In 2006, Canadian musician Jane Siberry emptied her house and then sold it. She decomodified her life. In the process, she made herself a shining example of the “voluntary simplicity” movement. Her decision to shed all her possessions – including all but one of her musical instruments and for a few years even her name […]
The New Year’s Resolution, Part 2
I’ve resolved on New Year’s Eves of the past to exercise more, swear less, eat healthier, drink less, stay in closer touch with family and friends, spend less and save more for retirement, do more with the kids, finish the house we’re eternally renovating and of all things work harder. Thankfully, I’ve never smoked or I […]
The New Year’s Resolution, Part 1
Ah, there’s nothing so promising as the New Year’s resolution — a better body, a better bank account, a better world. And nothing so daunting – working out, working harder, working for the common good. It’s a time for decision making and commitment to a future self and a future that is in some way […]
Holidays and Short Stories
I set out to write a novel, but it fractured into episodes. I fought this disintegration for a long time, trying in vain to hold the pieces together, convincing myself that I had failed to live up to my vision. Then one day I realized it wasn’t me, it was the subject that couldn’t hold […]
Holidays – A Book By Darcy Rhyno
In this themed collection of 13 short stories, Darcy Rhyno explores holidays – official and socially invented – as times when desires, motivations and relationships come into sharp focus. In this collection, holidays like Christmas, Labour Day, Valentine’s Day and even the NHL Hockey playoffs become social and familial pressure cookers with the potential to […]
Nova Scotia Fishing Culture
Five years before the first permanent European settlers arrived in Lockeport, a lone man named Josiah Churchill set out from Liverpool in his small boat with little aboard but some fishing equipment and his pet pig. When he reached the island that is now Lockeport, he found a Mi’kmaq tribe called the Sibinisks, set up […]
Big Idea #2: Welcome to the Human Epoch
We humans could soon have our own epoch. We could join epochs named for ice ages and tropical periods when major families of plants, birds and animals appeared or disappeared such as dinosaurs, whales and grasses. This newly proposed Epoch even has a name – the Anthropocene, the human epoch. We have of course brought […]
Big Idea #1: I Am a Bank
Microlending isn’t new, but Kiva’s approach to it is – the non-profit organization’s on-line presence amounts to banking through crowd sourcing. My kids and I are one of over 600,000 lenders that have supplied about a quarter billion in loans in 60 countries. Kiva relies on a global network of micro lending institutions, 450 volunteers and almost 50 employees at the head office in San Francisco.
Initially, I set up our family account with Kiva as a learning tool for my kids.
Paddling the Shelburne River: Part 2
Out of the pea soup – the humble headwaters of the Shelburne – and on into Stony Ditch Lake. This place lives up to its name. Hundreds of granite erratics or glacial deposits strewn across the lake like handfuls of boulders scattered from a big hand. On one, a pine tree grows short and nearly horizontal. We twist and turn among the glacial leftovers and recall the story of the aboriginal man who hid here in the 1800s after he was accused of murdering a white man. He picked a good place to hide.
Paddling the Shelburne River – Part 1
Didn’t sleep well. Reading last night from Michael Smith’s book, Paddling the Tobeatic, I worked myself into a lather at his strong recommendation to allow eight days for the trip we plan to complete in four and a half. I awoke repeatedly to the lashing rain on my bedroom windows, the trees over the house shaking in the first light. It’s been raining for a week. It’s cold.
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