Honouring our Strength ~ RESILIENCE ~ Theme for February 2025

Ready for…..

Entering and…

Sliding into…

Introducing…..

Leaning into….

Intimidated by…..

Equal opportunity……

No nonsense…..

Committed to 

Eager to find…….

“I can be changed by what happens to me.

 But I refuse to be reduced by it.”

~ Maya Angelou

Keep the Drains Open

Keeping drains open is 

difficult on cold winter’s 

nights when snow falls 

almost malevolently 

to cover the hard work 

and salt from yesterday 

when it was a false spring. 

I swept aside the beautiful white powder and dyed it turquoise to keep drains open til morning light. 

It’s not so easy to keep our 

inner drains open for worries 

that eat away at our souls. 

No salt to melt frigid feelings 

of fear. No broom to sweep them 

away into an open drain. So we 

take a breath, lift our palms 

up to the air, to imagine them 

flying away like moths that they 

are. Fragile, dusty and pesky.

“Worry drains the mind of its power and, 

sooner or later, it injures the soul.”

~ Robin Sharma, lawyer

Surrounded

The natural world does not 

come to us begging to be 

seen but puts down roots, 

grows abundant with fruits 

and vegetables, blooms 

flowers of all shapes, colours

and sizes. Broad brush strokes of this 

landscape throws glorious clouds

or darkens with thunderheads, verdant 

with jagged spears of lightening. 

Mumbling skies drench us with 

rain, hail, sleet or snow. We are 

surrounded by a brilliant world 

not of our own making except 

to become stewards of this earth.

“It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for ~ 

the whole thing ~ rather than just one or two stars.”

~ David Attenborough

False Spring ~ On an Afternoon Walk

Cars shushed steadily through 

brown sugared snow in side streets. My footsteps landed on bare cement, dampened dark with snow melt. Missing patches of ice were not mourned as I walked, 

until my pace slowed for a driveway rutted with the false spring mess or a collection of 

grey brown water at a frozen corner. Blue sky was sketched with skiffs of white cloud and 

the sun smiled as water dripped from eaves.

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were 

no problems except where to be happiest.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

One Winter Day

It’s good to feel the vibrancy of life once more. Riding moody feelings with the trappings of soggy tissues 

and January cold was met with ‘this too shall pass’. And so it did with sun and wind polishing my cheeks 

rosy as an apple. Ice and snow melted in the late afternoon sun, as I have melted into an evening of music and peace. 

“Your heart and soul are full of beautiful, colourful, 

vibrant threads and you deserve to shine.”

~ Jamie Edelbrock, Tangled Up

From Beneath

Reason is just a little brown mouse that creeps from beneath the edges of emotion, nosing about for a piece of cheese, but instead finds only ecstasies of joy, or maybe depths of despair wishing to push this furry fellow aside to soar or dive. The little rodent could be considered quite a pest or simply be called reason.

“A little mouse of thought appears in a room, and 

even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. 

They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and word; 

they are afraid of the workings of the human mind.”

~ Winston Churchill

People, Not Politics

Of all the words broadcast like the fluff of thistles, words of the last several weeks 

speak ill of the United States writ large. Words landing in the soil north and south

threaten to disrupt us all.

Faith in the hearts and minds 

of our peoples ground me.

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”

~ Steve Jobs