16 October, 2007 – Ladner, British Columbia, Canada

’cause I know when I find it my honey
It’s gonna make me feel good

Day seven of an eight day string of screenings. Amazingly, I’m feeling pretty great, rested and whole and powerful. We’ve had so much care and nurturing from our organizers and hosts that it has made traveling and screening an easy and even joyful experience. In our reaching, miles from nowhere, we have, indeed, found it, and it has, indeed, made us feel good. What we have found is awareness and sanity, love and acceptance, power and humility and commitment. Pretty amazing stuff to receive in such concentrated doses!

Vivienne and Nic drove us from the Tsawwassen ferry to their home, a “float house” on the Fraser River south of Vancouver. We’re right on the water… right ON the water… surrounded by swans and cormorants and gulls and ducks and geese and eagles and dramatic heavy skies. Here where the wild things are, one can more easily see and feel exactly what is being lost.

We had hot tea and warm conversation, rested for a bit, even cracked our books to read a bit, then had some great pasta and headed to the church in Ladner, a cozy little space with back-breaker pews and a big, high screen already set up. Nic handled the tech side of things with aplomb and Vivienne set up the lobby and greeted people as they came in, many of whom she knew. Phil, one of our organizers for the Vancouver screening, showed up and we spoke with him for a bit. He’d written a review of WAWTG for a local and very wonderful magazine called Common Ground and had copies of that for people. About 52 folk turned up for the screening and the sanctuary warmed with our bodies. A man named Andy sang “Excuse Me, Your Planet is Burning”, a song he’d written to which you can listen here. Sally and I did our thing and Nic hit play.

I was really tired by then, and spent some time in the lobby and hallways outside of the sanctuary, resting and reading and lying down, stretching my hamstrings and resting my eyes. I poked my head outside and watched the night sky for a bit. It has been quite cool here in Canada, and a cold drizzle fell from time to time as the movie played. I was thankful to feel the water on my face. The news of drought from the Southeast US continues to frighten and disturb and astound. A simple drought, lasting long enough, could undo an entire region. And we in civilization are mostly blind to that. As Joni Mitchell sang, “don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone?”…

Twenty-two of us stayed for the circle in Ladner. There was a slightly different feeling there, something we also noticed in Victoria: deep sadness, yes… and a quiet and sober sense of reflection, even humility… a feeling, an attitude, that is, to my heart and mind, as refreshing as the rain. We spoke of anger and rebellion, of growing community and growing awareness and growing dissatisfaction and growing food. We spoke of this community, of how hard it can be to speak out about the world situation, of the forces that seemingly compel us to remain silent, that have us feel alone and confused and crazy. And we asked what it would take to speak out, and take this conversation beyond the present circle, into our very lives.

The circle wound down, as all circles do. We were tired and sore and sobered and touched, and we said our goodbyes and packed up our things. Back home with Vivienne and Nic, we had a spot of tea and shared a bit more, unwinding as we often find we must after a screening, even as exhausted as we usually are. Finally, we made our way to our bed and slept a full, sweet sleep.

Our thanks to Vivienne and Nic and to all the others who made this screening happen. And our best to the good folk of Ladner, living here so close to some real portions of the wild that remains.

We’re not dead yet….

Tim