How do I respond? Offering Opportunities for Gathering and Learning

I’ve been engaged in writing a series on water. Water is Energy is an essay in a forth-coming book, Re-Imagining Fire, April 2023. I’ve also been writing a Water parable which is about fear, a monster emerging from a lake, and love. It’s due out in a collection in September 2023. My novel remains in progress. Hooray, it is so much fun to write!!!

I’m making my way to the front of the crowd of writers, speakers, educators, leaders, thinkers, artists, who offer opportunities to directly connect with a creative process and engage with others involved in the same encounter.

Why?

I’m responding. I’m reciprocating.

I began my response to the pandemic by writing How do I respond? in the center of a piece of paper. During day-long walks, during my year-long sun rise experiment in 2020 and, again, in 2022/2023, during slow cooking meals, during long conversations with people I love, I have asked again and again, how do I respond? I suppose the question is attached to another of my favourite questions, Why am I here?

I believe I’m here, in part, to directly experience life. To feel the physical sensations of being alive. To be shaped by life. To be in flow with life. Life has met me half-way. We are in co-creation. I’ve been living through an expansive period in my life. My days are marked by gratitude and love.

How do I serve love? is my current question. I ask it every day. For over three months I’ve been asking what is needed to serve love. Here is an invitation:

February, March and April 2023, I’m offering the on-line opportunity to directly experience a community/writers group held by love, shaped by experiment and in service of a greater sense of ease and meaning for all. Joy is here. Laughter is here. Six consecutive weeks starting the last week of February.

The beginning: We’ll meet in a generative workshop on February 11, 2023. 2.5 hours with two movement practices and a 30 minute break for walking. SIGN UP for the workshop here. We will write and use writing/symbol making/story telling as tools of expression. As a published writer in essay, personal memoir pieces, short stories and novels, I have experiences and experiments with form I’d like to share. You are not required to sign up for any writing group by coming to the workshop. You can only attend the workshop if you like.

To REGISTER, click the banner at the top of the page.

I’ll make a recording of one of the practices available for those who register but are unable to attend the workshop.

We welcome you. We welcome your fears and anxieties, your frustrations, and your longing for a different way to live or for everyone else to live like you! We welcome your skepticism and your belief in possibility. We welcome your weird and your rational mind. We welcome you.

Our experiments involve:

• Delving into relationship between you and ______(earth, mycelium, water, intimacy with a loved one, your memories, your dreams, rocks, mountains, prairies, the body, etc…) ________ in a direct experience.

• A period of noticing and observation.

• A reflective expression in writing/symbols/story being told.

• An experience of sitting with/seeing/hearing experimenters with varied perspectives.

• An experience of deep compassion, joy and laughter.

• A writing, revising and editing process with the goal of practicing/gaining skill in being present to the writing experience. Considerations of form, sentence building, word choosing, image and metaphor, pattern and rhythm, will arise through deep noticing and specific craft instruction offered in PDFs and notes. Also included are craft resources and reading recommendations tailored to the group’s needs/interests.

On February 11, 2023, I’ll open registrations for writing groups: six writers per group.

To REGISTER for the WORKSHOP, click the banner at the top of the page.

I’ll make a recording of one of the practices available for those who register but are unable to attend the workshop.

Scheduling concerns: I’ll offer writing groups on Tuesday mornings 10:30 MST, Wednesday evenings 6:30 MST, Thursday mornings 10:30 MST, and Thursday evenings 7:30 MST. The times are a bit flexible, so if you know you’re interested and the timing won’t work for you, send me an email with a suggested time and we’ll find a way.

Cost: I’m conducting three experiments related to reciprocity.

1. Half of all money I earn will go towards fledging the non-profit organization The Academy of Life as a Learning Lab. I will receive no income from The Academy of Life as a Learning Lab, now or in the future. It is an organization I’m helping to nurture. The other founders of this organization, Bri Strong and Miranda Logan-Webb are vibrant writers and artists and facilitators who are conducting inspirational life experiments.

2. I would like to embrace an option for a gift economy which does not involve money. Gifts are made. Gifts are found. Gifts are chosen. If you, for any reason, prefer a gift economy experiment option, you will consider how your skills and talents can be shaped into a gift to offer this reciprocity opportunity.

3. At the end of our group work together, you might want to make an offering, ask for something more, begin to lead experiments with a different group of people. Please follow your intuition. Please speak up. We are here to support one another. : )

My teachers: since 2017, I’ve been in deep study about writing and life. My MFA introduced me to amazing teachers Gayle Brandeis, Patricia Smith, Sunil Yapa, Peter Mountford, Lidia Yuknavitch, Rebecca Makkai. In 2022, Artists Eveline Koljin and Liz Ingram have been influential in my development through the water projects. Margaret Wheatley has helped me gain ground in living with intention, bravery and dedication during a difficult time in the world since 2020. Meg has brought qi-gong into my life- a movement and breath practice. I’ve also sought the knowledge of Carolyn Sargentson, a UK breathwork teacher. Close friends and artists have welcomed me into worlds of wonder and deep-caring. Andrea and Hap Wilson at Cabin Falls in September 2022 expanded my perspective again with their great love of the land, of respect for all. Bri Strong has been in my orbit for over eight years and their prompts of questioning life have expanded my perspective exponentially. Our 17 month old dog, Athena, has been a primary teacher. I practice many experiments in my relationships with all of my family, children and grand-children, ex’s and my current life-partner, Tom. We are all growing together.

Writers I continue to work with: The BC writers, The Island Writers, The Ghost Lake Writers all contribute to more and more experiments and a healthy and thoughtful me. I like to think we’re shaping the world with our kindness and love for one another. I’m thrilled to imagine the potential for 2023.

Notes on Reciprocity:

• reciprocity is a noun but the latin root of the word– reciprocus– is a verb, an action of rise and fall, move back and forth.

• So…I’m running back to my experiences and forth towards you and I’m always holding gratitude and love.

• I am grateful for my life. I am in love with being alive.

• The experiments we conduct collect direct evidence of life being lived around and through all of us, all beings. They can guide us in how to live and how to love. For me, many of the experiments provide a literal feet-on-the-ground, body as sensory organ, experience. Love needs a be-ing.

Patience. Listening. Emerging.

My mother went on strike once. She heard about other women going on strike in the 70’s– on strike from housework, from being the emotional middleman, from being the one-who-does-it-all-once-the-door-to-the-house-is-closed– and she followed their lead.

“I’m on strike.” She stood in the middle of the living room with a pile of laundry in her arms. She dropped her arms and the clean laundry splayed on the floor.

We didn’t know what to do. One of us kids didn’t pull our clean clothes from the pile. One of us cleaned up only their share. One of us cleaned up everyone else’s clothes.

I begged her to tell me why she went on strike. To tell me when it would be over. She refused. I begged her to forgive me for not doing enough. She walked away from me. Not because she didn’t love me, but because she couldn’t square her love for me with how much she gave to me and everyone else. To talk to me about the true nature of her pain? She didn’t have enough energy left.

Unfortunately for us, this pattern continued in our lives. Even when I was an adult and moved away from home for years and years, when I came back to wherever she was living, I was immersed into the mystery of what-is-really-going-on. So much mystery created a felt sense for me that everyone kept secrets and you didn’t ask and you didn’t tell what you were really thinking. You held your grief and suffering, you cleaned up your tears, you left all your emotions for the moment you said good-bye. When I was 9, I dreamed of being taken away in an ambulance and of hearing my parents tell me they loved me one last time. I loved that dream. It was a favourite repeat– fear-of-death with love-at-the-doorway dream.

The strike. Lots of dirty dishes piled up. The dishwasher went un-emptied for more than a day. The toilet began to scum over. I think Mom hoped we would all see the invisible ways in which she supported us. The scheduling, planning, cleaning, cooking, homework supervision, kid supervision.

I believe she might have wanted to force my father into the bright light of interrogation and self-reflection. My father spent weekends in the garden and on the ride-on lawnmower he loved, especially with a six pack of beer on a hot day. I remember him saying, “Do you want to hire a maid?” My mother wouldn’t have agreed to spending money on someone else to clean. At least not when I knew her.

I don’t know exactly why the strike ended. Or how. Or even how long it lasted. I’m glad she went on strike. She showed me you can stand up. You can do something different. You can be the change. Though it didn’t appear anything changed, maybe it did and I didn’t realize it. At 15, I paid attention mostly to me and my needs and my problems.

We moved shortly after she went on strike, the last move of more than a dozen moves since I was born. The last move before I left my first family.

I wonder what would have happened if she’d sat in a circle with us and told us how she was feeling, really feeling. I wonder if we would have been able to hear her. Maybe we would have mocked her. We were un-practiced in emotional conversations that didn’t end with slammed doors or a silent response to being told what to think and how to feel. I wonder if she would have accepted our help even if it came? Maybe she felt guilty for even asking for help! I wonder if she knew what she wanted and needed or if she was mostly fixed on what she didn’t want and didn’t need? I wonder how life would have been different if she’d divorced my dad that year when she told us she was thinking about it?

I wonder how my life has followed the shape of her life without me being fully aware? I wonder if, before she died, she thought I made a good decision leaving the way I did, moving 3,000 miles away and making a life for myself in another country? She made a similar move from her family, though not as far…

I’ve lived with the uncertainty of my mother’s support for most of the days I remember. I understand her desire was not to push me away, but to not harm me. I understand that because when I am silent and brooding, this is the reason I give myself: I don’t want to harm anyone else with my emotions.

I’ve had such a difficult time remembering how hard it was to be the small girl, the pre-teen, the teenager and the adult daughter of a mother who wanted to protect me from the truth of her pain, her sorrow, her suffering. Our emotion practice was about hiding and avoiding. When she was dying of breast cancer, she only cried uninhibitedly with me one time. She was visiting her brothers and sisters, gathered in South Carolina, over Christmas. I was in Winnipeg with my youngest son, Ben, 2 years old and my husband, Dennis and his family. Ben and Dennis and I had all been very sick. Some awful flu. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be in Edmonton. I didn’t want to be with Mom. I think I mostly didn’t want to be.

My mother sent me a picture via email. She is on the stairs and all her brothers and sisters (she had 9 of them) and their families are around her. You can pick her out immediately, she’s the one with a red bald head and face and neck and arms and hands. Bright red.

“I can’t wear my wig,” she says, “It’s too painful. All the radiation. And I’m having a reaction. I’m allergic to sulfa drugs. I told them I’m allergic to sulfa drugs.”

She cried. She really cried. Sobbing like I’ve never heard her sob. She itched all over, she said, and the pain came in waves, like radiation from inside her. And the nausea.

I cried and cried. I didn’t know what to say. I told her I loved her. I told her I wished I were there. I told her I missed her. It was her last Christmas. I didn’t spend it with her because we weren’t in the kind of relationship where that was possible. Maybe we were each worried about our feelings spilling out and messing up the living room floor. I got off the phone and went back to a Christmas I didn’t want to have, but at least I could say, “my mom’s dying and she’s in a lot of pain and I wish I could do something."

My mother’s been with me for several years now. I started noticing her presence during Covid. At first I thought she was a ghost I couldn’t see. Then, I thought it was my mind giving me what I needed. Now, I think she came because we both needed her to be with me. She came to comfort me. I’ve told her everything. I’ve been honest about all of my secrets. She’s a great cheerleader. She holds me close and tells me one person’s healing matters. Talking to my mom was the only way I could get to the point of being able to be honest with my daughter, my sons and my partners in life.

I think she’s getting ready to change the nature of our relationship. I think I won’t be able to access her as often, as fully as I have. I think something new is emerging. I’m not certain what it is. Tonight, I made her dinner and we enjoyed it together. I wrote all these words about her. My mom. Judith Ann. She loved St. Francis of Assisi. She loved her sisters and her brothers. She loved me, my sister and my brother. A woman of honour and humour. Thank you for her. Thank you.

I wonder about the earth. I wonder about sitting next to water, really sitting with the land, and talking it out. Telling the honest truth. Thanking the water, the land, the earth, all the invisible beings for their support. Trees create the air we breathe. Water sustains our lives. Land is essential for keeping us alive. It could be an interesting experiment. I wonder what prevents us from trying an experiment like this?

As we look back on centuries of violence and oppression and begin to confront the very real wounds we have inflicted on the land and on each other, it is important that we don’t try to accelerate through the difficulty.

Ultimately, sorrow is not healed. It is held. It is honoured.

Sorrow is melted and blended. It moves with the body, not through linear episodes, but through slow, conscious, spiraled dance.

- Sophie Strand from The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine

Coherence and then emergence.

Make contact. Tune in. Listen.

Anything can happen.

Grasping

I’m walking here with someone I love. I have loved for a long time.

We no longer live together and we sort of do. In my mind, I still travel back in time to our lives when we first met. All those struggles of getting to know someone, trusting someone, finding safety in them and discovering a deeper sense of self-worth.

When did it go wrong? I ask. I don’t know all the answers. I think, though, it begins with a calling out, likely near-silent or cloaked inside big feelings carelessly expressed, which isn’t heard.

The identity begins to loosen. The idea of being confined to a role begins to waver. The doubt of whether or not you could be loved if you showed your whole self, the side of your self you don’t much like.

It is no one’s fault. It is.

Observing the dissolving of what we’ve known is hard. Waking up and finding it disappeared is painful. The imagining of a new life that’s just like the old life is full of suffering.

All truths wait in all things, Walt Whitman.  

How to help the one who is suffering? Listen deeply.

How to help the listener who is suffering? Listen deeply.

Walk into nature: among trees, long grasses, a frozen lake, a windy path. Let the emotion rise. Know you’re being held.

Nature does not judge.

Nature does not tell secrets.

Meet again, the ones you love and have loved. In person or in your imagination. Tell them what you want them to know. Let go. Believe it will be understood. Let go. Believe you are free.

See the world as it is again. What is in front of you right now.

Life Experiment.

Look at an older photo of you. A photo of you which you believe captures the essence of a moment when you felt life was being lived through you, with you, in you, around you. A full moment. A moment of incredible memory– sensorially, bodily.

Remember who you are now. Remember who you are.

Remember

by Joy Harjo

Remember the sky you were born under,

know each of the stars stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. you are evidence of

her life, and her mother’s, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people

are you.

Remember you are this universe and this

universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

The Sun. Life Experiment

When I started my sun rise experiment in 2020, I did not understand how a simple practice could lead to such a big shift in perspective. I believed people who lived close to the land probably felt a deep connection, probably understood life differently than I ever would.

I started to walk to see the sunrise because I wanted to prove to myself I could do it. I could get up in the morning and dedicate my first minutes of the day to watch the sun rise. My biggest barrier was the doorway. I wanted to avoid getting close to the doorway in my weather-appropriate clothing. I have enough clothing I can be warm on the coldest days, but I remain avoidant of being cold, of shivering. If I stayed away from the doorway, I would feel the pull to open the door to the outside.

After three months, I felt the hang of it. It was still February and cold, but I didn’t have to rise too early and my legs were used to the route. I noticed, still, how impatient I felt on the walk to the ridge. I didn’t want to miss dawn and all the colours, I wanted the best part to last the longest.

By the end of the year, I didn’t mind the walk. I’d gotten used to letting go of my nighttime dreams during the walk, thinking a bit about my intention for the day- to serve love- and the flowing movement of walking.

Sun, mid-morning at the dog park. January 8, 2023

Seeing the sun rise everyday didn’t become my habit. Appreciating the sun rise each day has become a way of life for me.

My testimonial for engaging with life as it’s unfolding: You’ll feel. Your body will feel lighter. Your mood will shift. The sun as teacher is warm and kind, consistent and radiant.

Present Moment... Life Flowing

A representation of the possibilities of life: observing the sunrise

A beginning after a full moon night.

A beginning after a dream-filled night.

A beginning of what is not known.

A beginning. Each day is a beginning.

Moon rise on Nose Hill.

From one of the crests of Nose Hill I stood between east and west. Between moon rise and sun set.

I felt seen.

Strange feeling. Nice feeling. Want-to-repeat feeling. hahaha.

This morning I met Ally, a woman walking Myto, her lovely dog. She mentioned Nose Hill is considered by many to be the form of a dragon. She mentioned, (and a medicine wheel at the top of nose hill may confirm), Nose Hill is a sacred place to Indigenous peoples. The mystery of Nose Hill deepens…

Reasons to be here, fully and completely?

Meditation. Movement. Nature.

Sitting with. Joining in the stream of the space in between all the things...

The photos I take, the stories I tell can’t capture the answer to Why am I here?

Every photo I post attempts to show the flow state of experience. An experience which comes and goes without grasping onto outcome or pushing away the uncomfortable.

Every story I write attempts to show the little and the big ways of life. I write with the details of care, trust, honesty, and love.

This is a photo of Callie Danae. Born February 3, 1988.

The granddaughter of an Austrian immigrant and a Scottish tinkerman.

The granddaughter of two Americans, one of English/Viking descent, the other of Irish descent.

The daughter of a scottish/irish railroader and an Irish/Viking writer.

Conflict runs through her ancestry.

She lives with peace. With love. With a commitment to integrity and joy.

So much is possible in this human being world. So much love and connection. The tastes of life. The smells of life. The great beauty: seen, heard and felt with the body.

This morning I woke up from a dream, and I seemed to have been dreaming these words: Dig deep into relationship. Show up with discipline, reciprocity and a sense of the sacred.

Callie Danae. What a gift.

Who are the gift people in your life? How can you honour them?

Sometimes...

I want to feel a weight on my shoulders,

a stretch across my spine,

a hug,

a carrying of a child

piggy-back.

My own small self?

Not a pressing down weight,

a caring-for,

carrying for fun,

for safety,

love.

I feel this when I’m strong,

well-slept,

long-enough dreamtime.

Most of my life is inside

but, today, especially today, I want to feel

the shift,

the weight,

of whatever is to come.

I used to wrap myself in a blanket–

I’d always be cold.

When shivers ran down my spine–

I’d add a layer.

Now, it is different.

I am open to hearing, to feeling, what

wants to be known.

m, Jan. 3, 2023

One of few poems I’ve written. : )

Breathing In

"There is something that relates lightness to the sun and the hours of light. But I feel that the lightness comes from our capacity to have inner sun that shines all the time, which doesn't mean that we are always happy. It's more about being closer to the lightness that life brings about and maybe a bit distance from the difficulties,” Sandra Sabatini, author of Breath, The Essence of Yoga

Have you ever watched the sun rise?

Have you ever watched it more than one day in a row?

Have you ever watched it and asked, How do I respond? How do I serve?

If you are a sunrise viewer, if you are curious about sunrise experiments, perhaps we will meet one day. If not, enjoy your life.

So much is possible here.

Earth: Listen.

Earth. Cosmos.

Here’s an interview between Micah Mortali (a nature lover/author of a book titled Rewilding, Meditations, Practices and Skills for Awakening) and Colonel Mark T. Vande Hei, astronaut and recent meditator.

My curiousity took to the wind when I heard Vande Hei say he’d never seen the stars from the space station until his second tour during his meditation. His first tour, he never bun-geed himself into a window frame, turned out all the lights and sat in stillness. His first tour, six months long, he stayed on a schedule of workouts and work. His life changed in many ways during the second, 12 month long, tour. He worried less about time management, though he still managed his time. He missed wind. He missed the feel of sand under his feet.

Our bodies are designed for earth conditions, he pointed out in the interview. I haven’t read Mortali’s book, but I’m curious about his nature meditation practice.

Reaching and holding.

Earth. Meditation.

My friend, Tess Callahan, leads meditations. She’s studied with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield among other amazing teachers. She’s a writer, too.

This is a link to a powerful meditation Tess leads about solstice and the earth.

I recommend listening.

It could have an unexpected impact on you. It did on me. : )

Ghost Lake Dam, New Year’s Eve 2022

For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet

For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give it back with gratitude.

If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.

Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.

Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.

Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.

Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.

Don’t worry.
The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.

The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.

Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.

Do not hold regrets.

When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.

You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.

Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.

Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.

Ask for forgiveness.

Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.

Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.

Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark. 

Don't be so predictable...

Don't Hold a Grudge

Ghost Lake.

Don’t hold a grudge.

Don’t hold a grudge.

Don’t hold a grudge.

Don’t hold a grudge.

Why?

The other side of not holding a grudge is like walking with less weight, seeing the world through fewer filters, hearing the sound of a voice clearly, smelling the complexity of air, tasting a blueberry smoothie as if it were the most magnificent and exquisite taste.

Forgive and keep moving forward with love. Some threads are dropped, others are picked up, others are found again.

Life is waiting to be lived.

Don’t hold a grudge.

The floaty feeling of in-between, of cocoon, of threshold, of what next?

We know the floaty feeling. Suspension of all belief, all certainty, all knowing. We prepare for it. We practice feeling it on our long walks, in conversations with strangers and friends and our closest loves.

We prepare ourselves to see. With our eyes. With our hearts.

Have we been becoming the people we want to become our whole lives?

The Sun Dog arrived, a rainbow of frozen light and suspended water molecules, on a feels-like-minus-39-degrees December 21, 2022. The rainbow floated in and out, but the halo of light remained. The sun and the so-thin-but-we-can’t-see-it atmosphere joined to create a wonder of a halo of light, on the shortest day. It called to me, “Yes, it’s the longest night of the year. Here’s some light to store in reserver in your energy body. We are all here, welcoming the darkness, facing the night visions with gentleness, decency and bravery.”

In Toronto today, road crews anticipate the moment when the falling rain and wet snow will turn to ice. Keeping humans safe on the journey is their objective.

I’ve been watching White Lotus. A white privileged woman is on the island, begging for relief from her grief, from her pain body. A dark-skinned woman with knowledge of working with pain and an expansive heart helps. In two episodes, I see myself and the help I received by being in proximity, in a circle, with Indigenous women. I see the white privileged woman’s pain is honest and authentic. I am in a liminal and painful middle ground of wondering the storyline I’m witnessing and reviewing my only storyline, “how will the white privileged woman end up playing out her privilege, her feelings of superiority, of ambition to be healed. How will she push the woman who has been such a healing balm?”

I once bought a pair of earrings from an Indigenous artisan, made with feathers. I wore them with my hair in braids. I came across a photo of me with my sister when I was 9 and she was 7. We were dressed as Indian Princesses. My mother sewed us thin brown tunics and cut the bottom to make fringe. She painted designs with yellow paint around the hem. We wore headbands.

I am in a liminal space wondering, “Am I a good person? Was I a good person? Is anyone a good person all the time? Who forgives what?

What sacrifices do we make knowing we are helping others to heal, even if it’s painful for us?

We prepare ourselves to see. With our eyes. With our hearts.

Have we been becoming the people we want to become our whole lives?

Down Through the Great Broken Heart

Saint Francis and the Sow

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow

began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart

to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

- Galway Kinnell

Down through the great broken heart… the sow, the mother of fourteen who knows a possible fate for each of them. St. Francis, my mother’s adopted saint, touches the sow on the forehead to remind her of the earth, the love of the earth, the joy of being with the earth and so, for now, for this time, this moment, this present, the sow experiences love, exquisite love, and she does not fear for the future.

Here are some thoughts:

I’ve been meditating for what I think is a long time, but is very short in comparison to people who have committed their lives to meditation. I’ve been meditating long enough to experience that it isn’t me meditating or doing anything, really. I’m being still. I’m being quiet. I’m listening.

It wasn’t always this way for me. Processes, invisible or visible, appear. I follow a path. I stop and look around. I see the path. I follow a path.

Meditation is the stop and look around part. Meditation serves love. Stop and look around is an action of love.

St. Francis helps the sow to stop and look around. St. Francis offers a blessing.

How do we bless life?

Last night I joined a meditation group, 30 minutes, and in this space of time I experienced the physical knowing of great joy, love and sorrow. Why? I am here to serve love.

I’ve been waking in the wee hours of the morning and sitting with the darkness, night after night. I’ve been imagining myself journeying to the bedside of all the people I love and letting them know, you are loved, you are love.

It seems like it might be a radical act of love, the idea arising from the darkest and longest nights in the northern hemisphere.

In my days, I’m aware of the suffering of the world. I’m aware of many details of the suffering of the world.

My teacher, Meg Wheatley, reminded me, Warriors meditate with their eyes open. We can learn how to face anything this way.

Thank you Meg.

Thank you St. Francis.

Thank you Mom

Thank you meditation group last night

Thank you darkness

Thank you light

All the Light We Cannot See

The brain is locked in total darkness of course, children, says the voice. It floats in a clear liquid inside the skull, never in the light. And yet the world it constructs in the mind is full of light. It brims with color and movement. So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?

Anthony Doerr, from the novel All the Light We Cannot See

How can I give back the beauty I receive each morning with the sunrise and each evening with the sunset?

"Cut the ties you have to failure and shame. Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction. Ask for forgiveness. Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor."
— Joy Harjo (Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems)

How do I embody love in a difficult conversation?

"Leslie Marmon Silko whispers the story is long. No, longer. Longer than that even. Longer than anything. With Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath drink at the bar. Laugh the dark laughter in the dark light. Sing a dark drunken song of men. Make a slurry toast. Rock back and forth, and drink the dark, and bask in the wallow of women knowing what women know. Just for a night. When you need to feel the ground of your life and the heart of the world, there will be a bonfire at the edge of a canyon under a night sky where Joy Harjo will sing your bonesong. Go ahead-with Anne Carson - rebuild the wreckage of a life a word at a time, ignoring grammar and the forms that keep culture humming. Make word war and have it out and settle it, scattering old meanings like hacked to pieces paper doll confetti. The lines that are left … they are awake and growling. With Virginia Woolf there will perhaps be a long walk in a garden or along a shore, perhaps a walk that will last all day. She will put her arm in yours and gaze out. At your backs will be history. In front of you, just the ordinary day, which is of course your entire life. Like language. The small backs of words. Stretching out horizonless. I am in a midnight blue room. A writing room. With a blood red desk. A room with rituals and sanctuaries. I made it for myself. It took me years. I reach down below my desk and pull up a bottle of scotch. Balvenie. 30 year. I pour myself an amber shot. I drink. Warm lips, throat. I close my eyes. I am not Virginia Woolf. But there is a line of hers that keeps me well: Arrange whatever pieces come your way. I am not alone. Whatever else there was or is, writing is with me."
— Lidia Yuknavitch (The Chronology of Water)

What actions do I take as a Warrior for the Human Spirit and a Writer? What am I writing? What am I imagining?

What a gift to be misunderstood! What a gift to not be believed! What a gift to be harmed by grasping love! I accept these gifts.

Hard work comes in many forms. Wealth comes in many forms.

Thank you.

Song Experiment: my results

Hello All,

I set out a song experiment and completed it. I’m posting it here today, because it’s Thanksgiving in the United States and for the first years of my life I celebrated Thanksgiving with various family configurations and my mother and father are both part of this experiment.

My heart is fluttering in my chest. That nervous feeling of worrying about being dismissed or not believed or judged.

And, yet, I am someone who loves much. I trust love.

Love wants to be shared. So, I’m sharing.

Theia and Sloane’s pet bunnies died a few weeks ago. Tragically. Unexpectedly. 

Mom and Dad planned a decent funeral and the grieving continued into the evening. 

Sloane’s fury at the carelessness of humans to keep bunnies safe transferred to anger at whatever wild animal took Butterscotch’s life. Mom told Sloane a true and sad story from her own childhood: sitting with a family dog when she was euthanized, and soon Sloane started moving through grief. Anger transformed into deep sadness. 

Theia’s needs: “Dad. Dad. Will you put on sad music so I can cry?”

Dad searched sad music to cry to on Spotify and started the playlist. Theia lay, facedown, on the couch, and let the sadness go. 

Today, I walk to the Bow River, where it empties from the dam. I’m not alone; ducks and deer travel past me. Down the river a bit, a beaver moves from one shore to the other. 

My winter boots manage fresh snow and rock bodies. I stop at lone Pine tree, roots rising up from a tumble of rocks, but hanging on. The turtle sculpture the girls assembled from found rocks six seasons ago remains on a tree stump. 

I’m heading back towards home when I remember the song experiment. In Spotify, under Downloaded songs, I find Annie’s Song by John Denver. I hesitate. I’ve been sick, my energy bottomed-out two days ago. My mother came to me in my dreams while I shivered and moaned at the pain of all my organs throbbing with inflammation. Is she here because I’m dying? I can be very melodramatic when I’m sick.   

All day, this day, I’ve felt great. Annie’s Song? How much suffering can I endure? 

During my hallucinatory-misery, I vowed I would continue to face all the past fears and worries, pain and suffering, joy and joy and joy. Vows transform into curses if you go against them, I’ve found. 

I press play. 

The first guitar chords strum and John’s Denver’s voice, soothing and warm, flows. I sing along, of course, having sung this song dozens and dozens of times, even performing it for people who came to the house while my dad played guitar and piano. I dreamed for years of becoming a singer. Of singing on Broadway. 

“Come let me love you. Let me give my life to you. Let me drown in your laughter. Let me die in your arms. Let me lay down beside you. Let me always be with you. Come let me love you. Come love me again.”

Violins join in the break and the song soars. And I sing louder and louder. I stand on the hillside, facing the setting sun. I’m above the river here. I’m belting the words out. 

“You fill up my senses. Like a night in a forest.

Like the mountains in the springtime, like a walk in the rain. 

Like a storm in the desert. Like a sleepy blue ocean.”

My heart soars open. My arms wide, I’m spinning and spinning around. I’m on Broadway. In my winter coat, my hat, my scarf, all black and my gold fanny pack for my phone, I’m inside my body and joyously viewing myself from above. What silliness! I’m laughing my way through the next play of the song until John and I get to the final few lines.

“You fill up my senses. Come fill me again.” 

I remember being in a circle of trees when I was 9, singing and singing this same song. 

The lake, the sky, the sun, the river, the trees, the deer, the ducks, the beaver. I love them. They have helped me so much. I want them to know. I love you. I love you. I am so happy. 

And, then, before I have time to stop the song and say, “I’m done, time to write,” the song loops, begins again. 

This time John’s voice is laid over with my dad’s voice, a voice I listened to for years and years. A voice which soothed me. And betrayed me. I see his eyes. My heart wobbles and I stand still. I let the wobble grow. I feel the constriction. I breathe. Relax, let go. I breathe. Relax, let go. The pain fades. 

Theia and Sloane’s pet bunnies died a few weeks ago. Tragically. Unexpectedly. 
Unexpectedly. Tragically. Dad. 

I walk farther up the hill, turn again towards the last of the sun, now behind the mountains. Gold and red and pink light reflects off the bottoms of ribbons of clouds. 

“It’s so beautiful,” I say. “It’s so beautiful.”

I am both me and my mother. This is the comfort I dreamed. 

You’re here. You’re here. I remind myself. You have work to do. 

I sing Annie’s song a dozen more times as I walk the rest of the way up the hill and back to the house. I pass a neighbor adding strings of electric lights to their outdoor trees. I take my headphones out. 

“Beautiful,” I say. 

“I hope so,” she says.

“For sure. Gorgeous.”. 

“Thanks.” 

We wave to each other. My heart swells. This is my work. 

Ta.

Yesterday, I walked.

Ta.

I’d been sick for days. All of my organs and joints throbbed in pain, waves of nausea kept me still, a headache bloomed and bloomed and bloomed. In my misery, I imagined I would never recover.

Ta.

Clematis Vine.

Yesterday, I sang.

Ta.

Today, I heard a Mary Oliver poem read aloud. I remembered yesterday’s walk.

Ta.

Compass?

Yesterday, I listened.

Today, I searched for a word to explain/label my experience. I found Ta. Etymology of Ta: 1772, "natural infantile sound of gratitude"

Ta.

Here is Mary Oliver’s poem:

I lounge on the grass, that’s all. So
simple. Then I lie back until I am
inside the cloud that is just above me
but very high, and shaped like a fish.
Or, perhaps not. Then I enter the place
of not-thinking, not-remembering, not-
wanting. When the blue jay cries out his
riddle, in his carping voice, I return.
But I go back, the threshold is always
near. Over and back, over and back. Then
I rise. Maybe I rub my face as though I
have been asleep. But I have not been
asleep. I have been, as I say, inside
the cloud, or, perhaps, the lily floating
on the water. Then I go back to town,
to my own house, my own life, which has
now become brighter and simpler, some-
where I have never been before.

—Mary Oliver

Ta.

Happenings.

Like murmurations, happenings are happening.

How to say what is felt and still not known?

Who will hear this message and become curious?

Who will hear this message and shut down?

Who will hear this message?

So many questions!

Sometimes, when I tell a story in a group, one of the listeners will cut-in. Someone attempts to define, out loud, for themselves, what I’m talking about.

“Oh, yes, synchronicities.”

or

“I love synchronicities.”

or

“So, you’re talking about synchronicities, then.”

Synchronicities? Is that what I’m talking about?

I notice, now, a resistance to writing about synchronistic events I’ve observed. Not everything needs to be shared. Sometimes sharing can create a relationship rupture. I remember a few from early on in my life. I feel this pain arising in my heart muscle. My heart rate increases. I breathe deep and as I breathe out, Let go. Relax. I become still. Pain expands and I stay with it. In a few breaths, it fades.

Etymology online tells me this about the word synchronous, the word before the word synchronicity:

1660s, "existing or happening at the same time," from Late Latin synchronus "simultaneous," from Greek synkhronos "happening at the same time," from syn- "together" (see syn-) + khronos"time" (see chrono-). Meaning "recurring at the same successive instants of time" is attested from 1670s. Related: Synchronously.

A renowned physicist says about time:

"The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." ~ Albert Einstein.

Carl Jung: (noted in etymology online to have been associated with the first use of the word synchronicity)

Jung believed many occurrences labeled as “coincidences,” are not actually due to chance. He believed the observer’s mind made connections. He believed synchronicities provide powerful insight, direction and guidance. Research led me to a website and post and an example of a synchronistic event

Jung’s client was a highly educated and rational woman with a serious demeanor. Jung knew he would not be able to get through to her on a deeper level unless an irrational event occurred in the form of a coincidence. Jung sought out anything he could use to get through to her.

Shortly after, the woman began describing a significant dream of a golden scarab (a costly piece of jewelry). As she was describing this beetle in more depth, Jung heard a tapping at the window behind him. He opened the window and revealed a live goldish-green scarab beetle, not native to the area.

Astonished, Jung quickly grabbed the beetle, and walked it over to the woman and said, “here is your scarab.” This event was enough to help break the woman from her overly rationalistic world-view and connect her dream world to her waking life– a fundamental revelation in Jungian Psychology.

Have you ever been thinking of someone, right before they called? Have you ever dreamed of finding something lost, and found it a few days later?

Jung says the call-after-the-wondering and the finding-after-the-dream-of-finding are synchronistic events.

In my experience, synchronicity is unsettling when I’m trying to figure out what is happening and how it is happening. I don’t think I’ll ever really know. Let’s face it, I'm at a starting place of learning! I’m starting with the etymology of the word! I may die before I have experimented enough with synchronicity to have anything more to say than: Well, what do you think synchronicity means? What is your experience?

I’m interested in the question. I’m interested in this experience of life. I’ve discovered if I laugh more easily, I live happier. I’ve discovered I can take in the reality of the world and I can find joy. I wonder how the position I take in relationship to synchronous events impacts my experience of them?

And…here is a synchronous thought, arising at the same time as the last lines I’ve written: I feel joy. (The resistance to the synchronicity topic has faded, and joy is here! Woot Woot!!)

Joy is one of my big words since the summer when I was in a canoe out in the wilds for days and days. Canoe Tripping we call it. You voyage a distance-over-time by canoe. (Ten days is typical for us.) You take your food in an unsinkable, bear-proof barrel, and your shelter, clothing, fire, paddles, life jackets. You take pounds and pounds and you must carry them (portage) from one lake to the next or expertly secure your survival gear when travelling a river. Canoe Tripping. What a gift. What difficulty. What struggle. What joy. So many days I have been joy-riding in the front of the canoe!!

From etymology online:

c. 1200, "feeling of pleasure and delight;" c. 1300, "source of pleasure or happiness," from Old French joie "pleasure, delight, erotic pleasure, bliss, joyfulness" (11c.), from Latin gaudia"expressions of pleasure; sensual delight," plural of gaudium "joy, inward joy, gladness, delight; source of pleasure or delight," from gaudere "rejoice," from PIE root *gau- "to rejoice" (cognates: Greek gaio "I rejoice," Middle Irish guaire "noble").

As a term of endearment from 1580s.

So…I started with wondering if anyone would read this post and I end with a confidence I didn’t realize I’d find this afternoon.

Joy is writing. I will write more about this soon. : )

Why do we create?

Many experiences over the last few months have pointed me towards this question: Why do we create?

And the second question, Why do we stop creating?

My answer is a web of experiences, a web of influences from now and then. I want to talk about Love, mostly. I have noticed, however, talking about Love sometimes makes people uncomfortable. I notice the break in eye contact, the fidgeting, the need to change the subject.

I experience an uneasiness around Love, too. I try to describe what I’m doing in my writing life and with students in terms of Love and my words seem to form clouds of ideas and ambiguity and longing. My longing to be in community. My longing to listen and share. My longing to develop a deep awareness of love as always present.

I am not hope-filled for the future. I sense the Falling-Apart-phase our society is experiencing is going to continue, to gain momentum.

I am preparing myself for what will be needed. I am preparing myself to know what is my work to do.

How? I’m becoming visible again. I’m completing my novel, many essays, a parable, regular blog posts, and grant applications to help me fund my visibility-for-love campaign.

I question, every day, whether my voice is needed in print and in community settings. I wonder if the roles I’m in aren’t enough? Mother. Grandmother. Partner. I hear fear in my questioning.

I ask myself. How can you live your life to the fullest expression of love for all beings? I am uneasy. I remember all the ways I’ve failed.

What about the time we went away at Christmas and I forgot about the hamster? I didn’t arrange for care. I didn’t top up her water. I didn’t add extra food. I had so many responsibilities back then– 5 kids and a need to make life better for everyone.

When we returned from holidays in late December, I walked into the cold house and, suddenly, I remembered. The hamster! I stopped outside the bedroom where the hamster’s cage waited on the dresser. I begged for an outcome: be alive.

The hamster was gone! It appeared she chewed her way out of the habit-trail-tube and, perhaps, descended down the cold-air-return to the furnace. I wondered how painful her last days were. I wondered if I could forgive myself. My stomach aches at this memory. I’ve cried, remembering this.

My failures at love have haunted me. I’ve walked and walked, remembering and honouring all the ways I’ve failed. I’ve noticed: meeting the grief and shame embedded in my experiences helps me to dissolve it, as if it were salt in an ocean. More room for love now. Now, more room for listening to others. Currently, more room for preparing myself and helping others prepare for whatever future life holds.

Creation, I’ve been thinking, makes us happy. Creation is an action of Joy, evidence of life being lived.

Post-creation may not make us happy, depending on what we expect in terms of outcomes.

Creation in Action:

This past week I completed a grant application for some funding to create a membership space on my website, redesign and brand Digital Downloads for creative life experiments, and make it easier to schedule, purchase and remain up-to-date on workshops, classes, and in-person residencies.

The grant committee is interested, first and foremost, on how their funding will expand an artist’s business, expand community access to the arts, expand cultural forms of expression. I ribboned love through my application. I don’t know if I’ll receive the funding. I can’t be attached to any outcome. Who knows what will happen at any moment? Still, I plan for a future.

I’m diving into teaching spaces with renewed energy and urgency for 2023. We begin in early January with a series of workshops/retreat on Saltspring Island.

I’ll be announcing more soon. For now, please consider:

Why do you create? What do you want to create more of? How does love, fear, grief, shame and joy factor into your life and in your creations?

Morning Dispatch. Report from the night before the lunar eclipse.

November 7, 2022.

This is the evening prior to the US mid-term elections, the eve of the fall lunar eclipse- seen here for many hours- an event that will have an impact on us in ways we notice and in ways we don't.

I notice a spinning-up energy inside me after days of needing to rest and feeling old and remembering, again, the research of a group of 80 years olds from a care home who were driven to a "play camp" specially designed to return them to a time in their lives when they were younger. The camp was a time travel experience, back to the 50s. Fifties cars, houses, kitchens, living rooms, music, games, gathering places, clothing. The 80 year olds played! They relived their youth. They did fun things all over again. When the bus came to get them to take them back, they erupted into a touch football game- this remembered way of bonding, of connecting and working together.

So poignant that last detail– to think of leaving your past again, this time so much more vivid than your memories. Now the old is layered with new memories and, perhaps, a forgiveness of the past, or, at least, a generosity towards the past is accessible. Is Gratitude for the good in life more visible?

The research captured the physical experience of the 80 year olds and determined they'd regained their healthy markers. Some had lost years of aging. Their blood pressure was lower, stress was lower. The impact of joy and play was experienced and known. This joy thing seems so important. With experiences of joy, maybe you can ready yourself for whatever comes next. You have a memory of what is possible. An experience of super-gratitude.

Reality check on Joy: We may feel the loss when joy floats away for awhile. We may feel the desire for joy. We may cycle through loss with less avoidance. We may enjoy the build up to joy again.

Is this true for you?: We all want to be connected, loved, belonged, sheltered, and cared for. Our best self wants to be caring, sheltering, welcoming, loving.

Why is it challenging to think of joy as reachable most days? We may be afraid of the responsibility of feeling super-gratitude (the giving back action seems so unavoidable when we’re feeling full of joy), we may be afraid of failing short of joy’s expectations (does joy have expectations?).

The risk of joy seems appropriate for a cold, cold, cold full moon morning walk.

Turning towards joy in the frigid air, shaking hands and cold-sparked lungs seems victorious.

Remembering, again, the ways we play and engage with life (even in the cold, the dark, under the light of the full moon) contribute to more connectedness, deeper connectedness.

Morning. Morning. Morning. Good. Good. Good.