Sketch of Wat Lam Chang, Moonmuang, Soi 7, viewed from my window...

It's raining. (It was when I began. Now it's turned to snow!) Blessed life-giving rain. I lived the first third of my life under dreary skies much of the time, also beautiful sun-kissed days that ran for ever in my dreams, but now it's different. After almost thirty years in Alberta, in a particularly peculiar and endlessly interesting place, the lack of rain is the norm. Blessed are we who are fortunate to call this our home; crystal-clear air, sweeping heart-pounding grandeur of the Rockies, backed by blisteringly blue sky, girdled by endlessly morphing landscapes.

As the climate change progresses, changes here are dramatic. In the first ten years I could set my calendar by the winter weather  - New Year's Eve marked the change year after year. A cold clear New Year's Evening to end a cold clear Fall transformed into a raging blizzard leaving behind a New Morning layered with a new landscape of thick white snow. This seasonal blanketing buffered the land beneath, offering protection from the phenomenal Chinook winds blasting through this south-western corner of the province. Winds that whip the moisture from ground to air evaporating as it blows far, far away on the teeth of mighty gales in search of a distant solution. The percentage of water that makes it deep into the ground to feed the tall trees and deepest roots is only moderate. Flora and fauna hereabouts have species-specific idiosyncrasies unique for survival in our wild Alberta climate.

As the years pass and our winters become noticeably drier, the desertification of the landscape continues to creep onward with such subtle creativity that the vast majority of human doings fail to notice a thing.

Meanwhile, amid all angst or chaos, love reigns supreme. Call upon Rumi at times, call upon my inner bard at others.

Practising yoga since the 70s! As a child I learned with my Mum from a book... Richard Hittleman’s Yoga For Health. Over the years, squirming around on the floor came naturally to me, I only had to see a yoga pose and I was in it. I usually sit on the floor in preference to a chair. As an antidote to the IT job I found myself in for 10 years, I practised Hatha yoga in Priddis, Kundalini yoga in Calgary, Multi-faceted Iyengar-influenced yoga in Bragg Creek... and began to build my Thai Massage practice.

Out Of The Rut - From Canada to Chiang Mai and Beyond

I had a great practice of Thai Massage, Table Massage and Yoga in Bragg Creek, Priddis and Millarville. Life was good... except there were things that had to change, I had to pack up my existence here and move to Asia:

Over the past decade, having abandoned a comfortable life in the Alberta Foothills to live and work in Thailand, I took an abrupt detour to travel the world with my amazing partner Fantuzzi. I met Fantuzzi on Christmas Day 2010 in Chiang Mai (Thailand) as he walked toward me alongside of the building in which I was living. This fortuitous meeting lead not only to great adventures, learning and experiencing so much, but to opportunities to share my craft(s) in a few obscure places on this planet.

I had the privilege of being smuggled at night across military-patrolled borders beween Jerusalem and Bethlehem to teach yoga to an international group of women in Bethlehem. With great excitement I hustled from one small car to a large black SUV under cover of darkness, to emerge a few minutes later in the bright lights of a perfectly normal-looking fiteness centre with some very enthusiastic ladies awaiting me.

I taught in Dar El Salaam, Tanzania - for what I discovered to be a group of fairly intense Ashtanga practitioners and teachers. I was a little intimidated by that! I taught in Manilla, Phillipines, and in Munich, Germany, but my favourite experience must be the time I was asked to teach Thai Yoga Massage to a crowd of over 250 spilling out all sides of the great tent we over-filled at the fantastical Woodford Festival outside Brisbane, Australia.

In each of these places I also joined classes, studied, listened and learned. I got to plunge into Hot Yoga in Aspen, Colorado, Reggae Yoga at a class at the Bali Spirit Festival (in between managing a stage and performing myself), I've dropped in with Danny Paradise in several of his workshops - always full of fun and humour along with a lifetime's knowledge and insight. I discovered connections around the world to the place of my first Yoga Teacher Training - Yandara Yoga in Baja, California. I've rocked out to some brilliant drumming while in Downward Dog in a class in Munich, I've cruised through Sun Salutations on the Spanish Sierras and burnt my feet practicing on the beaches of Goa, India.

Coming home to the Foothills each and every year of my travels sustains and drains me. I would return to work twice as hard here as on the road. People in each place assumed I was on holiday when I went away! It was astoundingly varied, challenging, inspiring and glorious to travel. Eventually I burnt through all my reserves and came to a crashing halt. A couple of years later, as I was hoping the road to recovery was shortening, Covid came along to bring another "great pause". The silver lining for me was that my body needed another year of rest.

Now I've been home several years, the energy is returning and with luck, balance is regained. Now is the time. I can feel the energy bubble in me, the need to get out and share the things I love, what makes me happy, healthy, amazed, pleased, challenged, changed! Ten years on... I'm back to sharing in my rural community of the Foothills, hoping there are many roads yet to travel with new friends, old friends, passing friends and more.