by Gwagwagwe
As the Bisons leave their squeaky wheels behind, they ferry across the salty inlet onto an island full of promise and mystery. The months of preparation and storing food at and end, time and their responsibility to time fades away. After a couple days, they settle into and forest, set up the village center, and begin they greetings.
Hello to the Douglas-fir, who will provide the wood for warmth and cooking, Hello to the Oregon grape, evergreen huckleberry, salal, and blackberry, who will provide our drink, hello to the rhododendron, who will provide our nightly tea. Hello to the animal people, the raccoon, junco, yellow jacket, banana slug, termite, ant, raven, coyote, rabbit, pygmy deer, beetle, spider, wood bee, woodpecker, ermine and all the others who will keep us company. Hello to the plantain, cattail, the beet and summer squash (gleaned from a neighboring totalitarian farm, the clover, the puffball mushroom, the glasswort, the lupine flower, and the others for providing our sustenance.
Hello, and thank you for sharing your space and lives with us.
The men in green suit give us seven suns of free space in this magic forest, and we will spend each one feeling, and reading the signs, signals, omens that the-one-flows-through-all will bring.
Each morning the rays of sunshine light up the spider webs tall in the trees, each afternoon the tall trees keep us cool in this indian summer, and each evening the lives of our brothers and sisters of the plant world flow through our bodies, giving us strength and courage for the next day.
Being new to this forest, the death around us gives us pause, the fur seal, the coyote, the rabbit, the seagull, and the ominous find of fifteen Canada geese all dismembered and tossed away as garbage, give us our signs of the encroachment of civilization into this magical forest. Yet each new day the juncos and woodpeckers show us their quest for life, and our fears subside.
Our worries are gone, and lives and spirits are full. We are joined by medicine woman from the east, lyathono is what the winds have called her, she brings magic mushroom to help us clarify our visions, and she brings the bison who still shares part of his life with the prison of the stonedraggers, but soon he will be free to join us on our quest for living.
The village is occupied by a kindly spirit, Joe, she shares her stories of the land to the south, she shares her skills as an artist to the dwelling, and most of all she takes our Quinn books and dives right in. No judgmental dialog, just acceptance of another's lifestyle, and possibly a chance to join our tribe later in the season.
We miss the small community of "B's" we have left behind, and we wish them well in their search for a tribe. We are now heading west, to land of fog and rain, where the mountain gods will determine our warmth, and the forest will again show us the way.
Best wishes to all our future tribesman, please contact us (but we'd be sure to read it if it read (joining you shortly) in the message.