The River is My Home

By Sophia Warner, Eugene, First time con attendee

Once many flower blooms ago, Mother Earth carved a large crater. She spit into the crater and made it the home of a special type of fish called the Cispus. The Cispus had such a great spirit as a community that Mother Earth decided to speak to the fish. Her warm kind voice vibrated through the pool. “If you can change this pool to a river that flows through the fourth mountain range, I will proffer a special gift for all of your kind.”

The Cispus knew they were stronger as a community, so all the fish came together as one and started chipping off bits of the lake. The work was slow, but piece-by-piece the Cispus molded the lake into a river. The task took many seasons to complete. Once the fish made it past the last mountain range, they waited and waited, wondering what it was they had worked to achieve.

The sun started to fall. The moment it left the sky, Mother Earth’s voice rumbled as if from the peaks of the surrounding mountains. She said, “I will now give you your great gift. I will make you humans, but before you evolve I will name this river after your kind. In this way you will always know where you are from and may return when you wish.”

Now, an innumerable number of blooms later, the children of the Cispus return to the river once a year under a new name, the Unitarian Universalist youth. When they come together they become just as close as their long gone ancestors. Secretly, somewhere deep inside, they all know this river is their home and that they will always come back to it.

This article is from CONtext