The New Lamps
In late June we installed some new hanging lights.
See them here:
Back in Town “On Leave”
I’m back in Vancouver briefly, feeling like I’m “on leave” from the front lines – visiting my mum in Foothills Hospital. I’ll be going there again this weekend and am just posting a few videos I did during breaks.
Strathearn Mural: “Free Rain” in Edmonton
James is working on this mural for a wall in Edmonton next week, with an opening event on the 19th. Here’s the invitation, and if you happen to be in Edmonton, please come by.
If you follow the link to the site for the project, you can see a slideshow of the work so far.
Free Rain
A 16’ x 16’ public mural
by Vancouver artist James K-M
Opening Sunday, July 19, 2009
3 – 5 PM
at 9206 95th Avenue (west wall)
Edmonton, Alberta
For more information call Joe Clare at 780-913-5447
RSVP at project web site: http://strathearnmural.net
About the artist:
James K-M lives in Vancouver, B.C. and has exhibited internationally since 1978.
His most recent exhibition of paintings was at the Simon Fraser University Teck Gallery in 2008
His next exhibition will be in Camagüey, Cuba in December 2009. Artist web site is at http://jameskm.wordpress.com
“Out of extremely objective systemization comes extreme subjectivity”
Bill Jeffries, SFU Gallery Curator
A public mural commissioned by Joe Clare
Openhearted
16.
Empty your mind of everything.
Let the mind rest at peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
The way of nature is unchanging.
Knowing constancy is insight.
Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.
Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
Being openhearted, you will act royally.
Being royal, you will attain the divine.
Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.
Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
And though the body dies, the Tao will not pass away.
- Tao Te Ching
Learning Life Lessons from the Labyrinth
While in Calgary visiting my mum in hospital, I discovered a finger labyrinth in the Foothills Hospital chapel. It was really a lesson in life to make use of this incredible meditation tool. Their version was in wood, and I could stand and trace the pathways with my finger. Don’t go too fast or you miss the turn. Just when you think you have it made, there is a sudden change, and you have to go with it. All this mirrored the ups and downs of mum’s good days and bad days, and so helped my linear logical mind to accept that these things have their own path and method.
Direct is not the way of the heart. I’m so grateful to have found this labyrinth at that time, and I really recommend that anyone who is looking for a “good work” to do: please donate a finger labyrinth to your local hospital chapel. It is a teaching beyond words.
Fooling around
My name from Spell with Flickr – try it yourself!
For Mum
I’m just back after being with my mum who is in Foothills Hospital in Calgary. Mum grew up in Canmore, Alberta, and we had a sweet moment talking with my brother about the alpine flowers she remembers.
We also talked about St. Michael’s Anglican Church, where her family donated some stained glass windows in memory of their father, E.A.Colebrook, who had managed the mine store for many years.
Here’s where it is. View Larger Map Zoom out to see the mountain location.
And the flowers:
-
- Tiger Lilies
-
- Violets
-
- Strawberry flowers
-
- Wild Strawberries
-
- Indian Paintbrush
-
- Shooting Stars
-
- Ladyslipper
-
- St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Canmore
I’ll be blogging more about this hospital visit, and the opening of the family memory banks in future posts.
For the tea report on this time in Calgary, go to my tea blog, Cha-Cha-Cha, and the posts:
Hospital Tea – all about tea at the hospital
Exquisite: Naked Leaf – video of a lovely owner-operated tea shop
Oolong Tea House in Calgary – a place near the hospital where I went once in a while for tea and wireless, meeting James on iChat!
Roll Those Pennies, Hang Those Clothes
I felt like we were in the depression era as we sat at the kitchen table finally rolling the pennies that we’d accumulated over the years. Wow! $89! (including some nickels and dimes.)
It was a glimpse into the retro-future, as we planned how to grow food upstairs on the roof, and rolled pennies after a meal of pea soup (with added tofu). What really tipped me into feeling we were in the depression all over again was making biscuits to go with the soup. Somehow my actions were resonant with the actions of women in the 1930s, finding ways to feed their families with basic ingredients. For us, today, this is only a pastime, but we do find ourselves tightening the belt just a little. And not from necessity but by choice, as we find ourselves naturally retrieving ways of life that had been wiped out by our electrical convenience-based society.
Is there any way I can hang clothes to dry outside, while living in a strata apartment?
Do I really need to use the dryer?
Visiting friends in Comox I saw they used the clothesline all the time. Not as a retro pastime but for real. Returning to the clothesline, with clothes pegs, and the bright scent of clothes dried in the sun feels good and sustainable to me. Now to find a way that won’t make neighbours feel we are slumming up their scene. How can clothes on a line in the city be freshly perceived as positive and forward-thinking? Is there such a thing as a trendy Gastown upscale designer clothesline? Over to you, Inform. (Now that I think of it, there must be wonderful European outdoor clothes drying gear somewhere.)
Here’s one UK product that looks useful, even if it’s not ultra-designed – a rain cover for a standard umbrella dryer (one of many such devices).
Under New Management
A friend once described the changes she had gone through as being “under new management” – just like the restaurant that closes for a few days, then re-opens with new red checked tablecloths and a different menu. Well, it now happened to me. I’m under new management, partly due to being away for a time. Funny how taking a step back can actually be a step forward, in the scheme of things. 
New Management ideas are percolating through my mind and I’ll share a few of them here in the next few blog postings. I’ve been involved in so many different blogs and activities that I’ve been a mite neglectful of this one blog that is mine and mine alone. New management may migrate this blog over to self-hosting. I can’t help but notice that the number of blogs hosted by wordpress.com seem to be diminishing – where are they all going to? Is there a purge I’m not aware of, or is the word that blogging is dead filtering through even those of us who really do care about it. I recall when I first began and the number of blogs that wordpress.com hosted was around 25000 or so. I was, in that sense, a late adopter. Watching the numbers rise over time, I couldn’t help but feel that this was an ongoing surging wave. But like so many things in this current economy, there are now changes even in the blogosphere.
We don’t know where we’re going with all this change in the economy, the climate, the blogosphere, or our own selves. All I can say is that I’m under new management, and I hope this restaurant is going to survive with its new decor, two-for-one coupons and a lot of wishing.
