“If there is someone that is there to listen to your story, there is healing.” Nancy Slonim Aronie I watched a movie with my husband the other evening called A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, based on a true story about the friendship...
Eventually you will learn that the real competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit. George A. Sheehan, Running and Being Canadian feminist writer Betsy Warland, in her award-winning book Breathing the Page, describes the quality...
It was August. After several months of intense purging and packing and planning, the day had arrived for us to finally leave the farm. We’d spent the morning doing the last of the cleaning, scrubbing the insides of cupboards that had lovingly held our kitchen...
It is up to the writer to recognize everything that happens to her as a gift, to love each thing that comes under the eye’s contemplation, inner and outer. Jane Hirshfield When I first moved into this new house, everywhere I looked there was something...
We usually think of writing as a solitary activity. The stereotypical image of a writer is a tortured soul, often a man, at their desk with a cigarette in one hand, a glass of vodka in the other. In between sips and puffs the man’s hand types away on a keyboard....
“Writing is a way, and not necessarily the only way, to open up the word and the world, and our lives within that world for attention, discussion, understanding, re-imagining and re-creating.” Cynthia...
In a world that is becoming increasingly virtual, how do we connect and sustain mutually supportive social relationships with each other? I returned to UBC, my alma mater, to give a workshop for professors and students of the Faculty of Language &...
Experience writing as a catalyst for personal growth, creative self-expression and mutual support. Discover a place of connection and belonging in a circle of creative inspiration and compassionate witness. Through the four practices of Writing Alone Together, you...
One of the greatest gifts that you can bring to your journal writing is your own inward permission to write freely.~Stephanie Dowrick As I sit here and start to write these words, I feel a knot of tension in my solar plexus, and nudges of anxiety in my lower belly....
As I was poring through some old journals recently, I stumbled upon this entry from journal #16. Such a hesitancy to start again. How long has it actually been since I’ve been here. It seems like forever. How quickly I forget the path, when I stray from its marked...
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Rumi, The Guest House A walk in the garden, spying on sparrow with its...
Yesterday I wrote a very short story about a girl who was wide-awake. Today I fell into a deep sleep again. And now, with these words, the light turns on. I am flowing. Sometimes I can’t believe how much our bodies experience. Stress, the way it hovers in the chest, a...
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us “universe”, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison...
In March, I was invited to UBC to participate in a panel on “Jobs Outside Academia” for students in the faculty of education. A friend and colleague, Heather Duff, suggested to the organizing committee that I be a part of the conversation because of the...
I give births. I enjoy giving births. Helene Cixous Everything is alive now. Spring brings permission to begin, again. A fresh perspective, as if we could be virgin, (re)newed. This past weekend saw me fulfill a dream, long ago hatched. A dream begun inwhen I first...
I am writing on the eve of the third day of Chanukah, the Jewish festival that celebrates the victory of light over darkness. According to the story, more than twenty-one centuries ago, Israel was ruled by the Syrian-Greeks, who sought to forcefully convert the people...
A few weeks ago I had a dream: A young girl was showing me a series of books I had written, all of which were about healing by reframing my experience through art. I was amazed and delighted when I awoke and remembered it. Another message from my unconscious showing...
The middle of September and I have finally found my way back here. A business mentor of mine with whom I recently reconnected when I was surprised by her presence at a friend’s dinner party in Kelowna a few weeks ago expressed glee at the mention of my chosen respite...
Winter has resumed here on the West Coast. After a few weeks of glorious sunshine, the rains have returned and with them, the nearly impenetrable fog. However, if there is one thing for certain about the weather, it always changes. When we resist change, we create...
I feel down low and I know I should just go to bed, it’s late and the sound of the fridge humming is the only accompaniment to these words. If I could I’d sing slow down you move too fast, but change the morning tomoment in the next line then thank simon and garfunkel...
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