Once, I awoke on a glacier. An immense river of ice.

Her meltwaters trickling in defined rivulets

Here,

and there,

across Her body.

Surrounded by enormous mountain ridges,

fed by a massive ice field far on the peaks above.

Circled by elders,

tall sandstone spires,

Ancient Guardians of this dying Goddess.

It was June.

I remember

hurtling through the air, weeping as we climbed.

I remember

hurtling across the landscape in a luxury Dodge land barge, consuming the stunning landscape

all around us.

Each morning waking in the early hours, stealing out the door,

singing wildly to empty streets.

Sneaking out to meet a lover.

Known as

Policeman Creek.

To a particular place on the boardwalk. A bench among 5 conifers.

A portal.

Where Sora sang their acknowledgement, where I

watched the sun rise

on the Canadian Rockies.

Praying to Water, Mountain, Sun, to the ancestors of the peoples of this land, to anyone

who might be listening.

Praying for forgiveness, for welcome,

for any way to offer

some

kind

of beauty

to this place I was

devouring.

Then scurrying back to the rental, complacently taking my place in the Land Barge,

right on mother-in-law time.

Until one day,

I awoke

on top Of a Goddess.

The A t h a b a s c a G l a c i e r.

A Water Deity,

600 hundred feet thiq of snowflakes

that fell

400 years ago.

The icy source of her waters become 3 different oceans.

Flow through thousands of watersheds.

And quench the thirsts of millions of peoples.

I was standing on Her Body,

in Her Own Temple and I had come to be there

at Her extreme expense:

my finger prints on the engines of her destruction.

I tread upon her dying body with 100 other people,

all of us getting the most of our 30 minutes,

before it was the next 100 peoples turn.

Bound by the ropes that separated us from Her wild, undulating form,

her wasting, ever-changing shape,

her dark, deep,

crevasses.

We jostled for our places, a complex game of

selfy-stick limbo,

Getting in line to fill our bottles from the meltwaters

streaming down her surface.

Encouraged to

suck

Her

dry.

The taste?

Intoxicating and exquisite.

I stumbled about, smiled on queue

laid down

and lapped from her opening.

Her wounds.

Like everyone else.

Insatiable. Numb.

And I could see our consequence everywhere around us.

You can hear it in the way the tour guides deliver the script,

the names of the peoples who know how to care for Her:

Secwepemc,

Ktunaxa,

Cree,

Blackfoot,

Stoney Nakoda

Métis

Less than half the size she once was the speed of her melting

creating a lake so new they have no human name.

They say these things like its all old news

in a tired story that just hasn’t found

its happy ending

yet.

Everyone smiles politely,

nodds somberly,

drinks the sacred water,

and still we find our thirst

unabated.

Pictures taken, water drunk,

I stumbled to the upper edge of the ropes,

turned to face her Headwaters, sank to my knees

and prayed.

Oh Great Glacier,

Goddess,

we are sorry, so sorry

for how lost we have become.

We invite you to enter into us.

Take us.

Use us.

We are willing and eager to be in your service.

We pray you might enter the humble altar of our hearts,

and find comfort and beauty here.

That you might be nourished by the offerings you find here within us,

that your Spirit might rest and be renewed,

in the softness of our bellies,

our bodies,

our

hearts.

And we pray you might bless our lives,

that they could be of greatest possible service,

to all life’s thriving,

to love.

to you.

And with that, I blew out the flame

and breathed in the wild fire smoke-filled air

and I sang…

“Oh great water

You just keep flowing

Oh wise oh water

We give ourselves to you.”*

*Song gifted to us by Ava M., to whom was gifted the song by River.

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