 |
 |
| Tiny Soul by � artnsolitude Once many years ago there lived a man and a woman. They lived in one of the white man's towns far away from the true people. They had done a bad thing and were ashamed. They had fallen under the spell of the white man�s gold and forgotten the stories and legends they had learned as children. They tried to hide their guilt from Grandfather Sky and all of their truest friends by moving far away. But they could not hide from their own hearts, nor could they hide from Grandfather Sky. There came a time when the woman found herself with child. The man and woman were very happy. But because they had tried to hide their guilt, Grandfather passed judgment on the man and the woman. They never knew, never realized the events that their actions would cause. The tiny child in the woman's belly did not care. As his body grew inside the woman, the baby's little spirit wandered the universe, exploring eagerly every new star and visiting old friends he wished to see. From time to time he would return to his growing body to see if it was ready for him. He would stretch and kick inside the woman, testing his arms and legs, and the woman would laugh and speak soft words to her baby because she knew he had returned to her. But soon again the baby's soul would leave for more exploring because his body wasn't ready. The little soul started thinking more and more on his growing body, and the secure, warm feeling he had when he was there. He began to long for those feelings more and more, and each time he visited, he would stay a little longer. Listening to his mother's heartbeat and her soft words, and listening his own little heartbeat - an echo of his mother's. But still the baby wished to explore. He couldn't decide which place he would rather be. Then, one cool autumn morning, one of his shining friends called to him in a soft musical voice and told him that he must decide now because he was late. His shining friend sang to him a song of a mother's love and reminded him that she was waiting. So the little soul decided. He would return to his body and the sweet dreams he felt when he was with his mother. But this time something was different. Something was wrong. His mother's heartbeat was too fast, and he felt his little body being squeezed unbearably tight. He became frightened and tried to return to his shining friends. But he couldn't. He panicked and he fought and he struggled but he could not escape the pain. He wished for the floating or the gentle rocking feeling he remembered and loved so much but all he could feel was pain. And then there was light. Light so bright it stung his eyes so he couldn't see. Brighter than the brightest star he had visited in all his travels. He had never felt such pain. His little body squalled its discontent. Then he felt something warm wrap around his shivering little body and soon after that he heard his mother's heartbeat once again and was comforted. He slept much after that day. Often his mother would hold him and make the soft sounds that tickled his ears. But in his dreams he could still see his shining friends and hear their musical voices speaking to him. And he missed them very much. He missed the exploring and the wandering and the beautiful things they had shown him. He began to sleep less and less. When he was asleep he would dream and see his shining friends, but they seemed so far away now it made him sad. He had almost forgotten what they looked like. He tried to remember their shining faces and beautiful voices but something always distracted him and made him forget. He tried to speak to them in their language but they did not answer. He began to remember some of the soft sounds his mother made and began to copy the sounds. O, happy day! He found that with these sounds he could make things happen. He tried to remember more of the sounds. He would make this sound and his mother would smile and he would make another sound and the man would smile, and he could make another and get milk....mmm, he was beginning to like this place. The seasons passed and his body and mind grew stronger. He found that he could walk and move about. He learned that he could make changes in this world just as he had done in the world where his shining friends lived. He could tell his body to pick up small stones and place them in a pile with others that he had picked up. He could arrange the stones in beautiful circles and other shapes that his shining friends had shown him . He found many wonders in this new world. He found trees and leaves and insects and animals all soft and furry. He liked them very much. He found that he could hold his hand up and touch the wind. He could touch a leaf and make it move just like the wind did. He could breathe on it and make it shiver. They would sing sweet songs to him of love and friendship. And he could touch the big furry animal, a dog, his mother had said, and its tail would wag. Or the soft little kitten and it would purr and make other funny noises. When he tried to talk to them they didn't understand his words. But when he listened he found that he could understand theirs. Then his mother would take him to the houses of other men and women where he would find small people to share his words with. The tall people always seemed to make so much noise and would make so many sounds that he thought he would never understand. But the small people he could understand. Every day he would spend some time with the small people, children, his mother had called them, and learned more of the word sounds. Then one day while learning words at a friend's house, and playing with his toys, his mother began speaking very loudly with a lot of words. These sounds weren't happy sounds. He didn't see his friend for a long time. Instead he went to an old woman�s house where he played with her toys. She talked to him with the same loud words from time to time, but they didn't bother him so much anymore. When his father was home with his mother, they used those words a lot. He spent a lot of time at the woman�s house, but since she was old he found he couldn't understand her. And because he had spent much time learning words at his friend�s house, he had forgotten how to talk to the trees and animals. He couldn't understand them either. He began to be very lonely, and would wait much time for his mother to come for him or his father so he could practice words with him, but they seemed to stay away much longer now. He began to wonder if they had forgotten him. Then one day he was sent to this great big house with lots of small people like him and a few big people that talked too much. The big people called it a school. He had fun learning new things and playing games, but somehow it wasn't the same. He missed the old games he played with the trees and the wind and the animals. These games his new friends played weren't as fun. Then he learned this thing called reading. He read stories about horses and trees and birds. He liked these stories very much and told everyone that he was an Indian because he liked the things they did. But his friends must have read other books. They started playing a game called cowboys and Indians. They would make him be the Indian and they would beat up on him and pretend to shoot him like they did in the stories. They played this game a lot. He began to feel different from the other children. They all seemed to like hurting things. He grew faster than they did, and they started hurting him for that. He would have many little cowboys form a posse and beat up on him. They rarely tried to do it alone because they were afraid. So the little Indian boy started to draw up inside himself because he felt very lonely. And he became very shy and was afraid of the other children because they hurt him. He began to believe something really was wrong with him. The kids at school didn't treat him nice. He didn't see his mother much. The teachers didn't like him because he was so shy or because his mind drifted and he didn't answer quickly enough. When he finally found someone he wasn't afraid of and who liked the things he did he became so overjoyed that he would talk and talk and really make his teachers angry. Then they would hurt him in front of his new friends and he would be ashamed. His new friends would laugh and go play with the other children. He was ashamed of himself so he couldn't tell his mother and father. They were never there to talk to anyway. They had become successful traders and spent much of their time collecting money and other things. They gave him nice gifts and many expensive toys to show their love. He did not care about the toys. He wanted his parents. So he became very quiet and continued to grow. He was afraid the other boys and girls would laugh again so he would think hard about everything he did so he wouldn't make a mistake. Sometimes it helped, mostly it didn't. He would become so nervous his hand would shake or his words would twist. He imagined that they kept him around just for laughs. But he was very lonely. So he decided to overlook some of the bad things the other young men and women did to him and themselves and to others and tried to be their friends. Sometimes they acted like he thought friends should, but mostly they didn't. He tried to be the best friend he knew how - listening much and talking little - helping them work through their troubles. They knew he could keep a secret because he rarely spoke. He began to see that everyone had troubles, even the cowboys that use to hurt him. Maybe that�s what made them do it, he thought � to make themselves feel better. The little Indian kept growing, until he was a strong and tall man. Even though he was proud and powerful, he knew that he was still learning. He learned all manners of things, all types of stories. He learned of people that loved, and people that hated, people that hurt others, and people that healed. He realized that there were all kinds of people in the world, all of them hurting, all of them searching for the place that they could return to for comfort and joy, for healing. Then, like a shooting star on the darkest night, he thought once more of his shining friends. He hadn�t thought of them in untold years. He began to learn different stories then. Stories about angels, and demons, and spirits that fought for his soul from both sides of Heaven�s door. Sometimes the angels would come and sit by his side as he read, as he learned, to be sure that he understood. It didn�t matter that he couldn�t see them. He knew they were there. They would show him things that others couldn�t see, and could never understand. Certainly not the old cowboys � no way they would ever understand. He began to comprehend about ancestral knowing, that he was bringing forward knowledge from places that others have never known, that he still didn�t understand completely. Over the years, he had learned about his mothers and fathers guilt, and somehow knew that in order to right the wrong he must become a storyteller. He must pass along the stories that he has learned to the children of the world, so that they would know how not to make the same mistakes his parents had made. He must do the work of the shining people, to make them proud. They would take the tale of his good works to the Great Spirit, so He would know to save a place for him beside the fire of the elders. Art |