How many can you take 'for the team' ?

Sure, we all take one or two from time to time.  But some of us have a problem balancing self-care and time out with the endless lists and demands.  If you're part of a 'movement' of any kinds - arts advocacy, anti-poverty, environmentalism, you know how easy it is to do too much.

A Meditation for Valentine's Day

"To love is, first of all, to accept ourselves as we are"  Thich Nhat Hanh

Regardless of whether your age or marital status or even if you think Valentine's day is a big pile of hooey, here is a beautiful meditation you can do to practice metta (loving kindness) every day.

Sit still, calm your body and your breathing and recite the meditation to yourself.  Sitting still, you're not too preoccupied with other matters, so you can look deeply at yourself as you are, cultivate your love for yourself, and determine the best ways to express this love in the world.

May I be peaceful, happy and light in body and spirit.


May I be safe and free from injury.


May I be free from anger, afflictions, fear and anxiety.


When you have done this, meditating on yourself, you can repeat it, take out the "I" and substitute someone else - your partner, your family members, your colleagues or anyone.  Spread the love, no purchase required.

What to do when you find out your farmer is retiring

Sheesh.  We just got rolling with Stu and Nancy and their awesome farming and food delivery service.  But it seems Stu's back isn't well so they're retiring from the delivery aspect of the business later this spring.  Talk about a panic when I found that out - I've just got in the habit of re-thinking my purchases around what they can provide.

Luckily, at the wonderful Youth Entrepreneurship Showcase this weekend (hosted by Falls Brook Centre) we met the Livingstones, who have a farm in Pembroke and are doing a weekly food box from June until November.  You should consider getting food there too - here is their website.

It is encouraging to see a sustainable family farm like this setting up around here.  We need more wholesome food grown by people who care about health and the land.  Stu has certainly spent his lifetime in Carleton County trying to encourage this sort of thinking.  Stop by the Speerville Mill website sometime and read the story of how they got started.  Kinda reminds me of a plucky little arts festival I know (not to mention the story of the founding of the Carleton County Historical Society).  Thanks goodness for good people and good food.  I don't want to imagine a world without them.

It's not what they say, it's how they say it.

We saw our third play of 2012 last night, a UNB production of Michel Tremblay's "Bonjour, la, Bonjour."  I've seen three of Tremblay's plays now and I really like them.  He writes primarily about working-class francophones, which aren't too far from the working-class anglophones that constitutes 95% of my extended family.  What could contain more 'drama' than family, youth, identity, and intimacy?


A few years back at Mount A., I saw "Messe solennelle pour une pleine lune d'ete," (Solemn Mass for a Full  Moon Summer) and now that I look back on it, the characters perched on Montreal balconies in the heat of summer probably inspired my fascination with that city.


The Mount A. production was in French, and after seeing two subsequent Tremblay plays in English (the other was a TNB Production "For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again"), I will try to see more Tremblay productions in the language they were composed in. Although my French is far from perfect, you can surmise a lot from watching good actors even if you don't get every word. 


And words are important in these plays - Tremblay is known for introducing vernacular Quebecois French joual to the stage - it's analogous to the outback type of "Dooryard" words and phrases we have here in Western NB.  And the characters are defined as much by the way the speak and not just what they say.  As someone who has taken her 'county' slang to wine and cheese receptions and scholarship interviews, I can tell you that how you say 'er really does have some import (wink, wink).


I guess it just goes to show that "English" or "French" are very nebulous ideas in some ways - whose English (London, Caribbean, Carleton County, Mumbai) do we really speak?  I will never forget the story my Acadienne friend told me about her trip to France.  She showed up speaking French, mais oui, only to have French noses turn up at her unrefined accent.  I think she was back on the plane to 'the New World" within days, but I digress.


So, speaking of English and French, next week we're off to - where else? - Mount A! to see Alex Fancy's Tintamarre team present "Camp."  Students help Fancy write these bilingual productions, so it will be interesting to see what they've come up with.  We're also going to see a wonderful friend present a vocal recital in the hall where we studied (and enjoyed) so many excellent performers during our wonderful student days.  Felicitations, bravo and congratulations Jessica!