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In the woods behind UBC’s Nitobe Japanese Memorial Garden yesterday, enigmatic and maybe even mystical sign of the day.

Two people dutifully look under the signpost in case that might clarify its significance.

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It doesn’t.

A short walk later, in the distance, what looks like a whale tail is coming out of the ground. Alas, it was unphotographable. It might have been wiggling. It definitely shimmied and shimmered and shape-shifted. Closer, we see that it’s not an underground whale, it’s something else, something rarely seen outside in the wild in daytime.

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Yes, that’s the sciurid form of the alien creature from “Bio Planet Woo” (生物彗星ＷoO, Seibutsu Suisei Ū). Some dodgier spiritual types would have it that this creature can in theory be summoned (unknown in practice, with cryptic warnings in ancient wisdom and its folk songs and sayings about “no, no woo”) if in the weirding season one were to cross paths with a chipmunk for long enough to ask how much wood a woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

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For S.M., who graciously provided a second pair of eyes (and shoes on the ground) and provides the story of the other side of the whale’s tail’s bifurcation:

Whale-tales credit: Benji Davies

It’s dusk on the evening of 31 October 2022. It’s over two years since the dendromorphoses first saw the light of day here, then returned underground. Tonight, as the wheel of the year turns, as the veils between the worlds thin, they’re back.

Once upon a time, there was a small green shoot. She lived in a forest next to a well-trodden path. This might seem like a dangerous way to live and the start to a tragic story, one so ridiculously short as to be unexciting, not worth telling, and meaningless.

Her story is, still, a short one. Little is known of her life. She keeps herself to herself, lives quietly and simply, and is rarely seen by others. By those others who are in the habit of collecting and telling stories, that is; the others who would grant themselves a Capital O as The Others who recount, account, and count; who matter, and who thereby give materiality to their stories’ material. But she already has substance aplenty and is in no need of such “help.” She is quite happy having no adventures and being mostly invisible.

Invisible and unadventurous in others’ terms, her advent and adventitiousness are imperceptible as they happen in a different time. She cannot be observed properly—in The Others’ terms—minute by minute, minutely, to be objectively monitored and recorded. She is improper. She flickers in and out of sight, though rooted in the same spot. She can only be seen in The Otherworld if an Otherworlder looks carefully through one of the arborways. We’d be more used to calling these gateways and portals; to seeing the liminal as constructed objects, and as with arches and bridges to associating design, engineering, and architecture with all that is man-made.

An arborway found: even then, there are no guarantees. Go around and over and through it. It will be different every time, and every approach opens another world. One must be in the right place, at the right time, in the right frame of mind, and feeling “hello worldly.” Such things are unpredictable, can’t be forced or engineered. You might see her twice in an hour. She might be bigger or smaller the second time, perhaps with more leaves, in different place and positions. You might not see her again for weeks. It’s OK. She’s still there. It’s just that you can’t see her. It’s not her fault, that’s how she is. It’s not your fault either, this isn’t about you, and like most things in our worlds fault doesn’t matter anyway. Responsibility, sure. Be calm, be kind, be safe, be patient. You saw her once. That’s a wonder.

She’s still there.