Little Crosses by Sabrina Reeves

Author:Sabrina Reeves [Reeves, Sabrina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2024-02-29T20:44:57+00:00

twenty-four

I’m greeted at the Albuquerque airport by Jack, Oliver, and Oliver’s new girlfriend, Rosa. Despite the solemn air that surrounds our greeting as we walk to the parking lot and load my bags into the trunk, I can’t help but notice that Oliver’s car is clean. Like, vacuumed clean. As we drive the two hours from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Fort Defiance, Arizona, Oliver and Jack joke and talk easily, and Oliver asks me what I’ve been up to lately, how “the rock star boyfriend” is, and a variety of other more specific questions. He’s steering the conversation. Mom’s right: he’s doing well.

None of us know what a peyote ceremony is. Hugh has explained it to Oliver and Oliver has done sweat lodges, but none of us really know. I’m a little nervous about taking hallucinogens.

“But you’ve done mushrooms before, right?” Jack asks, as we pull into the dirt lot where the tipi is being set up.

“No, never.”

“You’ve never done mushrooms?” Oliver and Jack say in incredulous unison.

“Get over yourselves. I’ve done plenty of drugs—I’m quite sure I have you both beat in that department, just not the hippie drugs.”

“I’ve never done mushrooms either,” Rosa confides, as we walk together from the car to the tipi. Mom and Hugh are talking to Leon, Hugh’s best friend. We each hug Hugh and he thanks us for coming, but it’s clear we’ve interrupted a conversation, so we step away and form our own circle.

After a bit, Leon comes over and says, “Ya’a’teeh,” introducing himself to Rosa. We know ya’a’teeh from Hugh. It’s a Navajo greeting that translates into something like “It is good.” Leon is a small man with long silver hair, glasses that tint dark with the sun, and skin that resembles the dried clay of Arizona. He wears a gentle smile, as if he’s a visitor here on earth, perpetually amused by how little we humans know of the real way of things. I’m pretty sure Hugh has asked Leon to talk to us. After he says hello, he stands for a moment and then brings his hands together in front of his chest, lowering his head to touch his fingertips to his chin. He stares down at the red earth in the circle formed by our bodies. He won’t rush. He has the floor and we all know it; we know not to speak, that he’s formulating his thoughts and to give him space for that.

Finally, Leon says, “We Navajo call our religion the Way. There is no separation between how we live and our ceremony. Spirit is everywhere in everything, in the ground and the sky and the plants and the animals around us.” He tells us that the Navajo Way might seem strange to people coming from a Christian background. “Think of the stories like rings of a tree or circles in a pond after a stone is dropped,” he says. “There is no one being we call God. Each story has figures that are most important

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