Nine year old DeeDee is swinging back the canoe paddle as she sits on the seat in front of me. I’m sitting on the floor of the canoe, while Deedee’s dad is acting as rudder, strong paddler and fishing coach for his daughter from the seat behind me. She has very specifically asked us both to have our oars in the water to “brake” the canoe so she can drop her bobber, hook, line and sinker near these particular reeds where no one else seems to have been yet this morning on The Painted Turtle Camp’s small Lake Wendy.
Early morning sun casts the shadow of our red canoe onto the water to our left. DeeDee tells me the left side is port side. Perhaps we’ll have better luck in this orientation because the fish won’t see our shadow directly over them if they’re attracted at all to the half-dead worm barely wriggling like a slowly beckoning finger on DeeDee’s hook which is dangling off the starboard side.
“Do you think we’ll catch a fish?” she asks.
“Anything is possible, my Angel,” her dad says. “I’m beginning to sense that fishing is all about process and not about the end result, and I understand why people who like to fish just love everything about it,” he continues, and tells us fishing stories from when he was a boy, then conversation ceases and we simply listen.
The absence of man-made noise (except for an occasional motorcycle on the road), blue heron skimming the tops of stands of cattails and reeds, dragon flies strafing the shallows, gorgeous green and blue reflections of sky and flora have a profoundly stilling effect on me. The quiet is welcomed after last night’s wild carnival and talent show with twenty three families and thirty volunteer counselors and staff in the dining hall. I breathe deeply and allow the peace of this Sunday morning to permeate my being; refresh and rejuvenate me. The sun feels warm, but not yet hot, on my skin.
Overhead I hear the cry of a red tail hawk. Two of them come into view lacing the sky together in slow circling stitches. As they search for breakfast, sunlight flashes on their sleek silhouettes. When they turn, their red tails seem to radiate light from within. Yesterday, walking from the ropes course to cabin-row with this same father-daughter duo, we saw a crow scolding an owl – probably because the owl was marauding crow’s nest.
Despite the raucous dramas unfolding in this beautiful spot where the camp is located, just west of bustling Palmdale, California, I sense Deep Order. Critters hunt critters. We are sport fishing, but at camp we practice “catch, kiss and release.” There is an uncomplicated, yet complex order to it all. The words of Chief Luther Standing Bear come to mind. He and his tribe respected Great Mystery and tried to teach their white brothers something of the Lakota Sioux view of creation.
“The old Lakota was wise. He loved the earth and all things of the earth. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard. He knew the lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to the lack of respect for humans too.”
"We were taught to sit still and enjoy the silence. We were taught to use our organs of smell, to look when apparently there was nothing to see, and to listen intently when all was seemingly quiet."
“The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. It was good for the skin to touch the earth and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth. Their tipis were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The birds that flew into the air came to rest upon the earth and it was the final abiding place of all things that lived and grew. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing.”
--- Chief Luther Standing Bear
As a volunteer "family pal" for the weekend, my assignment is to be in support of this and one other family. DeeDee’s mom and two-year-old brother are sleeping-in today. The other mom has taken nine-year-old Casey to wood-shop while dad is somewhere out here on this same lake, with Casey’s seven-year-old brother, fishing.
Early this morning, while waiting on the porch of their cabin for the sleepy families to emerge, I watched the sun rise. I chanted and worked on a crochet blanket project - each stitch became a prayer. I imagined the entire camp blanketed in the peaceful understanding that truly we are one family. As the sun began to warm me on the outside, the serenity I felt warmed me on the inside.
While DeeDee doesn't catch anything but algae on her hook this morning, I think all who witness this magical morning catch something more meaningful.
Truly, Earth is working her magic to soften all our hearts.
Check out: thepaintedturtle.org for more about cost free camps for kids with life-threatening illnesses and their families.
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