As we honor the Spirit of the Salmon
the First People give thanks to
the Creator for informing us that
“The Earth is our first teacher!”
May humans learn to study and listen
to our first teacher so we may all survive
and together honor Earth’s gifts.
-- Vi Hilbert (Skagit elder)
Timetable for Thursday, October 3
10:00 Meet in Parking Lot C near the COM building, nearest the campus
10:15 Vans depart
10:30 Arrive Kennedy Creek and head out across the trails
12:00 Return to parking lot area for brown bag lunch
12:45 Depart for McLane Creek
1:15 Arrive McLane Creek and head out across the trails
2:45 Return to parking lot area
3:00 Arrive back at Evergreen
Reading Assignment: Please read selections from Journal to the Self: chapters10 (94-101) and13 (138-147). REMINDER: Do the other reading for this week (A Language Older Than Words and the first part of Intimate Nature). For today, though, focus on the Stream of Consciousness and Captured Moments journal work.
Things to Bring: sturdy walking shoes, sunscreen/raincoat/hat/umbrella as necessary, brown bag lunch (with drinking water), writing and drawing materials, journal.
These two areas are fragile wilderness areas, and we ask you to follow the same basic rules of respectful conduct as on Tuesday. Because at least some of your time today will be spent in listening, we expect you to refrain from loud behavior.
Kennedy Creek Exercise:
This major spawning site for chum salmon is a place for you to engage in thinking and writing about fish. The Thurston County Storm and Surface Water Program provides the following online information about this area: “For centuries, Totten Inlet was home to bands of Salish Indians known as Sahehwamish. They called the inlet ‘T'Peeksin’ and often established villages where streams entered Puget Sound. When Native Americans in South Puget Sound signed the treaty with territorial Governor Stevens, the bands in the Totten Inlet region were gathered together and relocated on Squaxin Island. Thereafter, they were referred to as the Squaxin Island Tribe. Kennedy Creek, which flows to Totten Inlet, was named for Judge Franklin Kennedy. Coho, chinook, chum, steelhead, and cutthroat are found in Kennedy Creek.”
For centuries, salmon were born here and continue to return to spawn. Walk around the entire loop, observing the stopping points, the platforms, the shape of the trail, and the interpretive information. Notice the rising and falling elevation as well as the sights, sounds, and smells. Observe and write about the overall shape of the habitat, especially the position of the trees in relationship to the streambed, the depth and clarity of the water, and the character of the gravel beds. If the fish are present, observe and write about their movements, and how they interact. Reflect on the relationship between the salmon and their habitat, between the salmon and ourselves. What sustains them? What sustains us? Use the “Captured Moments” exercise to address these questions. Adams (pp.94-95) says that “A Captured Moments journal technique allows you to celebrate and savor, preserving in prose the glory and anguish, the serenity and sorrow, the pleasure and pain of your life. A Captured Moment is a frozen morsel of time. Exactly as a camera shutter captures a split second of infinity on film, so does a captured moment preserve an instant of feeling and sensation. Captured Moments are best written from the senses. This technique allows you to pull out all the stops with your creativity, describing in detail the sounds, sights, smells, and feelings of a moment in time and space.” Before you begin to write, think carefully about Vi Hilbert’s words at the top of the first page. Lastly, think about the fact that in ancient Celtic cultures, the salmon represents wisdom, tenacity, and cycles of birth and rebirth.
McLane Creek Exercise:
This is an exercise in listening to the internal and external sounds that surround and imbue us with life. The Thurston County Storm and Surface Water Program provides the following online information about this area: “McLane Creek Nature Trail is part of Capitol Forest, managed by Washington State Department of Natural Resources. Though logged in the early part of the 20th century, the area is now designated for recreational use, providing a popular walking path around a freshwater marsh and through 70-year-old forests. The creek was named after the William McLane family, who settled in the Delphi Valley in 1852. Coho, chum, steelhead, and cutthroat are found in McLane Creek.”
Go to a single place anywhere along the trail, and sit or stand quietly for about fifteen minutes with your eyes closed. You may be within sight of others, but keep your thoughts to yourself. This place does not have to be a particularly interesting place visually. As you remain with your eyes closed, allow the chatter in your brain to quiet down for a few minutes, and then focus on the sounds around you. Find out where the birds are, what insects you can hear, and what water sounds you pick up. Listen for the sounds of your own body: bones that crack, the sound of your breath, the beating of your heart. One of the first things you are likely to experience, after about a minute, is the reentry of voices and music into your head from your outside life. Continually redirect your thoughts and focus back to the sounds. It can be very challenging to focus only on sound!
Once you have spent those intimate minutes listening, take out your journal and start writing.
1. What are the exact sounds that you hear right now?
2. Where are you, physically, in relation to those sounds?
3. When you speak, what do you sound like? What is the difference between what your speaking voice sounds like in your head, and what it sounds like on tape? What does that tell you about your presentation of yourself? What are your sounds like in relation to the sounds around you?
4. Do some free writing that describes the sounds of these words, not in any particular order or rhyme or rhythm: earth, joy, sky, power, water, fire, grief, salmon, tree, mud, fern. Of course some of them are abstract! (Journal: Stream of Consciousness)
5. Develop a poem – for sharing – based on this moment. This poem is due, together with your first journal excerpt (see syllabus, page 3 under “Assignments and Writing,”) in the seminar on October 10th. (Journal: Captured Moments)