Sometimes, when I go jogging, I meditate on the uncommon Positive Word of the Day posted on my Positive Word Facebook Page.
Today that word was “Thaumatology – the study of miracles” which I combined with the thought of ‘Thaumaturgy‘; the creation of miracles, because if it’s not created it’s not there to be studied.
I also gave the Transmountain Pipeline area of Burnaby Mountain, the first challenging uphill climb where I jog, some forethought in this context because my understanding is that the spirit realm can act more quickly via nature than via more complex human interactions and I wanted it to have reasonable reaction time.
My academic thoughts, while jogging were that all of birth and nature is miraculous because humans will never likely be able to create life from scratch. Biology is thaumatology to the extent that we seek to understand its relationship to the source of all creation. Related to this the sun would inherently also be miraculous and the odds of it shining on a Goldilocks Zone orb is probably statistically as infrequent as some of the more uncommon human miracles.
After running through Squint Lake Park, and by the Burnaby Golf Course, I started running up the steep incline of the Transmountain Trail. My iPod, on shuffle, played “Electric Pow Wow” by A Tribe Called Red.
Sitting down on a park bench to stretch my legs part way up the trail I heard a Raven, somewhere on a branch over my right shoulder ‘Kraaing’ loudly.
In coastal Native mythology, Raven is the powerful figure who transforms the world. Raven, aka Trickster, sits atop the totem pole erected in protest of the pipeline beside the primary entrance to the Transmountain, nee Kinder Morgan, property. This totem pole sits near the top of the hill up which I was jogging.
At this time Trickster appears to be working his magic by eliminating global markets for the filthy, Earth-threatening, Native killing Alberta tar sand bitumen that the Transmountain pipeline will carry.
As I sat there Raven took off and I watched its black form flicker by beyond the treetops, on the deconstructed Transmountain (TM) side of the fence. It flew downhill and then across the bottom edge of the noisy destruction site before flying up the other side of the property kraaing every now and then. It appeared the be surveying the perimeter.
For the rest of the jog nothing notable happened beyond finding the first couple of ripe blackberries of the year – until jogging by the TM property again, in the other direction, on the way home.
A fairly large, dark, quickly-moving snake, alarmed by my presence, slithered diagonally downhill across my path giving me a good view of its vigorous muscular winding mobility. Coast Salish native lore only speaks of a two-headed snake which symbolizes power, danger, destruction, and something to be feared.
To me its downhill slithering seemed to resemble to the movement of pipeline oil. In retrospect the Natives protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline referred to it as ‘Black Snake’.
As I started to run by the golf course again, across the street from the TM property, something shiny caught my eye and I picked it up precisely at the moment that the lyrics from the iPod sang “…Leave no stone unturned.”
It was a small shiny 3/8 in. steel ball bearing. I would have ignored it if it wasn’t for the well-known Coast Salish mythology about Raven stealing the light. This, no doubt, comes from the attraction that the big birds have to shiny objects. This shiny ball-bearing reflecting the sun’s light befits the iconography of the story of the Raven, aka Trickster, perfectly.
I set out contemplating mirabilia on my jog and wasn’t disappointed.
