Totem

The shaman says that all the world is balance and every creature has its place. I am still coming to understand mine. This once bothered me more than I’d like to admit. And, I envied those who seemed to know theirs. In those days I was quiet, but not yet as silent as the night. I heard, but had not yet learned to listen. I saw, but did not yet see.

I was small for my age and half-cast at that. So, I did not expect much from the ceremony. Perhaps, platypus would be my totem. Something as awkward and out of place as I was. I did not expect what would happen next.

I entered the shelter. Made from bent saplings and peeled bark, it was the largest on camp. It was the largest because this was where the shaman lived. We called him Kurdaitcha, and he was my grandfather.

I had spent the second half of my childhood here, among the Arrernte, in the Outback of North-Central Australia. But, the first part of my life was spent in America. In the place where my father had become a man. That was before mother died and father had become ill. He was now in Victoria suffering the last stages of tuberculosis. But before he was too ill to travel, he had taken me here.

He begged Kurdaitcha to take me. Saying that I was his daughter’s child, that they were her people, and that they were also mine. That was the last time I saw him. I was a child of two worlds. Children like me didn’t belong anywhere. That is what I told myself, and that is what I believed.

Kurdaitcha sat cross-legged at the back of his shelter. His eyes were shut, but he was not sleeping. He was deep in meditation and would not move, until the ancestors were done speaking. Totems were always given by the ancestors in this way. I sat in front of him and waited, knowing that he could not hear or sense my presence in dreamtime. I began to wonder how long he had been in this trance. I had not seen him for several days. Had he been dreaming that entire time? It would seem even the ancestors did not know where I belonged.

Finally, after it was dark and becoming cold, he opened his eyes. He did not speak as he walked past me, out of the shelter, and bent to start a fire. I stood and turned to him. After the fire was built and blazing, he rose from the embers and met my gaze.

“The spirits have spoken to me, “ he said. “And they have revealed to me your totem and your task. You will take this animal spirit with you and complete the task they have given. Once it is done, come back to me. Find me, and you will become a man.”

I waited, breath shaking for many minutes, until he finally spoke again.

“You are guided by the powerful owl.”

Owl? I thought. I had only seen one, a barn owl, on that farm across the oceans. But I had not seen one in my 7 years in this country.

“Your task is to find the powerful owl in the southern forest and receive its deepest wisdom. “

“How can I do this?” I asked. “How will I know the way?”

“It is not for me to say. Listen. Listen to all the spirits of the earth, sky, and souls past. They will show the way.”

I nodded.

He reached into the fire, extracting a large branch the size of his arm. With it he gestured across the night sky and used it to point dead south. Then he handed the branch to me.

“Go! Go now on walkabout.”

There was no time on walkabout, but two wets had past, before I reached the edge of the forest. I had crossed billabong, and rivers where crocodiles lay. I had learned to listen to the winds, follow kangaroo to water, and navigate the stars to walk by night. I learned to hunt the giant spider, snakes, and opossum; and, I was beginning to feel more owl than human.

Two moons had cycled in this forest, and I had not yet come across the powerful owl. I sat on the branch of a large tree, looking up at the silver, full moon. A glimmer caught my eye from above. I had learned in this time how to see without being seen, and my eyes studied the two smaller moons looking down on me. The owl!

It stared at me ominously. I stared back unafraid. From its gaze a wave of knowledge washed over me; And, I could hear its spirit in my mind.

“I am seen and unseen. The feared and the revered. I am everything and I am nothing. I belong to both the dark and light. I am the part of you that dreams. The part that guards you in the night. I do not understand myself and I do not understand you. But, I do know I have a place as all creatures do.”

When I found shaman two more wets had passed, and I had grown a beard. I kneeled down before him, and he leant me his ear.

“We are not meant to know our purpose. We are meant to live our lives.”