The chipper Holly blind as sunglass leads a chorus of subterfuge
Sylvia Plath saw through it darkly and expired, a choice she couldn’t unchoose
She stayed on her suspension bridge where dead sunburned boards kept separating
Smelling the decay from the black below, she kept singing in her minor key,
until the last remaining rung cracked like a rifle shot spilling words beyond memory’s reach

Say, as well, that you’re of the mind to enter something like a smoke-laden gambling quonset–and walk through fields of flashing and bleeping electronic slot machines, without pause…except for perhaps an AK Amber. If so, the rest is rudimentary.

Upon checking into the Gold Eagle, ask for the complimentary "Play and stay" coupon–referencing the casino. When properly redeemed, it’s worth 10 bucks. But before rushing off and staking your claim, perhaps you’ll want to settle in–however that works for you. Then, for example, after watching the first part of Woody Allen’s Manhattan, just before it gets into the freaky foreshadowing of Allen’s own life, head to the casino.

From the lodge, it’s a short walk across a Saskatchewan parking lot. Which means it’s wider and broader than most lots on earth. So yes, it’s a longish walk–especially I suppose, if your flesh is flaccid from Naugahyde chairs and your chest sunken from deflecting strobe rays.

Watch for the front doors…not hard to find. Enter. Show your coupon. A lady in a blue Player Card tee-shirt will exchange this for a voucher which you will take to the cashier. But not before she asks you to sign up for, yup, the "Players Card."

Fill out the form, watching what you check off. There are options for receiving Casino "specials," in the mail etc. Note: curiously you can use a "preferred name," affording you some anonymity. (Having seldom come up with something clever on the spur of the moment I didn’t disappoint myself and used my own name.)

The payoff? Signing up gets you another 10 bucks plus a 5 dollar coupon for a meal in the adjoining Kiwiw restaurant. So altogether you’ve got 25 big ones just for checking into the Lodge…something you had to do anyway–right? Plus the hotel is clean, spacious, and relatively cheap.

So if you’re hungry, your "winnings" get you an 8 out of 10 meal with enough leftover coin to drop into the concession machine down the hall. (It’s been so long since I had Hickory Sticks.) Otherwise, if you don’t need the grits, you just got 20 bucks without breaking a sweat, unless you have a cigarette-smoke allergy. And it’s all legal. But remember, it’s bad form to take your loot and spend it at Tim Hortons.

Now, for the global citizen, the odds of cruising the flatter reaches of the mighty Yellowhead are daunting, but should you be this fortunate, the Gold Eagle is something to watch for.

I had met him earlier. He had called me over to see a piece of art. We squatted beside the sidewalk. Devon, who had been carrying it, unfolded and lifted off the red-plaid blanket. A three-foot frame surrounded a smallish portrait, painted on foil–of what was a shining totem…a communion of nature…a heritage.

This time when I met him he had a half dozen or so of larger, unframed works, in a plastic Save-On bag. We sat on the ground and he told me the story of each painting.

Daniel uses a collection of fine-tipped pens to fill heavy, semi-gloss paper with micro-dots. That’s his method. His art, like most aboriginal art, is rich in symbolism. He explains patiently, pointing to the circle of grizzly cubs in one, to a wolf swirling out of itself in another, and to the profile of a chief in yet another. 

One captures me more than the others. An extravagant eagle towers, a rose is superimposed…there’s a cleansing sweat lodge beneath, beside which rises the pipe’s nourishing smoke of peace. Everything is in motion and enjoined, loose and lively. To the left, a spiraled circle of beads proves the interconnection of all people groups. Daniel tells me the painting is called "The beginning of Love." 

He speaks to me as a friend. I’ve known him for 15 minutes. His hair, pulled into a ponytail, heavy eyes set in full, worn, features, a quiet voice… I feel the elder in him as he speaks. He is younger than me.

There’s a transaction to be held. We barter and trade. He’s given me a lens and patient counsel in the ways of his culture–some First Nations pre-school. And picture to remember–Love’s beginning. I’ve given him some time and money.

Daniel is from the Shell Lake reserve in Saskatchewan which would make him, if my research is right, part of the Ahtahkakoop First Nations. But he roams western Canada. He paints what he sees, putting it together with what he remembers.

Here: The Edmonton Journal Religion - Offerings

Or here: click article

A native man in a nylon red jacket has bought a small coffee–and bought himself some time. Enough time to place chin on chest and sink, as far as possible, into his wooden chair. One arm has fallen and hangs limp by his side. Soon, the Railtown bench where he sleeps will be warmed by the sun and he’ll return.

I recall that I haven’t seen Brian for months. He had plans. So I’m hopeful.

Later…two young women, annoying even to themselves one would think, have mastered scattershot-blather. With one dramatic "oh-my-god!" head shake and convulsion after another… Like, oh m’god, I’m gauging my annoyance levels. They’re in the orange.

Now a tall slender woman has come in. Black hair pulled tight and fastened behind her head with a broad orange hair-clip, red-orange lipstick, tight white blouse, tight orange crop pants and orange leopard-print stilettos upon which she balances and awaits her coffee. The two young women are: LIKE-OH-M’GOD!

A swad of joggers run east into a low sun awaiting their endorphin-high.

It’s a Tuesday that has its teeth on edge. Like Monday ate sour grapes. The sun’s six o’clock slant had no salubrious effect on my walk to Starbucks–what with a norwester clipping along ricocheting off buildings and pavement and sticking me with grit. The wind in its old battle with the sun. You would think it would give up already.

So I’ll wait. Not like I have a choice. But one morning it’ll be back again–the sun–reaching in and flowing down the spine, flooding cells, fibres, corpuscles, with warm light-waves, skin doing a slow ripple-tingle…that’s the sun I like. Me, a Lite-brite–the sun a big warm bulb. It’ll come.

It’s looking forward to things that keeps us going. I don’t like the idea, but it’s the way it is. I don’t like it because I live with the romance of learning to be so in tune with the moment that future plans have no bearing on my emotional state. I imagine my "second naiveté" to be just over there, only a season of meditated Psalms away. And when I get to that enlightened place, worry will melt and I’ll meet every blustery day with a knowing smile the size of St. Theresa’s serenity.

Thing is, there are methods and meditative movements that sweeten the prospect of being liberated from life-unhinged-from-place. And I’m an advocate of anything that moors us to our bodies–pasting us to the present–living our lives. But that’s a discipline that takes discipline. Like any.

Perhaps however, no matter how nirvana-nated, no matter how well the ectoplasm emanates, docking us to now, we still need some reflection of future to keep us kicking and alive. After all what is native possibility? Is it not a posture of leaning hopefully into the foreground of time? And this leaning doesn’t necessarily have to tip into anxiety. Does it? And anyway, is not this view-to-the-new perfectly human? And that precious unencumbered moment I long for, is it not hyper-linked to both polls of time? Can I really experience placement, the place-of-place, outside of a place beyond? No, I’m thinking we are all tuned telologically. All our time-capsules are tensed by contingency.

So edgy-Tuesday, you’ve got me shakin’ like a leaf, but I’ve got a date with Hawaii in October, so still yourself.

You can’t transcribe a flower. Instead, a flower inscribes itself within until you feel its cool corona against your arm, smell its perfume, and sense its joy. A flower–bud, bowl and blossom–is its own reason… These were things that registered as I stood viewing Joseph McLaughlin’s oil paintings.

A dozen years ago Joseph’s house burned down. In his new place, surrounded by bone-white walls, he sat with the question about how–on paper-thin resources–to bring the comfort of colour and light, and the feel of home to a house. His answer was to paint a single flower on a large canvass and hang it on in his living-room wall. That was the beginning.

Today, with that original canvass having profusely flowered to its edges, and his home now filled with completed paintings, Joseph is holding his first exhibition. An exhibition he needed to be arm-twisted into participating in, owing to the strong attachment he has with his paintings.

There is joy in these paintings. There’s a kind of spontaneous celebration that attends all of his works. I asked him about this and he told me he usually only paints when he’s in a good mood.

It shows. And for Joseph, it works. His echoing greens, his blues of twilight, the way he generously spends colour reminds me of William Blake’s sighting of "…a heaven in a wild flower."

The exhibition which includes paintings by Darlene Adams is entitled Vibrant Earth, and is at the TU Gallery. It runs from June 20 to July 4.

One more thing about Joseph is that he works for Edmonton’s Hope Mission–has done so for several years. His current position has him looking after part of the Breakout recovery community program.

Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.

When there is nothing left but a hot, confused, addled body and mind, you sit down and rest. And if you should have something like a well, sit there, and rest. It’s a good place.
The well I remember the best was at my cousins. It was deep and at the height of summer, the water was still pure and cold. In summer, on those hot sweaty afternoons we’d haul on the rope and bring up the bucket. And we’d drink out of a tin dipper.

In a world weary with unrest, tense with high-noon rivalry, virulent with hate and contagious with reciprocal violence, abscessed with guilt and inflamed by grief and unshed tears, we need a well to sit on. We need its communal nimbus, where Samaritans sit with Jews. Where all sit with all. And we need clean cool water to drink and share.

Check out the video here: 

And here is a corresponding article.

The hope reflected in these stories is what the Mission desires to be about.