The land has a spirit. You can find it in a dead ponderosa pine. You can find it in a living stone. In the long life record of pine bark and pitch. […]
Ponderosa Pine’s World
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 […]
The Snake, the Duck and the Fool
I was doing what I love best, doodling along and taking photos of the sun splashing around in the wetland that is taking over the walking trail. And suggesting to the new […]
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 […]
Holding on to Our Water for Dear Life
It’s fun to go out and read the weather by looking down, too. It gives a longer term view. For instance, the really poor shape of the early season cheat grass below […]
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 […]
The Many Faces of Smúkwaʔxn, or The Birth of the Sun
Arrow-Leafed balsam root (smúkwaʔxn) has her private moments. Here, she is bringing a crop of suns out of the earth. Smúkwaʔxn has her public moments, too. The suns are mature a couple days […]
Sagebrush Shares Her Water and Builds a World
Have a look at this sage brush: Like all plants, she gathers most of her water from the top surface of the soil, where it is most quickly lost to the dry […]
Butterfly Season is Here
The spring is advancing three or four days for every day, after its slow start. Now the butterflies! I first wrote that I couldn’t identify this pretty one. “It looks like a […]
