Peterborough Morning

A rhythm explodes through my dreams and I am awake. I reach for my phone to stop the digitalized alarm and am suddenly immersed in mid-October morning sounds. The sun is shining, says the colour of my tent. Bright, lustrous orange. I push my head further outside the 'broil' setting of my sleeping bag and the cold attacks the newly exposed warmth of my face.

Maybe I can just sleep for a few more minutes. . .

But no. Today I am time wolf and the team depends on my wakefulness to start the day on time.

With the strength of responsibility, I push myself out of the tent and unzip the mesh, then the fly.

The grass sparkles silver. The fly is covered in a thin icy layer. Leaves twirl to the ground, the first frost--an abrupt farewell. A haze hangs over the river beyond our tent village--perched, unsuspecting, on the river bank.

I shake each tent and call the names of their inhabitants, making sure everyone has heard the call and responded with their consciousness.

I hurry inside and make my way to the bathroom. I haven't showered for six days, but the smell of last night's campfire makes for a nice perfume as I brush out the tangles in my hair and wash my face.

Photo by: Michèle Bigras

Outside of the bathroom, I fill a pot with oatmeal and water, for about the 43rd time since tour started. I cut up the apples that were donated the day before. I spread out the other breakfast options on the table, glancing out the window for signs of life from my fellow tent dwellers.

They emerge.

Wiping sleep from their eyes, but smiling to greet the chilly morning.

Packing gear and tents in silence, from where I stand, warm inside our host's house. I smile, feeling the rhythm, the routine, unconventional as it may be, that we've finally gotten into.

And I take a deep breath, 9 days left.

Otesha

I've been here before,

the same space but remolded--

reframed for a different cast and theme.

Memories come without warning,

but warmly, welcome.

Upturned lips and far-away gaze

remembered details in rewound haze.

Steel wheels, spinning discs.

Belongings piled like nomads.
Traversing curvaceous road.

Muscles ache in protest.

But singing voices hide the pain

behind melodies and lyrics recalled

to songs once believed: 'best forgotten'

Cycling through roles

like the towns we ride though.

Strengths exposed, creativity uncovered.

We became actors, characters carved

from pieces of wood block.
Hibernating seeds underground,
supported by the forest; we sprout.

Twinkling fingers to decide,

spreads laughter to their twinkling eyes.

Sparking fire for children frozen inside

to reimagine the world.

Unanswered questions forgot, but

we were doctors of philosophy at two feet

so surely all is not lost.

Grab all the colours the world can hold

in a vessel to unfold the beauty

onto a page of hope

flavour for the black and white

hum drum drone of happenings.

Best way to keep the clouds away;
a daily dose of double rainbow.

Job Searching. . .

I'm looking for a position that:

Pays at least moderately well.  You know, so I could say. . .rent an apartment and pay the necessary living expenses involved, have meals 3 times a day, travel home (or to another destination) on occasion, make bike repairs as needed, be able to go out with friends a couple times a week and save some for the future.

I desire to work in every day that I am required to work (or at the very least the majority of days I am required to work).  If work is going to require a large portion of my time, it follows that I should enjoy that work and certainly, will perform better if I do.

Doesn't require all of my time and energy.  Although I would like to be invested and feel a purpose for working in whatever position I may find (that satisfies my conditions, of course), what's the point of working to make money to work to make money to work to make money to work to make money etc. repeat until death or retirement?

Helps me to develop my skills and interests simultaneously, both personal and professional, whatever they may be.  In this category I would accept anything related to Japanese/English language, International experience and relations, cycling, reading, cooking delicious vegetarian/vegan food, organic farming. . .etc.

Doesn't directly OR indirectly harm people (be they in my country of employment or otherwise) OR the environment.  This can include a pension plan that is invested in companys/coorporations who are scrutinized for destroying the homelands/environment/living conditions of people and violating their basic human rights (even if they are not in the country in which I am working), extracting resources that are polluting the environment in the extraction process, following a long transportation, and thus CO2 emitting, line, not paying workers in the country of extraction fair wages or working to develop their local economy (and if the amount being paid to the country for their resources could be called "fair" but it is being eaten be government officials and/or their sons/daughters, it doesn't count).

Is committed to developing and investing in a sustainable future for all of the 7 billion people living on this earth.  A position that doesn't only exist because of the number of people it can exploit or have under it's finger or the forests and water tables that it's destroying.  A position that isn't just going along with "the way that it's always been" because "the way that it's always been" clearly does NOT work for the majority of 7 billion people nor will it work when natural resources (LIKE WATER!) which are already scarce for many, become non-existent/unusable for everyone.

Is fun and restores my faith in humanity and the world. . .

is that so much to ask?

Otesha Rap

This is the rap I wrote for Otesha. . .ended up using it as our intro a couple of times.

Enigma:
Hey yo, my names Enigma I got something to say
You see I joined this cycling food tour just the other day
2 months on bikes again, we started out on the first of May
same same but different ya know cuz we performing a play
Negative Newt:
Ya, sorry Enigma but you lost me this time
cycling, i get. but giving up life to mime?
not cool. and i heard they ain't gon' pay you a dime
you better grow up, stop this idealist shit, get in line.
Enigma:
alrite, sorry. no more negative newts on the track
bike toured before it's true but now i'm getting back
to my roots at home, i been away and got of track
in a good way. but still, gotta pull up slack
feeling kinda negative myself these days
when i see toronto from niagara covered in haze
no one invests in community less there's proof that it pays
maybe no one else sees the way we live as a craze
anyways, i think y'all feel me on that
i'm here cuz even one makes a huge impact
empower youth change the world. i mean it's practically fact
so what i want to achieve, ya let's move on to that.
i got lofty goals it's true, i don't wanna lie
educate bout implications. what you support when you buy
if you knew the whole truth you might just break down and cry
bout the processing that goes into each mcdonald's fry
but Enigma's been there and now she sees it differently
can't get anywhere if you feed fear and apathy
gotta hope. let your passion burn. love is the key
to make the shift from disparity into unity.

what?!

Creative Destruction

The end and the beginning.
Just finished the Otesha Phenomenal Food Tour yesterday and drove home with 3 of the lovely tour members to Niagara, via Toronto.
We left Ottawa and River Glen farm after a final breakfast together as a team and an appreciation circle where one person entered the circle and everyone had a minute to shout out amazing things about the person in the centre.

Superhero Day

Book Love: putting love messages in random books

Bike Love: Putting love messages on random bikes

The wonders of sidewalk chalk

Driving away from the faces that had become so familiar over the past 2 months was bittersweet. These wonderful people are my family. I love them and yet I know that for us to be together much longer in a group like this would impede our ability to branch out into the world and spread our knowledge, our love and our energy to everyone we know. It's much more effective to do that individually or in smaller groups than as a large and somehow intimidating group of amazing, confident, inspiring people. It can be difficult for the uninitiated to feel comfortable right away being stinky, or growing armpit hair (and talking about it every debrief), drying underwear anywhere and everywhere, skinny dipping, having constant lentil farts and performing in front of large audiences. That's understandable. It doesn't happen right away. . .but hopefully we can all strive to create a more judgement free, comfortable and loving atmosphere for everyone we meet, so we can nurture their talents, their inner strength and help them to realize how amazing they are too. We can create our own groups in our respective communities and spread the Otesha jam even further :)

And so it ends.

Finish: Ottawa

Yesterday I picked up my passport from the Indian Visa services. Visa, plane and train ticket. . .that's happening too. I can't believe that in a mere 2 days I will be on a plane to India, to a new experience and a new chapter of my life. It gets pretty overwhelming if I think about it too much.  However, I trust that it will be the experience that I need and whatever happens and comes of the trip, will be extremely worthwhile. Definitely a new test of my 氣 tho.
It's not to say that I'm not conflicted. I want to learn and try to do what I can to help the situation. That being said, I don't currently know the situation I will be working in or trying to help. I think a lot of "international development" (the term itself makes me uneasy. . .what exactly is it we're trying to develop anyway? what does development even mean? etc.) initiatives are seriously flawed in that, they are not well thought out, context based or sustainable much of the time. I know that going to India and volunteering myself is not equal to help, it could in fact, cause more harm than good. So my first priority is to learn as much as possible about the situation, the history, the politics, the language, the religion, the people, everything!! until I can better identify where my presence would be most useful.
Another conflict is the fact that I'm leaving Canada again. There is so much here that I could be doing too! There are so many issues and so many initiatives that are so awesome (as I just found out on the Phenomenal Food Tour!) that would be great to get more involved in. There are some really great people that I met and reconnected with during the tour that are doing really exciting and amazing things. Why leave your own situation when you can make change right here, right now? Not only that, but I DO know the context and I DO speak the language (well, at least one of them :S Still need to work on French) and I actually COULD be effective much sooner!!

I consider this. If I changed my mind and just didn't go to India. . .I would save a lot of money. . .I wouldn't need to be in such a rush or be sad to be leaving my new and old friends, family, life, bicycle, copious amounts of Canadian music shows that I love, winter, maple syrup. I could find work with an environmental organization or fight for the rights of those whose voices are often silenced in Canada. . .I could build a better community in Niagara, grow a garden in my backyard, move to Kensington with my friend who has a spare bedroom in a few months. . .I don't need to go to India at all to do things that I want to do.

But my guiding voice says otherwise.
I'm being pulled, forcefully, magnetically, unavoidably. To cancel my trip seems like the harder choice at this point, even though cancelling would seem to make my life much easier. So I throw myself into the world with few strong connections, few plans, and an extreme amount of energy and curiosity. Come what may.

In an interstellar blast, I'm back to save the universe! :)

Krazy Kingston.

Hello fine folks on my list of fine folks to mail random happenings in my life to!! :)

How are you doing?! I've dropped the ball on updating what's going on on our tour, yet again. . .but I assure you it has been:
jam-packed full of awesomeness, inspiring, informative, FUN, fantastic, super, I could go on.

A Goat in a Boat - Happy Farm

I believe I left off in Drayton? Wow. So much has happened since then that it seems like a number of years ago almost! Since then we've done a number of performances at a number of schools, we've been to a few farms (Vickie's Veggies, Happy Farm, Lunar Rhythms Garden) and intentional communities and have learned a little bit more about the alternative agricultural practices and community initiatives that are happening around Southern Ontario.

Bathroom Sink Laundering and Natural Drying

We also had our mid tour retreat last week in Peterborough which was great. We had some unscheduled (initially!) group time to discuss issues that we hadn't previously had a whole lot of time to get to and were able to tighten the cables and lube the chains. . .so to speak. We also had long-awaited access (and time!) to showers, laundering facilities and internet!!!!; daily luxuries that you take for granted when not on a fantastic Otesha tour across Ontario. Before the tour I remember Katrina, one of our guides mentioning that we may decide to take on challenges as a group, like, not showering for a week to conserve water. Before the tour, I thought that was a little extreme. . .now, however it has become almost common place for the whole team.
We simply don't have access to showers all the time and don't always want to be imposing on our amazing hosts to provide showers for all 15 of us! We do stagger our showers though (turn the water on and off between soaping and rinsing) to make sure that there is as little water waste as possible and occasionally substitute showers with swims in random creeks/lakes/rivers enroute. And of course there are always bathroom sinks.

Right now we are in Kingston. It's really weird to be back in the city I lived in for University. EVEN WEIRDER is that Danielle lives in the same house I lived in when I was here as a student!!!!! WHAT!? We've been staying in my old house for the past couple of nights and will be heading to Battersea tomorrow. I'm excited for the last 2 weeks! They're going to be AMAZING :D

Play practice outside my old house!

We made it to Drayton!

Hello from Drayton!

Start: Hidden Acres Farm

Sorry for the lack of correspondence thus far! Our first 3-ish weeks have been jam-packed (haha Otesha inside-joke) with training, performances, biking, meetings, sharing feelings circles, and not a lot of time. . .especially time combined with internet! Hopefully that trend will not continue for the rest of the tour!
My new Otesha team (family) of 14 and I just rolled in to Ploughshare farms in Drayton yesterday evening. Today we are at Drayton Heights Public School where they are talking about "The Power of Positive Choices" and are trying to fight bullying. We did our Otesha play in the morning and are doing 3 workshops this afternoon. After that we're heading back to the farm for a few days for a workshare (we'll be exchanging farm work for a place to stay) and our next rest day! Hurray!

 The last 3 weeks have been pretty amazing and inspiring but also quite challenging and busy. We met in Kitchener on May 1st and cycled 30k to New Hamburg where we stayed for the first week at Hidden Acres Camp getting to know each other and training with Katrina and Matt from the Otesha Office. We had a full week of wonderful workshops on such wonderful themes as bike maintenance, media kung-fu, safety, consensus decision making and of course the play! We also developed a "food mandate" that we are trying to follow so that we are all more conscious of our food choices and eating in an environmentally sustainable way as well.

The 2011 Otesha Phenomenal Food Tour!

We decided collectively to adopt a vegan diet for our communal cooking with vegetarian options (eggs and milk products) when we are relatively certain that the animal products are being procured by ethical and sustainable methods. So far we've had eggs from Plan B Organic Farm and we're excited to check out Mapleton's Organic Dairy later today for ice cream!! It has been difficult to suddenly switch to a vegan diet for some of the team members and the group has been trying out different things to make the food mandate work for everyone. Everyone is free to buy whatever they want with their own money but we are mainly trying to be more conscious of our decisions with respect to food. We've decided that no one is to be a "judgement jaguar", so everyone has been very accepting, supportive and accommodating to personal needs as well. Another difficulty we have encountered is accepting food from some of the wonderful hosts we've had. Some of our hosts have been planning events for us for months and we only just developed our food mandate 3 weeks ago so it is sometimes hard for us to get the message clearly to hosts that want to provide us with food. We are still working out the details of how we handle food that doesn't fit into our mandate that has been generously donated to us by our hosts. Although, personally, I think it's most important that we have the opportunity to open up discussion about our food choices and why we've chosen the food mandate that we have.
Last week was our first week on the road and we covered about 350km! We went first to Plan B farm, then to Ancaster Highschool for a few performances and to the Boys and Girls club for the night. The next day we had 2 performances at St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School which went great! Afterwards though, we're still not sure why but a number of team members got sick and were unable to ride the 65km to Acton. We decided to rent a car to transport the 3 of us (Elise, Alyssa and I with Sam driving) to the next location while the rest of the team rode. By the time we all got to the destination another 3 or 4 team members had also become ill. Fortunately though, most of us were better by the next day where we went to Acton Highschool to participate in their water symposium. Then we had a couple of days of riding to Balidifad and then Toronto for a much needed rest day before the Organic Affair!

Outside of the house bus

Inside of Plan B's house bus!

friends forever

The Organic affair was at the Brickworks in Toronto which is an amazing space! We went on a tour where we learned about all of the amazing things they're doing with the old Brick factory and put on a 15 minute of our performance for the first ever time where an Otesha tour has actually been able to attend the Organic Affair (a bi-annual Otesha fund-raising event). The Organic Affair was great with lots of great people, speeches, and delicious brownies!!! We also met up with the Mammalian Diving Reflex, which is an organization very hard to define but are doing really interesting things with art as a tool for social change. One thing they do is called "Social Acupuncture"; they find contradicting ideas in normal society and making them happen (?) like haircuts by children! Check out the link above for more information, they have some super cool ideas!
After leaving Toronto we headed towards Etobicoke to Thistletown Collegiate Institute for a performance and then back in the direction of Waterloo (!?!?! haha). We went through Guelph to Ignatius Farm where we camped on the lawn for the night and had some delicious tea with the interns working there for the season. The next day we headed off to the University of Waterloo for a dry night in the residence and the next day, a 3 hour CanBike training session and another performance and workshop with the amazing Waterloo Unlimited Grade 10 students in the evening. We did 2 performances the next morning at Waterloo Collegiate Institute and then cycled a beautiful 60k to Drayton where we are now!

So I think that sums up our busy schedule so far. We've also had various rotating roles that we've had to fulfil in our group (some examples: meeting facilitator, time wolf, waste management, gratitude giver, etc.) and rotating cooking groups that are responsible for our food during the day.In all, we're getting to know each other a LOT better, getting better and stronger on our bikes, becoming more efficient working as a team and learning a lot through our collective experiences and tour stops about food, sustainability and the power of positive choices! Now all we need is SUN!!

Weeding at Ploughshare

OTESHA!!!

OTESHA OTESHA OTESHA OTESHA

Starts TOMORROW~!!!!!!!!