Ki Earth Blog - Day 8 - Copper Harbor, Michigan

I spent Monday night camped next to the still lake Fanny Hooe, guarded overhead by heron, loon, turkey vultures and crow. We, my friend Hannah and her man Brad, ate a satisfying Coleman stove meal, then sat around the crackling campfire and talked story into the star-filled night. Eventually we crawled into our tents and were lulled to sleep by the occasional long bellow of a ship’s foghorn on nearby Lake Superior.

The next morning I found an old wooden bridge, maybe around twenty feet long, and sat on the middle edge of it, about eight feet above a babbling brook. Each side of the stream hosted an assortment of green bushes and white pine, daisies, pipsissewa, agrimony, blue billberries and red thimble berries. A sweet breeze calmed all my residual stress and filled my body and soul with Ahhh. After blissing on the bridge, and before for the morning campside breakfast of pancakes stuffed with bill and thimble berries, we swam in the still, chilling lake. What a way to start the day!

All this is like being a kid in a candy store. Freedom is still new to me. That sounds odd, since I have always been free in some sort of relative sense of the word. I’ve been free to get up and work hard, or not. But up until now the “or not” has had negative consequences . . . like not having the money to pay the bills, just keeping up with the day-to-day things that needed to be done. The “or not” was a sort of jail that kept me “trapped” in a somewhat comfortable lifestyle. From what I’ve seen on this trip, so many American’s want to be on the road or on the lake - they want a sense of freedom they don’t have in their ordinary somewhat comfortable lifestyle, driven by hard work. So I am fortunate and grateful to now have the time and resources to see America, and experience other versions of paradise, like Lake Fanny Hooe in Copper Harbor, Michigan.

Right now I am sitting in Brad’s big log house overlooking Lake Lac La Belle. I’m a bit mellow and stuffed after lunch on the shore of Lake Superior: fresh river trout, red wine and Grandma Dyson’s chocolate pecan pie. OMG! It deserved a nap on the couch - and more reflections of gratitude for this beautiful planet and all her amazing blessings . . . and for friends who will lovingly share their homes, food and loving hearts. The three of us are celebrating Hannah’s birthday. I’m blessed to be here.

Catching up a bit - I found an oasis in eastern South Dakota last Thursday - a town called Chamberlain situated on a large lake with the same name. I spent more than an hour in the St. Joseph Sioux Indian Museum, admiring the unbelievable 19th century Indian beadwork, and talking story with the curator, a knowledgable and lovely pure Sioux mother of eight. She filled in many blanks for me - such as how and why the Lakota Sioux and Sitting Bull traveled so far to Little Big Horn. The answer was that even though it is on the Crow Indian Reservation now, the Sioux lived in that region at the time. They weren’t too far from home. I was happy to find her, following my disappointment on the Crow Reservation. She told me of a Crow Medicine Man who lived so far off the main road that I would never find him without an invitation. And I probably would never be invited. So there. Being on the Reservation reminded me of going into the Menehune Market in Anahola, and asking one of the Hawaiian girls at the register to tell me where a wise Hawaiian kahuna lives. Even living on Kauai, knowing Puna Dawson - it is nearly impossible to get a meeting with her. And, until I got to the Sioux Indian Museum, most of the Indian stores along the way were staffed with white people. And I also remember that the Master finds you, when you’re ready. Anyway, I camped on a grassy lawn on the shore of Lake Chamberlain . . . quiet and peaceful . . . just the way I like it.

I’ll write about my time in Minnesota soon . . . Dakan