The mountains have bloomed for Easter. Beautiful Arrow-leafed Balsam Root! Beats me why the whole city doesn’t shut down and take to the hills. And yet, for all that gorgeous display, the […]
Beauty and the Feast
Meaning, Memory, Minding, Mind
Last week, I spoke about Wide Energy. At the end, I showed this image of it from the Similkameen: At the time, I noted: These are the energies that shape us and […]
Two-Headed Guardian On the Old Trail to the Salmon River
The peoples of the Coast have ancestral stories of double-headed serpents, beings of great transformative power. A Kwakwaka’wakw Sisiutl dance mask made of cedar by Oscar Matilpi. Source It would not […]
Transformation Story at Chilutsus
Stories tell themselves in accordance with the perspective of the reader. To watch a story tell itself and go through its transformations, walking is best. Before your eyes and within you, what […]
Thick Energy
A friend recently commented that plants spoke to her ancestors and told them what they could be used for. No dangerous trial and error required for sagebrush buttercup, the rattlesnake plant. I’m […]
What Canadian Poets and Nature Can Achieve Together With a Little Help From Their Friends
I think we could ask some questions about separation. For instance, this willow, which seeded itself seven years ago, is doing fine high on the grassland… … although all other willows […]
Climate, Wild Harvest and Human Life as Environments
More important as a food crop than the pretty yellow bell lily … …is desert parsley. She’s cream-coloured… … with short flower stalks, or tall ones… … or purple, when still half-closed… […]
Yellow Bells Arrive
Once an important food crop, yellow bells are now rare, yet continue to mark the exchange of water and heat in the soil and to mark what is still possible for renewal […]
The First Petal of the First Blossom of the Sun
It’s a good day for arrow-leafed balsam roots. They have come fast (in two days). If you hurry, there’s still time for some fine steamed sprouts. Their menthol flavour is not yet […]
The Glory That is Paul Terbasket’s Apricot Tree
In 1915, Paul Terbasket of the Lower Similkameen Indian Band was jailed for disobeying a foolish court order and watering his orchard. One apricot tree remains. His land is leased out to […]
Okanagan Okanogan 