This diary records my personal pathway to becoming a Student of Nature. It can be anyone's journey, but this one is mine. I came back to the land on my quest to bring healing and meaning into my life. And sure enough, Nature was here waiting for me. Nature waits for you, too. This path … Continue reading Hungry for Nature?
Field Note #1: Memorandum of Understanding
There’s a lot of tweaking when a band of three Inter-species Road Ramblers load into a Tour bus for an extended adventure, especially when one of them has never toured before. Needs are assessed and reassessed daily as personal spaces are classified, assigned and reassigned as preferences emerge. Decisions need to take into account both predictable … Continue reading Field Note #1: Memorandum of Understanding
Tales from the Compost Pile: Fear Nibbles
(Story in progress/ starts at ‘Tales from the Compost Heap: Digging In’) I’m not sure exactly when Fear got in, but can confirm it breached my perimeter and settled at the farm some time ago. Just around the same time I found a mouse in my box of lasagna. Sometimes fear doesn’t announce its arrival with … Continue reading Tales from the Compost Pile: Fear Nibbles
Tales from the Compost Heap: Welcome to my Multiverse
I’ve heard the term Multiverse for a number of years, while wandering unaccompanied through inter-web borderlands and fringe bookstores. I had a resistance to the term, associating it with high-tech billionaires and microchipping humans or something equally unsettling. Mostly it sounded like a word reserved for tyrants planning to take over the world or radically … Continue reading Tales from the Compost Heap: Welcome to my Multiverse
Tales from the Compost Heap: Resurrection
If you are arriving mid-story, please start at “Turning the Compost” and then jump right in. _______ After meeting Bea on sidewalk that summer day in Toronto, we learned we’d been living just six blocks from each other for quite some time. She invited me to her apartment which was just a short walk from … Continue reading Tales from the Compost Heap: Resurrection
Tales from the Compost Heap: The Little View Master
I honestly had no idea I was about to dig up Auntie Bea. Or my mother. My shovel was aiming for farm stories, and they were no more than five years deep! Apparently, I hit some sort of worm hole and was transported, as it were, to 1985. I didn’t know my everyday garden-variety worms had … Continue reading Tales from the Compost Heap: The Little View Master
Tales from the Compost Heap: Sorting Deaths
Compost is funny because it will take almost anything living, and in time, break it down and return it to the earth. No ceremony. No eulogies. It just happens beside barns, and in barrels beside rose gardens without anyone making a fuss. Few can tell you the why or how of it, although books and … Continue reading Tales from the Compost Heap: Sorting Deaths
Tales from the Compost Heap : Eating the Biggest Frog (Part 2/2)
So, I thought the world was ending. We need to get this out of the way, straight off. My Auntie Bea swore by “Eat the Big Frog First” and I’ve been following her sage advice for over 50 years. The teaching, as I understand it, is this: If I have ten things to do, and … Continue reading Tales from the Compost Heap : Eating the Biggest Frog (Part 2/2)
Tales from The Compost Heap: Digging Deep (Part 1/2)
I see you came back to the compost pile. Again. Against most odds, I’d say. How long can a person wait? How many times do you check back, to see if someone has unearthed something of interest? With no promise that it will be worth looking at in the first place? You will notice my … Continue reading Tales from The Compost Heap: Digging Deep (Part 1/2)
Tales from the Compost Heap: Digging In
I started writing "This Wholehearted Life" five years ago to enjoy and share a “Year of Living Naturally” as I settled into my new life on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. This was just three months before the onset of Covid, and while the "pandemic years" didn’t always feel particularly “natural”, they certainly gave me … Continue reading Tales from the Compost Heap: Digging In
The Growing Season
I’d just donned my winter nap-cap in that little resting place between 2020 and 2021, when there was a knock at the door. To my sleepy surprise, it was some manner of Cosmic Carnie, advising me he’d just collected ticket stubs from my entire family, loaded them onto a star-speckled Tilt a Whirl; and smacked … Continue reading The Growing Season
This Wholehearted Life 