The Gourd Keeper

Rebellious, eccentric, and imaginative Aquarians like myself buck against creative confines. Allow me to illustrate my point by spinning you this yarn:

On a rolling hill in northwest Florida, the brown edges of dry grass crackled beneath Cassidy’s feet. “We need rain.”

Her old friend, Willetta spat a stream of tobacco juice from the corner of her mouth and started toward the edge of the pasture. “You remember what I told you about the flood?”

“Of course I do,” Cassidy said.

She began retelling Willetta’s story of the day the sun, unwilling to give up her seat in the sky, wrestled with the moon. A brave warrior ended the battle by pulling a hide over the sun, and darkness coated the earth. Even then the sun’s heat clung to the air refusing to let go. The ground cracked with thirst. Plants withered. Leaves changed from green to gold and littered the ground beneath the trees. The banks of the river rose, and the riverbed became the ridged scales of a giant alligator lurking beneath the muck.

Cassidy pulled a tall shoot of Bahia grass and followed a couple of steps behind.

“The people begged,” she continued. “They danced. They offered everything they had to the stars. The Gourd Keeper sleeping in the heavens woke. Angered by their greedy voices, he rose from his bed, and stomped across the sky. The tremors of his steps rumbled through the clouds.

“He went to the head of the river and dumped the water from his gourd, pouring until the river burst and the riverbanks were swallowed up in a flood.”

Willetta nodded her head and motioned with her hand for Cassidy to continue.

“Water poured over the land. People fled to the highest hill, and those who couldn’t find room at the top were swallowed by the currents and swept away. Their cries for mercy were heard over the roar of the floodwaters.

“He looked down in satisfaction at his revenge until he caught the face of a child floating on her back in the racing water. No cries came from the little girl’s mouth. Her peacefulness stoked his curiosity. He lifted her and asked, ‘Why don’t you beg? Why don’t you scream?’

‘I have faith you have given me all that I deserve, and you will deliver me to the place I am meant to be,’ she said.

“Her innocence softened him. With a broad hand, he lifted the neck of the great gourd until it no longer tipped toward the earth, and the floodwaters settled between the river’s banks.

‘You have saved your people,’ he said. ‘You are the one they will wait for in their time of need. From this day forward, you are called Dawn. Your home is now in the heavens, but you are to visit your kinsmen at the beginning of each day. You bear the gift of proof that the earth and your people have been given a chance to begin again.”

Cassidy placed a hand on her old friend’s shoulder. “Did I get it right?”

Willetta grinned from ear to ear. “You tell it better’n I do.”

“I like that story. Now I’m going down to the creek to cool off. I have some things of my own to sort out.”

Willetta said. “Dawn will bring you what you need.”

She was right. Dawn always brings what you need. Maybe not today’s dawn. Maybe not tomorrow’s. But with timing we can’t predict, the dawn we each yearn for will arrive. Aquarians are eternally hopeful for the future, and seldom wrong. If you don’t believe me, just ask one of us.