LITMIR.BIZ

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      Praise for Painted Oxen

      “Who is the teacher? Who is the student? Who is the traveler? Who is the guide? Surrender yourself to this well-traveled tale, with its spices and sounds, bustling streets and windswept high mountain passes. Amidst the shifting faces, dreams, times, and places, a multidimensional tapestry of lessons unfold. When you begin, you are a greenhorn; a fool on a search. By the end, a change occurs within heart-mind. Painted Oxen is literary alchemy, but the journey won’t end when you put the book down.”

       ––Frank LaRue Owen, author of The School of Soft-Attention

      “Lit by ancient starlight, we follow Thomas Qualls along the sacred river through the heart of India. Reminiscent of Kerouac’s On the Road, we meet fellow travelers seeking transformative knowledge, mercy and grace. Painted Oxen entertains, informs, and delights.”

       ––Mark Daniel Seiler, Award Winning Author of River’s Child and Sighing Woman Tea

      Painted Oxen

      A Novel by

      Thomas Lloyd Qualls

       Homebound Publications

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher.

      All places, characters and events are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual places, persons or events is coincidental.

      Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, bookstores and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below or visit wholesalers such as Ingram or Baker & Taylor. Homebound Publications, P.O. 1442, Pawcatuck, Connecticut 06379.

      Published in 2019 by Homebound Publications

      Cover & Interior Designed by Leslie M. Browning

      Interior Photo (Title Page) © by Sangay Lama

      Interior Photo (Taj Mahal) © by Annie Spratt

      Interior Photo (Varanasi at Sunrise) © by Stellalevi | iStock.com

      Interior Map © by Tonello Photography | Shutterstock.com

      Cover Photo © by Federico Gutierrez

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      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to

       Kyra Lily

       and to the dreamer in each of you.

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      This is a different kind of book. One that not only invites you to come along for its journey, but to participate in its story. There are places in these pages you have forgotten exist. It is time to remember.

      This is the story of two men, one young and one old, on separate pilgrimages that are equal parts internal and external. The old man, a Tibetan monk, is searching for a sacred hidden valley known to bring enlightenment to those who enter it. The young man is a modern-day backpacker who has traveled to India in the age-old tradition of seeking higher truths about himself and the world. The story moves back and forth between these two characters and weaves together a tale of their parallel journeys that are centuries apart, but may be more connected than they appear.

      There are four winds, four elements, and four seasons. In this spirit, the novel is arranged in sets of four. Two of the four parts are the stories of the old man and the young man, titled Scylla and Charybdis, respectively, after the dual perils faced by Homer’s Odysseus.

      The third part is a series of dreams. Presented as fragments of interrelated stories involving a goddess with red hair, an alchemist, a pair of lions, and the god Vishnu, these visually lush vignettes act as connective tissue for the two main stories. Because we must smuggle our dreams into the waking world, these chapters are titled Praeda, which means stolen goods. The main character in the dream world is the mysterious red-haired woman who holds ancient secrets and who acts as a guide of sorts for the dreamer.

      The tales of the two pilgrims, together with the dream stories, each make up a trinity of vignettes, and each of these trinities carries a theme, introduced to the reader by a character from the 22 major arcana of the Tarot—a deck of cards that dates back to at least the 15th Century—thus creating the fourth dimension and squaring the set. One of these 22 cards is the Fool. Like our two protagonists, the Fool must leave the safety of his home in the Sacred Mountain in order to embark upon the journey of Life. Likewise, each Tarot card represents a stage in life that we must pass through on our journey back to the Sacred Mountain.

      Each realm also uses its own voice. A voice is an important thing to have, whether or not you are a character in a novel. The old man’s story is told in third person, because a Tibetan Buddhist would never tell his own story. The young man’s story is told in first person, because telling their own stories is exactly what backpackers do. Finally, the dream world thread is told in second person, because it takes place between the other two worlds. And because, after all, you are the dreamer.

      As I mentioned, this is a different kind of book. If you accept its invitation, you must understand that—like the characters in these pages—you will find yourself transformed by its journey’s end.

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      Praeda

      A candle burns in the darkness of the small room, melting wax abandoning its safe purchase and falling down the bending sides of what once was a knowable and dependable form. You stand at a rough workbench, your labors exposed only through the faint glow of its flickering revelations. Your fingers are stained and scorched, your sleeves pushed up beyond your elbows. Stones and flints, shavings and sparkling fragments lay scattered before you. There are containers of clear and dark liquids, a measuring device, and a notebook open to a page of scribbles and drawings.

       Your quest is an ancient one. To change the nature of matter, to harness the power of the elements in the dance of creation, to create perfection from imperfection, to steal fire from the gods.

       Gold is valued not only for its luminous appearance but also because of its transitional nature, which we do not fully understand. It is both trivalent and univalent. In other words, it walks in many worlds, effortlessly crossing barriers. It represents transformation, eternity, perfection. One who knows the secrets of gold holds the keys to the human heart. One who masters the alchemy of gold, unlocks the mysteries of the universe.

       You bend over the table, the mandala of colors before you, your hands holding the elements, your mind focused on harmonics, your ears trained to the language of the stars, your spirit tuned to the oneness of all things. Time sputters and slows, bending to match your rhythm.

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      The Fool

      The first and unnumbered of the major arcana is the Fool. He is leaving the spiritual mountain and, with naive purity, is about to step off a cliff and embark upon an epic adventure, the Fool’s Journey, traveling through the gates of Divine Wisdom. This is so, even though the purpose of the Fool’s Journey is to find the sacred mountain from which he came. He must leave so he can return.

      –The Book of Mysteries

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      Scylia

      The monk awakes from a dream to the sound of rain. The dream is one he has had before. In it he is not dressed in his traditional robes, but in a manner he does not recognize. He is a much younger man on a long journey far from home, and he is lost. The young man set out on his adventure with noble intentions, to discover higher truths about himself and

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