Akayo'kaki A'pawaawahkaa: Six-Legged Thaw

02 February 2011

Six-Legged Thaw

IIII ) lllllllllllllllllllllll Six-Legged Thaw (28Jan11)

1248 Sspopiikimi - out here by my lonesome this afternoon, to see how things are faring after the full week we've had of warm chinook weather. Walking in, north-pond is still ice-covered, but as per snow only the drifts remain

1307 With the ground mostly thawed, I know that it will be a progressively exciting insect season from here on out. I don't even get far past the bat tree before I find a couple small pieces of wood worth turning over. Neither piece is more than a foot long, but both are home to little families. The first wood I turn has a wolf spider egg sack attached to the bottom. It's a very distinct salmon-orange egg sack, protected in a sheath of white silk, two disks glued together at their edges. The second wood I turn, which is sunk a bit deeper in the earth, is home to several minute ground beetles and about half a dozen baby snails

1332 My next stop is at the beaver-felled poplars on the extreme end of north-pond. This is always a productive insect site, though never quite as populated as the old boards found here and there on the wet meadows. I set to work turning large branches and pieces of the trunks. Again there are wolf spider eggs, and also a still-cold ground centipede. I encounter a couple small, live spiders - one of then a crab of some sort, the other a shiny little brown-black creature. From the sawdust piles I find, there are either poplar borers or wood ants dug in here. I also see lots of evidence of the voles nesting under these logs, but no food caches or live rodents. I am surprised to find none of the fuzzy caterpillars hibernating here that were so numerous at this very location last winter

1357 I finally climb the levee and drop into the north-wood in hopes of finding fresh tracks in the muddy soul there. But the ground seems to be absorbing the melt very well, and it's really not damp enough to retain any small mammal impressions. So I cross around by the river and return to the levee-walk. Here, at the extreme end of the forest main, there was a group of eight magpies scouring the shale trail for something. They fly into the forest canopy at my approach, and though I search a patch of the trail myself, I see nothing of interest. I'm presently seated under a tree off the side of the trail, waiting to see if they'll return to the ground and, hopefully, what it is they're eating

1421 The magpies, of course, never return. I take another shot at figuring out for myself what's so interesting. The only edibles I find are the odd bulberry and some fairly decomposed coyote or raccoon dung. Perhaps the magpies were not searching the trail for any one thing in particular, but it seems odd to the that so many should gather together there if there is no abundant food

1450 I hike through the forest main and out to the wet meadows, where the big bulrush patch is. Joey Blood reported seeing magpies carrying sticks by his house the other day, and I'm curious to see if any out here are building or repairing their nests already. I sit on a log at the edge of the forest and watch for about twenty minutes, but no luck. Then I head down to the ksisskstakioyis to see if, by chance, they'd broken through the thinning ice yet. There is a spot between their house and their food cache that looks like it might have been opened, but is now iced over, though this could have been from much earlier in the season. If we continue to get these warm periods, I'm sure it won't be long before they have fresh air again. Moving from there to the subpond, I turned over some more boards. Under one of them I found a very cozy mouse nest, but no food cache. Under a couple of the others, there were clusters of still-cold sidewalk carabid beetles and a few active meadow slugs

1520 The next place I head is to the spring at south-pond. There are two mallards here, but they retreat as soon as I come within view. The kingfisher is also here, and she trills as I pass. The dead pike are still floating in the open pool of the spring, I'm surprised that not even the coyotes have waded in to pull them out. The one fish that I'd dragged to shore last week is completely eaten. All that remain are the dangerous jaw bones, set with many rows of shark-like teeth. I lift one more small board before climbing back up on the levee to walk back to the car. Underneath, I find a single beetle larva of unknown species. Somewhere out on the river, I hear the whistle-wing of a goldeneye in flight

2340 All attempts to control the flow that sustains life will meet resistance, and result in damage, injury, and eventual death. But if you engage with the flow so intimately that your needs and it's nature feed one another, to the benefit of the whole ecosystem, then you have become flow, in the manner of a beaver

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

02 February 2011

Six-Legged Thaw

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