December 2006 potluck notes

Hello all!
The nostalgia of the season is getting to me. I put up my Christmas decorations early this year so that we would have a festive potluck, and it turned out to be all that and more. We had a cornucopia of delicious food, veggies and dips, vegetarian stew, lentil and carrot soup (the recipe is here too) apple crisp, plum pudding and mulled cider (recipes are also on the blog).

It was really a magical night, we welcomed back Mair from her travels abroad to Ireland and Scotland and of course to Findhorn. You can learn more about her travels at her blog. You may even like to ask her about her miracle.

Teresa is off to Australia and a 1 year contract with Outward Bound. We will miss her at the potlucks, but we will keep in touch through the blogs! Her blog is here. It was really great that Mair and Teresa got to see each other before she left.

What did we talk about? Lots of things as usual. Four of us from the group have been involved in a very exciting and innovative project called "Net Zero". The aim of this project is to bring together an assortment of people - engineers, architects, designers, builders, bankers, landscapers, and alternative energy specialists to design and build a house that -over the course of a year- uses no energy. CMHC is sponsoring this Canada wide contest and we have been involved in the Alberta effort. The house will be built in Riverdale. You can find out more about this project at this address.

We also talked about pet empathy and communicating with animals. Everything from Mair's story of telling the fruit flies in her worm bins to leave and they did, to Kim telling a dog that was on the Whitemud to get to the side before it got hurt, and it did. I'm sure all of us have had these telepathic experiences with animals, but have we ever thought about what it means? Have you ever been deep in thought and looked around to find yourself surrounded with butterflies? Or when you see a certain type of animal at a certain time in your life, what message are you supposed to get? There are lots of dead bats being found at the bottom of the wind turbines in Pincher Creek. Why? What is attracting them there? it might be something to pay attention to.

Some books that offer insight and further thought on these subjects are:

When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Susan McCarthy. If you would llike to read an excerpt from this book click here.

Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small , Ted Andrews. If you would like to read an excerpt from this book, click here.

Some other books that came up this evening were:

Stillness Speaks, by Eckhart Tolle, See excerpt

Boundless Love, by Miranda Holden, sorry no excerpt for this one.

The Universe Is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story by Brian Swimme. To read an excerpt, click here

We then talked about the many opportunities this time of year affords for enjoying music and choirs. And woven into this topic of watching the kids' Christmas concerts, was the issue of childhood obesity we all hear so much about on the news. Among those at the potluck, none noticed that any of the kids in the choirs had these issues, which led us to wonder if singing could possibly prevent obesity? We then proceeded to sing a number of rounds of songs that Teresa taught us from her workshop experiences.

One of the songs - which I did not capture the title from, perhaps Teresa will read this and let me know- goes as follows:

may you dwell in the heart
may you be free from suffering
may you be healed
may you be at peace

may I dwell in the heart
may I be free from suffering
may I be healed
may I be at peace

may we dwell in the heart
may we be free from suffering
may we be healed
may we be at peace.

That is my wish for all of you as this year quickly draws to a close. There was some talk of a New Year's Eve gathering, details still to be worked out. If anyone is interested in this please let me know. maureen@iamdesigns.com