Cowboy Jack & Healing Arts

Some of those baby boomers who teach us about natural healing arts are young wannabes. But some are of our generation, and got their start decades back, when most of us felt the pull of nature, but resisted. Dr. Bruce Berkowsky didn’t. That’s how he found Cowboy Jack.

In June of 1973 I was teaching biology and science in a rough school in Brooklyn. My soul yearned to be out in Nature.

My traveling partner that summer was my dog named Mangas Colorado. I had studied the culture and history of the Plains and Rocky Mountain Indian tribes, and this dog’s eager athleticism inspired me to name him after the renowned Apache chief.

Mangas and I stayed in wild places all across the country. One day we pulled in at a small camping area. I backed the Chevy under a large juniper tree and set up camp.

All the sites were empty, except one. Tucked under another juniper tree was a small, old trailer. Its paint was chipped; the side-window had a Venetian blind, slats closed. No vehicle was parked there.

The area radiated a melancholy energy. It was like a ghost town where one could feel, rather than hear, echoes from the past. Mangas and I followed a trail that led to an open plateau populated only by scattered junipers and sagebrush. I couldn’t shake the psychic perception of historical desolation and abandonment.

Juniper is considered a protective oil; it supports the spirit during challenging situations, and encourages inner visions, and facilitates trances and spirit quests.

Previously that summer I’d spent time in the Black Hills of South Dakota, sacred ground of the Lakota Sioux tribes, where I felt the presence of despairing ghosts. I felt that same presence here in dry, Idaho country. I felt certain that this was ancient tribal land.

It was one of those days when the clouds are not delineated and the grayness is backlit by a preternatural luminescence. A barren red hillside rose out of a deep ravine. Looking upward on a hike, I saw two buzzards circling above us. There was no other animal life and the silence was eerie and pervasive. We turned back toward camp.

I heard the trailer’s door open. Turning, I saw a middle-aged man in Western garb step out and move about his campsite. I waved and he nodded before reentering his trailer. He actually lived in this desolate place. I had the feeling that he’d been peering through his window blind and decided to announce his presence to the visitors on his home ground.

I gathered pieces of long dried juniper wood that lay like old bison bones amid the sagebrush, and built a fire. By the time I finished dinner, night had fallen.

Like other members of the Woodstock generation, I’d taken up guitar and taught myself chords and finger-picking patterns. Aside from the fire’s crackle, all was silent. So I played my guitar to fill the void.

After playing several tunes with some degree of competence, I heard the trailer door open again but didn’t see Jack until he walked out of the darkness and into my circle of firelight. He was dressed in a Western-style shirt, pressed jeans with large brass belt buckle, and polished cowboy boots, topped with a cowboy hat. He looked like someone you’d see in movie westerns.

I picked up the scent of aftershave tinctured with whisky. He had the raw beefsteak complexion and glazed corneas of the serious drinker. We shook hands and introduced ourselves. “I’m Jack,” he said.

He asked me to play some songs. As a mediocre guitarist, I was hesitant. Nevertheless, I played and sang traditional folk-blues such as Midnight Special and House Of The Rising Sun, figuring it was a suitable genre for my audience.

He was silent throughout my performance. I didn’t know whether he liked the music, or was just politely waiting for me to quit. But no professional musicians were lining up to play this venue.

We started talking. I told him I was a science and biology teacher from New York. He looked at me as if I’d said I just landed from Saturn. He described his many years working on ranches, herding cows, mending fences. With the wonder of a Brooklyn boy who’d grown up watching old black-and-white westerns on rainy weekend afternoons, I couldn’t help thinking: By golly, I’m sitting and talking with a real live cowboy.

Jack had the quiet voice and withdrawn manner of a man who’d spent much of his life alone, doing hard and often dangerous physical labor. Like this place where he chose to live, his essence was infused with loss, regret, and loneliness.

We said our goodnights. I watched the juniper fire burn down before getting into my sleeping bag.

Next morning, I stowed my gear in the station wagon. Unbidden, Colorado Mangas leapt into the back — his way of saying: Start this car and step on it. I slowly rolled out of the campground. In my rearview mirror I saw the battered old trailer for the last time. No sign of Jack.

Only a few camping experiences have stayed so vividly chronicled in my memory. Twenty-five years after I had my encounter with Jack, I realized — while writing the Juniper chapter for my Synthesis Materia Medica/Spiritualis of Essential Oils — that Jack was an archetypical Juniper individual. It was no coincidence that he chose to live under a juniper tree.

When the juniper-type drinks, the alcohol helps to sustain his need for withdrawal from life’s relentless assaults. The juniper alcoholic is moved by songs of pain and loss. Looking back now, I know why my instincts led me to play folk-blues when Jack called for a song.

Juniper oil and Cowboy Jack have become inseparable in my mind. Most likely he is gone now. Alcoholics living alone in battered trailers are not ideal candidates for longevity. Perhaps he has joined the other spirits that inhabit that place where we met. If so, I hope their company comforts him.

To read the unabridged version of this article, and to learn more about Spiritual PhytoEssencing, visit: www.EssentialOilsAndSoul.com.
Copyright 2007 by Joseph Ben Hil-Meyer Research, Inc.