gather ye round

yea, gather ye round

(another reprint)

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Gather ye round my Brothers and Sisters, come sit by the fire with the children and the ancestors and the listening spirits and I shall tell to you a tale. Spun by a madman from whole cloth and cast upon the seas of reality to drift where it may through the warps and wefts of space and time. A tale of stunning hope and hope denied, a tale of great victories….and and the same sad tale of tragic defeat. A tale of the impossible realized and the possible left undone, the tale of us and we. All the same story all the same story all the same story. and so, and so, and so,… and here we are. Still and again. Always and now. Now and forever.

For this is the same story and we are the same people and this is the same place, even with the trees grown higher and the canyons cut deeper and the sky turned brown.. We are the same people as our ancestors were when they would gather round, with the same cares and needs the same wants and desires the same challenges and fears yea, they had said it and we say it still the same. The food still comes from the earth we still breath the sky and warm ourselves by the same fire that burned so bright to hold out the night oh so long ago. Oh and the water, the water always running never stopped, burbling on, burbling on, always giving us life, this water is the very same water, and it always has and it always will.  And we are still the same people, the fathers, the mothers, the children, the elders, the wise man and the Fool. Teachers and builders, farmers and makers of craft. We walk we talk we eat we shit we copulate, all the same all the same, all the same…. and so has it ever been  and thus is it now.

The Sun keeps shining til the night, we wake each day  with fresh new energy we know not from where it comes. We worry, we fret, we argue and war, we smile and laugh, we court and love, we hurt and cry…we live and die and for the earth nothing changes…only for us, only for us is there change. And for us that never changes.

Its is true my little ones, for we are all the small…it is true that for us all is change. For us the small it is true… that all that does not change is that everything will change in our short time here. Our short time occupying these bodies, playing these roles, walking this stage. All we have and know and breathe is change. And yet we are the same peoples and the waters are the same waters and the sun still shines and the women still glow in the moonlit night. How can this be? We small ones ask, that we are all the same but are also always changing. It is part of what it is when we cry out in the night, when we cry out under the unchanging but always changing moon.

Tell us what it means, we cry to the listening night, the listening spirit, tell us what to do!  We are small but we have found our way, we work the day to feed the children and the elders, We pay our tithe and tax. We know we must do that, those things that must be done. But what else what else what else we cry to the moon and the wind, when no one can hear, when no one, we think, can see our pain. What is noble, what is true, what is right? What do we do, why is it so. We ask, those that are brave enough to ask. And the answer comes on the wind that bends the grass as it always has and always will, the answer comes back to us and we pay it heed…in the night.

Change is the answer

You are here to change, says the ever changing wind.

Not to change the earth, to cut down forests and to damn the rivers and to invent new ways to kill. Not uglify the beauty, or make the children cry or make a woman flinch or subjugate a man. All of that is easy…all of that is cheap, all of that is old. nay, we are here to ………change.

Ourselves….and no one else.

Our minds, our actions, our nature.

Ourselves.

And no one else.

For it has been said and rightly so, and so it shall be said agai and again, that it is not the earth that belongs to us, but we who belong to the earth. That we are not here to master others but to learn to govern but ourselves,  that we are also here to serve. To serve through change to change through growing to grow….through love. And through that love, to change ourselves…and thus change the earth.  And all and all.

Fear not, be bold, dare, risk, explore, experience joy and pain ad anger and love and ….try to help. Fill your heart not your purse. Love your neighbor not his stuff. Find your way through the compass of your heart, not the needle of your fear and learn to love not kill, your brothers. It is not for us we small ones who flit so fast from being…it is for We The People that we work and strive. We The People, for you and I only hold this spotlight on the stage for now. For we are the same People that always are, have always been and always shall be …down throughout the times…. except for change. Let us change.

Go forth, go forward move, on progress and be the change you wish to see…and a person you wish to know. Thus we serve oursleves our families our nation and our earth. Thus we serve those who will come after for seven generations. Thus we serve the earth.

And thus do the progressives progress, and grow, and learn, through change.

While the struggle remains the same.