6:3

And so young man endured the scorn and waspishness of his fellows and tended to his charge for many weeks. He neither befriended nor displayed enmity to the creature but steadfastly and with great care looked after its needs and helped as he could with its healing. As time passed, the creature grew well enough to move around, and the young man transported it to a quiet grove beside a pond in the nearby woods with a promise to continue to bring food and succor as long as was necessary. And each day he would take time from his life to return to woods and ensure that the creature was well and still healing. This task became as natural to him as caring for his own family and eventually everyone around him accepted that the young man’s actions were right and proper.

One day the youth arrived to find the grove empty, and although he waited and waited there came no sign of his charge. So he stood in the centre of the small clearing, looked out over the still pond and once more raised his arms to the sky. A sense of completion wound its way through his soul. “It is done.”

He returned to his home and to his responsibilities to his family and to his neighbours and to his people.

Many years passed and never did the two encounter each other again. Occasionally the man, now grown to full adulthood, would see signs that the forest was inhabited by creatures like his old charge, but there was never any indication if it was one or many. And while he did not dwell on the past and wonder, the experience of caring for and considering that helpless animal had changed his awareness toward all things weaker than himself. As he matured into manhood, he would rarely rely on his great strength and superior size to force his will on others; instead he learned to work with them and act cooperatively to build many new and wonderful things with his fellows. He grew to be a wise man, a great leader of his people and a humble father to many children. And as he grew older and older he became a guide to his family and neighbours, walking with them along a path that embraced the world all around them rather than battling each other for supremacy.

Eventually the no longer young man died, surrounded by his friends and family, and his life was woven into the stories and songs of his people. Many years passed and the man’s name and origin lay forgotten but the spirit of his life lived on and spread wherever people gathered together whether for survival, or to celebrate, or just to coexist and share the resources of the land.

And while this man had no name, he was always referred to by the symbol of his family. A symbol he had adopted after he had returned the small hapless creature to the woods. And the legends state that whenever people come together to work or play or build something greater than the sum of their parts, there you will always see the sign of the beaver.