It wasn't always this way. One upon a time the tide remained high. And there were no clams or seaweed to be found and the Tsimshian went hungry. Raven knew what lay under the blue glistening robes of water.
When he wrapped his blanket of black feathers around his strong shoulders, he flew. His sharp eyes watching, looking. Scanning the edges of the ocean, he found her.
Tightly she held the tide-line in her hands. She wouldn't release the ocean to rhythmically rise and fall on the beach, or draw back from it, leaving washed treasures, clams, seaweed, shells, shiny pebbles.
Why did the old woman hold the tide-line so tightly in her lined, papery hands? She sat in her small house on the edge of the sea, holding the waters in the life-line on her palms. Who can tell from the mass of mounds and lines on her hands how she bid the edges of the great water be still?
Inside her sun-bleached house with closed eyes she imagined the ocean, or perhaps she could see it with visionary sight. She sat, the tide-line, her hands, the one interconnected with the other, like a fisherman's net, weeping tears of salt.
Raven dropped from the sky, a shadow of black feathers. He sat down beside her and groaned, holding his belly, saying he had eaten too many clams. He broke her meditation, and she stood, and went to look at the clams, but he pushed her and she fell. Then he poured sand in her eyes so that she was blinded. Pulling the tide-line out of her hands, tearing the life-line from her, he released the hold on the waters and the tide at last fell.
Crazy old woman on the edge of the ocean of time, time's burden, that weight of life-giving water.
And so the ocean drew back its mantle of blue robes and the people feasted.
There were bonfires on the beaches and a festival of clam bakes that lasted days until everyone's bellies were swollen full of food.
Who was the blind old woman crying on the beach with the torn hands?
Raven in his raucous joviality passing from one feasting party to the next found himself before the old woman, who spoke, "Raven, heal my eyes so I may see again." Raven, trickster-figure, Promethean fire-stealer, knew the Gods could must be bargained with, appeased. He struck a deal: "Old woman of the sea, I will heal you, but you must promise to let the tide-line go twice a day so that the people may gather food from the beaches." The old woman agreed and so he rinsed the sand out of her eyes. Thus Raven ensured the life-lines of the people, their continuity.
In my story, as I walk the empty beach strewn with empty clam shells, seaweed, the detritus of modern civilization, I want to find her, and find out why, the witholding.
I want to know why she denounces me, or those like her.
And take the cawl she has wrapped me in off: to breathe, to see.
But I spin like Tiresias under an unrelenting sun.
Why do black feathers lie strewn in my hair?
My eyes, gritty and sore, are on fire -
I see only flaring volcanoes
A red rage of light;
On this windless day
How did my eyes fill with sand?
My hands bleed as I write.
For what do I weep?
Sheath of feeling. Words groping to touch air.
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I couldn't write like this if my immortal soul depended on it. My Friend, this is brilliant composition. It stirs the vision of the third eye, it holds the mystery of myth and the wonder of places we find ourselves peering from the pier of our innermost spirit quest.
ReplyDeleteWe question: Why this longing if it is not to be fulfilled and if it is to be fulfilled, why such terrible obstacles~obstacles within~obstacles without? What is the spirit that would block us~What is the spirit that would open the pearls within the sea of our souls? How do we see? How do we unblock? How do we breathe softly and in rhythm once again?
Many Blessings~
Dear Laurieglynn, thank you, thank you, my dear friend... you so perfectly understand the question itself, and all the difficulties... we truly are on parallel paths, finding each our own rhythms but together, you in your part of the continent, me in mine.
ReplyDeleteI re-tell, embellish, a Native tale here, and I wonder if that's permissible? If it were a Greek or European or even tribal African tale, no problems, that's how myths get reinterpreted to reveal the concerns of the times, because myths are living, evolving with us, but Native North Americans are possessive of their culture and its artifacts, including the stories. I'm not sure a non-Native white woman is even allowed to tell the story in its original version publicly. There is a story of the blockage of the sharing that creativity requires here, too, though it may be appropriation, or considered that, or at least that's what it's called when non-Natives relate the material. I am in a quandry. I think a culture who won't allow its stories to become part of the great sweep of stories is burning itself out, but perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps keeping the story-telling lines clean is the only way to ensure purity.
Any responses?
Well, maybe I'll say this...
ReplyDelete"And so the ocean drew back its mantle of blue robes and the people feasted.
"There were bonfires on the beaches and a festival of clam bakes that lasted days until everyone's bellies were swollen full of food."
which is universal, and so is the doubt, and the pain, and the opportunity unleashed.
I had an interesting interchange on xanga with GracePrince who pointed out how similar the Native American and Celtic story traditions are, which reminded me that so are the traditions of music, of dance, and of an elemental spirituality linked to the land and the waters.
So can we share if we do it with respect? Just thinking out loud.
Narrator, I agree with you... though of course we can see the other side too, that of being used by the 'dominant culture,' of having our stories arrogated. Cameron's Copper Woman is a classic in Native literature, and yet she is a white woman who collected Native stories and published them... sensitivity and deep respect for the culture means much. There are ways to honour other cultures, and I hope I've managed that... my cottage was on a Chippewa reserve, I did have a decade where I talked to, and sometimes hung out, with Native women. Anyway, yes, mono-myth types like Jung and Campbell certainly did show similarities between the stories of various and diverse cultures to the extent that they mapped certain patterns, or 'archetypes,' or 'archetypal patterns' (such as Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces.
ReplyDelete