Each Day a Lifetime

These days are 

Daylily filled.

Everywhere I look,

Orange heads nod in the warm breeze.

Each day on each plant

A  new blossom appears.

A whole floral lifetime

Lived in one day.

Orange petals 

with red bands,

Warm yellow centres become bright beacons 

for pollinators

But just for today.

These are the 

berry days of summer.

Fragrant, sweet honeysuckle blossoms

Sipped by bees and ants are now bright translucent Red and orange berries,

Food for the Cedar Waxwing

We watch it precisely pluck berries

One, two, three and then fly away.

There is fruit everywhere.

Red Osier Dogwood’s white floral umbrellas

Pollinated by insects now nourished

Became growing green berries that turned

Back to white ripe fruit with black eyes.

Perfect for the Robin red-breast

Perched on the bouncing red-wood stems

Over the lapping waves of the lake

And filling its crop.

Wild or maybe just feral

Black raspberries metamorphose

From white flowers to green fruit

Then red but still hard and

Oooh it is hard to wait until

Ripe and purplish black

Soft under the fingers

Carefully picked and popped

Into my mouth  becoming a

Ceremony and celebration.

The Power of Art to Tell a New Story

Well, I am taking a holiday this week.  I am staying home, which happens to be on Georgian Bay where people go for their holidays,  Since I am trying to do “holiday” kinds of things, my partner and I decided to take the 2 ½ hour boat tour on the Miss Midland.  This takes you from the Midland town docks, through Severn Sound, all the way around Beausoleil Island and back again.  We have done this trip in various segments in our own little boat and so it was nice to sit on the top deck and let Captain Steve pilot us through the many shoals and some of the 30,000 Islands.

Along the way, a prerecorded informational soundtrack was played.  This dealt with the names of various islands, the industries in some of the towns and some of the history of the area.  The script seemed dated as a few newer attractions were not mentioned but I’m not sure when it was written.  When the script dealt with the First Nation in the area and the Indigenous people who had lived here (and still do) for thousands of years before Etienne Brulee and Samuel de Champlain arrived four hundred years ago, the narrative was a bit sketchy.  Since I have been trying to learn the actual history of the area, some of the “information” was in my opinion, generated from within a colonial mindset.  Important facts were left out and some facts were told in a sanitized way that washed the European settlers clean of anything we might not approve of now.  It occurred to me that the script needed updating to reflect what we now know happened.  I am considering writing to the company that runs the tour to suggest this.  Thousands of tourists from around the world and from across Canada take this tour during the summer months and the misinformation is not helping the reconciliation movement.

The next day, my partner and I stopped at a local gas station and restaurant in Port Severn, just off of Hwy. 400.  We got our hamburgers and went to sit in the large dining area that was empty and quiet.  We have been there before and so I was surprised to see a new mural on the wall of the dining room.  We left our burgers and went to inspect it. 

New mural in Port Severn highway rest stop

On the left hand side, the artist, Tim Nijenhuis had depicted Samuel de Champlain arriving in the area and being greeted by Chief Aenon,the leader of the Wendat people,  who had lived in this territory for thousands of years. 

Detail of mural by Tim Nyenhues 2019  Port Severn ON.

This reminded me of the statue that was installed in nearby Penetanguishene in 2015 to commemorate this meeting in 1615. Sculptor Timothy P. Schmalz created the statue as an apology for the statue in Orillia from 1915 which has Champlain high above the fur trader and priest who are above the crouching Wendat men.

The Meeting statue by Timothy P. Schmalz in Penetanguishene, ON, 2015

Statue of Champlain on top, on left, a fur trader looking down on two Wendat men
 and on the right a priest holding up a crucifix above two Wendat men.  1915 in Orillia, ON.

You don't have to be an art historian to see that the narratives that these three pieces of art are telling, are quite different. I thought about the power of art and culture to share and propagate these narratives.  In the Penetanguishene statue, Schmalz has the two men holding a wampum belt to represent the agreement to share the land and not interfere with each other.  In the Orillia statue, Champlain is much larger than the other men and the statue has an obvious hierarchical structure.  But now, thousands of visitors will stop by and see this new mural in which Champlain looks a little confused while Aenon holds out a welcoming hand.  Or perhaps you might see a different narrative there.  I am only guessing.

To the right of the two men are depictions of the original Big Chute Marine Railway and Port Severn, where the restaurant is located.  Flying above them are four flags.  From left to right they are:  the Annishinaabe flag, the Haudenosaunee flag, the Metis flag and the Canadian flag to represent all the people who currently call this land home.

Anishinaabe flag on left and Haudenosaunee flag on right

Metis flag and Canadian flag

Visitors may have to use their phones to fact check what they are seeing.  I didn’t notice a plaque explaining the mural but there may have been one.   I saw one child posing between Champlain and Aenon to have his picture taken.  Now that's another interesting thing about murals.  People can kind of join in and take a selfie with Champlain and Aenon.  This is a new opportunity for people travelling up and down Hwy 400 between Barrie and Sudbury.

I know someone who loved the Orillia statue of Champlain when she was a little girl some sixty years ago.  She has fond memories of stroking the faces of the Wendat men and thinking them beautiful.  As a child she missed the fur trader, priest and especially Champlain who was high in the sky.  I wonder how children who are now posing between Champlain and Aenon will remember this mural.  Perhaps it will become iconic for them.  But it is telling a new story from our shared history and that new story will be the one they remember.

Artist Tim Nijenhuis' signature on the mural.

Grassroots Growth and a Round Dance

In early July, I attended the Mariposa Folk Festival in Orillia, ON.  My partner and I had a booth in the not-for-profit area of the festival promoting the Moose Hide Campaign.  The story of this campaign is described beautifully on the website:

Paul Lacerte in centre with drum

On an early 2011 August morning, an Indigenous man named Paul Lacerte and his daughter Raven were hunting moose near the infamous Highway of Tears, a section of highway between Prince George and Prince Rupert, BC, where dozens of women have gone missing or been found murdered.  They had brought down a moose that would help feed the family for the winter and provide a moose hide for cultural purposes. As the daughter was skinning the moose her father started thinking…They were so near the highway that has brought so much sorrow to the communities along its endless miles, here with his young daughter who deserved a life free of violence…That’s when the idea sprang to life!  What if they used the moose hide to inspire men to become involved in the movement to end violence towards women and children?  Together with family and friends they cut up the moose hide into small squares and started the Moose Hide Campaign.(Moose Hide Campaign website)

Now, 8 years later, over a million Moose hide patches have been distributed in Canada and beyond.  The campaign has a new goal to distribute ten million patches.  My partner and I are helping in our small way to do that, to be part of this grassroots movement.  This allows us to have many conversations with men and women about the possibility of change.

As I sat at the booth, I began to wonder what a grassroots movement would look like if I tried to draw it.  I pictured a small patch of grass sending out runners underground that gave birth to blades of grass shooting up from the earth into the sky.  This would not be a linear drawing but more of a circle radiating out from the original roots.  And it would grow exponentially as well as more grass roots spread into more runners and more blades of grass.  And it would be tough to squelch.  If you have ever tried to grow a garden, you will know how grass is persistent and just pops up everywhere.  And then of course, there are grass seeds which are carried by the wind over great distances.  If they land in disturbed soil, they will take root and start spreading where they have arrived.  I thought about the Moose hide patches being mailed all over Canada and areas beyond and then being distributed in those areas.  I imagined the grass spreading and covering the land. 

After two days of working at the booth, we finally packed up the tent and table and sat down at the Main Stage to listen to the music and have some supper.  The second act that we listened to was a local band called Digging Roots.   David Newland describes them on the website as “a Juno-winning First Nations power couple Shoshona Kish and Raven Kanatakta [who] have built their sound on a unique musical marriage of unvarnished truth and unconditional love.”   You can check out their video For the Light here if you’d like to get a better sense of them. 

At the end of their Mariposa Festival  set, they invited the audience to join in a Round Dance.  You can learn more about Round Dances here:

   

One young woman started it and Shoshona invited everyone to join in.  People joined hands as the leader wove her way through the crowd.  The dance started really near to where I was sitting, so my partner and I jumped up and joined in at the end of the line which was only about ten people at that point.  As we moved through the audience other people jumped up to join in as well.  We didn’t make them wait until the end of the line though.  We simply dropped hands and made space for them.  The interesting thing was that as the line moved, at times I became too stretched between fast people in front of me and slow ones behind.  When I dropped hands to welcome other people into the circle, the pressure was eased.  Imagine that.  Adding more people to the circle takes the pressure off of the few.  The more people, the better.

Well, the circle grew larger and larger.  By the time I had made my way to the front of the stage, there were hundreds of people in the line ahead of me.  It felt so good to open the circle, to extend the generosity of space to people as we passed them by.  This dance is not about hierarchy.  There is space for all of us.  I noticed the joy on the faces of the dancers as the leader wound her way into a spiral and we faced other dancers.  In the video linked to above,  Adrian LaChance says, among other things, that the Round Dance is about healing through movement.  It certainly felt wonderful to join together with other festival goers in this dance over the lawn, over the grass, over the grassroots.   When the dance ended many of us extended our arms high into the air sending love from our hands to the band onstage.  This was the highlight of the weekend for me.

All weekend, I had explained to people that my partner and I were just taking our place in the circle of people working to end violence towards women and children.  I invited guests to the booth to be a part of the circle as well.  I had used the image of the circle to describe the grassroots, non-hierarchical model of the Moose Hide Campaign and now I had experienced the same thing physically.  The more people who joined in, the better.  There was less pressure on the individual as we all took our place. There was room for us all, we moved together and joy, not fear, not violence, was the result.  It seemed that as soon as a ceremony, a model was provided, we figured out how to make space, how to work collectively, almost like we had done this our whole lives.  Maybe it is in our DNA and the invitation released it.  I don't know for sure.  But, it felt like the new story that we are writing together, one in which there is space for all of us.

What the Water Taught Me

It finally feels as though summer is here.  On the Friday of the first summer long weekend, we woke up to cloudy skies, warm air and no wind.  After checking the weather forecast which predicted rain in the afternoon, we headed down to our dock to take the canoe out.  No wind makes it possible for us to venture out further into Severn Sound which is part of the eastern most section of Georgian Bay.

Happily aboard our 18 foot freighter canoe, we made our way with the help of our 2.5 hp motor into the bigger water until we reached Canary Island.  We said hello to the nesting Ospreys on the marine beacon tower and cut the motor.  Then we paddled through the channel in Canary Island.  The first thing I noticed was that I couldn’t see into the water.  The sun was at the exact height that caused the sky to be reflected in the water’s glassy surface.  When I looked down at the water, I saw sky, because of the angle of the light.  I knew that later in the day when the sun is lower, the angle makes it possible to see down into the water where there are rocks, plants, fish and a sandy bottom.  But those were now invisible to me. 

This made me think about how our point of view, or the angle we take when viewing something affects what we can see.  I thought about people who are busy creating an identity for themselves  who keep you looking at the bright shiny bits.  These identities feel like shields to me and I wonder what is beneath or behind the carefully constructed and energized images on the surface.  I know that there could come a time when they feel safer and the shields go down so that what lies below may become visible.  In this world of images, it takes some wisdom to realize that what is shown on the surface, may have nothing to do with what lies below.  It made me think of politics and how politicians want you to see the constructed image instead of what is really there.  The water and sky were teaching me.

A little further on, we came across the exoskeletons of dragonfly nymphs still clinging to bulrushes.  The nymphs crawl up the bulrushes and clamp on somehow and then the adult dragonfly emerges, dries its wings and flies away.  I pondered my own transition from mother and caregiver to older woman.  It seems that the old casing or trappings must be left behind in order to fly free.  That is just the way things work.

Looking down at the surface of the water again to see if the angle of light had changed, I noticed hundreds and hundreds of shadfly larvae casings floating in the water.   The shadfly or mayfly is also a metamorphic insect.  The adult females deposit from four hundred to three thousand eggs into the water.  The eggs sink and may not hatch for up to a year.  The nymphs that hatch go through a series of molts as they grow.  They may take up to several years before emerging from the water, leaving their exoskeletons behind and flying as immature adults who molt once more after a day or so into full adults.  The adult phase is purely about procreation and they live for a few short days, mating, laying eggs, never eating and then dying.  We noticed that there were many dead adult mayflies floating alongside the exoskeletons of the nymphs.  I thought about the millions of shadfly eggs lying on the lake bottom waiting for the conditions to be right so that the nymphs could hatch.  I thought about all the seeds we plant on a daily basis with our words and actions.  Who knows what grows from them?

Shadflies belong to the Order Ephemeroptera, clearly linked to the word ephemeral which was a medical term meaning to last only one day. Once again, I thought about perceptions.  We call these insects flies because that is the stage that we see.  In reality, they spend most of their lives as nymphs which are nearly impossible for us to see.  But there were the floating adults corpses and nymph casings on the surface of the water that looked like sky.  While down below, is where their lives are really lived.

A little farther on, we stopped to pick up some boards that had washed up on the rocks.  Lost from some human construction elsewhere on the lake, they had beached here.  We will use them to add to our dock.  I was holding the canoe steady as my partner loaded the wood and had time to look under the water.  Yes, the angle of light and the shadow of the canoe made this possible!  Lying on the lake bottom, I spied a bright white egg.  Fishing it up, we discovered that it was a map turtle egg that must have been washed out of a nest.  The turtles are up laying eggs on the shores these days.  We brought it home and will attempt to hatch it.  It is probably too late, but we will give it a chance.  Here was the beginning of the life cycle, visible to me because of its size and the angle of light. 

I spent last Sunday playing with my partner’s four-year-old grandson.  I spend hours sitting with my 92 year old father and less time talking on the phone to my adult children.  My friends are around retirement age.  Each stage of life requires special vision if the person is to be seen.  You can’t just look at the surface to know what is beneath.  Beneath the outside casing of all of them can be found wise, sensitive, creative souls.  The water is teaching me how to see, how to wait until the depths are visible, how to look beneath the surface.  Only then can the whole story be revealed.