Port Alberni, BC I was speaking with a client the other day about an Open Space event we are planning. The theme of the event has to do with slowing down communities, to get a handle on the pace of change. We were reflecting on one of the pre-conditions for a good Open Space event being urgency. We had a good chuckle at the notion that, in these communities, there is an urgent need to slow down! I love the creative tension of this paradox. We build in time for ourselves personally to slow down and reflect and sometimes we …
Forest Pool, by Frances and Mary Allen If you know the Chronicles of Narnia at all, you will of course know about the world between worlds. In C.S. Lewis’ series, characters must travel to a bizarre middle world between the one they live in and the one they might travel too. This world is a comfortable purgatory, an emerald green forest full of pools into which one jumps to travel between worlds. It’s a lovely place to stay and there is always a danger that the enchantment of that place will leave you there. I like this image because as …
I was saddened to learn today that Bernie Whiteford – Wap-Pisk-Ki-Kakiw Isqueo (White Raven Woman) – passed away on April 28. Her obituary at RedwayBC mentions a short illness. Bernie was a strong advocate for the rights of Aboriginal women in BC and was the executive director of the Helping Spirit Lodge Society.. Helping Spirit Lodge is an organization on the front lines of stopping violence and creating healthy families and communities. It is an important part of the Vancouver Aboriginal community and Bernie was a key voice in that community. I knew her from various community events I facilitated …
Ther were a few references on the web to the re-discovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker last month, but today I cam across this reference (scroll down a little) quoted by Joy Harjo, as her cousin wrote about the meaning of the birds to the Muskogee people: The honorable ivory-billed woodpecker has returned from the dead and is living in a wildlife refuge in the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas. It seemed to disappear in 1944 and was long presumed extinct. This spirit bird’s reappearance 60 years later reinforces a wise instruction by Native elders: ”Never give up on anyone.” That …
Here’s another call out to the global water cooler… I live in a small community, on an island with about 4000 other people. Folks know each other pretty well and the community is fairly well connected to itself. We have to deal with a number of issues related to development, including impacts on limited water resources, encroachments on wild areas, pollution and impacts from cars and other transportation issues such as ferry marshalling and public transit. We are also in the middle of a long term process to develop vision and planning for the island as a whole and the …