Celebrating Liz


Hi Folks:

Mike’s sister Liz passed away 23 years ago today. Her greatest legacy is her children, who have grown up to be remarkable people in their own right. Liz was also a talented writer; unfortunately none of her stories are in digital format, which means that they’re tucked away safely in a box somewhere. To that end we thought we’d offer two of our stories instead, as well as a story about a story. All of them have to do with butterflies. Marcia’s first: Continue Reading →

Happy Father’s Day!!

Hi Folks:

Today is Father’s Day, and as such today we celebrate fathers, step-fathers, grandfathers, as well as all of those men (and women) who have stepped in as surrogates to fill the roles left open for them. We salute you all. Being a dad isn’t an easy prospect…nor is it meant to be.

Today is a bittersweet day for us as both Marcia’s father and Mike’s dad passed away last year, within a couple of months of each other. As such we were struggling a bit to come up with a way to honour our dads and all that they’ve given us over the years. We came across the following poem from Terri St. Cloud and it says it better, perhaps, than we could:

honoring you

honoring you

We do our best, every day, to do just that. Embrace those you love, today and every day. Let them know how important they are to you!!

With love and hugs,
Grandy and Grandalf

Hidden (photo by Marcia)

P.S. We live in a society where people are fearful of death, and (unfortunately) where the last act for most people is toxic to the planet on which they lived their entire lives. There’s an interesting TED talk on the subject, here: When I die, recompose me

“Years”, by Bartholomäus Traubeck

Hi Folks:

I sent this out to a number of people by e-mail yesterday; thought I’d share it here as well…

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Follow this link and play the video, but listen first, without looking at the video or trying to interpret what you hear:

Years
“Years”

Continue Reading →

Being Green – ‘Pulchraphilia’

Hi Folks:

Friday once again!  The topic for this week’s ‘Being Green‘ post is ‘pulchraphilia’.  If you’ve never heard the word ‘pulchraphilia’ before, don’t be surprised.  I’d not heard of it myself until recently.  In truth it’s a made-up word.  Then again, all words have to begin somewhere…  I have no claim to it; the word was invented (as best I can tell) by Jason F. McLennan, CEO of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, and the creator of the ‘Living Building Challenge’.  The word has two Latin words as its base: ‘pulchra’, meaning ‘beauty’, and ‘philia’, meaning ‘love of’.  Roughly translated then, pulchraphilia would be a love of beauty, just as biophilia is a love of life.  It comes from an article in the Spring 2010 issue of Trim Tab, the e-zine put out by Cascadia. Continue Reading →