light on

I look outside and see bleak. it’s the same scene as yesterday, the same street, with my neighbourhood’s three storey walk up apartments, hedges and sidewalk, balconies with flowerboxes and bikes. but today the air is grey, the wind bites through what is left of the flowers. shivering skeletons. the trees are slowly, brutally being undressed. their leaves lay like ashes, spread recklessly across the sidewalk, mixed with broken glass from a car window.

yesterday I looked outside with joy, to the sunshine, the promise of light. my body felt light, my spirit felt light. today is the same scene, and there actually is no absence of light - it is a nuanced grey that simply brings out a different depth to the colourful brick across the street, and to the trembling green-golden leaves, to the denim on the passing pedestrian, and the milky puddles of old mucky rain. so I look inside and wonder, is it my light that I’m worried about? how do I sustain that light I felt, these past weeks in the sharp sun and bright faces of Zimbabwe? that feeling in me that I was alive, that every moment mattered, every conversation a lifeline, and each breath, vital. so vital.

my return home has been fine. resting, fasting, and then being in my neighbourhood - buying groceries at my favourite places, seeing neighbours, bumping into friends. walking in the particular rose sunshine of a Montreal autumn and feeling the buzz of this city ~ fresh faces, chattering on the corner, the hum of French and English in and out of shops and cafes… on Sunday I saw more people in a day that I sometimes do over the week such was the energy in and around me. it was as much the sunday as it was my own curiosity and feeling of warmth of return…

and yet today, this bleak, this fear, is slowly skulking its way into my periphery. I don’t want to go back into old patterns, these ways that I have cultivated to protect my self from my own happiness, my own light. these past years have been spent too long insular, fatigued, depleted - and I see how it became habit, an excuse, to draw in. to isolate myself, from myself. I want that time to be over - and I have felt it shifting, and shaping and asking, ASKING to be let go. these habits die hard. do I need to be gentle? can I cut the chord? I thought I had, over and over. and yet the skulking feels real. it may be its last hurrah, attempting to show its face, or sneaking in unnoticed.

but I see you, and I need to look you in the face and say it’s over.

you were the company I needed, to live in my own dark places, to explore them and know them and not pretend that there is only Light. I needed to feel you and honour you, and know that you are equally a part of me, of all of us. you helped me shift my perspective, and see more, go deeper, and have compassion for those who live there. and then I let you stay for too long. Zimbabwe reminded me of the Light -of how it feels to be in the light, and come from my light. the liquid dark moon, and the shades of sun, have been showing me the nuances of my own light - and my quest, my question, is to honour these shades in me, and let the right one show up or slow down, as needed. to know myself, is to know the tune and cadence of my light, and to share and show up as needed, as required, as gifted, and ask from others the same.

so this bleak that I see - is simply a shade, but I am asking the habits that go with it to fade - so that I can see the nuances, and show up in the way that I feel, not the way of my fear.

written on the body

She wants us to heal
but to do so is to fundamentally shift to a sacred pace that sustains
I see my own patterns as the patch dynamics of a healthy ecosystem
learning how to let go and bring in the new
how to nurture, when to burn and clear out

cycles of generosity and abundance
in tandem with the moon’s dark liquid hibernation

molecules of memory,
ancestral, umbilical, sewn through daily ritual
are embedded in the physical structure of my body

wide sky kitchens and hearths of hosting
offer refuge and sustenance,
creativity and care
fear and imprisonment

“how can I teach you, you who know so little beyond the self?”
veil after veil is lifted, but I cannot see
for all my looking outward

I step through the threshold
I’ve bitten the apple, skin to flesh, to seed
I offer and offer
but to receive to perceive to accept
is to till the soil of change

revolutionary minutae, a love poem

it reminds of the radical idea of yours that everyday there is something so important about the everyday
something revolutionary about the minutae of the work that gets a family through this day unto the next
of choosing that which is already there
being satisfied with bearing a child, growing your food, making your meals, loving your children, having a partner with whom to build a life
that these are the miracles
to be noticed and cherished
nurtured
and i miss you, in these ideas
because these are our dreams
and this poem is a testament to the practical
the tangible
the manifestation of these little moments that are everything
these small acts that build a body, a family, a community
a whole life, a forest over time
it celebrates the many generations that brought these things to bear
and anticipates those who will come after,
lineage and continuity
it revels in the soil of a forest, its ecosystem alive
with the tiniest of nutrients that bring life to an eternal, temporal cycle
a forest is rooted in one place, committed to one thing

we each, you and i, have our own radical acts in our daily lives, and they are separated by an ocean
witnessed through email, skype, a feeling of knowing you are there....
and connected by our love and appreciation, our deepest respect and mutual inspiration
i can breathe you in, from this far away
this is a love poem to a love that exists and persists
that simply is
i need to accept that, just as it is
like the miracle of today and yesterday, and the snow that is falling, and my legs that walk me, and the smile that comes to my lips
this helps me to find peace in myself
to quell all my fighting and wanting, my desires for this or for that
to be happy with who i
where i am
what we have, what this is
over the distance, through the aspirations and hopes to be together
is this gift of loving, sharing, inspiring, connecting, holding
it is a liberation
not a problem to be solved or a dream to be made real
as you rest your head on my lap
under the shade of a tree
it is all perfect, it is perfect just the way it is

this is my response to a manifesto: the mad farmer's liberation front, a poem by wendell berry, sent to me with love, across oceans and times zones, into the lap of my life.

ascent

so after two years of travels, work and explorations in different parts of the world, i find myself landing gently into the snowy breath of Montreal. renewed, inspired, humbled, i come home enriched with friendships, ideas and practices to bring back into the fold of my life and community here in Canada.

i'm grounding again. bringing this all home now, to practice it here in a new way. as part of that, i've taken on new project here in Montreal with ascent magazine and timeless books with whom i have been connected for years as a writer and through building community and young people's leadership (santropol roulant chefs became managing editors and vise versa!). they have invited me to help lead them into the next stage of their lifecycle as an award-winning not-for-profit Canadian magazine, book and web publishing group, and community of practitioners..... it is an amazing proposition with an incredible amount of trust and spaciousness to create...

i'm really excited about creating a new kind of space, a conscious space that invites, integrates, inspires and incites the worlds and stories of social action, sustainability, creativity and engaged spirituality through a physical & urban space; a print & media space; an organizational space of vitality and learning, a space that hosts and holds the work we've been doing and imagining locally and trans-locally...

**********

to tap into my thoughts on and the emergence of the conscious kitchen experiment this November in Greece at Axladitsa during the olive harvest,

click on my Venus' Kitchen blog.

here is an exerpt:

we learned about how to integrate the conscious kitchen not only as a programme, but into the whole operating system of how axladitsa hosts all its gatherings. beyond cooking together and hosting each other through food, is collectively being conscious of where the food is from, what choices we made and make everyday to plant, pick, buy, and compost our food and be conscious of where we create waste. so we have ideas for how to further integrate this into further gatherings with the vision of axladitsa becoming self-sufficient.

our larger purpose for being together at Axladitsa was to deepen our understanding and practice of hosting, or of holding space for emergence to occur.

the thing that really came up was about the evolution of hosting spaces for meaningful conversations into this realization that the people who gathered are developing a next level of this practice through hosting meaningful spaces. this means living this practice by integrating it into our daily lives.

i feel this is what has been emerging for me these last few years, this deeper integration and consciousness around the personal, collective and natural.

and so it is important for me to be part of an emerging collective, a group and network of people who are living and working this way, who are constantly working to be aware of the emergence of new patterns for organizing their lives, their work, and our collective work in the world. i have been feeling - and now i am witnessing - something happening that has to do with a paradigm shift around how we live, work, relate, communicate, convene, reflect, be still, and move into purposeful and wise action.

i'm writing on a strange day, with lots of processings and emotions. the mother of one of my best friends died of cancer today. lots of grieving, sadness at missing her mother's passing by being in montreal with her friends to celebrate old friends and the new lives they've brought into the world. what is the greater wisdom that the universe holds - this turn that she was not there, with her brother, after being at her mother's side consistently since the diagnosis? yet such a gift for us, her friends, to be able to support her. i feel so lucky that i have both my parents in my life. i think i take it for granted that they are there for me, and i for them.

so i found myself home just now reading the shambhala sun magazine on "choosing peace", feeling unpeaceful inside, restless and sad. and i found this:
www.herwildsong.com/journeys.html - women who lead wilderness and healing journeys. it all somehow seems connected to going to greece next week.

as i get ready to go to greece to be in the wilds of the olive harvest, with my hands in the earth and food, with people who are mentors, friends and peers, transforming ourselves transforming our worlds.... i think of wilderness and grieving and healing. and am checking in with my own energies, my organs actually, around what really is next for me in my life and work; what i am truly up for. a diagnosis this week invites me much much deeper into taking care of myself and truly shifting my paradigm of work into that of a balanced and healing life. finally, i see the deeper and wider context of my journey this year - some kind of detailed proof that i have not been crazy, or worse, "lazy."

i was asked "if you were to go to that place, that place beyond denial, even if you were to go ever so briefly to that place of true knowledge, what would it tell you about why your body is where it is?" and what would i do with that knowledge? and then i think, if I had a short time to live, if i were to live as if i was dying, what would i be choosing? and how is this different than today? because most of us are living denying the dying and making choices full of fear that we will not be provided for, with love and grace and abundance, by the cosmos..

so i am going to axladitsa at a critical juncture.

and i am looking forward to healing lands and hands...

saffron defiance

this question of freedom erupts suddenly, comes into sight, after years of repression in Burma. there is a fearless flow of saffron and defiance in the streets of Rangoon. then disbelief, shock in the blindness and violence of an army that asks young men to shoot their fathers, their spiritual selves, their own selves. and i am reminded of a tibetan monk whose response to the question of how he felt about the chinese soliders he witnessed torturing and killing his fathers ~
"what kind of karma are they creating for themselves?" ~
his response leaves me in total amazement. the freedom of his mind and heart, to think and see that far ahead and behind with such open eyes to the interconnectivity of all life, over all time.

this must be freedom. the long view, in the present.
the expansive heart, in service to us all.

then each of us is all of us
the courage and the blindness
the spiritual and the bereft
the all time and the today.

it is a question of balance, an equilibrium of opposites.
more of us must face our shadows and come into the light, and be so courageous everyday ~

Thich Nhat Hahn on spiritual leadership and the monks in Burma,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74o9P6G2y18&feature=dir

when i was in india and walking the himalayas with saklanaji, the 80 year old tree planter, he kept up this call and response to the villages below us which was basically
"wake up! and save the trees! wake up!"
here TNH speaks eloquently about non-violent and compassionate action in Burma, and he is saying basically that we have been waiting for the spiritual leadership in America to wake up!

Alan Clements, activist buddhist, and first ordained american to practice in Burma weighs into this conversation, and is starting a world dharma institute is dedicated to and inspired by Aung San Suu Kyi Burma’s (detained) Nobel Peace laureate and leader of her country’s nonviolent "Revolution of the Spirit. "
http://www.worlddharmaonlineinstitute.com/

Venus' Kitchen

today i lunched, i mean i launched Venus' Kitchen

it's a blog which explores in much more detail my culinary quest to integrate human and ecological systems with spiritual and sustainable practices.... it will have recipes, ideas, links, ingredients for living a yummy life ~ and it will harvest the places i go, the people i meet and the delices that i eat along the way and the special spices each offers into this collective cauldron.

so check it out http://venuskitchen.blogspot.com/
(but you can also click on the link just to the right)