The early fall rains are filling Cascadia's creeks and rivers in time to allow the biggest possible runs of the Sacred Salmon into her heart. The salmon bring life to every corner of the rainforest. The bears and eagles gorge on their brother salmon, they haul the carcasses up into the forest, they defacate further inland still. Biologists can trace the ocean's minerals brought into the forest by the salmon after they've been taken up by the forest's flora and incorporated into their tissue.
We live in an area long inhabited by the Coast Salish. In their millenia of co-operation with nature's bounty the Salish learned many lessons about harmony and abundance including the reality of their immersion in-not seperation from-the Great Spirit. Unfortunately the worldview of our conquering christian ancestors allowed no communing with creation, instead they murdered or enslaved those who opposed them. It was another example of the dark ages that surround us still.
Unless we, the rogue primate, realize quickly that every stakeholder in our bio-region, flora-fauna-fairy alike, owes its existance to the Sacred Salmon and the wheel of life they are immersed in our time will quickly pass. If so, gone too would be our capacity for wonder, compassion and beauty. Gone too would be the tyranny to which we subject nature with our industrial madness and thus, in time, allow the Great Spirit to replenish her strength and banish those dark ages for good.
