SAT'CHI'KO

(A story)

My name is Sat’Chi’Ko and this is my story.

I am an oyster, a daughter of the Sea, a sister to the silent, watchful creatures of the deep.

My home is a shell.

Life in the deep flows like a pleasant dream.

We the oysters have no fears. Nobody dares to harm us.

Our fertile mother, the Sea, has a special love for us. All the millions of colourful beings bred and nurtured by the ancient, boundless waters love and respect us.

Do you know why they love us so deeply?

Well, because we make the miracles of pearls, the perfect portraits of Grandmother Moon.

Our pearls are sculptures of the Moon, Mother of the Sea and Queen of Mirrors.

At the beginning of time the Moon rose from fiery Earth into the sky and in its place the waters made their bed.

Life was born in the sea-bed. Life that swims and life that wings. Life that swings and life that climbs and crawls and ramps and romps and walks and trots, and runs and burrows and… well, what do you do?

When I came to life I shyly lay within the smooth, snug shell I call home. At times I dared to open my shell and take rapid peeps at the myriad swaying, darting, prancing, dancing beings of the outside world. They seemed so free to come and go and play, while we oysters could only gape in envy, chained as we were to our sturdy house — so rugged on the outside, on the inside so smooth.

I slowly grew in size and courage —and in envy too, alas!— and the longer I gazed on the fascinating view that stretched invitingly before my jealous, coveting eyes, the more I resolved that I too, Sat’chi’ko the oyster, would one day join in the fun.

My longing to step out of my shell —something no other of my kind had ever dared do— grew unbearably until one fateful day I gingerly jumped ouside and at that one instant I both broke the rules of oysterly behaviour and discoverded a forbidden joy.

Oh the Joy!

The joy of discovery, of freedom, of play… the joy of breaking all the rules… the joy of danger, the Joy of Joy.

I played hide and seek among the sea weeds with the children starfish, seahorses, calamaries and crabs.

I rode fishy-back hour after hour.

I danced in rings with all my new friends and sang the tunes of the great dolphins and whales.

When in the evening I returned home to my shell the other oysters of the colony would remonstrate and scold me kindly"Sat’Chi’Ko," they said, "we oysters do not leave our shells. We stay within always and constantly pray for pearls."

"Pearls, pearls… come, show me one pearl and I’ll believe you!" I thoughtlessly bantered.

"Well, a pearl is a Miracle and the old ones say that we oysters create such a wonder with our patient prayers, our total devotion and faith, and with our body and our mind, with our soul and inspiration."

"Oh, really! Those are old oysters’ tales and superstitions!"

"And when the blessing comes to the chosen oyster all the creatures of the sea, from the largest to the smallest, from the oldest to the youngest, from the most fierce to the most meek, one by one they come to behold the Pearl in silent awe, and quietly speak two words or three before departing. ‘Thank you,’ they say. ‘Praise the Moon,’ they mutter with downcast eyes and leave in awe. In endless numbers they stand in file waiting for their turn to gaze upon the chosen One. Pay heed, naughty Sat’Chi’Ko, our fate is to try to be worthy of the Grace of our Grandmother Moon…"

But I giggled on and cried: "The Moon? Now what is that? No one down here has seen the Moon, whatever it may be, and pearls are stupid myths that chain an oyster to boredom. So there!"

And sure enough, I persisted in my carefree life of play and pleasure.

To stay at home indeed! The Moon and Pearls indeed! How stupid could an oyster be?

The months and the years passed and I continued to lead a gay and carefree existence. Everywhere I went I found willing playmates and I thought I was the darling of the sea.

Until one day, until one day my friends, as I arrived at my neglected shell, exhausted after an exhilarating day, I noticed an uncommon crowd of all kinds of creatures, some of whom I had never laid eyes upon in all my roamings, big and little, young and old, fierce and friendly, a rapidly growing crowd surrounding what appeared to be an eerie glow that sprang from somewhere in the oyster colony.

A sudden premonition gripped my heart, which seemed to miss a beat or two. A devastating, dense, solid silence held everyone and everything in thrall, a silence so full, so deep, so charged, so pregnant with mystery that I almost fainted.

The mute, pressing throng of quivering beings carried me forward inevitably to the source of that unnatural glow and when after a seemingly endless time I arrived before IT and saw IT, a flood of blood blinded my sight and I was carried away senseless by the living stream of astonished beings.

When I came to, I found myself roaming at a great distance from my usual haunts, while my lips repeated over and over again this song:

Gorgeous child, perfect child,

drop of wisdom, dew of love,

child, drop, dew, pearl,

Oh Pearl, Oh Moon, Oh Pearl!

Repeating these words over and over again I made my way home in a daze, wounded to my core by the memory of the vision. I crept into my shell and shut myself in to weep and wail and waste away in shame.

"Oh Sat’Chi’Ko, what a fool, what a fool you have been! You have failed, you fool, failed, fool, failed, fool…" Reproach gnawed and bit at my heart unceasingly.

Finally, sleep took me mercifully in its lap and that night I had a dream.

In my dream the Ancient Oyster appeared before me and simply said: "Now you know." "Yes," I answered full of fear, "but how? How? How can Sat’Chi’Ko become a Divine Mother now, a Mother of the Pearl?"

"Now you know," the Ancient Oyster simply said.

"But how, how? My life will be a miserable waste if I do not achieve it, my death will be a miserable waste too… I am afraid to live and even more afraid to die! How, how, how!"

"Now you know," the Ancient Oyster simply said once more before fadind away completely. And then out of nowhere a voice that was music, music that was colour, colour that was thought became a whirling spiral that carried me away up and up through the waters and beyond to a region where an icy ball of fire engulfed me and I awoke in a fever on bottomless anguish, longing and regret.

After this I became a very sick and dejected thing, sick with shame, sick with a fear, a terror that I had failed, a terror of life and a terror of death. My days and nights were a horrid tunnel with no beginning and no end.

The most faithful among my playmates tried to revive my spirits. Rondi the starfish, Mark the seahorse, Mariano the calamary stood by my shell constantly, taking turns so as not to leave me alone, and tried to amuse me with stories and little tunes and little presents, too.

But the least thing I wanted was tio be comforted. I only wanted to turn time around and be reborn and aspire from the depths of innocence to the greatest of blessings, the grace of a pearl. "Go away, dear friends, you cannot help," I was barely able to whisper. "Leave me to my death."

The other oysters merely sighed, knowing quite well that nothing and nobody could help me.

Then one morning everything suddenly changed for me, but for the worst, or so it seemed. I awoke abruptly with the sharp pain of something that jabbed into my side, so abruptly that my shell snapped open, startling my three dear friends, who now had taken to sleeping nearby. I stood up susrprised when I saw what it was that was hurting me.

"Look!" squealed Rondi, "she’s up!"

"Wow," neighed Mark, "look at that!"

"What is that?" Mariano scolded aghast.

Well, there it was. A perfectly square pearly thing. Born of all my suffering, it was indeed a pearl, the pearl I was so painfully dying for, but it was a square pearl.Yes, a square pearl!!

I quickly hid it with my body before anyone else could see it. "Go away, go away, go away!" and I clamped my shell shut.

Well, that was the first of many such strange things, square pearls that were born out of my dreadful nights and that slowly but irrevocably vanished during the day, growing smaller and smaller despite my fervent tears and entreaties.

"Stay with me please, do not go away, I love you, I don’t care if you are square, you are mine, I want you, please do not leave me alone, please, I am dying, please…"

But one by one they came and went, leaving me more and more distraught every time.

"Keep it up, Sat’Chi’Ko, " cried Rondi the starfish.

"Patience makes perfect," advised the seahorse Mark.

"Don’t give up now," admonished Mariano, the calamary.

But I was becoming the ghost of myself. My end was near. One evening I felt that death was finally at hand and thankfully I dug myself, sheel and all, into the sea sand, ready for the last night of my spoiled life. No feelings, no thoughts, no longings, no feras, no regrets remained in my heart and mind. I had wept them all away and all that remained was blank indifference in a spent body.

As I slowly sank into my final sleep my lips formed these soundless words: "Oh Moon, thank you for my life and thank you for my death… thank you for showing your lovely face to me, your pearl, your glory… thank you for my friends, Oh Moon…"

And as I closed my eyes and peacefully embraced the unknown, I could hear the stiffled sobs of my sisters the oysters and my faithful friends subsiding into the silence beyond silence of my death.

I knew I was dead. I knew it. I knew it because I was inside myself and outside myself at the same time. I could see simultaneously above me and below me, to my left and to my right, before me and behind me. I was a round thing or being or ghost that was empty and full, that was and was not, that was as big as could be and as small as could be, that was all and nothing at the same instant, that was alive and that was dead, that was all life and all death, that was, in a word, perfectly round, perfectly round insisde and out, perfectly O, perfectly dark, perfectly black and perfectly white, perfectly moon, perfectly pearl, perfectly round, perfectly pearl, perfectly moon, pearl, moon, pearl…

It was music and it was silence, it was a hymn that became dawn and dew, and it filled me inside out and outside in, a hymn that was a prayer that was awe that was more than silence and less than silence, that was love, love, love that filled every corner and cranny of my life and my death, of all life and all death… and it filled my new being with a steady beat that was my heart and the heart of all the creatures of the sea who were gathered in a great, throbbing, mute crowd around my open shell, and who one by one approached and gazed in awe and slid away with downcast eyes whispering at most three words or two.

"Mother…"

"Praise our Moon…"

"Oh Sat’Chi’Ko, thank you…"

As I lay with my Pearl, my perfect round pearl craddled in my arms, awakened anew to life after having awoken to death, I slowly realized that I had been returned to my shell home with the blessing of the Moon and through the Grace of Mystery as living proof to all sentient beings that life and death are One.

This is my story, the true story of Sat’Chi’Ko, the oyster, Mother of the Pearl.

Peace.