Hacking and coughing have been echoing around our house the past week and the feverish look of sickness is reflected back into my own eyes.
Loudly moaning and groaning about every individual symptom in great detail is consoling, and for a few days it was the Battle of Ages to claim possessor of the worst symptoms. The great love misery has for company was finally quelled by a sore dry throat that made wholehearted complaining just not worth the effort.
Always trying to see good, I manage to croak out that it was mutating viruses that helped move evolution along and may even be responsible for human consciousness itself. Resulting discussion fell on plugged stuffy ears, and I took my personal quest for answers to bed with a hot water bottle and a couple hundred channels of satellite TV. Maybe Ancient Aliens or the MUFON Files would have some clues.
A howling wind shook the house, strumming deep bass on the clothesline and flagpole, accompanied by the high pitched flapping of our very ragged Canadian flag, which we have purposely left in such condition as representative. Day after still-sick day, snow snakes blew across the ice in a ceaseless migration. Fading in and out of feverish sleep, I dreamed of the origins of civilizations, with a land bridge between Antarctica/Atlantis and South America figuring prominently; influenced by the story of the new LiDAR discoveries of the huge Mayan city-state ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula.
It was the night of the super blue blood moon and excitement made me foolhardy; I recklessly bundled up to get an outdoor picture of the eclipse. The wind calmed as it often does just before dawn and the familiar face of Grandmother Moon gazed down. I could feel the energy of the perigee as she drew towards her the surrounding ice and water. Just like last month at the super moon, the ice sheets around me cracked loudly down McLeod Bay under the pull. The wild wilderness, bright morning stars, gently waving aurora and red moon reflecting off the snow and ice were all together completely wondrous. I am deeply thankful to be able to have witnessed this once in a life-time celestial dance from such a pure and holy spot on the earth.
Back to bed for a few days with the hot water bottle and I feel well enough to start cleaning everything with a mild bleach water, which is evidently the only way to kill this bug. My peaceful Buddhist tendencies are strongly outweighed by a biologically-driven blood-thirsty, heartless determination to destroy every remaining member of this particular colony of invaders, thus proving great-uncle Charles Darwin’s survival of the fittest one more time.
Though my first allegiance is always to the ideals of the Northern Farm Training Institute, my heart jumped with joy when I read about the winner of the million dollar Arctic Inspiration prize. Creating a traditional healing camp in the bush of downtown Yellowknife where struggling or homeless people can go for help is a worthy and honourable cause and I wish it the best success and hopes for continued funding. The only thing disappointing is it is only two tents and a tipi and not a whole village.
I hope other Northern women all around the territory set up their own healing and teaching camps too. At its essence, reconciliation and decolonization from all oppressive patriarchal systems requires reconnecting with the feminine cycles of the earth. The child must feel the heartbeat of the mother to be able to thrive. Separation from nature is a part of the reason for so many mental health issues today.
A strong matriarchal society is generally one that, when allowed, implements quick, practical and effective solutions to social problems. It is also one which takes retribution swiftly. Women want and demand a peaceful well-run society where they can raise their children safely. The unbalance of power is equalizing and Northern women are going to find the answers to the serious social problems in the Territory. We have to.
Entrenched discriminatory policies based on some sort of reward/punishment social theory are resulting in children in the communities going hungry, broken-hearted youth committing suicide, and rampant alcoholism and abuse. In 2018, that is no longer acceptable.