If you're not from the prairie ...

As a transplant to the prairie I have, over the last few years come to appreciate the breathtaking beauty that surrounds us in this valley town called Minnedosa ...

When we came to Manitoba, a friend (who came form Saskatchewan) gave our kids a book entitled: "If you're not from the prairie ..." (It is widely available from fine bookstores, and online bookstores everywhere ...). In it through stunning paintings and exquisite words the author and illustrator convey some of the majestic beauty that one finds only on the prairie. The wind, the cold, the sky, the snow, the flat, the sound, the sights ... the book celebrates something that many chose to drive across quickly on their way from Alberta to Ontario, or from Ontario to British Columbia ... Today as we made the drive from Minnedosa to Brandon it was striking to consider just how beautiful the prairies are at the is time of year ... Allow me to share some of my reflections on the beauty of the prairies in the height of summer:

The colours:

Brilliant yellows of fields of canola ...
Blooming in the sunshine ...
riotous splashes of bold yellow
spreading across the rolling hills and
marking distant valleys ...
Colour that catches in the throat
and utters forth a "wow!!" for the beauty of creation ...

Soft, subtle blue of lavender coloured flax fields in bloom ...
shimmering in the summer sun ...
they look like vast lakes glinting in the glare ...
their surfaces rippled by the wind ...
the waves of motion cresting and breaking over distant hills ...
They tease and taunt
they whisper to our parched souls
with the promise of water where none is to be found ...

Rich greens and golds of grain ripening for the harvest ...
across the rolling plains of our prairie flow the fields of grain ...
under the blinding sun
greens and golds and colours that foretell of promise untold ...
in the heat of summer the drying of the green into rich yellows and golds
foretells the world that harvest shall begin ...
winds blowing and rolling across the fields
waves of grain undulate and tumble to the horizon ...

The wind:

Ever blowing ... softly ... harshly ...
rolling over hills and up out of valleys ...
sending waves after wave across vast unmown fields ...
splashing across the sloughs ...
bending trees and caressing cat tails ...
always present, never far ...
the wind blows across the land and through the sky ...
the wind is more then air ...

The land:

"It's too flat," says the urbanite ...
"It's too far to drive ..." says the west coaster ...
They seen, but cannot comprehend.
For them it is a place to cross, a distance to close.
They push the pedal down and roar along their highway,
eyes firmly fixed on the next road sign, marking distance nothing more ...
But the land rolls ever on ... an ancient sea bed left high and dry ...
Hills and valleys ... coulees and sloughs ...
The land marks the distance by hills to valleys, by bushes and trees ...
Gently rolling ever undulating ... the land is more then just distance ...
The land is a place of life ...
a place of community ...
a place that has a life an a story all its own ...

Pausing ...
to view the sky ...
Pausing ...
to walk the land ...
Pausing ...
to survey the horizon and hear the whisper of the wind ...
Pausing ...
we find ourselves in the centre ...
... not of a barren empty land ...
but of a land filled with promise ... movement ... colour ...
a land filled to bursting withe bounty of creation ...

Pausing ...
you find meaning and value ...

Pausing ...
your eyes are opened ... your soul uplifted ... your world expanded ...

If you're not from the prairie ... well, you might not understand ...
But if you taken time to pause on the prairie ...
you will hear what I say and know the truth of what I speak ...