Dream Chaser

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Italy 2020 Trail Running Retreat

This has been a long time coming. Back in 2003 when I was completely culture shocked by my experience in Montreal, we bought an old ruin of a shepherd's house in Northern Tuscany. It was so cheap we got the money out on our credit cards.
Here it is, the year after we bought it. Before then you couldn't even see the house.

We went back every summer to build and finally, around 2009, ended up with this:

and we're still building! Last summer we put a roof on the barn - seriously? It's a huge stone structure but we thought we could do it and we did.

I've had a dream about this place for many years, that I want to share it with others and open up this beautiful spot as a retreat centre. We always had volunteers visiting, bartering their skills for board and lodging, so we're used to a crowd... but finally two years ago I hosted a women's healing retreat and it was wonderful!

This year, I am hosting a women's rest and recharge retreat (one spot left!), and for the first time we are hosting a Plant-Based Trail Runners Retreat!

I am very lucky to have a great coach on board: Coach Kyle coaches runners around the world. He will be offering a one-on-one session with each runner, and of course will lead the daily trail runs and supervise strength work, stretching and other work (gratitude practice, breathing techniques, plant-based nutrition advice). I also have a guest yoga teacher joining us... the one and only Julia Gordon...here is what she has to say:

"Hello runners and fellow adventurers! I am looking forward to meeting you all in the Tuscan hills!

About me: I completed my Yoga Teacher Training Program at Anamaya Yoga School in Costa Rica in 2016. I discovered my own practice in 2006 while completing a three year contemporary dance program and came to yoga with a passion for expressive movement. Over the years I have found that yoga helps me to maintain a sense of freedom in a fast paced world. By connecting to my body I remember my own strengths and individuality and feel more confident in my place in the world. In my class I’d like to invite people to do the same. During this retreat we can address specific concerns that come up for runners, but also focus on increasing a sense of openness and fluidity in the body in general. I will offer a mix of strength building asana and yin practice, as well as guided visualizations, that will have you up and running through this beautiful Italian landscape."

Our meals will be plant based and abundant. Our menu is designed by the chef at my very own cafe in Montreal, where we serve delicious vegan and vegetarian food. Accommodation is basic and shared, but comfortable and I guarantee you will sleep well. We have a million stars in the sky every night, and a night time silence broken only by the occasional scuffle of the boar roaming in the chestnut groves.

Are you into something different this summer? Challenge yourself! Come along and run with us! Visit us here!

Monday, January 20, 2020

Woman Centred Birth

https://www.feministcurrent.com/2020/01/20/using-gender-neutral-language-regarding-women-and-childbirth-is-about-more-than-semantics/

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Seek Peace

It is the time of year when a lot of people are thinking about the future: the darkest time of the year, in the northern hemisphere, and the coldest. I, for one, am hoping that in 2020 I can be a better person and I hope my friends and family stay healthy and get joy during this coming year.

I just started my new agenda for 2020. Passion Planner is my favourite agenda: it helps keep me focused, lets me multitask and still be organized, and I can write all my dreams, hopes and ideas in it and keep everything in one place.

Last Passion Planner (was in 2017, I skipped a year and feel I got disorganized), my main goal was to build up my cafe. I wanted to get to a place where I could make a living from it, instead of working for free and watching every penny. I had a secondary goal for 2018, to run a marathon. I achieved both of those goals that year and felt very proud.

This year, I have a few goals for 2020. I have pretty specific goals for my cafe. I want to grow my retreat project, WorkInProgress Retreats. I want to run a marathon in May, and my first trail race in October.

But the goal that I realized was my most important one for the start of this new year was "regain and retain my inner peace". I lost my centre this past year, and I'm not sure why. Partly from overwork, and a sense of fatigue. Partly from feeling like my "good works" - the projects I have put hours and hours of my life into - are such a tiny drop in the ocean ... it's almost not worth it. Partly from my intense sense of disillusion and concern for the political and social climate we live in. Anyway, my centre walked away, and I want to run after it.

One of the most interesting things about getting old in this culture is that there isn't a lot of value placed on having lived on the planet for a long time. In fact, the general feeling I get (apart from the lovely young people who offer me their seats on the metro) is that when you're over 60 you gain a certain stupidity, a certain slowness of mind and dullness of brain.

And, the fact is, my body is changing. So is my mind, and my heart. In fact, I am experience this change as much more radical than several of my previous ones. I slid into pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and child-raising like a fish into water (well, giving birth was tough...). I felt myself, I was alive and centred in my skin. Adolescence, on the other hand, was awful. I was already shy, I spoke with an accent, my hair was frizzy, I had crooked teeth, and I was smart ... AND two years younger than my classmates. I didn't feel at home in my skin for a long time. Poetry helped, and copious amounts of beer and other mood stabilizers.

Now I feel the same. Where did this frizzy grey hair come from? Why do I look so old in the mirror? How did my body get shorter? My knuckles are bumpy. I have arthritis in my knees.
This is not rational stuff: I know I am incredibly lucky to be as healthy as I am. I run marathons, for God's sake. But it feels like adolescence, all over again. And the difference is, this time I'm older and wiser. And I know how to regain my inner peace, and retain it.

So, a list for the coming year:

run every day, even if it's just a mile with the dog
be master of my devices
do a meditation retreat in 2020
say no if I want to (if it's not a big deal)
be kind
take proper care of myself
turn away from evil and do good
seek peace and pursue it
don't nag the kids
lower expectations
have lots of parties

I'll be letting you know how it goes. In the meantime, stay well everyone, keep joy, be kind, do good.

Monday, November 11, 2019

Competition vs Compassion

I had a super fun race last week. It was a 21 k and leading up to it was tough. I ran a half marathon a month ago (Rock'n'Roll Montreal). I didn't have fun, the race organizers were cheap, the route was boring, I was grumpy. No one came down to meet me, greet me, or brunch me. So I decided to get faster for my next one, but I just didn't have time, I had a weight on my shoulders of heavy cares and worries... anyway, I decided to suck it up and last Sunday morning I got up early and headed out to a beautiful spot: Oka National Park.

I got to the race and realized I'd forgotten my earphones! I use music for pleasure, for inspiration, for pace when I'm running. I decided I would take the opportunity to think about things during my race. I divided the 21 k up into 5 k sections and assigned tasks to each section.

First five k: The first five kilometers are tough. I forced myself to be in my body, completely, and to not think; just to feel my body, be conscious of form and breath.

Five to Ten: I allowed myself to think about my writing projects, and to organize things in my head a little. I revisited some thoughts I'd been having about compassion: compassion towards others, and compassion towards oneself. Life has been teaching me that it's important to be grateful for whatever people are capable of doing. Be compassionate, try to see things from their point of view. But recently I've been thinking about applying that to myself: be compassionate towards myself, remember that I am capable of doing what I'm doing. Don't push it. But, if I don't push it, who will? Isn't my goal to be a better person?

Ten to Fifteen: I imagined angels with each step. Angels were flying over to my friend Kimberley's place. She's been my running buddy for a few years, and recently she's been having a struggle with cancer. We're not running together for now, although just a few days before her surgery we went on a lovely 7 k up on the mountain. I digress. Every step produced little angels that I imagined were floating off to Kimberley to do good. I hope they do.

Fifteen to Twenty: was supposed to be Happy Thoughts. I focused on emptying my mind of worries and thinking about fun things. But then, at around kilometer 16, we had a loop back and I passed facing the runners that had been behind me. The 2:30 bunnies were there, good. Also a guy who looked to be about my age. We gave each other a thumbs up. I continued with Happy Thoughts until I realized that Older Dude was gaining on me. By k 18 he was running about three meters behind me. Then two kilometers before the finish line he gained on me and was just about a meter in front of me. I thought to myself, for a microsecond, "Poor old dude, he deserves to get in ahead of me. After all, its not a race..." What??? Yes it is!

At 19 k I started running faster, and faster, until by about 50 meters from the finish line I was well ahead of Older Dude. I crossed the line well ahead of him, happy that I beat him, happy that I sprinted the end of my race.

So, Twenty to Finish Line? Pure, unadulterated competition. It felt good! And, of course, after we picked up our medals, me and Older Dude and his wife shared a high five and a chuckle about how it all went down.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

Do It Yourself - Raising One Hell of a Roof

We've always been a do-it-yourself kind of family. No, I didn't homeschool my kids. I was happy for them to get out of the house and learn Italian and .... I didn't want replicas of me. God knows I'm not perfect. We were so isolated on the farm it would've been just me and them, nope not for us.

But everything else, yip we did it ourselves... growing food, killing chickens, making wine ... building a house, building another house, you get the picture.

So, last summer we needed to fix up the roof on the barn. Here it is in pictures. Cautionary note: do not try this at home. Put this playlist on loud so you can get in the groove of what it was like. Every day, we woke up, had some breakfast, and got out into the boiling sun to wrestle with beams. Enjoy!

A day in the life... mama is cooking lunch and the guys are grooving to Led Zeppelin and moving homemade scaffolding around. Yeh! We took down the old roof, created steel-reinforced concrete supports, put up support beams, structural beams, panels, ceiling ... all on a stone structure from a couple of hundred years ago, that was CROOKED!

The Roof:

The Materials:

and a lot of sand, cement, bricks, and pasta!

The Players:

Two lanky but energetic teenagers, a power-lifter Classics student, the Boss, and me, yours truly, 62 years old former midwife, cafe owner, and long distance runner.