Angels Amongst Us

Winter has come early this year.  Sudden snow and icy cold kind of jars you into another reality.  Suddenly, even though it is November, it felt like January and I got into January sorts of things like big coats, scarves, hats, mitts, warm boots, warming up the car, and driving in bad weather.  And in this space of altered reality last week, I had a series of encounters.

The first was at a strip mall in Orillia.  My partner and I had stopped to buy some food at Food Basics and were walking to Subway to get some lunch on our way to another event.  On the sidewalk between Food Basics and Subway sat a large man with his Malamute dog and a sign that read “Homeless”.  We passed by him and I heard him talking to the dog like she was his best friend.  We had a nice warm lunch and as we left the restaurant, I decided to go and put some money in the dog dish of coins beside the man and his dog.  As I got near them, I pulled out my wallet and took out a twenty dollar bill.  When the man saw it, he said, “Bless your heart.”  I handed it to him so it wouldn’t blow out of the bowl in the wind.

We began talking and he told me that he and his dog Mukwah were on a cross-Canada walk to bring awareness to the fact that pets can’t stay in homeless shelters.  He told me of his plan to walk to British Columbia and the route he was choosing so that the dog didn’t have to walk farther than twenty or thirty km per day.  He pulls a kind of trailer with their gear when they walk.  When we finished our conversation I shook his hand and he gave me a business card with his facebook and email address.  I checked out his facebook page later in the week and it was full of news of Mukwah’s health and their plans.

James and Muckwah in Orillia from their facebook page

Black-capped Chickadee

The next day, my partner and I were walking in the forest of the Wye Marsh and hand feeding chickadees which is one our great delights.  There was a busy little band of them landing, eating, fluttering and singing.  Suddenly a bird about double the size landed on my hand, grabbed a see and flew away in just a second or two.  My brain thought, "Wow, that was a really big chickadee."  It was black and white and grey with a black cap on its head.

White Breasted Nuthatch

 My partner interrupted this inner dialogue saying, "That's the White Breasted Nuthatch that I heard about.  It has been mimicking the chickadees."  The bird landed again and this time I could see it's long, strong beak, it's slender profile and could, yes, see that it was indeed a nuthatch. That got me thinking about how our brains try to make sense of what we see based on previous experiences.  What we think we "see" is not always what is there.  There's a lesson in that, I thought.  And sure enough, the lesson kept evolving throughout the week.

Three days later, I was working in Toronto and I had had a number of cancellations due to the ill health of some clients.  On one of these breaks I stepped out to buy a cup of tea.  At the bottom of the front steps was my neighbour.  This woman works from home and we occasionally chat on the front porch when I am tending my morning glories and she is having a smoke break.  She told me earlier this year that her husband had died and she is working her way through grief.  I always pet her large golden retriever who barks at me and then comes over for a pat.

This morning, she was standing on the sidewalk with her usual dog as well as a new one.  She waited for me to come down the stairs.  “This is my new therapy dog Eva,” she explained.  “She’s helping me with losing my husband,” she continued.  “I’ve named her Eva after my husband.  He was called Jean Yves.”  We talked about the breeds that were evident in this dog (Corgi, Golden Retreiver) that she has adopted from the Humane Society.  She proudly talked about her disposition and breed traits.  In opening her heart to this new dog, she is daring to love again, to share her love for her husband with a dog who needs a home.  “There’s nothing better than a dog to help with grief,” I said.   I know that when you live alone, these small conversations in the day can be like lifelines and so I took as long as she needed to acknowledge her courage and her new love.  “Well, we have to get to the park so Eva can run,” she eventually said and we parted ways.

Later in that same day, I had another break and headed out to get a gift card for my partner’s son and his family who just had a new baby on the weekend.  I got to the busy corner of Spadina and Dupont and there, precariously balanced on the edge of the sidewalk was an old woman with a walker.  It was very cold and she was bundled in a coat that seemed too big for her.   I watched her closely, concerned for her safety.  “Ooooh,” she called out.  “Do you have any coins?  I am trying to get twenty dollars together for my groceries.”  I pulled out my wallet and gave her the twenty dollars she needed.  “Ooooh, you’re an angel,” she exclaimed.  She was so tiny, I leaned over and gave her a gentle hug.  “It’s yours now,” I said, as I smiled and walked on.

The next evening, I was in Barrie, doing the deposit for my business.  I took out extra cash since I attend local artisan shows at this time of year to buy Christmas gifts for my family.  I like to support local people and get beautiful things for my loved ones.  I came out of the bank into the dark parking lot (even though it was only 5:30 pm) and a man approached me.  For some reason I was not afraid.  He said, “Could you help someone who has had the worst luck today?”  “I can,” I responded.  Reaching for a twenty dollar bill was becoming second nature suddenly.  I passed him the money.  “What happened?” I asked.  He told me that he had slept in the shelter downtown last night and someone took his pack with his insulin in it.  “I’m trying to get to Timmins,” he said, “but now I have to get some insulin.”  He thanked me for the money and I wished him good luck.  Then I got into my car and drove away.

I spend a fair amount of time with my ninety-one year old father in his senior’s home.  I help him with paying bills, going for walks, cutting his fingernails, getting him to medical appointments, buying him cookies and candy and the list goes on.  He gets a lot of help.  Some he pays for and some is provided by the Ministry of Health.  I was doing his dishes this week when I heard a voice calling in the hall.  The calling went on for a while and I finally opened my dad’s door and stepped out into the hall.  The woman who lives across the hall from my father was the one who was calling.  She couldn’t find the key for her room.  She was searching madly through her purse.. "Do you think they're in your room?" I asked.  "I don't know," she cried.  So, I went into her unit and looked on the counter top and then on her dresser.   There were the keys.  I brought them out and she was so relieved.  Since she is in a wheelchair, she asked me to lock the door and give her the keys.  I did so, touched her lightly on the shoulder and went back to my father.

My father has a chronically dry mouth because of all the medications that he is on.  He likes to suck hard candies to remedy this but now lacks the dexterity to get the plastic wrappers off.  I search stores for hard candies with no wrappers which are surprisingly hard to find. I have shared this story with some of my clients.  This week two clients brought me huge jars of hard candies that go on sale at Christmas time for my father.  He will love them.  How kind of them to join me in my search and bring him something that I was unable to find.

These encounters kept playing through my mind as a montage, as if they were connected.  I sensed there might be a message in there somewhere.  I help people for a living, so me helping them wasn’t out of character.  No, it wasn’t about that.  I live in one of the wealthiest provinces in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.  Yet our politicians tell a story of scarcity, that we can’t afford to help those who need help.  This feels untrue to me.  It's like seeing the giant chickadee.  It wasn't a chickadee at all!  In the face of government cuts, I can still act out of what feels true for me.  I can see the nuthatch for the nuthatch that it is.

Another thing I learned from these encounters, these teachers, is that if you need help, ask for it.  You are more likely to get it than if you never ask, even if it is hard candy (with no wrappers).  We are all connected and resources can move from one of us to another like atoms sharing moving electrons that create electricity.  When we share what we have, we are in that flow and what we need has the momentum to arrive.  Also, I learned that although I am no angel, I have the capacity to bring help when it is needed just like we believe angels do.  I always remember that quote from Hebrews that says strangers may be angels we don't recognize. Perhaps the people I shared with were angels in disguise.  Who knows?

What I do know is that I am not going to let politicians dictate that my story is one of scarcity.  I can tell and live a story of abundance.  There seems to be no shortage of ways to help people have a better day, to be the help that arrives just when it is needed.  There is enough to go around, there just isn’t enough for greed.  Well that is my story.

Birth of a Family

Birth of a Family (2017) is a touching feature-length documentary that I viewed at the Indigenous Film Festival at the Midland Cultural Centre last week.  Since I heard filmmaker Tasha Hubbard speak about this project a year or so ago, I have wanted to see it.

This film is not about a family reunion but a family union.  It follows the journey of four siblings who have never met each other before.  Separated from their young Dene single mother and each other during the infamous Sixties Scoop the four siblings grew up not knowing each other.  The oldest sibling Betty Ann works at a newspaper in Saskatoon and she spent decades finding their mother, and each sibling.  Betty Ann reconnected with their mother but she died before the other siblings were located.

The film begins at the Calgary airport where Betty Ann waits for one sibling after another to arrive.  Hubbard went and met with each one of them before they met each other so that they would know her when they all met and they could get on with what they had come to do.  She calls this "observational documentary filmmaking".  In other words, getting out of the way and let the story unfold naturally.

 This newly birthed family travels to Banff and spends some days doing things they have never done before, together.  They go onto a glacier, and the skywalk.   They spend time sharing photos about their lives and catch up on the 212 birthdays that they have missed since they are all in their fifties or sixties now.

Esther, Rosalie, Betty Ann and Ben in Banff

They talk honestly about their lives and grieve the time lost and then have one of many group hugs combined with bursts of laughter.  Although the years separated from their mother and each other cannot be recovered, they are grateful to have each other to share the grieving process with, as well as new adventures.

This newstory from Shaw Saskatoon will give you an idea about the film.

Betty Ann, Esther, Rosalie and Ben are all so open and generous with their experience.  I laughed, I cried, I felt the love they have for each other and I was amazed at the courage of these four adult siblings to move into this new adventure together even though it is scary and full of the unknown.

All four siblings were raised in non-Indigenous homes and as they begin to learn about their own heritage the issue of Indigenous children being raised away from their culture becomes fleshed out.  First Residential Schools, then the Sixties Scoop and now kids are still being taken away and put into foster care.  The Birth of a Family helps non-Indigenous people, to understand some of the impact of these policies which are still in effect.

Filmmaker Tasha Hubbard

Tasha Hubbard herself was taken from her parents when she was 3 months old during the Sixties Scoop and didn’t reunite with them until she was sixteen.  She has ten siblings she hadn’t met.  This helped Hubbard to connect with the family in the film. 

Check out the trailer here: 

And if you want to watch the full film, you can stream it on the National Film Board website here.  It is a story that needs to be told and heard.  It is part of the new story that we are all a part of.

Decolonizing Moments Emerge in Unlikely Places

The first snow of the season fell this weekend and the wind was too high to want to be outside, so we headed to town to a “Victorian Christmas” in the Recreation Centre.  I’m not sure what made it Victorian, but the hall was filled with vendors selling artwork, sweets and crafts that might become Christmas presents.  I walked along the aisles slowing down to look at the work of so many people until I came to a booth with a stuffed toy giraffe, African looking cards and bright hats.  The sign read “Home Free”. 

The woman at the booth explained to me that she was raising money for this group that helps to fund families in Uganda.  She went on to explain that the group tries to get children out of orphanages and back with their own family members who need financial help to raise the children or to foster families.  This woman, Linda, makes hats and sells them to raise money for Home-Free.  She had travelled to Uganda this past year and met many of the families and the women that Thrive Uganda which is a part of Home Free supports with micro loans. 

Linda explained to me that eight women here in Canada support five Ugandan women who are the staff of Home Free who are supporting roughly four thousand Ugandans.  So, of course I bought a hat – a bright multicoloured cotton hat for gardening.  How wonderful to be a part of this program funded by women, staffed by women, to help women take care of children.  I saw the irony in the fact that this “Victorian Christmas” sale that was somehow linked to Queen Victoria, Empress of so many colonized countries was where I met one woman, Linda, who was seeking to undo some of the harm that was done by the colonizers.  It seemed an odd place to have a Decolonizing experience or maybe it wasn’t.

The next day, there was more snow on the ground, but the wind had died down and the sun was peeking out.  Suddenly, the world looked bright and new and much friendlier than the previous day.  We headed back to town to the Midland Farmer’s Market at the Huronia Museum.  Much to our surprise, there was also an art exhibition being held in the hall that is the winter home to the Farmer’s Market.  It was called Rekindling Voices. This exhibition celebrates Indigenous culture and included the work of seven local artists.  

Curated by Paul Whittam (Negik),  this powerful group of paintings was displayed on the walls of the hall.  In front of them were the market vendors.  We had to excuse ourselves to go behind their displays to read the plaques describing the pieces and then step back into the centre of the hall to see the paintings from a distance.  One plaque describes how all these artists are “storytellers in their own way.”  Each one was “selected for a light that shines through their artwork into the hearts and minds of people willing to accept the resilience and inextinguishable fire of our collective peoples.”  The paintings told their stories beautifully.  We could see the light that shone through the artwork as they told their stories of resilience.

It wasn’t until we were finished spending time with the art that we turned our attention to buying food.  The powerful art juxtaposed with the buying and selling of food seemed somehow symbolic of the society that we live in.  The inextinguishable fire of the paintings telling the Indigenous stories surrounded the settler farmers who appeared to be oblivious to the beauty behind them.  This was yet another decolonizing experience that made us think about how our stories are interconnected. 

This past week I was aIso reading Richard Wagamese’s last book, Starlight which was published posthumously.  It is a lovely narrative about a man who lives so close to the land that it fills him up.  In the novel, he teaches a woman who has escaped from an abusive relationship and her young daughter how to be on the land.  With this narrative in my head, we stopped at the Wye Marsh to walk in the forest after our Farmers Market experience. 

The first snow in the forest is like coming home for us.  The familiar creak of boots on the packing snow, the snowflakes gently floating down through the trees, the beauty of the snow accentuating the shape of the spruce boughs and … the hungry chickadees.  We always carry sunflower seeds in our pockets at this time of year for these bold little birds.  No sooner had we entered the forest than the familiar  chick-a-dee-dee-dee could be heard.  I held out my hand with sunflower seeds in my palm and a chickadee quickly landed on it, took a seed, looked me in the eye and fluttered off.  I kept walking for a bit and then stopped on a bridge to look at the creek burbling below.  The chickadee swooped past me and landed in a cedar tree inches from me.  I extended my open (and sunflower seeded) palm through the boughs of the tree to the bird.  It hopped the last four inches onto my hand and fed once again. 

As we continued down the path, this same bird swooped in front of us to get our attention and then landed on a tree.  We took turns feeding our hungry little friend in the dance of swoop, hand out, feed, walk, swoop, hand out, feed, walk.  After a while, more chickadees joined our friend and then the antics began.  At times, two chickadees at a time would try to land on my hand and then little feathered squabbles erupted.  At one point they were all in the trees eating their seeds and I held my hand out waiting.  Snowflakes gently landed on my palm and melted.  I might have said that the chickadees weighed no more than a snowflake, but upon comparison with an actual snowflake, I could not say that that was true.  My hand was home to snowflakes, sunflower seeds and chickadees.  My hand was home. 

My partner put seeds on the top of my winter hat and I stood still in the forest as the birds landed on my head to eat.  I could hear the whirring of their feathers as they flew in and feel their little wiry feet through the wool.  I imagined that I was a tree and birds were landing on my branches.  I felt myself sway like a tree in the wind and imagined roots buried deep in the forest floor.  I felt like a character in one of Richard Wagamese’s books.  I felt at home there on the land.  This land is not a commodity for me to buy and sell.  It is not full of resources to extract.  It is not something to take from.  It is my home and I am part of it.  Perhaps this was another decolonizing moment.

All these moments of becoming conscious of colonial thinking, of listening to the voices of Indigenous people through story, art, and music, of connecting to the land are for me decolonizing moments.  All these moments are creating a new way of thinking and being here on this land that we now call Canada.  These moments are writing this new story.

The New Narrative of Rewilding Leads to Action

We need a new narrative when it comes to dealing with environmental issues says professor Paul Jepson.  The old narrative that nature is in crisis because of human greed and ignorance which is leading to a catastrophe has created some change but it is also leading to people ignoring the problem  Jepson suggests that the new narrative be about restoring and rewilding.  This narrative would be about things that we can do that work and is therefore more accessible to people who want to make a difference.  He details this idea in an article called The Story of a Recoverable Earth in Resurgence and Ecologist.  Jepson worked as a conservationist and is now a professor at Oxford.

You can  hear him talking about rewilding urban spaces here: 

When I checked out youtube, there were quite a few videos on this idea of rewilding which all seemed to be from Europe.  I’ll let them tell their stories here:

Here Chris Packman talks about rewilding his garden.  I really liked this one because I have done this with a garden I have on Georgian Bay.  I started out planting medicinal and indigenous species and then nature took over and brought an abundance of wild plants, insects and birds to the garden.

 Here is a video about people who are rewilding a northern part of Russia to protect the permafrost by bringing grazing animals like horses and musk oxen onto the land.  It shows the kind of creative thinking that is going on all around the world.

 And lastly, Peter Smith speaks passionately about letting nature go and what rewilding might look like.

This new narrative uses the “re” prefix.  You hear words like restoring, regenerating, rewilding and recovering.  It is about doing what we can to leave the planet better than we found it.  This is a narrative of giving to nature instead of just taking.  These videos give you a taste of this new narrative and they may also give you ideas about things you can do to be a part of this new narrative, this new story.