Reports from Michigan's Beaver
At the first Fox on a Hill retreat on
Beaver Island, Michigan

You'll find Miss Michigan's nicest big island tucked up in Northeast corner of Lake Michigan between the state's two pleasant peninsulas.

Before this week, I hadn't been to Beaver Island since I was about 12 (1992). As a youngster, I didn't have to say to friends, “No Beaver Island isn't a lesbian resort.”

The Emerald Isle's 60 sparsely populated square miles of people with mostly Irish ancestry have witnessed relative peace as oil, rail and timber industry ventures rolled through. The only notable exception was when James Jesse Strang and his Mormon contingent kicked them out and used a forged letter from Joseph Smith as an excuse to declare Strang sovereign of his island kingdom. King Strang was eventually killed and his followers were kicked off the island by raiding bands of Michiganders. Rumors abound that Strangian Mormons still make pilgrimages to their holy land.

Today, Beaver Island has a larger proportion of electric cars than anywhere else in the state. You get there by ferry from Charlevoix, a place of memories for me: where my then-three-year-old brother survived a swan attack and the main street where I always picture And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street take place.

This year, Fox on a Hill invited me to do a bit of joy seeking, nature communing, strategic dialoging, and music making on the founder's property on the remote southeast side. Earthwork musicians joined. We talked about meefers and plume (two great resources for the gay community—spaces to watch as they develop real, non sex-centric online gay community).

I cleared my lungs out with fresh lake air and native plants. The invasive species Mullen grows all over the island and makes a fine tea or bidi for expelling all that clogs you. I left large chunks of Beijing toxins on the forest floor. Invasive species are trying to tell us things and they're there to help.

My excuse for leaving Beijing for Michigan was to attend my cousin's wedding. A week before I left, I was comfortable with my decision to see the Olympics from afar. Then the air got clean and the cars were gone. I started to fall in. But family—getting tribal—is exactly what I needed. Life is easy with your own people.

Now I crave to go back and take in this Olympic spectacle. My good friend the dragon is throwing one hell of a party. I'll catch the last four days of what Tom Brokaw called "perhaps the most significant event in modern Chinese history" in Beijing (well, that's how I remember the quote from the Today Show). The Chinese are my people too. There's so much work to be done.

Coming up:
The NPR story: Link
Our Beaver Island EP: Link

Labels: fox on a hill, history, michigan