Time and circumstances necessitated a separation between someone who seemed to want to be my friend, who surely acted like it at times, but who so deeply hurt me that it really isn't possible to repair the breach without a mighty effort - which I do not believe is desired.
I have another friend whose mother was an angel and made me be able to understand what motherly love is; and that dear-mother-to-me used to say, "never burn a bridge that safely carries you across." It is the memory of that quote that brings this blog to being.
With a touch of melancholy, the wind howling through my bedroom window reminds me of the one mentioned in the first paragraph of today's blog. From here I digress a moment: Her heritage is Norwegian and Native American (probably more as well; I just don't know). Mine is Swedish and Native American; yet I do know the other nationalities and cultures. I say "Native American" even though there is probably only one drop of blood in me that carries it. My parents never taught me the family history and the relatives we have. Why? Because one was a differing religion, others because of differences of opinion. Faulty reasoning of the parents. I found out that there was Native American ancestry in the family by accident: My grandmother 'spilled the beans' at a dinner one evening and the sudden hush and inhale told me that something very important, and a secret, had been revealed.
There is nothing more I will say about this except that through my association with the person mentioned in the first paragraph I learned some things about Native American Indian beliefs. She has chosen to accept no other heritage but her Native American ancestry. This is where the wind howling through my bedroom window comes in.
I used to feel eerily scared of the sound of the wind. Too much TV and a lot of movies had educated me to feel that such a sound means evil foreboding and scariness. Yet, I learned from that old friend that the wind is our "brother" - Brother Wind. As I slowly learned to accept that way of thinking, because I desired to, and to become re-educated to the point of including the natural world as a beautiful part of the whole, - that I am a part of it and that it speaks to me and I to it - I have come to love the singing of Brother Wind; and the songs comfort me because I do feel connected.
The Native American way is one of many countless cultures on the earth throughout history, and teaches good things learned from The Great Spirit.
My bridge of association with that old friend may grow a lot of moss and be overgrown from lack of use, but it can't be burned because I have been blessed, "safely carried across", by this alone. Wado
