One day, I was browsing through the library with no idea what I was looking for.
A little book just jumped off the shelf and into my hands....
Well….. not really...but you know what I mean.
I took it home...started reading it and knew almost immediately that it was going to change my life.
I got on-line and dug and dug till I was able to find the author's home phone number.
I felt possessed.
I felt like a stalker or something.
But I was just DRIVEN to call her. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a strong feeling to do something in my entire life.
So, I called her and was leaving a clumsy, stumbling message on her answering machine, trying to tell her how much her book was affecting me…when she picked up the phone.
She said she was just coming in with an armload of groceries and couldn’t get to the phone any sooner.
Here's this person who has just changed my whole life and she's carrying groceries in from the car? That somehow just did not seem right to me. Surely she wasn't living the regular life of a regular person, was she?
I told her...again...feeling very foolish indeed...that I just had to call her to tell her how her book was impacting me and I had only just started reading it! I wasn’t even half way through it yet.
She was so sweet and we talked for a good while. I felt like I’d just made a new friend.
Then...later, after I'd finished the book...I wrote her a letter apologizing for infringing on her privacy by calling her and repeating how special her book was to me.
Weeks and weeks went by and I'd about forgotten that I’d written her...when one morning................
The phone rang.
It was her!
It was she!
It was Awiakta!
She said....”I've been in France for the last 3 weeks. I just got home last night around midnight and I was so tired. But I was looking through the mail and saw your letter. I had to read it right then.”
She went on to say, in her sweet southern drawl,
“I just had to call you and tell you a story.........
“You know”, she said, “that day when you called me, I was going through a really rough time.
I was going through my second round of chemo for breast cancer.
I was thinking I might die.
And I was wondering if anything I'd ever written had made any difference at all in the world.”
And that, Dear Reader, is when I called her. Don’t you find that absolutely wonderful? I did. I still do.
My call must have been a balm to her soul, don’t you think? And I was so worried about acting in a totally inappropriate way.
I believe my Spirit heard her Spirit’s cry…and answered.
She is Marilou Awiakta, a half-Cherokee poet and essayist.
I recently posted one of her poems on here, “WHEN EARTH BECOMES AN "IT." It is one of my favorites by her, but there are many that I love.
The name of that little book is, SELU, SEEKING THE CORN MOTHER’S WISDOM. I bought my own copy so I can read from it any time I want to. I don’t have to get it from the library anymore.
Why did the book affect me so?
Because I had been ‘imprinted’ with an image of an angry, vengeful, male god figure.
Selu, the Corn Mother, became for me, a wise and warm, nurturing and loving female ‘god’ figure.
That simple statement holds much meaning. It would take another book to explain it in detail.
But, if you have had a similar ‘imprinting’, no explanation is necessary, I’m thinking.
Even though we have not kept up a correspondence, I feel a deep connection to her. And I bet she does to me.
I am so Grateful that Marilou Awiakta followed her passion to write her poems and essays. And I am so Grateful that I followed mine, to give her my gratitude, when I did.
Here are some links to more information about Marilou Awiakta and her writing.
http://www.shepherd.edu/englweb/awiakta/awiakta.htm
http://www.ferrum.edu/applit/authors/awiakta.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Selu-Seeking-Corn-Mothers-Marilou-Awiakta/dp/1555912060
