Of course there is a rule against throwing sand or any other material into another’s face but in this fight everything will be reduced to technicalities. There will be lawyers on both sides arguing the fine points of their idiotic arena fighting laws for months, perhaps even years, if any infraction is committed, or deemed to have been committed. All I know is, I have to remain within the letter of the law if I hope to demonstrate our power on that day. For us to make any impression; to leave any kind of message that can be heard, we cannot resort to subterfuge or cheating, even if we could get away with it.
And I cannot delay it any longer. I must speed up my Teaching.
End blog post #66
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Begin blog post #67
Chapter 29 – The Teaching Continues: Power in Simplicity
I call the women together, as many as I can without attracting too much attention and I make the boldest and craziest request of them I have ever imagined doing. I have to involve all of them in some way in this [coming fight: see last chapter] so that through me they will all be champions and winners in it. My intent is to create an opening in their mind for an awakening to a new level of power. They are a simple, child-like people. I have to ‘remember’ the simpler means used by the people of Old Earth to empower themselves and introduce those here carefully.
There is a way I learned on Old Earth that could unite them behind me. The ‘power of prayer’ as I remember it. I don’t remember it working to bring about what the prayer asked, of course – there may have been exceptions and I remember some people I truly respected testifying they had seen ‘miracles’ done as a result of prayer. But I am not superstitious and I will not jeopardize innocent minds with unverifiable stories.
What I do remember about prayer is that it brought people together to speak for a common goal. Yes, our Old Earth requests were made to Old Gods who were quite deaf, if not dead. But the words in the requests bound the people who prayed in a common circle of power. That is the binding these women need now. Time to go inside their hearts and their minds and re-create the human being in them.
“Listen,” I say to the nine women I have assembled to ostensibly demonstrate a new move with the double-edged battle axe. “You call me Desert Beast. You know is not quite true. I not be her, I be one of her girls. I too fly across skies to other worlds like her. I need you believe me now. This very important to all of us.
“I be Daughter of Great Desert Beast. She be Great Mother to all women and girl children. I want you make up words to Great Mother in Desert to help me. Make poison and cutting blade turn away from my skin in battle with evil Warmo. For this you make what is called prayer, meaning you ask her, all together but quietly – she has very good hearing if you speak of me – and must find same words for all fighters to talk to her. When she hear you ask, she give me power and protection. When I kill our enemy Warmo, she give all you the victory. In arena when fighting our enemy I represent all you. All us. Now all you have same power and same protection. She write down all your names in fire letters in sky boat where they written forever…”
“But we not have names…” Objects one of them. I continue to explain.
“Yes. You all have name. Think name and say name in prayer. Think name you know, you like for you: that be secret power woman name. Ask her, in my power woman name that is Antierra, then say your own secret name. She hear. She happy and she help us. Your prayer, it wake her up from bad sleep, from bad dream she be trapped in. Then she make sky boat fly again. When you look in sky, if you out here, look. If evil black metal birds that eat woman flesh not there, means Desert Beast sky boat coming to make new light; chase away evil black birds.
“One day, you see this. Now believe this. Always remember this, she your Great Mother, she be called a goddess. Never to tell men of this – is great woman secret – power is in secret. Never say to man you have goddess in heart. Never! They kill you, all you. If speak this, goddess leave again. Give no more power, no more help.
“Goddess, Great Desert Beast, she come down one day, she tell men herself. You be her people and one day she come, she take you to place where you find all your children, all lost, dead children taken and eaten by black metal men, she bring back to you. You happy then, forget bad things.
Again one of them interrupts, which is always a good thing; it shows they are intently listening and trying to understand the meaning of the worlds. “If believe this, how long we wait for goddess?”
“Always is long time from beginning to pray. So you not forget. Never forget. Always pray to goddess, every day. Teach young ones to pray. When dying, pray. Not be afraid. Not curse. Just pray, leave body, leave pain behind in dead body. Find new life in goddess.
“When I gone, dead in body, you pray. I not really dead. I come back. I teach more. This I give you to remember, to believe. This you not understand? No need. Just believe. If things bad, believe. If things good, believe. This is forever gift I give to all you. This you call real love. This when you die in body, you keep in woman mind.”
“What be mind?”
“Is like spirit. Ghost.”
There is a collective intake of breath. “Ah… we dead in body, we be ghost?”
“Yes.” I did not know these people had a remnant of superstition, nor did I realize they knew about ghosts. How stupid of me. With so many deaths here, how could there not be ghosts crowding these places not knowing yet where to go? These women see and sense the ghosts of their dead partners, friends, lovers about this place but never speak of them. It is forbidden and I’ve ignorantly opened another dangerous can of worms.
“Ghost is bad thing. Evil. We dead in body, we be evil things?”
“No!” I shake my head in frustration. “You be like ghost, not real ghost. You be you but no body. If you good, you good after die. If you bad, you still bad after die. Same you. That be mind, that be spirit. You with no body. But you free, not like ghost. Ghost cannot leave but you fly away in skies like Desert Beast. No need sky boat, just fly. See everything, free, free. No hurt. No hungry. No thirsty. Happy like little fish in big water. Swim in air, swim in water, swim inside sand, rock. Easy. That be spirit-mind you.” I wave the training battle axe I’m holding in my hand to emphasize the point. I stick its handle point hard into a crack in the stone, then I point it at the sky. Anything to create a visual memory for the Teaching. I almost wish I had the magic staff that split the rock or brought fire from the sky. Almost.
As I explain to them the rudiments of worship and its real purpose which at its core is always self-empowerment, I ask myself how much of what I teach I believe. But then, if you already know something to be true and real, you don’t have to believe in it. You never have to fear that you could be wrong about such a teaching. I have the experience of it and experience is the greatest of all teachers.
End blog post #67
~Burning Woman~ 