Gulf Islands

Portland Island

thimble berry leaves

Wilderness is not my god
but God is my wilderness.
All things naturally wild
are the needle of a compass.
And God stands magnetic north.

Though often seen,
I heard something new.
Exposed to sun, arbutus bark cracks, peels
and slowly, slowly young green flesh is exposed.
The sun rose and cast her rays.
Like the sound of gentle fire,
outer skins of this stand
dried and shed.
And the aging of time
reveals sapling beauty.

I took two steps into the waking of this world.
The rising sun crowned the tops of low hung clouds and
cool, wet evening earth rose to the warmth of morning air.
Days have gone by, and I close my eyes.
I breathe in, picture
and am there again.

in the beginning and until today

I want the fruit
the one I cannot eat.
I have forgotten all things
for this one ripe pleasure.
Now, it must be mine.
Have I not blessing enough, you ask?
No, surely there is more.
Take and eat.

And I am hungry still.

Just one royal blade,
early morning sun on backlit grass.
Golden laced shadows,
stand against still darkened woods.
And this city of my mind
with its constant traffic
is at rest.

River

I walk up the river in the water and across logs back to shore, then over falls to unkown pools. Slipping, landing beside water eyes frame shadows dancing ferns, moss lacing moisture, timeless resting stones, and I drink. Fully satisfied, yet thirsty I rise and walk up the river.

windy trees

But there is another kind of seeing that involves letting go. When I see this way I sway transfixed and emptied. The difference between the two ways of seeing is the diffeence between walking with and without a camera. When I walk with a camera I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When I see this second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

Buber

Martin Buber tells this tale:

"Rabbi Mendel once boasted to his teacher Rabbi Elimelekh that in the evenings he saw the angel who rolls away the light before the darkness and in the mornings the angel who rolls away the darkness before the light. 'Yes,' said Rabbi Elimelekh, 'in my youth I saw that too. Later on you don't see those things any more.' "

Virginia Sunset

If we read the Bible...we are apt to discover several things about which modern Christian organizations have kept remarkably quiet or to which they have paid little attention.

We will discover that we humans do not own the world or any part of it: "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof: the world and they that dwell therein."

In biblical terms, the "landowner" is the guest and steward of God: "The land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me."

We will discover that God made not only the parts of Creation that we humans understand and approve but all of it: "All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made."

We will discover that God found the world, as he made it, to be good, that He made it for His pleasure, and that He continues to love it and to find it worthy, despite its reduction and curruption by us.

We will discover that the Creation is not in any sense independent of the Creator, the result of a primal creative act long over and done with, but is the continuous, constant participation of all creatures in the being of God. "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, and they are created." Creation is thus God's presence in creatures.

We will discover that for these reasons our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or stupid economics, or a betrayal of family responsibility; it is the most horrid blasphemy. It is flinging God's gifts into His face, as if they were of no worth beyond that assigned to them by our destruction of them. We have no entitlement from the Bible to exterminate or permanently destroy or hold in contempt anything on the earth or in the heavens above it or in the waters beneath it. We have the right to use what we need but no more, which is why the Bible forbids usury and great accumulations of property.

How can modern Christianity have so solemnly folded its hands while so much of the work of God was and is being destroyed?

Excerpts from Wendell Berry: Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community

These are some pics from a recent trip to Kananaskis Country. KC is between Banf and Calgary.

Highlight #1 (sort of) - On my first night, I ate something that made me violently ill. It was the worst stomach rollercoaster of my life. Alone, in the woods. Nowhere, no one. In the middle of it, I thought about the sign I saw earlier in the day: "You are in grizzly bear country." I thought, "If only...anything to take away this pain. I'm yours. Please find me, maul me."

Highlight #2 - During a hike, I encountered some bear tracks. Given the moist snow and warm temp's, it was easy to see that the tracks were just minutes old. I began singing quite loudly during the remainder of the hike, "Keep me safe O God, for in you I take refuge." Further into the hike, I wondered how much I trusted these words when I realized I was tightly clutching a knife in one hand and bear spray in the other as I sang these words over and over and over and over...

partridgefoot

backlit maples

I don't think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is. It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther outdoors the better. Or that has been my experience of it. Passages that within walls seem improbable or incredible, outdoors seem merely natural. This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine - which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.

-Wendell Berry

Partridgefoot - in motion

backlit maple leaves

backlit maple leaves

mckenzie bite

victoria, bc

reflection

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the humminbird
Equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums,
Here the clams deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what
Matters, which is my work,

Which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished,
The phoebe, the delphinium,
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here.

Which is gratitude, to be given mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth
With which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleep dug-up
Clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.

Author: Mary Oliver

reflection

tulip

smells like skunk

up close and just a little further away

decorating the landscape

It was a perfect-picture park. There was a setting-sun sky to the west, and the east sky was filled with clouds, heavy grey but with with deep-blues and yellows highlighted from the sun. The sunbaked orange arbutus trees on hill tops accented this background sky. With my one boy haphazardly running and kicking up sand and the other fearlessly climbing every metal play structure, it was Hallmark defined.

Ah...but the trash. My heart bleeds when I see these human droppings. It's hard to turn off this flowing tap.

McDonalds and their fellow drive-through kinfolk indirectly serve billions of eyes as their wrappings are overly and routinely emptied from cars onto roadside, parkside, and everyside beauty. My anger is strengthened everytime these roadside tracings pollute my eyes. I have inentionally looked around for the scraps so that a strong case can be made in my mind and heart against the offense and offenders. This energy expenditure has heated up, boiled in my pulsing veins.

Yet, I'm thankful I'm beginning to find a different way.

It has helped me to remember my Dad. Wherever we were, he picked up trash when he saw it. I remember Dad taking walks during sailing breaks and always came back with a handful of cans and papers. He never gave verbal expression, but quietly bent down and picked up the offending item. I don't think he was even angered by it. He just saw it as part of his job in life to keep things clean, and he never seemed to begrudge folks for creating scattered messes.

As a kid, it embarrassed me to no end to have Dad walking by my side with a handful of scraps as he scanned for the next available trash can. Yet, he taught me in what he did, and those memories are becoming a part of me now. Lately, I speak less and act more.

I have been realizing that my silent criticism of unkown individuals is the same as the original offense. I still scan the grasses for the leftovers. Yet, I don't look to reinforce a negative idea I have of fastfood or of folks who consume it or of folks who deposit its remants. I look for an opportunity. It's an opportunity to serve, make beautiful and restore.

It's really an act of re-creation. A re-creation of Dad, the landscape, and me.

shoreline reflection

We lose a part of ourselves when we have stopped experiencing the joy of seeing a deer even though we have seen hundreds, if not thousands. We become a bit blind when we see the majesty of an eagle in updraft soaring flight and find it commonplace. Experiencing the intimacy of a stream, the mystery of the moon, and the strength of the peaks have become old-school. I once pointed to Mt Baker beaming in its sun and snow covered brilliance. In reply, "Oh." It's as if we are all saying "oh" over and over again to the humble picture show at every turn of our head, every gaze of our eyes.

We are losing the places and spaces where these images, sights and sounds are found. Worse, we are losing a sense of ourselves and God by not sniffing, touching, tasting, breathing and seeing all the details of nature within both the huge provincial parks and the smallest of green spaces in cities. This knowing and experiencing the natural wonders is not only for the sighted or able-bodied, it is for all. Were we to only have one of our 5 senses, it would be enough to say as did the Creator, "This is good, very good."

Like many, then and now, as a boy I would often get bored. We just had a couple of acres of woods, but everyone else did as well. Few friends lived near me, as a result. Connecting with some friends involved a minor odyssey. I would have to travel through the woods, make my way around wetlands, and stay out of sight landowners.

It was a creative endeavor to just get to a friend's house, and though you left home in search of friends to stem your boredom, matters didn't change once you connected. The ritual began with one person saying, "What'll we do now?" The response, "Dunno, wha' d'you think we should do?" And like a faithful amen, "Dunno."

Since video games weren't a hot item at the time, we weren't allowed to have someone else be creative for us. We had to do it to ourselves, and the woods was where it happened. Although nature carried a certain degree of entertainment in and of itself, it was only the controls and not the game itself. It was like being handed a joystick and then forming the game in and through our own brains. Fantasy, play and fun were self-made endeavors, never handed to us. We made guns out of sticks, forts out of trees and holes became bunkers. Fantasy world was not a negative word. It was a place we created in our minds and then enacted in our surroundings.

Is this childhood art of creating a world or an adventure nearly gone? The common cry of many is, "I'm bored" or "This is no fun." And then, there are two options. We as adults may assume responsibility for making it more fun for them. Let’s keep them happy! Or, there is the option of a creative, fantasy world made by someone else that can be turned on.

The world of self-made fantasy, creativity and play is losing ground. It's a skill we all need like walking. It's as if a whole generation of people are saying, "I can't walk" and we carry them, and they never learn to do it on their own.

It's a deep hole we have dug. Entering into a world where youth today and upcoming generations gain a greater and greater sense of personal creativity, a ceasing of that which entertains from the outside would need to occur. Kids would need to get bored and not have any option to have the boredom taken from them in any way other than what they can do for themselves. They would need to reach deep within and pull out an intuitive sense to create, but it has been neatly and nearly locked away.

reflection

God made male and female, and they were given eyes. What those eyes must have seen before the fall. Those eyes first saw One and then the other one. Those eyes would have then seen everything everywhere before the rape of the saw. Those eyes searched the uncharted, endless and abstract horizon. Those eyes gazed wide-open to the wind, and those eyes felt that wind compete with their surrounding moisture. Those eyes saw neither new nor old growth but fresh growth everywhere surrounding them like a living canvas. As fish so naturally, rhythmically swimming in water, those eyes equally as naturally took in that for which they were created.

Looking into those eyes, they would have held the reflection of all that was created, brushed-stroked, molded and formed.

Surely, it was so.

Eyes were made for simple, yet abstract beauty. All the stuff to which God’s words spoke, “It was good.”

Now. Our eyes strain from glare coming from every angle. Images, sights, and every imaginable visual thing where the darkest of sunglasses, even at night, just won’t help.

"Dr, my eyes. Tell me what you see. I hear their cry, just say if it's to late for me." Jackson Brown

I am haunted by waters.

Norman McLean