Update from Alex

I woke up from an unquiet dream–fear of getting in trouble, and feeling powerless to make myself understood. Immediately, I recognized these feelings to be stemming from a conversation from the night before about money, community, and the economic system. This kind of stuff easily triggers my pattern of feeling powerless and rejected, as often I’ve experienced these things as a child, an immigrant, and a money-less man.

I got to drink from the Creek. It’s a relatively warm morning. There is a slight breeze, yet the water is still. Hoping for clarity, I get into my little canoe and slowly paddle upstream. Right away, from a long way off, I scare up a couple of Ducks. The male calls out the warning, and then he and the female take off. “One day,” I dream, “I’ll figure out a way to sneak up on these vigilant ones!” There is no sign of that fat Muscrat I watched eating the rhizomes of young marsh grasses a few evenings ago.

Above, Bluejay is sitting on the tip of a tall stand-alone spruce in the bog. He calls out loudly, warning everyone of my no-longer-stealthy approach. Oh well! Little birds fly all around me and make territory calls, chase each other. Suddenly in front of my canoe a bubble of bottom mud rises. I watch and see nothing, and wonder if it could be that giant Pike someone saw the other day. It’s been proposed that she is waiting for the suckers to begin their run==who in turn are waiting at the mouth of the rivers for the waters to warm. We too are waiting–soon we wil set up a temporary camp elsewhere and hopefuylly net a supply of these noble whitefish, laden with eggs and sperm. It’s almost time to start sending out scouts to not miss that narrow window of abundance.

I turn the boat and head back. A Turtle slides down into the water as I approach. I pause and look for his head to come up again–to no avail. “If this was a survival situation and I needed his body for sustenance,” I think, “I would be really disappointed.”

It’s not far to the canoe landing now, and I paddle harder. There in the water just beside me, I catch a glimpse of another turtle as I fly past. “I’ll try my luck again.” I turn around and sure enough, she’s still there, her cold-blooded limbs stiff with the cool waters of the creek. I reach out. I touch her.

Walking back to camp, I reflect. The Ducks, the Muscrat, the Bluejay, the Little birds, the Pike, the Suckerfish, the Turtles….Each one of them is living as they are meant to. They see danger–they adjust: watch, warn, run, fight. They compete. They eat. They get eaten. They love. They die.

This is the way of Life. Nothing is “perfect”–safe, secure. And yet in that lies the perfection of the Whole. My life is not perfect either–and that is the beauty of it–this I must remember. To live is to have my eyes open to learn, to adjust, to be in pain, to be at peace, to love, to die.

Back at camp, I chop of the poles of the broken hide-tanning frame into pieces of firewood for our circle’s cooking and warming needs. One of the poles is particularly rotten. As I drive my tomahawk in, ants begin to fall out. They are stiff and barely moving in the morning cold. I doubt they’ve been up and about from their White season hybernation at all since the snows receded a quarter moon ago. “Gees,” I think with empathy, “what a way to awaken!”

Then I pick them up, one by one, and munch down.