Transcending The Ordinary

Organic Shallots, Jalapeño Peppers, Lunch Box Peppers, Aunt Molly's Ground Cherries

               

Organic Garlic, Leeks and Roma Tomatoes

                                          

 We are anticipating a big ole Nor'easter tonight, 25-40 cm of snow is forecast. This kind of weather is a pretty ordinary thing for Nova Scotia. It doesn't bother me that soon it will be snowing and blowing, because I'm busy growing. I've been planting seeds for Spring gardening. This means having the ability or vision to transcend the ordinary and that's creativity to me.

 This year I've made the transition to all organic gardening.

Excited to be having creative thoughts about organic gardening in the early days of February sure brightens my day and greatly enriches my life. I'll call it my Hygge health.

Now I'm just looking to get a high blueberry bush, a hanging strawberry plant, some broccoli, potatoes and then I think I should be good to go for digging in the dirt this Spring. Before I know it, the Easter season will soon be here, my favourite time of year!


Quite some time ago my interest in gardening lead me to learning about Permaculture. It's a creative design system  based on  principles and a philosophy that incorporates these three things. Caring for people, caring for the earth and everyone having a fair share, living within limits and distributing the surplus.

 "Vision is not seeing things as they are, but as they will be." 
                                                                            - Unknown Author 

 Well the Nor'easter has arrived but I'm transcending that ordinary into a beautiful daffodil!

Thaddeus Holownia

http://holownia.com - Photo credit: Denis Duquette

Below is a post I saw yesterday written by Michael de Adder, a fellow Mount Allison Alumni, who also like me and many more are very happy to be celebrating the exhibit and work of Thaddeus Holownia, called The Nature of Nature at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
 
"In my life there were a few artists I looked up to as mark makers or painters. But only one artist almost tempted me to consider another art form. That was my former professor of photography Thaddeus Holownia. In the newspaper business I've been lucky to have met the best photographers in the world, many of whom inspired me to draw an image. But only Thaddeus inspired me to want to take a photograph.

Now at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia: Thaddeus Holownia: The Nature of Nature (Halifax)�
February 4, 2017 to May 28, 2017
�Curators: David Diviney and Sarah Fillmore�
This career overview offers insight into Holownia’s photography from the late-1970s to the present day, providing the most comprehensive critical analysis of this Maritime artist’s practice to date."

Michael de Adder's brief item is very poignant to me in it's meaning.
 Thaddeus Holownia was also my former professor and photography teacher, mentor and I'm proud to call him friend. I doubt I'd been able to graduate without his generous, encouraging and ongoing support when things got really difficult for me as a mature student, who'd been out of University for 30 years.

What Michael de Adder has stated about how Thaddeus inspired him, is no doubt a deeply shared sentiment by numerous students that have ever been fortunate enough to study under him. His intimate knowledge of and passion for photography are second to none.

Thaddeus is what I would call one of those rare Heuristic teachers, and I've been very blessed to have been one of his many students.

I'm Diggin' Deep

http://www.fransorin.com/

I always thought there was a strong connection between creativity and digging deep into the earth, whether it be growing plants indoors or working in a garden.

From my earliest memories of spending time with my grandfather in his garden, voluntarily working in a large farm gardens as a teenager to eventually growing my own gardens as an adult, all have not only been therapeutic but has directly increase my creativity. I say this because actively growing things improves our mind, body and soul, everything we need for having optimum creative lives.

If you're any thing like me who gets the Winter Blues or what is commonly called SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) you'll know what I'm talking about. The lack of light, short days and long cold nights, snow storms, all can really do a number on your mood. Like Cajun Man on SNL use to say DEPRESSION! It helps to have a good sense of humour and so I watch a lot of comedy.

 I've never been a Winter person and try as I might to "embrace" the season, the only dang thang I've come to embrace, is the fact that I'll never be a Winter person and I'll never like the cold!

 So now that all that's been said and I've got that out of my system I tell you what I've noticed today.
The light, the sun has increased probably by half an hour. Tonight at 5:30 p.m., there was still natural light, as opposed to December 28th the shortest day of the year, with the time change which makes it even worse, it was completely dark by 5:00 p.m.

 It's easy when you are in the dark days of Winter to loose awareness that the light is indeed increasing, but today was the first day I really noticed.

Then it dawned on me. I need to plant some seeds! I've received some seeds and garlic in the mail and perused my seed catalogues, and even planted my in the Fall. But right now today,  exactly the time to get tomato, pepper, and leeks seeds planted indoors on my warming grow mat,! So I hopped right up, grabbed those seeds,  my grow mat, made markers for them and planted those little dojiggers and set them in a sunny window.

 Wow! Immediately I could feel my mood improving and when I was done I was felt so good knowing things would be sprouting up in no time and I'll be ready for Spring!

Something that especially helped me this year actually, kinda, sorta enjoy, and get me through Winter was learning what the word Hygge meant, which I wrote about in my blog Eudemonia.

So today my seed planting has arrived just on time, because my Christmas Hygge has run a little thin. I'm  moving onto the Spring Hygge now!

Ella Wheeler Wilcox - "The Sin of Silence"

                                                      Ella Wheeler Wilcox- 1850 -1919

PROTEST

To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law,
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills;
May criticize oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and child bearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.
Therefore I do protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.
Until the manacled slim wrists of babes
Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee,
Until the mother bears no burden, save
The precious one beneath her heart, until
God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
And given back to labor, let no man
Call this the land of freedom.

The first line of this poem, that has been referred to as an Anthem Against Silence and had been falsely attributed to Abraham Lincoln, when in fact the quote is from Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poem, Protest, written at the height of the Suffrage Movement and just prior to WW1.

Musician Amanda Palmer's reading of the Protest poem brings the reality of our present time in history. Acutely and poignantly it quickly comes into perspective, bringing to life the real, profound relevance and meaning of this poem, in particular, the first line.

 Poetry is meant to be read out loud and Amanda Palmer's reading on Sound Cloud makes this poem  powerfully relevant, with a timeless message, we all need to hear.

" To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men. "

Harland Williams - Speaking the Language of Bent Reality

I don't remember the first time I saw Harland Williams. I think I'd seen his stand-up a few times before seeing him like every one else, in Dumb and Dumber, where he played the cop who pulled them over and proceeded to unknowingly drink pee in a beer bottle, that Lloyd used to relieve himself while traveling in the van.

His comic ability was absolutely evident there and then. I went on to follow his comic career, not in his movies but his stand-up comedy when ever I could, from that point on. Many might think he's just a comic but he's a really engaging visual artist, musician, and children's book writer, with a number of other talents.

Harland Williams is a naturally brilliant comic, with such a sense of play and the ability to just be his very likable self.

Here's a great little clip of Harland doing what he does best, just being himself. He's a naturally creative improviser or what I'll call a great creative loafer, who has a great therapist.

David Frum - Autocracy

Frum in a BloggingHeads.tv post

As a life long devoted CBC radio listener and I'm 63 now, so I'm very familiar with all the personalities that have come and gone throughout the years and their political views, generally speaking.

 Canadian born David Frum, who now works as the editor of The Atlantic Magazine, I've heard many of his commentaries, especially when he worked for past President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C., as his speech writer. I knew that Frum had to be a very bright and a well educated person, though I never agreed with his political views and I never knew him to be anything but a Republican, and the so called, "neoconservative". I was left scratching my head wondering why. Ironically he was once an NDP supporter back in 1975.

 I could never quite figure why or how he ended up in Washington with Conservative/Republican views as I really thought Barbara Frum's son would some how be more discerning. That might be naive of me to say and I don't want to be unkind, but in spite of my opinion of David Frum, I must say, after hearing an interview this morning with him talking about his present views reflected in his article,  How to Build an Autocracy in The Atlantic Magazine, he's obviously gained discernment and has got his finger on the present political environment of 'alternative facts,' where democracy seems to be more about entitlement than human rights.

His left leanings were been abandoned in the early years of 1975, while campaigning in Ontario for NDP candidate, Jan Dukztra. Upon reading the book, Gulag Arcipelago by Solzhenitsyn, given to him by his mother, he found himself ridiculed by his fellow volunteer NDP campaigning buddies and he left, the left, never to return.

  I confess I've never read any of his books, but a few of them were received very favourably in his more left leaning years such as, Dead Right in 1994 and How We Got Here.

Another irony is the when David Frum was offered the job as George W. Bush's speech writer, he wasn't a Bush supporter, had no experience in government, felt unqualified, and strongly doubted that Mr. Bush was up for the presidential office. He was once again to change his opinion after the election.

 David Frum describes his political views this way.

" I'm a conservative Republican, have been all my adult life. I volunteered for the Reagan campaign in 1980. I've attended every Republican convention since 1988. I was president of the Federalist Society chapter at my law school, worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and wrote speeches for President Bush—not the "Read My Lips" Bush, the "Axis of Evil" Bush. I served on the Giuliani campaign in 2008 and voted for John McCain in November. I supported the Iraq War and (although I feel kind of silly about it in retrospect) the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I could go on, but you get the idea."

 David Frum I think is a bit of an enigma and a political chameleon, and maybe that's not a bad thing. Obviously his political perspectives have changed once again, in light of the election of Donald Trump. He's stated that he'd voted for Hillary Clinton.

Mr. Gaga - Ohad Naharin - The Language of Dance

Ohad Nnaharin is a world renowned contemporary choreographer. He is also the originator of Gaga. (Gadi Dragon)

One of my very vivid memories as a little girl was regularly dancing around the living room in an ethereal like trance, while my mother accompanied me on the piano. I was completely uninhibited and though I wanted to emulate dancers I idolized, like Karen Caine, Martha Graham and Isadora Duncan and it didn't really matter what I could or couldn't do, or if I was doing it right. I simply would follow what my body told me to do and got great pleasure from moving my body around the room. I did this for a number of years, until I was about 12 years old when pre-pubescent self-consciousness began to creep in and inhibite.

 Prior to puberty formal dance lessons did not "spoil my soul". I continued to love all dance but never had the opportunity to study formally until I was older when I studied a variety of dance forms.

" Naharin says children who begin dance lessons at a young age "spoil their souls" by dancing in a room, in front of mirrors. He adds: "Instead of looking at the universe or at the elements, you're looking through your own image."

I was really excited to learn about Ohad Naharin  today on CBC Radio. "Mr. Gaga", a new documentary that is about to be released, about the language of Gaga  and Ohad Naharin. I think children and maybe elders, understand intuitively, this language of dance.