It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the action that we do. *Mother Teresa *1979 Nobel Peace Prize Speech

As I said before, my line of people were the Angakoks, the Medicine People. They were a very loving and peaceful people. They knew the Creators Laws (and respected them) without being preached to.  By the time I came along, this part of my culture had all but died out.  I only heard vague stories of things that they could do.  It was told more as a fairy tale then anything else.  This did not use to bother me.  However, I had strange things happen to me and that did frighten me at the time. I was told that I had died once when I was a baby. I  was sleeping in a bedroom and my father was working on a snowmachine in the basement.  It was winter time and we had the house sealed up to keep the cold out.  My father had the garage doors open because he was running the snowmachine from time to time to check out the adjustments he was making.  Apparently the doors had swung shut and he didn't realize this.  A part of the duct work from the wood funace in the basement had come loose.  The exhaust from the snowmachine was filtering right up into the bedroom I was sleeping in.  When my mom came in to check on me, she said that I was grey and not breathing.  I guess they couldn't find a pulse either.  Obviously they were able to bring me back. Then in my stupid years (teenage of course), I was in a major wreck.  My cousin drove her, my little brother and I off of the side of our mountain at 120mph.  We had just filled the gas tank at a station at the foot of the mountain.  The car was one of those 'rolling bombs'.  To give you and idea here, to get to the top of the mountain it is about 4 miles up.  She lost control on a "dead man's curve".  We slid sideways on dry pavement about 400 feet, then flew off the side of the mountain.  We flew sideways about 200 yards off the side. What finally stopped the car, was the bottom of the car hitting 3 huge trees and completely uprooting them.  None of us were hurt in the wreck. My brother and I ended up in the back of the car. Our side of the seat busted and we were laying in the back.  I can remember seeing everything that went on. I can still see it like a rerun of an old movie to this day. But what was so strange at the time, was I felt a bubble around me. I could almost see a white round bubble encircling me.  And I can remember having no fear whatsoever.  Later, we were talking about it. They kept talking about "feeling" all the bumping and hitting against the dash and doors.  I didn't feel anything like that.

It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance. *The Dalai Lama *1989 Nobel Peace Prize

My brother and cousin would not go with me to tell my parents that the car was off the side of the mountain.  They waited up at the truckstop on the top of the mountain. So I walked at 2 am on to our homestead to wake my parents and tell them.  When I was telling my mother, shock must have set in.  I started to realize that by all rights, we all should be dead.  I kept crying and telling my mom that we should have died.  she was as calm as could be, and told me that the Creator had plans for me.  That I hadn't done what He had sent me here to do. It was at this time that I got to thinking about some of the things that use to happen to me when I was younger. I would have strange dreams of a bear.  This bear always came to me at home. He would never run at me, just amble up.  No matter where I would try to hide, he would always find me.  I was never afraid that the bear was going to attack me.  I just remember thinking that I did not want to HEAR what he was going to tell me.  At the time I never told anyone of this dream.  I thought that it was too weird to think that a bear could talk to you.  There was too much of the white culture inside my heart and head to believe that the Creator speaks to us in many ways, including through other parts of His Creation.  Later, I learned that when the bear comes to you, he often is offering you the Medicine Path. Then there were the really scary times.  Just as I was falling asleep, I would feel myself leaving my body.  I could look down and see my physical body still lying in the bed.  It use to scare me so badly.  I guess it was because I had always heard that your spirit only leaves your body when you are dead.  I remember fighting this when it happened.  I would tell myself that I had to move a part of my body to wake myself up.  Finally it was like a lightening bolt.  I would be back inside my body.  Now, I know the reality that a person's spirit is only bound by self imposed limitations.  The reality of spirit travel is there.  Afterall, we are ultimately a spirit placed inside a human form in this space and time.  If we will not fight it, we are able to let our spirits travel to other places and times.  This is how many natives have learned the healing ways of the ancestors.

Though I am different from you, we were born involved in one another. *T'ao Chien

All writings are © by Alaskan Angels and Roberta Wallace, 1998. No copying in part or whole is permitted without written permission of owner.