They say that your mother’s voice is the one you hear in your head, even as an adult, all your days. I reached a point when I realized that that was not going to work for me anymore. It was not the right voice. And so began a long slow exorcism, a careful, yet fitful,…
Category: lisa richardson
The Starfish Collective
I’m having lunch with a friend when she confesses, “This climate change thing is really starting to worry me. My kids, you know? And it’s so big. And these powerful people are making crazy decisions. What can I possibly do?” I have the instant urge to grab her by the arm and yell: starfish, starfish,…
The Gift of Elders
It was hard not to imagine that someone let loose an art farm in the gym. An elementary school assembly is so full of twitchy energy. I half-wondered what possessed me to take up the open invitation to attend the National Indigenous People’s Day Celebration Assembly on a full moon at Signal Hill Elementary School…
Don’t Die Curious
On May 22, 2019, the Class of 2033 had their kindergarten orientation. I drove past Signal Hill and saw the swell of improbably small and cute four and five year olds spilling out of the school, peeking in their welcome packets – 60 families on the cusp of a big transition. I distinctly remember sitting…
When Farmers and Writers Talk Shop
Frontier thinking. Everything you do happens at the place where your ideas meet your idea of the world. This is the time of year when the farm machines roll full-tilt out of winter hibernation. At least, that’s how Andrew Budgell speaks of it. Co-owner of Laughing Crow Organics, one of Pemberton’s small scale organic mixed…
The Maker’s Medicine
In praise of Slow Booze: drinking more mindfully might be as easy as swapping mass-produced plonk for hand-crafted, small batch beverages. And PS Happy 10thanniversary, Pemberton Distillery. The best drink I had over the festive season was a small plastic glass of port-wine, infused with herbs and hawthorn berries that yoga teacher Natalie Rousseau…
May you find happiness under the tree (or all I want for Christmas is a compliment and the grace to receive it)
This is a repost of a column I wrote for the Question on Christmas Day 2015, because when I wrote last month about getting a compliment and wanting to duck away, I thought, oh god, I just keep going on and on about this. Turns out, it’s more of a four-yearly thing, so I’m a…
The Humble Art of Showing Up
It happened again. Someone paid me a compliment. To my face. A friend was by my side in that exquisitely excruciating moment and she laughed and ordered me to “take it! I can literally see you cringing away,” she said. “It’s true. You deserve this.” I was grateful for her. Grateful for the kind words someone…
Gratitude: attitude or platitude?
Is gratitude the fix-all it’s made out to be? I was invited to start a gratitude practice — by someone I admire immensely, an unlikely pusher of positive psychology. I had resistance to the idea. To the very phrase, actually, and its ubiquity. Despite my squinty-eyed reaction, I agreed to participate in a daily gratitude…
Forget freely, remember collectively
I outsource memory. I don’t trust mine. So, when I see something that inspires me, I reach reflexively for my phone. Snap. Screenshot. Store. As I offloaded hundreds of images onto my desktop the other day, to de-bloat my phone, I saw how pointless this had been – all these things I’d wanted to sit…
