Page 147 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015
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Dark Matter: Women Witnessing - December, 2015 Issue #3 - EXTINCTION / DEVOTION
raspberry in summer, the coyote yips and laughs at night, and I walk along, trying to find my place in
this forest.
The intimacy the Ainu have with their landscapes is born of feeling the direction of the prevailing winds
on the skin, of knowing the subtle scent of a strong storm coming, of divining the first inklings of winter
in the August air. It is knowing well the scents, sights, sounds, and textures of a place; it is
understanding its intimations, feeling what the trees intuit.
Night descends and we leave the forest. Marcus will write a plan for us to review. As I move cautiously
into my new habitat, I feel the whole of the place listen for what I will ask of it. I sense the deep tug of
responsibility to hold up my end of the deal, to learn exactly what I have entered into with this land. I
hold a promissory note of paper birch, a deed proffered by white spruce and sugar maple. What
response do I offer to the blue jay's screech or the tiny saw whet owl's repeated calls for a mate? In
the darkness, I feel the weight of my choice.
Roots
I cannot imagine living without a garden. The return of my favorite strain of red Russian kale or
calendula or salmon runner bean provides a consistency to the chaos of summer. In the garden, all
about me grows excessively – daylight, heat, grass, thunderstorms, the buzz of insects, the fulsome
songs of birds. Spinach bolts, thistle and witch grass thicken between emerging heads of ruby red
lettuce, and arugula reaches its prime one day, then shoots sprays of white flowers skyward the next.
Building gardens makes us feel established here; we push out gently against the forest. Transplanting
bee balm, anise hyssop, Siberian iris, rhubarb, and false indigo, given to us by friends, feels like
sealing our commitment with every place we've ever traveled, with every place we've called our home.
Plants root easily, but how do I root myself? I think of the Ainu and try to speak my way into rooting in
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