THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT - continued

My original title for this book was, The Way of the Nanina but my editor insisted on the present title, even though there were already several books by that name. I wish now I had stuck to my guns but I had never been published and felt it was important to get this book into circulation. My publisher ran off a large batch of copies and promptly went bankrupt. I like to think it wasn't my fault ;-) so I never collected a penny in royalties but that doesn't bother me. Those who are supposed to read it will find a copy somehow.


THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT -First Contact part 1
Some years ago I found myself driving across New Mexico on my way from San Diego to Oklahoma.
As I neared the high plains, I felt the urge to turn off onto a small road. Checking the road atlas I saw that a series of small country roads would lead me in the right direction. I told myself I was bored with the easy but monotonous interstate highway I had been travelling. Ah how we twist and stretch to make the promptings of our soul fit the practical, no-nonsense attitude of modern humanity. Now I need no such excuses. This much at least the Nanina have taught me.
After over 50 miles of travel with no sign of a town, or even sight of a house, and with my gas gauge too close to empty for comfort, I came into a small settlement consisting of one gas station, a dusty store, and perhaps a dozen houses. Gratefully I filled my tank. I bought a loaf of bread, some lunch meat and filled my thermos with coffee. There was a three stool counter where I could have had a bowl of that wonderfully spicy New Mexico chile, but something prompted me to stop somehere at the side of the road to eat. Had I ignored those promptings, my life would never have taken the turn it has.
A few miles from town I found a picnic table, seemingly set up in the middle of nowhere.
As I turned off the engine the silence struck me with a shock. No birds sang or flew in the sky. No horses or cattle cropped the sparse buffalo grass. The sigh of the ever present high plains wind accentuated rather than broke the silence.
A strange prickling sensation made the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stand up, but I reassured myself that it was only the unaccustomed desolation.
As I sat there eating, I read the inevitable graffiti scratched and carved into the table top - Paco 78 - Harry and Alice were here - the common persons one shot at immortality.
Sipping the last of my coffee I looked about me. As far as the eye could see were low, rolling hills; bare brown earth with here and there a dusting of buffalo grass. In the small valleys between the hills deep gullies had been gouged by the infrequent but violent rains. Many of them terminated in shallow depresions crusted with the salt and alkali left behind when the thirsty winds sucked out the water.
I twisted the top onto my thermos and got to my feet. Suddenly dizzy, I grasped the edge of the table for support. I heard the thermos thud to the ground. Everything seemed dim and hazy, as though the sun was slowly going out. I seemed unable to focus on anything. I remember thinking,"Oh great. I'm about to pass out and there hasn't been a car along since I got here".
Children laughing? Dogs barking? Was I hallucinating? Then as my vision cleared I thought I had lost my mind.
TO BE CONTINUED If you haven't read the first part of this book please do so before reading this part.

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