The sun rose over the battle field, and not a live soul laid in the meadow. Didn’t matter that their losses were ten times what ours were. No one had won in this battle, just one side had not lost.

Every last living soul of the enemy had been put to the blade. We would gain an advantage, then they’d send just as many troops in as was our number. We would then fight with a berserkers passion and intensity until we were even in number, then we’d start getting an advantage slowly but surely, we’d gain the advantage. Just as it looked like we would win they would send in another wave of warriors, and the cycle would start all over again.

This time, however, everybody didn’t rise to see The Mystic of Cascadia in the flesh. Once again he’d led his army to victory, but this time it didn’t feel like victory. That fact led The Mystic to send home all souls who desired it. No one in his company had chosen to go home, such was their fealty to him. He rewarded their love with a week off except for those hands needed to keep an army camp alive.

This day would be known as the Battle of the Meadow of Death, and none who survived would ever talk of it again.

Journalist (J): What’s important?

Mystic (M): As the movie says, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

(J): Do you feel you’ve lived your life based on that saying?

(M): Of course, I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t live by it.

(J): Do you expect others to live by it?

(M): No, I realize it’s a pretty high watermark. If we can live by it sometimes, or get in the ballpark of it, that’s doing pretty good.

(J): But you do expect yourself to live by it?

(M): Absolutely!!!

I was apprenticed to the Forest Mystic for the standard thirteen years. I learned all of the common mystic skills in the first five years or so. The last eight years were spent learning the specific skills of a forest mystic. Being apprenticed to THE Forest Mystic had it’s advantages, but also it’s faults. He could show some tricks, explain things only he knew about. But he expected a level of perfection that even master mystics could not attain. He pushed me until I could do something exactly as it should be done. And for that I will forever be in his debt.

The one experience I had in all the time I was with the Forest Mystic which defined my time with him was when we were asked to find a missing child. The Forest Mystic and I searched for two days straight without finding a single thing. On the third day I told the Forest Mystic I wanted to try something different. The Forest Mystic asked, “What are you going to do that I didn’t teach you how to do?” I said, “I just have a hunch, there’s something I want to try.” He reluctantly agreed.

An idea had occurred to me as we looked for the child. An idea that was hard for me to accept. The idea was that I knew where the child was. As we walked around I had these feelings of, for a better word, Truth. Of course such talk made me extremely nervous given the prophecy about The One who would See the Truth. And here I was, Seeing the Truth. The only way to know if it were true would be to put it to the test.

I walked directly to where the child was trapped in a bog. I could give no explanation for what I’d done other that, “I Saw the Truth as we’d looked for the child. Eventually THE truth had occurred to me. As I explained this to the Forest Mystic he shook his head. “It’s clear,” he hesitated, “you’re THE One. THE One. We must inform the council at once.

Once the council was notified I new my life would never be the same. But then I Knew the Truth of the situation, intuitively. Such was to be my fate, to be The Mystic of Cascadia.

“Look, you’re out of your mind,” the Forest Mystic said when I told him what I intended to do. No one had ever climbed the mountain in the dead of winter. Between the ice and the rapidly changing weather, climbing the mountain at this time of year pretty much meant committing suicide. Well, damned if he didn’t pull it off, with a blinding white blizzard none the less.

Talk ran rampant about what it was he saw on the top of the mountain in that blizzard. He never said. But people saw something different in his eyes. Some called it a thousand yard stare shone in his eyes. Like he could look right into your eyes and see into your soul. It made people say, “he’s the one foretold, he’s the Mystic of Cascadial!!!”

What do I remember as moments I showed signs of being a mystic as a child? Let’s see, when I was five a family friend made me an art book. The cover read “My name is Falcao and I tell a tall tale.” She was referring to the wild stories I told at the time. Some would say this is evidence of mania as a child. Or was it me expressing The Truth I saw in the world. Hard to say given none of the stories survived.

There were three events, however, during my childhood that strongly suggest I Saw the Truth as a child.

Once was at the same camping trip as the one where I got the art book birthday present. At this trip I was with my mother at the campground offices, I’m not really sure why. But I disappeared. My mother feared the worst, and though I might have fallen into the creek that ran through the campground. Any way, they were searching when my mom noticed birthday balloons coming out of our tent. When she looked inside there I was with two girls who had lulled me into the tent with the balloons.My mother was relieved needless to say, and everyone was amazed that I could find my way back, past a creek and other hazards, all by myself.

The truth is I’d asked the trees for directions, and they steered me past every obstacle. I thought the trees had told me which way to go. The truth is The Truth revealed itself to my suggestion where to go, as it does now.

The same sort of thing happened when I was shooping at Fred Meyer with my mom. I’d wondered off and walked home, a good hike through intersections of busy sub-urban streets.. When my mom realized I was missing and couldn’t be found, she called home to ask my grandmother if I’d called or someone had called for me. I answered the phone. Again it was assumed that I’d basically been lucky..The truth is The Truth had led me home.

The third instance was another camping trip, this time in Montana. I went with some teenage girls to look at the grizzlies at the garbage dump. When we got there there was a mother and two cubs rummaging through the garbage.

At one point the mother bear caught our sent, and immediately started walking toward us. The girls froze in fear, but when I stared at the large grizzly, I knew the bear wouldn’t attack. I was able to break the girls out of their trance, They then followed me down the road away from the garbage dump and back to the campground. When we got back to our campsite the adults were waiting for us and demanding an explanation. When we told them what we’d done faces turned red and voices became We got off lucky with the girls getting grounded for a week and me getting a spanking. Pretty light punishment given the risk we took.

So there’s the three events that led me to believe I was a mystic. Hopefully you can see why that led me to believe I was A mystic.

I was sixteen when I went on my vision quest. Most go when they are fourteen or fifteen. Some were wondering if I’d ever have my familiar dream. When it came it came with a vengeance. It was not a dream, but a nightmare. A nightmare the likes of which nobody had ever seen

What made the nightmare so unique is that I died over and over. Dying just to wake again, over and over again. Most who dream of their death rise again as their familiar. My familiar just sat and watched as I died, then came back to life over and over again. Eventually I woke up and prayed to the creator to tell me what it all meant.

That’s when my familiar started talking to me. It told me things that human ears are not meant to hear. It showed me things no one was meant to ever see. I have to do this thing, it said to me, but it was not possible. Then the goddess came to me, took me by my hand and led me to a cave. She showed me things I did not understand. When I asked her about what she said, “Don’t worry about such things now.”

She needed to make love with me, though I don’t know why. It was the most ecstatic love making I’d ever had, and remains so to this day. I live to make love with that goddess one more time. Even in my dreams she comes to me, naked to the night, laying down before me, spreading her wings, begging me come enter her again.

I guess at this point you would know what happened to me.