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To Travel or Stay
The Earth contains much wisdom. Travel changes the way we experience it. It is commonly held that travel enriches our experience of history and culture. However, staying in one place deepens wisdom...
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Good Places Are Teachers, Too
There is no better way to figure out where you are than to stop moving. My partner and I just returned from a long weekend at my family cottage. Everything in life changes, but the lake shows me some...
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Bringing home the idea of north
It is hard to know the Arctic. The idea of north is difficult to verbalize even here in Canada where we have so much of it. It is particularly awkward relating to such vast territory that belongs in...
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Photovember 13
Walking downtown I was struck by the sight of these leaves huddled outside Knox Presbyterian Church. The stonework is quintessentially local to Guelph. This innocuous corner exudes a strong sense of...
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Song of winter
Winter uncovers not only physical textures of the landscape, but also underlying sounds. Whereas in summer we are distracted by showy bird songs and countless other declarations of life, this season...
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Blogathon: a month in the river of life
Today begins the 2013 WordCount blogathon. I participated and finished for the first time last year. It was a challenging and exciting experience that connected me with many other writers,...
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Sense of place: Joe’s lake
In a recent contest, I asked readers to tell stories about places that had deeply impacted them. The various thoughtful responses will appear as a series of guest posts. By Joe Sehl View a gallery of...
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Head Lake: a photo tribute to brush painting
Early Wednesday morning on the photography course, Rob Stimpson met us at the dock in Haliburton. Our assignment was to interpret Head Lake in a photo essay. Impressed by the watercolour stillness of...
View ArticlePencast: Reflection on Stan Rogers, going deeper
This morning I had an exchange with a friend about my favourite Stan Rogers song, “The Lock Keeper”. Alan McLean commented that it addresses the “monk’s dilemma.” We may relate to life experience as a...
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Getting lost in a city woods
Today is photo blog Thursday. This week I have a gallery to share, but first a story to go with it. I wrote this month’s pencast about intimacy with the land while sitting beside the pond imaged below....
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Sibelius’s music of cities
In a biography by Glenda Dawn Goss, Sibelius: A Composer’s Life and the Awakening of Finland (University of Chicago Press, 2009), I came across a startling early idea about the sound of cities. Jean...
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Garden tour: spectacle of colour and texture
Click the arrow to the left or right to navigate through a gallery of 24 images. Guelph Horticultural Society held its annual garden show on the weekend. Here are some highlights of what we saw there.
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City trees hit hard by ice storm
Guelph, Ontario, where I live, takes a lot of pride in its green space. Riverside Park has always been one of the prettiest spots in the city, with a certain Old World charm. It took a hard hit from...
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Lake Erie: a tie stronger than blood
On the weekend I paid a brief visit to the backyard where I grew up, this north shore beach of Lake Erie. A reunion with a few high school friends provided opportunity. My partner and I stayed at a...
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Drawing water from the spring
At our cottage in Haliburton Highlands, Ontario, we collect drinking water from a nearby spring. The spring water is sweet, clear, refreshing and arises from one of Earth’s most ancient land masses....
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