June 30, 2003

• A Place to Put Down Roots
  
  Light_and_fluffy is lamenting about not having “roots”. I’ve moved around a lot, so I know the feeling. When people ask me where I’m from, I have hard time answering because I’ve lived so many places. When I tell them that, they then ask, “Well then, what’s your origin?” I have a hard time answering that one too. People are so stuck on classifying other people. It’s as irritating as guys in a chat room asking, “Are you m or f?”
  
  Certain Native American tribes have a large old turtle as part of their creation beliefs. This turtle is called “Grandmother Turtle”. According to something my ex-boyfriend told me, she is believed to carry the world on her back as she floats in the sea which is the Universe. Some myths explain it as, when organisms had to migrate from the sea to the earth, they needed plants to create oxygen for them to breathe. Grandmother Turtle offered her back as a place to put the mud of the Earth, which created a place for the green plants which had formerly been living under the ocean to place their roots.
  
  
  

  
  
  

  The Legend of Grandmother Turtle In one of the creation stories told by the Cheyenne, neighbors of the Lakota, before people lived on the earth it was covered by water. The Creator wanted to use mud from under the water to make solid ground, but needed a place to put the mud on top of the water. Turtle rose to the top of the water to carry the mud that became earth. To this day, turtles walk very slowly because they carry the weight of the world on their backs. Some Native Americans refer to the earth as Turtle Island. from www.artsmia.org/surrounded-by-beauty/plains/dress_legend.html K.C. STAR, 1/20/19’77′. “The Creation” This tale was adapted from a Cheyenne myth from “American Indian Mythology” by Alice Marriott and Carol L. Rachin. It is part of the narrative text of “The People”, a planetarium program on Indian sky lore produced by the Hansen Planetarium of Salt Lake City, Utah. “In the beginning there was nothing, and only the Great Spirit lived in the void. He looked around him but there was nothing to see. He listened, but there was nothing to hear. There was only the Great Spirit, alone in nothingness. The Great Spirit was not lonesome, but as he moved through the endless time of nothingness, it seemed to him that his power should be put to use. For what good is power if it is not used to make a good world, with people to live in it? So the Spirit created the great water. Out of this salty water, he knew, he could bring forth all life that ever was to be. “There should be water beings, “the Great Spirit told his power – and now there were fish swimming in the deep water, then mussels and snails and crawfish. There should be creatures that live on the water”, the Great Spirit said, – . “I would like to see these things I have created”, said the Great spirit, and so a great light began to spread across the east, then rose and grew until it reached the middle of the sky and spread a golden glow around the horizon. And the Great Spirit saw the light, and the birds and fish he had created. – “Give us what you have brought”, said the Great Spirit, and the little coot led fall from his beak a tiny ball of mud. “The Great Spirit rolled the ball of mud between his palms and it began to grow larger, until there was too much for the Great Spirit to hold, but there was nowhere to put it because all was water or air. – “Grandmother Turtle”, said the Great Spirit, “do you think that you can help me?” “I am very old and very slow”, said the turtle, “but I will try”. And the Great Spirit piled the mud on her rounded back until Grandmother Turtle was hidden from sight. “So be it”, said the Great Spirit. “Let the earth be known as our Grandmother, and let your Grandmother who carries the earth be the only being who is at home beneath the water, within the earth, or above the ground; the only one who can go anywhere by swimming or by walking as she chooses. And no one shall harm her”. And so it is that Grandmother Turtle and all her descendants must walk very slowly, for they carry the whole weight of the world and all its peoples on their backs.” from home.kc.rr.com/hightech/creation/creation108.html Other Sites www.tortuga.com/college/turtle/5.html www.geocities.com/soho/lofts/6812/GTurtle.htm

  
  
  

  • 8:12 am
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