Looking after
country
See that track
there, if you go down there you will come to a stone that is very beautiful and
very old and very sacred to us. A tourist went down there a few years ago and
found the stone and took it home, down south somewhere. Soon members of their
family were dying, every few months another person died. There was bad luck
everywhere for them. They thought it might be the stone so they sent it back to
us with an apology. I put the stone back in its place, and I never drive down
there now, I only walk, because I want the track to grow over. So no more
tourists will be tempted. I have chained the stone down with three chains. It
is very beautiful, you will see.
Quite a story, mate, but I still want to know what the robbers saw in it, whether they were stealing the beauty of it or the sacredness of it, and whether it mattered to them at all. The sun set on their family, deaths occurred, and the tribe was without it too. How did they suffer from the absence? We, who suffer everyday from the absence of the sacred, have to find it within ourselves. The tangible example is rare. A stone that is beauty in the beholder's eyes, that needs three chains to keep it down to earth, is a spaceship. It cannot mean to cause harm unless harm is caused to it. Did it mean to walk? What did the robbers do to it? (I'll get back in my box now!)
ReplyDeleteTourists are warned never to take any coral or shells or stone from The Big Island 'Hawaii' as the island is a goddess. And bad things happen until whatever is taken is returned. 'I want the track to grow over' moved me, the care of it. S
ReplyDelete"you will see" made me smile, it all turned on that. The stewardship, all of it
ReplyDelete