He tumbled within through the rapid White Water of Turmoil. The river bottom beckoned and he let himself be taken, not wanting to live any longer in such a world of war. When at last he touched the muddy bottom and his lungs filled with water he bobbed to the surface of another river, a river that flowed upward and inward; the River of Ghosts. He turned his great square head to look downriver-which was here upward but yet down—toward the RiverSky Falls, sparkling with radiant welcome. He could hear the great matted strands of his ages-old hair slap the surface of the water. He turned to look upriver and saw a canoe gliding slowly toward him, listing to one side.

He then looked beyond and could see faintly in the distance a canoe half in the Realm of Ghosts but yet still in the Realm of Sorrow. Two fearful souls cowered in either end of the canoe. Standing above them was Mother Moon’s ever-slaying son. Beneath this stark being sat Boy-Who-Brings-Hope, radiant with repose, glowing with the Oneness, reaching out with his spirit to those slain in the canoe.

I see my boy. You are bound now to this material Oneness. I shall ghost walk for you. Be at peace.

He was perhaps a bowshot from the gliding canoe so he thought he should swim to it. Then it occurred to him that he stood on the river bottom, so he walked to the tiny conveyance and held it gently between his hands. Within were three ghosts and a man who yet clung to life with an arrow through his right lung. They all looked up at him and asked in their squeaky little voices, “Grandfather have we come?”

When he responded the river water itself trembled at the timbre of his voice, “I am He-Who-Makes-Rivers your guide beyond and within. Would you ascend the Starlit Path?”

The ghosts squeaked in unison, “Oh yes Master of Life, let us ascend.”

The man though was strong, filled with purpose, and held his ghost within. He snarled to himself and looked longingly at the riverbank and the Realm of Sorrow there. The remnants of his man’s spirit and a memory of the doing of deeds caused him to have pity upon this struggling man. He reached out and removed the arrow from his chest, as he had once often done as a healer of men. He then plucked the cringing man from the canoe and reached out to the riverbank, with an arm longer than a birch was tall, and laid the man there to confront his sorrows.

The man looked up into his eyes and croaked, “Mighty Elder I am Possum-Foot and I thank you. What is it that you would ask of me in order that I may receive your grace when my time has come?”

He-Who-Makes-Rivers pointed upriver to the mist shrouded canoe within which stood the man-of-menace and sat the Boy-Who-Brings-Hope, “Remember my son, Three-Rivers, that he sent me for you, and forgive the cruelty of his pet demon. They but seek their way among many and it is difficult. May your sorrows be few and brief.”

He returned to his task and waded downriver, upward toward the BlueSky Falls with the ghost-canoe in his wake…