Akayo'kaki A'pawaawahkaa: Swans And Nesting Owls

13 March 2010

Swans And Nesting Owls

IIII ) lllllllllllllllllllll First Swans (8Mar10)

0821 TransAlta kicked it into gear, putting up a whole line of towers across the Blood Reserve in the last few days. It will be something to walk the line after they flip the switch, gathering up bird carcasses. Judging by the pace, they must be waiting for the migration to bring all the seasonal birds home, so they can fry as many as possible

0957 Ksikkomahkaayiiksi (swans) at Innokimi. The waterfowl migration is underway. That means we have just one moon cycle until niipoyi, the leafing-out, or summer. The frog's hopping to the other side this year

IIII ) llllllllllllllllllllll Swan Necklace (9Mar10)

2236 I saw a swan today who wore a big blue choker. Two initial thoughts on the matter. First, even strapped and surveilled with this gizmo, the swan was still a swan, which seems important and ironic. Because, secondly, the people who marked it in this fashion seem, in a sense, to be using this bird and its necklace as an excuse not to be human, removing themselves from the potential of truly becoming familiar

IIII ) llllllllllllllllllllllllll ( Owl Nest (13Mar10)

0932 Nitohkattsisamayaaksipookaki... felt pretty cold and windy when I went out on the porch, but the Heavy Head weather station is reading a temperature of 3 C and rising, with wind topping at 12 kph

1352 Omahksistsiiksiinaikaawahko - Despite cold wind, I decide to hike down into the coulee in search of owl nests, insects, and the flowering kippiaapi

1411 We are at the brink of the shift between seasons. There's a glow on our horizon, but the Sun has yet to rise in its annual cycle. All but the heaviest snow drifts have melted, leaving behind swaths of greyish-yellow, flattened grass

1417 It's too early yet for the tiny white blooms of moss flox, and I suspect the same then for kippiaapi. Far too early as well for the emergence of my slithering friends from the shelter of their hibernaculum, though I stop to check their doorways on my way down the slope anyhow. It it not too early, however, for the grigs and wolf spiders who live above and around the rattlesnakes. Their eggs have hatched, and the young can be glimpsed hopping and scurrying amongst the blades of fallen grass

1448 Following the trail of omahkaaatsisttaa along one of the ridges leading down to the floodplain, I turn over rocks to find active colonies of tiny black ants hauling nearly microscopic pink and white particles into the entrances to their hives. Under other rocks, there are seven-spot ladybugs, still frozen and awaiting their thaw

1501 At the bottom of the ridge, I find the cast-off, scaley skin of one of my friends, all but returned to the earth. This is my prototype for understanding ikkitstakssin, the practice of making offerings, returning that which we will no longer use. Beside the skin, growing on a rosy-hued boulder sparkling with quartz, is a brilliant lime-green lichen, erupting with flesh-colored cushions. And beside this, an active colony of wood-ants, their nest mound set concealed in some skunkbrush scrub

1513 Now I have reached the sagebrush flats, the highest echelon of the floodplain. From here I can walk along the cutbank and tree-line that defines the next level, and begi

n my search for owl nests. I know there were at least two kakanottsstookii couples courting in these woods through the longest nights of winter. I'm juts hoping that one of these pairs will have decided to raise their brood here

1517 I don't have to go far along the cutbank before I come across kai'skaahp, sitting quietly on her haunches in the fork of a western cottonwood tree. She's sleeping, but semi-conscious, glancing down at me briefly before shutting her eyes again

1533 Fifty meters further along the cutbank, I walk among some of the oldest trees in this coulee. One of them, a balsam poplar, I know as Grampa. His limbs are easily as large as half the other trees in the forest, branches so heavy that their ends have come to touch the ground. Grampa's girth is such that it would take four men my size to link hands around him. I lift one of the massive slivers of a fallen branch to reveal six hibernating caterpillars, the same black fuzzy critters with faint yellow lateral stripes that I'd seen crossing my path so often at the close of summer

1547 Beneath Grampa, at the base of the cutbank, The Twins - two young narrow-leaf cottonwoods that may very well share one root - look like mere sprouts. I can't wait to see them leaf-out in the coming season

1559 Just as at Sspopiikimi, the starlings have returned to this coulee. Walking along the tree-line, they greet me with their robotic-sounding whirls and tweets from perches high in the no longer so skeletal canopy. Despite the leaflessness of these trees, their buds and growing limbs seem to vibrate. They pulse and wriggle with rising sap, it is not just the wind. And their color, though almost imperceptibly, has changed. These trees are, to me, as full of life as the small family of awatoyi who just awoke and leapt, tails wagging, from the chokecherry brush on the slope of the cutbank below me, or the kai'skaahp, a second one, who I see lounging in a cottonwood across the way

1625 At the end of the tree-line, I find two flickers and a downy woodpecker, all searching the bark of a single cottonwood. The flickers take wing at my approach, but the downy male continues his hunt, confident that I'm no threat. I can hear geese down on the river, and as I look in their direction, I catch a glimpse of coyote, bolting between the willow thickets and a draw up the coulee slope

1633 Now I cut down into the woods, onto the middle echelon of the floodplain, to begin my return journey. Still no sign of owl nests, but I am enjoying this walk immensely. Something in the forest today reminds me that despite my relative awkwardness, I am not apart from this place. I belong here. And my studies of the seasonal activities of the plants, and birds, and mammals, and insects, and even my slithering friends, has just as much to do with learning about myself and the nature of life in general as it does to learning about them

1700 I walk halfway back through the forest, finding along the way one of the arrows I'd lost beneath heavy snow-cover in the dead of winter, and encountering a third kai'skaahp. Like the others, it was sleeping in the fork of a tree

1702 Then I entered a wide, mid-forest meadow. This is where I keep a lean-to-style survival shelter, or at least that part of it which I've built to date. Throughout most of the winter moons, the mule deer inhabit this meadow in large numbers. And in one of the taller trees that borders its perimeter, there has for several years been a large nest. Mid-summer, it's often used by hawks. But at present, this is where I find my owl. Grinning, I had suspected this is would be their nesting site all along. What better place to raise a couple wide-eyed fluff-balls than in this isolated look-out, where they could have their pick of the deer mice and voles? The kakanottsstookii mother sits quiet and patient on her nest this evening, no chicks yet that I can see. The starlings mime the songs of redtail hawks, wigeons, and killdeer from the trees around her

Obsessing On Purpose

Like most living beings - human or otherwise - I have cultivated a number of behavioural routines and aesthetic predilections that bring structure, or perhaps a sense of security, to my everyday life. In some instances, these quirks and habits border on the embarrassingly obsessive-compulsive. For instance, at nookoowa, I routinely make sure that anything situated on tables or counters be set in an alignment parallel to the edges. Sometimes, nipiitaam or nitana will offset things purposely, just to watch me run around straightening them. On the other hand though, I prefer our tables and countertops to be absolutely empty except when in use, and all items that might otherwise be placed upon them to be neatly stowed away in closets, trunks, and cupboards. I also try to make sure that any like-type objects that happen to be stored on a shelf - such as books, video games, compact discs, statuettes, picture frames, what have you - are neatly aligned and arranged in some pleasing order. My bed must always be made, unless someone’s in it, and nothing beyond sheets, blankets, or pillows belongs on it. It bothers me when clothing is tossed on the floor, or draped anywhere other than on hangers in our closets. Furniture, in the form of couches, cushioned chairs, dining sets, etc. strike me as clutter, limiting the spaces that one would otherwise have available to conduct creative activities. I prefer to sit on the floor, with just a pillow or folded blanket for support. I don’t like any lighting except that which comes from naato’si, nor prolonged periods of electronic noise. The different foods on my plate cannot touch, unless we’re eating Mexican, in which case it must all be mixed together into a bean, cheese, and rice paste. And I don’t think sinks are places to keep dirty dishes, or sponges, or globs of fallen toothpaste… although they are for cleaning such things immediately. The list could go on, all these partialities that are so rarely realized to my satisfaction. The truth of the matter is, in the long run, most of my aesthetic habits bring me more irritation than comfort. Yet I continue to uphold them all the same.

One of my greatest obsessive-compulsive behaviours, a massive sink-hole of energy, and that which applies more than any other to the present project, is an overwhelming desire to document periods of transition in my life. I’ve been journaling since I was about twelve years old, using this practice as a surrogate companion of sorts, with whom to discuss the occasionally strange (and often mundane) changes I’m constantly attempting to make in my life, in whatever direction I happen to be exploring at the time. Over nearly three decades, I’ve experimented with a wide variety of media, from classic stationary and blank books, to audio notes, photography, film, sketching. I’ve written in both first and third person, I’ve tried to approach the practice as story telling, as ethnography, as documentary, as art. But my trouble is this… for me, the final product of my efforts is never good enough. I’m constantly shifting tactics and media. I’ve probably made some stationers fairly rich. In fact, any new idea at all can compel me to destroy prior work and start anew, because my sense is that a fresh journaling project is like an opportunity for the redefinition of self. It’s a personal renewal. A cleansing, a chance to make a vow and completely transform the narratives that guide one’s experiences. An old journal, on the other hand, one that no longer accurately reflects my sensibilities or interests in the present, is to me a blemish, an imperfection, a blatant reminder of the self I’ve already outgrown. Such past projects are like carelessly wrought sculptures, beyond repair. And so I must begin, again and again.

Now I know, some may say that for the artist it is the process that matters, not the product. And there are examples from around the world to demonstrate this claim. There are the Tibetan sculptures made from butter, which melt in the sun. The sacred sand-paintings of the Navajo, scooped-up and discarded at the close of their healing ceremonies. Origami cranes, floating down the rivers of Japan. There are all manner of ikitstakssiistsi to look toward as monuments to the significance of process over product. True. I don’t deny it. But these examples involve at least two aspects that my journals do not. First, they are almost always seen to some stage of human completion, each creative act having a very defined conclusion, the point at which they are left in sacrifice to the sacred beings, the ancestors, the future generations. Which brings up the second distinction they have from my journals – these creative acts are also highly spiritual, inaugurating, feeding, or renewing sacred relationships. And while my journaling practices have always nurtured, I’ve never really approached them as offerings to the forces that sustain my life. Rather, and perhaps sadly, I feel deep down that they have been little more than tools for fostering detachment, as if the immediate activities involved in my pursuits for growth and transformation are somehow not enough in themselves. And I’m aware that it is in large part my history of exposure to an immature and ego-centric global ethos that has conditioned me to such hollow practice.

There is another (and related) reason why I tend to discard imperfect or outdated journals, over-concern myself with the organization of items on my shelving systems, fret obsessively over household clutter, etc. It is because I have been enculturated in an aesthetics that defies nature by placing all like items together, and all unalike items apart. It’s a system partial to concrete categories, surface in its emphasis, allowing little room for metamorphoses, transfigurations, or interconnectivities. In fact, it is a way that fears these complexities and the potential loss of present form. A journal, by its very nature of recording a series of thoughts and life experiences, all of which are unalike except by means of their association to a single person in the midst of constant change, somehow simultaneously calls-to and troubles this aesthetics. As typically carried out, a journal is in essence just another means of imposing false order on the flow of life, both by objectifying experience and by organizing its representation into segments of a linear-time framework that is completely removed from the shifting cyclicality of the natural world. My fluent relationship with both kinds of awareness has, in a sense, rendered me bipolar. I strive for a certain level of systematicity, all the while knowing full well that such order reflects an impoverished approach to negotiating the human condition.

Perhaps what I’ve needed all along is a healthy recognition of both the limitations and potential functionalities of record-keeping practices, particularly in the traditions of aokstakio’p and aisinaakio’p… this, followed by an alterative adoption of those beneficial techniques and media from the established global culture, inwardly, in a manner that augments rather than re-shapes niitsitapia’pii. I am lucky, in this sense, to be already engaged in a learning process through iiyaohkimiipaitapiiyssin, which I’m sure will offer many insights along the way. But all the same, I know that to achieve my vision, to revitalize forms of niitsitapi record-keeping through my journaling practice, I will have to work much more closely with those constant resources I can trust - niitsi’powahsin, akaitapiitsinikssiistsi, ki nipaapao’kaanistsi. I will also need to develop a habit of respecting the advice of my own deeper intuition, and begin responding regularly to the voices of the sspommitapiiksi, ksaahkomitapiiksi, and soyiitapiiksi of kitawahsinnoon. My hope is that in blogging the present journal, Akayo’kaki A’pawaawahkaa, I can explore and perhaps realize this interest. And if nothing else, if the urge to renew strikes again, all I have to do is hit DELETE.

Akayo'kaki A'pawaawahkaa

13 March 2010

Swans And Nesting Owls

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