This short video was produced for a Vimeo Challenge showing the weather in my area so far this summer. Hope you enjoy it.
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Image in Canadian Geographic Magazine
People have been asking how this photograph of mine ended up in the May 2013 Special Edition of the Canadian Geographic Magazine on “Wicked Weather”.
Here’s the story. I joined the Canadian Geographic online Photography Club last year and have uploaded the odd photo based on their monthly requests but very few, actually. I’d like to get more involved but I am running in so many different directions at once, as it is. 🙂 Anyway, on one of my rare visits, there was a call for photographs of extreme weather pictures in Canada for a contest with The Weather Network. I uploaded a few pictures and a couple of them were from the same day in Toronto.
In August 2012, I went to a wedding for my long lost friend, Jola on her father’s boat, the Island Princess on the Toronto Harbour. She had moved out west 20 years ago. We lost touch until we reconnected on Facebook. I was very excited to go to her wedding, see her again, meet her wonderful husband, and go out on the cruise.
But it was a stormy day in Toronto. The skies were foreboding, winds were strong and it rained on and off all day. Still, her father Bob is sea captain and he took us out anyway, and found a calm area to park in the Toronto Islands. On the return cruise, we were greeted with beautiful double rainbows all across Lake Ontario. Stunning and great omen for Jola’s marriage, I thought.
So, back to the Canadian Geographic Magazine. I uploaded a few pics and forgot about the contest. There were thousands of photos submitted and many of them were quite stunning so I wasn’t really expecting anything. Then, a couple months later, I received a request from the magazine for high resolution versions of two of my pictures for this issue. Just one of them actually made it but it was also under consideration to be the cover.
Award Winning Photograph from Youth Olympics in Innsbruck
I was very excited to hear that I was the winner of the DayTripper TV Photography Competition – both the Grand Prize and first prize in the Portraiture category for the photo below (and I won something in another category as well).
This image was taken in Innsbruck, Austria in January, 2012 during the Youth Olympic Winter Games. My niece, Roni Remme, was invited to represent Canada for Alpine Skiing so twelve of her family/ fan club members made the trip over. On the final day of racing, she delighted her fans when she came in second in the Ladies Slalom event. Immediately after the race, they performed a small ceremony at the bottom of the hill and it was quite snowy. They were actually facing reporters and each were interviewed by television crew afterwards. Then they were whisked away for urine tests and received their actual medals later that night in the ceremony in the square.
The actual medalists for the Ladies Slalom were:
GOLD VLHOVA Petra SVK – Slovakia
SILVER REMME Roni CAN – Canada
BRONZE TKACHENKO Ekaterina RUS – Russian Federation
Fall Convocation at Western
Early morning and long day, today, but my son Perry (2nd from right) graduated from Western University today with his Bachelor of Management and Organizational Studies (Specialization in Finance and Administration). We’re back home but he is still in London celebrating. It’s been a long 4 years but I am very proud of him. After a shaky start in first year, he had to work extra hard and take some summer courses to get his degree but in the end, he did very well and has grown up since he first started back in 2008. He already has a job with Ricoh Canada as an Account Manager.
Staying out of the Basement
Are you conscious of your busy mind? Do you occasionally find yourself angry or depressed, just by the random thought generation at work in your head, even when nothing has happened in the present to trigger this response?
In my post “The Top Ten Tips for Living a Happy Life”, one of the key concepts was “Your thoughts create your reality”. This topic including others related to this critical idea that we are not our mind/ego. We have the ability to create our own reality. You will find variations of this theme common among many of the thought leaders, spiritual and self-help teachers today.
In my own life, I regularly revisit these concepts, especially when I find my mind sabotaging all the work I’ve done to stay positive and loving and present. In the following chart, I’ve summarized three ‘states of being’ with examples of what kinds of thoughts and feelings characterize each state. Where do you spend most of your time? If the answer is the ‘basement’ then I encourage you to do the work you need to do to come upstairs!
If you are often frustrated, feeling resentment, blaming others for your situation, asking questions like “Why me?” and “What if?”, dwelling on the past and obsessing over thoughts like “If only I’d done this”, and are generally unhappy with the “way it is”, then I would call that living in the basement. Other symptoms might be that you are overly judgmental of others, depressed, and feeling stuck.
Ascending to higher levels will not only result in your feeling more joy in your life but you will be more able to contribute to others and enjoy meaningful relationships. This involves living in the present, accepting that the universe is unfolding as it should and being grateful for your life.
I’ve put together this chart to remind myself of this. This can also serve as a quick check to see where you’re at and ‘get off it’ if you catch yourself lingering in the ‘basement’.
The Miracle of a Rainbow
On Saturday evening, I witnessed a miracle, eye candy that was heaven-sent. We first spotted the colours in the sky at about 7:30pm after a very special evening. It was a sign, an omen for a wonderful future. I felt it.
Merriam-Webster had a more scientific explanation for the phenomenon. It was “an arc.. that exhibits in concentric bands the colors of the spectrum and that is formed by the refraction and reflection of the sun’s rays in raindrops, spray, or mist”.
The Rainbow was absolutely spectacular. I’ve never seen the full arc from one end to the other with a mirrored band above nor been so ‘close’ before. Of course, according to Wiki, a rainbow is “not located at a specific distance, but comes from any water droplets viewed from a certain angle relative to the Sun’s rays. Thus, a rainbow is not a physical object, and cannot be physically approached.” So, the pot of gold was not achievable, apparently although I wonder if we were actually in the rainbow from some perspectives on the water that night.
In southern Ontario, it was a stormy, wet, weekend – not ideal weather for an outdoor wedding in a park followed by a dinner boat cruise around the Toronto Harbour and Islands. But, of course, you have to work with what you get and in the end, this most wondrous omen appeared in the sky on our return journey to the dock.
I was delighted to be included in my old friend Jola’s wedding last weekend. We were great friends in our twenties but I got busy with kids and career, she moved out west and we lost touch until the last few years on Facebook. She came to town with her amazing fiance, John, from Calgary to get married on her father’s boat, the “Island Princess”. The wedding was in the Toronto Musical Gardens, right by the boat. There were delays due to the misty, windy weather but ultimately it went off without a hitch and we all climbed into the boat for the reception.
There was some rain on and off but we were comfortable in the boat in a wind-protected area among the Toronto Islands. It was so great to see how happy Jola and John were. She found her soul mate and I am thrilled for her.
On the return to harbour, the visual delight of the double rainbows stretching across the lake from the Toronto city side to the islands seemed to be nothing short of a divine promise of everlasting love and friendship for them both.
Vimeo had a weekend film project to create a one minute short of scenes from the ‘magic’ hour (dawn or dusk) over this past weekend so I pulled together this short video with the little bit of film clips I had and some of the shots: Short Rainbow Video with Pictures on Vimeo
Ten Tips for Living a “Happy” Life
What is “happy” and is it really attainable? In this age of fast-paced, information overload, what do we really want from life?
I believe we want what people have always wanted. We want to be happy. We want to love and contribute to others. We want to be loved. We want to think we’re making a difference, that there’s a “reason” or purpose for our existence.
While some might argue that happy is an overused term and not a practical goal, let’s consider happy as being peaceful and content, as being the opposite of miserable, as being empowered to be all that we can be in life, to be able to have loving and sustainable relationships. And then, I think, everyone will agree that this is a state where we would all like to be centered. 
Based on my own personal exploration into this essential quest, I’ve summarized what I view as the Top Ten tips to a Happy Life, as taught by many of the thought leaders today who are great authors, speakers, and spiritual teachers..
TOP TEN:
1. Be Present, Be Here Now
Studies suggest we have somewhere between 12,000 to 65,000 thoughts per day, although I’ve seen reference to a wider range (between 2,000 to 600,000!). Most commonly, 50-60,000 is considered a good estimate.
Being human means being inundated with thoughts all day, every day: endless observations, judgements, interpretations, complaints, worries, ‘what-ifs’, memories, regrets, wishes, desires, dreams about our future, anger about our past, and on and on. I’ve seen statistics indicating 95% of them are similar from day to day. Some thoughts seem completely random, others can hijack us as we follow a thread and let our emotions react to what are sometimes completely irrational, twisted versions of reality. For me, it has been a major breakthrough to understand that I am NOT my thoughts. For too long, my thoughts ran me. They still try to, every single day, but I am watching them now. I used to look to my thoughts for meaning, wondering why I was suddenly upset when nothing had happened.
So how much of an average person’s thoughts are rooted in the present moment? Some suggest that the majority of our thoughts are rooted in the past (somewhere between 70 and 90%) with about 10-20% ruminating or dreaming or imagining what will happen in the future. A small percentage of our thoughts actually focus on the present moment in a purely experiential manner. Within our minds, our perception of the past, how it is affecting us now and into the future can often become warped.
Eckhart Tolle, author of “The Power of Now” and “A New Earth” and other books is a well-known speaker and teacher in this area. Tolle tells us: “Stay fully present in the now-your whole life unfolds here. In the now there is joy of Being and deep peace”.
In Deepak Chopra’s “Seven Spiritual Laws of Success”, he says that pure potentiality is pure consciousness, the field of all possibilities and infinite creativity. Meditation to connect with our inner being to be present and master our thoughts can help us to find that state of pure consciousness.
2. Your Thoughts Create your Reality
When you start to understand that you are not your thoughts, that you are a being with a powerful inner spirit that happens to also have a brain that does what brains do, non-stop generation of thoughts, you can step back and observe this and take control. Consider how you can choose how your brain operates just as you make these decisions about using your arm or your fingers or your eyes every day of your life.
The realization that you actually could control and direct your thoughts to create whatever reality you choose can open up a whole new world. If, for example, you tell yourself that you cannot succeed at something – then you probably won’t. So, the obvious question is why tell yourself that? And yet we do it all the time..
There’s so much groundbreaking work in this area over the past decade, everything from the books on the Law of Attraction (including the blockbuster work called “The Secret”) and new science indicating that thoughts are actually bits of quantum energy (see my post entitled “The Science behind the Mystery”), which opens up even more unbelievable implications for our potential capabilities if we can master our mind.
Louise Hay (founder of Hay House) is an inspiring example of this powerful concept in action. Her countless books and CD’s on Affirmations show how you can change your life by the very simple practice of constantly generating positive, life-affirming thoughts. From “Power Thoughts” by Louise Hay: “Trust life to hear and respond to your positive words. Say these affirmations every day and your whole world will change for the better.”
3. Be Grateful
Expressing gratitude, especially if you can make it a daily practice to declare everything you are grateful for in your life, can create positive self-affirming thoughts instead of negative ones and align your attention to everything that is good in your life. This alone can be transformational. Many current thought leaders and spiritual teachers encourage people to keep a gratitude journal.
If you do a search on Gratitude quotations, you will find many empowering thoughts. Here’s a few:
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G.K. Chesterton
“God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say ‘thank you?’ ” William A. Ward
“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you’, that would suffice.” Meister Eckhart
4. Trust that the universe is unfolding as it should..
Or perhaps an easier way to say this is, Have Faith. Sometimes in our darkest hours, when nothing seems to be going as we had wanted or expected, we can’t see this. We want only to fight against what is. Everything will not always go our way but, if you trust life and let it unfold, as Mick Jagger said, “you just might get what you need”.
For some this could mean a belief in God, aligned with one of the great faith traditions, for others it might just mean knowing that there is a greater life force, that we are all a part of it, and that life will take us where we need to go if we surrender to it.
5. Practice Forgiveness
Oprah and others, have defined Forgiveness as recognizing that you can’t change the past. We hold onto a lot of resentment and in the end, who does it hurt? We hurt ourselves more than anyone else. Accepting what has happened and creating the space to move on can be a powerful step forward.
Sometimes, particularly if you have been a victim of crime or abuse, whatever happened may seem ‘unforgiveable’. In these cases, remember that forgiveness does not mean you have to let that person back into your life but it can release you from the hold that this has on you.
In other cases, we may have imagined transgressions that were in reality, minor. Caroline Myss, medical intuitive and author of a number of bestselling books including “Sacred Contracts”, outlines the common archetypes that drive our behaviours. She identifies the “Victim” as one of the four archetypes for survival which can lead you to believe that “you are always taken advantage of and it’s never your fault.” If this feels familiar, her work may be of interest.
Regardless of the situation (and many may lie in between these two extremes), if you have anger or bitterness in your heart, you must do the work needed (whatever that is for you) to let it go. It literally will suck the life out of you and can affect all your relationships. The serenity prayer from AA says it all: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.”
6. Follow your Bliss
One of Joseph Campbell’s famous quotations…
Many will say that they would love to follow their bliss but they have to pay the bills, don’t have time, it’s too late to change course, or any other number of excuses.
I would contend that for many of us, we don’t really know what our ‘bliss’ is. Of course, it seems like it must be the greener grass on the other side. Certainly, the idea of walking away from a tough job and living in luxury seems blissful – but this is not what Campbell intended.
Sometimes we need to take a hard look at our life circumstances and make adjustments along our journey. The important thing is to be conscious. Make conscious choices. Embrace work that you love. Remember, even when you’re “following your bliss”, there will be tough sledding at times. This is certainly not a free ticket to quit.
7. Choose your Life
This is another perspective on “Follow your Bliss”. Sometimes, it’s not our outside circumstances that need to change but our interior dimension.
I took a course called the Landmark Forum many years ago, and this was a key concept after three long days of workshop. It correlates back to the idea that ‘your thoughts create your reality’.
When you declare that your life, your spouse, your children, your job, your world are all exactly what you always wanted, then they will become that for you.
8. Don’t take yourself too seriously
Or, put another way: “Get over yourself”.
No one likes criticism and we all have fragile egos… but sometimes, when our thoughts hijack us, we can turn the simplest comments into conspiracy theories.
The truth is that not everything is about you, sometimes when people scowl at you, it’s because they’re unhappy inside. If a person says something to you that you don’t like, you don’t have to react in kind. In fact you may be able trigger transformation in another by not letting your ego take over, instead be present with that person and be compassionate.
Deepak Chopra asserts that “… the ego is not who we really are. The ego is our social mask, it is the role we are playing.”
If you are aware and present with people, not coloured by past injustices or imagined indignities, then you can choose to always have powerful, meaningful conversations.
Not being driven by ego takes focus, commitment, and courage…
9. We are all one
When you take steps to be present, become committed to not ‘be your ego’ or run by your thoughts, to be grateful for the people in your life, and to create your reality then you will start to sense more and more that you are not alone but a part of something much greater, the collective spirit of humanity.
Even the latest scientific breakthroughs with respect to quantum consciousness and unified field theory are demonstrating that the universe and everything in it, ourselves included, are interconnected by a vast field of energy.
In this collective space, love and contribution become natural which in turn can fuel harmony and peace in your life.
10. Conscious Evolution
Last year, I took the Evolutionary Worldview Course through Enlightennext Magazine and Andrew Cohen and later, watched the event: “A Call to Conscious Evolution, Our Moment of Choice” which was also hosted by this group. Both experiences were inspirational and eye-opening. As Deepak, one of the many renowned speakers at the Evolutionary Leaders’ event, said: “… the only way to transform the world is to transform yourself..” and “… even well-meaning activism is often coming from a place of outrage rather that creative consciousness..”
This jives with many of the teachings of Andrew Cohen and his team with respect to the evolution of our interior dimension and our culture. Our mind, our being, or our “interior dimension” as they call it have evolved just as our bodies have. They talk about 4 billion years of evolution on this planet and how we, as sentient, powerful beings, can now choose where we go from here. They ask questions like: “how does your own evolution come into the culture, into changing the world?” and “To what degree are you enabling this process of evolution through your own heroic efforts?” so that we can leave the world a better place because we were here.
Making conscious decisions everyday to feed and exercise your body for optimal health and well-being is the other side of the coin to choosing the thoughts that you feed yourself for optimal mental health and well-being.
The “Desiderata”
This famous piece of prose insinuated itself into my psyche at an early age. At our cottage in Huntsville, my parents hung the “Desiderata” on the wall of the main floor washroom. So everytime I sat on the toilet as an impressionable young girl on our weekends away, I would read it and try to make sense of what it told me. I believe my parents had become enamoured with the “Desiderata” when Pierre Elliott Trudeau shared it with Canada in one of his speeches. It was apparently a ‘motto’ for how our former, illustrious Prime Minister carried himself in the world… and my parents were fans of Trudeau.
I forgot all about this until a couple of years ago when my son, Jordan, gave us a large poster/plague for Christmas with a picture of a waterfall and the words of the “Desiderata”. This is now hanging in the bedroom.
It was always a mystery to me that these eloquent words of wisdom on how to move through life with grace was not credited to anyone. The poster in our bathroom in the 70’s credited the writing to “anonymous” and the one in my bedroom does not reference an author at all. In writing this post, I did a quick google search and discovered that it was in fact written in 1927 by American writer Max Ehrmann (1872–1945). There was some confusion over this and due to a series of blunders, it was assumed to be written in 1692 by an unknown author and therefore copyright-free. It wasn’t until a spoken word song was released of the “Desiderata” in the early 70’s that the family of the author was able to declare the rightful author and win royalties.
“Desiderata” is a Latin word meaning “Desired Things”. A few choice phrases (“the universe is unfolding as it should”, “be gentle with yourself”, “keep peace with your soul”) have always resonated with me and seem ahead of their time for when this piece was written.
Here is the full prose poem:
Desiderata by Max Ehrmann
Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its shams, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy
Vancouver and Lake Louise
At the end of May, I went on a whirlwind trip to Western Canada. First stop was Vancouver where I fell in love with Stanley Park. It’s been many years since I’ve been there. I don’t think I fully appreciated it when I was younger. Next stop was Calgary and the drive to Lake Louise to visit my son, Jordan, who has been working there, at the Fairmont, since September. Again, the mountains, forests, crystal clear lakes, and wildlife were all a joy to behold. Even though Jordan had warned me, it was surprising to still see snow and ice on Lake Louise at the beginning of June. Definitely a little chillier than Southern Ontario but crisp, clean and beautiful. I’m so happy that he is treated to such immense beauty every day when he goes to work.
Here’s a few shots from the trip:
