"Rachel Pollack - Immortal Snake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pollack Rachel)

back to the cave of the dead leopards. That night she dreamed of the sky.

Usually her dreams were of running, and the teeth of wild beasts, but
now she dreamed that she sat upon a rock high on a mountain and looked
up at a sky that flowed like blue water over the peaks of the world. In all her
life she had never dared to stare up like thatтАФwhat if a pack of dogs
attacked her children, what if the other women picked all the roots before
she got to them? But here, in her dream, she stared and stared, and the
more she looked the more she could glimpse a different world on the other
side.

She woke up with sorrow in her throat. All day she thought of the
dream, while she dug in the dirt for worms, while she searched for bubbles
of rainwater that would not make her too sick. That night she rushed to feed
her sons so she could return to sleep. Lying there on the mud floor, her
body sighed with pleasure as she found herself safely back in the dream.

This time she saw creatures in the world beyond the sky. Some were
two-legged like people, except that they had beaks like birds, and
sometimes wings that flashed out from their shoulder blades. And they
stood upright, their backs straight, unafraid. There were other creatures,
brightly colored bulls and horses. They looked solid yet they also seemed
made of music and light.

That morning she woke up in tears and wept all day long. As evening
approached she did everything possible to avoid falling asleep, for she
could not bear to visit that world and wake up in this one. She could not help
herself, she fell asleep before the moon rose.

Instead of sorrow, however, she found hope, for this time the dream
was different. She was not alone but stood in the center of a crowd of
people. Under her command the people constructed a stone pyramid that
allowed them to climb close to the sky world. With stone knives painted with
pictures of the sky creatures they slashed their arms and flung the blood
above their heads. Hawks and eagles raced for the blood, and as they
fought for it their beaks and wings slashed open the sky.

The creatures of light and music poured down into the world. They
raised up the people and fed them sky food so that the people would live
forever and never be hungry. They showed the people how to make
buildings out of songs, graceful houses where everyone could rest
comfortably, temples that spiraled up into the sky so the people could meet
with the sky creatures and praise them and receive their blessings.
 When the woman woke up she jumped to her feet, summoned her
boys, and began a journey to tell everyone her dreams, and what they all
should do to open a door for the sky people to enter their world. At first no
one believed her. They chased her with rocks or tried to take her sons away
to make them dig for food. Slowly, the womanтАЩs insistence began to
convince people, first one or two, then larger groups. Soon she had several
hundred people, enough to build a pyramid to open the sky.