This is the kind of rain that says, “Give it up Chiquita, cause you’re not
going anywhere!” Mother Nature all ways treats me as a child; sixty-
eight years; almost meaningless from her perspective. Perhaps six-
hundred and eighty would make an impression. Sixty-eight barely
qualifies me as an elder in human terms.

It feels so refreshing to just sit in Quietude, listening to the rain, driven
to madness by the unrelenting pre-hurricane winds; while Starfish snores
blissfully at my side. Being quiet is a valorous pursuit, a noble
occupation; which precedes great acts of creativity. Out of seeming
nothingness the divine speaks directly to those with ears and heart to
hear. To those who would lend their own opposable thumbs and loving
hands to Grand Father Coyote in pursuit of holy madness.

I once had a husband who was driven to unholy madness, when I
informed him that it was a very well-known fact that artists are required
to immerse themselves in the Great Sea of Nothingness for extended
periods to access the creative spirit to a truly noble degree.
Unfortunately, something which appeared to him, a non-creative; as
sloven, unproductive laziness. He wanted to choak the creativity out of
me. He tried many tactics of amercement; none of which had the desired
effect. Alas, I vanished into the Great Sea of Nothingness, only to
resurface, in dew time*, as a newly minted member of the Mersquatch
tribe, here along a most magical, mystical and productively moist yet
rugged edge, abutting the Sea.

We dwell here, the Mersquatch Tribe; our numbers far greater than any
man can ever know. We recognize each other by the forbidden fruits of
our joyous labors. We speak in a mystical language they have not the
ears to hear. Our language is capable of giving birth to life its self. Our
passion is born of the stormy Sea that gave birth to Laxshmi: the
patroness of our tribe. We walk the Earth, all the while, simultaneously
swimming within the Great Sea of Nothingness. For us, this is as natural
as drawing breath: for we are sparkling chips of black obsidian, fallen to
Earth from the great void of nothingness. We may choose to divorce
ourselves from a man now and again; but we are inseparable from the
Great Mother. The Back Jaguar is our traveling companion: always the
tip of her tail flicks in our consciousness showing us the way. She is the
spiritual embodiment of the mystery encoded into the spectacular
shimmering dragonesque scales of seaworthy armor of the Mersquatch
Tribe.

This is the attitude that elevates us from drowning in hope, to swimming
effortlessly in the cosmic knowing of our destiny. We are the future of
humanity. We are the ones who know the way. We are sparkling chips of
the great obsidian mirror in which humanity can see itself reflected in
the majesty of the divine: walking Mother Earth in grace and solidarity.

Cathie Jo AKA Shar Shk Buk, March 9 th . 2025

*“In dew time”: To arrive in the earliest of morning hours when moisture can still
be seen, having condensed on the surface of cool bodies at night.