Reflections on Cascadia

It’s been nearly a month since the Cascadia Poetry Festival in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Even though the concept of Cascadia has been part of me since the mid-’80s, this particular gathering made it real for me in a way I hadn’t quite believed before.

It felt like a gathering of the tribes – a coming-together with shared purpose and goals – one that extended well beyond the bounds of poetry.

During the first few days at home, I was often on the verge of tears. That’s how stirred my emotions were.

And this wasn’t simply because I wasn’t sure when I would next (if ever) see some of the friends who’d been in attendance, though that could certainly have played a part in my reaction.

It was more that my soul had been stirred by ideas that had been presented. Because it was a poetry festival, many of the ideas on the table focused on language. But the depth of the ideas – how some of the presenters linked language into the very bedrock of our region – this digging down somehow reached into me.

If I could put this into words, I would. Even with this much time, I still can’t express all that I want to. Regardless of that, the knowledge remains in me – or maybe it’s only the idea of the knowledge that seems to reside inside. 

And maybe these thoughts will stay there, just out of reach – it feels a bit like trying to put salt on the tail of the bird in the garden.

For now, I can only say, I plan to keep following that bird.

Postscript: This past weekend, while visiting the beach and lighthouse at Point No Point in Washington with friends, a man saw my shirt and recognized it, shouting as greeting, “Cascadia!” 

So no, it’s not just me. The dream is real. 

Labyrinthine

Aside from that word's most obvious meaning -- related to a labyrinth or maze -- it also means convoluted or confusing. While the labyrinth in the image above is another in the mode of the traditional Chartres pattern, it is nowhere near as confusing to follow it as it is to find where I'm going here in the city of Nanaimo, B.C.

Many of the streets here have a change-of-name for no apparent reason. Comox Road becomes Bowen Road. Terminal Avenue becomes the Island Highway. Bastion appears to become Fitzwilliam before it transforms into Third. I guess this constant changing of name is just something one has to get used to.

I'm visiting the city for the third convergence of the Cascadia Poetry Festival, a celebration of a bio-region, of poetry, and I guess, of a west coast way of thinking.

Much of the festival is based at Vancouver Island University, a campus that mostly leaves me confounded. Even the parking lots seem tortuously convoluted. Still, the setting is gorgeous, especially now that so many springtime blossoms fill the air with their potpourri of scents.

But the main reason for my posting the labyrinth image is that today is the seventh annual World Labyrinth Day. Because not everyone has access to taking an actual walk in an outdoor labyrinth, several other opportunities are available online -- a virtual labyrinth walk and even patterns for making your own finger labyrinth.

And speaking of finger labyrinths, the Bethlehem Retreat Centre (here in Nanaimo, BC) has recently opened a finger labyrinth museum, an exhibit that's bound to show up soon among Nanaimo's widely varied tourist attractions.

In the meantime, I plan to stick with the convolutions of mind offered by poetry.

Erasing borders

This is the flag of the not-yet-in-official-existence Cascadia, a country/nation/region that extends from Northern California up through Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia.

The idea has been around since at least the 1970s. Boundaries of Cascadia are based on geography and geology rather than on wars or political decisions that might have been made half a continent away.

I first encountered the notion (or something similar) in the works of Ernest Callenbach, a Pacific coast author. He called the region Ecotopia. The basis of that nation was the will of its people to live in ecological harmony with the earth. Shortly after Callenbach's death in 2012, a kind of manifesto of farewell was published -- a document found on Callenbach's computer called "Epistle to the Ecotopians". It's an important document and worth taking the time to read. If you click here and then scroll down, you'll find it. I'd recommend waiting for a time when you don't have to simply skim it. Have a cup of tea at your side, and settle in for words that will likely echo long after you finish.

This past weekend, I participated in the Second Cascadia Poetry Festival, held in Seattle, Washington, the heart of Cascadia. I say the heart, as that's where David McCloskey, a geographer known as the Father of Cascadia taught for many years. As part of the festival, McCloskey presented a session explaining the many unique characteristics of our region.

And the poets, well they certainly demonstrated some of the artistic attributes and elements that make this region so special.

The two most remarkable panelists (for me) were Stephen Collis, who spoke about innovation in poetry, especially as manifested by work in our region and Derek Sheffield, who gave the most lucid explanation of eco-poetry eco-poetry

The festival was an extended weekend (Thursday through Sunday, with follow-up on Monday morning) that will remain lodged in memory for a long while.

The idea of Cascadia is an important one. One man I met takes its message and goals seriously enough that he's decided to wear one of its emblems on his skin for the rest of his life.

Hmm. I'm not ready to go as far as a tattoo. Still, I'm ready to start counting sleeps until next year's Cascadia Three. That will happen this side of the invisible (geographically, at least) border, in Nanaimo, BC.