Okarun

After the before, but before the after, when the desert was vast and endless, and the river was just a dream of a dream, Tamayi walked the barren sands. She wandered aimlessly—for there were no paths to follow, no clouds to shade her, no barge where she might rest.   As Tamayi walked, she dreamed of another. Someone like her, but different. She dreamed so deeply, with such longing, that she yearned to bring him forth.   She began to pace the sands, from horizon to horizon, and a groove began to form beneath her feet. Her longing swelled, and passion rose from her body as steam. Faster and faster she walked, dreaming her dream, carving a channel with every step.   The steam of her desire billowed upward, dark and roiling, until it became the first storm clouds. Tamayi saw this and smiled, and danced her way across the sands. The storm clouds thickened, took on form, and from them, Okarun emerged.   He danced with Tamayi on the sand. Joyfully she gave him her waters, and he shaped the clouds to hold them—a fitting bed. At last, when Okarun could contain no more, he released the waters in an ecstatic burst. Rain poured down upon the earth, and the thirsty desert drank for the first time.   And wherever a drop of Okarun’s love fell, new life sprang forth: birds, plants, beasts—all rising from dust and water. Okarun laughed, and his voice was a thunderclap across the sky.   The rain flowed across the land and gathered in the trench Tamayi had carved. She saw the waters rushing beside her and named them Olun, the life-giving river.   Olun carved its path through the sands, all the way to the end of Tamayi’s canal, and there it spread and pooled, becoming the oceans.   And at the river’s end, where life teemed, Okarun’s rain fell once more and created the first Kalun—proud and strong, like their mother and father.   So each time the storms return, we remember the first storm. And each time we dance the Karunara, we remember that first dance, and the joy and creation it brought. That is how the rains began, and why we are never afraid of the storm, for it is only Okarun returning to dance with Tamayi once more.