A birthday spent building an alter
First chose the highest point of a rock outcropping alongside the ocean
A gathering of erratic boulders and wrinkled stone sits where two tectonic plates meet
Where camas grows
Has grown pre-contact
Starchy bulb sustenance
The mountains across the straight are said to stand guard, stand witness
To this site deemed sacred by both First Nations peoples
and the islands first Chinese immigrants
A vortex of elemental energy
shifting ground
instability underfoot
constant wind
rock that rubbed shoulders with glaciers
Each side is embedded with natural items collected from a place
that relates to it's north, south, west or east home
The underbelly dark cave ladder
spirals to the underworld
or upwards towards birth light
The top
earth, air, water, fire
crystal conductor
sentinel gargoyle
sage burn
top of the center pole
runs through the alter from ground to sky
links the lower, middle and upper worlds
the conductor
the axis mundi
A gathering of erratic boulders and wrinkled stone sits where two tectonic plates meet
Has grown pre-contact
Starchy bulb sustenance
To this site deemed sacred by both First Nations peoples
and the islands first Chinese immigrants
shifting ground
instability underfoot
constant wind
rock that rubbed shoulders with glaciers
that relates to it's north, south, west or east home
spirals to the underworld
or upwards towards birth light
earth, air, water, fire
sentinel gargoyle
runs through the alter from ground to sky
links the lower, middle and upper worlds
the conductor
the axis mundi
