What Are The Chances?

I was the lucky recipient this year of approximately 1.5 million Elderberry seeds. Of course, I planted them in the only place large enough that wouldn't be molested. If only one in one thousand makes it into a tree, that's fifteen hundred trees! What are the chances that any one acreage should be gifted the chance to grow more trees? At least for the hundred or so acres that I passed through, there is a chance, just a chance of a great profusion of life. Birds flock to Elderberry. Most times when they get ready to launch, leaving a deposit is part of their flight check. What is the chance that I would bring up bird droppings in the first paragraph? This time, 100%!

Part of the idea behind Otherfish, is the utterly malleable cultural significance of newsprint. We ain't claimin to be no high fallootin' folks or high society-types around here. The words ain't near as important as the use we get out'ta the newsprint! Entrails from fish, caught fresh that day. Upon the cutting board, or in the gut-bucket would be newsprint. To keep down flies, we just wrapped the guts up into a make-shift envelope and buried the thing whole. Being "salt of the earth" practical sort informs most of what I write here. Bird droppings and all!

Two Summers ago, my son and I went for two weeks downriver in a canoe. We went down the Wisconsin River from Castle Rock Lake, past The Dells, Portage,WI Prairie, and on to the Mississippi. We got to Wyalusing State Park while many roads were still out. They had had nearly a foot of rain overnight the week before. Everyone always said that gully washers like that always move quickly, but not the night I watched thunderheads off to the Southwest just below the Dells. 30,000 foot tall columns of light and water remained over the same place all through the night. I had never seen anything like it! Our whole trip was blessed, even the bad parts were enlightening or transformational.

We travelled at about the same rate as Joliet and Marquette did. Sliding into that ancient rhythm both calmed and transfigured me. Eyes always to the horizon, the river's fall line, the riffles and upwellings within the water, submerged obstacles, gentle inlets for lunch, or trees to escape the sun in the desert-like solar oven that can be the Lower Wisconsin Riverway. We routinely found sandy beaches too hot to walk on without shoes.

As can happen, the whole sequence of events during that fortnight led us to call it the "What Are The Chances Tour"Like a mantra that kept coming back of it's own accord, The entire event was characterized by unlikely, yet inexplicable scenarios that I believe have never been equaled in intensity or as a pure reflection of the diversity that makes up the varied culture that unfolds along The Wisconsin, an ancient transportation link.

During our trip, we met tourists, people involved in the tourist trade, fishermen, locals, retirees, thieves, kind-hearted folk, a few rude ones, defunct resort owners, from whom the river had moved away, and folks who had vast views over constantly shifting sandbars as their dining room entertainment. People living along such a river have a significantly different river in front of them at sunrise than they do at sunset. The depth and fury, or lack of it can change more in a few hours than some rivers change during the course of full weeks, or even months.

The interplay of the people and the changing waters makes for qualitatively different people. We even met a few people like us, travelling downstream, in search of something that we could not quite share in or attend to. Each time we would pull out of a place, we would ask, what are the chances? To run into a group of drunken underage kids who would keep us up all night, (one of whom, "nearly cut his hand off!") at the same place, we wondered what the chances were that the guy wouldn't charge us to stay because of the rowdies. We always fell to the conclusion that, at least for this trip, it was 100%. What were the chances that we would find restaurants who were willing to refrigerate our leftovers until morning, find folks who invited us to shower, or a pool and showers just two or three blocks from where we had set up our camp. The ride back to the river with ice from a woman who gave us spiritually inspired art. The entire trip being rain free except when we ended and didn't have to move the tent again. What were the chances? 100%.

There can only be this elusive 100% chance when you are at the limit of your resources, abilities, endurance, physical awareness, humility and ability to seek the adventure without limitations of expectation and belief. As we navigated caves, decorated by native people, on cliffs far above the river that brought the first "White Men" through this "uncharted" land, we looked upon deftly wrought lines that traced out entire trip down from The Dells. Plainly incized on the same walls were the Portage that could be taken all the way to the Lake we call ours, here in Green Bay, Lake Michigan.

The Elderberries that we plant today will change the world forever. Without an attempt to do it, nothing could result from our inaction. If we all become "Johnny Appleseeds", the change we can make is monumental. That is what is needed to change our carbon footprint. As not what you can do for yourself alone, but the Mother Earth who suckles you. I come back to the Elderberry for the fact that it is for healing. It has sixteen times the amount of anti-oxidants found in Ehinacea. By planting it, we can heal ourselves as well as the earth. Most placed that have been denuded will have to be one back to wildness through a process that involves starting with pioneer species like Elderberry, Blackberry, Service (June) berry, Sumac, raspberries, etc.

Bless you on your path to bliss, may you find a peaceful relationship with the planet and all her creatures. Namaste'. Interested in learning about your own path to sustainability, contact: ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. at 1445 Porlier street, Green Bay, WI 54301, or tnsaladino42@hotmail.com