The following day Sonny pulled Path into a gas station in Mexican Hat, Utah, just over the Arizona line.  While standing at the gas pump, I watched Sonny walk back to the car, a confident stride, a new persona. Light reflected off his bald shiny dome.


Then the wind picked up. Could see it, hear it, and feel it. A fast moving tempest. I flashed back to those sounds and visions at East Beach in Rhode Island and my dream at Point Reyes, California. No signs, no voices, no nuthin but wind.


Soon thereafter, the storm subsided. The sun appeared out of the din. I had Sonny Ras Ra Stone by my side. I felt safe. Then euphoric, like the adrenaline rush of a long distance runner.


We came upon Navajo National Monument Park. It was late afternoon and the shadows throughout were spectacular, mystical shadings surrounding these massive sandstone monuments that looked like red-bronzed statues spaced across the desert.


While Ras Ra went off to meditate, I had a lengthy conversation with a Navajo guide. His name was Arjuna. His hair was long and steely, face dark with ageless wrinkles, the essence of an Edward Curtis sepia-toned illustration. He sat straight up in a warped wooden chair, playing one of those long Tibetan horns. He called himself a Wizard of the Wind.  


We walked to a vantage point overlooking his most revered monument, an enormous, red, sandstone structure standing over a thousand feet high, erectly poised, a long cape across his back, and posing like a mystical vicar in protection of his valley.


"This is My Sentinel," Arjuna said. "We talk every day. I listen hard. He's talked to every generation of my family."


Excerpt from Fragmento

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