The Grandfather walked out to an open area along the stream this early morning as the Sun was rising to warm the earth. There, Grandfather said his prayers and took this quiet time to listen to the silent Windspeakers voice. This morning, Grandfather didn't notice that the young one had followed his path through tall grasses. As Grandfather finished his prayers, he sat upon the Earth and leaned his back against one of the Tree People. (Cottonwood trees) Cracking noises in the leaves and twigs behind him brought his attention back to the present moment. He caught glimpses of the top of the young one's head peering up through the willows to see what his Grandfather was doing there by the stream.

Grandfather motioned for the young one to come join him there upon the ground and near the rippling stream. Knowing that he had been caught in his act of "hide and seek," the young one came out to sit near the Elder one. Grandfather sat quietly and the young one did likewise for quite some time until the silence was finally broken by the questions.

"Grandfather? Why do you come out here to sit by the water and lean on this tree? What could be happening here that I do not see?"

With a smile and a pause in thought, Grandfather glanced around the two humans to look for some way of explaining these things. His eyes caught sight of a beautiful spider web with morning dewdrops still clinging to the perfectly woven circle.

"Come closer and look at this with me. Do you see the beautiful web this spider-being has made? Look at how the spider has made this thing....in a circle....round and round but with tiny paths between the circles to make it stronger. She has woven this with such tiny spins of spider web that you would think the web not strong. But, when you see the hard winds blow, the spiders web stays in one place. Spider knows that the hard winds will blow through the web and pass through to the other side. Eventually, the winds will stop and there will be peace and quiet once again.

The Grandfather leaned in closer to the beautiful web and said, "In the very center of the web is the beginning of all things. Wakan Tanka, the Creator of all things, placed the first People here upon Mother Earth. Each circle in the spiders' web shows another family line that has walked through the many moon times to arrive to the outside circle....that is where you and I are walking now. When I am gone, you will have children and you will teach them as I am teaching you now. This has been our way since the first circle of time and the first People walked within the web of life. Your children will be the next circle in the web and so it goes on in perfection, just as Wakan Tanka designed it to be.

You see the fine lines that connect all the circles? These are some of the most valuable parts to the web. The spider knows that there must be connection lines to make her web strong. She makes it this way to withstand all the things that may cause problems around and outside of her web and she knows that without her web, she will die. There will be no food caught in her web and she will not survive the hard times that come now and then in this life. Those connection lines for our People represent many things....our language, our stories, traditions and values, the paths of the different societies, the way we paint and decorate our clothing and sacred things, even the way that we wear our hair differently than some of the others Nations. These connecting strands represent our history; our survival during the strong winds that blow and our love for one another as a family of People. Without these things to connect us, we too would perish."

The young one was silent for a long time thinking of these words and watched the spider come back into her web to begin spinning more lines and connections of webbing. Before they got up to leave this place the young one asked a final question to the Grandfather, "Why do you sit upon the ground and lean upon one of the Tree People to do this thinking in the morning Grandfather?"

"The ground is where all things began and it is where all things will return at the end of their circle. When you sit upon the ground you connect to the very beginning and the very end....like the circle in the web the spider makes. When I rest my back upon this Tree Person, I am connecting to yet more of the circles in the web of life. This tree has deep roots that reach even further down into Mother Earth and along side the stone people too. The tree reaches up higher into the sky and feels the wind and Sun that I cannot reach. This tree is far older in the web of life than even I am. When I rest here we can learn from each other. The Tree People, the earth and stones, even the water rushing by in the stream....if we are patient and listen to each other, we have stories to tell each other. All these things are connected too, in the web of life. There is no part of creation more important than another. The big bear is as important as the tiny spider who makes her web."

Many miles away, far away from this rushing stream and gathering of Tree People nestled on the prairie there was destruction of a different web. Far more dangerous and lethal than any strong wind or any enemy could be, this was a tearing of the web that broke the People apart. Mothers and grandmothers stood wailing as their young ones were being torn from their arms and loaded into the back of wagons. The blue coats held a line so that a line of gun toting soldiers was severing the family connections. The children screamed for the families and the families wept and fought to gather their children back to the web of the People.

Down the long scars across the Earth the white ones called "roads," the children were loaded onto a giant iron horse that spewed black smoke into the blue sky. The little ones held tightly to each other not knowing what or where this beast they had never seen would take them. The big people around them all spoke in other languages and no one understood them. The food they were given was nothing like what they had been raised upon and yet another connection to the web of their People was broken.

The little ones rode for many sun risings on this giant fire beast and came to a place that had the square dwellings they heard others speak of. In long lines, they waited fearfully, as one by one their clothing was taken away and they were altered in form to resemble the big ones who spoke funny. They again stood in long lines as their long black hair was cut away from them and it landed in piles like the ants back home made. Here in this strange place, their hair landed upon a ground made of wood, not soil. They lost the names they had carried since birth and were forced to go by odd names that held no value or meaning to them. They were forced by severe punishment being inflicted, to learn the strange ones' words. They only whispered reassurances to each other in their own language when all was dark inside the square house and the strange ones had gone away.

A force from outside of them severed the connecting webs of the People in ways that no one understood. This force that came upon them was far worse than any winter wind or hailstorm could ever be. These connections being torn from the web that supported hundreds of generations of their People were wrought by outside and foreign sources. These strange ones from the outside knew nothing of their culture, language or the web connections that had sustained them since the beginning of time. The broken strands of this web were tangled and confused just as happens to the spiders web when a deer runs between the supporting tree sides and the spider-being has to begin again from the very center.

The outside forces and ones who spoke strange languages seemed to think that they could weave a better web for the People now than what Wakan Tanka had created in the very beginning. These connections were breaking all the connecting fibers of the People from the inside to the outside and from all points in between. The question that dwelled now in the hearts of the People was whether or not Wakan Tanka would help them to rebuild the web. Would there ever be a time, when like the spider-being, they all could begin again?

Wahela Bluejay
January 1, 2007

THE GREAT LOOM OF TIME
Man's life is laid in the loom of time
To a pattern he does not see,
While the weavers work and the shuttles fly
Till the dawn of eternity.
Some shuttles are filled with silver threads
And some with threads of gold,
While often but the darker hues
Are all that they may hold.
But the weaver watches with skillful eye
Each shuttle fly to and fro,
And sees the pattern so deftly wrought
As the loom moves sure and slow.
God surely planned the pattern:
Each thread, the dark and fair,
Is chosen by His master skill
And placed in the web with care.
He only knows its beauty,
And guides the shuttles which hold
The threads so unattractive,
As well as the threads of gold.
Not till each loom is silent,
And the shuttles cease to fly,
Shall God reveal the pattern
And explain the reason why
The dark threads were as needful
In the weaver's skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
For the pattern which He planned.
(written by an unknown author)