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.

Renewing Relationships

Sitting in a small cabin with a wood stove blazing and pans of maple sap evaporating gave me lots of time to think.  Through the windows I could see the snow falling as squalls came off of Georgian Bay.  Outside, was the damp of late winter and the ice of melting days and freezing nights.  But inside we were really warm and peaceful.  This was the first sap that my partner had collected this year.  The aluminum pans were gently “hummering” on the wood stove, making the same sound as my tea kettle does on the kitchen stove. The water vapour rose gently from the bubbling sap and condensed on the windows.

In a few days, on March 20^th, it would be the Spring Equinox.  On that same day, the full moon would be called the Sugar Moon in the Anishinaabe calendar.  As I thought about cyclical time, we had come around to spring again, or it had come around to us.  We were renewing our relationship with the Maple trees.  The sap was from the three Sugar Maples in the yard.  The wood burning was from a Maple tree that a friend had to cut down.  We had picked up the logs last winter and stored the wood for a year now. It burned well.

I thought about how the Maple leaves had used their chlorophyll to capture the energy of the sun and how they had used that energy to split off electrons in order to create glucose from carbon dioxide and water, releasing oxygen in the process.  I had learned about the process in Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.   The glucose had been stored in the tree’s roots as starch all winter.  Now, as the days became longer, the photosensors in the tree buds put out a hormonal call to the roots to create amylase, the enzyme that breaks starch down into glucose again.  This rising sugar level would have drawn water into the tree roots and on days when the sun warmed the tree bark, this sugary sap rose up to the buds, bringing the energy they needed to grow and expand and eventually create new leaves that will produce glucose once again.  We humans are sharing in this spring rising that the trees are generously providing.  We drink some of this sweetwater as a spring tonic and boil most of it down to produce syrup. As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in Braiding Sweetgrass, our gratitude is the reciprocity for this gift.  It is important to acknowledge this as we renew our relationship once again.

As I watched the water evaporate from the pans, I remembered that these water molecules had fallen from clouds as rain, soaked into the earth and were now being drawn up by the roots of the tree into the trunk, where they came through the spiles, into the buckets and into the sugar shack.  These water molecules were now rising as water vapour back into the air.  Every time we opened the door, they escaped back into the sky, or condensed in the cold onto the snow where they may rest as a solid before melting and evaporating again.  This ancient cycle was being carried out before my eyes.

I thought about how as we age, our experiences go through a similar cycle.  I thought about raising my four children.  The memories of all the meals cooked and cleaned up from, all the diapers changed, all the clothes washed and the floors swept all kind of evaporate.  Even the frustrations felt, the patience spent and the tears shed all disappear.   Every now and then I would get up and scoop some foam off of the top of the pans.  We had already filtered the sap through a pillowcase to capture any impurities.  I thought about the memories that had to be released, people forgiven, injuries healed.  In the end we had a thick sweet syrup which is precious.  We will celebrate it on pancakes.  We will bring this liquid sunlight into our bodies and feel grateful for the gift, for the sweetness that has been distilled from the work of the leaves.  And if we sift through our memories and choose which ones to keep and which ones to let go, we can be grateful for the sweetness that our other relationships have created.  Perhaps we have to let the everyday water evaporate, filter out impurities and scoop off the foam.  We do after all narrate our own stories to ourselves all the time.  We get to choose what we highlight and recall and what we choose to let go of.  Some people call this remembering what truly matters.

This is what I came to, as I renewed my relationship again this spring with the Maples.  This is the wisdom distilled from my years, that rose to me as I paused from the business of my life to watch the sap evaporate in our little cabin under the Sugar Maples.  I breathed in the warm steamy air and I breathed out carbon dioxide that will be used in producing more sugar.  I breathed out gratitude for the trees and I rested in the cycles that carry us all.

Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013) “ Maple Sugar Moon” in Braiding Sweetgrass.  Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions.

Bright and Shining Above Me

I lived on the top of a hill in the centre of a farm with fields all around me for over twenty years.  When the fall came, the constellation Orion the hunter would appear in the southeast sky accompanied by his dog star, Sirius.  My father had taught me about this constellation when I was a child and how to identify Orion by the belt of three stars at his waist.  So, when Orion appeared in the night sky as fall began, it was like seeing an old friend once again.  My eyes thrilled at recognizing this pattern of stars that humans for eons had turned into a story, as it came into view again.  I knew that Orion would be my companion through the dark of winter until he disappeared once again in the spring.  When I went out in the cold winter dark to feed the animals or to assist the sheep in lambing, to gather eggs from our hens, to take carrots to the beautiful horses or to go for walks in the field with my dogs, there was my faithful friend accompanying me, bright and shining and seemingly eternal.

The other constant in my life has been my father.  He is not a warm fuzzy man but he is tremendously ethical and has always tried to do the right thing.  He supported my children through post secondary education when I became a single parent.  He attended every graduation of every grandchild from elementary school, high school, college and university.  And he took pictures at every event.  He taught me about respecting and loving the natural world and being respectful of other cultures.  Music was his first and last love and it transported him.  He sang in a famous choir and in church choirs with his deep bass voice.  He made sure I had music lessons and taught me about classical music.  He gave me both his classical guitars and his electronic piano.  He attended every musical event that my children took part in. He loved to travel and did a lot of it including emigrating to Canada as a young man.

And now he is almost ninety-two and has landed in hospital due to being prescribed too many pharmaceuticals.  They have adjusted his medication but the change of living conditions has pushed him further into the dementia that he has been fighting against.  And now his retirement residence that he has lived in for seven years, won’t allow him to come back home.  So, he is homeless in hospital while we work to find him somewhere else to live in the midst of a care system that can’t keep up with the demand.

He is slipping away mentally and perhaps physically and this is so hard to watch.  I can’t micro manage his care as I have to be at work much of the time when he is lucid.  When I get to the hospital he is often sleeping or restlessly moving his hands and arms but reluctant to open his eyes and unable to speak above a whisper which my aging ears can’t hear.

Last night, I returned home from another disappointing “visit”.  I am in uncharted territory, not knowing what to do, if anything.  I loaded some music on an iPod to play for him, but the device didn’t work well on the weak Wifi signal in the hospital.  I have loaded another device with his old CD ROM’s to see if that will bring comfort but I haven’t tried that with him yet.  How do I help?  How do I let go?  How do I watch him emigrate to another place where I can’t go?

When I got home, my partner and I went for a later winter walk after a lovely supper that he had waiting for me.  We walked down the hill to the shore of frozen Georgian Bay.  The moon was just setting in the west.  We turned our eyes high up in the southwest and there was Orion and Sirius.  Oh, my heart leapt to see them there.  I felt so much comfort at having something familiar and constant, bright and shining above me.  Something bigger and older than all of us.  My partner talked about how we are at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy which is spinning within the universe.  My mind expanded out and out and out just as they say the Universe is expanding.  And I knew that I have to let my father go on his new journey.  The departure will take whatever time it will take.

I found a picture recently of six people standing on a ship dock beside the giant hull of an ocean liner from the 1950’s. The thick rope that tied the ship to the dock stretches over their heads.  The six people are my grandmothers, one grandfather, an uncle and two aunts who came to say goodbye to my father when he boarded that very ship to come to Canada.  My mother is not in the picture.  Perhaps she was at my father’s side even though she came six months later.  Those being left behind grimly pose for the camera.  It is not a happy day for them.  It is the beginning of a new adventure for him.  I kept that picture on my table for weeks although I wasn’t sure why.  It was all so long ago, before I was born. But now I get it.  That rope would have been released and the ship would have sailed away.  Those on the dock including my mother would have waited for it to leave, waving madly, watching until it disappeared into the horizon.  And then they would have gone home and gone about their lives, written letters, adjusted to the absence.  Some of them eventually came for a visit to Canada, but my father never returned to live in England.  He had a good life in his new country and lived it how he wanted.

Now my brother and I are standing on the dock waiting for his new ship to sail.  He is not excited about his new adventure and we feel I imagine just as his family did on the dock.  But leave, he will, as he should, as we all do.  When the rope is lifted and the ship is free, we will watch as it becomes smaller and smaller against the horizon, until it is gone.  Perhaps we won’t wave but we will be grateful at having him in our lives for as long as we did.  I suppose he felt like Orion to me, always there, constant.  But even stars die eventually.

I will make the transition to understanding who he was in my life, and which of his characteristics I carry along the family line.  I will go on with my life in a new way. I will still be comforted by Orion, and the moon and the sun and the North Star and I will find my own way with those who love me.  “I think it’s going to be okay,” my brother told me.  I heard him but wasn’t too sure.  When I saw Orion last night, bright and shining, I knew he was right.

Circling Women's Stories for International Women's Day

In Writing a Woman’s Life, Carolyn Heilbrun wonders if a woman’s story can be told in isolation.  She writes, “I suspect that female narratives will be found where women exchange stories, where they read and talk collectively of ambition and possibilities and accomplishments.” (46)

I recently entered a painting in an International Women’s Day art show in Orillia, ON.  The show is in its third decade and is unjuried in order to create space for as many women as possible to express themselves.  The theme for the show this year is Connections.

As I viewed the exhibition I noticed several expressions of the theme.  There were many pieces that explored our connections to nature with trees, roots, webs, land, water and sky.  Some artists depicted the Earth as a woman.  There were many pieces that depicted the connection to the self and to family and other people, including hands touching, mothers and babies and family trees.  Connections to place and through time were also explored.  The power of connection for survival, growth, healing ad flourishing was expressed over and over.

Overall, the exhibition expressed to me, diversity, richness, abundance, possibility, security and the strength of many fibres, many voice.  In the stories that went along with the art, I found courage, freedom, strength, beauty, wonder, compassion, giving and nurturing life and magic rediscovered.

Some of the artists shared the stories behind their work at the Orillia Storytelling circle held in the same building.  I listened to the various artists telling the stories of the people, animals and land that influenced their work.  I wondered if it was true that women’s narratives will only be found where women exchange stories as Carolyn Heilbrun wrote.  It seemed that these women’s narratives would not be authentic without the stories of their connections being shared with other women.  I wondered if there was something alchemical about women telling and listening.  

Personally, I found it empowering to tell the story of my painting in a circle that had invited such stories.  There was no competition to find space in which to speak, no fight to be heard which is all too common in our society.  We each held a raven feather as we spoke, the sign that others would listen and wait their turn.  There was the inevitability that each turn would come as we moved around the circle.  No one who wanted to speak was left out.  

In viewing the art work in the exhibition, my mind moved even farther.  Perhaps our stories are not authentic unless they include the connections to all of life, to All Our Relations.  Perhaps the narrative of isolation is always a false narrative and our true story is only evident when it is told as part of the whole.  Perhaps each one's story needs to be heard and held within a circle to truly live.  Perhaps this is the new story. 

This is the painting that I entered.  Here is the story that went with it:  

Farewell:  This is the last goodbye between our Quarter Horse Robbie and two rescued Mustang mares, Majesty and Rain who had to part under sad circumstances.  I felt so connected to these horses and they to each other and I painted this picture to deal with the grief of losing them.  The only point of view that expressed this was the impossible, invisible, intimate one of being between the mares as they are reflected in Robbie’s eye.

Carolyn G. Heilbrun (1988)Writing a Woman’s Life.  New York: 

A Business Plan for Peace

In just four minutes Scilla Elworthy, peace activist and author shares her Business Plan for Peace. 

“We have more people as refugees than ever in human history. We have a bigger gap between rich and poor than ever in human history. And we also have terrorism and cyber-warfare. None of these issues can be dealt with by weapons. Last year, the world spent $1,686 billion on militarization, while $30 billion could bring fresh water to every person on the planet, and $340 billion could bring food and nutrition to every person on the planet. And yet we spend multiples of this on guns. It’s obscene and it’s crazy. And we have to stop that. And we can.” ~ Scilla Elworthy, peace activist and author

You can check out some of the stories that Elworthy talks about on her website Peace Direct. 

Remembering Stones

I am copying information from an e-mail that I received from the Downey-Wenjack Fund regarding a new Legacy School.  I thought that this was a great example of the creativity and collaboration that is telling the new story of reconciliation in Canada.

“Our newest addition to the Legacy Schools program Roseneath Centennial Public School received a very special visit from Chanie Wenjack’s sisters Pearl, Daisy, Evelyn and their family in January. Mr. Reid’s grade 8 class have been working hard on the Remembering Stone project. Students and staff were honoured to meet the family and tell them about what they have learned about Residential Schools.

From Mr. Reid:”

“Over the past several years we have been learning about Residential Schools from Melody Crowe who is our KPRDSB First Nations Liaison. We learned about the 6000+ First Nations, Metis and Inuit children who lost their futures in that system and how it had affected her family as well. We were looking for another way to present the ideas and I found The Secret Path Book and video and students were very engaged. We have been using it as a way to access the information in conjunction with Melody's teachings. I felt, over the years, when I said that "6000+ students lost their future in residential schools", my students weren't seeing the enormity of the number of deaths. I told them it was equivalent to approximately 250 classrooms. That still didn't seem visual enough so when I was driving into school one day I thought that if students could create something upon reflection of their learning and we could have a permanent reminder then students could see what 6000 looked like. The teachers of Roseneath Centennial PS jumped at the chance to create the Remembering Stone Project and each classroom contributed lessons and "Stones". Soon after other schools heard about the project and they have been teaching about Residential Schools and contributing Remembering Stones to the wall of honour too. The Secret Path is an integral part of the learning. My students knew Pearl and Daisy Wenjack before they entered our classroom for a visit. Chanie Wenjack gives us a symbol of the degradation of family, culture and language and how the Residential School system was a shameful part of history on this land."

The Wenjack family hung a stone on the memorial to remember Chanie, the day before what would have been, Chanie’s 65th birthday.

Mr. Reid can be contacted for lesson plans, and shipping information via email: philip_reid@kprdsb.ca

You can see more photos of this project here.  By focusing on the great work that many people are doing and celebrating their creativity, we will also be inspired in our own lives.  We are all a part of this new story!