STANDING IN THE EBB
by Valerie Brook
Brilliant orange and purple streaks of color stretch across
the setting skyline. A woman gazes deeply into the horizon where a thin
line of blue ocean meets the setting sun. The colors seem to sizzle. It
is the edge of the world, the edge of all she knows. A delicate wind curls
around the cliff face and downwards to the sand, causing loose strands of
hair to tickle her cheek. She pulls up the hood of her navy blue sweatshirt
and pushes her hair into the confines of the cloth. It is growing cooler
now as the sun sets. It is time to go back.
But the woman doesn't go. She sits on a rock, her bare feet curled into
the warm sand, her face streaked with tears. The waves crash with passion
onto the shore, and darkness descends like the end of the world.
There is a time in some people's lives when questions release answers that
shake the soul, when confusion is all the company to be found, and dreams
are nightmares that do not dissipate with the touch of day. There is a time
when the truth that one's life has been based upon is revealed as a distortion,
when all that is, becomes all that never was. Illusion cracks the mirror
and leaves nothing but the reflection of a lie.
For the woman, this time is now. What kind of life leaves her without a
family, a community, a home-the foundations of her life shaking so violently
that the slightest hope cannot seem to withstand the collapse? Her past
is denied by the culture she lives within-a world that has banished her,
contradicted her every truth, disapproved of her very existence. To speak
her story is to invite trouble, even threats, to her life. Yet she hesitates
but briefly, the twinge of fear that snakes up her spine imperceptible to
the world.
The wind blows again and ruffles the papers in the woman's hand. It is too
dark now to read them. She stands now, tall and willowy but dwarfed by the
cliffs towering above her. The last vestiges of a deep rose-colored light
linger against the blue-black sky. The beach is deserted but for the spirits
of the night who dance within and without her.
Long ago, she reflects, in a time that has been forgotten, her ancestors
walked the same beach. They lived off the land in a profoundly spiritual
way. They were aware of their connection to the earth, the sky and the trees.
They could hear the conversations of the animals, and understood their language
like brothers and sisters. They were indigenous people who loved deeply,
lived deeply. They were all that we have forsaken-all that we cannot seem
to remember.
Now they are gone, and memories are clouded by propaganda, by white supremacy,
by cars and buildings and pollution and inescapable noise. Seventy-five
million people have disappeared, and no one talks about the genocide.
It is difficult to remember that long ago the Europeans, who so brutally
inflicted their culture on the Native Americans, were once indigenous peoples
in their own lands. In the end we have all become colonized, we are all
victims, and we have all turned on one another. Where once nature was pure
and waters were clean, now only toxic cities can be found. Who are these
people who spray their foods with poisonous pesticides? Who are these people
who scar the earth with bulldozers? Who are these people who teach their
children to hate? Lost souls. Forsaken souls. Victims.
The woman feels an urge to walk closer to the water. The last light of day
has sunk into the sea and the surf is glowing a dim, almost iridescent white.
The sound of the breaking waves in the night seems to shake the earth. Her
bare feet move as though sand and skin are part of the same being. There
is no separation. There is only connection.
If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit,
for whatever happens to the beast also happens to the man. -Seattle, 1855
We are dying. Our world is dying. As the ocean pounds against the sand,
our culture takes its last breath. More animals and plants become extinct
each day. Deep within, we all know what comes for us. The nuclear bombs,
the homeless, food shortages, global warming, the violence. What we have
built cannot be sustained. What we have built has tortured us. What we have
built shames us. It is crashing down and we avert our eyes.
. . . the dying indigenous cultures all over the world have something to
offer, not something that will help them survive, but something that will
at least survive them.-M. Some
What will survive us all is what is spiritual. Trying to understand how
indigenous cultures live with nature is a way of trying to reach something
that has been denied and aches to be touched. Touching what is spiritual
is a medicine more profound than any other. There is a compassion within
ourselves, for ourselves, greater than any other love.
Here lives hope. Here lives destiny.
"We must remember who we are," the woman says. "Our ancestors
were indigenous peoples who lived long ago in a time we have forgotten.
We must remember our roots-the source of everything we are, everything we
have always been. As our world collapses, we must look to the past to find
our future."
The cool salt water soaks the woman's jeans as she stands in the ebb. The
deep green embers of her eyes warm the night. It is possible to hear the
sound of promise calling. The sound of tomorrow, and the day beyond. The
woman pauses.
There is much left unsaid. What of the children in the labs, the doctors
with their experiments, the hollow nights filled with screams that so often
shake her body? What of the real story-not just echoes of empty words but
the bones of truth, the language of passion and justice and all that is
alive? Where is this story that so urgently needs to be told? The story
that has the power to move people to touch one another with heart, with
soul? Where are the words?
They are waiting. Her life is being written; it is in progress, it is unfolding.
Her day will come. The papers in her hand rustle against the night breeze.
This is what is written upon them.
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