Creation and Change
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Published: Saturday, 21 December 2019 10:08
Ananya Sri Ram Rajan – USA
This past summer, I was (again) introduced to the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The book was gifted to me in a roundabout fashion after many people mentioned that I needed to read it. (If we only realized the ways in which the universe speaks to us!) Dr. Kimmerer starts her book with a North American creation story about Skywoman. “In the beginning was Skyworld. . .” Skywoman descends from Skyworld to help create Turtle Island or what we now call North America. The story is so rich in symbolism. For Skywoman to fulfill what she needs to do, she requires mud to plant the seeds she brings. Many water creatures try to swim to the bottom of the sea without success. It is the muskrat, small, unseen, and in today’s mainstream thinking inconsequential, who dives to the bottom and whose lifeless body surfaces, clutching the mud in his little hand. Turtle offers his back as the solidity needed for the mud to plant the seeds and Skywoman sings a thanksgiving song. As she dances, she plants her seeds with every step. I haven’t done justice to this story. But what stays with me again and again is the beauty, generosity, gratitude, harmony, and abundance of the story. Nothing is without purpose, no one is inconsequential. And nothing is done for oneself. Every action is done for the evolution of the Creator and for all the beings that come after. Great Spirit is in every thing. Even the mud. (And that folks, is Theosophy in Native American form!)
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