Read Online Sacred Ground by Barbara Wood - Free Book Online Page A

light during the day when it wasn’t needed. And when she walked in the moonlight, despite the burdens she carried on her back and inside her body, Marimi found her stride widening, she felt moon power flowing in her veins. With each step, her strength grew.
    And while she journeyed ever westward across the endless expanse, she let her thoughts fly to the stars, to linger there and then to return with new knowledge. Marimi knew something her people had never known: that an individual could pray directly to the gods without the intervention of a shaman. She had also learned that the world was not necessarily a malevolent place, as the Topaa believed. There were spirits everywhere to be sure, but they were not all evil. There were those who could be friendly and could be called upon for help and guidance, such as birds that circled the sky at sunset, indicating a water hole below. Whereas the shamans of the Topaa taught their people that only fear ensured survival, Marimi learned during her long sojourn among the silent boulders and cacti, the slinking coyotes and tiptoeing tortoises, that mutual respect and trust also ensured survival.
    When she saw how beautifully the moon lit up the desert landscape at night to light their way, Marimi marveled at how the Topaa could believe her to be an angry and fearful goddess. Not only was it taboo to look upon the moon, but the people were afraid of her because of her tremendous power over menstrual blood, birth cycles, and the dark mysteries of women. Likewise did the Topaa fear the sun because it burned the skin and caused fires and droughts and was angry all the time, being placated only through the intercession of a shaman’s prayers. But Marimi and Payat learned to love the feel of the warm sun on their limbs in the mornings, and they observed how flowers turned their faces to follow the sun’s path across the sky. Marimi came to understand that what her people had feared could also be loved, and she began to regard the sun as like a father, stern but benevolent, and the moon as like a mother, gentle and loving.
    But now they were in a land where there was no water, no berries or seeds, and the only shrubs were bitter and waterless. Even small animals didn’t come out of their burrows. Marimi was carrying the boy on her back, and because her sandals had disintegrated long ago, her bare feet were cut and bleeding. They sucked on pebbles to stave off thirst. They stopped at dry streambeds, which often have water just below the surface, sinking at the lowest point on the outside of a bend in the channel as the stream dried up, and it was along these bends she dug for water. But none could be found.
    Finally, they had to stop, Marimi easing Payat to the sand and then stretching her lower back. Her baby moved restlessly, as if it, too, were thirsty, and when she looked for her raven, she could not find him.
    Had her spirit guide abandoned them in this harsh wilderness? Had she and Payat inadvertently offended a spirit somewhere along their trek, perhaps disturbing a snake’s nest or not showing enough gratitude when she sliced open the last prickly pear they came upon?
    Shading her eyes, she scanned the barren landscape, where only stunted, withered plants grew, and a dry wind whispered mournfully across the sand. In the distance she saw silver waves shimmering up from the hard-baked clay, but she had learned by now that this was not water but a trick played by desert spirits. Finally, she looked up at fierce Father Sun. It was to him she must pray, she realized, for the moon was in her sleeping house.
    But as Marimi raised her arms and sought the proper words, she was suddenly stricken with her head sickness, causing her to drop to her knees and press her hands to her eyes. As the pain swept her away, she saw a vision of a lost child, trapped among rocks. She saw it from the sky, as if through the eyes of a bird. And then Marimi saw people searching for the child, but in the wrong