For Joshua (8 page)

Still, Eagle believed that there must still be Families of Man that were faithful to the teachings and so he flew and flew. He knew that if he failed to find people honouring the Earth and living good lives, he and his Animal brothers and sisters would say goodbye to Man. Man would be left without guides and teachers and he would fail to discover who he had been created to be. Eagle did not want that to happen, for despite their new separateness the Animal People loved Man and wanted very much for him to fulfill his destiny. So he searched and searched.

Back in the valley, the Animal People grew restless. Eagle had been gone for a long time and it was beginning to look as though no one would be found who lived in the original manner. But one day a great cry went up. Someone had spotted Eagle slowly flapping his way back towards them. The Animal People gathered themselves into a circle again and
when Eagle finally swooped down to join them they were anxious for news. The look on Eagle’s face told the story.

“I’ve been everywhere,” said the tired bird. “I’ve searched from the moment I left until the moment I returned and there is no one anywhere that lives in the old manner.”

A hush fell over the circle.

“Well, that’s that, then,” said Owl.

“It’s over,” said Heron.

“We’ve no choice,” said Bear.

“Yes, yes, we do,” said Eagle. Everyone looked at him, surprised. “I will go on one more circle. We owe Man that. Good teachers never stop being teachers and we owe Man the effort to look again.”

“But you’ve been everywhere,” said Badger. “Where else can you possibly look?”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” said Eagle. “I’ve been looking, searching with my eyes for what my soul wants to see. But our sister the Bat said it best when we started all of this. I’ll search again, but this time I will use my
feelings
instead of my eyes. I will let my feelings guide me. That, after all, is the one true search.”

So off he went. The West, the “Looks-Within Place,” called to him and he flew in that direction. After a day he soared over the crest of a hill and there, alongside a stream,
was a small wigwam. Closing his eyes, he breathed in very deeply as he soared over it and he felt a warm calm come over him. The more time he spent soaring over that wigwam, the more the sense of calm grew. Finally, a man, woman, and child emerged from the forest. They were carrying berries, a few fish and some herbs. When they arrived at their wigwam they made a tobacco offering and said a long prayer of gratitude for the gifts they had received that day. Eagle was impressed and settled high in a treetop to observe.

For four days he hid himself in the tree and watched this Family of Man. They prayed. They treated each other respectfully and kindly. They offered blessings back to the land. They walked gently upon the face of Mother Earth. On the fourth day, when Eagle followed them to a wigwam half a day away and saw them share their food, hides, and herbs with another family, he was filled with a tremendous joy. He raced back to the mountains to tell his brothers and sisters. There was rejoicing amongst the Animal People for the righteous family Eagle had found.

They came out of hiding. They were still willing to be the teachers Man needed in order to find his purpose on the Earth, but they were cautious. Man’s readiness to take control had worried them. They had learned the truth—that knowledge and gifts too easily gained were also too easily
squandered or ignored. So, just as they had once helped the Creator hide the wonderful gift of Truth and Life so that it would be a search, they would make the teachings they carried a search as well. Learning had to involve sacrifice. That is why, to this day, the Animal People venture very cautiously into the world of Man. They still come, and they always will, but it takes a careful eye to spot them, an open heart to hear the message in their call, and a spirit ready to learn the teachings they carry.

Beedahbun
. In Ojibway it means “first light.” It refers to that moment when the edge of the visible sky becomes tinted a hard electric blue. A blue that has never been adequately represented in art or even in words, but one that anyone who has been awake at the birth of a day remembers forever. It’s a blue that sears the purple darkness, burns it off and claims the sky as its own. It’s a trumpet-call blue, a fanfare for the arrival of Grandfather Sun. I woke in time to see it and as I stood there shivering I felt a strange calm come over me. I didn’t move. I merely stood there, locked in place, watching the coming of the light. I realized that there are colours that go far beyond the spectrum of
light. Tones and tints and hues that come alive in the sky for fractions of seconds before stretching themselves thinly, elastically into another subtle, spectacular display. I saw the richest palette and as the sun began to have its way with the sky I gave thanks for the clarity that allowed me to see it.

I was cold—teeth-chattering cold—but when I began to pace around the perimeter of my circle, stamping my feet for warmth, I could see the world in all directions slowly shrugging itself into wakefulness. With the coming of the light, shadows that had been labyrinthine dungeons throughout the night skittered playfully away to the chirping of birds and the cajoling natter of chipmunks from their burrows and nests.

There had been other mornings when I had awakened in the outdoors, shivering a lot worse than I was at this moment. Mornings when I had come to wherever I’d fallen or passed out the night before—wet, cold, quaking from hangover and despair, the morning terror that drinkers endure until a splash of alcohol can chase it off. There are colours that exist in that kind of awakening, too, that have never been captured. Only they are the colours of nightmare transferred to wakefulness—sharp, cutting colours that slither and slide, creating their own unnamed perils in the shadows, which seethe with indescribable
monsters and horrors. The difference between that kind of waking cold and how I felt on this morning was the difference between darkness and light. I was thankful to wake to a welcoming world.

The sun rose. The animals and birds began their days and I walked the perimeter of my circle, watching everything and feeling less alone. After an hour or so my body warmed and I sat to enjoy the breakfast of water I’d rationed out. Never had anything tasted as clean as that first sip. I made a tobacco pouch in thankfulness for water and sat there throughout the morning, working hard at keeping my mind focused on simply watching the world.

It was hard. I’d always needed to know what the next step was going to be, always had to have an out, a getaway, an alternative to anything difficult, and in that circle on the rock ledge there was no room for planning—only the world I was unused to watching. I wrestled with the desire to daydream, to fantasize as I had always done; keeping my mind within the borders of that circle was one of the hardest struggles I’d ever endured.

Then the ants came. At first it was only an adventurous one or two crawling over my blanket. They scurried about and then made their way into the grass to disappear. Soon, others came. It wasn’t long before a whole army of large black
ants was swarming over my blanket and around me. I wanted to swat at them, drive them away, kill them, but I remembered that I was sitting in a sacred circle and that all life within it was sacred. So I let them be. Then, I wanted to move to another part of the circle, but because it was so small there really wasn’t any place to go. Finally, realizing the futility of things, I just let them have their way and do whatever it is that ants do. After an hour or so they disappeared and I never saw them again.

I thought about the ants for a long time after that. I thought about how uncomfortable they had made me, how anxious and upset, and how those feelings made me want to strike back, to conquer, to control. I made another tobacco offering. I was thankful because, in their busy scramble around me, the ants were teaching me something very important about life.

I had always struggled to stay in control, with familiar protective strategies. But the world always marched on, just as those ants had, and there was never really anything I could do about that. I could swat and destroy, or deny and ignore, but nothing would stop the march of the world. My power was small. But the power of life, of Creation, was great. Whenever I wouldn’t accept change and fought against it, I was telling myself that I was bigger than life, bigger than
Creation, and really, at the top end of it, a better decision maker than the Creator himself. It came to me then that if that circle was like the world, then everything in it was equal, worth the same as everything else. The ants had just made me uncomfortable. When I wanted to either kill them or just ignore them and wish they weren’t around, I was telling myself that I was worth more than they were, that my comfort was the most important thing. The ants were showing me that discomfort is a part of the world, too. Part of life. They were showing me that to appreciate being comfortable, cosy, snug, safe, I had to learn to appreciate the opposite. I had to know how it felt to be uncomfortable. Those tiny creatures were telling me that there will always be something that comes along and makes me want to do something to change it so that I can be comfortable again. But if everything is equal and worth the same as everything else, what I need to do is learn to
accept
the discomfort—change—as a part of the world and a part of life. Growing through discomfort and change and being respectful of life, chasing harmony and peace instead of conflict and irritation was, and is, at the heart of the Native way. The ants taught me that. As I sat there and looked back at my life again I realized how addicted I was to fighting change, how unaccepting I had always been of the power of the universe,
the Creator’s will. The evidence became clearly visible to me when I looked back at my teenage years.

When I ran away for the last time, there was only one place to run: the streets. I had a Grade 9 education, no job, no work skills, and no idea of what I was going to do. I just knew that running away from things was easier. And when I got to the street I found two things that I had been looking for all my life.

The first was acceptance. The people who lived on the street didn’t care where I came from, who I was, how I felt, or what I thought. All that mattered to them was that I kept my mouth shut, did as they did, and didn’t cause anyone else any trouble. If I could abide by these rules I was welcomed as just another part of the crew. I loved that feeling. After all the years of being burdened by shame and hurt, simple acceptance into a circle of people was like magic. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. So I learned very quickly to choose what everyone around me was choosing and to be like they were. I grew my hair out, smoked, and behaved as much like a rebel as everyone else.

But I was never hard, never cold inside, never truly bitter at the world, society or people. I was just a scared little
boy, still play-acting. I desperately wanted a home for myself, a refuge, a warm place filled with light. Every day we rebels would meet at the pavilion in Montebello Park in downtown St. Catharines. Joints and bottles would be passed around, conjuring up a lot of loud talk, play fighting and flirting with the young teenage girls who always seemed to be hanging around. Sometimes there would be a “job” planned, either a break-and-enter or robbery or even an occasional act of revenge for some perceived slight against the dignity of the “downtowners,” as we were called. There was a car gang called the Night Stalkers who were our sworn enemies and a lot of energy went into planning “gags” on them. A gag was a spray painting or a tire slashing or something like that. I joined in on those talks and spoke as loudly and raucously as I could, but I always craved something more. I couldn’t have told anyone what “more” was, but there was an emptiness that no amount of devil-may-care camaraderie could ease.

So I would sneak away. I would sneak off to the library and spend hours reading books. Reading always filled that emptiness for me and so I became voracious. I read history, geography, politics, architecture, astronomy, anthropology, sociology, fiction, poetry, and books on art, film, and music. There was a listening room there, and I would sit and listen to classical music and be lifted right out of that city. I filled
myself with the world in those stacks and then I went back to my buddies in the park and lied.