red-shafted flicker – Karen's New York Love Affair

The gift of fire

Meeting in Circle with the Wilderness Guides Council

Fire is the element of the east, the direction of springtime. When I first sat in circle at the Wilderness Guides Council, on Monday, April 13, I deliberately sat in the east. This is a part of the wheel that I am least comfortable in. Magic happens here, and the unpredictable, for it is in this direction that old forms are broken down so that something new can emerge. It is the direction of creativity, death and rebirth, and has the gift of vision of the eagle flying high in the sky.

I am typically more comfortable in the west, the place of introspection and darkness. So it felt risky to take my place in the east and own this part of my spirit. There were about 25 guides sitting in the circle, and I listened as they discussed the business of our annual meeting. Things like the budget and who would be carrying on which duties in the year to come. They have a “mask of the ancestors,” and one of the duties is to be the keeper of the mask. It is made out of the pelvic bone of a large animal, and is decorated with feathers and beads. The meeting lasted a long time—about 5 hours—and about 4 hours into it one of the feathers blew off the mask and landed in my lap. It was an orange flicker feather—which I have written about previously in this blog. This was the first magical gift of the east. It seemed like a blessing and confirmation that I am a member of this group. The ancestors confirmed it. And my own heart did too—sitting listening to these people who care about each other, the earth, and the sacred ceremony of the vision fast, I felt my own desire to continue on through time with these people. The gift of the feather confirmed it. I put the feather in my emergency kit, which I always carry with me when I’m out on the land. May it keep all the fasters safe!

The Sweat Lodge

After the Wilderness Guides Council (of North America) gathering ended, we had about 24 hours to prepare the grounds for the International Wilderness Guides Gathering—a week-long gathering of guides from around the world. I helped out a little, setting up the garbage and recycling bins. But the main thing I had volunteered to do was to help with the campfires, to make sure they were put out safely at the end of the night. But somehow this turned into a new job—helping tend the fire for the women’s sweat lodge, which was going to take place the following Saturday. What an honour! I agreed to help, and thought I’d better get an idea of what was involved. So I went to the first sweat of the IWGG gathering, held on Tuesday, April 14th. This was the second gift of the east.

Meeting the Grandfathers

When I got to the place of the sweat lodge, located under the magnificent oak trees, beside a creek, I sat down with the others who were waiting, took off my shoes, and nestled my toes into the sand. I had not been in a sweat lodge since about 1993, and I was looking forward to seeing how the heat felt to me now. Munro Sickafoose, the netkeeper for the WGC, was pouring water for the sweat. This meant he was running everything that happened inside the sweat lodge (from the human incarnate end—spirit was really running what happened). A beautiful man named Dirk Johnston was the firekeeper, who ran what happened outside of the sweat, preparing the fire to heat the rocks, and transporting them into the sweat lodge. These heated rocks are called the grandfathers, and the firekeeper communes with these rocks and in a sense is responsible for how the sweat goes. It is a sacred and mysterious duty.

It turned out that I was the oldest woman at the sweat lodge, so Munro asked me to sit beside him in the lodge, since his wife wasn’t there, and to put cedar on each grandfather stone as it came into the lodge. I felt very honoured to do this. We were taught what to say as we entered the lodge: Aho matakwe-asin! All my relations! After entering we crawled on our hands and knees in a clockwise direction to take our places around the edges of the lodge. There was a pit in the middle, ready to receive the grandfathers. When we were all inside, Munro asked Dirk to bring in 9 grandfathers. Dirk brought in the first rock, glowing red and clearly visible in the darkness of the sweat lodge. He said “Aho, matakwe-asin! Grandfather, come on in!” Munro guided the pitchfork and placed the rock in the pit in the middle. Now it was my job to sprinkle a little bit of dried cedar leaves on the rock. The herb sparkled as it struck the heated red stone, and the scent began to tickle our noses, creating an immediate feeling that something sacred was happening.

So it went, as Dirk brought each grandfather in. “Aho, matakwe-asin! Grandfather, come on in!” As I sprinkled the herb on each one, I offered a blessing to it. And I fell in love with these glowing grandfather rocks, and with this sacred ceremony from the first peoples of this land.

Munro told us there would be four rounds. The first round was for calling in the ancestors and spirits. The second round was for praying. The third round was for healing. And the final round was the “going home” round. At the beginning of each round, more rocks would be brought in. During the round, Munro would pour water on the rocks to create steam, increasing the heat in the sweat lodge. To be continued…

Flying flicker feathers

An August day at Monkey Valley

Red-shafted flickers

I wasn’t completely off the mark when I thought my morning visitor was a woodpecker. The flickers are a type of woodpecker, but rather than pecking at bark to eat the grubs and insects underneath, they feed on ants and other ground insects, as well as berries in the winter time. I’d never seen one so close before, to notice the black breast-band. What has always struck me is their visual impact in flight, with their salmon-pink under-wings and white rump flashing, and their solid-looking shape. They have the up-and-down, undulating flight pattern shared by most woodpeckers.

When I was growing up my family owned land on Knouff Lake, northeast of Kamloops, BC. We spent a lot of time there, especially in the summer, staying in the one-room cabin that my father built. Bathing in the lake. No electricity or running water. (Many years later my dad put in power and phone.) We canoed around the lake, suntanned on the dock my dad built, swam, hiked, ate a lot of great food. One time bears tore into my sister’s and I’s tent, while the family was away on a day hike. There were paw prints on the windows of the cabin, too, more than 8 feet off the ground. Needless to say, Kim and I slept in the cabin that night, and learned not to hide goodies in the tent!

When my dad learned he had brain cancer, in the late 1990s, he had to sell the property, and the family met there for a final farewell. It was a very sad visit, all of us struggling to come to terms with his cancer and impending death, and also losing this land that had meant so much to us. On the last day, as we were getting ready to leave, I went off for a short walk by myself, and found some beautiful orange feathers on the ground. They seemed like a miracle to me. I had never seen anything so magical as these brown feathers with white spots and patterns of orange on them. It was truly a gift from the land, a parting gift. I felt so moved and grateful to receive this goodbye from this place, a memento to keep with me always. I gave some of the feathers to my family, and kept one for myself. I have this feather still, and it is in the north on my altar—the place of my people, and a symbol of the air element.

I didn’t learn until I was studying ecopsychology at Naropa University, in Boulder, Colorado, and walking to school with a fellow Canuck, that the birds with the orange under-wings are called flickers. Before I even knew what these birds were called I found some flicker feathers on a trip to Boulder, down by the Boulder Creek. I was in Boulder for a weekend workshop on rites of passage, and one night went on a special medicine walk to learn about what the threshold means—one of the three stages of a rite of passage. I had overcome my fear and gone into the creek in the dark, symbolically leaving behind my old self as I crossed through the icy water. I laugh to myself now, remembering how I was afraid the water was so cold it would freeze my legs and I wouldn’t be able to get back to the motel I was staying at! I made it home alive, and the next morning I found a pair of lovely orange feathers down by the creek. These are on my altar now too.

Ted Andrews, in his wonderful book Animal Speak says that the flicker signifies new rhythms of growth and healing love. It usually reflects that the stimulation of latent talents is going to be a catalyst for major creative changes in your life. Right now I believe that doing this blog is opening up some writing energy that has been blocked for years, and I am very excited to see what will emerge through this activity!

I have found a few other flicker feathers over the years, and they always feel special to me. And then, the morning before I visited with the flicker on my balcony, I found an orange-tinted feather on the ground below the balcony. My first gift from the flicker on this land. I felt like this place is truly my home now. It has been marked. It has been acknowledged. The land and her creatures agree.

Good sleep is easy to come by

An August day at Monkey Valley

Sleeping on the Balcony

The thick walls of the log cabin usually keep the house at Monkey Valley pretty cool, even in the August heat. But I had all the windows open, and after a day of +40°, it was 26° inside the house in the evening, and even hotter upstairs in my bedroom. This motivated me to drag the futon mattress outside onto the balcony next to the master bedroom, and sleep out in the moonlight. I brought out my down pillow and two down comforters, and snuggled in for a night of blissfully relaxing sleep. Usually when sleeping out I’ve used a mummy bag. The down comforters were warmer and so much more comfy, without the confines of the mummy bag. This is definitely the way to go!

I slept deeply until about 7:30 am, well past dawn. I was awakened by a chipmunk bounding up the stairs to investigate the strange green and yellow mound of duvets on the balcony. I looked at him and he scurried back down, pausing for some tail-flicking halfway down the stairs. I luxuriated on the mattress, enjoying the calls of the birds in the pine grove near the house. I noticed that the morning air smelled like root beer—sweet, earthy, faintly pine. Soon a female flicker flew over to the railing near my feet. We spent a minute or two looking at each other. I admired her spotted breast—white with black spots—noticing a black patch at the top of her breast, and the black stripes on her back. “How beautiful you are!” I said to her. I actually thought she was a woodpecker, and was trying to remember all the details so I could look her up in the guidebook. I felt deeply satisfied with this visit, and watched her for a while after she flew away to a nearby lodgepole pine. I heard her call out a few short, definite “kee-ew” calls, and thought “Aha! So that’s who makes that sound.”

I marveled at the aliveness of this land in the morning hours. The air was filled with bird calls, and as I watched the pine grove it was constantly moving with the flights, landings, and take-offs of darting birds. Consulting the guidebooks later (National Audubon Society Field Guide to Birds: Western Region and David Sibley’s The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America), I discovered that my visitor was not a woodpecker, but a red-shafted flicker, female. The flicker is special to me, and I’ll tell you why another day. Other birds I saw in the grove included the stunning yellow warbler, with brilliant yellow head and belly, and olive-toned back. This is one of my favourites, and I’ve seen these beautifully joyful birds frequently at Monkey Valley, especially down in the willow bushes near the creek.

I also saw a group of black-capped chickadees flitting about, their white-edged tail feathers flashing in a V. These ones were very hard to identify in the bird books. Their white V shaped tail pattern is so distinctive, but this wasn’t shown in either book. I am perhaps a dud when it comes to identifying birds. They seem so clear and vivid when I am looking at them, but then the guidebooks have details I didn’t notice, and perhaps show examples of birds with slightly different colouring. The Sibley Field Guide is more useful for showing variations in coloration that occur due to differences in region, gender, and age, and I trust it more than the Audubon one, which has beautiful colour plates that never seem to resemble the birds I see!

Anyway, this was such a wonderful start to the day, followed by morning coffee (Nelson, BC’s Oso Negro Decaf—think global, buy local) with the guidebooks on the porch overlooking the creek. It made me wish I never had to leave Monkey Valley. I felt so happy to be alive, and lucky to live on this beautiful land.