Out from Vortex

There was blinding light, followed by intense heat.

Meredith was spinning through a vortex, pressed hard against an unyielding tunnel of air with brightly colored swatches of time and space flashing by like paint in a mixer. Sharp sounds pierced her eardrums like a million needles. She groped for a handhold, but a strong centrifugal force kept her arms pinned to her sides.

Eventually the chaos subsided. She stopped spinning and floated down, landing with a jolt, feeling a screaming pain in her leg. She sprawled out on solid ground facing the sky and saw nothing.

Tyuonyi Ruins

Meredith opened her eyes. She was spread-eagled on the hillside overlooking the Tyuonyi ruins, wearing a white robe made of a soft material. Her leg hurt badly. Nearby was the low stone column she had been sitting on. She tried to rise, but felt lightheaded and slumped down again, falling upon her pack, which lay on the ground beside her.

The cliff dwellings were in shadow, and the setting sun glowed red over the hills, casting a pink tint over the horseshoe-shaped ruins of pueblos below. In the center plaza the three kivas stood, filled with shades of twilight.

She closed her eyes and sifted through memories.

Vision Quest

I was on a Vision Quest.  

Piecing together bits of memory, she reconstructed mental portraits of the individuals she had met. The Shaman, the Ant People, the Dog People, the Ancient Ones with their prophecies. Her mother and father, their suffering. The Kokopelli with their serene contemplation. She remembered the EarthWise awareness that had swept through her, revealing the deep ties between all parts of nature, both animate and inanimate.

Where was that feeling now? Had she lost it?  

Uneven Crusts

And then the feeling returned.

She was lying on a mountainside formed eons ago by shifting plates. The mountain had long since settled, but she heard the low rumbling sound of friction as the uneven crusts within the earth scraped together, straining to break free. She felt their potential to shift again, to release their force.

Greenhouse Gases

The sun was setting. The air on her skin was cool, but she felt the warmer currents, forced to rise by the mountainous lift, rushing upward into the atmosphere. The tepid wind carried smells of plant and animal decay, but also of pollutants released by factories and cars in far distant cities.

She felt the heat of infrared rays as they bounced up and down crazily, trapped in the lower layers of the greenhouse gases like caged animals trying to escape and failing, held at bay in the prison of earth's atmosphere, heating the earth even more. How hot would it get?  

Ozone Layer

She felt the damaging ultraviolet rays piercing the stratosphere, where the protective ozone layer was disintegrating like patches of peeling skin. Soon there would be too little ozone to protect anyone from the harmful radiation.  Plants and animals were depleted by ultraviolet, and people were getting skin cancer. She could feel the rays penetrating into her skin, burning, and her body putting forth defensive reactions.

Apparently nothing had changed.

Not Dead

But she had changed. Suddenly she remembered. She had died. In her mother's arms. From smoking too much of the medicinal herb. While trying to save the world.   

Why aren't I dead? Or am I? I remember coughing. I couldn't breathe. Mother was holding me. She said it worked. What worked?  

Then I was dead, and Father carried me up into the sky. How could I know about that if I'm dead? 

I'm not dead.

Young Woman Hiker

Just then a female voice said, "Are you all right?"

"No, I mean, yes, I think so," said Meredith, trying to focus her eyes.

"What happened?" asked a young woman. Meredith recognized as the young hiker she had seen heading up the hillside earlier.

"I must have fallen. I have to get up."

"Do you feel well enough to stand?"

"I think so."

"Let me help you." Meredith struggled to her feet and held onto the hiker's arm until her dizziness abated.