National

Em and I recently went up to the Northern Bruce Peninsula to celebrate our two year wedding anniversary. We secluded ourselves in a cottage for a week with supplies and trepidation in between Tobermory and Lion's Head Ontario.

If you would pardon the hyperbole (for none is intended), the time we spent there was transcendent, something very moving and altering. Sparked by the quiet of what surrounded us, we were able to hear ourselves and to feel our own rhythms move in time through the great open spaces we met at each corner. Having just the two us together in one place reinforced the beauty of our decision to be with each other for a time as long as always.



Perhaps the most powerful of the whole trip was when we visited to of our National parks in the Region - Bruce National Park and Fathoms Five National Park. In each of those places we dug our spirits into the terrain and sucked into our lungs the air, so little corrupted by commotive human sprawl. We walked among 1000 year old cedars, teetered and stumbled across kilometres of rock. We sat on cliffs of escarpment, lined with paintbursh autumn colours to see coastlines of water slapshing, pushing waving and slapping away at rocks as it has done for thousands of years. These movements of water have created caves, nooks, juts and jags across vast stretches of land, a constant washing and taking of sediment back and forth.



We ate lunch one whipping windy day on a bedline of rocks, hearing nothing but water crashing in a dance with the whistling wind while the pnly other sounds we heard were two bald headed eagles flying overhead.

We once again walked new sections of the Bruce Trail, that has a startpoint/endpoint in Tobermory and lends itself to a distance greater than 800 KM finishing just near Niagara Falls. The Bruce Trail is an absolute wonder of not only this province, but this country, an unspoiled man made volunteer sustained trail, sustaining the idea that in concert human beings are the most important and worthy caretakers of this planet. The Bruce Trail is a direct proof that if people care deeply about their surroundings they will do small, little things that when looked upon in sum total are unparalled in their unselfish motive.

Walking through the Bruce trail and through the National Parks, I came to realize how important the National Park program is to me even though these were the first two National Parks I had been to. As Canadians we are charged with the upkeep and sustenance of a wide swath of varied land and climate. This should never be seen as a burden, rather it is a task we should all be proud to bear. To protect such natural beauty as best we can is an honour. The most awe striking places on this planet exist within this country, they are ours to hold and grow. Inside these places is the soft chatter of evolution, each of us trying to find our place in this world. From the mud grows the lungs of the world, hundreds and thousands of years old, like us stretching timelessly upwards, dependent on its surroundings and those who might chance to pass by for kindness and acknowledgment. It is a warming thing and sometimes an infuriating thing when we realize how much damage we do daily to our planet and our country, how we still do not stand up for our right and our responsibilities towards this land that has so far kept us in good faith and good stead.

It is my sincere hope that we never settle, that we fight, we sweat and set forth with clenched muscles and teeth to a future where the we sustain the Earth as much as it sustains us, that we breathe in harmony with our places anywhere and everywhere on this planet. I hope that one day we dig as deep as we wish our roots to be spread, to insist that our environment be a prominent part of our social contract and continuing National conversation.

If you have ever felt what I felt those days, if you had ever seen what i had seen those days, then you would not think me mad, you would think the world itself mad for its suicide.


peacelovefreedomjustice
-s