I have worked here since 2011 telling stories of the Earth as preparation for a history of the Intermontane Grasslands of Central Cascadia and the rainswept coast that keeps them windy and dry. Now I am presenting this history, step by step, as I have learned it, often from the land itself. The history of this region includes the Canadian colonial space “The Okanagan Valley”, which lies over the land I live in above Canim Bay. The story stretches deep into the American West, into the US Civil War, the War of 1812, and the Louisiana Purchase, as well into the history of the Columbia District of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In all, the story spans the Chilcotin and Columbia volcanic plateaus and the basins that surround them. In this vast watershed lie homelands as old as 13,200 years (Sequim) and 16,200 years (Salmon River.) That’s how far we are walking together here, who are all the land speaking.
Sure.
Okanagan Okanogan 
That’s a great word. Anthrobcene.
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The fun we have!
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Weii you know it gets me thinking about all sorts of snarky replies. Like it leaves a bad taste in my mouth but I’ll just wash it down with a bottle of Justine Priestly!
And then my nutty thoughts turn to supposed archeological time lines and those pesky anomalies and the big bang theory….and how in 100,000,000+ years where we’re standing now will be rendered into what? A few feet of toxic tars and metals sandwhiched between layers of rock?
If Earth is alive aware intelligent (yes she is) the mother of creation eons old, unimaginably old and we one of her children with the life span of an ant, then is it possible that even tho what we’re doing here now seems obscene, the dredging up and redistribution of tars and heavy metals in myriad forms even eating the stuff…is it possible Earth has a long range purpose we know nothing about? To me it seems a nightmare but maybe I we are a part of a larger dreaming.
Sorry for the run on sentences. I’m better at talking then typing.
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Hi, it sounds beautiful and mysterious, Fran! However, I wonder. A couple observations: the life of the planet has various levels, one of which is the biosphere, the one in which we are beautifully entangled. It’s that one that we’re messing up, and that one that we can choose to nurture or destroy. If we destroy it, then we are opting for control by other levels of earth’s dynamism, mineral, perhaps, volcanic, perhaps, or even magnetic and gravitational. There are many levels, all nestled into each other, but none dominant. What we choose, though, will come to be, both for the earth and ourselves. It is a choice, a real choice, with real consequences. I opt for choosing life. I agree with the larger dreaming, but I think it is dreaming without narrative. Narrative is our gift, and this is a gift built around a choice. Cheers! Harold
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