In the first scene of the movie, the camera pans over a bleak almost dystopian landscape. One that is grey, brittle with ice and completely covered by snow. It is a land that is usually warm, sun filled and, if not lush, at the very least green. The camera then hones in on a nondescript building, eventually taking us inside where we see engineers, city and state planners and other official looking personnel working feverishly to ensure “the whole grid doesn’t collapse”.

The public servants avert momentary disaster and indulge in a brief celebration. Some high fiving and shoulder slapping…

When I went to Iceland nearly three years ago now someone, either my Mom or or tour guide Siggi, took a photo of me that has turned out to be my favourite. I generally don’t like having my photo taken, or, how I turn out in them and I certainly don’t like posting (and rarely, if ever, do) photos of myself. I love this one though. It was not taken at the Blue Lagoon or by a waterfall or in a national park. …

In the days since President Biden’s Inauguration the air has seemed fresher, the sun has shone brighter and the psychological and emotional weight of the past four years has, if not melted away, started to lift. The world to me has felt more expansive, joyful and normal, whatever normal even is. While there is not really even such a thing as normal, the absence of it, which the past four years have certainly been, is felt acutely and profoundly.

Prior to the inauguration there was much made of a return to normalcy and a Biden Presidency signalling such a return…

Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day was a long, long, long, long time coming and it was well worth the wait. I can say that now because the American Carnage, foreshadowed by the one who ultimately created the carnage is, at least for today, over. Everyone was on good behaviour, even those who aided and abetted the man who almost upended a nation. The men could have easily cost the country they are sworn to protect this peaceful transition of power had, at least for today, not succeeded.

They had not, because of a press who, largely, pushed back and told the…

I am thinking about a quote from Rosanne Cash that a friend introduced me too. Ms. Cash would perform a concert and find that maybe 6% of the audience were right there with her; present, engaged and immersed in the experience. Meanwhile, she was spending time on the 94%. Thinking about how to engage and to reach them. It was not fun and, instead, was stressful and joyless as it was taking the pleasure out of her shows.

So, she decided to change her focus to the 6%. The people who didn’t need to be convinced but ought to have…

A friend sent me a quote yesterday morning and I experienced so fully and completely facets of myself, I was moved. Since I was a child (my first memory of this happening is at around six years old), when I saw what felt to me to be an injustice, another child being yelled at by the teacher for example, I would cry. It was not happening to me and yet, it might as well have been.

This ongoing aspect of my character frustrated me and felt like something to be guarded against as ‘I did not know why I was…

As we well know, I struggle to meditate. I am proud though (and a little bit shocked!) to say that I am now doing so regularly. Each day, since late Fall, sometimes a couple of times a day, I slip into a nice warm bath for my soul and I lay there. I drown in it, and, on some occasions, I go to places I don’t want to come back from they are so expansive and loving.

They are places that can’t be named but places that are so…..knowing, you know? Places where everything is certain, quiet, peaceful, and calm…

Author’s note: This piece was written in nearly real time on January 6, 2021. The day we witnessed an insurrection in the United States of America.

It has been a devastating and heartbreaking day. A day that will live infamy for all of the wrong reasons. The day a President of a democratic country urged his supporters to engage in anti-democratic and violent action in his name while continuing to propagate the lies that incited the violence in the first place.

Armed Trump supporters dressed as though in a militia stormed the U.S. Capitol, breached barriers, got inside and destroyed…