our home on Native land.

rivery bog

leafy dew

Sometimes the governing bodies of this country disappoint me into speechlessness. (This happens more than I like to really think about.) Being up here in the Yukon right now, I am especially realizing the repercussions of the refusal of Canada's representatives to support the U.N. declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. Our Indian and Northern Affairs minister is making feeble excuses, stating 'oh, it doesn't really specify what the country is responsible for doing, blah blah blah, we don't know how to balance it with the rights of others, the Canadian constitution is good enough already, blah', which seems to me to really translate as 'we're grasping at any excuse not to give indigenous peoples any more self-determination and rights to their own decision-making processes'.

Reading this article, I agree very much with Beverley Jacobs -- the Canadian government is afraid. And since it passed in the world anyway, hopefully it will indeed aid in burgeoning self-government development in many parts of Canada anyway, and might force our backward, Bush-worshipping conservative government into facing their fears of indigenous self-determining government.

berry-picking on the may (grey mtn)

here i am, picking berries (itl'ät = low-bush cranberry) on the may (grey mountain)
lower slopes of the may, down to the tagà shäw

looking east to cantlie lake, from the may

itl'ät, on the may -- tasty goodness. we also picked crowberries.

looking south from the may to marsh lake, widening of tagà shäw

* * *

Berry Compote

2 parts berries (here, a mix of itl'ät and crowberries)

1 part sugar

1 part water

spices (e.g. cinnamon, nutmeg, if you like)

Heat water and sugar until sugar is dissolved and the syrup is at a low boil. Add berries and bring to a full boil (so that there is happy pink bubbly froth) -- turn down the heat and let it simmer for about 7 minutes, or until the berries are bursting open. Add spices now, if you like. Turn off the heat and let cool slowly, and thicken. Pour over cake, ice cream, pancakes, toast, etc. & enjoy.

along the river, after the rain

rapids and sunset light, along the yukon river (tagà shäw)

wild poppies along tagà shäw

i'm odd & full of love.

(Upper Kananaskis Lake, looking to Ubithka Mabi (Nesting of the Eagle - Stoney name), a beautiful cradle-like mountain... )

(driftwood and pebbles, shore of Upper Kananaskis Lake)

Words for the Wind -- part 3 -- Theodore Roethke

Under a southern wind,
The birds and fishes move
North, in a single stream;
The sharp stars swing around;
I get a step beyond
The wind, and there I am,
I'm odd and full of love.

Wisdom, where is it found? --
Those who embrace, believe.
Whatever was, still is,
Says a song tied to a tree.
Below, on the ferny ground,
In rivery air, at ease,
I walk with my true love.

What time's my heart? I care.
I cherish what I have
Had of the temporal:
I am no longer young
But the winds and waters are;
What falls away will fall;
All things bring me to love.

* * *

Lately I am very much absorbed in Mr. Roethke's poetry... it is very comforting for giddy/excited/melancholy/anxious/grateful/in-awe/full-of-love/important feelings (e.g. pretty much the state of my brain right now). It is also very much a kindred spirit to my own writings, in a very complimentary way -- I read little bits & often instantly think of something I wrote in a very different way, but still the same.

His writing is like Wordsworth's in its reverence for all things, but even more direct, connected to his subjects... & just so full of such love, love in the most vast yet intimate sense, it makes me weep. I like to think that Roethke reminds me a little of my father, sometimes -- my father is not at all friends with poetry, but he often says very poetic things very much unconsciously, & so sometimes I think this would be something like what my father would write if he was a poet -- he writes of land the way my father taught me to love it & know it, & so I think of him, & also my grandfather (mother's father) whom I never knew. But I've been told he loved everything like this too, the same gentleness in his soul.