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More on Martha

September 4, 2004 By Uncategorized

Here are some more articles relating to Martha, including one with a lovely biographical sketch:

Martha’s organs were donated to four sperate individuals, a gift that empitomized the way she lived her life.

I find the following poem overused, but for one who spent so much of her life outdoors, and the last few years in the mountains and on the prairies, it seems appropriate:

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain ,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I did not die.

Decolonizing bodies

September 4, 2004 By Uncategorized

Jay Wortman, who has been a client of mine, is a medical doctor and also the Regional Director of the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch here in BC. He recently had a breakthrough by addressing his diabetes by changing his diet

“In evolutionary terms, it’s a blink of an eye. Aboriginal people have been transformed over a hundred years or 200 years, very few numbers of generations, from a completely different way of life to what we experience today, and diet has dramatically changed for that population,” he says. “And that very small period of time, there’s no possible way their physiology could evolve to cope with such a big change in something like diet.”

So Wortman has become an advocate of a return to the traditional, very low carbohydrate diet. His family dines on salad and green vegetables, on cheese and berries and cream, on chicken and fish and meat.

There are folks here in BC who are looking at decolonization right down to the level of bodies. I like the integrated feel of that approach.

Martha Mills 1976 – 2004

September 3, 2004 By Uncategorized

My cousin Martha Mills died in a tragic car accident along with her fiancee and his business partner on Monday. Her funeral is today in Canmore, Alberta. If you’re so inclined, spare a prayer for her parents and her brothers, as well as the families of the others.

It’s funny how I never really knew Martha. When she was a baby I moved to the UK and when I returned I was in high school and she was beginning kindergarten. By the time I went away to university and then got on with my life, I saw her only very occasionally. But in 1996, when my father’s family sold my grandparent’s summer cottage, we all gathered there for a reunion. I was amazed to meet this confident young woman who, for all intents and purposes, had appeared out of nowhere. I had only remembered her as a baby, or a small quiet kid, and her transformation was amazing.

She had been living in Canmore for the past few years with her fiancee Sean. By all accounts they were soul mates, the best of friends and true partners. I wish I had known them better.

Sogyal Rinpoche, in the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, counsels that because we are all going to die at some point, we should treat everyone with the compassion that you would normally reserve for a dying person. It’s events like this that really remind us how fragile life can be, and how much more mindful we should be in our daily relationships with each other.

Question from Finn Rinpoche

August 31, 2004 By Uncategorized

My three year old son is a constant source of amusement and awe. Here are some of the questions he asked me today:

  • How low is the earth?
  • What part of the earth spins? – The outside, Finn – What part of the outside? Just the part we are standing on or the part that goes all the way to space?
  • How did I get here? – a short form of the birds and the bees – Yes, I know that, but how did my aliveness get in?

Any answers you might have would be gratefully appreciated.

An Open Space company

August 31, 2004 By Uncategorized

Open Space Technology works on passion bounded by responsibility. It’s about people finding what they want to do and assembling the resources around them to make that happen. It’s about support those people and their ideas with resources and openness. It really works, not just for meetings, but for organizational structures as well. It’s about redefining measurements of success and letting go of control.

Now a new book has come out about the practice of very Open Space-like principles at the Brazillian holding company Semco:

It’s our lack of formal structure, our willingness to let workers follow their interests and their instincts when choosing jobs or projects.

It’s our insistence that workers seek personal challenges and satisfaction before trying to meet the company’s goals.

It’s our commitment to encouraging employees to ramble through their day or week so that they will meander into new ideas and new business opportunities.

It’s our philosophy of embracing democracy and open communication, and inciting questions and dissent in the workplace.

On-the-job democracy isn’t just a lofty concept but a better, more profitable way to do things. We all demand democracy in every other aspect of our lives and culture. People are considered adults in their private lives, at the bank, at their children’s schools, with family and among friends–so why are they suddenly treated like adolescents at work? Why can’t workers be involved in choosing their own leaders? Why shouldn’t they manage themselves? Why can’t they speak up–challenge, question, share information openly?

What is it about this kind of model that makes people eschew it?

Thanks to Jeremy for the link.