The world seems to be spinning faster and faster, veering out of control, and heading to who knows where. The irony is that most of us are not even in it unless we are masked, six feet apart, and are only out for some type of essential purpose. We are isolated, working from home, worrying about things we may not be able to see and certainly are unable to control.
News cycles bring more negativity even when we should be celebrating certain events like the change in United States Presidency (finally!). Actually, the end of an era south of the border seemed like it might have no end. And who knows if the constant chaos will continue to reign triumphant due to bitter seeds sown of hatred, racism, and greed now fuelled by so many.
New variants of Covid, not enough production capacity to produce vaccines, bizarre weather patterns bringing temperatures to warm then plunging into frigid arctic cold, all accompanied by a simmering anger that so many are indulging in. Protests that seem to pop up daily with no real solutions and thoughts for change that might benefit all of us.
Political shell games, ruthless economic decisions, and the grinding list on the negative news cycles that seems to be endless. Conspiracies perpetuated on social media that seemingly intelligent people believe, and share which just serves to fuel the spread of both inane and vitriolic theories like greased lightening. Good grief!
Rest, refilling our wells to live our lives in a positive way, seems critical whether we are isolated or not. Sometimes doing nothing may be the best thing we could do for both ourselves and others.
We’re in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone’s arguing over where they’re going to sit.
David Suzuki
Last week, we endured one of the most bizarre winter storms ever seen on the Canadian prairies. Unusually warm weather has been with us since the new year, almost unheard of in the month of January which normally is referred to as “frigid”. Our day began with rain, lots of it, coating everything in ice as the day progressed and winds picked up and snow began to fall. This arctic blast continued to escalate as day became evening and soon the wind outside our house began to sound like a freight train.
Winds battered houses, toppled trees, mangled traffic lights, wreaked havoc on outbuildings in rural areas, and culminated in a province wide power outage. Meterologists who measure wind speed gave this particulate blizzard an EF-1 wind rating normally used for tornadoes. There were hundreds of stranded drivers on highways across the province and many accidents. Given our hospitals are full of people with COVID-19, it was incredibly fortunate that there were no serious injuries.
But the power outages lasted for hours and hours as the winds continued to howl and blow with phenomenal speed rendering it impossible for anyone to fix the lines. Our power company claimed that “galloping lines” were to blame, meaning power lines were blown into each other with many toppled and exploding. Hour after hour, homes became colder and colder as the day progressed and the storm continued to rage on.
Those of us living on the Canadian prairies routinely experience the wrath of mother nature especially during the months of January and February. Usually temperatures this time of the year are bitterly cold and any amount of wind results in what is known as “windchill” which can result in frostbite within minutes. So we are not strangers to harsh weather where your nostrils typically feel like they are melded together when you venture outside and lack of moisture content in the air makes your skin dry and peel.
But this weather system seemed markedly different. Arctic blasts with lots of snow, and whiteout wind conditions knocking out part of our power grid has definitely happened before. But this one seemed so unusual. Rain coating everything on the Canadian prairie is not typical. Nor are winds sustained at tornado levels for more than a few hours rendering it impossible to restore electricity and power.
Hours dragged on with no way to contact the power company and no way to know how long houses would be without electricity. Rows of houses sat silent, and dark, and growing increasingly cold as day became another night. A global pandemic with escalating active cases meant not many places for people to go and warm up. You’d think this would be a wake up call for all of us. How could we live on the cold, Canadian prairie without the means to heat our homes.
These types of weather events have increased in the past few years around the globe but the strangeness of this storm should help quell the rhetoric from the local climate change deniers. At least until the spring. Then we will like see a resurgence of protests against carbon taxes, green initiatives, and demands that more resources go into the fossil fuel sector. Good grief!
One can only hope that following the pandemic, we turn our collective attention to climate change and begin to pay heed to what nature is demanding we work to reverse. This storm was an awfully unpleasant wake up call that was too close for comfort. Let’s hope we move to action to reverse or at the very least, halt the devastation that we have done to our planet.
Dreams are meant to be followed. Have the courage to follow yours. Do things that challenge you, scare you, and make you feel alive.
Liz Pearson
Have you ever found yourself struggling with frustration during these difficult days because your most cherished hopes and dreams seem elusive and outside of your reach? When we are unable to meet our deeply held dreams and goals in our lives, we may feel that our lives have become stagnant, lacking in purpose, or that we have drifted off course.
At times, our life circumstances become the barriers to achieving the dreams that we cherish the most and secretly hold onto. There are a myriad of reasons that could prevent us from reaching our dreams at different points in our lives. Dreams may recede, lose their magnetic pull, be impractical, or simply become replaced by new ones.
Sometimes it appears that we have discarded our dreams and never expect them to play a part in our lives in the future. There are numerous possibilities that alter our life dreams. Self-doubt. Self-criticism. Inertia. Lack of time, resources, a global pandemic, etc.
But, do we need to give them up altogether, when daily living, responsibilities, and obligations may interfere with what we are most passionate about.
We have the ability to place dreams on hold rather than give them up completely. As we age, the internal clock that guides us, begins to tic louder and louder. We may begin to experience the urge to throw caution to the winds and face our challenges and our fears to try to move forward to realizing our dreams. For me, this urge has become stronger as I have become older.
Our time is limited and we should pay attention to those inner voices that prod us to take action. Dreams are meant to be pursued. You really never will know what is possible until you take a risk and move towards the dream that is calling to you. Begin someplace, anyplace, so long as you start to experience a sense of momentum.
Taking small steps towards what inspires passion and purpose within us becomes critical to our creative well-being. Roadblocks in our way simply suggest that it is time to pivot and find new ways to reach our goals, our hopes, and our dreams. This pandemic may have caused some of us to place dreams on hold in order to adapt to this new reality. But it shouldn’t mean that we lose them forever.
I don’t believe that our dreams have expiry dates – do you?
Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.
Stories that move our hearts often stay with us for a long period of time. This week one of those kinds of stories emerged from a small community in our province about a young girl who had been shamed for wearing a traditional Indigenous ribbon skirt to a school event prior to the Christmas break. Her auntie had made this beautiful piece of clothing intended to symbolize her strength, womanhood, and her First Nations identity.
This young girl set off for school excited by the beauty of her skirt and pride in being able to wear this sacred piece of clothing. Shamed by a school employee for not wearing the right type of clothing, this child returned home defeated and confused. Her auntie used social media to share what had happened at school and to reach out to women to share the meaning and power of the ribbon skirt.
What transpired was really a movement where many Indigenous women posted and shared photographs of their own ribbon skirts from around the globe. These garments are works of art and the pride with which they are worn was evident in the photos that were shared. What mattered to me the most about this story was that the focus was not on the “shaming incident” at the school but the positive way in which so many women reached out to share their pride in their heritage and in the power of the ribbon skirt.
Listening to an interview with this girl, her enthusiasm and excitement from all of the posts her family received, it was hard not to smile and appreciate the positivity that was created. Pride in her First Nations ribbon skirt and sense of belonging with other girls and women from around the world became the message of the story.
When it was time to return to school this week, her family and members of her First Nation community organized a march back to the school all wearing their ribbon skirts or ribbon shirts. Accompanied by the performance of a drumming group and the attendance of chiefs from surrounding First Nations, this young girl returned to school with a renewed sense of pride in who she is and accompanied by the positive power of her community.
My thoughts have returned to this story many times since I heard it. Messages of positivity, forgiveness, and reconciliation were delivered with pride and a power that resonates.
Visions of Transition 