From Why the
World Doesn’t End by Michael Meade
The old people of the tribes would tell of a special
cave where knowledge of the wonders and workings of the world could be found.
Even now, some of the native people say that the cave of knowledge exists and
might be discovered again. They say it is tucked away in the side of a
mountain. “Not too far to go,” they say, yet no one seems to find it anymore.
Despite all the highways and byways, all the thoroughfares and back roads that
crosscut the face of the earth, despite all the maps that detail and try to
define each area, no one seems to find that old cave. That’s too bad, they say,
because inside the cave can be found genuine knowledge about how to act when
the dark times come around again and the balance of the world tips away from
order and slips towards chaos.
Inside the cave, there lives an old woman who remains
unaffected by the rush of time and the confusion and strife of daily life. She
attends to other things; she has a longer sense of time and a deep capacity for
vision. She spends most of her time weaving in the cave where light and shadows
play. She wants to fashion the most beautiful garment in the whole world. She
has been at this weaving project for a long time and has reached the point of
making a fringe for the edge of her exquisitely designed cloak. She wants that
fringe to be special; wants it to be meaningful as well as elegant, so she
weaves it with porcupine quills. She likes the idea of using something that
could poke you as an element of beauty; she likes turning things around and
seeing life from odd angles. In order to use the porcupine quills, she must
flatten each one with her teeth. After years of biting hard on the quills, her
teeth have become worn down to nubs that barely rise above her gums. Still, the
old woman keeps biting down and she keeps weaving on.
The only time she interrupts her weaving work is when
she goes to stir the soup that simmers in a great cauldron at the back of the
cave. The old cauldron hangs over a fire that began a long time ago. The old
woman cannot recall anything older than that fire; it just might be the oldest
thing there is in this world. Occasionally, she does recall that she must stir
the soup that simmers over those flames. For that simmering stew contains all
the seeds and roots that become the grains and plants and herbs that sprout up
all over the surface of the earth. If the old woman fails to stir the ancient
stew once in a while, the fire will scorch the ingredients and there is no
telling what troubles might result from that.
So the old woman divides her efforts between weaving
the exquisite cloak and stirring the elemental soup. In a sense, she is
responsible for weaving things together as well as for stirring everything up.
She senses when the time has come to let the weaving go and stir things up again.
Then, she leaves the weaving on the floor of the cave and turns to the task of
stirring the soup. Because she is old and tired from her labors and because of
the relentless passage of time, she moves slowly and it takes a while for her
to amble over to the cauldron.
As the old woman shuffles across the floor and makes
her way to the back of the ancient cave, a black dog watches her every move.
The dog was there all along. Seemingly asleep, it awakens as soon as the old
weaver turns her attention from one task to the other. As she begins stirring
the soup in order to sustain the seeds, the black dog moves to where the
weaving lies on the floor of the cave. The dog picks up a loose thread with its
teeth and begins pulling on it. As the black dog pulls on the loose thread, the
beautiful garment begins to unravel. Since each thread has been woven to
another, pulling upon one begins to undo them all. As the great stew is being
stirred up, the elegant garment comes apart and becomes a chaotic mess on the
floor.
When the old woman returns to take up her handiwork
again, she finds nothing but chaos where there had been a garment of great
elegance and beauty. The cloak she has woven with great care has been pulled
apart, the fringe all undone; the effort of creation has been turned to naught.
The old woman sits and looks silently upon the remnants of her once-beautiful
design. She ignores the presence of the black dog as she stares intently at the
tangle of undone threads and distorted patterns.
After a while, she bends down, picks up a loose
thread, and begins to weave the whole thing again. As she pulls thread after
thread from the chaotic mess, she begins again to imagine the most beautiful
garment in the whole world. As she weaves, new visions and elegant designs appear
before her and her old hands begin to knowingly give them vibrant shape. Soon
she has forgotten the cloak she was weaving before as she concentrates on
capturing the new design and weaving it into the most beautiful garment ever
seen in the world.
And where you can meet the black dog
