The Nature of the Sky

                      When I was a babe, my mother, the earth, spoke to me.  "My child," she said, "the sky is a river, and our world swims through it.  The stars you see at night are other worlds, and we are all carried in the Great Maker's net."  Then she granted me dreams of strange skies and different seas, and I believed her.
                      When I was old enough to hunt alone, my father, the moon, spoke to me.  "My child, the sky is a great valley, and the sun a buffalo that roams through it.  The stars you see at night are the mighty warriors who pursue the sun."  And he granted me dreams of strong hunters and a shining prey, and I believed him.
                       You tell me that the sky is empty space, and the stars are giant fires burning very far away.  You tell me that the river and the valley are illusion, that the hunters and the worlds are myths and falsehoods.  You give me not dreams, but ideas as cold and hard as the iron tools you bear, and ask me to believe you.  And I do believe what you say, of the sky and the stars.
                       Yet just because the sky is empty space, why should it not also be a river, and a valley?  Just because the stars are enormous fires, why should they not be hunters and worlds as well?  You think you have knowledge, but you have closed your eyes.
                        Shall I teach you to open them again?