#bookreviews

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On Orcas, Naps and ‘The Ghost Bride’

Every week I am going to speak to three subjects: books, ideas, people, products, or innovations that I believe are peace-building, heart-opening, community-celebrating, love-spreading vehicles. Complaining and criticizing are easy traps to fall into, but I am convinced that building up holds far more power and transformative energy.

So, my sweet friends, here goes….Our world is a beautiful village and peace does begin at home.

What I am LOVING this week…

1) Orcas

I have a thing for whales, orcas especially.

It’s not an exaggeration to state that I have loved whales for all of my thinking life.

When I was in grade 3 my friend Cara and I had stuffed orcas that we slept with, ate with, played with, and loved to tatters.

One of my most common recurring dreams is one where I am in close proximity to a pod of orcas. Sometimes, I am looking at them through giant panes of glass, other times I am at the edge of a beautiful bay where they are swimming and playing. It is usually dusk or dark, and the waters are calm.  Always, I am completely drawn to be with the whales.  I am afraid too, though, because they are so massive and powerful

and I am not.

Sometimes I just watch them, but in other dreamtimes I actually have the courage to dive in and be with them. Either way, I am ecstatic to be in their presence and am utterly spell-bound by their magic and beauty.

I am sure you could analyze the heck out of this dream (and I have), but perhaps orca-love is simply in my gene pool.

My dad spent many summers  around the BC gulf islands and still talks of being surrounded by orcas while out on a little motor boat, and how awesome and frightening an experience that was for him.

And now our son George, 9, speaks constantly of whales.

A few years ago, we watched a movie called ‘Big Miracle, based on a true story chronicling the 1988 international effort in Alaska to rescue gray whales trapped in the ice. George cried for hours after one of the whales died. He has seen ‘Free Willy‘ of course, and most recently ‘BlackFish‘. He now speaks passionately of whales needing to be free to roam.

George also researches whales on the internet, asks me to print whale word puzzles, and draws orcas with increasing detail. He sculpts whales with plasticine and builds them with lego.

Always planning, I imagine him and I launching our own thematic art show.

Again, another obsession, a shared one, given free rein. I love that he devotes the time to study something that my heart yearns to know too.

To me, it’s all so good. In a time period when we are so disconnected from nature, from animals, from all that’s real-life, what could be more crucial than exploring a single creature from every angle.

To want to save something, we must first love it and understand it, and I often fear that we are losing this level of connection with our natural wonders.

And so it is that in our dusty and dry prairie home that we are currently celebrating whales.

2) Naps

There have been several nights this week where I have not slept well. This is uncommon for me as I am typically a good sleeper. Sleep often eludes Dan, but not me.

However, these last few nights for me have been restless.

Yesterday afternoon, feeling particularly tired and cranky after picking up the kids from school I went straight up to my bedroom, shut the door and lay down after giving out strict instructions that I be left alone.

I never do this. After school is usually one of the busiest parts of our day.

The kids and I unpack and pack new lunches, I help get them organized for any activities that evening, I help Olivia with her homework, I start supper, I check my e-mails and do all the paperwork that I have resisted doing throughout the day,

and so it usually goes.

But yesterday I didn’t feel like doing any of it, and so I lay down

by myself.

It was a very warm afternoon, the warmest day we have had yet, after a cold and relentless winter.

I lay on our bed, my face toward the window and felt the sun’s warm rays on me. I looked at the birch tree in our neighbour’s front yard and thought of….. nothing in particular ….as I luxuriously drifted in and out of sleep for a half hour.

How positively delicious it feels, sometimes, to just be.

Just be. It’s such a cliché. We hear it all the time, but do we actually heed its invitation?

I am the queen of ‘doing’ as much as I am the queen of wanting to ‘just be’ and so often my efforts

to meditate or visualize or say my mantra or be mindful or sign up for this online course or read that book,

can end up looking like another whole mountain of ‘doing’.

Don’t get me wrong, I love all of that stuff, and it helps….

But what can be really succulent and authentically peaceful is just taking a spontaneous afternoon springtime nap.

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, look to tomorrow, rest this afternoon.”
― Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown’s Little Book of Wisdom

3) The ‘Ghost Bride’ by Yangsze Choo

One of my favourite movies of all time is the 1998 film ‘What Dreams May Come‘.

In this movie the character played by Robin William searches the afterlife for his wife.

What I loved about this movie even more than the concept of love transcending death, was the captivating and gorgeous afterlife setting it offers,

wherein the experience and environment that each soul has are the immediate products of both their imagination and expectations/beliefs about life after death.

Fast forward to 2013 and the publication of Yangsze Choo’s book ‘The Ghost Bride’, set in colonial Malaya, in which Choo creates for us a memorable ‘living’ example of the Chinese afterlife.

Choo deftly weaves in specific cultural beliefs as she creates her otherworldy setting, such as the Chinese ritual of families burning paper offerings to their deceased .

Paper offerings represent objects, animals or people that the deceased liked, and burning them ensures they will reach the deceased in the after-world and assure the dead a  comfortable existence.

It is so entertaining to see how these paper offerings bring to form a real city of ghosts which sets the stage for drama and adventures, as Li Lan navigates this strange place while her spirit hovers between life and death.

There is a lot going on in this book, and it was at times confusing to follow,

but deeply compelling for me was this concept of an imagined afterlife, based on the beliefs and perceptions that were held during life, brought to fruition. Choo masterfully depicts this very specific spirit world.

I would LOVE to hear your thoughts….

What animals are currently being adored in your home?

What simple moments bring you peace?

What are you currently reading?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Rumi, teachers, and ‘An Invisible Thread’…..

   ‎Every week I am going to speak to three subjects: books, ideas, people, products, or innovations  that I  believe are peace-building, heart-opening, community-celebrating, love-spreading vehicles. Complaining and criticizing are easy traps to fall into, but I am convinced that ‘building up’ holds far more power and transformative energy.
So, my sweet friends, here goes…..Our world is a beautiful village and peace does begin at home. 
What I am LOVING this week……

1)      The poetry of Rumi –

Years ago, when I began to come across the widespread work of this 13th century Persian poet and Sufi mystic I positively swooned. His words are such profound gifts of love to our world. Written so long ago, yet, his messages are every bit as relevant and accessible now as then.

During a time in my life when events felt particularly challenging, the following was my heart-opening favorite quote because despite my heartache I still knew these words to be true…

                       If God said,  ‘Rumi, pay homage to everything that has helped you enter my   arms,’   There would not be one experience of my life, not one thought, not one feeling, not any act, I would not  bow to.

I have recently  added Rumi quotes to my e-mail signature in my own attempts to spread the loveliness far and wide.

 2)     Teachers –

I am such a profound believer in building up our teachers. I have discovered that when I both follow my intuition and work with my kids’ teachers and schools, little miracles happen. Both of my younger kids have specific learning needs (doesn’t every kid?) but I have consistently found their teachers to be fervently invested in every student’s success and happiness.

In turn, I try to find as many ways and times to celebrate the work that they do, as teaching can sometimes be a tireless and thankless job. There have been so many great teachers along the way, but today I salute this year’s fantastic, energetic and super-inspired crop….

Carlie Ramotowski, John Malcolm, Fay Coleby, Riley Laird, Kristi Legge – You are all SO very wonderful and deserve beautiful, bursting spring bouquets.

 3)     Book An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff & Alex Tresniowski  –

This was a book that I actually bought for my husband, but ended up reading myself after combing the house one night in a mad frenzy of ‘turning-the-house-apart-looking-for-something-new-to-read’. (Am I the only one who does this?)

It is an easy read (not why I bought it for you sweetheart!) but the story has stuck with me. It tells the true account of a busy sales executive who befriends a disadvantaged young panhandler. What ensues is a life-long and life-changing relationship for both.  One of the reasons this story resonated for me, I think,  it that it happened during a time when everything was not a social media experiment that would receive immediate Facebook accolades.

Laurie, the executive, befriended Maurice because she felt compelled to. Something drew her to the boy and she chose to act on this powerful urge to connect with him, even though she was warned by her friends to not interfere in his life unless she was sure she was committed for the long haul.

As the story of the relationship between Laurie and Maurice unfolds, so does Laurie’s personal history of alcoholism and abuse in her own family. Laurie recognizes, however, that she cannot possibly compare her family’s dysfunction to what Maurice is experiencing. Pain is pain, though, and it is fascinating to see how Maurice and Laurie are both able to transcend their own ‘stories’ and empower each other to be better and do better.

Never doubt that it is possible for one person to make all the difference in another person’s life.

 I especially loved Laurie’s account of her mother dying, as I was able to be with my own mother when she died and found it to be an intensely spiritual and even comforting experience, as Laurie did.