(Joseph MacRae, October 31, 2020, eve of All Saints' Day, prompted by the Abbey of the Arts retreat Listening at the Threshhold: Voices of Saints and Ancestors)
I Could Write About
I could write about living and working in remote untouched places. Kinfolk who goldmined the outback in our west coastal mountains. One who lived with, learned medicine ways from, the Coeur d'Alenes. I could write about myself working in Alaska, on islands large and small, where the only way in is by boat or small plane. Where wilderness is pristine, God touchable, present in His works.
I have sat on the beach where the indigenous people once had their fish camp, where one can feel the power of the ancestors. I have sat in a small cove on an island near Haida Camp (an old Haida village) and listened to the
hum-m-m, the soothing voice, of Earth Mother. The voice coming from her heart.
I could write about a Legend in Stone, seen from my window while on a train skirting Oregon's Columbia Gorge. Last Ice Age, these basalt cliffs met glaciers turned flood, carving as no artist could. "Look", I said to the couple next to me, "those stones are the spirits of the ancestors, waiting for the river to be returned." They smiled.
Storytelling is something seeped into these ol' bones, from branches on the family tree where poetry was crafted, legends spun. I could write about grief for the downplay of storytelling today. Shorter attention spans prefer tweets and screens and "reality" TV. But I could write about the heart of the sacred, waiting in these stories we need to tell.
