share to share

love the art
create an awareness, a desire to look and relate to what is around you
perhaps it is not there... you are in the city
i wish you the courage to seek the nature
do not be daunted, you will find it is like coming home

touch that tree and know time, time beyond your life.
smell it- history books all have the same smell. these living legends are multidimensional in their story telling.

we try to relate the fullness of the experience to others with 3x5s and only a few have a handful of prints that even begin to whisper into the ear of beauty.

give them the beauty that makes them stop, look and listen- if even only for a moment... perhaps the seed will float into their consciousness.  A gift for the eyes and heart, food for the brain and feet.  perhaps a rare commodity in this age... it's uniqueness intriguing.  be compelled to share that rarity with others.

we know quality when we see it.

a quarter year quickly

hard to believe it has been so long since i have written.  my uncle len asked me to write again when I was home in june- he said he can see my soul. so uncle len, this one is for you.

i am doing well. i could create a list of things in my life that all add up to ok.  some even stand out as awesome.  the best news i got is that my sister is coming to visit for my 40th birthday. it will not be an ideal time for colorado greatness but then all we want to do is just hang out anyways and do all of the fuzzy things that sisters do. my great friend jen just arrived in indonesia where she will be living her dream for the next 90 days.  although i am absolutely thrilled for her to enter this next stage in her life, i will be counting the days until i see her smile again.  ya know how you just click with some people- that's how i feel about jen. some people come along and light your fire and she stoked my shit pile up with some kindling.  enjoyed some distractions over the summer, people, places, indulged in some clothes shopping recently... occasional debauchery.  three weeks in june to go to wakarusa then home for family love. a large nova scotia contingent was present and some time with my nan, nieces and sister was awesome.  I love the people at home.  Dave took me out fishing capped with beautiful sunset and super audio listening until the wee hours. nicole and i hung out, birthday parties, fathers day all so much fun! Happy aunties were a treat but the topper was when the board asked me to be the executive director.  a dream come true.  the choice to pursue this dream has caused me to shift my attention from privacy to climate change education.  for the first time in a long time i feel that someone has come along to change people's minds and i endeavour to support that fully.  through the fusion of art and science we aim to inspire a connection to nature, invoke a desire to preserve and respect it.... Anyone who knows me will tell you that is my wheelhouse.  This is the exact reason i take pictures. to get someone to pause, and look and FEEL.  I return to a work hard swell on this ocean of life now.  twelve hours at the desk some days and many more in the hammock, the shower, at 4am.... i am glad to devote this time to the only cause that actually matters.  it is the only real global crisis.  i am fueled by a passion and i will attempt to get people to give a shit with my last breath.  well, the dandelion greens are done and the garlic getting too fragrant so i must sign off for now.  uncle len, i am ok, my soul is set to crazy diamond shine and that it does, that is does.
xo

sideways

I lay here and observe the world sideways. Not with one of those casual glances but actually study the landscape. That house over there looks like a giants face half planted in the earth, a window eye and shingle sideburns.  I have half read a book, as I do so often, titled a sideways look at time. It is one of my favourites. The essay moves the reader through the evolution of time and its keeping through the generations. It reminds me so fully that this arrow is but a perception of vibration.  We as humans have so many descriptors for time, so many associations - who had a calendar with cute puppies for each month? I remember being thrilled to change over the month and when younger and wished for time to pass quickly. Now that I have achieved most of the milestones set forth by this society i find my wish is for time to slow, for that extra hour with a friend round the fire, for one more day in a busy week, a kiss to last an hour instead of a minute.
I know I will blink and this moment will be the past. So I lay here, sideways, and cherish this time.

spring forward

of course i am here writing.
heart break has been shared by many but I do not write songs so prose will have to do.
I fall to my knees and give gratitude for this hurt I feel for if it did not hurt it was not good.  Is it this time again already in my life?  A time to pack up my belongings and move along.  Most times I am the one to decide when that time has come. Not this time. For the first time in my adult life someone broke up with me.  Perhaps that is strange.  I guess I was due.... I mean it is not like I have had many relationships, I tend to be choosey- but this one was different.  I guess I am still in the learning and challenging myself stage.  Compromising because I think it is necessary for a relationship to flourish.  In all reality the compromise was of myself.  At least that is what the strong part of me tells my broken heart.  I thought i was doing the right thing but in the end was blaming others for what-in-fact were my choices.  Anyone who knows me would ask me why i did not take my own advice.  I am the first person to say that if you do not like something that you should change it.
However, something exciting is happening.  I am veering back upon the path that I was on before I met him.  Back to the things I used to fill my time with when not caring for the needs of another. I realize my sadness is nothing more than selfish agony.  The pleasure of releasing the other person from the burden of the relationship has become clear.  Both parties better off in the end.  Changed forever by the relationship and ready to take lessons learned to the next.
For now i listen to sad songs and commiserate with Elton and a box of tissues.
tomorrow i put on my big girl panties- because my sister said to- and get myself back out of the pit of despair and back into the sunlight, where I know I belong.  I took my bright light down there and before it faded to a paler shade I got the kick in the arse to recharge it.
So I am going to shine on like the crazy diamond that I am.
Cheers Mate.

second snow

Here in Colorado the snow can be just a light and dry as talc powder.  Here in Colorado the sun is laser like and burns up any moisture under a ray.  There are often days when the black roads will be steaming with snow melt and the temperature too cold to have the window open, even a crack.  I was delighted to wake up and see 6-8 inches of snow stacked on every relief possible.  Columns of snow sat atop every tiny branch and outlined every bark rise on the trunk of the deeply grooved cottonwoods.  I simply had to go outside.  My ski pants zupping as I walked, my boots leaving their paw tracks, I strolled on down to the park.  Cross country skiers tracked loops around and runners sipped in the chilly air. I left the already plowed and salted pathway.  The white stuff flew up around my footsteps, no crunch, no squeak, snow as foreign to me as mars.  I spotted a hammock of low trees that when covered by snow created a cave.  I crawled in and lay back, just enough room for me and maybe one other. I use the word hammock here because of a misinterpretation on my part.  A friend in Florida once described a spot we were in as a hammock of live oak.  I made the connection to a web of branches that so tightly knit together overhead that there was but a fraction of the hot sun reaching the ground.  As if I was walking under the web of a hammock instead of lazily swaying upon one. Actually the word hammock is used regionally in the Southern US to refer to any hardwood forest or if you are on the coast, a little island in salt marsh that has red cedar, live oaks and saltbush growing on it. According to Florida Naturalist and zoology professor Archie Carr anyways.   I like my definition better, so I will refer to this grouping of bushes that had grown together to form an above ground cave as my hammock.  It cradled my body and gave me a sense of well being equal to the one I get in my well loved sleeping hammock. 
I was not alone in here, I mean, I was the first to lay ground tracks on the space but I was not the only being here in this space.  It was a space made more private with the snow chinking and I had not noticed the chickadee that now proclaimed first rights with its call.  I made my peace offering by quieting myself, sinking my energy and spirit into the ground, being still.  Her song became friendly again, the familiar chicka-dee-dee-dee trill most likely imperceptible outside of this snow blanket.  My gaze enjoyed the blank canvas of white, my mind finding comfort in the uniformity.  My world began to sparkle and I realized that the snow had begun to fall inside of my hammock.  Even with it's minuscule weight, the bird bounced the snow off of the branches as it needled and explored the canopy.  I was at the heart of a snow globe.  what a gift from that creature who was merely going about it's business.  Time becomes elastic in those moments of joy; the body however continues to cool and eventually I became aware that I had to get moving again.  I rolled out of there extinguishing myself- when was the last time you rolled?  My sister goaded me into rolling down the grassy sliding hill behind her house last year, we laughed like we were still the ages of my nieces who joined us but were much quicker to reach the bottom, drunk on youthful enthusiasm. It was snowing that day, a much different Northern Ontario snow.  On this day, the snow didn't fall from the clouds, it began to fall from the trees.  That famous Colorado sun, the one so "perfect" that it is used to define the standard known as one sun, came out and within second, the delicate white ledges began to topple off their perches.  A second snow had begun.  The entire park now a snow globe and I, grateful to be inside of it. 

birthdays

This October marked my 39th birthday.
As I took my impossibly long and hot birthday shower a song came on that I had not really heard before.  I have my iPod and Bose in the bathroom (that's a whole 'nother post) and I had selected a compilation of greatest hits by Cat Stevens to listen to for the occasion.   Now this is MY iPod but truth be told I have plugged it into many a friends computer and downloaded some of their favourites so it is not unusual that something I have not heard before comes out of the speakers.  Following one of my anthems "Peace Train" these lyrics were put forth for my consideration on this day of reflection- 

Oh I can't keep it in, I can't keep it in, I've gotta let it out.
I've got to show the world, world's got to see, see all the love
love that's in me. I said, why walk alone, why worry when it's
warm over here. You've got so much to say, say what you mean,
mean what you're thinking, and think anything.
Oh why, why must you waste you're life away,
you've got to live for today, then let it go.....

It stopped me.  I realized at that moment that I had been keeping it in.  I remember the time when I decided that my own happiness was far more important than saving the world.  I grew up constantly expressing how I wanted to change things.  I felt every injustice with all of my being, most especially when it pertained to Nature/Gaia.  I would ache when I saw a the aftermath of a clear cut piece of wilderness.  I would cry when faced with the reality that everyone I knew was wasteful with our precious water.  I grew desperate and in the end all I wanted was for the hurting to stop so I made the decision to stop talking about these matters. To stop trying to convince others to care as much as I did.  I put up those walls around my feelings and adopted the mantra "you can't control the actions of others".   I chatted about this attitude shift with my good friend Liz.  She has chosen to be an organic farmer, there is no one I know who works harder.  Liz did not make the same decision I did.  Instead she is vocal about her ideals at every social gathering, her actions and lifestyle reflect her love for the Earth and it's inhabitants.  Why Worry she asked, just do what you can.  That is exactly what I have done.  Anyone who knows me would tell you that I live the famous Gandhi quote "be the change you wish to see in the world" and by adopting that strategy I have been able to save my own sanity.  I would simply shrug my shoulders and repeat "all I can do is provide a good example", to allow my actions and lifestyle to speak for my beliefs.  
Then a song, written before I was born, reached out to me and slapped me upside the head.  Why would I continue to keep it in?  Why wouldn't I let all of this love out for the world to see?  The girl who gave public speeches about water conservation and AIDS discrimination, why was she silent now?  As I let the wise man's lyrics wash over and through my brain I realized that that I had to let it out. That if I didn't speak up and fight that I was simply keeping all of this passion to myself.   I decided during those 3 minutes of musical enchantment that I would now instead use my voice as often as possible.  I asked the universe for a path that would take all of my acquired skills and combine it with my energy to promote change.  To no longer just be the change but promote the change.  To step away from silence and into the spot light.  
One month later the path revealed itself.  
It is a new path, not the old one of pushing hot air through my vocal chords but instead one that speaks with the power of imagery.   To marry art and science in hopes of reaching into your heart and making that call to let it out....  to feel that interconnectedness with all things. 

It is going to be a great year. 


    

Fear

"I'm scared"
"Do you want to face it?"
"No"
"Well, know that I am here to help you when you do"
"Really?"
"Yes, really. I understand that you may not want to face your fear right now but you may have the courage to later. And when you do I will be there to face it with you, to hold your hand, to offer words of encouragement, to witness your triumph and to celebrate with you."
"That will never happen, I am just too afraid."
"Maybe not today, but you might change your mind another day.  We grow and change everyday. The reason you may be afraid today might not be around tomorrow. Perhaps you are tired or faced other fears today and just do not have the gumption to face it right now."
"I guess you are right, maybe another day...."
"I'll be there to help you if you want me to." 


"I'm scared"
"There is no reason for you to be afraid, go on."
"But I am scared"
"Come on, do you want to be scared forever? Don't be silly, go on."
"But I am afraid"
"I am right here, this is stupid, what are you afraid of?"
"But I don't want to"
"I don't care, you have to do this. There is nothing to be afraid of. Now go on."


Not everyone grows and moves on your schedule. We are all individuals. Support those who have fear, do not ridicule or chastise them for it.   Fear is very real to the person experiencing it.  Extend your hand instead of shoving from behind and we both win. 

Partnership not power. Let empathy and compassion guide your actions and responses no matter how little time or energy you may have.