BATS OUT OF HELL – Digging for Spirits

Discovery generally requires one to look behind, beneath or beyond something. Most often that’s more of a mental challenge than a physical one; once you have the motivation, all it takes is the movement of one hand. But there are times when the surface layers are just so thick, so heavy that removing them exceeds the abilities of one person—or even one lifetime. Such was the case with the discoveries once shared with me by an old Mexican opal miner.

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My friend Silverio and I were headed for La Trinidad, a small village near Tequisquiapan, Querétaro, in central Mexico. We wanted to see if we could find one of the opal mines for which this region is—and was even more so in the past—well known.

Apparently, Silverio had no plan but to show up and see what would happen. Luckily, the attendant of a gas station along the way had told us to head up into the foothills, find the village and ask around for Héctor Montes, who, he suggested, would “take care of us.” I wondered if there was any way he could have misinterpreted our inquiry about opals as something less innocent.

We found the village and asked several more people where we might find Señor Montes. Reconciling their widely divergent directions, we finally arrived at a rather nice home for these parts. Héctor's wife met us at the wrought iron gate, listened to our request and then welcomed us inside where she introduced her son, Fernando.

The plink, plink of hammering on  
rock poured out of the void.

They sat us down at their dining room table and began showing us what we thought was everything one would ever want to know about opals, including a display showing the progression of steps needed to process opal from raw ore to finished, mounted stones.

Then Fernando piled us all into his 4x4 camioneta (pickup) and drove us—on a barely navigable road made mostly from the rock talus of old opal mines—up the side of the mountain. On the way, we had a nice conversation with him in Spanish, learning that his dad has been mining opals here for 40 years.

We passed several dirty, exhausted-looking miners walking home after their shifts. After a gut-tumbling couple of miles, we arrived at the end of the road. The fabulous view of the surrounding hills was splashed here and there with the golden rock debris of old, tapped-out claims.

After climbing on foot another 200 or so vertical feet, we arrived at a big hole sunk vertically into the side of the mountain—about 25 feet deep and 10 feet across. The plink, plink of hammering on rock poured out of the void. I peered over the rim and there at the bottom was a wiry man with skin that matched his well-worn boots.

Suddenly there appeared two red beams of light which came together on a fist-sized opal.

Like so many Mexicans, Héctor looked at least ten years older than the sixty I figured he really was. Leaving the picking and digging to his young hired hand, he came up the ladder with a half-full bucket of rocks, welcomed us very warmly and started right in on what was to become a full afternoon’s "education" about opals and opal mining.

Héctor showed us the different types and colors of veins he'd found that day, took us down to other mines, and explained how—since good veins near the surface are pretty well tapped out—they now have to dig ever deeper to find them.

The highlight of the day was our visit to a large and very deep former mine. Once we'd clambered our way well into the cave, beyond the reach of daylight, Héctor pulled several gnarly candle stumps out of his pocket, handed us each one, and lit them. A few minutes later, we reached the terminus of the mine, where he pointed out one of many old fissures in the rock where the opal veins tended to form.

There, playing with the candlelight as opals do, winked small remnants of the gemstone considered too small to yield marketable stones.

Before we started back out, Héctor asked us to blow out our candles. There, in cool, damp, total darkness, he started to tell us one of the legends of the local mines:

Too long ago for anyone to remember exactly when, two miners were working in a cavernous mine just like this one, when suddenly there appeared two red beams of light which came together on a fist-sized opal—by far the biggest either miner had ever seen. Following the rays back to their source, the two terrified men laid eyes on los ojos del diablo (eyes of the devil), who promised them the opal could be theirs if…



Suddenly, one of the men turned and ran, terrified, out of the mine. The other, his fear dissuaded by greed, failed to notice the slight rumble presaging the collapse of the mine entrance. Neither he nor the great opal was ever seen again.

Hundreds of huge bats sliced silently through the damp air just inches from our heads. 

As Héctor was talking—in clear, mercifully-slow Spanish—I found it hard to concentrate, because odd little puffs of breeze kept ruffling my hair. I didn’t dare put my hand up, already guessing their source. When Héctor finally struck a match to relight our candles, the flickering glow caught the wings of hundreds of huge bats slicing silently through the damp air just inches from our heads.

       

On the ride back down the mountain, it was my turn to sit back in the box of
the pickup where I had time to reflect on the experience. Even through Héctor’s and the other miners’ discoveries weren’t my own, I was grateful for his making me feel like they were, as if I’d just encountered, for myself, the spirits of those two long-since-departed miners, their very breath touching me through the
wings of bats.

A DARK PRESENCE – Claiming My Spirit

OUT OF MY ELEMENT
I couldn’t sleep. The scratching sounds inside the wall just inches from my head were back. I’d been hoping it was just mice, but they must have been really big ones; I could hear their weight as they scurried around.

        
 
It was my first house, on 16th Avenue South, in a poor, racially diverse neighborhood of South Minneapolis. Not the best area, but it was the only house I could afford, and, after living in a rooming house and mooching rooms from friends, I was more than ready to get on board the home-ownership, equity-building escalator.

I’d only been in the house for a little more than a week. I hadn’t even unpacked. The bed frame still lay in pieces on the floor next to my queen-size mattress.

It was nothing I could see, just this cold, dark, malevolent force.

My welcome to home ownership, so far, had not been an especially warm one. Besides the creepiness of having who knows how many and what kind of animals scratching inside my walls, I’d also had to deal with six inches of fetid raw sewage backing up into my basement, not to mention being awakened at 2am one night by a man staggering along the street, screaming, “Oh God! They stabbed me in the face!”

I was already beginning to miss the murmur of neighbors’ lives that comes with sharing your building, realizing now how comforting that proximity had been.

AN UNWELCOME VISITOR
As I lay there in the dark, all these unsettling things churning in my mind, it occurred to me just how alone, how uncentered, I felt. It hit me really hard. Above me, the pitched walls of the finished attic space seemed to fall in on me, stirring a twinge of claustrophobia.

Then I felt a sensation I’d never experienced before. In the course of 10 or 15 seconds, a presence poured into the room, coming from everywhere at once. It was an aura that clearly was not of me, but surrounded and consumed me. It was nothing I could see, just this cold, dark, malevolent force.

Whatever it was seemed to be going right for my core, trying to inhabit my sense of myself. I’d never fully appreciated, until that moment, just how much I’d always taken for granted that sense, that nucleus of warmth, light, and innocence that normally animates our thoughts and actions. I’d never before seen what it looked like to lose it.

For lack of a better characterization for something so devoid of kindness or love, the image that came to mind was one formed, I’m sure, when I was a child: “the devil.” I could hear myself thinking that, and couldn’t quite grasp that it was all real and not a scene from a book or movie. But it was as real as any spiritual essence I’d ever felt. And I was so frightened I couldn’t move.

Even the faint light that had been seeping into the room from the streetlights outside now seemed swallowed by the all-consuming pall.

Okay, I thought, maybe I’m just feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the recent changes in my life. Maybe if I just try to think about something else, the dread will go away. But whatever it was, it was not going to allow such diversions. Even the faint light that had been seeping into the room from the streetlights outside now seemed swallowed by the all-consuming pall.

THE EBB OF EVIL
I felt like a drowning man clawing for something to hold on to. I was able to say the name of my black lab, Bess, who’d been lightly snoring on her blanket just across the room. I knew that, if she’d come to me, somehow her spirit could help rescue mine.

I tried to call her again, louder this time, but the sound just seemed to stay inside my head. I was devastated that she wasn’t there for me, but then realized with a chill that she too must be feeling this presence. Her snoring had stopped. I couldn’t see her, but I sensed she was awake.

I don’t think of myself as a religious man, at least not in the conventional sense. But at that moment, prayer seemed perfectly consistent with my animist leanings. So I prayed; I prayed really hard. I asked the Creator of all that’s good, true and beautiful to save me from this alienation and restore that certainty, that inner light I’d always taken for granted before.

There was no doubt, no ambiguity, no hesitation. A new presence wrapped around me like the softest, warmest blanket. As that warmth swaddled me, it also filled me, and the chill, that profound darkness, began flowing out of the room—and out of me—as it had come in.

Bess’s tongue, like the kiss of angels, welcomed me back to where I knew I belonged.

LAP OF LUXURY
I lay there for a minute, still awestruck by what had happened, basking in the glow of that beneficent spirit. I felt a different kind of warmth; it was wet too, bathing my cheek. Bess’s tongue, like the kiss of angels, welcomed me back to where I knew I belonged.

I’ve often wished animals could talk, but never more than at that moment. Had Bess felt what I’d felt? Did she even have a sense of self? Had this kindly spirit intervened for her too?

I don’t suppose I’ll ever find answers to those questions, nor to why I was visited by that dark, hopeless spirit. I’ve not caught an inkling of it since. Now that I’m aware of my true essence and understand that it’s not to be taken for granted, I spend more time appreciating it, nurturing it, celebrating it.

I pray every day, and ask God to help me be in a sort of permanent state of prayer, humbly, gratefully aware, throughout the day, of how it feels to lose sight of his grace.