Tree City donated an Oakleaf Mountain Ash (Sorbus Thuringiaca Fastigiata) for the centre of the wheel. It was chosen because it fit (barely) into the narrow space while still being formidable enough to serve as a focal point, but also because mountain ash has all kinds of medicinal uses.

The Herbs Taste and Treat blog says mountain ash berries were used by the Welsh to brew beer and the Druids to dye clothes for lunar ceremonies. An ancient Greek myth tells of an angry Zeus sending an eagle to recapture a cup stolen by a demon. In the battle that followed, wherever the eagle’s feathers touched the earth a mountain ash tree grew, the red of the berries symbolizing the eagle’s spilled blood.

The berries can be boiled and gargled to soothe a sore throat, and are said to be effective in treating respiratory problems.

The same blog continues:

Because of its white flowers, like the elder tree and the hawthorn, it is believed to be a goddess tree and in Iceland it is thought that the bare tree when covered in frost in winter looks as though it is covered in stars, so it is a moon-tree. Moon trees were decorated with lights and fruit in mid-winter to remind people that even in those dark days there was hope of a brighter spring. Some people think that these moon trees were the forerunners of the Christmas tree tradition.

This cultivar is said to be hardy and able to withstand harsh conditions including urban pollution, so… welcome to the big city.

An added benefit with the Oakleaf Mountain Ash is its contribution to the four sacred colours of the wheel. The flowers emerge white in spring, the berries turn red in summer, the leaves turn yellow in the fall, and if you combine all that with the black of the soil you have your wheel reconfigured in one place.

To plant the tree, Sun Dancer/Oppenheimer Park programmer Jim Leyden first placed salmon in the bottom of the hole. Not long ago researchers in a major study measured how important returning salmon bodies were to the fertility of the rain forest. It was a scientific breakthrough that surprised a lot of people… but likely not First Nations folks who knew it for generations.

Jim then did something unexpected. He asked for people representing each of the four  colours to step forward to plant the tree. We’re so used to walking on verbal eggshells when it comes to race and identity, we sometimes won’t even say the obvious. I can’t think of a recent public event with a similar request, and it struck me as refreshing. It didn’t set anyone back. A Black youth stepped forward, followed by an older white man, then a First Nations woman and an Asian woman. Others helped keep the stem upright and fill the hole with soil.

The four arced beds around the centre were planted with perennials of medicinal value that will flower or fruit in each of the four colours –

South – Black or Blue

East – Yellow

North – White

West – Red

Jim explains how these represent both the colours of the people and  colours symbolic of the direction: Black and dark blue to represent the water and night sky, Red to represent the setting sun, White to represent the snow, Yellow to represent the rising sun.

Jim collected some of the plants  in the wild, starting a process that will be ongoing. Three cedar vegetable boxes were also placed on the site for community use because…isn’t food medicine too?

From Jim Leyden’s ceremony introduction:

It is our hope that this garden will be used as a tool for the teaching and healing of the people. Please come out and be familiar with the garden and return to use it for private or public healing ceremonies.

The new Oppenheimer Park Medicine Wheel Healing Garden is holding its Grand Opening Wednesday, May 29, at Oppenheimer Park, and you’re invited!

Interesting article from the New York Times on “fruit activists” blending art and politics and trees in urban centres.

High concept or low impact? Who cares? You still get the fruit. And the community gets some great trees and another portal into the living world beyond the screen. Go fruit crusaders!

‘Fruit Activists’ Take Urban Gardens in a New Direction – NYTimes.com.

The mass experiment producing new lab-generated life forms is hardly slowing down. Here’s a take from Mercola (never heard of it before but it calls itself “the world’s #1 natural health website) on the efforts to “improve” what you might have thought was doing pretty well already without interference from scientists or corporate profiteers: the forest.

Why Genetically Engineer Trees?.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w437uQf_A7c&feature=player_embedded

One more clipping from the press glut on Earth Day about the TreeKeepers program that’s ramping up this week.

This one is from the Vancouver Province. One of the city’s two dailies. Not long after this story ran, a leaked memo from the new publisher of the Sun and the Province told staff the mainstream newspaper business may not be sustainable, and they should ask themselves if they’re really meant to be there, because if they didn’t have creative solutions maybe they were part of the problem.

Ouch! Hope this article wasn’t the back-breaking straw.

Affordable trees available as part of green city push.

More on the TreeKeepers program helping people grow the urban forest in Vancouver.

This clipping is from Vancouver 24 Hours, one of the daily giveaways that are crowding out the old traditional newspapers.

Did you get your tree yet? The choices are fabulous and the prices can’t be beat. Also, we’re giving away free cars.

Wait what? The car thing didn’t work out? OK never mind that part. But you can still get a tree if you hurry. Link to the TreeKeepers page is here.

Vancouver sells affordable trees to residents | Local | News | Vancouver 24 hrs.

Ball’s in your court, Vancouver residents (in our six pilot neighbourhoods). If you want to help grow the urban forest, and get a great deal on a fine tree at the same time, go here now.

Treekeepers program encourages Vancouver residents to help grow urban forest.

A friend sent a link to this pleasant video of Malaysians planting “flowers” for “peace” and “hope” and the “underdog” and such.

Turns out to be heavier than that. Some of the people behind the video are already being investigated by the Malaysian authorities. When a government comes down on people for doing nice things, you can imagine there’s some serious sub-text there.

One of the planters, Nurul Izzah, in the lavender scarf, is the daughter of Anwar Ibrahim, former deputy prime minister ousted and jailed on dubious charges.

Malaysian Spring – YouTube.

Come for the lessons on community-based agriculture and field education in international food justice, stay because they’re held in… Peru.

The eight-week Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture starts June 24. Applications due May 17.

Looks like a great way to get your head and hands into some worthy stuff. I’d go in a flash if only etc., etc.

Details and such here.

When Canada finally got around to choosing its first Poet Laureate, they skipped right past the high-falutin’ Ontario crowd and the Quebec other-solitude cadres to select one of us, BC’s own George Bowering.

He’s written dozens of books, not just poetry but also novels and non-fiction. He’s also taught thousands of writers at SFU and elsewhere. I’ve been a fan ever since he was kind (or dazed) enough to agree to appear as a guest on an early livestreaming show I hosted called The WritingLife. We filmed at 6am on Saturdays on a floating “cyber den” in Coal Harbour. I’m sure it was the novelty of livestreaming around the world that got guests out of bed; today I can’t even imagine having the gall to ask.

Bowering was an excellent guest. He’d just been named Poet Laureate, and when I asked him how he felt when he heard about the honour, he held up a clipping from a headline about a war tactic then being applied in Iraq: “Shock and Awe.”

One thing I didn’t ask him which always puzzled me was, as a good Canadian boy, why the big love for baseball? His autobiographical book Pinboy helps explain. Here’s my review of it for the British Columbian Quarterly.

BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly.