The river has brought so much to my life...I live in an area where the river runs through many canyons. There are trails and sandy, gravelly places to hike to the river .....always people leave

their way...signs everywhere....I almost think that most want to be found out by someone...even a stranger....This part of the river is very unique, folks travel from all over the world to catcha glimpse or hear the wind blow through the cottonwoods,perhaps the scent of the juniper.

I walk into the old adobe to find the woman whose walls were full of photographs, some framed and some in cards and postcards. She had some jewelry on a rack in a niche..I could smell the smoke from the fire...She wanted me to know that her son had died sometime ago and these were his photos. I looked and could feel her missing him and each time I looked at them she came a little more alive. The pain of loss left deep lines in her face. Though peace filled each corner of her room. Life on the Pueblo is simple, to me I wanted to lie on the ground in the beautiful dirt that feels so safe and quiet. Suddenly, she begins to tell me a story of her sister who was in a bad relationship and could not leave a man that was not nice to her and her children.

As her sister, she was always hearing how she wanted to leave him but couldn't. She tried and always would return and every time the situation would not be any better. Her sister gave away her will and powers for promises and hope for some kinda love. Then one night the old woman heard a knock at the door, her sister was there with her children and not in very good shape. She put the children in the warm bed she had been sleeping in. Then sat down next to her sister like she had so many times before and got out the mirror and showed her what she had become. They both wept. Then she took her sisters hand and they journeyed out to the river, that magic river and they washed her face and the cold fresh snow run off numbed her down to the bone....she gasped. The next breath was painful but deep, her feelings surfaced and poured out of her eyes and heart. She cried a river.....everything she said and felt ran down river.

The next morning she woke up and knew what she needed to do. She could see through her eyes and once again was back on the trail of her purpose and could hear the wind in the trees,see the hawks dancing on the wind, feel the heartbeat of blessed mother earth beneath her feet and the strength of the way surrounded her, once again.

Once the story was over the kind woman looked deep and told me to go to the river and wash my face and let go of the fear, let the river take it away. I knew she knew and that she was my gift that day. I thanked her and started to cry, how did she know? I love the adobe walls,dirt floors and the river. That was the day I started to take back the pieces of myself that I gave away for some hope of some kinda love.....

I went back last year and she was gone, no one knew of her. I will never forget her. That is the way of the Pueblo.....