If I knew why I wrote about all of this, I probably wouldnt have written it. I would be there already.

Eden Hovenga

If I could return to the womb I would.

The world started with a heart and a mountain and in that first beat time stopped. It was the closest we got to heaven.

Some mornings when I wake up and get out of bed I can feel the ghost of my mountain on my back and it makes me feel like Atlas struggling under the weight of the sky. If we are all Titans, who did we fight? What did we lose? Is life our punishment? Is our self awareness?

This is my creation story. A small communion of feeling that I've gotten from all the Native American stories I've read.

I carry my mountain with me to class, to a friend's, to parties on weekends. I can imagine the peaks and caverns and little streams that run down my back mimicking the arcs of my shoulder blades and reach of my spine. They caress my shoulders and keep me warm, weighing down on me while holding me up. No one can see me carrying my mountain. It is my life. It is everything and nothing.

When we die, we will leave our mountains behind as memorials or mausoleums for our souls.

Jack Kerouac said that we are everything and nothing. That we are the golden eternity. One of my teachers told me I was the "golden eternity" a couple of weeks ago.

My friend said that Jack Kerouac was an asshole. I didn't talk to him for three days. The weight lessened.

If anybody could tell me about the Golden Eternity it would have been my uncle. My Grandma carries his ashes around in a teddy bear. I'm not certain, but I think she knows too.

My Uncle died on Easter when I was six. I think my whole family has mixed feelings about it it's weird to combine the resurrection of Jesus with the death of my Uncle. It's as if even now, my Uncle had to trade his soul for Jesus. A sacrifice I wouldn't have wished for, however sacrilegious that sounds.

A few days ago, I came across this book, coloring book sized, that I had taken from home on Native American rituals in the Southwest. I had forgotten that I adopted it, probably because of it's size. It was short and didn't really say much that I didn't already know, but in the front cover was a note I hadn't noticed to my Uncle Donnie from a friend.

I never really knew my uncle, but I'd like to think he'd believe in spirit animals. He wouldn't be the asshole my mom says he was. He'd guide me, understand me. He was the one other artist in the family, the creative one. I miss him everyday. He'd be my friend.

He'd say, "I don't pretend to know anything about nothing," and chuckle.

He'd tell me that in the beginning we were all animals but different than the animals of today. That we were dire wolves and short faced bears before there were knives and guns, before there was war. There were chorus frogs, whistling hares, and coydogs. We were coydogs.

"We were golden bears," he'd say.

We would explore the world together. We'd take it by storm.

I know a bear, a fox, and a wolf, and they are all my friends.

When I dream of animals, I dream that they are attacking me.

I dream of wolves and of cats. I dream of cats mostly. I dream of bobcats and of mountain lions. In dreams a mountain lion is supposed to represent danger, aggression and raw emotions; because that's what it is - dangerous and raw.

When I go hiking with my parents in the Appalachians we always joke about mountain lions. My dad will chuckle and explain how they track people and strike, even though we already know. My mom is out of shape and always the slowest, especially with a pack. My Dad and I will rotate, switching between walking up front and walking with her. I will keep my free hand up by my neck. I will carry a walking stick to beat it with, just in case.

In my dreams I always break their jaws with my hands. In my dreams I always kill them. There's a pop of a socket and a rough crack of bones that I can feel through my body, raising my skin. I get a shake in my spine, like when you're cold and shiver roughly, and then it's over.

But when are dreams real?

In my spare time, I research them. I spend hours reading about dreams and Native American culture, sometimes together but mostly separate. It's the only time I really feel like I'm learning something. There were so many Native American tribes; there aren't so many now. In most of them that I've researched, dreams play an important part. Sometimes it's about understanding who you are and how you fit into the world. Sometime's it's about the gods. Sometimes it's about the future.

I don't believe I'm that in tune with the world to be able to predict the future through dreams. If they predicted the future, they would predict my death.

The bobcat I killed, I had to kill twice. I was with friends in the dream. The first time it died, it disappeared. I knew it was coming back though, it was coming back for me. He was invisible when he grabbed my arm, sinking his teeth into the skin.

There was no blood though. Only hands and teeth and another sharp crunch of bones.

I have a tattoo of a deer skull with roses on my right arm. It is now my favorite part of my body.

When I was younger, my spirit animal was a mountain lion. It meant that I was stubborn and would stand behind my beliefs no matter what and that I was happy.

The Zunis charged the mountain lion with the duty of carrying messages from humans to the higher spirits because of his power. He was the link to Mother Earth and Father Sky. He was happiness. He was strength.

He knew about the mountains on our backs.

I love the way that different people (by "people" I mean "tribes," Native American and others) describe animals as entities and give them different tasks and importance in their stories and lives. In Thailand, they believe that a white elephant contains the soul of a dead person. In Alaska, the Tlingit people view the raven as the main deity. They have this story about how the Raven once lived in the land of spirits that existed before our world, but that one day he was so bored with this spirit land that he flew away, carrying a stone with him. When he became tired of carrying the stone, he dropped it into the ocean and the stone expanded until it created our land. Our mountains.

The whole concept of spirit animals found me through all these stories. I knew that one, or two, was meant for me. There are a lot of different interpretations of spirit animals and theories on how to find yours and information on what they're supposed to symbolize. Most of the information online says that "you find your spirit animal." I don't believe that.

I believe that the spirit animal finds you and when you truly know yourself, you know your companion. A spirit animal is both separate from and a part of you. Like dreams, if you understand the nature of it and the feel of it, then you know. No description or definition of an animal will ever fit anybody perfectly, because we're not perfect. We're delicate and human.

And we change. So they do too. When I first started college, my spirit animal changed to a sparrow and then to a deer. The power of deer is supposed to be in love. It's in it's gentleness and it's grace.

I like to pretend that the four bald eagles I saw were a present from Saint Therese, a little acknowledgement of her eternal love.

This past December I saw four bald eagles. One flew right over me at a big intersection back home. I started to doubt the power of the deer.

Saint Therese, above us all, showers us with roses from her gardens in the sky. She pours them on all, from the beggar and the bum to me in my humble apartment. She loved us all.

I know what I feel, but other than that I really know nothing. One day I want to know. I want to know all the Native American stories. I want to know about all the saints. I want to truly know Buddhism.

I don't even have a right to talk about any of these things. I butcher them all with my words. They call this New Age - the combination of whatever you want into one. It's a description I really hate; it tastes sour in my mouth.

I'm one of those girls that people make fun of. The ones that say, "I'm not religious; I'm spiritual." I don't know if I'm even spiritual. I just want a beautiful story of my own to fall asleep to at night.

I don't pretend to know anything about nothing.

My favorite thing about Buddhism is all the pretty words: samsara, nirvana, satori, sandhyabasha.

I believe in karma and I believe in knocking on wood. I believe in finding lucky pennies. I wouldn't call it superstition. I still walk on cracks and under ladders and can spill the salt without losing mind over it.

In New York they have something called sidewalk diamonds because of all the cars that get broken into. When the sun rises and the light catches the broken glass it shines like diamonds on the pavement.

My old roommate got her car broken into twice, because she was careless. She lost 500 bucks once that way. They took her purse. She deserved it. We both had bad karma.

I spent most of last year wondering what I had done to earn me such bad karma, and I narrowed it down to two possibilities.

It was either because of my habit of turning found pennies from tails to heads, that way somebody else would get the good luck and I would absorb the bad.

Or because I was such a heartbreaker in middle school.

When I grow up I want to be a mountain man.

And live in an A-frame house in the middle of the woods.

I will no longer be afraid or feel heavy. I will find a home for my mountain.

I will spend my time drinking tea and making friends with the animals.

I will find satori.