pilgrimage & finger knitting

Last weekend Robert, Natan, and I zipped up to Vancouver (well, zipped up to the border, then crawled over that, then zipped up to the Massey tunnel, then inched through that...) for a dinner gathering first conceived of by master-manifestor Penny Scott. Penny had the idea a few months ago that it would be lovely to somehow gather together Ashley (then living in Texas), me (in Seattle), Caitlin (Bowen Island) and herself (North Vancouver). It sounded like "a good idea but who knows when that could happen" kind of dream. But now I know that things like that come together all the time, and easily, around Penny! And it was a lovely gathering, lots of sushi, wine, and funny stories.

A couple of days later my family and I tagged along with Ashley to Bowen Island to visit Chris and his children (Caitlin was visiting her mother in the city) in their sunny home full of paintings and drawings and things to play with. After chatting on the deck that overlooks the bay, surrounded by evergreen treetops, and after Aine taught Ashley and me to finger-knit with chunky yarn, we went on a perfect-blue-sky-spring-scented walk around one of the lakes, where Chris plucked licorice fern root for us to chew on, Natan and Finn ran ahead again and again to hide and jump out at us (Finn chose an exceptionally great hiding place, under the bridge like a little troll) and we talked about lots of things and no-things. Just weaving an elemental, sun and water and voice and eye-to-eye substrate of relation, to deepen friendships that have consisted in large part of electrons printing out thoughts on a screen. It turns out that more than a few blogger and Open Space friends have made the idyllic pilgrimage to Bowen to visit Chris and his family, which creates in my mind the image of a glowing criss-crossing of resonant tracks and footprints, a lively magnetic field being born of conversations and overlapping presences.

darjeeling & lemon scones, and ice cream in the garden

My elf-friends Rowan and Karen gave me one of the best presents ever, last year, a smooth carved black buddha-esque face, like a solid mask, on a pedestal. As a reminder that our face, our presence, is so precious. That seeing & acknowledging one another is such a deep true part of love and friendship and community.

Rowan Hamilton's two years as Bastyr University Herbal Sciences core faculty--as well as resident Herbal Wizard and instigator of the Outlaw Curriculum--overlapped in the middle with my own two year stint as assistant dean for the Naturopathic Medicine program. I know a lot of masterful teachers (including my own matey!), and from Rowan what I am particularly learning about teaching is the way it is a powerful vehicle for making space to venture deeply into what matters most to us about being alive. Relevant to any course topic, whether it's herbal formulation, practice management, or physiology from a systems perspective.

Our most creative and productive curriculum-mapping sessions, seeing how all the pieces really are related, and concocting ways to give ourselves and our students opportunities to see & feel & know it, were of course never in our pleasant offices or conference rooms. We did our best work either over Darjeeling tea (don't steep too long!) and lemon scones at the teahouse down the highway, or basking in the university's medicinal herb garden, with plenty of paper and markers and chocolate praline ice cream bars on hand, or walking with our crony Dan Leahy on the grounds or on the trails in the woods next to campus.

Rowan's back in Vancouver full-time, and his teaching has taken a whole new form. He's asked if he could put some stuff up here to share, and I said, yes please!! So these few words are a little bit of introduction, and encouragement to come play, and soon.