She had always been a curious girl – curious to others because she was curious about everything in the world around her.

In her side vision she sometimes saw a flash of light, the way you see but don’t see a mouse running along the baseboards. But the flash she saw was the same height as herself, and the same colors. Once she caught a sound, like a word almost. Her curiosity was piqued, she was on the look out. Somehow she knew in her heart that she’d have to relax her focus to see what this was. And she needed to learn how to do that, so whenever she had time away from chores and learning she put her self to the task of relaxing her focus. That’s not what she called it. She called it learning to see.

She could be found sitting perfectly still, eyes mid-level, half closed, her gaze softly resting just in front of her. At first she could only do it for minutes, but with practice she’ll learn to do it for an entire hour. And intermittently throughout the day.

She made her body heavy and strong like a mountain; she listened to the sound of her own soft breathing. And she waited. It wasn’t long before someone must have heard about her efforts. Sure enough, like forest animals, they began to approach her, one at a time, at first on the side, then right in front, then right in her gaze.

She was aware of them, but didn’t change her breath, her quiet sitting, her soft gaze. They began to trust her, and soon came closer – no longer single scouts but in groups or packs. They came and sat with her in her stillness. Her curiosity had led her to this meeting, but it was also something they had been yearning to complete as well.

In fact, they had called her, had intrigued her with sightings, and now were waiting, just as she was, for the next steps in this inter-dimensional dance. One by one they introduced themselves to her, and she acknowledged them in thought. Somehow she knew that if she moved or changed anything in the physical world they would be destabilized and disappear. It was a very gentle pas de deux.

People sometimes saw her sitting quietly and thought she was a curious girl, but no one bothered her or interfered. As long as her chores were done there was nothing to complain about. Her life was not their business, for they were absorbed in the activities of daily living, and that was a hard life by and large.

Her curiosity was really a thirst for learning, coupled with an understanding that she must prepare to leave this home and explore. Discovery. One long braid down her back carried all her life history.

When she cut it off years later, she kept the braid in a long pouch. By then she learned to read it and to hear its notation. The strongest heart strings were fewer compared with one strand of this braid. But no one else could hear these tunes, this symphony. So she told and sang it from time to time.

Almost as soon as she opened the pouch, describing in poetry what tales it contained, her listeners were moved to tears. Put it back they said. It is too strong for us. It is too much. Some ran from the room. So she kept out one small strand, wound in a visible glass lozenge that was part of a golden-work locket. This they could take. And a sweet single melody of heart’s longing for something anyone could understand.

At night from time to time, she opened the pouch for herself only, and laid out the long braid upon her bed. It was tied with white ribbon on one end and black ribbon on the other. The pouch of purple velvet had the shape of a lightning bolt appliquéd on it. This pouch had been given to her by a medicine healer. For years he had used it to carry his sacred tobacco for offerings and ceremonies. He understood that when she cut off her braid she was performing an ancient offering, and to honour that he offered her the bag to hold the braid.

“It is no longer part of you, but it holds your stories and the history of those people and places. So you can honour them, and the girl you once were, by keeping this memory braid in a ceremonial pouch.”

For he’d seen her looking lost, the braid was an umbilical link to her past, it was a protector of her spine and it mimicked her spine. Seen cut and tied lying flat on the bed, it looked like a captive dragon or a great snake. Or like the spine had been pulled out of her body and laid out on the white bed to be examined.

She laid down on the bed, beside it, humming and singing to it as she slept in and out of dreaming. She stroked it, but only very softly. She curled it back into its spiral, and returned it to its pouch.

“Thank you, life,” she whispered.