Aneegis visits on Solidarity Day

Aneegis, the ancient Tree frog who hunted around our front porch for a couple of days during the frog mating season returned on Aboriginal Solidarity Day. It was a pleasant surprise. For the most part, the frogs have moved on from our swamp by this time of year.

When first I had seen Aneegis, the creature had surprised me with its size, now it was timing.

There is a three month period around our home on the First Nation when the singing of the frogs is like nothing I have ever heard. It begins in the spring when the first frogs begin to thaw out from the mud at the bottom of the swamp. A few bull frogs here and there. Slowly. Stopping. Freezing. Silence. Start up again. Then again and again. A slow heart beat. It builds and builds adding a variety of voices.  

The singing rises into a throbbing amphibious wall of sound. Every night for weeks. Thousands of creatures singing and singing and singing and having sex in that way it is for all the wild, as though life depended upon it.

I was surprised to see Aneegis sitting on the rail of our front step. I greeted Aneegis. Tansi, Aneegis. I was pleasantly surprised to see the ancient Tree Frog again. Aneegis sat on our rail until night.

Aneegis reminded me of what I had done so many years ago. The  first time that I had ever deliberately taken a life. How I had killed a beautiful Leopard Frog in the most cowardly way when I was a boy. I thought often about why this hurt me so much. We were raised on a farm. I have killed hundreds of animals or have been present and participant in their slaughter. I cut heads off chickens and held pigs to get their throats slit. I killed hundreds of wild chickens and thousands of fish. Why did this Frog bother me so deeply?

The first time is a factor. There was something else. I had an unreasonable fear of frogs as a child and one that hasn't gone away. The idea of a frog touching me under water. It never kept me from doing anything but it was unreasonable. When something is unreasonable it makes one question the reason why. 

One day my younger brother and I were talking. I hadn't seen him for a while, we were grown men with families by then. He asked me rather pointedly. "What is your spirit animal?" I said, I didn't know. I hadn't asked an elder or anyone about that. 

"Yeah, but you know what it is?" He pressed on. "If you don't know what it is, how can anyone tell you what it is." He looked at me. Knowing me as well as anyone. He was starting to get upset,  "Just say it."

"I think it's the Frog," I said. 

He burst out laughing. He thought that was hilarious. I knew he would think that was funny. I know him as well as anyone, too. 

So I explained to him my reasons and also that I had thought a lot about the frog and it is one of the Creator's most amazing creatures. It lives first as a fish breathing water and then it grows legs and lungs and hops on the earth breathing air. It spends its life living between both worlds. Then it spends the winter in the dream world. This is a powerful spirit animal. 

On the evening of Solidarity Day there are fireworks at the park. Our family just gathers at the lake in front of Nanny and Papa's and watch from there. Cars pull up other family members show up and set up lawn chairs. It's a nice ending to a full day of activities in the community.

I step away to have a smoke, something jumps below my foot. I step back. My eyes focus in. It's a large Leopard frog. 

Tansi, Boozho, Ahneen. Ni Na Napayo.

The Frog sit there. I break my cigarette in half. I squat down and reach slowly towards it, the half cigarette offered forward. I put the tobacco down a couple inches from the frog. That's as far as a I want to reach. I realize that I'm as much afraid it will move as I am afraid it won't. I say I am sorry for what I did. I stand, step back and light my half of the cigarette.

The fireworks begin and I turn back to my people.

June 21 rolled in with heat and I figured it was time to clean out the above ground pool. I put on knee high rubber boots and ventured in. It was thick and about three quarters up the boots. I walked in circles a few times guiding the dead leaves, walnut husks, walnuts, branches, bugs and assorted debris. Black walnut turns everything black. The water is like oil until the sludge begins to move to the centre. The edge of the pool becomes less opaque.

I begin scooping out the sludge. I wonder if the liner will hold another year. I will put on socks later and scrub the black stains on the bottom and around the edges with my feet. A usual trick I learned last year.

I see black marks along the edge begin to move. In the sunlight. There are hundreds. Hundreds of tadpoles. I turn 360. They are all along the edge. Most on the sunny side.

My granddaughter is excited about getting the pool cleaned up and filled up. She comes to take a look. "Disgusting."

I tell her. Look along the edges. In the sun.

"What is that?"

I tell her they are tadpoles. "Aneegis in my Language. Muckee in Grandma's language."

I ask her to run to the sugar shack and grab the big white pail and fill it half ways up with water.

"What are we going to do?"

We are going to put them in the swamp.

+++++++++++++

What is the Cree word for singing?

What is the Cree word spirit?

What is the Cree word for redemption?

Throwing seeds on the ground is not gardening

I did not complete my vow. I knew I was out of my league and ulitmately done-for very early on. I knew even upon saying the words out loud, that I was wasting my breath.  I wanted to make the grand statement. I wanted to make it easier.

I should know better. I'm almost 50 for crying out loud.

I had a plan in my head. Which is always the worst place to keep a plan. I keep so much stuff up there. A bit of a hoarder. I have to admit. I was a collector and things in the collection are in pretty good shape but it's almost all trivia. I could compete in Jeopardy if I had a better filing system.

I have a lot of stuff in big piles. I feel comfortable that it's there and believe that I could move things around and find something. If I really needed to find it. That's if I really needed to find it. I know couldn't do it with that Jeopardy music playing. I just start humming along when I hear that.

How could things have turned out any differently. No real plan. All icing no cake. All sizzle no steak. So life happens. All this kind of life happens. Just like it does everyday until doesn't. I lived that life and failed to complete my vow. It's pretty sad. We are talking about one hour a day for a month.

No matter how I feel about that, it won't change the fact. I made a vow and I can't go back. You don't get out like that. It's not the time it's the act. So let's begin again and prepare a forward path.

So, I think of my mind. Not as a storage place with file and piles.

Instead I find it is more like a garden that has become overgrown with invasive species and other plants that dominate aggressively. I need to create space within my mind for the language and place that is fertile and can be easily attended. I need to create a language garden in my mind.

Clear out a place and prepare the bed. Pulling out the other plants, turning over the soil. I have to garden every day planting and watering and keeping it in the sun.

I call my mother and I ask her for these words.

kistigan -garden
geestigan - I put in the garden