DAY NINETEEN ALKALINE YEAR
Weekend Feast
October 16, 2009 With the winter solstice still more than a month away, stormy weather seems to generate participatory activities on our island; in summer everybody is busy with tourist-related businesses or house guests or both. Now is the time we enjoy each other. For instance, tonight is a performance “workshop” of Dickens’ Great Expectations, to which Jack and I are going with neighbors to see a cast of local actors directed by a noted Seattle woman. Tomorrow (Saturday), begins for me with centering prayer at my church, then a walk through Farmers Market to buy fall vegetables, a three o’clock drop-in to a going-away party for two artists, Susan Osborn and David Densmore, who will be traveling for the next year, and then a talk by Peter Fisher about the current status of Madrona Point.
The latter is a forested point of land that divides Eastsound into Ship’s Bay on the east and Fishing Bay on the west. It is the only property in the continental United States that was purchased by a native American tribe for spiritual purposes, with the blessing of the National Council of Churches and, eventually, the Feds, whose annual appropriation to the Lummi tribe paid for it. The land, designated by county ordinance as “forever wild,” went to the Lummi around 1990 as a site to honor their ancestors, with the condition that no buildings would be erected on it except for a small cultural information center, and that no wheeled vehicles would be allowed on it. Unfortunately, some of us “European types” used it without carrying out their beer bottles and candy wrappers, and the Lummi closed it a year or so ago to the rest of us. I’m looking forward to hearing if there is any solution that will allow us to help the tribe police the trash and to let everyone enjoy walking on Madrona Point, gather red berries in the fall from the red-barked trees for which the Point is named, in order to propagate trees all over the island (you crush the berries and mix bat guano with them, then bury them in a secluded place) and to pick blackberries in late summer. Since the Lummi live mostly on the mainland, a lot of their succulent fruit goes to waste here.
But back to the feast of activities and events: Sunday is a lecture on “Memory and Emotion,” by a University of Washington professor. The subject intrigues me because in using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), I’m coming to understand that emotion serves to keep memories in place, and that tapping on the main acupressure points helps to remove the emotions that keep me lodged in the negative parts of my past. Nothing wrong with visits to the past; I just don’t want to live there!
After that, on Sunday, comes the real FEAST, a benefit in the Odd Fellows Hall for a local program that gives teen-agers hands-on experiences in sustainable farming and building. I’m interested in it because I want to understand the economics of getting more farm food into the Food Bank—and others around the country--on a year-around basis. We had a splendid turn-out this summer of gardeners from all over the island donating their surplus fruits and vegetables, as well as an organic farmer, paid by a donation, who brought beautiful bounty from his crops. In January, will the Food Bank be back to canned goods?
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