The Ferryman of Souls
As we move into the winter months, the archetype of the Ferryman has been looming into view. In myths and fairy tales, the ferryman plays an important role in guiding souls from this world to the other side. What might he mean to us? In Greek myth, the ferryman went...
Giving Thanks
On the brink of Canadian Thanksgiving, I thought I would step into the fairy tales to see who might give me a new way of thinking about gratitude. I soon met a young woman who had gone out into the forest to find food for her father. She had become lost, and after...
Imagining God
What is your image of God? This question has been with me for many years. For a long time I couldn’t access my personal image of God because the Old Testament God stood in the way. A picture of God in the sky with his bolt of lightning had rooted itself in my belief...
When Fables Sing
What exactly is a fable? By its very nature, a fable means something different to everyone. The word itself has many meanings. It can be seen as a falsehood, or a fictional story with a moral, or any mythic story that is not meant to be read literally. If you go to...
Garden of Imagination
I’ve been following a beautiful garden path of thought as I spend time with Kathleen Raine’s books, Defending Ancient Springs and That Wondrous Pattern. In her essays she mingles with poets like William Blake, W.B. Yeats and Edwin Muir who have all experienced the...
The Gift of Innocence
The other night, I had an astonishing dream of a sweet young woman who was a ewe. She had horns and blond, tightly curled hair. She wore a white shift, and she was seven or eight months pregnant. She had stepped out of a story that we had heard told by a king. I...
From Streams to Rivers
I absolutely applaud the message delivered on International Women's Day by Lauryn Oates, Executive Director of Canadian Women for Women of Afghanistan. Lauryn IWD message 2023 - YouTube In her address, she said: You don't need to be Afghan to stand with Afghans, you...
Time for Singing
I had the pleasure of attending Sunday's Muse's voice workshop over the weekend, and she gave us the opportunity to write the story of our voices. Three words from her writing prompt started an outflow. The silent cry. It wasn’t there in the beginning. I’m ten years...
Enter Scrutiny (And Exit, Please)
I can’t believe that I’ve lived this long without discovering the books of Kathleen Raine. Kathleen, where have you been all my life? Kathleen Raine was a poet and essayist who revered the visionary imagination and felt the heartache of its loss in a materialist age....
Soul Cakes for Hallowe’en
I was taking pictures of Hallowe’en skeletons and ghosts in our neighborhood when I came upon this one specter reaching for her little ghostly child. The moment I put my camera on her, the wind picked her up, and she and her baby turned in my direction. Then a light...
Magic Words
"To those alive to the order of reality which they embody, the old symbols will live again; it is not they, but we who are dead." -- Kathleen Raine, Defending Ancient Springs, 1967 Remember a time when words mattered? When you strung them like pearls on a slender...
Tribute to the Queen
September 8, 2022 -- Queen Elizabeth II has died today, and I feel the urge to sit straight up at my writing desk and pen an entry in my journal that dignifies her. She was much more than a figurehead, and at the same time, that is the best description of the role she...