Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
walking the line
some mornings i get to work and look at my blog – and i want to write in it – but can’t think of what i should write about. i want to contribute daily because it’s a good practice to be in, and because i am secretly pleased with myself when i can write or at least post photographs 5 or 6 days in a row.
and when i feel like this, it’s not because i have nothing to say, because (as y’all know) i *always* have something to say…. but usually that i have too much to say and i want time to filter it through and decide what is actually important.
as usual, i have a lot going on – particularly because the union i am a member of and organizer with is on the precipice of starting full-blown strike action – and i hold the official position of “area strike co-ordinator” for half the downtown core. this means i am responsible for ensuring that 1500 people know about and participate in any strike activity (which included the strike votes we took through the month of april).
in all my years of organizing, i don’t know that i have ever had such a definable area to organize before – 5 major worksites, 1500 workers, from hastings to georgia and from thurlough to main. in each of those sites, i have between 2 and 5 contacts, and it is those people i organize with so that each of their members is informed and ready for the day we move into a position of strike legality.
old stories
i took this photo, and the one at the end of this post, in a grove of old-growth cedar and fir trees in the gifford pinchot forest. it is difficult to remember this type of forest covered most of the coast at one time, and in vancouver there were trees that grew to be over 100 metres tall (that’s 35 building stories). since i first learned this, i have looked out the window of my 15th floor cubicle, trying to imagine my office tower surrounded by trees twice its size. the fact it is so challenging to envision points sorely to a removal from our own roots as forest animals (the root of savage means “of the forest” interestingly enough) – but it also means the loss of many stories of the land’s history only these sentinels might know, since they are the longest memory beside the mountains that once existed on these shores.
she-ros
my friend and fellow activist – the infamous megan o. – is receiving an international human rights award tonight in montreal for her work on the illegal safe injection site here in vancouver last year. you can find information about her and the site here.
hooray for all the people doing this work in the downtown eastside! and congrats to megan on the award…..:smile:
also – sharai is in the news for her work at camp experience your dreams – speaking out with her strong grrrrl voice! here’s an article about her and the camp on the xtra west site.
here’s to the greatness of radical women!
mirror mirror
this is a photo of meta lake, a stop in the blast zone on the way to the mt. saint helen’s viewpoint.
on the last day of my trip south, we took a long drive up to the protected area surrounding the mount st. helen’s blast site. from deep rich forest of fir and cedar, to land that at first glance looks like a moonscape, the road winds through a varied and striking environment.
it has been 20 years since the volcano blew (an event i remember vividly from childhood), and there is rebirth in the land where the lava and fire knocked down and burned up the forest. small trees and plants dot the landscape, pushing their way out of pumice and ash.
the lakes in the area were scoured clean by the event (at spirit lake the water was all pushed out and then dropped back in by the force of the moving earth) – but are coming back with teeming micro and macro-life as witnessed at this small lake. algae, mayflys, pollywogs and small fish were all evident here – a testament to clean and viable water for aquatic life.
this place made me realize that volcanoes, like forest fires, help to flush the earth and create a base for new life to spring from – and give me some small hope that life can re-emerge anywhere given enough time (though i suspect human-made disasters take a lot longer for the earth to recover from).
this place, which initially appears desolate, is actually newborn and full of future.
twig bundles
these twig bundles don’t make for the best photo, but they are part of a series of revelations granted to me over the past year.
last october i met a friend who showed me the art of making fire using a twig bundle. i had never before seen a fire ignite so quickly without the use of any human-made substance such as paper (or in my dad’s case, gasoline) – one match and our fire made of damp driftwood was lit on a cold evening near all hallow’s eve. to make the bundle, this friend spent awhile in the forest behind the house we were staying at on the sunshine coast, walking and collecting the dry and fine branches from the ground. emerging from the forest with a large bundle of spindly branches, my friend proceeded to bend them into a horseshoe shape and tie a knot around them with a piece of live branch – making a rounded mass of fine starter and kindling.
watching this seemed like remembering to me, a lost art brought to life in the simple doing.
Red Cedar 