Dell on Identity

Slept like a log last night and woke to sunshine streaming through the trees, diamond glints of light are playing upon the lake as the water striders skate gracefully along the water beside the dock. On mornings like this, I think of those who live elsewhere and dream of the wilderness.

Twelve years ago, travelling in Germany, I heard the name Karl May [they pronounced it like MY] and managed to pick up phrases such as Winnetou [the sage chief of an Apache Tribe], and Old Shatterhand,  [Winnetou's white blood brother]. May had been writing, at the turn of the last century, for an audience eager to learn of adventures in the American west. May travelled to the United States in 1908, but never went west. His books were almost exclusively based on research. His readers, at that time, believed he was writing from experience. May had difficulty at one point separating himself from his altar ego, Winnetou. 
My German hosts had never heard of Grey Owl or Archibald Belaney, the Englishman who came to Canada and took on an Ojibway identity. The next year, 1999, saw the release of Richard Attenborough's film Grey Owl,  starring Pierce Brosnan and a very talented young actress from Quebec, Canada, Annie Galipeau, playing Pony, the young woman who convinces Grey Owl to give up trapping to write of the wilderness and promote conservation. Perhaps best known among his writings are Pilgrims of the Wild and Tales of an Empty Cabin. [My personal favourite book on his life is Ruffo's Grey Owl. ] By the time Archibald Belaney a.k.a. Grey Owl died in 1938, he had become a naturalist whose writings and speaking tours had brought attention to conservation both here and abroad. Only after his death did the newspaper The North Bay Nugget reveal what they had known for three years: Grey Owl was a British citizen named Archibald Belaney. Interestingly, the film director of  Grey Owl, Richard Attenborough and his brother David had seen Belaney speaking while he toured in Britain when they were teens: David later became a naturalist. After Belaney's death, donations to conservation projects decreased for some time, in the wake of the revelation regarding his true identity. Newspapers predicted that his life's work would survive despite the duplicity, and in this they were correct. The writings of Grey Owl continue to inspire and his home in Hastings, UK, has plaques as well as a replicated cabin attesting to his contributions. He is buried beside the cabin where he last lived, along with Pony and their daughter who died in 1984.

It would be difficult to pull off that sort of deception today; still, I believe that identity isn't the name you are born with or the place you came from. Identity is the inner spirit revealed. This morning I am going to sit on the dock and meditate on my identity. Who are you? : interesting question.