Medicine Man
by Raymond Cannefax
Copyright©Raymond Cannefax 2024
All rights reserved
Medicine Man . . .
Years ago, in a rustic log cabin diner in the Siera Blanca Mountains of New Mexico, I enjoyed spending an evening with an Apache elder who asked to join me at my table. It was one of those quiet winter wonderland sorts of evening with big, fluffy snowflakes slowly floating toward earth, reflecting the street lights glow in that the little town of Ruidoso. Aside from the aging proprietor of the unnamed diner, my newfound dinner companion and I were the only ones there. Considering the other tables were unoccupied, I briefly pondered why he asked to join me and without hesitation, I welcomed him to pull up a chair. I recalled seeing this Apache elder at the Sierra Blanca Ski Resort during its pre-season ski patrol and employee refresher. Since he was blessing the resorts equipment with a sage wand, I presumed him to be the Apache Nation’s Medicine Man, the resort is owned by the Apache Nation. I admired his attire as he settled into a chair, a beautifully beaded deerskin vest upon which his salt & pepper braids rested, well-worn Levi jeans accentuated by a silver belt buckle, and a beautiful turquoise necklace hung from his neck. He had creases etched into his face as deep as the Grand Canyon yet sanded smooth by his gentle smile. His dark eyes were bright enough to allow one to believe the Universe had placed galaxies in them to provide their sparkle. I initially questioned why he had elected to join me that evening but have not question that since. As we conversed, we talked about the tremendous amount of snow the ski resort had been blessed with that winter and other topics regarding changes being brought about by man’s continued misunderstanding of nature. The old man conveyed personal concerns he and others of the Apache Nation harbored about the state of mankind, and he provided answers to questions I asked about various topics. He was a great conversationalist with an accent common to Native Americans. In addition to all else, he had a pleasant-sounding Apache name, Goiahn. Our conversation revived forgotten memories of my youth, memories of chats with my great-grandfather, Ludwig Krippner, one of the wisest men I have ever known. Between the age of three and seven, I had the good fortune of spending summers with this wonderful man at his home in the small village of Bad Endorf, at the base of the Bavarian Alps. Many of our chats took place in the apple orchard that adjoined the home. From my grandmother, Oma, who raised me, and my great-grandfather, I learned more about life without being taught a single thing. Memories of Seppei teaching me how to sail on Ammersee, and other fond recollections.
As we ate, my dinner companion expressed his concerns about many matters impacting mankind around the globe. He frequently referring to the teachings of his father and the ancestors from whom he learned the tremendous importance of life, from whom he learned the value of spiritual and physical balance, and of nature’s requirements to keep our sacred planet unscarred. Goiahn shared his personal beliefs along with scientific evidence that the time had come for humanity to correct its destructive behaviors in order to save ourselves. “Men are flawed creatures, always. Me too,” the Medicine Man said as he began responding to a question I posed. "Man was never so flawed like now, and things with man are not getting better,” he continued. “Men no longer like to listen to things that are not about money or power. The spirits worry.”
That comment from my dinner companion moved our casual conversation to a more serious level as we continued getting to know one another in that charming log cabin diner as giant snowflakes continuing to slowly float to earth in the little village of Ruidoso.
“For many years, man forgets how sacred our land is. Not only white man, my people too,” Goiahn said in a slow, methodical fashion to assure I understood every word he spoke. “The land is a treasure that many use only for making money but with not understanding that they are murdering Mother Earth.”
Listening to him speak provided me the sense that what he was feeling and sharing with me came from his heart, not his brain or from the scientific evidence he had studied, but from his heart and soul.
The delivery of the Medicine Man's wisdom was sincere and filled with concerns for the future of the human race. His sincerity was obvious as I studied the changing expressions on his face, the wide-open eyes that never stopped sparkling and the far-reaching gestures he made with his outstretched arms and hands to emphasize his emotions regarding the topics of which he spoke. There was distinct emphasis on certain words, along with the occasional tone of frustration as he declared what he and members of his tribe, and other Native American tribes, perceived to be mankind’s slaughter of Mother Earth.
Not all of which he spoke was new to me. Shamen from other tribes of Native Americans, and from cultures that span our globe have addressed similar concerns in documentaries I had read or watched. These wise men continue to provide us warnings about the harm we are doing to our environment and the harm we are doing to ourselves as we work toward our undeclared, yet obvious goal to self-implode and become the next mass extinction. About forty minutes into our conversation, I sensed an opportunity and garnered the courage to seek an answer to a question that encroached the front of my mind periodically; a long-harbored question in respect to my personal mortality. It was a question that had lingered with me for most of my decades on planet earth, a question for which no one with whom I had previously addressed it could provide an answer, a question for which I had stopped seeking an answer due to the complexity of the subject and related incidents.
As I presented the topic to Goiahn, I explained how I had inexplicably escaped my life coming to an end on several occasions and always wondered why, when it appeared I should have been booted out of the camp of the living, wondered what forces might have allowed me to survive. I clarified I had been perplexed by my continued survival of potentially deadly events in which I sustained only minimal bodily harm, a broken wrist being the most severe.
“When was the first time this happened to you,” Goiahn asked after a period of silence and his obvious visual and thoughtful analysis of me. The first incident I conveyed was of an incident that took place when I was eight or nine years old, as I played with friends on the top of an old medieval look-out tower that is part of the medieval remains of fortifications surrounding my hometown of Landsberg. Having climbed to the top of the towers with classmates, as we had done before, rather than slowly inching around the perimeter of the tower wall, I decided to run across the middle of the considerately rotted wooden floor of the ancient tower’s upper deck. When almost to the other side, I began to hear the rotted wood floor begin to crackle as it began to collapse behind me and fall to the tower’s lower floors, taking remaining remnants of rotted flooring with it. With my final step, I grabbed the top of the tower wall and stood on the floor’s narrow decking remains that protruded from the stone wall.
My friends, standing on that tower’s top level stone support ledge across from me yelled their concern for the safety of the narrow staircase which we had to descend. With most of the floor having collapsed, we could see the staircase intact because like the tower, it was made of stone, but the wood railing had not survived. Fear was obvious in our voices as we yelled to one another about getting down. Not only was descending the narrow stairs, now lacking the wooden support rails a concern, I had to work my way back to the other side of the tower, to my friends with only a two to three inch ledge for my support as they slowly work along that narrow ledge toward the staircase. We had to descend the three-storied tower and none of us was sure we would make it safely to the bottom. We succeeded.
“What other times did something happen where you could have died?” Goiahn asked.
There were two survival incidents that continued to stand out as events I survived despite the odds being against my survival. The first I began explaining was of when I was robbed at gunpoint, in the heart of Watts, CA, where I found myself staring down the barrel of a revolver in the hand of a robber.
“After having handed over my wallet, cufflinks and money in my pockets, as the robber had demanded, he kept pointing his pistol at me and did something I will never forget,” I told Goiahn and quoted the assailants words, words which I will never forget.
“You rich white bastards are all the same. You got tons of dough, drive shiny new cars and dress like movie stars, and you hand me nothing more than pennies,” were the words I heard just before hearing the click of the pistol’s hammer hitting either a dud, or an empty chamber. “Lucky fucker,” he uttered with a half-smile as he slowly exited my car with my wallet, cufflinks, tie clip and pocket change. “Get the fuck outa my town, Whitie, before I reload my piece.”
“So, the gun was loaded?” asked Goiahn. “I don’t know. The only thing I know is that there was a click when I presume he pulled the trigger.” “Any others like that one, where you really could have died?” Another close call I presented Goiahn involved a crash that took place while photographing a Grand Prix racing event. I was squatted down, reloading film into my camera, back turned to the race track, when an out-of-control Formula-1 race car became airborne and flew over me at high speed, missing my head by inches, hitting trees behind me and seriously injuring the driver. I should clarify that this conversation with the Goiahn, the Medicine Man, took place when I was twenty-six years old; far from having lived a full life but having experienced situations most never experience. “Did you think you could have avoided these kind of situations?” “Risking my life was something I’d not given thought until after I had survived, except that car crash where I was going too fast for the curvy road,” I replied.
I further explained that I was cognizant of taking inherent risks in some of my activities but assured him that I did not have a death wish and explained that most the risks I took had a minimal risk of a potentially injury, but not death.
“I’m gonna refresh my coffee,” said Goiahn as he rose from the table and walked toward the kitchen with his coffee cup, “I want to hear about your car crash when I’m back.”
More than the other incidents, the car crash and the Watts robbery were the incidents for which I desired an answer. For my edification I hoped for a logical and comprehendible answer from Goiahn. From a priest, counselor, therapist from whom I had sought clarification of my survivals of either or both of these instances; there was only speculation about my survival, no answers. The details of those two events puzzled all.
“This is the one incident where something happened for which there is no physical explanation,” I began as the Shaman sat his coffee on the table and settled back into his chair.
Uncertain of where to begin in respect to the car crash, I clarified that it was a horrific crash that took place on the day of my high school graduation and that my car was demolished. There was only one witness who, as well as those to whom he explained what he had witnessed, was puzzled.
After declaring that I had been driving far too fast for the Millcreek Canyon road, I told him that I lost control of my car, that my car had become airborne and reportedly done several barrel rolls through the air before striking a tree, head-on, and returning to earth, upside-down on a giant boulder with its doors closed. The granite boulder penetrated the driver-side roof like a can opener, leaving the jagged metal of the car’s roof penetrating the driver's seat in which I had been seated.
When I saw my car at the wrecking yard, later in the week, I was amazed I survived. The splayed metal of the roof penetrating the driver’s seat, looked like a giant claw trying to permanently embed the driver into the driver’s seat. The rest of the roof was flattened to where it was level with the hood and trunk, and the car was visibly bent in the middle. How I had managed to get out of the car is the question that has lingered in my mind since the day of that crash.
The one witness to that crash told police that he had seen my car flying through the air and then suddenly saw my body in the air in front of the car just before, or just as the car hit the tree. “Therefore, the question I have is how did I got out of that car,” I told Goiahn. How did I end up mid-air, flying away from the car at the time the car struck the tree and then collapsing onto that boulder?”
I continued to explain that I ended up on the asphalt with relatively serious abrasions, cuts and bruises, but was still capable of putting on my gown and cap that evening and attending my high school graduation.
Without obvious emotion, Goiahn’s penetrating eyes locked onto mine as he asked me about what caused the car to become airborne. There appeared to be a different intensity in those bright eyes which were now intently focused. “Tell me again about you flying in the air and why your car was in the air,” Goiahn requested.
I explained again that I was driving far too fast around a bend and lost control of my car and that I had no idea of how it got airborne. I further declared that I had no memory of what transpired between losing control of the car and me being on the asphalt, emphasizing that I had no idea of how I got out of the car.
“I remember losing control, but I have no memory of anything else until I felt the pain of my body hitting the pavement and then some guy helping me over to the shoulder of the road.”
As I neared the end of recounting my car crash, Goiahn’s look into my eyes intensified even more and for a lengthy period of time, without him moving or speaking.
I had no concept of what to think and sat there as quietly as Goiahn, waiting for him to begin speaking After what seemed an eternity, he leaned forward, asked me to put my hands together and to place them between his. Goiahn clasped my hands, closed his eyes and turned his head toward the diner’s knotty-cedar ceiling and softly said some words in his native tongue. It felt as though we held that posture forever. The stillness and quiet was comforting and also deafening. While he continued looking upward, I felt the Medicine Man tighten his clasp on my hands. Slowly he lowered his head, opened his mesmerizing dark eyes, which again stared directly into mine, potentially penetrating the walls of my soul. My hands remained gripped between his.
“The spirits have blessed you,” Goiahn declared after a lengthy pause, his expressionless face slowly returning to the slight smile that had been present through our earlier conversation. “A great spirit is with you, the ancients tell me when I ask them for help with your question,” he said as his hands tightening their grip on mine even more. His serious expression warmed as he loosened his grip on my hands and continued with his belief in respect to why I had been so fortunate to have survived so many close calls. “The dark spirit remembered he failed to collect your soul when the tower floor fell. He came for you again those other times and still didn’t collect your soul," Goiahn gave as his reasoning as to why I escaped those close calls with fate. "When you crashed your car into the sacred tree that still lives, the dark spirit thought he had captured your soul and finished his job. Your soul, he thought, was his and he crossed your name off his list.” As if transfixed, I listened intently as the Medicine Man continued to provide answers to something for which I had never found an answer. Friends and others with whom I discussed some of these incidents had various opinions, but none could explain the why of my survival. “Lucky,” was the common response from others. “You broke from the dark Spirit’s grip before you landed on the road and survived to be here today,” was his concluding comment regarding the crash.
Goiahn provided concepts I had ever given lengthy thought or consideration, spirits being among us, spirits in the world of the living. Ecclesiastical matters were relatively foreign to me.
“Your great spirit watches always and is strong. Even now, in our mountains, I feel your spirit watching. Your great spirit, your spirit of light, takes you from the car before it was smashed onto the rock. Your great spirit helped you reach the other side of the tower before the tower floor fell. Your great spirit made the bullet in the gun not work, and your great spirit pushed the racing car away from you, into trees.” Slowly and methodically, the Medicine Man provided his interpretation of how I survived situations that could have brought an end to my life. I was amazed, perhaps mesmerized at what he said of those events. The intensity in his expression, as I conveyed these incidents, was gone and his casual smile had returned.
With a more relaxed atmosphere between us, I asked about other incidents, such as one in the Organ mountains, only a few months earlier, when I lost my grip while mountain climbing, slipping and sliding on a steep granite face only to have my fall arrested a few feet before the granite wall, undercut by time, providing a free-fall to the scree field, more than one hundred feet below. Though on belay, my climbing partner was only attached to the granite slope by a small pine tree no taller than perhaps four feet and a trunk no thicker than three inches. I did not provide these specific details to Goiahn and only stated that I had a mountain climbing incident which, were it not for my partner, would have been fatal. I did not disclose how my climbing partner was secured to the granite slope we were ascending or anything other than my losing of grip as I climbed that peak. "The great spirit holds the root of the tree your rope was tied to, so you and your friend will not fall over the edge." The question that come to mind, in respect to the Medicine Man’s comments about my close call, was how did Goiahn have knowledge of details I did not disclose? How did he know things other than what I mentioned about that climbing incident? How did he knew that the belay rope was tied to a small tree? Questions I determined not necessary to ask at that time. "Why, Goiahn? Why, all these times?" I asked, quizzically. “It is because your Spirit of Light takes you from the car before it hits tree, and the spirit holds the root of the tree to keep you and your friend from falling over the cliff, and that is why you are here,” he declared. “Most others would no longer be here,” he said, gesturing, with his hands, toward the window. “The dark spirit has a book and when he was thinking your soul was with other souls he captured, your name he crossed off because he thinks your soul was his.” “I really don’t understand," I said in respect to how perplexing I found his answers, still studying the depth and clarity of his sparkling brown eyes and admiring the braids that rested on his beaded buckskin vest. “Understand is not always easy. You have a long life to live. There will be other times when you think you are finished, but you will not be gone. When your time is finished, you will know,” he said softly. “How will I know?” “You will know because your Spirit of Light will guide you,” said Goiahn with a relaxed and pleasant smile.
“How will I know?” I asked again. “How will I know it is not the dark spirit trying to take me?” That questions led to further discussion and additional questions in my effort to comprehend all I was being told by this spiritual elder, this shaman of the Apache Nation. “You will know when your time comes, and you will call your Spirit, and your spirit will come to guide you. The dark spirit thinks no longer of you, so there is no fight for your soul, and your Spirit of Light will take you to green meadows when it is your time.” “How? How will I know?” “You will know. But until then, there is much work to be done.”
In puzzled amazement I listened to reason the Medicine Man provided to that one specific question I had been asking since my youth, that question of how I escaped death so many times. Though he had loosened his grip, he continued holding my hands between his and gazed at me with that penetrating smile which I shall not forget as long as I shall live. “You are blessed by the Great Spirit. You are young. You must do good for people. That is why you are here. You must thank your Spirit of Light always for saving you from the dark spirit by helping others who come to seek your help,” he explained.
Based on his input, I began to understand that I had a mission to complete but had no idea what that mission might be.
At some point during our conversation, the diner’s owner stopped by our table and sat an old skeleton key in front of the old man. Nothing was said. There was a nod of understanding from the Goiahn’s head. I offered to pay and received only a smile and head shake as a response as the diner’s owner turned and walked out the door.
With my newfound friend, perhaps my earthly spiritual guide, my time in the diner was considerably longer than I had anticipated when I stopped in for dinner. It intrigued me to listen intently to all Goiahn had to say about mankind's road to destruction and about my survivals. That night I was provided a new understanding of the importance of leading a good life, of doing good acts without being concerned about why such acts had come my way. He informed me that I would reach my highest state of joy late in life with a wise companion who would guide me through difficult periods. He clarified that when the spirit in my soul tells me when my time on earth would be done, I would be ready to accept that with joy and join the spirit guide who would come for me.
When he finished our deep and enlightening discussion, Goiahn, the Apache elder, the Medicine Man stood, release his grip on my hands and placed his hands on both sides of my head, speaking words in his native tongue. He leaned toward me, and with his thumbs, pressed lightly on my eyelids he blew a breath on my forehead. I felt as if I was being put in a trance, oddly pleasant and light as a feather. That moment, with the Medicine Man's hands cradling my head, thumbs on my eye lids, was the most physically and spiritually soothing encounter I had ever experienced, provided perhaps by a spirit who was giving me guidance for the years to come, guidance on how I might navigate life's journey.
“You will leave before next winter,” he said as he moved his hands away from my head to my shoulders. “We will meet again, but not like tonight, and we will have much to discuss and more time than tonight.” As I continued listening, I sensed Goiahn had completed what he had been sent to do with me or for me. With an upward nod of his head, he rose and gestured me to rise as he placed his hands on my shoulders and said good night with his enchanting smile. Leaving some cash on the table, I walked out of the diner into the lovely winter night, puffy snowflakes still drifting from the heavens and lightly coming to rest on my head. As I walked toward my van I turned my head, looked back through the window where we had been seated, and watched the Medicine Man, coffee cup in hand, walking back to the chair where he had been seated during my enlightenment. Upon reaching my old VW in the diner’s unpaved parking lot which had a blanket of fresh snow reflecting the streetlights and making all I saw look almost heavenly, I found a bundle of sage stuck into my door handle. I looked back once more, and saw Goiahn, perhaps my guide, perhaps an extension of my spirit, sitting where he had sat with me, drinking from his cup. I did not return to ask about the sage. Some questions are best left unasked.
The answers given to the questions I asked provided an amazing experience. The words spoken by Goiahn have resonated within me throughout my life and continue to do so. Though perplexed, I inherently understood Goiahn’s answers and all else he told me, and gradually began to accept the incomprehensible, the reasons for having survived all the incidents that could have ended my life. I felt then, as I do now, fortunate to have the forces of which he told me, the Spirits of Light, provide guidance while perhaps directing me to complete the mission that is my life. There is so little we know and understand about the spiritual world that lies beyond us and what awaits us when we are called. There is much for us to learn from our Native American spiritual leaders in respect to all that surrounds us on earth, and perhaps our purpose while being here.
I returned to that rustic diner many times that winter, but never again saw Goiahn, the man who bestowed upon me his knowledge and beliefs, and I believe bestowed upon me a divine blessing at the end of our conversation. More than five decades have passed since that evening with Goiahn. I will never forget the words he bestowed upon me and have comfort knowing the guidance he provided that evening will accompany to my end. The morning following this event, enjoying my first cup of coffee, I felt fortunate that I had enough wherewithal, prior to retiring, to write the details of my encounter with Goiahn into my journal, recording the details of my evening with the Apache Medicine Man, recording, as best as I could recall, the words that wise old sage said to me.
There have been close calls since that night, and I always gave thanks to the blessing I believe I received from Goiahn, by glancing up to the sky and reflected onto that night in the diner; perhaps my way of offering prayer.
I do not believe that I have taken greater risks since that night in Ruidoso, greater than I would have taken otherwise. I never considered the ideology of having immunity from severe consequences when embarking on high risk adventures, and rarely calculated risk factors before executing. I simply lived life. Through it all, I continued to survive, did my best to live a good life, helped those who came to me for help, and continually gave thanks to the heavens.
Good fortune or the Spirit of Light? Only Goiahn may know the answer to that question. With that disclaimer, I feel fortunate in being able to declare that I am thankful for the good fortune I have had throughout my life and for the spirits protecting me from whatever dark forces might desire my failure.
I have done good things for mankind, for friends, for people I did not know, for my family and for Mother Earth. I was advised that there would be things I would need to do but have no idea of how many things, or what those things were, just that they are. As I was informed on that evening in Ruidoso, I will know what to do and when to do it and eventually I will know when my tasks and responsibilities have been fulfilled. As I have believed throughout my life, there is no such thing as a free ride. To this day, I am grateful for being able to pay that price.
My life has been grand, and it has been an honor to endure. That is not to say that it was without issues and challenges. When I am done, I look forward to being guided to that next dimension, wherever that may be. Though I do not believe in the Christian philosophy of heaven and hell, I was taught in catechism, I do believe there is a continuum, and I look forward to meeting the Spirit who, as Goiahn told me, will guide me into that next dimension where I have confidence I will be reunited with Goiahn. What a wonderful time that will be, perhaps the beginning of grand adventures in the Universe.
No matter the direction I must take, I will continue making my contributions to mankind as the Medicine Man told me I would need to do during that enlightening winter’s night, as large snowflakes, reflecting the light emitted by the streetlamps, fell gently upon the quaint little mountain town of Ruidoso. #####
Postscript:
Medicine Man is the recount of an actual event that occurred in late 1973 in Ruidoso, New Mexico, a mountain village near the Sierra Blanca Ski Resort. I had seen this Medicine Man several times at the ski area that is owned and operated by the Apache Nation, but I had never spoken with him prior to that evening at the diner.
When he entered the diner and asked to sit with me, this story unfolded.
This was an actual life event recounted without embellishment; an experience that continues to remain unique in all I have experienced throughout my years.
With all sincerity, I state that I feel blessed. Yes, there have been additional close calls that I fortunately survived. Based on what I learned from the Medicine Man I presume I am doing my job properly, and I believe that I am still receiving guidance from both, the Medicine Man who I have not seen since moving away from Ruidoso, and from my grandmother who provided physical, mental and spiritual guidance throughout my youth and who, I believe, has continued to do so throughout my life, even now.
Forty-five years later in life, when lost and feeling that I had failed in my responsibilities to myself and others, I retreated to the desert for several years and gained guidance from spirits to whom I offered prayer and who I believe helped me find my path back to the light. I returned to the city a different man that before.
There were times I wondered how long I would carry on. Yet, for being able to carry on, I am grateful and give thanks to the spirits that make it possible.
I give thanks to our Native Americans, their culture, and their beliefs, and to the down-to-earth Bavarians who gave guidance during my youth.
In closing I say thank you to all who have helped me continue through a wonderful and blessed life and who have helped me learn and understand the spiritual aspect of living a good life and of accepting and sharing love with all.
