GPS July Theme: Nurture in Nature

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. ~ William Wordsworth

Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me? ~ Walt Whitman

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. ~ Lao Tzu

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. ~ Albert Einstein

The theme for July is simple: reflect upon a time when nature provided you with comfort, beauty, or inspiration. This special moment may have occurred close to your home or afar, it may have been past or present, simplistic or profound. You can choose any genre: poetry, narrative, description, or reflection. In the midst of depressing news about nature under siege we can write affirmations about nature's integral power and the importance of preservation.

For example, I provided a reflection yesterday entitled, "Kayaks and Water Lilies."

Thanks to those who provided thoughtful quote/reflections for the month of June. You will see GPS members on my sidebar. I consider this a hopeful start to a Green Pen Society, an informal writer's club who can celebrate each other's contributions through monthly themes. Several posts as the month draws to a close include Susan who writes about cultivating her creative side. Ken reflects about frugality in our disposable age.

I particularly welcome new members, those with extensive blogging experience and those who are just starting. Please leave a comment here or email me about your interest in joining. This is a writer's club for anyone who enjoys writing and developing their skills. Also email or leave a comment if you wrote a post with the theme. I want to make sure not to miss anybody.

For anyone just starting, go to a site like Google Blogger or Wordpress and you will be surprised how easy it is to begin. It may be the inauguration of a rewarding new hobby. Here you will be provided a stage to meet some supportive friends.

Kayaks and Water Lilies

My wife and I enjoyed a long weekend at Pinery Provincial Park, Ontario located at the southern edge of Lake Huron. This wonderful park of 6,330 acres has over 1,000 campsites each allowing space and privacy amidst towering oaks and pines. It is one of the few areas in North America labelled as oak savanna. This ecosystem rests atop an undulating sand dune topography that began forming over 6,000 years ago as the glaciers retreated.

One of the highlights was kayaking an inner tributary where acres of water lilies were just beginning to reveal their summer splendour. The whites were out while the yellow bulbs were just about to burst. This was our first time in kayaks. Obviously there is a learning curve as our shorts were soaked upon our return. After about 20 minutes I realized that paddling a canoe and a kayak are as different as driving an SUV and a sports car. As we paddled past the meadow of water lilies, we were reminded of Monet's water lilies captured so well in his impressionist paintings.

These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession. ~ Claude Monet

How Will You Live Your Dash?

(Originally posted January, 2009)

I ran across an obituary which reflected on the dash between the years the person lived. This grandmother "lived simply, not rich or famous. She loved and laughed and that is how she lived her dash." By the way her years lived were 1916-2006.

How do you live your dash? For what will you be remembered?

These questions remind me of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the habits is 'Begin with the End in Mind.' How will people talk about you at your funeral? For what will you be remembered?

In the climax of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 one man who survived the end times reflected on what his grandfather said:

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do … so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime. —Ray Bradbury

May 2009 be a time when we all reflect upon the important contributions we can make to those around us.

Photo Credit:

400 Million Children Under 18 in India

Some of India's richest men have joined forces with Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, to teach 100 million slum children to learn to read by the end of 2010. The Gates Foundation has donated more that $16 million, while Google has given almost $5 million.

The money will fund intensive courses for the children of poor labourers, who will be taught how to read and write Hindi for one hour a day for six weeks.

For example, a Pratham teacher read a story to 12 pre school children to prepare them for learning the Hindi alphabet. The parents cannot afford the books and uniforms they need for government schools, but even if they could, there are simply not enough places.

Pratham charities aims to teach five million children to read in Delhi alone in the next 18 months. The slogan of this large charitable organization is, "Every child in school and learning well."

"We have around 42 hours to teach them to read. There's no homework; it's simple rote learning, with 20 children per class. Since 1999 the charity has taught 33 million children basic literacy.

An organizer hoped the campaign would help poor Indians from the slums develop into leaders.

The academy award winning movie Slum Dog Millionaire certainly helped crystallize the dichotomy of India's rich and poor. This initiative will provide a glimmer of light for millions for children and their families.

See some revealing statistics about India's children:
- 40% of India's population, 400 million, is below the age of 18
- Less than half of India's children between ages of 6-14 go to school
- One third who enroll in grade one reach grade 8.

New York Times photo and article.

Folklore, Old English, and Urban Legends

The Oxford English Dictionary provides a daily word for your RSS feed. (I use Google Reader - easy and very efficient - I am following about 50 blogs.)

Oxford includes the complete etymology of the word including a list of writers through the ages who have used the word. Consider the word nymph. It comes from classical Greek mythology, a class of semi divine spirits, maidens who inhabit the sea, rivers, mountains, woods, trees...

The first record of the use of the word in Old English is in Chaucer's 'Knight's Tale' of 1385.

The goddes ronnen vp and doun Disherited of hir habitacioun In which they woneden in reste and pees: nymphes, fawnes, and Amadrides. Got that?

The goddess ran up and down, torn from her habitation, in which they wondered in rest and peace.

It gets even better if you can hear an expert speak in Old English. This brief example reveals how much English has changed and is changing over the ages.

This definition fits in nicely with a post by Tania at Brave New World about the poem "The Stolen Child" which contains a reference to the Romantic pastoral world of nymphs and fairies and how modern technologies can interpret them.

The Stolen Child by William Butler Yeats was written in 1886. Yeats based his poem on Irish legend and concerns faeries beguiling a child to come away with them.


WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

Of course, the pastoral legends have pretty well evaporated like the morning dew in our modern age. What has taken their place? Urban legends?

Then there are artists like Loreena McKennitt who wrote a song about this poem in 1985 for her album Elemental and is still enchanting crowds at concerts today.

Photo Credit:

Bling Is Out - For Now

The recession has taken its toll on many people including diamond traders. Antwerp, Belgium is the centre of the diamond trade. Some interesting details:
- Antwerp's square mile, at the heart of which is the World Diamond Centre, has three main streets and a warren of alleys where diamond traders carry on a multibillion dollar business. It is closed to vehicular traffic.
- 80% of the world's uncut diamonds and over 50% of the polished stones travel from around the world for buying and selling here.
- It is perhaps the most heavily protected and closely monitored concentration of wealth in Europe.
- Annual turnover in diamonds is $42 billion.
- The recession has brought about a 60% decline in the dealing of uncut diamonds.
- The area of future growth is the Middle East, India, and China.

Reading this article reminds me of Kino in John Steinbeck's The Pearl (1947) who discovers the greatest pearl in the world, as large as a sea gull's egg, 'perfect as the moon.' However, the clandestine scheming of the traders reduced it to several hundred dollars.

Or 15 year old John Trenchard in Moonfleet (1898) discovers a diamond in Blackbeard's tomb, again, as big as a pigeon's egg. Together with Maskew they manage to meet Aldobrand, a notoriously rich and deceitful diamond trader, who calls it paste and will pay a 'decent' sum for it as a curiosity piece.

Both Kino and John recognize their treasures as evil which bring great heartache because of their greed.

Avarice is always poor. ~ Samuel Johnson

Oh, the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling and it undoes all the joy that could be. ~ Joni Mitchell

Photo Credit:

Your Life in Six Words

In our age of quick speak, text messaging, 140 character Twitter, the 50 word story, a day in a sentence, social networking with acronyms, the quick blog, Haiku,.. how about your life in six words? Perfect...

A colleague, who is a resident poet, teacher, and literacy coach, recommended that we write a six word reflection of our year as secondary literacy coaches within our school board for the introduction of a report we are writing.

Consider some of the following from Smith which encourages responses from adults and teens:

One life. Six Words. What's Yours?
Some of the responses:
- Lucky in everything else but love.
- I rise but I rarely shine.
- Seeking peace beyond folded paper birds.
- I can't give up. You did.
- "You happy?" "No. But I'm right."
- Finally found my genre: what's yours?

In education and in real life this exercise has vitality and purpose, choosing each word with precision and impact...

By the way my six word overview of the year: Coaching coordinator sees vital collegial growth.

It may be empowering writing your own six word story.

Zen with an Apron

Am I just sensitive or do you often have an aftertaste after using a KRAFT type salad dressing? We have been using a new line of their products such as Tuscan Italian with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and I have felt somewhat bloated with the fresh salad ingredients smothered by too much salt and preservatives.

On Father's Day, we enjoyed a great barbecue including a garden salad with an all natural dressing. After letting our kitchen habits slip a bit over the last few months, it was good to make a pure dressing.

This is my simple recipe which has a million variations. All it takes is a little extra planning. The results are well worth the TLC.

50 ml virgin olive oil
15 ml lemon juice ( I use the small lemon juice bottle)
15 ml white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon mustard (Dijon...)
1/2 teaspoon Italian spice mix
1 clove garlic (crushed) optional

Mix together at least several hours to a day in advance to blend flavours.

This salad dressing was an early morning sunrise, dew on a flower petal. There was no after taste and the dressing allowed the vegetables to be the main act. I noticed the KRAFT dressing has potassium sorbate, calcium disodium, and EDTA (disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate). Far from 100% natural and the pastoral natural goodness of the image implied on the label. Of course, these preservatives allow the dressing to be consumed months later with no fear of contamination or discolouration.

Cooking from scratch has become a lost art for many. It all comes down to convenience, a little brainwashing from the multibillion dollar advertising industry, and a bit of laziness. Why spend two hours making a delicious vegetable soup when you can enjoy canned soup in ten minutes? A whole grain slow cooked oatmeal vs a processed cereal? A fast food fix or a homemade sandwich on pumpernickle? Home made chili simmered with fresh hot spices or canned chili?...

One more reason for choosing some quality kitchen time: it's good therapy, Zen with an apron.