He who refuses correction is his own worst enemy, but he who heeds reproof learns sense.  Proverbs 15 verse 32

The Old Boots

My name is Wang.  My family live in the north of China.  You must remember that China is a huge country.  The North is very cold in winter.  We have to wear plenty of clothes to prevent frostbite.  When we go out we must put on several layers of clothing and we always wear headgear to cover our ears and necks as well as the top of our heads.  We also wear gloves and big fur lined boots.  These clothes, especially the boots are expensive and they get handed down to other children as we grow out of them.  Kid’s feet grow so quickly they soon grow out of their boots.  We do have a clever way of using socks so that boots can stay with their owner for longer.  When we first get our boots we may wear three pairs of socks so that they fit.  Then we go down to two, then one pair.  Then sadly, we pass them on, or gladly, if we already have another pair of good boots waiting for us.  If we are lucky one pair of boots will last one child a whole winter, before they get passed on to the next wearer.

I remember one year when I was eleven years old I got a pair of boots from my neighbour who was twelve.  I was used to getting his boots and clothes when he grew out of them.  I looked at them.  They were much worn.  He must have had them from someone else first.  Usually his things were all right; they were not too worn out, but these boots were quite tattered.  I was cross.  I would be expected to wear these  old boots for the whole winter.  My mother told me that I must wear them carefully and look after them because she did not know where the next pair of boots would come from if I wore those ones out.  She certainly could not afford to buy me a new pair.  I hated those boots.  I decided I would wear them out as quickly as I could, then she would have to get me a better pair.

We used to walk to our village school every day.  There would be ice on the road and every child knew you should not slide on the ice as it would wear out your boots.  So I slid on the ice.  I slid and slid.  I showed off to the others.  Some of them tried too.  The older ones told us not to slide as our boots would wear out and we would get frostbite.  I knew an old neighbour who had frostbitten hands.  He had lost two fingers.  The other children stopped sliding but I carried on.  Finally I managed to wear a hole in my boots.  I felt triumphant.  Now my mother would have to get me another pair of boots.

I showed the hole in my boot to her.  She just looked at me.

“Well what do you want me to do about it?” she asked after a long wait.

“I want a better pair of boots,” I said, “I told you these ones were no good.”

“Do you think I don’t know what you have been doing to your boots?  Do you think your friends say nothing to their mothers, and their mothers say nothing to me?”

I looked down. “Why didn’t you tell me to stop sliding then?”

“I get tired of telling you to stop doing things when you know very well what will happen if you don’t.  You must take responsibility for your own actions when you know that something will go wrong if you don’t!”

My mother made me mend my boots with stinking fish glue and some old leather from a pair of worn-out boots.  The mend hurt my foot and gave me blisters.

After two weeks of watching me limp my mother took my boots and re-mended them herself, so that they didn’t hurt me any more.  I was always careful to look after my boots and clothes after that.  I made sure I handed them on in good condition to the next person.  I did learn from my mistakes.  My mother said it’s all right to make mistakes as long as we learn from them.

The Proverb is ‘He who refuses correction is his own worst enemy’…

• In what way did Wang refuse correction?
• What does it mean ‘to be your own worst enemy’?
• Can you think of something you have done after you were told not to do it, and it caused you a problem?
• Can you think of a time when you learned from your mistake?

This blog is a collection of short stories which can be used to teach children aspects of social and moral education. You will also find therapeutic stories to help with life’s difficulties, for both adults and children. –

Proverbs 3  Verse 31,

31 : Do not envy or copy a violent man or choose any of his ways

32: for the Lord detests a perverse man, but takes the upright into his confidence (New International Version of Old Testament)

Story from a Roman soldier

My name is Lucius.  I am a Roman soldier.  I came to Britain many years ago, two hundred years after the death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was my job to provision the battalion.  I had to make sure that there would be enough to eat for every man, woman and child in our care, for indeed many of our men had wives and children with them.  We would deal with the local people.  We would barter for goods or pay for them with our own money if they would accept it.

We kept animals to feed ourselves.  We grew winter crops which we saved to feed our stock.  We introduced many new crops to Britannia.  Our goats and sheep would graze the pastures.  We wanted to live peaceably with the local populations if possible.  It was too exhausting to be at war.  We wanted to gain territory rather by doing business with the people than by subduing them with weapons.  We wanted them to feel they could welcome us into their towns and cities.  We could show them many ways of building roads and houses that were new to them.  This would make it more likely that they would want to become like us as they could see the advantages of our ways.

I remember on one occasion a young man from a village near our fort came to see me.  He said he wanted to join the battalion.  He was tired of life on the land and wanted to weald a sword instead of a ploughshare.  I asked him what he thought he would be doing with his sword.

“I will be killing people, of course,” said he.

“And why would you want to do that?” I enquired, surprised at his reply.

“That is what all Roman soldiers do,” said he.  “That is why Rome has come and taken our land, our towns and our villages.  That is why you can eat whenever you want to eat.  It is why you can wear fine clothes and live in grand fortresses.”

“Young man,” said I, “It is not by violence that we conquer this land; it is by power.  We are more powerful than you people.  There are many of us and we are well organised and well disciplined.  It is true that our swords are sharp and our lances long and lethal, but the truth is we rarely use them.  We do not wish to waste human blood.  Every man is of value.  Every person, Roman or Briton is precious to us.  Do not think that if you join our army you will be killing people every day.  Indeed it is to be hoped that you would never need to kill anyone.  It is the threat of violence that controls people, rather than violence itself.  An army needs strong discipline so that unnecessary killing is strictly avoided.

An undisciplined man who kills another without a thought for the value of life will find that others may take revenge upon him.  He himself will have a short life, and the life that he has will be constantly under threat.  Fear will rule his life.  In choosing a way of violence he is choosing a path of fear.

Questions:

1. Why do you think the young man envied the Roman soldiers?

1. How did he think they were able to control the local population?

1. How did Lucius explain the truth?

1. What is the danger of being a violent person?

1. Does the story remind you of anything in your life, or in the lives of people you know about?

1. What do you think verse 32 means?  In another translation of the Bible (New English) it says ‘For one who is not straight is detestable to the Lord, but upright men are in God’s confidence.’  There are lots of issues to consider here too!

Proverbs 22:1  A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.

A story about the importance of keeping your good name.

I have two sisters. One is ten, the other is eleven.  I was born five years before they came along.  My friends don’t pay much attention to my sisters.  They call them ‘the kids’, but I have had to look after them quite a lot when they were young and I want to make sure they are OK when they become teenagers.  Things can go wrong when you leave primary school and start your secondary education in a huge school with one or even two thousand pupils.

My younger sister Megan is the one I worry about the most.  She is always trying to look older and be older than she really is.  Tash, the other one is content to be her age.

Megan likes to hang around with the lads up at the park.  Some of them are OK – most of them are really, but one or two I wouldn’t trust for a minute.  They are always boasting about what they have done or what they are going to do, and it’s all lies.  Megan comes home and tells us all about it.  My mum gets cross and tells me I should be looking out for my sister.  Well, I can’t be there all the time, can I?  The park is just next door and Mum doesn’t really want to stop Megan from going out.  She tries to get Tash to keep Megan company, and Tash does go out too, but not so much.  She likes reading and doing her Karaoke at home.  She says she doesn’t like the park gang and she thinks they are stupid.

“I don’t want everyone to think I’m like one of them, ’cos I’m not.  I don’t go bragging about stupid things and smoking and drinking fizz and saying it’s alcohol.”

“They aren’t all like that,” said Megan, “Only Nico, you know, Nicotine Nigel, he’s the only one.”

“Well maybe so, but the others just hang around and gossip about each other.  I don’t want to do that.  Before you know it they’ll be gossiping about you.” said Tash.

“No they won’t.  Why should they?  I haven’t done anything.”

“ Maybe not, but people who gossip often make up stories about others if they have nothing better to do.”

“Well no one would believe them.  They can’t just lie about someone, Well , except for Nico, he’d lie about anyone.” said Megan.

“What about your friend Simon?  I hear he stole some sweets from the supermarket!”

Megan went white, then red.  She didn’t know what to say.  She liked Simon and she trusted him.  Now here was Tash telling her that Simon was a thief, and she believed her sister.

“Don’t worry, Meg, I just made that up to see what you would think.  You believed me didn’t you?”

“Well, you don’t tell lies, that’s why I believed you.  You shouldn’t say that about Simon, it’s not true.”

“That’s right, said Tash,” I’m just showing you what some people are like when they gossip.  They make up stories about people that others might believe, then Simon, or someone like him gets a bad name.”

“Oh, that’s not fair is it?  I wouldn’t do that!”

“Well just be careful who you hang about with or you might get a bad name too, and you wouldn’t want that would you?

Questions

What does ‘having a good name’ mean to you?

What does ‘having a bad name’ mean to you?

What might happen if someone had a bad name?

How can you  keep your good name?

Does the story remind you of anything in your life?

ERIC at school in Africa

Eric walked along the dusty track, a stick in his hand.  He was pushing a ball along in front of him, using the bent and gnarled piece of wood. His
movements were quick and deft. He was in control of the ball. His bare feet moved steadily, avoiding any sharp obstacles along the way. If the ball hit a stone and bounced to one side, he quickly drew it back in front of him, rolling it along the track. He had some hard thinking to do.

Eric’s African life was tough compared to many children in the world. He was eleven years of age and was lucky enough to go to school. Many of the children in his area did not get an education. Eric thought that he was fortunate. He decided to make the most of his life. He was wise for his years.

As he was the eldest boy in his family and his mother and father were both dead, he felt responsible for the care of his brothers and sisters. His grandmother looked after the family, but she could not do everything. The children had to help themselves and each other, or the family would not survive. Luckily they had a piece of ground large enough to grow enough food to feed them all, as long as there was enough rain to water the crops. There was little time for play. Even the small ones had jobs to do to help their grandma prepare their food, or looking after the few animals that they kept.

Eric’s sister, Tete, helped to grind the maize to make mealy meal. This is the porridge that was their main food every day. They could have eggs once a week. The extra eggs were sold to help to pay for Eric’s schooling.

Tete and the twins, who were only six, did all sorts of little jobs for grandma. She wasn’t very strong herself, but she could tell the children what to do and show them how to do it, and somehow the family got by. They were very proud of Eric. He would be the one who would be able to earn money for the family because he was going to school.  His class was held underneath a canopy on a verandah next to the school house. Another class took lessons inside the school. There were fifty children under the canopy, all trying hard to learn to read and write. The teacher was very good. He told them interesting stories and made them laugh. He was also very strict. There were very few books in the school, and hardly any paper and pencils. All the work was done on slates which were scraped with soft stones to make letters or numbers. Then they were wiped with a damp cloth to erase the work.

Eric could read and write better than anybody in his class. He found he was very good with number work too. He had a quick mind. One of the teachers said she  would like Eric to help in the market on a Saturday. She promised to pay him well so that he could help his family to buy clothes.

Eric went home to tell his grandmother what the teacher had asked him to do. Grandmother looked sad. “Who will hoe the ground and plant the maize seeds if you are away all week at school, and on Saturdays too? You know your sisters are not strong enough to lift the hoe. Your teacher does not realise that we must have food before we can think about new clothes.”

Eric was angry and upset. He had been very pleased when the teacher had asked him to work at the market. Now his grandma was refusing to let him go. He needed to have a long think about the situation. He picked up his gnarled old stick and his ball and, keeping it carefully under his control, he went to the river bank.

Eric sat on a log. He could hear the hippos grunting and grumbling in the distance. He picked up a stone and flung it as hard as he could across the water. It bounced sixteen times. That was a record for him. Suddenly his anger melted away. He realised that it was good to be wanted and needed. It was good that he could help his family and there would be time enough for earning money when his brothers and sisters were old enough to do the kind of work that he had to do now. He loved his family and did not want them to go hungry just because he wanted to work at the market. After all, he was top of the class. When he was old enough he would get a much better job altogether.

Eric walked home as the sun began to set. His bad temper had gone and he felt contented with his life. He decided to apologise to his grandma for being thoughtless and rude and to tell her he loved her for taking care of all of them.

QUESTIONS:

1.    How did you feel when you heard this story?

2.    Did it remind you of anything in your own life?

3.    What kind of a person do you think Eric was?

4.    How did his brothers and sisters help the family?

5.    In Africa there are many schools like Eric’s. How do you think the teacher would deal with bad behaviour, such as bullying, in a class of 50 pupils?

6.    How did Eric control his temper?

7.    What do you do if you are angry?

8.    Eric was contented with his life. Are you contented with your life?

Red Robbie

Many years ago, in the time when your great grandmother was young, there lived in Scotland a young man called Fergus MacTavish and his brother, Robert.  They lived in Glasgow in an area called the Gorbals. It was infamous for its poverty and violence. Fergus had a large family – three brothers and two sisters. His father worked in the shipyards and his mother worked as a cleaner for some ladies in Bearsden.

Life was hard for the family. There was little money in spite of their parents’ hard work. They never had new clothes. Sometimes the ladies who Mrs. MacTavish worked for would give her clothes they no longer wanted. They were always far too big for her children and they had to be cut down to size.  Some of the women were very good at making new clothes out of old ones, but Fergus’s mother had never really mastered the art of sewing. She was quite handy with the scissors though. She would snip away at a pair of trousers until they were the right length for her ‘biggest lad’ as she called Fergus. When he grew out of them, they would fit the second boy, and so on, down the line of four boys.  The youngest boy, Robbie, was always a sight – a real scruffy lad.  It wasn’t his fault that he was so untidy.

Robbie had a crop of red curly hair and a real temper to go with it. People called him Red Robbie and woe betide anyone who teased him about his appearance or anything else.  Hid dad used to say to him, “You have to stand up for yourself, laddie, because nobody else will.”

Being so small and scruffy, Red Robbie did find himself the target of other lads jokes and remarks, especially at the beginning of the school year when many of the boys had new schools uniforms or at least, clothes that fitted them properly, but not Robbie. He held his oversized trousers up with a belt pulled in to his narrow little waist making lots of pleats where they should have fitted and been smooth. The trousers always looked as if they had half a dozen extra pockets in them.

Many an unsuspecting bigger boy would taunt him “What d’ye have in yer pocket, laddie?” and reaching into one of the pockets in the material to pinch Robbie, he would have a shock. It would be the last time the boy ever tried that trick on Robbie. Robbie would not take any nonsense. He had hard little fists and he was not afraid to use them.

As he grew older he had hard big fists and he began to enjoy using them. He had an expression, “Fists first, ask questions later.” People were afraid of Robbie. They kept their distance from him.

He noticed how his brothers always had friends, and girlfriends too. They got Saturday jobs and earned pocket money and went out to the pictures with their pals. They always seemed to be joking and laughing – whereas Robbie was always cross, always looking for trouble and ready for a fight.

Robbie’s elder brother, Fergus, had a girlfriend called Kathy. She was a lovely girl. She too had lots of red curls. Sometimes when she was waiting for Fergus to come home from his Saturday job, she would chat to Robbie. She was the only girl Robbie ever spoke to. Somehow his rough manner put the girls off and boys too, for that matter. Kathy could see that Robbie was unhappy.  One day she asked him why he was always scowling and angry.

Robbie blushed. He jumped to his feet and held out his fists as if he was going to hit Kathy. “Fists first, ask questions later,” he said.

Kathy knew he would never hit her. They were friends. Suddenly she understood. She knew how poor the family had been when the kids were small. She looked at Robbie and noticed how scruffy he was, and yet his family had enough money these days. Robbie had got into the habit of defending himself so fiercely that he had learnt to attack even before he had good reason to – just in case. In the same way he had got into the habit of always wearing old clothes and looking scruffy.

Robbie’s chats with Kathy helped him to understand that violence was no way to make friends. He needed to learn to give people a chance and not to think they were all out to get at him. He also learned to start to take pride in his appearance. Being neat and clean helped him to look more approachable to other people. He learnt to make friends and he became a much happier person.

QUESTIONS:

1.       How did you feel when you heard this story?

2.       Did it remind you of anything in your own life?

3.       How many people had worn the trousers before Robbie got them?

4.       Why did Robbie get teased?

5.       What did Robbie’s father advise him to do?

6.       How did Robbie stand up for himself?

7.       Could Robbie have done it in a better way?

8.       What did Kathy teach him?

This story was written for the Education in Human Values scheme (bisse.org.uk)

When I was a young man I had a family – my mother and father, my wife and two sons and a little daughter.  My wife’s parents also lived nearby.  We were what you might call ‘close knit’.  Our house was not very large and it was hard to get away from other people.  Indeed if one tried to do that others might ask:

“What is wrong with you today?  You are not talking to anyone.  You are looking grim.” And so on.

I have always been a person who enjoys my own space.  Certainly I wanted my children to be happy.  Of course I wanted to please my wife, but I would find the pressures of all these conversations expected of me too great.  I needed time for myself.

One day I took myself for a walk just to get a bit of peace.  With all the hustle and bustle of the city this is somewhat hard to do.  However there is always peace to be had at the Temple.  As I was taking my shoes off before entering, I noticed a man sitting cross legged and looking very peaceful beside the line of shoes.  He was not paying any attention to all the comings and goings.  I could see that his eyes were open but that he was looking at nothing.  He looked perfectly contented.  I have occasionally had my shoes stolen from outside the temple so I wondered if I dared to disturb him to ask him to watch my shoes.  I became quite agitated trying to make the decision.  He continued to look ahead, a benign, peaceful expression on his face.  His eyes did not turn to me although it must have been clear to him that I was there and that I wanted to speak.  I decided to risk leaving my shoes without his protection.

I entered the temple.  It was calm and quiet inside, but my mind was still in turmoil.  How long could I allow myself the luxury of this quiet place?  Would my shoes be stolen?  Would my wife be cross with me when I got home?  Had I forgotten to do some little chore for her?  Would my mother chide me on my return for some act of omission on my part? And so on. After twenty minutes or so I went out into the busy street again.  The sounds of the traffic and the people assailed my ears.

The meditating gentleman was still there, looking calm and beneficent as before.  I found my shoes and left.

On my way home I hatched a plan.  I would tell my family that I was going to become a yogi.  Not in a big way.  I was not going to strip down to a loin cloth and go and live in the mountains.  I was going to become a yogi for twenty minutes a day, at home in my own bedroom.  No-one must speak to me during that time.  Whatever they wanted it would have to wait.  I was going to learn to sit still and quiet until I could feel on the inside what that old yogi at the temple showed on the outside.

My family thought it rather a strange that I would want to do this, but as it is not unheard of in our country, they accepted my desire to meditate.  It took me a while to learn how to do it.  I did take some advice on the subject.  I just thought about my breath and the ‘prana’ or energy flowing into my body every time I breathed in. Gradually I learnt to notice when I was not thinking about my breath.  I began to recognise ‘other’ or distracting thoughts, and having recognised them, I stopped thinking them.  My mind gradually became calmer.  This calmness overflowed into my daily life.  I felt less pressured by all the people and the demands of life and work.  My sense of humour returned.  My wife said I wasn’t bad tempered any more.  My boys started to have proper conversations with me instead of always whining and asking for things.  Even my mother in law smiled indulgently at me and called me ‘our guru’.

It wasn’t until much later in my life that I started thinking about the state of my body, and how yoga could address that problem as well.  But at least working on my mind through meditation had given me a sense of peace and balance, and in fact my wife decided to meditate too and our family life was immeasurably improved.

A story about “Changes” (SEAL topic) illustrating the value of LOVE (6mins)

Dotty has to leave her home

Everyone calls me Dotty, but actually I am ‘Miranda Saint Edmunds the Second’.  I am a Dalmatian.  I come from a long line of famous dogs.  I am sure you know my breed; we are white, spotted all over with black dots.  We are considered to be very pretty and a little stupid – hard to train – you know the sort of thing; we don’t like to ‘fetch’ or to ‘sit’.  We just like to do our own thing.

When I was born, my owners had plenty of money.  The husband worked in the city, in ‘The Bank’, and the wife had no job as such.  She bred us Dalmatians and spent of lot of time walking us on Hampstead Heath.  She had lots of friends who were all ‘doggy’ people.  They used to arrive in their big ‘four by four’ vehicles, usually with at least two dogs for us to play with.  My brothers and sisters all disappeared one by one usually in one of the big cars that arrived.  My mother and I were the ones that our owners wanted to keep. They were very fond of us.  We made them laugh and they never tired of telling stories about us to their ‘doggy’ friends.

One day the husband returned home looking very pale and worried.  I might not be very clever but I knew I should not jump up to greet him that day.  He didn’t even look at me.  He came in and collapsed on the sofa, his head in his hands.  I lay quietly and waited. When his wife came into the room she took one look at him and went white. “Has it happened?” she asked. He nodded his head.  They both sat on the sofa and wept.

The next thing I remember was men arriving in a big van and taking all their expensive furniture away.  Soon the house was empty.  A ‘For Sale’ sign went up outside the front gate.  My owners put us into a van with wire mesh on the windows.  They patted us sadly and the wife said: “Be good dogs, you’ll be all right.  Someone nice will find you.” We didn’t understand why we were being sent away.  We knew our owners loved us.  We felt very sad.  We didn’t wag our tails, but barked anxiously until we were too tired to bark.

We were taken to a long building.  Inside it were rows of cages.  It was cold and smelly.  There were lots of dogs, one or two in each cage.  Many were barking.  We were afraid.  Some dogs lay looking sad or asleep at the backs of their cages.  We were put into a cage together, my mother and I.  I sat very close to her.

Now you may not think that dogs talk to each other but believe me, they do.  My mother was a dog of few words, but when she did speak she was always wise.  She said to me: “Someone new is going to come along and choose you, or me.  We will go to different families.  You must do your best, keep cheerful, and don’t be sad and miserable.  Changes are difficult, but they are easier if you do the right thing. The right thing is to show your owner that you are willing to love them and to be a good pet for them, then you will be happy and so will they.”

I had been feeling sad, missing our old owners and thinking I could never love anyone else, nor be happy in a different home, but I saw that my mum was right. Sure enough, when a family chose me, I wagged my tail and made an effort to be happy.  There were children in the family and I could tell they were not used to dogs.  I had to be very patient with them, though sometimes I felt like biting them.  When they pulled my tail I would just growl a little and their mother would tell them not to do it.

My new house was quite small and instead of having my own room I just had a basket in the living room, but I made the best of it.  I didn’t sulk and whine.  I remembered what my mum had said, and I felt proud of myself that I had remembered.  The best bit was when my new owner said: “She’s not ‘Dotty’ at all, except to look at.  She’s a very clever Dalmatian!

Questions

1. What would you call this story?

2. Does it remind you of anything in your life?

3. What do you think might have happened to Dotty’s first owners to make them send Dotty away?

4. Sometimes difficult things happen in our lives and we have to find ways to deal with them.

Put a tick against the best things to do when we are in difficulty, and put a cross against those ways of behaving which are not helpful to anyone:

Screaming and shouting

Looking for someone to blame

Talking to someone you trust about how you feel

Sulking and not speaking to anyone

Letting yourself cry a bit and getting over it

Hitting or hurting other people

Taking it out on your family or friends

Making the best of it

Finding good ways of looking at it

Which of these did Dotty do?  She was only a dog.  Think how much more a person could do…..

If you would like to send me your picture of Dotty I might use it for this story!

In the days when men and women roamed the plains and young people had to go through an initiation ceremony before they were accepted as adults, there was a young man. He was Grey Wolf. Now this young man was a gentle person who never wanted to hurt anyone or anything. This made life rather difficult for him, because the Red Man survives by cooperating with animal life, respectfully asking permission to kill, and then killing for food and clothing.

The time came for Grey Wolf to perform his initiation. He had to kill a buffalo. There were many ways to tackle this challenge and Grey Wolf decided that he would get us, his family, to dig a pit on the edge of the forest. His plan was to drive the buffalo into the pit. We dug, all of us. It was a huge pit. My father said it was big enough to catch the whole herd, but he was exaggerating somewhat. We covered the pit with branches and leaves so that it looked just like the rest of the forest floor. It was time for my brother to go. Now he was a very fine horseman. He and his horse moved as one. The horse could tell from the angle and the slightest pressure from his body where he was required to go.

A few hours later we heard a great crashing through the trees. It was Grey Wolf. He was driving two buffalo towards the pit! We looked on in amazement. Certainly and surely they neared the hole in the ground, and one after another they fell into it .

The buffalo charged into the pit.

The first one died instantly, the second he quickly dispatched. Pale and shaking he emerged from the pit. We were all very proud of him. The Chief came to inspect his work:

“I see you were not content to prove you were as strong as one man, you have completed the work of two here, on this day. Well done! You are indeed fit to join the ranks of the men in the tribe.”

And the Chief bestowed an eagle feather head dress upon him. We all looked on in admiration. My brother may not have enjoyed killing, but he knew what had to be done for the survival of the tribe. We must eat, and buffalo is our main source of food. My brother, after that, used to be chosen to do the chasing, and left the killing to the others, but it is all one really. He who eats meat is acknowledging that it is part of Gods plan both in the animal kingdom and in man’s domain.

The base energy centre is situated at  the bottom of the spine.  It is associated with survival, bravery, hunting to feed oneself etc.  To learn more about this centre go to  yogastories.co.uk and look at information on the base chakra in the contents page.

Rainbow Dancer Finds Her Man

There was a young girl in my tribe, she was known as Rainbow Dancer.  A beautiful girl, popular with everyone, several young braves hoped that she would choose one of them.

She always wore the finest leathers. She plaited her hair so neatly and tightly and interwove it with ribbons of cloth that she had dyed different colours.  Rainbow Dancer was waiting.  She knew she must wait for the right man, as none of the young men in the tribe appealed to her.  Her mother had told her that when the right man came she would feel it in her belly.  She did not understand her mother’s words, but she was happy to believe her.

At tribal gatherings when the dances were in full swing, Rainbow Dancer was aloof.  Unlike her name suggested, she never wished to dance.  As a young child she had danced a lot, but somehow it had lost its appeal to her.  Perhaps because when she showed that she was willing to dance she had the problem of dealing with all the young braves who wished to be chosen by her.  She had decided it was easier not to bother.

Several years went by.  All of the girls of a similar age found husbands amongst the tribe, but Rainbow Dancer was adamant.  She felt nothing in her heart and nothing in her belly.

One day two young men stumbled into the camp.  One of them was wounded.  He had been trampled by buffalo in a stampede.  Somehow they had lost their way and their companions had gone on, not realising that Standing Tree was wounded.  Rainbow Dancer’s mother was first to see the young man.  She dressed his wounds and made him a comfortable place to rest in a tepee adjacent to her own.

Rainbow Dancer helped her mother to look after the young man.  He was in a lot of pain and developed a raging fever.  It took a lot of skilled use of herbs and patient watching and waiting before Standing Tree was able to speak.  Every movement was painful to him.  Rainbow Dancer mopped his brow and dabbed his wounds with the herbal medicine.

After four days the young man came out of his delirium.  He turned towards Rainbow Dancer who had hardly left his side.  He smiled the most beautiful smile and whispered “Thank you.”

Rainbow Dancer felt her heart lurch.  She knew that the thing she most wanted in the world was for Standing Tree to recover.

Gradually he became strong again.  Rainbow Dancer helped him to walk around the camp to get used to using his limbs again.  She noticed that when she touched him she could feel a current of energy flow through her body.  She began to feel warmth in her heart, and just as her mother had told her, she felt the stirring of excitement in her belly.  This was the man for her, her body told her so.  Standing Tree felt the same way.  When he had completely recovered he told Rainbow Dancer that he must return to his tribe, but that he would come back for her very soon, which he did.

A love token

He brought with him a token of his love for her and asked her father if he could take her to join his own tribe.  Rainbow dancer’s father agreed and the couple had a happy life together.