Poetry

Dance Upon the Air 

I write words, scribble down ideas and day dreams. 

Tuck them away in my sock drawer, 

shove them in books as holding spots for my imagination, 

leave half finished notebooks on shelfs in favour of fresh unlined pages. 

Not yet broken in by my personality made tangible. 

These collections gather dust, barely see the light of day. 

I horde them, glimmering dragon eggs. 

Filled with randitions of human imperfection and veradent creativity. 

Each piece, just waiting to be polished and held up for those who look. 

Those curious gazes that hunger for connection, 

for the beauty and sorrow of life. 

I feel the ashes of my hidden self ignite, 

and my words rise. 

Firebright and bare for the excavation of artistic examination. 

I step from my cave of treasures,

 arms full of my soul sealed in ink and paper. 

I breathe deep. 

I lift my arms and set them free. 

-Lyric R. Ophelia

Unshaping

                               myself 

will be 

                                                           the hardest work 

     I ever do.

-Lyric R. Ophelia

The ecological imagination is so vast

It spirals through time

Weaving between touch points

Entwined with all the messy parts of life

Connected like the trees

In one big spiraling web of life

What's in your ecological imagination?

-Lyric R. Ophelia

Somber sunlight

falling down

from cloud soaked skys

Disco Disco Till We're dead

-Lyric R. Ophelia

Even the bathroom walls cheer me on

Singing the stardust down upon me

Calling me deeper into my waking dream

An echo under my liquid lungs

Breathes fire into my fingertips

I write because I believe

The vison unfurls from my brain

Slips across creamy pages in red ink

-Lyric R. Ophelia

Opening the Dialogue of The Ecological Imagination

by Lyric R. Ophelia

The ecological imagination is rooted in our ability to see ourselves as a part of the ecosystem or “nature”, rather than separate urban creatures. I have found that living all over Alberta, from Calgary to Slave Lake, I have constantly wondered where I fit in this ecosystem. Am I a forest person, dwelling in the lush trees near the lake? Listening to the loud quiet of the landscape seems to swallow the sound of the nearby town, leaving me in comfortable solitude. Am I a prairie person, watching the cows in the field? Driving slowly behind trackers on the road. Watching the multitude of colours play over the meadowland, a place considered harsh and flat, teeming with life if you step off the road and take a closer look. Am I a mountain person, dwarfed by these momentous beings? Tall, facetted, snow-covered peaks. How wise they must be, having stood in the same place for centuries, shifting and changing ever so slowly. I never felt completely welcome in any of these spaces. I didn’t believe I belonged to any of them. I felt that none of them belonged to me. I was an outsider; I didn’t want to leave a mark, and I didn’t want to make a home in this place where I had no right to exist. I knew that I had a longing for the ocean. I considered that maybe I was an ocean person, floating in a vast unknown space. A place of great mystery and depth, a holder of secrets and magic. Yet I am terrified of swimming in the ocean. I can’t go past my knees. I couldn’t make my home in the ocean either, being more fit for life on solid land. Feeling alien in every space I encounter, where could I possibly belong?

Throughout the experience of these “nature” encounters, I always came back to “civilization”. To a space where humans dominate and destroy the very “nature” around them. I continued to feel separate from the ecosystem, but also from the very people I share this earth with. I felt more connected to something, looking at the clouds or the rain. Felt more rooted in between the trees along the Bow River than beside my own family. What do we face as a society, as a planet, being so vastly separate in our relationships with the ecosystem we live in? With the people we share ties with? The human condition, to need one another, seems to leave out the need for the ecosystem we inhabit. And I wonder if that ecosystem really needs us. How do we bridge the yawning chasm of “human” vs “nature”? This destructive and toxic one-sided relationship. Where “humans” believe that it is their right and only theirs to safety and liberty on this planet. Yet when we look around at the state of the world, it is clear that only some “humans” have this right, only some “humans” are even considered human. Just as only some of the ecosystem have this right. Only some of the multitude of creatures on this planet have this right. And this idea that only a few are worthy of care is the straw on the camel’s back of the eco-crisis the world is facing. If we can’t work together as a global community, how can we collectively push to stop the timeline of our “man-made” mass extinction?

I have spent my years reading, absorbing worlds between pages. From the time I was 12, I consumed as many books as I could get my hands on. Feeling that I had travelled the world and lived a thousand lives. All while lying in bed, sitting on a bus, waiting in line. Each world opened a new perspective, one I may not have come into contact with in my small world. The books that felt the most piercing, reaching under my heart and into the centre of my being, were the stories tied to the land. Moving in harmony, or dismantling dominating power to restore a respectful relationship with the land. These stories became my touchstone, my way to understand the world around me. A way for my imagination to interact with the ecosystem. I felt solidarity with the beings of the earth, the grass, the trees, the animals and the streams. I, too, had felt the oppression that had been placed upon them.

Ecological Literature: Fiction

Ecological fiction opens our collective imagination. When I imagine cycles, my first thought is the cycles of the seasons. The birth, death, and re-birth of the leaves, the sunflowers, the fresh baby birds each spring. When I try to imagine the future, I don’t see flying cars and hi-tech cellphones right behind my ear. I see a scorched earth, and hungry people, fighting over the small amount of water left. I see people clinging to any scrap of hope they can find. Over the last few decades, the popularity of post-apocalyptic novels, shows, and movies has taken off. The tension we “humans” feel between ourselves, the ecosystem, and the dominating capitalistic culture is manifest in our art. What did our ancestors imagine the future to be? Did they see wars, genocides, starving people, and entire generations of people struggling to survive while a few enjoy the system of destruction? How far back into the past must we go to restore hope? How far into the future must we look to realize that technology might not be able to save us?

Ecological Literature: Non-Fiction

Ecological non-fiction brings our imagination into the reality of the present. The ecosystem in non-fiction allows each perspective to provide an anchor point for examining the ecosystem and our relation to it. The perspective is key to unearthing our ideas and beliefs around our relationship to the ecosystem. Many novels I have read show a lack of regard for the ecosystem, often intersecting with a domineering, exploitative, and greedy mindset. Or worse than an outright disregard for the ecosystem, there may be an obliviousness in the narrative that fails to recognize the problematic treatment of the ecosystem. Being overly focused on human narratives, many literary works of the last three decades revolve around human experience, separate from the ecosystem in which they are experiencing life.