The common truck route between Burrard Inlet and the Fraser River is the Clark/Knight corridor. I live a block and a half west of it, north of Kingsway, but I rarely hear it. Truckers are good about laying off their engine brakes when travelling down this hill.
While waiting to cross at the pedestrian light at Knight and 15th I saw a fragment from one of those trucks in the gutter. Part of a braking system, not that it was anything to do with a braking system staring back at me.
A frog, I thought. Or Frog, capitalized, without the article in front of it, like we learned at school when studying northwest coast myths and legends. You deserve better than this, I said to Frog, putting it in my knapsack.
Upon return I put Frog on top of the backyard pizza oven and, in short order, busied myself with yard work. I cut back the dead parts of my mint, rock rose and barrenwort, and removed some broken branches from my butterfly bush, reducing them for the recycling bin. From there I decided to feed my acid-loving shrubs and bushes.
As I was passing the pizza oven I looked down and saw not Frog but Raven. How did that happen? How was it that by raising the fragment's right half, Frog returns to its Raven form?
What a beautiful gift! Frog, keeper of seasons, announces spring to you, takes you home to tend the garden. Raven carries to you the message from the Creator, reminding you that you live in a powerful place where Mother Earth, the Creator and the sacred animals will forever imprint themselves on the world, even on trucks and industrial corridors.
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