the tree of life on my morning path

The other day I went for a morning walk upstream McVicar's Creek. I went with my friend Lilian Mattar Patey. I first bicycled to Shuniah Knox United Church, where Lilian is interim minister, to meet her. We then walked north through the neighbourhood, behind Balsam Pit and along Margaret Street to reach the trail by the creek. Along the path, we saw a bunch of marsh marigolds ringing a swamp. Swamps always catch my eye as 'swamp' or 'bog,' which translate to 'suo' in Finnish, is in the very name of Finland in the Finnish language: Suomi. A few steps later on our path, we saw this amazing tree in someone's backyard. It was shining in the morning light; there was no missing it. The tree reminded me of the comforting and desirous beauty of the Tree of Life. It's sheltering arms, perfect symmetry, expansive canopy, circular space, and dusting of white flower petals caught our eye.  

Continuing on our way, we saw this pile of huge stones. I told Lilian that in Suomenusko, the old Finnish beliefs before Christianity came to Finland, stones as well as trees were seen to have spirits. People conversed with stones and trees for healing and for wisdom, going out into the forest for the medicine of trees and stones. Of course, stones and trees have been symbolically important to many peoples and cultures. I told Lilian, well, I don't need to tell a Palestinian like you of the importance of stones. Today stones are the remnants of the Palestinian houses that Israel has destroyed and demolished. Palestinian youth take up stones as resistance against occupation. Indeed,  a new documentary called The Stones Cry Out uses the metaphor, reality, and spiritual strength of stones to tell the story of the ongoing Nakba of Palestine, focusing on its Christian population and heritage.

Lilian's family story is part of the larger dispossession of Christians from Palestine. In the short 6 m. video above you can hear Lilian tell some of the story of her family's displacement from Palestine. She was born in Haifa, but because of the Zionist militia takeover in 1948 her family was forced to flee and found refuge in Al Quds / Jerusalem; however, they eventually met more tragedy. By telling her family's story, Rev. Mattar Patey hopes that people will broaden their understanding of the Palestinian heritage of what is now called  Israel. In 1948, Jerusalem was designated an international administration zone yet, as Lilian's story is an example, since 1967 Israel has taken large parts of it by force and today by demolition and the continuing displacement of Palestinians from East Jerusalem. Since burying her father, Lilian has not been back to her home.

Travels on a Finno-Ugric drum journey

The scent of burning sage signals the opening of ritual space.

Small bells circle, gently breaking up energy.  As the drum stick swishes across the reindeer skin stretched over the frame, sussuring sounds spiral outward.  

Soon, the drum begins its song, and she is sent on her journey into a tunnel of darkness.

As the beat of the drum vibrates through her, different animals' faces appear one by one before her closed eyes. Squirrel. Blue Jay. Crow. Rabbit. Deer. Dog. Moose. Raccoon. Mole. Bee. Wasp. Butterfly. Mouse...no, it was too big. Was it Rat? No, it was Mouse. Mouse! she wondered incredulously, was Mouse to be her Spirit Animal?

No. Suddenly Ilves appeared.

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His large yellow eyes loomed before her, staring into her soul.

Suddenly, she was on the back of Ilves, the  large huntress. The cat ran through the back woods. It was night, winter, snow covered the ground. Ilves ran powerfully through the dark woods, snaking through the trees, comfortable in its territory. Running, running. The dark night sky, a canopy of indigo overhead, was filled with glittering stars that glinted back from the snow fields. Running, running. Flying past snow covered trees. Flying over snow encrusted ground.

Suddenly, she was sucked into a small hole in the earth, pulled down a vortex, her arms and hands last, waving. The lovi had opened up, sending her deeper on her journey.

She found herself under the earth, swimming amongst the tangled roots of trees, of the birches, poplars, balsams and black spruce above. She pushed the roots aside, swimming through their tentacles. She was unimpeded. Her arms were strong, her hair long, weaving smoothly through the tendrils of roots. She swam and swam. 

She entered deep indigo blue water, dark blue like the sky above. She was swimming deep along the bottom of Lake Superior. The place where silence was born.

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A large sturgeon floated by.

A white door opened to the right, a ghostly portal beckoning her. Light emanates from it, pulsing soft rays of haunting enticement. She swam through the watery portal, passing through it.

She found herself on a cliff. But now she is Ilves. Her hands are large powerful paws and she is running in the forest, along the edge of a high cliff. She runs and runs. Her energy is boundless.

There is a large valley below. She stops to bask in the sunlight, curls up on the edge of the cliff. It is a sunny day, spring.  All seems calm and fresh. Then, she is told to fly off the cliff.

She jumps. She sails, soars through the sky. She lands on all fours on the earth in the forest. She is on a canyon floor. She starts to dig and dig. The earth is black, soft and rich with decay. The scent of decomposing earth fills the air.

She finds a bone, one bone. It is not big. She digs and digs. She finds some pages. They are loose; they flutter in the wind. Then, her digging done, she leaps and flies straight up into the sky.

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It is is night again, indigo blue, the sky covered in stars. She is a woman again. She is floating on her back, streaming through the night sky as if floating downstream in a river. She floats and floats, restful like a baby calmed by a warm bath until she lands by a big rock at the shore of a lake.

She climbs up on the rock and sits and looks across the water. It is Midsummer Day. The waves lap softly. The sun is warm. The air is calm.

She stands up. She is naked.

protective eye

A few years ago, on a road trip up into the mountains of north Lebanon, we traveled along the holy Qadisha Valley, up Mount el-Makmel, passed the village of Bcharre, and stopped at the Horst Arz (The Forest of the Cedars of God) where the artisans sell their souvenirs.

The cedar trees and grove at Horst Arz is a remnant of a once magnificent and huge sacred forest of cedars. The cedars that are left are survivors of thousands of years of travelers and takers. From building ships, temples, and palaces, to using its resin for Egyptian mummification and its wood for sacred fires, the cedars of the holy Qadisha Valley have been prized. 

This particular tree, to me, is symbolic of the destruction of this once magnificent and holy forest. It has been mutilated. The small remnant forest on the side of Mount Makmel is a protected area. There is a path through the cedars that you pay to enter. Last year when I visited Lebanon, we went on different road trips. The cedars I saw at Tannourine, to me, were much more impressive. Traveling to Lebanon right now, however, is not practical. 

A Tree called Sacred

Over the next few posts, I will serialize one of my tree poems. This tree poem is a puzzle, too, like my poem An Ancient Riddle Found Standing in the Backyard.

I live on the sides of mountains
in filtered sun, sheltering under the shade
of trees alive with the sound of songbirds
that visit me from the North.


Avocados, banana, jackbean, red-seeded sword bean,
earth nut and monkey nut live alongside me.

I never stray from the Equator.

I call Mexico, Columbia, Brazil, Guatemala,
and Ecuador my home, and lately, Vietnam 
but my roots are Ethiopian and Yemeni.

Arab traders carried me to their homelands
With me, created rituals for well-being,
prosperity and the nourishment of friendship.

Imams tended me carefully in their gardens,
guarding me like a secret.
In return, I danced through their veins,
keeping them awake for night prayers.

In Mecca, the Sultan declared me sacred,
but in Turkey, I was grounds for divorce
if a husband failed to offer me daily
to his wife.

how to take down a tree

There was an old Manitoba Maple tree, 60-70 years old, in the center of my yard. A few years ago, I noticed that a large branch on the north side of the tree had started to die as it no longer was producing many leaves. So, two summers ago, after a strong thunderstorm with raging winds, I told my son, climb up into that tree and remove that branch before it falls on someone. Eventually, he got around to it. So we started taking down that old tree. After we removed that one dying branch, the entire tree looked lopsided, so we decided to take down the whole tree. But we discovered we don't have a chainsaw big enough for the trunk, so we were only able to cut it down to its central trunk.

So there it was, this big old trunk sitting smack dab in the center of our yard, branchless, leafless, all winter long, all summer long, for two seasonal cycles. I told my neighbor when she gave me the name of a tree removal company that, yes, we had to get at the tree trunk and take it down. Other friends told me they also had trees taken down and the cost was between 500- 1300 dollars, depending on the size of the tree. I looked at the tree and figured it would be about $750 if I got a company to come in to take it down.
So I got an old Finn guy to take it down. Last week I asked one of my older Finnish friends when she came by if her husband might do it for us. He is a bushworker by trade and knows how to take down trees. While retired from full time work, he stills keeps busy logging trees, especially for firewood. Nellu looked out the window at the trunk of the maple standing in the yard and asked, "That small trunk?" Jo, she said, mȁ kysyn Torstilta. So yesterday Nellu phoned me and said Torsti will come in the morning to take it down.
And that he did. I put my marking aside and went out to see how I could help. Torsti, however, is cut from the mold of the older generation Finnish Canadian men, like my dad was. They don't mind having company, but they don't need you to get in the way of getting the work done. Torsti is in his early 80s and like my father's generation of Finnish Canadian men, no work is too much for him, no job is too formidable, no job can't be done. Never mind if you've had some surgeries, may be missing a finger or a toe, have diabetes, survived cancer, or your back may not be as nimble as it was when you were younger. Never mind about that. You just tackle the job and don't complain. You don't need a crew of people to help you before you consider the work, although you know there'll be someone around to help you. Finnish Canadian men of the older generation just show up and do the job. They just tackle the job and get it done.
I have to say, watching Torsti work this brilliant autumn day, that I am going to really miss his generation of Finnish Canadian men when they all die. I really don't know anyone else like them; older Finnish Canadian men are irreplaceable. They are different company.

I knew the sundogs foretold of beauty

some stumps I saw

Last Sunday my husband and I went for a hike in the woods.

The trail we took starts at Balsam St. just north of the Expressway.

It is an old logging road.

It goes all the way to Trowbridge Falls.

my mother's angels began the week

mun Äidin enkelit. my mother's angels

mun Äidin enkeli. my mother's angel


a tonttu from a vanha Joulu liina. An elf on an old Christmas linen from Finland. My mother decorates her home each Christmas with her Christmas linens and angels.


Part of the food spread at my mom's 75 birthday drop in party, which included suolakala voileipä or salted salmon sandwiches, karjalanpiirakka, piiparit, almond cake, cheesecake, fruit cake, quinoa salad, and many other delicious edibles. Lots of coffee was served. There were many guests.


After many days of delicious edibles, morning walks are a must. I left for my morning walk today rather late, 10 am. Anna and Eero, visiting from Finland, came over last night for supper with their new son, Aleksi. Again, more delicious edibles. This morning I decided to sleep in. A gal is entitled to that every now and then. When I left for my walk it was -21c.

A dusting of snow fell last night. It is not a cliche to say the day was magical.


The air was crisp and clear, the sun was brilliant, the snow was glistening, and the sky was crackling blue. I saw starlings eating mountain ash berries, pine siskins eating birch catkins, and redpolls burrowing in the snow.


I took the shortcut on the path through the woods which used to be an old toboggan run.


The scrub bush up close; it's a tangle.


The path along the creek was plowed nicely, but even so, after 5 k of trudging through the snow, one feels a bit breathless. My cheeks were frozen by the time I got back home.
The winter lights at my home.

The Bluffs, part 3

After walking along the south ridge of the Bluffs, you end up looking north, over the Hydro corridor. Because it is a clearing for hydro lines, all the trees have been clearcut. So the north side of the Bluffs looks unlike the south side, which I showed you earlier.

A trail follows along the Hydro corridor to Centennial Park. You can see a family with a baby stroller walking on the path. There are a few paths that lead down from the Bluffs; one path descends on a slow arching curve down the back of the Bluffs, but another goes almost straight down causing you to grab onto slim poplars so you don't slide down. The paths all lead to this trail going to Centennial Park. From there, you can get on the trails that will take you to the Cascades, which I have already told you about.

However, my husband and I had gone for a quick hike before Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's, so we didn't have time to hike to Centennial Park or beyond, instead

we took one of the paths

leading to

the bottom of The Bluffs

These cliffs are used for rock climbing and ice-climbing in the winter.

My husband scampered up the rock face somehow, don't ask me how. I told him, "I'll meet you up at the top"....

The Bluffs, part 1

fall birches and poplars as seen from the top of

The Bluffs, a cliff ridge that looms over the Current River, a waterway

that weaves under the Black Bay Bridge and becomes Boulevard Lake.

It's a bit precarious walking along the ridge

It's not only the panoramic view that arrests you, as

anyway you look at it

the scent of sweet decay permeates the air

trail to The Bluffs