The Grandmothers

     "Guardianship, ritual, loyalty, spirit, year round, full moon, twilight; it is wolf," the grandmothers chant, drum, and rattle tonight.

     Stone Creek Woman chews wisely on Datura, while she peers into her dream vessel made from a calabash gourd.  She hears the call of the wild tonight.

     In 1986 the "grandmothers" first introduced themselves to Merris Sky Ringold aka Stone Creek Woman.

     The Datura-induced visions and voices of the tribal elder grandmothers hint that a special woman is about to embark on an ambitious mission to restore the ecosystem, the community and environment functioning together as a unit in nature.

     Back in those days, Merris Sky Ringold was not fully capable of reading the auras of the "grandmothers," because of her own fears, and believing her life was being overrun with evil.

     In 1991, the quail appeared and assisted Stone Creek Woman after Merris Sky Ringold "died" along with her unborn child.

     To tickle her in her hour of need, Stone Creek Woman crafted an aura duster, made from a variety of discarded bird feathers, fanned out and fastened with jute, resembling a phoenix plume, the legendary bird of resurrection that was sacrificed in fire, then rose from the flames out of its own ashes.

     It is the "eye" in the peacock feather that makes the aura duster a powerful tool of communication, as the "eye" represents greater vision and wisdom.  In Chinese mythology, the plumage of the peacock is a blending of five colors said to have a sweet harmony of sound.

     She sweeps herself with the aura duster, sweeping out negative energy debris which has accumulated in her life's activities to allow positive energy to flow good thoughts, as birds and feathers are linked to the thought process.  What do you think? 

Copyright 2005 Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist