Meditation Journal - The Vision for Jones Gap Chronicles

A couple of years ago I made an afternoon trip to Jones Gap by myself. I just wanted to spend some quality time alone in nature. I often feel this internal hunger for the out of doors and to reconnect with my own true self. The woods and the mountains seem to be the only place I can accomplish this. It’s always been an internal drive I could never quite explain.

On this day, as I walked along a path, my quite time and space was invaded by an awareness that I wasn’t alone. I began to hear the fleeting sounds of children, running and laughing as if at play. Then, out of the corner of my eye, with peripheral vision, I saw several young children running down through a small hollow, through the trees. I could only see them for a second or two before they vanished out of sight. A moment later and there - I saw them again; and again. Each glimpse lasted only seconds before they once again slipped from view. What caught my attention the most about them was that they were obviously Indian, or Native American as the current popular term goes. I felt a little turned around, as they were never in the same place twice. Kids rarely ever are.

Obviously, I was both perplexed and concerned. Yet both feelings gave way to calm and then anticipation that someone else was coming near. As I stopped again and faced the side of the mountain before me; the direction from which I sensed the arriving presence, I was immediately startled by someone standing on my right. I looked to see a younger Indian woman, a Cherokee, standing next to me. I knew I was experiencing a vision, or apparition of sorts, as she was more translucent than solid in her physical form. She began talking to me and I stood dumbfounded and stunned. I cannot remember all that she said, other than to say she spoke of a tragedy; an injustice to her people. She said, “They are here now.” I looked back up to the mountainside and saw person after person scattered throughout the steep incline, in between the trees. Young men, some with painted faces, women and elderly all looking at me. Some looked through eyes of anger, others through eyes of sadness. You could not escape the fact that there was much hurt and pain. But, I still understood nothing of what I was experiencing here. The woman told me to write about what happened here; that they wanted others to know.

I looked back up to the mountainside and no one was there. I looked back toward the woman and she was gone. The experience, the moment, was over; the presence I sensed was gone. I stood trembling, looking around me in all directions only to realize I was once again on a path in the woods all alone. I went home changed, touched somehow, and sad. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what she was describing to me. I thought, if I am to write about what happened there….what happened there? She gave no details that I could recall. I was left with thinking I was either crazy, spiritually inept, or she / they simply mistook me for some other guy. My choices were dwindling fast as I considered another possibility. I could not walk away from this experience without considering the possibility that this was true and that what was being asked of me was a part of my destiny that had to be fulfilled.