Soul Carving

Reflections on Wisdom Sits in Places by Keith H. Basso In Western Apache culture, places bear the names given to them by the ancestors. These names are often straight forward in their descriptions, but always imbued with deep meaning. The elders of Apache society instruct their youth to drink deeply from the wisdom of these places. Wisdom is like water. As one apache said, "You can't live long without water and you can't live a long time without wisdom. You need to drink both." Certain places then, are like oases of knowledge from which each generation may quench their thirst. Often, the sacredness of these place-worlds is not recognized until after repeated experience with them. It takes great faith to act with reverence even when one's surrounding seem not to merit such actions. We must beleive that simple tasks, when repeated in an intentional, ceremonial fashion, can hallow even the the most derelect environments. This is the process we r...