I read recently that if you want to get to the heart of something, ask the question “why?” five times. (So, parenthood has been preparing me for something!) “I worked in group dialogue for years: often in dialogue to do with conflict and peace,” wrote Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet, theologian and host of the Poetry Unbound…
Beyond Treeline – nominated for a Canadian National Magazine Award for Art Direction
I have just received a copy of Dr Suzanne Simard’s much-anticipated book, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest. She was deep into the writing of the book when I had the chance to speak with her in 2019, about her work, and the way it had been incorporated into Jordan Manley’s…
“What do you want?” is not a trick question
I wasn’t a straight A student (I totally flunked art) but I did pretty well, by which I mean to say that I have always liked being asked questions and getting answers right. Honestly, I’ve realised that my favourite phrase to hear, coming from my husband’s mouth, is: “You’re right.” (It’s rare.) But there’s one…
Speak the Wild Words
Use your words to conjure the more beautiful world your heart knows is possible. Her name was Brooke. It had been a name chosen carefully for her by her father, so when she read that the word “brook” was being struck from the dictionary, along with a host of other words “redundantly” featuring nature, it…
Piece by Piece: Finding Outer Peace with Mountain Guides Julia Niles and Christine Feleki
The path to inner, or outer, peace, isn’t one-sized fits all, as I learned in some illuminating conversations with mountain guides Julia Niles and Christine Feleki, for this post for Arc’teryx. Photos By: Robin O’Neill Julia Niles has never been one to shirk from struggle – you don’t pursue a career in mountain guiding unless type…
The Language Your Body Speaks
Befriending your self starts with making small talk with your body My father was a pharmacist, my mother a nurse. In my household, we took stale-dated medicine (because it was still good even if it was illegal for him to sell so why waste it) and we were never indulged a day off school unless…
Garlic Planting as Prayer
The fall garlic planting mission has always been accompanied by a prayer, of sorts. An atheistic kind, largely faithless: “Okay then, do your thing.” I’d brush my hands clean of the moist black soil and feel again the improbability of all this growing business – stick clove in soil, anticipate its budding five or six…
Rise of the revivers, part 2.
When Lisa Sambo, the Director of the N’Quatqua Child and Family Development Centre, returned last June to her home in D’arcy, she was carrying medicine for her community and a big bundle of overwhelm. The 1000-person conference on indigenous language revitalization knew this was the lot of language champions and revivers – that the mountain…
Rise of the revivers
Covid-19 has made Lisa Sambo want to say, “It’s good to see you.” More than that, it’s made her acutely aware of how much she’d like to hug people, to greet them with an over-the-top enthusiasm, to tell them she loves them. She laughs at herself when she shares this with me. “You know what…
Make friends with maybe
Have you given any of your attention to the warnings being put out at senior levels of government and public health? What I hear reverberating through my news feed is this: The fall could be wickedly challenging, courtesy COVID-19. I don’t want to say “Brace for it” – because I don’t think that feeling of…
