Blog Merge and Move

Since June of this year I’ve had two blogs, which I thought would be different enough to maintain separately.  However, there seems to be a lot of overlap occurring, and wondering which blog is most appropriate for a given post.  This required multitasking, a word I dislike and something I try to do as little of as possible.

Then I discovered how easy it is to export content from one blog to another . . . Hooray! I consolidated all of the posts I felt were worthwhile from this blog with everything I ‘ve posted since June on the other blog and they have become one . . . so from now on I am over at the other blog for good: The Forest Garden

Perfect Winter Morning

I know  I post photos like this every year, but every year when I wake up to a morning like this I am in awe. We’ve had snow for weeks now, but this is the first morning like this, with perfect winter light and thick snow clinging to the trees and weighing down the branches . . . and if only you could hear the  complete, peaceful silence.

On the practical side, what made the morning really perfect was a call from our tractor salesman first thing, telling us he would be here tomorrow morning with the  snow-blower attachment we’ve been waiting for since the snow started falling weeks ago . I think we’re going to need it this year and the hours of time saved will be appreciated and savored with each snowfall. It will, of course, disturb this perfect silence  (slightly, Kermit the Green Tractor purrs like a kitten). . . but far more briefly than our current multi-hour blade/bucket snow clearing arrangements . . . yes, the trials of northern living.

Books III

Moving on from packing crates . . .

I only have one small area devoted entirely to books, a modest sized bookcase, but it’s the only one of its kind and much more civilized than  the leaning tower of packing crates I got by with for years.

It's a jungle in here. Impossible to get a photo without greenery getting in the way.

So you can see, not a lot of books for a book lover. I used to have many, many more, especially back in the day when I had the dangerous occupation of working in a bookshop in downtown Victoria . . . but I’ve managed to pare down. They take up so much room and making another bookcase would be another crazy 100s of hours of work  (no Ikea is not the answer, read ‘Cheap’ by Ellen Ruppell Shell, one of my packing crate books,  if you don’t already know why)  And if books are just sitting there on the shelf with no one reading them, what’s the point?  As the Permaculture expression goes, unused resources are pollution. I used to feel a good deal of comfort in being surrounded by books. Now, for the most part, I just see them as clutter like any other, so it’s reference books I tend to hang on to.

But there are things in there I can’t bring myself to get rid of. Books that belonged to my grandfather, grandmother and great-grandmother for example:

This shelf seems to hold all the history

I’ve got the dictionary my grandfather brought with him when he left France in the late 30s. It looks like it’s been around the world, and all across the wild prairie before the comforts of modern travel:

Then there is the poetry book my great-uncle gave to my grandmother when they were young teenagers.  Just the thought of a 13-year-old giving his younger sister a book of popular poetry for Christmas seems antiquated. I can’t see that happening these days:

Various textbooks that belonged to my grandmother and her brother. The bottom one, Alberta Public School Arithmetic Book I, 1924, is a bit sobering. It belonged to my great-uncle,  and is proof that the Alberta school curriculum, still one of the most thorough in Canada, had slid precipitously downhill by the time I went to school there. The red volume is my favourite:  Aesop’s Fables, published in 1884 with “upwards of 200 illustrations” that belonged to my great-grandmother when she was a girl in Ontario.

On the other half of the shelf we have some of the tools that belonged to my husband’s great-grandfather who like him, and his grandfather, was a cabinetmaker.  The tools are all in perfect condition and, with the exception of the decidedly non-metric measuring tape, are still pressed into service  from time to time.

And the textbooks, and ‘Handbook of Empire Timbers’ that accompany the tools are fascinating. I was just perusing ‘Building Construction: Advanced Course’ “A Text Book On The Details And Principles Of Modern Construction For the Use of Students and Practical Men” London, 1925, and am considering moving it over to the bedside reading packing crate as it is  oddly fascinating yet dull as dishwater, perfect for inducing sleep.

Books II Bedside Reading

There is a packing crate next to the downstairs bed, where guests stay, and where I sleep when I am tossing and turning or need to stay up very late working on something. This is one of the packing crates my husband made when we moved from England. Built to last, as always, these OSB crates have performed various functions while he has slowly built proper furniture to fill our home.

Most of these books are partly read as I only read a few pages before falling asleep, though some of them are there because of their eternal re-readability, others to remind me that I just haven’t got to them yet. Whether I want a few words of wisdom from the Dalai Lama, a quick taste of poetry,  a story from Chekhov, some advice on raising pigs (you’ll notice guides to raising various livestock scattered throughout this book tour), or to revisit a favourite chapter from Clarissa Pinkola Estes (that’s the yellowed book with the creased  spine that I’ve read more often than any other book I own and have had the longest), it’s all there at my fingertips.

The Sarah Susanka book is one of my current favourites. I really enjoy everything Jack Kornfield or Stephen Levine. Now that I think of it, those Mary Olivers probably should have been included in the preceding  “couldn’t live without” post. ‘ Cheap’ was entertaining but I’m ready to give it away to the first person who shows a spark of interest. My father-in-law sent me ‘My Life on a Hillside Allotment’ and as you will see in the next post, I have trouble giving away books that were given to me as gifts, even if they were picked up at a car boot sale for 20p.

 

Books I

This very enjoyable post over at Transit Notes got me thinking about books. The books I’ve kept, the books I’ve given away (most of them), the books I buy (very few) and the books I’m happy to borrow from the library with no desire to ever own them, but a burning desire to  read them.

First of all, I decided to narrow down to the few books I feel I couldn’t live without, in the sense that my life as it is would actually be difficult without them. Here they are:

These are the ones I would miss on a day-to-day basis:

Plants of Northern British Columbia

Mammals of British Columbia

Canoeing and Kayaking BC’s Central Interior

British Columbia: A Natural History

Gotta Hike BC

Bev Gray’s Boreal Herbal

I guess that says a thing or two about my priorities.

A closer look at British Columbia: A Natural History:

The Spruce Kingdom! This is where I live!

. . . and this is the kind of day we're having. Just saw a snowshoe hare this morning.

Angel Wings and Herb Tea

My friend Henrietta has a new blog and is it ever good! Beautiful, well written and thoughtful, this is a reflective blog about the rich life she lives deep in the woods of South Devon, and how she is shaping her life after the  death of her  young daughter two years ago.

This is one of those captivatingly readable blogs that just grab you and pull you in and really make you think.  There is valuable,  hard-earned wisdom here and a lot of love.

And I love how she describes herself in  her profile:  “I’m here for a reason and it’s not to go shopping. My quest is to discover a life which reconnects to what is real true and beautiful.” The words of a soul sister! No wonder I have stayed in touch with her and visited her for almost 20 years,  ever since I met her while working on a magical organic farm on an island off the West Coast of Canada in 1995

I had to post about this blog beacause I wouldn’t want you to miss the chance to read it. I do believe it will be a worthwhile journey and you can begin by clicking the link below:

Angel Wings and Herb Tea

 

Organic Farming on The Gulf Islands . . . many years ago

Last of The New Zealand Photos

I can’t believe how long it’s taken me to get to these.  September already!

Abel Tasman Coastal Track, the most walked walk in New Zealand.

Abel Tasman Coastal Track. I have no idea how I managed to get a photo without people in it.

Abel Tasman Coastal Track.

Abel Tasman National Park. I enjoyed the walking in the inland part of the park much more than the coastal walk, which was claustrophobically busy, even in the "off season" not that New Zealand really seems to have an off season when it comes to tourism.

Above Harwood's Hole, Abel Tasman National Park.

Lookout en route to Harwood's Hole, Abel Tasman National Park.

Picton Harbour, waiting for the ferry.

Camping spot near Picton.

A lovely Easter Sunday in New Plymouth, Beautiful Autumn light

Lighthouse along the "surf coast" highway. Could barely stand up in the wind to take this photo. These lighthouses were built of solid cast iron and shipped flat pack from England!

Mt. Taranaki, or Mt. Egmont, depending on your inclination. Why have one name that is hard enough for a tourist to remember when you can have two to confuse the hell out of them seems to be the NZ way.

Taranaki trail head

These swing bridges were one of my favourite features of the trails in NZ. You stepped off on the other side with a serious case of sea legs.

Purple shroom! Exotic birds, exotic trees, exotic fungus, visiting NZ sometimes felt like visiting another planet.

Mt. Rapehu Tongariro Nat Park

Tongariro National Park

Falls at Tongariro National Park - a fine example of how the landscape of New Zealand was very beautiful, but very small scale. Kind of like England. I never got the sense of being lost in the vastness of it, but knowing you could travel 10 miles in any direction and be in an entirely different environment had its charm.

Tongariro National Park

One last look at Mt. Rapehu, then time to drive back to Auckland and fly home.

New Zealand Photos 2

 

Well, it’s still raining, harder than ever . . . so here are some more:

We stayed in some pretty cool accoms. Every night was different.

 

Solscape Eco Lodge Raglan

 

Solscape Eco Lodge Raglan

Queen Charlotte Sound

 

A wonderful Weka! I was in love with these friendly, flightless birds.

 

Raglan Beach

 

Lakeside Track, Lake Rototiti, Nelson Lakes

 

Lakeside Track, Lake Rototiti, Nelson Lakes

 

Lakeside Track, Lake Rototiti, Nelson Lakes

 

Cold water hut, Lakeside Track, Lake Rototiti

 

Inside Coldwater Hut

 

Lakeside Track, Nelson Lakes, Lake Rototiti

 

 

more enchanted hobbit woods

 

Mt Holdsworth campground. The autumn light was beautiful throughout the trip.

 

Mt. Holdsworth Atiwhakatu Hut

 

My beloved tree ferns. Honestly I think it was tree ferns that drew me to NZ to begin with.

 

Not so awesome possums

 

Alas, this pub was no longer in business. Perhaps the name put people off?

 

Time for a break. Again, look at that gorgeous autumn light!

 

River ford after a night of rain. We were stranded for a few days. Things got ugly when the rations ran out.

 

To cross or not to cross. We hoped these people would go first . . . we didn't want the rental car washed away on a road that we weren't even allowed to be on according to the rental agreement. I wonder why.

 

Seals Kaikoura

 

Anyone stupid enough to "attempt to move a seal" deserves what they get and probably couldn't/wouldn't read a sign anyway!

 

The South Island reminded me very much of home and in April it was getting pretty chilly there too.

 

Typical North Island greenery. Most people say they prefer the south island, but I liked the north because A) It was warm, B) It's so different from home

 

View from jumbo hut, Tararua Range

 

Western Tararauras Wairarapa. We heard this was the least visited part of New Zealand, so went there immediately. Instant relief from the throngs of tourists.

 

Beach at Kaikoura. Good for dolphin watching.

 

Mt Fyffe track, Seaward Kaikouras

 

Mt. Fyffe Track, Seaward Kaikouras. You start down there at seal level . . .

 

. . . and end up here

 

 

Mt. Fyffe Track, Seaward Kaikouras

 

Mt. Fyffe Track, Seaward Kaikouras. This walk just got better and better but it was the worst possible day, of all days, to forget the sunscreen.

 

Calorie input could not keep up with calorie output on this trip. I would have wasted away without Whittaker's Dark Chocolate Slabs!

 

Western Tararuras Field Hut Track

 

Western Tararuras Field Hut Track

 

Western Tararuras Field Hut Track. The best thing about this place was that no one else was here.

 

view from field hut

 

Outside field hut

 

This usually seemed to work but this hut had no firewood and lots of garbage left in it . . . very disappointing.

 

Truly a man who was built for his time.

 

Waikanae Beach, Kapiti Coast. The people we were staying with couldn't understand why we kept heading up to those mountains when we could have the beach instead. Beaches have always failed to hold my interest for long.

 

But I hung out on this one at Levin for a whole day, only because I was ill, which is really the only time lying on the beach doing nothing holds much appeal for me. Even then, I spent more time gazing mountainward than seaward.

 

And would you believe, I still have more . . . but the sun is peeking out and I’m going to rush out and  make the most of it.

New Zealand Photos 1

Finally taking a moment to post these on yet another bleak, rainy, supposedly summer morning.

 

Sticker on side of rental camper van - car crime is one of the few stresses of travel in NZ

 

View of Auckland from one of the city's many parks

 

Auckland botanical gardens

 

camping mt holdsworth - one picnic table for a 170-site campsite. Fortunately we were the only late autumn campers there. After camping at New Zealand DOC campsites, I realized how fortunate and well looked after we are by BC Parks where we not only each get our own table but almost always abundant safe drinking water. In NZ we had to bring our own water.

cathedral cove walkway

 

cathedral cove walkway coramandel

 

changeable weather tararuras

 

cool critter

 

Coramandel Walkway. One of my favourite walks, right at the north tip of the Coramandel peninsula

 

Coramandel Walkway

 

Fletcher Bay campsite coramandel

 

Poster for gym in Auckland. You just don't see ads like this in Canada!

 

geysers and steam vents everywhere

 

hobbit country eastern tararura mountains

 

hobbit woods. I don't know what these trees are called. Those Maori words and place names went in one ear and out the other. But i think they are older than they look.

 

Holdsworth Lookout

 

hot mud pool

 

inside jumbo hut

jumbo hut exterior Apparently we were unusually fortunate with the weather here

 

That’s all I have time for this morning. More eventually. I’m off bright and early to the Farmer’s Market. I need some decent food and my greens and veggies are only an inch high  with the cold, wet weather we’ve had since May. Hard to believe it’s July.

New Blog

You’ll find me over here now: http://theforestgarden.wordpress.com/  I’ve decided to focus my blogging efforts on my medicinal plant obsession, love of herbs, and my path as a herbalist.

Did you have a good trip?

Now that I’m back after almost two months away, people are asking me, “Did you have a good trip?” I don’t really know what a “good trip” means. If it means I had endless fun and relaxation and came home feeling refreshed, then no. That would have been a successful vacation but not much of a travelling experience.

If it means I learned a great deal about the country I visited, the people who lived there, and myself, then yes.  After walking anywhere between 16 and 25 km most days I returned exhausted and worn out with a  sprained wrist acquired halfway up a soggy volcano and recovering from a fierce stomach flu.

 But it as worth it, and here’s why:

We need to travel. If we don’t offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don’t lift to the horizon; our ears don’t hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days. Don’t let yourself become one of those people. The fear of the unknown and the lure of the comfortable conspire to keep you from taking the risks the traveller has to take. But if you take them, you will never regret your choice. To be sure, there will be times when you stand alone on an empty road in an icy rain, or when you are ill from fever in a rented bed. But as the pains of the moment will come, so too will they fall away. In the end, you will be so much richer, so much stronger, so much clearer, so much happier, and so much a better person that all the risk and hardship will seem like nothing compared to the knowledge you have gained.

from Letters to My Son, by Kent Nerburn

Yes, I had a good trip. I’m glad to be home, but even more happy that we went and grateful for the time we spent there . . . and the walking really was fabulous.

The thing is though, just look at that photo above. That was taken in New Plymouth on Easter Sunday when we had nothing else to do but enjoy the town’s lovely coastal walkway. Had I been at home I probably would have missed that perfect moment because I would have been indoors “getting something done” or worse yet, sitting here in front of the computer. Being without the internet or a computer for the entire trip was, after a few initial days of withdrawal, surprisingly liberating, and I don’t want to spend anymore time in front of a computer now than I have to, so I won’t be blogging much any more, this may even be my last post.  It’s been fun and rewarding in some ways but there is a sky full of stars and a full moon tonight and this is first warm evening so far this year. No matter how entertaining and fascinating blogging and other virtual adventures  may be, they can’t feed the soul the way the beauty of nature always has and always will.

Thanks for reading.

Late Winter Lethargy

I haven’t updated my blog in a long time because all I want to do is complain about this never-ending winter and who needs to read about that? The snowbanks are now officially taller than I am and I haven’t experienced THAT since I was six years old and just a tad shorter than I am now. And oh my is it cold, 10 to 20 degrees colder than average for this time of year. This windchill of -38/exposed-skin-will-freeze-in -less-than-five-minutes garbage is so December; I thought we were done with that! . . . and it’s grinding me down.  I feel like my brain has switched off and I’ve gone into zombie late-winter survival mode.

Seriously? And nothing but more snow in the forecast well into March . . .

 

At least someone's enjoying it

 

I have a final exam to study for that is 10 days away, a much-anticipated (like over a decade of anticipation) trip to New Zealand that is 15 days away to plan and pack for, more of the infernal tiling to finish off NOW because the contents of the laundry room and bathroom are strewn throughout the house and the toilet sitting in a snowdrift on  the back porch is adding a bit too much local hillbilly colour to the place . . . but I all want to do is sleep 12 hours a night and after zombying through my work and eating and attending to the basics of living I have no brain or muscle power left for any of it.

 

The Great Tiling Project is moving along at a snail's pace when we find the time and has become slightly less miserable as we become speedier and more skilled, but it is still very hard, finicky work

 

I had chosen the tile with my many houseplants in mind and they do look pretty trailing across the floor

 

Northern winters sap the life blood out of you . . . of course, northern summers sap the life blood out of you too, but it’s the  mosquitoes doing the sapping. There are  two weeks somewhere in May and June, after the ground has defrosted and before the mosquito larvae have hatched out; that’s when I (I hope) will remember why I live here.

Beauty by John O’Donohue

 I had the house to myself for most of the weekend so downloaded a treat from Sounds True to keep me company while I pottered around the house cooking, cleaning and making soap (lavender shea butter soap – this could be my best yet!).  I made the best possible choice when I selected ‘Beauty: The Invisible Embrace’ by John O’Donohue .

I was attracted to this title because I am terribly disappointed by the deliberate ugliness of the world we have created. Environmental destruction,  the violence, perversity, crudeness, and inanity that passes for entertainment, the noise, the fumes, the cheapness,  artifice,  utilitarianism and greed. We have created an ugly civilization and an ugly culture on every level.

When, in the first section of this book, the author stated, “When you look at postmodern society it is absolutely astounding how much ugliness we are willing to endure,” I knew I’d found a kindred spirit.

But the book didn’t take the course I expected. It didn’t dissect and analyze the ugliness of our world and then make suggestions on how to solve the problem through a renewed commitment to beauty. This book turned out to be much more and much better than that.  It was more of a guided tour and homage to beauty and a bit of a dusting off and rediscovering of the places where true beauty lives. It was a gripping journey that brought together poetry and thought on beauty throughout the ages, and examined how it infuses our lives, brings us to life and, indeed, is the best of who we are.

All of this was delivered with the fine storytelling, eloquence, grace and a delightful curiosity of the author, punctuated by the occasional unexpected stab of  humour.  I savoured every minute of it.  The book explores all the expected places such as landscape, nature, light, colour, and music but it goes so much further and deeper than that in exploring the true sources of human beauty  – from the imagination to woundedness to reverence - and its inevitable manifestations of graciousness, truth, balance, proportion, dignity, respect and integrity.

As it is difficult to write a concise synopsis of such a sumptuous feast,  I will instead offer some random quotations that I hope will pique your curiosity and lead you to enjoy this wonderful work  in its entirety:

Quoted from William Stafford’s ‘Crossing Unmarked Snow’:

The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying the things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing the things you do not have to hear dulls your hearing; and the things you know before you hear them – these are who you are and this is the reason you are in the world.

On the beauty of nature:

The beauty of the earth is the first beauty and our difficulty with the earth is that we are usually so busy and so taken up with our lives that  we rarely seem to acknowledge that we are actually here at all.

The memories of nature are within us but each of us also in our bodies and minds and thoughts and souls are very unique masterpieces that the earth has created . . . we are earthen vessels that hold immense treasures.

One of the most tender ways of awakening to the sense of beauty is to really waken up to the beauty of nature.

On wilderness:

I suppose because they are so much themselves, wild territories remind us and recall us to the unexamined territories of our own hearts and minds and they open up places within us that we don’t even know are there.

On being human:

One of the lovely things about being a human is that we are called in each moment to bring ourselves to birth.

Part of the difficulty of our times is that we have reduced the magnificent adventure of being a human being to endless, wearisome projects of self-improvement and self-analysis according to the flattest and most boring maps that could be made.

On the beauty of the imagination:

The imagination is infinitely kinder than the mind. The imagination works naturally from the in-between world, that invisible territory, and it seeks out the edges of the unknown to find out the thing that neither the mind nor the eye ever attend to.

One of the most sacred duties in any life is to honorably imagine yourself, to bring the full depth and care and luminosity to imagining the person that you actually are. The depth of who you are also depends on the depth of your ability to imagine yourself.

On Beauty and the experience thereof:

Beauty is not a deadener but a quickener and it alerts and awakens our heart to what is true and good and unified.

The experience of beauty is like a homecoming. When we feel and see and touch the beautiful we feel that we are at one with ourselves because in some subtle and secret way beauty meets the needs of the soul.

On glamour:

One of the fatal habits of minds which has become common in our times is to mistake glamour for beauty. Glamour is a highly fickle and commercially driven enterprise that contributes to the humdrum.

In calling for an “imaginative restoration of the mystery and beauty of experience”:

One of the tragedies of Western culture at the moment is how poor and thin experience has become. . . We say ‘to have an experience.’ Experience has become a possession and a product . . . people rifle their experiences like a scavenger rifles a dustbin.

In quoting philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer:

The integrity and truth of a society is determined by its willingness and ability to engage contradiction.

On “Creating beauty out of woundedness”:

Divest yourself of outside explanation and voices and attend to the particular shape that the wounds take in your life . . . your places of greatest illumination and most elegant poise are the places where you’ve been badly wounded. . . . out of woundedness comes strength that has been tested.

On the importance of old-fashioned courtesy:

Courtesy is the secret unacknowledged heart of all civility.

On the beauty of self-respect:

 . . . proud of the beauty we do not own but has been given to us.

My personal favourite, in the discussion of music:

I’ve often wondered if a deaf alien were to visit an orchesteral concert . . .

And, ultimately:

Whenever we awaken to beauty, we are helping to make God present in the world.

The eternal in a human being is a light sleeper and will awaken at the slightest rustle.

Winter Beauty

Meditation and Mindfulness IX- A Pathway to Becoming Your True Self

A Final World: Meditation is a Pathway to Becoming, not an Attempt at Self-Improvement
It should also be noted that meditation is not a route to “self-improvement.” It is an exercise in non-judgement intended to make you realize that there is actually nothing wrong with you and that, as Jon Kabat-Zinn puts it, “as long as you’re still breathing, you’re doing more right than you’re doing wrong.” Meditation is not intended to make you a “better person” or anything other than what you already are. To quote Mr. Kabat-Zinn one last time, from his audio book Mindfulness for Beginners, “Don’t come to meditation practice hoping to become Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama. You don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama. The only person you have any hope of becoming is yourself.”

And perhaps that is the most exquisite gift offered by meditation practice – the opportunity to become your truest, most authentic self. This is not only one of life’s greatest freedoms but perhaps, as the Dalai Lama himself has been known to argue, the real reason why we are here : to unearth our beautiful selves from beneath the rubble and, in doing so, move from anger, sadness and aloneness to compassion, kindness and oneness – a truly holistic approach to health and healing that can expand beyond ourselves to encompass our fragile, interconnected world.