All Wired Up – Wrapped and Coiled

Although my husband has spent his career as a journalist and newspaper editor he has recently become very interested in creative arts. While acknowledging and being impressed by his skill, I’d like to think this might be partly my influence.

During the past couple of years he has taken art classes with Joe Collins at McKenzie College, producing some still-life paintings of pears and apples and couple of beautiful landscapes of one of our favourite places in Maine.

Knowing of his interest in wire jewellery I was excited to see a short course offered at New Brunswick Community College – and found the ideal birthday present, and a new creative outlet.  The evenings spent there were not only relaxing for him but produced several lovely gifts for me as well. With our birthdays only a couple of weeks apart, it was a one-for-two inspiration.

From his work, in just six hours, I received two pairs of dangly silver earrings, a Celtic-style copper ring with a blue-green stone, a wire-wrapped blue stone pendant with an intricately coiled clasp and a second pendant of interwoven cobalt blue wire rings circling an iridescent bead.

Over the years I’ve collected lovely slices of agate and polished stones.  Naturally I’m hoping some of these will soon be wearable art; the kind I see in fashion and jewellery magazines.  At least until the next class is offered this autumn.

Bird Watching -- Lessons in Love and Parenting

Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun and left the sky filled with their honour.

Every year at this time I am absolutely enthralled by the intelligence, instinct, devotion and endurance of the birds that fill our skies with splendour.

In addition to the joy I get from mourning doves, chickadees, blue jays, pheasants and others that visit and feed in our garden I share in the courtship, hatching and parenting of falcons, eagles, hawks, ospreys and storks around the world.

Several years ago I heard about a live camera focused on an eagle’s nest in British Columbia. I watched occasionally for a few days, when I remembered. Then, one evening returning from class, of course still daytime on the west coast, I switched on. To my horror I saw the female tearing apart the nest. Though I did not have speakers, I could feel her cries of pain and anguish. I later discovered both her eggs had fallen from the nest.

Without anthropomorphising I could understand and share her loss.

Red-tailed hawk

Since then I have become a follower of some of the many bird cams in dozens of countries that allow us to observe the wonder of courtship, laying, hatching and  caring of  these feathered beings. The miracle of love and life. I hear them ee-chupping through their courtship, have learned the small subtle differences between male and females, seen nests and scrapes constructed and prepared, watched with some admitted heart-wrenching as a falcon dived from high at 200 miles an hour, to stun an unsuspecting pigeon for the eyases’ supper.

Osprey nest in Nova Scotia

I marvel at the patient sitting, waiting for the eggs to hatch. I watch in awe as the female carefully turns each egg to benefit from the warm brood patches on her breast; as the eagle gently tucks an egg back underneath her body.

Not only have I learned a lot, my respect for our feathered friends has deepened. You will never ever hear me use the derogatory phrase ‘bird-brained’.

Falcon with her four eggs, Derby, England

We can learn a lot from them. How to form good, lasting relationships; for birds frequently do; how to be a good parent, how to cope with loss and sorrow. For not all the eggs hatch, not all the young survive. And the parent birds do suffer and grieve. The amazing journey they make, mostly by instinct as they fly south each winter; how the female peregrine falcon stays in the cold north while the male goes south, but he returns to the same mate the following year. Some pairs have been together for more than a dozen years. That’s better than many marriages.

Eagles in Maine

For several years I benefitted from the knowledge of a lady in the Netherlands named Froona. She loved peregrine falcons and was a wealth of information about them; introducing me to locations world-wide to watch them in snow, driving rain and wind, all with the same determination to protect their young, rear them and prepare to let them go. For rarely do the young return, they find their own nests or scrapes. Sadly Froona died in 2009. Her passion remains on her blog, and in my mind.

Storks nest in Germany

From storks in Europe, where people encourage them to nest on their roofs, believing the birds bring prosperity, to eyries high above rivers and roads, to stony scrapes on high-rise buildings to ocean-side pines, these magnificent birds offer me so much each spring.

Soon, too soon, the white and gray bundles of fluff, find their wings, begin to explore outside the nesting place, unsteady at first, then with increasing confidence and curiosity; feathers replace the down. Come June eyases in many locations are banded, eaglets and red tailed hawks flex their great wing spans, find the delights of the skies, soaring, circling, doing what they were created for, carefully taught by loving parents. Eventually they fledge and fly away. The sense of loss, of not having them in my life remains for weeks.



Rochester, N.Y.



Newly-hatched eaglets

You can Google any of these bird species, followed by ‘live cam’ or similar wording to share in the joy and learning experiences.

Photos taken from various webcams

Yoga at Chocolate Lake

Anytime I can combine two of my loves is a very good time.

Cocoa, resident dog at Chocolate Lake Hotel

This past weekend was even better. Chocolate Lake Hotel in Halifax was the venue for the 2011 Yoga Atlantic Conference at which I was presenting a workshop about my ‘Warrior Women – Yoga for Breast Cancer’ programme.

The view of Chocolate Lake from my room

Theme of the Conference was the Heart Chakra – Anahata – which was very appropriate. Our practice comes from the heart; every class is a satsang, a gathering of community and support. From my heart it is service, seva, to other women; a practice of being alive and awake in the world, of being connected.

In the summer of 2010 I was honoured with a grant from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, the first time in Atlantic Canada that such a grant has been sought and awarded. It allows me to offer a year of yoga to women fighting and surviving breast cancer. The programme began last September in Moncton and we are now into the third of our eight-week sessions.

Nancy's scarf

Offering my workshop in the Conference’s contemplative section I talked about why I had wanted to offer this service, the grant request process, getting sponsors and the positive benefits of the classes themselves. While teaching in Ontario several students went through their fight and survival while taking classes. One of my precious possessions is a scarf one student wore during her hair loss and gave to me when she “no longer needed it.” I also taught at Wellspring, a cancer support organization in that province.

Triangle pose using blocks for alignment

Yoga is recognized by many in the medical profession as being a positive, beneficial addition to conventional treatments. In classes we focus on the importance of calming breathing and meditation, inviting healing energy into the body. Many asanas are similar to the ones I teach in any class, many are specific to breast cancer survivors, others are modified or adapted. We also have ‘tea and heart-to-heart talk’ times, a walking meditation and the ladies are encouraged to journal. We create a supportive, caring fellowship and assistance in adjusting to a ‘new normal body’. There is as much laughter as learning.

Cecilia, one of my Warrior Women came with me to talk personally about how she has benefited and share some of the comments from other women in the class. Together we demonstrated how we adapt postures to each body’s needs.

Warrior women during meditation

This poem, written by Karen, another Warrior Woman says it more eloquently than I could. It comes from her heart.

TOGETHER

Can you make me feel good?

Can they take away?

All the pain and the fears.

That make up every day.

All the angels working for a cure.

All the people who are there for you,

     helps to be sure.

Can they understand:

      the scars and trials,

      the pain and the crying,

      the self pity and the guilt,

      the insecurity and the fear?

           

Yes together  -  to be with, listen to and talk with

women going through the same as you is

the best help of all !

More of My Favourite Places

A couple of years ago I wrote a series of articles for Local in the Know about some of my Favourite Places in Moncton. These included Bistro-Cafés, delectable edibles, interior décor and fashion stores.

These can be read at knowmoncton.com/favorite-places/

I plan to continue that series here in my own journal pages.

One of my favourite places to curl up and read isn’t always at home. It’s in the sunny reading area of the new Riverview Public Library. As a life-long avid reader libraries have been a source of discovery, quiet contemplation and delight. Where else can you have so much fun, learn so much and meet great characters (between the pages) for free, or at the most a couple of dollars if there’s a book sale? There was this week, which added two more books to my shelves.

Often I go with a book list in my notebook - I've just added Henning Mankell's latest Wallander The Troubled Man -  but find a must-read almost as soon as I walk along the stacks. It’s not unusual for me to be weighed down with an armful of books I’d love to read.

That’s when I sit for a while and reluctantly make a selection.

We live just across the Petticodiac River (or trickle as it is now), just a short drive, but a bit too far to walk.  

During most of 2009 the library in Riverview was closed for renovations to the municipal building that contains both library and town offices. A definite gap in my reading months. Finally in January 2010 it re-opened, two and a half times larger than previously with a wall of large windows and special reading and activity areas, plus a special activity room.

Library Director Lynn Cormier told me membership has increased 10 to 15 per cent in the year since re-opening. Not suprising as we look around the bright, airy space. Lynn knew in Junior High she wanted to be a librarian. More than twenty years later and studies at Dalhousie University, she still loves her job. “I’ve great staff and I always love the people contact,” she says.

Fiction accounts for 65 per cent of books borrowed. Current popular books include The Room by Emma Donoghue; Secret Daughter by Shilpi Gowda; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, plus all Stieg Larson’s series. Books by Susan Wiggs, her Summer By the Sea for instance, and by Jodi Picoult,  Sing You Home is a big favourite. In non-fiction The King’s Speech by Mark Logue is a major request. Non-fiction popular categories are travel, self-help, parenting and cooking. You can also borrow CDs, audio and electronic books and there are now seven computers available.

Programmes at the Riverview Library include activities for mothers and babies with rhymes, songs and music.

There are pre-school and older children programmes and an all-summer reading project. Older library members can enjoy the book and travel clubs.

New this year is Conversation Circle, helping new immigrants with pronunciation and accent. 

Like me Lynn Cormier usually has several books she’s reading at any time. Among her favourites she lists The Book of Negroes, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns.

I settled into a comfortable wing chair for a while to turn the pages of another book on India from the sale table to add to my collection, before heading home.

Words by Candlelight

Actually Scrabble by candlelight. Recognising Earth Hour yesterday evening, my husband and myself lit a circle of candles in our family room, got out the Scrabble board and let the tiles create words. A writer and an editor with lives shaped by words we decided, in honour of the occasion, to have a friendly game so did not keep any scores.

I got off to a good start with ‘regret’, using all but one of my tiles. Later I made ‘ermine’ and ‘boodle’; finally after twice creating two words at once, ended up with just one tile – a C -  worth only one point if we had been playing for real.

We play by fairly strict standards, no slang, abbreviations, proper nouns or foreign words, etc. I have played with friends whose Scrabble dictionary allows many of these and sometimes I wonder about adopting a similar approach. It’s always good to keep a flexible, open mind.

No foreign words on the board,  but dinner was themed Indian. We had salad, spicy lentil dhal (homemade) and crispy papadums. We like the ‘Rabbit’ or Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad brand. This is an organization owned and run solely by women that produces large quantities of papadums on the open market. Papad is often associated with the empowerment of women in India. Many individual and organized businesses are run by women and produce papad, pickles, and other snacks. This provides them regular income from minimal financial investment.

Dessert was those lovely flaky Indian ‘cakes’; pistachio, cardamom flavoured Saon Papdi. We buy our Indian foods and spices from Blue Olive, an eastern restaurant and shop in Dieppe.

Time flew by without us noticing; it was almost 10 pm when we folded up the board. Proving that you do not need anything outside yourself to be entertained and challenged, to use your mind, and learn some new words. Once or twice checking the dictionary I found a word I could not use last night, but will keep tucked away for a future game.

There is something very tranquil and cozy about candlelight; being inside a circle of light but knowing the darkness is not scary or cause for worry. Rather it was like a comforting blanket, velvety and soft.

It made me think we should do this regularly, more often. Not only saving energy, allowing the earth to breathe more easily, but also slowing down ourselves and treasuring quiet times together.

Ele-phantising - Ganesha and other Elephants

Elephants have been padding their way into my heart for several years. Recently a small collection, more by chance than intent, has begun to find a place in our house.

In India a few years ago I was enchanted to see wild elephants  at dawn on a nature reserve and the painted, decorated elephants that take part in ceremonies at temples and at the Palace in Mysore. As a memento I bought one, the small blue, joyful one, second from left in the group. Until I opened my yoga space he remained my only one. Then Ganesha joined us.

Though I have been teaching yoga for many years, the Yoga Space in Moncton was a new place for my students and me.

During a workshop in Fredericton I found my Ganesha in Cultures, the fair trade shop. He sits at the feet of Buddha among the candles during our classes.

The beloved elephant-faced-Deity Ganesha is one of the most popular gods in Hindu mythology. Known as the ‘remover of obstacles’ he is worshipped at the beginning of a new venture or  journey. Endowed with a gentle and affectionate nature he is also a god of wisdom. Images of Ganesha are found in almost every household in India and on the outskirts of villages as a guardian deity.

The sacred texts give a variety of stories about Ganesha's birth. The most regarded says Ganesha was created by Goddess Parvati to guard her when she was annoyed by the refusal of her husband Shiva to respect her privacy while she was bathing. She rubbed sandalwood paste off her body and out of it created a young boy who she called her son and instructed him to watch while she bathed.

All the qualities of the elephant are contained in Ganesha. The elephant is the largest and strongest of animals of the forest, yet he is gentle and, amazingly, a vegetarian, so that he does not kill to eat. He is very affectionate and loyal to his keeper and responds to love and kindness. Ganesha, though a powerful deity, is similarly loving and forgiving and moved by the affection of his devotees.

After Ganesha the other elephants came trumpeting along. The happy one on the far left of the top photo with his mandolin reminded me of the music room at a museum in Mysore. He was found at the Salvation Army. The large carved wooded one at the back of the photo was found at a local flea market. There is a very small drawer for treasures in his side. Later the blue and white elephant stepped off a shelf at Value Village and another visit to Sally Ann found the fellow on the right waiting for me.

Elephants cry, play, have incredible memories and even laugh. They are sensitive too. If a baby complains, the entire family will rumble and go to touch and caress it. They will grieve the loss of a stillborn baby, a family member and often another elephants. When a friend has been away, elephants have greeting ceremonies in welcome.

One of the most informative and moving animal books I’ve read is ‘When Elephants Weep’ by Jeffery Moussaieff Masson. (Another fascinating must-read by Masson is ‘The Emperor’s Embrace’ – about non-human fatherhood and parenting).

Practical items from India include my blue Ganesha yoga tunic, a black tunic with pink elephants and a bolster bag in my favourite colours of blue and purple with bands of batiked elephants.

Closer to home Frenchy’s revealed the lovely embroidered, sequinned small bag and the cotton bag from Thailand with a small brass elephant pendant. Then just yesterday, not specially looking, or needing, anything I saw this amazing scarf. At Frenchy’s prices it would have been foolish to leave it hanging.

Two Loves: Books & Music. Recent reading & listening And Our Chipmunk was Hibernating!

Since as early as I can remember books and music have been not just important, but necessities of life for me.

A book sale sign is an instant attraction, guaranteeing I’ll be occupied for an hour or more and emerge with at least one box filled to overflowing.

Yesterday was a good book day. First at Riverview Library, my nearest and favourite, on the book sale shelves I found ‘Mistresses’ – surely a title hard to resist.  Spanning three centuries of love and lechery, power and wealth, it’s biographical accounts of such seductresses as Lady Hamilton, George Sand, Lola Montez and Eva Braun. All that for just one dollar.

From the Library I also took out Gabriel García Márquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’. I enjoyed his’ Love in the Time of Cholera’ until near the end, when I found it rather drawn out, but  am interested to read what is regarded as his best work. ’What the Body Remembers’ by Sauna Singh Baldwin, is the story of a young Sikh girl in Northern India in the years before partition. This I’m already well into.

 Then at the Habitat for Humanity Restore with some donations, I found a Robertson Davies I haven’t got on the shelves at home – ‘World of Wonders and a new-to-us Anne Perry, which both my husband and I will enjoy. These two in paperback for another dollar.

Currently I’m also reading ‘Nothing Left Over’, Toinette Lippe’s book about discovering what is essential, and letting go of the rest. In my present focus on de-cluttering, physically and mentally, it resonates. ‘World of the Buddha’ has been bedside for a month or two. It’s not a ‘read through’, rather a study to dip into, make notes, reflect and re-read portions.

Recent good reads included ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’; Anita Rau Badami’s second book, ‘The Hero’s Walk’ about an orphaned Indian-Canadian girl’s adaptation to her Indian grandparents and their country and ‘The Birth of Venus’ , a novel of Medici Florence and a young girl’s desire to use her talent as an artist, which she finally achieves, in a convent.

Another lovely book was ‘An Equal Music’ by Vikram Seth (A Suitable Boy) set mainly in London about a chamber music quartet and the ill-fated love of one of the musicians.

When I listen to music I find I focus on periods. Currently I am totally in love with the music of Arvo Pärt, a contemporary Estonian composer.  I first heard his Te Deum some years ago on the car radio and parked on a side street to hear it to its conclusion. A Christmas gift was his ‘Alina’, spare, almost single note music for piano violin and cello that is mystically haunting and meditative. I’ve also been playing John Taverner; ‘The Protecting Veil’ and ’Thrinos’, both for cello my favourite instrument, never fail to move me.

Before that it was weeks of early music; Byrd, Hildegard of Bingen Gregorian chant and masses. I suspect soon I’ll be searching for Bach, Mozart and Haydn. Though chamber music is my best-loved form, last night during during dinner we played Pavarotti’s Rogoletto with Renata Scotto, reminding me what a divine instrument the human voice is.

All this and the joy this morning opening the curtains to see ‘our’ chipmunk scurrying across the snow. I had feared the worst because previous winters he had always been around. He must have known this one was going to be tough and hibernated, bringing me a moment of joy as once again he’s here nibbling the seeds with the doves.