Two Types of People
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Walking mystic mountain paths
I reflect while sliding, losing footing
How after mystic mountain baths
Ascending or descending
Travel is safer when rains have been rooting
- Nitai Priya
I have been losing footing as well, but at the base of the river bank at the Assiniboine River which runs like a curvy vain, through not mountain, but flat plains.
Before highways there were rivers like the Assiniboine to carry humans and cargo through this vast land. The origin of the word Assiniboine: Assini – the native word for stone. Along the Assiniboine indigenous people would camp, immerse stone in fire, then submerge the stone in a container with water. This was their technology for boiling food.
A tribe was named after this called the Assiniboines. Cree, Ojibwa, and Dakota tribes also frequented this river. They came here for centuries in their nomadic way. Then came the French, the Scots and Brits, and then a constant wave of immigrants.
My trekking along both banks of the Assiniboine today gave me so much exposure to the water, to trees, bushes, especially burdocks, and earth, wet and dry. The people I met along this course, and they are of two kinds: those that look after themselves and those that don’t. Walkers, runners and cyclists are fans of health. The other type – they are prone to a kind of denial.
I met Chris who asked if I was from Tibet. I could tell he was a little intoxicated. I said, “No, you got the first letter right, though. Capital T for Toronto.“ I chatted with him and then before parting gave him a firm word about halting his drug taking. It seems that little nooks along the river are places where people hide from responsibility, where they toke up, drink, sniff, and do any old little thing to escape reality. Others venture to such places to get closer to earth, prakriti, and to the Creator, Purusha. In meeting these two types of people, I admit, I see more of the latter.
27 KM
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