Wednesday, October 26, 2022

The Gazebo Group: How 5 Choristers survived a pandemic

We were 6 months into a pandemic that had already gone on longer than anyone had thought it would.  A curious email appeared in my inbox – a call from a fellow despondent choir member, wondering if anyone in her choral circle wanted to gather outdoors and sing Renaissance music together.  My interest was piqued, as my heart was missing group singing more than it missed anything else the pandemic had taken from us, but the proposed weekly date and timing didn’t work for me. 

For the next few weeks, I read with curiosity the email updates that came from Jane after each gathering, and thought how lovely it was that a small handful of people had found a way to come together and sing safely despite the various stages of lockdown we were finding ourselves in.

The updates came with vivid and intriguing descriptions of each week’s gathering:

“We met up, sang a Christmas carol (and got compliments from passers by) and then worked on Sicut Cervus by Palestrina. Even though our numbers were small, we were so happy to be singing together and our spirits were high.”

“Last week's gathering was the opposite of illustrious or spectacular. It was King Lear on the heath weather - driving rain, cold, and miserable. I turned up but the rest of you had the sense to stay home! I met some interesting people (…), sang Sicut Cervus to the rain, and went home slightly sodden at 6 p.m.”

The image of my solitary choir member singing to the rain was simultaneously tragic and yet indicative of a strange kinship that I could no longer ignore.  The following week, I made my inaugural walk from my home to a nearby park that, unbeknownst to be at the time, would become a weekly pilgrimage over the next year.

The heart of the choral singer is a complex one to describe.  It is not simply that we “love singing” – if it were only that, singing alone in the shower would suffice, and a pandemic that deemed group singing to be one of the most ‘dangerous’ activities would not have affected us so. 

“Why don’t you just join a virtual choir?” was a comment I heard often from well-meaning, non-choral friends.  As lovely and peculiar as it is to sing alone by yourself in your living room while watching other floating heads silently doing the same on your computer screen, it does not come close to the rhythmic joining of your breath with others’ breaths, the melding of your notes against the choral harmonies of others’ notes, and the intangible mystery of so many individual voices somehow becoming one cohesive entity.

As I walked across the park to our meeting place of choice, I briefly looked around for by-law enforcement or members of the public ready to inform us how ‘illegal’ our group gathering was.  No such phantoms appeared.  It was a desolate, empty field, with perhaps a lone dog walker in the distance.  The autumn air was crisp, and the trees around us had mostly shed their leaves.

I approached the designated meeting spot, and, seeing no one, sat down on some concrete steps to wait.  Perhaps the others had decided that we shouldn’t, in fact, be engaging in such dangerous, law-breaking activity.

But I needn’t have worried.  At promptly 4:30pm, Jane appeared in the distance, squinting across the field at me, carrying a large basket.  I stood up; smiled and waved.  “Ana!” she beamed at me.  “You’re here!”

Soon after, a handful of others arrived.  There were 6 of us that day – 4 short of the current allowable gathering limit.  We stood 6 feet (or more) apart.  Jane distributed sheets of music from the aforementioned basket. 

And, just like that, we sang.

How do I explain to you what that moment felt like? 

To join my voice to the voices of others after so long.  To breathe in sync with the breath of others.  To hear woven harmonies all around me.  Those first few notes, my eyes filled with tears – but there was no time for that.  There was serious sight-reading to do.  Black dots and lines of notes flooded my mind like old familiar friends, and the part of my brain that knows how to automatically sync in time to a communal rhythm turned on like a glowing flame.  It did not matter that the wind whipped our sheets of music, that the cold air made our fingers numb.  We made our way through a dizzying amount of 4-part Renaissance music, oblivious to the elements and the occasional passerby.

We were singing!  Together.  The hour passed much too quickly. 

The weekly emails from Jane continued:

“Greetings!  We must have looked like miners last week as we shone lights of various sizes and positions onto our sheet music which kept threatening to be blown away by the wind. And we shared the bandshell last week with minors who were skateboarding. Accommodating minors who did their stunts alongside our rounds.  Please feel free to join us tomorrow, Thursday, from 4:30-5:30 p.m. as usual! We will be starting with some rounds and a Christmas carol and then attempting to work on the longest piece we have ever tried: Civitas Sancti Tui by William Byrd. We will see how far we get! It is haunting and the words are about the city (Zion) being desolate. A lamentation, which somehow seems appropriate for what we are all going though now.  Dress warmly! Sheet music and candy will be provided!”

As the weeks progressed, it became clear that a stalwart group of 5 of us were consistently showing up, week after week, ready with music in hand to sing no matter the weather.  We were, unbeknownst to us, forming a curious bond over something that was a mutual shared passion.

As one of us wrote in retrospect: “Eventually, however, as the winter tightened its grip, it became obvious that something amazing and wonderful was happening. The response to the weather worsening was the emergence of a small group of people who had obviously come to share a common belief and commitment, that we would sing, every week. But in some way the commitment to sing every week represented a commitment to other things too, to a way of living and a way of being, individually and with each other.”

Ted’s words above describe very succinctly what the source of our bond truly was, beyond simply a mere shared love of singing choral music.  A commitment to a way of being.

October turned into November, which turned into December.  The location of our initial gatherings was moved several blocks down the road to another park, with an 8-sided Gazebo that could shelter us a bit more from the elements.  This became our permanent home for the next year.  As the weeks went on, our 4:30pm start meant we started with fading daylight and finished in complete darkness. 

We developed a pattern – while we still had daylight, we tackled the more challenging pieces first.  I was often the one who ended up 'conducting', which mostly consisted of waving my bright blue mittened hand up and down to keep us on a steady beat.  Whenever there was a page turn in the music, I momentarily had to stop conducting while I quickly removed my mitten, turned the page, frantically tried to keep singing in time, and put the mitten back on so I could keep going. 

As the light faded, we would pull out our little headlamps or booklights so we could still see our music.  When it was really cold, we would hop in place in between songs.  Most days, we sang alone, completely unnoticed by the few who happened to be walking through the park in the dark. 

Occasionally, though, we did manage to attract a micro-audience.

A toddler wearing a bright neon pinny that broke away from his daycare group taking a walk and ran over to see what on earth we were doing.  The teacher followed along with the other two children and they stood there and listened to us sing a few songs before continuing on their walk. 

A boy and his father, attracted either by the bobbing of our headlamps or our disembodied voices in the dark, also came over one night.  The young boy clapped after each song - we waved at him and smiled, though we doubted he could see us.

A lone man walking his dog through the park, who stopped a distance away and listened for a little bit before continuing on.

In the midst of strange and uncertain times, this tiny little ad-hoc choir of crazy people willing to stand outdoors in winter's cold and darkness and join our voices together in lovely harmonies kept me sane.  Kept us all sane.  And who were ‘we’, exactly?  A teacher, a choir director, a music librarian/church administrator, a busy mother of 2 young children, and me - a pregnant behaviour analyst/choral singer.

Together, we managed to cover most 4-part music by having an Alto, a Bass, 2 Sopranos, and a Soprano-on-Tenor.  We sightread whatever we could get our hands on, always doing a mix of brand new pieces each week and going over a variety of favourites.  Over the course of the time we sang together, we worked out way through over 60 pieces.  Palestrina, Byrd, Vasquez, Lassus, Bach, Pitoni, Rachmaninov.  A dizzying array of Masses, Ave Verums, Cantate Dominos.  Portuguese polyphony, madrigals, Sacred Harp, hymns, modern liturgical music, spirituals, chants, rounds.

All of this while straining our ears to listen to each other standing so much further away than any choir is used to, keeping our music from flying away in the wind, keeping headlamps pointed at the score, and occasionally even conducting with a glowstick out of desperation to stay in time in the dark.

It was beautiful madness.  And I loved it.

One dark night in January, we acquired an audience of 3.  They lingered, and chatted with us between songs, wanting to know who we were and what on earth we were doing there.  They seemed drawn to us, to the magic we were creating... starved, almost, for beauty, for live music, for human connection.  Everything the pandemic had taken from us.

A woman passed by, stopped, and said "I just wanted to tell you something."  We all held our breaths, afraid she was going to point out we were breaking the law, that we were more than 5, that we shouldn't be gathering.  Instead she simply said "You all sound so beautiful" and continued her walk.

We exhaled.  

By the end of January, light finally started to return.  No longer were headlamps needed.  We survived the darkest of winter, and it was so vividly apparent to us, so striking; we all just marvelled at it, at being able to see our music by the end of it, at no longer being disembodied voices in the dark, but real and present and defiant - not defiant of the law, but of despair.  We had created a tiny island of sanity and refuge in our lives amidst massive uncertainty.

As Covid waves rose and fell, restrictions ebbed and flowed along with them.  For several weeks, it became illegal to gather outdoors with ANY one at all.  We briefly hesitated – would this be the end of the Gazebo Group?  We showed up that first week after the new restrictions were implemented, looked around briefly for by-law enforcers hiding in the bushes, and, seeing none, continued the business of singing as usual.

Winter gave way to spring, and spring to early summer.  One warm day, when restrictions about gathering limits had lifted slightly above zero, we found ourselves sharing the Gazebo with a group of 6 energetic children, running around, shouting, riding bicycles and scooters.  We simply moved ourselves off to the side, passed around some new music, and sang as we always did.  When we finished our first piece, we were startled to turn around and find all 6 children had assembled themselves on the ground in a straight line, and had been quietly listening to our “concert”.  They beamed at us as we turned around, and gave us a smattering of applause, telling us we were “really good”.

Surprised and a little humbled, we acknowledged them, and continued on with our singing, receiving a round of applause from tiny hands each time.  What was it that caused those young children to assemble themselves, unprompted by an adults, and quietly listen to an impromptu ‘concert’ of Renaissance music from a handful of strangers?  Was it the pandemic, that had isolated us for so long from each other?  The novelty of people singing outdoors for no apparent purpose?  The sound of the music itself?  Whatever it was, it was definitely a special moment.

You have to understand.  Life during the pandemic was not like what we know now, or have always known.  Those two years, we were like ghosts.  Disembodied versions of ourselves, trying to float through whatever this life was now.  Hugging your grandmother was illegal; so was a child playing on a swing.  The complete unknown of what we were all thrown into, collectively, has changed us in ways we don’t yet fully understand.  The world around us is back to normal; yet our experiences from the past two years were anything but normal.  How do they fit into our current lives?  What place does an ad-hoc group of outdoor renaissance singers have in this post-pandemic world?  What do we still carry with us from that time of madness and beauty?

This little group and our experience together under the Gazebo changed us all in some way.  It kept us sane and connected during a time when there was no stability in our lives, when everything was unknown, when everything we loved and needed most in our lives, connection and closeness, was taken away from all of us.  It was no small comfort to know that every Thursday at 4:30pm, there would be a handful of others waiting to sing together, no matter the situation around us.

We took a small hiatus over the summer, as all choirs do.  The world was starting to open up somewhat from all the restrictions, and we all had social and travel engagements for the first time in over a year.

Nevertheless, as fall approached and another covid surge with it (with accompanying restrictions on gathering), we met again in early September and continued our weekly gatherings, singing as the evenings grew cooler again, and wind and leaves blew around us.  This was familiar by now; a rhythm and connection with the elements, the music and each other, that kept calling us together.

One day in late October, we came together for our usual singing, and realized with a pang of bittersweetness that this would be the Gazebo group’s last gathering.  Our lives were pulling us in different directions – a move to a new home several hours away, a baby about to be born, a friend in hospital that needed weekly visiting, the start-up of church choir administrative duties. 

Jane, in true Jane fashion, brought us all hot chocolate to hold on to while we sang, to keep our hands warm.  We sang all of our old favourites from the past year, with perhaps more energy and passion than we ever had, knowing it was our last time together.

One of our favourite pieces to sing was actually a Christian folk hymn from the American South: Wondrous Love.  We had early on adapted the lyrics to suit our present predicament – instead of singing “and when from death we’re free”, we had modified the lyrics to: “And when from Covid we’re free, we’ll sing on, we’ll sing on… and when from Covid we’re free, we’ll sing on.”  It was our mantra, a prayer for the future, something to give us hope.

On this last day of our singing together, I requested a new modification, to which everyone obliged, and we sang this:  “And since from Covid we’re free, we’ll sing on, we’ll sing on… and since from Covid we’re free, we’ll sing on!”

There were teary-eyed hugs goodbye as we parted for the last time, and made our slow ceremonial walk towards our cars across the leaf-strewn park.  When I got home, I looked at the calendar and realized that it had been exactly a year to the day that I had joined this strange and wonderful group.

As I sit here reminiscing, a year later, I look out my window and see yellow, red, and orange leaves blowing in the wind, just like they did that day.  The pandemic is not exactly over, but restrictions have lifted and our lives have returned to somewhat of a state of normalcy.  This very evening, I have a dress rehearsal for a choral concert tomorrow – a sure sign that life as we used to know it has definitely returned.

And yet, despite the return of regular choral activities, the memory of the Gazebo Group lives on, and tugs at my heartstrings in a way I cannot explain.  What we created, by coming together in such a time of uncertainty, was something that I fear I have failed, still, to capture in words, despite taking a year to work on describing who and what we were. 

We were a beacon of light to each other in a very dark time.  And in a world where every moment, good or bad, is captured via digital means, there exists no record of our weekly singing, no video clips on anyone’s phones, not even a still photo.  Was it a dream, then, these gatherings I speak of, with music sheets flying in the wind and headlamps bobbing in the dark? Certainly no sane person would engage in such madness, and definitely not for an entire year.

Who knows – if there is ever another pandemic, I definitely know where I will be going every Thursday afternoon.  I think, even without prior planning, that 4 other people will somehow also be there.  We will just know.

And if you are ever taking a walk in a park, some warm and bright spring day, chilly fall afternoon, or frigid and windy dark winter evening, and notice a gazebo in the distance, maybe walk a little closer.  Listen for us. And remember that we existed.

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Misplaced

I notice you,
sweet rock dove,
soaring with effortless grace above our towers of grey. 

You are grey, too - 
the soft colour of sea foam,
reminiscent of the view where you truly belong: 

Cliffs.  High above crashing waves.
You would have moved among them effortlessly. 

Now you're here, with the rest of us,
navigating a chaos of obstacles and noise;
traffic and high-rises; soot and confusion. 

A poor replacement for your wave-swept precipices. 

No wonder you wander, as I do,
perplexed by the strangeness of where you find yourself. 

Neither you nor I were made for this sort of crowded chaos. 

Somewhere, deep in both our beings, lies the memory and longing for those cliffs,
and the soothing whisper of the grey waves beneath them. 

They call you Pigeon. 
I call you Kindred.

Friday, November 6, 2020

Ontario Birds

Purple Sandpipers
It's been a while since I've written a blog entry.  The world has changed so much; continues to change.  We all know this; there's no need for me to re-hash it here.

My one consistent solace has been birds.  The warblers and thrushes, waterfowl and songbirds, migrate like clockwork, completely unaware of the current pandemic or the political turmoil south of our border. Borders are irrelevant to them.  And so I find comfort in their tiny eyes, their fluttery wings, their vibrant or muted colours.

Purple Sandpiper Range Map (allaboutbirds.org)
I took a walk the other day to search for a Purple Sandpiper.  There had been reports on ebird.org that Purple Sandpipers were being sighted in a nearby area, so I took a chance.  Why are they so special?  Well, as you can see from the range map, it's quite rare for them to appear in Ontario at all. They breed and migrate in very remote northern regions, though they can very rarely be seen around the Great Lakes. 

These elusive creatures had been spotted at Pipit Point at the Leslie Street Spit in Toronto, which was about an hour's hike one way.  I got up before the sun, and was on the trail as the sun started to rise.  I was mostly alone on this solitary hike, though I did pass the occasional cyclist or runner.  I was actually surprised I didn't run into more birders, eager to see this rare appearance.

Finally I arrived at Pipit Point, and scanned the rocky shoreline where the waves of the lake were splashing gently.  No signs of birds at all, only mossy-covered rocks.  I climbed over some boulders and made my way to a different viewpoint. 

2 Purple Sandpipers on the left; Dunlin on the right
Suddenly there it was - a Purple Sandpiper.  Quietly walking along a large boulder, periodically pecking at the rocks.  I recognized it instantly.  The overwhelming feeling of wonder is hard to explain.  Up until that very moment, the Purple Sandpiper had been a mythical creature; something I had only ever seen in photos; something that lived so far away from these southern shores that I'd never imagined I would see one.  And there it was.  Just like that.  A few moments later, a second one joined it, as well as a more common Dunlin.


Purple Sandpiper

I sat on the rocks for half an hour, watching them as they walked back and forth along the rocks, oblivious to my presence.  Part way through, a flock of unidentified birds swooped over the lake in the distance, and without warning both Purple Sandpipers and the Dunlin immediately took to the skies and joined the flock, flew with them for a few seconds, and then circled around and came right back to the rocks where I was.  Why?  For what hidden reason did this happen?

Birds have so much to teach us.

Jen and I have recently revived our Ontario Bird Flashcards project and increased the number of cards in the deck to 100.  All of our own photography was used to create these beautiful cards. They have a photo of the bird on the front and the name of the bird on the back.  We have been completely floored by the response we've gotten - we've sold almost 500 decks since the pandemic began. I guess birds are offering a comfort to many people during this time.


We still have some remaining if anyone is looking for holiday stocking stuffers.  You can watch a cute little video about our bird cards here:   https://youtu.be/A9DgdJ_OIpU

Cards are available for purchase on our Etsy shop at this link: https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/820429876/ontario-birds-flashcards

Stay safe out there everyone.  We will get through this. 

Blackburnian Warbler

Scarlet Tanager

Tennessee Warbler

White-throated Sparrow

Wood Ducks
Yellow Warbler


Sunday, August 2, 2020

Still I rise


I never thought I’d want a tattoo.  While I was always able to think of multiple images that could represent what is deeply meaningful to me, the truth is that I have so many passions (music, hiking, canoeing, birds, poetry, science, social justice…) that I couldn’t fathom how I would choose just one or a few of those things to mark myself with permanently.  I have never been able to settle on one thing – one hobby, one skill, one career, one way of being.  The path in life that I have followed is far from linear; often not even coherent.

So what is it that remains the same?  Change.

Though I resist it, I simultaneously embrace it.  How can I not want to know what’s just around the next river bend, or just beyond that dark, frightening forest?  How can I remain still, as afraid as I often am, when there is the unknown, just beyond my reach?

The phoenix is an ancient, mythical bird from Greek folklore.  It is said that a phoenix constantly cycles through a death and rebirth.  It dies, in fire and ashes and smoke, and then is born again from these flames, simultaneously brand new and yet still the same. 

The symbolism of this is one that I resonate with.  My life has been a series of constant deaths and rebirths.  I rarely speak about my prior “lives” to most people, as they seem so far away as to belong to someone else entirely.  Yet I simultaneously recognize how deeply these past periods of pain have formed and shaped me.  From chronic physical & emotional abuse, to briefly being without a home, to a relationship that tore me apart; from being given label after label, diagnosed but never ‘cured’, dark months of severe depression and thoughts of ending my own life; figuring out I was queer only in my 30's and the associated familiar rejections, the painful loss of loved ones; the soul-tearing journey that is seeking fertility treatments; the loss of my sweet little raspberry-sized baby…

These selves, these lives, these versions of me – some are so far in the past that I am only vaguely aware of how they shaped me; others are immediately present, the wounds in my heart still open and baking in the sun.

So who am I but this – this constant cycle of death of the Self, the Ego, and the inevitable Re-births?  I have learned that pain and suffering is not something to be feared.  Pain in this life is a given; that much I have learned through my various iterations, if nothing else.  Even that emotional, soul-crushing pain where it felt like I would never breathe again, never live again, never be myself again… it is not ‘bad’.  It just is.  It is a part of me, no better or worse than the other parts of me.

Most days I feel perpetually 17, as if the years had not since doubled.  I am still that wild, awkward, un-tamable creature with the intensity of love and despair over life that for some peaks at 17 and for me seems to have remained constant.  If I could go back in time and tell her just one thing, it would be this:

Life is so much more intensely beautiful than you could possibly imagine; and also more intensely full of pain than you could ever fathom living through.  Yet you will.  You will die inside and you will be born again.  You will think that you cannot possibly ever be the same person, and nevertheless be reborn into the exact same core of who you are… just more so, each time.  Do not get stuck, do not cling to one single idea of who you are or what your life should be – the most unexpectedly painful and beautiful things await you.  Yet you will still be you, perpetually 17.

Once I realized how much I resonated with the mythology of the phoenix, it became quite clear to me that this was quite possibly the only thing I could ever permanently mark my body with, because it is the only part of me that will always, always remain.  The cycle of destruction and resurrection. 

The experience of sitting down and actually getting it was almost spiritual.  I knew, going in, that my extreme sensitivity would likely cause the experience of pain to be more intense than is typical for this part of my arm, and I was indeed correct.  The process of slowly tracing the outline of the phoenix felt like knives slicing my skin.  I clung to my worry stone (given to me by someone who has also experienced intense suffering and rebirth), and breathed into the pain, rather than trying to escape it. 

There is no real growth, real beauty, without being forged in fire.  The pain became an offering, a gift to myself; just another micro-death and re-birth.  The energy coursing through my arm after each small application of ink was almost pleasurable; the intense cocktail of chemicals inside me doing their job to process the pain.  I had tears in my eyes for a good while, though they didn’t fall.  They weren’t induced by the physical pain; rather they were a release of emotion, at this promise that I was making to myself.

Why place something permanent on my body, where I will see it every day?  As a commitment.  A necklace or purple hair or a change of clothing is temporary and can be taken on and off or hidden.  This tattoo, for me, and the process of getting it (it took a year of thinking about it before I finally went and did it) is a commitment to the Self and this process of giving myself up to Life.

I do not know what is to come; I do not know how much it will hurt nor how beautiful it could possibly be.  But I am done hiding, I am done making excuses and I am done letting the small self win.  17 years of self-growth, therapy, journaling, meditation, exploration, various spiritual practices, have led me here.  This was not an easy decision nor one made lightly.

The phoenix tattoo is a commitment to that; a commitment to embrace my shadow self, the ashes of the previous incarnations of who I have been.  You can see the specks of these ashes falling from the black shadow phoenix on my arm, representing how impermanent it is.  The firey, re-born phoenix rises behind the shadow self, and flecks of fire come out the top, also representing the impermanence of every re-birth and new self that we become.  We are in constant motion and change. 

I didn’t want just a single phoenix; I needed both, the old and the new; the dark and the light; death and rebirth.  Pain and suffering makes up just as much of me as love and light does.  None of it is ‘good’ or ‘bad’.  It all just Is.  Just as I simply Am, and do not need to chase one identity or the other, or conform to any single shape.

I am everything; a river in constant motion; a phoenix rising from the ashes.

Saturday, December 28, 2019

autumn raspberry











sweet, tiny fruit
we barely knew you.

autumn came all too soon
and you
fell
unripened.

~

The wind came, wild and cold
and helped us mourn you:

We took you,
in the darkest of nights
with us to the lake.

The waves pounded the shore
the gale pushed back against us
as if all the entirety of the elements had come
to witness the ceremony.

we held you in the palm of our hands
while the winds blew fiercely
and our fingers went numb as we ran out of matches trying to light incense in the wildness.

I guess you didn’t want incense
the wind and waves and darkness were ritual enough.

The waves crashed against the shore and white spray went everywhere,
over us, over you,
baptizing all of us, a family: a very brief family.

~

little one.

we kissed you goodbye
and with all our strength and love
sent you flying out into the night
into the wildness.

All life has meaning.

Even the briefest whisper of life that was yours
gave us motherhood.

Thursday, October 3, 2019

a love poem to the sea.

Nazaré, Portugal
no one else can
bring me so thoroughly to my knees;
knock me over, choking on salt water and
gasping for breath

or lull me
into a trance,
wave swells slowly rocking these
helpless limbs.

She also knows
how to dance with me
and we play,
entranced,
as I dart to and from the lapping waves,
daring Her to reach my feet.

She always lets me think I am winning before
that unexpected surge
crashes
icy cold;

an assertion that
only She
has the last word.

And when I’m
              in Her
and the undulating waters rise high enough to
              fill me
with terror;

I know now
to swim towards that fear
and instead of being knocked over,
drowned,
by Her power,
I instead rise and fall with Her.

Farther from shore, but closer to safety.

She is
the ultimate Mistress.

There is no safeword here.

Instead I must submit
to this rising and falling;
the ebb and the flow;

Let Her consume me, dissolve me, re-shape me.

There is never a reprieve
no rock for this little mermaid’s rest,
until her Mistress is good and ready.



~~~


Monday, September 23, 2019

Goddess
















I will not rest until I have
walked every shoreline
let myself be tumbled by every crashing wave;
soothed by every ripple.

I will not sleep until I know
the song of every bird
the name of every leaf
the depths of every darkness.

I cannot rest
until I have been
drenched by every storm cloud
burned by every flame;
blown by every wild wind,
and been still with every hill and field.

I am infinitely finite,
being re-born again, and again
you do not know Me,
yet You know all of me.

Fall
to your knees,
amidst these fleeting moments,
and know Me, as you have always known
Yourself.

This Mystery.  Reciprocal Worship.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

let go



the unknown
it beckons.  

this cave;
this dark entrance;
an abyss.

You may be the light that
guides me into these depths;

but I am the spark, the song 
that will
show you where to take me.

I am not afraid
of the dark,
of these infinite depths within.

No.

(Then what is causing this trembling,
this infinite reluctance to let go,
this approach and retreat?) -

this Tower
has already crumbled;
this Phoenix
has already been turned to ash.

So.

The fear is of
re-birth;
this re-claiming
of Desire and
strength.
To own the ability to create, and to destroy.

I am ready
to be un-done.

Unravel me
and maybe
I will let you witness
how I weave myself together.

Sunday, April 28, 2019

On Kindness, Politics, and Social Media


PSA:  This is important to me, so I'm writing about it.  I make no claims to speak for anyone else but myself. I am just one person trying to make sense of a crazy world just as much as anyone else is.  Maybe it will help you to read my thoughts and maybe it won't.  

tl;dr :  Let's all be kind to each other and create safe spaces where we can share disagreeing viewpoints without being hurtful towards each other.  





Social media is a strange space. Everyone uses the space in different ways, ones that are too myriad and idiosyncratic to all list.

Typically I have used the Facebook platform to keep up to date with what's happening in the lives of friends and family, to share various photos and other things I find interesting, or to keep in touch with the communities of various specific-interest groups that I belong to (eg. local geocaching groups, Ontario birding, etc). 

Lately I have been sharing a lot of information about current changes in the political landscape in the province that are directly affecting some of the most vulnerable families in our province. These changes are also very worrisome for the future of my chosen profession, and my colleagues and friends are concerned on a number of levels.

In the past I have shied away from posting anything with the potential of being controversial on social media, because I know how quickly things can escalate in a landscape that is largely posturing and where we are disconnected from the very human people behind the words we use.

However, some of the current issues are simply too important to me to stay quiet about.  A Facebook page is like a home, in a way - I say and do whatever I like in my own home, and you are free to leave if you do not like it.  But you are also quite welcome to stay if you disagree with me.

In other words, I will never "unfriend" you if you voted for someone that I do not like.  You are welcome in my space, even if your views are entirely different than mine.  You can comment, you can debate, you can show me facts and statistics and respond to my reasoned arguments with reasoned arguments of your own.  I have very dear friends with strong political views that occasionally verge on being completely opposite to mine.  We debate heatedly, but we also listen to each other very carefully, with complete respect, and occasionally we change each other's minds, or at least make us think about something we never would have otherwise considered.  This is the beauty of living in a democracy.  

When politics becomes polarizing, part of people's intimate identities and even quasi-religious (on BOTH the left and the right), it bewilders me.   But I will never close the door and not listen to your voice just to make myself more comfortable.  There are certain things that I value very highly, and this is one of them.  Occasionally people cross my social-media path who others would perhaps "block" or "unfriend" without a second thought.  And, to be fair, if you come into my home (whether my actual home or my personal social media space) and you insult or bully or are otherwise aggressive towards myself or people I care about, I won't tolerate that.

But if you want to come into my space and disagree with me, tell me why you think my ideas are faulty, show me another side of an argument I may not have considered, share your views with me even if they are completely opposite to mine - you are welcome.  I'll even make you a cup of tea, and we can talk.  And debate.  And argue.  And still care for each other as human beings.

So, I have a simple request:

I will continue posting pretty much whatever I am inclined to post on my social media platforms.  Instagram tends to have more pretty pictures, Twitter tends to be almost entirely politics, this blog is largely travel writing and other musings, and Facebook will continue to be a jumble of all of those things.

If you find you don't agree with something, or want to say a viewpoint that might be unpopular, you are always, always welcome. My only request is that you remember, before hitting "enter", that your words are being said to real people. So think about how you would say it if they were in front of you.  Think about how to disagree and still be kind.  Still acknowledge that whoever you're talking to is human, and just as scared and confused and worried about the world as you are.

I want my home, whether the physical or virtual manifestations of it, to be a safe place for others.  

So, I'll keep sharing, and you keep commenting.  If you disagree, I will hear you, and I'll probably disagree back. Maybe you'll change my mind.  Maybe I'll change yours.  Maybe none of that will happen, but we'll both develop a deeper understanding of the others' viewpoint.  

Be kind to each other out there.


Monday, February 25, 2019

Winter Getaway - Golden Lake, Ontario

I'd forgotten the utter silence of the woods in winter. They are devoid of the usual twittering of birds, mammalian rustles, wind moving leaves.
Nothing moves in the woods in winter. Not right here, right now, anyway. Here on the Lake of Two Rivers trail, in the middle of a sunny February afternoon, everything lies sleeping under 40 inches of snow. The snowshoe trek is exhausting, so I stop periodically to listen. Absolutely nothing. A soothing, trance-like sort of nothing.
*****
I love Ontario. Even though I have been to the expanse of the Serengeti, the remoteness of Iceland, the impressive fjords of New Zealand, the white sand beaches of Fiji, the rich historical streets of Europe, there is nothing quite like this wild province we call home. It was with this in mind that Jen and I booked our most recent trip - a four day getaway about four hours north-east of Toronto (Renfrew County, near Pembroke). As the date of the trip approached, we watched the weather forecast with increasing concern. A massive snowstorm was approaching, and it seemed like it would hit the hardest on Tuesday morning, the day we had planned to leave.
After some quick readjustments and a last-minute search on AirBnB, we decided to leave on Monday night instead, and drive up to Bancroft late after work in order to get ahead of the storm. We had reached out to Aileen of Suite in the Bush, who kindly accommodated us at the last minute, including setting things up so we could check ourselves in around midnight, as it was the earliest we could get there after work.
Night driving long distances is something that I find soothing - makes me nostalgic for the days when I used to drive to Ottawa every Friday night for choir rehearsal. Once we got out of the city, there was hardly anyone else on the roads, and when there was, I'd calmly let them pass us. We were in bright spirits, happy to be heading on a mini-vacation after almost a year since our last one. We arrived at Suite in the Bush just before midnight, and entered our little home-away-from-home apartment quietly so as to not wake our hosts who lived in the main house above. The apartment was very warm and cozy when we entered, as they had stocked up the wood stove for us. We loved all the personal touches, from the basket of snacks, the cold drinks in the fridge, the super-soft king-sized bed, the option to make hot chocolate, and the lovely decor. We were also surprised by the breakfast menu, full of different delicious options to choose from for the next morning.

After settling in for the night, we slept quite soundly and were ready for our homemade breakfast upstairs in the host's kitchen for 9am. Jen had selected a grilled croissant filled with cream cheese and strawberries, and I had french toast. It was very nice to meet our host and chat while she prepared us our yummy meals. There was also plenty of coffee, fruit, yogurt, and fruit juice to have while we waited. We felt like we were in a luxurious hotel rather than someone's home!
After saying goodbye to our host, we were on the road again, headed in the direction of Killaloe (where Beavertails were invented!). The sun was shining and the skies were clear. As we checked our phones for the weather in Toronto and saw the mess the city was in, we were even more grateful we had made the last-minute decision to drive up a night early.
After getting some last minute supplies in Killaloe, we made our way to our final destination for the next three nights, a small little cabin on Golden Lake. The snow was just starting to fall as we arrived, and we were grateful that our host already had the cabin ready for us and allowed an early check-in! After parking the car, we settled into our charming little cabin, and got fully prepared to be snowed in.

Jen playing on the frozen lake

The next morning, everything was covered in a huge blanket of snow. We made our breakfast leisurely and then made our way over to Greystone's office, where free-for-use snowshoes had been left thoughtfully outside so we could explore. There was a small patch of woods on the property, so we didn't have to go far.
It took us a while to get our “snow legs”, as snowshoeing in knee-deep snow was more challenging than we thought it would be. We both fell a few times, trying to get our bearings. We didn't mind – the snow was fluffy and soft, the sun was shining brightly in the sky, and the woods beckoned us forwards.
With my longer legs, I found it slightly easier to get through the deep snow and so I uncharacteristically led the way, creating a path for Jen so she would have a bit of an easier time. We looked all around us for evidence of life, but it seems all the creatures were still asleep or hanging out elsewhere – not a single track disturbed the pure white blanket all around us. We wandered for an hour, trying to follow what we felt like was a very faint path that was slightly indented in the tall snow – or perhaps it was an illusion and we were just forging our own. Regardless, we stumbled upon some interesting structures, likely belonging to the camp that the map shows nearby.
After our adventure, we went back to the cabin to warm up, have a snack, and then head out to Jen's car. The snowstorm had partially covered the vehicle, and the snowplow had done the rest – three sides of the car were almost completely snow-covered! We got to work with our shovels and spent about an hour digging the car. Back home this would have quite annoyed us, but since we were on vacation it just added to the fun adventure! Getting the car out was complicated by the layer of thick ice under the wheels that kept the wheels spinning, but we persevered and finally, exhausted and wet and cold but elated, the car was free! We high-fived, and headed into the little cabin to have a well-deserved late lunch.

Algonquin was the adventure for the next day, and headed out to the Visitor's Centre which was about an hour's drive from the cabin. We checked in with staff to see which trails were open and accessible, and spent some time watching the winter birds at the feeders out back before heading out to the snowshow trail.




The trail we had chosen was moderately challenging for a snow-shoe hike, and we went slowly but steadily forward through the trees, thankful for the well-packed trail that we could follow.
The trail was a beautiful winter wonderland, and our slow pace allowed us to take it all in even more. Being present in each moment (mindfulness) is always so much easier for me when I am away from the fast-pace of every day life. Here, in these silent woods, it's so much easier to let my body settle into the way the deep green needled branches hang heavy with snow; let the soft dee-dees of chickadees all around us consume my hearing; let the cold air fill my lungs.


My personal and work life may currently be in an extreme state of anxiety-inducing chaos, but here, in these woods, in this moment, looking out over the white, grey, blue, and green of the ravine and the frozen river below, I have a small reprieve from that. Those things are not here. Only this moment, this breath, is.
***
No winter Valentine's week adventure is complete without a fancy dinner, and Alton Brown's delicious Steak-au-Poivre recipe, paired with garlic-parmesan mashed potatoes and gently steamed green beans, did not fail to disappoint.
We drank wine, sat by the gas fireplace playing board games, and adapted quickly to the slower rhythm of a snowy winter getaway. We couldn't have picked a more perfect cabin, with the beautiful frozen lake right outside our window and very lovely hosts who even offered to mail our forgotten lens cap back home to us! Another place to add to our list of places to return to when we don't have time to venture too far from home.
Mystery large animal tracks (?) the frozen lake






View from the cabin at frozen Golden Lake during the snow storm