h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have rested well last night. I have not slept a full night in a long time. Things seem different today even they look different and I feel at peace. Thunderstorms this morning came with the dawn. The thunder rolls across the hills and it brings peace to me. Some thunder is a threat, it cracks and sings battle songs and spits. Today it is a great drum and is like the heartbeat of the earth mother. I used to tell my children the story of the Thunderdog. He is the lead dog in a string and races across the sky to take away the dogs below that do not work and are disobedient to their masters. Thunder is the sound of their feet on the clouds. The evil dogs are taken and added to the string and then forever run the skies with no rest since they have rested already on the Earth when they should have been working. The children made this their favorite weather story and I would recall when I spoke the words, my Grandmother from whom I received the story and felt I was a part of her again. My children most enjoyed stories that frightened them but my wife admonished me always since now and again the younger would awake at sleeping. They all asked for the "fearful" stories though, as well as the "possum tails" that were much mild and pleasant. Telling of stories was a big part of life when I was a youth. We had not TV and and we used batteries for radio so listened only a short time each day.Everyone had a story at night when work was over. We learned what is good and what evil as well as what is virtue and the example to follow in the path of living. Some times we would gather as a community and the people danced and elders told stories and some danced with masks and I would be frightened, my grandmother was always the one that gave me comfort I would bury my face in her dress and then would look again. I feared but I was compelled to watch. Each time the dances were made it was the same till I was ot so young anymore. After the songs and stories and dances the older ones sat in council and talked of things and we knew not what they spoke about but slept or played quietly. I greatly miss my grandparents and have dreamed of them often. For a time of over a week now I think I have had the same dream. Each night they come and Grandmother speaks softley to me and Grandfather stands by the door waiting to open it. I cannot remember Grandmothers words but they are words of comfort and I am as a child. I feel that Grandfather desires me to go with him and we will hunt but as soon as I arise to leave Grandfather he raises his hand and I awake. I feel cheated. I am unable to follow so the dream is a thing of peace and disappointment. I feel well today and so will finish some things that I am doing for my grandchildren. I feel a need to complete these crafts soon then I will begin a new carving or a new bow or such. I never know what the work will be but my grandchildren ask for things and I am glad in my heart to make them. They are farther away from the ways of their kin now than I was and I am so far as to be feeling lost. The toys and things I make them are a binding for them to the ways of those who have gone before them. I have tread two paths and now they divide in the way and I need choose.I am too short in years to stride the path both ways and desire rest for my heart. The way of both seems hard to me and the way of both right to me, of benefit to my family, but only one is the way that is best. I am in habit since I was sixteen and took a wife, to live for others and now perhaps I will live a while for me. This is selfish though and I resist it. I want always to please the creator but am lost how to do this if my nature given by Him says one thing but my heart another. I will prepare supper for my Mother again tomorrow, frybread and squash is her wish I will make fish too though she does not enjoy it much but it is good for her to eat it and she will eat it for me though she is mean and stubborn with others. Then begins a new week. When I think on it it is strange to divide our time in cycles of seven days. Why not according to the months or seasons? Why not make division of days by morning, then midday, then evening and sleep? I as a child thought in these ways. The Sun rise, the heat of day, the cool of evening and rest. I knew not an hour or a month. I knew the heat of Summer, the colouring of leaves, the snow and wind and the rebirth of the forest. The making of gain by the labour of others is the cause of this I think. But I may be mistaken.I need to think on this more since it is a new thought to me. Why is it that Europeans began to divide nature? Always it seemed to me as a young man that they are not happy unless making a division, a marking, or even a wound on the world. One day I was in the hunt, an elk had been given a wound not to death. The man was admonished and we sat for an hour before tracking so the animal would no longer fear. I followed for many hours and a white man came to me and was angry and said I had crossed his property line. I looked about me and asked where this line was and he said 'back a few hundred feet'. I made apology and walked back to where he pointed and spent a long time but could not find any line or any mark at all. Finally the friend of my father came and wondered why I am so long in comming back as they were worried for me since I was just 13 years of age. I told him all, he laughed then was very grave and explained all things concerning lands and boundaries and such. I at first thought he was making sport but the look of him told me no. The white man kept the elk because it was over the "property line", I thought this very unjust. I considered him a thief and wanted to go to his home and take one of his pigs or a goat but I was not allowed. Why?,I used to wonder, do they bend the world when it is a simple thing to be with the world. Always it seemed to me they make a division of things that cannot be divided. The creator made for His chidren one world and knows it is enough but they want to make many little worlds over wich they too are as creators but they are not wise nor are they good to their world or the beings in it. I have never seen a man kill a chicken or such and be thankful because in his heart it is his chicken but he would not be able, even for all the gold in the ground, to make a chicken. So why should he not be thankful to the creator or to thank the chicken for keeping his kin alive another day? I had much to think on as a youth. I caused my parents much vexing in asking the way of things always. I am not sure of these matters still. I am not with enough wisdom to judge the way of others since I am not on their road. What seems good to me is an evil thing to others and what is evil to me others may think as good. I am of a mind now that it is best to let others go their way according to the sun on their path. I lack the will to be a guide and need myself a guide for my own feet. All said I return to my own labours and my own thoughts and am glad in my heart that this is a new day.

Enjoy your day Red Bear I am with you on that

John Redbear,

Your writing is a joy to read, and so poetic. May I put you on my Friends List? One of the joys of this site is to meet and talk to people from very different cultures and countries.

I shall come back and read more as soon as I can.

I liked the Thunderdog story. Please keep writing. You will find many friends on here if you do.

Websailor

Websailor,
You are most welcome to be a freind and I will also place you in that list. I am blessed and honored tht some would call me so. I have enjoyed much communication since being in BBc. I have more talk than I am accustom to and it is a pleasant thing.
JR

Thank you. I am around here more than I should be so I am sure we shall meet again soon.

Websailor

johnredbear,

May I make a suggestion without offending you? Your writing is wonderful but to make it easier to read could you possibly break it up in to paragraphs so it is not in one solid block of writing?

Don't worry about the rules of paragraphs, just break it down in to smaller pieces as I have with this post. For many of us reading long journals or articles is hard on the eyes, and I wouldn't want to miss any of your writing because I am tired. Five or six lines, or as many as ten, but no more I think.

I have to go and mow my lawn now as we have had a lot of rain and the grass is growing too fast. Everywhere is green and lush and the birds are busy nesting and feeding young.

I will be back later to read more of your writing.

Take care,

Websailor

I will do this. I too have difficulty in reading this way. I should be more aware of this as in speaking. It is as listening to one who never takes a breath ! I do not wish to be as such!
JR

You are so right. Thank you very much. I shall find it much easier now, and your writing is such a joy.

I will see if I can share some photos of my world with you soon.

Websailor