This is a map of south-central British Columbia. In certain cultures, it is called lichen hanging off the dead lower branches of a tree. Here’s what some cultures call a map: […]
Two Kinds of Maps
The Gifts of Winter
The Thule reed teaches in the winter, not in the spring or summer. At that time, it is not fully opened yet. It is the knot below that it is opening […]
What It’s All About (Hint: Not the Canadian Election)
I’ve been hanging out up on the Plateau, where the year has ripened fully. Not Blending in Anymore (Or Needing To) Every day, Yellow Pond is a new colour. Big Bar […]
Harvesting Fire
Even ladybird shows us the true nature of big sagebrush: it is fire, standing. Look at her flames and coals! Traditionally, big sage was used to start fires, even of wet wood, […]
Let’s Set the Delicious Apocalyptic Dream of Settler Culture to Rest
“Settler Colonialism” is a serious thing. In fact, in North America it is one of the most serious things of all. It should be handled carefully, like the toxic nuclear waste it […]
Images of a Dramatic Science at Work and Play in Cascadia
On the principle that a science that creates linkages based on the replicable observation of an individual observer (a fine principle)… Spillyay at Work, Columbia Gorge … leads to individual observers and […]
Getting Our Land Back 10: The Deep Poetic Ecology of Cascadia
The mountain is not passive. Only finished products are passive. Only “naming” to make an action into a noun creates objects. That is the point of naming. The mountain, however, is an […]
Images Beyond Life and Death
Last year’s wild cherries meet this year’s blossoms. How cool is that! Let’s remember that a fascination with death and rebirth is often a cultural inheritance from our celtic ancestors and that […]
The Power of Disruption
Here’s the best way to preserve nature. Fence off your vineyard, so the deer have to go around, then dig out a slope far too steep, line it with rocks, and seed […]
The Role of Poetry in Industrial Development
I showed you some beautiful patterns that poetry was able to read from natural processes. Here are some further patterns, that extend them into useful manipulations. Notice that these, too, are not […]
Okanagan Okanogan 