A Solstice Greeting - The Yule Fool

Christmas 2006 was green – really – green in all manner of green, I was walking along the shores of Lake Huron and enjoying +15C weather at Southampton Ontario, near Owen Sound, watching waves lapping on sandy beaches in Canada! What fun.

This winter, those same beaches I’m sure are obscured by feet of frozen ice and snow as freezing temperatures bring reality back to what illustrated climate change and global warming last year in one way and is demonstrating climate shifts and demon weather another way this year. On the solstice we are expecting rain on top of the snow pack of upwards of 45cm of heavy snow to bring joy to skiers everywhere. Sigh.

A Nobel Prize was even given in recognition of Climate Change this year, sadly not to Canada’s Northern Ambassador Sheila Watt-Cloutier, who so eloquently stated the position of northern peoples’ right to be cold. Old Al Gore didn’t share it with her. Shame on the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for overlooking this very important issue spokesperson.

After Southampton at New Year's, I spent some time in April, in Vermont doing some professional development. I took Advanced Learning Design, from Global Learning Partners at wonderful Stowehof Inn. Close enough to springtime to be heaven. We were a lovely group of five people from all over the world – Philippines, England, Boston, Toronto, and me, plus Peter, the facilitator, from Vermont.


Shortly after Vermont’s spring, I flew to Iqaluit for a final taste of winter for a week, to spend some time with Martha and to look around – not too seriously -for work opportunities. I got to poke around a bit in Sylvia Grinnell Park, which has some lovely interpretive signs (always on the lookout for new technology in harsh habitat). Martha crunched her way down to the riverbed while I snapped photos from up top as ravens soared overhead.

After a fine week of scrambling over rocks up north, I headed west for Cortes Island and Hollyhock to enjoy the company of women in a course called Cultivating Women’s Leadership. This was organized, during the week of the BLUE MOON, by Bioneers Executive Director Nina Simons and Toby Herzlich from the Rockwood Leadership Program. Although it was a small group, it was intensive and I highly recommend both of these women and the workshop as an experience not to be missed.

There are plans to create a large all women’s experience facilitated for Hollyhock in the near future bringing together some of the powerful international women leaders all in one place – CAN YOU IMAGINE becoming a part of THAT???!!! YOU can be! Take a breath.

Ok, ok… ok… I breathed … that week was just so stimulating, so amazing, so wonderful, I found it very hard to leave. There was a community for me there, for my creative and soulful life.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa………………

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdk7Q2Usryw
Katie Melua – the Closest Thing to Crazy – Live from Belfast

Since then – there have been major shifts in my life – all coming for whatever reasons – fate, faith, failure, falling, flexibility – and it’s been quite a ride. I don’t do well on roller coasters generally but it may be time to get used to the ride. As Dorothy Parker said “It’s not the tragedies that kill us, it’s the messes.” If only my messes were as joyful as these two seem to make it…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lvMQCmUVv8
Rodrigo y Gabriela – Diablo Rojo (Tribute To A Rollercoaster)

I got to see friends in Calgary at the end of July with a work trip and then again at the end of September, while I worked on a project investigating how to potentially operate a national theatre touring program for Parks Canada. I also spent time out in Tofino with Barb Yost at the beginning of November enjoying the rain and spicy seafood tacos and fantastic cornbread at SoBo, the newest, bestest restaurant on the Wet Coast. Don’t miss it when you go out there. And the desserts are not to be missed either! And then back to Toronto, where I finished up Evaluation by Design with Global Learning Partners!

Canada was my traveling companion this year, for sure. I recommend it above all others. So in spite of the soaring Looney which might take my Canadian friends to all points everywhere else, why not spend time with friends and family here? It’s LEAP YEAR in 2008, but that doesn’t mean leap out of country, leap into the arms of those you love. Stay close, stay warm, stay safe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr64NI33qUo
The Piano

I spend the week between Yule and Hogmanay alone in Ottawa. I am suspended from work –What a surprise! Yet I do have a ticket for a New Year’s Eve Dance!! Kick up your own heels, while I kick UP my own!

HOPE SPRINGS, eternally.

And one last reflection…

About the “Good old days”
What do you identify with specifically for your generation? From the advent of the birth control pill to 60s revolution and LSD to designer drugs to growing up with the world-wide-web as a part of daily living – where do you place yourself in the passing of (pop) cultural history parade?
· Musically?
· Politically?
· High school anthems?
· Movies?
· Pop culture?
· International events?
· Celebrity’s passing?
· TV shows?


What are our individual trademark memories? It’s only an invitation to reflect… just as a little jump start on getting ready to think ahead.

What do you want the next YEAR to bring in terms of memories?


As for me

Musically?
Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, Johnny Cash,
Elvis Presley, Beatles,

Politically?
Ernest Manning and Social Credit in Alberta,
Peter Lougheed in Alberta.

High school anthems?
Simon and Garfunkel – Sounds of Silence,
Gordon Lightfoot – Canadian Railroad Trilogy

Movies?
Saturday Night Fever
Sound of Music
Fahrenheit 451

Pop culture?
1972 Hockey USSR and Canada

International events?
Moon landing in 1969, Nixon Impeachment, Hostages in Iran
Celebrity’s passing?
Martin Luther King and RFK shot in 1968,

TV shows?
Watching Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday Night, The Original Six
My Dad watching Stampede Wrestling on Saturday in the afternoons on TV and getting so worked up.