How the World Came to be

    Long ago a boy named Sun used to live in the sky.  He would stare at the world below and had nothing else to do.  The world was just a circle of dirt and rocks.  Once, he thought it would be more interesting to see more than just one place.  So he began to slowly stroll to the other side of the sky and when he began to walk back he got tired and turned a shimmering gray and then he turned back to normal.  This is how the day and night came to be.  The boy was Sun during the day and Moon at night.
      The next day, he thought "I need something to carry me if I get tired."  So, he blew and big fluffy puffs grew in the sky.  In the next few days he realized that sometimes the puffs were there and sometimes they weren't.  Another day as he lay on the puffs (which he now called clouds), he began to weep because he was lonely.  As he wept, his tears dripped from the clouds to the ground.  The water seeped into the dirt and rocks more and more until oceans and grass and plants were made.   As he calmed down, he stopped crying at one place.  This place was dry, arid and very hot with very few plants. There were cliffs of dirt and clay with different layers of colors.   It was very beautiful and he called it The Painted Desert. 
     He was still lonely and he thought to himself, "I should get something to take care of the land."  For the next year he thought of what he would create.  After months of thinking, he got it.  He made people.  They had long dark hair, brown skin and brown eyes.  He called them "Caretakers of the Land".  Soon, Sun made people everywhere, but he kept watch over the Caretakers in the Painted Desert.
    The people were very peaceful and did no bad deeds.  They grew crops like corn, beans and squash and gave sacrifices to Sun.  Sun sent them enough rain to keep the crops alive.  The people ate their crops and hunted small animals for meat.  They made sure to give thanks to Sun for the rabbits, mice, and other small mammels and were careful not to take too much from the earth.  Sun was happy with his people in this land.
    Sun thought his people might get tired of working all the time so he created games for them to play and songs for them to sing and stories for them to tell.  They played the games they thought they had made, but it was Sun.  The sang songs about Mother Earth and forgiveness.  They told stories about long ago and about Sun himself.  When he saw his people were happy, it made him smile.    
                                                That is how the world came to be.

(Photo by; Paul Fundenburg)                                                    (Photo by:  Ken Lund)

(Photo by:  Jimmiehomeschoolmom)