FINDING STONE

A Modern PARABLE

Once when the world was new,

and the only sound

was the rush of waves against rocks

and the cry of wind over the mountains,

a gleaming, jagged stone was born

from the fire in Earth’s heart.

For a million years

she lay in the dark silence deep in a cold sea,

and all she knew

was the gentle rhythm of the waters around her.

There she rested

and learned the sea’s wisdom

which is

Never Ends.

One day a sea creature

hunting for food

scooped up the gleaming, jagged stone

and swallowed it.

She was sleek and silver

with flecks of blue along her back

and over her gills.

She carried the stone

within her body

for seven years.

She swam to the farthest limits of the sea and back,

and the stone was within her.

At last she made her way toward land.

These were the days of trees

that grew tall until they died,

and no one cut them down.

And these were the days of rivers

tumbling down mountains,

shining clearer than the finest glass

through which light passes

unimpeded.

The silver and blue sea creature

swam from the cold blue sea

up the mountain river.

The moon circled three times through its phases

before the creature completed her journey.

She leapt up waterfalls

and through churning rapids,

using all the power of the sea

stored in her heart for seven years.

She swam to a place

where the shallow waters reflected the towering trees

and glittered like a billion jewels in the sun.

She swam to the place

where she had been born,

and there she laid her eggs.

And when she was finished,

she rested.

The beautiful silver and blue creature

lay close to the river’s edge,

and the stone lay within her.

Her life was complete, and so she died.

She became part of the river.

Her flesh became food for a mother bear and her cubs.

Her bones settled into the river bed,

enriching the land.

The beautiful silver and blue creature

became part of all creatures

and of the river bed where she had been born.

And she freed the jagged stone

into the tumbling waters of the mountain river.

For a thousand years

the jagged stone tumbled down the river

toward the cold blue sea.

The waters lifted her up,

dropped her into pools

where she whirled for years round and round,

becoming smooth,

becoming smaller as her rough edges dissolved.

Then she lay for a hundred years

where the water was still,

where the sun warmed her in summer,

and where, during the long winters,

ice enclosed her

as if she and the water had become one thing.

At last she was picked up

in the beak of a bird,

who thought she was perhaps a clam,

and dropped back into the current

to continue her journey home to the cold blue sea.

She learned the wisdom of the river,

which was called “Endure.”

She learned the wisdom of the sun,

which was called “Receive.”

The wisdom of a thousand winters

was called “Wait.”

The wisdom of the mountain

with its trees, its bears,

its birds and wild flowers,

was called “Continue.”

And the wisdom of the beautiful silver and blue creature,

who brought her to the mountain in the first place

and released her to the river

where she could return to the cold blue sea,

was called “Come Home.”

At last one spring,

when the snow on the mountain had been deep

and heavy rains blew in from the sea,

the river flooded to a torrent.

It swept down the mountain;

it tore trees out of the earth;

it picked up rocks as large as bears;

it lifted the stone

from where she was wedged

between two roots of an aspen tree

and whirled her into the torrent.

The river carried her to where it crashed

against the powerful, curling waves

of the cold blue sea

and dropped her on a white beach.

There she lay among other stones,

stones of every color,

stones from the mountain and stones from the sea,

together,

rolling with the tides,

touching one another,

whispering in the language land and sea speak when they meet.

The gleaming stone,

which now was smooth and round,

whispered on the shore of the cold blue sea

for another thousand years.

Often the sea swept her deep into its waters,

but always she returned to the white sands

where the summer sun warmed her

and the winter rains washed her clean.

Costal winds brushed her with sand,

polishing her,

until she was not only smooth but translucent.

Now, when the sun shone down on her,

she was filled with light.

She learned the wisdom of the wind,

which was called “Flow”;

the wisdom of the sand,

called “Change”;

the wisdom of the stars,

called “Shine”;

and the wisdom of the tides

called “Remember.”

One day after a thousand years,

a girl-child came to the white beach

by the cold blue sea.

She belonged to a tribe called the People.

She had long hair the color of a raven’s wing

and eyes like black obsidian.

Her skin was the color of a well-oiled myrtle wood bowl.

The girl-child’s name was Shell

because she gathered food from the sea

to nourish her People.

Shell listened to the land talking with the sea.

In their language of whispers,

she thought she could hear her own breath,

the beating of her own heart,

the sound made by her blood as it traveled through her body.

As she walked in the white sand,

she watched gulls riding the wind.

And far out in the cold blue sea,

she noticed a spray of water

caused by her brother the whale.

Shell also watched where her feet walked

for signs of crabs dug into the sand

and places where clams hid.

Suddenly Shell noticed a beautiful stone,

one that seemed to shine

as though the light of the sun lived within it.

She bent to pick it up.

The stone felt more smooth than the softest deerskin,

and it was round as the full moon.

She held it to her forehead

and then to the base of her throat,

and it was warm.

This was the kind of stone her People called

“Finding Stone”

because whatever you needed in order to live,

if you wore this stone,

you would find the needed thing.

Shell closed her hand around the smooth round stone

and thanked the Earth Spirit

who had brought her together with this Finding Stone.

Shell thanked her Finding Stone

for all the years the stone had traveled toward her

and all the hardships the stone had endured

in order to arrive here,

on this white beach

beside this cold blue sea,

on this very day that Shell had come from her village

to find food for her People.

Around her neck, Shell wore a small leather pouch.

Because she was still a girl,

the leather pouch was new

and still empty.

When her grandmother had given it to her

as a gift

for her twelfth winter,

she had called it a medicine pouch.

Grandmother had told Shell

that the pouch must remain empty

until something from the earth

called to Shell

with the voice of healing, wisdom, and power.

”It may be any of the colors of the rainbow

and it must contain the light of the sun,”

Grandmother had said.

It must have come through fire.

It must have spoken with the waves.

It must have listened to the music of the wind.

Shell opened her leather medicine pouch,

and into it she put the round clear stone.

Then she gathered food.

Before the sun was at its high point in the sky,

her basket was filled with shellfish,

and she was walking through the tall trees

toward the camp of her People.

Shell lived eighty summers and eighty winters after that day,

and always,

day and night,

she wore the medicine pouch that held her Finding Stone.

Shell grew to be beautiful and wise

and honored by her People.

When the People were hungry,

she found food.

When the People were lost,

she found a Way.

When the People became sick from a mysterious disease,

she went to the forest and found an herb

that healed them.

When the People felt lonely or frightened,

when the People cried because their loved ones died,

when the People worried

and when their hearts felt like rocks in their chests,

Shell found stores to soothe their pain.

After many years,

the People gave Shell a new name

to tell her who she had become in their midst.

They called her “Finding Woman.”

All this time

the smooth round stone lay in the leather pouch

over Finding Woman’s heart.

In the cold

she could feel the stone’s warmth.

When she felt confused,

she listened for the stone’s voice.

As she lived,

she learned Finding Stone’s wisdom.

As she wondered how to grow

from being a girl into being a woman,

she heard the Finding Stone whisper,

“Flow.”

As she wondered how to give

the gift that was herself

to the People she loved,

she heard the Finding Stone whisper,

“Shine.”

As she wondered how people learned to trust one another,

she heard the Finding Stone whisper,

“Receive.”

As she wondered how to pass her wisdom on

to the children born from her body and her soul,

she heard the Finding Stone whisper,

“Change.”

As she wondered how to help her own children

find their way along the confusing paths of the world,

she heard her Finding Stone whisper,

“Wait.”

As she lost people whom she loved

because they traveled to the prairie

or the mountain or the desert or another sea,

or because they made the final journey to the stars,

she felt empty in her heart,

but she heard her Finding Stone whisper,

“Endure.”

As she grew old and was alone,

she heard her Finding Stone whisper,

“Continue.”

As the young came to her for wisdom,

she heard her Finding Stone whisper,

“Remember.”

And as her body became like a winter leaf

blown across the snow,

she heard her Finding Stone whisper,

“Come Home.”

Finding Woman went down to the white beach

by the cold blue sea.

She lifted her medicine pouch from around her neck

and removed the Finding Stone.

She placed it on the beach,

and it caught the light of the setting sun

as it lingered at the edge

between the grey-blue water and the sky.

She listened to the whispered language of land and sea,

talking.

She felt she was complete.

Finding Woman looked for a long time

at the smooth round stone

lying on the sand,

catching the last light of the setting sun.

“Someone will find you,” she said.

“Never Ends,”

the Finding Stone whispered back

into her soul.