Cross Country #37 Victoria Goes to the Brave

What if your most important possessions were:
Your names,
your song,
your dances
and your masks?

These would be the inheritence which passes on and are remembered when you are gone.

Victoria, British Columbia is one of our last ports. In the Natural History Museum an exhibit on the Western Coastal Nuu-chah-nulth tribes wakes me up in new ways. It is an exhibit on ?uusimch ("?" is a written phonetic symbol for their language.) Pachi, a middle-aged member of that people tells me about their traditions as manifested in his life. Looking back on the moment, maybe I assumed he was a docent, maybe he was just there on a visit.

The reverential manner in which he caresses his father's masks, tells much. Lifting the red and green and white raptor head carving onto his own, he becomes the story of an agile scout, covering miles and miles filled with adventures that must result in sighting food for the tribe. The dance is a powerful transmission of the skills of a scout. No one lingers, so I zoom in to learn more from him.

"What masks do you wear from your life? How is your song made? Why are all the inheritances plural except for a person's song? You said names? When and how do you get your names?" I'm working on my program of Jewish-meditation based high holiday services to be held at Kripalu during the upcoming High Holy Days. Coming to know the participants in deep ways is important. I feel sad at the thought of how few of us are equipped with such accessible names, dances, masks.. and tell me dear reader, what is your song? In our culture when you ask a couple what is your song, think of what the answer is.

Pachi tells me about the crafting of his song during adolescence. How to do this is an art communicated by a mentor in the village and a source of much nachas (pleasure/pride) for the family and tribe. There must be an economy of words, a splendor and startling of it's individuality and yet conformity with the metaphors of tradition. It reflects an integration of values and self awareness. This will be sung at your puberty feast, marriage ceremony, times of unique accomplishment, perhaps softly by your mother should the shaman have to come when you are ill and at your death...at your death when your names will all be spoken, your dances danced with your masks telling the stories of your life.

Later I look at my son Mark who in two weeks has learned the ancient notes for Torah trope and is chanting at that moment not just his bar mitzvah Torah portion, but random chapters with great glee and curiousity. But what of his own song? Helping him to lovingly craft such a legacy....to know himself in that way?

Pachi interprets rabbi as shaman. He asks if I am training my son to follow me. Has he begun to learn how to bridge the power of the ancestors for the tribe? I am asked. Does he know the chants? At what age will I teach him how to discern where the power of the tribe's intention is and how to shift it for their own good?

Meet up with Barry and Mark and head off to deposit him for his afternoon nap in the park.

Barry: I read somewhere recently that it's normal circadian rhythm to feel sleepy after lunch. Since then I can't seem to stay awake in the afternoon.

Victoria is a culure shock. It's a bit of maritime sadistic behaviour to get us acclimatised to the wilds of Alaska then to dump us in this ultra cute bastion of English properness. Actually I have several gripes about the cruise. They ran the cruise by the book, so technically I can't find fault on any specific issue. It has more to do with the dreaded S word - spirituality or intentionality. The meals were clearly served with institutional briskness and monotony. There was no effort made to create an interconnection between people so the human factor was absent. The lectures were boring. So I will be very happy to exit the ship and be my own person.

This is a very lovely town and the weather uncharacteristically sunny and warm. Unlike Goldie, I was delighted to leave the museum and be in the sun.

Goldie: The son of the Uncle Percy (the eldest of the Bubs and he has quickly become very precious to me), Danny Bub cheerfully scoops us up for a tour of the island and warm South African hospitality at his place. He's a professor of neuropsychology and we have a phenomenal range of overlapping interests. His research is unique, he asks for referrals of persons who have had strokes so that he can study the locus of "meaning" in the brain and various deficits resulting from strokes. He explained to us how by speaking with doctors who have Alzheimers Disease, he can learn where in the brain their knowledge was lodged by whether the terms have been lost in comparison to everyday language.

Barry: After our visit with Danny, we reboard the ship. Even though it's only one hour away, the ship travels all night out into the ocean and docks the next morning. I call the travel agent and order a rental car since Vinnie has been sold. Though I'm happy to disembark, I'm nervous at the thought of returning to reality. Still, that's life.