A Month in the Life of Pacific Gardens

While Pacific Gardens still was under construction, we shareholder / developers used to discuss our vision of what it would be like to live in cohousing.

Kathryn recounted her experience of living in a housing cooperative* in London, Ontario. She said it had been a really cool place. It was a hub of interesting and fun activities, not just for the people who lived there, but for the larger community as well. She envisaged that Pacific Gardens would play a similar role in Nanaimo.

When I saw the March issue of The Bloomin’ News, the newsletter that Sharon publishes, it brought home to me the fact that Kathryn’s dream had come true. Just check out a month in the life of Pacific Gardens; in this case it was February 2013:

3 birthday parties, the youngest 1, the oldest 83

1 NVC [Non-Violent Communication] workshop

seeds have sprouted in cold frames

Family Sing

2 residents got pneumonia

at least one "Ladies Night" get together

Nanaimo Green Party AGM

a flood [involving the central hot water heater]

someone learned a new magic trick

someone went nude bungee jumping [offsite, at the Nanaimo River!]

one Qi Gong lesson

4 men's group sessions

work progressed in "front yard" by pond

a fun group game of Encore [described in Kathryn's blog post entitled With A Song in My Heart]

we successfully defended the community against Smart Meters for the 4th time [Proud Members of Team Tinfoil and Team Tinfoil Stands Firm]

3 pairs of ducks nested

a small walking club began

we purchased 20 new chairs for the dining hall

8 yoga classes

the floor seams were repaired

the snowdrops and crocus bloomed

1500 plus people viewed one of our Facebook posts!

5 community meetings

4 meditation sessions

a community circle

a book club meeting

4 community potlucks [you are welcome to join us for our potlucks at 6:00 pm on Thursdays]

1 Council of Canadians meeting

the garden was visited by several deer

2 residents were hospitalized

the frogs began singing

potholes [in the parking lot] were refilled

neighbours enjoyed each other

the community got stronger

What modest Sharon did not include in her list was that a useful newsletter was published to help residents keep on top of what was going on. Thank you, Sharon!

* For the sake of clarity, there are some technical differences between a cohousing complex and a housing cooperative, but in practical terms there are many similarities.

Patience, process, and paint

I've written before about how living in cohousing encourages you to develop more patience - in my case, just a tiny little bit. We've just been through a process that would test the proverbial patience of Job, so you can just imagine what it's been like for me.

Almost a year ago, we decided we needed to do something to spiff up our rather gloomy and somewhat battered entrance. Numerous moves had left the walls chipped and covered in scrapes and black marks, and the dreary - although fashionable - grey paint was streaked and scuffed.

This did not reflect the cheery ambiance of the Pacific Gardens community, we thought, so plans for brightening up the entrance were discussed at two community meetings, as well as at various sub-committee meetings of residents eager to make it happen.

We had votes on at least three - or was it four? - kinds of wainscotting for the hallways, a vote on three different locations for the community bulletin board, and a vote on three different paint schemes, typified as bold, medium, and demure. (For some strange reason, I chose demure.)

It looked like something was actually going to happen. But, after 11 months, the entrance was still its usual, scruffy self.  Some residents were placing bets as to whether the work would be done in 2013 or 2014.

Finally, one night, a cohouser, frustrated after a difficult day at work, came home and decided it would be good personal therapy to paint one wall downstairs a brilliant lime green. It only took half an hour (which was the point). 

The reaction was immediate. E-mails flew back and forth faster than Harry Potter's messenger owls at Hogwarts - not all of them positive. But that bold action seemed to have an effect.  

Soon the gouges in the walls were patched and sanded. Bits of masking tape were placed in strategic locations. Strange notations such as "Star Thistle", "Chinking", and "Acid Rain" (that doesn't sound good!) appeared. 

Now rumour has it the walls will all be painted before next weekend, just in time for when our out-of-town guests arrive for the annual conference of the Council of Canadians in Nanaimo.

So we'll be watching that space - and posting pictures, too, of our splendiferous entrance!

Kathryn

Farmer's Markets - Are They For Everyone?

I've recently started frequenting one of the local farmer's markets in Nanaimo.  It's part of my desire to support local farmers, and help create food security on our island, where more than 90 per cent of our food is trucked in by ferry. If for some reason the ferry service shut down for more than two or three days, we'd be in big trouble.

But, I have to admit, after shopping there for a few weeks, I have some misgivings.  Are they part of the solution, or part of the problem?  First of all, to get there, you need a car, and you have to drive a lot farther than you do to the neighbourhood grocery store.

Second, the prices are way higher - and yes, I understand that locally-produced, organic food is more labour-intensive, and that farmers on small acreages can't take advantage of economies of scale.

Third, there is a great deal of duplication.  Several vendors sell the same kind of salad mix and the usual array of seasonal vegetables and fruits, plus eggs.  The ones who aren't selling these have high-end products that the average family could not afford or would have on their dinner table on a regular basis.

And finally, the customers are all the usual suspects. Most of them I recognize.These are not your ordinary working Canadians, as the NDP would say. To me, it looks like they are serving a relatively affluent niche market - people with the time and money to drive long distances to buy high-priced food.

So, what's the solution, you ask?  I don't know. It's difficult for local farmers to get their products into supermarkets, because they can't supply them in big enough volumes at the prices average folks are willing and able to pay.

I'll continue to buy produce at the market, because it tastes so good, and I enjoy the camaraderie of the people who go there and the personal connection with the vendors.

But until they become more accessible to people of all classes, I think farmer's markets are more of a food fashion than a food revolution.

Kathryn

The adventure continues

Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community has come a long way since I started this blog. Back then we weren't yet living our dream. Our complex still was under construction.

I called my blog, My Cohousing Adventure. I shared my experience of moving from Calgary, Alberta to Nanaimo, British Columbia. That involved integrating into communities within communities.

The most closely knit circle was Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community. But there were other groups of people with common interests in Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island, and further afield along the British Columbia coast.

It's interesting to look up my first blog post and see what I wrote. It was on November 25, 2008, and I titled it Pigs Will Fly.

Fast forward to June 25, 2012. Believe it or not, I think it's fair to say that pigs are flying!

The residents of Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community are a wide cross section of people. There are elders, middle aged baby boomers, university students, and families with young children. Pacific Gardens seems to be a mini United Nations, with people of many nationalities and religions.

One of the characteristics of Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community from the very beginning was a fondness of potluck suppers. At 6:00 pm every Thursday there's a potluck that's open to the public. This often attracts repeat visits by friends and family members as well as one-off visits on the part of people who are curious about cohousing.

But there also are many spontaneous potluck suppers on other occasions. When a new person or family moves in, a potluck is held to ease their evening meal on their busy moving day. Potlucks are held for many other reasons too. Pacific Gardeners love them, and will hold one at the drop of a hat.

I like the fact that the community's name includes Gardens. It's an apt metaphor for the reality on the ground.

If you take the word literally, several community members are keen gardeners, even to the extent of hosting permaculture courses at Pacific Gardens.

But many other kinds of "gardening" are happening too. Cohousing is a way of life that grows people.

Learning how to cooperate with neighbours is an ongoing journey. During conflicts, I've thought of this or that person as a weed. But then, on other occasions, one of those very "weeds" has turned out to be a person of great sensitivity. He or she has noticed an unmet need in our community, and has rallied us to support a person who could use a shoulder to lean on. My idea of what a "weed" is has been challenged again and again.

I'm sure that other Pacific Gardeners could say the same of me -- that I have contributed to their personal growth.

I could rattle on about all the neat stuff that happens at Pacific Gardens -- the interesting forums on environmental topics, the movie nights, the musical evenings, the meditation circles, the yoga classes, the painting bee to decorate the dining tables ....... you name it.

I could try to give you a sense of the porous boundary between Pacific Gardens and the surrounding community -- how much interface there is between Pacific Gardens and external friends, family members and folks with common concerns.

But ....... other Pacific Gardeners have expressed a desire to post on this blog. I am thrilled about that. To me, it means that Pacific Gardens truly is showing itself up as the garden I always thought it would be. From here on in, there will be a variety of voices representing the community.

So ....... with that ....... drum roll ....... I hereby re-name this blog .......



OUR Cohousing Adventure!

Chase River Cathedral

It's Sunday, so naturally I went to church today. Here are some photos I took while I was there.


This is the view one sees as one walks down the riverbank from Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community towards the meadow that runs parallel to the Chase River.



This was the spot in which Aboriginal elders built an Inipi (sweatlodge) on Earth Day 2000, and held a ceremony to bless this land.



This is Chad and Susana's tree. That's what I call it because two of our members, Chad Henderson and Susana Michaelis, were married at its base. They chose this unusual tree, with three trunks, as a symbol for their marriage. The left trunk represented one of them, the right trunk represented the other of them, and the central trunk represented their relationship. Our nextdoor neighbour, Ian Gartshore, who has been a good friend to our project, performed Chad and Susana's wedding ceremony.



This is the path that leads through the forest floor from the Pacific Gardens portion of the riverbank towards Ian's portion.



It was this view -- this specific view -- that sold me on Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community when I came to Nanaimo on a reconnaissance trip in August 2008.

I thought that I wanted to join a cohousing community so that I could learn how to create peace in my life. My hope was that, if I could "do" peace myself, it would have a helpful ripple effect on the rest of the world. A year on, I feel that I am indeed on the path of which I dreamed back then. There also are numerous other benefits -- a supportive social network, friendships, sustainability, a smaller environmental footprint, just plain fun, and on and on.

But, if I'm to be honest, I have to admit that, at the instant that I made the decision to buy in, none of that mattered. It was a moment of pure selfishness. I saw the moss-covered tree leaning out across the stream, my heart leapt, and that was it.

I think of it as my tree. I since have discovered that several of my friends consider it to be their tree too. In fact, it has been quite amusing to sit by the stream with one or more people, each of whom thinks it's his or her tree. But that's okay. Sharing my tree with others does nothing to detract from my enjoyment of it. If anything, soaking in the view with someone else who appreciates it only amplifies my pleasure.


At the risk of boring you, here is my tree from a slightly different angle.

Well, I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek when I mentioned church and then proceeded to share photos of the Chase River. But only a bit. In reality, I feel restored every time I go down to the stream. It's something I do pretty regularly. I don't hang around waiting for Sunday.

My Wall

This past weekend I completed a three and a half day workshop called The Wall. The objective of the workshop was to identify my driving needs and life purpose.

For me it was a profound experience. Prior to this, I had undertaken other activities that had been designed to help me understand who I was and what made me tick. I had gone into therapy, done other workshops, hired a life coach, read self-help books, kept a journal, and meditated. Along the way, I had found out magnificent and terrible things about my family of origin and about myself.

During this latest workshop, I peeled away another layer of the onion, and went deeper than I had gone on previous occasions. I realised that, almost my whole life, I had operated from the premise that, if I revealed that I was clever and capable, my father would kill me. It started out as a belief about my father, but later transformed into a belief about all men and, I would go so far as to say, a belief about the world in general.

If previous experience is anything to go by, my mother and my parents' friends would think I was stark raving mad if they heard this assertion. I once shared a much less significant revelation with them, and they reacted very negatively. "How could you say such a thing about your father? He was such a wonderful person."

Yes, I know what an awesome person he was. According to some people's values, he did great things for society. He also loved his family and gave us some happy times. When I was a young kid, he used to have "circus hour" after dinner every night. He would get down on the living room floor and do acrobatic tricks with us kids. Alternatively, he would take us outside, lie down on the lawn, look up at the sky, and point out the constellations to us. We lived on a farm without light pollution, so we had the luxury of a dark sky. He used to take us hiking, camping, boating and fishing. He adored the ocean. Whenever I'm at the seaside or at a lake, I am aware of his presence. I can feel the delight that he would experience in a scene like that.

So, yes, I do know that he was a terrific person and that he loved me. And, yes, I also know that he would have wanted to kill me if I had not dumbed myself down and protected his fragile ego.

I now have a better understanding of the terror that I experienced when I separated from my husband, bought into Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community, and moved from Calgary to Nanaimo. It wasn't just the uncertainty of leaving family and friends behind, moving to an unfamiliar place, and getting involved in a somewhat experimental venture.

Yes, to be sure, it was all of that. But it also was the fact that, like Bluebeard's wife, I was unlocking the door to the forbidden room and, if I was caught, I would die.

During my first couple of months in Nanaimo, when I was experiencing both exhilaration and panic, I watched a movie called The Void. It was about Joe Simpson's terrifying mountaineering ordeal in the Peruvian Andes. Simpson's courage and perseverance were a great inspiration to me as I stared into the abyss and broke into a cold sweat.

Tomorrow I will be leaving Nanaimo for eight weeks. Amongst other things, I will be participating in a family reunion in Swaziland to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday. Things have been crazy busy, and this was an insane time at which to take out three and a half days in order to participate in a workshop. Yet, as I was going into it, Kari, one of my fellow Pacific Gardeners who was a graduate of the workshop, said that it would be invaluable for me to do it prior to my meeting with my family. Having come out the other end, I wholeheartedly agree with her. I feel way more grounded and ready to see them.

I also am leaving in the happy knowledge that Pacific Gardens is even more closely aligned with my driving needs and my life purpose than I had dreamed. It's as if someone had taken my driving needs and life purpose and used them as a template to create a model. They then gave that model a name. It's called cohousing.

I am so glad that I scaled the symbolic wall that isolated me from a life affirming community and that I now belong.

Sabbatical

On June 2nd, I'm going to be leaving for an eight-week trip. The motivation for the journey is to participate in a family reunion to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday in Swaziland.

Between now and then, I'm going to be participating in a workshop called The Wall, vacating the house I've been renting, and storing my stuff in a kind friend's basement.

Construction of Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community will be completed during my absence, and several of my fellow owners will be moving in while I'm away. I feel sad that I will miss a momentous phase in the life of my cohousing community.

However, my mother's 80th birthday -- with one of my brothers travelling to the reunion from Australia and my travelling to it from Canada -- also is an important milestone.

Fortunately, Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community still will be here when I get back home to Nanaimo. I am excited about moving into my apartment upon my return. Our building looks more attractive every time I see it. When the cranes and delivery trucks are gone and our landscape plan has been implemented, our property will look beautiful.

One of the things that I love about our community is our name. The founders were environmentalists, and the garden element was important to them. To me there are different kinds of gardens. Whether or not the founders consciously articulated this, I believe they would agree with me. There will be the botanical gardens as well as the spiritual gardens that will be embodied in the interior and community lives of the people who will enliven the structure.

I look forward to being reunited with my community on July 27th.

The Last Outpost

The other day I heard someone saying something about the Empire Days Parade. The Empire Days what?

Well, it turns out that Nanaimo is something of an anachronism. It still has an Empire Days Parade during the Victoria Day long weekend in May. Who knew?

If I was going to be in town, I'd attend the United Against Empire Rally and Concert at the Krall Space. But I will be observing another Canadian tradition -- going camping for the Victoria Day long weekend.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice

Today I participated in the first half of a two-day workshop called Essential Communication Skills in Conflict, which was designed by the Justice Institute of British Columbia and delivered at Vancouver Island University here in Nanaimo.

Our instructor encouraged us to choose an anchor word that we would say to ourselves when our emotional buttons were pushed and we felt ourselves getting angry. She said her own anchor was, "Be curious." Although she said we were free to choose different anchors for ourselves, I actually liked hers and decided to stick with it. Approaching a situation with an enquiring mind helps us to avoid being judgemental.

Earlier in the week, I had confronted a friend by saying, "I feel hurt because you did such and such." At the time, I felt proud of myself for raising the topic at all, as it had involved overcoming my reluctance to bring up a difficult subject.

Secondly, I thought I was doing well, because I started out by saying, "I feel ......." But the second part of my sentence -- because you did such and such -- turned it into blame.

Fortunately the conversation went well and the issue was cleared up. I attribute that to my friend's excellent communication skills, which turned the conversation in a positive direction.

I'm still glad I raised the issue. Although my delivery wasn't perfect, at least it was better than allowing my resentment to build. But, with the benefit of some conflict resolution coaching behind me, I now would start out by saying, "I wonder if you could tell me more about such and such, because I didn't know what you meant by doing it, and I'm feeling confused."

My Goldilocks church

Yesterday I found the church in Nanaimo that felt just right to me. That is saying something. My favourite cathedral is nature. A church has to feel pretty special if it's going to lure me indoors when I could be walking outside.

On and off, since I'd arrived in Nanaimo, I'd tried a few different churches. Then, when I was at a social function on Friday night, someone praised St Andrews United Church, and I decided to try it on Sunday.

After just one visit, I knew this was it.

Ironically, I'd already been in the adjacent church hall. That is where my Everybody Sings group gets together on Thursday mornings. But, for some reason, it had not occurred to me before this to attend a service at St Andy's.

Another irony is that the other churches that I'd tried all had been further afield. Now that I no longer have a vehicle, any one of those other churches would involve a much longer walk, a bicycle ride or a bus ride. St Andrews, on the other hand, is within easy walking distance of home.

What a walk it is too. All the way, there are glimpses of the water, nearby islands and, behind them, snow capped mountains.

Oh ....... my ....... goodness .......

Walkabout

When I lived in Melbourne, white people used the term "walkabout" quite frequently. For example, when I phoned my friend, Jean, her husband, Piet, answered and said, "She's gone walkabout." All he meant was that she was away on some unspecified errand, and he didn't know exactly when to expect her back.

But, while I was in Australia , I learned that Aboriginal people attached a more significant meaning to "walkabout." To them, dropping everything and "going walkabout" meant answering a call to go on a spiritual quest.

I don't know exactly what Aboriginal people do when they go walkabout. I gather they go into the bush for a while, re-establish their connection with nature, and feel spiritually replenished. I dare say the experience is unique to each person who undertakes it.

Today it occurred to me that the ultimate joy would be to feel as if I had gone walkabout (in the Aboriginal sense of the word), but without having to leave home to access that experience.

Then I reflected on the life that I had created in Nanaimo, with people in and out of my cohousing community, and realized that that was exactly what I had accomplished!

Oh ....... my ....... goodness .......

Plugging in

At a function the other night I met a woman who recently had moved to Nanaimo. She invited me to meet her for coffee. She told me she was trying to get to know local people. She said, "You know what it's like when you move to a new place and don't know anyone."

Yes, from previous relocations, I knew what she meant. But that reminded me how different my move to Nanaimo had been. When I'd arrived here in September 2008, I'd hit the ground running. I plugged in so quickly, it would have made your head spin.

That was entirely owing to the fact that I'd joined Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community. Even before I'd moved to Nanaimo, while I still was packing up in Calgary, my fellow cohos already were e-mailing me and telling me about upcoming events in Nanaimo and activities I could join.

Very soon after getting here, I knew heaps of people, had a full calendar, and felt as if I'd lived here for years.

When I scanned my calendar to find a free slot in which to meet this lovely new acquaintance for coffee or lunch two weeks out, I did not want to sound like a poser. But the fact was that I had to pick through several activities to find some openings.

On almost a daily basis I am reminded of my gratitude for having found and joined a cohousing community.

Irresistible Nanaimo

Our lunch with our American visitor, whom I mentioned in my previous couple of posts, was illustrative of why Nanaimo is such a neat place to live.

We took him to the Thirsty Camel which, as the name suggests, serves Middle Eastern cuisine, and is my absolute fave in Nanaimo.

The restaurant was packed, and the five of us were occupying a table that could seat six. A woman came along and asked us if she could sit at the end of our table, since there was no other space for her. She promised to do her own thing and not disturb us. We said, "Sure. Go for it."

While she was sitting there, she was stuffing and addressing envelopes. We just carried on with our conversation. Each of us told our visitor what had drawn us to cohousing. As Sharon said, each of our reasons was quite complex, and these were concepts that were not that easy to convey in a short sound bite, on a website, or anything like that.

Some time after the woman who had shared our table had left, Susana noticed that there was a piece of paper at the woman's place. Susana thought it was something that the woman had forgotten, and almost felt embarrassed about reading it, but she did.

Then Susana said, "Hey, guys. Look at this." On the piece of paper, the woman had written, "Key words that I heard were .......," and she went on to list what she considered to be the most important nuggets from our conversation. Then she'd written, "For information about community, contact Dr. So And So at Such And Such University."

We said to our visitor, "This is one of the reasons we love living in Nanaimo. The people here are so awesome."

Our visitor, who was in discussions about the formation of a cohousing community back in his own city, said, "I want to tell folks back home what people here are like. Can I take that piece of paper to show them what I mean?"

A friend I have yet to meet

Today some of my fellow cohos and I will be showing a visitor around Nanaimo, I'll have him over to my house for supper, and then one of our other cohos will be billeting him at her house tonight.

Our visitor lives in the United States, but is in Vancouver on a short-term work assignment. His family has a long history of involvement with intentional communities. So, when he was preparing to come up to this area, he put out his feelers to find out what sorts of intentional communities there were around here. I guess his Google search must have brought up Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community, because he contacted us.

It just goes to show what a useful tool the Internet is.

But the Internet takes you only so far. It can serve as an introduction to people in distant places. Yet the Internet cannot meet your ferry, chat with you, take you on a walking tour along the harbour and through downtown, feed you, and so on.

The cool thing about being involved with intentional communities is that it gives you so much in common with folks in the movement. You pretty much know, in advance, that you will be kindred spirits.

Or at least that's my theory. I am off to test it right now and to find out if, indeed, a stranger is just a friend whom I have yet to meet.

I'll let you know tomorrow how it went.

My sacred body

As I created a title for a new blog post, I chuckled when I noticed that I'd transposed the letters, and had typed My scared body.

That typo probably says it all. I used to be afraid.

As I have settled into supportive communities in Nanaimo, love, peace and joy have flowed in and replaced fear.

One of the developments I have noticed is how much I have been drawn to physical activity and how much I have been enjoying my body.

Last week I moved to a house from which I can walk to most amenities that I need. It has been a tremendous pleasure to walk. I enjoy the sensation of walking. I'm grateful for my comfortable shoes and for a body that is healthy enough to walk. When I walk, I notice so many things about my neighbourhood that would not be visible from a car.

Recently I joined a Tai Chi class, and have been enjoying the slow, gentle, but surprisingly demanding, movements.

Yesterday, Everybody Sings resumed after the Christmas and New Year break. It was delightful to participate once again in the lively singing, clapping and dancing. Shirley said it reminded her of kindergarten, and Ian said it reminded him of summer camp when he'd been a teenager. It sure is fun to be transported back to kindergarten or summer camp as an adult, or to experience them for the first time if you missed out as a kid.

Last night I tried Sacred Circle Dancing for the first time. I found it peaceful, meditative and grounding. I especially liked the fact that there was very little talking, and we dancers just gave ourselves over to the soft music and flowing movement.

Our Sacred Circle Dance teacher, Maureen Wild, said that dancing helped us to be conscious of our bodies, to feel connected to the planet and nature, and to experience ourselves as something other than "a head on a stick."

Food has taken on a new dimension for me too. I have just taken a break from typing and eaten a perfectly ripe tomato. As I sank my teeth into its juicy, red flesh, I reveled in the delicious taste. I was conscious of the earth, water, air and sunlight that had poured themselves into the tomato plant. I appreciated the tomato for giving up its life to sustain mine.

I am experiencing myself as a sacred being, sharing my life with other sacred beings, in a sacred time and space.

My scared self, in the meantime, seems to have kicked off her shoes and joined the dance.

Flourish or stagnate

Less than a year ago, I was not a happy camper. If I had been Goldilocks, I would have been whining because the porridge was too cold, the chair was too hard, and the bed was too soft.

But it wasn't really about the porridge, the chair or the bed. In hindsight, I believe I was frustrated because I had yet to identify my life's purpose and figure out how to live in alignment with it.

The psychologist, Erik Erikson, identified eight stages of life. According to Erikson, each stage involved a task. If you completed the task demanded of the relevant stage, you would be rewarded with a benefit that you would enjoy for the rest of your life. But, if you failed to accomplish a task, you would suffer from a disadvantage.

The good news, though, is that it is possible to catch up later. For example, if you did not acquire basic trust in the world as an infant, it is possible (if challenging) to do the necessary work and establish basic trust later in life.

The stage in which I personally am most interested is the one in which I am at the moment -- middle age. According to Erikson, the accomplishment of this stage is what he called generativity.

What Erikson meant by generativity was a contribution that had the potential to last beyond your own lifetime. The contribution does not have to be spectacular or impressive. The main requirement is that it is meaningful to you.

For example, you might teach a hobby, such as photography, to a child. You might create a garden. You might act as a mentor to a younger member of your profession.

Failure results in stagnation. If you do not give something of yourself to the world, you become stale.

That's how I felt in Calgary, before I bought into Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community and moved to Nanaimo. I felt dull, to the point of suffocation.

My membership of a cohousing community has given me many opportunities to contribute, directly to the cohousing community itself and to the wider community, with which my fellow cohos and I have lots of connections.

Linking this back to my previous couple of posts, I suspect this is one of the greatest losses that hunters experience when they are robbed of their habitat. Older men are denied the opportunity to mentor younger men and boys.

In Iron John, Robert Bly goes on at length about the importance of the role that older men play in the lives of younger men and boys. He also describes how meaningful it is to older men to play a useful part in the lives of younger men and boys.

All the way from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, hunting-gathering societies implicitly understood this. They all incorporated sophisticated initiation rituals and ceremonies into their customs.

Returning to me, since I have found a renewed sense of purpose, porridge, chairs and beds have ceased to be issues. Those kinds of things have just fallen into place.

Everybody Sings

Since my December 9, 2008 blog post elicited a question, I will provide an update.

Everybody Sings took a recess over Christmas and New Year. We will start up again on Thursday morning, January 15th, 2009.

The weekly session starts at 10.00 a.m. and goes till 12.00 noon, with a short break for tea about half way.

It's held in St Andrew's United Church Hall, at the corner of Fitzwilliam and Wesley Streets, in downtown Nanaimo.

The fee is $7.00 if you drop in. You also have the option of paying $25.00 for four weeks. The fee is reduced to $3.50 for the underwaged.

Another group, in which I have not participated, meets at St Philip's Church, 7113 Lantzville Road, from 7.00 p.m. - 9.00 p.m. on Tuesdays.

You are welcome to e-mail me via my Blogger Profile. If you do so, I can tell you how to get onto the e-mail notification list for Everybody Sings.

I sure am looking forward to singing those toe-tapping songs once again. Everybody Sings operates on the principles of Ubuntu Choirs, and is very informal. You don't have to be able to sing or believe that you can sing in order to join in the fun.

Could you bear to be happy?

Ever since I moved to Nanaimo, British Columbia in the middle of September 2008, I have been happy -- delectably, deliciously, deliriously happy.

Sure, I've had the occasional test, like the time my vehicle got stuck in the snow on a country road. But even those challenges have turned into blessings. They have brought me into contact with kind people, angels in disguise, whom I otherwise would not have met.

When I first got here, I thought I was going through a honeymoon phase and that it might wear off. Now admittedly, it's still relatively early days for me in Nanaimo. But it is coming up for four months, and -- if anything -- I'm feeling even happier than I did when I arrived.

Some days -- and this has been one of them -- my joy has been so intense that I have found it almost unbearable. I am not accustomed to serving as the container for so much delight.

This has caused me to reflect on my past, when I rarely was as ecstatic as I am now. If sustained happiness could have been handed to me on a platter back then, would I have been receptive to it? Maybe, but then again maybe not.

You may be puzzled by my assertion that I previously could not have tolerated being too happy for too long and the implied extrapolation that many people are the same way. You may be thinking, "Of course I want to be happy. Who wouldn't?"

But just stop and think about it. Could you stand to live in a state of bliss for four months? Never mind that. Could you stand it for four days?

Based on my past performance, I would say I would not have been able to take it. I suspect I was too attached to sadness and fear. They were familiar. I was comfortable being uncomfortable, paradoxical as that may sound.

Having very few breaks from my current state of cheer has been a stretching exercise for me. But, wow, it feels to me like a nice challenge to have.

More Flying Toys

In an earlier blog post, I stated that I was angry and felt like throwing my toys out of my playpen.

Unfortunately, when people throw their toys out on a larger scale, it creates enormous suffering. The news story of the moment is Gaza, but this year tragedies also have unfolded in Sudan, Chad, Zimbabwe, Congo and elsewhere.

It is my dearest wish that humankind would create peace.

I don't know how to persuade people in far away places to do that. The only thing I know how to do is to spend each day learning a bit more about compassionate communication and implementing it right here in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. My primary vehicles for that are my membership of Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community and use of our consensus decision-making model.

As Gandhi said, Be the change you want to see in the world.

Christmas was magical

When weather stranded me on Vancouver Island, the parents of a Nanaimo friend, who live in Victoria, invited me for Christmas at short notice. My friend and I caught the Greyhound bus down there on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and returned to Nanaimo by train on Boxing Day (December 26th).

I had the greatest fun with this family, who had been total strangers to me. We spent much of Christmas Day in their kitchen, joking and laughing and cooking up a storm. Fortunately, turkey with stuffing and all the trimmings is a fairly universal meal, which most people in Canada prepare roughly the same way. So it was easy to fall into the rhythm of helping in someone else's kitchen. The reward was a delicious Christmas Dinner.

I was sleepy and nodded off during our late afternoon bus ride to Victoria. But our return journey took place in the morning, when I was alert. This gave me an opportunity to appreciate the stunning scenery over the Malahat Pass and along the shores of Shawnigan Lake. Uncharacteristically, snow-covered Vancouver Island looked like the set of Dr. Zhivago.

Now I'm back in my rented townhouse. This has been a lazy day of reading. For me, these days between Christmas and New Year are amongst the most relaxing of the entire year. Absolute bliss.