Long shadows/tranquility's mirror/even-ing

... I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.... ...Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

Origami taro face: wordless Wednesday

Solstice serenity at Starvation Lake

There were a million things vying for my time today: the Colville rodeo, the Fort Spokane fur trade encampment and reenactment, preparing for next week's Art in the Park at Kettle Falls, cleaning house, cooking, laundry, gardening, writing my newspaper column....the list goes on and on.
But when the light turned fiery with promise at 4 am in my upstairs eyrie in Skunk House, I knew, crippled shoulder or no, I had to be out there at sunrise, on water somewhere. It is solstice after all and way too long that I have been up the creek without a paddle. Yes, I didn't know at that stage that those rosy fingers of dawn were the most sunlight I was going to see all day.....but no matter, there were adequate compensations.I had heard that Starvation Lake, 10 miles or so east out of Colville, on HWY 20, was a beautiful place to paddle. Although there is a campground with 8 sites on public land, with a campground host whom I assume was peacefully asleep in a motorhome during my visit, the lake is small and remote enough, along a gravel road, known as "primitive" in this county, for it not to draw the crowds and noisy day trippers. There is a well made fishing dock, some toilets and lots of peace at dawn on a Sunday

The kayak almost loaded itself on the truck, seeming just as eager as me to get out onto water. Thanks to recent ministrations by Shelley of the healing hands, hot rocks and oils, I hardly felt the torn shoulder.
Wildflowers continue to bloom in the forests. This is one long beautiful spring merging into summer, even if there is still patchy snow on the peaks.The lake was more beautiful than I imagined with a reflective, brooding calm beneath moody skies, edged with bullrushes (cat tails to waMerikans) rising from a skirt of taro plants. The smell was primeval, marshy with a hint of wood smoke from a campsite set back in the woods.

Of course there were mosquitoes. Lots of them. Tiny, with a mean bite which swells to crazymaking itchy red welts bigger than a dollar coin. It's small enough price to pay for this kind of paddle experience. Bloodsuckers who sow minor, temporary irritation seem to have staked out every paradise. Developing indifference and immunity comes naturally after a while.
Wild ducks of several varieties complete with families of ducklings and protective drakes surrounded me, their calls, squeaks and honks loud across the dawn water. The drake of one species has an incredible blue bill and does an interesting clockwork toy squeaky bobbing movement with his head. Very curious. Frogs plopped. Huge slow herons flapped across the lake. Swallows swooped and soared feasting on forementionred mosquitoes. A raptor of sorts is nesting untidily atop a big old tree.

For a while huge raindrops stippled the water. I paddled the entire circumference of the lake in about an hour and didn't see another human being. Even with a small adventure which left the passenger window of the truck shattered (don't ask, it's complicated) I was still back at Skunk House again by 10:30 am. And no, that doesn't mean I rolled up my sleeves and got to work on those million things I should have been doing today. I had a million tiny shards of glass to clean out of the front of the truck. Something tells me I am going to be finding shattered truck window glass in everything for a long time to come. Win some. Lose some. Oh did I mention that my cell phone is shattered as well. If you have been trying to text me, try another form of smoke signal. I can't read a thing on the little screen since it tried to reinvent itself as a digital Rorschach test.

Peace, love, and cigarette butts: the art of not tipi-creeping

Whoever thinks that Woodstock was over 40 years ago, hasn't been to the Okonagon Highlands recently. More specifically the Conscious Culture festival, held at the Barter Faire site way up in Okonagon county, north eastern Washington, not many miles from the Canadian border.We have had rain, and a lot of it, for more than a month now. Only last week there were heavy snow falls in the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges. The weather finally cleared Friday, though, like prowling African wild dogs, the storms circled and circled the campsite. Skies were magnificent.

I made the journey there - roughly 2 and a half hours drive from Skunk House - in my usual meandering style meaning that it took me closer to four hours. Stopped at the top of Sherman Pass to admire the view and the new growth. A month ago when I was last here the snow had been thick on the ground still.Just outside Republic I found Jim Swayne at the Tin-na-tit kin-ne-ki tee-ga, Indian art gallery and museum of sorts on the side of the road. I have been meaning to pay Jim a visit for a while now. Emerging from the long harsh winter closure, the place is looking decidedly weathered outside and in need of some revival though the flags of the world were flying fresh and new along the roadside heralding the seasonal opening of the gallery.Inside is a magnificent collection of arts and crafts from many Indian nations. The level of Jim's awareness of the current renaissance in Indian arts and culture is debatable however. He is inclined to make remarks like "All the artists are working in the casinos now" which, from even my limited forays into the life and culture of the contemporary American Indian, I know isn't true.

Jim's prices are high on certain items and he does not list the name of the artist nor the tribe. While he probably is not falling foul of the 1990 Indian Arts and Crafts act which makes it illegal to claim something is Indian made when it isn't, he certainly isn't complying with contemporary trends which I have encountered elsewhere where native art is on sale, crediting artist and tribe. It seemed to me, therefore, that his prices do not always justify the possible confusion as to authenticity and origins of his pieces. Though some are indisputably authentic, others are of questionable integrity and craftsmanship.Nonetheless I added some overpriced handmade peyote bird silver and turquoise earrings to my personal collection. Yes there is no silver stamp nor artist signature on these either, so, unlike the rest of my Indian silver, their origins are questionable. Their value for me is in commemorating the moment. Ah hell, let's just stop making excuses and dressing it up grand: the peyote bird earrings are pretty. I make no professions to minimalism in the body adornment department where silver is concerned. Moonlight and lots of it is my chosen armor.Outside the gallery is a somewhat sorry yet eerie installation which has seen better days. I am assuming this is a piece of the museum which represents the (sic) "Indian way of life". The weathered remains of tipi poles, the curved willow boughs of a sweat lodge, a sheepskin wrapped body on a platform with an little printed piece about death and the life of the spirit thereafter.Republic, in full Prospector's Days preparation mode once more disappointed me. When I arrived at the town, I realized I hadn't had breakfast and it was now way after midday. Prospector's Days is another of these small community celebrations which these dot on the map towns engage in to draw attention to themselves. Sometimes they are joyful occasions. Other times it seems to me that they are a bit like the World Series baseball games here in the United States which involves only United States teams. All that playing with yourself is not always a good thing.

I did finally receive a forgettable sandwich and latte from some frantic lunch place in Republic. Driving out of town I realized I hadn't been given the bag of potato crisps which should have accompanied the sandwich. For some reason, try though I do to have positive experiences here, the old gold mining town of Republic and I have bad karma. Perhaps I wear too much silver (see above)Onward to the festival. I had redundantly Mapquested directions. The turn off to the festival site was well marked with a brightly painted sandwich board in the middle of the road. Not easy to miss even if one is operating with an additive enriched consciousness as I came later to realise many of the attendees were.

The site was exquisite. Wild mountain spring flowers in full boom. Lupins, little pink flowers of the fabled bitter root, blue flowers, soft sparse grass in a bowl of mountains. An array of vehicles and camping styles. A fair smattering of converted old school busses, beat-up trucks, some RV's, tarps over trucks, tents, tipis.

I was kept focussed on the big picture by magnificent skies and clouds the whole time I was there.

After some confusing directions from the troops of volunteers, still gravitating towards the darkness on the edge of town, I found a place at the far edge of the camping circle. Perhaps it was the first volunteer whose lot is was to direct me: a big soft spoken man with African roots somewhere: "Family or on your own?" He pauses and looks inside my truck, gives me the up and down look...." If it is just you, pull in over there with the volunteers, join the cool people" . Something made me crowd shy right then at the beginning.

I am realizing that my solitude is my most precious asset. These kind of gatherings anywhere and in any culture tend to have an aspect of the mating opportunity about them. My days of being in the courtship dance are over. I am resolute: this time around, and since the abdication of my most recent guardian, I intend to maintain my solitary state. As I stated in another post recently: It is time to end my relationship with things that are bad for me.The sun was comfortably warm (at last), traders and volunteer crew were setting up, tweaking the myriad aspects of the festival, hanging sponsors' banners, making announcements, asking people not to smoke tobacco or walk around with alcohol, unpacking. Bands got up and played amidst feedback and volume checks. I lay on my back in the sun listening to songs whining about the "system" and while I felt good lying on the earth watching the clouds and people, relaxing into for once not being part of a volunteer crew working frantically to make it happen, I was not moved by the music. All ages danced together sporadically. Someone sent wind driven bubbles across the fairground.

I wandered some more, noticing how many people were ignoring the request not to smoke tobacco in the fair site. I bought some vegan food. Though it took a long time to prepare, it really was a delicious falafel.I visited a little with the China Bend Winery folks and my new tribal elder friend and Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa (North Dakota) tribesman, HR. When he is in town, HR lives near me, has played polo with Prince Charles, rides under the banner of "Return of the Horse Nation", makes incredibly beautiful felted horse blankets and drives a 5 miles to the gallon old yellow school bus picking up riders to cover the petrol costs to wherever he wants to go. HR wants to bring the horse back to pow wows. Being a horse person myself, I heartily endorse his mission.I helped HR build the framework for a sweat lodge for a while, then decided to ride east, into the storm. Those old Dylan lines in my head again: "it ain't me babe...."

I have been here before. I recognized the routes which were opening up should I stay. I will dedicate my hands to any worthwhile project which needs it, but my heart is out of the game. Hey, I have been to hell and back not so long ago. Now is not the time for me to go looking for trouble. Travelling on is what I do best right now. That's just the way it is.

Driving back east, the rainbow over the blighted Republic, seemed to endorse my decision. My job is to take care of my precious solitude not play in the traffic. Enticing though that traffic is.Perhaps I have been spoiled by so many tribal gatherings the other side of the mountain, most especially the tribal canoe journey. I have grown accustomed to the clarity and integrity of alcohol and drug free events. This one was neither. For that reason it was misnamed for me. But then I am apprenticed in the tougher-than-most school whose rigors are not for everyone.

Darkness on the edge of town

It's been a stormy, darkness on the edge of town kind of day. Thunder is still rumbling in the distance and sirens in the dusk make it all so Springsteen. The sultry, brooding thunder grumbles and sudden blinding flares of lightening bring energetic allies, take away some of my deep deep exhaution.

Everybody's got a secret, Sonny,
Something that they just can't face,
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it,
They carry it with them every step that they take.
Till some day they just cut it loose
Cut it loose or let it drag 'em down,
Where no one asks any questions,
or looks too long in your face,
In the darkness on the edge of town.

Some folks are born into a good life,
Other folks get it anyway, anyhow,
I lost my faith when I lost my wife,
Them things don't seem to matter much to me now.
Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop,
I'll be on that hill with everything I got,
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost,
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost,
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town.

Retreat

There's been so much rain recently that I am feeling pale and etiolated, a plant kept in a cupboard far too long. A great barrenness has come upon me. A friend writes of building an ark whilst I am hunkered down, watching for signs of doves and olive branches.

For a while I had a secret gardener in the Skunk House backyard lockup: a little chipmunk who I think was sowing sunflowers gleaned from the birdfeeder. I would find sudden sproutings, in clumps, in strange places in the garden.

A few days ago, after a deluge of Biblical proportions, I found Secret Gardener drowned in a bucket of rainwater on the back step. Mea culpa. I left the bucket there.The naturalized dandelions which took over the backyard lockup have gone to seed along with me. The soil has been too wet a month or more now to work.
Rocket (Eruca sativa aka arugula) is flowering, however. The migratory journey of seeds: Margie's Rocket completes another season. In another place. Put another pin on the map of all the geographies where I have planted rocket. Sown, grown and flown. Why does it feel so much like detention this time around?

Salt water harvest: Bachelor Rock

Mid May, I went back west over the mountains for one last heartbreaking trip. The annual Suquamish Foundation fundraiser, A Time to Gather with Keola Beamer and R Carlos Nakai took place in the House of Awakened Culture on the Friday evening.

On Saturday morning early I joined a Suquamish Tribe Elders seaweed gathering field trip with the Jamestown Sk'lallam tribe. We drove to the Olympic Peninsula in the comfortable Suquamish Tribal Elders bus and ended up harvesting at at Freshwater Bay on the Straits of Juan de Fuca, 10 miles west of Port Angeles on Hwy 112, where the water is clean, the seaweed abundant and Bachelor Rock stands sentinel to pain and unhappiness.In the late afternoon we returned to the Jamestown Sk'lallam tribal centre to communally cook an amazing multiple course, seaweed based meal complete with seaweed thickened chocolate pudding (yum!).
It turned out to be a weekend of many lessons amongst which were that there isn't a toxic seaweed grows on this coastline, bladder wrack will take away your appetite and it is time to end my relationship with stuff that is bad for me.In an innocence of little white daisies, the end was reached of even my long suffering tether of tolerance when I was once again scolded for my presence. Thus quoth the raven: nevermore!It will be the last time. No more seaweed in the tide line for me. I am resolved to be ruthless with the unkind cruelty this time around. The raven's shadow hangs above my door.
A delicacy of blue forget-me-nots attends my passage up and over a springtime Stevens Pass as I turn my back on the salt water experience. No words can soothe nor prayer remove the pain of dark romanticism.I must away and leave that sorrowing stone sentinel cursed to exile. So long and thanks for all the fish. In another lifetime we could have kayaked there. A hui hou.

In memoriam: 2010

My first Memorial Day weekend as a United States citizen was somewhat damp and very solitary. For the first time since coming to the United States, I did not go to Seattle's NorthWest Folklife Festival.

My major act of commemoration and liberation was probably tossing a toothbrush into the garbage, with that "restless, forlorn ballad for the ages and sages": Spanish boots of Spanish Leather playing in my head.
I am pondering the continuum between motion and stasis; the stillness in the pause between knowing and acting. After the cut, before the blood wells. Oh yeah! I am sailing away, baby, sailing away. Bring on the boots. That's a turkey feather at my feet.