Oh No, Canada

 

Today may be Canada’s birthday, but the territory existed long before France (at the time) gave the colony a name. It probably already had a name, I just don’t know what it was. The boundaries were different, too, as determined by the Indigenous peoples who lived here long before the Europeans’ arrival changed everything for them.

Don’t get me wrong. I love living here. I’m grateful to live here. It’s the best country in the world, but it didn’t start out that way and we have a long way to go before descendants of the original inhabitants have any reason to believe it.

At the end of May 2021, the bodies of 215 children were discovered buried on the property of a residential school in Kamloops. Just a few weeks later, another mass grave was discovered in Saskatchewan. I can’t go into it more deeply than that, as I am not qualified to comment. I’m grateful to be here, but my being here is predicated on a colonial government’s shameful attempts to destroy an entire culture first by appropriating their land, then by taking (and killing) their children.

I am not an activist. I don’t march in protests. I haven’t even paid that much attention to media stories about native blockades and whaling rights and so on, but when I learned (too recently) about the residential schools and the Sixties’ Scoop, a small part of me died. On hearing about those buried children, I wept.

Out of respect for grieving First Nations, this year the City of Victoria cancelled plans for a virtual Canada Day celebration. In consultation, however, local Indigenous leaders felt it would be wrong to dismiss the occasion entirely, so it’s become a learning opportunity for those of us who need educating.

Like me.

The truth must be told. History must be embraced, not erased, if we wish for true reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous peoples. I sense no desire in them for punishment or vengeance. It seems all they ask is that we listen to them with respect and recognize them as the original stewards of this magical land. Reconciliation is key. We can’t undo what was done, but we can certainly right the wrongs of the past by changing our ways now and moving into Canada’s future together.

Maybe then, we will truly have something to celebrate.

Perfectly Imperfect

 

Last week I learned that “baroque” stems from the Portugese word meaning “imperfect pearl”. In the show I was watching, the pristine sphere of a cultivated pearl was displayed alongside a spludge of matching iridescence but woefully irregular shape.

If you think about it, life is very much like a baroque pearl. We’re oysters struggling to produce a flawless result. We strive for perfection in everything, yet achieve it in almost nothing.

Does that negate the struggle? Is an imperfect pearl less valuable than a perfect one? And, should it be? The oyster who produces an imperfect specimen is just as stressed as the oyster next door, who may actually be more stressed by the pressure to get it right the first time. Besides, as much beauty exists in imperfection as in the opposite—and sometimes you needn’t look that hard to find it.

Perfect pearls exist under false pretences, by the way. They’re like F***book lives, cleverly manipulated to look like naturally occurring phenomena.

The only perfect thing in this universe is, well, the Universe. Of course, there are moments of perfection in life, but they are moments. Transient, impermanent. Which is, I believe, what makes them perfect. Life itself is meant to be imperfect. It’s the only way we can learn anything! It’s also the reason why we’re here. There are two potential outcomes to anything we try: success or a lesson to be learned. No failures. Just learning.

I don’t know where we got the idea that everything we do, say, display, create or achieve must be perfect. Maybe it’s a holdover from where our spirits originate. We remember what it is to know perfection, ergo we knock ourselves out trying to recreate it in this dimension. A noble notion, yet the cause of so much misery at the same time. After all, who among us is perfect?

In truth, we’re all baroque.

With love,

Autumn Leaves

“the autumn leaves

drift by my window…”

No, they don’t. Around here, they zip by so fast that you wonder if you saw them at all. Or they get caught on the updraft and spiral skyward like snowflakes only to land light years from their tree of origin. I watched a flock of them on Saturday morning, dancing and spinning with such glee it was hard to grasp that the dance is of their death.

I pictured a tiny fragile leaf, nurtured all summer on sap and sunshine, clinging tenaciously to the branch despite the insistently tugging wind. I imagined the tree whispering, encouraging it to let go. So it does. The wind catches it, carries it high above the branch, above the tree itself, away on a dizzying gust, higher and higher, until it disappears from mortal sight. The bright yellow remains will land on a lawn or a sidewalk, but the leaf itself has moved on, through the clouds and up past the atmosphere to wherever leaves go when they die.

Only they don’t die. I doubt that leaves actually live. They are to a tree what hair is to a human. They grow and are shed, but they don’t feel anything. When a leaf is plucked before its time, it doesn’t say ouch. The tree does. The tree houses the infinite energy, rooted in the earth and tied to an annual cycle that mirrors the greater cycle of all creation.

The blaze of autumn colour is easily misinterpreted as death. It may signal the final hurrah for this round, but it’s far from over for the tree. It will sleep through the winter, then be reborn in the spring, sprouting new leaves, living another cycle … just as we do. We don’t end with our mortal winter. Our bright yellow remains are absorbed back into the earth, but the essence of each individual rises up past the atmosphere to a place beyond mortal vision, to sleep or dream or plan a return visit—but certainly not to die. What would be the point of that? Why would Nature establish a pattern of renewal and rebirth, and exclude us from the party? And how naïve are we to believe that we only get one crack at this mortality gig? I didn’t have to repeat third grade, but I did have to move up through elementary to junior high to high school before I learned enough to equip me for the next phase, and which proved insufficient, by the way. Doing is the best way to learn, so if we don’t learn it in this life, guess what? We repeat grade three. It took me twelve years of school to make adulthood. I reckon it should take at least twelve lifetimes to graduate to whatever comes next in the grand scheme of things.

That’s not to say I can goof off or not do my homework. I doubt there is a test between phases, but I suspect if I don’t pay attention now, I’ll get to the exit interview and go Crap! I was supposed to learn (insert virtue here)! So I’ll have to wedge the forgotten lesson into my course load for the next round.

Autumn is my favourite season of the year, so I’m optimistic that the autumn of my current existence will be the most fun yet. My toes are barely into it, but I know it’s here. My leaves are turning, for one thing, and the sap is starting to run a bit thin. I’m attracted to brighter colours, and bolder about wearing them, too. Now I get the saying, “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple.” Vivid colours are better suited to adorn maturity.

Just ask a tree.