Ceremony and ritual

" We live in a world that defines “story” as something solely of human making; an invention that defines us apart from the rest of the living beings of this planet. But what if story is really the thing that weaves us back in, and always has been? All the wise old cultures of this earth call stories medicine." As Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko writes in her wonderful novel Ceremony

"You have great friends," over her shoulders the old man read the email, muttering something else his commentary trailed into morning as the kettle hollered. The email included a sentiment Sophie believed more and more each day: stories are medicine. She was nearly seventy, and the good friend who sent the message had watched and read every story she'd written before and after the Career Years of Sophie Lei Makue's corporate life. The Old Man had the kettle of boiling water flowing into his first cup of the day. He wasn't a big tea drinker preferring instead the simple heat of a clear cup of water.

"What was it you said dear? I have great friends and then ...?" The space between their questions and answers was stretching with the years. There was less of a rush, most of the time, to fill in or answer for the other. There was a sense of accepting the wait, and that was new.

"Ahh. What did I say?" they both laughed at the blip in memory, like a scratch in old vinyl. Sophie waited. "Oh I said, you're lucky to have friends who know you know and knew you when you lead the way as a woman in business. A brown woman in a world of white men ... with ties." The Old Man's enthusiasm tweaked his gray eyes with sparks, and straightened his bent shoulders more than a tad.

"Geez, you said all of that in that stream of mutterings. I'd better pay more attention." These sorts of deeply revealing conversations were often the ones the two old people had in the dark when they lay beside one another in the quiet of their bedroom. The quality of telling was blessed by the dark and threads connected like a spider doing what she did best.

"I actually try to forget about those years. Success came with such a price." It was a sappy thing to say. Well, it was what she did and then she was worn out and so was the marriage that put her on a jet plane at twenty-five to start life away from the Valley. "And, the thing about that choice to try to forget about those years? It's tougher to get over that habit of valuing myself only when I'm earning the big dollars."

The couple had twenty years together, years that began at the tail end of those high-earning corporate years. The Old Man was witness to the charisma of Sophie Lei Makue in action. He remembered. "She does fly," was a common descriptor for her in those days. "I don't exactly know how she does it, and when I ask for explanation about it she's goes oyster on me."

"Do you remember how I used to say, 'She does fly!" The Old Man was dunking a bread and banana sandwich into the mug of hot water. Before Sophie could answer the wind which had been obviously somewhere else all morning was back and creating a wind dance in the treetops.

"It's a Kapu Po, moving from Hua to Akua. The Elementals are demanding their due." That was the thing had slowly yet deeply and completely made its presence known in their lives since the fire of those years of public life started winding down. What was valuable once, was being replace with a different currency. Ceremony and ritual was retooling the native fern. Spirit and Faith was as strong as Dandelion when it came to cracking life up.

So the timing tracked by the Goddess Mahina was moving water for both the old people. Sophie Lei was remembering her dreams again, and the Old Man was glad. "Ma came to visit last night. She brought me underwear." The Old Man laughed. "Does she know you don't wear any these days?"

Now Sophie was giggling, "I thanked her anyway."

"Right, ghosts don't stop doing what they did while they carried flesh and bones." The Old Man dunked another bit of bread and banana. Like ritual, he could count on it.


And then this happened.