Land, Sky & Sea: The Necklace and The Comb
A FILIPINO CREATION TALE
Originating (and expanded upon) from the island of Mindanao
Many moons ago in a time long forgotten, the first people of the land shared noble kinship with the whales of the sea. These were the days when the islands were untouched and pristine, and the sky hung so low that the people could easily reach the stars.
It’s said that each time the whales would surface, their joyful stirrings would splash the clouds above, providing rain and water for all to thrive. Liquid pillars of life, connecting all shamanic worlds; upper, middle and lower.
One day, a woman went out into the field to pound her rice. She had no children of her own, no husband to cook for, and not much to tend to but the long abundant tassels of her simple needs and the beautiful wrinkled skin of her daily happenings.
What a delight it was to spin thread and yarn; to be amongst the sunkissed grass preparing grains.
As she filled her basket, her offerings of prayer and song drifted across the countryside, like a reed flute and full heart on gentle breeze. The dried carabao hide she placed on the soil was soft, pliable, weathered, strong. Well-worn. Like her hands that layed out the pestle as she prepared to pound the rice.
Before she began, she carefully removed the whale-tooth beads suspended around her neck, and the whale-bone comb nestled in her hair.
Legend says that it was great whale spirit herself that had given her these talismans. She tugged her teeth and removed the bone from her very own tail, sanctifying connection between those on the land and those in the sea.
Holding them in her hand she motioned to each direction, and placed them neatly, delicately, on one of the clouds, perched right there above her head. She whispered a prayer in a foreign tongue long forgotten; words that make us lonely in our whole body, just to hear them one more time.
The woman grabbed her pestle and began to grind, crunch, crumble, crush.
Tough grain this was.
Each time she raised the pestle up to pound the rice, she lifted a little higher, and a little higher. And wouldn’t you know it, with those last remaining grains ready to be crushed, she raised the pestle so high that she struck the firmament above.
Thunder gods roared. Lightning flashed. The blue dome rocketed into the vast heavens.
In an instant, all the clouds followed, their earthly shadows shrinking as they rose higher in the sky. The woman’s heart sunk in her chest as she watched her sacred jewelry, flung far beyond her reach into new and mysterious domains. Never did her talismans come back down.
With a heavy heart, she finished her tasks and returned to her hut where land met sea.
Evening came.
The faint glow of something strange, but strangely familiar, glimmered on water’s edge, calling her out into the twilight. She arose from bed, curiously, cautiously, and with her first step outside, her mouth fell agape.
Right there in absolute wonderment, stood a woman, beside her hut, the gentle lapping of waves on seashore, a warm easterly breeze caressing her bare skin as her eyes looked up in astonishment. For it was in that moment, that she gazed upon the dark cloak of night: her whale-bone comb had become the milky radiance of crescent moon, and her whale-tooth necklace, had scattered in the sky as the shimmering of stars.
A new dreaming was born.
Land, sky and sea - etched into the stars.
As time would have it, many of these old creation stories were passed on from generation to generation.
Some stories were forgotten. Some adapted to new times and new places. Some were waiting patiently in the clouds, waiting for the winds of time to carry them back down to the earth. Some were buried deep in the chambers of haunting whale bellow, echoing across fathomless seas.
Though many moons have passed, the way this story goes, is that even today, the whales still remember the sacred connection between land, sky and sea; their eerie songs of distant times offering notes of remembrance, if only we ourselves look above and below, within and without, may we gain a glimmer of memory of these ancient times long forgotten.
