Buy Them A Pie! :) Posted by Dal Miranda, Jun 17 2019 [I'm so grateful for the weekend retreat at Banyan Grove, on "Being with the Other". I came home and mounted my retreat name tag next to my "Welcome Home" sign. Every morning, I can look in the mirror and say welcome home to myself. Below was my share at the retreat, in case some of you might be able to relate to it as well.] When I was first thought, "Oh, how do I create the 'other' in my life?" I wasn't sure. But then as I'm sitting here, I realized how much I other myself. And then, I thought how much other people make me feel othered. I'm biracial. My mother is Caucasian, my father is Filipino and because of their divorce, I was raised by my mother. When I was sixth grade, at a parent-teacher meeting, I remember my teacher telling me, "That can't be your mother. She's white." I ... Read Full Story

All Power To The Imagination... Posted by Randall Amster, Jun 17 2019 A few weeks ago, I found this old wheelbarrow abandoned and headed for the landfill, so I brought it home to see if it could find a second life. My 5-year-old daughter and I wound up rehabbing it in the garage with random spare parts, and now it proudly lives next to our chicken coop. It even wheels, and sometimes helps with light work around the yard. Someone recently asked how we fixed it, and before I could answer them my daughter said, "I know! We fixed it with ... imagination!" Which, even after 20 years of teaching college classes, is pretty much the best response I've ever heard to an end-of-semester question... I guess this feels like it should be a metaphor for something larger (feel free to fill in what that might be), but the real story is just that it works!

Earth Flag Going Up At The Mexico Border Posted by Angela Oh, Jun 17 2019 June 17th PM Update: Pancho is released and now picked up by cousin -- in the part of the planet called “Mexico” — will surely hear more soon~ Thank you for all your love! Here is Pancho at the imaginary border between Mexico and US: June 17 AM Update: No word yet. I’ve been checking the ICE Detainee Locator and nothing. Once I know where he is housed, assuming he's in US custory, we'll go in for an attorney visit ... A bit of Magical Mystery: When we were initially taken in, there was a bird, trapped inside this space where we were sitting. It kept flying across the room between two windows. One was a window facing the “U.S.” the other was a big window facing “Mexico”. We were worried that the bird would crash into the panes on both sides. But it seemed to know not to try and escape that way. It ... Read Full Story

A Story Of Togetherness - Posted by Mia Tagano, Jun 17 2019 Last week, my partner John and I came to see my grandmother at the nursing home where she lives…as we were walking down the hall towards her room, I saw the elder who wears an orange turban ….I don’t know him exactly and he doesn’t speak anymore but I always stop and say hello when I see him; I put my hand out and usually he will look at me, lift his hand up and we shake hands; he has the most gentle spirit and strong presence even though he is ½ foot here on earth and 1 ½ in the spirit world. I don’t know much about turbans exactly – from the outside it is a very simple thing- fabric wrapped around the head and yet, I know it is so much more, sacred in fact; his is typically always immaculately placed around his head covering his hair; he is ... Read Full Story

Nuggets From Sunita Puri's Call Posted by Rish Sanghvi, Jun 15 2019 Last Saturday, we had the privilege of hosting Awakin Call with Sunita Puri. Sunita Puri, M.D., is a palliative care physician and writer. She writes about what she has learned while working and practicing medicine “in the borderlands between life and death.” Dr. Puri stands in the tension between medicine’s impulse to preserve life at all costs and a spiritual embrace of life’s temporality. Her memoir, with stories of patients and families, has been called "a stunning meditation on impermanence and the role of medicine in helping us to live and die well, arming readers with information that will transform how we communicate with our doctors about what matters most to us." Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, and the Journal of the American Medical Association, and she has appeared on PBS. A Yale College, Oxford University, and UCSF Medical School graduate, Dr. Puri was born ... Read Full Story

Giftivism Blossoms In Moss Park Posted by Thu Nguyen, Jun 15 2019 Our Toronto volunteers started today with the best gift of all, a sunny day when rain was forecasted. A year ago on this same weekend, a few of us got together to give this a try, make some banh mi together, bring some paint and gifts, invite a band, and practice making someone's day in Moss Park, giving with no strings attached. Month after month, it's not even the thousands of meals we've offered as gifts, it's not even that we always get enough volunteers and food and gifts to do it again the next month that moves me. It's the shift from a forgotten neighbourhood and isolation...to a community that welcomes each other to a monthly family meal. No matter if the volunteers or guests aren't always the same, no matter what language is spoken, no matter roof or stars over ones head, it's a visible shift into the space ... Read Full Story