All is Lost. All is Found

Before there was time and form, there was water, only water. Creator added dimension when He emerged from the original essence. The sky came into being, and the world was water and air. The first sound that began existence was from that moment; it sounded like the gentle splash of water lapping onto earth.

The Creator is everything and incomprehensible. After the beginning, Earth Doctor (“First Born”) arrived. Eventually, Earth Doctor rubbed the dirt and grease from his chest to start building the Earth. He enlisted the ants (“Pre-born”?) and made the “Greasewood” (creosote) to help him collect and create more land.

All was still in darkness, so Earth Doctor took some water and froze it into a disk. Earth Doctor then squeezed the disk until it ignited into the hottest fire and threw it into the sky. It kept falling back to him when he threw it - first into the north, then into the west, and then into the south. When he finally threw it the fourth time far into the east, it tried to fall back yet again but stayed aloft and rolled across the sky into the west. Darkness fell, but the Sun kept moving and returned in the morning.

With the light of day, Earth Doctor used the “shadow of his eye” to create another life for company and to help with the work he had started. Buzzard was “Second Born” and immediately went to work helping Earth Doctor fashion the earth. When the sun went down everyday, though, Buzzard was completely blind and was completely unable to complete any kind of task at all.

To alleviate the darkness of night, Earth Doctor took more water and froze another disk. The heat from the sun could get uncomfortable, so Earth Doctor kept the Moon cool and threw it into the sky. Again, he threw, this time the Moon and this time in a different order, starting in the south, then east, then north. On the fourth throw, the Sun was setting, and Earth Doctor did not want the Sun and Moon to end up always being in the same part of the sky, so He threw the Moon hard to the west to beat the approaching night. The Moon stayed in the sky but was attracted to the Sun, so she followed him in the sky, making good use of Earth Doctor’s powerful throw, but the throw was so great that the Moon was pushed fast through the sky and even past the Sun on her daily course.

The Sun and Moon were attracted to one another, however, and met once a month. They had a child - Coyote. Coyote joined Earth Doctor and Buzzard in the beginning of things, and it was Coyote, born of love between beings, rather than Earth Doctor’s magic, that recognized time and its consequences. What begins will ultimately end. (I like to think Coyote’s recognition of the finite is also the reason he does so much of what he does. Why be bored when we can have fun? Why be sad if we can find happiness? Why waste our time in despair when we can embrace hope?)

Once the hard work of initial earthly creation and the interplay of personalities was established, another arrived from the north. Se’ehe insisted on being called “Elder Brother” even though he was apparently younger than everyone else then alive, and he insisted on extra respect even though the most difficult work was already complete. (Personally, I feel Elder Brother is Creator who incarnated after seeing his creations successfully pass the trials of starting the world.)

From this cast of characters, Elder Brother Earth Doctor, the Ants, Creosote, Buzzard, and Coyote, all that we know, and can know, came to be.

However, before existence became a dramatic, often crushing, ideally full of joy, and sometimes illuminating state of being, there was water - the source of all life - and water will be there in the “Land Before the Sunrise” where the Sun and Moon found and elevated love, and where our eternal souls go when our earthly bodies finally fail.