I will be reading from two books, which I just
finished recently, one of them called Going for the Rain
and the other called A Good Journey.
"There is a song which goes like this, let us go again brother.
Let us go for the shiwana.
Let us make our prayer songs.
We will go now.
Now we are going.
We will bring back the shiwana.
They are coming now.
Now they are coming.
It is flowing.
The plants are growing.
Let us go again brother.
Let us go for the shiwana.
A man makes his prayers, he sings his songs,
he considers all that is important and special to him,
his home, his children, his language, the self that he is.
He must make spiritual and physical preparation
before anything else.
Only then does anything begin.
A man leaves.
He encounters all manners of things.
He has adventures, meets people, acquires knowledge,
goes different places.
He is always looking.
Sometimes the traveling is hazardous.
Sometimes he finds meaning and sometimes he is destitute,
but he continues.
His traveling is a prayer as well and he must keep on.
A man returns, and even the returning
has moments of despair and tragedy,
but there is also beauty and there is joy.
At times he is confused and at times he
sees with utter clarity.
It is all part of the traveling that is a prayer.
They are things he must go through
before he can bring back what he seeks before he
can return to himself.
The rain comes and falls.
The shiwana have heeded the man and they have come.
The man has brought back the rain.
It falls and it is nourishing.
The man returns to the strength that his selfhood
is, his home, his people, his language, the knowledge,
and the experience of who he is.
The cycle has been traveled.
Life has beauty and meaning and it will continue because there
is no end."