Thursday, December 29, 2005

honey-cake recipe

[in honour of the bee that made the honey for this cake]
Medivnyk
(Ukrainian Christmas Honey-Cake)
You will need:
4 eggs, at room temperature & separated into yolks & whites
3 tbsp butter
1 cup of honey (preferably a wild or buckwheat honey, but clover is still good too)
3 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves (optional)
1/2 cup very strong black tea (steep two bags of a breakfast tea for 10 minutes in 1/2 cup water)
1/2 cup sour cream
the zest & juice of one good-sized orange
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
(You can double these ingredients, but be warned that you will need a large mixing bowl/cauldron to mix it all, so I am presented you with the halved version.)
To make:
1. First, heat the honey in a saucepan on the stove until boiling, then remove it from heat to let it cool. Also, ensure that the oven is pre-heating to 325 degrees F.
2. Beat the egg yolks & butter together until fluffy & well-blended. Set aside for a moment while you sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, & cinnamon (& cloves) together in another bowl. When this is done, add the yolk-butter & cooled honey, as well as the cup of sugar. Mix well until smooth-ish & blended.
3. Mix together the tea, sour cream, orange juice & zest, and then add to the mash of goodness forming in the bowl.
4. Take the egg whites & beat them until they form stiff peaks; add this to the batter & mix very well, along with the chopped walnuts. You may want to mash it all around with your hands to ensure that there are no lumps or islands of flour. Be sure that there is someone around to spatulize your hands after.
5. Pour into the loaf pan(s) that you have already buttered & floured. It's better to make multiple cakes & pour less into each pan, or you will have towering cakes that will be much like volcanoes, with molten uncooked magma in the centre.
6. Ensure that the oven is pre-heated (& indeed, still turned on!); put in the cakes for about 1 hour. Don't open the oven before 30 minutes to check on them, or extra goodness will escape. If you are making smaller ones, poke liberally with a toothpick at about 45 minutes. There will of course be no cake-magma in the middle when they are done, & the outside will be a pleasant golden colour.
7. Cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes, then turn them out & cool a bit more. Medivnyk -- duzhe smachnyj z maslom, i takozh z chaskoju chaju! [Medivnyk is quite tasty with butter & a cup of tea!]
This is a usual dessert after the 12 dishes of Sviat' Vechir on Ukrainian Christmas. Honey has always been cherished commodity in Ukraine; also, in folklore, bees are sacred messengers to the Divine/the sun, & honey is a bit like liquefied light.

Saturday, December 24, 2005

bazhaju vam veseliu koliadu!

In honour of a belated Solstice & coming Christmas, here is a koliadka (Christmas carol) that I translated. It comes from the Halychyna region in Western Ukraine, & tells of how three doves created the world:

When in the beginning there was no world,
then there was neither heaven nor earth.
Everywhere there was a bright blue sea,
And in the midst of that sea,
A green linden-tree –

On the linden-tree three doves,
Three doves discuss,
Three doves take counsel as to how
to create the world.

“Let us plunge to the bottom of the sea,
let us gather fine sand, let us scatter fine sand,
that it may become for us black earth...

“Let us gather golden stones,
let us scatter golden stones!
Let there be for us a bright sky,
A bright sky, a shining sun!
A shining sun and a bright moon!

“Let there be a bright moon
and a morning star, a bright morning star
and little starlets...

This song is quite ancient, and ethnomusicologists believe this one may be over one thousand years old, as a version has been documented in the Chronicles of the Kyivan Rus’ state (the 10th century AD). It was originally sung on Solstice, or Koliada, a festival that ancient Slavic-language-speaking tribes celebrated in honour of their ancestors, to mark the changing light of the seasons, to sing back the sun. Even now, many koliadky have remained relatively unchanged, as Slavic Christianity is incredibly syncretic, much in the same way as in Latin America. The original symbols – the linden tree as a sacred ‘telephone line to the gods’ under which offerings and prayers were made, the doves as ancestral spirits, and the shamanic diving into the otherworld (underwater) for earth-making materials – just have another layer of meaning now. The linden is a Tree of Life, and also symbolizes divine love, and the three birds are the Holy Trinity. (The diving underwater could be re-codified to represent baptism, but I’m not completely sure.) The spinning sun on a stick that was carried in the village as the carollers went wandering became a ‘star of Bethlehem’.

Some of these same carols for Solstice are now sung at Christmas, along with songs more intentionally Christian. In some regions of Ukraine, even today, the two holidays have blurry boundaries. The word in standard Ukrainian is Rizdvo; in my grandma’s Pidhiriany-Boiko dialect Christmas is still referred to as ‘Koliada’. So she would always say to me “Khrystos rodyvsia! [Bazhaju tobi] veseliu koliadu!” (Christ is born! [I wish you] a happy Solstice!)

The motif of diving underwater for earth-creating materials -- called the Earth-Diver -- by folklorists -- is a theme that appears in creation stories from the easternmost parts of Eastern Europe all the way across Russia through Siberia and into North America.

Another story told in western Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria tells of the god of light and the god of darkness flying over the endless waters as a white swan and a black swan. The god of light, Biloboh (Kupalo) was the spirit of summer and life, and the dark god Chornoboh (Koliada) was the spirit of winter and death. They are tired from flying, and Biloboh tells his brother/shadow to go dive under the water to find some mud to make land for them to rest upon. Chornoboh is a little bit of a trickster, & greedily holds extra land in his mouth when he surfaces. However, the mud begins expanding & he has to spit it out so he doesn’t choke – this creates the Carpathian mountains. (More chaos soon ensues & goats & bees are created in the fray, but that’s a story for another time.)

Finno-Ugric & Altaic cultures in Siberia have similar stories about light & dark brothers creating the earth, often in the form of birds such as loons and ravens. Other times, first humans or sky god/desses send animals under the waves to check things out. In my readings to discover more about the toponymy of northern Alberta, I’ve read a number of stories about world-creation. I am hoping to find some local story that is linked to place, much in the way that the Blackfoot/Siksika have Napi, Old Man, melded into southern Alberta landscape. Before Napi could become the landscape, he needed to create it:

“Long ago there was a time when water covered the entire world. Napi the creator wanted to know what happened below all of this water. He sent a duck, an otter, then a badger, but all came up with nothing. Finally, a muskrat dove beneath the water and was down a very long time. He returned with a ball of mud in his paws. Napi took the lump and blew on it until it dried and was transformed into the earth. He molded the hills, valley, and mountains with his hands. He created groves in the earth for rivers and lakes. The first people were molded from this earth and Napi taught men and women how to hunt and to live. Once Napi felt his work was complete, he lay down in the mountains, and disappeared...” [from: Origins of Canadian History to Confederation]

Sunday, December 18, 2005

last night i dreamt i was a mapmaker....



So, despite the fact that I live under a cozy little rock with minimal exposure to a lot of things, I have long been aware of the fact that video games are often very brutal; I know they contain much gratuitous violence, some of the fantastically-grotesque-slaughter variety, what with monsters & demons & such, & also some of the disgustingly realistic, morally bereft sort involving humans. Many are replete with misogyny & other social ills, & I could carry on about this for a long time & talk about many things (such as if they’re going make games of killing things, why don’t they blast cancer cells into oblivion??) but what I really wanted to mention was one particular game has now disgusted me in a different, new way; it’s not the usual gory, visceral shock, but rather, something more theoretical.

You see, I had the misfortune of seeing a commercial (multiple times, alas) on the television for ‘Age of Empires III: The New World’. Immediately I was rather upset by this depiction of armies fighting each other to conquer regions of the world (which are represented on ‘archaic’-looking maps, which look like something you made in junior high Social Studies, spilling tea & singeing the edges with a lighter for that ‘old’ look). You have these various countries from the ‘Age of Exploration’, ‘The Colonial Age’ and ‘The Imperial Age’ & you create a little army of battling colonizers to fight other ‘world powers’ to ‘claim your dominion’ over North and South America. So, essentially a piece of European colonial nostalgia – let’s fight other monarchies for land that isn’t even ours!

It would be one thing to relive European wars between European powers fought on that continent; it would be glorifying wars, yes, but somehow it seems less ideologically abhorrent that ‘taking over’ land in the Americas. Land that is not theirs! Land that cannot even be ‘owned’ according to the worldviews/ philosophies of people who live on it! But no, we’ve got regions like ‘Patagonia’ and ‘The Rockies’, named & packaged up especially for the French, the Portuguese, the English, the Ottomans (?!) to fight over – in a way that is not historically accurate, yet all too realistic.

I am wondering how indigenous peoples are represented in this game, if at all. They aren’t one of the eight or so ‘Powers’ with armies, of course. Are they conveniently wiped off the map by handing out smallpox blankets, hmm? How’s that for historical accuracy? Or are they ignored completely, or pushed into the background just for local flavour? Mind you, they’re all ‘close to nature’ – these savages are ‘part of the land’, remember? Thus, they can be taken over quite easily! Maybe you get extra bonus points for forcing them into situations where all they can do to survive is sign your treaty! Super!

This just truly upsets me on so many levels. I haven’t seen the game played, granted, but what I know of it does not equal good. Why are we reliving the patterns of colonial history, romanticizing it? Glorifying it? I think this is really irresponsible. What is it going to teach children who sit around fantasizing about the exploits of their fictitious-yet-all-too-realistic British armies instead of reading their new Social Studies textbook*?. I worry that people will be even less likely to learn about just how destructive & devastating colonialism has been, and how terrible the aftermath continues to be for many people. It’s ‘over’ but it has left so much impact that cannot be ignored. Many of its structures are deep-rooted & still evident in the attitudes & actions of governments & citizens. But I suppose children playing this on their plasma-screens in their suburban basements don’t know much about exploitation, racism, poverty & marginalization, & likely can’t connect it to the ripples of their ancestors’ actions... Bah. I’d rather that they blow up some zombies...

* Alberta’s new curriculum is actually supposed to have greater Aboriginal Canadian content & representation, which is promising...

* * *

I had a really good conversation* with Sharon on Thursday morning about toponymy & colonization. I learned that the village of Nestow, Alberta, comes from Cree neestao, brother-in-law, and Atim Creek (near Big Lake & my Aunt & Uncle’s house) is Dog Creek. The Sturgeon River is actually Red Willow Creek, Miko’oopow. There are so many forgotten names.

Also, while reading a book by Chase Hensel (Telling Our Selves: Ethnicity and Discourse in Southwestern Alaska) I came across a quote that quite powerfully echoes a lot of my feelings about the colonization of naming, & how the process works:

“That wilderness, “terra incognita” is unconnected land – a place that lacks “knowers”, or those whose knowledge is officially recognized. That is why Lewis & Clark could still “explore” even though they depended on native guides, and why colonial powers could “claim” land already owned [sic] and occupied... wilderness is both created and destroyed by Euro-American culture... [& it is] every bit as real & violent [as physical destruction]. Destroying the knowledge & ties that aboriginal inhabitants have with the land creates wilderness. Only then can wilderness be explored; those who know it intimately must first be removed from the scene. Generally geographic features are renamed to mark this change. For example, the mountain that Tanaina Athapaskans called [sic] Denaali was (re)named McKinley.” (p. 50-51)

This has really made me think about the way I conceptualize the land. There is no place on Earth where we can really say we are in the ‘middle of nowhere’; almost every place (save Antarctica & maybe a few islands, some ice floes in the North) has been inhabited by humans for thousands & thousands of years. Sometimes when I’m wandering around in the bush with my dad, I think of the forest as a place no one has ever been, I sometimes thoughtlessly speak of being in the ‘middle of nowhere’. But even in the stretches of boreal forest where we fish, off the roads past forgotten oil wells, we are somewhere. It has once been someone’s somewhere. Other fishing grounds, trap-lines, camp-sites – it’s silly of me to be even so subconsciously so self-centered, to think I have discovered anything, that this could be ‘nowhere’. There are probably indigenous stories linking creeks & trails, stories I don’t know. There is no untouched wilderness, everywhere is, or has been, somewhere to someone. & we should be careful not to strip the land, its geography, of its stories & knowledge. To do so is a remnant of the colonial mindset.

* I had forgotten that I really like Labrador tea (ledum groenlandicum). It made me feel all heavy & calm. I’m told that it’s good for twitchy people.

***

And, lastly:

http://earth.google.com/

Google Earth, how I love thee!

This can engage me for hours. Really. I discovered it at work, but I have it on my computer now, & am in the process of a little project; I am reuniting Alberta places with their original names... It is quite satisfying.

I think I was a cartographer in a past life (a life where I could draw better & was good at math). Also, I love tilting the perspective & zooming in as I approach mountains, like a bird. I get such thrills from turning the map, looking down over the braided Lymnytsia River to Nebyliw, or retracing my hikes over South Kananaskis Pass. Then I shut my eyes later & feel like I’m still moving. "Maps, they are like the drugs to me!"

Friday, December 16, 2005

photobooths.


Here I present to you an exhibit on the evolution of the photobooth... The top picture is my baba (R) with a friend from work whose name escapes my mother. She's my age, almost 23, circa 1938... How mannered & sedate! & how spacious the background! I love her little half-smile...

Contrast this with the bottom picture, of Bryna (L) & I (R). We are crammed into the booth at the Calgary Greyhound station, pre-Folk Fest 2003. & lo, we are charming...

That is all.


Tuesday, December 13, 2005

psychasthenia.

[this picture was taken by bryna.]
i have been listening to some exceptionally lovely music lately. the sort of music that fools the medulla into believing it can forget about heart rate & breath rate, that tricks one into thinking that the sound alone is enough to sustain the body.

i would like jorane’s music (specifically, the live cd) to be dripped slowly into my veins like missing electrolytes. it is raw & rich enough to be sufficient nourishment, i think. these are the sounds i want to be filled with, i want to amalgamate them into my cells, be part of them.

(is it strange to be this moved by sound? to have such a visceral, physical reaction to it, to make it part of you? i have such alien desire.)

the cello is my favorite stringed instrument. the resonance and depth of sound mixing with the human voice reminds me at once of moving over a landscape, the swell of terrain, and moving within a body.

its shape is strangely human, stringy ribs over a resonating chamber, the lung, the warm raw sound of some illuminated pink tent, blood pulsing hard up against the arterial bowing. yet the sound is so wide open, so voluminous that i think of land, a valley of vastness between ridges. grasping fistfuls of dry windy wheatgrass, digging into the roughness of lichen, air passing over the surface of rock, cloud and sun over mountain, touching everything with plucked fingers between earth & sky.

there is a term – psychasthenia – which denotes something like a ‘disturbance in the relation between self and territory’. i suppose this could be the mind-state of feeling like the boundaries dissolve between you & everything around you, so you feel undifferentiated from your environment. kim sawchuk calls it ‘[an] embrace of the space beyond’. & while this could certainly be frightening -- to be so de-personalized in the wrong setting could destroy you -- it seems like an apt term to describe that sort of yearning, musically-induced condition of wishing to turn brainwave to soundwave, to be released from what the skin delineates, to melt sound into you, to melt into sound.

Friday, December 09, 2005

political angst.


[disclaimer: this entry is evidence that sadness amplifies my distaste & frustration quite substantially... it is an accumulation of notes i've written during periods of un-sleep, dealing with last December's Orange Revolution in Ukraine & the fact that I've heard we're voting again in January. yes, it's a little angsty. ]

About a year ago, I was so inspired by Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. I would see the pictures of bright flags waving in Maidan Neznalezhnosti, & I wanted to be there so badly. I thought of my grandparents’ families in Nebyliv, all probably taking the train to L’viv just to be there, & I thought, they’re having a revolution & I’m writing theoretical papers. It was stirring. I would get little tears in my eyes every time I heard Shche ne vmerla... It was all my idealistic & naïve little heart could have wished for – a revolution in my foremothers’ country! Here I was seeing them live out the pattern they’ve always repeated throughout their history as a nation: the fight to end corruption & become independent.

It was a peaceful protest, & everyone mobilized. There was so much hopefulness, determination, that beautiful liberated attitude of to-hell-with-it-all-we-have-nothing-to-lose-&-so much-is-possible... I loved hearing the stories of babas making tea with jam to serve to the freezing protesters, & loved reading the Ukrayinska Pravda & Pora blogs written by students who updated many times a day with such immediate & glowing words. I loved knowing that there were people huddled by fires singing folksongs, & that musicians were inspired to create new things to sing; dissent was weapon-free & stronger for it; so firm, so decisive, so communal & so charismatic. & when another election was held, & Yushchenko’s ‘pro-democracy’ alliance came through, it seemed it had been effective.

It was effective in the sense that Yushchenko was fairly elected. People protested, their government, & so much of the rest of the world listened. But then things started to fall apart. Yushchenko got a little too pro-American-capitalism for many people’s liking, & the Ukrainian economy also suffered. He insulted the groups like Pravda & Pora (who were quite instrumental in organizing the whole revolution thing) for daring to criticize him. He sacked most of his cabinet in September, including a former ally, Yulia Tymoshenko (his main supporter in the elections & also very instrumental in the revolution). He seems to be getting sketchier & sketchier. I mean, he never seemed completely sound, but compared to Yanukhovych, he was benign. However, it’s clear that he’s seemingly just another politician, corrupt in his own little way.

I can’t imagine how this must feel to the people who organized the revolution, to see everything fading & dimming & crumbling so quickly. I try to be positive, when I look at the fact that the Revolution’s activities inspired the development of new political parties, diversifying the options for many people. Civic activism is still strong, with many campaigns and actions to force the shaky government into taking responsibility for economic policy and improving environmental protection and challenging urban development. The free press – papers like Olena Prytula’s Pravda – seems to be flourishing. Compared to Soviet times, this is very, very hopeful.

However, I cannot ignore the glaring fact of how this situation is yet another flashing reminder of how all government, is deeply flawed & even in a ‘democracy’ we are ultimately at the mercy of the wease-ish personalities in power, regardless of who they are, & whether we elected them or not. & so I am caught between frustration with administration & the admission that the Revolution did give me some hope for grassroots movements.

Maybe it still gives me hope because it’s a striking contrast to here; in Canada the majority of the population seems mostly disinterested in politics. I am not saying that there aren’t any very dedicated civic action groups, because there definitely are. I am just saying that whereas the overwhelming majority of Ukraine’s 50-some million people were involved in the Orange Revolution, whereas here, the priorities of the average person (especially in St. Albert) sound much like this:

“I’m not going to vote in the January election. Are you crazy? It’s too cold to go outside! But I will go out when it’s -40 to put gas in my S.U.V. & then I’ll go to the mall & spend lots of money on a plasmatic television and watch reality tv & lots of sensationalist American news produced by mass corporations!”

(So I guess winter camping in a downtown square with little shelter is out of the question...)

The apathy of the general public is surpassed only by that of the visionless & self-absorbed politicians themselves. Maybe they aren’t doing anything actively malignant & war-like to the rest of the world, but what are they really doing that’s productive? Ignorant little oil-vampires in this province, we’ll never get enough left-wing power in the government to ever really get any change, it seems. I could scream. & look at the messes even within Canada, the disparities & unwillingness to profoundly deal with certain issues (especially Indigenous rights) -- certainly, they toss a little money around every once in awhile, but they aren't active enough.

I used to feel that it was important to protest regardless of anything, as an exercise of one’s democratic rights. But in a democracy a government is supposed to be accountable to the people, there is some sort of contract there. But they haven’t been listening in the past. Look at the war, this war that’s gone on despite outcry from everywhere. If there were to be another protest tomorrow, I’d hesitate to go. On one hand, I want to show support for what I personally believe in; because I do not want to be mistaken for supporting something through complacence or inaction. (Thus, I’ll vote in January, because I still have a kernel of futile hopefulness...) However, it is sort of a dilemma, because I also feel that protest signifies you actually trust your government, your elected representative, to actually DO something about your concerns. & that seems pretty futile around here. A politician? Listening to someone? Well, maybe after they finish 'forgetting' where they put their money, stop ignoring poverty & unclean drinking water (in a country the U.N. likes to vote one of the best places in the world to live!), and wrap up a few rounds of golf....

It basically seems that they’ve decided that having another election would be fun, they’d get to do even less real work & even more travel paid for by taxpayers! Super! Who can come up with the emptiest platform this year? Or pay their friends to do it? Who can think of more bills that have already been passed, that we can waste time & money voting on again?

According to my historical sources (ie: my parents), I get two different readings of Canada’s past government action. My dad believes that we’ve lived in a state of perpetual weasel-dom since as long as he can remember, and for pretty much all of the history he’s ever read; my mom says that politicians used to actually get things done & people cared about politics once upon a time, like when Diefenbaker & Trudeau were around. I don’t know what to think, really – I’ve read the history, of course, but I fear my second-hand views have already been skewed by my parents & Trudeau-loving high school social teachers’ recollections of such things.

I don’t know what the answer is. I’ll vote. I’ll keep on writing letters to political representatives when I’m annoyed with them, & I’ll keep recycling the stupid patronizing form letters & propaganda that their representatives occasionally send back. Maybe I will be able to just accept the fact that politics are silly, but thinking politically on an individual basis is not. & then maybe I will slowly become less frustrated, and more serene, about the things I cannot change. & I will keep doing all the things I do that I believe are important to living in a sustainable, aware way, & make little changes when I can. I have a very dear friend who manages to live this way, and it is quite inspiring to me. I wish I could be more like him. I see it as a form of benevolent anarchy, as a symbolic kick in the shins to weasels everywhere. So I will try to stop over-thinking this & indulging in this angst, & try to do my very small little things.

But, to conclude my angst, I shall just say that I will feel very cranky & very cynical while voting in January. & weirdly nostalgic at Christmastime, thinking about the Ukrainian vote. How it could've signified the start something even better... but became a one-step-forward-at-least-half-a-step-back sort of thing. Which I suppose isn't bad to start with... (& thus, my idealism isn't dead yet! in fact, it thinks it will get up & go for a walk!)


*ps: that statue in the photo is the one by city hall, made to honour ukrainian pioneer women., called 'the madonna of wheat'... with that sheaf of wheat & heavenward gaze, it is quite kitschy & makes me think of a combination russian 'motherland' propaganda, & i don't know quite to make of it. i admit i find it a tiny bit endearing. maybe i feel sorry for because when i took the photo, there was birdshit on her head...

Thursday, December 08, 2005


I have been sitting here attempting to write, but the music in my ears is too lovely, too hypnotic – paralytically so. It is a CD called ‘Fly, Fly my Sadness’ which is a collaboration between the Tuvan throat singers Huun-Huur-Tu & the Bulgarian choir Angelite. Throat-singing combined with minor-key polyphonic harmonies! I literally don’t know what to do with myself. I am going to marry this.

I can’t really describe it any better than that it just makes me want to crumple into a ball on the floor, fold into myself & let it flow into my ears. This is the sort of music that makes you feel like you are just one large resonant surface, a sort of full-body cochlea or tympanum, it is so thoroughly nourishing. Certain notes hit me & I stop breathing for a moment. I wish I could make sounds like this.

& I suppose, thinking about it, the certain pauses & waves & spaces & reverberations are a little reflection of my thoughts, all the things my body can’t quite voice; this emptiness and fullness that I am feeling simultaneously. Her death has dug a hole in me, the edges raw with frost -- & then filled this hole to overflowing with little red berries, babyzna, the (spiritual) inheritance from a grandmother. & I am overwhelmed. I am so grateful for all she has given me, to carry with me – but I am also terrified I will never live up to her. There’s a desolation like a spruce tree with the top branches lopped off, the weight of snow now settling heavy on the low boughs. ‘My family tree is losing all its leaves.’ I want so much to make her proud, I don’t want to forget – there is just so much, so much I don’t know what to do with myself.

It’s just been harder since the funeral, I thought it would get easier, I thought it would be more of a release, a relief. But now her presence feels so faraway & dispersed, little atoms scattered, light on water freezing up, dissolving, sucked back into the sky.

I was shoveling snow on the driveway the other night, & stopped under the ash-tree. The first stars I saw when I looked up were the Pleiades, faint like smoke swirling above the house, a cluster of cold breath in front of my face – a small sign.

& I thought that perhaps I am being impatient, maybe I should let her rest, maybe I just need to calm down & then I might feel her closer to me, then I might feel her presence more strongly within me. But this all just makes me feel so young, so tired, so sad. I am sad, selfish, & three years old & I want her back now. Бабусенько, де ти? Приходь до мене, веселости немає без тобою ...

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

fly, little swallow


seeing her: a stillness
lay across me supine
as the shadow of a tree, one breath

said the earthbound nurse, & she lay there,
still singing –

her mouth open, peaceful
holding an endless note:

shhhhh
a little swallow is leaving,
leaving her body empty,
escaping from a mouth

chapped like a knothole
in crumbling birchbark,
emerging

through the clouds flowing
like wax through the hole blown
in a pysanka, decreating

snowy light into a sky blue
as her closed eyes, behind her lids filled
with the smoky nebulae of night –

vidlitai, lastivochko!*
meteor streaking
into the folding arms of the pleiades,

leaving a tree to burn
joyfully, turning me into ashes,
the earth –

[november 27th, 2005]

*=fly, little swallow

***

"Anna's ghost all around / Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me /Soft and sweet / How the notes all bend and reach above the trees..." -- In an Aeroplane Over the Sea, by Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk Hotel)

Saturday, November 26, 2005

a comfort.


"...There is nothing to do but to warm myself on my own. There is nothing to do but to burn my own body and light the place around me..."
-- Jukichi Yogi

Friday, November 25, 2005

unsleep.


With my ear pressing tight to the feathers in my pillow the blood’s muffled echo sounds like footsteps outside my window crunching methodically in the invisible snow -- the sound of feet slapping sidewalk – I know that’s from a Mt. Eerie song... & that’s what my heartbeat sounds like, as I’m trying to sleep while it runs, runs like a small mammal’s heart, little feet crashing through a forest.

When I was younger I was distrustful of sleep. I suppose many children are... whether due to the possibility of unpleasant dreaming or just the fact that in sleep you go away for awhile, & then return... I used to make myself anxious then, thinking of the East Slavic & Siberian stories about your soul venturing out while you sleep, transforming into a little moth, a little mouse, exploring crevices & canyons in a dark forest (or under the bed), all while one is asleep. That’s always seemed frightening to me – what if they got lost? Went too far didn’t make it back in time for morning? Abandoned you & didn’t come back? Or got eaten by some other prowling night soul? The vulnerability of mice & moths, tiny esoteric creatures... such things made me uneasy because of their fragility, uncertainty... (Maybe if the soul turned into a tiger or a bear, I’d have been less terrified?)

Still, when my heart runs on & on like this, I immediately think of the tiny mouse of the soul, padding quickly, quickly... & how vulnerable it really is.

Sleep is highly mysterious to me, even now. I think I certainly appreciate it much more – I often crave it & relish it with great desperation in times of stress... In the autumn I even get a little jealous of animals that get to be cozy & hibernate. Yet I still worry about certain things... I cannot go to bed if it means leaving some major project unfinished, be it a poem or term paper. I feel too electric, too alive to sleep... & I begin to worry that if I die in my sleep I won’t be able to finish it so I better stay awake & complete it so if I die, at least then it will be done! I would hate to die unfinished. If creating something is like giving birth to it, it would be like my work, my writing dying stillborn... & that’s tragic. (I’m a little illogical during the late hours, so it took me a while to realize that if I would be doomed to die that night, it would probably happen regardless of whether I was asleep in bed or scribbling furiously by the window...)

Sleep seems too close to death sometimes, I guess. A little death, a taste of what it could be like to be not here -- & when dreaming, what it might be like to live a different (though often bizarrely familiar) life. In her new book Decreation, Anne Carson writes some interesting things about sleep. I haven’t quite digested it all yet (which is always necessary for her writing) but I do like her title for the essay: “Every exit is an entrance”. I like what she implies about sleep being both a departure & an arrival at once. Good sleep can indeed be a freedom, a lessening of waking burdens. This is similar to death, & the fact that we do it each night, like a ritual, as a mirror of birth & death is also very profound. I suspect that’s why it frightens me a little at times. When I’m having a panic attack, (& I suppose I’m having a small one right now) I want to cling to being alive as much as I can. Because to my twitchy mind, death & craziness are the greatest threats right now. (‘Craziness’ being a sort of death/rebirth of its own could be something intriguing & frightening to ponder, but not right now, not good to think about now.)

& often I can’t sleep just for too much thinking, as right now. I believe that we like to think that the entire world sleeps as we do – that everything else stops between the hours we are not awake – but it doesn’t. Nothing really stops at all. Humans might sleep, but human machinations (from computer programs to wars) keep on running all night. Even human bodies keep on, of course. Keep on functioning for better or worse. We replenish ourselves in sleep, but we also keep on disintegrating; tumours keep growing & cells keep dying.

My grandmother sleeps nearly all the time now. Sleeps like a cat in her hospital bed, squinting heavy eyes dimming blue when I go to see her. It’s almost like she is getting further away from life, removing herself slowly; she is retreating into sleep as a gateway to leaving life.

I feel horrible waking her sometimes when I visit; she seems more peaceful asleep. Her breathing is less laboured, frantic, frustrated... & it occurs to me that my reaction, to wake her, to keep her awake when I’m there is a sign of my clinging to her, my natural selfishness to want her alive & here with me.

I want so much for her to be happy now. Content & painless. But yet I still want her to talk to me, tell me something... I wake her simply to make sure she’s still here. & it bothers me that I can’t know if her sleep is good, if the dreams wherein she lifts her hands, shaking, grasping the air, are pleasant. Yet, she can’t even talk & tell me when awake, so what am I doing? It’s futile. But it just unnerves me that sleep & death seem to tangle their threads here, merge in a way that becomes too immediate & clear.

& as for me right now I guess sleep’s little mouse feet mirror all too closely these things like vulnerability & helplessness & uncertainty... whether in dying or living, these things I’m feeling all too much in my waking life at this time. So for me it’s all the more difficult to relinquish that little bit of control I still do have in order to rest. What little we can do when we are awake is even less when sleeping. It’s sad to me somehow, though I know that I’m fighting against a lot of futility here. There’s nothing I can do for my grandma, nor for my father, whose cancer treatment keeps him alternately awake & angrily restless, & too exhausted to move.

I’m tired now. I won’t sleep for awhile. But I should stop this non-sense, because it’s 2:30 & though at this hour, I’m entitled to some amount of un-clarity, my words are getting drowsy faster than the rest of me, & thus I should stop.

Monday, November 21, 2005

more toponymy.

On the subject of my last post, I just want to mention that this website-project makes me very, very happy:

GeoNative: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9479/welcome.html

Not only is it devoted to minority-language toponymy, the entire site is in Euskara (Basque)!

I noticed that they have many names from northern Canada, but are missing most of the prairies... Maybe I should email them with what I've found here.

* Manda -- they have lots on Halq'eméylem -- especially on the Stò:lo River dialect. Just so you know. :)

This site also reminds me that there are so many languages I would like to learn. Too many, perhaps. I need more time! & more space in my brain... it holds three languages fairly well, but if I want to expand the Magyar & Gaidhlig sections... & add at least four more languages, I think it might explode. It already threatens to, sometimes...

I remember once speaking with Bryna about wanting little jump-drives for our brains, so we could save the extra stuff that didn't fit & only upload it when needed. This would be ideal, really.

I am going to blame the Edmonton Public Library & its deliciously expansive music collection for making me want to instantaneously learn Sámi, Suomi, Khalka, & a Chinese language. This week I've been listening to Mari Boine, Angelit & Värttinä, thus wanting to learn the first two languages, as well as throat-singing (Khalka!) & music played on the er-hu (I have a feeling the musician is singing in Mandarin, but I'd rather learn Cantonese, even though the thought of nine tones scares me and intrigues me at once...)

Too many languages! Too deefeecult!




Friday, November 18, 2005

tyranny of toponymy.



At the Edmonton Public Library the other day, I stumbled across a book on Alberta place-names. Toponymy and the naming of the landscape is something I'm very interested in, and I ended up flipping through both volumes in hot pursuit of where the town Sangudo got its name. You see, this puzzles me every time we drive through it on the way to go fishing, because to me it sounds vaguely Portuguese, and I wasn't aware of Portuguese settlements in Alberta... but it turns out that it's an invented word made up of initials of some first (non-Portuguese) settlers to the area. Yes. But I digress, because what I really want to discuss here is the loss of indigenous-language names across this provice.

I have always wanted to know what places were really called here. I wouldn't hesitate to say that most towns and cities have grown up around sites that have been settled for thousands of years by Aboriginal groups. Settlers were drawn to these natural areas via the fur trade or because they were natural places to settle for resources -- by waterways, by natural formations, sheltered places.

And now, so much has been forgotten. Many names have been translated awkwardly by Anglos, or erased and renamed something prosaic and unrelated.

The Sturgeon River is a translation of the Cree names or namao, depending on the dialect; Namao also obviously gets its name from the same source. Smoky Lake is a translation of the same in Cree, kaskapatau sakahigan. Thunder Lake was named for the sound the ice made in the spring when it was breaking up. Sounding Lake is called Nipimahitikwek in Cree or Oghtakway in Blackfoot, because the sounds of buffalo rumbling and racing can be heard emanating from the earth near the waters. Red Deer is Waskasoo in Cree, a name that is still attached to a park on the outskirts of the city. As for prosaic erasures, Whitecourt’s name is really Sakdewah, ‘place where rivers meet’, and the Pembina River’s name is Neepinmenan, which is Cree for ‘summer berry’. Pigeon Lake is really Woodpecker Lake in Cree, and that would be Hmi-hmoo sakahigan. Hmi-hmoo is such lovely onomatopoiea... I filled at least three pages in my notebook of these.

The most glaringly obvious one, of course, though, is Edmonton. This site on the banks of the North Saskatchewan has been a gathering place for many, many years -- graves on the Rossdale Flats can attest to that, if they haven't already been damaged. Why have we relegated its true name to a small downtown park, when this whole area, all the way out to the Astotin and Tawayik lakes at Elk Island, is Amiskwaciy-waskahigan, Beaver Hills House?
'Edmonton' is a district in London, England. How does this make any sense at all, displacing other un-related names when a name already exists, has existed for years and years?

Someone said to me recently in response to this: "But that would be to hard to pronounce!" To that I tried to explain that 'Edmonton' or 'Saint Albert' would pose difficulties as well for a speaker of Cree or Stoney, but they had to learn anyway! They were forced to... I believe that linguistic domination is a form of oppression. (But that's for another essay...)

I know that there are still other names that remain: Okotoks is from okatok, or ‘big rock’ in Blackfoot. Atikameg means ‘whitefish’ in Cree. Wabamun is 'mirror' in Cree (until a stupid train spilled oil in it, it was pretty clear...bah.) Etzikom (a coulee in Southern Alberta) comes from ‘valley’ in Blackfoot, Nakamun is Song of Praise (interestingly, there’s a bible camp there now) and Tawatinaw means a ‘river that divides the hills’. But how many people remember these, know this, understand the history? Who knows that 'Saskatchewan' comes from the Cree for 'fast-moving current'? It saddens me. It would only be respectful for everyone to learn what the names mean. (And for me, personally, it's another sign that I should learn to speak Cree, nêhiyawêwin...)

Now, I'm aware that we certainly we name things 'in commemoration of our history' -- schools and neighbourhoods in Edmonton and St. Albert have Cree names... for example, my elementary school is Keenooshayo, after a Cree chief of the region who signed a treaty at Lesser Slave Lake. On one hand, I think it signifies important recognition of the history of the place -- at least people are doing that! But on the other, it feels strange... I mean, I certainly don't want to speak for anyone who is a descendant of Keenooshayo... but I also wonder about about exploiting names, the ownership of names. Half of the neighbourhoods in Mill Woods have Cree names. Were Cree people in Edmonton consulted in this naming? Do any of these names historically relate to the land Mill Woods sits on? Or were they just labels added later? I want to know. Again, it's nice for municipal government & planners to acknowledge this heritage and history... but it also seems a little... sad. Because of the city really needs to acknowledge the people, now -- the Edmonton Aboriginal population is the second largest in Canada, and the fastest-growing. I really hope the new Edmonton Urban Aboriginal Accord Initiative is all it promises to be. It's encouraging, and I know that a number of the people involved are powerful & inspiring. And maybe if everyone else who lives here could learn & think a little bit more about the land they're living on & the people it was taken from, it would be a start.

* * * * * * * *

A particular area of Alberta that I would like to discover the true names for is Kananaskis. Certainly the region is named after a Cree chief who survived getting whacked on the head with an ax – after this he changed his name to kineahkis, ‘one who is grateful [to be alive]’. Some other indigenous names remain, such as Pekisko (‘small hills’ in Blackfoot), Nihahi (‘rocky’ in Stoney), Wasootch/Wasatch (‘hail’ or ‘beautiful’ in Cree), and Jumpingpound is a translation of the Blackfoot Ninapiskan or Stoney Tokojaptabwapta. There are names of explorers and trappers as well... But it drives me mad that most of the whole Kananaskis and Spray Ranges have the names of royalty, war personalities and battleships. Names of things that have absolutely no connection to this place in the Rocky Mountains.

I want to know what the Stoney names are for Mt. Indefatigable and Mt. Invincible are. I want to know why we refer to the Pétain Glacier not by its Stoney name Itarhye-na-kiska, ‘Go-up-in-the-mountains-country’. I am speaking as someone not of the culture, but I’d know feel a little perturbed if someone put my ancestors’ traditional hunting grounds on the map and named them after a treasonous head of state from WW2 Occupied (Vichy) France. I would also not be impressed by ‘the Royal Group’ over the border in B.C. being called after my oppressors. I want to research the true names, the true stories, what they are called by the Stoney, the Tsuu Tiina, the Siksika, the Cree. I want to know any of them would like to send a little compendium to the provincial government. Just to remind them of this, and let them know that the last time I was out hiking I certainly didn’t trip over any sunken warships stuck in the side of the mountain.

Post-modern theorists would likely contest and deride my desire to want to find the true names of things; but I don’t honestly think a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; I feel there is a tremendous amount of energy vested in names. They carry history and ancestry and certainly a connection to place in so many cultures. So many stories talk about the deities and forces giving names to the things they created, naming the land as they tread upon it; so many deities have spoken or dreamed the world into being... Just because the dominant industrial un-culture of this continent has no spiritual relationship with the land should not means that we can rename, forget. This over-naming is another symptom of disrespect and damage we do to place, to earth.

I just think that names possess a weight that anyone who still believes in the power of language will recognize – they reflect something human, primal, almost magical. And they will always be there, existing however faintly, even under layers of colonialism. Toponymy is also subject to tyranny; the way we have renamed these places is a kind of imperialism, another way of colonizing the land here. To recover these names would be an act of remembrance, resistance, and resilience.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

public service announcement.


I just wanted to mention that I just heard the newest song by Cat Power... She will have a new album called "The Greatest" (which is not a greatest hits compilation) out in January, & I am excited.

You can download/hear one of the songs here:

http://www.matadorrecords.com/cat_power/music.html

It's very elegaic & soothing. I like it much. Her music has always been such a comfort to me. So sweet & cryptic & achy & obtuse.

Songs from her album Moonpix, like 'Metal Heart' and 'Colours & the Kids' are the sort that have inscribed themselves in my aural memory. They are the sort of song you think your subconscious self has actually written, or that you wrote in another life that is a but a slightly distorted echo of this one. Every stanza in 'Colours' could refer to a person I know or have known; this often haunts me. The plaintive Amajor/Dmajor chords often play through my head when certain random things remind me of the song -- the ocean at night, rolling up the cuffs of my jeans, the particular long fingers of a friend of mine, driftwood, a smile, pale blue sky, dry april grass beside a hill.

Monday, November 14, 2005

what are these hands, if they cannot touch the things they love? (hannah marcus, 'demerol')


[this is not finished by any means, but it's something]











a)

three times this week
she has repeated to me
this same
story.

it’s how are you, baba?
& then it is soon clear she is not
here but living in this
reminiscence, speaking of
her mother, dead forty years:

my mother! one summer,
you know, she rented out
our garden house, the one
under the linden with the
shiny tin roof where the
purple asters grew –

& you know, she saved enough money
to buy a dress in kalush,
a long white sarafan’ka
vyshyvanka

a dress
with burgundy-gold stitches
the colour of the babyne lito, that’s
the grandmother’s indian summer

& then she flutters her quaky hands,
moves them like the billows
of white linen, showing me
her mother crossing a sunlit yard,
under a blue sky as spacious
as the
heart –

b)

we’re driving down the highway
& out the window & i notice
the wheat looks sad this year, golden
but bowing under october frost,
grazing the last warmth of the earth –
& then she says, so plaintive:

i’m tired

& i miss my mother

my mother in the front
opens her mouth,
startled, wanting to reassure her

no you have ten more years left
at least you’re not tired you’re fine
just fine
– she’s the frightened daughter,
a meadowlark rising startled from
the field

but baba turns to her & says
no,
not much longer. winter will be cold
this year. ash berries pull heavy on the trees.

then: i can
feel it –

c)

in the hospital
we visit her drowsy bedside.
her blue eyes stare at us
like tears in a body
already dissolving into the air –

i think she knows us, for
she tries to speak to us
words guttural & trapped
like clots in her mind,
lips bruised purple from her
fall –

i grasp her fingers cold
branches reaching to twine
around mine

& i’m going to cry
so i try to make her laugh,
no singing today, babusja,
not til you’re better?


& she smiles as her head
turns, we kiss her brows as
she drifts to the white snow
of the pillow –

& i cry then, when i turn
to go & see
her sleeping hands suddenly
stretching upwards

her arthritic
limbs trembling like a child’s
little fingers reaching
up

to tug on the trailing embroidery
of her mother’s
skirt –

-- november 14, 2005

Friday, November 11, 2005

some history.

My great-grandfather, Vasyl Myhovych, was conscripted to fight in the First World War. He was a peasant from the province of Halychyna, the backwoods of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and thus, he was considered expendable. Living in Nebyliv, he was so far removed from Sarajevo & the assassination of the Archduke, the rest of Europe, he was probably not even initially told why he was fighting. (Sounds familiar, yes?)

It was 1915, & the middle of February. A battle was being fought close to Vasyl’s hometown. Many of the villagers from Nebyliv and Perehin’ske had to hide in the woods & along the Lymnytsia valley. My great-grandmother Anastasya gave birth to my grandmother one night, alone & concealed in an old cow-shelter on the frozen riverbank while her husband fought some miles away. A week after my baba Anna was born, Anastasya was told of her husband’s death. One night, heading off the field after a battle, he had picked up what he believed to be his flashlight; it was really a disguised grenade, planted insidiously by the other side, to lure unwary soldiers in the dark. He died in a million pieces.

What has really changed, now? Whenever I remember my great-grandfather, I can’t help but think of Iraq. The peasants are still sent to fight in distant wars by leaders of empires who see them as disposable, dispensable. They don’t need to be told why they’re fighting, of course not! Just send them off to the desert & maybe they’ll come back alive. Maybe their children will have mothers or fathers, maybe not. Say what you will about the rhetoric & manipulative tactics of Michael Moore, but I appreciate how his films have highlighted the ways in which governments exploit the lower classes to carry out their delusions, their violent & selfish agendas. So many people turn to military service because what it (falsely) ‘promises’ them. Money while they serve, & maybe other things like education & such. If they survive the degradation & depersonalization of basic training. If they survive combat. If they survive their post-traumatic-stress syndrome. If if if.

In 1919, Anna Akhmatova wrote:

Why is our century worse than any other?
Is it that in the stupor of fear and grief
It has plunged its fingers in the blackest ulcer,
Yet cannot bring relief?

Westward the sun is dropping,
And the roofs of towns are shining in its light.
Already death is chalking doors with crosses
And calling the ravens and the ravens are in flight.

She may have well been writing this now, really. So many things that are happening are rooted in a ‘stupor of fear & grief’. It deeply, profoundly disturbs me how people forget, repeat – with history as an endless Sisyphus pushing the rock up the mountain & then letting the force of hypocritical politicians nudge it down the other side in their aggression, jealousy, greed, ignorance.

But I really don’t like asking the rhetorical question about why people are stupid, why they can’t change, why they can’t just make better choices & refuse to succumb to hypocrisy... I really don’t.

War can change people. My grandpa, my baba Anna’s husband returned from his conscription in the Second World War even more committed to his pacifism, a messy dove tattoo inked on his arm. He brought booklets & literature about the Holocaust, he taught my mother & her brothers about what happened, about what he had seen & heard after camps were liberated. & then he went back to his garden, & tried to make everything grow.

And I like to think of Anna as well. She never fought, but she endured so much as a result of war & revolution. As an infant she survived the typhus outbreak, because of the blood flowing in the water from the battles; she lived through the beginning of the collectivization, the Holodumor in Ukraine, the Depression, the Second World War, the death of her husband, so many deaths. & she has always been the toughest & the kindest person I have ever known; the most generous, most devout, most peaceful. She has always acted with such quiet, affirmative conviction. & she was born as her father passed on, born while the fire was flying, a little miracle.

Go here:

http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/twominutesofsilence/

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

poety ne maiut' stati.

I was reading a sort of silly little article in the kitchen sink magazine which was speculating which musician's lyrics particular poets might want to inscribe on their jeans. it was all catalysed, you see, by the fact that Bono of U2 has a clothing line, now, & there are lines by Rilke on the inside of the pocket in the jeans. Which is rather pretentious, I think... but the article amused me in that it decided Walt Whitman might like Rufus Wainwright's words in/on his pants, & I agree with that.

So then I was thinking that if I had to put lyrics in my pocket, I would probably inscribe Ani Di Franco. Likely some phrases from Joyful Girl (I do it for the joy it brings / because I am a joyful girl / the world owes me nothing / we owe eachother the world) or Welcome to: (At least you don't have to play along...)

& as for a poem in my pocket, I think the most powerful & the most apt to have scrawled on the inseam or along the waistband would be Halya Kruk's poety ne maiut' stati.

This is one of my most favourite poems; I have it memorized in Ukrainian. 'Poets have no gender' has so many luscious & powerful phrases, like hermafrodyty samotnosti ('hermaphrodites of solitude') and the most delicious of all, linyvu levytsiu u zalamanij trajektoriji pol'otu... ('lazy lioness in the broken trajectory of flight' is a nice translation, but doesn't quite have the same fluidity...)

& perhaps most importantly, it speaks to the way I am increasingly feeling... a girl-shaped person who is feeling more & more asexual in that she is a Person who is more of a medium for idea & spirit & creation than physical body attracted to other physical bodies, which of course are all playing roles, even as they try to shake them off ('the hula-hoops of bodily identification'). & I relate to the paradox of this poem -- as Kruk is trying to write as a Person, she is undeniably a woman, challenging her own experience. Even as we try to transcend gender, it follows us. I believe our identities are fluid, not fixed, but we can't shed these structures completely. We will always have our past & our memory of what we were, & how the outside gaze sees us.

Hemingway in the poem is trapped by his uber-masculinity, he can't transcend it. The other half of the binary (the female lioness) destroys him. But really, he wanted that. He was caught in that hunt, that power struggle, & maybe he wanted that. Obviously lot of people find that tension romantic. But Kruk suggests that we can transcend the binaries of gender, & become clearer. Our voices will clarify, if we can stop 'shouting from between the legs'. The poet, the poetic voice is beyond that. & that clarity is what I aspire to.

My writing is shaped by my experiences as (idenitfying as) a girl-shaped person in this society, they always will be. I want to speak of that experience. But I strongly recognize in myself the poetic genderlessness of the spirit my words filter through.

This is my own translation of Kruk's poem. There is another version too, that you can read (alongside the Ukrainian original), by Olena Jennings, here: http://ukraine.poetryinternational.org/ They're very similar. The last stanza is what I would put on my jeans...

poets have no gender – halyna kruk (2004)

poets have no gender
only faint words embossed upon the flesh
like secondary sex characteristics,
a many-yeared growth of impressions
that never seem fully expressed –
shave it off, or leave it for its charm?

bearded Hemingway hunts down his death –
a lazy lioness in the broken trajectory of flight
she pounces on him swift and heavy,
like a tropical downpour after a long drought,
how many years has he waited for her,
thirsting, hidden,
feeding mosquitoes of routine with his own blood?!

after all, who must wait for whom
in this unwritten codex of existence,
who is hunting whom?

poets have no gender
hermaphrodites of solitude
incomprehensibly desiring the other Other,
giving torturous birth only to themselves,
which is repeated
the repetition of a repetition

the repetition of a repetition –
how can one escape from the hula-hoops of bodily significance?

reconciling these differences within the self
smoothing the genitalia –
all with go smoothly, Hemingway,
without any snags;
the last boundaries of self-identification are crossed,
Gordian knots of mutual obligation are hewn,
Sisyphus’s stone of life is pushed from the summit –

genius has no gender
only a throat raw from shouting
between the legs

from a long poem i am writing...


want to see your heart-
beat?
she asks.

wet leaves, slick as tongues
lapping a whisper
on the pavement, black
soak of the rain
singing, my footsteps
a pulse in my ears.

look,
under the cardiac trees
she points to a mountain
ash

spreading out
like arteries from an
upside-down atria,

branching out into
bunches of red blood-clots,

exploding berries
falling up into the autumn
sky...
-jenanne f. (november 2005)

Thursday, November 03, 2005

all hallow's eve mascots



On the upper step is my vampire-pumpkin, Yuri; on the lower step is my experiment in carving stars... my constellation pumpkin, seen up top, shows Ursa Major, two tail-stars of Draco, and Polaris... but the picture isn't that good...

shadows of forgotten ancestors


This is one of my pumpkins. He is a vampire (see his teeth!) & he is called Yuriy, a.k.a George.

I like Halloween. I used to enjoy dressing-up & running amok in the neighbourhood, devouring candy for a month afterward. I always liked to think of how my ancestors in Scotland likely put on similar extravagant disguises so as not to be bothered by restless spirits roaming about, & ate soul-cakes, leaving some on a plate for the departed. They prayed for them, prayed for their rest in the afterlife. This was their new year, & the coming of winter; there is so much liminality – the idea of being between seasons, between dimensions... The attention to the seasonal change is paralleled in the focus on continuity of the dead within the living; so now I always think of my own ancestors, I light candles for them, I leave them apples & pomegranates under a tree.

There is nothing evil about Halloween, nor the Celtic Samhain (sa-wen). The Christian-fundamentalist propaganda that has plagued it disturbs me; but that’s really nothing new. Something that I find more disturbing (much like the commercialization of Christmas/Solstice) is how Halloween here seems to becoming more & more gore-fied.

This gore-ification lies in the way that Halloween has become such an inane festival of horror, of ghoulish fascination with dysfunction & violence. I was trying to look for the weather on the television on the 31st & came across a horror film on nearly every channel. It annoyed me, because Halloween has nothing to do with blood & guts, really --other than I suppose blood & guts are part of corporeal existence, which cease to flow & function in the dead, etc.

Halloween is really not about demons, Frankenstein, brain-eating zombies, alien creatures, psychopaths, telepathic misfits, nor serial killers. It’s not even about Dracula. Well, perhaps vampires, in that they are very agitated, un-peaceful, & dead... (But I’ve heard that wampyry prefer to haunt the crossroads on St. George’s Day & the eve of St. Andrew, not on Halloween.)

Some folklorists have written extensively about how our modern Halloween fulfills the psychological purpose of allowing us to face, & even embrace what frightens us. But are most people really scared of aliens & masked psychopaths? Maybe in the sense that they represent the unknown & the misunderstood & the unpredictable... but generally symbolic value is low in those films. I have a feeling that most people in North America, indoctrinated with ‘Western’ philosophy are actually more afraid of death. Not theatrical improbable death in the claws of zombies or vengeful psychic girls, but our own inevitable deaths, whether by old age, cancer or car accident. I really think such things represent our fear more than do murderous clowns. Just the fact that one day we’ll be ‘here’ & then 'not here' -- on the other side of the barrier, a ‘somewhere’ that we know nothing of... But instead (in typical North American fashion) we create an unreal ‘horror’ of the cheap, gory, b-movie sort to drown in, when perhaps we would all spiritually benefit from examining that real fear of death.

Halloween morning before work I watched the Ukrainian film Tini Zabutykh Predkiv (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors)... It is a film that deals with death, but it represents it in a realistic way, in that it presents as natural, cyclic, and potentially transformative. Some of the deaths in the film are tragic, & sudden -- they are haunting because they are possible, & real, & difficult for the characters to escape.

There is a scene that has become part of my photographic memory; near the end of the film, the spirit of Marichka is luring Ivan into the woods. He follows her through the labyrythine pine trees, dizzy in the snow, and her face has the sheen of dull blue ice. She is reaching toward him, closer and closer, and when her anemic little fingers touch him, the screen goes black. Then, three shots flash by in quick succession -- three view of curling, twisting, red-willow branches against a grey sky, fleshy as arteries full of blood, & then darkness again. The next scene shows Ivan being prepared for burial.

This transition, with the branches, is so striking to me... I have often associated trees with both the circulatory & pulmonary systems of the body in my writing... last week I noticed when walking home in the dark that the mountain ash tree on my front lawn, heavy with berries, appeared as a large upside-down heart... spreading branches like arteries arising from the atria, exploding red fruits like clots bursting into the sky.

As well, this scene in the film subtly symbolizes how in death we dissolve into the environment -- our bodies physically decay, maybe a tree sprouts from the dust of bones, & our spirit too, our energy, becomes released again into nature... According to Ukrainian traditional beliefs, the ancestors dwell within the land, & they are responsible for all new life -- the birth of children, & also the growing of new crops, plants, etc. They are the shadow of all life on earth, always present, watching over us.

Earlier in the film, Marichka appears as a little fawn after her death, grazing around the birch cross at her gravesite. Ivan cannot recover after her death, & the scene of her in the woods, calling to him represents him wasting away, dying, & reuniting with her. Then they are both part of the earth, together. They become the shadows -- as the ancestors they ensure life continues, in the little children pressing their faces to the window of the funerary hut in the last scene.

The other theme of the film (& Mykhajlo Kotsjubyns'kyj's novella) that resonates with me is artistic inspiration. Maybe it's less overt in the film, but in the written work we get a very strong sense of how the characters relate to the world around them, how it inspires them. Marichka is a poet, composing & singing songs, Ivan is a little mystic, able to see & feel the spirits in the world around him. In death, they cross the barrier between themselves & the land that inspires them, they themselves become part of the earth's regenerative & creative force. They become shadows, they also inspire the legend that is the book & the film... Kotsjubyns'kyj wrote the story based on the stories & songs he heard about Ivan & Marichka while visiting Hutsul villages in the eastern Carpathians.

This film is so important to me because it resonates with how I feel connected to the world & to my own ancestors/ancestry. I highly recommend watching it, but I recognize it could be confusing, what with poor subtitling & a lot of folkloric references... Marco Carynnyk's translation of the novella is the the Rutherford library & also includes a translation of one of Kotsjubyns'ky's ethnographic essays on the Hutsuls, which is rather useful.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

[by way of introduction]

The phrase 'sworn to lucidity' comes from a poem by Adrienne Rich, called I Dream I'm the Death of Orpheus. Bryna & I listened to Adrienne Rich read this poem aloud (on CD) in her resonant Baltimore accent & it made my knees melt.

Of all her indelible words, this phrase engraved itself most thickly. So strongly that I dreamt about it -- I saw a moon shining in daylight, the light was so clear that even when I woke & opened my eyes all I could see was the afterblink of the image in my mirror; a glowing bright haloed moon where my face should have been seen.

I believe you can read the whole poem here:

http://www.morrischia.com/david/portfolio/orpheus/research/adrienne-rich.html

As for this space, poems & photos will live here.