Garter snakes know how to do it. Mariposa Lily seeds do it. Water knows how to do it, too. In each case, appearances are deceiving, as an obvious thing is revealed (a […]
Hiding in Plain Sight
What is Water For?
In a time of great fires, water is for putting them out, and for playing with your friends, in memory of times when the sky was clear. Pretty important things, eh. But […]
In the Grasslands, Tiny Effects Aren’t Tiny at All
When I was working on the Spirit in the Grass book with photographer Chris Harris, one of the ecologists on the project told me that the effects of sun and shadow at […]
Mariposa Lily Has a Visitor (or two)
It’s always an adventure to see who comes to dance… … and then, after making the circuit … … half-drugged, stumbles out… Good times for all!
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… […]
Will the Real Mariposa Lily Please Stand Up
Is this the mariposa lily? Or is this? The light remains. It gives us gravity, or draws the mind forward so it sees the light within the body, if you will. Similarly, […]
Placer Mining the Grasslands
I’ve never seen a mariposa lily growing uphill from a stone. Uphill from a sagebrush, yes, but not a stone. They need well-drained soil, which means they grow best where water, snow […]
The Day the Sky Came Down to Earth
The shallots I planted last July are blooming now, and replacing the lost nodding onions up on the hill. The sky has noticed. Welcome, Sky! These blue beauties were in the mariposa […]
Cascadia’s Flower
In Lewiston, Idaho, the mariposa lilies are beautiful. In Chelan, Washington, they are different altogether. And here in the North Okanagan, they have two shades. First, the lilac, slightly brighter than in […]
Colonialism and the University in the Okanagan
The Canadian stretch of the Okanagan-Okanogan is not just the northern tip of a vast intermountain grassland created by the pressure effects of wet air being desiccated on its rise over the […]
Okanagan Okanogan 