fog in the morning

These cravens were clattering around on top of the hangar this morning and the noise drew me outside and I immediately went back in to grab the camera. I tucked Juniper in the chariot with a few blankets and Wellington followed along as I took what I thought would be a few photos. A few hours later we had meandered our way through the fog and the fields of oats all the way to the Yukon River which is about 2kms from our cabin, snapping photos all the while.

 Such a crude, industrial looking building but so beautiful. 

Sasquanch would know. Raven or Crow. Either way they drew me out with all the cawcawcawing and flailing around on the tin roof. Of course I thought they were greeting me. That's what we humans do. We assume things about nature. Things that include us. What we forget is that nature has simpler intentions, more basic, yet infinitely more important than us. They were probably using sound to help them get around in the fog. (Or they were just whooping it up because the fog was so beautiful, tehe).

I found this child in the oats...

"When the student is ready..."

"...the teacher appears." Buddhist proverb

Late last summer Squanch and I were exploring in our area and we ended up on a nearby mountain slope picking wild cranberries with two strangers, while our dogs intermingled, weaving golden threads in and out of the little pine trees around us. It was one of those encounters that feels like a gift from the universe. These two women were wonderful berry picking companions, and every time I sprinkle those frozen red orbs into my blender for a morning smoothie, I am reminded of the serendipity of that afternoon.

Well, the gifts from the universe keep coming (I sound cliche new-agey when I say stuff like that but oh well, it is the only way I can explain it). Turns out one of those women runs an outdoor learning centre from her home where there is a beautiful building (I describe as a hippie/zen church), that hosts, among other things, yoga classes. And so, by this chance encounter I was enrolled in the best yoga classes I could possibly imagine!

The teacher blends her incredible knowledge with an uncanny intuitiveness. She takes time to explain things, allows us to experience the poses how it feels best to us and guides us gently with her calm wisdom. By the time class ends there is a sense of balance to my energy, I feel as if I have exercised and had a massage at the same time. 

The atmosphere of this hippie-zen-hall is perfect for yoga. We do mountain pose in front of a wall of windows overlooking a mountain range. A wood-stove crackles in the corner while we lay down on our mats for our final relaxation pose.

I must remind myself, as socially anxious as I am, such gifts often come from outside my comfort zone. We approached those women in late summer, on the side of a mountain, and struck up a conversation, and after a long dark winter, I am still benefitting from the harvest of this encounter.

living at the cottage

Home right now  (taken before the snow came, forever ago in fall)

I've spent some of the happiest times at cabins and cottages and I've always wanted to live in one, didn't see why people kept them tucked away as sacred weekend and holiday places, when they could have that feeling all the time and live there.


And so when I get the sense from people that they think I am roughing it HUGE - like impossibly HUGE, like "you have no fucking running water? how do you bathe? where do you go to the bathroom? BUT YOU HAVE A NEWBORN BABY!" - I just have to laugh  because our life is so amazing, so steeped and strong with everything good and everything I believe in.

You may have a cottage or a camp. If not you may have been invited to one at some point in your life. How restorative do times spent in these outdoor focused places feel? How warm and calm and gooey do you feel hugged in the arms of logs, of wood, of the stuff the trees made so you could have a roof over your head?

treeplanting journal

The dust from the logging roads coats my teeth, whiter now if only for the grimy tan of my face. Squished up with duffel bags and his long legs, there is silence and there is sunshine. It’s calm in this truck limbo, and I’ve been starved for calm.

The dandelions have burst forth overnight from the prairie floor. I’m planning a painting in my mind, how I’ll use an old toothbrush to splatter the yellow in atop the green grass, fluorescent in the lazy afternoon sunshine. The sky is bigger here than any sky I have ever seen. I can’t fathom a canvas big enough for the abundance of clouds, languid they lay about like corpulent Romans following a feast.

Beside me he shifts his hands on the steering wheel and I notice him noticing a bird flicking in the wind, its energy bursts through the stillness of the afternoon, but the fluidity of flight remains true to my tranquility. We do not speak.

(GP May 2009 planting journal excerpt)



meredith by the fire

At night, the sky smudged a gradient of cobalt to ash, she sits by the fire and makes an attempt at the moment. It’s all she can do. Zen falls like the crumbs from the cake of others and she’s there to catch a few in her swollen hands, savoring seconds of peace.

She’s pegged the restlessness of her mind to the vastness of her country, the never-ending possibilities of people and place; the hearts she’s broken and the hearts that have broken her and all the hearts lined up like bottles on a fence waiting for someone to pull the trigger.

Every pair of eyes she’s ever seen stay with her, become a constant presence, watching, judging, laughing. Here in the wilderness, the layers of herself have been peeled away and her soul cowers and spins, dances and winces, a grub in the sun. And she’s not sure if this means she’s lost or if it means she’s found.

(May 2009)


waiting things

Cigarettes smoke themselves
in anticipation
collars darken like the day
and still, still
boot darkened socks
wait on the floor
damp and alone.
Branches accumulate
and the open space
becomes tired and dirty
strewn with waiting things
patient like the earth
beneath fingernails
calm as the filth
in hidden crevices.