Many years ago, Mount Olympus (the highest peak in Washington's Olympic Mountains) had two wives. One was younger than the other, and she was very jealous of the older wife. One day, she decided she would leave Mount Olympus and set out on her own. She packed a basket for the journey, carrying with her a supply of edible roots and berries. She walked south because to walk north would have meant reaching the end of the peninsula, and she could not walk east or west without encountering the ocean or Puget Sound. After several days' walking, she reached the open prairie country at the end of the Sound. She was tired and hungry, so she rested for a while and ate a meal of Camas roots. When she again set out, she left behind a few of the bulbs. When she at last came to the place where she wanted to spend the rest of her days, she spread out her skirts and became Mount Rainier, and today, the prairies of Southwest Washington are filled with the descendants of the Camas bulbs she left behind.
This story is told by the Nisqually People as well as members of other groups on the Olympic Peninsula. When Camassia blooms, think of Mount Rainier.
I like the ancient story makers--so simple, yet compelling. I've often asked myself, what are my stories? And I can't say. I really don't know. And I'm poorer for it.
ReplyDeleteThe old stories often seem to have no purpose, no moral, no conclusion, or at least not in the sense modern stories do. However, there is always an underlying wisdom, a connection with the hearer's self in them. Your stories are inside you, not to be pulled up on request but to be discovered like agates on a beach. Don't look for them. Let them find you.
DeleteThe gems you have growing in your part of the world are so beautiful! the stories you connect to each one are fantastic! and I'm learning about a lot of new flowers that we don't have here.......thanks Crow!
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