We’ve taken up kayaking. We bought a kayak on Bob’s birthday, and took it out that weekend.
environment
Our Garden
Since we haven’t been able to go anywhere at weekends during the lockdown, we’ve been very busy in the garden. We’ve also seen lots of birds (cardinals, robins, a woodpecker, chickadees, and mourning doves) and squirrels (both black and grey) in the garden.
Notable and quotable: Earth Day
It’s Earth Day today, and the significance of it being in the middle of a pandemic, when Nature is getting a brief respite from the depredations of industry and big oil, has not been lost on people, I hope.
The Tower and the Virus
My first guest column at The Wild Hunt.
I have been anxious for months, years even. I have watched with growing horror the rise of right-wing populism, the melting of the icecaps, the burning of Australia, the beginnings of wars over water and resources, the seemingly inexorable destruction wrought by climate change. The protests of Fridays for Future and Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion gave me some cause for optimism, but it is also obvious that governments have not been doing enough to turn the economy around to stop the production of carbon emissions. So when everyone suddenly swung into action to deal with the coronavirus crisis, it gave me some hope that perhaps now the needful actions to deal with climate change (many of which, it turns out, are quite similar to the actions needed to flatten the curve of coronavirus transmission) would seem doable. It also feels like now everyone else is as anxious as me.
Wassailing
On Monday, we went to the Orange Peel Morris annual Wassailing at Spirit Tree Cidery, Ontario.
Theriomorphic deities
The revelation of the restored version of the Mystic Lamb from the Ghent Altarpiece got me thinking about theriomorphic deities.
The scary goggly eyes of the restored version attracted quite a lot of comment and even a scary meme of the Lamb winking.
Before you go and have a look at the pictures, I have to warn you that what has been seen cannot be unseen.
Water, water everywhere
I am currently sitting beside Lake Erie (Erielhonan), or in Ojibwe, Waabishkiigoo-gichigami (Neutrals’ Sea), or Aanikegamaa-gichigami (Chain of Lakes Sea).
Lake Erie is one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world. The surface area of the Great Lakes is about the same as the surface area of the British Isles (a statistic I’ve often quoted to impress the sheer size of Canada upon my fellow English people).
Despite Canada (1) possessing the largest body of fresh water in the world, a significant percentage of the original inhabitants of this northern area of Turtle Island (2) do not have running water in their homes.
Resolutions for Earth Day
On Sunday, I checked my carbon footprint (it was not good) and resolved to go carbon neutral by planting trees.
Notable and quotable 2
This week’s noteworthy posts and a letter to The Guardian.
Reblog: Where do your stones come from?
Where do your stones come from?
There is a deep irony in this. Pagan-y type folk often use stones and crystals to connect with the earth, to honour the spiritus mundi, the world-soul. Yet, frequently these stones themselves have been industrially yanked out of the earth without any consideration of the spirit of the place where they were mined, and often without any consideration of the humanity of the exploited workers toiling in hellish conditions.
Read on at wrycrow.com
Please read this very important post from Ryan Cronin, on sourcing your crystals ethically.
