The idea of Engaged Buddhism can seem like an oxymoron: how does fiery activism co-exist with the Buddhist philosophies of peace and nonviolence? In fact, mindfulness practices have powerful benefits for activists. I loved my conversation on CBC’s Tapestry – have listen here: Listen here: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/engaged-buddhism-1.4113121/sit-down-rise-up-how-meditation-supports-activism-1.4113264
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The Vatican released a statement this week that repudiates the Doctrine of Discovery, the decree that has been used to subjugate Indigenous Peoples for half a millennium. But how should Canada reconcile the Church’s statement with what we see unfolding right now — another RCMP raid on Wet’suwet’en territory? These are the sorts of violent…
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Karyn Pugliese, member of Pikwakanagan First Nation, is a seasoned journalist best known for hard-hitting reporting at the National Observer, Canadaland, and APTN. So it’s refreshing to hear her delighted cackle as she unpacks some of the absurdities that are baked into Canadian law. In Canada’s historical narrative of the march from British colony to…
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The Echo Valley Farm group offers a beautiful example of how collectivizing food production can create not only healthy systems but healthy human cultures. Robert Birch, who has been farming together with his neighbours on their patch of south-end ground since the project’s inception, thinks of the Echo Valley Farm as a social experiment in…
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Mob rules: Horned and bare-chested, the barbarians storm the capital while out in the bay sailboats come loose off their moorings and careen into rocky shoals. Off in the distance sirens wail slicing through no-sound, howling at no-moon. Jaws drop on a masked populace as the rude Emperor lowers his pants and bare bawls it…
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The relationship between Canada and First Nations plays out like a marriage on the rocks. Once upon a time, separate Nations came together: some brought a love of land, and others had more of a lust for it. They made a solemn covenant, sealed the deal in ceremony, and then: things went horribly sideways. Maybe…
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I was married to this guy from Winnipeg’s north end. His dad was a white guy, a trucker with big personality and a bigger anger management/drinking problem. His mom Joann was Metis, a “Roy”, five foot nothing, warm and golden as a pool of melted butter. She loved the grandchildren that her son and I…
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Talk given at opening of “Against the Current” exhibit, 2020 Salt Spring Arts Council Call me Ishmael. Moby Dick is a book that presents one of the most pure villains in literature: Ahab, the captain of the doomed whaling ship the Peqod, embodies the Man vs. Nature domination trip that has resulted in our Current…
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A different kind of sentencing hearing took place today on B.C.’s central coast, in an area known as the Great Bear Rainforest. Three years after the Nathan E. Stewart sank, spilling 110,000 litres of diesel, effluent, and engine oil into Heiltsuk fishing grounds, the Indigenous nation is still waiting for justice. Canada charged Kirby –…
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“To the resident of New York, Paris or London, the word death is never pronounced because it burns the lips. The Mexican, on the other hand, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it; it is one of his favourite games and his most steadfast love.” — Octavio Paz Mexico City is aquatic. The…
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