Northeastern winds whistle across the Bare Rock Mountains. Voices from the past sing to those who choose to listen, and sometimes to those who don’t.

Those who choose willingly to hear the ancestral songs, lift their arms to embrace the remembrances and the histories of those who came before.

Then there are those that choose not to pay heed to the past. They turn a blind eye to not only the travesties, but also forgo the lessons the ancestors passed from generation to generation over the millennia.

These are the ones who fear the screaming wind. The guilt-ridden, the cowardly, the ambivalent ones who hear their failings in each shrieking gust of air as it passes over them, around them, through them.

The mountains hold countenance over all. The brave and honorable pass with respect, as they have given it. Paying homage to the land and loyalty to the spirits residing there, held deep within the granite monoliths.

To those who scoff at the suffering of their forefathers and foremothers, the great peaks hold only retribution and terror. The spirits whip a whirling lash of biting turbulence against those heretics and nay-sayers of the Old Ways. Against those who try in vain and abject arrogance to traverse the mighty cliffs.

For others, who follow the path of nature. Who care for and nourish the Earth and all of her creatures; for those and only those, the spirits sing.