Days and Days

So yesterday I was working on a project when all of a sudden, I thought – I have to put the car in the garage ---- now.  We’d been having rain showers for an hour or so.  Ten minutes later –

 Oh goodie – hail.

Fortunately it lasted only a short time.  Ten minutes after that – the clouds cleared up and we had a brilliant blue sky.  It clouded up again because …

This morning, a little after 5am, I heard the pitter-patter of rain.  Well, fine – I knew it was going to rain today.  Then the pitter-patter turned into huge-storm-pouring-down-rain with constant sheet lightening, the occasional bolt accompanied by a big blast of thunder.  Whoa.  The constant lightening was so impressive, I thought to take a picture.  Hard to do while in sleepware, surrounded by 2 uneasy cats, in the pouring down rain.  But, one minute it was dark.

Hard to tell but it is pouring rain.

The next, the world lit up.

When it finally got light enough to see, I noted that “Lake Wharton” was back across the street.

It passed us by 9:30 or so and I went out to check the yard.  No big branches down (thank the gods).  No squashed plants (also good).  Only one plant knocked over.  Rain gauge – 4 inches of rain.  Good, we needed the rain. 

Too wet to work outside.  A good day for a story -

In ancient times a young Papago (Tohono O’odham) woman met and married a Yaqui, and went to live with his family far away. The young woman’s mother, called Old White-Haired Woman, missed her daughter, and would go every night to the foothills to talk with her daughter’s spirit.

When her daughter’s spirit did not speak one night, Old White-Haired Woman knew her daughter needed her urgently. Old White-Haired Woman was very bent but she traveled quickly, helped by the “Little People” or animal spirits, who brought her food and sustained her along the way. When she finally reached her daughter, sadly she saw that her daughter was dying. The daughter in her last wish asked Old White-Haired Woman to take her son back to the Tohono O’odham, so he could grow into a gentle man instead of a fighting warrior in the Yaqui nation.

The old woman was tired but she knew she needed to help her daughter. She quietly placed her grandson in her daughter’s burden basket. Shouldering the basket, Old White-Haired Woman snuck out of the village that night, and began the long journey back to the Tohono O’odham.

But Yaqui warriors followed her. She struggled, falling and running as fast as she could with her grandchild. She was so old. The Little People or animal spirits of the coyote tried to help but it was not enough. Old White-Haired Woman called out to the Indian god I’itoi, as she struggled with her last breaths. The Indian god came and sent birds to blind the warriors. Old White-Haired Woman could not go on, and asked I’itoi to take the grandson back to her village. He granted her request saying “You stay here. I will carry the baby back to your people but while you sit here resting, you will be changed. Because of your bravery, your feet will become roots. Your tired old body will turn into branches. Each year, for one night only, you will become the most beautiful plant on the earth, a flower the Milgahn call the night blooming cereus, the Queen of the night.”

And, it happened just that way. Old White-Haired Woman turned into a plant the people call ho’ok-wah’o and one night in the summer, a beautiful scent fills the desert air and the Tohono O’odham know they are breathing in kok’oi’uw, Ghost Scent, and they remember a brave old woman who saved her grandson and brought him home.

29 Apr 2020