I just spent some time with our niece’s ten-year-old twins, Cam and Theo. What fun. I was struck, in awe, by their curiosity. They both love to learn and share, and this led to talking about Greek myths, art, styles of painting, websites and lots of intriguing questons. I commented on their curiosity, which led to their views on the idiom ‘curiosity killed the cat’ and whether cats have… Source ..read more

Yes, this is a time for radical acceptance. This word keeps coming up. Acceptance of who we are and who we have been. Acceptance of what we feel, the joy and the sorrows. Acceptance of what life is giving us. Letting life be life. As I reflect on this word acceptance, I am reminded that my most popular posts over the past few months, have been about acceptance. The post where I… Source ..read more

In the 1980’s, when my friend Ruth and I led workshops for women, we often drew on a tool called Worry Wisely. This simple and valuable tool involved naming and listing worries, and then assessing them, as to whether they were real or imagined and whether you could act on them. First, there’s something powerful about just listing these worries, acknowledging and accepting they are… Source ..read more

Have you been trained for goodness, holding back on tending to your needs or using your voice? You know, doing what your culture or others expect of you. Perhaps even undermining yourself? In On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and The Price Women Pay to Be Good, Elise Loehnen tackles the history and implications of being good, through the lens of the seven deadly sins. Source ..read more

“If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees.” – Rainer Maria Rilke I am relying on trees to help sustain us during these most difficult of times. Maybe you can walk in the woods, read a poem about trees, or take in a photo or painting or precious memory, that connects you to a tree. Feel into that and consider how it nurtures you. Draw on that wisdom. Source ..read more

On Being, with Krista Tippet, has long been a favourite podcast of mine. The program is described as catalyzing conversations that inspire awe and wonder. Fits right in with my explorations of awe and wonder over the past few months! I was eager to listen in as the new season of On Being was launched recently. More wonder crept when it was announced that the first interview of the season was with... Source ..read more

I keep coming back to Emory Hall’s exquisite poem I have been a thousand different women. This is one of those poems that hooked me and rolled around in my head and body for days. It moves me to make peace with all of the women I have been over the past decades. The ones I am proud of, the ones I’d like to forget, the ones who suffered and felt joy. All of them. And the ones yet to be. Source ..read more

Recently, some friends and I were talking books, what we are currently reading, and then some of our favourite reads over time. For the favourite reads, it was what jumped out for us at this moment in time. Perhaps not surprisingly, we remembered some of the same books, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Corrie ten Boon’s The Hiding Place, and Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto. And another of mine... Source ..read more

The first time I came across this quote from Jean Houston, it stayed with me. Over the past decades, when I facilitated personal and leadership development programs, I often started our retreat talking about the importance of being present to self and to one another…this, before being present was a thing! Then I would encourage participants to ask themselves at the end of the day... Source ..read more

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the images of the seven wonders of the world, the ancient world. The pyramids, and the hanging towers of Babylon, which may never have existed. Recently, I have been thinking lots about the every day wonder in my world, times I have been awe-struck, felt wonder, been amazed, and here’s the first seven that popped into my head today. 1. The crooked Nipawin car... Source ..read more