The Music Of The Night

By Jeffrey R Sumarajan

The prairie is silent at night, the wind sweeps through the plants, and the tall grass quivers and bristles, it’s bristling and quivering creates music that only the stillest of the still hear, swaying about to their own music they look like they are part of a ritual, swaying to a rhythm. I walk across the prairie. Father was asleep, and I found myself awake and began walking toward the river; my footsteps slowly lead me to the quiet babbling creek. I have grown familiar with this trail over the years, my feet know the terrain, and I walk through the tall grass, my hands parting it in front of me I didn’t need to see where I was going, I simply knew. The soil feels soft and yields under my bare feet, and the mud squelches and gets between my toes. It feels therapeutic, almost comforting.

I have come to love this walk. I have come to treasure and value it. It has become a ritual for me. As I draw closer, the babbling of the river grows louder, I’m mesmerized by all the music around me, the almost silent soft whisper of the tall grass, the pure and clear song of the flowing water, the faint chirping of crickets and the quiet, consistent rhythm of my own footsteps punctuating each note, pushing the last of the tall grass behind me, I make my way to the riverbank, the clear water reflects the stars so well, a perfect reproduction of the starry night above lies below. I breathe in the cool air and let it fill my lungs.

The water ripples ever so slightly. Staring back at me through the ripples, distorted and lit by the moonlight is my own face. I take it all in, I smile and the face in the water smiles back, reflected in the light of the moon, it looks unearthly almost, all my imperfections laid bare in the soft moonlight, the slightly crooked nose, the curl of the mouth, the way the chin jutted out, the uneven cheekbones, the cracked lips, and the disproportionately large ears. The only things I like are the eyes that stare back at me vacantly. There is something about them, they wander and dance, and these eyes see the world on two levels, a vast empty wasteland devoid of possibilities and a world worth living in, the paradox is amusing, the juxtaposition of possibilities, the irony is not lost on me, it is between these ironies that I exist, swaying often between the one. I exist in this paradox, stuck between emptiness and fulfillment, between blindness and vision, between doubt and faith, and between love and not hatred but apathy. It is not hatred that is the opposite of love but apathy. To love is to care and the same is true of hatred, you cannot hate without caring, but apathy, apathy is different, to be apathetic is not to care, and to be apathetic means to not think or consider it in the slightest. If to love is to feel then apathy is numb, if to love means to give, apathy keeps. If to love is to try, apathy is staying still. Apathy interests me, it interests me deeply. I don’t see the point of love, it is to willingly submit to hurt, to make oneself vulnerable. It is risky, foolhardy, and honestly seems insane to me. Apathy is safety, it is sanity, it is security and I like it. It’s comforting to me.

My thoughts turn back to the face in the water, I stare into the eyes again, I can’t help it, I’m drawn to them. Father often says that I have mother’s eyes. He says that those were the eyes, he fell in love with. I don’t know if that’s true, Mother’s eyes were beautiful and they saw love, they radiated it. I don’t think mine do that. Anyways. He says those were the eyes he fell in love with, but I doubt that loving someone doesn’t end when they are gone, if anything you love them more, I don’t understand how one could love someone and replace them at the same time, but who am I to talk about love, I know as much about Love as the sky knew about the Land which was nothing.

The ceremony is tomorrow, I don’t know if I am excited about it, but everyone else is excited, Father says it will be an experience I will never forget, and Etu says that it will make me a man. The rest of the village is excited while I feel nothing. I know what they think when they look at me, I can read it in their eyes, the confusion, they do not know what to make of me, they look at Father and expect me to be him, a great warrior. As chief of the wolf clan and the village’s war chief, my father commands the respect of the villagers. I’m expected to follow in his steps. I don’t think that interests me, I really can’t blame the villagers, I don’t know what to make of myself, I see a piece of driftwood floating along the bank of the river, I pick it up and look at it. It just sails around, wherever the water takes it. “You and I are alike, “I say to the piece of driftwood. It’s true I don’t know where I am going either. I float around without a thought of where I want to go.

I realize I need to get back and sleep, the ceremony will be exhausting, from what I have heard and so I should rest up. I turn around and make my way through the tall grass once again, the sound of the tall grass moving against my push is oddly comforting. I make my way back and slide into the teepee and into my bed. I rest my head on the pillow and close my eyes. I will myself to sleep, and slowly my breath and the rise and fall of my chest find a rhythm, and I find myself whisked away to the land of dreams, where the stories of my childhood come to life.

As a child, I was raised on stories, it is my people’s way of passing down knowledge, this has been the pattern, from parent to child, stories link us back to the ancient days, the days of creation, the days when The Great Spirit spoke everything into creation. It is in stories that we find comfort, I have always found these Stories to be my place of solace, Stories remind me of my mother, she would tell me the stories of our people each night, I loved all the stories, stories of the Yunwi Tsunsdi', benevolent dwarfs who revealed themselves from time to time or stories of the Thunderers, powerful storm spirits. However, my favorite stories were the stories of Jistu, the rabbit he was a trickster who played the wildest tricks, and I absolutely loved his stories. Every night Mother would ask me which story I wanted to hear and every night I would ask her to tell me of Jistu, I adored him, the lovable trickster rabbit was not just a figure in the stories, he had taken up a place in my mind and heart as a friend. Listening to his stories felt like recounting the wild escapades of a dear friend.

I see Jistu in my dreams, bounding up to me on his rabbit legs. He looks at me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, he called out to me” Tyee “come follow me “he says I get up on my feet and start running after the trickster rabbit, he is several paces ahead of me, I keep up my pace so that I don’t lose him. Jistu stops to a halt all of a sudden and turns around, his eyes still twinkling he says “I knew you would come, there’s someone here to meet you”. He points towards a cave as he says this. The cave beckons, its mouth a big gaping hole of pitch black. I can’t see anything, but something calls to me; the cave has a pull, its magnetic, it draws me in, and I step in; it is perfectly still and is dark as the night at its darkest, I cannot see my hands in front of my face, but still, the caves pull draws me in. Each step gets heavier, whatever is in there is waiting for me, I can sense it, it’s like a tuning rod pressed against my sternum, and I can feel its vibration in my very being. It is difficult, but I put one foot ahead of the other and keep stepping forward. I see a small opening at the end of the vast cavern that I’m trapezing, light peeks out. It is only a few feet away from me, and everything fades to black.

I wake up to the sound of a child bawling his eyes out. I contemplate going back to bed, but I realize that the Child’s cry is too loud, sleep is a lost cause at this point. The child has quite a pair of lungs on him. I wake up and step out of the teepee. I make my way to the river once again and wash up, the cold water feels nice against my skin and I let my feet rest in it for a while. I look at the sun and let its rays wash over me, it feels strange to experience the cold of the water on my feet and the warmth of the sun on my face, once again I exist in the paradoxes, I exist in the extremities. I look at the sun again and this time I see that it’s a couple of hours to noon, I have slept more than I should have. I get on my feet and walk back to the teepee, to find my father awake and helping himself to some Di-S-Qau-Ni, the chestnut bread looks rather delicious, and I hear my stomach rumble realizing I have not eaten since last afternoon. “You are up, son,” he says. I reply, “Yes, Father, it seems that I have.” He smiles. “You inherited your mother’s sarcasm Tyee” He motions for me to take a seat beside him. I oblige and sit in silence, breaking the chestnut bread laid in front of me. I stare at the hulking mass of a man that was my father, I feel dwarfed in his presence, he was built like a bull with the strong proud neck of a warrior, and his beefy hands make the loaf of bread look tiny. I look at him and feel dwarfed in his presence, I can’t help but see how different we are, my puniness to his bulk, his unmistakable air of authority, my unassuming defiance, his being a warrior and me being well I don’t know what yet.

“Son, you are going to be a man now, I have waited for this day since you were born” I sit in silence “ I know I have said this before but this is the first day of a new life, you will make the trek to our ancestral plane, you will be given the herb of awakening and meditate until the Spirit of our ancestors appears and reveals to your new name, this name will tell you who you will become. It will be your guiding light”. I hear him ramble on and on about this while I sit there in silence breaking the chestnut bread, his voice drowned out by my thoughts. I look up and catch the last of his big speech to me. “You are destined for great things Tyee” I don’t like the sound of that, “You don’t know that I reply” slightly perturbed. “I do Son, I know it, she knew it, your mother did. She left me you Tyee, you have her eyes and when I look at you, I think of her, you will do great things, and your baby brother will grow up hearing tales of your greatness.

Something snaps in me. Hearing him talk of mother and his newborn son gives rise to something dark and angry in me, it’s primal and I feel it clawing its way out of me. I can feel it pushing its way out wanting to be said and I burst at him. “Don’t you dare bring Mother into this,” I scream “6 months, 6 months is all it took you to court another woman, 6 months Father. And you talk of loving her, you talk of remembering her, don’t you dare utter a single word about her. You are not worthy and that child who’s crying is not my brother, he is your and that woman’s son, he will never be my brother, never” You lie, Father, you lie. You lie straight to your teeth. You say you loved her, I say you never you truly did, if you loved her why did you replace her? 6 months, 6 months is all it took you to go gallivanting after another woman. Six Months Father, and yet you say you loved her, I find that a little hard to believe. What’s wrong with me, was I, not family enough?” I see the effect my verbal tirade has had on the man, the tall, proud warrior of just a few minutes ago is gone, and in his place is a slack-jawed shell of a man; my huge father has shrunk several sizes before my eyes, I have cut him, cut him to his core, he bears the shaken expression of a man who has been cut open and then left open. I almost feel like he has aged a good deal during my vicious monologue. Where was strength before lies weakness, I realize I have robbed my father of his strength and pride, two characteristics that defined him, in a sense I have cut to the very fiber of my father’s being. Like a scout at night, I have infiltrated his defenses and shredded him to nothing, he is speechless as I turn away and walk out of the teepee leaving behind the wreckage of a proud warrior, a sense of sadness fills my heart for there is seldom anything sadder than the ruins of a once noble man. I have brought down the great chief Tallulah and that is an oddly comforting thought. As soon as the sadness fills my heart, it is forced out by bitterness, that overpowering, all-ruining emotion. I was justified in what I said, tears stream down my face as I think of everything I said, my most profound and saddest thoughts had spilled out of me, upon Mothers death Father had retreated and left me to fend for myself, I resented him for it when I needed him, he turned inward and away from me and 6 months later when he married again, It killed me, I feel like he didn’t feel that I was enough for him and so my slow but gradual resentment toward him had grown the culmination of which was I tearing him down.

I walk to the river and wash up the time for the ceremony is nigh, I have to leave in two hours and so I make haste and reach the ga-tu-yi the village council house where all important ceremonies take place , I hear the music from afar, the beating of the drums, and the frequent tapping of feet whip up a frenzy, It is entrancing, a feast for the ears, as someone who enjoys the beauty of sound I normally would have enjoyed this but in my current state of mind it is but a fleeting sound, they dance in a circle all around a seat, signaling that the center is a place of importance, it usually is a boy stepping into manhood and today that man is me,I am made to sit down in the midst of the circle, often before I have thought of what it would feel like to be at the center of the circle and now that my chance has finally come , the truth is cold and real, I feel like a sacrifice, while there is much rejoicing deep down I feel uncomfortable with the attention, I have done nothing to warrant such adulation,. All of a sudden, the dancing and music stop, and the circle disperses allowing an old man to walk up to me, he is the village peace chief, the head of the white government while my Father is the War Chief, the leader of the red government. The wizened old man steps up to me and in his coarse voice declares the ceremony commenced. The old man has the look of one whom nature has consumed slowly over the years, his body bears the marks of erosion over the years, his lithe build and musculature betray his years, in the cut of his jaw and the firmness of his shoulders, his power is visible, It is only his eyes that give him away, his eyes are tired, his eyes show his age, they are eyes that have seen many winters, eyes that have seen it all, but still there is a certain intelligence in the eyes, they are like the eyes of a predator who might be past his prime but is still as dangerous, still as calculating and crafty.

His voice is getting louder and draws my attention away from his eyes. I hear him clearly, his voice getting louder and more pointed with each word he utters. He calls me forward and instructs me to lay down, I oblige and he begins chanting: he rubs red mud in circle patterns over my body and anoints my forehead with it. The villagers around me join in the chanting and tap their chests and feet to the rhythm. The chanting gets faster; the words take up a life of their own, and they begin to feel real, like they have a form. At the apex of the chant, another older man steps forward with a hollowed-out gourd in his hand, the gourd seems full of a sweet-smelling liquid. He hands the gourd to the Peace Chief, and the chief lifts it toward the skies, “O Great Spirit! O Great One! You breathed life into us! To you, we belong! Acknowledge this drink of your sacred herb that we give to your son Tyee, with this we send him to you for light. Accept this Child in his 16th year of life, May his eyes be opened” He thunders and thrusts the gourd into my mouth, the liquid flows into my stomach and I feel my senses begin to wane, my thoughts are getting fuzzier, I feel like I’m being pulled away to somewhere else, there is an intense tugging sensation in my stomach, my heart beats faster, matching the tempo of the villagers chanting and stomping. I raise my head and look at Father; he has a vacant forlorn look on his face. His eyes are empty and glassy, they are the last things I see before I lose my vision, it all fades into nothingness, pure emptiness.

I wake up at the foot of a hill, I have read about this place in our sacred texts, the ancestral plane, it’s where the Spirit of our ancestors return to after they have passed on. According to the texts left to us by our ancestors, upon turning 16 the son of a chief is administered the juice of the sacred herb which transports him to the ancestral plane where a new name is revealed to him, this is in preparation for becoming a chief himself one day. I have never believed it and thought it to be a figment of imagination or an allegorical story, but the land that lies before me is proof that this exists, the grass beneath my feet feels real, and the ground feels solid, and so does the chilling wind beating against my chest. It is all very real. I scan the surroundings, and before me lies a hill with trees sprouting along its sides. The climb does not seem steep. I hear the gurgling of flowing water and turn around to find a babbling brook, in the moonlight, the water shimmers, and the stars are beautifully reflected in it. I look down and find myself encased in the bright aura of the moonlight. My face illuminated is quite pleasant to look at, I am no narcissus, but my face in this brook seems more appealing and pleasant to look at than ever before.

I turn around and spot a figure waiting at the foot of the hill, as I get closer I can make out the faint outline and the silhouette is increasingly familiar, could it be that old trickster, that old rabbit Jitsu, as I step closer and am a couple of feet away from it, I’m proven right as the smirking face of Jitsu stares back at me, he is cunning personified, he radiates an aura of craftiness, but it is oddly comforting to me, I realize while he is crafty and unpredictable, he is also no deceiver, he is upfront about who he is and has no qualms about being labeled a trickster. I envy him, I envy him for being so comfortable in his own skin. Jitsu begins to speak to me “You have kept us waiting “he says “I don’t see anyone else” I reply, “You soon will” he replies and takes off on his rabbit feet “Follow me “he shouts in the distance. I begin to follow him and soon realize that the hill is not as easy to climb as it seems, it twists and turns with no clear trail, it is hard to find a foothold in places and the hill’s incline is steeper than what I had assumed, regardless there is an odd determination that is taking hold of me, something inside me tells me that it is important that I climb this hill. It is this primal drive that is pushing me forward, I find my base instincts take over as I claw my way up the hill. I remember when Father had taken me to climb Hill Sequoa for the first time, he held me by hand and helped me inch forward step by step, those were good times. I make my way to a small landing, it is a small strip of bare land, and the hill face continues from its edge; it is a small piece of land, big enough for just a couple of people to stand and rest. I find Jitsu waiting there for me, “If you want to proceed and climb this hill any further you will need to share with me your biggest fear, without doing this you cannot pass” he says, “What if I don’t” I question, “Then you can turn back” he says, I think about it. Something in me knows that I need to climb this hill, I recall my dream and how there was something that awaited me, I am also scared of sharing my fear, I don’t want to, I feel torn but eventually, the anticipation of that which is waiting for me outweighs my fear. I decide to tell him my biggest fear. “Jitsu, my biggest fear is that I am going to live a life in the shadows; I’m scared that I will never amount to anything” I feel my throat closing with each word; each word is a challenge but while it is difficult, it is also liberating in a way, it feels good to hear myself say it out loud finally. “I’m scared that I will be just another face in the crowd, another name spoken now but forgotten later, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know who I am, and I don’t know if I ever will!!!” I cry out in anguish, “I don’t know who I am and what I am meant to do,

I just don’t know” I feel tears rolling down my face, but they are not tears of sadness but oddly comforting tears, tears of liberation; it feels good to say it out loud. I am a captive of this fear, it has enslaved me, taking hold of me and influencing my actions, my decisions, and everything, but saying it out loud takes the edge off it a little bit, it makes it seem less scary. The pit in my stomach feels a little less deep. I feel a little less scared. What I thought would make me more vulnerable has in turn made me feel more protected and safer.

Jistu looks at me “What you say has a ring of truth to it. You are honest and can climb this mountain, it will reveal to you truths that you require” Saying this he turns around and begins climbing the hill. I once again begin my climb; the hill gets steeper here, but I feel a certain lightness after speaking my heart on the ridge. Still, the climb is difficult, the hill face is steep and punishing, and I cut my hand and feet several times on sharp rocks that jut out, it’s a long, arduous climb and the hill seems to stretch on forever. Moonlight bathes the hill face, the moonlight feels sharp and piercing, cool against my skin, and it chills me to my bones. This climb has me thinking about many things, my mind is working independently of my body, and my hands and feet keep climbing while my mind scales peaks of its own, only these peaks are spirals, spirals of thought, never-ending spirals; they keep going on forever, forever tightening without an end, s

Sometimes I have a hard time telling where the spiral ends, and I begin, but it’s not about me and the spirals because the spirals are me, and I am the spirals. It is not just a part of me; it’s me, me in my most raw and real sense. I find it amazing how we human beings, at our simplest and most basic are our thoughts reduced that’s all we are, thoughts. Our thoughts are what makes us different from animals. It is in these thoughts that we are present in our most real. On average, a person thinks thoughts far more often than they speak them; what others know of us is what we choose to tell them, they cannot know our thoughts, and that’s for the good. It is in these thoughts that find no expression that we are the most ourselves, these thoughts are free of judgment, free of any obligations, and therefore represent what we truly believe and think of ourselves. It is not possible for anyone to know us completely because we offer so little of ourselves in reality. I like to think that the Great Spirit made us this way so that our most real and honest selves are known only to us truly. Our true selves are sacred and must be kept sacred.

My mind returns to the hill, I keep climbing absent-mindedly. Each step is harder than the last, and my arms and calves burn from the climb. Tiny cuts lace my fingers from the sharp rocks I’m holding onto, I think of giving up, but the dream I had comes back to mind, what awaits me on the summit is important, and the climb will be worth it. I come across a particularly hard portion of the hill to navigate, I try to clutch a piece of the hill for support and use it as leverage to pull myself higher; as I shift my weight to climb, I lose grip of the rock and slip, my hand receiving a huge cut running from my palm down to the wrist. It stings, my blood swathed along the hill is a sickening sight, I look at the cut, it is long and red, and the blood is flowing freely. I feel lightheaded but decide to keep going. I see spots; I reach my hand out again and find some purchase. I grab on and pull myself up, and as soon as I begin to pull myself up I feel my fingers losing their hold. I am barely holding on for life, and just when I am about to fall, a hand grabs hold of mine and pulls me up. I find myself on the summit and staring at the smiling face of Jistu. Such a look of tenderness seems out of place on his face, I marvel at the irony of it, saved by the kindness of a trickster, once again paradoxes abound me, Jistu pulls me to my feet “Effort is always rewarded Tyee, I only helped you because you have come so far yourself” he says looking at my bleeding hand. “ I knew you had it in you to make it all the way. Knowing your greatest fear is the first step to conquering it, self-awareness is the key, you have made the first step in getting over that, and that is why I rescued you because when you show a willingness, the universe or what you might call God intervenes and helps, hold on to that lesson Tyee, only when you try will you receive”. I’m shook, help is one thing but inspiration and teaching from the rabbit called the “Crooked One” is baffling to me. His words have a ring of truth to them and bear a sense of finality. He scans me from head to toe as if making a final opinion of me and turns around and takes off, “Follow me Tyee” I hear him shout in the distance. He looks at me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, he called out to me” Tyee “come follow me “he says I get up on my feet and start running after the trickster rabbit, he is several paces ahead of me, I keep up my pace so that I don’t lose him. Jistu stops to a halt all of a sudden and turns around, his eyes still twinkling he says, “I knew you would come, there’s someone here to meet you”. He points towards a cave as he says this. The cave beckons, its mouth a big gaping hole of pitch black. I can’t see anything, but something calls to me. The cave has a pull, it’s magnetic, it draws me in, and I step in. Before I go find what awaits me, I turn around and take one last look at Jistu. The old trickster is staring intently at me. I think I see the faint inkling of a smile cross his face, the crooked one can be less crooked when he wants to, I think, and then just as mysteriously he had walked into my life, he turns his back and bounds his way over the hill on his spry rabbit legs, I feel my heart tug at seeing him leave. I follow him as he disappears into the darkness and soon all that is left of him are the tracks of his rabbit feet in the snow.

I turn back and step into the cave. it is perfectly still and is dark as the night at its darkest, I cannot see my hands in front of my face, but still, the cave’s pull draws me in. Each step gets heavier, whatever is in there is waiting for me, I can sense it, it’s like a tuning rod pressed against my sternum, and I can feel its vibration in my very being. It is difficult, but I put one foot ahead of the other and keep stepping forward. I see a small opening at the end of the vast cavern that I’m trapezing. Light peeks out. It is only a few feet away from me. I keep walking into the darkness and towards the light, my skin tingling in anticipation of what lies ahead of me. Each step makes my heart race more. I see the light, I can feel it and I then step into a cavern filled with light. After the darkness of the cave, the light seems scorching bright, I look around the cavern, and in the corner, a figure sits, waiting as if they knew I was coming. I step closer and the closer I get, the more the tingling feeling of anticipation increases, eventually when I am a few steps ahead I stop and the figure turns.

“Mother?” I say with, a sense of bafflement that is perfectly obvious, I am out of my senses on finding my mother here in this cavern. Her serene expression and bright smile fill me with a love that I have not felt since her passing. It was a love that only she could bring into me. I felt more alive than I ever did in the longest time, once again another paradox, feeling alive upon seeing the dead. “Tyee, come to me,” she says, and all semblance of holding it together comes crashing down as I run towards my mother and fall into her lap. I collapse into her a seething mess. Tears run freely and my throat chokes on itself as I fail to get the words out, I have too many things to say. I finally understand how emotions can make people flustered to the point where they can no longer get the words out. She lifted my head by the chin like she always did and kissed me on the forehead, this has a calming effect on me, and my head found solace in her lap as she strokes my hair and tells me how much she loves me. “I Don’t have time, Tyee,” she says, my ears are making the most of each word, processing it and loving it, and storing it away for later. “I’m here to deliver a message to you Tyee, it is about Father” before I can interrupt her, she says “And not a word from you until I am done” she always knew me too well. “Tyee, your father is a man who loves in private, believe me when he says he loves me. He did and in his own way, he still does; his moving on and finding someone to share his burdens does not tarnish the love he has for me; it does not make it any less. The same is true for you, he loves you more than you think, I hear him pray my boy, the man prays to the Great Spirit for you, every day. He loves you, Tyee. Take my word for it” Suffice it to say that the effect of these words on me is hard to describe. I weep like a baby, I feel like I have always known all along that my Father loved me. It was easier to resent him than to accept his love and love him back. I was looking for confirmation, and this is it. My dead mother has reconciled me with my living Father. I look at her, tears in my own eyes; I gaze deeply upon her ears and see the similarity between ours. It’s fascinating; the only difference is the love hers radiate. She gazes fondly at me, caressing my cheek softly she says, “ You are going to be a fantastic young man Tyee” She says, “ There is so much that I want to say, but I will only say what’s most important. I love you Tyee, I always have and always will, know that when you look at the stars reflected in the river at night, I am there. When you hear the music of the night, I am with you. I am not dead, Son; I live in you. I love you.” With these words, my mother fades to nothing, and I am left hugging nothing but air. I weep not at losing her again but that I have found her, found her in me, and I know I will never lose her again. I see a door at the edge of the cavern and step through it. I find myself at the summit, a few steps away from the edge. I step to the very edge and peer over it, a yawning chasm with a drop that I don’t see at the bottom greets me.

The cool night air feels perfect against my sin, I no longer feel the throb of the cut on my hand. As I look over the edge, the words of my Mother come to my mind. Listen to the Music of the Night, she had said; I kneel and listen intently; I hear the song of a songbird and the sound of the wind blowing through the grass. I hear the creaking of insects and the shifting of the hill, suddenly there’s another sound that enters my ears; it is faint and muffled like it’s coming from a distance afar. I strain my ears and try to key in on the sound. I struggle. There is resistance, something that seems to be blocking my ability to hear it. I get closer to the edge, and that seems to do it. It gets a little clearer. The voice seems to be saying a couple of words that do not sound coherent to me right now. I step closer and closer to the edge until I’m in a rather precarious position, almost hanging off the edge. I wait and wait. Waiting to hear a voice that you know is important is a rather frustrating thing to do. It tests your patience and resolves, I wait still, and then slowly the voice gets clearer. It increases in clarity until I can understand it perfectly. “Singing River,” it says over and over. Singing River, what could that mean, and then it strikes almost suddenly, That is my secret name! I jump to my feet in elation and scream Singing River, I know who I am!! I know who I am. I scream into the night sky, I hear an echo back, “Singing River” You are steady and powerful. Your song will be heard and praised. You will be firm and steadfast. Hear your destiny Tyee Singing River. Your voice will flow, silent but powerful.

I am left dumbstruck by this. The voice in the skies has left me shaken, the voices cut me to the very core, I feel like I have been opened up and sewed up back again, I feel a lightness greater than the one I felt before. I can feel myself healing, I literally can; it feels like the blood flowing in my veins is changing like my veins are being removed and laid out again. I finally have an anchor tethering me to the world. I feel like I have substance like I weigh something like I am solid. It feels good to feel linked to this world. It’s a feeling that I can learn to appreciate. As I bask in this newfound feeling of solidness, I once again feel my vision go black and I fade and find myself falling to the ground.

“He wakes” I wake up to a clamor of noise and the rapid movement of feet. I see the face of my Father. He looks concerned; I sit up on my arms and see a multitude gathering around me. The Peace Chief steps up to me “ Son, have the Ancestors spoken to you” he asks me “ Yes, they have,” I reply, “ What is your secret name Tyee” he asks “ Singing River” I say; he turns to the crowd and says “ The Ancestors have spoken: Singing River is his name”, the crowd goes wild, and I rise to my feet and tell the crowd to be silent. I regale them with the details of my dream; they are hanging on to my every word; the same villagers who looked at me with doubt and confusion now are awestruck; the confidence coursing in my veins is new and intoxicating. I finally feel like I belong. I know my place, and I Know what to do and who I am, and who I am going to be; the high that this certainly gives me is better than anything I have ever had before. As I finish talking, the crowd then erupts and carries me on their shoulders, I feel tethered to this world, something to hold me in place.

The crowd takes me to Father’s tepee where he waits for me. His eyes are shifting; he does not know what to expect. We have not spoken since I unleashed my series of insults on him. I walk up to my bull of a father and hug him, I can see in his eyes that he is stunned, but he leans in and hugs me back. It feels like I am a child again, wrapped in the burly arms of my father, I feel safe and protected. “Father I didn’t really mean what I said, I didn’t know any better; I was a brat who was not sure of myself but now I am, I know who I am. I know who I want to be. I know you loved Mom, and you still do in your own way. I will make you and her proud, I will live to be a man my baby brother will be proud of”. For the second time in as many days, I have reduced my stoic Father to a mess, but this time it is in a good way. My words have touched him I can tell; eyes welling up he says to me “Tyee Singing River, I see you”, this is a saying that conveys utmost pride in our people. To hear him say that means so much to me. I feel tears streaming down my face as I say, “And I see you, Father” We bask in the light of our newfound relationship. “Can I hold my baby brother?” I ask him. “Of course,” he replies.

I hold him and walk to the river; as I look at the kid I am holding, I can’t believe I have ever held resentment towards this kid; I show him the river and say to him, “ Little One, I bequeath you the ability to hear the Music of the River and the Music of the night, may it take you to all the places you need to be. I hold him out to the river and say a silent prayer to the Great Spirit and to Mother that this Child will find his way just like I did. I turn around and find Father looking at me, I can feel his sense of pride even at a distance. I feel happy to share my sacred place with this child; he will hear the music, and I will make sure of it. The river will sing, and the song will be heard.

By Jeffrey R Sumarajan