The Hole in the Sky

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We all come from the stillness and contain the stillness. Here we are, weaving the stories of life together. I’ll give you mine.

The other evening I was walking to my car and passed by a pub. In high spirits, a small group of smokers were standing and chatting on the sidewalk. A young man called to me as I passed, “I bet you have a good story!” Bowing my head to this apparition, I replied, “I have lots of good stories.”

The other day I learned from Wilfred Buck that what we call the Pleiades, the Cree call The Hole in the Sky. It is the connection we have to the cosmos. It is a spatial anomaly, a wormhole. They say we come from that place and get lowered down by Grandmother Spider on a thread of her silk. We are lowered down to earth to come and learn something. It is analogous to the umbilical cord and the hole of the Omphalos, the place where the umbilical cord was attached. When we have learned what we have come to learn and done what we have come to do, we go back through that hole in the sky. We are learning, doing all that we can to help each other until we are ready to go back to the cosmos to which we belong. We are waiting for our return, exploring here, busy with the things that can be done only here.

We are waiting to sell our farm here in the Pacific Northwest, a place we expected to live for the rest of our lives. When it is sold, we will move to the Ariege region of France. In this hilly land in the foothills of the Pyrenees, we will continue to grow vegetables and find haven for our family and friends. For some time, everything seemed to be flowing in that direction. We are riding the current.  Now we are in an eddy where sticks sometimes rest for a while, going back and forth, round and round or staying still until the rains come or the wind or a bear wades through the water and dislodges it. It’s a good time to tell stories.