Deer, drunks and the search for meaning

Another Christmas gone and another new year on the way. I woke up this morning to find three deer sleeping in the back garden. It’s quite a normal thing to see them out there, lying close together, delicate legs tucked underneath them on the thick bed of leaves we pile up back there in the…

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Into the dark midwinter (with glimmers)

And the best of all ways To lengthen our days Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear. — Thomas Moore Unlike a writer I know, Louise, who lives inconveniently in Alaska, where she suffers terribly from depression during the dark winters months, I adore the short days and long nights of…

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Two Kinds of People

I have a murky and confusing ethnic background. I was raised by folks of English and Scottish heritage, but they were not my biological parents. My biological parents are first generation Irish on one side and a mix of English, First Nations Canadian and probably some French, on the other. Banc-de-Pêche-de-Paspébiac, where my ancestor James…

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Sharing the creative journey

Yesterday I sat in a little office in Trinity Church, Princeton. It has cream walls and book shelves a sort of subdued jade, and a mullioned window looks out over the old cemetery, where the bone-grey tilting stones, more than a few graced with a Celtic cross, mark the graves of churchgoers dating back to…

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