It was going to be a beautiful day in Lompoc. As usual I wanted to start the day early with a morning walk at the La Purisima Mission. The Original mission had been destroyed by an earthquake in 1812 and it was rebuilt in the current location. It is one of only two Spanish missions in California, no longer governed by the church. Today it's a state park. But at one time it was a place for Native Americans who were put into these places for the conversation of their souls into Christianity.

Dark skin, foreign language, different view in spiritual beliefs were the reason to convert the souls of these untamed indigenous population. From the time Europeans arrived on American shores, the untamed natural world brought forward a clashing difference leading to over 1,500 wars, attacks and raids against the Indians. The settlers fear stoked racial hatred and paranoia, painting the Indigenous peoples as savages who must be changed.

I had not heard of these massacres that had taken place in the history of humanity, until that day. I was hiking on sandy trail through a mix of chaparral and oaks trees, when I got a strange feeling that someone was watching. I was alone, but I had walked this trail many times before and never had this eerie feeling.

Suddenly I increased the pace and started jogging toward the main road where I would encounter other people hiking. To my surprise there was a shadow standing in front of me. My heart sank. Fear started to blur my senses and I wondered what was that shadow that was in front of me.

It looked like a man, a Neanderthal dressed in strange clothing. He had his hands gesturing for me to stop, like a police officer directing traffic. I stopped; this was not an ordinary person. He looked like someone who had step out of time and space. A thing from the past, perhaps a spirit, a ghost, an alien, I did not know what it was, I just wanted to scream, but the sounds would not come out.

I froze in my tracks as this primitive creature started to approach me. I do not know why, but I thought of a Mary Campbell, but who the heck was Mary Campbell? Why was I thinking of this person in the middle of all this.

The strange man compelled me to follow him. Was I having a hallucination, I wondered; what the heck was going on? I could feel my body floating through the air through a cloud. On the other side of the cloud, I could see there was a garden where there was a tribe of people who resembled the strange man. I could see there were men, women and children sitting in a circle singing or chanting something. I could hear ceremonial drumbeats in the background. I wanted to turn and run, but I was captured by an unknown force that would not allow me to move.

I heard a voice like thunder and must have passed out because when I woke up again, I was back on the trail walking as if nothing had happened. Confused but glad to be around familiar surroundings, I quickly found the main path and ran as fast as I could to the car.