Who am I? Who... am... I ! Hmmm this was an assignment of sorts.. a promise I once again embarked upon with the absolute determination to finish it. So here goes.
I long to be happy. I want to be one of the happiest people in the entire world. I also desire meaning in life. I am looking for answers to the questions:
"Who am I?"
"Why in the world am I here?"
"Where am I going?"
More than that, I also long to be free. I want to be one of the freest people in the whole world. Freedom to me is not simply doing what you want to do... anyone can do that. Freedom, for me, means having the power to do what you know you ought to do. Most people know what they ought to do but don't have the power to do it. So I started looking for answers.
It seemed that almost everyone was into some sort of pleasing other people, so I did the obvious thing and tried that route. I must have made the attempt with the wrong person or people though, because it only made me feel worse. I sucked up and put on a happy face morning, noon and night, but it didn't help. I'm very practical, and when something doesn't work, I chuck it. So, I gave up being.. not me.
I began to wonder if prestige was the answer. Being a leader, accepting some cause, giving yourself to it, and being popular might do it, I thought. At the clan fires, the student healers held the purse strings and threw their weight around. So I resituated myself as their Elder and started to oversee some teachings. It was great having everyone know me and making the decisions. Yes... It was great, but it wore off like everything else I had tried. I would wake up in the morning ...usually with a headache because of the night before... and my attitude was, "Well, here goes another string of days." I endured hand after hand. Happiness revolved around three nights a week--when fun seemed to prevail more than a usual work duty hand. Then the vicious cycle began all over again.
During this time I noticed a small group of people. There was something different about their lives. They seemed to know why they believed what they believed. They also seemed to know where they were going.
The people I began to notice didn't just talk about love...they got involved. They seemed to be riding above the circumstances of life. While everyone else seemed under the pile, they appeared to have a content, peaceful state about them that wasn't driven by circumstances. They appeared to possess an inner, constant source of joy. They were disgustingly happy. They had something I didn't have.
Like the average Woman.. when somebody had something that I didnt... I wanted it. So, I decided to make friends with these intriguing people. Two hands after that decision we were all sitting around a camp fire when the conversation started to get around to the Sky and Spirits.
They were bothering me, so finally I looked over at one of the younger Women and said, "Tell me, what changed your lives? Why are your lives so different from the others around here?"
That young woman must have had a lot of conviction. She looked me straight in the eye and said three words I never thought I'd hear as part of a solution : "Bosk... Grass... and Sky"
I said, "Oh, for Skies sake, don't give me that garbage. I'm fed up with hearing that all the time. What do the Tuchuk have to do with your being happy???"
She shot back, "Hey, I didn't say the Tuchuk, I said The bosk.. the grass and the Sky." Wow..She pointed out something I'd never thought of before. There are probably more people around with this misconceptions about the Tuchuk. And here I thought.. that if these people had a brain cell it would die of loneliness. I didn't know any better.
But these people challenged me over and over. Finally, I accepted their challenge. I did it out of pride to refute them, thinking there were no facts. I assumed there wasn't any evidence a person could evaluate.
Whenever I was around those enthusiastic people, the conflict would begin. If you've ever been around happy people when you're miserable, you understand how they can bug you. They would be so happy and I would be so miserable that I'd literally get up and run right out of the fires. It came to the point where I'd go to bed early in the evening, and I wouldn't get to sleep until almost dawn. I knew I had to get it off my mind before I went out of my mind!
That night I spoke to the Elders that had passed about four things. First, I said, "Blessed Sky, thank you for watching over me and my family and for keeping those that have gone before us close to us." Second, I said, "I confess those things in my life that aren't pleasing to you and ask you to forgive me and cleanse me." Third, I said, "Right now, in the best way I know how, I open the door of my heart and life and trust you as my guide. Take control of my life. Change me from the inside out. Make me the type of person you created me to be." The last thing I said was, "Thank you for coming into my life by faith." It was a faith based not upon ignorance but upon the evidence of history of those created.
Another area that started to change was my bad temper. I used to blow my stack if somebody just looked at me cross-eyed. I still have the scars from fights and the consequenses my mouth got me into. My temper was such a part of me that I didn't try to consciously change it.
I'm sure you've heard various people talking about their personal bolt-of-lightning experience. Well, after I spoke to the Sky, nothing happened. And I mean nothing. I still didn't sprout wings. In fact, after I made that decision, I felt worse. I literally felt I was going to vomit. Oh, no, I thought, what did you get sucked into now? I really felt I'd gone off the deep end ...and I'm sure some people think I did!.
There's another area of which I'm not proud. But I mention it because a lot of people need to have the same change in their lives, and I found the source of change: a relationship with the Sky. That area is hatred. I had a lot of hatred in my life. It wasn't something outwardly manifested, but there was a kind of inward grinding. I was ticked off with people, with things, with issues.
So... who am I? I am all these things wrapped up in a tight package... and not that bad looking either. I am a Tuchuk.. a Tuchuk Woman. I am a Mother.. a Sister.. an Aunt.. I am also a Father. I am a friend.. a lover and a fighter. I am laughter and tears. I am sweet and unforgiving.
I am.. a daughter of the Sky.
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