- Maya the Good has become one of Paradise's busiest residents.
She's working at three different jobs, including helping take care of our
ranch, and until recently she spent all her spare time toiling away building
a ceremonial sweat lodge as part of her plan to learn more about her Creek
Indian roots.
-
- Last week, Maya completed her task. The result is a dome-shaped
structure built on a framework of willow and cedar, insulated by plastic
garbage bags and covered with blankets. On the floor of the lodge, pieces
of carpet form a circle around a shallow pit. Overhead, white ribbons hang
down.
-
- A few days ago, Maya called upon Gwen the Beautiful and
me to help her celebrate by holding the first ceremony to bring humans
and spirits together here on the Mountain. So, at sunset, with the temperature
in the mid-30s, Gwen (ever the practical one!) stood inside the Annex,
watching from its bay window while, about 10 yards away, Maya and I got
ready to enter the lodge.
-
- Maya insisted that I be the "pipe holder."
In other words, that I be in charge.
-
- "I've only been to a couple of sweats, and that
was years ago," I protested.
-
- "And I haven't been to any," Maya said.
-
- "But I don't know what to do," I said.
-
- "You will," Maya said. "Grandfather told
me."
-
- Grandfather is the spirit of an elderly Indian who, as
near as we can guess, lived on this property 10,000 or so years ago, when
it was the center of a now-lost North American Indian civilization. He
visits Maya from time to time, although before the ceremony neither Gwen
nor I had seen him.
-
- Afraid I'd not only embarrass myself but also ruin what
Maya was trying to accomplish, I shoveled the rocks she'd been heating
all day out of the outside fire pit and deposited them in the smaller one
within the lodge.
-
- Then I took the pipe Maya had carved out of wood and
stone and filled it with tobacco.
-
- Entering the lodge, Maya and I sat down across from each
other. I lit the pipe and held it up as I remembered the medicine man held
it back in the day. I turned it east, south, west and north and thanked
Mother Earth for allowing us to be here, in this place, on this night.
-
- As I finished, I realized that I now knew - how, I can't
say - a story I'd never known before about life and the many paths through
it one can take. I also knew that the story was for Maya, so I told it
to her and passed her the pipe. She held it up as I had, and asked questions
about her life and that of her mother.
-
- I'd left a small hand drum, given to me by a Lakota friend,
in the lodge earlier. I picked it up and played a steady beat with the
wool-covered beater. Maya began singing in a language neither one of us
had ever heard before and in a voice much higher and sweeter than her own.
-
- We ended the song together, and the lodge blankets blew
in toward us, then puffed out again and again in an even rhythm.
-
- "The lodge is breathing!" Maya said.
-
- "This is the moment of its birth," I heard
myself say. "It has its own spirit."
-
- Maya and I waited in the darkness in case other spirits
were going to reveal themselves. We weren't sweating, but the rocks made
us feel warm and comfortable.
-
- Recalling the sweats I'd been to, I reached outside the
flap for the bucket of water waiting there, and poured some onto the rocks.
-
- Sizzle. Steam.
-
- A flash of blue and red sparks. Then darkness and cold.
-
- We were done.
-
- When Maya and I emerged from the sweat lodge we found
Gwen waiting for us. "Did you see him?" she said.
-
- "Who?"
-
- "An old man came out of the lodge. He looked at
me, and I heard him as though he was standing beside me. He said you'd
proven yourself a good man by bringing the sweat lodge to life. Then he
waved, and was gone."
-
- "Grandfather!" Maya said. She turned to me.
"I told you you'd get it right."
-
- "Maya, all I did was make it up as I went along."
-
- Maya smiled. So did Gwen. Like the two of them shared
a secret.
-
- I'm hoping that someday I'll know it, too
-
-
-
- Copyright C 2008 by Larry Brody. All rights reserved.
-
-
- Author Larry Brody's weekly column, LIVE! FROM PARADISE!
appears on his website, www.larrybrody.com. He has written thousands of
hours of network television, and is the author of "Television Writing
from the Inside Out" and "Turning Points in Television."
Brody is Creative Director of The Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts, the
world's first in-residence media colony. More about his activities can
be seen on www.tvwriter.com and www.cloudcreek.org. He welcomes your comments
and feedback at <mailto:LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org>LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org.
Brody, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion
County, Arkansas. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise
reside in his imagination.
|
