hogan, the hearthlike place at the center where all those energies converged. The air changed when she heard Hastiin Ts'aa'lil'ini's voice inside, and though she couldn't understand the words she was spellbound by its rhythms, awed by his authority.
Cree intuitively felt what he was doing and tried to find a synesthetic metaphor that would describe it. It was a weaving together, she decided. In daily life, all the energies of living and dead were disparate, often conflicted and chaotic. But the ceremony had invited the living people here as well as the important ghosts and now the medicine man was bringing together all their separate lines. Through the prescribed actions of the ritual, he was gathering the strands of the individual lives and personalities and psyches one by one and guiding them into a beautiful weave of ancient design.
Basket Maker! Cree realized abruptly. Joseph's uncle must be an amazing man, to have known she'd discover the meaning of the medicine man's name.
Eyes shut, feeling like she was floating in the soft desert air, Cree could sense the ceremony, almost see it: Yes, it was like a basket, honoring each strand, giving each participant a purpose, containing and protecting each individual psyche. The People and their ghosts were the basket even as they were in the basket being woven here. Ts'aa'lil'ini was gathering the strips in his strong hands, bending them gently, weaving together living and ghosts and past and future into a beautiful thing much more durable than the fleeting present. The troubled ghosts would be acknowledged, included, and calmed. He guided each strand to where it must be, creating the basket that for thousands of years had proved so beautiful, practical, enduring.
Today Tommy would know he was safe in the center of the basket, and, just as important, that he was himself a crucial strand.
Cree just sat, awed and humbled. Stunned. Grateful. Heart wrenched wide open. Still on the verge of tears. There was so much she had to learn.
Yaateeh, she thought. It is good. Yaateeh.
