They are glowing from within, like a low fire burning brown against the green, a song poem escaping closed lips: comprehension. The glow is like the gentle ghosts of lava flowing from an ancient volcano, but here the lava flows uphill as it comes from the ceremonial area flowing to hidden places on the butte where visions send prayers, like bottled messages, into the lava flow as it continues to the heavens. Following these glowing trails; she’s startled when they start to arch forth from the butte turning into multi-colored lightning bolts connecting with the sky.
Bear Butte Trails Bear Butte State Park, South Dakota Showing the ceremonial area and its vision quest trails. As she sat with Joe for the first time she saw four trails leaving from the ceremonial area that were glowing from within. She wanted to walk on one of those trails but knew she would have to wait.
She is even more frightened but also still excited and now mesmerized. To set foot on such a trail, to continue walking into heaven, to find understanding on a butte—could she dare? She always thought understanding would happen in a library or lecture hall, not on a butte. The glowing trails braid into one another and wind down to rest at her feet. “I don’t feel ready for that.” Joe nods his whole body, adding more sage branches to the fire, starting a soft song in his rocking. The sage crackles and hums expelling white smoke, which dances in circles before fading into the trees. Fragments of skeletons dance in the trees to the hum of the burning sage, the four burning trails, which start to turn red, blue, yellow then white as the lightning bolts in the sky retract downward, back onto the butte. She stares up at these glowing lines on the butte as the skeletons start to dance up them while Joe rocks softly singing to himself. She had always hoped for armchair visions like the tv