Sundog Stories

I heard the geese flying over our cottage this early morning and thought I'd send out a short Yoga Nidra, including Mary Oliver's lovely poem Wild Geese.

To set the mood, you'll hear chickadees, a squirrel or two, blue jays and the rustling of wind in the high trees.

Shoji screens  are made of translucent Japanese paper panels that lightly separate spaces. The screens form a thin divide between the outside and the inside world, yet intimately connect the spaces by transmitting light and shadow, sound and air. And, just as the glow of a candle, , and the smell of the rain is felt through the translucent Shoji screen,  so death flickers its shadowed light onto life. 

This story is about how magicians loosen our grip on how we perceive the world, and about endings.

One afternoon my husband and I were greeted by a robed, toothless, wild haired monk under the tall arches of a crumbling monastery. He hugged us, again and again, would not let go, pointed at my eyes, then his, then the sky: azul, azul. Blue, blue.

Buen Camino is about walking the long road to Santiago.

"Trees warp time, or rather create a variety of times: here dense and abrupt, there calm and sinuous ." John Fowles

Temagami Time is about our relationship with time.

This Yoga Nidra has you observe the rising and falling of awareness.

Cold Cellar is about flat coke, woolen socks and our habits and hankerings for more.

This Yoga Nidra practice takes you down a steep path to the edge of an ocean (accompaniment by loud spring birds).

The Musquiem people have a word  that means “things that are hidden”. The word is used to describe sacred objects, often ceremonial, that are thought to possess supernatural powers. These  objects are not simply art or functional things, they embody stories and histories, the threads that tie the past to the present, the future.  Because they are sacred, they are not displayed in the open, reminding us that not everything is meant to be seen, or heard.

"Unheard" is about survivors' stories - of suicide, dispossession, fire, residential schools - that are often not told.

This Yoga Nidra practice will take you on a slow walk through the forest, on a winter night.

On my way back down I heard the ringing of copper bells that led the way, brought to life by long ropes pulled by passers by. And beside the entrance I now saw, what  in the early darkness I had missed: the brightly painted Lord Ganesh, god of all beginnings, wisdom and understanding.

Still Waiting is a story about searching for understanding.