For what do you hope?

I follow a few blogs that feature creative pursuits. Creativity is very healthy. As much as being in nature, the power to heal. To sit quietly beside a lake, under trees blowing in the breeze.

Travelling around the latest Lanark Maple tour we spotted fencers, potters, as well as other creators. A healthy cottage craft.

My latest creation, since my garden is to bed for the winter, was my giraffelope. He is decorated for Christmas. I added wings last week. 

I used the same technique as in dreamcatchers for the wing webbing, 30 yards of rawhide. 

Out in the fresh air, pondering life's mysteries. Strangers stared as they passed!

Hats; my girls in my chair

My daughter crotchets, as my late mother did. I cannot. I tried. I gave up. I have other tricks! I used to do macrame, needlepoint, and made candles in those good old days. Caitlin made hats for her family. She's making a couple to sell to friends of friends, too. Two kids under 3 and she is a busy woman!

Dreamcatcher at Wahta

Now that I no longer have to do marking, plan for teaching, read recent publications for work, and I have leisure time to invest in my interests. I find it lovely to sit and listen to a podcast, or the radio, and putter, while pondering life.

Children's Wishcatcher project

My current project is a hula hoop/wishcatcher. I cannot, in all good conscience, call it a dreamcatcher as that seems a particularly Native spiritual artistic endeavour. I loathe those who steal such designs.

I remember creating wishcatchers with our Children's Bereavement Expressive Arts Therapy Group. We called them wishcatchers.

They were tough for the younger ones, but having to depend upon their mentor for teenage help, holding the beads, and hoops for each other, created an amazing synergy.

It is wonderful therapy. We also did pottery.

child's concept of her mentor/buddy

I talk with my Hospice clients about their hopes. In a recent workshop, I was thinking about this. Some of the literature suggests that we examine our dreams and hopes differently. Hopes change with the diagnosis of 'palliative'. Rather than looking for hope for a cure, we have daily hopes. We can hope on a short-term basis. Things we look forward to each day, or each hour. Rather than hope, I wish peace for my clients. It is different for everyone.

Our group project: HOPE

My dreams have changed. No longer do I wish for 'lawyers, guns and money', to quote a musician, Warren Zevon. I used to hope to have a job in Muskoka, check. I used to wish to retire beside my precious lake. Check. Now, close to family and friends, I have all that I could wish for. I cannot wish for health, as we middle-aged women have our aches and pains. I know that exercise, eating properly, watching my cholesterol all factor. Health is a self-inflicted wound, methinks. We know how to prevent most disease. (*Cardiovascular disease, CVD, is the biggest killer of women.) I'm prepared for whatever befalls. I want to live in the present moment, appreciating the world around me. Overall, I hope I make a difference.

For what do you hope: today, tomorrow, this year?
Are you enjoying each day to the fullest, no regrets about tasks incomplete, dreams delayed? Are you loving yourself as much as others love you?
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*Fact: 41% of all deaths of Canadian women are CVD-related, compared to 37% for men. [Heart and Stroke Foundation.pdf] By the year 2015, almost half of all women in Canada will be aged 45 years or over, which means a large contingent will be in the heart-disease- and stroke-prone years. It costs Canada billions of dollars in health care. The quality of life of CVD survivors – the satisfaction of physical, social, and emotional needs and aspirations – is another indicator of social impact. Unfortunately, there is minimal research on this on women (most studies are on men). Visit CHAP, for more information.