Vicar’s Message I saw my first red salmonberry of the season this week and it seemed just right for Pentecost. I love the way salmon berries seem to glow –light through them is clear and bright. And I am enchanted by their mystery: when is a salmon berry ripe? Are they named because they resemble the spawning colours of the keystone creature of this place? Or their eggs? Heiltsuk author Jess Housty says that in late spring as a child she would harvest salmon berries and that a good harvest indicated a good year for salmon. Scientists confirm that there is a connection between the flourishing of the plant and the fish. In one of the Salish dialects, the Swainson’s Thrush is known as the Salmonberry bird. Not because it eats the berries but because it’s spring arrival and territorial song are timed with the ripening of the berries. The rising flute-like tones, names the different colours of salmonberries and encourages them all to ripen: “Little red ones, little white ones, little gold ones, ripen, ripen, ripen.” I love that salmon berries are ripe and edible across the Pentecost colour spectrum red, orange yellow. They seem to oppose of the world view that everyone must accomplish in the same way or that there is a uniform and recognizable peak. Salmon berries simply exist, good and beautiful and different, a bit like the goodness of all those languages at Pentecost. We are so blessed by the plant-teachers of this place, Rev. Laurel