Catching Shadows started as a poem... But it evolved... Obviously. I wrote night and day for nearly a year until I felt like it was finished. But then, I realized it called for more; so I wrote the second part... The Road to Justice. Now, in 2023 I'm forming part three... Working Title - The Star Gazer
Catching Shadows Introduction
Catching Shadows is a fantasy story_ not history, it’s a fictional narrative. A story of a mythical clan who lived perhaps in a familiar place in a time reference from 1800-1900. The story is told from a broad inclusive viewpoint and I invite you to think of possibilities instead of impossibilities; instead of thinking this could not have happened; say perhaps it could have.
Believe in magic: Catching Shadows is a sequence of interconnecting stories centering around the lives of the Shamans, Tel-ye-Moi, Wau-sepu, and Ynez, whose clan customs and culture were altered by several Anglos who appeared and settled within the clan. Anglos were later adopted by clan members because the clan saw their intentions were honorable.
The principal characters: Ke-ya-eteh, Tel-ye-Moi, Wau-sepu, and Ynez are multidimensional people. To me, they are as real as my friends and family in the reality of my current life. Each lived the same mundane life in much the same manner as you and I. Each attended to the same myriad of daily tasks of every householder.
They are charming wonderful people who spoke to me and gave me their blessings to write their stories and share their wisdom. Each character portrayed represents the dignity of humanity and an innocence that is disappearing almost without notice from the world.
Catching Shadows was created and woven from the images in my mind: raw images that seem to come from an ancient time and a faraway place. There was no attempt to make them something they cannot be. They exist because I gave them life. I heard them and saw their world. I hope you note the adaptability, cheerful disposition, independence, and industry of my friends who are the unseen faces of humanity. They lived quiet, simple lives following the Way.
Their faces show joy, loss, love, sadness, and serenity. And because I saw their shadowy lives and respected them, each character allowed me to experience their life and encouraged me to write of their lives, trusting that I would write with both tolerance and openness.
As I wrote I became each character I portrayed; as one of them, I mourned the loss of their innocence and trust when the madness forced them to abandon their homeland and seek sanctuary. I also experienced their love and passion for each other. Sometimes I could not touch their pain and left them as they were_ incomplete; simply because I lacked the skills to write about their grief and sorrow.
As you read Catching Shadows I hope the faces that I see are the same faces that stare out at you. I hope you see they lived in a time of innocence and trust; and lived in a familiar place. I hope you feel that sense of place. I hope you hear the wisdom of the Old-old ones; and sing the songs of O‘ri-Jah, who is the bearer of the Dreaming Wheel.
I hope you respond with kindness to same-gender lovers. I hope you sense the clan’s love of children. I hope it becomes apparent their lives were lived with dignity. Most of all, I hope you will remember their amazing ability to deal head-on with the madness that marched their way.
Representing the best of Anglo humanity are Ross Farmerly and John Ellis, two men, who by fate and choice came to sanctuary and stayed to help. The people were contrived from my imagination, and as the ‘Creator’ I gave the shaman a bit of ‘magic’ because Catching Shadows is the shaman’s work; work done within the realm of the imagination.
Many of the wisdom keepers of America's First Nation People say that ‘Anglos are long on knowledge but short on feeling’, they also say that ‘sharing breath is sharing life.’ Today I am mindful of their dynamic emotive way of believing, living, and thinking.
A personal experience - while the sky was dark and I was in a reflective state of awareness I unexpectedly experienced a spiritual communion when the form of the Grandfather Spirit came to me and breathed into me. The mental picture at this moment is still clear and vivid, and I still see the ‘Breath’ I see myself inhaling that ‘Breath’, and still recall the words spoken to me. Ever since the early morning experience I know that I am always connected to the divine source itself.
I feel that I, in some way contribute healing energies to restore balance to our ailing planet, After all, what good is our knowledge if we are not connected to our feelings?
The medicine’ happens in the silence --on a starry night; at sunrise, at noontime. The teacher appears in the swirl of the wind, but the student must be ready to transcend mundane thinking.
Rachel Wolff
2010
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