This Kinship Collage is composed of a web of people, animals, landscapes, plants, elements, oral histories, dreams and stories, cultures, traditions, ideas, beliefs, books, movies, music, and objects, and will continue to grow and change. It is largely expressed from my personal perspective, in consultation and conversation with those entangled. Within this web we are great grandmothers-grandmothers-grandfathers-moms-dads-aunties-uncles-children-siblings-cousins-friends, living and dead (and infinite combinations of these). We intersect at many and multiple points, and we perceive from many and multiple positions as well.  

"Put it on the wind... child."

 (xwu’p’a’lich, Barbara Higgins 2017)

Death and Dying:

To talk about Life we need to recognize our relationship to the concept of Death. Death defines Life and vice versa. We measure our Life according to our movement towards an eventual, immanent "Death." I have come to think of Death as a form of Life, and Life as a process of Death. Everything is a circle, mom says. For me, Life is marked by the journey of discovery and important lessons to be learned before we move on to something else. Dreaming is a significant process through which we learn, it's how we cut across our cultural systems of organization such as time and space and connect with ourselves, family, and beyond. I have also begun to think of Death as an opening and a multiplying, and I wonder why we are taught (or enculturated) to fear this. I believe fear distracts from the important lessons we need to learn, fear masks the movement and activity of Death. I perceive the Life we are doing, living, as part of the journey through to another world, phase, or experience. Death is a door. 

After witnessing the Death of two grandparents (ten years apart) I noticed similarities with the event of birth (which I have also witnessed). It seems like Life is akin to the way many people understand fetal development in the womb, with the birth being thought of as a beginning. So, I wonder, is physical Life a developmental stage of existence, a gestation? 

Many believe that Life is dependent on our ability to breathe. Social scholars suggest that our breath, and breathing, may present a point of connection between various beings. While I appreciate this, I also wonder: why do we need to locate an ultimate point of connection or difference? I believe that things are much more complicated. Could our breath not be one of many points of connection and distinction? We do not need a battle for the perfect metaphor, we need to open our language and perceptions. The questions that lead to such metaphors reflect our compulsion to identify and classify things, our search for origins. But these questions are unanswerable, particularly with our current level of understanding. We need to learn to allow the fleeting, indescribable, and barely perceptible to have meaning without the need of an explanation or the search for a definitive origin. I'm suggesting that we permit the vast difference of experiences and the incomprehensible to be, or to "Let the mystery remain a mystery" (as Richard Wagamese says). 

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I've been studying smoke to think about the movement of Spirit and our spirits. Watching smoke billow makes me wonder about how we might become more when we "die" or "transition." I wonder if we experience a sort of multiplous reality. On the other hand, we could ask, what if nothing exists at all, what if it’s all a figment of our collective imagination? What if the world is dreaming us? I sometimes think about how we see strangers in our dreams and I wonder, do they see us in theirs? Are our dreams “real,” or is this reality a “dream”? Those in my family would probably say yes to both. Particularly, the former question, they would say, is true to certain degrees and in certain ways. When our relatives visit in dreams there are ways of sensing whether it’s a dream about them, or if they are really there. So, does that mean that dreams are tangible things? Or, are they intangible? Material? Immaterial? Or are they something in-between? I'm not really searching for any answers. Like I already said, I'm interested in pushing perceptions and opening up.

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Smoke is interesting this way because it gives shape to air and breath, and animates its movement. As a collection (or collective) of particles, it catches streams, traces currents, and colours breath. Smoke rises and swirls and snakes and disperses. There are countless practices involving smoke. Those that involve creating it intentionally and those that produce it second-hand from heat, fire, sparks, embers. Some ingest and consume smoke for spiritual, cultural, and social reasons. Like deep breathing, smok-ing alters our minds and bodies, conjuring different sensations, perceptions, and states of being. Smoke is sticky and clings to things, space, bodies, lungs. Often, it's born from a spark, and in turn has the power to extinguish life. 

As Nana struggled to breathe her last night, we struggled with her. We found ourselves circling her. An amber light from the other room and the rising moon had cast a warm glow over the room. It was soothing. With our hands on her limbs, we tried to comfort her through each wave of struggle. I ran my fingers over her face, tracing the outlines, and then wondered aloud if we were all driving her crazy, which managed to cut through the tension by causing everyone to laugh and take a breath. Auntie Bunny leaned over and told Nana, “Nadine’s being a character.” Then we moved around, again, rearranging our circle as the process continued. The entire week leading up to her last moments felt never-ending, yet at the same time everything wafted over us quickly and in a haze. We oscillated with her as she fought to take in air and release it, and we echoed words of encouragement and love in tandem. As she gasped for air, we held our breathe; as she struggled to inhale, our breath too caught in our throats, and with her final efforts we were left in suspense as she made a change of worlds. When the memory of this scene pops up, uninvited, obliging me to re-live this experience over and over at random, I sometimes imagine things differently to kind of re-remember something else. I envision a silky swirl of smoke rising from her mouth, giving shape to her spirit as it expands from her body; I picture it floating up above us in the room, as if she left before she could feel the labour of dying; I imagine the smoke reaching and dispersing in the space like coaxing fingers, becoming multiple and weaving into the different bodies nearby (human, plant, animal, and stone); and I see her smokey breath unfurling out the hospital window and traveling to the face of the full moon, from where she can watch over us.

Smoke is intangible, but sensible. We can see and feel it but cannot hold it, at least not for long because it's in constant transformation. When we breathe it, it carries a part of us, and it extends us in part. It intertwines with other flows, breaths, and bodies (humans and non-human, physical and non-physical). It's hypnotic.

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After Nana passed in the Squamish hospital, our Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) relatives held a sacred fire to guide her spirit to the next realm. Like breath, smoke and fire inspire attention to the movement of Spirit and the interconnection of all things. So, in the spirit of "keeping a fire" (in Daniel Health Justice's words), this sample of our Kinship Collage ends with a meditation on the creative, cleansing, and connecting properties of the smoke that rises from smudge.