On being more human(e)
(photo credit: Danielle MacInnes, Unsplash) I love slow mornings. Though I usually wake fairly early (on my own body-clock, not with an alarm), I take my time getting out of bed, sometimes reaching for my journal or a book first. Once I’m finally out from under the...
Sending a blessing from where I sit in the sunlight
I want to write something for you today, dear readers. I want it to be wise or gentle or provocative or joyful or challenging or peaceful. Or maybe it can be all of that at once – whatever you need it to be. I want it to stir something in you, to touch a tender part...
What do we do with human frailty, especially when it shows up in “the competent ones”?
I was once sharing a room at a retreat with a high-functioning businesswoman who was holding a lot on her shoulders. Each evening, after our sessions ended, I’d hear her on the phone talking with her husband about their clients and business operations. Though she was...
I have decided that I’m returning to love
a gift from my friend Susan, from Stoneware Gallery I have decided that I am returning to love. No, it’s not that I ever abandoned love entirely. I didn’t become an angry ogre living in a cabin in the woods and scaring away small children. But… after a period of...
In liminal space, we seek absolutes and binaries to help us make sense of the world
The view through my streaky window. (Listen to me read the post.) I washed the windows this past weekend. Well… I washed MOST of the windows. And those that I washed, I had to do twice. I am remarkably bad at washing windows. If there’s an opposite of a “superpower”...
Letting my daughters go: On learning to hold space when little birds leave the nest
(photo credit: Maurice Schalker, Unsplash) (Listen to me read the post) It all starts months ago. Whenever I consider that two of my daughters are planning to move out at the same time (each to cities more than 2000 kilometres away in opposite directions), I find...
I’m back from sabbatical and I’m feeling so many things…
(selfie taken on the ferry, just after leaving my daughter at university) Friends, can I level with you for a moment? I’m feeling sad this week… and tender, with my emotions very near the surface. If you dare to ask me, when I’m having a tender moment, how I’m doing...
When you’re afraid to get in the boat, who soothes your fear?
(image credit: Mael Balland, Unsplash) The boat launch was busy, so I sat on a park bench a short distance away instead of my favourite spot near the end of the dock. In the parking lot behind me, a small boy in a life jacket was flailing and screaming “I DON’T WANT...
Embracing Laughter
(from the Holding Space Card Deck) Recently I learned about the Navajo ceremony that honours a baby’s first laugh. Whoever is the first person to make a baby laugh is expected to throw a dinner party on that baby’s behalf. In one account of this tradition, the person...
When the rapids come, adjust your posture
When you go white-water rafting, if you’re a novice, your guide will spend some time teaching you how to sit in the boat, how to hold your paddle, how to adjust your centre of gravity, and where to plant your feet so that there’s less chance that you’ll get tossed out...
Winnipeg • Manitoba • Canada
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