Tag: community

Growing Food Without Land, Money or Time

Baskets of freshly-harvested broccoli, cucumbers, zucchini, wineberries, purple peas, winecap mushrooms, multicoloured chicken eggs, kale, celery, cauliflower, and a diverse selection of flowers.

The idea of homesteading or growing food is enjoying some increased popularity at the moment, supposedly because it’s rewarding, both from a human-connection standpoint as well as ethically/morally, with regards to climate change and ecological preservation. Also, of course, once you’ve become accustomed to the deliciousness of homegrown fresh foods, it can be hard to return to the comparatively dull stuff from grocery stores that has sat waiting for ages, and usually was farmed extractively. That stuff is empty of nutrients and joy! And with the rise of fascism (and fascist destruction of trade, farming, research and prosperity), I think we’ll soon have many more reasons to grow and preserve our own foods.

I grew up in a homesteading family, so it wasn't difficult for me to tumble back into this rewarding life, as an adult with children. But, especially for people who are new to it, I know homesteading (or even just growing a little food) can seem really, really daunting. I keep seeing videos of homesteaders and food farmers “giving up”–either because they faced too many disappointments, or because other adventures called to them. If you’re one of those people who wants to grow food but has been put off by all the discouraging news out there, I’m writing this for you! I want to help you avoid some of the most common pitfalls, and find some serious hope and joy from growing food. The thing is, many of those homestead failures didn’t have to be failures. These people lacked a few of the basic ingredients for homesteading. I’ll talk about those ingredients in a minute. But first… the biggest deterrent to people growing food is lack of land, time or money. So let’s deal with those first.

I have no land!
OK. So you’re like most people. That’s OK! You can still grow food. The most obvious solution is to grow plants on a balcony or window. You can totally buy some expensive little gadgets like grow lights to help you with this, but it’s not even necessary. Just choose plants that don’t need a lot of light or space. The simplest is sprouts. Given two square feet of counter space, you can grow a huge variety of incredibly nutritious sprouts.

Easiest: Bean Sprouts
Buy the cheapest beans you want (whatever type you like but mung beans grow fast, so are great starters!). Soak a cup (or two if you have a big family) in at least twice as much water, overnight. Then strain them, rinse them, and spread them onto a baking tray lined with a woven cotton dish cloth (or whatever piece of fabric). Rinse them once or twice a day.

When you see them start to split, or little tiny points appear, they’re ready to eat! You can let them go a bit longer if you want to have a bit of a crunchy sprout. They’ll be delicious cooked like regular beans (and much more easily digestible), but can also be marinated for bean salad, or eaten fresh.

Almost as Easy: Pea or Sunflower Shoots
Buy whole peas or sunflower seeds (for planting; not packaged for eating!) Soak them overnight in a bowl of water, and then lay them on a planting tray full of soil. They barely need any soil, and can literally be dumped in a heap, or in dense rows. Put the tray on a windowsill, as they do need some light when they green up.

When it’s mild weather, they can also be planted outside, in this way. Simply wait for them to shoot up about 4-6 inches, and then snip them off with scissors. The peas will actually continue to grow and can be harvested a few more times.

When they’re spent, throw the remaining roots and stubs into your compost. The peas especially are amazing nitrogen fixers, and can even just be dug into the soil to feed whatever you grow there, next.

Alfalfa Sprouts (or clover, fenugreek, mustard, etc.)
This takes a tiny bit more time every day than the other two, but they’re SO delicious. I do recommend buying seeds intended for sprouting, here.

Prepare a wide-mouth canning jar (at least a pint or a litre or so), by cutting a piece of sturdy mesh that can be placed over the top and held in place by a canning ring. You can buy sprouting-screens for such jars, but it’s totally unnecessary.

Put 1 to 2 tbsp of seeds in the bottom of the jar, add some water, then the mesh and ring on top, and allow to soak for at least a few hours, or overnight. Then strain the water out through the mesh. Fill with fresh water, swirl around, and strain again. Leave the jar sitting open side down in a shallow bowl or on a (clean) dish rack. The seeds should be sitting against the mesh in the bottom corner of the jar, but not fully covering it. Repeat this rinse-swirl-strain process three times a day until your sprouts are starting to green up (tiny leaves will be developing at the end of the long stems). Then rinse and enjoy them!

Other than Sprouts: Small and Borrowed Spaces
So, obviously, sprouts are not the only thing you can grow on a counter. Buy or make planters out of whatever containers you like, and experiment away! Lots of people grow herbs inside, but veggies are possible too!

And if you have a balcony, even more is possible. I used to grow all kinds of veggies on my 3x8ft balcony in Vancouver, Canada. I had a screen of beans on one side (for shade as well as harvesting), squash growing along the railing (I had to hang little hammocks to hold the fruits as they got heavy), all kinds of herbs and heat-loving veggies, as well as a couple of tomatoes, and a 1x1m mini-lawn for my cats to roll on. We were very happy.

Of course, if you don’t have a balcony or windowsill at all, or just would like to grow much more than that, you may be able to work somebody else’s land. This relates to community-building, which I’ll talk about in a bit, for obvious reasons. But an increasing number of people are willing to allow others to grow food in their otherwise-unused yards, especially if they also get to enjoy the produce. Community gardens are another such non-homeowner option.

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I have no time!
This is such an unfortunate reality for the majority, these days. Especially for those with kids or low-paying multi-jobs. Obviously, there are some things you can do (like sprouts, above) that can still be do-able, given enough forethought (and maybe a reminder to rinse and eat them!) But if you want to grow more than just sprouts, a mind-shift might be necessary.

For us, the pandemic gave us a reason to let go of kids’ activities and start a proper garden (after a few years of development, our kids have now moved out, and we grow most of our own food on less than 1/4 acre). A garden (or balcony planters) can take as little as a handful of hours per week, in the busiest growing season. And obviously, the more you grow, the more land you utilize, and the more variety you grow, the more time you’ll need. But I do have a few time-saving ideas:

No-Till Regenerative Gardening
I won’t go into detail, here, but I’d highly recommend watching a few YouTube/etc. videos about it. This is what we’ve been doing. At it’s core, it’s about feeding the soil and working with the ecology you have, instead of stripping it. This involves allowing some weeds to grow where they want, allowing the soil layers to remain in-tact by not ploughing, tilling, or weeding too aggressively, and watching which plants grow best where, to allow the garden to evolve in the way that works best for the plants you’re trying to grow. A lot of “allowing.” But… the more we “allow” things to grow as they need to, the less work we have to do in fighting them.

Grow Fruit Trees!
Fruit trees do need to be pruned at least once a year (twice can be better for some), and they’d benefit from some thoughtful planting and maintenance of the ground around them, but on the whole they can produce a lot of food for very little effort. The same is true of many perennial plants, including berry shrubs, asparagus, Jerusalem artichoke, and many others.

Be a Lazy Gardener
Some things really do need to be done, in the garden: adding compost in early spring, seeding (maybe even starting seeds indoors if you’re in a changeable climate place like I am), and pulling out weeds and veggies that outcompete others. But a pristine and orderly garden is not even a happy garden! Plants LOVE to be mixed up. Most also love to be left alone to grow! Gardening may not even take as much time as you think it will.

Call in the Insects
Insects are generous garden helpers. They pollinate, of course, but when we ensure a great diversity of insects (and insect species), they balance their own populations, keeping invading hordes of veggie-demolishing insects to a minimum. The greater diversity of insects we have, the fewer issues we’ll have from destructive insects. And they work for free! Well… almost. You have to pay them with flowers. Add a bunch of different types of flowers to attract insects. Clumps of marigolds, asters, violets, sweet peas—even perennials like rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs if that suits your fancy! Whatever is easy to grow, and makes you happy. Clovers are not only excellent insect-attractors, but also, being related to peas and beans, put much-needed nitrogen into the soil. They do take a bit of pulling-back, though, as they can easily grow into a bed and take over. I grow low-growing clovers between raised beds, and mulch the extras into my compost, as well.

Plant a No-Mow Lawn
Mowing lawns is not only a scourge on our air quality, but it's also a massive waste of time! We replaced our lawn with a low-growing no-mow lawn of sedges, small daisies and other flowers, and low-growing pink clovers. I never mow, anymore, and my lawn stays lush and green all summer!

Plant Thoughtfully
Check out useful companion plants for the veggies you choose, so that everything you grow can thrive. Always research, to understand the needs of your plants and the kind of plant community they enjoy. This will also help you diversify and create a garden that sustains itself, with little management needed from you.

Share Your Yard
If you have a yard, and a desire to eat homegrown food, but no time to grow it, consider allowing someone else to garden in your yard! Set some ground-rules, especially with regard to bylaws, invasive plants, and access, but then give as much freedom as possible to the person or people using your land. Trust them to make good decisions, and put your effort into building a relationship with them. You’re building a community. 💚

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I Have No Money!
So… this is an increasing majority of people. And probably the hardest obstacle to overcome. I’ve been passionate about growing at least a little of my own food since I left home at 18, so I have learned a few basic cost-saving tricks along the way.

Save seeds
A LOT of veggies are just plain easy to save seeds from. The biggest issue you’ll have is cross-pollination, so plant just one type of each thing every year (like one type of bean, one type of pea, one type of lettuce, etc. etc.) That will save you accidentally creating useless hybrids. In most climates, the most commonly-grown veggies (and tomatoes and cucumbers and squashes) are easy to save seeds from. YouTube, again, will help you out with the specifics.

Don’t waste money!
There’s a massive industry out there making money off new gardeners who don’t know there are cheaper options. From grow-towers to veggie-starts to chemical fertilizers, there is an infinite list of things you don’t need. What you really do need is this:

  • Good Soil: You can buy it bagged if you’re growing indoors or on a balcony, but if you have land to grow on, get it delivered in bulk, or better yet, amend the soil you already have.
  • Compost: Buy a little, the first year, and start making your own (unless you’re composting inside, a good old compost heap, caged to keep out rodents, is your best bet—feed it constantly!)
  • Mulch to Keep Down Weeds: newspapers for small spaces, or arborists’ chips for larger plots. See https://getchipdrop.com/
  • Seeds: share with your community! Look for seed libraries, and talk to your neighbours. You don’t need to buy from seed growers, but if you do, just a few is enough.
  • Gloves: (Only if you’re dealing with weeds like blackberries.)
  • A Shovel: A small trowel is fine unless you have a large plot; then you’ll also want a spade.
  • Pots: Whether big pots for balcony growing or smaller pots and trays for windowsill growing or seed-starting, these should be free. There are SO many people throwing away their used nursery pots every year. Ask your gardening neighbours, or check your local recycling depot.


Garden in Community
The more people share the costs and the labour, the easier and cheaper gardening becomes. Not to mention more enjoyable, more fruitful, and with bigger harvests, since everyone learns from each other.

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Ingredients for Success
OK, so I mentioned the basic ingredients for happy homesteading. I meant that in the same way the main ingredient in Mama’s cornbread is love. It really is—it was for my Mama, and now I’m the Mama I know what that means!! And it’s the same with gardening. The ingredients are love, commitment, and patience. Just like raising children! And baking. 🙂

I’m truly not just being poetic. Here’s what I mean:

Love
You have to LOVE this. Deeply. If you’re growing food because you think you should, or because someone else told you to, it’s going to be a slog. But if you have good reasons for doing it, it veers into the realm of love, and then you’ll weather all the storms. Some good reasons I and other successful gardeners have are because it brings us enormous joy, because it gives us wonderful food, and because it makes us feel we’re doing something to improve our world. What is your reason to love growing food? Maybe you don’t have one yet. You can start with just purpose, and given commitment and patience, love will grow.

Commitment
It’s not going to be a breeze. Growing food is a constant learning curve. Especially if you’re going the regenerative route, but shopping at stores that constantly try to sell you harmful industrial-farming products. You’ll use them and they’ll damage your soil or set back your progress and you’ll lose faith. And even if you really commit to regenerative farming, you’re going to have failures, because that’s simply how ecology works. It’s a balance that’s eked from an infinite complex diversity and many failures. But we commit to that—the complex diversity—and we weather the storms, and find solutions, and really… we grow into it.

Look at the word commit. It begins with bring together (co). Like community, coworker, etc. Commitment is about coming together not only with other people, but also with the task at hand. And in this case, that’s creating and nurturing a harmonious ecology that will produce food for us to eat. In other words, it’s about making ourselves co-participants in our ecology. That realization, alone, will make gardening easier and more successful. It’s not a project you’re overseeing; it’s a community of plants, insects, minerals, and weather that you’re a part of.

Oh… and quitting? You can’t quit. You’re not co- anything, if you quit. So grow a pair of potatoes and keep at it.

Patience
It will take years to have any kind of garden feeling whole. That’s because it has to go through many cycles (a year is a cycle) just for the soil nutrients to find an equilibrium, and from that basis, the diverse ecology of the plants, insects and animals. And it also just takes a few seasons for you to get to know all your co-ecosystem-inhabitants.

I’ve seen multiple homesteading “influencers” give up after a year or two. That’s like putting your toes into the opening of a shoe and declaring it doesn’t fit. No. You have to put it on, lace it up, and then walk around in it. And even then, you probably have to wear it for a few weeks or months before it really feels great. It’s the same with gardening. So… find a reason to love it, commit to it, and then be patient. And when you struggle, go find regenerative solutions for the ecosystem you’re growing into.

Happy spring!

How to Overcome Fascism by Eating Delicious Local Food in Season

A wicker basket containing nine eggs of different colours (dark reddish-brown, pale brown, green, and pale green) along with a small open jar of local honey.

We had a beautiful moment, yesterday, when two young women who grew up next door to us brought us a jar of honey in trade for our chickens' eggs. They're just visiting their parents' house, as they both moved out years ago, now, and it was lovely to catch up a bit, and chat about what flowers the bees were drinking from.

Here's how it works: Both my and these young women's parents bought land, when it was affordable, here. Our parents grow and tend to a plethora of flowers, fruit trees and vegetables. Their parents keep bees that drink from the flowers in both of our yards (and pollinate the veggies and fruits we grow, as well!) and we keep chickens, who not only fertilize our veggie garden, but provide eggs and meat that we can trade for this gorgeous honey… made partially from the nectar of our own flowers. The neighbours on the other side of us grow corn that for some reason we can't grow just a couple hundred feet to the west, so we delight in fresh corn, in August, in addition to all the crops we grow ourselves, and buy from others in the neighbourhood. All of us have to give away zucchini and other too-plentiful crops to the broader community, as well. And we teach people how to do what we do, because the more people do this, the richer we'll all be.

It seems really too idyllic to be true, but this is the dream my parents had in the seventies, and through three generations we've now managed to carry it on, to some extent. And it's the foundation of what it truly means to buy local.

Now here we are clenching our teeth, watching a bunch of fascists try to take over a rather large chunk of the world, munching through Hitler's playbook one vile action at a time. Whether you're here or there, or whether you're repulsed or scared by their actions, eating local is a good idea. In fact, eating local has always been a good idea, because it's sustainable. And now maybe the trade war or the scarcity caused by fascists kicking a large percentage of farm workers out of their countries will push more people to eat local, too. I hate to think there might be a silver-lining to all of this, but also I'd rather build that silver lining than only wither away amongst the negatives. I think maybe that silver lining is bigger than food, too. I think now we can we use our frantic flee from fascism as a leg-up on the way to save humanity from pernicious greed.

And it doesn't matter what country we live in, either. All of us are going to be affected by the trade-war, and all are going to be affected by food and labour shortages. But we don't have to suffer. Yesterday I saw someone asking where to get fresh local produce in winter. Well… we live up north, so we probably can't, unless it's from a greenhouse. So the question is not so much how to simply buy locally, but how to change our diets and expectations in order to buy locally.

Me? I only eat fresh corn in the summer. That's when it's abundant, here. And frankly, it tastes a lot better than whatever well-travelled corn is available in the stores in other seasons. Maybe I freeze some of my neighbour's corn in the summer, and can add it to a nice Spanish rice or pot of chili, right now. Because it's winter. I'm eating a lot of veggies, legumes, fruits and meats that I dried or froze last summer, along with some fresh greens that I'm growing on my windowsill and under a grow-light (pea-shoots, alfalfa sprouts, and a few lettuces). In fact, even if you don't store food yourself, the best-tasting food in the grocery store during a northern winter was flash-frozen fresh from local farms, last summer. A bag of frozen broccoli is much more delicious than those slightly grey imported broccolis in the fresh produce section.

It definitely takes a little more planning to eat what's locally grown and seasonally available, instead of just going for fresh avocados, tomatoes and apples, year-round. But I like a small challenge, and to be honest, it's not much of a challenge after you've done it for a year or two, and mostly… it's so enjoyable! That fresh corn that I only eat in summer? It's not only more delicious because it's fresh and comes from my smiling neighbours' hands; it's also more delicious because we only eat it during one month of the year! It's like Christmas treats: by the time we get back around to Christmas, we're craving that stuff! Scarcity makes things delicious.

But what about expense; affordability? Have you seen the prices at the local farmers' market?! This kind of seasonal local eating is only for the privileged, right? Well yes, to some degree I can see that line of thinking. I have a huge privilege in being able to farm on the land I rent, but my family is also on the lower end of the middle class, and we've managed to make these choices by prioritizing where we spend our money. Instead of taking vacations, we built a garden; instead of owning a home, we rent. We cut expenses wherever we can, and spend a little more on the things we feel matter most: a healthy home and meaningful time with our children. We spend more than most people on ethical, partly-foraged meat, because raising our own chickens, buying neighbours' lambs, local, sustainably-caught seafood, and local grass-fed beef and dairy is very expensive! So we minimize our consumption of it, and we supplement with legumes and pulses. I buy some dried and grow/dry some myself, and then I just soak them overnight, move them to a tray for sprouting, and cook them in a day or two, whenever I feel like it. We pay pennies per cup of food, this way. Unless we add expensive cheese, which… I confess happens more than it should!

But boxed cereals, cookies, prepared foods; even canned foods–these I consider a waste of money. Our culture spends a lot on processed foods that don't nourish us, and deplete not only our finances but also our land and cultural heritage. Learning to cook from scratch is a huge benefit not only to our health, but also to our pocketbooks. It's true that it takes more time, but for our family this became quality time. By the time my kids moved out they were fully capable of growing food and cooking from scratch. I can't imagine a more important skill, but it's also a point of bonding for us, as we still get together to make and share meals.

How about a useful list. I'm in the Pacific Northwest, and can only talk about my own experience, really. So here it is, a list of common locally-produced foods from my region. I'd be happy to hear yours!

Fruits:

  • Spring: blossoms! (OK it's not a fruit but you can see my reasoning…)
  • Summer: all kinds of berries, grapes, and stone-fruits
  • Late summer: figs, kiwis, more berries, tomatoes
  • Autumn: apples, pears, quinces, tomatoes
  • Early winter: persimmons,
  • Winter: stored apples (still fresh), jams, canned fruits, frozen fruits, and dried fruits

Greens:

  • Spring: Pea shoots, edible-pod peas, spinach, lettuces, overwintered kale and broccoli, wild greens
  • Summer: Lettuce, Chard, kale, cabbages, broccoli, green beans, shelled green peas, celery
  • Autumn: same as summer, plus spinach
  • Winter: some fresh kale, stored cabbages, frozen or dried greens, and fresh sprouts/shoots

Other vegetables:

  • Spring: seaweeds, overwintered cauliflower, baby carrots, asparagus
  • Summer: turnips, celeriac, carrots, beets, cauliflower, new potatoes, peppers, eggplants, artichokes, sunchokes, zucchini and other summer squashes
  • Autumn: same as summer, plus potatoes, winter squashes 
  • Winter: seaweeds, stored potatoes, carrots, sunchokes and squashes, canned or frozen other things, dried seaweeds, peas, beans and lentils

Grains:

  • Autumn: most of our local grains are harvested in late summer or autumn, and of course they store on our shelves all year, after that. We have quite a few available in our area, despite not being the prairie: oats, barley, wheat, rye, corn, buckwheat and sorghum are what I'm aware of.

Nuts and seeds:

  • Autumn: mainly hazelnuts (indigenous, here!), but also some walnuts, hemp seeds, pine nuts, beechnuts, and chestnuts.

Animal products: (not by season because some can vary, and most can also be stored frozen)

  • meat: fish, invertebrates, poultry, larger birds, rodents, lamb, pig, and beef. I believe it's more sustainable to only eat locally and ethically-grown meat, and to eat it only rarely, supplementing with eggs, legumes and pulses, as well.
  • eggs: although many non-industrially-farmed chickens produce fewer eggs in the winter, it does depend on the breed and the conditions, so it's absolutely possible to have fresh eggs all year round.
  • dairy: we have lots of local sustainable small dairies here, producing cow, goat, and sheep products!

Sweeteners: (mostly made in autumn; stored all year)

  • maple syrup, barley syrup, honey, corn syrup, and beet sugar.
  • apples, grapes, figs 

Salt, spices, etc.:

  • we do actually have sea salt produced on the west coast!
  • many herbs, peppers, seeds, spices, etc. are grown here and preserved before winter.
  • seaweeds, kelps

What to cook! This is just some of my favourites:

  • Spring: all the flowery salads, dairy, eggs, and bright fresh greens! Also legume/pea salads, wild-green and egg sandwiches.
  • Summer: (Do I have to say this, even?) ABUNDANCE of fresh and grilled foods!!! We even make our own ice cream by putting frozen fruit, honey and local cream into the food processor!
  • Autumn: pies (fruit and savoury), hearty soups, hot potato and grain dishes.
  • Winter: chili, stews, & casseroles made with dried and frozen produce, baked desserts of grains and dried fruits, 

I'm getting hungry writing this list. Yum. Every region of this earth has its own delicious range of available nutritious foods in every season. We can not only survive but absolutely thrive by embracing the goodness of the places we call home. Tomorrow, I'm going to make a fruit-filled bread with my eggs, honey, local butter, home-dried apples, and some locally-grown oats I can grind into flour using my handy little mill. 💛

Taking the Leap (away from fascism)

A red and orange and yellow background with a giant swoosh of white abstract paints and pencil lines and scratching that vaguely resemble a leaping bird wing.
"Escaping the Nest" (detail), by Emily van Lidth de Jeude

You can only get pushed and pushed and pushed to a certain point, and then it becomes easier to take a leap to somewhere else. That happened to us with our first child, as we tried to find his place in the landscape of school options, and nothing–just nothing–felt good to him. We had heard about some mysterious people who just didn't send their kids to school at all: unschoolers. Terrifying. But after some research, I timidly told our son's Kindergarten principal that we'd be joining the unschoolers. And to my shock, he agreed it was a good idea for our boy! I was scared, but we jumped. And suddenly we felt so free.

So the thing about jumping is that you do get this feeling of freedom, but then you have to land, and land running. I guess we've mastered that, now. We embraced the landing of our unschooling choice, and took step after stumbling step over the next ten or so years, until we discovered our kids (because our daughter chose to unschool as well) were fully capable teens running their own show. And now they're happy, independent adults, still running their own show. We made it! But it wasn't just lucky. It was planned.

You don't jump out of a plane with no preparation. Or at least I hope you don't. I jumped into the unschooling world after a bit of research and some deep heart-searching, because I needed to be sure I could give up my career for this. And I did. I bit the bullet and did it, and we're all OK!! The thing is about making big life-changes: you have to run with it. Don't go timidly. You go with intention, and determination to keep taking the next step, even as you're just starting the first one.

Same for getting married, for maintaining what has sometimes been a difficult marriage, for buying a new car, for taking a huge road-trip with the kids, for some of my biggest art projects, for growing our own food, for my kids when they decided to move out and support themselves, and now… for leaving fascist media in the dust, even though it feels like the whole world depends on it.

Yep. This week I spent every spare minute researching and planning for my leap away from Meta, Paypal, Amazon, and Windows. (I never used X to begin with.) Poof! In two weeks I'll be free of all of them. And yes that includes their hard-copy shops like Whole Foods. Done.

Is it scary? YES!! Especially because most of my friends and even my own kids are not following suit. I've only managed to find a few dozen of my community members on BlueSky, and even fewer on Mastodon. But I have faith that number will grow and, on the whole, I feel delighted. (Edited a year later to add: While there are indeed more locals on BlueSky, I have basically abandoned it now, because Mastodon is far better, and far more open-minded.)

I think I'm in the free-fall stage of taking a leap. I'm buoyed by that feeling of weightless joy that I feel at the top of a swing's arc. I made profiles on BlueSky and Mastodon, and spent two days messaging contacts on Meta and asking for their email addresses and phone numbers. My Contacts folders are now a thing of beauty. 

But the best part is that I've had a few really wonderful conversations (by text and email) with some friends I've not spoken to in years. It turns out I was seeing almost nothing of what my friends posted on Meta, and now I'm finally connecting with these people! Even my European cousins are jumping off WhatsApp and we've moved our cousins-chat to Signal. With a little faith, all this turns out to be easy. It's like a refreshment for my heart and mind! Remember when we used to just call each other for a visit? Or simply drop by? I hope that becomes normal, again.

So, I need a parachute, right? That list of friends' contacts is my parachute. I spent a good long time creating it, and I trust that it will hold me. I've been researching where to get goods locally to replace the things I shamefully relied on getting through Amazon. Additionally, I'll have to learn to use a Linux operating system. That's going to be my next big task. Thankfully I live with a man who has some experience with it, so I know I'll manage. And even one of the locals who's also migrating off of Meta has offered to coach me. We have a beautiful community.

I guess the thing about taking a big leap is to just do it. In all of these situations I got pushed so far I couldn't not jump. In this case, I just know that there is no possible way I can live with myself if I support or am even associated with fascist companies. Being confronted by the irrefutable fascism of these people has pushed me off their platforms. Period. Now I just have to hit the ground running, and I think I can manage that. See you on the other side!

*I'm aware that many people feel we have to stay on these media to transform them. But that's just not me. I like working from the ground up, and now I'm off to help with building something better. For more details on why I'm leaving fascist media, etc. please check out my previous post: My Grandmother's Cocoa and How We Overcome Fascism

My Grandmother's Cocoa and How We Overcome Fascism

A hand lifts the lid of an antique Droste's Cocoa tin. There is red dutch-processed cocoa powder, inside.

On my shelf is this old can of cocoa. It says "Droste" and gives a weight "For Eng. and the Colonies". For me, this can of cocoa carries more than 1lb of memories and warnings.

When I was in my early teens I went to the kitchen of our double-wide trailer, stood at the upper extension of my tip-toes, and slid this red and blue metal can off our harvest-yellow fridge. It had been there as long as I could remember, and I'm not sure why this day, of all others, I finally made hot chocolate for myself, but I did. And since I'd looked in that can many times, I knew where to find my ingredients. 

Maybe fifteen minutes later I sat on the couch, fully proud and enjoying my first self-made hot-chocolate. I found something crunchy in my mouth and, already a fan of chocolate-covered coffee beans, I crunched away at the small bean and said, "aw, Mum! You got your coffee beans in the cocoa." 

"I can't imagine how," she said, disinterested. And I began to crunch another. But I thought better of it, and took it out of my mouth to see. It was a beetle! A small, black, coffee-bean-shaped beetle, desiccated and swirled with all its brethren into my hot chocolate.

"Gross!!" I yelled, and hurried to the kitchen to begin rinsing my mouth and spitting vigorously into the sink. 

Mum followed me. "Where did you get the cocoa?" She asked, with a wry smile.

"From the cocoa can! On the fridge!"

She began laughing. "Oh that's Grootmoeder's. From before the war!"

'Before the war.' Or, in Grootmoeder's words, 'in former days'—this was a topic we all heard about quite often, as storytelling was part of the way my grandmother dealt with her trauma from that time, along with keeping mementos. Our cocoa can was apparently one of those mementos. It was a reminder to her and to future generations of the terrifying shaking of planes overhead, of a deep gnawing in her empty stomach and a deeper fear that the baby in her arms would die of starvation. It was a reminder of the days she slipped under cover of night over rubble and into farmers' fields to steal tulip bulbs to stay alive, but never ever ever used the cocoa. Why? Because she needed a sign of hope that one day cocoa would not be just a relic of 'former days'. 

"Former days' were when Grootmoeder made chocolate treats for my grandfather, read the news and medical journals as compensation for giving up her dream of becoming a doctor in order to get married. When personal sorrows such as hers competed for space in her mind with the news telling of Hitler's determination to invade Poland, and other such worrisome things. I mean, it wasn't as though Hitler was actually new news. His rise to power began the year Grootmoeder was born, so to a young woman on the verge of starting a family, it wasn't exactly alarming. And besides, who wants to be alarmed? Who wants to set aside the demands of daily life to fight for something that may not be such a big deal, especially to a young, privileged, non-jewish Dutch woman? And what could she, a nineteen-year-old, possibly do to help the situation, anyway? She wanted to, of course, but her dream of becoming a doctor was in the process of being shoved under the carpet, and even if war should happen, she wouldn't be tending to injured soldiers.

Five years later she was nursing a baby from her own starving body, while trying to cook tulip bulbs on a dark, makeshift flame, while the buildings around her crumbled. And hidden away with other treasures was a can of cocoa that said "For Eng. and Colonies Net. 1lb." The fact that that cocoa came from a vast landscape of colonial murder and exploitation on the other side of the world, just to be processed and sold not only to my privileged grandmother but also back to the people still colonizing the out-of-sight-out-of-mind Americas was, truly, out-of-mind, to my grandmother, in former days. She had other things to worry about.

As Canadians, on the day after the new regime in America started Nazi-soluting their crowds, freeing violent fascist leaders from prison, and declaring their intentions of annexing various regions of the world, including Canada, we may feel similarly. Maybe it's more important to get our kids to school, today; to keep the peace in a community that's feeling the climatic and geo-political stresses and starting to fray at the edges. Maybe we're too stunned by the US government's sudden and bold conversion to what looks very much like a dictatorship (sweeping unilateral powers handed to the President, reworking of the official government website to remove the constitution and replace it with military imagery, declarations of intent to take over other territories, and commentary about there never being another election). Maybe we Canadians have our own pending elections and fascist contenders to worry about, and, like in the US, where about a third of potential voters didn't vote at all, the silent many could very well determine the outcome. And besides, our neighbours are all angry with us for not speaking up about their causes often enough.

Maybe it seems all hopeless and we just curl up with a hot cocoa for some Netflix hygge time. Maybe you don't want to hear me compare this Canadian moment to that time my grandmother was turning twelve and the Dutch National Socialist Movement was founded, in her country. Because did that really matter, compared to what was happening in Germany? And it was all just "news". What could she have done, anyway?

And here this can sits, on my shelf in Canada, with fresher cocoa in it, and I am self-medicating my very real personal traumas and fears about the future of my world with cocoa that, while supposedly ethically farmed and produced, hearkens back to pre-WWII and reminds me that we're all making choices in all our various moments that may be the difference between eating cocoa and eating tulip bulbs.

We have mundane obligations—yes. We do need to keep ourselves fed and our minds and communities peaceful. And we have opportunities in every action we take to courageously love through our fear. My teenaged grandmother watched the rise of fascism in her country and I'm watching it now, in mine. And all of us have, I feel, the responsibility to work to end short-sighted, morally blind, and greed-motivated thinking in our own communities. Because all fascist leaders began as children in communities, somewhere. All of us have influence on people who may one day oppress us or our loved ones. So that's where we need to do our work.

For me, the work looks like this:

  • Educating myself (with factually and ethically sound sources) on everything I can possibly learn, but especially the functioning of our current society, so that I might better understand the implications and consequences of my daily actions. 
  • Deleting my accounts (and thus no longer supporting or being exploited by) Amazon, Twitter, Paypal, Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, and anything else I soon may find to be associated with the group of mega-billionaires now running the fascist uprising.
  • Seeking to understand and have compassion for others, while still speaking out (gently) when others are causing harm—especially if they don't see it, themselves.
  • Building community: volunteering and supporting others who volunteer in my community. Being engaged in public processes and informed about past, current and future events.
  • Spreading factual information (hopefully non-combatively) in every way I can.
  • Voting at all levels of government. And encouraging others to vote, as well.

I posted recently on a home-canning group I'm a member of, and mentioned something about "hard times ahead". Instantly a bunch of other canners jumped on my comment with laughy-faces and remarks about the coming golden age of America, promised by their newly-elected leader. They were obviously canning the Kool-Aid. 

Let us not be fooled by a smiling face on a can of cocoa or a militarized website. I'm the granddaughter of a Dutch woman who nursed her baby from a starving body, and I'm married to the grandson of a Nazi soldier whose family was impoverished, shunned, and living in extreme fear, after the war. Both of our families carry immense trauma from that time. The last time fascism took hold like it is right now, everybody on every side of all the borders suffered, except the richest few. That's always the way. 

This coming 'golden age' is not for America, it's for the richest few. It's a return to feudalism, and we are the exploited masses. (Watch Yanis Varoufakis explain this, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3FdIyNMaFY) If you're reading this, you're unlikely to be one of the richest few, so we're all serfs in this boat, together. It's not the 'other people' (however you want to define your personal xenophobic preferences) who are causing the problem. It's the people massaging our fears. And together with the diversity of all the other serfs, we're the majority. We can build the future we want to see. 

We are not powerless. We overcome the fascism by refusing to fight, vilify or other our fellow citizens. We overcome the oppression put upon us by creating local abundance and resilience in our own communities. We overcome the fear used to control us by opening our arms to embrace each other. That is how we win.

…
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Editing this post to add relevant links, for those wanting to understand more about the current regime:

What is wrong with Stargate: https://www.devx.com/experts/matt-wolfe-explains-project-stargate-and-their-500-billion-dollar-plan/

Why leave Meta (beyond their end of fact-checking, diversity employment, and their permissive stance on hate-speech against lgbtq and immigrants (yes–it's worse!)): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3FdIyNMaFY

How AI can be used to support fascism and looking into how to resist that (podcast): https://researchpod.org/university-of-bristol/transforming-society/developing-anti-fascist-ai

Forbes' explanation of the new DEI rules: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/01/23/trumps-diversity-orders-rattle-ceos-what-companies-should-know-about-new-dei-rules/

Health and Science devastation: https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-hits-nih-devastating-freezes-meetings-travel-communications-and-hiring

Something more hopeful: Elisabet Sahtouris (evolutionary biologist) on the evolutionary inevitability of cooperation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMAPIlUJwmQ

Art for Change: When Connection and Conversation Are the Outcome

I could see him drifting across the polished concrete floor of the convention centre, blue-jacketed arms spread into a perfect reflection of the very wide smile that punctuated his neatly-trimmed ebony beard. He was studying the very sad-looking portrait of my recently-divorced brother that adorns the train of the gown I had on display. He circled the gown slowly, hands splayed as if to catch every bit of story it offered, taking it in with sparkling eyes and smiling, smiling, until he looked into mine, and said, "did you make this?"

Artist Emily van Lidth de Jeude sits in her wheelchair, wearing black leggings, a short red dress, a burgundy jacket, and a grey face mask. She has two curly fake hair buns, and is gesturing with her hands as she speaks to a dark-bearded man in grey pants and a blue suit jacket. Some of Emily's wearable art pieces are visible in the background.

"Yes," I answered. "It's called '(dis)robe: Nursing Gown'. Tell me about your big smile!" And he told me he felt seen. We talked for a long while about how crippling our societal expectations can be for people of all genders. We talked about how trapped the painted man looked, even though he held the mannequin by a dog-collared lead. We talked about how the patriarchy crushes all but the wealthiest people–it was never about men versus women; it's just a few billion pawns fighting for survival under the shoe of someone much more powerful. And what if we were to work together, instead?

I just finished a four-day stint of exhibiting some of my wearable art pieces at the Art Vancouver fair. This gave me opportunity to reflect quite a bit on why I do what I do. My purpose as an artist hasn't changed, but it has deepened and I suppose I feel it more intensely, now. I'm here to connect people with each other, with their own authenticity, and with a more equitable, sustainable future. My art is a conversation-opener. Conversations like the one I had with this blue-jacketed man are the cornerstone of social change. They're the space where the change takes root in our hearts.

See those two people talking at the back of the image below? They're talking. Their hearts are making change. During this show I also spoke with many children who wondered what was "going on with the boobies" on that Nursing Gown, or whether they could touch the insects on the Gaia Gown, and I saw children pull their mothers around the skirt to identify the flowers they knew. People wondered where they might wear such unusual dresses, or why anybody would want to. "Definitely not to work!" One of them exclaimed.

The artist, Emily van Lidth de Jeude, sits in her wheelchair, wearing the Hospital Gown project she created. Hospital Gown is a wearable art piece covered with selfies of over 300 Long Covid patients, and a train (which she's sitting on) covered with many of the most common symptoms of Long Covid. In the distance, two more of Emily's wearable art pieces can be seen, on display.

The main piece of this winter's artistic journey for me was the Long Covid gown, '(dis)robe: Hospital Gown' (image at the top). It involved over 300 selfies contributed by Covid long-haulers from around the world, transferred to an altered donated hospital gown. From the back of the gown, trailing from a drawing of my son's hands (because when my Long Covid was at its worst, he used to help me walk by gently pushing my back), was a hospital-blanket train covered in some of the most common symptoms of Long Covid. These are the symptoms that millions of people worldwide live with every day, often confined to home or bed, invisibly. So the train is supported by a wheelchair that is also partially hidden. There's symbolism in everything I do, and this was my opportunity to give a voice to the millions of people who, like me, live mostly invisibly with Long Covid.
And when I got too exhausted (shaky, blurred vision, heart palpitations) from wearing the gown and talking to people, I could just step back and sit in that wheelchair. A purpose-built wearable art piece! This is what comes of making art that truly deals with my own personal experience.

I invited many people from the Long Covid community to attend, so it was no surprise that this was a conversation piece for long-haulers, nurses and other health professionals. Some people even came to delight in finding their own faces on the gown! But it was also a chance for us all to be visible to others–many of whom had never realized Long Covid was happening in the world. Education is change-making.

This weekend was, for me, an opportunity to see other people becoming; changing, evolving, and questioning themselves. It was an opportunity to hug so very many lovely souls, and to express gratitude for their thoughts and opinions. There were people just visiting from afar, people who came to support artist friends, and people who were also showing work at the fair, or working to organize. There were people who came just to buy a pretty painting, but ended up chatting about climate change, gender politics, and the healthcare system. My own display confronted people with sometimes-difficult topics, and yet they bravely engaged. This reminded me that while we sometimes want to hide from challenges, humans are mostly courageous, and generous with our intentions.

I was not the only artist there trying to change the world through art. Humanity is a great kaleidoscopic spectrum of beautiful people, reaching across so many circumstantial divides to connect and thrive. We're like all the network of roots, mycelium, compost and microorganisms in the forest floor: a vibrant bubbling potion of hope, and a foundation for continued life. In following our own paths with so many tentative, compassionate feelers, we're finding our way.

Survival: Agility of Mind and Heart

A bridge on the Coquihalla highway is shown from above, in an aerial photograph by Douglas Noblet. The two lanes of the highway break away and are seen crumbled in the river, below. A small road running alongside the highway has also been washed out by a flood coming down the mountain, into the river.
One of the various road-collapses on the Coquihalla Highway in British Columbia.
Photo used with permission from Douglas Noblet, of Wild Air Photography.
Douglas has shared a series of these photos here, on Facebook.

I was looking at these photos by Douglas Noblet, this morning, which seem to be mainly of the Fraser Valley, and highway collapses of the Coquihalla and the Hope-Princeton, and I found myself wondering how long it will take to restore our infrastructure. Months? Maybe years for the Coquihalla? (More on what's broken, here: North Shore News) 

Then I realized that we're in climate free-fall, now. Any restoration is going to be hampered by increasing floods, blizzards, storms, fires, deep-freezes and heat-waves, not to mention the human issues like pandemics, supply-disruption, economic strife, labour and food shortages. Maybe the answer isn't how to get back to old-normal, but how we move forward instead of backward, and build new normal. 

An aerial photo of the flooded Sumas Prairie in British Columbia, Canada. There is a blue sky, low rolling hills in the distance, and then the lower two thirds of the photo is mainly a flat plain of brown water, accented here and there by protruding barn roofs, a few other buildings, a few small boats, and a few small trees and shrubs.
The flooded Sumas Prairie in British Columbia.
Photo used with permission from Douglas Noblet, of Wild Air Photography.
Douglas has shared a series of these photos here, on Facebook.

Upon hearing that thousands of dairy cows (half our province's dairy production) have drowned in their barns, I am ashamed to say that along with immense grief, I felt an urge to go buy "the last milk". My cousin reports that stores are bursting with panic-shoppers. What was I thinking?! Milk?! Really?! Milk is not a "need". Thankfully we didn't buy any. 

But you know what is a need? Love. Community. Right now we have some of our extended family here, who out of sheer luck got briefly lost on their way home to Princeton, and managed to just barely miss being caught in the Agassiz slide. So they're stuck here on the coast while their town is flooded. The silver lining to this situation is that, while we haven't seen them in over two years, due to the pandemic, last night I got to feel their arms around me, again. It was a huge relief. 

I know these photos are terrifying. It's awful to wonder if or how our kids will manage if schools remain closed, as they are now throughout the flooded valley and other towns. It's awful to wonder how our supplies and jobs and communities will survive if these highways and industries don't get repaired soon. It's awful just to wonder what we'll feed our kids if they can't have cereal with milk and they refuse to eat anything else! I know–it's a fear borne of privilege. But it's fear. We feel so easily lost at sea with no answers; no clear vision of where we're going. This fear leads to panic shopping, competition, greed, and more reckless consumption. It's exactly how we got to this place in human evolution, and the only way out is to let go of the fear. 

Now I'm thinking about how we can change, instead of rebuilding. It isn't the cows' milk we depend on, nor the farmland it came from. The Sumas Prairie was created a century ago by draining an enormous wetland. It was never our land, to begin with, and the question of buying milk seems so meaningless, now. It isn't the infrastructure that creates land for industrial farming, or brings our groceries from afar, nor the schools that hold our children while we work to buy the milk. It's love. Love is what makes us resilient. Love is what has brought citizens and business owners in the town of Hope to feed and shelter travellers trapped by mudslides. Love is what gives us the strength to grow food in the first place, to share with our neighbours even when we barely have enough, ourselves, to hold up our communities and hold on to hope. Love is what supports us while our minds are doing the amazing task of being agile; of finding solutions to problems we never fathomed just a few years ago. Love is what creates agility of mind and heart, and gives us the power to survive. 

The new normal we need to be building will become evident as the old normal is no longer available. For me, it is found in the arms of my loved ones. If I never drink milk again, and if my whole "normal" becomes something I can't even fathom, right now, it will be built on love.

Originally published in November, 2021.

Why Feeling Matters in Public Policy

A painting, in oil, acrylic and graphite scribbles, of a close-up face, more-than-filling the frame, and screaming. The screaming mouth fills most of the frame. Predominant colours are white, orange, sky blue, and grey/black.

Last night I attended a devastating meeting in my community. On the surface it was pretty run-of-the-mill: A bunch of councillors and a few municipal staff members slowly picking their way through various presentations, decisions, and amendments. They came to the end of the meeting having checked a few boxes, put a few requests to bed or to progress, and made a few small changes to the contentious bylaw that much of the population feels will rip the heart out of our community.

As a member of this community for all of my life, I've been passionate about the things that tie us together. Some of those things are the big organized events, like our traditional summer festival and Remembrance Day celebration; the fishing derbies that used to happen when I was a kid, and the raft race. The events change over the years, but always hold us together, and are facilitated by a huge number of dedicated creative people, who look at their community and see the need for celebration. We're also held together by the little things, like stopping to chat with an oncoming driver in the road, or letting the community cat into the car for a ride. We're held together by actions like calling a neighbour for help clearing a dead deer or sitting down with Bob for an ephemeral but deeply interesting conversation. 

Sometimes the holding together is very intentional. So many of us contribute time, ideas, and great heart to this community. In my own work and volunteer roles, I've been bringing newcomers into engagement with our wilderness, so that they can love and value this place as I do. As an artist I've grown in this rich stew of community to see the value of social practice around inclusion and diversity. I consider my work (both public and gallery-focused) a method of bringing out the voices of my fellow citizens and reminding us all of our personal benefit to community. 

Most of the artists I know are somehow engaged in broad community visioning, and feelings are our language. When we sit around talking together, we talk about the big picture. We talk about the vibe of the public spaces in our community, and the vague drifting of public sentiment; of community values. We talk about the social-emotional gorgeousness we're trying to promote, and the social change that is or should be happening. We see the big web of emotional connection that makes a community whole; that tethers us to the place we live, and we work in our sometimes-mysterious ways to keep it alive. 

Yes, these feelings and ideas can be vague, but we are masters of vaguery. The term "vague", like its linguistic origin in the French for "wave", might seem unthreatening. But a wave, however gentle, rarely comes alone, and sometimes builds slowly, unseen. Sometimes a tidal wave is a wall of water. Often it's just a going out of the tide, and then a returning, and returning, and returning, until the one unappreciated wave has enveloped a whole community. "Vague" is the feeling of community sentiment, and it can be just as devastating.

What devastated me about the council meeting was our council's lack of vision for that social web; that vague sentiment. During the meeting, various councillors mentioned that the bylaw was needed in order to "control" people, and that "not all people are our friends". They spoke often about controlling the population, but never about listening to it. They received a long series of letters asking them to consider the social damage caused by a pending bylaw that will severely limit access and enjoyment to our most popular public spaces. Letter-writers spoke about the casual gathering that will no longer happen after this bylaw is passed, and the councillors chalked it up to a lack of understanding on the public's part. The one councillor who opposes this bylaw spoke up to explain–again–his fierce opposition, and the idea that they shouldn't be pushing through a bylaw that is so publicly reviled. They carried on without acknowledging his words. Finally, they picked away at some of the wording of the bylaw, ostensibly to help people understand, without seeing the big picture. They didn't let any feelings they had to get in the way of their bylaw. They deafly ignored their populace, and carried on as though nothing had happened.

Is this a crisis of imagination? Maybe. Maybe we as a society are becoming less and less able to imagine a future we want to live in; to envision it so that we can create it. We're less and less able to see a future that is inclusive if we can't imagine how to converse or get along with those who we deem "not our friends". We know, in the abstract, that we need public policy that is expressly inclusive, but we, like our councillors, have forgotten how to include our neighbours. We've forgotten how to listen to the great vague voice of public sentiment.

The big picture in public policy is public sentiment. The public doesn't like this bylaw. We don't like that we haven't been consulted. We don't like that our letters were not read aloud, nor discussed for the many serious points they bring up. We don't like the feeling that a series of long complex bylaws will govern our footsteps and enjoyment of community spaces. We feel oppressed by this bylaw, and our feelings are what this community is made of. 

As our community becomes more and more developed; more populated, more busy, more anonymous, we're losing sight of the importance of neighbourly compassion in our social exchanges. As our municipal government takes on more control, we have relinquished the desire to affect change, ourselves. We've given up. We are increasingly more likely to call the authorities to deal with dead deer or fallen trees instead of hauling them away, ourselves. We used to use them for meat or firewood; we're no longer permitted to do so. And as our social agency is taken away, we're growing more likely to call the authorities when a neighbour offends us than to bring over a drink and have a chat. Our crisis of imagination has led to a crisis of public agency.

And when I realized that the vision of that big picture–that public engagement–is missing from our leadership, I realized that we also have a crisis of feeling. We elected leaders to do a dry job of picking through legal documents and approving or rejecting requests, but we didn't empower them to feel. When they post on public forums they are expected to remain impartial. We expect that the work of governing should be done without emotion, but it concerns emotion a great deal. We need our councillors to have compassion for the woman living in a tent behind the library, to prevent them from passing bylaws that would outlaw her presence. We need them to notice the people feeling alarmed and horrified by proposed changes and ask themselves how those feelings will impact the big picture of our community. We need them to feel, so that they can take our feelings into account; so that we feel heard and empowered to engage in our community.

Originally published in July, 2021.

Why Public Art by Kids Matters so Much

There's a rambling little debate going on in my community right now about what kind of mural should go up on the lock-block retaining wall that acts as the de facto welcome sign to our island. This wall faces the ferry dock, and forms the north side of the pedestrian walkway from the dock to the rest of the island. This is the plain concrete wall that, for generations now, has welcomed commuting adults and teens, newcomers and old-timers as well as untold numbers of tourists to our small island. Sometimes it sports blackberries trailing down to catch our shoulders as we pass by, sometimes obscene or public-shaming graffiti, and almost always an assortment of hardy edible weeds that pop out from its crevices. But most noticeably, it's a boring grey wall of concrete lock-blocks.

Once this wall had a vast mural painted by kids from the local school–each block was painted with scenes of local wilderness or animals. Another time there was a big plywood mural of the island and local information, painted with students from our middle school. Yet another time, the wall was the stage for a temporary piece of public art made by one of our local artists, which peeled and disappeared over time. For a few years now, it's been just a boring grey wall of concrete lock-blocks. 

A very wide photo of an eight-foot-high lock-block concrete wall, painted pale blue, with a diversity of children's paintings on it. It looks like each child has used one block to paint. The lowest tier has mainly paintings of whales, dolphins and fish (and a rainbow), the middle tief has mainly paintings of trees and land animals, especially deer, and the top tier has paintings of trees, landscapes, many birds, a sunset, and a big rainbow.
The Nex̱wlélex̱m/Bowen Island lock-block wall, as it was once painted by local kids.
Photo by Singne Palmquist

So now there's a call out for proposals from artists who would like to paint it, and an ongoing debate about whether it should have been offered to the island's children. I'm an artist; I'd love to have my work up in my own community and in fact have been talking with other artists about a collaborative work depicting local wildflowers for this wall. I love the idea of something that pleases and educates at the same time. But now I'm going to champion kids' art, for this wall. Because I think the many benefits of a mural painted by local kids far outweigh those of a more polished, "adult" mural.

Belonging

One of the best ways we can build sustainable community is to encourage engagement and concern for home and community. We need people to care that this is their home and feel that it deserves looking after. We care about things we feel ownership of. Kids feel ownership of their artwork–especially artwork that was designed and developed by them and displayed publicly in their home.

Why not just put their artwork up on the fridge? Well we can, of course, but not "just". It's not the same as being given the respect of one's community by being welcomed to paint right on our most visible wall. Being welcomed by one's community is, of course, the nature of the meaning of "home", and we want our kids to feel at home. We want them to grow up with the idea that this is their home, that their home matters, and that how they engage with it matters. We want them to feel seen; to feel responsible; to feel that what they do makes an impact on their home and future. So we have to give them that responsibility.

Imagine how it feels to children who painted the wall, say, in grade five, to then be walking past it twice every weekday on their way to and from school in grade eight. Some will tease each other about it; some will feel embarrassed, some will ignore it, and some will feel a quiet or even loud sense of pride. Almost all of them will feel connection. They'll feel a sense of belonging. Maybe they'll walk down to the dock to meet visiting relatives, and escort them past the mural they painted. Maybe they'll take selfies with their contributions. Maybe they'll move away and come back to find their marks still here, a few years later. 

Not every child will have an opportunity to paint this wall. Maybe just one or two grades, and maybe it will be repainted every five years. But the kids who didn't paint it may have siblings who painted it. They may just have witnessed it being done and feel the tendrils of connection reaching out. They'll know that this mural was done by and in honour of the children of our community, and they'll feel valued.

A large plywood mural is almost square, with a large painting of a green, tree-covered island, with beaches, houses, lakes, and a few sailboats, sea mammals, and birds in the blue water around it. The frame of the painting is covered with a series of small paintings of landscapes, seascapes, and other wilderness.
Nex̱wlélex̱m/Bowen Island plywood info-mural painted with local youth.
Photo by Singne Palmquist.

Learning

As a parent and educator I'm quite horrified by the many ways children are silenced in our culture; their ideas and skills unvalued, as they're seen as "still developing" in the system that is meant to develop them. Have we forgotten the meaning of development? It means growth. Children are not vessels into which we dump our own ideas for eighteen years and then trust to follow along like good little citizens. Children are growing people with their own ideas and skills and values, and they learn from experience. 

Everybody learns from experience. You can read as many manuals as you like about how to fix your appliance, but the first time you actually open the appliance up is when you really start learning. So what do kids learn by painting a mural in their community? So much. 

They'll learn simply from experience about materials: what type of paint is needed for this project? What chemical properties make it suitable and why won't classroom acrylics do the job? What types of scenes are acceptable, and why? Why has the council requested local flora and fauna, and what exactly are our local flora and fauna? What is the political and social work that goes into a project like this? And all the various applied maths, sciences, communication and language skills that come as a matter of course in the creation of this mural. 

Why can't they just learn those things in school? Why can't they paint the school walls? Why does this painting have to be making a visual chaos of our lovely manicured community? 

Chaos = Development

Because growth, development, and learning need chaos to thrive. It was the chaotic and random assortment of elements that evolved to become life as we know it, today. It was and is a chaotic assortment of peoples, places, climates and experiences that make humanity as we are, today. It was the chaotic rambling experiments of toddler-hood that gave our children the chance to develop skills they now depend on, like language, social skills, gross motor skills and dexterity. They learned all of those things from observing and experimenting, free-range, under our benevolent supervision. They didn't learn them in a school, from textbooks. They learned them because they felt at home in their homes, and made big messes and had big accidents. Our homes were chaotic. Now our kids are older, and it's time for them to be out in their wider community.

Our children are part of our community, and they are our community's future. Instead of being tucked away, seen and not heard, they need to feel they are part of it, so they can grow and thrive here.

A two-and-a-half-tier concrete lock-block wall is covered with medium blue paint, and images painted by children, including mainly fish and indigenous motifs, stars, sun and rainbows, people paddling indigenous canoes on the water, and Spongebob.
Kids' mural on lock-block wall at the Alert Bay ferry marshaling area.
Photo by Emily van Lidth de Jeude

Responsibility

We look after what matters to us. If we want our children to grow up to look after their home and community, we need to allow it to matter to them. 

We used to have an old cherry tree near the lock-block wall in the cove. Kids would climb it and hang out there, waiting for their commuting parents to walk off the boat. But eventually someone injured himself falling out of the tree, and then the tree was deemed too old, so was surrounded by fencing, off-limits to our kids. Now the area has been beautified as part of an effort to create a more visually-pleasing entrance to our community. There are all sorts of gorgeous plants there. I love them. But do the kids? Do they care about a tidy garden that they were expressly excluded from, and forbidden to play in? I asked my kids. My daughter says, "It's just another place you can't go." And how long before that garden is a dumping place for their litter and midnight beer cans, because it was never something they cared about in the first place? We look after what matters to us.

So how about a playground? What if we put in a playground at the ferry terminal, and the kids can play in blissful harmony with the commuters and traffic and beautiful gardens. Sure, but what kind of playground? Is it creative, dangerous, messy; fun? Because those are the things that make a playground worthwhile. Imagine an area full of tools, wood, climbing-trees and ropes; dirt and shovels and paint. That would be an amazing place for feeling belonging, learning new skills, and developing a sense of responsibility. But these playgrounds tend not to be condoned, these days, because of the chaotic look of them in our otherwise manicured landscapes, and because parents are afraid of danger. But danger–risk-taking–is essential for learning and for developing a sense of responsibility.

A close-up photo of a different part of the lock-block mural shown in the previous image. All medium blue background, with paintings of hearts, suns, rainbows, and fish. The mural boldly says "Home", and "Say NO to farmed salmon".
Another section of the Alert Bay mural. Photo by Emily van Lidth de Jeude.

Risk-Taking

If we never take risks, we can't learn to manage or mitigate them. Learning is all about taking risks, and risky play is a big part of progressive education all over the world. Just like babies learn to walk by taking risks and falling, teens learn to navigate social situations by taking risks and making mistakes; suffering heartbreak and social exclusion. We take risks as adults when we choose partners, careers, or make big purchases. We learn from all of those risks, and that's how we grow as individuals and how we evolve as a species.

Our kids are part of our communities; our species. They need to take risks like painting a public wall or climbing public trees so they can learn how their community works. You know what the boy who fell out of the tree learned? In addition to some of his physical limits, he may have learned that he was valued in his community, when he was seen, held, and tended to by an adult who was not his parent. 

Kids who paint walls take many risks, in choosing what and how to paint, in consulting with their peers, their supervisors, and their community, and they take social risks in walking past the mural they painted every day for a few years and navigating the conversations that arise. They take personal emotional risk in putting their artwork in a public space and facing the opinions of their community. And that social risk helps them to grow into their community–to become a part of it, deeply and permanently because they grew and thrived there.

A community that sits in stagnant contemplation of its perfectly manicured surroundings is not growing, thriving, or evolving. And who wants that?

It's not only kids taking risks in this scenario. It's us, too. It's the adults who give the kids our most prominent walls to paint and just trust them. That's a huge risk, especially for those of us who are quite afraid of the chaos of childish experimentation. But it's a risk we have to take if we want to grow as individual adults or as a community. Is it like giving our living room wall to a bunch of monkeys with paintbrushes and walking away? Maybe. But I'd rather have something unexpected that I can learn from than live in a stagnant community. It's a risk we have to take if we want to grow. 

As a community we are growing. Our kids quite literally are our future, and if we want them to grow into responsible adults who care about their home, then we need to make them a part of it, now.

Originally published in May, 2021.

Community as a Way of Life

Outside on a lawn, with leafy green trees in the background, dancer, teacher, and community organizer Mara Brenner sits surrounded by a large group of her young dance students in brown, green, and orange leotards and flowy skirts. Most are gesturing with their arms, and three of the younger children are being held aloft by others.
Mara Brenner with students of Gabriola Dance, 2019. Photo by Inspired Spirits Photography.

When I was 26, bewildered and a bit in shock with the reality of new motherhood, I took my baby to our local Family Place, and sat around the edges of the activity, watching. Whining lines of Suzanne Vega ran through my head: "in the outskirts, and in the fringes, on the edge and off the avenue"… as my baby nursed his way through the stress of a new situation. Out of the fray of mothers and toddlers and snack foods and plastic dishes came the most welcoming smile. This woman actually held out her arm to me, beckoning me to join the group. And Mara became my friend.

Years later, as we sat around her trailer home together, watching our kids play and leap from the furniture, I complained about my back issues, and Mara deftly used the opportunity to attempt to convince me to take the adults' ballet class that she taught in the evenings. I told her 'no way'. I explained that ballet left me behind when I was nine and had a pot belly and knees that didn't straighten all the way. She convinced me anyway, and next term I cautiously and inelegantly stepped into her class. 

Mara doesn't just teach ballet. She's an accredited Pilates instructor, and a passionate life-long-learner of human anatomy and movement. She looked at me while I attempted the ballet moves and explained exactly what my muscles and bones were doing and how I could optimize for my personal development. When she didn't have an answer, she went away and researched or thought about it until she figured it out (yes – that's the definition of being a life-long-learner, and an expert!) She sees people not only as moving, learning bodies, but as humans with struggles and opportunities. I soon became one of Mara's 'Tequilarinas' – the group of adults who danced until 9pm and then went for a tequila at the pub, together. After a year, my back was healed. I started wearing superhero costumes to ballet.

Through her friendship, clear strong vision, and unflinching determination, Mara gave me more confidence and opportunity than any other teacher I've had.

A group of dancers in brown and green leotards and flowy skirts stands around a tree stump, while two of them perform a lift, downstage. The dancer being lifted appears to be in a grand leap, with one arm reaching for the sky.
Gabriola Dance year end showcase, 2019: The Giving Tree. Photo by Inspired Spirits Photography.

Mara Brenner taught our island's children and adults ballet, and also used her company MaraGold Productions to bring world class artists to perform not only on our small island, but at various Canadian venues. She worked her dancing feet off one hundred percent of the time, not just giving to her community, but building it. She exemplified a kind of character strength and courage that's hard to maintain, but essential in a thriving community. Eventually her community turned its back on Mara and her family.

Our land use bylaw only allows trailer-living for a brief period of time while landowners are building a permanent dwelling. As you can imagine, building a home on the wages of a ballet teacher and a glazier, while also raising two young children, takes longer than it otherwise might. Mara and her partner, Stu, lived in a trailer on land they owned, while slowly building their permanent home. At the point they were forced to leave, they had only built the foundation. Theirs was almost an idealist story of dreamy island living, until our snooty bylaws pushed them out.

A group of dancers in brown and green leotards and flowy skirts lift the oldest dancer along, where she has fallen from the stump she initially stood on. They represent an apple tree, falling. An older boy dancer in a brown shirt and black leggings stands off to the left, his hands crossed over his chest, looking solemnly in the direction of the tree.
Gabriola Dance year end showcase, 2019: The Giving Tree. Photo by Inspired Spirits Photography.

So they left! Mara and her family found their new home on Gabriola Island, and quickly turned the small outbuilding into a dance studio. Around the same time she was gifted her own ballet teacher's extensive collection of ballet school costumes, and she threw all her extensive skill and passion into Gabriola Dance. Last weekend I went to see her year-end showcase, and I was moved to write this article.

A collection of dancers in brown and green leotards and flowy skirts stands smiling and gesturing. They represent an apple tree. An older boy dressed in a black t-shirt and leggings holds a basket in one hand, and looks towards three younger dancers on the right side of the stage: A young oy also dressed in black, and two very young ballerinas, in pinkish-orange tutus.
Gabriola Dance year end showcase, 2019: The Giving Tree. Photo by Inspired Spirits Photography.

Finally with a permanent roof over her head on Gabriola, Mara pulled everything out of her heart and poured it into ten years of parenting and teaching in her new community. This 10th showcase felt to me like watching my friend stitch up all her passions and skills into one beautiful, powerful package. It was in many ways her gift to the world. 

Two contemporary dancers in brown leotards and flowy green skirts stand centre-stage. One leans forward, while the other one leans over her, back-to-back, in an expression of sorrow and exhaustion.
Gabriola Dance year end showcase, 2019: The Giving Tree. Photo by Inspired Spirits Photography.

I think we all hope we can make a difference in the world – at least leave it a slightly better place than we found it. These days many of us are just hoping we save enough of the world that our children will grow old before it's gone. So Mara developed a dance performance of Shel Silverstein's 'The Giving Tree'. The piece brings together students of many diverse ages and training levels. It's profound and moving, but Mara didn't leave it at that. Working on this project brought up a great deal of conversation among students about climate change, and it became clear that she needed to deal with the prevalent angst and anxiety that today's children harbour around this topic. So she had all the conversations with them, and at the end of the dance showcase, she hosted a talk back with biologist Melanie Mamoser and registered clinical counsellor Caitlin Kopperson, to discuss the affects of climate change on childhood anxiety. One of the most urgent questions, of course, is 'what can we do?', and although there's no clear answer to that, there were some good ideas, and the conversation at least left me feeling hopeful that people were talking about it, and that children's voices are being heard in this discussion.

A tableau of dancers in brown and green leotards and skirts represent an apple tree. An adult dancer in a brown leotard and green skirt reaches out to hand a red apple to a boy in a a black t-shirt and leggings, who stands on the left side, ready to put the apple into a basket.
Gabriola Dance year end showcase, 2019: The Giving Tree. Photo by Inspired Spirits Photography.

With The Giving Tree, Mara does something I hope we all manage to do in our lives: She orchestrates her many gifts into one grand oeuvre, showcasing not only the work of her students and other community members, but pulling them all together in a kind of hopeful community invocation. May we all have the courage to live our hearts' dreams and create a better world in doing so, each in our own ways, and all within community.

A black and white image of an old man sitting on a stump, leaning on a crutch. In front of him, a young dancer dressed in black kneels on the ground, his hands resting on the backs of two very young ballerinas in tutus, curled up on the floor, in front of him.
Gabriola Dance year end showcase, 2019: The Giving Tree. Photo by Inspired Spirits Photography.

Resources:
Gabriola Pilates and Dance: http://maragoldtheatreproductions.blogspot.com/p/dance.html

Inspired Spirits Photography: https://www.inspiredspiritsphotography.ca/

Originally published in June, 2019