Transitions, Transformations and a Little Photography
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The Why Rather Than the What or How
I have just finished a week at a photography retreat in Kingsbrae Gardens, New Brunswick with Freeman Patterson. This is my second time attending this retreat and I have again found myself to be inspired, uplifted and just moved to a new place in understanding why I do what I do with my camera.
The week is not a workshop - there is no learning new technique or trying to understand the technicalities of my camera or craft - it is about delving into the Why. The week is filled with conversations, visits to artists working in different media and open time to spend photographing in the gardens or around town - any way we wish to use the time.
Judgment
My knee jerk response is no - I’m a pretty accepting and open person who really frowns on being judgy, but if I’m being perfectly honest with myself - I do it in subtle ways that can sometimes fool me into thinking that I don’t.
I came to this realization recently on our Zambian safari trip. It’s always interesting to observe the interactions and dynamics when strangers put together by circumstances (chosen vacation location) first meet and start up conversations. There is the initial pleasantries and then the inevitable where are you from, what do you do for a living, do you have children (I always feel judged when I answer no), have you been on safari before and what are you hoping to see?
Grounded or Floating
I think that we all have a go to or more natural state - at least I know that I do. When I was in university I learned about entropy (thermodynamics was not my favourite subject, but this I do remember) - without exerting external force, systems tend to move towards states of higher disorder. Think of most teenagers’ rooms - those clothes and books and junk don’t miraculously put themselves away.
I think that it is similar for my current preference of resting state - in the absence of me exerting effort to maintain an organized and orderly schedule, I tend to feel like everything gets wildly out of control. In fact I like to think of myself as a homebody - one who enjoys a routine and familiar surroundings and people.
Scarcity Mindset
The strict definition of scarcity is when demand for something outstrips supply or the basic premise that there is a finite amount of human and non human resources, so at some point there will be a shortage. This term has come to be associated increasingly with our mental condition and is often referred to as the scarcity mindset which is a belief that resources we rely on to live and survive (e.g., money, time, love or opportunities) are limited and less than is required to satisfy our needs. This results in a focus on what is lacking - much like the gap in the term the gap versus the gain which I wrote about in this post- the focus is on what I don’t have (whether it is real or significant) rather than what I do have. I like to think of this as the opposite of the gratitude mindset which is when I am grateful for the abundance of the wonderful things in my life rather than focusing on what is missing.
Rituals - Why They Can be so Important
A ritual is defined as a structured or repeated sequence of acts with a formal component to them. They can be seen as transitions or rites of passage such as weddings, funerals or graduations. Participating in rituals can be very grounding or help reduce anxiety, or even shift internal focus or perceptions. They can also form an important component of social bonding as people who share rituals have a common point of reference.
We often create personal or informal rituals such as morning coffee to start our workdays, or clearing email inboxes, or brushing teeth and relaxing in preparation for bedtime.
Being Present, What and How We See
I feel like this term gets thrown around a lot these days and in some ways it is losing its impact and meaning for me from overuse or casual use. A google definition of being fully present states that your mind, body and emotions are completely engaged in the present moment, but what does that mean exactly? To me it means that I’m not allowing distractions to take over the moment - I’m aware enough to know when my mind starts to wander and I can effectively bring myself back to the moment. I think for me that is the distinction - when I hear some people talk about being fully present, I get a sense that they are implying that you can totally block out everything but the present moment and I don’t think that as humans we’re wired to do that - at least I’m certainly not.
Community
I was challenged recently to think about the communities I have lived in and the communities that I have passed through. What were some key characteristics of them and how did I feel being in them?
There are so many different kinds of communities that are linked to geographical circumstances and cultural practices. In North America where we have so much space there are communities that are spread wide apart with lots of space between properties - providing privacy, but also isolation. People with garages behind their homes or attached to them have the further challenge that they can enter and exit their abode without having to come in contact with anyone. Contrast this with other neighbourhoods where people live in row houses or condos with communal walls or floors/ceilings. There can be a definite lack of privacy, but also more interaction and community. There are also new communities being built around communal green spaces to encourage interactions.
Bluebird Season
This is the busy time of year for the bluebirds and for monitoring their activity - exciting times too. As I’ve mentioned before the bluebirds return from their winter homes in early to mid March and they start building nests in earnest by the beginning of May. Once the nest is built and shaped to a perfect cup the female loses the feathers on her abdomen - called a brood patch - which enables her to transfer maximum body heat to the eggs after she lays them.
Once the nest is finished she starts laying eggs - one a day for 5 - 7 days and two weeks after the last one is laid they start to hatch all on the same day! This is when the real work begins - constant feeding for both the male and the female while the little ones form feathers and grow big enough to fledge from the nest some 18-21 days after hatching. What a an amazing cycle to be able to witness and collect data from.
How to Tell a Good Story With My Life
I know that is an odd way to start this post, but in effect that is how the idea for this whole post started. Kory and I have been working on getting out of our comfort zone a bit more and just getting out more which includes actually coming up with date night or date day ideas. Full disclosure - he excels at this so much better than I do (for example the puppet making workshop was his idea). When he suggested that we attend a workshop titled (How to Tell a Good Story With Your Life) we thought it was about writing and that it would be a cool thing to attend on a Saturday morning.
Boy were we wrong about the topic, but I digress. We showed up at the venue where there were about 8 or 9 other people (Kory had gone to a workshop put on by the facilitator (Val) previously and enjoyed it - a setting your intentions for the New Year sort of thing).
Elders’ Wisdom
I do love when the universe feels the need to provide me with a strong life lesson and there is no warning that it is coming my way. These lessons tend to knock me on the head and get my attention - quickly. When I take the time to stop and really pay attention then the lesson tends to go easier, however I must admit to rarely being wise enough to do that.
I’m more of a quickly assess the facts and take action kind of woman - yes this habit has gotten me in trouble a time or two and I’ve been working on slowing down and being more intentional about what actions (if any) I take. Slowing down, getting curious and spending more time gathering facts tends to change the way I view a situation and how I go about responding.
Mountain Bluebird Season
For the last four years between April and August I have been fascinated with small vividly blue migratory birds - yes mountain bluebirds. During this timeframe they fly back to Alberta from their wintering grounds in the southern US and northern Mexico. It is a long way for these small birds to travel and their return to this area is specifically for nesting and raising new generations of mountain bluebirds.
I was able to get out this week and do a nest box monitoring run to see if they have started nest building. The last time I was out was towards the end of April and I saw a number of mountain bluebirds, but with the changeable weather that included snow and cold spells - there was no nest building happening.
Focus - Attention and Savouring Life
How many times have we heard this phrase as we were growing up - attending a boring event or classes at school. I’ve just finished reading a book titled Rapt by Winnifred Gallagher and I must say that it has been very impactful and not really what I expected. That’s a great combination in my mind and it makes it easy to recommend this book for those interested in attention or living a more focused life.
Early in the book is a quote by Ellen Langer who says that “the term mindfulness wouldn’t be necessary if most people didn’t have such an impoverished, static understanding of what ‘paying attention means’.” Let me start off by saying that I am rather envious of Langer’s ability to put together words and the way she turns a phrase - it tickles my brain.
Sensory Overload
We have 5 senses, or do we? I have recently finished reading a book that I highly recommend for anyone interested in the natural world, wildlife, insects, birds or fish - you name it Ed Yong covers is in his book An Immense World.
He talks about our sensory bubble which is the part of an animal’s surroundings that it can sense and experience - its perceptual world which he describes as their umwelt (a German word meaning environment or surroundings). I really like that description as it helps me to recognize that the way humans perceive the world is not the same as other animals or insects. In fact when a person, animal or insect perceives the world differently we can have difficulty understanding or relating.
Yong talks about senses being divided into chemical and mechanical categories with magnetic properties being part of one or both of those classifications.
Values, Comfort Zones and Growth
I have sat down to write this blog post a number of times and I keep getting stuck - as usual this caused me to pause and reflect on the why. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand what values are - they are the rules or guideposts that we use to define the boundaries of our lives and how we want to live our life - in essence they form our identity. When we’re living authentically within those guideposts there is a feeling of congruity to our lives - a sense of meaning and purpose with an everything is right in my world kind of feeling.
It also wasn’t that I didn’t know what my core values are - I’ve spent time working through this and figuring out what is important to me and how I want to show up in my life, no, it seems to me that there was a disruption - a discordant feeling about what I say are my core values and how I was living my life.
Puppet Making (Part 2)
The second Saturday arrived all fresh and full of creative potential and we pulled up to the studio excited to see how the face moulds turned out. Our first job was to carefully extract the polymer face mould from the plaster form using various tools and gently prying away from the edges - the eyes and nose portion was the toughest to remove as we didn’t want to pull too hard and rip or tear the polymer which was still quite soft and malleable.
Slowly but surely we extracted the faces and excited exclamations could be heard from each of us - we were thrilled with how the faces had come out - the details and textures were captured so well. You’d think we were done with the level of satisfaction expressed by everyone.
Puppet Making (Part 1)
It’s funny how interconnected things can be - like my husband finding a puppet making studio that gives classes and is affiliated with the father of a guitar friend of his. Add to this him getting the notion that this would be a fun thing for us to do with a couple of our friends - none of whom are into puppet making, but they were still up for it as it sounded fun and creative. Those are the kinds of friends who are important to have in your life - people who are up for something off the wall and new just to be able to hang out and have some fun together.
Now if you’ll recall I’ve done a few posts about not feeling very creative (I wrote about it here) and I historically have felt all sorts of resistance inside myself when I think about doing something new -
Journaling
I have always been known as being able to take in a lot of information, consolidate it in a concise way and identify gaps/questions or next step actions to be taken. It is one of my super powers and it has served me well over a very long career. When I started thinking about retiring this was one area of my life where my thoughts seemed a jumbled mess and I lacked any clear direction.
I first talked about retiring about 5 years before I actually did - I kept coming up with reasons excuses for not calling an end to my career - other people who were part of my succession plan unexpectedly retired, the start of a significant industry collaboration that I was part of, COVID - the list was endless. I couldn’t seem to pull together a cohesive case for letting go and calling it a day to focus on different activities and purpose.
Even when I finally sat down with my boss to discuss my plans and declare a timeline, I had doubts and second, third and fourth thoughts about it.
Singing Bowls, Salt Caves and Music
I’m sure the title of this post either resonates (sorry for the pun) or leaves you scratching your head. A few years ago Kory started really delving into music theory and historical transitions around frequencies - to the point of doing a deep dive into healing sound frequencies. It was fascinating to learn about the origins of Gregorian Chants and how the Rosslyn Chapel (featured in the DaVinci Code and just south of Edinburgh in Scotland - we visited 3 times during our time in Scotland) featured symbols in the stonemasonry that correlates to healing sound frequencies (do a search if you’re curious).
All of this research led him to singing bowls which are crystal bowls formed to resonate at set frequencies when tapped with a mallet or circled with the mallet at varying pressures.
Finding Peace
I must admit that writing about my mum’s battle with dementia was quite emotionally challenging, however the response that I received was very heart warming. I had people sharing similar experiences and how it affected their families, ideas and thoughts of how they’ve navigated the challenges of care giving or being long distance care givers. It was a post that really felt like it resonated for many and created some lovely connections which I really appreciated.
Since that blog post I have had all sorts of thoughts of things that I would have liked to have included, but I either didn’t think of them, or I was concerned about the length of the post. I’ve decided to do a follow up post and talk about some of those things and some of the new things that I’ve been looking into around dementia.
Country Living
We’ve been living “in the country” - well let’s be honest we’re just outside of the city limits - for about 18 months now and while we’ve spent a lot of the time in renovation/chaos mode, I feel like I’ve spent enough time in the new living situation to appreciate some of the differences from living within walking distance of the city centre. I thought I’d write about what it’s been like - the good the bad and the unexpected.
There are a number of things that we got right with this move and for the most part I would say that we did a good job anticipating the differences/challenges that we’d face, but there were still a few surprises that neither one of us saw coming. One of the big drivers for this move was to be closer to nature and be able to spend time enjoying the peace and quiet away from the hustle and bustle of inner city living.