See The Amazing Burning Boy Dance, Just 25 Cents

See The Amazing Burning Boy Dance, Just 25 Cents
or Things I Release Forever -- The shining suit case handle

Copyright, Terry Turner, 2009


Of late I have been writing mainly about dealing with deadly cancer and, of course, you can't deal with cancer without looking at other issues.


All serious integrative medicine knows, absolutely, that we store emotional and physical damage in our bodies, and this stored negative energy is very adverse to human health. At another time I will list resources in regard to this "storage" but in the short term, take a look at folks like Marty Kleva http://gemfireair.com/aboutme.html --- the book Soul Dancing and a great deal of invaluable material on her website; or Cindy and Dr. Bob Deering of http://www.spiritemergenceoftaos.com/ --- free consultations available, or people in the tradition of Dr. Hamer of Germany.


At this time, I am simply going to address a terrifying memory which I would love to totally release and replace entirely with good and happy thoughts.


Around 1945 or so, I would have about six years, old. In the late fall of the year I had an event which cost me pain for months then and probably for all the years since.


At that time of year, it was common for property owners to clear away dead plants, trash, and debris of every sort. In the neighborhood where I lived there were gigantic honey suckle and other bushes of enormous size on most the properties.


When the wintry blasts had killed the green leaves, turning them to a sort of toasty colorful brown and red, all such plants were cut back and piled in ditches...what we called bar ditches at the time. These ditches ran along side our oiled roads and drained off water from rains. The ditches tended to be rather deep, I am guessing on average maybe about three or four feet deep.


When all the debris had been cleared from the property, which invariably included a goodly amount of trash which might contain anything, it was piled in the ditch between the property and the road and burned. Burning such trash was totally uncontrolled at that time.


Depending on wind, the amount of trash, the amount of plant material, and such factors, these fires might burn for half a day or a day or two and, over time, the top of the debris would develop a thick ashen gray coat which looked cool, and was material that had been totally burned away, but that gray blanket covered a small ocean of red hot embers that smoldered on..... white hot, red fire banked, volcanic like, beneath its warm gray blanket.


On this particular, day, as a young tow headed kid, I was walking along the road, I think returning from my first grade classes and suddenly, from the corner of my eye I saw something bright and very shinny --- clearly it was some wonderful thing. Do recall, please, that this is early on in WWII --- there were few bright and shinning things for kids --- and it was a khaki and olive green world for most people at the time, not black and white, not color. At the time things like our little tiny toy trucks were mainly rubber and colored with lead paint; dolls were still often bisque or relatively high grade well finished plastic, but they did not shine and sparkle as now do all things in our so called modern world.


Standing on the edge of that deep bar ditch I could feel some heat, and in Texas, even in September it is hot anyway.... we try to ignore heat to the extent possible. I could feel heat wafting off the gray ash; I could see the bright handle gleaming in the afternoon soon.


And, of what use was that bright handle to a young kid? Are you kidding me? In that day all kids existed on imagination ... we did have movies, CDS, videos, electronic toys, we just imagined things. You could pretend that handle was pistol just like Tom Mix's own six shooter. Ha! with anything that bright it could even be one of those spark throwing Flash Gordon rocket and space type guns. You could clean it and carry it around in your little stripped overalls and show it to other kids.... and they would all wish they hand one, so rare were really bright things. There was no end of uses, like digging holes, and pretending that it would unlock doors and who knows what and it would be my very own little treasure. And it was free!


The deep gray ash extended down the ditch about 100 feet it each direction.


So I resolved to have it. I would just jump in the ditch, seize the suitcase handle, and jump out.


Little did I know I was about to enter an endless molten hell.


I gave a little jump towards the middle of the bar ditch, and as my feet sank through the top of the ash, the ash flew skyward, a huge quantify of ash propelled by my weight and the rising heat instantly towered over me, I was sucking the ash into my lungs, I had to close my eyes, and following the ash the red hot embers shot skyward as I sank deeper and deeper into the burning inferno.


I knew I was in bad trouble and I knew I had to get out some way, even though I was now effectively on fire, my clothes and flesh were burning and I was blind for practical purposes and, then, I made yet another bad decision, I got a glimpse of the length of the ditch and began to run towards the distant end where the fire terminated.


I must have looked like a little motor boat racing down a channel of water and throwing up a rooster tail of ash and fiery red embers. How fast can you run while being cooked alive? Fast friends, fast.


Coming out the end of the bar ditch, which left a long string of fire, smoke, embers, and hell behind, me all I could think was to run to my grandmother, the woman who raised me, Annie Turner. My pants were burned off almost to my knees, my little shoes were bubbling away on my feat, embers were smoldering all over me, in my hair, on my clothes and anywhere a hot coal could lodge a holding.


I do not recall much of the run for home. Most of when I then remember is that Mom and some neighbor grabbed and dosed me from a rain barrel and then in quick order swept everything off the kitchen table. Mom first doused me with kerosene from top to bottom --- kerosene was the useful alternative treatment for everything in that era. I suppose it is too refined today to be of use for anything on a medicinal level. Once she had me soaked in kerosene, she cut off my shoes and clothes and did what ever mothers can do to calm me... in the meantime, reaching into her flour bin (the 25# of flour kind that was under every kitchen counter of the era) she steady added huge quantities of flour, water, and some buttermilk to a huge bread bowl, and once the paste was acceptable to her, she began to slather the paste onto me so that no air could reach my body... this went on, to me, forever, the cooling paste helped soothe the fire.


I however remained in excruciating pain which went on for days. I don't really recall much about it. Mom worked on me day and night, especially on my feet which took the worst of it. I am sure weeks were involved and I am quite sure Mom never left me, steady replacing the paste, steadily watering me down with kerosene, steadily applying butter to really bad places, steadily using little bits of block ice here and there.

Eventually, I was well enough to crawl around on my knees, so long as I manged to keep my feet in the air... again this went on a long time. Weeks I suppose.


Eventually, I got well, got to wear shoes, and began to feel normal except that a great deal of trust had been removed my life, a great deal of fear had been installed.


Another kid got the shining handle.


This event, even at 70 years of age plagues me now and then. As do many other events in my life. All of us have such traumas some more or less dramatic but all deep, scarring, and painful.


My present solution is this. I am going to open a home in my 70 year old heart for that young tow headed kid. I am going in deep meditation back to that burning hell and I am going to rescue young Terry Don before he leaps into that ditch and I am bringing him back to live forever, safely with me. We can be pals. Maybe we will get catcher's mitt and find someone to play ball with but we are going to forget, forgive, and forever release the burning bar ditch on East Second Street in Wichita Falls, Texas.


Traumas are out there. Not far into the future I would find myself at death's door electrocuted by a radio antenna hanging over a 50,000 KV electric transmission line; and far off in the future lay a buffalo attack, and many other events to address. But, today, I am going to bring Terry Don from the past to the future.

Photo: Annie and Joe Turner seated, 1941, Joe holding Terry Don about age 2; I was gigantic, and, standing in the background, my brother/uncle, William Laverne Turner, "Buddy."