pay attention

 III.

Taki’s grandmother, Asiavik, was like the Alpine Blueberry plant for which she was named.

She was beautiful like it’s dark pink flowers.

She was helpful like it’s berries, of which living things took their fill, from the humble Arctic mouse to the Iñupiat people themselves.

She was always there like it’s berries, too, for even after all creatures had taken their fill, an abundance of fruit remained.

And she was anatkuq, which is a shaman.

One day she was resting inside of a sod igloo, the traditional dwelling of the Iñupiat people that is dug into the earth and framed with whale bone.

She sat perfectly still.

She didn’t move a muscle.

She didn’t even blink.

Her spirit went traveling, as shaman spirits do.

She traveled far away until she reached a gathering of bowhead whales.

“Welcome, friend,” said the bowheads.

They saw that she was cold in the Arctic waters, so they gave her a parka.

“Quayanaq,” she said. “Thank you.”

She put it on.

Something wonderful happened.

She became a bowhead whale!

Her head became the immense, bow shaped head of the great Arctic whale.

Her body took on a two foot thick covering of blubber to keep her warm in the cold, cold water.

She was Asiavik and also a bowhead whale, both at the same time.

She spent the whole winter with the bowheads, living life as they lived life.

She dove down 500 feet into the depths of the water and stayed for over twenty minutes, until she had to surface for a breath of air.

She created her own breathing holes by breaking through ice up to one foot thick with her enormous head.

She spouted the cold, salt water into a V shaped pattern out of her widely separated blow holes.

Sometimes she swam with her pod and opened her mouth wide to expose her 10 foot long baleen to catch the tiny krill that moved in abundance around them.

Sometimes she swam and ate alone.

She would breach, lobtail, flipper-slap and spy hop above the surface.

Mostly, though, she stayed below the surface, learning the ways of her Balaena mysticetus friends.

She was 100 tons of wonder.

Spring neared, and the bowheads prepared for their yearly migration from the Chukchi Sea to the Beaufort Sea.

Asiavik joined them.

“We’ll meet hunters along the way, waiting in their umiaks,” they said to her.

“Some of these skin covered boats will appear bright and clean and will be pleasing to your eyes.

Others will be dark and dirty,” they taught.

“There is no greater gift that a bowhead can give to the world than to give itself to the Iñupiat people.

By giving yourself to them, you will be helping them live.

Life is beautiful when you give yourself to others to help them live.

You’ll give them muktak from your thick skin and oily blubber that will give the nourishment and Vitamin C in the lean months of deep winter.

You’ll give them baleen that they’ll weave into fine baskets.

You’ll give them what’s inside of you so the can cover their drums and make music.

You’ll even give them your bones so they can frame their houses.

You’ll live through them.

If you choose to give yourself to the people, surface beside a clean umiak, for the people inside will be respectful, considerate and kind.

They’ll share you with widows, orphans, the old and all who cannot bunt for themselves.

They’ll place you in clean ice cellars.”

These words comforted her.

“If you surface by a dirty umiak, the people inside will be selfish and lazy.

They will not help people in need.

You will not want to give yourself to hunters like that.”

Asiavik listened closely to the bowheads, for she was a good listener.

“The best way to teach others about YOU is to share your life with THEM.

That’s why we’ve shared our life with you.

If you give yourself to an umiak, your spirit will not die, but will return to put on another parka, as do the spirits of all of the bowheads who give themselves to the Iñupiat.

Your human body will die.

You will live with us forever.

If you choose to go back to the people of Point Hope, you must take the form of a humble Eider duck and fly back to them.

You must teach the people about us.

The choice to stay with us or go to the people is yours to make.

As they neared the coast of Point Hope, she chose to go to the people.

She became an Eider duck and flew into the sky.

At dawn, she landed in the town and became her human form again.

She wrote the story of her journey and all she had learned from the bowhead whales.

She shared the story with the people.

Now, the people know they must respect and honor the bowhead whale in order to receive it’s gifts.