Category Archives: Ecology

SPEAK FOR SALMON

November 28, 2015Ecology, Nature, Social Issues, spiritual ecology/ecofeminism/ziraatdolphin595

SPEAK FOR SALMON

POEMS BY CANDACE E. HOLT

_____________________________

INDEX

Love Has no Body                                         p. 1
I am the Question
Mother of Wave                                                  2
I Am…I Am Not
Skeletons                                                             3
Echoes                                                                   4
By Water                                                              5
Salmon Biting                                                   6
Fear
Picking Princes in September
Nimpo Lake                                                        7
Breaking Confines                                          8
Flayed
January                                                                  9
Medicine waters                                                10
Snow Fog
Nicaragua, 1985                                               11
From Mars
To Hide Unborn                                                 12
Solstice Dervish                                              13
Everybody’s Waiting                                     14
Savour of Honey                                                15
Wa-na-chee                                                       16
Ghosts Walk In                                                17
Her Eye                                                                18
Sands
Latest Word
We at the Millennium                                     19
Ancient Singing                                             20
Tipi                                                                       21
Koolaree
Wind Music                                                        22
Haiku
Watery Reaches                                               23
Bear Salmon Forest Bear                               24
Aurora Borealis
Vaya, Wind Spirit, Deep in-Breath           25

She Ponders                                                     26
Revolving
Moreso Morel                                                  27
Creek Dreams                                                 28
Centers                                                             29
Mandolin
The Woods
Reunion                                                              30
Birds                                                                    31
Speak for Salmon
Omnipoesie                                                      32
Nothing Mine                                                  33
Bestow Blessings
Mandolin and Moon                                      34
This Exquisite Raga
Jacket                                                                 35
Fearless Queen
We Are all Sentenced to Life                      36
Slow Red Sun                                                   37
Problem Solving
Response-Ability                                         38
Stonewall                                                         39
Turtle Island Peoples
Jewel of the Rockies                                   40
Music and Wondering                                   41
Laughter of Beings
Like Marsyas                                                  42
One Song                                                         43
Note by author                                               44

________________________________
LOVE HAS NO BODY

I have learned that
Love has no body;
That rain is a caress;
That pebbles embrace
one another;

I have learned that
Inside pain is a pearl of wisdom
Waiting for the shell which hides it
To be opened;
That reality is not subject
to intellect,
That music is the True Language;

My heart yearns for more lessons.

I AM THE QUESTION

I am the question
I am the answer
I am the seeker
I am the sought
I am the pain
I am the solace
I am the hunger
I am the nourishment
I am the confusion
I am the certainty
I am the misguided
I am the great guide
I am the question

To which answers
Heart’s golden Truth.

-1-

_____________________________

MOTHER OF WAVE

Mother of wave
Sea of Poseidon
Oyster catcher’s catch call
–all –all –all –all –all
–all –all

Friends three please take me
On these sands, as I am
I am I am
am-i amie
amies

Rock of Posiedon I draw your marks in sand
I feel your rock-rooted back
Rise up through earth
Sturdy guard of the shore
Protecting
Claiming

We, daughters of the Mother,
Dance
beside the gulls
the eagle
cormorant

We make our fire, cook mussels with rice
Sit in our sweat lodge
Surf pound sun
Water wood
Huge land world sea
Here I am; take me
This life my offering.

I AM…I AM NOT

I am milking white moon everything
Glowing gold and green
Late afternoon motions of my hands
Milking emptying
Two goat spouts

-2-

_____________________________

Put my nose to her side
Scent her fine goat hair
Yet I am not there

I am starving
I am overfilled
Milked out
The dry udder slowly fills
My entrails, my weight have been removed
My mouth, filled with chatter
Finds no tongue to speak

I am not here
I am not milking
No green no moon
Only absorption
Inside a song I am living

I am Motion of Moon turning
Of Earth revolving splash-painting
This afternoon
I am Motion of two hands pumping
With this Song I am living.

SKELETONS

Seas filled with sunken ships
Skeletons on her bottom depths

And leaky barrels of radiation
Plastic, dark petroleum trails,
Fish and whale-killing nets

As sea life withers and dies
As the salt levels slide
As the sea levels rise
Jellyfish rule

Coral reefs disappear
In this ageless Sea Mother’s realm
Always, always our sustenance
Our beauteous inspiration

-3-

____________________________

Bride of the moon
Muse for poets, for sailors
Vast, powerful dispenser
Of life, of death

She with her blue green foam
The very signature of
Planet Gaia
Becomes the repository
Of unspeakable garbage
Swill of human folly.

ECHOES

Her voice gurgles up from the stream
She has passed through concentric circles
Varied shades of twilight
From womb’s center
Aligning all things perfectly
As from the pearl of coyote’s howl;

Struggle wrote the lines of her face
The sad stories of her songs
Unyielding rhythm of her strumming;

Her eyes are deep wondering pools,
She tears out her heart
Leaving a hole big enough for
Her chest to be a mandolin gourd
She stretches leather over her chest
And fits strings between forehead and belly,
She becomes walking music
Strumming, singing
Dancing for the moon, for children;

When she comes to understand
The liquid motion of trees
Earth’s changing hues and shifting sounds
She wanders through translucent realms
Until there is no more reason
For her music

-4-

______________________________

For it is the soft drumming of steady rain
It is the rushing creek waters
It is itself the whispering pine breeze
She melts into these things
They gently sweep away her smiling mouth,
Her knowing ancient eyes,
Leave her sounds echoing
Echoing.

BY WATER

One moment outside the flow of time
We lay by rippling clear water
Warm in August sun

My hand on my belly
Our fingers entwined
My mind says “this may never happen again”
Tugs against ticking seconds

You were in a body then
Now you are memory
Imagined in my imaginary eyes

One of those moments that stills time
Now you are…
Are not…
I see sparkles of blue light
Dancing

Now you….

-5-

____________________________

SALMON BITING

Always
Heed
The primal longing
of your heart

Allow it to be the
Ultimate guide
As it draws you, entices you —
You the fish, biting

Then gloriously reeled in…in
To Truth’s dazzling Light.

FEAR

Fear is the clutching enemy within
Who creates all outside “enemies”
She lurks underneath violence
Hatred, dominance, greed,
War, oppression, abuse;

When we push aside her many grasping
Arms and breathe right through
Her stranglehold, she transforms
Into what she truly aspires:
True Power which respects, befriends,
Loves, listens, honors, equalizes.

PICKING PRINCES IN SEPTEMBER

Dying thistles, grasses, weeds rise
To varying heights above the carpet
Summer has laid down
Colors hinting autumn yet still alive
take me into their textured mysteries

I tread softly over sacred ground
with a mushroom bag
bulging with princes and boletus

-6-

_____________________________

Songs enter me when I drift here
into the grasses—grey clouds
their colors and motions;

You return to say
“goodbye” for the hundredth time
soft rain rhythms
penetrate my recorder
Rain music echoes through the hills

I see you across the stream
listening
And sense there is something of me
you always will cherish.

NIMPO LAKE

Tall pine sentinels rise up
Glowing in twilight along the lake;
We encamp in the Chevy pick-up
Not longing for sleep,
But enraptured by the loons
Their haunting cries encircle us
As time stops inside the primal calling–
Straining to name a forgotten secret:
That language I could dedicate myself
To deciphering;

Comes morning
Across calm waters
A trumpeter swan raises its
Cloud-white bulk
In majestic flight.

-7-

____________________________

BREAKING CONFINES

The I within me
Is knocking furiously
At the iron bars
Which enclose Her

My fear is
Soon she will erupt
Out of her stifling prison
To mold me into
What inevitably I must become:
The servant of Her wisdom
Walking Her determined relentless path,
One who lives Her Life.

FLAYED

The night the executioner comes
I stand ready
His gleaming eyes, his ominous chin
Point for me to come

Moonlight glances off his knife
His laugh tempts me
Trembling toward Charon’s water
I offer my throat

He comes at me slowly
Aiming at the collar bone
Cuts clean and quickly through the skin
Slits down my front all the way
Then gently peels off
My soft warm flesh

Naked I look night in the face
With demons crouching:
Gruesome eyes witness my flaying
Then dismembering,
Soon I catch their laughter

-8-

____________________________

Each stroke of the blade shakes me
Further and further back—
Beyond flesh and muscle
Beyond even bones
To the primal substance
Untouched

I stand, an empty skeleton
On which to hang hopes–
Love, dreams, colors, music
Teeming warm lifeblood

Free to become
And so I sing, I dream;
The executioner has done well
I am newborn in this death/life.

JANUARY

In between sun and Earth—Kouhoutek,
Bright Star some say is the messiah;
Chinook comes and turns snow to flood,
Steals winter away
Sliver of waning moon brings dawn

All night a rushing new stream
Sounds outside
We are between two washed-out roads
There is only the back way to town

A stubble of green barley pops out
In the field–strange sight in January;
Deer come by at evening

The two-room school closes
Folks walk in shirt sleeves
To view the wash-out, a chasm,
This road-breaker
Where the way suddenly stops.

-9-

___________________________

MEDICINE WATERS

Now I have laid bare,
Taken your medicine
In the white foam
Of your thundering river
Now I have become You
Now I have been blessed
Now replenished I go

Into the unknown
On my way home
On my way home.

SNOW FOG

We are always travelling through fog
On the brink of another unknown realm
Like Buddhist monks on high trails
Made immortal by the skilled Hiroshige

Only the initiated can hear
The voices of silence

Now winter holds the brink
Freezing the stream
In quiet stillness
Sleeping through ’til spring’s arrival

I stand cold spellbound in winter fog
Filled by
Silent semblance of a woodcut in twilight snow
Framed by square barn doorway
The dog and the bundled-up woman
Chase one last sheep inside
Ready for icy night
In a barn with soft hay

A finely tuned ear can hear
The music of snow fog.

-10-

____________________________

NICARAGUA, 1985

You return and lay the Truth
Out to me
As I knew you would
I knew you would

You shall return if we spill more blood
You will stay—even to death
Until our fathers, mothers,
Sisters and brothers see it is
Ourselves we murder
There are no foreigners,

You will stay, as you must
While my tears keep you
Wrapped in my heart
Tears of joy, of celebration, of life.

FROM MARS

Always I wanted to journey in space
To look at Earth from out there,
See the moon, the half-earth,
Quarter earth and full earth
Resplendent in blues

Four Mars-years now I am here
On this red planet
Never to go back
I volunteered for this
Experiment in the unknown

And now no trees, no rich
Earth smells, no roaring ocean
My biorhythms are all off
No streams no grasses
No chirpy bird songs
No hand to hold in mine

O, to taste a ripe tomato
Bite into crisp cucumber
Savour a fresh raspberry!

-11-

___________________________

It is like this to the end
No laughter with old friends
No holding my grandchildren
With such delight in my heart

Just revolving with this
Sphere of rock and dust
While this longing
Consumes me, dooms me.

TO HIDE UNBORN

This moon dreamed in me
Not just any moon
But this one wrapped in spirit
Of lofty cedars, salmon fishers,
And Totem-Spirits, Bear
Eagle, Raven, Killer Whale

This moon wants to jump out of me
Onto the waiting water color pad
Only my cowardice holds it trapped inside
Where it is safe
Not in danger of losing its essence

Dare I let it into these doubting
Hands while now I am sure
Of its vitality, its poignancy?
Must there be such risk in art
That the painter be paralysed
And the world wait forever for creation?

I set out the water, brushes, paint
In readiness for the birthing,
To allow others’ eyes to know this moonbeing
Swallowed inside me which grows
Too sharp-horned, too bright and full
To hide unborn.

-12-

____________________________

SOLSTICE DERVISH

December full moon bids me numb-struck
From the sleeping room
To yowl with a half-coyote dog nearly smothering me
We dance a swoon-song of moon-glow
Powerful phantoms call our wild steps
Over the snow field
Sacred harvest field of summer
That stretches forever into reaches of fog fingers
Hugely grasping with hidden strength—
One must be drunk to catch it!
The unsung song forces itself up
Through my bulging lungs
Pure and out through infinite night

Notes sustained,
My arms praise smiling Rhea
With swirling steps swiftly backward finding
Footprints I do not know I’d made
In obedience to the cosmic dancer,
My swaying limbs learn new motion
As the universe sings with my cry
Throbbing into my spellbound dance

Earth-spanning fog chorus answers
With long exalted notes
Surpassing those they echo

Sustained
Is my power
The music, the movement
I sing ecstasy—shrill secrets to deserving ears
Of deer
Coyote
Raven
Squirrel

-13-

_______________________________

No humans in range to hear
My voice spins all Earth as I too
Begin revolving, unthinking dervish
Coyotes join in, the coyote dog
Running to me in recognition

Such power moves in the night
As winter steals me into the Mystery.

EVERYBODY’S WAITING
(For Kathleen)

Everybody’s waiting in faded guerrilla denims
Incense-scented candle-lit apartments
For the Revolution
Because
We are too cowardly
To make it happen
Have not studied enough to know
It’s made without bayonets, secret hide-outs
Glory or high reward

Nor how it gnaws at our better parts
Demands our loves, our homes, our sweat,
The dreams to which we cling;

Revolution is mundane—forces sacrifice—
Is humble enough to talk with wielders of power
Silent enough to listen
She humiliates without mercy,
She is hunger
She is pathos
Irony
She is the blood, the bones, the marrow
She makes mush of the weak
While she hones the strong.

-14-

____________________________

SAVOUR OF HONEY

The old familiar flavour melts on my tongue
I scrape the insides of the metal extractor
After removing the wax cappings and turning
The honey-filled frames ‘round and ‘round

Fresh honey runs a deep dark gold
Thick and out from the spout
I don’t bother to strain it
Leaving bits of wax, pollen, maybe
Royal jelly, propolis

Umm, umm
And buzz the bees humm, humm

Bees are dying
Leaving crops unpollinated
Is it cell phone towers?
We do know it is big agriculture
Fields of pesticides, greenhouses
Neoxins

Shall we not then eat?
Will the savouring of honey disappear?
Is our human population
Selecting our demise by exterminating
Our great winged friend?

I lick my sticky fingers
Sticky with the sacred food
Food of the gods
Gods of Paradise:
Our long-loved home.

-15-

____________________________

WA-NA-CHEE

A Princess, daughter of the Moon, was wooed by the old Sun. Not wishing her beautiful daughter to take up with such an old man, the Moon disappeared to lay plans against them. Sun wove a magnificent rainbow robe for the Princess, who one day came down to the sea to meet him. As he took her away to his home in the sky Moon reappeared. When the Sun saw her he hurled a flash of lightning down to Earth: the Princess. There the cast-out maiden dwells in the cliffs and hangs her rainbow out over the mountains. Sometimes she (the Wenatchee River) can be heard singing.

Folded buckskin hills under soft grey clouds
Rise suddenly above wet orchard grass;
Scent of cider rises from rotting summer apples,

Follow the rugged hills west to clouds gathering where
Your Moon-Daughter Princess
Throws her rainbow robe over the roaring river
WA-NA-CHEE
Singing rarely now
But for a few Old Ones
WA-NA-CHEE
Robe of many hues

Sweaty plaid flannel, grizzled hair
Tired bright eyes stare
From spray-dusted Gringo and Chicano faces
Pickers of the snipped-off rainbow:
Golden to red “delicious”
AP-PLE CAPI-TAL
of the WORLD

Wait! Until Chavez comes North Wait
Wait! Until your orchards wilt under
death-dealing draught

“Irrigation” a word on farmers’ tongues
Apple a Columbia River dream come true
Praised be Grand Coulee!
Glory to DDT!
WA-NA-CHEE
many-hued robe
River ripples below
A singing lovelorn Princess keeps to her cliffs

-16-

___________________________

Migrants leave your streets, follow the Columbia
North to Okanagan then South again
Gringo and Chicano, no property taxes
just a body token to life
Ride, ride, by the train industry’s madness railed
to haul the harvest
to haul the harvest
A rain-chilled migrant ingests river shadow night
Breathing the cidery sage breeze
Half wishing the rain would leave;
A picture carves itself painfully into her heart
Of someone’s tears but she can’t make out
whose, or for what they are shed.

GHOSTS WALK IN

Ghosts walk in
The more years I gather
The more ghosts hang out
In the back room and wait
To walk in here

Faces in familiar places
Pleading, accusing,
Asking impossible questions

And so this being is not just I
But a melding of many
Each within our interconnecting circles
And all these circles within
Bigger circles

C’mon, ghosts
Let us dance under the stars
And let our laughter
Our tears, write new constellations
In the swirling dome of sky

And may those stars bejewel
The nets of our circles,
Shimmering always, always.

-17-

___________________________

HER EYE

The Divine Mother
Settles her eye
Within our hearts
For one lifetime–

Then with our last breath
Takes our hand of light
To lead us Home.

SANDS

Fragments of myself are
Forever dancing before your image:
Doing Tai Chi on the cold sand
Before the roaring ocean,

Ocean of my heart that flowed
With primal blood
Stilled in silence
Upon the flat expanse
Of shining grey beach;
Fragments of myself forever dance
Beside your tears—

The sun that never stops setting
Rests like a promise upon the sea
Like the jewel you are to me.

LATEST WORD

Scientists now tell us
We are either right after the moment
Our Fate decided our escape
From total (self) destruction,

Hallelujah!

-18-

__________________________

Or, that we are right before that moment
And shall inevitably destruct–
This being more likely the case

Erase “Hallelujah,”

Do we welcome the necessary ruin
Of ruin?

WE AT THE MILLENNIUM

Man’s fall is the fall of all and it is
No joyride

Basking in October sun I soak up warm rads
In a climate formed by imbalanced design
Global Matricide
We witness otherworldly sunsets
With a metallic dusty glow

Friends eaten by cancers–
An in-law and his brother abide in
Bodies broken by bomb tests long ago

What chance for homo sapiens?
This perfect spherical jewel, heavenly home
Will spin on quite regularly without us

She may need to shed her skin
Shake off the dirt as does a dog
To rid itself of pesky fleas
Calm fire stirs inside me
Tempered passion and erotic potency
I must take stock of my contribution
To this mess and reinvent myself

Calm fire my strength and my breath
I can wend my way through tangled jungles
Survive the rains of ruin
Death is only death
My spark burns on.

-19-

___________________________

Shake Dance

Shaking the fleas:
Pesty life-threatening toxic waste,
Then must Gaia dancing, shaking
Herself back to life,
Shake off this arrogant species,
Root of the affliction?

Do we get thrown off this
Great and little-honoured timeless Home
With cries of anguish?

Or do we sail out into the void
Philosophically…eternally singing
Praising, loving
Throwing out glorious harmonies
To bounce forever around the universe
One lost echo
Of all these aeons here?

ANCIENT SINGING

I hear ancient singing
My heart reaches to meet it
To follow
Down to the deep
of Being
where that timeless
Voice calls us home,
In the midst of whatever holds us–

Home inside the kernel
Of knowing
The sheath of Compassion
The end of longing.

-20-

___________________________

TIPI

Under these tall poles
Sun rays break between shadows
The ball of moon sails
Over the pines and larch
Stalks of whiskery mullein
Shine straight-arrowed in dawn
My legs drip dew as I walk
To spread my pad and do
Asanas to the rising sun

A novice reaching for her Kali
Trying to focus all these things

Into the circle
The bursting pod
The rippling water.

KOOLAREE

Bronze glow of lowering sun
Heralds summer’s decline,
Hummingbirds have departed,
I carry my packs to load on the pier
And await the boat’s crossing to a place
That is in my heart

Koolaree
What a world of a word
An essence beyond description!

The swift boat jogs us over the waves
To my heart’s destination–
This well of sweetest wine

Where we dance cry laugh and sing
With our friends of the Friend
And we turn until there is no
Reality except our enchantment
Beneath these towering firs
Beside this lapping water
Under the moon, the glimmering stars
All we know is this blessing;
-21-

___________________________

Dry leaves fall dancing with the breeze,
Bears fill themselves for winter
Loons cry, night creatures scramble,
We breathe in scents of moist forest,
Water, seaweed, moss, burning wood,
This, our hearts’ home, we celebrate,
This, our caravan, supplies the food
Of our souls,

In our wonder, over and over
‘The lathing lustre’ leaves us
‘Seven times still more blessed.’

WIND MUSIC

If my being were as a tree
I should become wind music
Playing through my waiting leaves

I would be past worrying about peace
Rooted in a more firm reality

My endless habitat of sky and earth
Would feed my soul
Would fill me with green dreams
Slowly climbing, silently teaching.

HAIKU

In a hug with you:

The nicest place I have been

These many long moons.

-22-

____________________________

WATERY REACHES

Where the continent drops off fishing boats
And freighters move in their watery world
Gull cries punctuate a liquid atmosphere
The locals accept sopping wet
With the same calm as merely grey;
A pastor says there is too much time here
Folks have money for drugs and booze;

I sit in the room as deep mourning
Settles perceptibly in the air,
In predawn dark on Sunday
Two hung-over youths pulled out in a canoe
And drowned
A third hastily dove into chilled waters
Alone survived

Over and over he replays the delicate moment
Balanced between life and death
The heavy body sinking from his reach
Pulling him down
Now his world swims with monsters
Only tears, forgiveness and release
Can begin to dissipate;
I study these things
At the end of the highway
Edge of the ocean
Where drunks dance dizzily along Main Street
And eagles cry sailing from mountain heights
With eyes sharper than fish hooks,
Sure of the mark.

-23-

___________________________

BEAR SALMON FOREST BEAR

British Columbia coast rainforest–
Last inhabited pristine ecosystem
On Earth…

Towering giant trees
Green, green, rise up
From mossy wet forest floor
This living paradise the bears’ home
Bear hunts salmon, picks at the heads
Deposits remains in the woods
Salmon fertilize the trees
A singing forest grows, and grows

Rainforest breathes out oxygen
That Life may be sustained
Forest makes the bears’ home;

Water, Fire, Air, Earth, in turn
The Elements take thousands
Of years to compose the poem
That is the rainforest;

It can take just one misstep
To begin its destruction.

AURORA BOREALIS

Great Northern Light curtains
Glow a vast red and emerald
So bright the remote suspension
Seems close enough to reach up and touch;
Frozen in a split second,
A colossal roller coaster’s
Path looms across the heavens;

These mammoth curtains drape
The gods’ echo chamber:
Moving lights that glint on Earth’s silent face

-24-

____________________________

Across these rolling folds frosty-bearded heroes
Signal with huge rams’ horns
Bellowing down the lengths
Ringing around these bejewelled celestial veils,
To define this Arctic night.

VAYA, WIND SPIRIT, DEEP IN-BREATH

I am Vaya, Wind Spirit
Deep in-breath; I blow from
Smokey slave factories, through
Depleted uranium fields,
Through cities of relentless factories;
I disseminate CO2, radiation, lead, smog,
Desert sands, silicone–
A virtual churning breathy soup of destruction
Around this blue globe;

How I long to gaze again as I freely travel
Upon thriving birds, plants,
Frogs and fish…upon lost jungles
Uprooted rain forests, extinct animals,
And if you hear me howl and moan
It is my deep mourning
My unbearable grief;

And if you hear me whistling
You know I am calling out
To the impulse of LIFE,
Renewal, Healing,
Which is greater than this pitiful bent
Of decimation, this race to oblivion;

I am Vaya
I am everywhere
I see all, let me tell my story;
I shall come in your dreams–
Soft whistling out-breath.

-25-

____________________________

SHE PONDERS

Days roll out into long hours
Spent waiting
Sitting out by the cherry tree
Watching the crippled raven
Grab for a bite of lunch scraps
Yet mainly she ponders
Thinking on the hardest things
Old ghosts newly risen up;

She sits in the sun overrun,
Shaken over again by
Terrors of thirty years before
The rape, the horror
Forced at knife point
Pregnancy
Unmanageable decisions,

She stares at the hills, squints in the sun
It has been like this since
The unknown daughter sought her out
From thousands of miles away
After years added to silent years
Wondering who is her mother

She wonders who the daughter is
Whether she ought to know
Whether she can afford to care.

REVOLVING

One by one stars come
Onto night’s empty stage
Displaying their silent constancy;

Through all the wounds
The rough tumbles that bruise
They alone are my companions,
To them I repeat my battle sores
Through each struggle and
At each milestone
They have guarded over me,
Listened to my tales
-26-

____________________________

I ask them questions of ages past
They speak to me
Of lost secrets, great things,
Powerful and terrible things
So that I translate their silences
Into sagas rich with agony and triumph

They slowly circle
Saying the greatest poem I’ve ever heard
Putting me eventually to sleep
My soul at rest
Inside the palm of night,
Their revolving wheel
Names each of the deities
Ever to look down upon Earth.

MORESO MOREL

I am queen of May
Regal in my blending
I take on the exact appearance
according to the situation
Of leaf
bearded moss
fir cone
Or the end of a stick
golden larch needles

Yet ah! I am
Much more glorious
Than any of these:
Firm, rich, succulent
To the tune of many gold pieces
I am an expensive woman
Skilled in the arts
Of pleasing

-27-

____________________________

Come to me in May
If I choose you
You shall have me
You shall hear me calling
To you, and the leaf
will transform
the fir cone suddenly become
the orb of moss subtly retrace
My seductive velvet folds
Ah, l’arome!

CREEK DREAMS

Home, a feeling that wraps me ’round
Waking from dreams of Stranger Creek
–tributary of the River Subconscious–
In those elusive realms I visit
the friendly warmth of a forest lodge
or the last human habitat before
A beckoning range of luminous mountains
Where I attain irresistible heights
Or become lost searching out those peaks

This Creek wanders through a green valley
In my universe of sleep;
inviting houses ring with music,
merriment, hauntingly familiar
It skirts an orchard on the ridge;

Dancing cool shadows at sundown
hint promise of magic,
a scent of wild strawberries
and cottonwood beckons me

That subconscious stream deep beneath
Feeding springs into the Creek
Is the major vein of my reality–
becoming my conscious life
the source of blood pumping through
This heart whose dwelling is no place
but a misty network of dreams
This soul seeking Stranger Creek
Seeking Home.

-28-

____________________________

CENTERS

How many times have I held you?
Not enough
How many tears have rolled onto your cheeks
From my eyes?
Not enough
What have I given in return for your love?
Not enough

Night’s dark caress grows pale
I watch the last star fade
Yet still it is there
Like the center of your heart
Pinpointed to the centre of mine
From fifteen hundred miles
Down the Rockies.

MANDOLIN

As he plucked that sweet mandolin
His smile was that of an angel
Sending heavenly strains

As I strum this little mandolin
I smile
I am where he stood
Inside that opening to bliss.

THE WOODS

Up we ride in the truck with chainsaws
In our woollen jackets, boots,
Work gloves, snug caps

A cloudy day, no deer hunters,
We scout out the dead larch, fir,
Standing or fallen,

-29-

__________________________

We step beneath trees
On soft uneven ground
Covered with a stunning carpet
Of bright golden needles

We scent the rich earth,
Mushroom smells, pine
And fir needles, tree bark, all
Enter our lungs along with
Invigorating crisp fall air;

Then the chainsaw noise
Suddenly blurts out
I watch the trees tremble
Altogether at this vibration
Encroaching on their regal realm,

Interrupting the usual dance to their own music
Music that vibrates in all creatures and forms
We may not hear, yet can feel;

These great green spires
Keep trembling as I realize
The extent of our trespass,
In awe and humility.

REUNION

We can hear the ocean
Blow in through the leaves here
Feel it brush against
These stolid brick halls of learning
Tickling Herodotus’s beard
Making Socrates blink

It creates tremors in the
Leaves of the book of history

The expanse of this place
Which nurtured my young mind
Challenges my life to answer
Challenges my soul to rise

-30-

__________________________

We can taste the Pacific breeze
Crossing over expansive green lowlands
And see it in the rhododendrons
So lush and pregnant;

That salt breeze whips around Earth
And reaches the eager young
To tease them
Into godliness.

BIRDS

The birds don’t care
And neither do I
(I like to pretend)

If we are fools and failures
If we are weak
Or are mistaken

The birds don’t care…

Yet ah, what a far cry from birds
Are we.

SPEAK FOR SALMON

It is for us now to speak for salmon
For us to speak for whales
For old growth forests, rain forests,
Estuaries, herons, frogs,
Coral reefs, elephants, gorillas;

It is for us to speak for oceans
For rivers, lakes, streams,
For grizzlies, caribou,
Glaciers, the arctic seas,
Born and unborn children;

-31-

__________________________

It is for us to speak for salmon
To be the voice of silent ones
For even dangers that threaten
Us and them are not recognized
As the scream they are–
The scream for alarm,
For profound re-connection;

It is for us to speak for salmon
With voices numbering so many,
Thundering endlessly,
Voices reaching all ears.

OMNIPOESIE

I love the tongue of this land
That sings so well of its spirit:
Bella Coola, Klickitat
Mukilteo, Shuswap
Kamiah, Wenatchee, Kittitas Tum-Tum
Ohanapecosh, Tahola
Chinook, Wapato
Moclips, Osoyoos, Umtanum

Names that bounce right up from
Earth Herself
And leave bubbles dancing ’round my heart
Nakusp, Okanagan
Bella Bella, Dosewallips
Kitsap, Wallowa
Tatoosh, Walla Walla
Chelan, Hamma Hamma

When I die, O Spirit, let me go beyond
With such magic ringing in my being
Kleena Kleene, Kootenay
Tillamook, Skeena
Humptulips, Yakama,
Kokanee, Quallicum
My very bones must beat time
Against the rocks along rivers from which
These sounds have sprung
Again and again
And again.
-32-

___________________________

NOTHING MINE

These beautiful big visions
In my looking-forward
Seem to fall apart
Or hurt someone;
In some other world
Would it be easier?

I dreamed of you and me
In my sacred place
The sun stood still
Then you fell into the stream
Your foot caught on a rock
You screamed at a snake
As it swallowed its prey

In like manner wise old Hecate
Thinks she knows better
When she dumps my dreams
Into garbage pits
Leaving me watching
A fading paradise with
Throat-choking sobs.

BESTOW BLESSINGS

When our hearts bestow blessings
On anyone
no matter how ruthless
or contemptible their deeds

Then we know at least
How to find the Light
In which to bathe ourselves.

-33-

____________________________

MANDOLIN AND MOON

Out with mandolin
To moonlight and white gelding
Even more than the goats
He is stilled by music

My heart lets go into
The vast night’s warmth
His equine nostrils quiver
Taking it all in
His tan ears–velvet receptors–
but shadows in the night

He responds to sound as no other
My song becomes his song–
A ritual between us
marks the stillness
that is moved into place
By strings struck far among
The thousands of stars
Shimmering into their frequencies
The music, the stars harmonize with
A soft breeze singing through the grass.

THIS EXQUISITE RAGA

The Universe expands
and expands
As it creates itself
In this beginning note
Of the most glorious Alleluia
This exquisite raga

Powerful enough to
balloon galaxies
into infinity

To birth millions of stars
And set them spinning–

Such is one single breath
Of Allah.
-34-

___________________________

JACKET

I know a woman from South Africa–
Stephen Biko had been her friend
He left his jacket for her

Before they put him in prison
He said leave this country–
They were coming too close–
The jacket came with her

Once she said put it on;
There I was in Biko’s jacket
Miles away from Africa
Years away from Biko

Did it give me any of his bravery?
No, yet perhaps imparted
A nudge toward courage.

FEARLESS QUEEN

Big Cat
Slunk through silently in the night
Pressing pads into snow along the creek;
Now we notice after a couple days
Awe strikes us
Her world has touched ours unseen

Breathlessly I imagine her motions:
Lithe snow dancer
Fearless Queen of the north
Moonstruck and inspired
Noble queen commanding her ground
Even near our dwellings;

Then in the local paper:
Female cougar
Nine feet long
Shot and killed near summit…
Something sinks heavy within
As though I knew her, I cry.

-35-

____________________________

WE ARE ARE SENTENCED TO LIFE

Ghosts of your ancestors hover over miles
Of lava beds spreading their rough fingers
Along the wide river
Wolf, eagle, raven, bear roam freely here
Under mountains rising from thick foggy mists;
Oolichan, salmon, halibut hang drying, smoking
Giant wooden drums announce
The gathering time;

Gitwunsilkh: as a child
You patiently taught me to spell
Gitwunsilkh, no road to it:
Just a foot bridge then
You smiled and kidded brave in your sadness,
Missing your mother, family,
You tried to put it all together again;

Now inside, maybe you remember the breach
Or as you say, you were too drunk,
The city can eat a Northern girl
And spit her out like a thick salmon bone;
Do they let you visit your child?
Have your hopes broken in pieces?
Do you try to hang yourself?

In your dreams your ancestors bring messages,
I recall you laughing, walking in the sun,
On the wind I whisper to you:
Never lose the reverberation of that ancient drum,
Never lose the mystery of the wolf’s howl,
Look into your heart and find true freedom,
Then dwell there
Always.

-36-

____________________________

SLOW RED SUN

So expectant at seventeen we sit
On sand at the edge of the continent
As if all the unanswered challenges of a world
Are pushing at us from inland
As if the next crucial step will somehow
Set a design for our futures

We watch the slow red ball of sun drown
Into a chilly gray unending ocean

Along the shore I search for fishing ropes
And glass floats from Japan–
Some token drifted in from another shore

My findings are dark silver tongues of the sea
Lapping at twilight tinged by
The scent of driftwood smoke, taste of salt
Salt in our clothes, our hair

I hear the gulls’ taunting cries
On the edge of this vast Turtle Island
Yet my ears stay tuned to the hope
That a whisper of wind
Might reveal everything.

PROBLEM SOLVING

Yes, hello…is this the
Solar System Retail Warehouse?
Okay, good; we have a bit of a problem
Here at Orbit Earth One, Earth Two,
Earth Three and Earth Four;

Well, you see it’s been a long time,
And now we need at least one more Earth
Our resources are dwindling again
And our populations rather bursting…

Hmm,…is that how it is then?
So, you are telling me we have to wait
Five thousand Earth years just to request?
No more Earths now in the Warehouse?
-37-

___________________________

What can you advise us to do?
Wait!…Don’t quit the connection!
I am the official representative
Of Earths Incorporated!…

Hey…this is a real problem! Wait!

RESPONSE- ABILITY

Light cascades through us
Until we know not our bounds
Into us
Out from us
Into us
Out from us

Light that erases form
And creates Love
Within the use of power
Forming each breath

It is for us women
To form the peace
It is for women
To align with Earth vibrations

It is for women
To renew, to give, rebirth
To cast out grim design which
Seeks to hide the light,
The eternal re-configuring dance,
The sacred,
From life.

-38-

____________________________

STONEWALL

As Earth turned ’round
To my twenty-fifth birthday
I lay asleep over two thousand
Miles from New York City

Where my brothers rose up
To defy the police batons
To challenge hundreds of years
Of being defined as less than human
As not worthy to BE

They screamed, bellowed out
The anger, pain, humiliation
Of thousands over centuries

Now I thank them: they loosened
The hinges to this mighty door
We are breaking down.

TURTLE ISLAND PEOPLES

Year after year with tears
My spirit honours your wisdom
Your tender caring
For this Home, this Turtle Island

When I canoe on the lake
When I pick huckleberries
When I feel the drum beating
And hear the heart song
When the eagle flies overhead–
Yet there is no going back
Your ways always here to teach us
How to live on this vast island

Turtle Island waits patiently
There is no going back,
For the Way to break through,
For the sacred Mother Earth
Again to be our guidance

-39-

___________________________

I stand on your cliffs
Imagining the smoke rising
The drumming, the singing,
Scent of sweetgrass and sage,
Seeing the community of plants
Animals, water, Earth and
Two-leggeds come together
Once again in harmony;
This the only solace for my heart.

JEWEL OF THE ROCKIES

Under this vast clear sky
Hiking past the turquoise lake
We keep up the pace–sun now sets
My gear sinks heavy on my back
Each forced step brings me closer
To a spot to make camp, eat, rest

The scent of alpine spruce
Enfolds us in its heady aliveness
Sounds accompany: a creek, squirrels,
Wing-flap of birds

The mountain rises up high above
Pulling at my neck to turn,
As dusk approaches Moon
Reflects in a small diamond
From snow atop the peak

This is cloud-maker-mountain
Huge silent sentinel
Overpowering, magnificent
Crowned with such a diamond;
In this moment, just this moment
I am witness to
This jewel atop the Rockies.

-40-

__________________________

MUSIC AND WONDERING

So I acquire the Koln album
Carry it in the rain
A bit chilled, I play your music
Loving to lie back
Warm with many blankets
Thinking of the place we were
When you massaged my head;
Content to be there
Anytime;

Rain and tears: heaven’s and mine
Music and wondering
What your silences are saying;
Are we telling each other
Some things are too sad?

You asked why beautiful flowers
Make you cry;
I think I know why.

LAUGHTER OF BEINGS

Suddenly, unexpectedly comes the gift
Out the window two sibling black bear cubs
black as coal—playing, roughhousing

In their own world, their moment
I can almost hear them laughing
Wrapped around each other
In blissful wrestling abandon

I can almost hear them laughing
As bubbles of light form
To dance around my heart.

-41-

__________________________

LIKE MARSYAS

My skin untanned shall hang above the river
From a slender limb of the sacred pine
The death tree–
While the river yet sings my song

My soul untamed will secretly swim
Those river depths
Lost in obscure meanderings;
In death still feeling the muse-ik
My senses under rippling waters
Shall interpret eternity
Through the instant’s lost motion
And I shall render the mundane
Eternally sacred
For river journeyers of another age

Let them close their eyes
Hearing
Song of the unfathomed

My dead skin rattle in the wind

Leaves rustling.

-42-

___________________________

ONE SONG

I dreamed I died
And fell inside
The sound of spellbinding song
Which long ago
Issued from Earth

Inside each chord
I moved along
Speeding from this blue globe
Out from the sun
Past planets, to infinity

The song held me
Inside its mystery as if
A door opened
To all I ever sought,
To all ever invoked
In the pure desert chant
The nasal Bushman melody
Magical Indian raga
The drum song of Africa
The bold vowels haunting
North American plains

Earth song
Infinity’s song
Our song
One song.

-43-

__________________________

Note from author.

This collection of poems represents work done over a period of over forty years, not in any particular order. Some of the poems reflect experiences of my life in NE Washington State, the mid-coast of British Columbia, and here in SW British Columbia. A few relate to my studies of natural catastrophes in ancient times, and the outfall from those, which I think is a big part of the reason we humans find ourselves at this juncture today, as we face many connected challenges for the future of life on this planet.

CH, 2015

-44-

__________________________

Ziraat: Kayak Journals

May 11, 2015Ecology, Nature, Ziraatdolphin595

ZIRAAT: KAYAK JOURNALS

She with Her breath, Her bellowing winds

Her penetrating eye, Her thundering clouds

Mighty moving oceans

She who began this Life Miracle

Bringing forth all Gaia’s realms and wonders

And changing mysterious forces

Accomplishes all—before being

And shall long after: Bountiful Mother

Who holds all secrets, all manifestation

Pours them out from her breasts

Like the milk and honey of our desires,

Allows that we are let into this wonder.

2014: Here I have lived for over twenty years now, eighteen of them in this house above the river at Taghum, which is Chinook jargon for six, as this area begins six miles west of Nelson, BC. The Kootenay flows into the Columbia down-river from here at Castlegar, after having come down out of the Canadian Rockies, then into Montana, Idaho, and back up to BC into Kootenay Lake at Creston. Then it flows out of the West Arm of the lake at Nelson, east of here. She follows the valleys below heavily forested mountains often shrouded in fog and clouds, in winter covered in snow. In the fall these hills garb themselves in a stunning array of colours. I see the river directly below me from the house—everyday this wondrous sight. There is a dam to the west, down-river, so the water is like a lake here, covering what the indigenous peoples would have known as the river shores.

This area was the eastern part of territory inhabited by the Sinixt peoples and the western edge of that inhabited by the Ktunaxa (Kootenay). They canoed the rivers and lakes extensively, and traded with different groups. The Sinixt lived in pit houses, fished, hunted, gathered plant foods, roots and berries, and like the Ktunaxa have been in this region for at least 12,000 years. The language of the Ktunaxa peoples may be related to more eastern groups, or it may have affinity with the Nahuatl language of Central America. One idea is that no related language has been found. The Sinixt spoke an Interior Salish language, and were known as peaceful peoples who often settled disputes between other bands. Sadly, most of the traditional village sites of the Sinixt were flooded when the dam was put in below Arrow Lakes; and the Canadian government declared the group “extinct” even though those who live in WA State are part of the Colville Conferderated Tribes, with all the benefits that entails: Indain status, land, income and others.

Before all the Columbia and Kootenay dams one could travel by land and boat all the way from Creston to Astoria, Oregon. In the Columbia Gorge there was a stretch where one had to go by boat, and Celilo Falls was the hardest place for boats. The dams ruined vast rich farming valley and runs for thousands of salmon. At Kettle Falls WA, just past where the Kettle River flows into the Columbia, the Native peoples caught 1600 salmon a day during the runs in July. Bands came from a radius of 500 miles to camp there and the salmon were distributed. The women distributed them, as they were trusted to do it fairly. Then Coulee Dam was built and a way of life crushed. I have spent about 42 of my 70 years living in the Columbia River watershed. The Columbia Basin includes the Columbia and Kootenay rivers, and the Clark Fork, Snake, and Pend Oreille. These regions are now inhabited by about seven million people. In my early childhood we lived in Yakima WA, my Dad’s hometown. Then I lived in Portland OR, as a college student. For 20 years my home was in the area around Colville, in NE WA State, and now these twenty years here. As a girl in Yakima, when we would go to the lower valley, where the reservation was, I was very impressed with the sight of the tipis set up for a gathering. This instilled in me a longing that lasted for many decades, to have lived several hundred years ago on this Turtle Island and known the ways of the indigenous peoples.

In the late 1800’s mining brought people to this part of BC. Then there was logging, some farming. Immigrants included the Doukhobors, a Christian pacifist group who came in the early 1900’s to escape persecution in Russia, aided in this by some Quakers and by Leo Tolstoy. They created nearly 80 communal villages in the region. In the 1970’s the greater area here experienced and influx of young men and women coming to Canada from the US due to that country’s involvement in Viet Nam and the draft. Some of these folks, along with Canadians, were part of the back-to-the land movement, as was I south of here in Washington. In the middle of the last century a Quaker community sprang up on the east shore of Kootenay Lake. In 1963 Swami Sivananda Radha established the Yasodhara Ashram also on that shore. The group she started there has a lineage of women leaders. The inspiring and beautiful temple there recently burned down, and I am sure they will be able to raise enough money to replace it.

Nelson grew to become a university town but in the 1980’s the slump in logging brought a slowing of the economy. People left. Then tourism, which included hiking, climbing, skiing, boating, camping, sight-seeing, came in vogue. The town emphasized its history, and heritage buildings were preserved and highlighted. The town and the area became one that attracted artists, writers, theatre people, musicians, and creative folks who began their own businesses. It is a place where quite a few social and ecological activists have been welcome. There is a vibrant cultural scene and a co-op food store which does well. We also have in the area, I would venture to guess, the most dance leaders of the Dances of Universal Peace per capita of anywhere. The area is called the West Kootenays, with the East Kootenays to the east, below the mountains that lead into the Rockies; to the west is the Boundary and Kettle river district. In the larger area there are quite a few natural hot springs, as well as great places for a great variety of outdoor activities.

As Nelson has been known as a place where activists and rebels thrive, it has also acquired a strong LGBTQ community. Same-gendered couples are comfortable showing affection in public. As the AIDS epidemic grew, some who had the diagnosis moved to this area to be around accepting folks. Then more recently the area has a good share of transgendered people. Many in the LGBTQ community are great contributors to the arts and to ecological and social justice causes here.

This region is within the the only inland rainforest in the world, with a rich ecology. Among those who live in my neighborhood are deer, elk, black bear, raccoon, skunk, squirrel, coyote, beaver, otter, marmot, wild turkey, grouse, pileated woodpecker, bats, stellar’s jay, flicker, bald eagle, osprey, duck, raven, Great Blue Heron, sparrow, owls, hummingbirds, many songbirds, garter snakes, salamander, turtles, snails, slugs, voles, mice and loads of insects, including crickets and ticks. Often I hear the voices of songbirds, ravens and geese, and at night I love to hear crickets and the howls of coyotes, especially the pups. Canada geese inhabit the river shores, and trumpeter swans and loons visit in spring. We have wild strawberries, saskatoon berries, thimble berries, hawthorn and elderberry bushes, chokecherry, huckleberry, Oregon grape, mullein, burdock, chicory, red clover, trillium, honeysuckle, yarrow, tiger lily, grasses, fir, pine, birch, larch, alder, cedar, and cottonwood.

There are dogwood here, and this is a protected species; its flower is the official flower of BC. One recent summer after being at the river I met a fellow sitting not far from the tracks. I greeted him and learned he had walked all the way from Nelson. As a bow-maker, he liked to work with yew, so had taken a branch from a tree there. From ancient times in Britain bows and dagger handles were made from yew, and all over Europe the yew was known as the death tree; it was sacred to Hecate in Greece and Italy. On my place there were three willow trees; one fell to Earth, and one is so big and so high that it is an ecosystem of its own. In ancient times the willow was sacred to the moon, to Hecate, to poets, and in wiccan traditions.

buck2-14DSCF0685 — young buck napping below my house

In the area there are rainbow trout, bull trout, kokanee, walleye, sturgeon and cutthroat trout. Spring and early summer it is lush and green here. By late summer things are pretty dried out, and in the fall we get a rich palette of colours. Nelson has some of the cleanest air in the world; it is an area of thick forests, big lakes and many mountains. However, things are changing here as everywhere else; people are coming together to try to increase the declining stock of Gerard trout and Kokanee in Kootenay Lake, where people come from far and wide to fish. One problem is with the rock snot algae (yes, that’s the actual popular name, in other terms: didymosphenia geminata) which affects O2 levels in the fish habitat. This algae has proliferated due to warmer temperatures. Potentially it can grow to cover 75% of the bottom of a body of water. The white sturgeon in the area is an endangered species; this fish can grow to be six meters long and live 80 to 100 years. Bat species in BC are declining due to disease, and there are local bat counts. As bats feed on mice, there is a noticeable increase in mice populations. There are grizzly bear, but not right where I live; two former co-workers who live on the other side of the river, just outside Nelson get visited by them once in awhile. Each of them had animals killed by grizzlies, and one of them, on her bike, met a mother grizzly and cubs on the road.

Some years ago the area was infested with the pine beetle and it was eerie to see patches of forest where the pines turned a deep rust colour and then fell to the ground. This was due to a succession of warmer winters, as most of the beetles would be killed off in colder weather. Eventually the beetles ate themselves out of a habitat and moved on. In the East Kootenays larger areas were affected. Now one does not see very many of the dead trees.

Another thing of note that has been at issue for many years now in the East Kootenays is that the BC Government gave permission for a business to build a ski and summer mountain resort in one of the most beautiful and pristine areas, which happens to be important grizzly habitat. This of course has been opposed by those of us whose connection with Nature and Her wonders makes it difficult for us to comprehend such intentions. The solution to this conflict is yet to come; the would-be developer is not moving fast, and the opposing parties have law-suits in the works and other ways of gathering recognition and support. What is really amazing is that the BC Govt. gave the site municipality status and it even has a mayor: no residents, and the “city” gets money annually from the govt. One of the legal cases challenges this.

I have had my kayak for six years and I keep it down by the river in a falling-down boathouse built years ago by a fellow who lived nearby. A couple neighbors and I keep several kayaks and two canoes in there. The swallows who make nests there in summer leave their droppings on the ground and the boats. These barn swallow populations have been decreasing in BC, and right here is one of the places we are watching and trying to help them flourish. At 70 I’m not so strong as in younger days, and because the kayak is not a sea kayak, the current is too strong from the spring runoff to go out until early July. Then I go paddling whenever the weather and current look good and I have time.

July 10, 2014. I have kayaked daily for the last four days. Today there were shimmering sparklies on the water. I went for a dip in the water down between the two shallow islands to the east. Saw a heron and a small eagle, ducks, geese, shore birds all singing… Paradise! When the wind is against me it can be a struggle paddling, but no matter. It is as if I have to be here, with nothing but the water under me, the sky above, the water and bird sounds, warm sun on my skin. I love the sensation of moving, rocking on the buoyant water by paddle power and current or wind.

July 31. It has been really hot, and I have been in the kayak most days. Today and a couple days ago I paddled on the south side, where the rocks and trees come right up to the water and the shade is heavy. No roads, no cars, and a long stretch with no houses. The eagles nest in that area, before river farm. Today two eagles were making a lot of noise there, and I think I heard their young ones too. So great! Today when I got back near the shed the Great Blue Heron was there, and then flew on. The osprey are also around. When I walk down to the river, once I cross the railroad tracks and start going to the boat shed I pass the dry woven branches of an old sweat lodge built there one year by a Metis woman I know. Nice to be reminded of her as I pass by it. The heat rocks are still there. The woman who built it took me years ago to a place where she learned from her grandfather to find good rocks for the steam in the lodge. I felt quite honoured to have been on that excursion. There are abundant saskatoon berries down by the boat shed so I take my fill before I go out on the water and when I return.

Once in awhile I run into a garter snake on the way down the trail, and sometimes I’ll see a snake in the water as I put the kayak in. The first summer here I came across a black bear munching on thimbleberries as I went down the hill to swim at the river. She looked at me, and I looked at her, and then I went on. There have been years I’ve taken bear spray with me when I go on the trail. A couple of years there were mamma and cub bears hanging out by the railway. One time as I was coming back from the water a mamma and two baby cubs were one the track up ahead. I don’t think they saw me. I just hesitated and then walked on the tracks.

Aug. 5. I have really been enjoying blazing the trail down parallel to the tracks so I hardly have to walk on the track at all when going to and from the kayak shed. It has been a lot of work, and I sweated at times. Mostly it was hacking down thimble berry bushes, which get to about my height or higher. But also small trees and branches, ferns, Oregon grape, a few sticky roses. The trail down from my yard I clear out in the spring; it is very steep so I use a hiking pole to get down, and near the steep part at top there is a wire I also hang onto. I have slipped and fallen couple times, but never hurt myself. Where the new trail comes out near the tracks there are little alder trees and big rocks, and with the trail cleared it is quite pretty in the sun. My body and mind feel very good after having worked on the trail. It is surprising what a sense of accomplishment it gave me. I know it will be used a lot by the bears, but that is OK.

This afternoon was crazy kayaking—as I hiked down I first heard the fire bomber planes. I had no idea that the four of them would be coming here to pick up water for hours, right where I kayak. So I went out not knowing that the noise would be way too much. What a deal! They were taking the water to a dangerous fire at Slocan Park, not that far from here in a straight line. It was scary, as they kept coming down on the water and I would seem to be right in their path, but somehow we did not collide. The noise really scared a duck, which flew away. At one point I saw a heron which was right in the path of one of the planes, and it had to veer quickly off to be out of the way. I really could not stand the noise.

Aug. 10. I am still kayaking most days—just beautiful. Today was hot and I dipped in the water three times. I don’t really swim, but get all my body in the water and do a few strokes. This time of year the water is cool yet warm enough for a comfortable swim. As I returned and drew near the shore today I was thinking about people close to me who have died. I wished I could have gone to my Aunt Mae’s memorial a few years ago. She was an amazing person—my late mother’s eldest sister—mountain climber, school teacher, peace-worker, community-minded woman who raised four children on her own after her husband died. But the memorial was in southern California in the winter—too hard to get to from here. Then as I pulled in my neighbor L. was lying on the grass in the sun. I asked her about her sister, whom I’d known in a drumming group I was in thirteen years ago. And she told me her sister had been dead ten years! I was very sad to hear that; she and I had had brief but nice contacts and I had never heard about her death. Then as I pulled on my backpack and started back home with my hiking stick it seemed as if I was walking with many precious souls with me who have gone beyond—more and more often they are with me. Always my mother and father and my mom’s mother. Tears often come to my eyes—not just for missing for them, but also for Earth, this delicate habitat I see dying to its own nature before my eyes.

Mentioning my aunt Mae brings up my love of hiking in the mountains. Mae and my mother’s elder brother Rex climbed in the Cascades in the US back in the 1930’s. Rex climbed with others who were active in the Seattle Mountaineers. My own favorite place to be, along with Slocan Lake, is up in the alpine. In the days when I could heft an overnight pack I was fortunate to visit many wonderful hikes in the Canadian Rockies, the Olympics in WA, and here our Selkirk Mountains, and also to do day hikes. There is something thrilling to me to be high up, to smell the glacial snow, hear the rushing cascades, and to hike as I breathe in the scent of alpine spruce; this is where I feel truly at home. I am sure Mae and Rex must have had similar experiences. Two of my cousins, Mae’s sons, are climbers; one lives in the Wyoming Rockies.

My uncle Rex was in one of the most devastating avalanches on Mt. Baker when climbing there in 1939. He and his first wife were on the annual climb arranged by the college at Bellingham. It was July 22nd, and Rex had already attained the summit that day. There were 25 students and faculty on the trip. As they came down at Deming Glacier a huge avalanche rushed down on all of them. They were shouting at each other giving instructions of what to do. The forest ranger’s report written afterward mentioned survivors said they saw people under, then above the snow “as though they were pieces of driftwood being carried over rapids.” Rex and his wife were among those who were not buried. He and one other female climber made a very fast dash down the mountain for about ten miles, to inform the ranger. A search party was formed and they headed back to a cabin which fortunately had some supplies, or they would have had to take up heavier loads. They found one woman alive, who had been clinging to a ledge by her fingers. Two of the dead were found. The search went on some days even though it was quite dangerous at the location. There had been 19 survivors. I think I heard about enough avalanche deaths in my younger days to influence me to be a hiker, not really a climber.

Aug. 11. The day of birds and animals. In numerology this day has the number 9, very special to me, and also the number of the Great Mother in Celtic traditions. I set out paddling across the river and west, toward river farm. I noticed a beaver out swimming not too far from me, and watched it as it went under, and then came back up in a different place. It flapped its tail a couple times, and eventually swam to its lodge, I suppose. On that side there are two big beaver lodges, maybe one is inhabited now. Then further along I paddled right up near a heron waiting on a cliff looking for a fish to catch. I assumed it would fly away as I approached, but it could have cared less about me. So I got my camera out and got in position to take several pictures. The heron looked just like a whitened piece of wood jutting up from the ground.

When I was paddling back, not far past where the heron had been there was a young buck which had come down to drink in the river. Again I was surprised as he was there long enough for me to get a picture; then he bounded up the hill into the trees. It was a great sight—the buck against the green of trees, the river and rocks in the front. When I took the kayak in and was sitting drying my feet off, there was a little swallow hopping around. I thought to myself, that must be the one which L. told me the bigger swallows were kicking out of the nest. It must have learned to fly, as then it was no longer there. Another way this day was very special was that two zikr tunes came to me—one before kayaking, and one after. That is certainly a first.

Aug. 18^th. This day I had the pleasure of paddling a sea kayak on the West Arm of Kootenay Lake. A woman in our dance circle won a day of free kayaking for two people, so we started out fairly early by the bridge in Nelson, with our water bottles, sun hats, and some food. It was sunny and a bit windy. We stopped to eat and swim and enjoy the sun at a place I didn’t know existed—a Provincial Park accessible only by boat. It was very pleasant there. The beach was sandy; no one else was around. We had great swims. It was beautiful with the big rocks, and view up the lake to the NE. On the way back we were paddling against the wind but we made it just in time to turn the boats back to the shop people.

Sept. 3. Two days ago was the last day of our local dance camp: lovely. with my tent next to Janet and Allaudin Sandy, and having Diana Mariam and Tom Halim at camp. Nice dancing to Tom’s dances, especally the Gung Holy Zikr. I led my Allah Subuhun dance. This dance has a bit to do with being in the kayak in rough weather, and also with driving in a big rain or snowstorm, or at night with rain or snow when I can barely see. At those times I chant AL-LAH….AL-LAH….AL-LAH….AL-LAH, on 3 and 1 for each Allah. Some meanings I give of Allah are “nothing and everything; the compassionate; that which is greater than infinity and which we are not able to comprehend; the Light of all; the ONE.”

Sept. 7. Sunday. On Thurs. I went to my sacred place to camp at Slocan Lake. I am so glad I did. I have been going there for seventeen years now. I used to go twice in a summer, now just once. I have missed only two years. As I’d need another person and a lot of preparation, I didn’t take the kayak. So I find at my age now it is a bit harder walking everywhere on the beach rocks. But my times at my morning beach were just perfect. There were usually no people around, so I could take a “bath” and skinny-dip. And I was able to ford the water where the creek comes out, using two poles and my beach sandals. That felt very good. There are very huge smooth rocks there around and in the creek mouth. The water in this lake is clear and clean enough to drink. At the shallow beaches one can see the shadow of ripples with sun, playing on the sand and pebbles; I find it mesmerizing.

During WWII when the Canadian government interned over 22,000 Japanese Canadians in camps, many were brought to communities on this lake. David Suzuki lived in one of those oppressive camps as a boy. It seems a bit ironic that those of Japanese heritage were brought then to this place which is, actually, a paradise. And Suzuki was able to appreciate that, at least. Now there is the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre in New Denver, which tells the story of these people, and is a lovely peaceful place to commemorate them.

I played mandolin by my campfire one night. This is my place of pilgrimage, and I feel so blessed to be able to go to this beauteous lake in the mountains, to hear the loon, and this time there was a great horned owl—to hear the rumbling creek, smell the woods, be by the lapping water. I used to go before dance camp and at my morning beach in the sand, I’d dance the dances I’d offer at camp. This time I danced dances for our regular sessions. I dance on the warm sand, barefoot in the sun, with the slim shadows of aspen, with the sparkling on the water and stretches of blue mountains in every direction, the constant music of the creek.

I sometimes think of my parents and the cabin they built on Hood Canal in WA, as that place was for them the way Slocan Lake is for me. It was even about the same distance of a drive from their Seattle home. They were able to spend most of six months a year there after Dad retired. Mom died one year and four months ago, and I miss her greatly. Her favorite thing was walking on the beach at the Canal with the salt water, gulls, big cedar and fir trees, with the snow-covered Olympic mountains in view. And she loved to swim in the water there. Once a seal came up to her and she was swimming alongside it a bit. I later had a dream that a seal was holding me swimming in the water. I made a drawing from that. My parents had a crab pot and Dad would go out in his dinghy and get the crabs. They could pick up oysters right off the beach and dig clams with their hands. They made an outdoor fireplace where they cooked oysters on the half-shell. On clear nights Dad would sleep outside there, and so did I when I visited. It was lovely before dawn when I’d wake up as the stars would fade and the eastern sky would be a dark red-orange. Then the birds would start their chorus and the mountains would be shadows against the western sky. I know all these were my parents’ sacred things as are the lake and river and mountains here, for me.

One sad note about Hood Canal is that the Trident submarine base was built there, in this most beautiful and serene part of western Washington. On one of my mother’s beach walks she found a spent torpedo! The Navy actually gave her $50 for returning it. And my parents found two paddles on the beach, of a gray military colour. I later had these paddles and stripped the paint off them and then painted salmon motifs based on Native NW Coast art. They were the first paddles my former partner and I used with the cedar strip and fiberglass canoe we built. So I was happy with this, as I figured I had de-militarized the paddles.

Today as I was ready to get out of bed the ravens were on the roof again and making all kinds of noise! This time of year they do that to get a good take-off place for getting the elderberries below the house. I cannot reach the berries as they are on the steep hill. A few years back I took my backpack and kayaked across the river to a place where there are a lot of elderberry trees I can get to. I picked a couple bags of the berries, went back to the other shore and then carried the berries on my back to the house. I then made elderberry tincture with them—something I was inspired to do by my sufi guide, Noor-un-Nisa Joan Walsh. I still have quite a bit of the tincture left.

As I went down the path to kayak a big rescue helicopter came by and the noise was madness to my poor ears. The sun was out, a lovely day. And then out on the water another big noise, like back-up beep of a big truck, but it was the large yellow rescue boat coming toward me in. A fellow yelled “hello,” and told me they were searching for a missing man. He said if you see anything don’t approach, just notify the police. So I assured him I’d do that. A weird thing to happen out there in the peaceful waters. Later I heard that a man camping east of Nelson had gone missing.

Another year when I was out in the kayak I heard sirens which seemed to stop not far to the west on the highway which parallels the river. Sadly, that had been a car accident in which a young woman was killed. So I have had this strange juxtaposition of the beauty and majesty of my river time, mixed in with emergencies, death, sirens.

Sept. 15. Many of the birch trees on my place and others here have been killed off by a beetle infestation. The trees need a lot of water, and the beetles gained in numbers after a couple very hot dry summers. Eventually the tops of the birches fall off and slowly, piece by piece, the rest of the tree. When I walk on the trail I see the stark white remains, like pillars ready to fall. At the bottom of the hill there are three birch trunks standing upright, and on one there are huge shelf fungi growing. This is near a place where for years I have scented what seems to me like honey. Having raised honeybees in my younger days, I like to imagine there are hidden bees making honey at this place, yet a bear would have found that years ago. I wonder what makes that scent. This place is also where I fantasize there was a Native pit house, as there always has been a big depression in the ground right there, and it would have been up away from the river in those days. The Natives pit houses here worked very well, with natural heat and protection in winter, and cooling in summer.

The missing man they had been searching for last week was found dead near where he had camped.

Today L. and I skinny-dipped in the water by the shed. When there are not boats about, or someone right across the river, this is a very good place to skinny-dip, as it cannot be seen from neighbors’ places, nor from across the river. When I lie in the sun after getting in the water I feel just wonderful—really like I did as a girl doing this. Everything falls away, I am held by Mother Earth, solid beneath me, stroked by the sun; I hear the water lapping on the sand and rocks, and feel my skin drying. My body seems pleasantly heavy in a letting-go kind of way. Lying face-down with the sensation of sinking into Earth, I breathe out and it is as if Gaia takes in any stress or bother from my mind and body and each breath leaves me more and more relaxed and free.

Sept. 16. We are still having beautiful weather. I kayaked again. There were hundreds of little silver fish leaping to the surface of the water. I got in the water and lay in the sun amid the grass and rose thorns and knapweed, but it is wonderful. Where the boat shed is, the view out to the SW is quite lovely. This is just before the river curves a bit, and this curve one can see on a map. Just past the shed is where a rushing creek comes out. This area was where the Native people camped and set up their fish nets. Then, before the dams, the river was about a third as wide as it is now when it is low. I have been swimming and enjoying that place since I first moved to this house. It is very special to know the First Peoples enjoyed this same place. For some years now I am the only one who visits it.

Sept. 20. Today I paddled east and across the river. In this direction there are many rock formations, and in the trees a place where I often hear what sounds like frogs. On a rock that sticks up out of the water a merganser was standing and beautifully reflected in the water, sort of bobbing up and down. Too cold to swim now.

Sept. 21. Paddled today and a great heron flew in front of me.

Sept. 22. Today I paddled west and a big bald eagle was roaming on the shore at the old Native campsite. Later when I played a guitar piece of mine (with a bird theme) a small bird outside kept chirping as if in a duet with my playing. I had the feeling it would stop when the song ended, and it did.

Sept. 29. After going out paddling I was coming up the trail to the house and there was a big shiny black raven which had been injured. He was limping but could not fly. His one eye looked right at me, and I stopped walking. I just looked at him and tried to make comforting noises as he slowly went off the trail. I sent him some compassion and healing. But I wished I could have put him in a safe place and fed him with the hope he would heal. Right here where I live there have been deer killed on the highway. One time it was winter and beside the dead deer was the imprint of a raven’s wing in the snow, beneath a blue sky. Some years ago a female elk was hit by my house and she limped her way down to the river and was dying there. I called the conservation officer and he came out to kill her mercifully.

Oct. 3. Today when I started down the trail a bunch of ravens were making a whole lot of noise. I don’t know if ravens eat their own dead, and wanted them not to be devouring the one I saw. Out on the water was a very wonderful experience today. Big fish were jumping along with little ones. I saw a bald eagle. After I got home I heard a loon. It is as if in summer here is a world, and now early fall is a world, and I am largely alone and very much at peace with these worlds made by the seasons in turn. The beauty of the colours, the slight breeze over the river, the last tomatoes on the vine, some green. I love the smell of the tomato plants. I love the taste of green tomatoes and am freezing them.

I feel so blessed to have spent these past eighteen years living here, surrounded by Mother Nature’s astounding beauty, the healing peace. And this gratitude now exists side by side with the gnawing at my stomach, that aching so deep for the human wrecking ball chipping away at the ecosystems, the balances, the physical and biological processes humans have disturbed. ..and what that has left us and all Earth, all life, to lose. This grief became overwhelming to me, and I looked to my sufi path and guidance which supports me to exist in this present world. As a friend Kalama, in WA says, if this is the end of all we are, then let us at least live through it as “real humans.” Our species now has just two years in which to start making drastic changes which may turn around some of the destructive forces put into place. In a way, my many years of hungering to live in the distant past on this turtle Island forms a part of my vision for what can happen now: the creation of a different world. It is amazing how many young people today are putting so much effort into making the needed changes, and with eagerness. When I was growing up in the mid-1900s, much of North America was an unspoiled paradise. I cannot imagine what it would be to be young in these times, with much of this disappearing before our eyes.

Oct. 5. This is two days before the full moon. At sunset the sky was all aglow with an unearthly golden and orange-red glow illuminating everything including the brilliant fall colours. It was truly amazing. I gazed from the house looking down on the river and the low mountains that come down to it—trees, water, and sky.

Oct. 16. I was looking out from the house on the reflection of the autumn colours in the river and thought how I am hoping for one more paddle before the cold weather. The fall has been just wonderful, but rather warmer than usual. Still no frost here, which is very unusual.

Oct. 21. Wrapping up. Finally today that chance for paddling came. Being busy with little tasks in the morning, I missed the sunny time of day. I took my mountain backpack down with me to bring things back up. The trail was slippery after rain last night. Clouds from NE Washington were pushing up and robbing us of much of the sun. The water was pretty calm when I went out, with just a bit of wind from the SW. I took my rain jacket along; I was surprised at how warm the water felt on my feet when I pushed out. I went west at first in the sun, and then in sun with a bit of misty rain starting. Then less sun. After more rain and more wind and bigger waves, I decided to put the rain jacket on over the life jacket: not an easy task—I got one arm in and then the waves would start whipping the boat toward the rocks so I’d paddle away, then try again and finally I got the jacket on. The ride was pleasant, with the calm that autumn brings, and the array of colours—a bright yellow-green, orange, yellow orange, yellow, red, orange red. All of it demanding my attention and awe. It is a strange feeling to know that in this several mile stretch of the river I am the human who has been out on the river the most this year, probably last year too. It lends a special feeling of belonging and being at one with the elements, the ancestors who lived here for thousands of years, the rocks, the mountains.

When I got back to the shed I fastened my funky cover over the cockpit and put the life jacket and beach towel in my pack. I looked out at the shimmering sheet of waves brightening the river surface. As I walked toward the railroad tracks a great many rust-orange ferns were standing as high as my shoulders, my eyes. I offered appreciation to the old dry branches of the sweat lodge. When I’d gotten part way up the hill to my place the sun came out and the golden leaves glowed.

Now again as I write this the sun is bursting out and showing off the blazing colours. One cannot begin to describe them, and I certainly shall not try.

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Relationship with Nature, social issues, poetry

Category Archives: Ecology

Ziraat: Kayak Journals