myth for black cohosh

Before there was weaving there was only water, and the water made all things slippery and fluid, which included memory. They kept moving like water through life, not sticking with anything, not remembering anything. They whirled around in spontaneous dances that were beautiful to behold.  

People were fishy back then. Their bodies shimmered in the sun. But because they didn’t have long memories they generally didn’t live for very long, until one day a woman did. But she didn’t remember they were old so she continued to dance around with the rest of the living, wondering why her body was not working like it should. Because there was no weaving there was no memory as to why her body began to fail. 

But just because these people could not access memory did not mean that what had happened was not swimming around in the water with them. All things ripple and this little ripple caught in the body of the old woman. It rippled all through her, making her old bones bang against each other in quite a painful chorus. Pain occurs in waves and she realized that if she focused she could ride the waves, but she wouldn’t be able to do it unless she measured the song of her heart. It said: one, two, three, one, two, three. And as she continued in this counting she realized she could move her body in time in what we now know as a smooth, easy, dance. The dance soothed the ripple which in turn wove between the bones and strengthened them. When the woman knew her bones she knew her story. She was able to sing and dance. This is counting, this is time. She taught her daughter how to dance, who taught her daughter and so on until this day. From the counting a kind of gelling occurred. The woman did not live forever, but her bones still grow in the forests as black cohosh. They soothe the pain for those who are aging, those calm the mind of those who suffer. You can hear the ripple still singing in them when the autumn breeze runs through the wood.