Salt and Peppering My Dad’s Ashes: Grief Ritual at Redfish Lake, Idaho

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

🎧 UPDATED AUDIO – Now Ears-Approved!

This re-released version comes with smoothed-out sound for your comfort. The original audio had a few sharp turns (thank you for your grace). This one is tuned to invite you into stillness, memory, and meaning. Same content as previous episode in the feed. Feel free to move right along, to the next episode, if you already heard this episode.

In this deeply personal episode, I take you with me to Redfish Lake, Idaho. Idaho is my father’s birth-state and now the resting place of part of his ashes. You'll hear raw, real-time reflections from the lakeshore and Redfish Creek, the steady hush of water moving downstream, and a live recording of the words I shared at his celebration of life.

We begin with a poem close to my heart, The Long Boat by Stanley Kunitz, read by my dear friend Jude Theriot. a poem I happened to read the morning after my dad passed.

This episode is a mosaic of pilgrimage, poetry, grief, and devotion. A dispatch from the road. A ritual in sound. An offering for anyone carrying love and loss in the same tender hands.

SUMMARY

Dispatch Two of Alexander Blue Feather’s summer pilgrimage takes listeners to Redfish Lake in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho—his father’s birthplace and now sacred resting ground. This immersive episode blends field recordings, dreamlike reflections, and a heartfelt eulogy shared at his father’s memorial. From a tent beneath the stars to a quiet moment at the lake's edge, Alexander creates a space where grief becomes an act of love, silence becomes prayer, and starlight becomes a conversation with the beyond.

KEY POINTS + TAKEAWAYS

• Redfish Lake as sacred ground: A place of deep memory and release, nestled in the Idaho Dark Sky Reserve.

• Ritual meets wilderness: Scattering ashes by the fire, in the creek, and beneath the tent becomes a powerful act of farewell and presence.

• The power of poetry: The Long Boat becomes a compass for grief, anchoring the journey in beauty and acceptance.

• Grief as apprenticeship: Inspired by Francis Weller, the episode honors grief as a sacred exchange between loss and aliveness.

• An invitation to listeners: To make space for ritual, remember their beloveds, and find the extraordinary within the ordinary.

TRANSCRIPT

Hey, quick heads up before we dive in—this is the remastered, ear-friendly, nervous-system-soothing version of the last episode. The original had some rogue audio levels (my bad!), so if you caught that one and felt sonically assaulted or bailed early—thank you for sticking around. This version is smoothed out for maximum comfort and presence. You’re safe here.

Let’s begin again.

Always loving you,
Yours, bluely.

This is a sacred dispatch from Redfish Lake in Stanley, Idaho—nestled beneath the Sawtooth Mountains. Idaho is my father’s birth state. And now, a resting place for part of his ashes.

Today’s episode opens with the poem The Long Boat by Stanley Kunitz, read by my dear friend, Jude Theriault. I first read this poem years ago, and then found it again the very morning after my dad died. It has stayed with me ever since—a compass of language when I needed it most.

You’ll hear real-time audio from my pilgrimage—field recordings from the lakeshore, the creek, the wind moving through the Idaho Dark Sky Reserve. You’ll also hear a live clip from my dad’s celebration of life—a seven-minute offering of memory, love, and legacy. My tears. The laughter. The claps from the audience.

I speak of our healing journey as father and gay son. Of grief as an apprenticeship, borrowing from Francis Weller’s deep work. Of how ritual and presence can alchemize sorrow into something sacred.

I came to Idaho searching for something extraordinary. And I found it in silence, in starlight, in the slow work of letting go. In the extra-ordinary.

This is Dispatch Two: Scattering Ashes, Gathering Love.

Welcome back to the podcast.

Redfish Lake. The Sawtooth Mountains. Idaho—my dad’s homeland. The state where he was born. I don’t know if he ever came to the Sawtooth Mountains, but he’s here now.

Trigger warning: Dad’s ashes.

I scattered a dusting of my dad’s ashes in the hush between waves and let the silence say what words couldn’t. I mean, I would’ve driven three times as far to get here. It’s just… incredible. Birds singing. The view. The scent. The clarity of the lake. My bike, Minty Green, parked nearby.

And then, the poem. The Long Boat. I read it again the morning after he passed. The timing felt cosmic. It came from a book I brought along for our final days together—one of Stanley Kunitz’s last interviews, where he’s working in his garden in Provincetown.

And that same morning, in the bewitching hour between three and four a.m., I heard my dad’s voice in the hallway. It was his voice from long ago—when I was a child. It woke me from sleep. And then I read the poem.

Idaho. My dad’s home country. His ashes back in the soil and waters where his life began. Redfish Lake kept calling me. I needed to be there. And when I arrived, I kept grasping for something big, something spiritual. But instead, the subtle, powerful, wide and tall moments arrived. The extraordinary became quiet. Present.

My stepmother, Lynn, later commented on one of my Instagram posts—turns out, Redfish Lake was one of her favorite places in the world. And I had no idea. The synchronicities keep coming.

While there, I imagined my dad had once stood where I stood. Had once known that view. Maybe he didn’t, but it doesn’t matter. I slept two nights at Glacier View Campground with his ashes tucked beneath my tent. Supporting me. Holding me steady. Witnessing the Idaho Dark Sky above.

I felt like everything was popping into me and moving across the sky. I came searching for something extraordinary. And what I got was extraordinary—breathing with the trees. Feeling his presence. Letting go of striving for meaning and simply being present with what is.

I’ll also share the words I spoke at his celebration of life in Arizona, a couple months later on Easter weekend. A moment of deep love, memory, and story. Then, you’ll hear the moment I placed his ashes into Redfish Lake. Quiet words. Ash meeting water. The sacred exchange.

There’s a strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, as Francis Weller says. A sacred exchange between what seems unbearable and what is most exquisitely alive.

This is my apprenticeship. This is my ritual. This is my summer dispatch from Idaho.

May it guide you back to your own center. May you remember the ones you’ve loved and lost. May the hush between waves and the stars above remind you: you are never alone.