On the move again!

So, apparently I am a crappy blogger while in Canada. Perhaps it is because the bulk of people who I feel I need to stay in touch with are closer. I don't know. I would like to say it's been a big year, but it feels like I have been living a series of big years. It's amazing to me, to think that this time last year, classes were beginning to wrap up. Graduation was approaching, I was gearing up to write my thesis, starting to say goodbye to some of the incredible people I had met... Or that two years ago, I was just coming back from Colombia and starting all the prep to move to Costa Rica and start at Upeace. Now, here I am, a year later and it still feels like the list is growing.

I finished my thesis, which still feels pretty great(!),  came back to Edmonton, and got started back with ACGC, I had a chance to reconnect with friends and family that I had missed, and begin missing the friends who had become like family while being away. Somehow, I'm still trying to figure out who I want to be or what I want to do. I am beginning to think, this isn't a question with an answer - just a series of questions that guide choices and decisions that lead to new questions... They just keep on coming and changing. :)

I have, however, had some fun this year (want some photos?)!

It has been great to be 'home' to spend time with the small monsters in my life. They're so much fun - and it constantly amazes me how fast they're learning and growing! 

Hanging out at the wading pools! Splish splash!

Hanging out at the Farm on the way to Calgary

At the Calgary zoo - a monster turns into a bear!

At the ice festival - "cool" slides

I got to go with a group of visiting students from China and Korea to Banff National Park this winter. Introducing 'Alberta' winter to a group was fun. Sliding, skating, cross-country skiing, snowball fights... It was a hoot!

At the Ice Carving Festival in Banff, Alberta

 

 

Mountain fun!

How many years do you think it normally takes before you learn to lift your heals while sliding down hills?
I think it takes awhile - and it's funny to watch, whether little kids or adults.

On to tobogganing!

Most of the crew

Cross Country Skiing!

And something green... So you know it's still me taking pictures, even with all those people in them. :)

Swinging in Edmonton!

I went to Jasper National Park at the beginning of April - the animals were out and about enjoying the sunshine with us. Here's a small sample.

Geese!

Until quite recently - spring has been indecisive if it wanted to be present in Alberta, so an adventure to Vancouver/Victoria was called for - where spring was well under way. Flowers, green grass, leaves, ocean... beautiful.

 

Wildlife?

So another year has moved it's way through my life - and it seems it is time for more changes.

I am getting married in August, which is so exciting (!!!) and then it appears that we're moving to Guatemala. So the Prairie Girl's going to hit the road again. I don't know if I will be much of a blogger until I head off - but I will get this up and going again - once on the move. If you happen to have a lead on a job in Guatemala... I need one - starting at the end of September. :)

 

Peace to you! 

Wade Davis

It's been just over a month now, since I started back at work at ACGC. It seems crazy just how fast time has been moving. My feet don't quite feel like they have parked themselves below me again - yet here I am in this whirlwind faking it. I am sure I will manage to get my feet grounded soon... I hope.

This weekend was the ACGC Annual General Meeting. It was fun to get to reconnect with so many incredible people working in such incredible ways to promote a better, healthier, more just world. ACGC has grown and changed so much in the time I have been working there. We went from 1 1/2 staff folks attempting to carry a workload for 10 in our homes - to 3 full time, 1 part time and a whole handful of different contract and sessional folks - in an office, with work that seems so much more do-able, with more hands contributing.

A few years ago the Council started a tradition of a public event on the first night of the AGM to kick off things, inviting the public and some sort of speaker. We've had Maude Barlow, Steven Lewis and this year we had Wade Davis come and talk to us, giving a presentation titled, "Why ancient wisdom matters in the modern world". It was really interesting - and I have a lot of things that I want to think about.

The evening kicked off with a presentation by Eriel Deranger (the new interim Executive Director of the Sierra Club Prairies). She was speaking to the Alberta Perspective on the same topic, speaking specically about Northern Alberta, the tar sands, and the impacts on community and environment.

In the near future - part of my tasks are creating a pod-cast for the ACGC channel on the gala but in the meantime - here's a hint of some of what struck me:

• Wade Davis was talking about languages - how when we were born there were over 7000 languages on Earth - and yet how each day, as someone dies - how languages are vanishing. He spoke about how without those words whispered into the ears of infants and used to tell stories - they simply disappear, not fuss - no lobby group, just gone.
  It got me thinking about this past year at school - a school so rich in diversity of culture but trapped within one, sometimes two languages. Officially things happen in English... so when he mentioned how a universal language would seem less appealing if it were Inuktitut or Cree or Tagalog... it would seem more extreme to those of us as first language English speakers - I started imagining my experiences at upeace done differently. He explained how through the vividity of language - "storytellers can indeed change the world".
  
• In talking about the Indigenous of Australia - he was talking about dreamtime - how there isn't separation between past/present/future but a timeless sense of time that flows between the three. Since coming home - I feel somewhat caught up in that race to where - that measuring and dosing of time. What an interesting skill set to learn - how to experience time in a different way, less measured, less quantified...
  

There was so much to think about... and I think if I start typing it all now - this will become a gigantic post... so I will wait and share more later.

Wade Davis - mid presentation

Peace to you,
diana