Sepdet's GarouMUSH Memoirs

Who We Are

Who Are the Striders?

I’m going to tell you what I have Seen as true, but you must also find your own answer. This is the one that works for me. And remember the best clues are not always in your elders’ words, but in their silences.

The Silent Striders, who are they?

Last of a beaten people
Who kept moving instead of yielding to despair
Tempered by long journeys
Each of us still travels our own self-roads of exile
From the den where we were born:
From Then to Now, no moon-path reaches.

We are purpose:
We find roads, ways, truths, for ourselves and for others, to seek and to follow.
We come together to plan for the things to come.

We are Searchers, silently listening for the signs
Other tribes bound to one place or people or path
Have no patience to hear.

We are endurers of change, both the quick and the slow,
Who know today’s faction and tension
Will be tomorrow forgotten.
We take the long view.

We are Survivors, who weather hard paths
Knowing today’s test tempers us
For the last battle
When together we will once more fight as one.
We are guides to the Dead
Though our own are lost to us
We protect the spirits of the Fallen
And they guide us in return.
We face the harsh lessons of the Painting Stones.

We are Knowers, gatherers of secrets, hard-won, sought, and earned
Keen to watch for patterns
And guess much from a little.

We are keepers of secrets forgotten
We are guardians of things to come
We are whisperers of the right word, at the right time, in just the right ear.

We are Striders
The Outsiders
Who claim nothing but
our scars,
our memories,
our meetings,
the road behind and ahead
and our own selves.