Happy Winter Solstice

Celebrating the Seasons

I love celebrating the seasons, including the turn of the seasons. Although we had a doozy of a snow dump in September, the rest of fall was actually pretty fall-ish. Calgary's seasons have their own rhythm and the calendar date seems to have limited influence. That can be said about a lot of places. Getting to know the nuances of the seasons of a particular place is one of the great relationships we have access to.

Yup, I called it a relationship. That's what it feels like. Knowing a place well, knowing it's moods, knowing you are a better person for having experienced it and swearing the feeling is mutual . . .  To the average conversation, sharing that a landscape noticed you might sound odd, but, well, welcome to my world. Sometimes you just feel a place. 

In celebration of Winter Solstice, or Yule as many call it, I've included some pics of a few of my happy wintery places. 

How do you celebrate Winter Solstice?

Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada

Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Niagara Escarpment, Ontario, Canada

The City Hiking Continues

Fish Creek Provincial Park,
Calgary, Canada
October 2014

Fish Creek Provincial Park, 
Calgary, Canada
Last weekend we went walking/hiking in Fish Creek Provincial Park in Calgary. Exploring the natural world close to home is proving to be a delightful eye-opener. I've always known we don't have to plan epic adventures to play and enjoy outside, but before I didn't make the time for the wee trips.
I am now. And really enjoying it!

If your weeks are like mine, weekends are used to recover from the stress of the week before and gear up to do it all over again.  (The immediate question of why pops up, but that's another blog post. ;))
I'm really digging this quieter approach to outdoor play time.

Where are your favorites spots to play outside?

Happy Hiking, Happy Reading, Happy Writing.

Getting Local: Exploring Local Pockets of Nature this Fall

Mini pumpkins, October 2014

I love Fall. Every season has its charm, but Autumn is my favorite. The crinkle of dried leaves underfoot or their rustle in the breeze is a melody I look forward to every year. The air feels different, too. It can be crisp or a last ditch warm, but it is undeniably "fall" air. I get to see my favorite constellation, too. Orion is back in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere.

Where summer is a bustling play time, fall is a more reflective, internal time for me. I have to switch to a slower pace. I just have to. After the natural full throttle of summer, in autumn I quiet down and go into nesting mode. I enjoy cooking and baking more, I knit, I light candles, I listen to calmer music, I read more . . . you know, nesting. I also like to be outside and feel the natural world doing the same thing.

Aspen Yellow, October 2014

Yesterday we went to a local corn maze. I know, not exactly wild, but still a beautiful exercise in witnessing Mother Nature. She does rock our food sources and although the point of that corn field was for entertainment, it still holds natural energy. And as I was walking through that field, the total history nerd inside was thinking of all the fall traditions associated with corn and pumpkins. There were times it was easier to feel those connections to our natural world. The good news is we can still plug back in if we want. I'll be honest, it helped going early before the crowd became a crowd.

Today we went "hiking." I absolutely adore hiking in the mountains, but finding closer pockets of the natural world to explore and enjoy is more practical some weekends. Like today. We explored a local park along the Bow River that is indeed a city park, but had trails that you can forget how close to neighborhoods or Deerfoot/Highway 2 you really are. Going at 8:30 on a Sunday morning helped, too. Not many folks out on the dirt paths that early. :) And we got to hike alongside the Bow River. Rivers can be bring that touch of wild energy to urbanized places.

I'm roasting a turkey today for Sunday dinner. Not the norm in our house(!!), but today I wanted traditional. And the nesting of Autumn continues . . . I've learned to embrace it and see where it takes me.

Carburn Park, Calgary, October 2014

Happy Autumn.

Lessons from Mother Nature and a September Snow Storm

This week it snowed. A lot. Wait a minute, I swear it is only September! I know I've been working on slowing life down, but maybe I accidently sped it up? Nope, my time bending skills didn't ricochet.  ;) Calgary just got a flash snow storm this week.

I was up in the Peace River area (*interactive part* search Peace River Valley on Google Images. Gorgeous!!) for the first part of the week. We had snow up there. But the intact forests were snow-kissed, each section as picture-perfect as the last one. Beaver dams and lodges on quiet ponds, and moose and deer completed the scenes.

I came home to heavy snow, the bending-trees-over-until-they-snap heavy.

I'm a tree kid, I adore trees. Driving with my family to work and school and seeing street after street of broken, battered trees made me catch my breath in dismay. But I don't subscribe to railing at Mother Nature. It is my philosophy She knows what she is doing, even if we humans aren't privy to plan is.

As I took in the magnitude of broken tree limbs I wondered what wisdom I could gleam from such dismay. Turns out a lot.

Some parts of life have been heavy lately, others for a long-ass time. Candid, but true. :) The feeling of being at that breaking point might have crossed my mind. Seeing broken trees surround me, trees whose limbs or trunks broke or shattered under the stress and weight of the snow, was appalling until I put it in a different perspective. Yes, magnificent, stately trees were humbled, but they will thrive again. It might only take the rubble being cleared away. Snapped limbs can create opportunities for new growth and new direction. Broken doesn't mean dead. It's a great opportunity to regroup.

Taken from that perspective, what weight am I feeling stressed under? Do I want to wait until I snap, or simply realign until I find that beautiful balance, that sweet spot of strength and give? Which reminds me, my husband called from work and asked me if I was up to knocking off what snow I could reach to ease the burden on our trees. My daughter and I were home sick, but the fresh air and falling snow lifted our spirits. Our helping hands lifted the trees' limbs. Together, we found that sweet spot. This time, no limbs broke under the weight of snow. We lost a bunch of leaves, but no limbs.

What about you? Is it time for taking inventory on your stress levels or a regroup?

Thank you Trees and Mother Nature for the lessons. Again. :)

To Ranger, with Love

I have a solid belief system that life works out. Even when crap happens, hindsight usually shows the bigger picture of perfection. I want to share one of those times with you. Just a heads-up, it has taken me several tries to get this post out. You'll know why in a second.

I had an epic time at the writing conference When Words Collide in early August. I followed that grand adventure up with a family trip to the cottage in Muskoka (Ontario). August was shaping up to be a memorable, life-affirming month of wonder, gratitude and connections. Two days after we arrived home from the cottage, I took our dog to the vet. I thought he had a sore paw. Ranger had flown with us to Ontario, like he had done so many times before, and had taken a few nasty falls at the cottage. Odd, but I chalked it up to old age. He had been aging over the past few years, but recently it had been seriously accelerating.

Turns out his paw was fine, but his brain wasn't. He was given less than two weeks to live. Looking back, I realized Ranger had been preparing me for this for about a year. Which of course made/makes even more tears fall. He was the most extraordinary dog I have ever met. Besides writing fiction books, I also do energy work. Ranger was an extraordinary healer. When I was learning and growing on my path, he was calmly, gracefully, lovingly facilitating so many of my own healings. He continues to teach me and the little stinker isn't of this world anymore. So is the way of Beings of straight-up Love.

Yes, he was a dog. He chased cats, bunnies and squirrels. He herded other dogs and small children. He would position himself between our family members and any other dog nearby. He had doggie breath and a beautiful happy face when all was well in his world. But he was, and continues to be, unconditional Love. His very Being was Love. That's just the way he was/is. Some might argue assigning a pet's affections as Love is anthropomorphism. Maybe. Or maybe Love just Is where it Is.

It has been my experience that animals cut through the layers we spend years carefully constructing around ourselves. Thank you Ranger for helping me release so many of mine. I Love You, I miss you like crazy, but know your timing was perfect. As usual. Thank you for joining our family. We adopted you, but you chose us. Thanks. :)

June 2006, Ranger's first day with us.

When Words Collide 2014 is here!

Wow. . . it has been a spectacular two days, and we're still in the pre-festival festivities of When Words Collide 2014. I'm all floaty and happy . . . I love writing and the writing communities!!

I started my WWC 2014 yesterday when Adrienne Kerr of Penguin Canada rocked it with the Author-Publisher Relationship workshop. Today Mark Leslie, director of Author Relations at Kobo Canada, totally delivered with the workshops Marketing Best Practices and Hybrid Publishing.

My brain is fantastically full of new information . . . and maybe some information I've heard before but it has finally sunk in. :) Thank you Adrienne and Mark and When Words Collide.

Then there was Ranchman's. For anyone who knows Calgary, you might have checked out this iconic western bar. More fun and a really good dinner. Then we found the mechanical bull. Full disclosure, we did not in fact ride it. But we might have included it in a few photo ops.

What's on for tonight? Prepping my Alberta Romance Writers' Association workshop on writing with depth that I am team-teaching tomorrow morning with Diana Cranstoun, Mahrie Reid and Jessica Jackson.

And with that, I should get to it. :)

Happy When Words Collide 2014!

Monday Top Five: When Words Collide

When Words Collide 2014 is almost here! I'm starting the pre-festival workshops on Wednesday and I am solid conferencing through Sunday. That's right, five whole days devoted to all things writing. (I'm fanning myself right now.)

Giddy. Up.

Which brings me to this Monday's Top Five: When Words Collide. And as usual, in no particular order.

1) 5 solid days devoted to all things writing. There is something magical about a group of people coming together, ever. This group is coming together in the name of words. And I'm going to be there!!  And present. Be present. Soak it up!

2) Learning. Constantly. The more I write, the more I learn. That's one of the things I love about writing, it is a craft that you can work on a lifetime and still find new, dynamic, funky things to do with words and storytelling. I guess that's the same with musicians who have been making cool music for years. Never stop learning. Or stretching your artistic boundaries.

3) Celebrating achievements. There are always awesome announcements and a conference full of people to share in the good news of each other. It's pretty cool.

4) The pool. This conference is fabulous, but can be intense with the weekend-long sprint of everything that's going on. The pool keeps it real.

5) Laughing. Writers are fun. This is a happy crowd and I'm looking forward to lol'ing the WHOLE WEEKEND.

Happy When Words Collide 2014 week.