Spider Woman Speaks.......

It doesn't matter what you call me.
I've had a lot of names.
Bring your offerings if you wish.
I’ll give them to the Bird People,
to the Mouse People.

Listen,
I’ll tell you something.
Because you came here
with empty hands.
Your spirit has become woven into bad things.
It’ s time to weave a new story now.

Walk out into the desert
and sit beneath a cholla.
Notice the shapes of things:
A hawk against the sky,
the shape of the sky,
the shapes of shadows,
the shape
of your own shadows,

and cracks in the land
like a spider web,
full of light.

Take a deep breath
of the stories that live here.
Stories that wrap themselves
around old bones and pottery shards,
stories that howl at the moon,
fly with russet wings,
hide in the arroyo.
You say you can't see it.

Well, take a look around!

You don't need to climb a mountain
to get the big picture.
All of its snaking rivers

and twining roots
are inside of you.

All those threads

come right out of your hands
and out of your hearts
all those threads go on forever.

Into the Earth
and into each other,
into all your stories,
into everyone you'll ever know

into all those who came before you
and all those who will come after you

O, Mitakuye Oyasin.