Monday, September 3, 2018, 01:42 PM - Outdoor adventure
Took an eros retreat on the Bluff Wilderness Trail. First time I hiked the whole thing and camped. It was really lovely. Eros in the Marcusean sense where pleasure is political. Being in who and where we are so we can be in step with others. So things I love to do - be outdoors, meditate, reflect, play. Try to touch in to what I am really feeling and what it is that I want to do free of any pull or influence. So goal-driven hiking moments where I felt I needed to make tracks were tempered with --I just want to swim or look at these mushrooms. These retreats have been so powerful and healing in these last years.
Saturday, August 18, 2018, 07:00 PM - Outdoor adventure
Kayak camping with Oliver during the Perseids. We started in Blind Bay. First night Flemming Island near Dover Island. Loads of climbers there. We got visited by at least one Minke whale. So moving. Second night Burnt Island. Finished in Lower Prospect with Andrew who met us for a day paddle. I am in love with my new rig.
Thursday, August 16, 2018, 02:22 PM - Adult and Popular Education
A key element of transformative learning is experimenting with real-world problems. David Kolb’s experiential learning cycle continues to be pivotal. Yet cycles, even spirals, don’t capture the dynamism (and dangers) now available with online and blended learning. Informal means of learning such as podcasts and viral social media posts abound. On one hand, frames have never had more possibility to engage with such a diversity of experiences, bodies, identities, and communities. How to bring feminist and critical pedagogy to these spaces? This paper works to critically frustrate and extend the learning cycle with a hologram which helps to capture online multi-dimensionality as well as distortion.
Online there is both performance and projection. Holographic visualization offers multiple dimensions, movement, refraction, frustration, doubt. But online learners can be supported to move more consciously to meaning and their own deliberations while embedded in life, work, negotiations. This messiness and muddling is key to the transformative potential of online deliberations. The space also has potential to collapse gender and power dynamics in interesting ways as learners shape their own reflective paths at their own pace. These gendered power dynamics are not removed but can be fore-fronted in the learning. The lag between experimentation and insight can be used. Facilitators and peers can act more like coaches, real-time in real messiness.
Friday, August 10, 2018, 01:29 AM - Poetry and Writing
Design and photos: Karen Smith
Saturday, July 7, 2018, 01:59 PM - Outdoor adventure
Photo credit: Maggy Burns
Sometimes when the big picture feels tough, it's nice to focus on the small ones. Dear friends. Beauty. What matters. Started at Kim Thompson's house on Weeks Lake, then Second Falls, Charlotte Lake. We camped on a sweet little pebbled beach near Second Falls. Felt like we were camped on the lake.
Kim built the first straw bale house in North America. It's beautiful. Has that Spanish warm plaster feel that she brought from her time in Spain. She also began an inspiring Earth skills, sustainable building and living, arts centre called the Deanery Project. See link below. I've decided to dedicate all of my charity giving (1% of my income) to everything like this that gives us a glimpse of what is possible. Focus on local.
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