Hi Adele
Sharing some collaborative discussion about creativity done through zine-making at skewl!
xo Martha

Hey Adele
Did you see the lunar eclipse last night? I got to see the beginning of it before it clouded over here in Consecon. Here's a rather insufficient photo just showing the slightly flattened left side indicating the shadow.
xo Martha

September Haiku

Haiku for Today

at dusk, the tree ex-
  plodes with the sound of birds --
            the air is singing

love and songs to you, Adele,
Ellen

And one more:

Now that days are cool,
Morning glories linger late
         Blooming til afternoon

Grandmother Frog Magic and Other Stories

Dear Adele,

Wow. Life-Change, here I come.

Change for the Chang-Maker, I wrote in an email to a friend.

You are a beacon of resilience for me in this time of great change in my life. Thank you for being you.

That gigantic change came just before my vacation, a road-trip north with my Dad. So I had the pleasure of reading official documents from the wifi hotspots outside of Tim Hortons and of calling lawyers from inside my tent at Provincial Campgrounds.

A unique and unsimplitic situation.

The main purpose of my trip north was to visit my Mentors from Banff, Mary and Martin. Here is a photo of Martin, me and my Dad.

Mary and Martin brought together Elders and knowledge keepers from across the north for a sacred teaching lodge, shake tent ceremonies, conversations about environmental issues and the power of Indigenous knowledge. Wow again. How amazing to truly bear witness and even participate in such a meaningful and ancient experience.

In the foreground of this photo is the sweat lodge where we smushed in almost 30 woman in the complete, womb-like dark. Each person got a moment to offer their prayers. The whole group prayed with you. Many people cried and spoke in different Indigenous languages. I asked for grace and dignity as I face this separation and courage and joy as I walk forward on a new path.

The building in the background is the teaching lodge. Each day here we sang songs and did ceremony to honour the sacred pipes, the feathers and the water. Each elder spoke everyday, sharing messages they had received from the spirit world, sometimes sharing personal stories as teachings, sometimes taking about the environment, something just saying whatever was in their heart.

The head elder, whose role it was to hold the lodge, was named Harry. My Dad and I happened to sit beside him. On the first day he tried to sell my Dad his sacred pipe for 5 dollars, then is feather for 2 dollars. He saw my Dad wasn’t wearing any socks so he offered him his own socks for 50 cents. Such items (except for the socks), are priceless of course and hold great meaning. (Well maybe a head elder’s socks hold some meaning too I don’t know.) My Dad asked for the price of the whole lot and they laughed. Instant friends. When they handed round the scared healing sweet grass tea medicine, he whispered to my Dad, “Not enough whisky in here. Too much water.” When they handed round the food offering for the spirits, which was a handful of wild blueberries and cooked rice, he said to my Dad, “What, no steak? No ribs?” At another point when he was complaining about the ceremonial food he said, “They don’t even have bologna,” so my Dad went out at lunch and came back with a pack of bologna for him. I was glad my Dad had made such a friend. It was good to see my Dad treated with respect like an elder of sorts too. That happens so infrequently in western society.

A different elder who was sitting close to me told a story, out of the blue, that didn’t seem much connected to anything at first. It strikes me now that he was a person working deeply from his intuition and his stories, though all together they seemed unconnected to a western-trained brain, were likely important messages for different people in the room. At least that is what I think now. He said at one time in his life he felt he had insects inside of him because of something someone had done to him, he felt wronged by someone. I understood what that felt like. He said he woke up one morning to find a very large frog sitting on his pillow. Bigger than a bullfrog, he said. He sat up and then it disappeared. He felt the frog magic help him and he gave us some teachings about Grandmother Frog. When I heard the story I identified with that feeling of insects inside me. Now I think he was talking to me, maybe directly to me. Later that day my Dad and I started our journey home. When we stopped to take a pit-stop I reached my bare feet down to the car floor to slip on my shoes, but recoiled with a yelp. Sitting on the car floor was a real frog. She stared up on me, wise and quiet. I suspect she had taken a ride on our bag of firewood that morning when we put it in the backseat. My Dad released her to a swampy patch of land off of the road. I said prayers for Grandmother Frog magic.

I believe in the power of collective prayer. It was so good to experience that from an Indigenous perspective. And so kind to experience that at a time of great transition in my life. This prayer is not always about fixing or changing things. It’s not about getting what you want or even sometimes what you need. It is about coming together, feeling something together, believing something together, reaching together, holding something in your hearts together. I believe in that magic.

Keeping you in my prayers

Love from

Nicole

P.S. I just found the cord to my camera after a brief period of hide and seek. That's why there are three posts in a row here for you to enjoy.

Peacock Colour

Dear Adele,
Two weeks ago Gene Simpson sent me a video of beautiful peacock splendor for some colour-joy just at moment when I needed cheering up. I immediately thought of sending it to you:

The Most Magnificent Peacock Dance Ever

Last weekend I received another Peacock. My friend Jessica gave me this shawl along with a story. We don’t know the historic origins of this story so if anyone reading it does, please share it with us.

Once peacock feathers were symbols of bad-luck, the evil eye and all that. Then slowly, it came into fashion that some people would wear them to challenge luck – to show that they were not afraid of bad luck – to show that they could make their own luck.

I found lots of good peacock symbolism stories here:

Peacock Symbolism

I appreciate the wisdom of creating your own luck. 

Wishing you a colourful day.

Nicole

Competitive Chippiness

I would like to contribute to the collection of cute chippies on this site.

While camping, my Dad and I hit a park where the chipmunks were very demanding. They clearly had been fed by others and were very assertive about telling us that we should do the same.

First my Dad had one on his lap.

Then I taught one to sit in my palm. (Or he taught me to hold my palms in the right way for him.)

There were several subordinate chippies that the dominant chipster would chase away if he saw them near by. I developed a two-tiered system of seed distribution to avoid confrontation.

A park ranger stopped by just to say hi and see if we were having a good stay. I quickly closed my fingers around the seeds I was holding and chatted with him for a while. The chipmunks got very impatient during this conversation. They started to race around our feet. They hopped up on the picnic table to investigate our breakfast. One knocked over the seed bag and climbed inside. I bent over the table to try to bring about some order when one climbed up the back of my leg and stood on my shoulder right in front of the ranger. “Ok! All right!” I said and relinquished my palm full of seeds to the munchkin perched close to my face.

This is the bold chippie on his way back down.

So while I may not be on a first name basis with my chippie neighbours like John is, I too have enjoyed some intimate moments with them.

In solidarity with chippies and chippie enthusiasts everywhere,

Nicole

learning to fly

Fledgling Red Tail Hawk feather

Hello Adele,
Cycling on my way to work this morning I heard a high pitched screech from far up in a tree. I pulled off to see a red tailed hawk standing tall on an upper branch. But the call didn't come from her. The sound was coming from a young, awkward, fledgling hawk, moulting it's feathers and hopping from branch to branch after it's Mother. Each time it would have to flap and flutter just a little bit further to get to the safety and comfort of Mom. With each jump, a soft cloud of young feathers would drift lazily down as they were scattered from the growing hawk. It was shedding it's baby fluff and fuzz as it's new feathers and new skills advanced. 
Mama hawk was teaching her baby to fly by stretching it's limits just a little bit at a time. She would float off just far enough away to make it challenging, but not so far that the young one couldn't safely manage the leap. 
I know you did the same thing with many developing Artist-Educators and young teachers. Supporting them from just outside of their comfort zone to see them fly to new heights and inspire new classes of young learners. Some of their leaps may have been a bit awkward as the young hawk I saw today. But you were always there to help straighten their feathers and encourage them to try for the next branch just a bit higher in the tree. So many of them reached high up the tree and flew off into the sunshine because of your support.
My feathers are still falling off and drifting down as I flap to another branch for a cup of tea with you.
Thanks for that.
Hugs,
John

Fledgling Red Headed Artist Educator feather

Hi Adele
I spent the weekend up near Priceville helping two amazing friends with an installation that commemorates a Black pioneer cemetery from the mid-1800s. The names of over two dozen early Black settlers were cast in concrete and we had to drill these and mortar them into place in the ceiling of this sculptural pavillion... a wonderful project to be a part of. Hope you got some warmer weather in Consecon... I had to borrow a toque and jacket as I wasn't expecting the cold winds that blew up!
Hope to see you soon.
xo Martha

Fall

Hi Adele,

Cooler weather means fall is coming.  Working with words, I like the way "fall" has different meanings, all related: autumn and falling, changing leaves; falling down; falling in love; falling asleep; the rise and fall of a government; falling from grace.  (just the same way,  "spring" is a season; water gushing up; the movement of leaping and springing; and a metal spring on a couch or bed).  I talked about this with my monthly writing group at Among Friends, a group which began in 2006 and ran for over 8 years as a Living Through the Arts project,though I now work there independently.  I passed around slips of paper and asked each of the 10 people in today's session to write down two words or phrases about these different meanings of fall.  We put all the papers in a basket, and each person picked one (not their own!) and wrote a poem or short prose piece based on the two words they received.  One woman wrote about "falling down the stairs of love, going deeper and deeper into the relationship."  Someone else wrote about walking through crisp leaves to enjoy fresh-baked pumpkin pie at grandmother's house. Then there were crisp red apples tumbling from the trees.  And someone talked about the way we change into fall clothes just as the leaves turn colour, and how we harvest our own energy just as we harvest ripe fruits and root vegetables.  All the participants liked the way these "surprise gift" words helped them create something new.

Here is my poem: my two words were "love" and "angel"  (fallen angel).

Floating on her cloud
full of love and light,
the angel saw and heard nothing --
it was all too bright.

She poked a hole in the cloud,
looked down,
                  down,
                        down.

She saw rain, and gardens,
dogs, children crying,
children laughing.

She heard music -- not just
harps, but saxophones, clarinets,
trumpets, piano -- jazz, rock & roll.

She smelled the salt of the sea,
and apples baking.
She fell in love
                     with the world.

She peered down, closer
and closer,
               to the hole in her cloud
A gust of wind blew by
and suddenly
                         the angel was
                            tumbling
                                head over heels

She fell.

The world caught her.


Lots of love,
Ellen

Hey Adele
Back to school officially starts for me tomorrow. Just to distract myself a bit from all the preparations, I pulled out some clay. This was inspired by an attempt to make an "offering" for my dad at the zen temple in Toronto. I was going to make a bird but then when I got out my dad's favourite clay how-to book I remembered his fondness for the good ol' pinch pot. So that's what I've been working on in my not-so-spare time. Hope to see you in Consecon on a weekend later in September.
xo Martha

Kettle Point

Dear Adele,

I am sending you the warmth and light of this late summer day.  This week I spent a few days at a cottage on Lake Huron, at Kettle Point, near Ipperwash (southern end of Lake Huron, toward Sarnia).
I used to spend a lot of time here,when my son was young, but haven't visited for over 25 years -- and it was restful and peaceful to spend some time alone, enjoying how the trees have grown and become shady, seeing how the reeds have grown up along what used to be shore-line, swimming in the lake and feeling the sand-bars under my toes again.  Kettle Point is an ongoing First Nations reserve, which seems to have been doing better in recent years, with a new school, health centre, cultural centre, and shopping plaza, and is recovering from the trauma of the shooting of Dudley George at Ipperwash in 1995.  Non-Natives can own a cottage and lease the land from the reserve -- this arrangement seems to work well.  I was glad to have time to reflect on memories of the past and the goodness and fullness of life in the present.  Here are a few pictures -- I hope they convey the peace and aura of the place, very different from the nearby towns and campsites -- and a couple of  haiku.  Love and take good care,  Ellen

The lake flows on, reeds                                            

and all.  A storm blows in, passes by.                      

Sunlight glimmers.

The spruce we planted
now towers in shade.
Acorns fall like hard rain.
from the oak nearby.

Kettles, ancient geodes,
Mysteries on the lakeshore
Shining in every sunset.

engraving memories

 Last week Leslie and I traveled on the ferry to Ward's Island, the place of our wedding. We were celebrating our 25th anniversary. It was a cloudy and somewhat chilly day, not at all like our sunny, hot and humid wedding day two and half decades ago.  It was really sweet to walk the same steps as we did back then and reminisce about that day o' days and all the things that have gone on since then. So much time has passed. So many things have changed and yet the Island is much the same.

The spot we were married 25 years ago

The happy couple with wedding documents in hand.

They have made a beautiful mosaic just outside of the Ward's Island Clubhouse.

The sun broke through the clouds near sunset and lit up a golden strand of the Leslie Street Spit.

The view of Toronto from the Islands is one of the most beautiful.

I purposely took this image out of focus. It reminds me of the soft, haziness of our recollections.

Last week also brought some new sidewalks to the front of our house. It gave us a chance to scratch our presence in stone (well, concrete at least). I've always liked doing this and seeing the results of others' rough engravings into the footpaths of our lives. It is a reminder of how we all like to leave our mark. "I was here."

Dash, Myrna and Leslie left their mark in stone.

John Patrick Scully did the same. That was my great, great grandfather's name too. I like that connection.

I also added: "Art is what makes life worth living" True if erased...

This reminds me of a saying that I heard many years ago. Apparently the Canadian Architect, Raymond Moriamya was told this by his father when he graduated:

"Into the temple of eternity, drive one spike of gold."

This is what I strive for too.

Good wishes and looking forward to our next cup of tea together.

Hugs,

John