I must go on this vision quest. I am so full of fear I cannot leave my house.

      The doctors say I'm going to live. If I'm still alive in five years I'll be called cured, but will be studied for ten years. I am 64 years old and an infant.

      My Indian guide, Smoke Man Dancing, came to me first when I was in my 30s. I thought he was an alcohol-related hallucination. I will bind that story to another some day, but today just know that Smoke Man Dancing is a Shaman. He is on the blue road and has taught me about the foundations of the world. He taught me about the wheel of life. He led me to books, to people, to PhDs and M.Ds and seers, to other shaman, all who understand. We are old friends.

      He brought me Beloved last year when I first knew of the breast cancer. I was so devastated I didn't want to go have surgery. I wanted to die right that minute and not try to get well. I was frightened, and I was not telling myself the truth. Smoke Man Dancing came the night before my surgery while I was quaking in my bed, and he said, "This is Beloved Woman. In our language that is what we call a medicine woman, a healer. She is going to stay with you awhile and teach you about healing."

      After he left, I saw her curled in a chair across the room from me. When she stood up, she seemed to be about 4'9 and 180 pounds or more. There are long black braids hanging down over her wide shoulders. Her moon face is dark and smooth and shining and no age. Her black eyes slant and crinkle around the edges like a blackberry pie, and her full-lipped mouth grins at me like the proverbial Cheshire cat. She is as real as the doctor who operated on me four hours later.

      She is there when I wake from the anesthetic and goes off in peals of laughter when I tell the nurse to get the dragon out of my ear. They were taking my temperature with a thing in my ear!

      When I fully wake all the way, she is hovering up by the TV in my room trying to get a comfortable place to relax. Finally, she creates a pine tree and sits on a limb. I've had experience with this kind of thing in the past, so I tell no one. If I did, they'd shoot me up with medicine, and I want to stay awake until my sister comes.

      My sis missed seeing the doctor because she went out to buy shoes. He came in and said he didn't know I was going to be alone and asked if I wanted him to call someone. I let it pass because Beloved was grinning and making signs to be silent. Of course, he was unaware of Beloved in her tree and said I could have as much pain medicine as I needed; then he left

      She stayed with me for all the months of my recovery and through the chemotherapy treatment. She was there most of the time when I was having radiation therapy. She was there laughing and having a wonderful time when I went bald. She made me buy a lot of wigs. This gal has a sense of humor, you know.

      When I was sick after a chemo treatment, she held my head; she rubbed my back, she patted me, and I could not separate her from my grandmother when I was five years old. Then she would sing an unintelligible song to me. She advised tea and gingersnaps. She healed with love. She brought me memories of all the love I had had in my life. She made me aware I still had a mother and some of my sisters and my beautiful daughters and my irreplaceable son. She healed with her love and all love.

      Now a year and more later, I am depressed and full of fears. I suppose it happens to others, this fear and this panic. I recover some, as time goes on, and it is the summer of the year following my surgery. My hair is back, but I am sick in a new way. I find I can't go out much. I am afraid to drive. My arm hurts and swells I thought I needed more medication, but they don't give anything for this kind of fear. Oh, I did know one gal that had some tranquilizers, and I had some of those in a mild form. I wanted my fear cured. I wanted to begin my life again.

      I am thrilled one September morning. Oo, la la, Smoke Man Dancing is in my kitchen when I wake up. He is sitting on the table, as usual. He hates chairs. He acts like he just stepped out for a minute and is back.

      Once you have these guides and teachers visit you, you come to terms with the details; that you are not crazy, this is real. Doctors and psychiatrists call this hallucinating and give you medicine to stop it. You learn not to discuss this with the medical world. Once you see and learn the only thing that you hallucinate is your guide or teacher, and only at safe times, not when you might be startled into doing something odd or dangerous, you see the humor in the situation. Believe me, from what I know and have seen these Guides can be tricky and very devious in teaching lessons.

      At first I was on guard at all times. When I was considered a Full Feathered Bird, my Guide and teacher went away. Once you learn you are protected and loved and guided you know it is a gift, this seeing. Some people get so comfortable with their guides they talk about them all the time. I have not. I mean, I am comfortable with them, but I don't tell people about them. When I have needed Smoke Man Dancing he has come back.

      "Hi" he said, sitting cross-legged on the table. "You look awful. Have a coffee, and let me tell you about the place that is waiting for you."

      I get a cup of hot coffee and sit down with him. He is bare-chested this morning with just a breast decoration made of a deerhide thong with a white stone on it. He often calls this stone his soul mate Though ancient, his skin is still a glistening brown, and his black eyes sparkle with a mischief belied by his serene stoic expression. Deep grooves between his eyes and down the side of his mouth give him a stern look.

      "Now, White Bird, you need a new name for your old age, and you need to lose your fear. You need to find a part of you you buried many years ago in order to live your chosen way. That road is closed now, but you have not discovered your new road yet. Some people travel through time never changing the road they are on by intention. You will. So let's state the intention you have now."

      "OK, I will. My intention is to lose this fear of driving. My intention is to discover what new bird is fluttering around in my throat from the fear. I remember some of your teachings. Can you help me learn more now?"

      "Well", he answered, "if you remember the stories of the Vision Quest you know you can go any time it is needful to your intention. You must go on a quest for the signs and the insights you need to fulfill these wishes or hopes or what you call them, day dreams. I call them intentions You must return to the mountains of your youth to the waters you were born of, to the trees you grew up with and the stones and the rocks that hold your childhood and your secrets."

      Poof he is gone. That is his way.

      My coffee cup is empty. My decision is made. It takes only a few minutes to pack a suitcase and a few toiletries in a canvas book bag. I know modern motels put everything from toothpaste to coffee in the rooms, so I don't make lists or anything fancy. This is a very unplanned trip, unusual for a list maker and planner. I put on jeans and tee with sweater over it and my leather belt with my path knife with the leather handle and case attached. It looks to the passerby like a fishing knife. With a few flies pinned in my hat and a neckerchief on, my disguise is complete. I am a grown woman on a fishing trip in the Sierras.

      The car is newly serviced. I have chains from winters ago when I was not afraid to drive. I have two of those aluminum blanket packs never opened from my last camping trip. My shovel and ax are tucked away with the spare, and I put several new bottles of water in the trunk with my luggage. Some tapes and another water bottle go in the front, and I am off. Whoops, I will be driving East into the sun so I need my prescription dark glasses. I plan to eat breakfast in my old high school town about 50 miles up Route 880 from Sacramento.

      I am so busy with freeway ramps and following the signs to the most efficient way from highway 50 over to 80 just driving that I don't think of my plans or what I am actually doing. I feel spacy from the fear and maybe too much coffee, but I am alert and the switch-a-roo in 50 west loops around Sacramento over the river and onto 80 east, then it turns to 880 and traffic thins out some. I am on my way on the major highways over the Sierras into the Nevada desert, or maybe I will go to Tahoe, familiar roads to me, since I've lived from Reno, Tahoe, to Sacramento all my 64 years. I don't use maps even though I carry them.

      Singing tires on the freeway, trucks in the middle lane swish past me, radio playing cowboy songs; it is noisy in my car. I have the window down a little. The car has not been driven much lately, and I smoke a lot. My eyes blur if I let too much smoke get in the car. I shut off the radio so I can think. I am relaxing, and now I get enough courage to put the automatic accelerator to 55 and glide along with my feet on the floor.

      I often will not do this because I become too fearful, like I am not in control. In fact, now that I think of it, it is a huge part of all this fear I have had since the surgery. Not in Control. A huge experience. I begin taking some deep, long, slow breaths through my nose, counting to eight and then breathe out very slowly through m y mouth counting to at least 10. The last two counts I have to force the air out. Now I relax and come into my head without that spacy feeling.

      When a car cut in I was right on the brake with a toe tap which turns off the auto gadget. The car is slowing now and at 40 miles per hour I wonder why that fool in front is going so slow when he begins pulling off the freeway. OK now I know I can just go around him and keep on going. I pass the exits to Roseville and Loomis. A glance at the clock shows I've been on the road less than 30 minutes. At this rate even in slow lanes I am in Auburn and then Applegate by 10 a.m. and still don't stop for breakfast. It seems like too much trouble, and I'm not hungry.

      This new highway is not as scenic as the old roads of my childhood until the downgrade of Donner. Now it is beautiful. Looking out from 7000 feet over mountains which are falling away into the valley of Donner Lake is like being in an airplane in some ways. The curving two lane road takes my attention, and I experience the driving. My attention is total, and concentration brings a rhythm and a grace to my feeling at handling this car well, braking slightly before the curve, speed up to pull around the curve. Control. Oh, wow, this is good, even if the flutters of fear are back. My hands are sweaty by the time I reach the straight road again after dropping 2000 feet in a few miles of switch backs. The bird is fluttering in my throat again.

      This is a Tuesday morning, and trucks are on the road, but moving well and carefully. There's not much tourist traffic, since things are beginning to slow down at the lake getting ready for winter.

      As I enter the traffic that is building up around Donner Lake, I see an exit with a sign telling me there is food and gas. I pull off the main highway and take the exit to a gas station where I stop to fill up and check under the hood just in case. Check the tires. Everything is fine. I ask the cashier if that fast food joint is the only place to eat and she says to go on up into the shopping center to a cafe by the market. I do. It feels good to stretch and walk a little. I go in and order a sourdough with cheese and ham, grilled, and side of potato salad. I am ravenous.

      The trip from Sacramento to the Donner exit was just two hours. A fast driver would be clear up to Tahoe by now. I feel accomplished, as if I had been called to go on stage and now the ordeal was over and the audience was approving. Baby steps though. I still had a long way to go to complete my assignment, to carry out my intention to the fullest of my ability.

      Well-fed now and relaxed from walking in the mountain air, I decide to drive to Tahoe city just about 15 miles away. I make my turn at the Y and start north up to Truckee River road to my hometown. This is a pretty good feeling. Eighteen months ago I thought I would never see these trees, this river, or drive this road again. I thought I was a dead woman then.

      Now I feel tears in my eyes. It's a bright clear day, cool, a bit breezy, but, oh, it smells good here. I pass Squaw Valley. It was not here in my youth. The resort I mean. We use to ride horses up this valley from the old dude ranch on the river. I have to find a place to stop and visit my old bathing place. Ivory soap floating between us girls laughing and playing, washing each other's hair in frigid snow water.

      I finally reach the dam road at the Y at Tahoe City and find a place to park. I get out and walk down the river away from the tourists looking at the fish in the dam. Willows hang over the water. The dam is not open, so water is sluggish today or gentle and shallow. There are deep holes out there, but most of the time since the control on the river you can walk across. Not so after a heavy winter and Spring brings cascading white water roaring down the river toward dry thirsty Nevada.

      The big stones in and around the river are round and smooth in their old age. They are gentle stones and kind. The sweetness of old age and pleasant lives surrounds them. I sit in their arms and put my hand out to the cold water. Mossy streamers wave on the rocks in the water giving everything a greenish glow. I spy a very colorful rock and pick it up . As it dries in the breeze, the colors fade. I put it back and let it glow in its own place again.

      The sun warms me here down in the cradle of the river's banks. I hear a fly buzzing. Insects hover over the water. Water skippers walk on their strange, jointed, or maybe just bent, legs on the water on their way where? I always wonder where they are going. They're always there on the water walking, walking where? I fall into a dream, and my intentions become clearer.

      My intention seems to be toward freedom of restriction like the river below the dam. I wake with a start. My intention seems to be to find a way back through nature to a fearless and loving acceptance. I am going after the rainbow again now in my old age. I say a prayer, and I ask Smoke Man to listen, too, and assist me if he agrees with me.