This past weekend, I visited some dear friends and saw my buddy Molly, a dog who is pure love and an indispensable companion on any backpacking trip. Molly had surgery recently and I offer this beautiful creation myth from the Jicarilla Apache in gratitude for her continued good health and joyful spirit. This is excerpted from Views of the Cosmos by Brother David Steindl-Rast O. S. B. Here is the link to the myth and his insightful commentary.
Dog was going around with Creator. Everywhere he went, Dog went, and
watched all that he did. When Creator finished one job and moved on to
another, the dog went too.
“Are you going to stay around here all the time?” said the dog. “Or will you have to go away?”
“Well, perhaps someday I shall have to live far away,” said Creator.
“Then, Grandfather, will you make me a companion?” So Creator lay down on the ground.
“Draw a line around me with your paw,” he said.
So Dog scratched an outline in the earth all around the great Creator. Creator got up and looked at it.
“Go a little way off and don’t look,” he said. The dog went off a little way. In a few minutes he looked.
“Oh, someone is lying where you were lying, Grandfather.”
“Go along and don’t look,” said Creator. The dog went a little farther. In a few minutes he looked.
“Someone is sitting there, Grandfather,” he said.
“Turn around and walk farther off,” said Creator.
The dog obeyed.
At last Creator called the dog. “Now you can look,” he said.
“Oh, Grandfather, he moves,” cried the dog in delight.
So they stood by the man and looked him over. “Pretty good,” said Creator.
“He’s wonderful,” said the dog.
Creator went behind the man and lifted him to his feet.
“Put out your foot,” he said. “Walk. Do this.” So the man walked.
“Now run,” said Creator. So the man ran.
“Say words,” he said. But the man said nothing. Four times Creator told the man to talk. Finally the man said words. He spoke.
“Now shout,” said Creator He gave a big yell himself and showed the man how.
The man shouted.
“What else?” he said.
Creator thought a minute.
“Laugh,” he said. “Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh.”
Then the man laughed.
The dog was very happy when the man laughed. He jumped up on him and ran off a little, and ran back and jumped up on him. He kept jumping up on him the way dogs do today when they are full of love and delight.
The man laughed and laughed.
“Now you are fit to live,” said Creator.
So the man went off with his dog.
