Today, I woke up and ran outside, to see if anything had happened.

All the garden bed had for me (NO signs of life! no sprouts! no little seedlings!) was one word of counsel:

A little reminder from the universe to slow the fuck down, let things happen in their own time, keep logging the hours of tending and nurturing even when it feels like nothing is coming of it, trust momentum, keep showing up. Patience.

Thanks, garden. As you were.

The solution? Ruby. Champion for the Turd-Free Trails Forever movement.

I mean, how could you resist?

(File this under Local Government Best Practices.)

This ambition embarrasses me – for its ridiculousness, its vagueness, its total lack of a roadmap, its audacity. For the sheer weight of it. For its unlikeliness – people are reading less and less, the world is already overflowing with books barely being read. For its foolishness. (A friend said once, “Writing books is like being a prospector. You could dedicate your whole life to it, and never strike gold.”)

In short, it is an ambition that spins me into an existential tailslide. I am envious of everyone I meet or hear about who has written a novel, who has an agent, who is putting together a book proposal. If I ever dare to confess, yes, I’d like to write a book, I am undone by the follow-up response, “What kind of book? What would it be about?” Right, yes, I should probably know that. That probably should come first.

But it won’t go away.

Finally, I had an idea that interested me enough to sustain my attention for more than a few days. I had been married for 15 years, and I thought, “Monogamy isn’t so bad. I can do monogamy. I’ve been a total idea-slut, writing articles and copy and scripts, jumping from topic to topic… but I think I’m ready to try idea-monogamy.”

I knew nothing about writing books, but I wasn’t starting in complete ignorance. I knew an idea, alone, would not be enough to carry me through to completion. I knew that reading Steven Pressfield and stockpiling ‘advice from famous writers‘ on my desktop, would not be enough. I knew that a new laptop, special software or a fancy pen would not work.

I knew that the best way to light a sweat-inducing fire under my ass was to make a deadline, loaded with sense of accountability to someone I didn’t want to let down. Not some invisible future reader, who is perfectly able to attain self-actualisation without me, but someone who is expecting me to show up, like my running buddy when I was first out of college. It would be better if they weren’t already my friends, if they didn’t already have a fixed sense of who I was and how I should be.

So, I, (gulp), asked for help.

As someone kinda whizzy with words, I’m used to being the one who gives help. “Hey, can you help me write this cover letter?” “Could you write a bio for me?” “Would you mind whipping up a press release for us?”

No problemo! Consider the words whipped! And shipped! Easy-peasy.

Time to turn the tables around.

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity, innovation and change.” ~ Brene Brown

I asked two people if they would form a writing support group with me. I was not looking for critiquing, discussion, or a nerdy social night out. I needed an accountability circle. I needed marathon training buddies.

I asked them to stand guard over my secret desire to write, and to protect it from my self.

I asked them to fold their arms across their chests and say, every other week, as sternly and kindly as they could, “You owe us a chapter.” And when I threw a couple of pages at them, I asked that they say, “Good. Now keep going.”

They were near-strangers to me. And yet, they said yes.

And there are no words for the gratitude that that has sparked, burning quietly beneath the fire-under-my-ass.

If you ask for help, it comes

But not in any way you’d ever know.

~ Gary Snyder

Due to solar storms and planetary alignment, I somehow hit Revelstoke on assignment for SBC Skier magazine on G.N.A.R day.

My “welcome to Revy” banner was unfurled as I waited for our crew by the Revelation gondola: guys in smoking jackets, puffing on cigars, dragging a BBQ across the snow. (That was a #9 move executed with class, although I didn’t quite catch what they were cooking up.)

None of the tourists dropping their kids off to ski school had any idea what was going on, why one-piece suits were suddenly back in style, or why random guys were heckling them in the lift-line, all of which makes G.N.A.R day even funnier.

Standing in line for the Stoke Chair with Tatum Monod and Laura Ogden, (PS I can’t believe you girls are pro. I am totally better than you), we were “treated” to full-frontals from two buck naked skiers who had raced down the lift line wearing only their transceivers. One guy, feeling the exposure, with one hand cupped over his privates, mis-timed his attempt to duck the rope by the lift line and drop out of sight onto the run below. He garrotted himself, ending up splayed in the snow, to great acclaim, and surely, a points deduction.

By days’ end, we’d seen several buck-nakeds, plenty of pole whacking, many claims of being the best skier on the mountain, a couple of snowbladers, and lots of smack-talking and radness. We’d spent entire lift rides giggling our faces off at this grassroots, deeply felt, entirely viral and largely inexplicable celebration of radness and silly buggers.

The game of G.N.A.R. (Gaffney’s Numerical Assessment of Radness) was created by Shane McConkey and listed in the book “Squallywood” by Robb Gaffney. Based in Squaw Valley, California, the game was played for some time on a small scale among friends, until unofficialsquaw.com held a contest  where the game would be played over 2 weeks. Due to extreme amounts of radness and (mostly) nudity, Squaw Valley Ski Corp shut the contest down after 1 day. The crew didn’t give up and went on the best road trip ever, showing up at nearby mountains and reminding everyone to let go of their inhibitions, cut loose and most of all, have fun, which is what skiing is all about.

Losses have been mounting in the industry/community lately and our crew of athletes are all riding with little kernels of sorrow on their shoulders. The exuberance of GNAR day, as a way to remember Shane McConkey, was a little flash of good medicine and easy laughs.

As for me, I confess that I have not contributed to sending the Gnar off-the-charts.

I’m staying slopeside at the new Sutton Place Hotel, in a suite with my own bathroom, heated floors, a bed that I can roll over in 7 times before falling off the side (Izzy Lynch tested it in her own bed, because she’s hard-core like that), a bathtub deep enough to sink into up to my eyeballs and a kitchen so well equipped we were able to cook up a quinoa salad with toasted walnuts and a chocolate cake. (Because that’s what pro skier girls do when they’re not slaying it in the mountains.) And seriously, when was the last hotel room you stayed in equipped with glass mixing bowls, spatula, and baking dish? Awesome.

So, not gnar this weekend. Kinda pampered, actually. And I’m okay with that too. It’s all about fuelling the ski stoke – be that by nudity or bubble-baths, or both.

(Thanks to Sarah Windsor and the crew at Revelstoke Mountain Resort and Selkirk Tangiers Heliskiing for the hospitality over the past three days.)

That’s the Big Reveal from latest research on collective intelligence. (And yes, it’s so radical it even makes the researchers uncomfortable.)

History has shown that great innovation happens in groups. But curiously, great groups don’t arise simply by filling the room with talented individuals.

What do you hear about great groups? Not that the members are all really smart but that they listen to each other. They share criticism constructively. They have open minds. They’re not autocratic. And in our study we saw pretty clearly that groups that had smart people dominating the conversation were not very intelligent groups. ~ Anita Woolley

Groups get smarter as the number of women in the group increases.

That’s not a call for more women, fewer men. It’s about saying, we’re better together. Let the ladies be part of it. Jean Brittingham writes for Fast Company that the wicked-big problems we are facing right now on our tender blue planet demand action, innovation, collaboration. The urgency demands sweeping egos aside.

If the research says, groups are smarter when there are more women at the table, then set out some pink napkins and let’s get started.

I’m taking this research out of the think-tanks and into the mountains next week, on assignment for SBC Skier. Heading to Revelstoke with photographer Robin O’Neill, who I haven’t worked with since our summer campaign for Choose Pemberton, and a crew of athletes including Laura Ogden, Izzy Lynch, Tessa Treadway, and Tatum Monod, we’ll put The Girl Effect to the test.

Girls Day Out – Revelstoke Mountain Resort – March 2011 from Zoya Lynch on Vimeo.

She’s a creativity coach starting her own consulting company, so I let her experiment on me. (It didn’t hurt a bit. She promised it wouldn’t.)

I took her crayons and pushed aside my self-consciousness to scribble tragic little stick men on the butcher’s paper she unrolled in front of me… my happy place… my happy place…

1. In the shower.

In times of desperation, creative stalling, when the opening sentence to a story just won’t come, when my body temperature has plummeted, when I need to wash off the stress-stink of work day, or conclusively finish a workout…  I shower.

Under the stream of hot water, everything stops. All the straining.  Ideas come. First lines. Gamma flashes. I don’t know how it works. But it does. Every time.  Douse head. Have ideas.

I’m so glad I live in a waterlogged country.

In Australia, letting water run for too long is the Original Sin. It’s Water. It’s not for just standing under.

But I don’t need long showers in Australia. I get that same joybubblebliss feeling in the ocean.

2. In the surf.

Maybe it’s because smelling of salt and sunscreen snaps me back in time, to when being was unbearably light, back when I was flat-chested, knock-kneed and lived in a swimsuit, when I weighed so little I barely left footprints in the sand.

Some combination of force and froth tosses you when you’re in the surf. You’re weightless again, like when your dad used to hold you by one leg and one arm and spin you like a mechanical “aeroplane” circumnavigating him, the air traffic control tower. Your body would skim and skip across the surface of the water, until he released you. You’d fly, and then the water would catch you.

Douse head. Be happy.

That’s what the stick men say.

I interviewed him recently for an article about the sold-out-in-record-time Whistler Half Marathon and we got a little side-tracked. Here’s what I learned about Accidental Awesomeness from our long-and-winding conversation. It all began with a good head-shaving.

1. Do not look askance at a man with a handlebar moustache.

In 2002, I was working at the mountain. I saw a Balding for Dollars event in Squamish and thought, maybe I can get a couple friends on this… I mean, kids with cancer? It’s not what being a child is meant to be about. It’s so intrinsically wrong. So I thought, I’m going to go and shave my head and raise a hundred bucks. I put a note in the employee newsletter, thinking I could rally a few other people to get involved, we could all raise $100.  Then Mike Varrin phoned. He said, “I don’t think we’ve ever met before, but I’ve got this bad ass moustache, and I want to shave your head, and anyone else’s, in the bar.”

2. The universe responds to positive juju.

It wasn’t quite what Clark was planning. And it meant having to relinquish a degree of control over the program. But he went with the flow. The Hairfarmers were playing, the bar was packed, and a couple of guys in the corner getting their heads shaved turned into a movement. Guitar Doug and Grateful Greg shaved their decade-old beards. “People were like, ‘Where can I give my money?’ And we raised $6500. And that’s how it all got rolling. The next winter, Dusty’s called and said, ‘Do you want to do this fundraising thing at the BBQ Championships?’”

3. Your weakness is your strength.

Dave Clark’s vulnerability is his family’s battle with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. They could struggle in silence and shame, as many do. Or they could own it, claim it, try and make a difference. In August 2002, Taster passes were sold for the Canadian BBQ Championships, with proceeds benefiting the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada, the organisation Clark believes is best positioned to find a cure for IBD in his lifetime. Last August alone, the sale of taster passes raised $9455. In October, Dave was recognised by the Foundation for his fundraising efforts, which have seen the Whistler Friends raise more than a quarter of a million dollars, and declared an Unsung Hero.

4. Listen up.

The #1 thing, if I had to put a sticky note on my laptop as a reminder of the key learning I’ve taken away from organising events, is to LISTEN. Listen to your partners, volunteers, athletes, the community, and ultimately collaborate with them to make it the best it can possibly be. If you surround yourself by people who are very good at what they do, and passionate, you’ll achieve great things.

5. Passion + People is a winning combination. 

I don’t think there’s anything stronger than your own personal convictions, and it’s proven over and over again. And a community of passionate people. Whether that’s two or six people, it just takes more than one person, with a shared passion, and a willingness to do things outside the box, to have the agility to say, hmm, that’s not what I was thinking, but we could chanage up the plan.

There’s no just-add-water formula for greatness. But Dave’s recipe strikes me as a pretty solid formula: take genuine passion, informed by your own vulnerability and hope, and put it out in the world to mix it up amongst good people. Then, don’t be surprised if help comes your way, in shapes and forms that you’re least expecting…

The 10th annual Whistler Balding for Dollars is just around the corner. The GLC’s Ultimate Hair-Farming Apres takes it down to bare skin for the BC Children’s Hospital, Saturday March 24 2012. Over the last decade, $153,000 has been raised by the Whistler event, in support of kids in Vancouver’s oncology wards.

40 days is a good amount of time to grow some hair and garner some pledges… don’t you think?

But when I chatted to Robin O’Neill yesterday, she told me that she’s just trailing behind Mason Mashon in the People’s Choice contest with one week of voting left, and she’s really hoping to win.

So she can take her athletes heliskiing.

I know Mason put his heart on the line too. And I’m sure he and his crew would love a day of heliskiing too.

But the Voleurz crew have, inshallah, next year.

Robin’s athletes are all over 75 years old. And they’re the people who built Whistler. Werner Himmelsbach. Peter Alder. Trudy Alder. Peter Morin. Betty Vogler.

So I voted. And I’m saying, why don’t you vote too? Send Karl Ricker heliskiing. How freaking cool.

Much as I love that any of the teams have a shot at a day heliskiing – they all deserve the playday,  after putting on such great shows – I get goosebumps thinking about those grey-haired Lifers, who have devoted their entire lives to this place, all hustling out of a helicopter, standing on top of a perfect peak as the bird flies away… with a pristine field of pow unrolling before them.

So that’s my pitch.

The best argument of all comes from an email Robin received on Monday:

Having just got back from possibly my last downhill trip – thinking of giving it up due to age – I am re-invigorated by the dignified photos of elders. Your work was inspiring and I am thinking of maybe another trip this season – two trips in a season, I haven’t done that in 10 years

At some point in our lives, we are no longer in the realm of ticking firsts… We start inhabiting a place where each trip, each adventure, each farewell, could be our last. A different kind of pioneering mentality is required. And that’s something to honour.

Trailblazing is what these elders of ours have done. I’d like to pay a little something back.

If you feel the same way, vote here.

Robin O’Neill – Deep Winter 2012 Winning Slideshow from Robin O'Neill on Vimeo.

On timing. (In which we argue that Deep Winter 2012 was a display of both exquisitely good and bad timing.) 

Deep Winter Photo Challenge returned last night, the cultural highlight of the New Year.

It couldn’t have come at a better time, socially.  We’ve recovered from the onslaught of Christmas parties, we’ve shaken off the New Year hangover, we’ve officially ditched the resolutions to be better people, to get drunk less.

It could have come at a better time, snowcially. Like now… with flurries forecast all week, 10-20cm expected on Thursday and 40-90cm expected by the middle of next week.  It might have been the most un-deep winter week ever. But Robin O’Neill was too tired to even contemplate the hypothetical offer on the table, to go back in time and reschedule for a different weather window, when compere Feet Banks offered to play Wizard.

Feet: “Would you rather we push back the event to next week so you can get all that snow in the forecast?”

Robin: “No. Too. Tired.”

"Big Night", photo by Jussi Grznar

On microphone management. (In which we argue that Feet Banks is the host-with-the-most, and we hope he went home with an Arc’teryx jacket for keepsies.) 

My vote for best performance of the night goes to Feet Banks, emcee extraordinaire,  for his sartorial class (vest and bow tie, quite the wardrobe upgrade since he debuted as host of the 72 Hour Filmmaker Showdown in his skivvies), his microphone management and commitment to keeping the show moving (“we’re just going to give you a second to all get off the stage and then we’ll roll tape”), his willingness to go woo-woo for a minute so we could send some white light to Sarah Burke and Rory Bushfield, and his quicker-than-a-40-year-old-virgin’s-orgasm wit. (“Did you bring the short guy into the mix so the snow would look deeper?”)

(Give the dude an Arc’teryx jacket. It’s hard to throw love all night to the sponsors, and not get any warm fuzzy affection back. I’ve got an idea, Feet. Ask Robin for a jacket. I think she might have a few extra…)

On being bold. (In which we commend the photographers for having the cajones to enter the Deep Winter challenge and for inspiring and entertaining us.) 

The stakes of this contest seem to have gotten so high that more established photographers are demurring the invitation to compete. All the more reason to give a shout-out to the six photographers who took up the challenge: Reuben Krabbe, Steve Lloyd, Mark Gribbon, Mason Mashon, Jussi Grznar and Robin O’Neill.

As Vince Shuley tweeted: “way to make hard snow look good.”

Their shows did not disappoint, although the line-up of fresh faces did come with a less intense, angsty vibe than last year‘s Deep Winter Photo Challenge, when Robin O’Neill stepped up for mountain women everywhere, competing alongside Blake Jorgenson, Ilja Herb, John Scarth, Tim Zimmerman and Andrew Strain.

Child prodigy, Reuben Krabbe, who has his sights set on breaking Jordan Manley’s “youngest photographer ever to win the Pro Photographer Showdown”, made an impressive debut, (ultimately coming in 3rd AND taking Best Photo) with an action-packed show jammed with “banger shots” captured with the help of Dan and Dave Treadway.

Utah native Steve Lloyd brought the fresh eyes of an outsider to the game – reminding us not to overlook the everyday beauty of the Canadian flags lined up at the top of Whistler gondy. Mark Gribbon brought the snowboarders into play. Mason Mashon (who proves his version of “lifestyle” means not taking your ADHD meds: “okay, we rode bikes to the hill, we’ve been skiing all day, who wants to go skate on the frozen pond?”) landed a shot of rime-encrusted bikes in the back of a pick-up truck that might be the Best Most Unlikely Cover for Bike Magazine.

2012 Deep Winter Photo Challenge. Day 2 with Mason Mashon from UnofficialNetworks.com on Vimeo.

Jussi Grznar put together an emotive show that started in bed and came full-circle for a 2nd place finish… And what says “and they all lived happily ever after” more powerfully than a guy and girl spooning in bed, with the dog booted to its rightful place on the floor.

But Robin O’Neill’s storytelling about Lifers was the most powerful. With stark portraiture, a few recurring motifs (back-to-back shots that pulled from shallow focus to long focus to tell instantaneous stories about movement and perspective, and triptychs that would fall away to reveal one full frame), and a confident delivery, O’Neill ((#robinneedstwitter) follows her Deep Summer win, deserving her title as All-Season Queen of the Lens.

On the Zeitgeist. (In which we try and read the tea-leaves.)

This year, there seemed to be more love in the air. (Is this a Zeitgeist thing?) There was more ice-skating than Deep Winter has ever seen. We also saw a preoccupation with injury, with the physical and emotional toll that a dedication to the mountains can exact. We saw bigger vistas, that only a stormless Deep Winter week can offer. We saw athletes working incredibly hard and bagging some stellar action shots. And we saw that what makes a photographer a cut above is more than technical proficiency and an eye for a well-composed shot, but the ability to create a mood, even without the moodiness of a storm.

On hard work. (In which we note the concentration of talented passionate hard-working people who make this place, as they say over at WIA, awesome.)

So here’s to hard-working mountain-loving people of Deep Winter. To the marketing and PR peeps at Whistler Blackcomb who work their asses off to come up with fresh and creative ways to engage people with the WB community, to bring people here, to represent this place as authentically as possible. To the athletes who, judging from the recurrence of images shot at the physiotherapist, are pushing themselves to the very edge. To the photographers who are brave enough to step up and showcase their work. (In a 72 hour time frame, the deadline bears down on you so hard, you don’t have time to think, to censor yourself, to second guess. Your naked work is up on the big screen.) So kudos to you all. Thanks for a great night.