In each story, there sits a small gem of fear inside the one who tells it.  Have they wandered too far down the path, worn out their welcome, told too much?  If they are speaking out to the wind, is the wind still listening?  Are there ears out there to hear?  Stories are living things; they exist to be told over and over, in 10,000 ways, across 10,000 tongues.

I sit under a peculiar alchemy of fire radiating from the earth across which the lightning moves, invoked by the flow of water.  But in my head, I am sitting by a fire, the lodge -- the womb of the Mother -- waits and the hot stones are having their sweat and my uncle says again and again "There are 4 ways, there are 4 ways, there are 4 ways."

I am older than I once was.  I look around me and I see the strengths of the world, the threads of narrative that present themselves, the songs that come all the way from Deepwaters to now.  I sit under an Owl Moon, under Her watchful eye, in the land once known as the Land of the Lady of White Waters, now dry and hot since the Lost Ones swarmed here like a group of intoxicated ants.  I sit here and I tell stories.

I'm sitting here in silence but I have a story to tell.  It may not be your story.  We are the 10,000 Ways and we have many ways of speaking.  But this is one way.  It's hidden in what I was told, in what I've seen, in where I've been, but it's still there.

The Ishmael Houston group will be going to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to see a special exhibit entitled: "Frogs: A Chorus of Colors". These are various species of live frogs in a specially designed habitat. You actually get to walk through and see them up close.  http://www.hmns.org/exhibits/special_exhibits/frogs.asp