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One
day, more years ago than there are stars in the night sky, an
old woman sat upon a stone on a low hill near her tribe. A cool,
damp breath hung in the air, and although the sun was directly
above her, a thin fleece of clouds transformed the sunlight from
rays of fire to a silver-honey glow. There were no shadows, and
the old woman could see for a great distance in every direction.
She uttered a prayer to the wind that the clouds might not flee
and expose her to the heat of midday, and another to the sun
that he have mercy on her, should her plea to the wind go unheard.
She was content simply to sit in such a beautiful place. Before her stretched the valley were her tribe now lived, although it was only the latest in a long history of nomadic travels. Yet each place was beautiful to her, for when all the land is your home, then all the world is your treasure. Through the center of the valley ran a stream, its softly flowing song reached her with a greeting and a carress. She smiled at its touch. A few trees dotted the grassy field, and on either side of the valley they thickened into woods, deep, dark, mysterious. It was as if the forest held the delicate valley in its green, powerful arms.
Behind
her the valley turned rocky, the sea of grass slowly replaced
by feeble clumps and hard-packed earth. Lizards and serpents
skittered through the gravelly surface. Beyond the dirt and rocks,
the earth rose up, mighty and noble, to a long string of peaks
that stretched off in either direction. The mountains were high
and magestic, rocky cliffs and snow-capped peaks. In her mind
she saw the shadows of her children leaping from peak to peak,
laughing at the earthbound stone below. She smiled, yet a tear
formed in her eye and slowly slipped away.
The
old woman turned back to the valley and looked upon the huts
of her village. They clustered together in the center of the
field, far from the forest, near to the stream. The simple homes
stood elegantly against the breeze, all wood and hides and leather
thongs, strung together with a masterful grace. She spotted the
hut her daughter lived in with her children, and thought sadly
of the homes and families missing after last winter's freeze.
One of her sons had been among the lost, as had her husband,
who one day failed to return from a hunting trip. When the party
returned without them she wept and cried for many days, and after
that she did not speak at all for many, many more.
Beyond
the valley, the arms of the forest grew closer together as if
tightening their grip, but never quite met. A narrow strip of
grassland carried the stream off to a large lake in the distance,
which in turn stretched to the very end of the earth. The lake's
waters were a heavy blue, just barely rippled by the gentle wind
flowing across its skin. She wished to go there one day, to dip
her fingers into its coolness and sip water from its breast.
As
she thought of another lake many years in her past, and how plentiful
the fish there, how sweet the scent of the air, it occurred to
her that there was as much to think upon within her mind as there
was without. For all the splendor of the world they lived in,
her thoughts and memories were as rich as the landscape, if not
more so.
A
bird suddenly swept too near her-- she started and let out a
cry, then laughed as the bird cawed and climbed back up toward
the clouds. Perhaps a message from the winds, she thought, that
her prayer had been heard.
All about her, in every direction-- beyond the forests, the lake, the mountains-- the edge of the world stood as a boundary to all that was knowable. No matter how far her tribe traveled or for how many days they walked, they would never reach its end. It would always be there, defiant, a magnificent circle penning everything in. It struck her then that she alone sat at the very center of that circle, then smiled and silently laughed at herself at the realization that it could be no other way. She had always been the center, and would continue to be so until she was no more. Perhaps beyond that, even. Or perhaps only then would she be free to break beyond the walls of the world. And she remembered that the world did not stop outside her body, hovering about her like a warm mist clinging to her skin, but rather penetrated deep within her in a maelstrom of thoughts and feelings and memories rich beyond comprehension. The world was in her dreams and in her heart, experiences flowing in and out of her with no real boundary to separate them. She lived her life in the world and the world thrived within her.
And
in the center of all that? she wondered to herself. Is there
a final place within me, a point beyond the world and the thoughts
and the memories? Is there a tiny seed that is the uncorrupted
essence of me?
The
old woman bent to pick up a stick from the ground, and began
to trace a circle in the earth.
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(Material copyright
2003, all rights reserved. No portion of this text
may be used or reproduced without the express written consent
of the author.)
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