The other night, my wonderful meditation teacher shared some present moment mindfulness practices to help navigate feelings. A phrase she used stuck with me : that part of what we want to do is create a big enough container for the feelings we're experiencing. The same day, Amanda, who has been holding the reins for … Continue reading A big enough container
My friend, who is familiar with grief, and tends to think deeply about things, shared this recently, and I copy and pasted it here, the way you might carefully fold down the corner of a page that you know you will return to. Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash HEAVY That time I thought I could not go … Continue reading Heavy, how heavy grief can be. A poem from Mary Oliver
Monday was May 10th, the 111th anniversary of the Lillooet Declaration, an important day for all the St'at'imc Nations (Lil'wat, Xa'xtsa, N'Quatqua, Samahquam, Skatin, Sekw'elw'as, T'it'q'et, Ts'kw'aylaxw, Xaxli'p and Xwisten First Nations), on whose unceded territory we live, who remember, reflect and reassert what their leaders declared 111 years ago: that they belong to this … Continue reading Whose land is this? Acknowledging the Lillooet Declaration and our place in the story
Belonging has been something I've been thinking about since I first moved to Pemberton - a transplant. How could I tend my straggling roots and feel a sense of home in this place that was so deeply unfamiliar to me, having grown up on the opposite side of the world, speaking a completely different vowel-sounded … Continue reading The Gifts of the Land with Skícza7ul Heather Joseph, online, Thursday 7pm
When was the last time you laughed until you cried? (I did reading my kid The Witches, at the scene were the boy-turned-mouse runs down someone's pants and then the guy pulls off his trousers in the busy kitchen to get rid of the mouse, which was long-gone in another direction, and suddenly everyone was … Continue reading Prescription: Laugh your ass off.
The other week, my friend Kera wrote this (in her Mountain Horse school newsletter, which many people subscribe to, in order to find out when school camps and awesome nature programs on, but which I read devotedly because the woman is a poet.) What does it mean to be alive on this planet at this … Continue reading Come home to your body
https://www.youtube.com/embed/_2JPa_ymPGI Tanina Williams of Amawilc Consulting is a Lil'wat knowledge keeper and a teacher of culture through SD48, the region's school district. She recently shared this video, of a spring walk around One Mile Lake, featuring Saopalaz, Lucille Joseph, her mom, who is a knowledge keeper of plant medicine in Lil’wat Nation. The chance to … Continue reading Take a plant walk around One Mile Lake, and look with a Lil’wat lens, thanks to a new video from Tanina Williams and Saopalaz
The provincial government in interested in knowing how much I have drunk through the pandemic. It's complicated, because it actually went to zero, which might be interpreted as a sign that I'm flourishing, healthwise, as opposed to a recognition that I was floundering and had to make some changes. Surveys are hard. For that reason. … Continue reading Pandemic recovery starts with naming some of the stresses – share your thoughts with the BC COVID-19 SPEAK Round 2 Survey, by May 9
I knew Mother's Day must be coming up, because the brands I follow on instagram started posting stories about things that mom would like, when normally, they don't talk about motherhood at all. Oh, I thought, time to go shopping and honour the most vexing role and relationship there is. (Oh, the crushing cynicism.) If … Continue reading Mother’s Day is this weekend. So let’s practice holding all the contradictory things.
Skícza7ul Heather Joseph, who is the Ucwalmicts teacher at Signal Hill Elementary, pointed the school community towards this great video, on how to introduce yourself or greet someone in Ucwalmicts. (You can check it out on the First Voices site at https://www.firstvoices.com/explore/FV/sections/Data/St̕át̕imc/Lil'wat/Líl̓wat/learn/phrases/70e93d12-3f91-40de-abea-ebe66556f1b6?fbclid=IwAR1LY9MAEhGpq5v87ikAyx8Vfp_S4CTMCTASwoZQalyfguVwqqRFvjPVlag) https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=314&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Flilwatnationculturecentre%2Fvideos%2F245295260420609%2F&show_text=true&width=560 Coming up this month, on May 13, keep an eye out for … Continue reading Skícza7ul Heather Joseph teaches us how to introduce ourselves in Ucwalmicts
