nature | Papa and Nana On the Go

The Pender Islands are magical places of exquisite beauty. Walk low to the water’s edge. From there, and there means from anywhere on these islands, watch the morning mists and fog creep gently across the small bays, almost as if they are trying to avoid waking those sleeping stresslessly along the shores in their homes. As the day progresses, other islands appear, ships pass with a gentle rumble, and rays of sun break cross the wakes left by sailboats gliding like skaters on ice. Was that an eagle flying by? Stay in one place long enough and you will hear the subtle breathy exhalation of an orca surfacing and diving with at least a small host of podites.

Climb. rise above the red and orange bark of the the Arbutus trees, fir and spruce. Climb to a high point and see the waters and world laid out before you. Islands, mountains, sky and water. You don’t view it as your kingdom, something to possess. It all, in its splendor, seems to own you. Not sure if it really cares about any one of us. But somehow there is a connection that cannot be broken. Many do not know it is there, this connection, because they do not have the experiences that allow them the opportunity to bond with this world physically. Knowing this, some seek out mystic rituals or practices that purport to “center” them and allow them to become one with the universe. I guess they get credit for trying. To me, they are trying too hard. To me, these are symptoms of ERAD. We make up new disorders all the time, this is my contribution. Earth Reactive Attachment Disorder.

Milada Huk chose a different path. She escaped communist Czechoslovakia, from the portion that is now the Czech Republic, in 1983. This was five years before the fall of communism and the end of the rein of the Soviet empire in central Europe. During this time she had almost no contact with most of her family left behind, communication was forbidden. She made the most of her freedom and became significant in Canada as a designer and art restorer. She and her husband were also collectors of art. I don’t know their wealth, financially, but I think they are pretty well off. They came to the Penders to try and convince friends to co-own a property in the Barbados. Didn’t happen. Instead she fell in love with these islands. Having designed for Coca-Cola and other well known names, and having also learned special glass design techniques, she created relatively inexpensive jewelry that has appeared on the covers of magazines such as Vogue. If she chose she could be living the urban life in Toronto or elsewhere. Instead she runs a small shop, Renaissance Gallery, on North Pender Island where she sells her jewelry and also lithographs and prints by Dali and Picasso. Yeah, they are right there on the wall.

Milada, I can only guess, along with her husband, made a choice. I think the choice came from the process of allowing that bond between earth and human to happen in a natural way, just by experience. It didn’t need a seminar, meditation, an Earth Day parade or any other ritual or artifact of human behavior. Place your self in nature, be open to your sensory experiences and it will just happen. I think that this will prevent and for many even cure ERAD. This doesn’t have to be a Gaia, mother earth thing. I don’t think the earth itself could care less about us. I think the earth can be used by humans as much as any other organism on the planet. But I think it is all about respect. Avoid the arrogance of being super-“green” and the ruthlessness and lack of respect of those that exploit without regard to the consequences. Milada, who after many years of trying, was gifted a child while on this island. We met him. I have rarely found a youth, and a mother too, who were as kind and open to strangers, with no pretentions when pretensions might be likely. That is what a special place can do. I pray that I can carry a little of this home.