All My Relations

Returning from the timeless void, Meredith Buffalo Calf Woman fell to earth. She was greeted by the voices of fellow humans whose thoughts reached her from all parts of the planet.

"Welcome to earth. We are all relations," the invisible souls said.

"All my relations," she replied as she collapsed on the ground.

She heard the Soul Child nearby say, "We're home."

Meredith lay motionless, her face down against the surface. She heard the earth heaving with quakes, but she passed out before the tremors subsided. 

In the Arms

When she regained consciousness, she was in the arms of Mother Earth, who smelled tantalizingly of blue corn flowers. Her Soul Child sat beside her. 

"Mother?" she coughed.

"Yes, Meri, be still," her mother wiped Meredith's clammy brow with a gauze dressing. The Soul Child snuggled up to them both.

"Mother, where are we?" Meredith tried to look around, but her vision was blurred. She heard water burbling.

"In the Fourth World, dear. By the spring. Rest." 

Did It Work?

"Did it work, Mother?" Crickets and birds were chirping in the tall grass. The sun shone warmly upon her, but Meredith felt chilled.

"Yes, it worked, Meredith. People are becoming EarthWise. They're reducing auto emissions, and they're conserving electricity. They've even stopped burning the rainforests." A gentle breeze blew through the trees, rustling the leaves. The air smelled fresher, a little less polluted perhaps.  

"What about those who refuse to see?" asked the Soul Child, fingering Meredith's robe.  

"They are free to live in ignorance, but they are in the minority now."

Laptop and Cell Phone

A sole gray figure emerged from the woods carrying a laptop and cell phone. He paused beside the spring, opened his laptop and began typing. Then he raised his right hand to his ear. "Mother Earth appears to be in good condition," he said, speaking into his cell phone. He packed up and left quietly.

Accumulated Residue

"Soon you'll be healed, won't you, Mother?"  Meredith asked, gasping for breath. 

"Yes, soon Mother Earth will be healed. It will take time, perhaps a generation or two, for the accumulated residue to dissipate." 

"It was worth it, wasn't it, Mother?" Meredith couldn't see at all now, so she reached out to touch her mother's face.

"Yes, it was worth it. Every bit." Her mother held her close to her breast. The Soul Child clutched them both, tears streaming down her face.

Hummingbird

Just then a familiar buzzing swept past Meredith's ear. She recognized the sound of the green-headed hummingbird. "Hummingbird?" She had forgotten about him. He had come again, just as he always did, to show her the way to the sipapu.  

"It's too late, my friend. This time you'll have to go without me." She coughed violently. Mother Earth wiped her forehead.  

"I'll go," said the Soul Child. She quickly kissed Meredith on the cheek and raced after the hummingbird, who led her to the sipapu and immediately darted up the tube. The Soul Child called out, "Fifth World, please," as she pulled herself up the tube and disappeared. 

Flowers of the Blue Corn

Meredith struggled for air, aware that she was suffocating. Painfully, she inhaled a last breath. She understood what she had wrought. It was enough.  She emitted her last breath and died in the arms of Mother Earth. 

Mother Earth held her daughter close until the heat left her body. Gently she lowered Meredith's head to the ground and closed her eyelids. She rose slowly and faced the sun. "Was it worth it?" she asked.
Father Sun appeared, looking weary and old. "No, not for us. But for the world, yes." 

With flowers of the blue corn crowning her head, Mother Earth stepped sadly over to the spring and dipped a handful of the clear water in a corn husk.  She carried the water to the body of her dead child and sprinkled it over Meredith's face. 

Sister Moon

Mother Earth passed her right hand over her fallen daughter. "I name you Sister Moon. You shall live ever after in the sky." She raised her arm toward heaven. 

Father Sun lifted the inert body of his dead child and together they ascended into the air. When they were high overhead, he released her and she floated as if weightless in the sky. "Give us life," he said, backing away toward earth.

Where once had been Meredith, now Sister Moon drifted in the sky. Pale, without expression, she opened the medicine bundle and withdrew the chanuga. She held it up as an offering to the Great Spirit and said, "Blessed are the EarthWise, for they shall save our world."

New Bloom

A dark speck appeared on the horizon, becoming a cavalcade of bulldozers as they approached. Mother Earth prepared herself for the worst. But instead of the bringing the castoff babies, they stopped at a respectful distance from the spring. A small number of beautiful healthy babies of all colors stepped off the bulldozers and toddled up to the shore of the spring where some played while others cried for milk. Mother Earth set herself to tending them, for they were the new bloom.