VIDEO: Josh’s 29th Birthday…Cottage Grove style
The prayerboats were sent off at dusk on Josh’s birthday, Main St, Cottage Grove, where the river flows sweet and straight right through town. We made 40 or more boats altogether during his birthday party. Kids, elders, Josh’s friends and family, some media, a couple that drove from out of town to leave a donation.
We sent the boats out to river in a line, handing them off like a firemen’s bucket brigade. Hand to hand. The first one, made of moss, caught fire and went out in a little boat blaze as it floated downriver. Josh would’ve liked that. Out to sea! Everyone stayed on the riverbank and the old covered bridge a long time. The the cloudy sky blazed in an eruption of pink and red fire – a sunset the likes of which we hadn’t seen for a long while.
Before the launch, we played games in the middle of large heart make of knotted scarves. We broke bread together. Sliced up a 10 layer cake baked in the shape of a Ziggurat. Sat in a circle around an altar full of flowers, candles, art, animal totems. We exchanged presents to honor Josh’s desire for a generosity based economy, trading with friends and neighbors. Everyone had stories of Josh and offered their gifts to the circle. We called the center of the circle “the fire” in memory of Josh ecstatically throwing his favorite shirt into a fire at at party.
Everyone cried when Alex threw Josh’s 2nd favorite shirt with the Zapatista red star on it, into the “fire”. At the end, our community put the t-shirt up on a wall at the bookstore. His brother took home a piece of 100yr old yew wood with a poem about surviving the fires that surround you. We agreed we should keep the rest for Josh.
We are so grateful for Josh’s life, we love him so.
Tegra Fisk and the Cottage Grove community
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Administrator on August 3, 2011 at 12:23 PM, and is filed under 2 YEARS TOO LONG, ACTIVITIES & EVENTS, FREE ALL THREE, FREE JOSH AND SHANE, FYI, I REMEMBER, ON THE ROAD HOME, REFLECTIONS, STATEMENTS OF SUPPORT, THEIR PASSIONS, VIDEOS, VIDEOS OF SUPPORT, WHO ARE THE HIKERS?. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
