The Homeland
24 May 1996
It's been a long, cold winter and a long, cold, rainy
spring. Now, near the end of May, the warm sunny weather has finally
arrived for the first time this year. There's much catching up to
do: in the garden, the orchard, and the heart.
Not that things have been going poorly, or that I can
blame anything on weather...but today, I felt such a difference. A
lot of things in my life came together suddenly yesterday and today,
small breakthroughs and final accomplishment of a number of errands
and postponed meetings. The details are unimportant. What was more
striking to me as I walked in the sun-dappled forest this morning,
is a sense of homecoming.
I was raised in such a forest. Oh, not me, personally;
and not exactly that type of forest. But our species, over the long
term of millions of years of evolution, developed in such an environment.
Warm, shady, filled with other living things: a sense of presence:
them in me and me in them. Part of a living fabric. The whole brain
and body awake, aware, alert to the presence of all life that is,
in that scene we now call an ecosystem.
All seems possible now, in such an environment. To "make
a living," when it's warm and dry and comfortable to be out in
it, seems possible now in terms harmonious with those other living
things. This is a northern mixed forest, predominantly fir and pine,
cedar and hemlock, vine maple and birch. There are, on this outing,
no deer to be seen. Maybe, finally, they have taken their cue to move
into the higher country. Small animals are few: the odd squirrel;
the sound of birds. Inevitably some ants; no mosquitoes, yet. The
plant cover on the forest floor is behind schedule, the bracken and
thimbleberries not really opened up yet to spread thickly everywhere
as they will after a spell of hot weather. There is not, in other
words, a lot to eat in this forest. But still, I can feel good about
spending the time here to find food, to prepare shelter, if needed.
I'm not going to freeze to death at night, quite. With a little more
practice in snares and tracking, cordage and firekeeping, it could
be done and to be out there doing it would not be a great hardship.
I don't stay, of course, to do all that, but instead
lope down the trail to home and computer to write about it instead.
Another intellectual copout, in a human world doing that for
its living. Besides, to really do the job right takes full time, and
cooperation with others at the same task, over the course of the good
growing weather. The Gitksan, further north in B.C., worked like mad
in the summers to put away forest foods. It worked: they actually
did it. It can still be done, and some hardy few are doing it. The
Inuit manage with no real summer at all.
So what's my point?
Just to pay homage to that thrill in the heart that
comes from finding home again. Even if just for three months, or one
day, or during one morning walk down a forest trail. To celebrate
the warmth of recognizing one's ancestral house, so to speak, and
family; to welcome again the joy of stretching one's limbs and lungs
out in that comfortable element.
"I've gotta be going now," I say and return
to the place of my migration.
"Come again soon," I hear, and it echoes with
me still.
© Nowick Gray
