What Are the Necessary Structures in Your Life?

Posted on March 27, 2018 by Katharine Weinmann

It’s 6:30 am. I’m on Whidbey Island attending the board retreat for The Circle Way. I arrived a few days early to circle up with and settle into my island friendships.

Stories of inspired travels and its lessons gleaned invited in to send off dear friends on what we each know will be one of life’s momentous journeys.

Kitchen tips about good cookware and the uses of oils passed on as we prepped for our communal stir fry.

Beach walking and eagle gazing.

Seashell and stone gathering. I settled on a hefty, smooth and flat stone that fits between, as if made for my palms, notched to hold my thumbs, the perfect prayer stone.

Breathing in the sounds and colours of a spring yet to bloom at home – robins singing, golden forsythia and daffodils, pink plum and white apple blossoms, coral and indigo hyacinth, red tulips, green grass. The rain-soaked ground smells as good as the morning’s fresh brewed coffee. Even this signature Pacific Northwest sodden grey backdrop holds appeal as a contrast to the vividly awakening palette.

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A late night chat with a friend over a dram of local single malt watered my languishing inner writer. “How’s the writing coming?” he inquired with a genuine need to know, we, having shared during past meetings our curiosity with and commitment to this craft. I admitted to not having written for several months. Revealed to having fallen into the half empty glass of doubt despite hearing, from a trusted and established writer friend, how delightful, fresh and worthy of continued effort my initial foray. Disappointed as my naïve hope that I was almost finished with this first manuscript was a just beginning. Full of excuses and explanations none of which I shared, knowing none of which held substance.

“Just write,” I knew deep inside to be the only way out of the confines of the glass and into creativity’s life-giving stream.

And so, after hearing my friend share for the second time in as many days, the value for him of writing four days a week, every week, to putting into words what he notices as his offering to the world, his recognition that it is a practice that helps him feel good, my inner writer woke me this morning at 5:30 to write.

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As a board, we work in circle, and start every retreat, after our first dinner, with a fulsome check-in. We each received a post card created by photographer Carla Kimbell from her Revealed Presence collection to focus our reflection and words. Mine was a summer photo of farm buildings – grain silos, an iconic red wooden, tin roofed barn and a Quonset – easy to imagine seeing anywhere a few miles away from my home on the Canadian prairies. Titled Layers of Curves on a Farm, it posed the question, “What are the necessary structures in your life?”

An invitation to notice.

A resurrected commitment to write.

Romeria Reina de Los Angeles

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Katharine Weinmann

(The bitter cold and darker days of late December were the ideal time for me hunker down and create my photo journal of my time in Spain. Here is the final story of my time at Finco Buenvino and the writing retreat.)

September 8 marks the annual pilgrimage of the Andalusian villages of the Sierras, including Sevilla, of their patron saint, La Reina de los Angeles, to the hermitage site at the Pena de Arias Montano.

The Virgin Mary of each village, ensconced in her cart of local colours, is led by festooned bullock up and down dirt roads and paved highways to converge at the gates and be formally welcomed with staff and banner into the festival grounds. The procession continues up the hill to the church where she is paraded in front of the Queen of the Angels. When all the villages have arrived, been blessed by the priest, docked their carts and tethered their horses and bullock, the Queen leaves her cloistered seclusion, and is solemnly led through crowds fervent with passion, heat and drink, to the sound of cheers and pealing bells.

This was an invitation to step alongside and sink beneath the surface of Andalusian life.

P1000468 With shawls wrapped tight against the predawn chill, we huddled in the van taking us to Fuenteheridos, the village we’d join for this rite. Fortified by cafe con leche, toast, cheese and jambon in the crowded local bar, we gathered in the main square along side stately riders in gaucho, girls and women in flamenco, drummers, and the red and white flowered cart holding the guilt Virgin.

A slow pace ensued, and shortly after leaving the town, we made a pit stop at the roadside tent to purchase shots of the local home brew, a curious taste of cherry and anisette. The first sip warmed, the second, sickly sweet warned of headache and thirst as the day warmed and was soon abandoned or given over to those hardy imbibing at seven in the morning!

P1000599 A rest stop at the highpoint overlooking the valley and its villages afforded time for a dance and family photos and flirting.

Another stop at the hairpin curve in the road, and flamenco spontaneously filled the air with music, dance, colour and laughter. Every woman regardless of age joined in dance. Ahhh, this was duende!

Once arrived, the carts parked, horses and bullocks watered, village folk congregated in their designated areas to share song, story and food. We rested among the trees, on ground baked hard and hollow from the summer heat and observed groups of virile young hombres strut back and forth across the grounds, catching the kohl-lined eyes of the vivacious senoritas.

Languorously, I imagined days gone by, before easy and accessible transportation and communication, when such gatherings, though religious in nature, were a necessary means for village survival, as mates would be found, stories and harvest shared, wisdom gleaned. For me, an obvious tourist, an occasion to sit amidst community and appreciate.

Seven Star Sisters

Posted on October 19, 2017 by Katharine Weinmann

Seven star sisters, each a Venus shining in the eastern morning sky.

Skin glows like moonbeams in the cloistered light of the hammam

Soft flesh – thighs, breasts and bellies

Hair loosened, free across forehead, neck and shoulder

Eyes half closed

Surrender.

Soaking in the warm and cool

pools of sensuous, history and story, ancient rituals

Tender dreams swirl up and through like the sandalwood incense wafting, scenting, sensing.

Exotic music out of time and place

Echoes of flamenco before it came to be

Imagining the route taken before making home in these Andalucian hills.

Hot honeyed tea, fresh with mint

a balm of generosity

Dates picked fresh

soft and warm and sweet as this moment.

Seven sister stars mindlessly float from hot to cool to hot again

Submerged in an elemental expanse of sky, of water

Footsteps languid on smooth clay floors

Two by two, give ourselves over to firm fingers, strong hands, primal stones.

Body aches and heart hurts

Monkey mind of spinning thought and worry

Give way to spacious possibility and healing hope

Up the spine. Down the leg.

Tracing steps.

Following routes.

Coming home.

Linares de la Sierra

Posted on October 16, 2017 by Katharine Weinmann

Thursday, September 7, 2017 – another small village in the Andalucian hills, Linares de la Sierra held some exquisite surprises!

Another morning walk through the chestnut and olive forests. Foot paths cross highways. Pass garden, wooden bench, abandoned stucco and oleandered home. Silent except for shoe and sandal on stone and soil, dry leaves crunching under foot. Vistas of verdant green and golden grasses.

Silent still as we enter the lower village and are met by a grandmother at fountain, hand drawing water to her granddaughter’s mouth. The fountain brings spring water to the village and feeds the communal “lavadero” – laundry basins – slightly downhill.

We make our way up cobblestone streets to the local bar for an early breakfast of toast and tomato, slices of jambon. “Cafe con leche” and fantas, or my regular “coppa de manzanilla,” that refreshing dry sherry that cuts the oil and saltiness of local tapas. Time to pass, to enjoy the vistas inside and out, red tiled roofs cascading across white stucco and green hillside, families and neighbors sharing gossip and food.

Meandering alone, I encountered a wagon decorated with white and purple paper flowers for tomorrow’s pilgrimage, the Romeria of La Reina de los Angeles, the Sierra Aracena region’s annual homage to its patron saint. (We will rise very early to travel by car to the village of Higera de la Sierra to walk the route with its townsfolk, joining hundreds who pay tribute.) Later, I peek into the 18^th century church to see the cart, to be driven by oxen oiled and decorated, being washed and regally adorned, ready to bear the village’s icon.

The old bullring, now a sun-baked patio for tavernas, its white walls festooned with colourful murals made by local school children…the local potter selling her vibrant wares…and secretly tucked down a shady, narrow street, the Michelin recommended restaurant, Meson Arrieros. Oh, to have accepted the owner’s kind invitation, that despite being closed, she’d welcome us to a lunch of gazpacho! No substitute, but a photo or two would have to suffice, the downside of group travel and established itineraries!

The upside, however, was our visit to the Hammam La Molinilla, where we bathed and soaked in cool and hot pools, spending several hours in the still splendor of our small group’s cloistered company. Occasionally pausing for mint tea in the sunny patio, or the tenderly administered massage to legs taut from daily hiking, or backs relieved of the weight of daily urban life. Another gem of surprise, hidden away down the alley, past debris, around the corner, though the slightly open door.

Walking to Los Marines

Posted on October 10, 2017 by Katharine Weinmann

Tuesday, September 5, 2017: a small village of three hundred or so residents located in the Sierra de Aracena within the Sierra Morena mountain range in Andalucia

Crushed leaves of lemon verbena mix with my palms’ sweat, releasing a clean, fresh scent.

Breathing heavy. Heart beating.

It’s warm nearing hot in these Andalucian hills.

We seven star sisters hiked up a creek bed, bone dry and cracked from the heat of a “Lucifero” summer.

Over my shoulder, in the distance, Finca Buenvino glows pink and turquoise in the light shot with sunshine, sparkling with dust motes.

A chirp of birdsong over here. A roll of truck tires over there.

Pens scratching in little red jot books as we each capture a mindful moment, noticing the beauty of this fine Spanish morning.

Finally, a deeper sense of relaxation, a letting go from disappointment and dismay.

Clarity earned from mining deep.

Wise action discerned and taken.

Inner harmony restored.

Presence.

The bell tolls.

One From the Little Red Jot Book

Posted on October 4, 2017 by Katharine Weinmann

Sunday, September 3, 2017: a morning walk on the lands of Finca Buenvino, Spain

The first apple, Eve’s temptation, this golden green orb of bliss.

Quince it’s called today, and many speculate this was the original harbinger of the original sin.

“I feel like I’m being taken care of…I didn’t expect that,” she says,

somewhat bewildered,

somewhat bemused,

her words landing softly

so as not to disturb this morning gift of remote stillness,

so different from her hustle-about urban life.

It’s what women do so well.

Let our hearts be broken open by love and by care.

By beauty.

Like this walnut, fresh picked from the tree.

This fig warm and honey sweet and sticky.

Juicy like Spanish love on a late summer day.

I have arrived, walking now with seven sisters.

Echoes of the Pleiades, that constellation of stars in a black blanket sky.

I am here, amidst birdsong and warm breeze.

The song of cicadas and buzzing bees.

Even the family’s truffle coloured pup is filled with curiosity.

What now? Where next?

Venus Burning Bright

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Katharine Weinmann

A month ago I gazed into the predawn sky and saw Venus burning bright.

Jet-lagged eyes took in the outline of Andalusian hills.

Travel weary body felt the warm, late summer breeze waft through the open window, fluttering my white cotton gown.

It was the beginning of an adventure to collect new impressions.

A writing retreat the pretense to come to Spain. A week at Finca Buenvino, a beautiful shuttered and pink stuccoed villa in the hills of the Aracena National Park, an hour or so northwest of Sevilla. The owners, long time British expats with their hearts firmly planted in Spanish soil. An elegant hodgepodge of inherited English antiques and acquired Moorish textiles, Spanish ceramics and Waterford crystal. Terraces and balconies, salons and reading rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms.

A kitchen outfitted for skillful chefs, fresh and local ingredients, and cooking school guests eager to measure and stir and taste Jeannie’s flare for concocting. I took my turn for an afternoon, tossing ground pork and orange zested patties in the coarse flour, soon to be fried and then braised in valencian orange flavoured tomato sauce. Sauteeing shrimp in smoked paprika butter. Polishing wine glasses. Setting the communal table with silver and linen, its place solid under the wisteria laden pergola. (Eating here was a “pinch me” moment, evoking memories of those quintessential photo ads promoting Tuscany.)

Floating on the surface of the infinity pool, thoughts dip and dive like swallows in the sky between the chestnut groves. (These nuts feed the Iberian pigs, giving fat and flavor to Spain’s famous jamon.)

Lazing on chaises, umbrellas shield skin from blazing siesta sun.

Six women gathered from Britain, Canada, America and France to write in little red notebooks prompted by sights and sounds and tastes as we hiked into local villages – Aracena, Los Marines, Linares – and sipped “coppas” of chilled, pale golden manzanilla sherry, a refreshing pairing with the myriad of tapas flavours. Red radishes as big as fat thumbs laying in a platter of golden olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt. Emerald green chiles fried whole in olive oil, then salted. Toast with seasoned tomato sauce, Spain’s take on bruschetta. Smokey olives. Tangy, hard manchego cheese. Lightly battered fresh fried sardines. Pink-shelled shrimp with heads intact, eagerly peeled and swallowed, releasing their sea salty-sweet juice.

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Sitting together, ensconced in the stone walls and cushions of the Moorish terrace, or the shaded studio overlooking the pool, we quickly capture musings in bigger black journals from prompts offered by our host – memories of our mothers’ cooking, how to be a writer, what a line of proffered poetry or name evokes.

I can see nuggets of story, but for now they rest deep inside, needing time, like the sherry aged in wooden casks, to bring out their full flavour. An alchemical process required by any act of creation.

This morning I gazed into the predawn sky and saw Venus burning bright.

Now home. Alchemy at work.

Then and Now

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Katharine Weinmann

Yesterday

blue sky puffed with cotton clouds

sandy beach glistening

palms rustle lush and verdant in the northern wind

ocean striped in patches and pockets of aquamarine, navy, slate

with ribbons of white waves breaking across

tropical birds sing a new day while the clan of seven pelicans soundlessly make their daily glide south,

off to work somewhere, I suppose

return home at the day’s end

Today

flat white sky imperceptibly veined with silvery blue, holds the promise of sunshine

snowy landscape glistening

the same northern wind blows slant chimney smoke and garden grasses, while bare tree branches and spruce boughs stiffly jostle a staccato response

too cold for bird song or flight

soundless except for the furnace reassuringly blowing its warmth up from the floor,

and grandmother’s clock tick-tocking in our home held timeless for ten days

stark, cold reality of real winter

I am revived, in peace, home.

Fasting From Facebook – My Lenten Ritual

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Katharine Weinmann

“The sacred duty of being an individual is to gradually learn how to live so as to awaken the eternal within oneself.” John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes (4)

Today is Ash Wednesday signifying within the Christian tradition the beginning of Lent, the forty days of spiritual preparation before Easter Sunday. A week ago today, The Scientist and I made our way home from our first-in-a-decade warm winter sojourn. We both like Alberta winters, so it wasn’t so much an escape (especially this year in the midst of an especially balmy El Nino system that’s been wreaking havoc on our city’s winter festivals) as a time for rest and renewal, with minimal decision-making and distraction.

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Packing, I finally decided to bring my tablet to continue work on the project that emerged during my first writers’ retreat in December. (I’m happy to say I did spend a warm afternoon under the cabana’s thatched roof typing away on a new love letter. Not finished, but the bones have been set and now wait to be fleshed out once I’ve done a bit more research and reading.) And I did check emails, only to delete spam and non-essentials so as not to be overwhelmed by an inbox of hundreds upon my return. I’ve learned that’s a sure fire way to quickly undo the benefits of any time away. Good plan until my little ASUS Transformer refused to turn on. And then I received the unexpected gift of being unplugged. Talk about a transformer!

I’ve come to know that not only am I an “adapted extrovert” – deeply introverted at heart but out of necessity and habit have learned to be “out there” and engaging – but I’m also highly sensitive by nature. Regular doses of silence and solitude are necessary for my health and well-being. Also, prone to anxiety and worrying, I’ve realized that too much time on computer, e-reader, and cell phone, especially in evening, overstimulate my already finely tuned system and thwart sleep. If I’m to read at bedtime I need to feel the weight of a book’s good story in my hands to soothe, settle and sleep.

I’ve never been a big “tweeter” or “instagrammer,” and seldom go to LinkedIn except to occasionally update my profile or announce an upcoming event I’m hosting, but I really like Facebook, for lots of good reasons. So it caught my attention, when at our family’s Ukrainian Christmas celebration a few weeks back, I heard my thirty something nephew-in-law refer to Facebook as “Facecrack.” It didn’t matter that I knew I used Facebook as a contemporary form of social activism, to “wage beauty” as an antidote to the day’s grief and terror. (OK, and to save a good recipe or bit of decorating whimsy.) I knew I was hooked. For all its good, I saw how much precious time I used scrolling and sharing, distracting myself from Life, filling in the pauses meant to restore if left empty. I felt the extent to which I’d be thrown off my centre, awash with emotions like despair, fear, anxiety, anger, jealousy in reaction to what I was reading. And while intellectually I know there is nothing wrong with these emotions in and of themselves, the stew they created inside me took more precious time and energy to process or ignore, and then emerge ready to focus on whatever I knew really needed my attention. So it came to me yesterday morning as I journaled that I’d continue to abstain from social media as my Lenten practice. I would fast – from Facebook – observing the ritual undertaken by devotees across time and faiths, “to awaken the eternal within.”

I was born on Good Friday in a Christian Lutheran home, so its archetypes, stories and rituals resonate deep within, and I uphold many traditions, though now, woven with the richness coming from the various spiritual traditions I hold dear to my heart and being. This ritual feels right, now. I trust how it came so spontaneously, with no pre-thought, appearing in black ink from my pen as I wrote on the white page of my journal. This is my “sacred duty.”

I look forward to what will come in these next forty days. I look forward to the pauses that invite noticing. I look forward to time reclaimed to write my love letters, to heeding my heart’s ache that I live my life aligned with its calling.

Annie’s calling. Time to take my ally for a walk…another sacred duty.

If you are called to follow a practice “to awaken the eternal within,” I invite you to join me in two spring-time offerings, Lectio Poetica and Painting from Within. For details and registration please go to my website’s “Upcoming Events” and complete the contact form. I’ll be back in touch via email or telephone.

Newfoundland Vignette 6 – The Great Northern Peninsula

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Katharine Weinmann

Access to Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula, via three nights’ stay at Tuckamore Lodge in Main Brook, gave us the opportunity to visit the old French Shore fishing villages of Conche and Englee, sail into Iceberg Alley off St. Anthony, and head to the island’s northern most tip to the UNESCO World Heritage site of L’Anse aux Meadows, now known to be the first settlement of Europeans on North America.

Given this was billed as a hiking, kayaking and arts tour, we were treated to a hands’ on demonstration of the embroidery used to create Conche’s famous French Shore Tapestry, a 220 foot long linen and wool mural depicting the history of Newfoundland from its earliest times to present. Designed by French-Newfoundland artist Jean Claude Roy, and meticulously stitched – over 20,000 hours and four years – by a dozen of the village’s women, this colourful labour of love hangs in the local community hall. After a picnic lunch of cod au gratin, tea and date cake, prepared and served by some of these same women, we strolled through the village, taking in the sites of fishing dories and lighthouse, the iceberg in the cove, sunshine sparkling on blue water, painted clapboard houses. The wind blew cold and I was bundled accordingly, while June’s summer sun brought out short sleeves and flip flops on the locals.

Eager to see more, several of us drove further down the coast into Englee for a viewing of hand hooked rugs. Again crafted by local women, this was a project, like many along the island’s fishing coasts, that served to resurrect an old island craft, provide revenue from tourism, and instill confidence in communities left bewildered and bereft by the Cod Moratorium of 1992. None were for sale, as this would be a collection travelling throughout the island, and I was inspired to make a purchase at the Grenfell shop in St. Anthony of a small hooked sampler featuring vignettes of my favourite sites, my souvenir.

St. Anthony, touted as the “Iceberg Capital of the World, “ lived up to its reputation with an iceberg in the cove below the lighthouse and then a huge specimen off shore, said to be grounded given it hadn’t moved since first its first sighting. In the distance several miles out, several more loomed on the hazy horizon, barely hinting at their mass, both above and below sea level. Again our weather was perfect for picture taking – not too sunny – and the swells a visceral reminder of the sea’s enormous power.

The same day we drove north along the Viking Trail to L’Anse aux Meadows. I did a rough pen and ink sketch, then painted from memory and impression during my overnight in Deer Lake before flying home. I was heartened to know I’d captured enough of the location and mood that a friend, who visited years ago, readily recognized the scene. My reflections on that land and connections made to home came several days later.

VI

Long Time Home

L’Anse aux Meadows, NL and Sherwood Park, AB

July 7, 2015

Two days travelling then waiting. Anticipation grows with the wish to be settled back home. Thankfully all uneventful, as a day later, and for several more, re-routing, premature landings, delays, all in response to bomb threats on my airline. The world’s madness – is it more than ever, or the consequence of instantaneous connection – hits my consciousness broadside, closer to home.

And what of those ancient mariners and the many days’ and weeks’ and months’ anticipation and sailing across the ocean? What bold imagination and steel-hearted courage, madness even, drove them from their Nordic homeland to what we now call Iceland, Greenland? And then further south, to be the first of their kind, my kind, to settle on this, my home and native land?

L’Anse aux Meadows, the very tip of Newfoundland’s northern most shore. One thousand years ago. We now know centuries before the likes of men we call Cabot, Columbus, Cartier.

When I recall the day I disembarked from the van, set foot on and looked out over that first “from away settlement,” over the bare expanse of naked land and sea and sky – cold and windy and grey and raining – I can hardly imagine, in a thousand years, their first reaction to seeing and setting foot. Unless I search in my own DNA and evoke that of my father’s, when he first saw, from the ship carrying him across the ocean from Germany, and set foot on the land that he would claim and make home, that day over a mid-century ago.