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
The Language of Opening
In just the way the balsam roots open… … they find the openings made by deer, and I find them. Just as the siya? opens as clusters of flowers, long enough to […]
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 […]
Waiting for the Fire in Lake Country
So, here’s the deer, porcupine, snake and coyote trail going up the hill. The bear likes to stay down in the gully to the left. That’s a siya? bush, fruitful with berries […]
What is Medicine? What Isn’t?
In Western culture, artistically-prepared, purified products are medicine. They are designed to correct a deficiency or combat an invasion to the body’s temple. The natural state of this temple is one of […]
The Harvest Begins, With Desert Parsley (and a very fine rock)
The desert parsley is up in the Similkameen. This is on the south-facing side of a gulley. The north side was still covered in snow, so perhaps three days before this slope […]
