Strange Strawberry #3

“It was within the third generation of creation in which we, humans, learned illness amongst our people. Until then, Death only acted as a final arbiter of Life once the soul had accomplished what she was meant to do on Earth. The mechanism, the one that is often referred to as “old age” in your newspapers, was the body being released back to the Earth as we returned to the greater ether. While Death certainly collected final payment on those who died while feuding, this was an uncommon occurrence as conflict and war amongst the different people did not become known until the seventh generation of creation.

As we know now, and the people of previous ages were aware of, illness comes in the form of a life. Often, it will be the interaction between our bodies and some other body that produces an illness in us. To heal ourselves, we attempt to remove the offending form of life. Our shamans have used various ceremonies to communicate with these beings and ask them to leave, and even new religions, like the priests who have visited our lands for the previous twelve generations, have had their own attempts to communicate with them. For the shaman, it is the spirit that afflicts the individual, for a priest, it is a demon, and for doctors, it is a bacteria or virus.

The gods, while being pleased with the accidental creation of the grain people, became interested in their own affairs as two of the greater beings appeared to be in conflict. The god of Death was refusing to talk with his natural partner, the goddess of Life. While being each other’s partner in terms of their role amongst the universe, they were also intimately tied in the fabric of their existence. While, usually, they enjoyed the company of each other immensely, the friction of their roles had carried over into their relations as beings. Life had wanted to create a ‘watcher’ being on Earth to maintain a balance amongst the organisms, but to do this, the watcher would have to outlast all the other creatures on the earth and be able to exist through several generations. However, Death objected to this creation as it was his role to determine the natural cycle of creation, Life’s duty was to assign the purpose of all creation and to give it existence.

While seemingly a minor dispute, it erupted into a heated argument that left neither partner talking to the other one. Without this communication, new life was dying before its purpose could be carried out. In response to this, Life would create more beings to carry out their universal purpose – which would be killed prematurely by Death.

The other gods, seeing this as upsetting the established peace on Earth sought to get the two gods communicating again. The gods summoned the children of Life and Death, the spirits of Love and Fear, to help mediate the conflict between the couple and asked them to do what they could. Seeing as this was the first real conflict between the two who tied together, the spirits sought to visit Earth. Knowing that the grain people were all tied together in their creation, Love and Fear began to visit and study the people to see if there was a way to tie people together beyond their conflicts. While this may seem like a simple task, before the third generation, the grain people did not know either spirit.

It was with this first experience in which disease was first introduced into the grain people. The spirits noticed that while conflict could occur amongst various people, two polarizing experiences could bring them back together: the reminder of their mortality and the reminder of their life purpose. After an initial dispute occurred, Fear had brought illness and accident to one of the partners, and saw that the dispute was quickly forgotten. Love, on the other hand, created symbols of partnership (a daughter of these symbols is known to us as marriage) and food of arousal to the people, which also settled the disputes.

Fear and Love told the Gods of what they saw among the grain people, and the solution to the problem was quickly reached. Seeing as the gods did not want to know disease, they asked Love to bring all the foods of Love to the two partners for their next meal. Life and Death sat down to a feast of tomatoes, potatoes, bread, honey, and wine. When the meal was finished, the Life and Death became enamored again with their universal partner. This coupling resulted in a new offspring and a compromise to the feud, the pine tree. The pine is the watcher tree of Earth as it lasts through more generations than any other organism on the planet.

Seeing as conflict was becoming more common amongst the grain people as there were more children being created, Fear and Love continued to remind the people of Life and Death as a way to resolve their minor disputes. This caused the spirits to not only be children of the gods, but also active guardians of their creations. It is because of this initial interaction that we still know the two spirits, and who the shaman speaks to when she is attempting to cure illness. "

He empties his pipe out onto a clay plate as he breathes out the final lungful of smoke. My trance continues for a few moments as I think about the cancer research and testing we do on animals back at the university and try to ponder if the spirits of Fear is a metaphor for me and what necessary work I do to resolve the dispute between us and what I consider to be a great killer – or maybe he sees that my work as an unnecessary struggle against the inevitable. However, he does speak fondly of the shamans…

“I need to rest before the village returns from work,” he interrupts my thoughts. I thank him for the conversation and assure him that I will be back sooner, rather than later, as I exit the house. While it is a simple story, I feel there is something that I am missing as I walk towards my car to return to the city.