How Big Is The World?

 

 
            Once, a very long ago, there was a thoughtful child with open eyes.
            He, for in this case the child in question was a young fellow, was sitting on a nice smooth rock of just the right size to sit on, and he looked out over a vast landscape as he ate the bit of something his mother had made of corn meal and some sort of seeds. Chewing thoughtfully, it occurred to him to wonder about the nature of the place where he found himself.
            From his vantage point he saw the whole open arc of the deep blue sky like a bowl overhead. He saw that it reached clear to where it met the land at what we would call the horizon. Between himself and this horizon he saw the familiar landscape of his home, with its corn and pumpkin and bean fields nearby, but further out stretched an unimaginable depth of desert, rocks, and in the far distance some low hills.
            He went back to his mother where she was plucking the feathers from some fowl. She sat outside the doorway of the stone house where they lived.
            “Mother, what is this place called?” he said.
            “Village,” she said, in whatever language they spoke.
            “I mean all that I can see. All of it, not just our village,” he said. “There must be a word for all of it.”
            “See your father in the cornfield? Why don’t you run to him and ask him about this?” said the mother, who was busy, as always.
            His father, muscular and brown, not very old nor very tall, was stooped over encouraging a small stream of water to run between the stalks of corn.
            When the small boy found his father there, he said, “Father, what is the word for everything I see here, the sky and the land? The must be a word for everything.”
            The father regarded his small son, who was always asking questions, with sharp but kind black eyes. “We call it the world,” he said in whatever language his people used for all that they saw around themselves.
            “Father, how big is the world? If I walked to the furthest things I can see, like those hills which are the furthest away, is that the end of the world? Or does it go on?”
            “Our people walked from a place we can’t see from here, so the world is bigger than we can see,” he told the child.
            “Does the world go on forever, or does it end?” persisted the small boy.
            “You must ask the eagle, if he will speak with you,” laughed the father. “Eagle sees from the sky. Maybe he will tell you.”
            The child left his father to his work and walked the path to the top, above the village, clear out of the canyon. Looking into the empty sky he called, “Eagle, will you speak with me?” And then he waited. The sun beat down on his small black head and his narrow brown shoulders. After a while he saw something in the sky and it was coming closer and getting bigger. Soon he saw wings beating the air as the eagle flew.
            Eagle landed right beside the boy, and said, “I will speak with you. Do you have a question?”
            “Thank you for speaking with me, Eagle. Yes, I want to know if the world goes on forever, or if there is an end where it stops,” said the child.
            “I see,” said the eagle. “I can tell you this much, but no more. I have flown over the desert until it was forest land below me. I have followed rivers; I have seen the great deep waters from afar. I have seen no end to the world. But, you must remember that I have only seen as much as I have seen. You must ask one whose wisdom is deeper than mine.
            “There is an oracle of the great creator spirit in your very own village. She is a tiny little old woman married to your village elder man. You must ask her,” said the eagle, gaining altitude as he flew on his way.
            So, the child walked back down into the village. He was very happy to go back down into the shade in the canyon. It had been a long time since he had eaten his piece of cornbread. He was hungry, but he went anyhow to the elder man’s house. The old man was sleeping inside on his bed of woven hide and branches.
            The very tiny white-haired woman was sitting cross legged before a small fire. Sitting near the fire was an earthen pot of goat stew, with peppers and corn.  It smelled very good to the child.
            “Are you hungry, Grandson?” she asked when her bright eyes saw him approaching.
            “Yes, Elder Lady, I am,” said the boy.
            So, she served him some stew in a gourd bowl, and she watched him eat it all down. Then she said, “Do you have a question for me? There is a question all over your face, Child.”
            “Elder Lady, how big is the world, and does it go on forever, or does it end somewhere?” said the boy. “Eagle said that he has seen very far but he has not seen the end of it.”
            “Ah, three questions, within one question! Very good!” she chuckled.
            “You are the first to ask me this question. I will think for a moment,” she said.
            “Yes, Lady, I will wait,” said the boy.
            “Grandson, our village is a world, and it is inside the world of all that you see. All that you see is a world in a greater world. This greater world lives among the worlds of the heavens, and there is no end of worlds, dear boy. As to how big the world we stand on is, well perhaps some day it will be known,” she said.
            “Now, go back to your mother. She is looking for you. Also, there are some questions which you must ask the creator spirit. Then you must listen carefully for the answer in your heart.”
            “Yes, Elder Lady, I will remember,” he said.
            Then he went to his mother, who had been calling his name, and sat beside her while she worked at her cooking, for soon his father would come home and he would be hungry.

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