A Year in the Life … revealed …

Hello Dear Ones!

Two years ago today, on the Sunday of Canada’s Victoria Day long weekend of 2009, I stepped onto the retreat grounds of Queenswood and an incredible journey began … leading me to write my first book:

A Year in the Life of a Bus-Traveling Poet

It has been – and is still – a magical journey, one in which you, Dear Reader, took an active role … as one of my dearest inspirations! That’s why I thought to stop by today to share this exciting news with you … my book has been published and is now available for sale!  You can check it out here: http://bit.ly/buspoet (paperback) or here: http://amzn.to/buspoet-k (Kindle version)

And, as a tantalizing little bonus for you, a glimpse of one of my very favourite sections: Continue Reading →

Being Green – Finding Inspiration

Hi Folks:

One of the amazing things about the internet is the ability to connect people in ways that simply wasn’t possible before.  The ‘net of course isn’t a ‘place’ in itself, but an international network that showcases information on every subject imaginable.  I often turn to specific sites as a way of finding inspiration for whatever project I’m working on and I recently came across a few that relate to the ‘green’ field.

The first is ‘The Designers Accord‘.  “The Designers Accord is a global coalition of designers, educators, and business leaders working together to create positive environmental and social impact.” One of the initiatives of the Designers Accord is a series of 17 videos put forth by the people at Core77.  Called the ‘Sustainability in 7‘ series, each short video profiles one person who is working in the area of sustainable design.  My personal favourite is Bill McDonough (he’s my hero) but each one has their own merit.  You can either watch the videos all at once or pick one every day for a short burst of inspiration.  All of the people featured are designers and all of them speak to various areas of design, so you may be thinking that if you’re not a designer these videos aren’t for you.  That’s not true, really.  Each of us, in our own way is the designer of our own lives.  The choices that we make, the items we purchase (and those we don’t) and more each contribute to the impact we make on our present and our future, both individually and collectively.  There’s a lot more than videos to the Designers Accord site; it’s well worth checking out.

The second is the new POV section of the Herman Miller website.  This site profiles the work of five different architects (so far) and gives some insight into how they create the buildings they design.

The third is that the folks at Environmental Design + Construction magazine and Sustainable Facility magazine have completely redesigned their websites.  There’s a wealth of articles, podcasts, webinars and more available.  Worth checking out!

Wherever you are in the world, take a moment to find some inspiration today.  It could be a bird call, the shape of a cloud or someone’s smile… easy to find if you look for it!

Hugs,
Mike.

Serious Play

Hi Folks:

I put this post in the ‘Spirituality’ section of our blog for two reasons: first because I think play is a wonderful spiritual exercise, and second because it gave me the opportunity to include a couple of great quotes on the subject. The first is from Seth:

“I communicate with your dimension, for example, not by willing myself to your level of reality, but by imagining myself there. All of my deaths would have been adventures had I realized what I know now. On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough.” ~ Seth Speaks, session 518.

Continue Reading →

Eating Our Way Through Victoria… And Beyond!!

Hi Folks:

This will serve as two months’ worth of ‘Food’ posts for us!  We’ve had some interesting culinary adventures over the past couple of months… actually we were waiting for a writeup from a ‘guest blogger’, but that didn’t pan out so you get me instead.  Let’s see now, where have we been? Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month – Discoveries

Hi Folks:

April’s ‘Photo of the Month’ is a little late, but bear with me…  Although I do have a bus pass, I also walk around town – a lot – and in the process I’m always making new discoveries.  A couple of weeks ago I was walking around the Fairfield area when I saw a faded beauty partially protected by an overhang… looked to have been there a long time (30+ years, anyway).  It was something I’d never seen before, but a little research confirmed a 1952 Humber Super Snipe.  For all you non-biologist types, a snipe is a small woodland bird (its use for Quidditch was replaced by the golden snitch in Harry Potter fame but that’s another story). Continue Reading →