One week ago, I was an invited guest to an open house at a place on the prairie which has captured my imagination. The place, a small area of prairie which was never wounded by the plough, has been remade by the owners in their own artistic and spiritual image.
The principal painter produces images of the land, of the hills, ravines and hidden bogs. Some of his paintings are so large that viewers feel drawn into them. His wife brings images of human beings to the land views her husband creates. Her pottery seems shaped by the spirits of human beings who were here long before Caucasian invaders laid claim to the land.
Vibrations from the past are everywhere. Stone laid in patterns long ago tell stories we cannot read. Along the crest of the hills are the sites of signal fires and vision quests. At the north end of the raised spine of land is a flowing spring where archaeologists have discovered evidences of human habitation dating back to a time long before the building of the first Egyptian pyramid. Only a little further away is the disappearing debris of a failed Jewish Colonization Association settlement.
When the woman turns from her shaping of clay, she paints images of old houses, empty of people but full of memories.
Across the river is a ghost town empty of the rails which spawned it and almost empty of houses.
I talk with the descendent of a Métis wagon train master whose name is familiar to me.
The justice he is fighting for continues to be elusive. I think of the people who made the patterns of stones and of how generations of their children were forced to endure the culture destroying torture of the residential schools. Somewhere on the beautifully landscaped grounds, a piper is playing. I think of my Celtic ancestors and of Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Normans ... and perhaps a Roman soldier.
A majority of the people who visit this place are females. This is entirely fitting. They are the ones who pass on the life spark, who nurture and protect the young. The people who were here before Europeans came understand about the life spark and that it is shared with every living creature.
I am aware that I share my flickering life spark with others less fortunate, with people who are victims of starvation, disease and violence. And of greed. I am aware that I share my life spark with the greedy few who claim the major portion of the world's wealth as their own. Here at this place, the life spark blooms into genius. Among the greedy oligarchs, the life spark flames into destruction.
I am a part of all that was, is and will be. So are we all.
