macblaze.ca

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.

6:2

The young man stared at the broken creature and did not see a meal to be eaten or a resource to be taken. He saw pain and sorrow and felt a great upwelling of pity. For many years the man had cared for his family, nursed them back to health when they were sick, treated their wounds and performed everything in his limited power to heal them. He was no stranger to pain and suffering; to him it was another part of life like eating and sleeping. But family were not found in the woods, did not exist outside the limited scope of his small home.

But for some reason the helplessness of the tiny creature half hidden under the wild rose bush touched him, and he realized that he had the ability to change its fate, that he must do something to help. He gathered up the creature in an old hide, trying to be careful and not injure it further. And once he had it tightly swaddled he wrapped a few strips of rawhide around the bundle and tied it to his chest like it was a small child in a harness.

And then he set off back home.

As he arrived back at the wood-and-hide shelter he called home, he could hear his family and neighbors starting to wake and move around. Suddenly the young man felt doubt. What right did he have to bring not food but another mouth to feed into their already meager lives? What good could this injured creature bring? He could readily imagine the scorn and disbelief of his mother when he presented her with his burden. The anger of his fellows as he wasted their meager resources on something broken and better discarded.

He stood on the edge of the small collection of dwellings, undecided and conflicted.

But he could not return the animal to its suffering, to a long and lingering death. And he could not bring himself to end its life; it was small and helpless and could not protect itself.

The young man looked up to the sky and silently asked for guidance. He raised his tanned and muscular arms to the heavens, threw back his head and closed his eyes. Inhaling deeply he brought his arms gently back to his chest and opened his eyes to the beauty of the morning and smiled. A sense of something greater than himself, greater than the desires and selfish opinions of those around him, filled him to bursting. He would do as the spirits moved him. He would protect and care for this creature and, when the time was right, return it whole to the woods where they could then resume their proper roles: hunter and hunted, players in the game of the gods, and then there would be balance.

His heart sang and he was filled with contentment. All was good.

6:1

Many many years ago a young man came upon a small lame creature in the woods.

The youth had been hunting for food and was fully prepared to kill for his dinner. This was the nature of his world. Every week he would leave his home and wander purposefully through the trees and meadows in search of a life that he could end for his own purposes. The repeated pattern of spotting and stalking his prey, the complete engagement in the kill and reward of a successful hunt was a regular and comfortable thing for him. He would eviscerate his victim, flaying the skin from its still warm carcass, and pack up the dismembered pieces to feed himself and head home again, not to return for as long as the meat lasted.

The world existed for him to pillage to satisfy the needs of his family. This was the truth his father taught him. This was his truth.

But suddenly this small, half dead creature did not fit comfortably into the pattern.