Chapter Seventeen:
A Dream
[Page 2]
We walked up to see Posey and Perry, in the little side yard where
Kelly had placed them once Posey could walk. I wouldn't have guessed
that anything was the matter. Maybe she was moving a little slowly.
By the time a veterinarian arrived, everything was normal including
Posey's temperature at 101. The vet wondered if she had had a reaction
to a bee sting. He speculated about impaction, an ulcer, or food
poisoning, and ended up just telling us to watch her.
"I felt so helpless when Posey was down,'' Kelly told me that
evening. "I wasn't at all calm.''
"It's too much so soon after Renny, and with all the other
changes,'' I said. "It's odd, how much it's like my dream,
though that was Blossom. There's a llama lying on her side seemingly
dying, there's the vet out of town, there's the same temperature.
But most of all, the feeling of the dream is so much like today
has been. I felt in the dream the same sense of helplessness in
the face of crisis that you felt today.''
I had never had a prophetic dream before, though I knew that they
occurred. Since I hadn't actually seen Posey when she was down,
and maybe because everything turned out okay in the dream, now I
was feeling less upset than Kelly. I hoped I wasn't going to have
a habit of dreaming things that came true, though. That could be
very unsettling.
The next day, I wrote about the incident. After I'd noted the facts,
I decided to let my imagination roam. I imagined that Posey and
I were talking.
"Where did you go, Posey?'' I asked her.
"My body hurt in my abdomen. Then the pain took me out of
here and became itself a gateway into the world where the Great
Llama stood guardian on a throne, and beyond him was the Light.
He was a beautiful all-white llama, stern and completely loving.
He asked me to stay on earth for the sake of all beings, to add
my spirit to the balance of life on earth at this time of trouble.
"It was up to me, I could stay or go as I chose, but he showed
me the beautiful delicate shapes of earthly attachments between
beings. He looked into the future and saw my children and grandchildren.
He showed me all these llamas that would come to life if I stayed.
"While the Great Llama was showing me these things, Kelly
was rubbing my ears, and Kelly was so upset that I felt that it
would be better for him if I came back.
"This was a new thought for me, that what I did would matter
to anyone but me or my baby. It is part of the new shapes that I
didn't see before.
"Then the Great Llama told me that I have a different kind
of mind. He told me that the llamas need me too, that I can temper
their earth-bound qualities. Well I certainly liked that. When I
think of that Blossom, and all her bossiness--why she doesn't have
the faintest idea about the Great Llama! I guess they do need me.
"If I left now, my baby would become (hmpf) a pet. But if
I stay, she will have more of my delicate energy, and I can teach
her about my experience. Renny always did go way out there, but
that was her nature, right from the start. This little rooted one,
child of Levi, I haven't found so exciting after Renny. But now
I see she has talents. Yes, Perry is the most refined of that peasant
Levi's daughters. But I do hope you breed me to someone with more
class this year.
"If I decide to stay, that is.''
A friend had been thinking of buying Posey. We notified him that
we probably shouldn't sell her at this time. But then when a couple
of days went by, and she seemed fine, I had another conversation
with the friend about maybe selling her after all. Maybe the whole
thing had just been a reaction to a bee sting.
An hour or two later--coincidentally?--Posey was down again. Llamas
do stretch out to relax in the sun, but when we approached her,
Posey barely moved. It seemed that she was in considerable pain.
As before, no veterinarians were immediately available. Kelly and
I sat with Posey. We put her head in our laps, at any other time
an unimaginable liberty. I told her about those shapes of relationships
again. I told her that I loved her.
After a while, Perry came up and nursed Posey's wool determinedly,
nuzzling around, and finally getting on the teats. That led Posey
to sit up.
When a vet came up, again there was nothing obvious. He checked
Posey and drew blood for tests. A few hours later, he called to
say that the blood results didn't explain anything. He suggested
we think of hauling Posey to one of the llama research hospitals.
Whether we went to the one in California or the one in Oregon, it
would be a journey of several hours and then Posey would be in just
the kind of situation that she hated most. I was sure that it would
undermine her will to live.
|
