In, two, three. Out, two, three.

In, two, three. Out, two, three.

I can feel my eyelids growing heavy, even though they're already closed. A deeper darkness than the night found behind my eyelids is encroaching, surrounding me, enveloping me in a sensation that is not cold, not warm, but not really anything in between, either. I lie motionless, making no movements except for the rythmic rise and fall of my chest.

In, two, three. Out, two, three.

And suddenly I'm falling. The crust of the world has given way beneath me, and I am falling out of my body, out of the normal physical world. I see the sun in the bright sky above me, and then the grass, and then the layers of earth and stone. Nature has not broken, but I am falling, sinking beneath the Earth's surface into a realm that is far deeper than any I could see with open eyes.

Then, without warning, I'm standing on my feet. In water, actually. In completely unfamiliar surroundings.

There are trees around me, tall and dark, and the sky is a dusky amber with no trace of the sun in sight. The tops of the pine trees surrounding me are silhouetted by an orange glow.

I'm standing in a murky pool. When I look down, I can see the blurry outline of what looks like a large, coloured disc.

The surface of the pond begins to ripple. As I take a step back, the water churns, little wavelets colliding into each other and sending up sprays of shimmering drops. There's a quiet rumble, and the disc, once lying so silently beneath the water, starts to rise.

It breaks the surface softly, and as it emerges from the water the pond settles, quieting down into gentle waves. The disc has turned upright and is hovering above the pool. It's taller than I am, and of course much wider. Water runs down the face of the disc in rivulets and drips into the pond. I am faced by four pie slices of colour. White, black, red, and yellow form the segments of the disc before me.

I smile. I have been prepared for this; my guide told me I would face a medicine wheel. It will turn clockwise. At this time you should let go of all preconceptions of what your totem animal might be, she had said.

The medicine wheel begins to spin. Counter-clockwise.

My smile quickly transforms into a frown. "Wait," I say. "That's not right. You're supposed to move clockwise."

The wheel slows, then starts to turn the other direction. But its movements are sluggish. It is fighting to spin this way. I watch anxiously. It struggles for a moment, then begins to slowly rotate around a vertical axis, like a coin spinning on its edge, until it has flipped over completely and I am looking at the back of it. It is identical on both sides. Now I see it turn counter-clockwise, and the movements speed up once again, until the colours of the medicine wheel become a blur. My heartbeat is racing along with it, but I feel reassured. It is still rotating the right way -- only from my vantage point, I see the opposite.

Now my mind turns to my guide's next words. To rid myself of my preconceptions.

What do I want my totem animal to be? I think longingly of the powerful form and majestic spotted coat of the snow leopard. And the strength of the bear -- oh, to have a polar bear! My mother calls me that; she says I have polar bear blood, for I love swimming in cold water. But no, my thoughts are straying. I have to let these animals go. I splay my hands, letting my palms face the still-spinning medicine wheel.

"Goodbye, leopard. Goodbye, bear," I murmur mournfully. "Goodbye, wolf, owl, raven, cat..." My voice trails off, and I envision these creatures, the animals I admire, slipping away from me, flowing off of my palms as bits of light and getting sucked into the center of the disc. I have to blink a couple times to keep tears from forming in my eyes. I want these animals so strongly.

Finally, I decide its time to continue. I let myself fall back, into the water, through the earth, going deeper into whatever realms lie in wait.