Totems Story

The Story of the First World
In the beginning was Dragon, alone at the center of nothingness.
He knew no love. He knew no sorrow.
He endured in silence and in darkness and in a great upwelling peace.
He knew no fear and no happiness; and he was content.
Then Songbird sang.
Even today when a person hears Songbird's song it changes them. It calls them out into the world. It fills them with a sense of seeking.
Today it is possible to hide from that song, to pull oneself into the shell of ordinary life, as crabs - if they are living an ordinary life - will do.
In the great nothingness there was no shelter and no recourse.
A fire rose up in Dragon. His heart twisted in him and awoke a flame that he could not contain. Into the nothingness he breathed.
His breath became a world.
In that world strove great powers and great loves. There were epics and there were heroes and there were joys and there were sorrows.
Had you lived then, young shaman, you would have been a part of it - would have marked the world with your great strivings, would have shed your tears, would have shouted your shouts; you would have discovered ancient secrets, known timeless friendships, and battled deadly enemies. It was a time of heroes who wrested their own happiness from the world.
Then Dragon breathed back in and all the cosmos went away.
Silence returned, and darkness, but there was no peace.
He slumbered but he could not forget.
Existence burned in him. It had learned its first great weapon against the nothingness, which was memory.
He could not contain it. It shuddered in his chest.
A new and stronger world broke free.

How our World came to Be
Dragon breathed and his breath became the world.
Shapes formed in the fire. 
Hunger was born in those first days, and death. Stories were born, and life.
There came to be a shape in the fire that said, "This is good. This thing that we have---is good." 
Its fire cooled.
It learned the ways of paws and teeth and muscle. It learned of sleep and waking. It made a name for itself, one of the first fourteen names. 
It was Bear.
Bear licked at the fire of the world and the fire became cool. He made the great burning of creation into stone.
Around that stone congealed mud, and oceans, and trees. Life bloomed and spread across the world. In time there were men and women just like we.
They loved and fought and dreamed---
Young shaman, just like we.
They learned the ways of Bear, who had made fire into stone. They learned the ways of Monkey, and of Raven; of Cheetah, and of Bull.
And some looked upon these great spirits and said, "We shall surpass them."
They named themselves the Architects. They built a great machine from the stone-kept fire of the world. They dreamed to make themselves as gods.
They failed.
They dreamed only for themselves and not for others. They wished only for themselves and not for humankind.
They called to them a spirit without pity or compassion. 
They called to them a creature knowing no remorse. 
They wakened Insect, and it made the Architects its hive. It was not shape and it was not fire. It was not stories and it was not life. It was a crystal madness and it was alien to the world.
To defend humanity, the Champion arose. She took up the fire of Dragon as her weapon. She fought alongside the spirits at the Battle of the Thousand Stings. She broke the machine of the Architects. She scattered Insect's hive. 
The fire of Dragon is not a simple thing to wield.
Striving only to bring peace, she shattered and remade the world.

be sure to check out HerAwakening.org