Of the sacred, II: trees

So my grandpa took the plum and gave it to his brother, and he ate it, and said: “Washtay, that’s really good.” And then he took the pipe and planted the pipe-stem, did the same thing, and put some tobacco over it, and that pipe-stem…that tree just bloomed, leaves just cropped out all over it, and there was a black cherry hanging there, it was a choke cherry. So my grandpa gave that choke cherry to his brother, and he ate it and blew the pit onto the ground. “Aah, very good.”

My grandmas were watching all this, and one of my grandmas picked up her moccasin and said, “Aaah, want some cherries, do you?” as if my grandpas were doing this to show their powers, and she was telling them, don’t do that! She threw her moccasin on the ground and an owl came up. It hopped around and flew in front of them, and started hooting whu whuwhuu, whu whuu.

My grandfathers looked at one another and said: “Hey, almost like our powers!” And they both started laughing, and that owl jumped down, and puffed itself up, and started hooting. So then my other grandma took her cane, she cried “Heeeeeee!” and threw it on the ground and it came out a rattlesnake. And it wasn’t just kind of a rattlesnake almost: boy, it really was a rattlesnake, and it coiled around the place. Boy, we bailed out.

Then my grandma reached over and took hold of that snake, and she took that cane and grabbed a hold of that owl by the neck, and pulled it back to her, and when it flopped down, when it landed, it was her sister’s moccasin, and she gave her sister her moccasin and put away her cane.

So that was my grandmas and grandpas. They had those powers, they knew that power was there. So I learned then there was a power in that pipe we hold, that the pipe could feed us. And he has been feeding us. There is no starvation, and we needn’t fear. That pipe represents the whole universe, and she can continue to multiply trees and plums and cherries.

That power of the Great Spirit is there, and those creatures can come from that pipe. Grandpa Great Spirit can do these things. From out of nowhere, he can do anything. I realized that.

A white man might think it was a bit of hocus pocus. Like a white man’s magician pulls a poor rabbit out of a hat, or a pigeon. But this is real. A tree comes up, and then it blooms, then it flowers, then it bears fruit. It’s a tree. And we are part of that tree. We absorb that fruit in our system, and we bear children, we bear fruit.

So that is an interpretation of the vision of the Tree of Life. That way my grandpa taught me.

**

Which reminds me (Exodus 7)…

And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you: then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent. And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the LORD had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

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