by John Panella
I have been given the opportunity to write all of what I personally experienced. I am not sure I can explain everything cohesively, because much of it was beyond my own normal intelligence.
I was told that I would have to remain there for some time, and being gone for an extended period like this would definitely alert my wife and friends that something was wrong.
However, what was first revealed was so mind blowing that I had to remain, even at the anxiety of those who care about me. I just prayed that when I had the chance to explain all of this, they would understand why I had given them such a fright.
As I turned around, looking directly at me was what appeared to be an Indian Chief with all of the regality and trimmings with a full headdress. He was my height about 5’11” and his face was thin and worn, obviously he seemed very old, yet vaguely familiar.
His skin was as if he had been standing in the sun for many years. It was very leathery, and his eyes were deeply sunken into his sockets. His nose was small and pudgy. His lips were thin and very pale, to that of his sunburned dried red skin.
He was definitely familiar to me, but I could not place him, like a long lost memory. He stood there in complete silence as I gazed over his body and demeanor. There was this soulful compassion coming from his dark eyes, like he was looking at me as a trapped animal and there was little he could do to help me.
He allowed me to scan his facade and appearance, and he waited patiently for me to respond. Of course, not being educated in the ways of the Indian, nor their culture, I simply blurted out what was in my thoughts, saying, “Who the hell are you?”
I then backtracked over my reactive response, and tried it again, “I meant to say, who are you, and where did you come from?” Obviously not scoring many points for cultural diplomacy, he seemed ever willing to make my acquaintance even though my outburst left a lot to be desired. He replied with a slight smile on his face...
“My name is Chief Animae Cibus, I come from the Anasazi, a name meaning, alien ancestors and basket weavers. We walked this earth and these lands for a very long time. I have not come to harm you, I have come to admonish you.”
Instinctively I am thinking how is it that he would even know me? Why would I need help? Who is he that he thinks he needs to admonish me? So I responded in like, “How do you know me that you would assume I needed help? I am just a hiker out here investigating ancient ruins.”
The Chief replied, “It is not of great importance as to how or why that I know you, what is important is that you of this time period take what I will teach you and shout it out to the four winds, humanity needs to know.”
“This time period, what do you mean?” I queried.
“The time you are living in is about to change.”
I was not sure if he was explaining this properly or not, or maybe I couldn’t understand his reference to time. So I carelessly corrected his remark by saying, “You mean the world that I am living in, correct?”
He bowed his head in sadness and shook it from right to left very adamantly and then proceeded to tell me these very strange words.
“We all live in this world, we do not all live in the same time.”
I impatiently responded, “You mean like… 1984?”
He then waved for me to come over and follow him into this cave entrance. I really didn't want to do that, I mean, I didn't know this guy from Adam. I have no clue what he is doing here, and following him into a small cave didn't seem to be my idea of using my coconut properly.
As his head was turned away from me, I said, “I am not sure that this would be a good idea for me to follow, I don't even know you.”
He then, as he bent down pushing the cavern door completely open, had this obvious look in his eyes that I wasn’t getting it, “Friend, you know me, you have known me for a very long time. You have always known me. Do you know how many times we have had this encounter?”
He mumbled something as he turned around that sounded like, “How do you fight memory loss?”
I replied, “Sir, how do I know you?”
Laughingly he responded, “It is so amazing how the soul forgets and the mind interrupts.” He then continued, “My friend, we have known one another for a thousand years, over and over again, we have had this dance one too many times.”
I was starting to think this guy was a sandwich short of a picnic. You know, the light was on but no one was home. However, I did begin to realize something of great import was happening here. Like a long lost memory that was deeply embedded within my thoughts as it spoke its own revelation, telling me to follow and get it right this time.
I was very reluctant as you might correctly have surmised. Yet I knew there was something unique and uncanny happening here. To miss out on this opportunity seemed to be too great of a price to pay.
So I followed him slowly, but deliberately through this small doorway and to my shock there was nothing inside. It was stone cold empty, except a burning torch hanging on the wall, obviously the flickering light I had noticed earlier.
There was no place to lie or sit down. It was completely barren, rock face all around, and it appeared to be a circular rounded room. The room was small; probably about the size of 10' X 25’ X 8’. And the only thing that was in there was another door on the opposite side.
As I stood there looking around this empty space, the chief continued toward the other door. He then said, “Do not be frightened but you are a doorway away from the twilight zone.”
I had to laugh because that was always my expression for things that seemed weird. I would have the, [da- da- da- da], [da- da- da- da], theme song ringing in my mind of the old Rod Serling show.
Again still scrambling for the correct term in what he meant by time, I continued to believe he was referring to something different. And now the reference to the Twilight Zone really had me scratching my head.
Little did I realize when I walked through the second door, and came out into a large vast area of trees and mesas just like I had entered, I would be dumbstruck by what it was that I would see.
The area was filled with Indians of the Anasazi tribe and they walked over to the Chief and conveyed their allegiance to him in some ancient Indian dialect. I must have seen fifty to a hundred of them. They were milling about to and fro, from their dwellings, and working off the land.
They looked at me as if I was a ghost or something, a stranger from another place and time. But they were friendly, even beyond friendly, as if I was someone they all knew.
I wondered if this was some sort of play acting going on, somewhat akin to the Battle of Gettysburg, where every year they reenact the ceremony of the battle of the Civil War.
I asked him, “Who set this up, and why didn't I hear this from the other side of the cave?” Referring to the chatter and talk of the Indians as their children also laughed and played like any other child would do.
There is very little distance between one side and the other of the mesa, and I am sure that I would have heard these voices. It never occurred to me that I was not on the other side of the mesa, even though it was obvious that I had to be.
“Friend, this place is not on the other side of your mesa.” The Chief correcting me as if he could hear my thoughts and he jumped in to say.
“This place is on the other side of time.”
(3) The Two Worlds
Day One – Mystery of the Soul
My God do you know what you are telling me? Are you really trying to tell me that I am back in time, that this is when the real Anasazi Indian tribes worked and lived, how is any of this possible?
I was starting to get angry, I began to believe someone was trying to make a fool of me. I ran back into the door on the one side and left leaving out the other side. I, as fast I could immediately attempted to get to the other side of the mesa and show this Indian character how I don't like to be played with.
Of course the reason there was so much anger is because I couldn't shake the fact that my consci
ousness awareness was actually experiencing a time shift and my puny little brain was not along for the ride.
What I saw on the other side, was too elaborate, I mean ancient huts and the way the Indians were working and toting things along on their backs, everything looked so real. The children were all speaking a strange dialect that I had never heard before.
Their games were even strange, one such game they were playing that comes to mind. There would be three children all standing behind three small stones, which they placed on the ground in front of them. The one child bent down to pick up their particular stone and threw it about 10 feet in front of them. The other children laughed as if it was done improperly.
Then the second child would throw their stone, again right in front of them, this time it went about 12 feet. The children all made this sound as if the second child did much better than the first.
I did not comprehend what it was they were doing. I then noticed on the ground in front of them was a circle carved into the ground. I then understood the object was to get the stone inside the circle.
Then finally the third child threw their stone and it landed in the circle and bounced out. The three kids laughed and ran to the circle to retrieve their stones.
The first child who missed the circle was made to stand in the circle. The other two went back to the start and held their stone in their hand this time.
However the last child’s stone that landed inside the circle and then it bounced out, that child had to turn around facing the other way at the start. The second child’s stone that actually landed inside the circle, was able to throw the stone first, and the objective was to get it close to the circle without hitting the child standing in the circle, if that child was successful then that child won the event.
The circle was about 5’ (feet) in diameter. However I noticed that it was not that wise for the child who made it in the circle the first time to actually get it in the circle again.
Because the chance of hitting the child inside could be too great. Hitting the child was an automatic loss, and the child that was hit returns to the beginning and the child who hit the one inside the circle must replace him in the circle, sort of as punishment.
So because he landed inside the circle with his stone the first time, he didn’t have to get inside the second time. I guess that was the reward for getting it inside the first time. He could actually throw the stone away from the circle and still be able to remain in the game.
If the child in the circle was hit, the two children exchanged places. Of course they didn’t throw these stones very hard, they tossed them. So the child in the circle would not really get hurt if a stone hit them. In fact the child in the circle wanted to get hit so they could exchange places, they egged them on so to speak, in their language.
Now the child that had to turn around, they had to blindly throw the stone back over their head, and try to get inside the circle without hitting the child, if he didn’t get inside the circle or if he hit the other child, they would have to exchange places.
Who could have taught these children to speak in this language, and play these very odd games? It would have taken a good while. I was bound and determined to prove this was nothing but an elaborate hoax.
I scurried around the mesa as fast as I could, by the time I came to what I believed was the other side. There was nothing there, not even a doorway leading back inside of the mesa. I scratched at the walls, looking for any sign of a doorway, and there was nothing there.
I looked at the surrounding area, and it seemed all wrong. However, over to the northwest buried under trees and leaves is what appeared to be, one of the huts that I had observed earlier. It was in the same place, but trees were growing all through it and the hut looked centuries old and was badly deteriorated.
It was obvious that great periods of time had elapsed, and there was not a single soul anywhere to be found. This when my heart sank. I stood there shaking like a leaf, saying this can't be happening. This can't be true. How can walking through a cave take one into another time?
My mind was firing neurons at about ten thousand miles per second. My thoughts were not making any sense, so much was happening in my mind I could not make heads or tails out of what I was thinking or what I was going to do next.
I thought I needed to tell someone immediately about this, and let them know, but who would believe me? They would laugh at me and extoll the virtues of my stupidity. Yet, if I could get just one other person to verify this I would then have a witness, and then it wouldn’t be so easy to toss it aside.
I wondered who could I tell, and what should I tell them? And then this familiar voice that I heard ever so recently spoke from behind and said, “I want you to tell your story to as many as you can.”
The Indian chief had come around to interfere in my chaotic thoughts as if he was reading my mind again, and he was telling me that he actually did want me to tell others about this.
I turned around to see this amazing chief in full regalia staring at me intensely, and I offered a voice in return, “You really want me to tell others about this secret doorway to the past?”
Chief Animae Cibus looked at me in this troubling aura and said, “No, this door is meaningless, soon this door will be open for no one and yet it will be opened for everyone.”
“WHAT?” I angst.
“Listen carefully to me, I want to teach you something, I need you to listen, and it is these ‘words’ I want you to share with your time and people.”
“What ‘words’ would they be?”
“I want you to come back to my time and listen, and learn. I want you to understand what is happening to you and your world.”
“Could you be a little more precise?”
Again he shook his head and grumbled in his breath while chuckling, and then he said, “Lost memory is the root of stubbornness, which creates lifetimes of bad results?”
“I am sorry Chief, I don't understand.”
“Yes, I know, I realize you do not understand, and then after I am done explaining it, you will fail to realize the seriousness of this message and you shall forget it all, and guess what, lo and behold here we are again.”
“Chief…?” I was getting ready to reply… he interrupted.
“Please call me friend.”
“Why, should I do that?”
“I don’t want you to look at me as a stranger but someone very close, like a friend.”
“Chief? UH… I mean ‘Friend’, do you know me?”
“Yes indeed, but it is more important that you remember that you know yourself.”
(4) Historical Enigma
Day Two – Mystery of the Past
Trying to compose my thoughts, I didn't even want to respond to this, yet I was so intrigued by now that nothing mattered than to learn what it is that the chief wanted to tell me.
He looked at me and said, “This door was opened to you because we are connected. We came from the same beginnings. And you and I have lived in many bodies during many ages. And this is why you have been able to find this connection. This doorway is between our souls, not different time periods.”
At this point in time my thoughts were racing, but it became more focused on what it was that the chief wanted to tell me. It was then I slowly walked back to the front of the mesa and then walked between worlds of time again and came to find myself standing in the chief's realm. I was then motioned over to sit down in what seemed to be in type; like an amphitheater.
There were others who were with him that did not speak much although they would utter a few English phrases as if the chief had been teaching them. Which then made me wonder, how did the chief learn my language so fluently?
His friends that stood by smiled often with seemingly intense hope that I would understand, but more than that, they all seemed to know me. I was then asked to sit before the chief, in a round circle, with the chief’s friends also doing the same.
While the chief was in the cente
r, each of us had our legs folded while staring directly at the chief as night time was quickly unfolded upon us. There was thirteen of us altogether including the chief as the twelve of us encircled him with me being directly in front of him.
As the stars were starting to reveal themselves, and a great fire was stoked behind and in front of us, the chief asked me to look into the sky, “What is it that you see?” he asked.
I gazed around gently turning my head upward, “I see the stars.” Oh they were brighter than I had ever seen them before. The sky was so pristine and clear. No smog, no pollution of any kind no light to deteriorate its exquisite beauty other than the flames of the fire and the sparkling ash residue as it fluttered into space.