Heather Conn Blogs

“Not success. Not growth. Not happiness. The cradle of your love of life is death.”

—  Stephen Jenkinson

 

Can you read that phrase without wincing or wondering what it means? It challenges many beliefs and philosophies upheld in popular western culture.

 

In the hospice volunteer training that I’m currently taking, we received a handout with a list of statements about grief. The two comments that most tugged at me were “Grief is a way of knowing. It is not an affliction” and “The willingness to suffer out loud is a gift.”

 

That last one especially confronts most tenets of western society: Don’t cry.  Get over it and move on. Don’t be sad, and so on. How many of us truly have the courage to let grief envelop us and receive any gifts that it might share?

 

That is what we’re slowly learning to do as hospice volunteers. Stephen Jenkinson, the star of the National Film Board’s Griefwalker, is head of palliative care counselling at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital. He offers the notion of grief as revolution:

 

“What if grief is a skill, in the same way that love is a skill, something that must be learned and cultivated and taught? What if grief is the natural order of things, a way of loving life anyway?

 

“Though addicted to security, comfort and managing uncertainty, our culture could learn to honour, teach and live grief as a skill, as vital to our personal, community and spiritual life as the skill of loving. In a time like ours, grieving is a subversive act.”

 

I love that approach. Rather than face grief with shame, apology, and embarrassment, we could embrace it like a much-loved friend, as cherished as life itself.

 

An excellent book of inspiration in this area, which we’re using in our training, is Alan Wolfelt’s The Handbook for Companioning the Mourner (Companion Press, Colorado, 2009). Wolfelt, a doctor who serves as director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins, Colorado, says: “Surrendering to the unknowable wilderness of grief is a courageous choice, an act of faith, a trust in God and in oneself.”

 

Decades ago, amidst tremendous trauma, I faced my own grief in its deepest and most despairing form. That experience, which lasted for months, enabled me to open and heal a part of myself that might otherwise have stayed frustrated and suppressed for years. As a result, I can now offer greater empathy and compassion to others who are grieving.

 

As a new hospice volunteer, I hope that I will be able to provide a loving and understanding presence for someone else to feel safe and trusting enough to open to raw, death-related sorrow. This is true soul work that heals us all.

My training is through the Sunshine Coast Hospice Society in Davis Bay, BC. If you’d like to volunteer at this centre, call 604-740-0475 or email coasthospice@gmail.com.

When I bought a SmartKlean washing ball on Earth Day in Roberts Creek, I’ll admit to some skepticism. Was this strange, bright-green ball, full of ceramic pellets and a double magnet, truly going to clean my laundry?

Friendly local vendor Neale Smith explained the impact of the various pellets, from chlorine removal to “the far infrared effect.” The latter breaks down the water’s hydrogen molecules, which causes more molecular motions. Negative ions then weaken the water’s “surface tension” so that dirt can be removed more easily. Apparently, it’s all about friction.

And those two magnets, stuck together? They are supposed to generate electrical charged particles that cling to dirt and bacteria, which then disappear with the water outflow.

It all sounded impressive, albeit dubious. My husband was even more skeptical than me. But I liked the idea of not polluting water or using chemical-laden detergents. And one small washing ball was supposed to last for 365 wash loads. That would save on a lot of detergent.

I bought the ball. Like the directions said, I threw it into the washing machine full of clothes, ensuring that there was enough room for it to bounce around. When the laundry was done, it looked great. Better still, the wash had not left white streaks on the clothes, like detergents can.

Even my husband was impressed. We’ve since done several more washes and all have turned out really well.

I’m delighted to be using a new product that delivers what it promises: “practical, economical, ecological.” There’s one more bonus: you don’t need a rinse cycle because there are no chemicals to rinse out.

We need more balls, so to speak. Let’s get these out in popular use and put laundry detergents and fabric softeners out of business.

Besides, in a pinch, you can always use one as a percussion instrument.

The SmartKlean washing ball is available at IGA and through It’s About Time Eco Product Distributors. The initial $50 outlay is high, but it’s worth it when you consider how many tubs or boxes of laundry detergent it will save you in a year or more.

 

A woman riding English saddle on a sleek, tall horse stops on a forest path and waits for our group of about 20 to enter the woods before she proceeds. We’re making her horse nervous. Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) has invited us here, into the Day Road forest in Roberts Creek, B.C., to see what could soon be gone due to logging.

 

This heavily used recreational area, part of Island Timberlands’ (IT) private forest, is the northern section of a 120-hectare (300-parcel) parcel already logged by IT. Part of district lot 2674, it is an important wildlife corridor, containing patches of old forest, a network of high-value trails and a gorgeous waterfall. I am amazed at how serene and pristine the forest entrance and the woods itself look and feel, only a few kilometres north of Highway 101.

Some might argue that since this is private land, Island Timberlands has a right to do what it wants with this piece of forest. But Elphinstone Logging Focus sees it as part of a community legacy, an opportunity for sustainable, rather than clearcut logging. This informal conservation group is calling on Island Timberlands to donate this parcel to the Crown, to be added to an expanded Mount Elphinstone Provincial Park.

 

“You can see in one section where it was selectively logged in the early nineties,” says ELF president Ross Muirhead. “There’s a lush underground of salal, the hydrology is controlled. It looks like a European eco-forest.”

Muirhead, who has spent years lobbying passionately to stop clearcut logging on Mount Elphinstone, emphasizes that if IT chooses to log in the Day Road forest, he would like to see the parcel, as a compromise,  selectively logged, leaving old-growth timber, and only the trees that are ready for harvesting taken. He emphasizes that the Roberts Creek Official Community Plan calls for selective logging, but no clearcuts.

Island Timberlands’ plans to clearcut the Day Road forest contravene a community agreement made with MacMillan Bloedel, who previously held the timber licence to this parcel, says Muirhead. Following a roadblock in March 1997, MacMillan Bloedel agreed to a selective harvesting plan. Logging was done off the main trail network so that the forest maintained a balance between cut areas and intact forest.

We stop and admire a tall red cedar, which has a series of high scrape marks caused by cougar claws. It’s the animals’ marking tree, the same one used repeatedly.

 

With the waterfall as their backdrop, a visiting couple poses for a photo on a high point on the steep trail. We discover that they were married in this exact spot roughly a year ago; they have returned, from off-coast, to revisit the beauty. An activist woman in our group tears up when recounting how much this forest means to people; she sees this couple’s anniversary gesture as a poignant symbol of that.

Our group ends up at the “knitted trees” (I had thought it meant intertwined tree trunks), where community members have decorated trees with colourful yarn-bombing. (For more on yarn-bombing and its origins, see my archived blog post “Woolly public art: better than tea-cosies” I decide that I like this form of human demarcation, admittedly quirky and funky, a lot more than clearcut destruction.

 

                                                                                           — Donna McMahon photo

About 30 energetic voices at last night’s Green Drinks event in Roberts Creek, BC created an audible – and symbolic — buzz and hum of successful community cross-pollination.

 

Locals of many generations packed into The Gumboot Café for the first Green Drinks event on the Coast in several years. This eco-gathering, co-hosted by Deer Crossing The Art Farm and One Straw Society, created much passionate discussion and a long list of suggestions for future topics and presentations. These ranged from the more obscure (palm-forest logging and destruction caused by a demand for labels made of palm oil) to a request for short, verbal reviews of “green” books.

 

Besides the shared animated talk, Art Farm resident and puppeteer Sandy Buck explained in an informal presentation how inspired she felt by creative collaboration in public spaces, community-based activism, and the power of a group to create change. She praised the book series A Community Lover’s Guide to the Galaxy. As only one global example, A Community’s Lover’s Guide to Rotterdam offers initiatives for creating communities and stronger bonds through “empty spaces, shops,  kids, food, greenery, sand, books, stories, art, and symbols in new and old ways.”

 

As social scientist Duane Elgin says in Voluntary Simplicity: “Who we are, as a society, is the synergistic accumulation of who we are as individuals . . .Small changes that seem insignificant in isolation can be great contributions when they are simultaneously undertaken by many others.”

 

Attendees ranged from local politicos Donna Shugar, Sunshine Coast Regional District director, Lorne Lewis, and Lee Ann Johnson to Food Action Network reps; Bernard, the owner of a bio-diesel vehicle; author David Roche; Scott Avery of Huckleberry Vardo Designs, who builds and advocates for low-impact small living spaces; and “green” authors Christina Symons and John Gillespie.

 

During the event, I thought of how pleased the late Robin Wheeler, founder of One Straw Society, would have been to see such group enthusiasm, one of the many legacies of her community work and dedication. Thank you, Art Farm, and One Straw for re-launching Green Drinks on the Sunshine Coast. I’ve attended Green Drinks in Vancouver over several years and have always met intriguing and inspirational people. I hope that this event will become a focal point for progressive change and action on the Coast.

Green Drinks on the Sunshine Coast will be held on the last Thursday of every month, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., at the Gumboot Cafe. You can become a friend on FaceBook.

To find out more about the origin of Green Drinks and related events around the world, see Green Drinks.

A few days ago, my husband heard some loud gnawing behind our stove. He said that it sounded like something was trying to chew its way into the house from outside. We suspected a rat.

 

My hubby pulled the stove away from the wall and shone his flashlight down to the floor. There was no hole and no rat. Only a tiny mouse with shiny black eyes and big ears stared up at him, then resumed chewing on a large hunk of discarded cheese. My husband thought it looked adorable.

 

The cheese is now gone. The mouse isn’t.

 

I went to Canadian Tire and bought a product called Mouse Inn, which ensures “a gentle catch.” On the box, it shows a smiling mouse lounging in an easy chair, with feet up on a stool and a lamp in the corner. I liked this image; it’s better than seeing a mouse convulsing under the bar of a mousetrap before it dies.

 

I promote the notion of a peaceful death – or preferably, no death at all. The Mouse Inn, a small, rectangular plastic compartment with a one-way trap door, comes with some valerian pills, an herbal sedative that is supposed to put the mouse to sleep. One pill, one dozing mouse, which you can then relocate.

 

We tried it. It didn’t work.

 

The mouse got into our bottom shelf of seedlings indoors, devouring sweet pea seeds in a dozen peat disks. My husband considered this a travesty. This meant war on mice. . . well, maybe just a minor skirmish.

 

He has now baited the Mouse Inn with not only a valerian pill, but a giant piece of Black Diamond yellow cheddar. I will keep you posted . . . The two stray cats we’ve been feeding outdoors have not yet caught the little critter. Hopefully, we won’t have to resort to the extreme methods demonstrated by Christopher Walken and Nathan Lane in the 1997 movie Mousehunt.

 

In other mouse news, while in a dollar store recently on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, BC, I saw a mouse scurry across the floor in front of me, then make a sharp turn down one of the aisles. It was going so fast that it lost traction on the linoleum floor and skidded, just like in a cartoon. I laughed to myself, grateful that the two young boys near me hadn’t seen it.

An afterthought: I lived in the country for more than 10 years before having a mouse indoors. I find that ironic since almost every place I lived in Vancouver over a 30-year-period had mice. I have lots of mice stories. Maybe I’ll make this a series.

Got a mouse story? Why not share it here?

 

 

 

 

 

This past weekend, Global TV highlighted Roberts Creek on its weekly Saturday morning news feature Small Town BC. The station shared photos sent in by Creekers, showcasing some of what makes our community such a glorious place to live: the beach at sunset; the mandala and pier; the Gumboot Café; the Hall; the Roberts Creek Daze parade; and creative ingenuity, like the person who filled a local pothole with wood chips, daffodils, and other flowers.

 

Yet, we don’t need to see the Creek celebrated on television to know what a special place this is – all you have to do is live here. A friend who’s writing a feature on Roberts Creek for a newspaper in Germany told me this morning: “Doing this article has reinforced all the more to me what a great place this is.”

 

For me, the attraction of our community lies in its outstanding beauty and social/cultural values: tolerance; honouring the earth with organic gardens and markets and food security; private and public creativity; a laid-back lifestyle; independence and self-sufficiency; political and environmental activism; and the talent and expertise of our residents.

 

We need to protect these values to prevent the Creek from becoming an over-crowded, over-extended place without sufficient infrastructure and agricultural land to maintain a high quality of life for its current and future residents. That’s why I was glad to attend the recent open house regarding the Roberts Creek Official Community Plan (OCP) review. (An OCP, drafted by volunteer residents, uses a long-term view to outline goals and policies for the community, to guide decisions on planning and land-use management.)

 

The Sunshine Coast Regional District invited local residents to provide feedback on various aspects of the OCP vision, including transportation, the town core, density, and agricultural land. Many people shared passionate comments, criticisms, and suggestions at the microphone while others wrote feedback on large sheets at a series of display tables.

 

Such public process is a vital part of community participation, democracy, and collaborative decision-making. If you don’t share your views with those who have the power to effect change, then don’t complain if and when your vision never happens. Act now. Be part of the future you want to create.

 

Send your comments to David Rafael, Senior Planner at the Sunshine Coast Regional District: 604-885-6804, ext. 4 or david.rafael@scrd.ca.

I never thought that I’d write a post that promotes Lady Gaga, but I love the dance that Sunshine Coast elementary students did this week to her song Born This Way. (Click here to see it on YouTube.) What a tremendous way for kids to learn self-acceptance and to celebrate Anti-bullying Day!

 

More than a hundred children from Roberts Creek Elementary, Churchill and David Lloyd George schools gathered at the mandala at Roberts Creek pier in a choreographed dance, wearing T-shirts that read “ACCEPTANCE Born This Way.”

 

With the youngest kids in front, the group giggled and gyrated, arms skyward and hips jiggling, to lyrics like

 

Don’t hide yourself in regret

Just love yourself and you’re set . . .

 

In the religion of the insecure

I must be myself, respect my youth . . .

 

Whether you’re broke or evergreen

You’re black, white, beige, chola descent

You’re Lebanese, You’re orient

Whether life’s disabilities

Left you outcast, bullied or teased

Rejoice and love yourself today

’Cause baby you were born this way

Lesbian, transgendered life

I’m on the right track baby

I was born to survive

 

Whether you think Lady Gaga is an appropriate role model or not, you can’t argue the overwhelming impact that today’s popular culture has on young minds. This song and its message will reach far more children than any self-help book or class on self-esteem. Yet every effort, big or small, that gives kids the sense that they’re lovable and worthy just the way they are is invaluable.

 

Where has childhood gone in today’s world? Bullied kids, gay or straight, are committing suicide. Mothers are pushing their tots to compete as mini-sexpots in so-called beauty and talent pageants. Advertising is sexualizing young girls as more and more get anorexia at a younger age and struggle with a poor sense of body image. Increasingly, children must face their self-esteem issues on their own, as their parents bow to the influences of sex-sells media, the image-is-everything credo, and neoconservative, traditional values that make being gay or “different” an abomination.

 

At the extreme, we face the exploitation of children across the globe, including in North America, as sex and domestic slaves, child brides, and prostitutes. Whether they’re waving weapons, ordered to kill or maim their loved ones to prove their loyalty to sadistic ethnic and rebel causes, or facing death and torture as helpless pawns in the political wars of adult greed and power, children need the support of healthy and courageous adults who will help them thrive and survive, not suffer and die. They need to feel valued and loved, as we all do. (Groups such as Free the Children and Me to We are serving a vital role of support in this area across the globe. I’m not going to get into the recent Invisible Children debate.)

 

Children around the world are dying without access to basic medical care. Here in B.C., with the highest child poverty rate in Canada, we have kids going hungry and getting sick in families who can’t afford specialized medical or dental care. We have babies born with AIDS and fetal alcohol syndrome. How much do we really value children in the West?

 

Originally, I was going to write this week about International Women’s Day and the attempt by neocon yahoos like Rush Limbaugh and U.S. Republican candidates like Rick Santorum to keep women in domestic slave status. Their efforts to thwart women’s self-determination regarding birth control, reproductive rights, family and career roles are truly appalling. How far have we truly come in a half-century, since feminism gained a popular voice in the late 1960s?

 

Then I realized that the power and rights of women and children are deeply interconnected. As long as patriarchal values and controls determine laws and social customs at all levels, from the family to the world, the rights of women and children will remain devalued. Heck, it’s been 83 years since women were legally declared people in Canada. How long will it take before they have true equality with men, and most adults recognize children as our future, worthy in their own right? The young and the female have stayed invisible and silent for too long.

 

I’m glad that in Roberts Creek this week, at least, educators and parents gave children a public voice.

 

 

One of the photos from my Pecha Kucha presentation, taken of Tibetans  protesting the torch relay in San Francisco for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Fun with mouldy food. Road kill. Keeping communities creative. These three topics hardly seem to share a theme, yet they all came together last month in a wonderful visual presentation in Gibsons, BC.

 

As part of the town’s first Pecha Kucha night, nine Sunshine Coast residents each shared about six minutes of photos and storytelling on any subject of their choice. The rules were simple: 20 images, 20 seconds on each. This format, which draws its name from the Anglicized version of the Japanese term for “chit-chat,” started in Tokyo in 2003.

 

The Pecha Kucha framework began as a dynamic way for designers and architects to share their work in public without droning on about every miniscule detail; the images are programmed to switch automatically every 20 seconds, beyond the control of the speakers. Today, hundreds of cities around the world have hosted Pecha Kucha nights, drawing on the collective creativity and talent of their communities.

 

The Gibsons event made for a delightful evening of storytelling, from wry irreverency to poignant homage. Gibsons councillor Lee Ann Johnson started off with Creating Community Glue, followed by artist Junco Jan, who gave a heartfelt tribute to her recently deceased mother. Photographer Alan Sirulnikoff shared images as symbols of life and death while puppeteer Sandy Buck introduced her creations under the title Can Puppets Change the World? Photographer Barry Haynes showed local beauty shots of lesser-known getaways, taken from land and water, and had the audience guess the location of each. Coast Reporter arts reviewer Jan DeGrass explained her love of dance while Lou Guest gave comic close-ups of mouldy food in her piece, The Hairy Eyeball.

 

I was amazed to discover a talented, young glass artist, Robert Studer, who lives in my own community of Roberts Creek. I had never even heard of him before, even though he just lives across the highway and up the hill from me. He presented some of the large-format glass installations he’s done in public spaces and private homes, which resembled wavy lines of multi-coloured sky and giant other-worldly spheres. Incredible!

 

As a presenter, I was surprised at how nervous I was beforehand, because I usually enjoy public speaking and feel at ease with it. But the thought of this twenty-second time frame had me unnerved. Originally, I was going to do the whole thing ad lib, but decided to prepare a text in case I blanked out. In the end, I half read and half ad-libbed.

 

The packed house at The Arts Building was indeed appreciative, whistling and hollering after their favourites. Emcee Wendy Crumpler, who organized the event and spent many hours preparing the presentations on computer, created a warm, welcoming, and upbeat atmosphere. Much-appreciated thanks to her, all participants, and the audience. This made a great addition to the local arts scene.

 

(My evening’s contribution, Three Protests: Free Speech on the Street, can be viewed on YouTube.)

 

 

 

                                                                            — iPhone photos by Heather Conn

During this week’s thundering high winds, I came across a scary sight on Lower Road in Roberts Creek, just east of Joe Road. A tree about a foot in diameter had snapped off, just missing a car and driver. The front of the car ended up on top of the fallen portion of the tree.

A man at the scene said that if the driver had been only six feet farther ahead, she could easily have been killed. She was apparently okay, but understandably shaken up. The accident had occurred only 15 minutes before my arrival, by car, on the scene. Gulp.

This incident was a sobering reminder of how easily life can disappear or change monumentally in an instant. Insurance wise, I guess this would fall under “an act of God.” Some might call the driver who survived extremely lucky. Others could call it fate. Yet, on another level, any choice we make — how fast to drive, where to sit on a plane or train, whether to wear a seat belt, whether to use a hand-held device while driving — can decide whether we live or die.

I am indeed grateful that the driver was safe and that her car emerged with little damage. Only a few days before, I had thought that my husband was overreacting when he parked our car a fair distance away from tall trees that were bending dramatically in the forceful winds. He had assumed that they might snap off. Now I will give his concerns more credence.

Are you on the side of the 1% or the 99%?

“We need intelligent leaders with a sense of their own limits, experienced people whose lives have taught them caution. We still need the best and brightest, but we need them to have somehow learned humility along the way.”  — Ross Douthat, The New York Times   

 

As we approach upcoming municipal elections across B.C., within the larger context of the global Occupy movement, I urge all voters on the Sunshine Coast to consider:

 

• Who will best honour public (community) interests, input, and involvement in local decision-making, rather than the private interests of developers and logging companies?

 

• Who is willing to create or support new, sustainable business models that will protect our environment and reflect the long-term interests of the Sunshine Coast as a whole, rather than make localized choices for short-term gain?

 

The group Sunshine Coast Citizens for Responsible Development recently stated:

 

“We support responsible smart development, which includes involving the greater community in decisions affecting us all. Your vote may decide whether your town becomes a free-for-all for developers or whether you will be allowed to participate in what happens in your town and your ability to freely speak about it.

 

“It is important that we have elected officials who are working for the people and not looking at ways to silence them. Please get out and vote this time around and encourage others to do so as well. There is a lot at stake and once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

 

I support this position. At the world level, it is clear that “the people” (99%) are tired of having their voices, interests, and needs ignored or minimized. Any election is a powerful time to change this dynamic. In our local scene, we can vote for someone who will support collaborative, transparent government and not choose profits over people.

 

In journalism, we’re taught: “Follow the money.” What private organizations or individuals are funding a certain election campaign and why? Whose interests are some candidates truly representing? Follow alliances, public and private, and see where they lead.

 

As a Roberts Creek resident, I support incumbent Donna Shugar as our representative from Area D. Donna is great at bringing together community members with conflicting interests, creating an open and respectful public forum to air views, and responding with a decision that truly reflects the majority viewpoint. (As Occupy movement members like to say: “This is what democracy looks like.”) She has an excellent track record and I like what she stands for:

 

• An inclusive community where all our citizens enjoy a healthy environment and economic dignity
• Ensuring the opportunities of future generations are not compromised by our actions today
• Balancing the priorities of environmental responsibility, economic resilience, health and social well-being, cultural vitality
• Dialogue, negotiation, and consensus-building
• An economy built on small local enterprise.

 

I think it’s appalling – and telling — that at this week’s Green Issues Forum in Gibsons, hosted by the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association, candidates such as Wayne Rowe (running for Gibsons mayor) and Barb Hague (Area D) did not appear. If these people can’t be bothered to show up to participate in public dialogue about important local environmental issues, from logging on Mount Elphinstone and independent power projects to the Chapman Creek watershed, why on earth would they care what people think if they were elected?

 

I urge everyone on the Sunshine Coast to vote on November 19 for those who represent our version of the 99%, not the 1%. My anarchic heart recognizes the huge limitations that our regional district faces when dealing with the Ministry of Forests and other larger government bodies, but I still fundamentally believe in an individual’s democratic power, and right, to vote. People in other countries are dying to gain this right. Let’s not squander ours.