Peg's Earth Day Birthday: Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis
Photo: Chuck Hoffman © Genesis+Art
Houghton Trail, Lake Superior
Apostle Islands, Wisconsin
As long as I can remember, I have felt some kind of magical attachment to the Great Lakes. Every Michigan kid I knew growing up did countless reports on those Lakes in school. The Great Lakes defined my particular place on the planet, and I could always find “home” on any map or globe. I spent every summer on Lake Erie, and vacationed often on Michigan, Huron, and Ontario. The 5 Great Lakes contain 21% of the earth’s fresh water by surface area in the world. They are one of the seminal features of the continent and of the earth.
One problem. Lake Superior. My only physical connection consisted of several brief visits to her deserted rocky shores. I remember terrifyingly vast blue-black waters, deep, rough, and wintery even in summer. I recall wading into numbingly frigid water up to my ankles, and counting as fast as I could to 15. Then I would scurry back up the wobbly black stones, sit in the rocks, and swat mean biting flies. I would listen to the slow lonely wail of an automated lighthouse, worry how the water left my feet, ankles to toes, bright red, and beg my parents to take me home.
Embedded in my memory are also the stories and songs of shipwrecks, drownings, and disappearances; most famously, The Edmond Fitzgerald. Add to that Longfellow’s controversial and epic poem of 1855, Song of Hiawatha. The post WWII children of the Great Lakes all know the 4 rhythmic lines in cantos III.
By the shores of Gitche Gumee, (Ojibwe: gichi gami)
By the shining big-sea-water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Mysterious enough, but followed by:
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them…
Here in Hudson, Wisconsin, where Duluth is only a couple of hours drive by car, no one seems to harbor these “the lake it is said, never gives up her dead” memories of Superior. On this 2024 Earth Day Birthday, my beloved decided to take me on retreat to the shores of gichi gami. Would the “ice water mansion” of the retreat center be an improvement to the windshield I got two years ago? Would the “waves turn the minutes to hours”?
Off we went to the Wild Rice Retreat Center. Spring eventually comes to the north, even Lake Superior. There was fabulous healthy food, a beautiful Nordic style cabin, and a focus on art, wellness, and nature. We hiked the Brownstone Trail along the lake, sat for hours on a platform overlooking Superior in Adirondack chairs and hiked the Houghton Falls nature trail onto the rocks, practically into the water.
Nothing seemed like my childhood memories. There was lots of sun, and in April, no flies. I was warm in my winter coat, and I had a steaming cup of good coffee in my hands on the deck overlooking the Apostle Islands. There was a spellbinding full Pink Moon that Nokomis would have loved as much as I did. It was a wonderful 4 days with my beloved. There was no sense of limits, endings, or losses. Nature’s spell was cast, and the gift of all the time in the world lay before us.
Love the sunshine of the meadow,
Love the shadow of the forest,
Love the wind among the branches
And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,
And the rushing of great rivers
Through their palisades of pine-trees.
See more conversation in EARTH and SPIRIT.
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