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Chu'a: (as a child) "Grandfather. When will I grow old enough to do as I please?" Kato'ya: (Grandfather Chu'a, protector and guardian of the west) "It is a thing unknown, child. Up to this time, no one has ever lived so long." ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ One hundred years later Kato'ya spoke once more, to ask if Chu'a was sad. Chu'a: (answering) I don't think I am, Grandfather. I think it is just that I am concerned. There is a great problem for all the people. I am concerned that I do not know how to do my part to help solve it. Kato'ya: SO, do you think you can help solve it, then? I have worked on it for many generations, as did many generations before me. This was all done before it was passed along to your generations. Yet the problem must not have been solved, if you speak of it now. You have been on Turtle Island for over a hundred and three winters now. What have you been able to do? Chu'a: I have re-told the prophecies as they have been told from the Elders, Grandfather. I have tried to let it be known that something must be done while there is still time. I have done this wherever there were ears to hear. All my words were well received. The people seemed glad to know what the Elders have spoken of for so long. Yet I see no change. Kato'ya: Perhaps no change was ever possible. It may have been written in the stars long before man emerged from Tokpela. (firstworld-endless space) It may be destiny. Chu'a: Then I am truly sad after all, Grandfather. But how can it be so? Is there no choice to life? Is there only chaos, after all? Or is all truly written in stone? I can not believe this to be true. How do you feel, Grandfather? Tell me it is not so. Kato'ya: (chuckling) Stone? Yes, what has been foretold from the Great Spirit is a truth that man cannot add to or take away from. So it may be said to be written in stone. If we choose to believe what has been foretold, or choose not to believe it, so do not heed it. Or if we believe it but still fail to follow the right paths, this is our choice. Just as following right paths is our chance. But you must first understand what is real in the world, in order to see the true path in front of you. You can believe this to be truth, or you can believe there is truly nothing but chance and chaos. It is up to you to decide which is true. Each way of deciding will cause that choice to be your truth. This is caused from the paradox of truth. Both can be the reality. It is only your choosing one over the other that makes it true for you. So you do have choice. You can tell your truth to ears that are able to hear, but just as with children, the best lessons come from showing to those eyes that are able to see. Only when you are able to see the good path under your own feet, can you lead others onto it through your example. Look at my closed hand and think about what you see. Now look at the rock I now hold in an open hand and tell me if it is the same as the closed hand you were looking at before. Tell me why you answer as you do. Chu'a: First was a hand closed around a smooth stone. Then the hand opened to reveal that stone. I say they are two very different things. I say this because the hand is part of you, a living thing. It moves and is warm with life. The stone is a part of the mountain that has been tumbled smooth from the river. It is warm from the sunlight and from your hand. If you lay it on the ground it will grow cold tonight when the sun sets. It is not a living thing. It is only a stone. Kato'ya: Would you say it is more like my hand than the sunlight? Would you say the sunlight is more like my hand than the stone? Chu'a: I can not say which is more alike, unless the stone is more like your hand than the sunlight. Because they are both things and the sunlight is not a thing that can be touched or felt like the stone, or your hand. Kato'ya: Can you not feel the touch of the sunlight on your cheek? Would you not know daylight from dark, even though you were blind? So you can see the sunlight, just as you can see my hand and the rock. You feel its touch, also. So you must be saying it is not a hard thing, like the stone. Not a yielding thing like the flesh. Or perhaps you are saying it is more yielding than the flesh? No matter, you were mislead from your first answer. In truth they are all three the same. This is a mistake that is caused from not understanding the story of the Great Worm who lives at the worlds end . One day I will tell you that tale. But now, let an old man go to his blankets. The sun goes over to the other side and the cooking fire has died down for the night. ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ It was later, while in the kiva of hot stones where purification and meditation takes place before the commencement of a ceremony, that Chu'a ask of his Grandfather, and was finally told the great fable of worm. This took place at a time the Snake society was preparing for the sixteen day long Chu'tiva ceremony.(Snake Dance ceremony) This was one of the most misunderstood of all ceremonies, because on the last day the dancers did the snake dance, where they danced with live rattlers in their mouths. This would be a good year because over sixty sidewinders and rattlers had been captured during the four day hunt. This is the legend of the Great Worm at Worlds End, as told to Chu'a by Kato'ya. Long ago, before time There was only the chaos of the great void and the worm of worlds end. As the worm crawls through the great void consuming the chaos, he becomes very sleepy and confused. Finally he is overcome by fatigue and curls up to fall into a deep sleep. Once his sleep is deep enough, he starts dreaming of all the wonders of a universe. His dreams form all around him like a thick fog. All that we know of the stars, sun, moon and all the universe and what is contained within is only this foggy dream of matter. Once the great worm has rested for a time, he awakens once more, to slough off the fog of his dreams and crawl through the great void, consuming chaos until he grows weary the next time, and so the cycle of life is repeated. This is the legend of the Great Worm at Worlds End, who lives before time. What must be understood about worm, is that he is formed from a single thought. |
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Once The legend was revealed, Kato'ya held up a hand of silence to Chu'a, then one of thought. Chu'a knew this to mean he should think about what he had heard before asking Kato'ya any more about it. He also knew it would do no good to question Kato'ya farther this day. So he went from that place in silence, to the roof top, where he pondered long about this tale of worm. It was two or three weeks later, after the ceremonies were past and Chu'a was tending the corn that he next encountered Kato'ya. A new pit had to be dug for the harvest of the sweet corn and feast that would follow. One side of the old one had mysteriously caved in, for no apparent reason. Some said it was a sign, because the old pit didn't hold enough for all to get their fill of the delicious sweet corn. This deep hole lined with stones looked much like a hand-dug well. It was much deeper than a man standing upright. A fire would be tended days before, until time to fill the hole. Then the fire was put out and the hole would be packed to the top with ears of sweet corn, still in their husk, and the hole covered over. The following day would be the time to bring out the corn, for the whole tribe to feast upon. It was on the night Kato'ya and Chu'a stayed to tend the fire, they next spoke. It was growing toward morning when a good deep bed of coals were had, down in the pit. They were able to sit for a time without need to tend to the fire, when Chu'a finally broke their relative silence with what was on his mind. Sept, 08 Chu'a: Grandfather, may we speak? Tako'ya: Have you had an opportunity to reflect on all that we have spoken of before? Or is something else troubling you? Chu'a: I have spent much time in contemplation of the story of worm, Grandfather. I would like to ask about those things I do not see clearly. But other questions have also come to my mind that I fear I will never understand. Unless you know their answer. Silence.. I wonder why so much time was allowed to pass before it came about that you ask if I was sad? Why had you never spoken to me before then? I had just started to think about a Grandfather who had passed into the clouds, at a time when I was a child of three, when you were there, asking if I had become sad. I think I was contemplating the foolish questions a child could ask, at the time. How old, indeed! It was just one of many things going through my mind on that day. I was troubled with too many questions I had no answers for. Since that day, it seems as if you are at my side when ever I seek your answers. Did you have nothing to say to me for the hundred years that had passed before? I went through an entire lifetime not even knowing of a Grandfather that was lost to me as a child. Were you also unaware of a living grandchild below your home in the clouds? I speak to you as flesh, because it is how you seem to me. Yet when you are away it is as though I spoke to you in a dream. Is this then the dream, and the times you are not with me real? Or is that time that now seems a dream, truly the dream and this time real? Or are they both real, but I am the dreamer who dreamed the reality into a dream? It is hard to find the reality from within the dream, Grandfather. This is one I hope you can answer for me. I have pondered long without hope of enlightenment. How can one hope to awaken long enough to answer a question only remembered during the dream? Or how can the awakened reality be discovered from within the dream? Kato'ya: |
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