seanachi
seanachi
Joined:
January 11, 2010
Posts: 16
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 Posted: Post subject: How Purple Sage Bloomed Into Being |
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'How Purple Sage Bloomed Into Being'
is from a traditional tale ~
I like the stories of enchantment and
love, ( writing romance stories with a
hint of paranormal ), and storytelling
is an art I explore, and try, and enjoy.
With happiness, allow me to share...
(Have taken this traditional tale, and
added a twist, and the unique tone
of writer's voice, to craft a version
of this old, but imaginative tale of
the Native daughter who fell in love
with a star...)
There was a beautiful Native daughter
who traveled from her home into the desert
of the western country. She desired to gather
the purple ripe fruit of the prickly pear cactus,
which was a most delicious treat to eat.
It was late when she left the desert - the
eve had already fallen, and the stars twinkled
bright overhead in the clear cool night air.
One star seemed much brighter, and glowed
lower to the earth. The Native daughter stopped
to consider it's bright sudden allure. The night
called of mystery, and perhaps of trickery...
oh why did she linger? The scintillating show
of brightness almost seemed an outrageous,
flirtageous wink!
She gathered her presence of mind and
hurried home, where that night she lay in
dreams of desert and bold approaches of
a Sky Man.
She saw in her Dreamtime that the star was
really a handsome man, well formed and fair,
and in his prime of youth. Her sleep flowed
restless in her desire for him.
The next day the Native daughter went out
again into the desert in search of more prickly
pear. She remained diligent in her search and
gather, not noticing the time until the sun set
brilliantly golden with peach and pink streams
of fading light now hiding behind the distant hill.
Oh what audacity, her cheeks grew red with
fever from the enticing display - once again
the star winked provocative from the coolness
of the velvet blue desert night sky.
Yes it was he from her dreams and desires,
and she knew it was so.
For seven days she made excuse to visit
the desert to gather the fruits - and each
night her dreams were filled with love for
this sky man in all his gilded glow and
whispers of love and longing. But his voice
wept with sadness, saying he was bound
within his own homeland of Sky, and he
could not visit her upon her earth domain.
And as worse, in her human guise, she
could not visit him in his celestial realm....
and as low as he could glow, he could not
touch her face as she stood upon her familiar
desert ground.
The Native daughter was overflowing with
adorement and feeling for her shining star,
but was laden with a heaviness that sunk
her spirit to the core of the deepest darkest
pit ~ her unhappiness was in the knowledge
that her star-glimmering lover was far away,
and could not be reached by any means of her
own.
She no longer found beauty or pleasure in her
day, and her night slumber escaped her, trickling
by endlessly, devoid of rest or restorative sleep.
In her village lived lived an old witch woman, and
the Native daughter was at her last hope -- so she
asked for the old woman's favor in crafting a charm
in bringing the star and she closer...would she mix
a potion of poison to hasten her travels into the next
journey, without the cloak of human and earthbound
being.
"Life is too great a gift to be flung aside," said the
old witch woman, as she beheld the wretched Native
daughter weeping upon the floor. "You must live out
the life the Great Spirit has given to you --but I can
change you into a form that will permit you to live
always out upon the desert under the loving smiles
of your star heart."
Her words filled the Native daughter with joy.
She went with the witch woman to the desert
that night. There the old crone sang and brewed
a drink from desert plants, and bid the Native
daughter to drink.
As soon as the last swallow passed her lips, a
shifting of shape began it's sway... her feet began
to take root in the dry, sandy desert soil. Her arms
turned to branches. Her black hair turned to green
leaves, and the Native daughter became a new
shrub which no Native person had ever seen in
the vast desert before. As the wind blew the shrub,
there came a murmur of thanks to the old witch woman.
When the star saw, the sky man leaned far, far into the
stellar air, watching from an opening in his star lodge.
He moved so far out that the edges of the deep midnight
ether strained purple, and the starshine burned to whitest
bright -- sky man's being shifted with his weight, and he
fell with sparkling pieces of shimmer straight towards the
Native daughter who was bound now into a bush.
The starry slivers of the sky man glowed steel-silver and
cold, and down he rushed, shattering into fine dust that
powdered the leaves of the bush with ashwhite.
Sky man was instantly changed into living purple blossoms.
The Native daughter and the sky man were united
together.
The bush with white-silver dusted leaves and beautiful
purple blossoms became known as the cenisa plant.
Today we call it purple sage.
Not many, save the Native Nations, know of the story
of purple sage, and how it came into being upon the
western desert.
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