The Way of the Warrior-Wizard

The family was gathered around the old wooden table for supper. Tonight, they had guests. Jack Kingston and his Aunt Luanne had brought their cousin, Yvonne Jericho, to meet Hamish at his request. The patriarch of the MacGregor clan had not said so, but Duncan believed it was because he was ready to rid himself of “Charlie the Bogle”.

Hamish had awakened from a nightmare the other night, screaming to the heavens, and Kyra had comforted him until he fell into an uneasy sleep. All of the children except Hami had rushed into their parents’ room to see if they were in need of help, but Kyra had firmly sent them back to their beds.

It seemed to Duncan that now their mother might finally have convinced Hamish to seek help. He would have felt more comfortable if Father was receiving this help from a qualified psychiatrist, but he knew that Hamish MacGregor was too proud and stubborn to consult one of those fancy “Mind-Doctors”.

Yvonne was middle-aged, much younger than the elderly Aunt Luanne. Her hair had streaks of grey in it, and her skin was darker than either that of Jack or Luanne.

“Yes, Hamish,” she said to him calmly, “I believe I can help you with your night-time wanderings. You will need to place your trust in me, though...and trust may not come easily to a man such as yourself, who has been through many trials as a young person.”

“What trials, Father?” Cara asked, curious.

“Never you mind, Cara,” Hamish answered, speaking in Standard English so that his guests would understand him, “It’s not something I want you young ones knowing.”

“It’s the war, Cara,” Caleb interjected, “the First World War was very terrible...and so was the Second, for that matter.”

“It’s not the wars alone, Caleb,” Hamish told his son firmly, “but my own father, Old Hamish, was known by all and sundry as Hamish the Horrible when he’d been at The Drink. I can remember us all hiding under the bed in fear when he would arrive home from the local pub, utterly inebriated.”

“Was Grandfather in a war?” asked Ruari, one of the younger children.

“Aye, he was in the Second Anglo-Boer War, from 1899 to 1902. Old Hamish MacGregor was not a 'man o’ war' at all, and it affected him badly.”

“That was in the land that came to be known as South Africa,” Yvonne noted, “People called that war “The White Man’s War”, because it was fought mainly between the British and the Dutch South Africans, but thousands of Black South Africans died in it as well—they were forced either to labour as slaves or to fight and participate in atrocities as soldiers on both sides of the conflict. It affected everyone, but especially the families, both Black and White. Men, women, and children were put into the concentration camps—although the two groups of people were kept segregated from each other into either White or Black camps. I suppose the ‘powerful War-Lords’ of that period wanted to keep everyone divided, and they certainly succeeded in that...for many generations to come.”

“Aye, it is a terrible thing,” Hamish agreed, “When women, elders, and innocent children must die for the sins of Man. My father told me about it, and he especially hated how the African people were treated in their own land...when he thought of it, he would often hearken back to those days of yore when the Scots were under the bloody rule of the English. Whatever the age, ‘tis the same thing the world over...’a man’s a man for a’ that...’, as the Scots poet Robbie Burns would say, ’For a’ that and a’ that, It’s coming yet for a’ that, That Man to Man the world o’er, Shall brithers be for a’ that. ”

“With all due respect to Robert Burns, we’ve not been good brothers, ‘for all that and all that’ or anything else,” Fiona, the twin sister of Cara, remarked sardonically about her father’s quotation, “You hardly hear anything about the South African wars here in Canada. We mostly hear about the First and Second World Wars...but it’s shocking to hear that our own ancestors put people in concentration camps as well.”

“There’s hardly a war in history that hasnae been marred by atrocities,” Hamish replied sadly, with a distant look in his eyes.

“Do you teach anything about the South African war, with its concentration camps, Duncan?” Cara asked her brother pointedly.

“Not as much as I should,” Duncan replied, “I’ve been teaching mainly North American history, but there were a number of Canadian volunteers who fought in the Second Anglo-Boer War. History has tended to focus almost exclusively on the European side of things—very much like a ‘Roman Glory History’; but I’d like to help change that by showing the perspectives of all the people who were most severely affected by the advent of Empire.”

“Well, Duncan,” Luanne urged him, “You’ve got a standing invitation to come to my library and read more about those perspectives. I’ve got a number of books about African history as well as those dealing with the African American experience.”

Duncan regarded Luanne apologetically.

“Yes, thank you so much, Mrs. Kingston,” he replied guiltily, “I’m sorry that I have not yet found the time to do that...to my shame, I suppose I’ve been so caught up in trying to impress my colleagues that I have not yet taken up your generous invitation. I do intend to visit your library, very soon!”

“We can go, any time,” Jack offered, “I’ve told you that, Duncan. Forget Donaldson and his cronies! They’re old, traditional fuddy-duddies.”

“Aye, you mean ‘fuddy-duddies’, like myself and your Aunt Luanne, Jock?” Hamish interjected in a jovial manner, seemingly relieved to have left the sordid past behind for the moment.

“No, I didn’t mean you, Mr. MacGregor...” Jack explained hastily, “and I definitely didn’t mean my Aunt Luanne.”

“Oh, yeah,” Luanne looked at Jack in mock-warning, “Try calling me an old fuddy-duddy, Jack Kingston, and I’ll teach you how to learn fuddy from duddy!”

The meal ended, and the conversation turned to more mundane matters of work and school. As Cara proudly told them all about how she had put “Josh the Bully” in his place at school the other day, Duncan made a mental note to himself to go to Aunt Luanne’s library as soon as possible with Jack. He knew that he should be less interested in walking on Donaldson’s “Welcome” doormat and more interested in creating an inclusive historical tapestry; but even so, he was excited about the unexpected supper invitation that his colleague had given to him and his father. Donaldson had said that Duncan had been taught a “Warrior’s Discipline” from his father, which was certainly very flattering to a young boy such as himself. He knew, however, that he was similar to his long-dead Grandfather in that he was likewise not a man o’ war at all. For all that he had studied battles and wars in books, Duncan was quite certain that he would have reacted badly to a real war, just as the two generations of Hamishes had done.

For all that and all that, Duncan thought wryly to himself, Who in his right mind reacts well to a war, with its senseless killing and maiming of the Human body, mind, and soul?

Although Duncan’s father, or “Young Hamish” as he used to be called once upon a time, had been awarded a number of medals for his bravery in the two World Wars, the aftermath of alcohol and domestic violence had been a terrible and silent suffering for his first family...which included their dear elder-sister, Mairi. Even Kyra and her children, many decades after the Second World War and living in the modern-day 1990’s, were all still affected by Hamish’s night-time terror-screams.

While their father could certainly be called a "warrior", Duncan did not particularly like the term applied to himself. When his older brother, Glenlachlan, had called him a “Warrior-Wizard” a couple of months ago, he had doubted very much if he deserved that rather archaic title. As he thought of the brutal wars that cluttered the history of Humanity, such as the Anglo-Boer War and the two World Wars, he felt that perhaps the very name of “Warrior” had been far too over-romanticized.

As Duncan helped to clear the table, Glenlachlan handed him his mug.

“Hey, Warrior-Wiz, can you toss a drop more tea in my cup?”

As Duncan poured his older brother some more tea out of the pot, Yvonne regarded him quizzically.

“That’s true, you know,” she said in a cryptic fashion, “You’ve been both a warrior and a magician in a few of your past lives.”

Duncan stared at Yvonne in surprise.

“I have, Ms. Jericho?” he stammered shyly, “I can’t believe I ever had the guts to be in a war...I’m just a simple scholar. And as for magic, well, I’m lucky if I can make a card trick work.”

“No, you were in two different lives, as both a Roman and a Greek soldier,” Yvonne persisted, “and that’s why you hate war to this day. You later became a kind of wise-man—I guess you could say wizard—in an ancient Celtic life. You wanted to use your magic to gather as much wisdom as possible and learn the secret of Eternal Peace.”

“Well,” Duncan replied, somewhat taken aback, “I suppose I failed miserably on that score!”

“Don’t be hard on yourself,” Yvonne told him softly, “You’re still young, and you’ve got lots more to learn...and to teach others. I can see in you that you encourage people to express themselves, because you want to know all the ways of Human Beings, not just one narrow path.”

“Our brother was a magician!” Cara exclaimed in delight, “Isn’t that amazing? It’s hard to believe it, since he’s so much into the ways of the rational mind. Perhaps you’re more like the rest of us than you like to imagine, Duncan!”

“Hmm,” he replied in an uncertain fashion, “A warrior in search of wisdom? Most of the time, I feel more like a floundering fool than a wise-man...and I can hardly believe that I progressed very far in any past-life career fighting for the glory of the Roman Empire!”

“You have held many identities in the past, just as all of us have done,” Yvonne told him, “You’ve also been an indigenous Turtle Island Shaman who spoke courageously against one of those more recent Glory-Empires...although you won’t find any mention of him or of Turtle Island in the North American history books that you read. You’ve got your wisdom inside of you, my boy, not in any book.”

Duncan nodded, dumbfounded. Yvonne spoke with a quiet authority that seemed to tear at the dividing lines between people.

“Yes, Ms. Jericho,” Hamish commented, “You are aptly named, for I can see that you have the capacity to topple the walls which surround us all.”

“Shall we retire to your study, Mr. MacGregor?” Yvonne suggested, standing up, “Luanne will assist me, and your wife Kyra should be there with you during the session in order to calm you.”

The family watched in astonishment as their parents left with Yvonne and Luanne to engage in the strange “past-life regression”.

“How can Yvonne know about your past lives, Duncan?” Glenlachlan’s twin brother Sage asked, "She hasn't even regressed you!"

“Maybe she was in a life with Duncan!” Glenlachlan suggested, “Do you know, Jack?”

Jack Kingston regarded the older MacGregor boys with a wry smile and simply shrugged.

“Hey, what do I know?” he answered them, “I’m just the Ghost-Investigator, remember?”

“Maybe you should take a past-life regression with Ms. Jericho, Duncan!” Glenlachlan suggested eagerly, “Then you could find out about the wars you were in and find the wisdom from them that you need to discover the Secret of Eternal Peace!”

“No, he shouldn’t do that, Glenlachlan!” the blonde-haired Sage interjected, “My name, ‘Sage’, is yet another word for ‘wise-man’, and in my holy wisdom, I think Duncan is a bit too rational-minded for that stuff...am I right, Dunc?”

“Of course,” Duncan replied to his older brother, glancing worriedly towards the room where his parents had gone, “I’ve got enough on my hands with the wee wars of this life, and I don’t want to get caught up with the ghosts of battles past.”

As tempting as the possibility was of being transported back in time to a Bird’s Eye View of ancient history’s wars, Duncan felt deeply that the only wisdom that he could hope to find in this day and age would come out of his present-day experiences.