A Poet’s Nanaimo
The Listening Path
Julia Cameron has written a new book, The Listening Path: The Creative Art of Attention (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2021), which she describes as a 6-week Artist’s Way Program. Do you remember reading The Artist’s Way which helped many of us enter a “creative recovery”...
Memories of the Mother Goddess
Today, as I begin to write this post, is the anniversary of my mother’s death. She died in palliative care at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto on February 18, 1995 at the age of 67. Mum was named Wilhelmina by her parents Mary Ann (Mayme) and Frank Dobberman in...
The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning
I’ve read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (Ten Speed Press, 2014) and like her approach to keeping what sparks joy. I know we’re meant to do that with our book collections as well as our clothing and other belongings but I haven’t removed every...
Notebooks to Remember and to Let Go
I wonder if anyone reads this blog? (I think people do, they just don't always leave comments!) A blog is like a notebook or journal but in a public form unlike the many notebooks I’ve kept through the years that no one else sees. The writing is different here as...
The Circle is Open
“Nothing’s changed. Everything is different,” said Linda, Sarah’s hair stylist when she came to cut Sarah’s hair in our courtyard garden one day when the weather was milder. She meant things continued to be different and in that way nothing had changed. (Or it could...
2020 In Review – Books
When I saw on Facebook that my poet, writer and writing mentor friend Susan Olding keeps a running list of books she’s read, I figured I could admit that I do the same. She categorized her 2020 reading list and has been posting the lists separately. Thank you for the...