They moved almost silently through the thick and overgrown brush. The dead falls dangerous under their feet, yet on this night they did not stumble or fall, not a scratch would mark their bodies. There would be no evidence to tell them that what they experienced was not a dream, but had actually come to pass. Though they would never question the surreal quality of their quest, the reality of the each moment was forever embedded into their memory.

Barely 17, 20 and 23 they would never speak of this event to anyone, only in secret to each other, for all the long days of their lives. Though they would return from their journey transformed, changed forever.

The night would pass as they climbed to a place they had never been, where no man had been, to find themselves standing on an icy peak nearly 10,000 feet into the heavens. They stood motionless, as if sentinels guarding the fading darkness as it dissolved into a soft infusion of light.

The world at their feet, they stood at the edge of the precipice, their bodies warming as much by the glow in She Wolf’s eyes as by the comfort of the morning light surrounding them. The glory of day filled the earth.

She Wolf led them to a wind carved hollow in the rocks. Sheltered in the hallow the vastness and beauty of the earth laid before them, stretched endlessly into the horizon. With their hands clasped tightly together they felt themselves following the gentle directions heard only in their minds. No words were heard to disturb the wakening earth. She Wolf faced them, the glow of her calm almost sad eyes moved in their souls, and they heard the knowledge of the spirit of She Wolf.

She held them gently in loving hands, her voice a soft velvet whisper flowed over them in a gentle caress. She began slowly and weighed each word with deliberate thought. Her words guided their vision, her stories became pictures of the earth’s pain and suffering, of its many glorious inhabitants that had come and gone, of mans disrespect.

They journeyed with her through visions of evil that had come to consume the earth. In their minds eye the images unfolded time and time again, telling stories of selfishness and greed that developed over eons of time, and would one day come to destroy humanity. Rivers of blood flowed before their eyes, walking skeletons lined unseen roads, the night sky aglow, burning with flames of fire, screams of tormented souls assaulted their ears.

They watched as every inch of the earth became barren. Trees and plants withered and died, but did not nurse the forest back to life. Huge herds of buffalo crossed the flat plains, only bones covered in fur. Deer laid in the tall grass their entrails covered in flies and maggots. The stench of a rotting earth assaulted their nostrils. Birds of every species dropped from the sky as if shot by some unseen hunter. Creature after creature in the throws of death laid on the barren earth under a red fiery sun.

The Earth trembled. Her body a killing field littered with the dead that she had once nurtured and given life. As a wet dog would shake droplets of water from its fur, she shook again and again. Each tremble becoming more and more violent as if she were attempting to cleanse herself, rid herself of the filth and evil that had tried to consume her. Once cleansed, on a bright new day when the fires had cooled, the golden sun would warm her heart and she would once again nurture the process of mans spiritual promise, the remembrance.

At some level they were aware of others around them, of an essence of feminine spirit not body. They embraced their sisters in their hearts and listened, and heard. Their cheeks bedded the river of tears flowing with the sacred sadness that filled their hearts with the unbearable pain of the Earth, and of the Mother.

Her eyes sparkling with the knowledge of the Creator, She Wolf shared Universal visions of truth, and the remembrance of spirit. She taught them the ways of healing, of community, of cleansing, of submission, humility and of love. With each she shared a glimpse of their personal path. The path that would lay before them should they choose to submit, with clear intent, to the will of the Creator.

Chris felt her body gasp as her personal path was revealed. Her sobs and wails a chilling echo that soon joined with her sisters cries screaming across the lands beneath them. In her heart she knew her path but did not allow the image of the pain in to her brain. She held her psyche taught against the torment and struggle that laid before her, nor did she acknowledge the vision of her sisters denial.

The day moved into night and still She Wolf lead the journey. They shared the visions and wept the tears of despair. In deep, soft respect they honored the holy ancestors who had tried, for all time, to guide those who walked the earth.

There was no awareness of when their journey ended. Some how it simply drifted silently into the depths of their unconscious, into the whispy fringes of a dream.

Their spirits rejoiced as the rhythm of their journey filled their bodies with the gift of a harmony. Soundlessly it moved through them leaving a purity of love. The deep unimaginable love of the Creator seeping into the deepths of their souls, depositing in it's wake the need to cooperate with the gift of divine grace.