Letting Go

I'll never forget Norm Goble, a former president of the Canadian Teaching Federation, who I met at an ATA Summer Conference. He was our keynote and spoke to us about the work he had done with Project Overseas setting up opportunities for Canadian Teachers to mentor teachers at projects around the world. His presentation really touched me and so when I saw him standing alone with a glass of wine at the meet and greet later on, I took the opportunity to meet with him. We had a wonderful conversation about all of his experiences and at one point I asked him how it was he managed to do so many amazing things and he responded "Susan, I am an ambitionless man. I simply took the opportunities that were presented to me."

I think sometimes it is hard to separate ambition and opportunity. As my own life evolves in unexpected ways, I try to keep my eyes open for opportunities and to let go of the destination that once seemed so apparent. I try to avoid despairing over the barriers that appear to be so unjust and instead focus on the joys I have encountered taking the unexpected routes. I am lucky...I have been gifted with a passion for many things and therefore have many vehicles to take on this journey. In the end, I am most buoyed by the words of Stephen Lewis when he visited Grande Prairie almost two years ago. Something to the effect of: it doesn't matter what you do or where you start...just start somewhere because it's all connected. The world is the classroom and at any given moment we are both student and teacher.

Pruning Raspberries

Masanobu Fukoaka writes in One Straw Revolution that farmers should take time each night to write poetry. I was thinking about that yesterday as I was cleaning the old canes out of the raspberry patch. There is so much to be learned from interacting with the garden that is worthy of being remembered and resonates far beyond the little patch of ground in my backyard. What does pruning the raspberries tell us about life I wonder as I roughly pull up the tiny plants that have dared to grow outside my designated patch? At what point are we no longer useful I muse as my shears cut through the dead wood of last year's fruitful stock? My heart breaks just a little bit when I mistake a new cane for an old one and must toss that green stock onto the rubbish heap. Then I slow down and try to be more careful, deliberate about each stock I cut. What makes the old so different from the new? The colour of the cane can be darker or lighter, the thin bark cracking and peeling away...but not always. I check for green buds waiting to burst...but some stocks are well behind the others and are not so obvious. Then I see that the new canes have no branches...nothing reaching away to the stem to create a treelike skeleton.

In that moment I see my own life a little differently. In the years before my children came I shot up straight, with a singular purpose, as tall as I could be. But now my children have caused me to reach away from my narrow stock out into the world. "Go out in the world, be fruitful and multiply." I have been a fruitful plant, as I watch my little raspberries playing in the dirt, pretending they too are gardeners. They draw me out into the world in many unexpected ways, and I extend my life and time into many places hoping that my energy and love will somehow come back through the world to embrace them. I look at the dried up old canes with their brittle limbs extending out and I thank them for the fruit they gave me, the jam that was so beautiful on my toast all winter, the berries that livened up my yogurt. I thank them for the beautiful green foliage that made my garden seem so wild and free last summer and for the summer promise that still lies within my patch. And in that moment of joyous gratitude I feel that somehow I have honoured myself.

Growing Grass

I was once told by an environmental engineer that farmers know very little when it comes to the environment unlike himself, who had spent more than six years in university studying and many more taking samples and writing reports so he could understand the complex relationships that exist within and between water, air and soil. I asked him what made his short study more valuable than the fifty years my parents spent on the land learning how to keep the grass growing so it could feed the livestock and in turn support their family and still sustain future generations. As huge tracts of land throughout the world disappear into deserts that environmental scientists struggle to reclaim, knowing how to keep the grass growing is powerful alchemy.

I stood in northern Alberta and watched the sky turn red at sunset after Mount Saint Helen’s erupted in Washington State. What more do I need to know about the air but that I share it with the entire planet? I owe it to every other creature to keep it safe to breathe. I have felt the melt of the shrinking Athabasca Glacier dribble into my hand before cutting a ribbon through the prairies, finding a way into my home. What more do I need to know about the water but that we cannot survive without it? As climate changes and glaciers shrink we need to treasure every drop. I grew strong and healthy on food grown on my family’s farm, the northern Alberta landscape providing enough to feed a large family through the winter. What more do I need to know about the soil but that it feeds me? My health is dependent on the nutrients that are present in soil that grows the food that nourishes my body.

I have also observed how corporations, banks, and insurance companies throughout North America have betrayed the trust of investors and taxpayers. What more do I need to know about large companies but that their interests do not serve me? When a company claims that its energy is clean because it does not emit CO2 but neglects to mention that the radioactive waste is toxic and will not dissipate for millions of years, how can I trust their integrity? I have observed cancer and autoimmune disorders become epidemic in a time when toxic substances ranging from chemical fertilizers, to household cleaners to beauty products have been sold to a trusting public only later to be found dangerous? What more do I need to know than it is my job to protect my family? When a company wishes to bring their untested technology to my backdoor, to my home instead of their own, what are their actions telling me about their product? I have seen how hundreds of ducks died the cruelest death when someone near Ft. McMurray forgot to make sure the cannons that were to frighten them away were firing. I know of the meltdown at Chernoble, the invasion of Iraq. What more do I need to know than to err is to be human? No nuclear power plant is fail safe, why risk it when there is no need?

Who will speak for the land if not the ones who live on it and have fed their families and neighbors through good and bad times with the careful stewardship of soil and water? Who deserves a strong voice in deciding what is best for the community if not the ones who have watched and often trusted tides of experts who came and went, each with a new theory, a better product and many unfulfilled promises? It’s a foolish person who would choose toxic waste for quick money over the alchemy of growing grass.

Ode to Betsy

Today I gave away my truck...a 1991 Ford Ranger club cab. I didn't imagine when I bought it brand new after I signed my first teaching contract that I would drive it for 17 years. It had more than 327 thousand km's on it and was still going strong. The only problem was that it was getting hard on gas for some reason and we were given a newer vehicle (1992) in much better shape with much lower mileage and it seemed crazy to keep them both.

My truck took me all the way to Inuvik via Vancouver, the Queen Charlotte Islands, the Cassiar Highway and Dawson City in 1992. In 1993 it helped me survive the L.A. Freeway after I drove it all the way to California. In 1995, it took me all the way out to St. John's Newfoundland. It never needed any major repairs, could start at temperatures up to -30C and had room enough in the back for a bed. I once calculated that I spent a total of 7 months sleeping in the back of it.

Part of me is very sad to see it go. I kinda wish I could drive it until it's last breath, when we would slide together to the edge of the highway and I would know it was over. I want to honor the longevity of a vehicle that hasn't self destructed after the warranty ran out, something constructed without built in obsolescence. I traveled with it as it aged from cool to clunker, never needing a new vehicle to replace the one that worked perfectly well despite the gathering blemishes.

It probably wasn't the most environmentally friendly thing to do, driving an old truck, but after 17 years I figure I spent less than $100/month for the privilege of getting from A to B. These days, that's a pretty good deal. I am grateful that Bob, the new owner, can fix it up and use it for a few more miles. (Why is it that the mileage that I got 17 years ago is better than the fantastic mileage that they're offering with new vehicles today?)

Keeping the Faith

There are moments and days that I feel intense despair. I don't know how to explain it other than I shiver to my soul. What brings it on? Maybe it's an election where 7% of the vote doesn't get any seats in the House of Commons, but 10% somehow grab 42. Maybe it's how the looming spectres of peak oil and climate change enter so many of our conversations and news stories yet they doesn't seem to invoke any real commitment to change. Maybe it's how a personal pizza can make a mockery of everything we claim education is about. Maybe it's just about how much I miss the guiding lights that always seemed to know a way out of the darkness.

Do I tilt at windmills or do I dig my hands and feet into the earth and search for that spiritual connection that I know is there? Do I spend the rest of my life playing with extended metaphors or do I give myself over to daily mediations and the present moment? I should be old enough not to mess around with this kind of angst but it's been a helluva year.

Try A Little Kindness

I try not to think in worst case scenarios. I have two beautiful little girls who are full of dreams. I have a beautiful garden and I live in the extraordinary Peace Country of Alberta full of rivers, prairies, forests and creatures. For all of these reasons I must remain optimistic that the will exists to learn to live in a sustainable way. Predictions for my part of the world include more severe weather, drought and more expense for those things brought into our community. While these things are worrisome in themselves, what worries me the most as we consume our way through our resources is how we will behave toward those around us as there is less and less to consume. How will we respond to the parts of the world that are now supplying us with cheap food as their countries suffer the effects of climate change? Who might eye our resources as things become scarcer? It's difficult to answer those questions because I have seen abundance bring out the worst in people, while crises can bring out the best.

I believe kindness is a key element in sustainability. Kindness to ourselves is critical. The kinder I am to myself it seems the less I need from the world and the easier it is to be kind to others. Kindness extended to those around me is reflected back. What is kindness? Seeing, acknowledging and honoring the intrinsic value in someone or something in such a way that they know they've been seen, acknowledged and honored simply because they are.

The Dark (K)night

Last night I went to see the The Dark Knight with Mark. Another Batman movie it explores the fine line between good and evil,asking some interesting questions: Is it easy to be "good" when you haven't experienced the pain of loss? To what extent are we responsible for the actions of others? When given the power to choose, your life or another's, would you end someone else's life? In typical Hollywood style, these questions are imposed on caricatures of people, in extreme situations, so that no one can miss the obvious. We all leave the theatre hoping that we could be the hero required at any particular moment in time.

Well, this is always that moment and it's pretty easy to be a hero...at least it seems as though it should be. At what other point in history are we asked not how could we do more, but how could we live with less? When else instead of trying to fuel our machines with all the energy we can find to go careening into the future, would we be doing more for the world by slowing down? There is a wonderful world waiting to be discovered if we would only slow down and allow our attention to be drawn away from the things that have cluttered our view.

Yesterday I laid on the ground and felt the embrace of gravity as I stared out into the universe. (An exercise taken from Stephan Harding's book, Animate Earth). I wondered what kind of love it takes to not only sustain me with wheat that is grown, sheaved and ground into flour for bread, but the kind of love that would makes something as exquisite as a strawberry or raspberry top it off? It's the kind of love that Batman can't see or feel as he goes flying down the road on his supersonic, highpowered motorbike, through the crime ridden streets of Gotham.

No Heroes
Sometimes the cause gets so big and the issues all get confused,
Sometimes the greater good means that you have to sacrifice the few,
Sometimes the best intentions can create the largest crime,
Nobody gets to be the hero all the time,
Nobody has to be a hero all the time.