Tales From The Great Beyond

PROLOGUE

As we are seated in the darkened theatre, we hear the sound of birds chirping, crows cawing, the rustle of wind in the grass.

On stage, we see the dimly lit interior of an Indian tipi.  A six-foot high liner forms a semi-circle on stage and is abundantly decorated with primitive drawings of animals and icons of an ancient culture.  A single door-flap is upstage center.  A stone fire-pit sits on the ground down-center, waiting to be kindled.  There is a sense that we are in a cave.  Above the liner, on a semi-circular rear projection screen, we see the dark panoramic silhouette of lodge poles, towering against a muted thalo sky.

The sound of birds gives way to crickets and frogs on a presumably nearby pond, and a solitary figure pushes through the door-flap.   He approaches the fire-pit,  kneels, removes a fire-drill from a beaded parfleche bag and starts the fire.  The flickering light from the fire-pit casts upward on the liner, giving the impression that the petroglyph images of birds and beasts behind him have suddenly sprung to life.

The man looks up at the audience and speaks …

SASHA,  THE  FIREKEEPER

Ho te.  I am Sasha, the fire-keeper.

I keep the fire.

I am here to guide you

and help the night transpire.

I know, more than most

that as timber is, so go its shavings and pain.

Large flames come from small sparks.

While little chips may kindle, big logs sustain. 

Tonight you will meet the Ancient Ones

and they will sing like nightingales.

Since every man is best interpreter of his own words,

each in turn will tell their tale.

The world's affairs are but a dream in spring.

Grief and joy, a revolving wheel.

The wisdom of the Ancients

will not mislead you, no matter what you feel.

The talker sows, the listener reaps.

Be patient and these words will find you fast.

But one log does not burn all night.

The more light it gives, the less long it lasts.

Let those who know the way then go first.

To begin is to be half-done.

If you don't go forward, you stay behind.

The ritual has begun.

Sasha reaches into his bag and throws something in the fire.  There is a flash from the pit.  Simultaneously, we hear a shriek and a STARK DRUMBEAT as the screens behind him explode with imagery.

 Media Segment:  As the chanting of many voices joins with the sound of a drum, we see a blur of color and feathers and skin on screen - a media enactment of a TRIBAL DANCE, long lost to the ages.

 After a moment, Sasha opens the door-flap and six of the tribal dancers we have seen on the screen make their entrance - four men and two women - chanting and filing clockwise around the fire-pit, cloaked in SKINS AND FURS, as if some kind of cave people.  

 While our Storytellers dance, they chant as a stark drumbeat provides meter

ALL

Men come and go, like waves in the sea,

but we are with you always,

as we will always be.

All streams empty into the river. 

All rivers run to the sea.

All things go round and round.

The first man's steps are a bridge for you and me.

STORYTELLER # 1

We are the mountains you climb ...

STORYTELLER # 2

... the wind that blows through your soul.

STORYTELLER # 3

We are the dew on the flower ...

SASHA,  THE  FIREKEEPER

 .... and the fire in the hole.

STORYTELLER #4

We are the shadows of clouds in the valley ...

STORYTELLER #5

... and the sap that flows through the tree.

STORYTELLER #6

We are you yourselves ...

ALL

 ... reflections of your destiny.

STORYTELLER #1

Old signs do not deceive.

The thaw reveals what’s been hidden under snow.

Let every man praise the bridge he passes

and see the water below.

STORYTELLER #2

Old rivers do not flow straight.

Every path has its right and wrong.

Those who dance are thought to be mad

by those who can’t hear the song.

STORYTELLER #3

A good drum does not need hard beating.

Men do not live strictly by chance.

Time echoes on forever.

As the drum pounds, so goes the dance.

STORYTELLER #4

You don’t love the sun more than the moon,

 or the music more than the drummer.

Ancient things haunt the ears.

Winter asks what you did in summer.

STORYTELLER #5

Not every question has an answer.

The water that flows in the streams

is the blood of our kin

and the stuff of your dreams.

Storyteller #6

A day is long, but a lifetime short.

Who honors not age is hard.

Birds have nests, men have ancestors

and every pot its shard

SASHA,  THE  FIREKEEPER

It’s not only giants who do great things

or small men who have a petty past.

First fall the leaves, then the tree.

Time levels all things at last.

Little men may cast great shadows

and thread the needle’s eye.

But no man knows if he will see the morrow,

for even the most raging fire must die.

ALL

Men come and go, like waves in the sea,

but we are with you always,

as we will always be.

All streams empty into the river.                     

All rivers run to the sea.

All things go round and round.

The first man's steps are a bridge for you and me.

STORYTELLER # 1

We are the mountains you climb ...

STORYTELLER # 2

... the wind that blows through your soul.

STORYTELLER # 3

We are the dew on the flower ...

SASHA,  THE  FIREKEEPER

... and the fire in the hole.

STORYTELLER #4

We are the shadows of clouds in the valley ...

STORYTELLER #5

... and the sap that flows through the tree.

STORYTELLER #6

We are you yourselves ...

ALL

... reflections of your destiny.

A stark DRUMBEAT punctuates the silence.  SFX:  crackling fire

SASHA,  THE  FIREKEEPER

Settle now and hear the story.

Listen while you may

about a tribe from the Great Beyond,

an ancient clan from another day.

But be forewarned:

Alive or dead, men will be men.

Each tale runs as it pleases the teller …

until the fire is kindled again.

As the Storytellers settle back to warm their hands by the fire, the lights dim and the wispy sound of a solo flute perfumes the air.

IMAGES OF NATURE appear on screen above them, dissolving gently from one season to the next in gauzy succession.  We are transported from autumn to summer, to spring and then winter, cycling several times in reverse, symbolically taking us farther and farther back in time.

We find ourselves at last surrounded by the unforgiving winterscape of the primeval earth.  SFX:  coyote in the distance.  Meanwhile, on stage, as a cold wind whistles through the lodge, the screen slowly goes dark and the first Storyteller rises to speak.  As each Storyteller tells his or her tale, the NAME OF THE CHARACTER they are portraying is spelled out on the tipi screens behind them …

MOURNING  BEAR

I am Mourning Bear, the pathfinder,

from the Clan of the Fallen Star.

Let not my speed deceive you.

The slow gait of a turtle takes him far.

I was first to cross the land bridge

to see the Great Unknown with my two eyes.

Many can brook the weather who love not the elements.

The wind in a man's face makes him wise.

But bad beginnings make bad ends.

There are things no man can know.

Every mile is two in winter

when a pregnant wife wants toasted snow.

The afternoon knows what morning never suspected

and by sunset,  no medicine is right.

She died in childbirth, screeching like a gut-shot deer

and passed to the other side as dusk sired the night.

Little sorrows are loud,

big ones, silent and alone.

I journeyed on to discover another clan from the south

had already been and gone.

Seeing this, my heart grew weary

and burst in the shadow of their adobe huts.

In life I said he who stays in the valley will never get over the hill.

But here in the Great Beyond, that’s only true somewhat.

Between saying and doing, there is a great distance

and untold men in the grass.

Mock not the fallen, for slippery

is the path on which we all must pass.

Feet  Near  Fire

I am Feet Near Fire,

wife of Mourning Bear, the Pathfinder ...

Though in life we shared the same bed,

we dreamed of different things.

He of a world that was his home.

Me, a home that is my world is what makes me sing.

As water lends itself to the shape of the vessel,

so a woman assumes her husband’s defense -

even though she knows full well that one

cannot live with another's common sense.

But a bird never flies so high

that it doesn't come down for food.

When he asked me at evening meal

to join him on his quest so shrewd,

I only mildly resisted,

like a leaf receives the dew.

Half an answer says something.

No answer is an answer too.

That night we coupled

and consummated his resolve.

As the pine endures frost and snow,

I thought, so love can hardship dissolve.

So we set off in search of his Great Unknown

as my body grew heavy with child.

On a long journey, even a feather's a burden

when the seed inside grows wild.

In the ninth moon, I got cold and sick

and we withdrew into a cave.

He did what he could, even gave me his robe,

but my life no man could save.

A woman without a home

is a bird in a storm, clinging to the branch of a tree.

A thorn comes into the world point first.

Childbirth is the tomb of love once free.

I wish I had followed my instincts

and not surrendered to his quest so great.

When the wind blows, it enters every crevice.

If a thing is done, wishes are too late.

the  unborn

Being born when times are hard

is like punishment before the crime.

Life is a bubble on a stream

that may vanish at any time.

But daylight peeps through the smallest crack.

No, no, I refused to leave.

It was so warm inside

and I did not want my parents to grieve.

The cold had done its damage.

Without fingers, a hand is a spoon,

and on a trek to my father's Great Unknown

toeless feet can only bring bad fortune.

Better unborn than burdened from the start.

It was my choice and my choice only.

Every why has its own wherefore.

An unborn's life can be lonely.

The hardest thing is to do nothing at all.

Too much hope deceives they say.

But if Today will not, Tomorrow might.

Never is an endless day.

The bird seeks the tree, not the tree the bird -

each must recognize its worth.

If one has not found the other,

there's no sense in taking birth.

 A thorn comes into the world point-first, she said.

Before one replies, one must be present.

While a thorn in her side I would have been,

it would have been as pointless as fins on a pheasant.

The tiniest murderer, then, it is my fate.

Born or not, we are all like no other.

A big fly rips apart the spider's web.

I'll walk among the stars with my mother.

Who comes unwelcome, departs unthanked.

Ah, world, we all take our stands.

Such welcome, such farewell.

Beginning and end, shake hands.

SASHA,  THE  FIREKEEPER

 I think you can see where we're going

with this journey to the past.

We're poking at other men's ashes

to reveal their fire at last.

Nothing is new under the sun,

a myth to which some would like to halt.

He is wise enough who keeps himself warm

but when a wife is cold, it's still her husband's fault.

At birth we bring nothing,

at death we take nothing away.

We do not live in the forest

to have the owl keep us at bay.

Only in dreams are mice big as bears.

As grass cannot grow in the sky,

the crow does not lay a dove's eggs

or tell us the reason why.

It's a great journey to world's end,

a lesson we hope you've found.

But it's too late to throw water on cinders

when the lodge has burned to the ground.

When a man is chilled, he thinks all the same,

flame alone will not re-kindle the fire.

Yet from a single spark, the forest is consumed.

As we all live, so shall we all expire.

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