golden dragonfly with gossamer wings

If it weren't for its glowing golden body, I would've easily missed the dragonfly that came to light on the Diablo ninebark as I was tending to the flower garden. At first I wasn't even sure that it was a dragonfly as its wings were so translucent as to be next to invisible.

As it wrapped its arms around the flower cluster, I noticed small golden dots that helped trace the outline of its wings. I also noticed its enormous eyes shift to look up at me.

Its gossamer wings reflect and refract the sun, glint iridescence. No wonder the medicine of the dragonfly is the power of light.

The Place where Thunder Birds Nest, Part III

When my sisters and I trekked to the Place where Thunder Birds Rest, we sat down on the rocks and wrote out the sounds that were murmuring. Our first line had to be:

Music is everywhere.

It lives in the folds of our hearts and the sky above.

Its melody escapes from sparkling waters, chimes from puffs of white clouds.

Music orchestrates the land busy with noise. Small insects dance, the beating of their wings fill the air with a whir and whiz.

Music creeps from moss-covered stone steps, calls a cappella from clifftops.

Thunder Woman beats the sound of life with her drum, gathering the thunder birds to her breast.

From across Turtle Island, the sound of their wings thundering signals the calling,

the return to their nests.

Murmeli mielessä

That means "groundhog on one's mind" in Finnish. My sister, Della, is enchanted with groundhogs. My sisters and I have walked along the waterfront twice in the last week, and although I have pointed out all the usual spots where he comes out and cranes his neck over the rocks (or pops his head out of his burrow), the murmeli [groundhog; woodchuck; whistlepig] did not show.

He did not creep up on the rocks to sniff the morning air. My sister Della is eager to see a murmeli because her theater troupe back in Ballinaclash are performing a play they have written that has a groundhog/man as a character.

It is a fairytale-like play in which men have became banished from earth. However, one old powerful woman suspects that some men did not disappear but hid away in the form of groundhogs.

So, the male character in the play has to act and look like a groundhog.

In that case, much of his time would be spent standing on the side of the stage either looking around or standing still and chewing greens such as leaves and twigs.

The Place where Thunder Birds Nest, Part II

reaching for the sun

fingers of moss dripping

cornucopia of mosses and healing medicinal lichens

baby ferns squeezing out of Grandfather rock

emerald enchantment

reindeer lichen cap

a wee wood strawberry

bird snack

The Place where Thunder Birds Nest, Part 1

Sometimes your eyes can play tricks on you, you know.

This morning my sisters and I went to walk along a rocky road that runs along the foot of The Place Where the Thunder Birds Nest. This place is also called The Place Where the Thunder Beings Rest. This place is on Fort William First Nations reserve.

In Ojibwe, Thunder Birds are Animiki. They are magnificent thunderers who inspire people to see in new ways. Thunder birds are immense spirit beings whose wings flapping make the sound of thunder over the skies of Thunder Bay. Mary Lou at Mushkiki first told me the name of this sacred place where Thunder Birds gather from all over Turtle Island.

We packed coffee and the munkkis [donuts]our mother made. It said rain all day, but we went anyway. The path we walked was full of bird song. A whistling bird kept calling, but hid from our eyes. Small yellow birds darted across our eyes. Nuthatches, too, teased us. High above us, we saw what appeared to be faces in the stone.

The cliffs show nature to be a shapeshifter.

Atop the cliffs, hawks, eagles, ravens, and crows overlooked the bay, then shrieking, soared high among the stones. Because it is so quiet here their shrieks ring loud.

Lower down on the ground, my sisters and I saw an altar on the shore. This one is made of an old driftwood. It is a birds' altar, for they carry their prey to its table top.

We also saw that someone had placed some objects on a large smooth flat topped stone.

We saw a small tombstone-like rock standing among the scree.

The trail begins on the eastern side, along a bay on Lake Superior called Squaw Bay. My friend, Sharon, said it is actually called Squall Bay. The word 'squaw' has been grossly denigrated in English by the settlers and people today, too, but in its original meaning it is a powerful word. Marge Bruchac says the word "Squaw means the totality of being female." Marilyn Dumont writes that "Indian women know all too well the power of the word squaw" in her Squaw Poems.

My sisters and I walked along the rocky road to the far end of this cove, where we found a trail that we had never noticed before. It is difficult to find, but if you follow it down to the lake, it leads to

a hidden cove. An immense age-old lichen-covered stone rises out of the water like a wall. As you can see, a girl looks out from the end of this wall towards the far shore?

The Place Where Thunder Beings come to Rest and Nest from all over Turtle Island was re-named Mount McKay by the settler population, after some guy McKay. You can watch Winona LaDuke tell of the importance of language; she uses the example of "Mount McKay" to explain Indigenous philosophy and laws, and questions the penchant for "naming big mountains after small men."