Ahousat / Singing up the hills

I've found this trip, the last few months, has taken on a musical, nay - 'lyrical' quality. How has poetry become such a huge part of my writing? For those who know me, it hasn't been that important in my life before now. People always said my Dad had a lilting quality when he talked, almost musical. Maybe it's the Irishness. He wrote beautiful poetry. I find that in myself sometimes these days, as days and days creep into a magical quality for me - things like "sunday", "the seventeenth" - all become irrelevant. Instead, my days are concerned with, "sunny" "down the road" and "wow, isn't that beautiful?"
I remember a show I saw on televison when I was young, it was about the Aborigines of Australia. It said that when they travelled, they would "sing up the hills" - sing about what they would find over the next hill, and thereby create it. They believed, the program said, that if they didn't sing, there would be nothing there. And they were always right - they always found the beautiful land they sang of; the creatures, nights, days, and community.
I thought, "yeah, that sounds right", and I always practiced it. When I have travelled, I have always sung songs that were meaningful to me, songs I knew and had grown up with. I think music is an amazing source of energy, you put it in, and it turns around and comes out as more, and better.
I read about a man's trip to Ireland years ago, he was at a pub in a small town and ended up talking to an old man. The old man recited a poem for him, didn't know any modern music at all. He knew a handful of old poems, and had sung them to himself all his days; out working in the fields, cutting peat, labouring, it brought light to his life, reminded him of the ones he loved, of the blood of his fathers in the ground beneath him, and the stars in the sky above.
I went yesterday to Ahousat. I didn't practice my singing; I thought nothing. I didn't know what to expect, but despite what people said, deep down I looked forward to the meeting. And instead, maybe having created a gravitational attraction by long habit - the music rose up to meet me.
Ahousat is supposed to be one the poorer reservations in Canada  - third world conditions, people said. Well, they're making progress. There was an air of looking-forward, people are busy. We were honoured to attend an elders luncheon, and were well-fed. It is 45 minutes by boat from Tofino, and I was there with the Friends of Clayoquot Sound, in relation to the possible copper mine on Catface Mountain. This is a place of new ideas, of leadership for Canada, in forestry, and from First Nations. Maybe there is a potential here for new ways of doing things, new ways of recognizing First Nations special place in Canada, new kinds of relationships between First Nations and environmentalists. Hope springs eternal? It does in me. For hope -"is only the love of life". How can we ever get to the stars if we don't adore them?
There was no music. It was in the voices, the river of culture and history, wrinkled smiling eyes, warm, unsure about me and who I am, all I could do was smile back. And there it was - the same music I grew up with, a lilting warm current underneath everything, of love and family, hardship and history. I felt more at home on the Ahousat Reservation, 45 minutes by boat from Tofino, than I do in town, any town. Strange, what is this music I hear?