There is an omlet in this weeks batch of feed food:
Forwarded to me by my colleague Ray Gordezky, with whom I am part of a team looking convening people around polar bears in Northern Labrador and Quebec.
The Moon Speaks of Polar Bears
Hailey Leithauser
Some things are better defined
by what they are not,
as when snow heaping the world
replaces the world, becoming
no longer a rooftop, no longer a narrow
gravel shoreline or road,
even in times, in places,
no longer the black breathing
of the sea.
In this way the polar bear
stealing her difficult, beautiful life
from the ridges
and drifts, the colorless
plateau around her,
teaches her young to hunt
by sliding her belly
flat along the frozen light,
blunting her cloudlike
respiration, covering
with one comic paw
the dark flesh of her nose,
so well suited to her artifice
that the oily
seals collecting the ice
are pulled by an intimate
landscape, soundless
and ravenous and white.
Hosting an Open Space gathering in Kamloops today with about 40 people who work hard around issues of child and youth health. We are exploring ways to connect differently and do our work at the next level. The conversations have started and the topics are rich. I thought I would put the list here and see if any of you readers in blog land have resources to offer that we can forward to the folks meeting here today. And if you are in Kamloops and do this work, come on up to Thompson Rivers University and join the conversation.
Session 1
11:00 – 12:15
- How to develop intergenerational programming (ie seniors and youth)
- How do we engage children who come from families dealing with addictions?
- How can we drastically improve reading instruction in your child’s school? These top 5 items from research can be supported in a half-hour daily routine in the classroom.
- How do we start the process to develop a children’s charter in Kamloops?
- What opportunities are out there to use youth wilderness programs to engage youth in meaningful community development?
- How do we better connect youth/schools to the local food system? For example: engaging shcools to start gardnes or increasing local food sold in schools?
- How to create a culture to encourage families at perinatal stage to have access to services and supports which are integrated with traditional service providers?
Session 2
12:15-1:45
- Wow! Statistics!
- I would like to better understand our needs and gaps so that I can better support the community.
- How do we develop and sustain our networks? What are the possibilities of our networks?
- How to create service for parents with disabilities?
- How can we reduce unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases in sexually active youth?
Session 3
1:45-3:00
- How to develop fitness/physical literacy program for 2.5 to 5 year olds?
- How to keep children and youth engagement authentic, original and fresh so they have the agenda and don’t get bored?
- How do we better connect school and community centres and programs for collaborative work?
- How do we reduce stigma attached to social programs to include more children youth and family?
- Teachers and youth workers as gardners, hiking guides and community development professionals.
- How do we collectively support and empower parents in our communities to recognize that they have such a crucial role?
My friend Dustin Rivers is an inspiration. He’s an autodidact, an artist, a catalyst in his community. I’ve known him for about six years, since he was a young teenager. He has always had a remarkable presence and a strong voice and a deep commitment to the thriving resiliance of Skwxwu7mesh culture and language. Over the years he has been developing a number of his skills, including hosting skills so that he could lead community development efforts.
He recently hooked up with Evan and Willem from Where Are Your Keys? a language fluency game that builds skills using sign language and simple phrases. It’s a powerful learning game, and Dustin saw immediate applications for the Skwxwu7mesh language and he decided to host Evan and Willem and begin the process of waking up the native and ancient language of the territory in which I live.
Here are some links to posts and videos of Dustin at work with friends and family in his community:
For International Women’s Day this year, Lianne Raymond published a labour of love. What is Dying to be Born is a collection of short pieces of writing and small pieces of art from 30 women. Each little piece is a reflection on a theme, like goodness and compassion and renewal. My favourite piece I think is the one from Danielle LaPorte on the theme of “Genius Heart.” In it she offers a little prose poem that includes these lines:
Thee beauty of our DNA is dying to be born: an acceptance of the order of chaos; the reverence of High Priestesses in the grocery store; the force of incredibly tender men; the critical necessity of senses that transcend technology.
We can speed the dying (it can hurt.) Karate-chop greed. Puncture silicon. Carve up pretense and principles too small for how big we really are. Let the heart make the way — she will anyhow, by plow or by whisper, by angst or by grace.
That is just a very touching piece of writing, and it gives me some thought for a lyric. In fact this collection is a whole trove of inspirations for songs I haven’t yet written, and in the spirit of Lianne’s offering, who was in turn inspired by Toni Morrison’s call to write the book you want to read, I may well take some of these lines for songs that say what I have been trying to say for a while in my music.
The book is free, and it is lovely. It looks great on the page and the writing is a diverse collection. Each of the contributors is linked through to their site or to other places you can find out more about them. But importantly, Lianne and her co-conspirators have made this a gift to all, as so much of women’s wisdom is offered to those that pause long enough to ask for it.
So go download the book and post the quote or image on your blog that most grabs you from the collection. I’m officially starting an internet meme here :-).
Thanks again Lianne.
