Standing on Ceremony
Ancient cultures, marked by traditional totems and symbols of an animistic spirituality, are being taken back by the forest floor. Ages of honouring the natural world and all of its inhabitants are coming to a change, perhaps an ending as we consume more and more resources and space once inhabited by the wild creatures of the forest. “Standing on Ceremony” depicts a family of Grizzly Bears, making their way to a favourite stream, once teaming with migrating salmon. As they make their way through the forest, they clamber over a fallen totem pole, carved by a people who honoured the raven, the bear and the salmon. Stepping down into what was once a flowing stream bed, they find a flat emptiness where this mother bear had previously found abundance. Water. Without clean and abundant water, all of us who share this world will suffer, not only the raven, the bear and the salmon but all our relations.