Flying with Penguins (The Emperor of Antarctica) A friend and classmate had a message from Penguin delivered to her door recently and asked for my opinion on the nature of that message. Now I have my own personal take on Penguin Medicine but this was her message and not mine so I decided to ask the Gods directly. Depending on which Gods you`re talking with becoming a penguin was either a blessing or a curse. I have been told that the Gods never lie, but I have also been told "As above,so below". I know down here in this world the best medicines come wrapped in a story or legend and the realm or legend lies somewhere between the truth and a lie. So let us begin unwrapping this gift while standing in this world and on that particular patch of ground. One thing the Gods can all agree on is that the spirit we know as Penguin has always been a member of the animal kingdom. As might be expected, opinions differ about these flightless birds. Some of the Gods think highly of them and some others have a less favorable view of them. I like to end a story on a harmonious note if at all possible so I`d like to start this story by taking the low ground and then follow a path that makes it`s way up into the light from there. According to some of the Gods Penguins were originally very large, fierce predator fish. They were powerful, fast and agile. Once they set their sights on something it was just a matter of a very short span of time before it became theirs. They were so adept at their craft that they began to look down their noses at their prey. By this point in time they considered everything that swam, crawled or fell into the oceans to be prey for them. They felt they were at the pinnacle of the food chain and their status as hunters set them above the rest of the Animal Kingdom. They even went so far as to become very casual in their interactions with the Gods. Soon their relationship with the Gods deteriorated to the point that they could not be in the presence of the Sea Gods without being disruptive. The rest of the Gods knew they had to call a council to decide how they were going to reign these rebellious fish in. It was decided that the God of Air and the Earth Goddess would form a partnership to resolve the problem and teach these unruly creatures the meaning of respect and humility. They decided to hold their meeting in one of the sheltering antarctic bays in hopes to keep tempers cool. When the huge fish showed up late and started their end of the exchange by being arrogant and disrespectful the Goddess shouted "Enough!". She looked at them with Fire in her eyes and said "You have forgotten your place in the order of things. You take advantage of your station in life and are incapable of taking anything seriously. You think your size and skills afford you privilege, you will learn differently!" She then plucked them from their home in the sea and threw them onto the ice. They gasped for mercy when exposed to the God`s cold subarctic air but the Goddess didn`t believe they had truly learned their lesson yet. She began to transform them, first she made them much smaller, then she replaced their scales with feathers and turned their fins into stunted wings. In order to keep them alive she gave them lungs to breath with instead of gills. She told them, "you want to be comical? I`ll give you webbed feet and make you waddle clumsily around on the land. You like to make a joke out of everything and ignore the rules that guide us all? I`ll dress you in black and white to remind you how clearly things can be defined". As a final punishment she took their large, sharp teeth and gave them small beaks instead. Then she banished them to the frozen wastelands. Later, after the Goddess had left, when they came back back to the sea in order to try to feed Neptune saw his once proud and beautiful creations floundering around in the water making futile attempts to catch their dinner and took pity on them. He restored some of their agility in the water so they might at least survive. He felt the Goddess had been a bit harsh in turning them into flightless birds. He reasoned that if they could not fly thru the air like other birds then there was no harm in allowing them to fly thru the water in order to catch what sustained them. Because they had angered the Gods, the once fearsome predators of the sea had been transformed into the comical, vulnerable and flightless birds we`ve come to know as penguins. If it hadn`t been for Neptune`s intervention they surely would have perished for their transgressions. I find that stories are shapeshifters and many, at the very least are like coins in that there are at least two faces or sides to them. Some stories, like coins, are worth more than others. Instead of wandering too far off track I`ll press on now and turn the other side of this coin/story into the light. Another group of Gods, having heard the first group telling their version of things, got my attention and told me a completely different tale of how Penguin came into being.This second group of Gods told me that Penguin had always been a bird spirit in this world. It was just the luck of the draw that this particular spirit has come to the attention of the Gods at the end of a rather long and trying period of creation and on a day when the Gods found themselves left with more spirits than attributes to give out. The Gods advised the remaining spirits to come back after the Gods had time to rest, restock and refill their coffers with attributes and worlds to practice those gifts and skills in. One lone spirit stepped forward and asked the Gods to please send it into the present world with whatever gifts or skills remained. It said it had important work to do in our world and was anxious to begin it`s journey here. "You`d have to be a relatively small bird, a flightless bird at that" the Gods told this spirit. "I can accept that", was the Spirit`s reply. " We`re all out of color, we`ve already given all the color to the rest of the spirits so you`d have to be happy with just black and white" , the Gods explained. "I can work with just black and white", the spirit assured them. One of the more outspoken Gods told this spirit, "Look, you really should wait,. Remember the Platypus? You don`t want to end up like that do you? Look where impatience got them. Besides, we`re fresh out of decent places to put you, there`s only the frozen continent of Antarctica left. No trees, nothing but ice and snow. That`s no place for a bird, especially a flightless bird". The spirit said, "I just can`t wait or go to another world. I feel I have important work in this world, work only I can do, and I feel I need to get to it today". So after a long and trying day the Gods placed the first Penguin on Earth. Some of the Gods were a bit upset about being pressed by this spirit and other Gods worried about sending such a hap-hazzard collection of attributes out to become medicine in the world so they kept a close eye on Penguin at first.What they found was that Penguin adapted well to the extremely harsh environment they had placed it in. Here`s the thing about some spirits, the best ones are strong, tenacious, and timeless. This type of spirit can take next to nothing, like the things that others would pass by or cast off, and turn those meager beginnings into enough to get started.Once these spirits get started there is no stopping them. Their tenacity will allow them to take whatever slim start they get and expand it into all they need to keep going and more. The best spirits become vessels and channels for things like Hope,Community,Joy, Selfless Service and Sacrifice while barring the door to discordant energies such as, doubt, envy and ego. It matters little to a determined spirit what shape it has to take or what environment it has to work in. Things like limitations don`t even cross this type of spirit`s field of vision. Spirits that operate at this level and vibration know all they need is a vessel and meaningful work to do. Everything else is transient and will either sort itself out or the spirit will be able to rise above it, release it and continue on leaving it behind without a second thought. So the spirit that was now Penguin set to work in this world. It turned it`s short, stunted feathers into a dense mat capable of insulating it against the bitter cold. There were no trees around so instead of a nest it carried it`s egg on it`s feet to keep it up off the ice. Both male and female penguins developed a brood pouch to surround the egg with warmth and protection. The two genders also formed a seamless bond between them focused on moving their species forward under the extreme conditions that they faced. Teamwork, selflessness and sacrifice were some of the watchwords they lived by and it helped their message and medicine grow and spread. After a female penguin became depleted through mating and then laying her single egg she carefully transferred that lone egg to her mate who began a period of fasting and the carefully focused care of that egg that lasted several months while his mate returned to the sea hunting and rebuilding her depleted body and storing reserves for the newborn chick soon to come into this world. Penguin learned that in order to live under the harsh conditions imposed on it that it had to keep moving. They huddled together when storms came and turned their backs to the winds that would divide them and blow them away. They looked to each other for protection, warmth and support. During the worst of times they circled into a dense cluster yet still kept moving at a slow shuffle. They all stayed together and they allowed nobody to fall behind or get lost.They focused on keeping their community together, in motion and alive. Those at the center also stayed in motion and eventually every bird took their turn along the leading edge as positions within the community shifted allowing all involved to alternately shield the group from the outer edges then move inward and benefit from the warmth, protection and security the center of the group provided. The Gods saw all this evolving from a distance as they went on dealing with the day to day problems in the other Kingdoms and realms. Things like a Stone Spirit angry about how long it took to get anything done in it`s kingdom, a Plant Spirit complaining about having to remain rooted to one spot it`s entire life, or an Animal Spirit grousing about it`s place in the food chain. During their dealings with all this discordance the Gods never heard so much as a peep out of the penguins. They just kept their heads down, backs to the wind and got on with the business of adapting and overcoming in one of the harshest environments this world has to offer. It didn`t take long for the Gods doubts about the penguins to turn into respect. During yet another trying period of dealing with the whiners, complainers, malcontents and prima-donnas of this world the Gods decided to gather all the complaining spirits and take them on a short trip to see the penguins on the astral plane. They showed the Plant Spirits that there were worse things than having to spend all your days rooted in warm fertile soil. They saw penguins living on nothing but perpetually frozen ice and having to stay in constant motion because if the penguins stopped moving, even for a short time, they froze and died. The Gods showed the Stone Spirits that even at their slow and steady pace, if they were patient, their lives allowed them the opportunity to experience seeing both the heart of the Goddess and to then become part of the top of the world as a mountain range as they slowly shifted across the face of the Earth. The penguins had only the flat blue horizon of the sea and the white frozen drifts as vistas to took forward to all their lives. The Gods also showed the animal spirits who complained about having to defend prime territory and traveling to find food how the male penguins had to exist on territory nobody else wanted and how after fasting and caring for their eggs for months male penguins were still willing to give up what little reserves they had left in them if their mates were late in returning from the sea and the eggs hatched then the hungry chicks needed to be fed before their mothers arrived with food. Those same seriously weakened fathers traveled long distances in that seriously depleted state before they could return to the sea and find food for themselves. The Gods didn`t say much as the other spirits took in what the penguins had accomplished alone and entirely on their own. The Gods didn`t have to, what the spirits saw said it all. Before they sent the other spirits back to their respective places in this world the Gods called the Deva of Penguins to join them. They told this Penguin spirit they were very pleased with how much the penguins had accomplished after being given so little. They asked the Penguin spirit why it had never come to them and asked for their help. Penguin told them " I was the one who asked you to give me a chance in this world. I felt that it was up to me to make the most of that gift before I asked for another". The Gods were so impressed by the Penguin`s humility that they made Penguin an offer, they asked Penguin if it could make a change for itself what would it be? The spirit of penguin asked only for a bit more skill in hunting and a slower metabolism so it could better catch and store what it needed to provide more for the next generation. When given the opportunity for personal gain Penguin thought only of others. The Gods all decided then and there that they would reward Penguin. They took it`s useless wings and turned them into efficient flippers so the flightless bird could now fly swiftly through the water. They granted Penguin increased control over the organs within it`s body so it could dive deeper, stay down longer and then store more food both for itself and it`s young as it had requested. Lastly the Gods showed their respect to Penguin, and reinforced the lessons to the other attending spirits, by decreeing that from that day forward Penguin would be the "Emperor of Antarctica". At the end of that long day the Gods took some of the brilliant color from the frozen sunset and laid it over the drab black and white the penguins had worn up till then. These colors became a mantle and crest, they even put some color into Penguin`s beak so it could speak more regally, into it`s feet so it could bless the white wastelands with color at every step and into and around it`s eyes so it would always be able to see the beauty that surround it. Along with a title the Gods gave Penguin the keys to and mastery over two realms, the Sea and the frozen Earth. That day the Gods showed the other spirits that a true ruler holds the definition of sovereignty in it`s heart. A ruler does so by looking to those around them first before they look for any personal gain, they make the most of whatever situation they find themselves in rather than always looking towards getting more or comparing what they have to what others have. They also showed the spirits that in order to evolve and progress you have to be able to thrive and prosper wherever you find yourself, even under extreme conditions and tough circumstances. These are the attributes the Gods are most likely to reward. The moral of this particular side of the story is; If you learn to till the field you are given then you are far more likely to reap the benefits of an abundant crop now and in the future. Now I can`t say for certain which one of these stories is the true story of Penguin Medicine. In the end neither story needs to be the true one because my friend and classmate discovered that what was originally thought to be a message from Penguin was actually a message from Dragon in disguise. But that is a story for another day.