses. My mother was there when I went by, and she smiled at me. I saw my grandmother, too, and other women. More and more came and stood by the banks of the creek as I floated by, until I was no longer in my village.” Her eyes grew moist.

“Something woke me up then. I opened my eyes. And the room was glowing — a beautiful blue! I wanted to tell my sisters, but I saw they were asleep. And then in the corner of the room, I saw a woman in a long dress. But it was hazy, like I was seeing her underwater. Her hair was wrapped in a cloth. There was white light all around her and when she moved, this light moved. She came over to my bed right there and reached out her hand like she would touch me. And the light came from her hand, and I felt it with my whole body, like such a love came to me that I have never felt. I feel it now when I tell you this. And we stayed like that, she and I, for what seemed to be a long time. Still my sisters slept. And I knew something was happening just for me. Slowly she disappeared, and then the blue glow left. It was just the bedroom again.”

Doña Flora’s eyes shone, her face serene. Her body radiated, the very act of recounting her calling activated a luminescence that only became stronger with the silence she now held. Tears leapt from Sybilla’s eyes but, transfixed, she didn’t reach to wipe them away. After a time, Doña Flora shifted in her chair and spoke softly, “Yes, this is how it first happened.”

They both reached for their drinks, breaking the spell. Sybilla took a bite of the cake, chewing thoughtfully. Not knowing what to say to this fantastic story, she said nothing but was deeply touched, even the panicky voices in her head stilled. Doña Flora looked at her, nodding slightly.

“Yes, I know. With my people it is common to have dreams that tell things. But like you right now, I didn’t know what to think about this. This was a very strange dream. But the woman? She was not a dream. I kept this a secret for many years. The dream came many times after that over the next few years. Many times it was the same but sometimes a little different. Like one time the creek waters took me to a house just outside the village. When the door opened it was my mother, and she took my hands in hers and filled them with mariposa flowers. So, sometimes a little different like that. I finally told my mother but only about the dreams. She said I was being blessed, that I should go see the curandero about this. But I was a young girl, and I didn’t do it. Then the dreams stopped.”

“Do you know why they stopped?” Sybilla queried.

“You know I was a young girl, and I had things on my mind. Not these crazy dreams,” Doña Flora chuckled. “When I look now, I see that I was being told something. Maybe about my future, but I wasn’t ready at that age. I had many things to learn yet, and I wanted to be like any young woman! By then I was seventeen and thinking about who would be my husband.”

“But that’s so young!”

“Not so young to think of these things! You did that, yes? But in my home the girls do marry at that age, even younger, and begin to have babies. Some people thought something was wrong with me because I didn’t hurry to be married. Well, I knew I wanted a special man, and sometimes that takes a while to find. It was important to me that this man would respect me. Even though I didn’t want it then, I knew that my time would come for something, and I couldn’t refuse. This much I knew from the dreams.”

The children came bursting through the door sweaty from their romping and squealed when they spied the cakes. Doña Flora laughed. “Not so much now! Just a little bit. We will have dinner soon! Your mama will be home.”

Sybilla glanced up at the clock, shocked. The afternoon had flown by. She began to gather up her things, remembering she had to pick up PJ from her neighbor Sonya Whitehead, who’d said she’d watch him. “I didn’t realize it had gotten so late! We covered so much ground. Thank you so much for these stories. But there’s more, isn’t there?”

“Ah, dear one. You are very welcome. Yes, there is much more. And next time you bring PJ. He will play with my grandchildren.”

They made arrangements for Sybilla to return in two days. She smiled brightly at the children who were beaming at her, crumbs on their faces, and stepped out into the late afternoon sun. She was bursting with excitement and couldn’t wait to get home to listen to the recording. Although, she wasn’t at all sure yet how to write the article for her column’s readership — given what Doña Flora had shared with her. Getting into her car, she began to mull over that bit of a nut.

©2013 Carla Woody. All rights reserved worldwide. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be directed to: Kenosis Press, P.O. Box 10441, Prescott, Arizona 86304. Email: info@kenosis.net.

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Synopsis and Author’s Note

Preston

Sybilla