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And So It Began

by Jy Chiperzak

333 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #00-0029; ISBN 1-55212-365-0; US$29.50, C$34.00, EUR24.00, £17.00

The novel "And So It Began" is a mythic story of coming to terms with, then passing through, a chronic and debilitating disease: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It is a drama of inner darkness, of one alone in pain, depression and cognitive disruption; of life, 'Self' and soul that is stripped away to open the way to rebirth. Embarking on a psycho-spiritual journey that shifts his perceptual framework of reality, Nature, 'the wild', and otherworld beings initiate 'Bran' into the realm of shamans and Spirit, a rekindling of life's fire that is wellness and the awakening to life's purpose.

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about the book      about the author      sample chapter      catalogue info

About the Book In "And So It Began", Rob, a body cut off from the living of life, dies of his old self and is reborn as 'Bran', the Raven. From the dis-spirited inner darkness of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome "And So It Began" flies in the face of the ensconced western medical model of disease, relating an otherworld journey of self discovery and a new understanding of 'dis-ease' and wellness. Rob, a successful organic farmer and Executive Director of a conservation organization, Trees For The Future, collapses in questioning despair from the rigours of CFS. This 'fall' brings him to the brink and finally over the threshold of his scientific and cultural rationalism, the defining principals of what he constitutes ordinary reality. Confronted with a waking vision, the barrier to a new manner of perception dissolves. With great difficulty he sets aside his beliefs in the way he thinks things are, the way of the world, the illusion that is consensus reality, and is transported into the otherworld of visions, dreaming and the Spirits of Nature. For Rob, his illness becomes a journey of transition, self knowledge and empowerment. He goes beyond his dis-ease to the very constructions of his ego self and of his images of self worth based upon the doing and creations of career. Propelled by visionary and shamanic experiences he undertakes a number of vision quests. These fasting, pan-cultural experiences in the solitude of the desert wilderness change his life. Rob was not called to exotic lands in search of gurus, shamans or quiet ashrams, his journey is into the wilderness, the darkness within himself, hidden away for fear of what might be revealed, and into the wilderness outside of him, the desert. His tools are the ancient tools of vision seeking; wilderness exposure and depravation, and through journeying and ceremony. The doors open revealing the ensouled framework of non-ordinary reality, a realm of enchantment and magic, of place and purpose. There was no need for Rob to search for teachers, they were all around him, Raven, Stag, Lizard, Eagle, and "the Child of the Mound Born Dead". The story, taken from Jy Chiperzak's life experiences and woven into fiction, begins briefly with the main character's, Rob's 'naming' in 1969, flying then into the future, his name forgotten, into a time of inner struggle and self dissolution, it is 1994. Collapse, the demon Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is in control... pain, depression, cognitive disruption, confusion and anger has called him in unquestionable terms to halt, to transform or ever remain in a closed and empty box. What some would call delusion, imagination, fantasy, arising in the hidden recesses of Rob's mind was in fact the awakening of his consciousness to the existence of the otherworld of Spirit, a realm as real as the physical, a realm which becomes the truth behind the drama that unfolds. The world of Nature, Spirit, and the shamanic realms, open gateways for Rob, portals to his final reawakening as Bran, who he embraces through the 'the little death' and through rebirth. On the one hand "And So It Began" is the journey of Rob battling his demon CFS, all but succumbing to it before wakening to the lessons it has to teach him as a soul ally, and as Bran embodying a new, more comprehensive vision of reality, of dis-ease and wellness, of love, compassion and belonging and service to the kosmos. On the other hand it is a chronicling of a transitional framework to be embraced by any persons seeking the true understanding of dis-ease, vision, purpose and the lessons to be learned in the practice of life.

About the Author

Jy Chiperzak is known for his work as founder and Executive Director of Rare Breeds Canada, RBC, a Canadian charitable organization for the conservation of livestock and poultry genetic resources. He has represented Canada at national and international conferences and government forums as well as was a member of Canada's Biodiversity Convention Advisory Group. Jy has had numerous papers published as well as published a number of conservation manuals such as; "Breeds & Breeders" and "Raising Rare Breeds".

Prior to this work Jy was a professional freelance documentary film maker and wrote, produced and directed films for the National Film Board and CBC's The Nature of Things with David Suzuki.

Having suffered Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for seven years and after undertaking a number of vision quests and guide training at the School of Lost Borders in California, Jy now guides and acts as witness for people crossing the threshold of their truth and being as they seek the path to personal vision, wellness and purpose. Vision Quests are conducted in the wilds of Eastern Ontario and Newfoundland. "And So It Began" is Jy's first novel and the first part of a trilogy in the life of Bran. Jy lives with his wife, Gail, and their kids and dogs in a gnome's house in the forest overlooking Dragons Fly Pond, in Ontario.

Sample Chapter

Chapter 14

A later entry from Rob's journal, an otherworld journey seeking help.
"Journey to the upper world: A journey to see my spirit teacher... to see my future, my quest.
"Standing into the wind on the bluffs of Exploits Island I rise on wings open to the gale. The sun flashes off of breaking waves. There is no sound but the grave bawl of the sky lashing out against this height of land.
"I rise and rise. The island falls below me, the sea now a radiant disk, empty. I pass through earth's aura, entering the realm of the stars. I travel on, coming upon a membrane, invisible, though I see it and feel it as I shudder through it osmotically. I pass through this gateway to the upper world. The landscape is peripheral... my eyes are devoted to my spirit guide, my teacher. He is standing before me, his one braid, adorned with Eagle feathers, hangs to his shoulder...
"I ask him for direction and help through the journey time in the desert that I will be entering into. I ask to see the road ahead for I am lost. I ask to see into who I am becoming.
"The words barely out of my mouth, he turns his back to me and I'm afraid that he will leave me alone, abandoned and unanswered. "Where is my trust?' I thought.
"His turning becomes a pirouette. Then, undulating on unseen currents, he dances with outstretched arms feathered like the wings of the majestic Eagle. His feet trace the path of the sun wise circle. "Little wheel spin and spin, big wheel turn around and around."... words from an old Buffy St. Marie tune from my past, sing in my head. He begins to fade... he disappears...
"I see him again some distance from me. He is sitting on the sparse dusty ground. He beckons me. I walk towards him. In his hands he holds a pipe fandangled with Raven's feathers of deep consuming blackness. He lights the pipe... a curling wisp of golden smoke drifts skyward. Particles dance in the light. He passes the pipe to me and I too inhale the strong smoke... "He changes before my eyes becoming Raven, black of feather and eyes deeper than obsidian's glare. He turns his head and with his great beak, bloodied from the plucked eyes of the dead, he guides me onto his back. On thrusting wings we ascend into the tenebrous sky. The sky of the early morning, of the dawn before the dawn, of colours so subtle... We are now out over some desert place. A landscape of flats and heights ripped by a deep canyon. I hold tight to the base of each wing as I lay sprawled out across his back. He glides, wings outstretched, tracing an arc, a circle, around the snake's bend of a river long dead. Here, scoured into the land, a catholic basin opens into mystery. Its sheer walls are the colour of sallow skin, exposure tanned and cracked like desiccated leather. A shelf protrudes... an anomaly?... manifest destiny?... and the winds suck at the puckered stone. Raven, with me clutching for life, circles and circles once more. "On the shelf below is a ring of stones... it is my death lodge that we are circling. It is something I know.
"I become Raven... I circle the canyon, the basin, the shelf... On extended wings I land in the stone ring, there are sheer rock walls behind me and to my right and to my left. Before me is the rim of destiny, the abyss. I fly up to ride the winds once more, the sky empty, only to again spiral down into the circle's centre. I stand there in the hub as Raven. The threshold of death has been crossed. The sky is dense black charcoal dust and the stars are skulls poking through, the death masks of the ancestors. They are peering down at me... beckoning me.
"My Raven's flesh falls away and I become a human skeleton lying in the sand, bounded by the stone circle, the death lodge. Years, decades, centuries pass... a moment... and the bones weather and disintegrate into scattered fragments... and dust... barely discernable in the sand. The stone circle remains.
"The death masks in the sky are now faces. They are the faces of different peoples, races, of all ages, changing, always changing from one to another and another... all strangers... all me.
"The drum calls me... seven beats followed by seven beats... I am whole again, human, dropping down and down to the gale swept bluffs of Exploits Island. I land as a warrior where I once stood as just a man with outstretched arms. A hurricane wind buffets my face. This wind is my honour guard. I stand there, the calling drum still in my ears. My hair is cut... one feathered braid hangs to my left shoulder. I am clean shaven, my face exposed to the winds for the first time in eighteen years. I am the mirror of my teacher. I have returned... my eyes are Raven's for I am Bran." Rob slowly sat up and turned off the taped drumming that had carried him away into dream time. With half shut eyes he quietly wrote out the story of his journey. He had asked to see the road ahead and his wish, in a extraordinary symbolic manner, had been granted. His was now to walk that road awakening those symbols into meaning.
Soon Rob would fly away on his desert journey but on the wings of an aeroplane, not on the back of the magic Raven whose colour was the black of the void. As messenger Raven enters and returns from the great mystery, so too would Rob enter the abyss... and return. For was his name not Bran and was not Bran, Raven? A piece of an age old puzzle fell into place. A piece of his naming.
The days passed quickly for Rob bringing him to the day of his final packing. "I leave tomorrow. I've got to get this done." he thought as he studied each item before stuffing it into his pack. He could only take what he could carry on his back and so he discarded the 'luxuries', but still the pack got heavier. With the last 'necessity' packed he wrested the straps tight and into their buckles. After lugging the pack downstairs he unceremoniously dumped it on the floor muttering about the weight. But it was time now, time he said goodbye to his world there on the farm... time for a last walk in the forest... a visit to the mound to give thanks and leave an offering of food for the spirits of the forest.
He walked alone... and the trees talked to him:
"Even as we withdraw our power into our roots for the season of cold and darkness, we leave one last gift before the snows blow and all is shrouded under her mantle. We brighten the world with our dying appendages, our once living creations, our leaves, now turned resplendent in yellow, ochre and vermilion. They are our gifts to all who behold them, be uplifted by them. They are our gifts to the sky and to the earth. They fall not in vain to those first bites of winter. They are our thanks to the warm sun of summer, to the rain and to the Great Mother that nurtures us. Marvel in this. "So too must you find such balance in your life. This time of drawing in is not an escaping or hiding. It is a moment of regeneration and recycling of energies, for without it there will be no new blooms. Accept this time of pain and lassitude as a gift, the lessons from which you in turn can gift others. See it not as a great dying but as the moment before birth, the dream time. Go then and fly and when you weary our branches will support you."
...and Rob said his goodbyes.
The night before he left, Rob threw the I Ching for a last minute bit of direction... He threw, "thunder over thunder"... "Chen"... "Shocking!" He read the hexagram to Jude; "The kinetic energy of the kosmos will be released in a powerful shocking display... a thunderbolt. It can instill fear but also a reverence of the power of nature. Move with caution and all will be successful. You will be brought into close contact with the inner workings of your nature. The Shocking event will pass and the readiness of your awareness will be released in joy."
"Good omen?" Rob asked jokingly. Jude simply laughed, "You're so dramatic!" The next morning, even before the kids were up, Jude drove him to catch the airport bus in Belleville. It was parked and waiting at the depot when they arrived. Rob donned his pack and embraced Jude, kissing her quickly before tears filled his eyes. He turned to leave and Jude called out to him, "Rob," He turned to look at her, perhaps for a last time as the man she knew. "don't forget to take your coyote medicine." It eased the moment and they parted laughing. Coyote, Rob remembered, was the great trickster, master of the pratfall, and it was a message for him to pay attention, that all would not be as it seemed. Expectations were vehicles of disappointment. He had to be open to falling on his face and laughing about it later. Rob left for the desert, the desert he had been called to before in his visions.

Catalogue Information