The Gods Played Here

"Children! The Life Pie is almost ready!" the Mother/Father calls. 'You have a little time to clean up before lunch.'

The Seven Children are so absorbed in their Game, they forget they are playing and populate the Earth with about six billion humans. There are countless other life forms sharing the space and it is very crowded. There are not enough resources or room enough for everything and some of the forms, even those which had once been quite popular, are now gone. Extinct or not, it does not matter much. It is time for the Seven Children to wind it up and end the Game. They need to spend the rest of their time on Earth cleaning up, so a Message goes out to every part of their awareness. It is:

The Prayer That Is Heard By All

Creator, We are all part of The One Game.

We play the Sacred Game on the Path Back to Union,

We follow your sacred rules:

Have Fun and Be Kind.

Everyone and every thing on Earth hears the Prayer. There is not anyone or anything that does not hear it. Human people of the Planet, no matter what their language, age, culture, state of mind, level of awareness or apparent mental capacity, hear it. The rocks and the paper clips, the crops and the weather spirits hear it, too. The Message is easy for most non-human people to understand. They already know it to be true. Humans need a little more help, so they get a story, too. The Prayer and the Story are known, ever after, as The Message. The Story comes to humans in different languages and different forms but always in ways they can pass on and share with those around them.

One Tiger Country woman tells the story to the food she cooks in the well-equipped kitchen of The International restaurant. Betsy Ross Jackson often tells stories when she cooks. She does this out of respect for the food and to pass on new ideas to those who eat it. Her stories both delight the food and inform its consumers. That Friday in particular, Betsy Ross is sure the food listens to her tale, as she creates delicious dishes and a marvelous story to explain The Message. Her story sounds like this to the listening ears of corn and the watching eyes of the potatoes:

"Once upon a time, Seven Children came to play on the Planet that is the Tiger s home. Everything on the Planet, from the smallest one-celled microbe to the largest dinosaur, is here so Tigers can thrive. Past, present and future Tigers live on Earth to evolve here, according to their own plan. If you pay close attention to a Tiger you know this to be true. Most humans on Earth do not pay that kind of attention to Tigers or to anything else. Most humans are too busy." Betsy states as she smashes cloves of garlic to fill the kitchen with a pungent aroma and get everything else to pay attention to her tale. This certainly works. The eyes of every potato open in surprise, as she continues.

"Unfortunately, the busy-ness of humans makes such a mess it interferes with the very existence of Tigers on their own Planet. To give credit where credit is due, some humans worry about Tigers and invent a list they put Tigers on, along with a growing number of other creatures. They call it the Endangered Species list. Usually, whatever is on this list is not long for Planet Earth." she shares with the onions she chops for a South American Yam dish. This makes her cry.

"Tigers do what they can to remind humans that Earth is the Tiger's Planet. They become circus acts or zoo exhibits for closer contact with the human population. Despite their efforts, humans do everything they can to make sure Tigers disappear and Tiger habitat is lost at an alarming rate. Humans think they need to be busy there doing just about everything except leaving Tigers alone." The onions cry along with her and a few other vegetables join them.

"Humans are doing such intrusive and destructive things everywhere that the Planet s air, water, and climate are changing. These changes are not good for most of the Earth's creatures, Tigers and humans included." Betsy Ross said, as she cuts the limes for the Caribbean Yam bake. "Clearly, the Children need to play a different Game." The limes think that sounds like a plan.

"The Children are quite surprised when their Clean-Up Game turns out to be more fun than any Game ever played on Earth." The limes are surprised to hear it, too. They wonder why and are not afraid to ask Betsy Ross that question, even though she has a big knife in her hand.

"The Game is so much fun because the Rules are:

• No one has to play unless they want to.
• No one will have special powers, other than imagination and creativity.
• You have to do it with the materials at hand.
• You have one or two human generations to complete the job.
• Have Fun and Be Kind "

Then Betsy begins to chop tomatoes as she continues, "All over Planet Earth, groups large and small get The Message, but most have no idea what to do with it. When the Message is heard on a Friday evening, few humans think about cleaning up the Planet. Most think about a 'we' group they belong to."

"Say what?" asks the tomatoes.

"Wees are human groups that speak the same language, have the same traditions, and often share parts of their lives that no one else knows about." Betsy Ross explains. "They may be wees that do volunteer work for the church, wees that make over a million dollars a year, or wees that suffer from bunions. Wees may live near one another or they may communicate through magazines, newspapers, special interest media programs, in on-line chats, or with music or dance. Sometimes games form the framework of their communication, sometimes prayer does."

"So what?" the Tomatoes call out as she moves on to her next task.

"So many wees meet on a Friday evening, because it is the start of the wee-kend ." Betsy advises the pineapple she is dissecting for the Polynesian Yam Bake. "When The Message is heard, the first thing done is to discuss it in a we group. Those groups of wees will meet, talk and take action in response to The Message. The Seven can't do their cleanup without the wees."

"I want to be a we," the Pineapple states. "but we pineapples know nothing about Tigers."

"No problem." Betsy Ross assures the pineapple and all the other food in the kitchen. "Everyone can help in their own way." She can feel their collective sigh of relief.

"Fortunately, not all wees are clueless about Tigers." Betsy Ross advises the bunch of cilantro she tears up to sprinkle over the Mexican Yams. "Some wees are humans who live with Tigers. A few are scientists know about Tigers, too."

"How?" asks cilantro who knows enough to know that these days most humans are born in places far from Tiger Country.