The Return of Life & We Are All One
by Grandmother Waynonaha
Author of Voices: A Collection of Native American Stories
I walked in the deep woods today and looked for new plants and sweet, early mushrooms. The maples shed their cocoons and drop the yellow lacy skins to the ground. 
The floor of the woods is full of silent growing things. I feel the stillness as if something is being born again. The first moments of breath held before a cry of life is heard.
I sit down in wonder on an old mossy log and listen to soft insects flying and talking. Small shadows peek in and out of the ancient tree roots. The wee people whisper and laugh at this old woman sitting here. A gray squirrel digs frantically in the wet earth, looking for last winter’s nuts. He stops and looks at me as if to say, "Do you remember where I put that nut?" I have no answer for him except to offer a piece of bread. He greedily grabs it and runs up the tree, never looking back.
Rich smells come from the damp earth and surround my place on the log. For a moment, a feeling of comfort, like one you have when you smell a pot of soup cooking, comes over me. Small plant heads break soil and see, for the first time, the sun and sky. Sleepy insects wake from their long winter’s nap. Butterflies slip in and out of the trees, seeking kindred spirits. Birds call in the still-bare branches as they find nesting spaces. The homecoming chatter between them like so many women reunited as they work to build their nests.
This is a homecoming, a reconnection of my body with the rich growing earth. The feeling spreads through my feet and travels up my winter-worn body. I feel my blood running through my body again as life returns.
Love, Waynonaha
Copyright (c) 2005 by Waynonaha Two Worlds
All publication rights reserved
We are all One
Within the Rainbow of all creation we are one. The Rainbow is the circle the sacred shape of harmony. All things are a circle, each thought, word, and action creates the circle. We live on the Mother Earth that is the shape of a circle. Grand Father Sun and Grand Mother Moon all held in the circle of Father sky. The within, the
within, the within. In the center of all this Creation is Mother Earth.
Unconditional love is granted to all things that live here on the Mother Earth. We are clothed and nourished, sheltered and given warmth here on this Earth Mother.
There is no discrimination as to race, color, political or religious beliefs. We are all one with the Earth. If one person or thing is in danger then we are all in danger. When one person is hungry, we are all hungry. When a race of people are persecuted and denied freedom, we are all evolved. The web of life that connects all things is also connected to each of us. When the web is whole and strong, so is the life force of all
things. When the web is weak, and lacking in support, the quality of life is weak.
Let us all take up the strand of the web that we have been given to hold. Together let us weave a better world for the children to come. To live in harmony the circle must be strong and good. There can be no place where truth is not spoken. Light is needed to create life and when truth is spoken there is light.
We gather here in this Sacred place of giving. We place words on a piece of paper; let us live those words we write and find the truth within all things. May Peace be whispered so softly by all living things, that it will be a great voice, heard around the world. Listen for it in the wind, hear it in the trees, feel it in your heart.
Truth is the source of living, Love is the place of giving, Peace is the product
of forgiving.
Written and placed in the Peace Scroll for the year 2000.
Mitakuye Oyasin,
Waynonaha Two Worlds
Copyright © 2000 by Waynonaha Two Worlds
All publication rights reserved
