Ancient Artist of the Orchid Cave - Voyages of the Ship Destiny's Dreams

Thirteen-year-old Nube and her slender, hairless dog with grey skin, named Gris, gasped for air and ran for their lives.

In the downpour of rain, the avalanche of mud and rocks came crashing down the mountain behind them.

The air was full of their cries.

It was in ancient times, over 1500 years ago, in the Amazon rainforest of South America, under the dripping canopy of trees in the Peruvian Andes mountains.

"Over here!" Her mama's voice called and the family rushed after her.

"But my paints. The red ochre." Nube's high pitched voice carried over the wind.

"Leave it. Run or we will be buried." Her mother grasped Nube's arm and pulled. They left all of their belongings behind.

"We will start over again. You can make new paintings." At her mother's words Nube started crying.

"Everything will be gone." She sobbed the words. "It is hopeless."

Nube took a last look at her paintings to say good-by. They told the stories passed down from the ancients and of Nube and her family's own lives, painted with red ochre dyes.

The figures and designs were on the walls of their cave, where orchids grew in the shadows and dampness.

They seemed so alive. Nube sometimes imagined at night that she saw them slip down from the wall to run and dance on the forest floor.

"But..." She turned for a last look at the figures on the cave wall.

"No. Hurry." It was almost a scream From her mother.

The booming sounds of the mountain's rocks and mud sliding got closer.

"I will always remember." Nube said the words out loud to herself. The visions of the world she knew, that she painted on the rock walls, flashed through her mind.

"Somewhere I will do it again. The stories must be saved for our descendents. The ancestor's tales are precious." The thoughts raced through her mind and she whispered to herself.

"Oooooo." Screams from the running people surrounded her. The slopes were full of her many relatives, falling, scrambling in the rain on the slippery ground.

"Papa, Papa." Nube's eyes sought her father's form.

"Daughter. Nube. I am here. It is coming. We must get out of the way. Over here, to the side, then upward." Her father's directions led the group.

Earlier, the low, heavy clouds were black with moisture that morning. Then they released their burden, sending an ocean down upon the mountains.

"Rrrrrrr." The people living in the cave with Nube' heard the mountain speaking to them when the mud and rocks began to slide and fall.

"Sssshhh." The hiss of the falling downpour seemed to be the voice of the storm to Nube's family and friends.

"Thwack. Boom." The people heard the voices of trees falling in the mudslide.

In their world, they saw themselves as one of the many other living things who all had voices and selves.

"Oooaaaaooo." They heard the voice of the wind howling through the trees.

The mountainside became loose in the flood of rain. Then the cliffs, boulders, trees, and mud slid, tumbling down from the peaks, and gathering speed with a thundering roar.

It was coming down the steep slopes toward the cave where the wild Peruvian orchids grew inside, where Nube, her relatives, and Gris lived.

These words were in one of the journals, from the 1800s, that were found in the attic of the Mystic Lighthouse.

Ana, the author, was the ship storyteller for the sailing clipper vessel known as Destiny’s Dreams.

When a boy named Guapo, and his hairless Peruvian dog called Felix, joined the ship, Guapo brought his grandmother's stories. Guapo was from the floating islands made of reeds on the lake in the Peruvian mountains.

His grandmother always told him, "The ancients spoke to the world around them. They heard the voices of the plants, the animals, stars, moon, and the sun."

Her tales went back to the days of the Incas living on top of the Andes Mountains in the 1500s, and further back a thousand years to ancient times.

The threads of the fabrics of time, encoded with many secrets, unraveled revealing ancient truths, when Guapo told Ana his grandmother's stories.

Then Ana wrote the stories in her journals.

Guapo's tale from his grandmother began long ago, beyond many grandmothers' lives.

Earlier that day of the storm, thirteen-year-old Nube mixed paints from red ochre for her artwork on the rock walls of the cave.

She talked to Gris, one of their hairless dogs, named for her grey skin color.

"Here Gris. A treat for you. Good girl." The dog's eyes shined and she took the treat gently.

"Aaaarrggh." The rumbling sound was Gris trying to speak with her canine voice.

"I know. I think so too." Nube liked to reply to Gris with humor.

Then Gris pricked her ears and flicked them, sensing the light meaning and fun mood from Nube’s tone. 

Gris pulled back her lips and smiled with her teeth gleaming. Her tail slowly wagged. She was a happy dog, feeling close and loved by her human, the center of her life.

Nube stroked the warm, rough skin of Gris’s slender, hairless neck, and Gris curled against her in a warm dog hug.

The embers of a fire made from dried mosses and twigs still glowed nearby and lit the walls of the cave. It was a cozy place to live and the family felt comfortable there.

"Life is good here." Nube often heard her father speak to her mother.

"Yes," Nube's mother would reply. "Plants from the jungle to eat, fish from the rivers and streams, and fresh water. Our family. A home in the cave with beautiful paintings by our daughter telling the stories of our people. Orchid flowers blooming in the cave. Llamas and their warm wool for clothing."

Nube’s paintings on the walls told stories of animals, the world around them, and of people.

The artwork made the walls come alive with the stories. To Nube the drawings themselves seemed to come alive too.

The people living there felt connected to the world around them. 

Nube, whose name meant “Cloud,” and her family, lived in the cave, where orchids grew in the shaded dampness.

The orchids voices were silent and they sent their messages by curling their petals and swaying.

The orchids had orange, purple, yellow and blue curling petals that framed Nube's red ochre paintings on the cave walls.

The family loved their home in the cave of orchids and red ochre paintings. After dark they could sit by the fire and look at the illustrations of their stories that were painted on the walls.

Then one day the heavy downpour of rain hit the mountain. Mud, stones and boulders made a new thundering sound when the side of the mountain began falling.

“Hurry, run, RUN,” called Nube’s mother when it started. The family did not stop to grab anything.

They all dashed out the mouth of the cave, into the falling water, scrambling across the mountain under the trees.

Nube the artist did not even have time to grab her red ochre paints. Gris, her hairless dog, leaped at her side while they ran.

Earlier that morning the rain began as a shower and then came down harder and louder. Nube, with her dog and her family, were gathered around a fire in their cave. 

Gris had a pair of yellow, almond-shaped eyes on her pointed grey snout, under sharp, leaf-shaped ears. She looked into Nube's own dark eyes that peered out from masses of tumbled hair.

On that day the low, dark, heavy clouds meeting the jagged Andes Mountains opened and let their moisture fall in solid sheets of water.

Those clouds were part of the air and wind blowing east to west, from the Atlantic side of South America toward the western side.

The moisture picked up over the Atlantic kept getting heavier until the tired clouds could no longer carry it.

Then with sighs and moans of wind, the clouds let go of their grasp of the moisture when they reached the Andes mountain slopes.

Water poured over the birds, trees, rivers, monkeys, jaguars, and orchid flowers of the Amazon jungle.

Inside the cave, Nube wrapped her arms around the warm body of her hairless Peruvian dog, whose genetics made her canine skin extra warm.

Gris was descended from the treasured, ancient dog companions of Nube's ancestors. 

Inside of Gris were hundreds, and perhaps thousands of years of instincts and closeness to the people of the Amazon, the Andes Mountains, and the coastal deserts on the west side of South America.

She knew she was highly treasured.

Gris moved gracefully with her slender head and body expressing sensitivity and confidence. Her feelings and thoughts were automatically aligned with her people, and theirs were with hers.

When Nubel looked at Gris, she saw sometimes the slender, graceful dog seemed to glow with the light of the ancients flowing through her.

Nube wore her colorful, dyed, woven llama wool loose poncho. She reached for her red ochre paints in the dim light near the mouth of the cave. 

Gris wore a bright dog poncho of the llama wool to keep her hairless body warm and cozy.

The water falling outside roared and the wind howled like a troop of monkeys screeching.

"I'm here, Gris. We are alright. You will be dry in the cave with me today. We can stay here and paint on the walls."

"Aarrrgghh..."Gris opened her mouth to speak in her own language, revealing the teeth and empty spaces on her gums.

Like many hairless dogs, she inherited genetics that caused her to be born missing part of her teeth.

"Here Gris," Nube pressed one of Gris's paws into red ochre paint and then into the cave wall.

In the moist, sheltered crevices near the mouth of the cave, purple, lavender and yellow flowers bloomed in the curling shapes of orchids perched on their stems.

"Now, my turn." Nube pressed her hands into the red ochre paint and then onto the cave wall rock near Gris's paw print.

Slender, running legs poked out of Gris's llama hair poncho. 

Nube knew that under the poncho Gris had a sleek body. 

"We need to take this off for a moment." Nube removed Gris's poncho.

Her eyes scanned Gris's body. Then she picked up a narrow stick with a blunt tip.

She dipped it into the red ochre, and drew four legs, a pointed head and pointed ears, and then drew a body on the rock wall near the paw and hand prints.

"Daughter, your paintings tell our stories." The words came from a tall woman wrapped in llama wool.

"For your hair, and one for Gris, too." The woman wrapped a chain of yellow and lavender orchid flowers into Nube's hair locks.

"Here Gris. Special orchids for you." The woman embraced Gris who curled into her arms and leaned against her.

She wrapped Gris up in the dog poncho. Gris nuzzled the woman's hand with a wet nose.

"You are like one of my children, too, sweet Gris." The woman put a chain of orchids around Gris's neck and Gris wagged her tail and smiled, her yellow eyes shining.

Later in the day, the storm’s rain and winds lashed the mountainside till part of it began to fall. Nube, Gris, and her family scrambled frantically through the jungle under the trees.

Small streams turned into wild rivers and valleys flooded. Nube's family ran for higher ground and breathlessly climbed upward.

At the end of the day, they found a smooth cliff with a deep ledge overhanging the ground that formed a cave.

“Here, Nube. Everyone. It is getting dark. We can shelter under this tonight.”

Twilight was falling. The rain still poured. But the rock and mudslide was far away.

"We are safe. Everyone gather here. We brought food. Tonight we need to sleep. Tomorrow we will start on making a new home here." Papa spoke to the the group of relatives and friends huddled under the ledge in the new cave.

Nube’s mother gathered everyone and they found dry spots under the ledge. The mosses and twigs were damp but they were able to get a small fire going that warmed them.

Bursts of bright sunlight streaming between the trees and leaves hit their faces in the morning. The storm was over.

"Squawk. Tweet. Wooo." The people in the cave heard the birds outside speaking in their morning voices.

"A good sign. The birds are sounding like usual." Mama spoke and the people in the group relaxed and ate breakfast near the fire.

The wet jungle glistened and the birds called, chattered, sang, and squawked.

In the moist shade of the cliff ledge Nube saw the curling petals of orange, yellow, and purple orchids.

"You can make a home here, join with us and live here," they seemed to whisper to Nube.

“We need to get the fire going again.” Nube’s mother spoke and the family found dry mosses in the cracks of the cliff.

Nube’s big extended family worked all day to prepare their new camp spot. Another group of people left homeless by the storm joined them. They had several of the hairless dogs with them too.

The days went by and the people began to feel comfortable in their new home under the cliff ledge.

Nube made new red ochre paints and brushes out of twigs with crushed ends. Gris followed her, always close to her side.

Nube’s mother told them the ancient stories each night while they sat by the fire.

Then Nube began painting the stories on the smooth cliff walls. The colorful petals of the Amazon orchids twisted among the red ochre figures.

"Gris. Here is a painting of you." She spoke to her four-legged companion.

Nube's mother watched and turned to Nube's father. "She has begun again. Now she knows how to make a new start. All was not lost."

"Mother. These cliffs go on and on. I can make so many more paintings. Now I am almost glad we had to run from the other cave." The rest of their group agreed the new paintings were even more beautiful and they stretched a long ways on the long walls of cliffs.

The smooth ledges of the land went on for many miles. Nube’s relatives joined in with the painting, pressing their hands into the red ochre paint and onto the stone.

They drew stories about their lives and their connections to animals, plants, stars, and the whole world.

"By day I watch over you," the sun paintings seemed to say.

"At night I light your way," Nube's group felt the designs of the moon and stars said to them.

"The stars go on forever," is what the voices of the spiral designs seemed to tell Nube and her group.

The people added their handprints, and red ochre drawings of themselves in the forest, and of animals, trees, dances, and their dogs.

Then Nube's mother made the people hair decorations and necklaces from chains of the orchids growing in the shade of the ledge.

The paintings of stories were preserved forever on the cliffs.

Generations of people made their home there. Their painted stories went on for miles and miles along the rock walls of the cliffs, framed by the colorful orchids.

Here, Ana’s faded quill pen writing in the journal was only blotches and impossible to read.

Then it started up again.

No one knows where the miles of painted figures and their stories are now.

They exist forever in the tales about them that are told to generation after generation.

Somewhere on the South American continent, under the Amazon's canopy of leaves, vines, moss, and tangled branches, the red ochre figures walk and dance.

They are full of life from the stories they tell. Around them the jungle plants and animals speak, each in their own language.

In the shade of their green world the ancient figures cavort among the orchids.

Unseen, they step off the walls on quiet nights, and dance under the stars and moon to the songs of night birds singing in the leafy canopy above.