Mar
7
A Braided Spiral of Time and Living Beings
Posted by: lmairs | March 7, 2010 | 2 Comments
I’ve been searching for an appropriate welcome to Woodhaven, and it seems an image and a thought might cover it.
Welcome to Woodhaven
This is just about the first thing you’ll see when you come through the gates. The Woodhaven sign got a fresh coat of paint last year but beyond that it’s been here for as long as I have and by the wear on the wood grain before it was painted, I’d have to guess that it’s seen a few winters. It hangs on a fallers stump complete with wildlife habitat and is surrounded by snowberries and Oregon Grape ubiquitous to the land here along with a gadzillion other species of flora and fauna, mammals and reptiles, and insects and birds.
This is the sign post that leads you onto 22 of the loveliest acres I’ve ever had the pleasure of living on. You see, Woodhaven is land that sets itself apart by its mere presence, it need do nothing.
In Okanagan, the word for land is tmxwulaxw. This word is an amalgam of “time/living beings/here (this exact place)/ and a word for braided/spiralling or one thing that can be seen as many things, like a braid.” Nancy Holmes, who brought this word to me from her indigenous studies class, pulls it together like this, “this very place in its braided spiral of time and living beings.” This describes the land of Woodhaven.
And here is the thought I would offer as a welcome.
That when you come, that you are here, in this place, and no other. That you come and taste the air fresh and new, smell the dirt and the flowers in spring and whiff the mustiness of fall while singing into the dry hillside just to hear it to echo back. Come to be silent and contemplative or cry out loud into the forest. Whatever you come for and however you get here, when you are here, be here and no where else.
Woodhaven opens to the public April 1
Comments
2 Comments so far
Lovely words for a lovely place. Is there a fee to visit Woodhaven?
Thank you it is lovely. There is no fee Woodhaven is free 🙂