Restoration is About Love

Restoration is About Love, Reverence and Care.  Here is a feminine response to climate change.  Take a few minutes to listen to the voices of these women as they speak passionately about restoration and women as forces of nature.

A Wealth of Winged Wonders

Here we are, mid-April and everything is birds!  Outside of our living room window, my partner has hung five bird feeders.  Some are on the edge of the roof and some are in the big Sugar Maple.  They offer sunflower seeds, corn and suet.  Below them is the roof for the outside entrance to get under the house which is perfect for putting peanuts and more corn on. The birds are joined on the roof by chipmunks and squirrels.

All winter we had Goldfinches in their seasonal olive feathers.  But now, the males have turned bright yellow for mating season.  Purple finches, Ruby Crowned Kinglets, Common Redpolls, Evening Grosbeaks and an array of sparrows; White Throated, Song, Fox and Tree, to name a few are all migrating through the area and stop to feed.  The Dark Eyed Juncos, Chickadees and Blue Jays that we had with us all winter now have to share the feeders with a roving band of Rusty Blackbirds and Grackles who arrive like a motorcycle gang coming to town.  These large black birds swing upside down on the suet feeder and gobble down the corn as if they would never eat again.  Woodpeckers go for the suet feeders as well; Downey, Red Bellied and occasionally a Pileated which is way too large to hang onto the feeder and eat.  The White Breasted Nuthatches like the sunflower seeds as do the finches and Chickadees. Dozens of Red Winged Blackbirds trill their songs out in the trees around the house.  The ever present Crows play in the wind, waiting for the egg laying season to begin.  Occasionally a Raven’s groak can be heard from way up high, or the warbling call of Sand Hill Cranes migrating through.

The intricately interwoven branches of the maples create a multidimensional web of infinite perching possibilities.  The birds navigate this matrix, flying from branch to branch, sidestepping along horizontal ones and side slipping down those with an incline.  They are fluid masters of their habitat.  The whole living web vibrates with energy and excitement.  It becomes a fractal as my mind recalls impulses moving along the neurons of the brain, or particles moving through blood vessels, or sap rising through the trunk and limbs of the tree.  As I stay in the moment and simply pay attention to what is outside of my window, I connect with my own body and the wonder of life.

Every now and then Turkey Vultures soar by, or Trumpeter Swans pumping their huge wings.  Occasionally a Bald Eagle does a magestic fly by as well.  The Merlins are back in town, so the Robins and Mourning Doves have to be on the look out for the aerial acrobatics of these small falcons.

We can sit in our living room and watch this amazing display through the big picture window, better than any TV screen.  And that’s what we did on Good Friday as it rained most of the day.  During a lull in the bird action, I checked my emails and read a disturbing one about how the Ontario government is proposing to remove protection from endangered species.  Just one more attack from a vicious premier left me feeling dispirited.  But of course, that is what politicians like him want us to feel, hopeless and powerless so they can go about their dirty business unhindered.

So, we decided to get outside and go down to the lake to connect with the life down there. There are thousands of birds who migrate through this area.  On Georgian Bay there were Buffleheads, Common Mergansers, Goldeneyes and lots of Canada Geese.  The Double Crested Cormorants and Ring Billed Gulls are back as is our local Kingfisher and the Trumpeter Swans. I felt better down there surrounded by the water and clouds, birds, trees and new flowers pushing up through the earth.  Little purple Crocuses and Snowdrops were braving the cold wind. I imagined myself connected to all of them and pictured myself connecting to people who also value all the species, people who will speak out in support of protecting endangered species instead of the monetary interests of developers.

Feeling somewhat better we began to walk back to the house when we noticed a large number of birds swooping and diving in the sky.  We could tell they were swallows by the shape of their wings and their manner of flight.  There were hundreds of them.  We stood still and watched the flock move wildly through the air.  The whole flock would circle away and then appear again.  They must be migrating through and had found a swarm of newly hatched insects.  It was so amazing to watch them fly wildly without ever hitting each other yet staying as a flock and moving over the trees and water and back again.  We were delighted by the magic of this fabulous show and followed the flock along the edge of the lake.  Later we saw them flying just over the water still feeding.  We couldn’t figure out what insect would be hatching in the chilly weather until a little black winged one landed on my partner’s nose.  Then we knew.

Energized by the swallows we continued walking along the lake, fed by all the life that was emerging from the water and the land.  As we connected to all the life around us, we no long felt powerless or hopeless.  We will look to find others who will speak out against this new assault on those non-human life forms that we share our home with.  The first person we met as we were watching the swallows told us that he had bought some binoculars just to look at the ducks and geese out on the bay.  “This is bird central,” he said with a laugh. 

How rich we felt surrounded by these winged wonders.  Not rich like developers.  No, a much better kind of wealth.  The wealth of finding our place with all of life, not outside of it.

A Gift of Silver

I received an unusual gift this week.  I had accompanied my partner to a conference where he was selling the beautiful stringed instruments that he makes.  I had brought one of my beading projects to work on at the booth and was happily sitting with the sun at my back sewing tiny seed beads onto felt, three at a time.  A thin man, probably in his late fifties approached the booth and began to look at the instruments.  He struck up a conversation and I joined in, although I can’t remember what we talked about now.  He seemed happy just to talk to someone and he made eye contact from behind his horn rimmed glasses the whole time.  He seemed to be quite happy to be in the moment and so was I.

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After about ten minutes of conversation, he reached into his pocket and brought out a zip lock bag with coins in it.  “I’m going to give you a good luck charm,” he said as he reached into the bag.  He pulled out two coins, one for myself and one for my partner and handed them to me.  They were silver coloured and a bit bigger and heavier than a Canadian toonie.  The man beamed with pride as he handed them to me.  Looking down, I saw the words Half Dollar and US on it.  There was a picture of a building on the coin. I felt immediately repelled at this US currency due to the past two years of American politics.  But the man was still beaming.  Flipping the coin to the other side I saw the upside down head of a man.  I righted the image and there was the profile of John F. Kennedy.  Underneath his head I read 1776 – 1976.  “It’s the bicentennial half dollar,” exclaimed the man.

He began to tell me all about the coin.  After the assassination of JFK in 1963, the US had minted a commemorative coin with the image of the president on it.  It was brought back again to celebrate the bicentennial of that country in 1976.  “I’ll bring you a fact sheet,” he continued.  “But I have to get it photocopied first so I can give one to every person I give a coin to.”  And off he went to do just that.

I looked at the coin more closely.  It had the words Liberty, 200 Years of Freedom, In God We Trust and E Pluribus Unum which I later discovered was the early motto of the United States meaning “Out of Many, One”.  I was to learn much more once the man returned with the fact sheet.  “Read it,”  he said before he continued on his distribution round.  I had lots of time so I read the sheet, wondering all the while why this coin was so important to the man.  I learned about the history of the coin and the specifics of its composition and weight, but I couldn’t see the significance.  So, when the man returned for the third time, I asked him why this coin was so important for him.  “I collect coins,” he said.  “And whenever these bicentennial coins come up, I buy them and give them away.”  My brain moved in slow motion trying to grasp this man’s reality.  He loved coins, found them fascinating and special.  And he was sharing something he loved with strangers that he met.  This was just the way he was in the world.

I later found out that this man’s brother had always come to these conferences and had loved the community that he experienced at them.  The brother had recently passed away and so this man had come to the conference to experience the community that his brother loved.  And he brought coins as gifts to people in that community as good luck charms. 

I had to look past American politics to see into the heart of this gift.  This was a gift of a brother to a community that his deceased brother had loved.  That original American motto, Out of Many, One seemed to describe this very community.  I had to look past the symbol of money that can cause so much trouble and see the good wishes with which this man had imbued the silver.  

This gift of silver challenged the stereotypes and prejudices that were within me.  The gift challenged me to see the man not as an American stranger, but as a brother who was grieving and as a fellow human who was sharing love by generously sharing what he loved with people he had just met.  The coin did not feel like something that I wanted.  And yet it was a gift and so I accepted it with as much gratitude as I could muster.

I have been pondering this unusual gift for days now wondering what the actual gift is.  I will keep the coin as a reminder to look past differences and see the heart of each person.  It may very well be that this silver good luck charm will indeed make me feel lucky to get to know people whom I might otherwise ignore and to be part of communities that make space for the many.  

Familiar Faces that Light My Way

Through the tiny airplane window, I could see the waning moon midway on her journey across the sky.  Four days earlier, she had been full and round, the Sugar Moon.  Now she was thinner but I still remembered the maple syrup we had made in our little sugar shack and the sugar maple trees in the yard that shared their sweetwater with us.  And I remembered the taste of that sweetwater that we drank as a spring tonic.

Now, I was headed west to Victoria where sugar maples are not generally found except in special gardens.  I was on my way to meet my daughter and my son and hopefully some Arbutus and Douglas-fir trees that I had read about but never seen. As I looked out of the airplane window as we sat on the tarmac I noticed the moon.  That made me smile to see her shining down on my journey.

The plane took off and circled Toronto until it was finally headed west. I was watching the land as we rose to cruising speed and altitude but once we were headed west, there was the moon outside of my window once again.  I was happy to see her familiar face in a sea of unfamiliar ones sharing the plane with me.

Over the five-hour flight to Vancouver, I noticed that the moon was getting a little ahead of us. I tried to figure it all out but remained slightly baffled.  I guess the world was spinning faster in the opposite direction than we were flying even though we were hurtling through the air at over 900 km/h.  It made me think about my life these days.  No matter how fast I go and how much I try to accomplish, the tasks that need doing always outpace me just like the moon was doing now. 

The moon and I were both orbiting Earth out there in the sky and I was happy for her company until the sky got too light and she disappeared from my view.  I missed her shining face but very shortly we landed in Vancouver.  My daughter was already there and she texted me that she could see my plane and would meet me when I came out.  I followed the other passengers and we walked and walked until finally we came to a doorway and there was my daughter’s shining face.  How wonderful lit is to find a familiar face in a sea of strangers.  The heart just leaps.

We flew together in a little turbo prop plane over the many islands between Vancouver and Victoria.  We could see ships and ferries down below.  Before you knew it, we were in a rental car headed for Sydney where my son who had taken a ferry from Vancouver was waiting for us.  With lots of help from the GPS voice, we found the restaurant and after searching the faces in there, we found my son, another shining face.  How wonderful it was to sit across from my grown children at the table after travelling with hundreds of strangers across the country. 

Together we explored Victoria walking through Beacon Hill Park with its giant Western Red Cedars, to the place where Terry Fox started his run so many years ago, past Emily Carr’s home, around the Legislative Buildings where the Moose Hide Campaign celebrates every year, along the harbour and then back again.  My daughter had found us an Air B&B with a lovely fenced in yard so there was no need to pull down the blinds at night.  The next morning, I woke up and looked out the lovely big windows and there in the sky was the moon, a little thinner but midway across the sky again.  I laughed out loud to see her there.  She was travelling just as I was. She connected me to home somehow. She had already looked down on my home in the east and now here she was in British Columbia. The next morning, a little later this time, there she was again. 

After a few days, we travelled on to Salt Spring Island and I didn’t see the moon again for a few days.  Our next stay was in a lovely little cabin that faced east.  There were tall Sitka Spruces and Douglas-firs to the south blocking the sky.  I missed seeing her in the mornings.

On our last day, we took the 6:15 am ferry back to Victoria.  It was dark when we drove onto the boat and we went to sit in the heated seating area.  The ferry turned and then started sailing south down Fulford Harbour.  The sky began to glow in the east and we went out onto the deck to watch the sunrise.  And there just to the west of the rising sun was the crescent moon just rising.  What a perfect send off as we began our journeys back to our homes in Calgary and Barrie this time in the opposite direction to the moon.  

But I know I will see her again once she starts to wax and I will always remember seeing her face and the faces of my daughter and my son in British Columbia.  In a world of so much change, I find myself relying on the constancy of the moon ever changing as she is.  Rising at a different time each day as she completes her own orbit of Earth, changing shape and size every day and then beginning again. She reminds me that change is part of life, that movement is part of life and that connecting to these cycles helps me to feel at home.  The moon helps me to find my place amidst my own changes and cycles and travels and I love her company.

Welcomed by Island Communities

I spent last week on Salt Spring Island which is just off the southeast coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia.  As my daughter and I explored this lovely place, we experienced many different communities.

Douglas-firs and Big Leaved Maple

We hiked through what David Suzuki and Wayne Grady describe  in Tree:A Life Story,  Douglas-fir communities.  These magical forests are home to Douglas-fir that stretch straight up hundreds of feet to reach the sky, orange barked Arbutus trees that curve and reach for the light, Garry Oaks that live on the edge of the water where light is easy to find, sword ferns that like the damp and low light as well as bright green moss that covers the forest floor, rocks, fallen logs and anything else that stays still long enough.  As we followed the pathways laid out to protect this delicate community, we could see how these amazing plants supported one another and found their own places.  And we felt at home, almost welcomed by this community.

Arbutus trees

Garry Oak on Burgoyne Bay

Moss covered forest floor with Douglas-firs

As we drove along the roads of the island, we saw communities of small acreages where people were raising their own food.  The growing plants were protected by tall wire fences that suggested an abundance of deer and rabbits on the island.  The people had found a way to exist along with the wildlife.

Along the roads and in the town, we found artists and artisans displaying their work in their studios or in galleries.  The artists’ studio tour map helped us find those that were out of the way.  Much of the work expressed a love of the sea, the forests and the animals that lived in them.

BC Ferry behind Arbutus tree

In the many harbours, we found communities of sailing vessels.  Everything from fishing boats, tug boats, sail boats, cabin cruisers and float planes were moored along side each other.  The ever present BC Ferries could be seen traversing the waterways between the islands and their tooting horns were heard many times a day as they approached the docks bringing people and their cars back and forth.

One afternoon, we stopped to eat some pastries from one of the many bakeries, in a park by Fulford Harbour.  The tide was out and we sat in the warm sun on a large log that had washed up on the beach.  A group of boys were playing on the beach, building a sand castle in which they placed tiny crabs, to “protect” them.  I wandered over the wet tidal flats and noticed one of the boys trying to tip a large rock.  I said, in a typically “adult” way, “Are you looking for crabs?”

“Well,” he replied in a matter of fact way, “this is where they are.” 

And sure enough as he tipped the rock over, dozens of tiny crabs scuttled to hide somewhere else.  The other boys came over and declared this “the jackpot!”  They carefully picked up the crabs with sea shells and ran back to the sand castle squealing with delight.

I walked back to where my daughter was sitting, near the sand castle.  One of the boys walking calmly over the sand in bare feet.  The other boys wore boots or shoes.  He looked totally at home there.  The boy approached us and reached into the pocket of his orange fleece jacket.  He brought out a piece of brown sea glass.  “Who wants this?” he asked.  He offered it to me and I took it saying how beautiful it was.   Then he reached into his other pocket and pulled out a large white stone to show us.  “That’s quartz,” I said.  “It’s really beautiful.”  He offered it to my daughter who said that he should keep it for himself.  “Oh, I have lots at home,” he replied casually.    Then he wandered  back down the beach to see what the other boys were doing.

My daughter and I were struck by this boy’s easy generosity.  It seemed that he understood the abundance of the sea and the shore.  Just as they had shared their treasures with him, he was sharing them with us. He easily formed community with the sea and the boys and extended that community to us as well.

It was impossible to feel disconnected anywhere on the island.  The connections were so obvious and we were welcomed into them at every step of the way.  Perhaps, it’s an island thing.  Perhaps, it’s the circle of water that surrounds it, that made us aware of everything within that circle.  Perhaps, it’s the smaller scale of life on a small island that allows us to find our place.  I’m not sure.  But I am sure that I will carry the magic of the Douglas-fir community with me always and the easy generosity of that small boy who was so wise.