Reason for the Season? The Answer’s in the Question

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Here in the northern hemisphere, where I live in the prairies of central Canada, the days have been steadily darkening as the winter solstice approaches. On December 21, we will reach the longest night of the year (shortest day), and what our ancestors from many different cultures, knew as the birth of the sun, as we enter the light half of the year, each day getting incrementally lighter until we reach the summer solstice on June 21. 

As I stand beneath the trees with the family of white tailed deer I commune with nearly every morning, the moon lingers high in the icy blue morning as the sun, on the opposite horizon, rises bright, but cool each morning, A colossal symbol of light and life. Its’ lack of warmth, a reminder of the winter phase of this great cosmic cycle we are all beholden too, and its immense importance for the survival of us all. We would be wise to remember.

The leaves have long gone from the trees and shrubs, and the birds migrated away, chasing the warmth of the southern sun. The chickadees remain, their curiosity, and sweet way they flit branch to branch in their communal way is very welcome on my morning wooded walks with my golden shadow, my dog Saga (saw-gaw). Everything has slowed in the natural world. The buzz and hustle of autumnal preparations for winter have come to their timely slumber. The deer, rabbits, squirrels and coyote’s that remain wakeful, move as quietly and lightly as the falling snow; leaving only their tracks to tell the tale of their passing. Many creatures are already tucked in for a long winter’s sleep under the heavy white blanket that the windy hands of December lay over them, both a tender and frosty kiss goodnight. The sap in the trees has become sluggish and nearly still, the great pulsing energy retracted from leaves and flowers at the tips of sun seeking branches and sent down into the roots, deep in the earthen womb, a humming ember that won’t spark the great rebirth until Spring.

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”

-Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

The more time I spend in nature, the more it speaks, in its subtle mirroring way. It shows me myself, and with such gentleness and supportive embrace, it nudges me towards self reflection, cradling and soothing me as I come to terms with how out of sync I, and the world around me have become with our home, the earth, whom we owe our lives, our existence and dependence for future survival. How, on earth, did we so effectively separate ourselves in our minds eye from such a fundamental truth and reality? Because the separation is, in fact, just in our minds. We are as connected to nature as we’ve ever been, it’s our awareness of it that has been severed, as our attention has turned to less important things. Our comfort in illusions of security makes fools of us all.

Such a simple act, just a half hour walk per day, on a path in the woods of a park within a city, has awakened my awareness again, re-attached my severed roots in the most profound of ways. One doesn’t need to climb mountains, visit exotic locales, or hug trees to access this innate truth. The simple act of giving a small patch of nature your focussed attention as a habit, whether it be your garden, a green space in your city, the beach, or a riverside path, will alert you to the ways you’re out of sync with the natural order of things which have always been there.

This time of the year, which has come to be known to many of us as the holiday season, a time to ramp things up and squeeze an abundance of living into two weeks, in place of what most of our ancient ancestors had known as a time to slow down as nature does, turn inward and deepen like the life spark in the roots. To embrace the dark, get cozy in our dens with extra blankets, warm food and drink, candles and books. To snuggle in and slumber with our loved ones as our bear kin do. Instead, we have turned this natural rooted stage in the ever turning cycle of the year into the polar opposite. We are louder, busier, and sparklier, than ever! We turn the lights up and fill every moment with obligatory events, clinking glasses, and every stimulant known to humankind. We crank up the music, set off new year fireworks, and despite increasingly poor road conditions as the snow continues to fall and temperatures drop, we are out in our cars in droves, headlights blaring through the 5 pm dark, to max our credit cards on mass consumption. What an inversion from the natural instinct to conserve and withdraw. We do absolutely everything we can to resist the encroaching dark, fighting our own exhaustion, all while going full steam into group gatherings during cold and flu season. I can’t help but see the parallel behaviour in our seemingly deluded attempts to hold back aging, the winter solstice stage of our lives, if you will? As though we can deny our very biological animal nature, or even have the desire too. But that is a discussion for another time.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a raucous celebration, sparkles and sequins just as much as the next person, but it’s the obvious denial of our natural inclination and frankly, common sense, to sleep more when we’re tired and stay home as the blizzards and flu’s rage outside, that is worrisome. I have become more quiet and observant at this time of year as I’ve entered middle age. I hear the laments about work parties, obligatory events and gifts they feel they have to buy. The anxiety of so many people, myself included, about the shopping, cleaning, cooking, baking, decorating, card writing, expense, etc, etc, and how on earth we’ll get it all done. Expending all our reserves, when nature out our door is conserving theirs. The moment Samhain (Halloween) is over, and all the natural world in the norther hemisphere has wound down into the dark and cold season of the year, the human-made holiday frenzy begins. The irony not lost on me, that we typically take a holiday for a break, but this holiday season is anything but. We seem to know what it is we want, we just refuse to do, or rather, not do what is necessary.

You have to admit, that it’s counter intuitive to mimic the busyness of the life-booming summer solstice, at the opposite time of year, and as exhaustion and illness seem to be at an all time high just as winter gets started this year, I think we could really stand to take some cues from mother nature, and our ancestors who lived life by her cycles. As I sit here and admire my Yule tree, an evergreen symbol from my Celtic lineage reminding us that life continues quiet and unseen through the dark cold months, I begin to understand how much earth was honoured and mirrored by people of the past. Even though we’ve forgotten the meanings and symbolism of many of the traditions we continue to carry on today under different names, replacing them with more superficial and consumerist trimmings, re-learning and re-connecting with the origins of those traditions, along with regular time outside in nature, could plant our severed roots back into the earth. Now when I look at our tree, instead of hearing the popular, but rather shallow seeming sounds of “Rocking around the Christmas tree”, I hear a deeper, quieter voice reminding me that this is the season that the earth and her creatures conserve and sleep. And even though there is nothing growing outside, the green spark of life remains within our homes and will continue to flourish and thrive as long as that green remains in the needles of the evergreen and in our hearts, and its life force drives our actions. I also think of the traditional Yule log, being lit to warm hearth and home as the solstice rolls over a new year carrying the spark from the previous year forward. My ancient Slavic ancestors revered the sun, and lived their lives year round by its immense importance in their lives. To this day, the national flower of Ukraine is the sunflower, who’s head follows the sun in the sky and turns towards one another in the dark, a small reminder of a past preserved, and a way of being that we all can learn from. My Husband’s Icelandic heritage has a long standing tradition of exchanging books and chocolate at this time of year, honouring the natural inclination to stay in, embrace the cozy way of being, letting the body rest, and the mind and heart expand. 

As we wind down 2022, and you feel the push and pull tug of war inside yourself, between the hustle and bustle pressure from the popular over-culture, and the intuitive and biological desire to turn inward and hibernate, choose to do at least one thing this year to honour the wild nature within you. Listen to your body and its complaints and stop railroading them with all the “have to’s”. Say “no” to something you are forcing yourself to do. Sit quietly in any natural place you have access too and tap into it. Remember that there are 365 days in a year. You don’t have to see, celebrate and shower all your friends, family and coworkers with all the love, time and attention over the next two weeks! You can see them, celebrate with them, give them gifts and love them well at any time of the year, and I encourage you to to do just that in 2023. In the meantime, take a walk in the woods, then curl up at home with hot cocoa, a blanket, a book or favourite music album, light a candle, and yes, eat those chocolates and watch the snow fall outside. 

Happy Solstice everyone! May you feel the joy and familiarity that joining the natural pulse and rhythms of the season provides. May you perform extraordinary acts of metamorphoses this winter. May you find peace, good health, an abundance of love, and of course, an ample serving of wonder.

STYLING BY: Patron of Dreams (Tara Cole-McCaffrey)

DRESS: Patron of Dreams Vintage 

WILD WOOL COLLAR: Custom made for Patron of Dreams by Sonia Bicker

PHOTOGRAPHY: Gregory Chomichuk and Patron of Dreams, Editing by Patron of Dreams (Tara Cole-McCaffrey)

Revolutionary 2020’s

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Dark times always precede revolutionary times.

Early into the 21st Century we survived WW1 for four years, and right on it’s heals, the worldwide Spanish Flu Pandemic that ravaged the lands for two full years.

Enter the Roaring 20’s! Liberation and celebration. Everyone who survived the last six years was feeling their vitality in full force, and were ready to take on the future with gusto! Women miraculously managed to get the vote in the midst of the pandemic in North America, and it showed. Young women in droves were seeking independence in spite of previous social norms. Living on their own, working for their own wages and dressing how they pleased. The corset came off, and so did their Mother’s sanctioned Edwardian era hair, along with the weight of others’ expectations of who they were supposed to be.

Freedom and liberation were the essence of the moment. Skirts got shorter, music got louder, and dreams got bigger. It was a time for parties and frivolity after surviving and being released from the restrictions of war and plague, but more interestingly, it was a time for new waves of thought. The idea machine was in full force! Great thinkers and innovators emerged after so much time in isolation, and pontifications about the possibilities for the future exploded on the scene. Creatives, artists of all kinds, writers and performers took centre stage, even if in smokey corners of coffee houses, burlesque halls and speak easy’s. Nothing quite makes you want to live, like being faced with an abundance of death, and people most certainly lived during the raucous 20’s.

Now here we are again, a hundred years later. After watching in dismay, and enduring four years of war on our democracy during the Trump administration, and now entering year two of the Covid-19 worldwide pandemic, the parallels are not lost on me. So what have we learned in a hundred years? I’ll spare you my ranting off a list about what we clearly haven’t learned yet, and instead offer you this. After the Roaring 20’s, came the Dirty 30’s. The stock market crash of 1929, followed by the dust bowl, leading to mass poverty, famine, and homelessness. As we once again begin to see the light at the end of this dark and isolating tunnel we’ve all been in, a word of caution from the pages of history. When we re-gain our freedoms, and our zest for life returns in full force, let us not enter back into the world in a materialistic, capitalistic, consumptive frenzy, as we did in the 1920’s. Let us not lose the humility and lessons of the last few years. Let us remember what kept us going in our darkest hour, and what sustained us when we needed comfort and purpose.

For me it was the deep bonding that occurred with my children and my Husband as we all worked and homeschooled together in constant, close proximity. It was the simple pleasures of cooking together from scratch, and eating those home cooked meals at our dining room table, where good discussions and connections were made. I took great comfort in our garden and teaching my family to grow food from seed. We spent more time in nature than I have in my entire life, and spent time learning about forest harvesting and wildcrafting food and medicines. I threw myself into creative projects with limited resources that forced a new level of innovation. I should note, that this photoshoot took place in my front yard garden, completely decorated from items from our home and clothing from my online vintage shop, while massive re-construction of our entire street and sidewalk was taking place on the other side of our makeshift curtain, made from a clothes-line, sheets, and vintage blankets for a backdrop. We had bonfires in our back yard regularly, read many books, hand wrote letters to our Grandmas, had dance parties in our kitchen, and even though from a physical distance, we deepened connections with those who continued to enrich our lives.

Let us take those building blocks of substance and simple abundance and build new foundations that will truly sustain us through the challenges ahead of us. By all means, let us celebrate and revel in joy when we come out the other end of this, which we will, but I ask, can we do so with grace, emotional maturity and the fortitude to never forget? Can we remember the downfall caused by extravagance, arrogance, and greed? Can we use our art, our music, our writing, our work and our choice of lifestyle to remember those who suffered the most in this inequitable society we must de-construct and re-build? Can we contemplate the impacts of our separation and isolation and never again settle for half-assed, superficial human connections? Can we become more conscious of our interconnectedness and accept that our personal choices impact the whole? Can we love those who enriched our lives during this traumatic time with fervour? Can we honour those who lost their lives from this disease, by making the health of our earth, and therefore ourselves the utmost priority? Can we do it with an abundance of passion and celebration? I think we can. I think we have to. I know that I will, and I know I’m not alone.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Joey Senft Photography

MODELS: Kitty Bernes (Freshair Boutique) and Tara Cole-McCaffrey (Patron of Dreams)

HAIR/WIGS BY: Kitty Bernes from Freshair Boutique

MAKEUP BY: Kitty’s by Rachel Lynne Jones Aesthetic, Tara’s by herself

STYLING BY: Tara Cole-McCaffrey (Patron of Dreams)

ART BY: Charcoal and conte drawing of nude woman by Gmb Chomichuk

WARDROBE BY: Patron of Dreams Shop. Vintage Kimonos are currently available for purchase in the shop!

Persephone’s Departure, To Her Throne Beyond The Veil

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“Persephone (aka Kore) was the Greek goddess of vegetation, especially grain, and the wife of Hades, with whom she rules the Underworld…According to mythology, Hades, god of the Underworld, fell in love with beautiful Persephone when he saw her picking flowers one day in a meadow. The god then carried her off in his chariot to live with him in the dark Underworld…Meanwhile, Demeter (Persephone’s Mother) searched the earth for her lost daughter and though Helios (or Hermes) told her of her daughter’s fate, she, nevertheless, continued her wanderings…it was decided that Persephone would be released but that she would have to return to Hades for one-third of the year…The story of Demeter and Persephone was perhaps symbolic of the changing seasons and the perennial change from life to death, to life once more, or in other words, the changes from summer to winter and the return of life in spring.”

-Ancient History Encyclopedia

I asked Persephone, “How could you grow to love him? He took you from flowers to a kingdom where not a single living thing can grow.”

Persephone smiled, “My darling, every flower on your earth withers. What Hades gave me was a crown made for the immortal flowers in my bones.”

– Nikita Gill, Conversations With Persephone

The autumnal winds of change have returned, and so we are called like a sweet song of decaying leaves on the wind, to the last frolic of fall before we descent once again into the underworld. That deep, dark, expansive death where nothing grows, called Winter.

Before we heed the call, we fortify our hearts agains the cold and dark, and prepare our minds by breathing the last remnants of summers bounty deeply into the depths of our beings. We frolic with nature, enraptured and in touch with our most youthful maiden selves. Innocence, playing at the flirtations of the sensuality of womanhood, and childlike wonder before life enters its next phase. We give endless thanks and gratitude for her gifts and wonders, and revel in her glorious display of colour and beauty. It feels as though she saves the best for last. A party of such elaborate decoration as to befit a Queen’s departure, back to her throne beyond the veil, sealed beneath a thick blanket of pure white snow.

As I sit here now, two days before All Hallows Eve, by the light of a beeswax candle, the tips of my fingers and nose cold with the newly arrived chill from an early onset of winter. I turn my mind back to this day of revelry. With it’s moody autumn skies and earthen scent of organic decay and a cacophony of colour exploding like yellow, red and orange fireworks in celebration from the roots, a parting gift to us all. The scent of wild sage and poplar leaves on the air, women lift their long skirts to romp in tall grasses, playful and natural, wearing boots made for a journey of adventure. Tucking the memories of summer away inside their travelling trunk, filled with peculiarities and earthen wonders to keep them company on their journey inward and down to the soul dark depths.

The day before this photoshoot, I embarked on a harvesting task with my two young sons in tow to carry on an autumnal tradition of building a besom (broom) made of sustainably harvested plants that have meaning and medicine for it’s maker. Traditionally it is hung above a doorway in your home for protection, and continued connection to all that grows, throughout the frozen days ahead. We found a beautiful fallen branch from a gnarly oak tree for the base, and gathered plants from one of our favourite nature haunts, with Persephone, sweet Goddess of vegetation in my thoughts. That night before the shoot, I added the harvested plants to other dried flowers with bits and pieces I had been collecting here and there during the summer. I wrapped all of them lovingly and with intention for the year to come around the oak branch with twine and white crocheted trim.

The next day, for our photoshoot, I took down the broom I had wild-crafted the year before and we used both the old and the new for our photoshoot. The shoot itself served as a ceremonial send off, a beautiful farewell to our old broom that graced our home for the previous year, as well as a consecration for our new broom that would live with us for the year to come. After the photoshoot, I lovingly untied my old broom and released it to the flames of a bonfire in our backyard, bathing in it’s sacred cleaning smoke. I then hung my new broom up above the door in place of the old one.

“The broom had been associated with female magic and the social contributions of the wise-woman ever since ancient Rome, where sacred mid-wives used special broomsticks to sweep the threshold of the house after childbirth, to repel evil influences from mothers and their babes. The broom was also associated with the ceremony of marriage as conducted by priestesses. Among Gypsies, whose marriages continued to be performed by wise-women, jumping over the broomstick was an essential part of the rite.

So closely connected were the wise-women and their brooms that medieval authorities naturally supposed the broom to serve as a magical steed able to carry a witch to her sabbats. Hence the image of the broom-riding heretical women:

“So witches some enchanted wand bestride/ And think they through the airy regions ride.”

Many superstitions attached themselves to this basic idea.” – Barbara G. Walker, The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects

“While it does not usually touch the ground, it is used to “sweep out” the negative energies in a room, and is often held a few inches above the ground to do so.” -Wikipedia, Besom

With our hearts warmed by the nurturing company of women, meaningful tradition in harmony and connection with the earth, we prepare. We embrace the natural life-death-life cycle, syncing up with the rhythms of the sun, moon and earth. Like Mother Nature herself we flow without resistance through change and transformation again and again through the seasons of our lives. Our homes, now warmed by bringing some of natures bounty and medicine indoors for the cold, dark months ahead, we fortify our spirit for the most challenging season ahead.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Joey Senft Photography

MODELS: Kitty Berns (Freshair Boutique), and Tara Cole-McCaffrey (Patron of Dreams)

HAIR & MAKEUP: Each model did her own hair and makeup, although it should be noted that Kitty is a phenomenal hair stylist!

STYLING and ARTISTIC DIRECTION: Tara Cole-McCaffrey(Patron of Dreams)

WEARING: Vintage wardrobe (Coats, dresses and boots) for sale at Patron of Dreams Shop

Necessity Is The Mother of Invention

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“I had to make you uncomfortable, otherwise you never would have moved.” —Universe

The ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, said that ‘necessity is the mother of invention”. As someone who has been fiercely committed to building a better world in my own personal way through the creative work that I do, and the lifestyle that I’ve chosen, the need for invention, innovation and new, creative ideas to spread has been forefront in my thoughts for years. If that desire is to be birthed through necessity, then what sheds light on what our necessities are? How do we get down to the bones of what it is that we really need, in its most basic form? In my experience and observation, it’s adversity that highlights for us what our necessities are. It’s the dark shadows of doubt, fear, anxiety and helplessness. Those supposed negative, inferior, or low-vibe feelings are at the heart of unlocking what makes us tick as individuals, and as collective human beings. We have those feelings for good reason. They help us to survive and evolve, until we are capable of thriving. Fear and the possibility of threat, puts us in touch with our instincts and intuition, which are essential to our understanding of ourselves and have an uncanny ability to immediately shed anything that is frivolous or extraneous from our lives, and help us zero in on what we value. Those uncomfortable feelings shine a light on our vulnerabilities and what we need to work through within ourselves and as a collective human family, and we have most certainly all been steeped very recently together in a significant dose of adversity, fear, anxiety as we continue to navigate the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Fear, just like grief and sadness, are to be moved through, not around, so we should never allow anyone to mock us or make us feel shame for experiencing fear, especially when facing the unknown. Those who can still feel deeply, despite a world that has worked hard to thicken our skins and make battle-hardened warriors of us all, will very likely be the ones who change everything for the better in the long run. They are a rare breed and have a perspective that few can see. Stay sensitized if you can, or reclaim it, as I have done after years of hardening my heart in order to soldier on in difficult circumstances. Our softness is where so much power resides, and yet it has all but been forgotten by our culture. Nothing shows us our power, like the thought of having it taken away. And when I say power, I do not mean the false sense of power that is fuelled by feelings of superiority or specialness disguised as leadership, in that hero-saviour variety that patriarchal structure so loves to perpetuate these days. I mean true power, that comes from humility and compassion, and that humble confidence that commits to raising up all people as equally important no matter their belief, or lifestyle, and with no agenda to get anyone “on-side” with the God that they deem correct, but raising people up just because its the decent human thing to do. No strings attached.

Our difficult feelings also show us where we’ve been waisting our time and energy, and how we’ve been distracted and scattered so effectively from our most essential selves.  Before we can reach a new level of invention and innovation that’s necessary to build a better world, we must first acknowledge where we’ve become comfortable, complacent and apathetic about the world that is. In my own experience, if we don’t take the initiative to evolve ourselves as individuals, circumstances tend to arise in our lives that push us out of our comfort zones and make us evolve, like it or not.

Before I had ever heard of Covid-19, I had thought that I had a pretty good understanding of what “necessity is the mother of invention” really meant. I had experienced adversity in my life, and been nudged into a new level of survival and creativity to cope in the past, but as it turns out, 3 months into a worldwide pandemic where my life has been substantially altered, I now realize my previously comfortable life and innate privilege and entitlement kept me from fully grasping the weight of what that statement really means. I had already gone through many alterations in my life where I significantly simplified and culled the meaningless, the wasteful and the consumerist values from my existence. Skimming down to what really matters to me and shedding the rest. But even still, the truth is, I rarely thought about necessity, because we live in a time and culture of excess and as a middle-income, healthy, white, straight cis-woman who’s married, I have a bubble of protective privilege around me that needs to be acknowledged and understood. The fact is, I am not as vulnerable in an emergency, like a global pandemic, as someone who has health issues, suffers from depression or anxiety, doesn’t have universal health care, is trying to raise a family without a living wage, or is discriminated against, underprivileged or marginalized in any way. A significant lesson, and the beginning of the many silver lining gifts gleaned from this difficult experience. This honest look at my own privilege and the resulting humility and massive influx of sudden understanding of the adversity being experienced by the vulnerable and underprivileged comparatively to how I have been effected, has been eye and heart opening.

“We are all in the same storm, but not in the same boat.”  -Emery D. Haley

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This was just one of so many veil lifting epiphanies that have come to light for me and many thousands of people through the adversity of this pandemic. I have most definitely been negatively impacted personally, as a Mother of two young boys who are now home 24/7 and need to be homeschooled. I’ve struggled these past weeks as a small-business owner who’s seen a huge drop in income from my vintage shop sales, even though I sell online, and I’m the Wife of an Author and Illustrator who had every single book signing, convention, speaking engagement and work trip cancelled indefinitely since March. Our livelihoods have been hacked down to shadows of their former glory and that’s been heart wrenching for two people who have worked very hard and made many sacrifices in order to build a life around our creative endeavours being our sole source of income. There is no denial or downplay of our personal hardships here, but, it pales in comparison to what more vulnerable people around the globe who were already experiencing adversity have had to deal with. If this doesn’t teach us compassion and empathy for one another, and help us see the inequalities within the systems we uphold, I don’t know what will.

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We live in a time of over abundance, gluttony and greed with a small percentage of people getting extremely rich off of the consumerist culture that keeps middle and lower income people trapped in a cycle of wanting more and believing that if they just work hard enough, all their dreams will come true. So many have become slaves to that belief and that system, which is stacked in the favour of the already rich and powerful. It is designed for us to want desperately to climb the ladder towards the rich and famous lifestyle, and to reach endlessly for it, but never get there. The falseness and emptiness of that dream is coming to light for many, and that is no harsh truth to scoff at. The youth in particular are bombarded with the messaging that this is precisely what they should want for themselves and encouraged to strive endlessly for it. It’s a damn hard reality to realize its a lie.

When 2020 unleashed Covid-19, the world was thrown into a chaotic shit-storm of epic proportions. Lockdowns, border and school closures, daily death tolls, curfews, medical face masks, mass business shut downs and long-term social distancing measures. I need not go on, you were there, we all were, and still are navigating these new waters, globally. What an incredibly profound thing to experience in our lifetime. Especially in the digital era, when we can watch it unfolding real-time on our friends’, colleagues’ and strangers’ social media feeds from all over the world. No need to even tune into the news, when it’s so easy now to connect with real people and their lived experiences, live around the world. The unity of that global experience should not be taken lightly. For many people, that may have been the first time they really understood how connected we all are on this planet. Not just conceptually, but literally. We live on a sphere, an island brimming with life and possibility, floating in the cosmos and every single thing we do as individuals effects and impacts everyone else that walks this planet with us. It may not be immediate, or feel substantial when it happens, but what we choose in each moment sends a ripple out like a tiny stone in a pond that extends out from us continually. We have impact as individuals. Covid allowed us to see that with clarity and certainty, and if we can have a negative impact on one another, we can most certainly have a positive impact.

So many people are now beginning to understand concepts that had been floating around them for decades, but their busyness had kept them from grasping it fully. The wealthy 1% getting richer during a crisis, while the rest of us struggle to get by. The hypocrisy of minimum wage workers being determined “essential” and revered as “front line heroes”, while not making a living wage. The truth about how many goods we rely on that are imported from other countries that are produced in sweatshops, and how incredibly neglectful we’ve been about supporting local businesses and small, family-owned shops in our own communities. How much non-essential crap we buy and support that does not in any way make the world a better place to live, in fact it just contributes to more garbage and plastic waste in our landfills and oceans, and loss of hard-earned income with nothing to show for it. One of the most important epiphanies I witnessed people grasping worldwide was the realization of how little they know about how to actually survive in an emergency. People began to ask themselves, what if this was like a world war, or the next Dirty Thirties and goods and services become difficult to get access to? The sheer shock of realizing that they don’t know how to grow their own food, keep their family’s immune systems healthy and strong, or cook hearty meals from basic local ingredients, was a major eye opener for many. Hence the significant increase in veggie gardens popping up everywhere this spring and people living in the suburbs learning to bake their own bread for the first time. So much so that Robin Hood flour ran out of their standard yellow packaging and had to start packing in basic brown paper bags in order to keep up with production in North America! The most important discovery I feel for many, was watching the smog and CO2 emissions clear up in the skies all over the world as traffic and industry screeched to a halt. Wildlife emerged and was rejuvenated as people stayed close to home, and people, with no place to go and many with less to do, started watching the skies, listening to the birds and re-connecting with nature in ways they may not have in years or possibly ever.

These little seeds of thought, these epiphanies, thought experiments and self-evaluations are the silver lining during these dark times. The gifts that come from adversity and are born when we face fear and have the courage to move through it, grasping the lessons as we go. I understood it philosophically, but not experientially, because life has afforded me far more than I actually need. Facing the truth of that and admitting it to myself is a lesson in humility and gratitude, something I feel is sorely needed in these times.

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“I don’t want to wait anymore I’m tired of looking for answers
Take me some place where there’s music and there’s laughter
I don’t know if I’m scared of dying but I’m scared of living too fast, too slow
Regret, remorse, hold on, oh no I’ve got to go
There’s no starting over, no new beginnings, time races on
And you’ve just gotta keep on keeping on
Gotta keep on going, looking straight out on the road
Can’t worry ’bout what’s behind you or what’s coming for you further up the road
I try not to hold on to what is gone, I try to do right what is wrong
I try to keep on keeping on
Yeah I just keep on keeping on
I hear a voice calling
Calling out for me
These shackles I’ve made in an attempt to be free
Be it for reason, be it for love
I won’t take the easy road
I’ve woken up in a hotel room, my worries as big as the moon
Having no idea who or what or where I am
Something good comes with the bad
A song’s never just sad
There’s hope, there’s a silver lining
Show me my silver lining
Show me my silver lining”  

                                                                               – First Aid Kit (Song: My Silver Lining)

There has been so much emotional baggage to unpack over these past few months, and truly difficult realities to face and not look away from that many have suffered deeply and profoundly as a result of it. This is a collective pain that history has shown us, will most definitely result in transformations we can only imagine for our world. There are deep lessons to be learned and healing to experience through the discomfort.

I have been so incredibly fortified and heartened by what I have seen transpire within the creative communities around the globe as a result of this pandemic. A new and profound creativity has emerged, birthed from necessity. People being isolated and un-able to create in their normal ways have risen to the occasion and innovated ways to thrive in adversity. I’ve seen incredible works of art being made with minimal resources, musicians and performing artists finding inspiring ways to continue making music for themselves and the world. Writers penning some of the most heart-wrenching articles and poetry, small businesses adapting and adjusting from brick and mortar to online shops and delivery services in record time in order to continue meeting the needs of their customers and save their businesses. Photographers making absolute magic with their cameras in their own homes and backyards, grounded airports converting their lots into drive-in movie theatres, and families spending more time together than they have in years. Communities coming together to sing from balconies, support one another emotionally and financially online and continue to grow and learn in adaptive ways through changing tides. This experience has proven to me that when the going gets tough, the creatives get going.

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“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” –Toni Morrison

In my own family, my Husband, Gregory and I at home with our two boys, 11 and 9, have ridden the waves with the rest of the world and have done our level best to stay within the eye of the storm and continue to do what we do best, to love one another fiercely and stay creative. That is our contribution to the world and now I know it with certainty. We will do what we do no matter what. We too planted a garden, starting from seed in our house and taught our sons how to grow food in their own front yard in the city. We cooked together, baked buns and muffins, devotedly supported small local grocery stores and businesses for our basic needs, joined a CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) Farm to door, and we grew closer and bonded in new and impenetrable ways. We talked a lot about the state of the world and where to go from here and how to use our individual gifts and talents to contribute to positive change as we watch old paradigms fall and burn around us. Some days we slogged through the weight of the world, but we continued to work, to teach our kids, even if it was just one baby step at a time. We cultivated joy where we were, rather than desire it from the outside world that we didn’t have access to. That in itself was a massive shift in consciousness.

Of all the things I was missing, the thought of not being able to continue doing creative photoshoots was what I was grieving the most. So, with the mantra “bloom where you’re planted”, firmly held in my heart, I decided to work with what I had, where I was. I decided to do a photoshoot at home. No professional photographer, no fancy studio lighting or perfect location, just a reason to get creative with what we already had. Gregory and the boys helped me set up, Finnley, my youngest asked to model and Lief, my eldest was our photographer. Both Finnley and I modelled clothes from my online vintage shop (Patron of Dreams Shop), and a creative editorial shoot about family and planting seeds, metaphorical and literal, was born. About a month later, as isolation restrictions relaxed a little in Winnipeg, Joey Senft, our good friend and neighbour who happens to be one of the best professional photographers in our city, went out on foot in our own neighbourhood, social-distance style, to do a photoshoot together. This blog post is a result of making art in the time of Covid-19. A snapshot in time to serve as a reminder that we are only as limited as our perceptions and bravery allows, and that our desire for perfection or a certain standard can be limiting and paralyzing instead of inspiring and expanding.

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So what’s next as the world continues to be ravaged by the direct and indirect effects of a pandemic? How do we continue to go through profound awakenings and transformations, a revolution, as hard truths and adversity continues to unfold? Well, I hope a commitment to self-evaluation, and an honest acknowledgement of our individual contributions to both the problems and the solutions. It is my greatest wish that each person begin to understand what it is that they as individuals have to offer to the world to improve it, and to figure out how that can be done for the greater good of all of humanity in a holistic way, not just for the already privileged few that are benefitting from the existing capitalist patriarchal systems. I see a great need for people to get comfortable with unlearning what they thought was true and stepping into the humility of not knowing, not having all the answers, or attempting to be a saviour to others when what is truly needed is our continued improvement of ourselves.

I live in excitement about the future, despite the hardships and difficulties that I know still lie ahead of us, and I’ve come to accept and appreciate the diversity of roles that are needed to be played by different types of people as old paradigms are disassembled and new ways are built. Some people will fight to tear down old systems and be warrior activists for change and accountability. Some people will use existing political platforms and rock boats from within political rings, some people will continue using their healing arts and modalities to help the collective heal through the process, and some will focus on building the new through their work, their art, their writing, and their creativity. There is room for it all, and all of it is an important contribution. Through it all, as a community, I wish for each of us to carry a fierce hope in our hearts, as we continue to peel the layers back over the coming months and with openness and non-judgment, uncover all the silver linings just waiting to be understood from this dark cloud.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY:  

  • Seed planting at home, photos by Lief Chomichuk , Edited by Joey Senft.
  • Apple blossoms in our neighbourhood, photos and edits by Joey Senft.

MODELS: Finnley Chomichuk (my son), and Tara Cole-McCaffrey, Patron of Dreams

STYLING BY: Tara Cole-Mccaffrey, Patron of Dreams, from Patron of Dreams Shop

VINTAGE FASHION: Vintage 70’s green dress, 70’s large collar printed polyester shirt, navy blue adjustable suspenders, vintage white with pink floral button-front dress, and vintage black slip, all from Patron of Dreams Shop.

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We Are The Dreams of Our Ancestors and The Dreamers For Our Descendants

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“Our relationships with the places where our feet are planted are everything. In the physical sensory world, and the imaginal world which envelopes and penetrates it. It doesn’t matter whether we’re in these places forever, or for just a little while….All that matters is that, wherever we find ourselves in this world, we connect deeply there. For as long as we’re in a place, with as much love and respect as we can muster. That’s where the virtue lies, for me.”

‘The land carries its own memory, and a rich, earthy, planetary wisdom. The memory and wisdom of the ages. And we’re made up of it. At some very deep level, each one of us participates in that wisdom borne by the land.
‘Because we’re made of the land. Every cell in our body. There’s not a bit of us that isn’t created and then forged from the various places we’ve lived in.’

‘And what treasures we can uncover, if we remember it. If we learn how to dig deep, how to stop paddling about in the shallows and penetrate beyond the superficial into those deeper, older, planetary – cosmological, even – layers of the psyche. If, to use a phrase I coined many years ago now, we choose to let ourselves fall into the land’s dreaming. And so learn how to truly participate in the land’s psyche. In the world psyche – the anima mundi, the world soul.’

– Sharon Blackie

“Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.” – Rumi

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I was born,  raised, and have lived my entire life in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I am a 4th Generation Canadian, with a complex, mixed heritage, including at least eight nationalities that I’m currently aware of, running through my veins. Celtic, Central and Eastern European, and even Indigenous to name a only a few, although you’d never know it if you judged me solely based on my appearance. I am a cultural hodgepodge, and I’m sure a DNA test would likely reveal that it’s even more complicated than all of that. I am a child of the world, and that is reflected in my diverse cultural interests, where I have chosen to travel, and what I choose to learn and share with the world. The embracing of diversity and desire for global connectedness runs deep in my genetic lineage. I have continued to let my heart and soul be my guide, despite these interests often being misunderstood, over-simplified and criticized based solely on how I look.

The truth is, my complex cultural background means that I don’t identify with just one place, people or culture, but many, and as a proud Canadian, I regularly feel immense gratitude and comfort, living in a country that is so culturally diverse and welcoming, for the most part, of that diversity. I have, as of late, been re-connecting with my heritage and the knowledge of my ancestors. How better to understand ones-self than to understand who and where they come from. I have been reading and learning about Matrilineal DNA, which is now used to trace family trees, because unlike DNA from fathers, a mother’s DNA is passed un-changed from mothers to children of both sexes, along the maternal line until all female lineages converge. Ultimately, what that means in simplified terms is, we can trace our DNA in a clear line through our mothers, and our mothers’ mothers, back through many generations, but we cannot do this through our father’s and our father’s fathers. I was contrastingly, both utterly flabbergasted and notably underwhelmed by the obviousness, when I learned the matriarchal nature of the very building blocks of humanity. The irony of learning this truth while at the same time becoming more and more conscious of and infuriated by the oppressive nature of our Patriarchally constructed society, was not lost on me. More on this another time! Science, in its purist form, is our friend, because it opens us up to question things and be open minded to theoretical possibilities. That said, our instincts and intuition are equally important, sometimes more so, in the short term in particular. I’m sure I’m not the first woman to say that on a deep-seeded (pardon the pun) internal level, I already knew this fact, but it took scientific evidence to convince me. Note to self, once again, you’re intuition is usually ahead of the curve. Trust it.

I have also been learning about the quickly growing study and theories around Epigenetics, and the mind boggling evidence that so far suggests our genes can in fact change based on external stimulus, such as traumatic experiences, or repetitive thought patterns and emotions, and in turn, those altered genes can then be passed down through generations. The implications around curing genetic diseases, the nature versus nurture debates, or limiting beliefs based on the genetic lottery we are born with, the good and the not so good, are incredibly exciting to consider.  It would appear that we are so much more than the physical characteristics and pre-dispositions of our ancestors. We are also their dreams and their fears. Their gifts and their traumas. We carry not only their blood and tissue, but their experiences within us, as well as the potential capacity to transmute the parts that do not serve our greatest good or personal evolution.

All of this information together, for me, peaks my curiosity and begs the question, are we not then, on more than an experiential level, but on a cellular level, also made up of the places that we live and the places that our ancestors have lived? And in particular, are we not deeply connected and informed by the land in which our mother, grandmothers and great-grandmothers have walked? Is it possible, that we carry knowledge of the lands of our ancestral grandmothers lived and visited inside of our genetic coding? Even though I am fourth generation Canadian, I find a deeply rooted connection and attraction to places in the world that I have never set foot on. Places, that the ancient stories and pictures of, sing a song within me that transcend my limited ideas of my culture or borders and draw me towards them for some reason or purpose. There is knowledge within me, my blood and bone, that seems disconnected from my blonde hair and blue-green eyes, and yet other parts of me that are deeply connected to my appearance. Why, when I visited Turkey, in the Middle East, did I feel a deep sense of being a hop-skip-and-a-jump from home, when in reality, home was on the other side of the world in Canada? Why do depictions of ancient Egypt and endless seas of golden desert make me weep with longing? Why did this white girl feel every fibre of her being come alive with familiarity when she began to study bellydance? Time for that DNA test maybe? Or, maybe there’s even more to it than that. Humanity is not stationary. Scientific evidence traces the birthplace of humanity to Africa. There is innumerable evidence of cultural interconnectedness through travel, trade and marriage throughout the world for millennia. Viking symbols and runes etched with ancient knives into stone structures in the Middle East; jewellery, fabric and weapons being found all over the world in the graves of people not native to those cultural artifacts; the ancient Celtic triskele being used in the U.S. Department of Transportation, a coat of arms in Germany and national flag of Sicily. Our democracy here in North America is based on that of ancient Greece, our letters are Latin and our numbers are Arabic. Unless you are Indigenous to North America, every single one of us are either immigrants ourselves, or fairly recent descendants of immigrants. The bottom line is, that most of what we have come to know as Canada was built upon foreign ideas with an entirely different land and culture, and that past information is stored within our DNA, according to current science. My familial experience being in Canada is less than 150 years old, which within the measure of genetic lineage, is a relatively short time.

So what does all this mean? Well, for me, it is an inspiring seed of an idea that warrants further investigation. It is a reminder that we are far more complex in our make-up than we may currently understand, and we do ourselves a disservice when we over-simplify one another into cultural boxes, borders and surface appearances. There is so much more to an individual than meets the eye. This thinking inevitably leads to an us versus them mentality, and history has shown us time and again what horrors the implications of that can turn into. These new scientific discoveries and theories suggest possibility for our future, and it nudges me towards better connection and understanding of my own personal heritage, but more than that, it encourages me to enquire about the places my ancestors came from, where they travelled, settled, and what may have been going on in those places at that time in history? All of it, would potentially have an impact on my make-up, and that of my children, according to current modern science, and quite frankly, according to the long-time teachings of Indigenous peoples all over the globe.

As a central Canadian, living in a province with a significant population of Indigenous First Nations, might I suggest that maybe it’s way, way overdue for us European descendants to listen up and learn something about the stolen Treaty 1 Territory land we are all standing on? I did not personally choose to come here from Europe, but I do live here now as a result of my ancestors, I am raising my family here, and with every choice I make, I am setting the tone for future generations. If I apply the ideas about matrilineal DNA and epigenetics not just to myself and how my ancestry has impacted me, but to how I in turn will impact my descendants, wouldn’t the connection, understanding and knowledge of this land that I walk on every day, it’s history, it’s geology, it’s plant medicines, it’s animals, be an important responsibility? I love the idea that we are the manifestation of our ancestors wildest dreams. If that is so, what can I do to make them proud? Well, that leads me to an obvious question, what are my wildest dreams? What do I hope for, for my own descendants? I want them to know that I worked for a better world, that I cared about people and that I loved this planet and all her mysteries deeply. I want them to know that I dreamed and worked for unity, diversity and global community. That creativity and connectivity of people and land was deeply important to me. I want them to know that I loved this place that I live, it’s intense and extreme seasonal changes, and the hearty, incredibly creative people that our long, cold, dark winters produce. Above all, I want them to know that I did my best to become the soul of this place where I was born, while reaching for my dreams. That I listened to my heart and my intuition and let it be my guide in all things. If it is so, that I can pass on my experience to my descendants, it is my wish that it brings comfort and hope that I did not just live in this place, on this land, but instead, I allowed myself to connect deeply to it and become a part of it, as I believe nature intended.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Michael Sanders, Electric Monk Media

STYLING, HAIR & MAKEUP BY: Tara Cole-McCaffrey, Patron of Dreams

WARDROBE BY: Patron of Dreams Shop

WEARING: 

 

 

 

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

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Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
Rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

-Pink Floyd, Shine on You Crazy Diamond

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There is something about you that is different. Even if you have convinced yourself that you are average or blend into the backdrop of the mainstream. I am here to tell you, that you are indeed different, because the concept of normal is a complete fabrication designed to keep us feeling trapped in a cage of our own creation. This disillusionment of normal keeps us disempowered and willing agents in perpetuating a system that serves only those very few at the top, while the rest of us waste away in the land of average and sameness, always feeling like something is missing and never reaching our potential. It is possibly the most important task of your life to discover what it is exactly that sets you apart, defines who you are, and then surrender to it fully with all of your heart. If you can make this a priority, your life will change forever and you will wonder why in the hell you never did it sooner?

Who are you? The question of questions, and one that I ask myself every day to ensure I don’t slip back into complacency and a false sense of self, designed by my ego when I was young in order to help me survive and navigate a painful world, plagued with conformity. We are not our family, our job, the city we live in and the society that has shaped us. These are just the effects of nurture, but they are not your nature. We came into this world with something that is uniquely us and our life experience has either helped to steer us towards ourself or away from it. So really, the question is, who were you before the world got a hold of you? Who were you before you got talked out of following your heart and your bliss and all the things that ignite your fire and make your soul smile and cheer? Who were you before you integrated the message that if your interests don’t make you money they should not be a priority? Who were you before security, practicality and responsibility steered you away from who you actually are and what you want for yourself?

When I see people struggling within the life they have created because somehow, along the way they have ended up filling their days with way more ‘have to’s” than “want to’s”, I have nothing but compassion because I’ve been there. I, like so many others was programmed by social conditioning to keep putting the things I loved aside in favour of socially accepted and understood choices that would ultimately make me money and provide me with security, social status and respect. I went into sciences at University because I had been told repeatedly by many sources that I was more likely to get a job in the field of science, and nothing was more important than a secure job. I then ended up in a very practical Environmental Technology program at College. A couple of years later, I moved out from my childhood home into my own apartment, got a part-time job to pay the rent and gas for my car and then graduated soon after. By the time I was 21 I had started my career at an Engineering firm and began a 10 year climb up the corporate ladder and into a well respected position in a glass sky-rise at a large Corporation downtown. During this climb, I bought a house with my then boyfriend, now husband at age 24, got a dog, bought my first new car, and went on a warm vacation annually. By all socially accepted measures of success, at only 28 years of age, I had made it. While some might have found that life comforting, a deeper, more intuitive part of me found it deeply disheartening. I was only 10 years into being an adult and there were very few rungs left on that corporate ladder I was climbing. I had landed directly in the middle of average. I shot for the middle instead of the stars and landed there more quickly than I had expected. This life was taking up all of my time with very little left over for my interests or passions. Was this really going to fulfill me for the next 35 years of my life until retirement? And then what? Then I get to do what I want? Was I living for the weekend, the next holiday, the golden retirement years? I had a constant nagging feeling within me for something more, that money and vacations and marriage was not fulfilling. Then, I checked the next milestone off my well laid out and organized life. I got pregnant, and everything changed. I was faced with the hardest and also the easiest decision of my life. Would I stay in my extremely demanding career and try to juggle being a Mother, a Wife and a career woman, or would I give up the career I had been building and working towards since high school? That’s when I started to question everything, mostly myself. That’s the first time I had dared to ask myself “who am I?”, and allowed myself to be brutally honest. After quieting the opinions of others and finally listening to my inner knowing, I knew that this life I had built so diligently by following the rules and playing the game, was not in fact who I was. So I gave up my career, and all the money and status that came with it and devoted myself to raising my babies, all the while, doing the soul searching work of getting back to the core of who I was before I got onto this well trodden mainstream track. The isolation and solitude that being a stay-at-home Mom provided me, while lonely and alienating much of the time, was the best gift I have ever given myself. I had a legitimate excuse to get out of the rat race, be separated from the constant reinforcement of popular opinion, and come back home into my own heart.

Often, people who are experiencing that nagging, that inner turmoil that tells them they aren’t living their authentic life, get stuck, because when they ask themselves “who am I?”, “what do I want?” they honestly don’t know the answer. My humble advice for this common experience is to go back to the beginning and start from there. Who were you before other people’s influences, projected fears and scarcity mentality got the better of you? What were you like as a child? What did you do with yourself when boredom led to self-directed creativity? When you were told to go and play or entertain yourself, what did you gravitate to? What made time stop for you, that you lost yourself in completely, that you returned to again and again? All of those things, no matter how trivial or silly they may seem to you now, are the clues to your bliss. They are where the essence of who you are resides.

When I asked myself these questions, it was very clear to see who I was, and I was definitely not being true to her anymore. I was dishonouring that little girl who loved to dress up in elaborate costumes and create characters in her Grandmother’s wardrobe and then come downstairs and ad-lib in character to my Grandparents delight. I was not being true to the little girl who loved to sing and dance, create costumes and perform dance routines to Mini-Pops songs on my portable record player and microphone that connected to our radio. Thank you 1980’s! I had suppressed that pre-teen who dressed her friends up in our Mothers’ clothes and created sets and themes riffing on popular advertisements. I’d take their pictures on an old camera, taking the time to get them developed and putting them into photo albums. I had polished and wiped clean that wild child with the messy tangled mass of hair, who was strong and athletic, wore a camo sweatsuit, painted mud on her face, hiked in the woods, communed with nature and built ramps to jump her BMX bike on dirt trails. I had silenced the teenager who wrote poetry and short stories to process her emotions, played guitar and piano, adored thrift shopping for vintage and cutting up and sewing new clothes out of thrift store finds. There was almost no sign of the girl who read countless books on astrology, spirituality and mysticism, learned to read tarot cards and burned incense daily in the solitude of her room. I was no longer honouring the young woman who chose theatre as her extra curricular activity in high school and Bellydancing as her twenty-something after work hobby that she squeezed into her work schedule. Dance led to teaching, performing and producing Vaudeville-estque productions, and eventually training with world-renowned Bellydancers. Aside from keeping a small fire lit in my heart with dance, I had somehow completely suppressed the girl within me, my soul self, my essence and she was screaming to come out, and making it harder and harder to ignore her dissatisfaction as the years ticked by. I had been waiting for permission to be myself, to be told by someone, anyone, that the things I loved were worthy of my time and focus, and that they deserved to be the centre of my life, not something I pushed to the sidelines in favour of money and security and conformity. I had talked myself out of myself. Everything in me wanted to believe that if I followed my bliss, my interests, the things that made my heart sing, I would be ok. I would be able to take care of myself in this world that had convinced me that the things I love carry no value and have no place here.

I have spent the last decade, re-claiming myself. Gathering up all the ways in which I gave myself away, spread myself too thin and replaced my soul self with an imposter out of fear and the very human need to belong, even if it meant I’d end up surrounding myself with people who would never fully understand or genuinely encourage the real me. I gathered that young creative girl up in my arms and I told her she has my full and complete permission and undying support to unleash herself fully un-encumbered. I started to take chances again. I re-aquainted myself with my creative spark. I re-connected with the wild, natural, mystically inclined warrior woman I always was. I dove back into my passion for vintage clothing, began fashion styling, creating fashion editorials and working with photographers to create visual art. I started writing again and embraced art, philosophy and poetry. I started this blog for the shear joy of mashing all my passions together and birthing them out into the world. I continued to dance and teach and learn. The more of myself I accepted, the more layers of false reality about the world started unravelling and revealing to me. The more honest and authentic I have become with myself, the more confident I get and the easier it is for me to reveal my truest nature to others. I’m not going to tell you that it’s easy, or that you won’t lose people along the way. Being true to yourself at all costs takes an immense amount of courage and conviction and can be challenging for those around you who would prefer you to not rock the boat so they can stay comfortable inside the paradigm they’ve accepted. People who uphold mainstream values will see your choices to live alternatively in favour of your own truth, as a personal judgement on them, not as the brave and honest thing it is. People will see your personal sacrifices of monetary gain and non-attachment to titles and material things as an affront to a lifestyle they are trying to justify to themselves daily in order to have the gumption to hit that alarm clock every morning and go to a job they complain about all the time. You have to be willing to allow those people to fall away from your life and open yourself up to all the new beautiful souls who will begin to appear in your experience.

There is almost always a period of isolation and loneliness in the process of un-learning your social programming and embracing your true self, but I can’t even begin to explain to you the incredible freedom that comes with self-acceptance. Pursuing the life that matches your values and attracting like-minded individuals who will come into your life to teach you new things, cheer you on, support and encourage you and celebrate your victories along with you is incredibly fulfilling and vindicating after facing your fears and conquering them. These new advocates will not only not be threatened by you or want to compete with you, they will hold you up and inspire the hell out of you! The mutual respect will be that which you have always deeply desired. The angst and judgement you felt towards people because you gave your power away by blaming them for robbing you of your vitality, will start to become beautiful to you in incredible ways and you will begin to love the world again the more you love yourself and honour the things that call to your heart and soul.

Remember. Remember the creative genius of a soul that is you. Remember who you are and don’t give your power away. No one can take it from you, it has to be given up freely. Make yourself a priority and get back to that joyful being you were so freely as a child. Peel away the layers of false messages that have been keeping you down and re-claim your potential. And Shine. Shine on you crazy diamond!

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When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily
Oh joyfully, playfully watching me
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible, practical
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical
There are times when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am
I said, watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical
Liberal, oh fanatical, criminal
Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re Acceptable
Respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable!
Oh, take it take it yeah
But at night, when all the world’s asleep
The questions run so deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am, who I am, who I am, who I am
‘Cause I was feeling so logical
D-d-digital
One, two, three, five
Oh, oh, oh, oh
It’s getting unbelievable

– Supertramp, The Logical Song

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Michael Sanders, Electric Monk Media

STYLING, MODELLING and ARTISTIC DIRECTION: Tara Cole-McCaffrey, Patron of Dreams Shop

MAKEUP: Kitty Berns, FreshHair Boutique and Tara Cole-McCaffrey, Patron of Dreams Shop

HAIR, & MASK DESIGN: Kitty Berns, FreshHair Boutique

FASHION:

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Embrace The Mystery

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“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed.” –Albert Einstein

I am a strong believer in the power of questioning things. When we ask a question, we are essentially communicating that we don’t know something, and in that admittance, we create a vast openness and allowing for ourselves to receive. To acquire new information, a new perspective, a new understanding, or most often, a new set of questions. We learn and grow and experience from that place of openness and willingness to not have all the answers. Children do this with ease. They have not yet developed the Ego that tries to pretend it knows more than it does, to protect us from being laughed at or belittled for not knowing something, or for getting it wrong. We are so often criticized for lack of knowledge about something or not getting the right answer, like somehow making mistakes is bad, instead of essential to our growth. As adults, we have learned to avoid admitting it when we don’t know, like it’s a flaw in our character. Somewhere along the line, we have lost our willingness to be an open vessel that wants to receive more knowledge, for fear of judgement. Maybe it’s because of the well known expression “knowledge is power”, and we feel by admitting that we don’t know something, we become powerless. Maybe its because knowing things has become useful in a society that feeds off of gossip and competition, and being the first to know something gives us status in a superficial culture. Maybe it’s because we have created a society that places substantial emphasis on education, certification and qualification to determine a person’s value, and not nearly enough emphasis on a deeper wisdom that lives within each of us that we access through compassion, love and intuition. Maybe, we have lost our willingness to admit not having all the answers because we are terrified of going down the rabbit hole of unanswerable questions and the incredible vastness and great mystery of the universe. Maybe we are just shit scared of realizing how little we as a collective species actually know.

The possibility of humanity knowing almost nothing about our universe might scare you, and leave you feeling paralyzed and on the brink of an existential crisis. I definitely understand that, I’ve been there, all too recently in fact. But to me not knowing is the beginning of everything. It is the empty cup waiting to be filled. It is the majesty of embracing mystery, wonderment and the absolute awe-inspiring complexity and sheer immeasurable size of our universe. Every question leads to more questions, and the discovery and journey is the purpose. When we cling to an answer, a set of rules, a dogma, a belief system, a scientific law, we cease to be open to learning and growing to the capacity we are capable of. We cling to these ideas and philosophies for comfort. We use well established beliefs in order to help us define ourselves and ultimately to belong. I get it. It’s scary to manoeuvre in a world without a code, or a guideline or set of beliefs, but I think it’s much scarier to live in a world where people have attached so deeply to one idea, that they cease to be open to any other, and will wage war with anyone who challenges their particular views. People use a belief system as their identity, instead of a source of information and a part of their knowledge and life experience. They say “I AM”, a Christian, an Athiest, a Scientist, a Metaphysicist, and in doing so, they lock in to a set of rules and maybe without realizing it, they put up a wall and close a lot of doors to more knowledge they may never get to experience because it’s in conflict with who they have decided they are. I find it very interesting and curious, living on this planet, a biological phenomenon supporting millions of species, that floats in space within an immeasurable cosmos where we have found no other intelligent lifeforms, that there are so many people who have a set of beliefs directly in conflict with others’ beliefs, yet they all claim without a shadow of a doubt that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Just let that sink in for a minute. There are those who believe that the earth is flat, despite scientists providing evidence and photographs from space that show the contrary. Doctors used to believe smoking was good for us and prescribed cigarettes to reduce stress. There are millions of people who believe the Earth was created in 6 days and Women were created from the rib of Man. There are those who believe we have souls and reincarnate into new physical bodies and those that believe that when we die, that’s the end of it all. Truly ask yourself this, with so much conflicting knowledge, living on a planet we have polluted to the point of mass extinction, where we murder each other over resources and differing beliefs, and eat food we have knowingly poisoned with chemicals, who are any of us to decide that we are right above all others, and not allow another perspective in, in order to better ourselves? Truly, we need to ponder that.

“We must be willing to sit on the edge of mystery and unlearn what has helped guide us in the past but is no longer useful.” — Robert Wicks

I am completely enamoured with science, mythology, mysticism and spirituality. I never tire of learning new things in these arenas, especially the places where we have no physical evidence or proof, and I’m forever fascinated with where these areas overlap. You name it, I’m open to it. You want to talk about energy and vibration? Artificial intelligence? Astrophysics? Religion? Aliens? Metaphysics? Philosophy? Art? Western Medicine? Light-workers? Politics? Astrology? Let’s talk. I look around myself and I see small pockets of people in peace with each other because they believe the same things, but they are in constant conflict with the other pockets who don’t share their beliefs and every pocket thinks they have the answer, so we are all trapped in our own Ego’s and as a result, at war with one another. Moving forward and evolving is next to impossible in that kind of environment. People are more interested in being the one who is right (even if they’re wrong because they don’t have all the information), than living in harmony with people and the planet. We want belonging so badly, that we hold onto agreed upon ideas in one group with white knuckles, while in actuality we are creating division and separateness between humanity. The internet is rife with condescension and righteousness. “Our world is in trouble, politically and environmentally because of them!” If only they would get on board with our beliefs. Sound about right? I’m guilty of it too, and I’m tired of that game that goes nowhere good. I’m more than ready now to do the work of bringing humanity back together by letting go of my closed-mindedness and judgement and pouring out my cup full of how smart I am, so that I might actually learn something new.

I think the key to embracing the unknown is to ask questions about the topics that interest us and revel in the new information we aquire in order to understand them better, but not to attach and cling to an idea out of a need for comfort or security. I think the goal is to be brave enough to let go of old ideas when other information presents itself, even if it challenges the ideas we were just accepting. I think it is our willingness to surrender to the unknown and to unlearn old information as new discoveries and understandings surface. We are natural explorers, scientists and creatives from birth. Watch any child discovering their world and this becomes so abundantly clear. Ultimately, I think it is about cultivating a willingness to surrender to the magnitude of not knowing and to have the courage to stay open to receiving, learning and growing. It’s about making friends with the inevitability of change and letting go of judgement for long enough to entertain ideas and theories that at first glance appear crazy. Indeed, it has been those crazy ideas and theories that have moved humanity forward by leaps and bounds time and again. Imagine what the neighbours must have thought of the Wright Brothers while they were building and test flying their first flying machine designs which would later become the modern airplane? Imagine if they had cared too much about what the neighbours thought?

If I have a strong belief of my own, it’s that what is known about our universe is far less than what is unknown, and I want to learn as much about it as I can, so I must maintain a willingness to be wrong about things I used to think were right. We must be willing to investigate and ask “what if” about concepts that others around us will laugh at and disregard because of their limiting beliefs and pre-conceived notions. We must continually push our comfort zone and go where others are not willing to go. We have to be more devoted to learning and our own growth than to the judgements and narrow mindedness of others. I am willing to do that for the sheer joy of the possibilities and discovery of our potential, but most importantly, I’m willing to do that to play my part in helping to heal our hurting world, are you?

“Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.” –Bruce Lee

“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.” –Lao Tzu

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Michael Sanders

STYLIST, MODEL, HAIR & MAKEUP: Tara Cole-McCaffrey, Patron of Dreams

VINTAGE/PRE-LOVED FASHION: Patron of Dreams now has a NEW online SHOP full of Vintage, Pre-loved and Up-cycled Clothing and Housewares! New treasures are always being added to the shop, check it out here Patron of Dreams Shop !!!

One of our greatest scientific geniuses in history, Galileo Galilei, was an Astronomer, Physicist and Engineer. He was deemed the “father of observational astronomy”, the “father of modern physics”, the “father of the scientific method” and even the “father of modern science.” He was also an avid Astrologer, who read the stars for people who sought his knowledge to better understand their own lives. I think it is the people who use a combination of their education, experience, intuition, emotions, and a healthy dose of curiosity and openness to possibility, who end up reaching their fullest potential in this world.

“Who would set a limit to the mind of man? Who would dare assert that we know all there is to be known?” – Galileo Galilei

I would like to introduce you to Shannon Rae, of Unwilling Mystic. Shannon is a Teacher, a Mathematician and an Astrologer, who does readings of Astrological birth charts for people, teaches workshops on the ancient science and art of Astrology, and does Astro-Dice readings at Winnipeg’s, Radiance Gifts. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Shannon by a mutual friend who had attended her workshops and I was completely captivated by her knowledge and accuracy when she read my birth chart for me. I literally lost track of all time and talked with her into the wee hours of the morning. The whole experience was profound. It was incredibly eye opening in some ways and totally affirming in others and amazingly, we barely scratched the surface. I highly recommend you take the leap and have Unwilling Mystic read your Astrological birth chart. Your eyes may be opened to things you never would have thought possible. I had no idea of the scale and complexity of Astrology and just how much information there is to dig into, if you are willing to go down the rabbit hole. Astrology is as vast and awe-inspiring as….well, the cosmos.

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“For the rational among us there is not much room for the mystical. My great wish is to inspire my clients and students with the tangible experience of astrology, to illuminate the patterns of time and meaning so we can feel the connection to our universe and become aware of our dance within it.” –Unwilling Mystic

Astrology has a colourful place in pop culture but like anything condensed for mass entertainment its true value is grossly underrepresented. The study of the planetary correlations to human events and personal unfolding has been in practice for more than 5000 years and I am honoured to be able to add my interpretations to this rich history.

Each of us is born with a beautifully mathematical cosmic fingerprint. This image of the heavens at the moment of your birth is unique to you and is a map used for navigating your self-understanding and, when compared to current planetary positions, your personal evolution through time.

It’s hard not to get swept away by the magnitude of all this… but in reality a consultation is a simple conversation. Using your astrological fingerprint I will offer insights into your key characteristics, how you interact with the people around you and your aspirations for the future. My goal is to validate your intuitive understanding and help you capitalize on the energy of the moment. Ride the wave, baby! –Unwilling Mystic

 

 

A Woman’s Sexual Sovereignty

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I will not cower from people’s opinions and criticisms of my body like it has any bearing at all on how I choose to feel about myself. I will not allow some ridiculously narrow standard of beauty stop me from revelling and celebrating in this incredible vessel I am lucky enough to live in. I will do with my body what I want, when I want and that includes sensual and sexual expression, simply because, it’s my body. I will not feel shame for being a woman and all that that encompasses. I will not shrink, I will not be quiet, sit down and be told how I must act, what I can and can not wear to be respected. I will not be diminished or intimidated by whispers and finger pointing. I am not ashamed of this body, that has allowed me to be a dancer, a lover, a mother of two beautiful boys and a model, despite the worlds desire to make me think it’s not good enough. There is no such thing as beauty flaws. My lines, age spots, cellulite and stretch marks are a map of my physical growth and changing life story. How dare anyone imply they are flaws that I should be embarrassed about, hide or try to repair. I simply don’t accept it, and I am more than willing to be the tip of the arrow head that slices through that old, outdated, oppressive paradigm designed to keep women insecure, fearful and as a result, controllable. I understand that being that spearhead may mean I get battered and bruised by judgement and criticism, but I’d rather be dead than allow this body shaming standard to continue into the next generations. It’s time is up. That story is over, time for a new one and I intend to help write it.

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 It’s true what they say about women in their 40’s. There are only so many fucks to give in any woman’s life until you run out, and often, when women enter their 40’s, they discover there are zero fucks left. It completely unravels you and everything you thought you knew, which is terrifying and at the same time, completely liberating. Every woman has a finite amount of patience to put up with oppressive bullshit and bite their tongue until one day, they wake up and say, it’s not ok anymore, enough is enough. This summer, I turned 40. I was born in 1978, hence the t-shirt in this photoshoot. It is hard to believe that I have been alive for four decades already! As I enter my 40th year upon this earth, within this body, I find myself in an intense time of personal reflection and examination, as often comes with Birthdays, and the change of season. Goodbye to a transformative summer, which was somewhat of a living death for me, and welcome to a new and more empowered chapter. Happy Autumnal Equinox!

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My personal story is about a girl who tried very, very hard to be a good and to be liked. To behave in the way that pleased people. We learn at a very, very young age what behaviours will be met with approval and all the positive attention that will come with it, and what behaviours will be ignored, in hopes it will go away, or with downright disapproval. I learned very quickly that nice girls were modest and reserved and appropriate. To fit in and belong, I learned to place others’ opinions of me above my own. To care what the neighbours and strangers around me thought of me. By 15 years old I had accepted that to fully be myself was a recipe for rejection. I had to hold some of myself back at all times. I knew what people wanted me to be and I knew what behaviour was going to get me approval and belonging. I thought that being approved of was synonymous with being loved, because my behaviour seemed to dictate the amount of positive attention I would receive or not.  I think my story is shared by a lot of women.

It took me a long time before I understood that really loving someone was to accept them as they really are. It is not conditional. It does not depend on behaviour, shared interests or values and it certainly does not rely on accomplishments, conformity or obedience. I began to understand it the first time I fell in love. It became completely clear once I had my own children. I will not withhold my love and affection and support from them when I disagree with or do not understand their behaviour or choices. Once they figure out who they are, with much encouragement from me, I will back them, no matter what. Their personal unfolding and life experience and choices are their own, not mine to control. That’s love.

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When you begin to understand what love is and you start to see the transformative power of it, you begin to understand how important it is to turn that kind of love onto yourself. When I began to do this, I discovered that my love for myself up until that point had indeed been conditional. It wasn’t true love, it was dependant on how I looked, on my performance in life and my accomplishments. It was dependant on how others perceived me and if they approved. That was a very difficult and shattering realization. Interestingly, but not too surprisingly if you know me personally, I realized that the two places in my life that I had had the courage and audacity to fully self express despite obvious disapproval was with dance and attire. From as young as I can remember, I refused to conform about either of these two things. I refused to wear the frilly pink dresses my Grandma tried to get me to wear because it just wasn’t me, and I continued to have a strong opinion about how I would dress through my childhood, which only strengthened and became more adventurous, and bold into my teens, through my 20’s, 30’s and to this day. I understand now, that something like clothing and style may have seemed insignificant or even shallow and vain to others around me, but in truth, it was a deeply empowering gateway to my understanding of who I am and what my true purpose is in this lifetime. Patron of Dreams is not about clothes, it’s about empowering people to be themselves. My style was one place in my life that I didn’t compromised myself to please others. I expect there are others out there like me.

The other place I didn’t compromise was with dance. I recall challenging my Ballet teacher when I was only 7 years old about the politics in the classroom. I expressed that it was unfair and not right that some students got to have significant roles in the performance based on how many other dance classes they were paying for, and not based on skill and commitment to that class. Such defiance! Needless to say, I quit at that school and moved on to another one with more integrity. I danced unabashedly and joyously as a pre-teen at Junior High dances while others awkwardly hovered against the walls. Sometimes I danced all by myself in the middle of a room full of uncomfortable and self-concious people. For whatever reason, I didn’t have a care in the world about what anyone thought of me because of it. I was born to dance. It’s no surprise that I ended up finding true love in the ancient art of Bellydance. I found pure power and presence of self in the most sensual dance style in history. Through my studies of this dance, I learned that it had absolutely nothing to do with the male gaze and it was then that I understood the personal power and sovereignty that lies within our sexuality, and that it has nothing to do with sex. We are sexual beings, when alone or with others. Our sexuality is a full expression of our being. It is our life force and vitality. It is a power source. It is as much about our mind and our spirit as it is our body. In fact, I’d argue that our sexuality has much more to do with our mind and spirit than our body ever will.

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The reality of this limited physical experience we are having here on earth, is that much of what is inside our mind and spirit can only be expressed through our body or outward appearance. It is a terrible misunderstanding and an atrocity to assume someone’s bodily expression is an invitation for sexual advances, for un-invited comment or opinion. To assume you understand someone’s intentions, or what is going on inside someone’s mind and spirit when they express with their body, whether it’s what they wear on it, or how they move it, is quite frankly, to show how little you understand about yourself. It’s a sign you are the victim of the old bullshit programming about women’s sexuality that has seeped into the world’s psyche. The age old “virgin-whore dichotomy”. Every woman’s body is a battleground. Every Man has the right and privilege to assess and openly critique any woman’s body if she’s out in the public eye, like she solely exists as a body to state your opinion on. Like a cow at an auction. She may be a singer, or an actress, or just someone walking down the street, but all anyone is talking about, is her body. Can you even imagine if it was as standard for women to do this to every Man they saw on Netflix or in the street. “Look at the gut on that guy!”, “He might be alright looking  if he wasn’t bald!”, “Hey baby, sweet ass, wanna party?”. It’s ridiculous isn’t it? It’s no less ridiculous when Men do it to women, we’ve just been programmed to expect it and not bother speaking up against it because “that’s just how it is”.  Well, this just in. It’s no longer socially acceptable to publicly critique every female body that crosses your path or your screen. Period.

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Women are expected to be sexy, but not too sexy, modest, but not a prude. Women have been condemned from the beginning of time immemorial for our sexuality. We are supposed to be ashamed and hide everything that makes us women. We hide when we bleed because of the stigma around our period. We stifle our emotions so we are not thought of as hysterical or irrational. We cannot be flirtatious, playful or expressive with our sexuality in public without being called a slut, a tramp, or being accused of “asking for it” when we call out someone for groping at us un-invited. Our sexual expression is not an invitation. If it was, then why would we put on clothes that make us feel sexy and dance in a sexually expressive way when we are alone? New flash, lots and lots of women do this! It’s not an invitation. It’s a celebration of being a woman in all her glory, vitality and power. End of story.

This photoshoot was a playful and personal expression of my sexual sovereignty. It was in celebration of entering my 40’s as a fully realized woman. It was about taking back my own sexuality from the ones who think they get to dictate to me what I can do with my own body, and to show that I don’t adhere to some ludicrous standard of beauty. I don’t fit the mould and I’m not going to feel shame for that or change myself to meet their standard, no matter how hard they try. I have danced on many stages in theatres and under the stars and empowered many woman with this body. I have grown two babies in my womb, birthed them both naturally, and fed them the milk that I produced with this body. I am well aware of my power as a woman, and I am here to tell you that the reason there are so many backwards, corrupted and blatantly untrue ideas out there being spread and perpetuated about women is that the powers that be are well aware of a woman’s power.  They understand that to shame women about their bodies, and throw derogatory slurs at us for being sexual beings,  has worked to control us in the past. They are banking on us being too afraid of public criticism and persecution to continue that behaviour which may have the disastrous effect of empowering other women to do the same. Never forget, it’s the ones who are trying to tear you down, who believe in your power the most.

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I called on two other sovereign and empowered women to help me bring this shoot to life. Joey Senft, the photographer who drew the youthful and playful vixen out of me, and Lori Fast, aka Lady Lorelie who adorned me with the ancient art of henna. Since this photoshoot was in celebration of my Birthday and entering an important decade, I asked Lori to create her version of the Astrological star constellation for Leo down both of my legs. I wanted to embody the playful, fun, bold and courageous attributes of my Astrological star sign. I asked for crescent moons on my shoulders to symbolize femininity and the essence of being a woman. Lori is a gem of a woman and it was an absolute honour to spend the afternoon with her having my henna done. She was a treasure trove of wisdom and amazing life experiences. She put me at ease, did an amazingly professional job and I found myself pouring my soul out to her like I had known her forever. The entire experience was completely cathartic and an exercise in release. I went to her to adorn me and give me that little bit of extra confidence to put myself out there and push my own comfort zones. It worked, to say the least. I highly recommend Lady Lorelie’s magic if you are wanting to embrace and celebrate your body. Henna is a fantastic bridge that allows you to expose your skin without feeling naked. The added bonus for me was that I felt I had placed strong intentions for myself in the henna during the process and as it slowly faded over the next few weeks, it was like my intentions were slowly being released to the universe. It was a wonderfully powerful experience, and I fully recommend it to every woman.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Joey Senft,

STYLING, HAIR & MAKEUP BY: Tara Cole-McCaffrey, Patron of Dreams

HENNA BY: Lori Fast, Lady Lorelie

FASHION: Absolutely killer velvet bralette and velvet ruffle shorts custom made for me by Solstice Intimates. Socks from American Apparel. Shoes and 78 tee were thrifted. Glasses from Urban Waves.

VINTAGE: Vintage chairs from Atomic Age Vintage

 

Creators Without Compromise

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“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”- Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is one of my deepest desires to live within a world where I can surround myself with beauty, luxury and comfort without compromising this beautiful earth we live on, or the health and wellbeing of the people on it. I believe with all my heart that this is the world that is coming. The world that many of us are currently consciously creating. I believe that we can not only have abundance in our lives, but that it’s our birthright. When I say abundance, I don’t mean excess, because that would be out of balance with everything. I mean the bounty that comes from feeling full, satisfied, content with what we have and the peace and serenity that comes when you feel well cared for and a part of something bigger than yourself. When we reach this level of contentment, the only desires that arise are the ones that drive us to create and expand our human experience through making and doing and the positive impacts that it has on the world.

When we choose to experience life from a place of gratitude and we live from the perspective of possibility, we begin to see the potential of human beings and their capacity to be in sync with the rythms of the earth and live harmoniously with it and each other. We begin to also see the potential in ourselves. It is this faith in human potential that drives everything I do. Not only do I want to create things for the joy of it, I want to create things that help others to achieve their fullest potential as well, while at the same time promoting a connection to the earth and a unity between people and planet. I know that compassion and collaboration are key in the creation of this kind of life experience. This might seem like a very large undertaking and a bit overwhelming from one perspective, but it is my view that even the simplest creative acts are part of a greater good. You don’t need to commit to some grand elaborate scale of creative achievement in order to have a massive impact. We may only play a song on our guitar that few will ever hear, or up-cycle and refurbish old furniture or clothing for our own personal use, but the ripple effect of these small acts of creation and expansion can have an impact that is substantial. You may think nothing of your little hobby that you do when you think no one is watching, but your simple act of making it a priority and doing creates an allowing within those around you that can quite literally change people’s lives. Think of the child who carries a bounty of creative potential who sees others around him taking the time to be creative. That child could be the next Nikola Tesla, or Ludwig Van Beethoven, and your simple acts of creativity help to cultivate an environment that allows that child to feel safe enough to take a chance, to explore, to investigate their own creative instincts. Every single person can have an impact that they may never even know they have, and every single person who is inspired to create because of someone else’s creativity is a win for all of us in the human family.

Ren (Chinese: 仁) is the Confucian (Chinese Philosophy) virtue denoting the good feeling a virtuous human experiences when being altruistic.

Confucius (Chinese Philosopher) also defined ren in the following way: “wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others.” Confucius also said, “Ren is not far off; he who seeks it has already found it.” -Wikipedia

It is when the deep creative force within us as well as a desire to live in harmony and do no harm in the process of that creation meet in the middle, that true magic occurs. It’s like the entire universe is at your back cheering you on and at your front clearing a path for you. You are driven by your own need to expand, but also, the need to feel your connection with all things. You know that you are impacted by others and that you too have impact and it leaves you feeling empowered and significant, yet completely humbled and in service of others at the same time.

“Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.”

-Chinese Proverb

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It is my greatest pleasure to introduce you to Little Tree Hugger Soap! Luxury, hand made, natural bath and body products made right here in Manitoba. It was the beauty and inspiration from nature that drew me in, but their commitment to sustainability and compassion, never compromising on people’s health and the health of the planet was what truly won me over! Not only do they make exceptional quality products, they are committed to something greater than themselves and a belief that we should all experience the benefits of feeling luxurious and pampered, guilt free. This is a philosophy I can truly get behind!

“At Little Tree Hugger Soap we strive to provide Luxury without Compromise. What does that mean? You get the finest quality, luxurious bath and body products that never comprise our health or the health of our planet and it’s many creatures.

We want you to feel secure in your bath and body products; we carefully research every ingredient and promise you Truth in Labelling at all times. Sustainability and compassion are central to everything we do. We are proud to be certified cruelty free by Leaping Bunny and EWG Certified. We believe firmly in supporting local business; we source all of our ingredients from Canadian Companies even when that means paying more. Our products are fair-trade and organic whenever possible. We use only the highest quality ingredients, natural botanicals, essential oils, and phthalate and paraben free fragrances. Fragranced products are always clearly marked for those wishing to avoid fragrances. Finally, we pay close attention to our artistic vision and spare no detail in creating a visually pleasing, effective, and luxurious product you will thoroughly enjoy!”  -Little Tree Hugger Soap Website

To purchase Little Tree Hugger Soap products, visit their website www.littletreehuggersoap.com to shop on-line, or any of their Partner Stores located in Manitoba. Also…

*****STAY TUNED for the GRAND OPENING of their NEW SHOP at 296 McDermot Ave. in Winnipeg! Their SOFT OPENING is AUGUST 1st!!!*****

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Michael Sanders, Electric Monk Media

STYLING, HAIR & MAKEUP BY: Tara Cole-McCaffrey, Patron of Dreams

FASHION: Dress from Shakti, Earrings by Divine Light Therapies.

SOAPS, BATH & BODY PRODUCTS BY: Little Tree Hugger Soap

 

The Bitches Are Back

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” Because sometimes f*ck you is synonymous with I am worthy.”

-Tany Markul, Thug Unicorn

I have been processing the rising of an anger and defiance within me that I haven’t felt in full force since I was a rebellious teenager. It has never healed because the patterns remain, but the time has come to channel that anger into a productive change of epic proportions. It’s a deep seeded feeling of absolute rejection of the popular response, “that’s just the way it is!’ Nothing sends my blood pressure to the moon like that apathetic and mindlessly compliant response to injustices and asinine outdated ideas about the world.  This rage that has been building inside of me begins with little girls being taught that they must be “sugar and spice and everything nice” as the nursery rhyme teaches us, and ends somewhere with a guttural animalistic scream unleashing from the depths of female oppression. It is a pendulum and it is swinging hard and fast like a wrecking ball into the patterns of old that have been keeping all the good women down.

Be sweet, be pretty, be gentle and polite. Don’t be loud, don’t attract attention. Don’t take up too much space, and remember to sit with your legs together. Don’t guffaw or snort when you laugh. Don’t do a cartwheel in a dress. Don’t swear, and don’t admit to any bodily functions, lest you reveal that you are indeed an animal. Don’t admit how old you are, and don’t revel in your sexuality if you want to be respected. BE A LADY! Sound familiar?

If you are assertive, they’ll call you aggressive. If your personality and style is big and colourful, they’ll say you are just trying to get attention. If you are ambitious and no nonsense, pursue things with grit and focus, and don’t let anyone stand in your way, they’ll say you’re cold, and bossy and not a team player. If you push back against the things you disagree with, speak out, stand up for yourself and say no to being treated in ways you find unacceptable, they will say you are difficult, selfish and unrealistic. You will be accused of being silly, naive and idealistic about the world because this is just the way it is! If that doesn’t work to shut you up and shut you down, then they’ll tell the world you are an unreasonable bitch. Well, so be it, if they are intent on labeling our defiance. The bitches are back, they’re pissed, and they’re louder than ever! They are taking up all the space they did in the 1980’s except they are armed with more education, more compassion, more resilience and a unity the likes of which the world has not ever seen before. The word of the current times is action! We are tired of asking nicely, being reasonable, defending ourselves and expressing our disagreement politely. We’ve been talked over and belittled one too many times, and it doesn’t matter how small the beast, if they are backed into a corner and feel threatened enough, at some point, peaceful negotiations are no longer called for and survival is all that matters. Even the sweetest creature will bite to save itself.

“Wild Woman teaches women when not to act “nice” about protecting their soulful lives. The wildish nature knows that being “sweet” in these instances only makes the predator smile. When the soulful life is being threatened, it is not only acceptable to draw the line and mean it, it is required. When a woman does this, her life cannot be interferred with for long, for she knows immediately what is wrong amd can push the predator back where it belongs. She is no longer naive. She is no longer a mark or a target. “

-Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With The Wolves

We are up against a deeply engrained patriarchal paradigm that has seeped into the cracks and crevices of the collective psyche. I have experienced just as many women as men trying to curb the wild woman within all women. Why are they all trying so hard to make us behave within such a very narrow ideal? Well, it’s simple really, and an age old tactic. They are trying to control us, and people are deeply afraid of change. Just like any set of rules, they are there to maintain order and control, under the impetus of it being for our own collective good. You want to be liked don’t you? Well, in truth, if I have to stop wearing sequins or leopard print on a Tuesday because it’s too much for you; hide my nipples because you can’t stop sexualizing them; drink my beer in a glass because it’s more lady-like; or put up with sexist jokes and being cat-called in the streets, then no, I don’t give a hot damn about being liked! I like myself, and this funny thing happens when you begin to love yourself and stop requiring external validation. You stop caring what others might think of you for speaking your truth that challenges their accepted paradigm. You realize that their acceptance of you can’t even come close to comparing to the power and significance of your own self acceptance.

We women have been taught that we are too much from the very beginning and that we need to tone it the fuck down so we can be likeable (read; manageable). From the girlie little dresses my Grandmother told me that I refused to wear despite her efforts, to the attitude problem I had as a teen who angrily asked endless questions about why this messed up world is the way it is because I wasn’t buying it. To the modern day Wife and Mother I am today who deeply relates to women in movies set in the 1950’s and 60’s, because sometimes it feels as though nothing really has changed. Well, we can only be told to be quiet, demure, take a back seat, be grateful and settle for less than our potential for so long before the inadequacy of that life creates a deep collective female sorrow that burns and boils and grows into a visceral rage that will eventually blast the patriarchy to smitherines! And you can be damn sure, there will be casualties that are not paying attention and refuse to acknowledge that it’s already in motion. It’s not a matter of if, but when. 

“I’ve been baking pies at home, pies of rage!”

– Debbie Eagan (Liberty Belle), GLOW Season 2, Episode 10

We women, make up 50% of the population on the planet. Wake up beautiful warriors, pay attention to what’s happening! #WomensMarch #TimesUp #WomenSupportingWomen #GirlGang #GirlBoss #BodyPositivity #TheFutureIsFemale. These are global collective movements that are gaining ground every day, not just trendy hashtags. I’m an avid reader and a quick trip to a book store or search on-line will tell the story of what’s growing in the bellies of women, and I don’t mean little bundles of joy.

The She Book, by Tanya Markul

This is For the Women Who Don’t Give a Fuck, by Janne Robinson

Strong is The New Pretty, Kate T. Parker

Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit

In The Company of Women, by Grace Bonney

Daring Greatly, by Brené Brown

Women Who Run With The Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

The list goes on and on and on! These messages aren’t pretty, they aren’t designed to make you feel comfortable and content with the way it is. These messages are often angry, poingnant, raging, crying, pleading, cajolingly beautiful masterpieces that are imploring you, to turn some of that deep empathic compassion you reserve for the oppressed, the animals, the children and mother earth onto yourself! Women of the world, we must save ourselves and each other. The time is most definitely up, and the time of gentle, quiet nudges towards equality is over. You have a voice, you have power and you have a responsibility to yourself. There’s no need to riot, to retaliate, to be violent or hateful. In fact, these responses are not in line at all with what it is that makes us women. Our strength is in our willingness to love deeply, be compassionate, empathetic, embrace our emotions and live by our intuition. Embracing our womanliness, does not mean rolling over and exposing our bellies in submission, or putting up with bullshit. On the contrary. We must turn toward one another and see that our freedom from these old patterns depend on our unity. That burning in your belly is not yours alone. I feel your fear and your dissappointment and your rage you have been told you are not allowed to express if you want to be loved. I feel you because I am you. And as I get to know you more, I know myself more, and I remember what a beast lies below the surface and what she is capable of. I am called to defend and protect myself and all the women of the world like I would my own sons, because that compassion and fierceness can not just be reserved for them, for who will defend them if I don’t defend myself and the women of the world who will raise them and love them into their manhood? What are they being taught about their Mother, about the women they may partner with some day, about you?

You are not too much, you don’t take up too much space. You don’t have an attitude problem or a difficult personality. You are not a bitch for rolling your eyes at outdated patriarchal bullshit. No one has been tip-toeing around your feelings, when they under pay you, grope you and devalue your contributions to the world, so why are we expected to tiptoe around their feelings when we’ve clearly had enough. We are hurt and angry, and tired of the old patterns and we are allowed to feel that way. In fact, it is to be expected, and typically it’s the the biggest transformational changes that come out of those perceived negative emotions. Sometimes being nice and gentle and sweet doesn’t cut it. Sometimes the dysfunctional societal patterns are too deeply engrained in the human subconcious that you have to stamp and swear and scream that guteral scream, even if it’s only out into the abyss, like I am doing right now. People will hear you, like the unidentifiable wail from a creature in the woods and they will ask “what the heck was that?” and a shiver will climb up their spine and it will wake up their senses. And maybe it will make them afraid, or maybe there will be others who feel that scream to the core of their being and recognize it in themselves. They will not run away, but instead, seek you out in the darkness of the woods and say “I feel you sister”, when they find you. And before you know it, you are walking out of those cold, dark woods, hand in hand with an entourage of women who’ve got each other’s backs. A sisterhood in formation who are not afraid to back down because they are stronger together and determined to make change for the greater good of humanity. Women and Men alike.  These are the new idols, the warriors, the rock stars. These are the ones the next generation of women will look up to and they will know our story of struggle and fear and oppression and how we overcame. We won’t leave the ugly parts out because this is no fairytail of damsels in distress and knights in shining armour, this is the story of women saving themselves and reclaiming their power and potential. This is real life, and sometimes real life is messy and unpredictable. Sometimes before a new order of things can occur, a much bigger mess must be created, like when we undertake to organize a closet. Just like a sling-shot, there is a tension and a tightening and a strain that has to occur before the release that catapaults us into a new paradigm. There is no way to go around the discomfort of this shift, we must go through it, and I for one am ready and willing.

“Good is following the rules, fitting in, ticking things off the list, being liked, keeping it light, and great is making mistakes, going too far, getting messy, standing in your truths, fighting for what you believe in, and it’s finding out what you’re doing here and actioning it with all of your heart.”

-Tanya Markul, Thug Unicorn

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Michael Sanders, Electric Monk Media

MODELS: Leanne Sanders, Tara Cole-McCaffrey

STYLING, HAIR & MAKEUP: Tara Cole-McCaffrey, Patron of Dreams

THRIFTED FASHION: Faux fur coats, animal print jackets, sequin skirt, shoes, gold belts, black leggings.

NEW FASHION: Gold bodysuit and animal print bathing suit top from American Apparel. Sunglasses from Urban Waves.