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…
Category: lisa richardson
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…
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…
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…
What Women Want
When I learned that a lot of women’s outdoor and sports apparel was built first for men, than adapted ie applying the “pink it and shrink it” design brief, I suddenly understood that it wasn’t me. It wasn’t that there was something wrong with my body. It wasn’t that I would be a better biker/skier/climber/runner…
Run towards hope
Maude Cyr will run 110 km September 26 to raise funds for the Howe Sound Women’s Centre to address domestic violence When Maude Cyr was a girl, growing up in Rimouski, Québec, a friend of hers experienced domestic abuse. She confided in Cyr. When Cyr took this information to her parents, her parents did what…
Picklepalooza: preserving high summer for my Future Self
It’s not really cost-effective, this pickling and preserving business, I realize, as I empty another $20 bottle of Bragg’s apple cider vinegar into a pot. My husband keeps checking in, nervously asking “Are you having fun?” because these evenings are cutting into my Netflix/book-reading time, and I tend to be an angry-and resentful-if-you-aren’t-also-contributing house-cleaner. But…
