For a good, although somewhat dated (Apr.06) article on Water in Alberta, Google the following,

Globe and Mail Forecast for Prairies drier than a dust bowl

I tried to link it, but takes you to a Globe and Mail register page.
peace,
d

Had some blogger technical difficulties... it's all sweet now.
Pics taken by Sam Clark & Myself
1. Sullivan Lake landscape
2. Sullivan Lake residents
3. This is my filmmaker face, here with Bolex H16 (16mm)
4. Sunset
5. Moonrise


________________________
Friday, October 27, 2006
Location: Bison Ranch, Alberta

Since Chris and Janet have been gone, I’ve been spending my time helping Sam, a ranch hand from New Zealand, take care of all the chores. His friend Arron, another Kiwi, who’s been working in Peace River is also here, on his way out of Canada. Yesterday, Sam, Arron and I all headed out to Sullivan Lake, which was carved out of the prairies long ago by glaciation.

It’s really incredible to think that the site where Sullivan Lake now sits, was once buried under a mile of ice and snow. And, through the slow march of time, all that ice receded and gave way to the endless grasslands of today. Time. Time resulting in slow change. It strikes me how many of us, with the limited vantage point of a human lifetime, often lose the awareness of everything changing. We forget that nothing is constant except change itself. And we forget that we are all subject to the changes of nature, regardless of how slow her movements may be.

Time and its movement is a definite major theme in my project. I’m fascinated by the fact that in the world today, everything seems to be moving so fast, yet at the same time nature keeps a constant pace. As we play, distracted by our new and improved gigglywidgets, the universe continues to shift and adjust itself around us. This has been happening since the dawn of time, but never have there been so many of us, and never have we built an environment so outside the laws of the natural world.

We have built a system where major advancements have been made by diverting or adjusting nature to suit our human desires. While I’m concerned about nature and human intervention globally, the example that is currently before me is the case of Alberta and its diminishing water supply. You see, the glacier that once stood a mile above my head is now gone, it’s taken thousands of years, but the fact remains, it’s gone. Today, we find ourselves with water continuing to decrease on an annual basis, throughout most of North America, yet nowhere are we slowing down our usage. A while ago, when I was in Whitehorse I was talking to someone who was telling me that California is pulling water all the way from Colorado. Why? So people can grow front lawns of Kentucky blue grass… in the desert. Here, many experts argue that the government of Alberta has already issued far too many water licenses, and over the next twenty years the water just won’t be there. The prairies are drying up, time, although slow, is doing what it’s always done, changed the face of the planet.

So what does this mean?

Well, it wouldn’t really be that big of a deal, if we had stuck with Mother Nature in the first place. But the conundrum, like with many other places of the globe, has to do with the unnatural systems we’ve built. The unnatural systems we’ve become comfortable and complacent with, and upon which we heavily depend on to give us our daily bread.

In Alberta is all goes back to beef. Something like 50% of Alberta’s water goes into beef production. Correction, 50% of Alberta’s water goes into grain, which in turn, is used to feed beef cattle. These beef cattle are the same ones who spend their days standing in feedlot stalls, often knee deep in their own excrement, fed up on antibiotics. And this, in my opinion, is the unnatural system, the feedlot. Now, the feedlot isn’t the only problem. Production of grain, required for successful feedlot operation is heavily dependent upon irrigation and fertilizers. Without irrigation you can’t grow huge quantities of feed, and without feed, the feedlot system falls apart. Years of intensive irrigation and fertilization processes have created farmland that depends on this intensive irrigation and fertilization for survival. When it comes to big agribusiness, gone are the days of natural soil quality, replaced by technology and nitrogen-based fertilizers used to keep the soil producing. These processes result in soil that lacks the biology needed to sustain it. Irrigation and technology have given us the ability to produce huge amounts of grain and beef, but at what long-term cost. And what is the cost to our overall food quality?

Often when I speak with people my age about feedlot beef production, their usual response is, ‘that’s why we should all be vegetarians’. But what I’m starting to realize is that, aside from feedlot treatment of the animals, it isn’t only a problem of beef, it’s a deeper problem of water and soil. All of the grain and soy we’d live off as vegetarians, also requires huge amounts of irrigation and fertilizer. (Stay tuned for a Blog on greenhouses down the road. I’m convinced they hold some answers)

I have often put forth the argument that feedlots, and all mass-meat production mechanisms, are a necessary evil. It’s a simple case of supply and demand. It’s a question of population, there are simply too many of us who need to eat, making big agribusiness the only solution! When I put this statement out to Chris, his response is, “Not true. The problem is not too many people demanding food. The problem is less than 3% of Canada’s population produces almost 100% of the food. Simply put, not enough people are farming. We need to bring back the local farmer and small-scale agriculture. It's a myth that we need large-scale industrial agriculture to feed the world.”

Now, had we never destroyed the small farmer using big agribusiness in the first place, we may have had a reality that looked something like this. Something, I would argue, we’ll soon be forced to return to, something that always made sense... something... more natural. We'd have many small farmers raising their beef not in feedlot stalls, fed up on grain and antibiotics, but instead, roaming grasslands and eating hay bales. With this local small-scale agriculture, the meat we buy would be local, not transported thousands of kilometers by tractor-trailer. The meat would be healthy and lean, instead of bulked up by lack of exercise and a diet of high protein grain, something cows aren’t built to digest in the first place. Last but not least, these free roaming beef cattle would not only live a healthy lifestyle off the grasslands, but they would also be helping to take care of that land. Eating organic matter, processing it, and returning vital nutrients to the soil helps to create biologically active soil and in the long-term, potentially prevent the desertification of one of our most valuable resources. Granted, we don’t overgraze and we keep things sustainable and somewhat local.

Grass-finished beef, from low stress cattle, all in balance with nature. The end result: healthier humans and good food on the table. The problem in my opinion, is our government is geared towards big agribusiness and local farmers don’t stand a chance anymore. However, I would argue that as people grow more aware of ‘real’ or ‘whole’ food, the demand will increase as we’ve already seen with organics. As I’ve often said before, the only way forward is to go back. Less is more. Simplicity is sustainable.

peace,
d

testing.1.2.3...

So as you can see... I'm not really a poet. This I know. But, this is ok, since, what I'm really interested in is letting it all hang out. A space for my thoughts and feelings in whatever form. I often almost censor myself and leave stuff on pad and paper, not letting it out to the general public, but this doesn't interest me. Nor am I interested in showing only a perfect image of myself, I'm interested in the vulnerable, the imperfect, the shoddy and mishapen. I'm interested in the fact that that everywhere we insist on perfection, and it's this perfection that while pushing us forward, also limits our creativity and expression. I say, just create, blowing the doors off of convention, expectation, and perfection. Write like a 10yr old, paint with your fingers, just make something. There's time down the road to reflect and rework, and there's time to find the pieces that hold something wonderful, but first you have to find the pieces with which you're working. You have to get things out in draft form, you have to not be afraid of critique, you have to SUCK in all your GLORY! Hehe... This is the promise I've made to myself with these blogs, I'm free to laugh at myself, and not get caught up in taking myself too seriously, I'm free to play and I'm free to fall flat on my face. This I think, is what Coyote Medicine is all about.

I just thought I should let you know where I'm coming from. It's this idea of Wabi-sabi that I'm after, since, this is what is natural. This is how things are. It's the old car rusting away in the farmers field, it's the water stains on your bathtub, it's the bruised ankle, it's all of us growing old. Life isn't perfect, but in life's imperfection, we often find pieces of the truly beautiful.

peace, d

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Location: Bison Ranch, Alberta
____________
Dear Coyote,
I spent all day yesterday, downwind, sitting in the grass waiting for you.
You only come so close, then, catching a glimpse of my outline, you disappear.
I follow you across two fields, and we dance back and forth, two brothers.
You lead, I follow, until, like a ghost, you slip away into the shimmering grasslands.
The trickster, taking me out beyond distant fence posts.
I follow, I wait, I listen.
Where have you gone.
Come back.
I want to know you better.
I want to get closer.

I’ve met you before, a few years ago, in a past life.
You tricked me, and sent me tumbling into death.
An elder told me I’d find you.
Or rather, you’d find me.
I didn’t understand what I was in for.
Thought I knew.
I remember that Regina hotel room.
Thinking I’m dying, turning on the T.V… a distraction.
There you were.
Laughing.
Coyote medicine.

Now I’m here.
I’ve come a long way to see you.
Still in a rush, as time stands still.
Thought I was going places.
On the road, to nowhere.
So difficult to stop.
So difficult to let go.
So difficult to find the Human Being
Lost in the Human Doing.

This is the joke, isn’t it?
This is why you’re laughing.
Coyote.
Brother.
I often forget to laugh.
Lost in everything.
Thanks for bringing me back home.

Tomorrow, I’ll spend all day, downwind, sitting in the grass.

______

peace,
d

Moses
Bison Skull

The Journeyman
NOT baser than his own homekeeping kind
Whose journeyman he is --
Blind sons and breastless daughters of the blind
Whose darkness pardons his, --
About the world, while all the world approves,
The pimp of Fashion steals,
With all the angels mourning their dead loves
Behind his bloody heels.

It my be late when Nature cries Enough!
As one day cry she will,
And man may have the wit to put her off
With shifts a season still;
But man may find the pinch importunate
And fall to blaming men --
Blind sires and breastless mothers of his fate,
It may be late and may be very late,
Too late for blaming then.

-Ralph Hodgson

Pics
1)Sunset at the ranch
2)Bull
3)Cows
4)Moses and Rory the kitten


Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Location: Bison Ranch, Alberta

I’m still here. And I’m not going anywhere for a while. The reason, I’m waiting for Chris and Janet to come back from Terre Madre (Slow Food gathering) in Turin, Italy where they’re learning and speaking about the importance of Slow Food. I was going to do an interview with them leading up to the overseas visit, but things were really hectic here at the ranch, and I figured when they come back they’ll probably have lots to say. In addition to all this, I figured it would a nice gift for me to stay and give back by helping the ranch hand with feeding the animal, collecting eggs, and milking the jersey cow. It’s pretty quiet here without Chris and Janet, but this quiet is allowing me to get back to Searching for Dragons, and process all that I’ve been learning while here.

Back when my family was here, we all attended a Landmark Education introductory session held here on the ranch. It was really interesting as we worked primarily on the idea of our ability as humans to create possibility. Creating possibility, quite simple put, is creating a mind-state and/or vision with which you approach your life. For example, I’m going to create the possibility of happiness, and with that possibility, I’m going to enable happiness to enter my life.

This idea goes back to something I’ve mentioned before, the idea of humans as co-creators of reality. I believe this. I believe in the Hopi idea that the world is created out of language. I believe, “In the beginning there was the word, and the word was God.” I believe, as per eastern mysticism, that humans hold a great deal of energy, and whether consciously or unconsciously, they manipulate this energy. I believe in Quantum Theory and the idea that the entire universe is built out of vibration. I believe in the idea that with our language we create vibrations, and these vibrations help to form our individual physical reality. To sum up, in the beginning there was the word, the word consists of vibration, vibration is the basis of all things, and with our individual vibrations we can create new possibilities everywhere around us.

The question becomes, how are we vibrating?

In most of the world we have built, we find ourselves surrounded by so much technology that our natural vibrations have become something distant and long forgotten. As Marshall McLuhan once suggested, we slip into our technological world, as a fish slips into water. It permeates everything around us. And in being everywhere, not only do we affect it, but it affects us.

It becomes very difficult to create when you are surrounded by noise. It becomes very difficult to tune into oneself. And, it becomes very difficult to avoid inadvertently being carried away downstream by a quickly moving river.

I think that in order for me to find my way, I’ve needed to create the possibility of silence and space. I’ve needed to step out of the heavy vibrations of the modern technological world in order to see/feel where I really am and where I need to go. I know for certain that I’ll never be the same again. I’ve navigated past the space where I thought I knew, into the space where I recognized that I don’t know, and now I’m entering the space where I don’t know that I don’t know. They talk about this in Landmark. Only a small percentage (let’s say 2%) of your world is filled with things you know, ie. Rain falls from the sky. A larger but still small percent (let’s say 8%) of your world is filled with things you don’t know, ie. I don’t know how to fly a plane. The remaining portion (90%) of your world, is the place where you don’t know what you don’t know. And it’s here, in this space that I think the real magic exists. This is the realm where anything is possible. The key is how do we get there, how do we move past our fear and find comfort in a space of not knowing.

Man this sounds a little like a self-help book… what was I talking about?... ;-)

Oh yeah, vibration.

If the world is built out of vibration, we then have the power to use our vibrations to create our reality. Often I think we allow ourselves to be sideswiped by the ‘good vibrations’ of new information and technology. Misguided, and without any long-view critical analysis, we put our collective energy behind ideas sold as progressive, and in doing so we support the progress trap. Again and again we progress to higher standards of living or production, only to become trapped by our progress itself. In the prairies for example, we’ve created an enormously complex irrigation system to produce feed for cattle. Now, in the wake of climate change, we find ourselves facing a horizon of serious water shortages, where the current, once viewed progressive, model is unsustainable. Was it truly progress to build these complex feedlot systems in the first place, or would it have made more sense to stick to the basics of free roaming grass-fed cattle, a concept many experts today, are suggesting we return to.

Here and now I’m creating a new possibility. The possibility I’m creating is a new view of progress. What is progress to me? To me, it’s progressive to walk outside across the yard, and milk a cow for some milk, to me it’s progress to go visit the hens and collect a few eggs, to me it’s progressive to walk instead of drive, to support local economies, to return to nature, to slow down, to listen, to find or create spaces of silence. To me it’s progress, to make things just a little bit simpler for all of us.
______
Last night my new friend Jed was telling me about how a few years ago farmers, like him, were sold on the idea of installing huge yard lights on their farms. Many people bought into the progressive concept of more light, while Jed was a little more critical, Jed recounts the conversation,

Salesman: “You need more light!”
Jed: “why.”
Salesman: “So you can see in your yard”
Jed: “Why do I need to see? I don’t work when it’s dark, and the animals can see just fine.”
Salesman: “Well it will prevent theft.”
Jed: “Hehe, maybe it will help the thieves see what there is to steel.”

By not being sold on progress, Jed now doesn’t carry the burden of the huge electrical bills the salespeople failed to mention. I think this is a good lesson to us all. Often we fail to see the truth of what we're really buying into. Rarely are we shown the full picture.

Peace,
d

Although my assistant from the northern part of my journey has been missing in action for awhile, he's now back on the blog train with interesting things to say.

Check it out HERE.

peace,
d

Photo: Barry Durant
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Location: Bison Ranch, Alberta

Man, time flies. I write up a blog, go and get busy on the ranch, and the next thing I know, a week and a half has passed me by. It’s amazing how when you have lots to do, the days just blend into one another, slipping away into the past. I guess that’s just fall on a bison ranch. We’ve been busy feeding and butchering animals, stacking hay, fixing fences and getting the fall chores done before the first snowfall.

In other big news, I just turned 30. I’m not one for birthdays, but this was a pretty magical one. I was sitting in the house on Friday night when all of a sudden… my entire immediate family showed up. They had all decided to hunt me down in the wilds of Alberta and surprise the hell out of me, and surprise me they certainly did. In conversations, I often tell people stories about my family, and while I’m doing so, I’ll say, “Man, I wish I could just teleport them here, so you could meet them.” ZING!!! Wish granted! They appeared out of nowhere from across the entire country, stayed for a day and a half, and then slipped away again, as though it were a dream. Pure magic.

This influx of family was synchronous with a chapter regarding the importance of family from the book I’m currently reading. The book, Dark Age Ahead, is the last book written by Jane Jacobs before her recent passing. If you’ve never heard of Jane Jacobs, she’s an amazing woman, who, through her books, has given us so much to think about in terms of how we build not just our cities, but, our entire man-made reality. She’ll be greatly missed… In this, her final book Jane talks about the signs that become visible as a civilization begins heads towards a Dark Age. In her own words,

“A Dark Age is a culture’s dead end. We in North America and Western Europe, enjoying the many benefits of the culture conventionally known as the West, customarily think of a Dark Age as happening once, long ago, following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. But in North America we live in a graveyard of lost aboriginal cultures, many of which were decisively finished off by mass amnesia in which even the memory of what was lost was also lost. Throughout the world Dark Ages have scrawled finis to successions of cultures receding far into the past…

The purpose of this book is to help our culture avoid sliding into a dead end, by understanding how such a tragedy comes about, and thereby what can be done to ward it off and thus retain and further develop our living, functioning culture, which contains so much of value, so hard won by our forebears. We need this awareness because, as I plan to explain, we show signs of rushing headlong into a Dark Age.”

The chapter I am currently reading is about how we’ve created a society in which families are rigged to fail. The breakdown of the family is a clear visible microcosm of the larger picture. According to Jacobs, things are unraveling.

Although this book is breaking open my head, I don’t need Jane Jacobs to tell me we’re in serious trouble, the signs are everywhere around us. The further south I travel, the more I come across my own signs that a Dark Age may be coming, but at the same time I am also coming across signs of hope, change, and the power of creating new possibilities. While we are faced with serious challenges, the growing awareness of these challenges, in itself, creates the possibility of us redirecting ourselves towards a brighter, healthier and more sustainable future. It’s books like Dark Age Ahead, and the enlightening conversations I’ve been having with people young and old, that truly give me hope. The other thing that brings me hope is the thing that seems to be pervading everyone and everything around me… quite simply, love.

Whether it’s the love found in a strong family, love found for oneself (often the greatest barrier we give ourselves), love for the land, love of clean air, love for your urban environment, love for your partner, love for your dog… love really does allow us to create anything our hearts can imagine. And I think this is key, I think we are often misguided into believing we create with our heads, when in actuality, we create with our hearts. As John Lennon said, all you need is LOVE. But it’s so easy to be distracted from those things we love, by things that we fool ourselves into believing are necessary ‘facts’ of life. The job we dislike but force ourselves to do, the chemicals we convince ourselves we need in our food, jobs created by governments in the name of employment that destroy vast swaths of our increasing fragile natural world. As my old assistant Forbes once wrote in a blog entitled real world blues “Welcome to the REAL world.” In my opinion, this real world we’ve created is often treated as the only real choice we have, the only way forward. Although much around us is quickly changing, people still see major shifts in the paradigm as unrealistic or simply too difficult. This is the way things are, welcome to the real world.

If you ask me though, I’d say the world that is truly real, is the world that remains when you leave all these stagnant ideas behind. The world that you encounter when you stand alone out in nature, in a field full of bison, or the world you arrive at when you start creating from your heart. You walk through the door, leaving the old world, leaving the outdated remnants of the industrial revolution, and find yourself back in a place of magic, the place you had forgotten existed. In this place of magic, you and nature are co-creators. In this place of magic we let go and the possibilities we’ve created quickly manifest into reality. In this place of magic we find ourselves able to instantaneously teleport our entire family from far across the country to Now Here, Alberta.

Peace,
d

photo: Brad Harrison (I'm surrounded by bison, but haven't shot anything on digital yet.. I really want to get this blog up.. so thanks to Brad for his pic in the meantime)


Saturday, September 30, 2006
Location: Bison Ranch, Alberta

I’ve been a little relaxed regarding my blogs over the past few days; this is not due to a lack of things to write about, but more an overabundance of subject matter. Here at the ranch, the daily sights, sounds and physical experiences constantly overwhelm me. At the end of the day my brain is usually a jumbled mix of thoughts and ideas.

Over the past two weeks I’ve herded bison and cattle, I’ve helped slaughter bison and lamb, I’ve moved chickens, I’ve collected warm eggs from the hen house, I’ve helped a vet preg-test sixty female cattle, I’ve learned to milk a jersey cow, make butter, yogurt, and as usual, I’ve captured some amazing images.

As I was settling into bed in the van last night, I was thinking about what it is that has struck me most while here on the ranch. The answer lies in the beauty and wonder found in the balance of life and death.

I’ve seen some things here that most people would find hard to handle. These things, while maybe difficult, are a definite reality of our world. I feel I’ve come to a place where I can appreciate the beauty in not just life, but also in death. This may seem strange, but I can appreciate the sanctity found in an animal slaughter. It is very important to note that this sanctity travels hand in hand with sound and sustainable agricultural practices, consciousness, respect, and gratitude.

This place has taught me that there is a right way to do things. Chris and Janet raise all their animals in open grasslands. Their bison and cattle are respected and truly appreciated. As we hand individual animals over to death, Chris says the same thing over and over, making sure I understand, “You see Dan, you see what they give us? These animals give us SO much. These animals give us EVERYTHING. It’s about being grateful and treating them with respect. It’s about bringing sanctity to the process and having their death be as quick and painless as possible.” For this reason when Chris and his brother John go out to slaughter a bison, they do it right there in the field, a clean shot that, with immediacy, takes the animal straight from grassland to god. “I don’t want my animals to ever know a factory abattoir, and I don’t want them to be loaded onto trucks and shipped hundreds of kilometers.” The more you respect the animal and what it provides you, the more difficult it becomes to kill them. Killing animals isn’t an enjoyable process, and as the animal goes down, I can see Chris has mixed feelings. I feel these mixed feelings are what give the act balance. You see, Chris is conscious of what his actions mean, he is conscious of the big picture, he sees things holistically; how his actions affect the animal, the herd, the land, his family and his local customers.

To me this is beautiful. It’s beautiful to be a rancher with a broader view of the world. It’s beautiful to know the meat is going to people you know and care about, people who are in tune and truly value what the animal has given. Again it’s this connection that I feel somehow brings balance to the slaughter.

My updated thoughts regarding CONNECTION vs. DISCONNECTION

When a conscious individual slaughters an animal for food, there is no way that individual, having consciousness, can escape the reality of what he has done. Taken the life of a living thing. In this, often, difficult moment, the universe unfurls itself a little, yin and yang are revealed, and there is a space where a deeper understanding and connection to nature can be found. In this space of understanding and connectivity, we find sanctity, wisdom, respect and an endless source of gratitude to all that which sustains us -- Mother Nature.
To me… this is connection.

When a conscious individual walks into a supermarket and buys a piece of meat encased in styrofoam and plastic wrap, that individual, by no fault of their own, is unable to have any conscious connection to the animals origin. We have built a system where, we are not only detached from our food, but also from the sanctity, wisdom, respect and gratitude found in our relationship with Mother Nature.

To me… this is disconnection.

There has been a lot of talk here on the ranch regarding this disconnect and the problems of big factory farming. Chris and I have spoken about how ranching and farming should be about managing natural relationships versus interfering with and controlling the natural world. We have spoken about how when animals are grass fed, never seeing a pound of grain, they end up healthier and produce higher quality meat. We have talked about how grazing animals actually help the grasslands stay vibrant. We have spoken about how devoting farmland to grain for animal feed, while good for bulking up beasts, is neither good for the usually captive animal, the land, or the end consumer. We have discussed how the depletion of soil quality is a huge issue facing all of North America. Our soil is falling apart due to a system where nature has become completely dependent on technology and artificial fossil fuel based fertilizers. It will take years for us to repair our soil to a naturally balanced and healthy state. It will take years for us to revamp our agricultural practices back to something that was originally quite sustainable. Although, when you look at the world today, most of us seem to be headed in an opposite direction.

When it all comes back to my current feelings of how our world treats animals; while this place may have it right, I am still very concerned. I am concerned about large-scale factory farming methods, where animals, confined knee deep in their own feces, are fed up for market with no room to move and run. This is probably the meat you’re eating. I am also concerned about antibiotics finding their way into our food supply through these animals. Again, animals you are probably currently eating. I am concerned about what it means for all of these practices to find their way onto our meal plate, and the full picture of the impact this has on our land, our earth, and our future

They die, so that we can live. – Chris, expressing what his bison truly mean.

Peace,
d