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Death on Dying

The accounts of the times when it seems that death spared our lives come to rest in my heart softly. The story of the people in the house, my brothers, sisters, mother, father, and others huddled together in the darkness, Pirata not barking, soldiers banging at the gate and their machines and tanks circling outside tell of the moments just before death. It is strange in a way to see how calm they reacted, just waiting, some, and others wanting it to be over, hoping it would not happen. In different occasions I have believed, when thinking of these stories, that death came close.

Koyote's done something in the Toltec art of the story Telling, something that allows for a vision of what happened really. Death was not adverted. He shows it in the theater, in the mood, in the expression. Death did come. Death did happen. All those times where the consciousness continues the game of memory and association are but the extension of the thread of consciousness. How many times I've missed it before! Driving down the freeway, blind-stoned on marijuana, a single blast of the air-horn from a semi explodes in my head. I swerve right. I swerve left. I adjust well and manage to continue down the road—a spawning point. Death came and I did not even notice?death on dying. How many times has Koyote died in El Salvador, only to realize his story is not dependent on time, and consciousness is not linear and three dimensional.

Take it further and I reach the moment when we lose connection with the online broadcast of Koyote's Telling and the moderators of the online group. We who are tuning in from a distance all wait, as in the living of El Salvador, when they woke us kids up from our beds on the second story of the house early one morning and they brought us downstairs to wait and be together. Gun fire was heard just outside the windows; screams from grown-ups outside that sounded desperate, full of directives and orders; boots of running feet stomping on our sidewalk; heavy vehicles with metal-chain tires rumbling down the street, rattling every window, shaking every wall, quaking our floors. Pirata was also quiet then, and Oti, my cat, was just outside on the window sill. I asked my dad to let her in but he caressed the back of my head instead, letting me know the doors and windows do not open anymore. They stay shut until the fighting stops. We wait, suspended in our little island in cyber-space, knowing this happens often, like us children in the living room of El Salvador. Soon, it will be over.

As I wait, disconnected from the ongoing performance, I feel my anger, my demon talking, that son-of-a-bitch. I am angry, unable to maneuver my resent disembodiment with the grace and experience I once knew. I blame others, the apparitions, the unresponsive guides, as if I am the victim, the only one that is. I feel a blare-up; it is the demon, the Me-Within, the I-Demon, telling me to leave; it's been forty minutes and nobody has given a shit that you are no longer with them; just disconnect and go! I resist those commands, but I fail to control my bitch, the demon; and the anger and rage are contained within my shell. It is apparent to those close to me.

When we are connected back, Koyote begins to breathe and chant, or hum. It is very powerful, the vibration, the energy, the impulse shakes the fucker demon scared. It cleanses and soothes, though they feel harsh. It sounds like an alien attempt, from out of this universe.

Confronting death with a bit of awareness is a great teaching, a great practice that has arisen with this Telling.

 Viento de Octubre, member of The Tequihua Foundation and practitioner of the Aka Dua, with a Level Three Mastery certificate in the mail to prove it, embodies the stink and the wisdom of the Holy Hobo by coincidental choice and not any particular practice or discipline. Born of the Volcano, Viento De Octubre remembers his name when the voice of his Teacher Koyote is heard, has been given the work of remembering the call of his ancestors, and remains in service as an Extra Dimensional Service Provider under the alias Bruto. As such, he is presently available in Sacramento, CA, able to provide connections for the true seeker and friend.

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