9631155
|
figure of the First.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
b3bf3e3
|
There was a silence when Ayla finished. Zelandoni who was First broke the silence. "In our Histories and Legends, the Great Earth Mother gave birth to all life, and then to those like us who would remember Her. Who is to say how Doni formed us? What child remembers its life in the womb? Before it is born, a baby breathes water and struggles to breathe when first born. You have all seen and examined human life before it was fully formed, whe..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
9dd69f1
|
or group of
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
fe0acbd
|
It was the first time he had spoken. What Gift could Ayla give in return to the Mother that would be of equal value?" There was silence as everyone looked at Ayla. "I gave Her my baby," she said, knowing in her heart that the child she had lost was one started by Jondalar, that it was her and Jondalar's child. Will I ever have another baby that will be Jondalar's, too? she wondered. "The Mother was honored deeply when that baby was started...
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
6513932
|
He didn't know that panic was a survival trait, in extreme circumstances. When all else fails, and all rational means of finding a solution have been exhausted, panic takes over. And sometimes an irrational act becomes a solution the rational mind would never have thought of.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
06f2392
|
Hearth to change. He had been watching from the Lion
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
5856148
|
When people treat others badly, they have to rationalize it so they can go on living with themselves. We give ourselves excuses.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
6af0d9c
|
He didn't know he had only the shell of the woman he loved. It didn't matter. The shell was enough.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
2bc8f9a
|
But humans have been given the ability to think. That is what makes us learn and grow. It is also what gives us the knowledge that cooperation and understanding are necessary for our own survival, and that has led to empathy and compassion, but there's another side to those kind of feelings. The empathy and compassion we feel for our own kind is sometimes extended to the rest of the living things on the earth. If we allowed it to keep us fr..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
3dcd8de
|
That is truly the loss of innocence, Ayla, when we understand what we must do in order to live. That
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
f30e7bd
|
His people believed that the Mother had first created a spirit world, and the spirits of all things in it were perfect. The spirits then produced living copies of themselves, to populate the ordinary world. The spirit was the model, the pattern from which all things were derived, but no copy could be as perfect as the original; not even the spirits themselves could make perfect copies, that was why each was different.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
6a9d267
|
The creation of art, the delineation of animals or purposeful markings, was an expression of the ability to make abstractions--the ability to take the essence of a thing and make of it a symbol that stands for the thing itself. The symbol for a thing has another form as well: a sound, a word. A brain that could think in terms of art was a brain capable of developing to its fullest potential another abstraction of great significance: languag..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
83c252f
|
Not only could he share the memories, and control them, he could keep the link intact as their thoughts moved through time from the past to the present. The men of his clan enjoyed a richer, fuller ceremonial interrelationship than any other clan. But with the trained minds of the mog-urs, he could make the telepathic link from the beginning. Through him, all the mog-urs shared a union far closer and more satisfying than any physical one--i..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
e0ca72f
|
To the north of them the great continental glacier had dipped southward, as though straining to encompass the beautiful icy mountains within its overwhelming frozen embrace. They were in the most frigid land on earth, between the glistening mountain tors and the immense northern ice, and it was the depths of winter. The air itself was sucked dry by the moisture-stealing glaciers greedily usurping every drop to increase their bloated, bedroc..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
74562da
|
Ayla got up and went outside the tent. A mist hovered close to the ground and the air felt cold and damp on her bare skin. She could hear the roar of the waterfall in the distance, but the vapor thickened into a dense fog near the back end of the lake, a long narrow body of greenish water, so cloudy it was nearly opaque. No fish lived in such a place, she was sure, just as no vegetation grew along the edge; it was too new for life, too raw...
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
3034cea
|
The figure, made by the woman standing in front of him, had not been manufactured by modifying--carving or shaping or polishing--a material that occurred naturally. It was made of ceramic, fired clay, and it was the first material ever created by human hand and human intelligence. The heating chamber was not a cooking oven, it was a kiln. And the first kiln ever devised was not invented for the purpose of making useful waterproof containers..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
7be823f
|
At a bend in the river, an upland stream fell into the Middle Mother, which itself came from higher ground. The marrow-chilling air had caught and stilled the waters in the act of falling, and the strong dry winds had sculpted them into strange and grotesque shapes. Caricatures of living creatures captured by frost, poised to begin a headlong flight down the course of the long river, seemed to be waiting impatiently, as if knowing the turni..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
3d0be21
|
In a very real sense, it was a game, the very subtle and entirely serious game of comparative rank which is played by all social animals. It is the method by which individuals arrange themselves--horses in a herd, wolves in a pack, people in a community--so that they can live together. The game pits two opposing forces against each other, both equally important to survival: individual autonomy and community welfare. The object is to achieve..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
3aad3a5
|
much adapt to the environment as alter the environment
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
16aa8c7
|
The motion of a glacier was outward in all directions from its origin, and the speed of its motion depended on the slope of its surface, not on the slope of the ground underneath. If the surface slope was great, the water within the glacier flowed downhill faster through the chinks in the ice and spread out the ice as it refroze. They grew faster when they were young, near large oceans or seas, or in mountains where the high peaks assured h..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
7f85825
|
In Ranec's eye the finest and most perfect example of anything was beautiful, and anything beautiful was the finest and most perfect example of spirit; it was the essence of it. That was his religion. Beyond that, at the core of his aesthetic soul, he felt that beauty had an intrinsic value of its own, and he believed there was a potential for beauty in everything. While some activities or objects could be simply functional, he felt that an..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
a4b18b7
|
the leaders arranged themselves near the mouth of the cave. They waited quietly for the attention of the assembled clans. The silence spread out like the ripples of a stone cast in a pond as the presence of the leaders was made known. Men moved quickly into positions defined by clan and personal rank. The women dropped their work, signaled suddenly well-behaved children, and silently followed suit. The Bear Ceremony was about to begin.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
aeb37db
|
It was obvious that Balderan was seething with rage. He particularly hated the foreign man and woman who could control horses and a wolf, and could therefore control him. For the first time in his life he was afraid, and what he feared most was Wolf. He wanted to kill the animal, but not any more than Wolf wanted to kill him. The four-legged hunter knew in the way that animals with senses more developed than those of humans know that this m..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
26f9f86
|
you're
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
d3018e1
|
she felt a warmth towards him, and as she had done many times before to another man she remembered only vaguely, the little girl put her arms around the crippled man's neck, pulled his head down to her and rested her cheek against his.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
889542c
|
Children are always a joy, but pain, too. And they all must lead their own lives. Even Mut will let Her children go their own way, someday, but I fear for us if we ever neglect Her. If we forget to respect our Great Earth Mother, She will withhold Her blessings, and no longer provide for us.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
ca6f8b7
|
middle of a vast continent, somewhere near the undefined
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
2b4ea06
|
Unspoiled, undamaged, ruled by her own natural law and subject only to her own will--and the great void whence she sprang--the great Mother Earth took pleasure in creating and sustaining life in all its prolific diversity. But pillaged by a plundering dominion, raped of her resources, despoiled by unchecked pollution, and befouled by excess and corruption, her fecund ability to create and sustain could be undone. Though rendered sterile by ..
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
007771f
|
Working with flint, he had often caused small sparks, but he thought of it as the living spirit of the stone released as part of the process.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
4444e95
|
It didn't occur to him to attempt to make a fire with the sparks. But then he was not alone in a valley living on the bare edge of survival, he was usually around people who nearly always had a fire going.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
5993c1e
|
The sparks he made with just flint were not usually long-lived enough to make fire, anyway.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
9bf21b7
|
The Shamud had told him once that the Mother favoured him so much no woman could refuse him, not even the Mother Herself could refuse him - that was his gift - but he warned him to be wary. Gifts from the Mother were not an unmixed blessing, they put one in Her debt.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
dab5d93
|
I think we all have an obligation to teach children whatever we can,
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
a29dc69
|
No, Nezzie. No medicine can make him well,' she replied in a firm voice that was tinged with sorrow.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
ebcb2cd
|
But the old cripple never knew the joy of cradling a child in his own arms.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
838238f
|
that which is subtle can be more powerful.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
31acca8
|
hearth,
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
4b5f8dc
|
It's called ergot. Smell
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
2436e50
|
When such single minded strength of will and purpose is directed to reach its goal, no boundary can resist.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
f93d0de
|
They are lazy, worthless men who contribute nothing, unless they're shamed into it, and they have little shame.
|
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
8ec172f
|
Iza se volvio frente a la gente que presenciaba la ceremonia. La adopcion de Ayla habia resultado una sorpresa tan grande para ella como para el resto del clan, y la nina podia sentir como el corazon le palpitaba rapidamente. <
|
|
Jean M. Auel |
|