Welcome back, dear Salmon! We celebrate your return to our Island. We honor the end and beginning of your life cycle, and the wonder of your transformation. You feed the waters and forest, the creatures of sea, land, and air, as well as us humans You nourish our bodies, brains, and imagination, our spirits and souls.
Dear Ones, you connect us with the heritage of many shores. We especially acknowledge and celebrate your immense ancestral relationship with this Island’s ecology and its indigenous people, the sx̌ʷəbabš, now part of the Puyallup, Nisqually, Squaxin Island, and Muckleshoot tribes, and the many other peoples who have long relationships with this Island.
Blessings on your journey home, and upon the fecundity of your species. May we be worthy of the gifts you share by virtue of your very nature: wisdom, generosity, perseverance, sacrifice, knowledge, myth, legacy, and sacred life. With humility, curiosity, and playfulness, may we embody aspects of your salmon nature within the flow of Island life. For surely, we have much to learn from you.
