Always been a Moon Girl, Born Under the Sign of the Crab

The Moon

Canadian Cultural Icons -- Tom Thomson

I was at Sand Bay, off Georgian Bay, off Lake Huron, last week, just outside of Parry Sound. I don’t know if a sound is a Canadian geographic term or if it’s general – a sound is a large, wide body of water that connects two other bodies of water – in this case, Georgian Bay and Five Mile Bay. There’s Parry Island on the east side of Georgian Bay, and the Sound is north of it, and Five Mile Bay is south of it and feeds back into Georgian Bay. A little confusing.

We went on a couple of picnics a short boat ride from my sister-in-law’s cottage. On Picnic Island, where else? Here’s a couple of pictures I took at Picnic Island. We are on the Canadian Shield here, an enormous slab of granite that includes Greenland, most of eastern Canada from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean, and the Adirondack Mountains are part of it too. In the Pleistocene era giant continental ice sheets 1,500 to 3,000 metres thick receded over it – they carried off most of the topsoil, exposing the bedrock and carving lakes and rivers into the rock. There are grooves cut in the bare rock, left by those ice sheets. I just love it there – for me, it’s another one of those “thin places” that Ellie told us about recently.

I was taking pictures of those trees, and trying to remember a poem our Grade 8 teacher, Mrs. Dyment, had us memorize. All I could remember was the line, “and the pine trees leaned one way”. Thank heavens for Google. Here it is (and by the way, I didn’t understand this when I was 13, and it reinforces my view that children should not be made to memorize adult poetry like this or “In Flanders Fields” or prayers like The 23^rd Psalm and the Our Father):

The Lonely Land

Cedar and jagged fir

uplift sharp barbs

against the grey and cloud-piles sky

and in the bay

blown spume and windrift

and thin, bitter spray

snap

at the whirling sky;

and the pine trees lean one way.

A wild duck

calls to her mate

and the ragged

and passionate tones

stagger and fall,

and recover,

and stagger and fall,

on these stones –

are lost

in the lapping of water

on the smooth, flat stones.

This is a beauty

of dissonance,

this resonance

of stony strand,

this smoky cry

curled over a black pine

like a broken

and wind-battered branch,

when the wind bends

the tops of the pines,

and curdles the sky

from the north.

This is the beauty

of strength

broken by strength

and still strong.

A.J.M. Smith

It also made me think about Tom Thomson, member of the Group of Seven, a Canadian painter who loved and painted and died in northern Ontario. He’s a Canadian cultural icon for certain sure. I think if you went to school here in the ‘50’s through the ‘70’s, you’d be able to look at a painting and guess by the style it was by Thomson, even if you hadn’t seen it before. Beautiful paintings. A fisherman and canoeist. Thomson’s death adds to his legendary status. He went canoeing in Algonquin Park one day, and was never seen again. The official verdict was accidental death by drowning, but there have been rumours of arguments and speculation that it was homicide, ever since. That's not what matters, though, the paintings are.

What Famous Work of Art Are You?

I went to read poetry over at After the Bridge, and wound up playing silly, happy blogthings as well. I love this painting. I was visiting friends at L’Arche tonight, and they showed me certificates they’d been given with this on them.

You Are Best Described By...

Petite Fleurs By Pablo Picasso

What Famous Work of Art Are You?

This one's for me and Pagan Sphinx

I just love this song – “And the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses …”

Absentee Bloggerism

The last 10 days or so have been too busy, and packed with items that demanded more emotional content than I was expecting or felt prepared for. There was a big emotional scuffle in a group I belong to, and I hold a position of responsibility as a volunteer in it. An unwritten part of the job description is to pour oil on troubled waters. I don’t like conflict, and I’d prefer to run and hide, like a bunny. What I did was pray a lot, consult a lot with a third party who loves me, and do my job.

Remember To Kill a Mockingbird? There’s a point in the story where Jem and Scout are embarrassed because Atticus is much older than their friends’ parents. And he’s a lawyer – he doesn’t DO anything, like make things or sell things. Then a rabid dog walks into town, and Mr. Heck Tate, the Sheriff, calls Atticus to deal with it – the children find out their father used to be called “Old One-Shot” because he was so good with a shotgun he’d complain about wasting ammunition if it took two shots to bring down his target. Scout wants to tell everyone, and Jem won’t let her. He said he wouldn’t care if Atticus couldn’t do a blessed thing – “Atticus is a gentleman, just like me.”

Well, last weekend I had to be a gentleman, just like Jem Finch. (That is my favourite book ever – I’ve read it at least once a year since I was 12 and that means a lot – the only thing I’m surprised about now is, I haven’t quoted from it more often.

There were family issues too – Mother’s Day with my in-laws, which was lovely; Dad saw the specialist, who is encouraged; my sister said Dad’s doing fine for a 97-year old man, and that would be fine except he’s 77. Then I said to her, there’s one more thing I realized last week I need to ask you. She laughed, and said, “Where’s Mum?” That would be it. Mum’s ashes weren’t interred til my stepfather’s were, and there were reasons I didn’t go to his memorial service. So I didn’t know where Mum is, and that hurt, on Mother’s Day. I didn’t like that they were in the basement of the funeral home last year, but I did know where they were. My sister’s gonna take me out there sometime soon.

This is a long weekend in Canada. One of the best things of my week was talking on the phone at 2 o’clock this morning with a friend in Texas. He’s retired, and wasn’t sure this wasn’t going to be Memorial Day weekend too, cuz he doesn’t go to work anyway. I got kind of loopy and said, “Do you know WHY this is a long weekend in Canada?” He said No, so, I told him. “It’s Queen Victoria’s birthday.” I just won’t tell you what he said back – it won’t translate well to this venue.

So, it’s a long weekend, and I’ve had more to deal with than I wanted. I haven’t been here much. There are things I want to post on the blog, and they’re going to have to wait. I’m going away until late Monday, and I won’t have a computer available. I’m taking a camera, books, poetry, notebooks, pastels, coloured pencils, ivory and black drawing pads and knitting. Oh yeah, and some clothes and groceries and my cell phone in case my family needs me. All the things I want to do will have to wait til next week.

Frolic while I’m gone!

Starry, Starry Night

Read the Anniversary post first, then watch the video. Trust me on this.