The Writing Rock

6*

When the world was first created, back at the beginning of time, great beasts roamed the land. Creatures of awesome size, terrible strength, and immense power. These beasts formed the land in their image, creating mountains, forests, oceans, deserts, vast landscapes. Alone, they wandered their newly formed home for millions of years, content with their creation.

In time, the world came to be populated by man. he was not so satisfied. Villages began cropping up where man made a home of his own design. Forests were leveled for lumber, fields were churned to make way for crops, life everywhere suffered as hunters and fishermen took more than could be replaced.

The beasts of creation noticed this and asked for the destruction to stop, but their diplomacy was not appreciated. That is, until the leader of a small mountain village heard the request of one of the giants and questioned it. "How are we to sustain ourselves if not from the land?" she asked.

"The land can provide you nourishment, but only if you nourish it in return," said the beast in a low, ancient voice. "come, and you will see." The beast knelt down and invited the young leader to climb onto its back, a difficult task.

Once she perched atop the beast's shoulders, the creature began to move. It showed her first the destruction man's presence had brought across the globe. Barren patched of forest, badly broken landscapes, scorched forests where a fire had taken a village and the surrounding area.

The young leader was appalled at he devastation. She hadn't believed something as small as humankind could undo what had been dome by the great beasts of creation.

Then, the beast showed her the remote places of the earth where man had not yet ventured. These places teemed with life, even when the lonely desert seemed unable to sustain it.

The young leader apologized for her mistakes and the mistakes of all humankind. The beast was so touched by this gesture that he made the woman a proposal. She could begin anew with her small village on the beast's mountainous back so that its people would never forget their place in the world. From this vantage point, they would see the good and beautiful as well as the ugly. They would learn respect.

The young leader accepted the offer and the village flourished into a mighty kingdom atop the beast's back while other villages suffered from their unmended mistakes.