The Story of My People

I would like to tell you more about my people.

Our story may help you to see the world anew
and to discover the majesty that lives in the hills.

My people have been upon the earth
as long as time itself, or at least so it is told.

According to legend, the Creator made Mother Earth
and dressed her with light, wind, water, stone,
plants, and animals. Then he placed my people
among his creation.

It is said that all creation lived in harmony. In all that they
did, light, wind, water, stone, plants, animals, and my
people supported one another. They had become, in the
language of my people, “WE”—that is, “as one.”

This pleased the Creator.

But this harmony did not last. Some say that a dark cloud
enveloped the earth and turned my people from the path
of light. Other say they were bound by a great cord, keeping
their feet from the sure path of stone. However it happened,
the hearts of my people began to walk backward against
creation. Darkness reigned, and the harmony was broken.

Witnessing the strife among the workmanship
of his hands, the Creator shed tears as the rain upon the
mountains. Unless creation could again be made as one,
the children of Mother Earth would be lost.

According to the legend, the tears he shed were divine.
They were a manifestation of his love for man, and that love
descended from the heavens and bathed all creation.

Light, wind, water, stone, plants, and animals—all of which
had been darkened by the backward walk of my people—
were created anew. The Creator’s love was made to shine
through them in ways that could cut through any darkness.

For by the Creator’s act of love, the elements
had become “WE”—one in each other and in Him.

Through their unified testimony of Him,
they invited man to join them.

My View of My People

Sometime after the great rain, it is said that spirits
visited my people and taught them the path of WE.

Belief in WE—even aspiration to it—has been
a part of my people ever since. According to legend,
it is said that on occasion, some of my people
have attained the status of WE and have been taken up
into the bosom of the Creator to live out their days.

For my part, I never believed this or any other portion of
the legend. The traditions of my fathers seemed old and
irrelevant. But I couldn’t escape them, for my parents
believed, and their parents before them, and the idea of WE,
as I mentioned earlier, was built into our very language.

As my heart turned from my people,
I began to walk backward, and to stumble
over their traditions, beliefs, and expectations.

My people and their ways appeared backward to me.

“WE appear as WE are,” my father told me—or, in your
language, “Others appear as we ourselves are.”

But by then my heart had walked too far away to hear him.

I had already rejected my people.

Awakening to WE

When I entered the wilderness,
I was determined to show my people wrong.

I was committed to learning nothing among nature
except for the foolishness of my fathers.

So began my education in WE.

Yes, WE. Did you think it foolish the way
I described the traditions of my people?

I was the one who was foolish.
And it was nature that taught me so.

For the wind taught me that we are connected,
just as the elders among my people had suggested.

Stone taught me that I continually wield influence on others
around me—inviting them toward peace or toward war.

Plants recalled to my memory the peaceful offerings
I had received from my people, while encounters with
animals revealed just how much my invitation
to others had been toward war.

Water purified my memory and brought me to my home.
And light chased away the darkness and revealed in all
around me the Creator of all.

You may not believe in divine tears or in redeeming
power that descended below all things so that creation
could be reclaimed from darkness.

But know this, my young friend: in the wilderness,
I was reclaimed from darkness. And I have met many
along my way who have been reclaimed as well.

Walk among the hills, the trees, the valleys,
and the streams, and you will know in your heart
that independence is a myth.

For “I” stands connected to others in WE.

To be alive is to be with others.

To be at peace with others is to be WE.

The Lie in the “I”

My young friend, you live in the age of the “I,”
and the age is taking its toll.

As I mentioned earlier, modern man looks out for
himself and only secondarily for others. He is consumed
with satisfying his own personal “needs.”

Ironically, man’s obsession with personal
wants has obscured his greatest need—
the need to live in harmony with others.

Listen to your heart, and it will verify my words.

You and I have needs, of course, but to recognize
that we do is to recognize that others have them as well.
Human needs do not divide us, as your day suggests.
Rather, they unite us. For we are each of us equally needy.

To see another clearly is to see someone
very much like yourself.

So when others seem very different from you—when they
seem irritating, maddening, and troubling, and you are
bothered by them—the path of WE would invite you,
as the elders among my people invited me, to consider
how you might be irritating, maddening, and troubling.

After all, when I first cursed at the wilderness,

I thought that I cursed it because it was a cursed place.

But my cursing was a lie, as I have since discovered.
My cursings were never about the wilderness at all.

The wilderness just happened to get in the way
of a heart that was cursing.

My young friend, walk forward and you will see others
one way. Walk backward and you will see them another.
The way you choose to see others depends
on the direction of your heart.

So in all that you see, think, and feel about others,
remember—

We are all connected.

“WE [others] appear as WE [ourselves] are.”

To see another is to see one’s self.

The Creed of WE

To see the first truth of WE—
that all is connected—is to see the second:
that there is purpose in the order of things.

Light, wind, water, stone, plants, and animals
combine to make a beautiful creation.

But the outer world is only a representation of the inner.

Light brightens more than the landscape, wind speaks to
more than the trees, water cleanses more than the body.

The creation of the earth points to the creation of a soul.

In my walking, I have learned to ponder both creations.
And Mother Earth has been generous in the
lessons she has taught me.

These are the truths she has spoken:

Look for light.

Listen for inspiration on the wind.

Let water cleanse your soul.

Set yourself on a firm foundation.

Serve as the plants.

Do not offend your fellow creatures.

Live in harmony with all creation.

This, my young friend, is the most sacred of
rememberings to carry in your heart.

Do so, and the awakenings from the wilderness
will accompany you wherever you walk.

Wherever you walk, you will walk well
if you walk on the path of WE.

The path of WE will return you to your true self and
to your Belonging Place among your people.