Seeking the Pollen Path

"We are stardust, we are golden
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

--Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

"Remember always to walk in the pollen path of peace and of blessing. Be still within yourselves, and know that the trail is beautiful. Whenever you are in danger walk carefully and quietly. Your feet will be blessed with pollen and your hands will be blessed with pollen. Let your mind and voices go forward on the pollen path."

-- The Pollen Path: A Collection of Navajo Myths retold by Margaret Schevill Link


Performance artist seeks spiritual path: that's how my personal ad would read right now, and the path always leads me to one garden or another. In fact, my life in Vancouver is lived in a series of gardens and the pathways between them: UBC Farm, The Means of Production Garden, various community gardens and the plot in my own back yard. As this year closes, I am already planning my traffic patterns for next year, which days of the week I will travel to which garden. I am making sketches of the costumes I will wear, the seeds I will plant and the gestures I will perform. Our new artist collective is planning to create a series of projects for 2009, for which we are laying an imaginary framework and support system. We've written proposals and we've opened a bank account in the hopes that money for community art projects in the garden will fill it enough so that our ideas can be planted, tended and come to fruition.





It's winter. I miss the MOP garden, but even though it is covered with snow I have to go and visit the dead sunflowers, the bare willow branches, and the benches and hard furnishings now upholstered with soft, yielding snow. I make a rough map in my mind of where I'm headed, grab my camera, my bus fare for the way home and I'm off. I decide to start at Shaktea tea house because it's close to me and it's a public place that's dear to my heart. I find some stunning Chinese lanterns to photograph along the way as well as some red rose hips in the snow and dead cosmos from this past fall. In some places the snow covers the sidewalk and in others there is room for "single file only." By the time I arrive at the MOP, the wind has whipped the snowflakes up so that the children tobogganing look as though they are sliding down the hill in a snow globe. Snow flakes stick to my camera lens and my knees are feeling stiff and cold. Time to catch the number three bus to Main Street and the number twenty-five up the hill.












At home I warm up my comfort bag in the microwave oven and make hot peppermint tea. I heat up a latke from Solly's bakery and eat it with Liberty yogurt and smoked salmon. The latkes are crunchy around the edges and salty, with perfect potato goodness. I curl up with an Agatha Christie Mystery. Simple holiday pleasures. I love to walk and take photos. I love to curl up on the couch with a mug of hot tea and a book, but am I getting stuck in my ways, and too comfortable for comfort? At this time of the year especially, I crave spiritual renewal. I have a tradition of writing down one hundred new year's resolutions as quickly as I can, without thinking too much about it. (You should try it!) All those little steps towards becoming a better person--some change has got to happen along the way. I make diet and exercise plans, organization strategies and try to do some goal setting with a sense of the "big picture" in mind. Maybe this will be the year I lose the weight, learn to dance like a goddess and get my house in order. By this time next year I'll be so enlightened I'll have to wear shades. Ha! We'll see. Wish me luck!