A perfect morning at Hakai

"Morning Poem"

Every morning

the world

is created.

Under the orange

sticks of the sun

the heaped

ashes of the night

turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---

and the ponds appear

like black cloth

on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.

If it is your nature

to be happy

you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination

alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit

carries within it

the thorn

that is heavier than lead ---

if it's all you can do

to keep on trudging ---

there is still

somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies

is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly,

every morning,

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy,

whether or not

you have ever dared to pray.

~ Mary Oliver ~

This is where my journey west ultimately led - to West Beach on Calvert Island on the central British Columbia coast, within the Great Bear Rainforest, and where north America plunges down into the Pacific. This is the region where the Heiltsuk, Wuikinuxv, Nuxalk, and Kitasoo First Nations live. This is where, with friends and colleagues, I can now stare out from the lush green of the land into the uninterrupted abyss of the ocean. It is where we all smile and marvel, but above all are inspired by the patterns, rhythms, and fabric of a place. A place that is continuing a timeless transition of reinvention.

This is what I wanted.

"The Morning Walk"

There are a lot of words meaning thanks.

Some you can only whisper.

Others you can only sing.

The pewee whistles instead.

The snake turns in circles.

the beaver slaps his tail

on the surface of the pond.

The deer in the pinewoods stamps his hoof.

Goldfinches shine as they float through the air.

A person, sometimes, will hum a little Mahler.

Or put arms around old oak tree,

Or take out lovely pencil and notebook to find a few

touching, kissing words.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Pondering Reality

Wrapping up the road trip, I found myself pondering a quote that Eggers had used in Zeitoun - a quote from the Qur'an. It sat with me as I rolled out of Wyoming and into Montana and Idaho, and then on through the grain fields of eastern Washington state. It sits with me now, so I write it down as I start this new West Coast life.

"In the name of God,

The Merciful, The Compassionate,

The Reality!

What is The Reality?

What would cause you to recognize

what The Reality is?

The Grand

The Faithful

The Yellowstone

A previous reality

The end

The Road is Life - Kerouac

Whenever I fly from the east to the west coast, there's the undeniable feeling of freedom and space when I arrive. I had pondered if I'd feel this same difference on the slower transition provided by a drive...or if at the slower pace the transition would be imperceptable. Maybe it was the chaos of Chicago traffic that meant by the end of that particular day anything would have been different.

That evening while leaving the tranquil cafes of downtown La Crosse I found my answer...


Immediately after crossing the Mississipi River, Highway 90 wends it's way up onto Minnesota. After a little over 1000 miles of driving, the sky suddenly felt that much higher, the air a little thinner, the green fields and trees a little greener, traffic quieter (and there were certainly no more of the incessant tolls), and the driving easier. I was happy...

...or as Kerouac would say:

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."

I drove on, the Air Conditioning crisp on my face, marvelling at the sheer abundance of corn lining the voluptuous contours and curves of Minnesota - occasionally dotted with a red barn or elongated aluminium silo. I passed the mighty Missouri river, but kept driving into a sky that just got bigger until I was finally stopped by tornado warnings and a storm that forced me into a motel for the night.

The next day Badlands came out of nowhere - this was now quintesentially the west as the flat of the prairie transitioned to relief of Badlands and the Black Hills of the Dakotas. The darkness at night brought out the stars and planets - Venus, Mars, and Saturn.

The first overlook

Warnings...

Lots of flowers this year

Wallace Stegner may best sum up the West:

“ There was never a country that in its good moments was more beautiful. Even in drought or dust storm or blizzard it is the reverse of monotonous, once you have submitted to it with all the senses. You don’t get out of the wind, but learn to lean and squint against it. You don’t escape sky and sun, but wear them in your eyeballs and on your back. You become acutely aware of yourself. The world is very large, the sky even larger, and you are very small. But also the world is flat, empty, nearly abstract, and in its flatness, you are a challenging upright thing, as sudden as an exclamation mark, as enigmatic as a question mark.”

Mount Rushmore next and the little town of Keystone. For those Alaskans, think of McKinley Village but increase the tourist heinosity by an order of magnitude...or two. The carved faces are undeniably impressive though, epitomizing the mantra "build it and they will come."

That night, Devil's Tower glowed in the evening light as I arrived and walked the trail around it, whisps of cloud above and a few dozen circling vultures. The crowds were not here - they were all in Keystone. I'd had the tower's image in my mind since I started climbing and saw a picture of Catherine Destiville stemming one of the dihedrals...or maybe it was close encounters...either way...an impressive spot.

Prairie dogs burrow through the flats around Devil's Tower...and a few are working on their chop stick handling...

...while others just get to know each other better...

...and then back on the road headed for Jackson, Wyoming. Settling in to perpetually beautiful scenery, this time through the Big Horn mountains...

...and taking a break for now

"Life must be rich and full of loving--it's no good otherwise, no good at all, for anyone." Kerouac

Going West

I'm heading West...wasn't really sure what that meant until I looked out from a Horizon jet on Canada Day and saw the snowy peaks that lined the route between Seattle and Edmonton. I felt like I'd come home, but to a new place. N. Scott Momaday reminds me to experience this new place as fully as possible - the next posts will hopefully share some angles and sense of the place I'm now in....

The Earth
"Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon
the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up
to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from
as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it.

He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at
every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon
it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest
motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of noon and
all the colors of the dawn and dusk.
For we are held by more than the force of gravity to the earth.
It is the entity from which we are sprung, and that into which
we are dissolved in time. The blood of the whole human race
is invested in it. We are moored there, rooted as surely, as
deeply as are the ancient redwoods and bristlecones."

Navarre Scott Momaday

Canada Day in Edmonton

The West -- Day 2 -- Mount Baker with long-time wilderness compatriot Julie


Glacial melt and sun


Mount Baker - a light breeze and perfect corn snow


Happy!

"I know that there are many ways to live there in the sun or shade.
Together we will find a place to settle down and live with the space
without the busy pace back east, the hustling, rustling of the feet,
I know I'm ready to leave too, so this is what we're going to do,

Go west, life is peaceful there.
Go west, lots of open air.
Go west to begin life new.
Go west, this is what we'll do." ---PSBs

Spinning Down the Road

"When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking."
Arthur Conan Doyle

The C and O Canal runs 184 miles from Cumberland MD to Washington DC - A pleasent spin for sure, good company with Trevor from Alaska, and certainly enough milage to get our attention.

Mellow trails


Paw Paw Tunnel


Waterworks


Great Falls


At the last lock in Georgetown, Washington DC. A fun ride while encountering Eastern painted turtles, snapping turtles, black snakes, garter snakes, a river otter, and a host of birds.

Snow

After a hiatus from blogging, I missed the creativity that the spontaneity of facebook suppresses. So here's to blogging again...with a little help from Billy Collins.

"Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling."

Heading to Tryst and coffee - nostalgia for snow and first tracks--

Quiet at work today --

SHOVELING SNOW WITH BUDDHA -- Billy Collins

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.

Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.

After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck.
and our boots stand dripping by the door.

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.

Some questions you might ask

In all the hub bub of a PhD it's easy to forget the balance in life. I've been trying to find that again and last weekend spent a little over 4 days canoeing the 109 miles of Birch Creek, which is a few hours drive out of Fairbanks. With me was Kyle and of course Spruce. Fantastic weather, northern lights, colors at their peak, fun rapids ...what more could I ask for!











If you look carefully, you can find mama bear and a couple of baby bears. Elsewhere, were moose, caribou, wolves, and an endless line of beaver tracks.

Some Questions You Might Ask

Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of an owl?
Who has it, and who doesn't?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad
as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?

Mary Oliver