The Silent Strider Path
The Way of the Tribe
Sepdet teaches Blinks-at-Fire (c. 1996?):
My cubhood was very different than yours, and I was weaned on the sands and ashes and bone dust of our lost home, and the whispered stories of the dying embers of an ancient, hidden caern whose Striders never reached the outside world.
So I already knew in my blood, in my heart, to my marrow, what the tribe means– or perhaps a dry, toughened husk of what it meant long ago. Since I came out of the land of a thousand tombs, I have watched how our cubs grow up in the scattered lands. Many are raised by other tribes, until the wanderlust awakens in their feet, and they go on Quest to seek out another of their own kind to teach them.
Ah, but little teaching do they find from us, for we are not really teachers. We just go. Cubs catch up and follow us, and learn along the way. It’s not that we believe as Stargazers, that you must find your own inner truths. Inner truths are fine, but they’ll never tell you what’s outside.
No. We learn from the road. Experience is the best teacher, as the humans say. So cubs learn what a Strider is mostly on their own, by scraps and clues, by watching, by doing, by waiting. Most of all cubs learn by asking questions, for you aren’t going to find out anything in this world unless you seek for it. It’s the way we discover all our hard-won secrets, and it’s the first and most important Secret you’ll learn. You’ll be learning more clues about Seeking all your life.
But I’m going to give you a lesson taught me by my dam, a Galliard who knew old, old songs. She was born of the desert wolves, and perhaps you will hear it in her words. This is the lesson of the Strider way, as she learned it: The Four Paws on the Path.
The Four Paws on the Path
What are the Four Paws? What is the path?
The first Paw is Listening. See our long ears? This means we must notice the small clues which our elders do not speak loudly. Secrets are in the words they say, and in the words they do not say:
Listen Closely.
The second Paw is Understanding : considering what we have heard, putting together the silences between each stride. We are a tribe of insight and of wisdom. Owl demands that we think for ourselves, and we are not always told or shown the way.
Seek the Meaning behind the Signs.
The third Paw is Travel, not just along the roads restless feet crave, but travel between Garou, between tribes, between packs, between sides, between experiences. Each one is a secret sign to one who listens closely, and compares this journey to that. We learn by doing.
Keep Moving.
The fourth Paw is Independence. For the scattered tribe each must stand alone, sometimes, or often. We choose our own roads, and thus define ourselves. We are responsible for our own actions. We are not always told what to do. We each learn and hone our own skills, find our own niche, do our own work, show our own initiative. Be proud to rely on yourself.
Choose Your Own Road.
But what moves the paws; what guides them? What is the mind and the Law that dictates the way?
The law is Ma’at, the word of Truth.
Ma’at is all things true, right, and balanced. She is the symbol of the Scales, the Holy Word, and the power of a right thing spoken correctly in its proper place. She is justice through harmony, truth in spirit, not just seeming. Ma’at is walking the line just so.
Even the Garou Litany has an echo of Her, in the way the Laws balance one another: “Respect those above ye in station.” “Respect those below ye, for all are of Gaia.” Do you hear? Both truths, just and balanced, one not whole without the other, derived from a sacred truth of Gaia. Only our half-moons now truly understand Lady Ma’at, and not even all of them. The rest of us strive to cleave to Her, for She can be our guide when all else is tainted by the anger between tribes, the despair of lost battles, or the loneliness and uncertainty of the road.
Ankh ‘m Ma’at: Live in Truth.
Sepdet sits back, cupping her hands on her knees as if cupping silence, and waits for other questions.
