Once upon a time there lived a wee girl in the southern part of Chile. She could while away hours grinding up nuts, grasses and wildflowers with smooth river stones on the steps of the country church where her dad was the pastor. The sky and the fields were endless; the skirt of her dress was her basket; the stones were her pestle, and the tiles of the church step her mortar.
One day time entered her world, bringing with it many stories. Wheeeee… more things to love and explore, including– joy of all joys–a whole world of ideas, written words and language.
But with time also came along all manner of assumptions and expectations, and not far behind, beliefs.
Have you ever picked up a belief? Whoa. It can be a back-breaking thing, I tell you. Some beliefs are happy and those are all well and good while they last. But sometimes happy can go and turn on you, leaving you all, hunh? wha–? That wasn’t supposed to go and happen, now was it!
Except for the part where it did.
Over the years time’s bag got rather heavy for the girl. At some point the hard stuff got so cumbersome and awkward to carry she had to trade the little knapsack in for a suitcase. But oh her gosh! A suitcase of hard stuff and beliefs sure did make it hard to explore the sky and fields. And eventually, she totally forgot that she’d ever gathered the world in her skirt and made creations with river stones from grasses and wildflowers.
And one sad day it came to pass that she could move no further for the weight of her suitcase. It was so heavy she wanted it all to be over. But she couldn’t make life stop and it just wouldn’t come to an end, for all she thought she wanted it to.
And that’s a good thing. Because now, years later, with a still-biggish bag but no longer a suitcase, she loves nothing more than grinding up the hard of life—the stuff that makes her and people cry, the stuff that makes people say, “I can’t! I just can’t no more”—with the magics of the earth and the endlessness of the sky.
So that’s the story of how this girl grew up and how she started with this business of mixing up potions for people: all because she loves to and she knows how heavy the suitcase can get. Which is no way to live.
The End. Beginning.
Oh! Except for the part where one day an aardvark comes along to help her. But that’s another story.
