If you're working on being a better ally, one area you might find yourself struggling with is in finding the right words. This article from Bob Joseph's team at Indigenous Corporate Training offers some helpful guideposts. (And perhaps is a reminder of how much we have to learn. It might seem daunting. Take it one … Continue reading 9 Terms to Avoid in Communications with Indigenous Peoples

"Child's time." The name of the activity I'm being introduced to, during the Strengthening Families workshop, is so bad that I'm tempted to dismiss it outright. (I like to imagine myself as being too cool for schmaltzy, Hallmark-y things, and my partner has an every stronger aversion to anything vaguely contrived.) And yet, the more … Continue reading Your attention is a gift. Who’s getting it?

This year, we have handed the reins to instagram.com/thewellnessalmanac to Amanda Ritchie, a writer whose wordcraft and photography I admire. She introduces herself so beautifully in this post and has been sharing a perspective on this territory, her territory, the land of her bones and her ancestors, that is a gift for us to ride … Continue reading Follow the Wellness Almanac on instagram

After being offered "be calm, be safe, be kind" as the COVID-19 mantra for the past year, I've felt of late a little... um... resistance to the phrase. (Kind of like the aversion I developed to being told to get a gratitude attitude by a ton of perky blog posts and wellness-oriented magazine articles. Until … Continue reading A toolbox to help shift from violence to kindness

There are days it has occurred to me that emerging from deep pandemic life (as we did officially on July 1 as we moved into stage 3) warrants some kind of ceremony or ritual... some kind of formal acknowledgement that much has been lost. Your loss and my loss might not weigh the same - … Continue reading A year of loss and struggle

It's a terrible irony that the gardens we plant to make our environments more beautiful can damage the natural world outside our fences. By now, we understand the harm caused by the improper use of pesticides and the over-use of chemical fertilizers. But are you aware that many of our garden plants are from foreign … Continue reading Responsible Gardening: 7 Red Flags – a guest post from Sea to Sky Invasive Species Council

Carol Clutesi gave us permission to share this. She is Nuuchahnulth Tseshaht, a grandmother and wedding celebrant living here in Lil'wat territory, along with family. In early June, she shared posts that she'd written in her hand, because she didn't know how to copy paste the info. But it slowed me down, inviting me to … Continue reading What does it mean to be an ally?

Kera Willis, writer, poet, singer-songwriter, dreamweaver, Mountain Horse School founder and teacher, shared a photo essay of weeds the other week and gave permission for us to post it here. Here are her ponderings, which are kind of a hymn, in my opinion, and no doubt will inform a song, because I dare you to … Continue reading Why weeds are an invitation to look again and see something else: a photo essay from Kera Willis

To honour National Indigenous History month, PORCA shared a three-part series interviewing three different women from the Lil’wat Nation who organized or participated in the recent Intro to Mountain Biking course put on by Indigenous Women Outdoors (IWO) in collaboration with PORCA. (Follow PORCA on Facebook for this kind of awesomeness. We're reposting this post, … Continue reading How are you showing up? A thought prompt from Sutikem Bikadi