Finding a Voice

I’m excited about going on tour with Dara Hallett in February 2009. (We recently collaborated on a song for OptionS Pregnancy Centre in Regina.)

Dara & I have lots to share and sing about, so will take turns on stage with a short intermission between the two sets.

The tour is in planning stages so if you're interested in booking send a line or call (306) 725-7485.

Today was one of those windy prairie days that strips the coloured leaves off the trees and piles them up in the yard.

Today after supper, through the kitchen open window, I heard the geese honking in the crisp, cool air, heading south again.

Today was a day of creativity with my friend Andria, here for retreat and creative reorientation. We rested, we talked, we sang, she painted and sketched and carved, I played guitar and piano, we cleaned some spaces. I had a songwriting date with Lisa C. on Skype and we finished a song for the OptionS Pregnancy Centre fundraising banquet (November 6). I learned some new things about technology: Andria and I recorded a demo of it using my digital recorder, I downloaded Audacity, edited it, and learned how to post it to my website. It was a good day for artistic accomplishment.

(I’ll post a link for the song later, when it’s more than a demo.)

I am listening to a lecture from iTunes U: Contemplation and Action in the Writing Life, given by Jessie Van Eerden at Seattle Pacific University. She opened with a Mary Oliver poem that summed up the feeling of this day.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild gees, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

-Mary Oliver

Margaret Epp, whom I interviewed in April, died at age 95 on September 7, 2008 at the Mennonite Nursing Home in Rosthern, Saskatchewan. Margaret was a professional writer from age 35 to 77 and penned 39 books, mainly for children and young adults. Many dealt with Mennonite themes, including The Earth is Round. Other books include Into All the World and Proclaim Jubilee!, both adult non-fiction books. But she was primarily a fiction specialist with over 100 short stories published as well as juvenile and adult novels. In 2003 she was awarded The Word Guild's Leslie K. Tarr Award. (Source: The Word Guild)

A short obituary is posted at The Star Phoenix. The family sent a longer obituary. I am waiting for permission to post it.