20 December

Winter Solstice 2023: Green Point

Winter Solstice 2023: Green Point

Green Point, Newfoundland and Labrador

20 June

Summer Solstice 2022: Bridging Time, Place and Being

Merriam Webster has two definitions for the word bridge. Bridge as structure and bridge as a time, place or way to connect or transition. Not here or there. Not now or then. In between. A co-worker told me she walks the High Level Bridge home every Friday from the office. It’s her way of marking […]

21 September

Autumn Equinox 2021: Living Tween

I have a friend who is living with a chronic and progressive illness. It is difficult to communicate at times, especially since the pandemic. The illness impairs speech and movement. The last time I phoned, I asked how he was doing. For a moment his words were surprisingly lucid: “It’s like I’m here, but I’m […]

19 June

Summer Solstice 2021: Waking Up

The 14th century German mystic Meister Eckhart said that spirituality is waking up. On the brink of this Summer Solstice and National Indigenous Peoples Day, the longest day, this day of light, I want to acknowledge the sorrow of the families of the 215 children whose graves were found in Kelowna in May, and the […]

19 March

Spring Equinox 2021: A doodle on the balance point

This week my yoga teacher said, Think about your relationship with time… and what occurred to me in these COVID times is to wonder at our relationship with place, how relationships need to meet in real place as much as real time, something the online meeting has yet to master, because as humans everything we […]

21 September

Fall Equinox 2020: The Birds Are Sentinels

The last couple of days walking by the river, I’ve run across a flock of robins, country robins, judging from the way they spook on seeing me. Maybe they’ll be there tomorrow; maybe they’ll be gone. It’s one of their migration strategies, to stop and refuel every so often. Most migrating birds fly at night. […]

18 March

Spring Equinox 2020: Pregnant with Possibility

I did not go to Spain this spring. It wasn’t easy to make the decision; I left it till the 11th hour. The Canadian Government (as with most governments) was still giving a Level 1 travel advisory for most of Europe: “Travel and take precautions.” It wasn’t until the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the […]

20 December

Winter Solstice 2019: Death and Life

There are always thresholds to cross. And there are always choices to make. Every season opens a door. I don’t think it’s a contradiction that people mark midwinter as a major anniversary of loss as well as a time of gratitude. Winter solstice holds both death and life for us. When I was in Malta […]

22 September

Autumn 2019: The Mysteries of Human Love

As I harvest my year this autumn, the experience that stands out for me most is my visit to the Valle dei Templi at Agrigento in Sicily in the spring. Agrigento is an ancient pilgrimage site, at more than 2000 acres (3+ sections of land) probably the largest outside of Athens in Greek antiquity. A […]

19 March

Spring Equinox 2018: Here for good

Recently someone new to Alberta asked me, “When does the snow stop?” really meaning to ask, “When does spring come?” “It comes and it goes,” I replied. “And then suddenly it’s here for good.” My mom left a message on my phone a couple of weeks ago: “It’s running out there! You can hear the […]

8 March

If I were a writer in Cuba

Posted in Books, Reflections, Travel

I often pondered this question when I was in Cuba. While there, I was able to attend the 24th International Festival of the Book in Havana, one of the largest book festivals in Latin America, founded in 1982. For ten days, the city diverts buses from their regular commuter routes to transport thousands of Haberneros to the […]

28 February

The doors of La Habana Vieja

Posted in Travel

I’ve just returned from two weeks in Cuba. What struck me first were the doors. Most are from the colonial period. Huge, double doors, sometimes wide, sometimes narrow, often about 15-feet high. Solid magohany. Sometimes they haven’t been painted in a long, long time. Sometimes the aprons of the walls out front or inside (like those along the staircase in this […]