It is the Time

photo credit: Mother Earth News

It was the time of the year

When the blackbirds       flocked;

Red-winged, Rusty, Brewers, Grackles, Starlings, Cowbirds.

Gone were the   competitions

And rivalries of mating,

Nesting, laying, feeding,   and fledging.

Now they gathered as one.

Standing on the trail by   

  the marsh,

They flew over our upturned faces.

photo credit: Amazon.com

Thousands and thousands

Heading to their night roosts.

Each little bird flapped furiously,

While the flock as a whole

Was a slow graceful wave

That undulated over the trees.

It was the time of the year

When the wild grapes hung     suspended,

Dark purple orbs beckoning

From vines that treeclimbed high.

We picked them by the hundreds into   buckets,

Collected the juice to make jelly.

Our fingers becoming purple red

photo credit: Nature Hills.com

As the Red Oak leaves did the same.

It was the time of the year

When the aspens turned yellow

And yellowy brown and

A dozen hues in between.

  

We stood mesmerized

As their trembling thousands

Became shimmering gold

In the breeze, at sunset.

It was at this same time of year

That people started to flock in the   millions.

Students, children, parents, seniors

In parks, on bridges, by roadsides.

Gone were the petty squabbles

Over differences real and imagined.

The threat of climate change

Bound the individuals together.

 

Locations of the Friday for Future protests
Fridays for Future

There was something in these flocks

A sense of hope, the empowerment    of youth,

Relief from fear and paralysis.

A graceful wave undulating beneath    the trees.

Across the Earth people listened to     the land

And renewed their relationships

With ALL their relations.

It is that kind of time.

And here is a nice little video showing the flocking of blackbirds in case you've never seen them:

Call of the Forest

Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees Is a beautiful feature length film featuring the work of Diana Beresford-Kroeger.  She is a “world recognized author, medical biochemist and botanist” who was born in Ireland and was tutored in the Celtic knowledge of trees and plants by her family.  Beresford-Kroeger blends these two knowledge systems throughout the film, as she visits forests around the world and those who are planting and protecting them.

From Japan, where we view the tiniest urban forest in the midst of Tokyo, to Japanese forest bathing which has been practiced for a thousand years, she takes us to her farm in Ontario where she has been creating a living library of tree genetics for over forty years.  With her, we visit Vancouver Island and California, home to the mighty Redwoods as well as Pimachiowin Aki an  PIC area in Manitoba protected by Indigenous people who are working to have the area protected as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. 

Pimachiowin Aki from UNESCO Biosphere website

We visit Ireland where most of the trees were cut down by the British to conquer the people of that land.  It was said that the Irish would not be conquered until there were no leaves left as their understanding of life was based on the wisdom and knowledge of the forest.  For this reason, Beresford-Kroeger says that an intact forest is a mighty act of peace.

Beresford-Kroeger explains the chemistry of the medicinal aerosols that trees emit in the forest as well as the links between the health of the forest and the health of the oceans.  If the trees disappear, then so will the fish.  Japan is now planting “fishermen’s forests” after deforestation led to the disappearance of ocean fish.  “The chain is invisible until the chain is broken,” she says. 

Beresford-Kroeger also takes us to the great Boreal Forest which grows around the north pole and which represents 30% of the world’s forest.  Expansion of the Alberta tar sands threatens this forest.  All we need to do is protect the Boreal Forest, she states.

Narrated by Gordon Pinsent, the film introduces us to passionate forest protectors around the globe as well as how trees can mitigate the effects of climate change.  And the viewer meets ancient and enormous trees as well as young ones.  By the end of the film, Beresford-Kroeger sums it up simply.  Planting trees can change the climate and her calculations reveal that if every person on earth planted one tree a year for six years, that would make a difference.  Since we can’t all plant trees, some of us will have to plant trees for those who can’t and some of us can fund people who are planting trees.  

And beyond this, she wants people to develop a different relationship to nature.  She is not the only voice saying this at this time in history.  But she is adding a rich, intelligent and passionate voice to the growing choir.

Does this sound too simple?  Well judge for yourself.  You can check out the trailer here: 

Or watch the film in its entirety here: 

You can view her plan here.  As well as committing to planting one native tree per year for the next six years, she also suggests the following:

• Encourage your friends and neighbours to plant native trees
• Protect the trees in your neighbourhood
• Protect the native forests in your community by getting involved and writing letters to your government representatives 
• Help keep the Boreal Forest intact

So watch the film and decide what you will do.  I guarantee that she will inspire you.

Sharing The Weight

I recently viewed this version of The Weight, the famous song by The Band in celebration of the song’s 50^th anniversary.  Playing for Change is well known for getting musicians all over the world to play the song “together” through the magic of technology.  This version starts with Ringo Starr from the Beatles phoning up Robbie Robertson from The Band to ask him what key the song is in.  Since Ringo is a drummer, the key is of course of no significance and the humour of this “call” sets the stage for a lovely collaboration of musicians from near and far as they celebrate the song together.

Watching this video made me feel happy.  Watching people collaborate and create together makes me happy.  This is what people all over the world are doing every day.  The fact that all this good news doesn’t make it onto the official “news” broadcasts does not make it less true.  So enjoy this video.  I hope it makes you feel happy too.

Ancient Wisdom Rising

“I like your earrings!” said the older woman sitting at the café table.  We frequently meet Dolly when we go for Saturday morning breakfast at the Village Mercantile. We always stop to chat with her as people do in a small town.  Once a general store, this large building now houses vintage and antique furniture, hardware for the cottagers and a café along the front beside the huge old fashioned windows.  We are two of the regulars for weekend breakfasts.

The earrings in question are large aluminum cut outs of sea turtles.  I bought them from a non-profit organization that had a booth at a festival this summer.  They were made by people in Nicaragua who are re-purposing things that would otherwise be garbage, as a way to support their children.  I suspect my earrings are made from a pop can.  They are light and shiny and people notice them.  They remind me of my daughter who spent part of a holiday in Costa Rica and Nicaragua volunteering at a sea turtle protection group.  She spent the days picking up plastic garbage from the beach and the nights patrolling the beach to protect nesting sea turtles from poachers.  The earrings have stories attached to them, stories of people rising from poverty, stories of cleaning up and re-purposing garbage, and stories of protection. Those stories go with me as I go about my days.

Jade turtle bracelet

Brenda, one of the owners of the Village Mercantile, heard our conversation.  “I have something upstairs to show you,” she said.  A few minutes later she placed a bracelet on the table.  It was made from eight tiny turtles carved from jade.  A thick lace went through them all so that they were nose to tail.  The bodies were about the size of the end of my thumb.  They looked just like the baby snapping turtles that we had seen a few weeks earlier.

The trail that we walk on every evening is a perfect spot for Snapping and Map turtles to nest in.  Since it runs along Georgian Bay, the turtles come out in June, climb up to the trail and dig holes in the substrate that is alongside the trail.  A local man started a group called Kids for Turtles a few years back.  If anyone notices a turtle digging a nest and laying eggs, this organization will come out when they are notified, to place a “cage” over the nest.  This wire protection is secured with deep tent pegs to prevent predators such as skunks and raccoons from digging up the eggs and eating them.

Newly hatched Snapping Turtles climb over the Kids for Turtles nest protector

We have seen quite a number of these cages along the trail all summer.  But a few weeks ago, we noticed that there was a baby snapping turtle sitting on top of one of these cages.  Then we spied another and another emerging from the earth.  They climbed up the side of the cage, scrambled over the top and went down the other side on their way to the water.  It was pretty exciting to see them hatching and setting off on their lives.  And the line of turtles was just like the bracelet. 

Detail of bracelet

Brenda gave me the bracelet because we like turtles so much and of course we showed her pictures on our camera of the baby hatchlings.  I hung the bracelet on the kitchen wall to remind us of the hatching that we witnessed.  It will help us to remember the gift of being there just at the right moment to witness the miraculous event.

As I looked at the bracelet, it also reminded me of Thomas King’s 2003 CBC Massey Lecture entitled The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative.  He begins the five lecture series this way: “There is a story I know.  It’s about the earth and how it floats in space on the back of a turtle.”  Once, he says, a storyteller telling this story was asked by a young girl what was beneath the turtle.  The storyteller replied, well, another turtle.  The girl wanted to know how many turtles there were. “No one knows for sure, he told her, but it’s turtles all the way down.”  As I look at the eight turtles hanging on my kitchen wall, I hear Thomas King’s deep voice, “It’s turtles all the way down.”

You can read the story or listen to it on the youtube link above.  Thomas King is a wonderful storyteller.  He tells the creation story involving Sky Woman being helped by the animals to make her home on the back of a turtle which is why North America is also called Turtle Island.  King compares this creation story to the one found in Genesis in which God creates everything in the world and at the end of all of this, God creates a man and then a woman.  He then gives them “dominion” over everything else.  In the story of Sky Woman, the animals make it possible for her to exist.  The relationship of dependency is clear.  In the Genesis story, the relationship is interpreted to be a hierarchical one with the people at the top.

Well, my ancestors have certainly taken the “dominion over” idea to the extreme.  The creation story that underlies how business is done here in North America has led to taking as much as is possible from the Earth and giving back very little.  If this was a relationship between two humans, we would call this an abusive relationship and we would advise the victim to leave.  King explains that the creation story of Sky Woman and the turtle is one in which the humans remember that they are dependent on all the other life forms.  After all, that Turtle could just swim away.

Ancient Wisdom by Paul Shilling

Anishinaabeg artist Paul Shilling

painted a beautiful picture of a turtle which he called Ancient Wisdom.  We have a print of it in both of our offices and one at home as well.  It is beautiful and hopeful as the turtle swims up to the surface of the water, or perhaps the turtle is hatching from the earth, or floating in space.  See what you think.  The ancient wisdom of the First Peoples on Turtle Island, this land that we now call North America is one based on a creation story in which people are part of life, not dominate over it.  And that ancient Wisdom is rising.

This past Sunday, while riding our bicycles on the trail, my partner suddenly screeched to a dusty stop.  There near his front tire was a tiny newly hatched snapping turtle walking along the trail.  It needed to get to water soon, so my partner picked it up and put it in the grass pointing to Matchedash Bay.  A brand new turtle starting it’s life here on Turtle Island.  We wished it well. 

A little further down the trail, we found the nest.  It was obvious because egg shells littered the disturbed gravel.  One little egg shell had a dead turtle inside that hadn’t managed to find it’s way out.  It’s not easy being a turtle.  They are preyed on by all sorts of animals and we humans don’t make it any easier with our roads and boats.  However, people seem to be catching on to their importance.  More turtles than ever before were brought to the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre in Peterborough for medical help this year.

I wonder how much further this experiment in domination has to go before we listen to the ancient wisdom of this land.   Perhaps we are already remembering our relatives the turtles and are renewing that ancient relationship.  Perhaps deep within us, in our DNA, we are remembering who we are and our place in the world.  Remember the creation story about the turtle and the wisdom embedded in the story.  Let it work in you.   Let it grow, just like the little turtles will.  See what it grows into. We can change the story we are telling.  Thomas King's famous words remind us of that:  "The truth about stories is that's all we are."

Kissing the Earth with Your Feet