. . THE MOON on the water is a pale eye. It hangs suspended, like a dream upon awakening. The lake bears it effortlessly, and the scrim of trees along the skyline thrust up like fingers to tickle its belly. You’d swear you can hear the chuckle of it against the morning adagio of shorebirds. My people call this time of day Beedahbun, first light. In traditional times, Ojibway medicine societies gathered in the vesperal quiet for prayer and ceremony. They gathered to celebrate the light in the sky. Those morning rituals were a celebration of energy, a recognition of the harmony we often live in so blindly. For me now, it’s meditative time. I feel Ojibway standing at the edge of a mountain lake watching eagles and ospreys soar and dive. I discovered the whole Beedahbun thing one glorious week in the autumn of 1985. I was struggling to survive then. My first marriage had ended badly, and I found myself sleeping on my mother’s couch. I was drinking too much, to try to kill the pain of it, and it took a while to get my feet under me again.
