The replacement of lawn with gravel to save a rain shadow valley from drought is based on the principle of laying plastic down over the living earth and smothering it so that […]
Plastic, Gardens and Drought
Who is the Gardener?
I have learned this week what I already knew but had no words for. I am not the gardener in this land, but the garden that the land makes. Needle-and-thread grass makes […]
Gardens of Water
I left the garden today, and all its lettuces, kale, spinach and dill, and went up to the water, where the birches rise out of the cedars and the wild roses. The […]
Being Present on the Earth
Between eye and eye, and mind and mind, there is no distance. Hundreds of millions of years vanish.
Global Warming, Indigenous Culture and Industrial Nature
Please, forget carbon dioxide for just a minute, if you can. It’s a symptom, not a cause. There is worse. Nature in Canada This mule deer doe is trapped by fences on […]
Understanding Nature
This field of swiss grain above Lake Constance is a good example of the kind of conversations humans have with the earth. This represents technology brought from Asia to Europe and used […]
Nature and the Grave
Nature is a grave. That is an important point of Christianity, but not of the intermontane cultures of the North American West. What is in the grave is another matter. That is […]
Whose Land is This Anyway?
No-one’s. The question is absurd. It’s not land. It’s earth. One can ask for room, not ownership. You can’t own Earth. She gives everyone room. A request for land is a request […]
A Short History of Whiteness in Cascadia
It’s not a physical thing. Apricot in Her White Gown White is a tricky, racial word. Here’s a small piece of a meditation on it from my book in progress, Commonage: The […]
We Are Not At War
When you live on the earth, in the earth and with the earth, culture is shared between creatures, their spirits and their energies, in a relationship built of balancing energy flows, always […]
Okanagan Okanogan 