I grew up in the West End of Vancouver and lived there with my Dad and Grandmother until my teen years. We lived close to English Bay, across from Sunset Beach and the saltwater Crystal Pool. Our house was set in a fourplex unit with an alley behind that was perfect for roller skating, We even had a ragman who came down our back alley with his horsedrawn cart, collecting whatever bits ‘n bobs people wanted to throw on his wagon. Having no siblings, I learned to occupy myself, most often riding my bicyle over to the beach or to the English Bay bandshell where there was live entertainment in the summertime. It was a quet life. My Dad worked full time as a Health and Building inspector for the City of Vancouver and Granny worked part-time managing food concessions in Stanley Park. Granny was always there when I got home from school and when I came home for lunch. When I wasn’t in school, I would go to the concession at Lost Lagoon and help Granny, or go into the park on my bike, oftentimes visiting the service yards where the mounted police horses were stabled and injured park animals were cared for. I came to know the trees and the animals of the park intimately well. I’m certain that is where my close kinship with more-than-human beings was born and also how my close attention to their particular ways of being was nurtured. I became a good observer, with lots of time to sit quietly in their company – in communion.

I finished high school in North Vancouver, earned a B.A. and teaching degree from Simon Fraser University and taught for 31 years in British Columbia public schools and universities. In the early ’80s I married and got an M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of British Columbia. In 1987, my husband and I had our son and moved to Victoria, where we have lived for 35+ years.

All my adult life, I have advocated for the wellbeing of wildlife, particularly wolves and grizzly bears, as well as domestic animals. In 2016, I initiated Justice for BC Grizzlies, a grassroots group dedicated to ending trophy killing of BC grizzly bears; a campaign that helped raise public awareness and gave support to the many conservation groups that worked tirelessly to end that travesty in 2017.

Since the beginning of covid I’ve been on Zoom a lot, taking webinars from insightful leaders committed to saving human civilization, and our planet, from irreversible climate-related destruction. It’s overwhelming. So many good people from around the world, doing their best to get the word out about how dire is the danger to Earth’s life support systems. Always, at the end of a presentation, people ask “Yes, but what can I do?” and “Can we even make a difference before it’s too late?” Everyone wants an answer as to how we humans can turn this ship around.

“Whether we know it or not, our lives are acts of imagination and the world is continually re-imagined through us.”

~~ Michael Meade ~~

There’s no question these times are urgent, but I think we need to pause for a moment and gather our co-creative energies. “The future” does not suddenly arrive out of the blue; it’s woven from this day, and the next, and all todays to come. The future rests on history, as well as on assumptions about how the world really is now. So what we do and imagine today really matters – a lot. What assumptions is the future of planet Earth being fed today?

Through personal story and metaphor, Gracious Unfurlings invites deep attention to the subtle energies that evoke intimate belonging in *wider Nature. I desire this site to be a space of ease for anyone who visits, including me. This is my particular contribution to a worldview underscored by knowing that all life has consciousness, relative to their nature, interconnected on a living Earth.,

In addition, The Way of Council and Creative Silence Council, described on this website, offer practices for being together that are peaceful, compassionate and non-hierarchical; possibly even containers that invite *interbeing. The ways that we view our fellow humans, and *more-than-human beings, is dependent upon how we view ourselves and our place in *wider-Nature.

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I’m a mother, grandmother, writer and certified facilitator of the Way of Council tradition, living in Victoria, BC, Canada on traditional territory of the WSANEC people.  Formerly a teacher in BC universities and public schools for 31 years, I’ve thrived on creating innovative programs to support wildlife advocacy, intergenerational education and community organizations.  Spiritually speaking, I believe that tending the soil of our inner landscapes is essential for any revival of our external landscapes. Such understanding is pivotal for us now, and for the cultural creatives who come after us. I promise to tend the soil for my grandchildren, that they may grow in vibrant relationship to themselves and to all beings in wider-Nature.  

unfurl: verb – Make or become spread out from a rolled or folded state, especially in order to be open to the wind

* Wider-Nature is a term I coined to stop using “nature” as reference to something “out there”. Wider Nature conveys the sense that everything is embedded in eco-systems of relationship, i.e. humans are a unique species sharing space with multitudes of unique species and life-giving elements in wider Nature – we are interrelated, not separate.

*Interbeing is a term coined by Master Thich Nhat Hanh meaning A state of connectedness and interdependence of all phenomena, i.e. everything that exists is in relationship with everything else that exists.

* More-than-human beings is a term coined by David Abram

NB All photos are my own unless otherwise noted