In the twilight the basalt stone was the shape and color of a lime, dark green. 
I was talking on my cell phone to a medicine woman about her work with abused women, when I noticed the curious object on the dirt curb in Palo Alto, California. I was visiting my son and daughter-in-law, who were not talking about their marital problems in my presence. The tension in their home was oppressive. I decided to go for a walk in the suburban neighborhood and called my friend, whose psychic abilities matched mine. We were both “strange” to our families and children, so it made sense to talk to one another. She understood me. In the middle of our conversation I noticed an object, which looked like a green lime on the ground where it hadn’t been a moment before. Very curious, I picked it up and discovered it was a Native American Healer’s Medicine Ball. How did I know that?
When I was the counselor for the Chief of the Coyote Tribe of Pomo Indians in 1988, he told me about these objects. Although in his seventies at the time, the Chief admitted “I have never seen one, but my father told us stories about them. They were round stones. The one to be cured would have to roll the stone across the ground until they could get it into a hole which the Doctor had dug in the ground. They couldn’t eat anything until they could do it.” So that was their cure for mental illness. Focus on a task until you succeed or starve to death. Wow, that’s sure intense. I remembered hearing the story before the Chief crossed over into the Spirit World. It was over fourteen years later when I found the ball in Northern California. I told my friend what I had found. “I’m probably the only one alive who could recognize this for what it is. I wonder why it appeared?” My friend laughed at me saying, “Michael, it is a gift from the other side. It was a Medicine Woman/Healer, who opened a portal to give it to you.”
Looking at the stone I noticed a slit, like a vulva. On the side was a gouge. I described the stone to my friend and she said, “it’s for healing feminine wounding; that’s what we have been talking about. That’s why the spirits opened the portal.” She spoke with authority. It made perfect sense and I have used it for 10 years helping women (and men) contact their inner memories of sexual abuse as victims and as abusers. One such man held it all night through a Native American Church peyote ceremony and in the morning told me about how his wife had taken their son away from him when the boy was five years old. He hadn’t seen his son in four years. I asked him why he didn’t have relationship with his son. “My wife thinks I am abusive and doesn’t want anything to do with me.” And how did his child feel about his dad’s abandoning him? That hadn’t even crossed his mind. He was so afraid of his wife’s abusive behavior that he didn’t bother to fight for relationship with his child. I suggested that the son must really miss his daddy and wonder why his dad didn’t want him. The man was shocked. “Why do you say that?” “Well, you just told me how tightly connected you were to your son. If I were him, as a five-year-old, I would have to assume you didn’t like me.”
As a result of our conversation the father found a way to re-open communication with his ex-wife and his son. After talking to his child he called to tell me I was right. That is exactly what his son felt, that he had done something wrong and his father no longer liked him. It has been several years since I have talked with the father, who went through the pattern with another woman, who had his child. He learned his lesson however and now has partial custody of his younger son. He is still working on his relationship with his teenage son, who likes having his dad back in his life, but still feels insecure about his relationship with his dad.
But back to the stone, it mysteriously disappeared two years ago when my repressed adolescent self emerged from the unconscious. I was having fun going to Ecstatic Dance and Burning Man with the Fox. That lasted about 10 weeks. Then the Fox disappeared and the magic stone with him. I have been mourning the loss of my playmate and finally accepted the loss of both the stone and the Fox. Maybe that’s what was needed, to grieve the loss of my adolescence, to acknowledge being forced into the parent role with my mom and dad when I was a teenager and the disasterous effects of repressing it into my unconscious, where it would sporadically emerge to threaten my wife with my inconsistent behavior. I had to feel those repressed feelings with the Fox and Brother Herman’s help. They evoked my inner adolescent with all his confusion and volatility. It drove my son crazy. He couldn’t integrate the unknown side of his dad into his picture of who I was. That was when the stone disappeared. I had it in my pocket instead of my medicine box and it rolled away on its own magic power. Retracing my steps and searching everywhere for the lost object was to no avail.
But today I was talking to my grandson in my car, trying to write down an address, when I dropped my pen. It fell down the seat belt clasp, and when I felt down into the space, I discovered the missing medicine ball. Touching it brought to mind the image of my friend and his son, so, following my intuition, I called him and left a message. A few minutes later as I was driving through the city where he lives, the phone rang. It was him. Hadn’t seen him in five or six years, so I drove over to show him the medicine ball. He verified it was green basalt from deep in the river gorge near Chico, California, extremely hard stone. The formation in the river looks like hard taffy. He said it would have to roll for a couple thousand years to turn into a ball. That particular color of green basalt is only found deep in the earth and in all the years he lived and worked on the river, he had never seen a round piece.
Needless to say, I was overjoyed to discover the Medicine Ball wasn’t lost, just waiting for me to be clear again, so I could use it for the purpose intended. Feels great to get that validation from the universe. Oh, and I forgot to mention. The Fox called last week. First time in two years. I guess sometimes we just have to be patient and wait for others to return. Like spring, it comes when it is ready. We can’t rush it.
Merlin and the White Eagle 