Being Green – Intentional Communities

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Hi Folks:

I was going to talk about intentional communities last week but life got in the way.  Actually, last Friday night Marcia and I were at an open meeting to discuss Victoria’s Official Community Plan.  In a way this fits in as sustainability, green building, water and energy are key issues for any OCP.  Vancouver has recently gone through a similar process, as are other cities around the world.

A topic like ‘intentional communities’ is vast, certainly more than can be contained in one writing (even if that writing was a book), and the idea of an intentional community means many different things to many different people.  However, since I’m writing this I get to define some of the parameters at least, and others are most welcome to continue the discussion in the comments below.  Let’s break this down into its components: intention and community. Continue Reading →

Photo of the Month

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Hi Folks:

Well, since yesterday was the last day of the month this post may be considered an ‘April Fool’s’ joke, but the only fool in this case is me. Besides, yesterday was Wednesday and Marcia’s ‘Poetry Corner‘ post and I didn’t want to compete! Yeah, like that’ll work. Oh well… 😉

So. March has been a busy month, photographically speaking. I made close to 2000 images this month, and while there are those who will shoot that and more in a day, I come from a world of 36 and even 12-exposure rolls of film so I’m still not used to the scattergun approach when it comes to imaging. Of those 2000 or so images, many were used as the basis for panoramas, or more specifically stitched images, since not all stitched images are panoramas, nor need be. Continue Reading →

Poetry Corner – Poetry in Motion

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Hello Dear Ones!

I awoke inspired to inspire!

My intention today is to assist us all in removing the stereotypical structures that we have been rigidly taught. “Poems should be 4-line stanzas.”  “Poems must rhyme.” “There are only so many styles of poetry and one must adhere to those structures.”

Ba – humbug, I say! Today anything goes when it comes to poetic expression! Whatever moves you, go for it! Continue Reading →

Villa Marco Polo Inn

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Hi Folks:

Last Sunday night Marcia and I had the pleasure and the privilege of staying at the Villa Marco Polo Inn here in Victoria, giving us an opportunity to be tourists in our own town.  Before I get to that, our being there is a story in itself.

One of the e-mails that arrives in my Inbox every week is from Mindi & Dave Pettitt and the rest of the crew at HarbourLiving.ca Basically it’s a weekly newsletter that let’s us know what’s happening in and around Victoria, and it also includes information on events for the rest of the island as well.  Now, last December I noticed an article asking for a photograph and a story to do with Christmas, as a way of celebrating the holiday season.  Being a storyteller at heart I grabbed one of my Christmas images out of Lightroom, added a story, and sent it off.  Several days later we received a phone call from the folks at Tourism Victoria informing me that I had won one of the daily prizes in their ‘Christmas is Here‘ contest.  Among the prizes was a carriage tour, annual passes for the Royal BC Museum, and a stay at the Villa Marco Polo Inn. Continue Reading →

Marcia’s Meanderings – Contrasts and Choices

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Is it possible to be the visionary and the actionary of your own life? Not only possible, it’s the way most of you intended it to be. It’s the best of all worlds. What can be more exhilarating than to find a dream from the contrast, to fixate on the dream and let it give you pleasure as it grows, and then to watch Law of Attraction bring it into manifestation while you help with your action? Does it get any better than that? You didn’t think so as you made the decision to come forth into these physical bodies. You said, “This is the best time in all eternity for a Creator to Create.”  Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Kansas City, KS on Sunday, September 27th, 1998 #390

Hello Dear Ones!

The above quote arrived in my e-mail inbox this morning. During the night I had awakened to thoughts of what I’d write about in this week’s post. The fact that this quote and my nightly inspiration were a perfect match confirmed for me that the topic was appropriate. Synchronicities like this add to the scope and dimension of my life. Love it!

Topic at the ready, I’m sitting here not quite knowing where to start. Originally my topic was to be solely about choices. To make a choice, one needs to have thoughts or things from which to choose. In the above quote Abraham talks about being a ‘visionary’, an ‘actionary’ by finding ‘a dream from the contrast.’ A good place from which to step out. Stepping out into contrast. Contrast: a good place from which to begin. Continue Reading →

He Says, She Says…

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Hello, Dear Reader:

Serendipity is a word that defines what some call a ‘happy accident’ or an unexpected and fortunate discovery.  It’s an onomatopoeic word, and has a lovely sound to it. It’s right up there with some of our other favourite ‘S’ words, like spontaneity and synchronicity.

Serendipity is also the title of a 2001 movie, a romantic comedy starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale.  It was on TV again recently and remains one of our ‘love to watch’ movies.

If you haven’t seen it we don’t want to spoil it for you, so we’ll put a ‘Spoiler Alert!‘ in here.  If you’d rather not know, skip down a couple of paragraphs. Continue Reading →

Eating Our Way Through Victoria!

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Hi Folks:

Well, as we promised, we’re devoting the last Saturday of every month to celebrating the food of Victoria!  As we mentioned in our first food post, we’re not professional food reviewers but we both have some background in the food industry and we both enjoy good food.  Also as mentioned in our first post, we’re only going to write about places we’d like to visit again!

March has been a busy month for us, including a welcome visit from a friend of ours from Ontario.  To that end, we’ve been eating out a fair bit lately.  This being our third food post we’re going to profile three places here, and we’ll put them in alphabetical order. Continue Reading →

Being Green – Update

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Hi Folks:

Friday once again!  It’s also the end of the month, and that means our “Eating Our Way Through Victoria” post and my “Photo of the Month” post as well as our usual Sunday “He Says, She Says…” and Monday’s “Marcia’s Meanderings” posts are coming due as well!  Going to have to limber up those typing fingers.

I was going to write a post this week about “Intentional Communities“, but I’m going to postpone that for a week.  Please bear with me.  In exchange, I’ll offer a couple of reminders of upcoming events this weekend.  If you live in the US or know someone who does, the premiere of Jamie Oliver’s program “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” begins this evening on ABC.  If you’re asking yourself, “What’s green about that?” consider the enormous amounts of water and energy that go into not only the production of ‘fast food’ and prepackaged foods, but also the environmental costs of the packaging, transport, etc.  There’s a link on ‘hidden water use’ in the list below.  Also in the news this week are plans to ‘downsize’ parts of Detroit. Suggestions include the creation of a series of ‘urban farms’, more parks, and interconnected ‘villages’.  Not a simple idea by any means, but it’s an idea Jame will agree with, I’m sure. Greensburg, KS might serve as a role model of sorts, since almost the entire town was wiped out by a tornado a few short years ago and rebuilt as a model green town. Continue Reading →

Poetry Corner – Micropoetry

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Happy Spring Dear Ones!

At least it is newly Spring here in Canada – especially here on the southern tip of our beautiful Vancouver Island.

May I suggest that you read my post from Monday: Marcia’s Meanderings – Thank you, Twitter! It’s brief and gives you a bit of an introduction to this post today.

Micropoetry is a new term for me, even as versed (pun intended!) in poetic styles as I am. Being relatively new to Twitter, I recognized the standard hashtag (#) defined in Wikipedia as: “Short messages on services such as Twitter or identi.ca (that) may be tagged by including one or more hashtags: words or phrases prefixed with a hash symbol (#).” The use of this hashtag is to connect with people of like minds. If you want to share micropoetry with others you add the phrase #micropoetry into your tweet (your Twitter message) and others can see your poem. Similarly for #haiku or other short poetry styles. This works also for finding people interested in non-poetry subjects such as #hugs or #spring or #photography.

The following are some of the haiku and micropoems I have written recently:

The body slumbers ~ in moonlight spirit dances ~ sips on tears of joy. #haiku

Tulips bloom/ Two lips arch/ Smiles blossom. (in honour of Spring) #micropoetry

Welcoming smiles/ crack the landscape/ of a happy face. #micropoetry

Powdered sugar snow/Dusts the lawn/Sweetening the day. #micropoetry

On the bus a child/Knows her A B Cs song/ Sings to me sweetly. #haiku Continue Reading →

Mike’s Writings IX

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Hi There:

Please click this link first.  I’ll wait.

Welcome back.  Well, I’m going to continue on with some more of my archived writings.  I did want to mention that these posts are (mostly) in chronological order, so if you want to read any particular post that’s certainly fine with me, but if you want to read all of them, you’d be best to read them in order from the original post on December 8, 2009 and work your way forward from there.  Entirely up to you of course!

Love,
Mike. Continue Reading →