As Cynthia declined from cancer I watched her say good-bye to many things one by one and know that, with advancing age, we’ll all have to do that. I’ve had some setbacks in my physiotherapy and am limping again today. I don’t yet know if I’ll ever be able to run again, haven’t tried yet, but have determined, for certain, that I’ll never be able to run up and down mountains again and steep terrain has comprised 50% of my jogging. My sylvan Burnaby Mountain run is now a thing of the past complete with the first Trans Mountain Trail incline heavily influenced by its maintenance shortcomings, the presence of the tank farm build-out, and pipeline protests. I’ll never likely see the Native Watch House again or clear the foliage from the self proclaimed singularly maintained “Marty’s Trail” which, I predict, will have completely grown shut within 5 years. At least I outlasted most of my contemporaries in mountain-running capacity and I won’t have to watch the pornographic killer pipeline penetrate and impregnate the property.
My most recent injury occurred in walking up the steep base of the Trans Mountain’s Trail to the first bench where I’d often rest before tackling the long steep incline coming next. It’s where I listened to a Raven last summer on a thaumatological jog that became a blog post.
What I didn’t include in that post was that I’d previously encountered a smaller black snake when running up the trail. It’s body was sound, forming a picture-perfect tapering sine wave in fact, but it was deceased smack in the middle of the trail. I picked it up and laid it to rest under an adolescent tree. Apparently there’s a nest of black snakes that lives, so utterly, symbolically, aptly close to the top of Trans Mountain Trail where all the protests take place and the Raven totem stands.
As I sat, recently, on this bench I once again heard the same raven in the same place kraaing its song over my right shoulder nearby. It lives there. The synchronistic Native symbolism currently active on this mountainside is truly remarkable.
When I got home I had to look it up; Raven’s eat snakes. Apparently, no matter how dangerous the snake, they peck them on the head until dead.
That’s what happens.