Heartsong

A Valentine rendezvous with Thunder

By Sharon Harrison

The spirit of the Walking with Thunder series of walking events—February’s chapter being coincident with St. Valentine’s Day, is one that relates to the heart this month. It is about the love of the place we call home, a simple yet ever-changing landscape to be discovered and enjoyed, the love and connection to others, but especially recognizing the growing bond and interconnectedness between a man and a donkey. For those who need introductions, Hillier artist Conrad Beaubien had a dream and a vision about a decade ago, one involving a donkey, one he is now realizing with a series of monthly meditative treks, appropriately entitled Walking with Thunder. Fourteenyear- old rescue donkey Thunder resides with his animal friends at Noble Beast Farms near Bloomfield. With an expected lifespan of approximately 40 years, Thunder is considered a young adult. When the two characters were acquainted and got to know each other a little better, they became inseparable, where this donkey best friend is currently the highlight of Beaubien’s life, where there is always much to be learned with each donkey encounter.

After a short delay, due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions through January, DeRAIL presented chapter four in the enchanting Walking with Thunder series on Sunday, dubbed “Rendezvous of Hearts”. The walks take place along various sections of the Millennium Trail, mostly concentrated on the northwestern portion of Prince Edward County. February’s Walking with Thunder took place at home base where the first walk began last October, at Salem Road where it meets the Loyalist Parkway, just north of Consecon. A six-kilometre trail walk to the bridge and back was followed by hot cider, where a couple of warming fires kept things comfortable.

Landscape architect, Victoria Taylor started Toronto-based DeRAIL, a platform for contemporary art and architecture, a registered non-profit, with Gelareh Saadatpajouh, in Toronto in 2016, first looking at the west Toronto rail path. As a part-time Hillier resident with partner Jamie Kennedy, she was inspired by the Millennium Trail and the possibilities for public art animating the public space. As an independent arts producer, De- RAIL considers itself an alternative platform for dialogue and collaboration across disciplinary, geographical, and ideological boundaries, where they commission and produce place-specific art projects to foster new conversations about public space design.

“We bring urban and rural landscapes to life through contemporary art by moving beyond the walls of a traditional gallery space to offer a new experience to both citizens as participants and artists as contributors,” explains Taylor. “We want to safely draw people into a place-making experiment in an open public space to inspire new ways of understanding this popular local trail.” DeRAIL invites audiences to pause, to listen and to observe. “And to consider how we might think differently about the unique, shared public landscape beyond its usual function as a movement corridor, where time is something to be considered rather than counted. DeRAIL invites people to add their own layers of meaning to a linear landscape beyond its functional role as a mobility corridor.”

It wasn’t a conventional way to spend St. Valentine’s Day, not even accounting for Coronavirus, which has brought its own set of limitations to this long-term project spanning seven months. It was, however, an afternoon spent with a very small, Covid-safe, group in the company of a donkey exploring a section of snowy trail on an unusually mild February day, bright sunshine illuminating the gleaming natural landscape that is the Millennium Trail and its surroundings. “I love the relationship between land-based art projects and the land itself,” says Taylor. “We are living here, we are walking together on this land and next to the waters of Lake Ontario and we just want to acknowledge this area, and we are so grateful for those that came before us and to have this opportunity to work here,” she said. “We recognize that this is the traditional territory of other nations, also Prince Edward County is the home to many Indigenous people, and I encourage you all to be on that journey of education and learning about the people that were here before us.”

For Beaubien, being able to walk with a donkey companion, an idea 10 years in the making, is something he says he has always wanted to do. “I hooked up with this guy six years ago and he was on a farm on the Danforth and I’d stop and get to know him and his brother Joe,” explains Beaubien. “I look at it is he has come to me and I have come to him at an important time.” Beaubien speaks to the serious issue of mental illness and mental health wellness and his own struggles with the condition, something he is open to talking about. “He has been a lifesaver for me because I have a track record of mental illness, and the power of animals, their wisdom, their tranquility is very grounding.” Beaubien considers time spent in the company of Thunder his form of therapy, where heavy doses of animal spirit are on order. “I need to understand that Thunder has been sent to me for my healing,” he adds.

He describes how he visits the farm on a regular basis to get his Thunder fix, but to also engage with Thunder’s donkey brother Joe, as well as Micah, the 1,200- pound Norwegian horse, because they come as an inseparable family unit. “Sometimes, I don’t even walk with him, I go into the paddock and we just sit and chill and you feel their energy and it is very calming,” says Beaubien, noting the many documented theories of the human relationship to animals. “I want to continue this work and I would like to do it as a fundraiser to invite others that we could simply walk, we don’t have to talk. That is healing and there is something that these animals are known for: their humility and their service to humankind and that’s been part of their story,” he says. “It’s been a honour to be able to do this and get it off the ground, looking at ways of using the land when I proposed this and hooked-up with DeRAIL, and it has all fit in very, very nicely.”

“We want you to think about love and hearts on this Valentine’s Day, but also healing and the dark times that a lot of people are going through,” Taylor says. Beaubien acknowledges that how being unwell with mental health is something that we don’t see. “It’s not a broken arm or broken leg, anything that we see being repaired; it is a ghost-like illness and it is probably more debilitating than many things,” he says. “In my own personal journey, it is art that has always saved me; it has given me my grounding and it has allowed me to engage with it and it has become my best friend, being with him, writing about him.” The unfolding story of Conrad Beaubien’s Walking with Thunder adventures can be found at wellingtontimes.ca. The Walking with Thunder journey is also documented at walkingwiththunder.com. More information on De- RAIL can be found at derailart.com.