Journeying continued ... preparing for "Water Catchers"

The final hours, and last two days of the Power Power to Puyallup 2018 "Honoring our Medicine" is happening now. Friday evening I logged onto the site to watch and be part of the Live Stream Protocol. How awesome that is. How fitting an expansive definition for the theme of the upcoming event "Water Catchers ... all the ways we flow." As I listened and watched, moving with the rhythm of the drums and the dancers, the medicine flowed. The medicine grew.

More than a hundred canoes and their people have journeyed to the Puyallup land, the spirit of gathering and doing the business of tradition, respect for the elders is paramount and demanding no drugs weed, smoke, alcohol use lays protocol into the broad net of its meanings happened live in the tents while we, those who had access to the Internet, 'swam' in the stream of the Creator's great plan.

All afternoon and into the evening our laptop was connected to the Protocol Tent in Puyallup. We learn so much! The video screen shot I've shared was done so because I saw that when a speaker or a tribe did not want to be recorded (and therefore accessible to the public online as well) the video crew stopped recording. Weaving technology of the present with the protocol of time immemorial created something new.

10 more hours of songs and dancing is promised in the tent today, Sunday. I'm planning to find a place to keep the stream coming, so I can participate in the final protocol. We are here, but, there is also room for 'there.'

While the people gathered in the Protocol Tent on Puyallup land, our small circle garden planted here in the  pea patches on the Prairie Front grow. The stones mark our sacred planting space, a first time garden here. We planted corn and beans, the beans were a most powerful seed taking most of the space and thriving.

 I planted two kinds of beans: a Green Pole Bean and Fava Beans that weren't supposed to be very tall (I thought). Fava Beans are a new family for me; I've eaten them but never planted them. How delicious and amazing they are.

The one I'm holding is filled with smaller than the bean most people know about as large and sometimes cooked, marinated in olive oil and herbs and eaten with pita bread. The pod about I'll steam whole and we'll eat them right in the pod. Yum.

It's morning, and Pete and I have already cleared and cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom we use during the week. The tables for market visitors and guests are set with freshly cleaned tableclothes and small vases of flowers gathered from the plant people who give up their beauty as their gifts ... bless us today, and a few days forward.

Our friend Russell Clapper is setting up the stage for music to come this morning. Vendors are setting up their canopies and tables to sell and meet the people here on the Prairie Front. On another tab, again thanks to the technology of this little machine I hear the Arena Manager talking about what will happen next year and beyond into 2022: Paddle to Lummi is set for 2020; and another journey to Alcatraz as well. Alright!

The journeying does continue as we prepare the first Safety Pin Cafe event in two years. With all the medicine shared with us over the week, I am excited, humbled and inspired to bring my medicine to the stage and onto the land. The Whidbey hui ukulele will be joining us this year, for a first time expanded version of telling story. We are excited, and looking forward to the day. 

Please join us if you're on Whidbey. We'd love to include you in the stories, the 'oli, the music, the medicine of knowing who and what a Water Catcher is.

And, if you open this post anytime during the afternoon and early evening Pacific Standard Time Sunday, August 5, 2018 you can enjoy the live stream happenings of Power Paddle to Puyallup, 2018.

As I prepared for bed Saturday night, after the sounds of faces, the people, the First Languages, the songs, stories and dances had filled the air above the Prairie Front, I cleaned off our porch and steps and looked out across this land. To her (this land), I spoke with the love that I had experienced because the People have gathered their medicine and shared it.

I asked aloud, "Aren't you happy to have heard your language again? For how long has it been?"

I looked out across the tops of the barn red buildings out across the tops the Service Berries and flag poles to see all the planting. In my heart the Prairie Front and I let out a collective deep sigh of gratitude. I like to believe the answer in all languages, that is the most powerful of prayers and medicine, is "Yes, happy to have heard all languages. Yes, it has been too long."

E ola! Here's to life and languages of respect for all of life!