The Old man and the Lion

The old man walked across the plains. It was almost sunset and his bones were weary and tired. He could do with a sitting down right about now. His ones white robes were getting heavier and heavier and his walking staff no longer had the ability to keep his back straight.

In the distance he saw smoke lazily connecting earth and sky. His long white hair whisping in the evening wind. After a long day as what he has had he decides to walk towards the smoke and as he does he starts to see the forming a small circle of Teepee’s. Being a European of the old path the old man decides to carry on walking towards the encampment with the hope that these people will be friendly and give him a seat. The cold is starting to set in on his old bones but he reaches the encampment in time. A man, as old as what he is, a man to which he immediately feels a kinship with, takes a thick buffalo skin and places it around the shoulders of the old man and together they sit at the fire. The two of them do not speak but they share glances and smiles. One Indian and one European.

The Shaman

A young girl dances around the fire, stops in front of the old man and touches his face. He was so entranced by the music that he did not notice the seat next to him was now empty, the Shaman was no longer sitting there. The girl takes the old man by the hand, helps him up and leads him to one of the teepees.

The old man walks into the teepee. In the centre is a small fire. On the opposite side of the fire sits the Shaman. He doesn’t speak but motions for the old man to sit on a make shift bed, while he is crushing herbs to make a tea. The water is boiling over the small fire and soon he passes the tea to old man. For the first time the Shaman speaks: “you must go on a quest. You must go alone. You must learn.” The Shaman helped the old man to lie down after he drank the tea.

He closed his eyes and allowed for the herbs to send him on his quest.

In front of him was a lion. A big lion with a small yet soft mane.  He was not scared. Not in the least. He somehow knew the lion would do him no harm. Reaching for his walking staff he stood up and found himself in the middle of a dead forest at night. It was dark and grey. While constantly caressing the lions mane the two walked side by side until they came to a cross roads. The old man wanted to halt and think of where he should go but the lion pushed him to go left and so they did. The path through the forest was long and winding and dark. Wolves and all manner of creatures walked along the path, their eyes not moving from the two. It was as if they wanted to attack but some invisible barrier that they could see kept them at bay. It was a difficult path to walk, partly due to the black of night and partly due to the tree roots, stones and other obstacles that they found on the path. Eventually they see a light. It is not a like a fire or a village but daylight. Just beyond this forest of night lies something in the daylight. They eventually they cross the threshold. The forest behind them disappears and they are standing on a huge farm. Green grass and tall trees. In front of them stands a huge Pyramid like building of gold, but in the Mayan design. It had stairs at what must be the front facing that led all the way to the top. Around it hundreds of people are singing and dancing and having a merry time. As he walks closer the crowd stops, turns his way and parts so that he can walk to the front. More people join, where they come from, he does not know but people are joining. At the front he sees one of his old friends. He drops his walking staff and runs to her. “Bev, what are you doing here?” he yells out while giving her a hug. Calmly and with grace she smiles at him and answers “We are all here my friend.” As sure as the moon rises each night, when he looked around him he saw everyone he had ever know in front of him. Living and dead, they were all there celebrating something. But more people still were rocking up and many of them he did not know. The celebration continued and before long he joined in with the dancing and singing and then something urged him to run up the stairs of the ancient pyramid. As he took each step he grew younger and younger, until eventually he was a young man again. A young man with long black hair. As he ran up the stairs a Phoenix, the firebird, started to form at the top of the pyramid.  When he reached the top he stood dead still, arms up and outreached as if he was invoking the Goddess. Brightly all round him stood the mighty Phoenix. The phoenix looked down at him and then flew from the top and circled the crowd. There where he flew he left a line of flames until eventually everyone there was standing in a ring of flames. The Phoenix then exploded to from a sphere around the people. Everyone present was protected by the mighty Phoenix sphere. More people joined and as hey joined the phoenix sphere grew bigger and bigger to protect all of the new people as well.

The old man woke to find himself alone in the Shamans teepee. He sat up and got his balance. From outside he could hear the tribe still having a merry time. He stepped out of the teepee. The old Shaman smiled at him from his seat and nodded.