Night in this World, A Journey, Part 3
On Halloween near dusk, I lit a fire outside for the ancestors. This was a special fire made only of ash wood—windfall from the tree that towers at the back of property, the one we call Grandfather. Like forests everywhere in Atlantic Canada, these woods have been cut at various times during the course of settlement and ownership. A forester who visited led us through the patchwork regeneration occurring: to the northeast lies the most mature forest, a good 75 years old; elsewhere are woods varying in age and diversity according to the timeline of disturbance. Grandfather Ash is unique: a 150-year-old giant whose sprawling limbs tell a story about growing alone in a field. Likely this field was cattle pasture, and Grandfather a shade tree.
Grandfather’s the last tree to come into leaf each spring and the first to stand bare. He’s like the pappy who naps every afternoon and nods off in a chair after supper. It’s hard to believe now, but when we first came here in 2014, we didn’t notice Grandfather. He stood screened by saplings, brambles and junior trees that had encroached for years, some of them grown together with his lower limbs. After our co-owner friends discovered him, they cleared out a respectful semi-circle of space around the trunk, bringing this magnificent elder back into visual prominence here, and into our lives.
My visits to Grandfather follow a routine. Every elder tree casts an energy that’s palpably awe-inspiring, that inspires reverence and respect. Entering the space below Grandfather’s limbs, I sense I’m on sacred ground. Centered on his trunk at eye level is an ovular opening, which looks like a niche in a church wall where a small icon might be placed. The floor of this hollow holds powdery wood dust. For years I nestled a chunk of light green fluorite on a shell in this niche, but kept finding it tumbled to the ground. I finally got the message.
So I’m there. I say hi and take hold of the ‘elbow’ limb that feels exactly like a crooked, barky arm. Then I wait. Sometimes I feel what seems like a faint pulse from the arm. Other times, the play of light on the trunk suggests a face. Either way this feels like a tree-ish greeting, or at least an acknowledgement. I scatter walnuts if I’ve brought them, clean out the shell, then go.
I’d like to say that I visit Grandfather Ash – and his counterpart, Grandmother Apple – daily, but I don’t. Many days I just whiz about, under pressure of a to-do list that never seems done. Upon reflection I’m reminded of the years spent with my father when he lived in a nursing home. Visiting Dad was incredibly simple: usually I said hello, asked him how he was doing, listened to his answers, held his hand, and after a minute or two more, he’d tell me to leave. He wasn’t doing this for my benefit: he really didn’t want the company any longer. Whether I’d seen him yesterday or last month didn’t matter.
Previously Dad was a warm, loquacious person, a classic bon vivant who’d fill up a space eagerly with stories. His emotions were always quite clear; there was no mystery there. At 76, however, after undergoing major surgery, he entered a different landscape, a different state of being. He did not laugh or smile or want to speak much anymore, and there was no going back. Doctors named it one thing or the other, but labels explained nothing, and meds did little. It was a state of silence and suffering, and of glimmering strangeness. It felt like a dark curtain raised.
Facing that curtain filled me with agonized confusion, and I faced it for long years. Resistance, expectations, hopes, judgements, and agendas—all that stuff we bring to the sick and dying—that was what needed to die, I came to learn. All the daylight solutions. All the to-dos. He didn’t want them.
What did he want?
Come in slow, say hello. Hold hands, talk low. Listen. Leave. Repeat.
Once I accepted that I was on sacred ground, I just showed up and let him set the pace.
*
Along the eastern edge of our land runs the Shubenacadie River that moves with the Moon, rushing into the ocean and returning. Its ruddy course is shaped by shoulders of ancient rock. A path leads past Grandfather and along the ridge overlooking the river to a waterfall. Once when the stream that empties here ran dry I climbed down into the basin and stood looking up at the entire forest, perched on this thin layer of ground between rock and sky.
The truth is, we live in a very old world. We always have. We always will, even if we continue to live for millennia more. Everything here is an elder, an ancestor. In relation to plant, tree, animal, river and rock, we are the young ones.
We’ve entered the season of greys and silvers. Green has turned brown, and browns have either paled to near-white or darkened like wet earth. When I dig compost into the garden, store food from the market or start the car, I’m reminded how everything in our lives is given by what has died. The original forest of this land, with all its plant matter, wood and lives it supported, made this precious soil. That soil is the black curtain, and on the other side lies every single being that ever lived on this planet. All the ancestors are inches away from us all of the time, nourishing the living.
*
Last year after we moved here, I dreamed about swimming across the river. The silty water darkened my skin. When I looked back from the other side, I saw ceremonial fires lit all along the shoreline. An eagle flew down and with its talons ripped open my scalp, exposing the crown of my head. I understood with urgency that these fires need to be re-lit. They are necessary: necessary to the land, to the ancestors, to our collective future. Even if I don’t rationally comprehend how they matter. Even if I feel a bit awkward at times. So my Halloween fire wasn’t the first one lit for the land.
Earth’s been progressing for a many long ages, yet its growth is circular, a mutual give and take, not a graph line rising. Elders know this in their bodies because age insists that we come into alignment with Earth-time and prepare to nourish the future.
Unfortunately, this culture does not because this culture lives under a delusion. Modernity has pressured us to outsource the slower, reciprocal work of living: growing food and caring for the soil; making homes and belongings that last; teaching children; caring for the unwell. Even stories and music are outsourced, streamed for cheap. This time of year, when the days shorten and our bodies long to wind down, 24/7 culture keeps raging. My students get so wound up they become sick, are given drugs for anxiety, depression, stress. I hear teachers speak of deep, perpetual exhaustion. And the global machine of production-war-crisis-production plows ahead full throttle.
Maybe we humans have always carried around to-do lists in our heads. Probably. The lists just weren’t what they are today. That has to change. Age insists. The ancestors speak: Stop harming us and yourselves. Come into alignment. This time of year, as darkness comes early, it’s time to listen.
Many small branches came down from Grandfather Ash during the hurricane. Ash can be burned green, I recently learned. Though the bits and branches I gathered were slim, the fire they made burned low and slow as the light faded.
November 2022
This post is the third installment in a series about my experiences living with the land here in Nova Scotia. The series began August 1, 2022. New essays will appear approximately every six weeks for one year . Thank you for reading and subscribing.