The Redpath

I recently discovered the Redpath Museum, by way of a wonderful octogenarian who volunteers at the library where I work and who also volunteers at the museum. I don't know why it never occurred to me to ferret out a natural history museum here, when they are always huge favourites of mine, but then again I am part hermit.

A couple of weekends ago I finally had a chance to visit and I loved it. So much to see and soak up, I really just did a survey for future visits. As far as museums go, the Redpath isn't huge (although the collection is still impressive), and we managed to see it in under three hours, although we did not read all of the accompanying signs... or very many of them at all actually, so busy just admiring the artifacts. Anyway, as it was snowing on that Sunday (Snowing. In May. I'll just let that sink in.) going to a museum was a perfect afternoon outing.  

The building itself is worth the visit, honestly. The front part is behind scaffolding at the moment, but once you are inside, you are wrapped up in the 19th century. Perfect creaky wooden floors, molding on the walls and ceilings... the carved posts, the railings, the display cases, the old wobbly imperfect glass. Gorgeous!

You may not even notice the backdrop though, the collection is pretty captivating. 

The foyer has a perfect undersea diorama, with sea snails, cephalopods and cridnoids. It is showing the Ordovician period, waaaaay back when Montreal was submerged and tropical (which was nearly half a billion years ago).

Other foyer highlights included a giant clam (GIANT), a giant crab (even GIANTER) and a small case for their "Montreal: Ville de Verre" exhibit, which was a few (really neat) specimens made of glass. 

The first floor also has a "Back to the Sea" hallway (it truly is a little hallway) with a little mix of old and new.That's a juvenile mink whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling, and the skeletons of a leather back turtle and a seal on the wall. That giant thing that looks like part of a ship is actually part of a whale skull (I forget which kind). On the wall opposite was an icthyosaur fossil.  

Next you go up to the second floor, which is a treasury of shells and minerals, displayed in glass & wood cases, in a beautiful, bright room.

Which is lovely, but hard to concentrate on, because you keep seeing glimpses of this guy through the doorway, into the next room: 

That room is Dawson Gallery, and it is the money room. It's got all the dinosaurs and a lot of stuffed/taxidermy-ed specimens and a guy called Bruno giving impromptu tours.

One of my favourite things was this Irish Elk skull (not Irish, or an elk, really... taxonomists are so zany) but it is a bit hard to make them out in the photo. Also very cool: suspended from the (high! blue! Versaille-ish!) ceiling was an origami pteranodon. 

Next you go up a flight of stairs, passing an unlikely trio: 

(I totally need to tell you that I knew what kind of gorilla that was from across the room. 

Me: "Hmmm. That looks like a mountain gorilla. A young silverback I would guess."

Adrien: "Right, whatever. It's a gorilla. Look over here at this cool thing!"

Me: "No, it's not a lowland gorilla, they're more gracile and the hair is shorter. It's definitely Gorilla beringei beringei."

Adrien: "Hey, I think there's something neat over there..."

Me: (checking little card) "I knew it! An adolescent male mountain gorilla!"

Adrien: *rolls eyes*

I haven't been in university for thousands of years for nothing!)

Finally you go up to the top floor, the mezzanine or balcony, which houses their ethnology collection. Again, it was small, but really neat. They had real mummies, ancient Grecian coins, a Buddha statue, Samurai armour, musical instruments from Africa and a few other treasures. 

I am definitely going to have to go back. It makes me wish I had paid more attention to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, which we used to go to for class field trips all the time but which I didn't appreciate nearly as much then as I would now. I do remember learning about bioluminescence there though... I guess something sunk in. I'm obviously going to have to go back there too.

* The first image, of the outside of the museum, is from wikipedia, the rest are all from the McGill/Redpath website and are credited to Virginie Millien, Torsten Bernhardt, K. Dobbin.

Project Prayer - Part Two

"Praying" is a pretty loaded word. It used to make me feel a little uncomfortable, which is one of the reasons I chose it as the focus of this project - I wanted to explore the discomfort and figure it out. I was going to write quite a bit about my own thoughts on prayer, in fact I have already started a post about it, but then I decided not to publish it just yet... since what I want first off is to know what others think. I will post mine in a while, once I have collected responses from you guys.
What I am most interested in, for this project (and in general) is people's ideas about prayer that have little or nothing to do with organized religion. I would like to know about the personal, private, creative ways that people pray, rather than the more conventional, by-the-books ways that they were taught. Bear in mind that I have basically no religious education and so some of those more traditional prayer practices will be unknown to me anyway - so if that is what does work for you then let me know about that too! These are the questions I have in mind, although feel free to respond in different ways if that makes more sense for your responses:

1. What does the word "prayer" mean to you?
2. What does your practice of prayer look like? Is it confined to a quiet, meditative state or a conversation with a higher power or is it a wild dancing party? If you don't pray, why not?
3. Who (or what) do you pray to? Is there a particular deity, body part or universal image that resonates for you? Why do you suppose this is so?
4. What has influenced your practice of prayer?
5. How has your practice of prayer changed your life, if at all? Do your prayers "come true" or do you see them working in some other way?

Please feel free to leave me your responses in the comments (though that doesn't seem to be the popular option with my blog!) or email me at the address listed in the contact section (people never put their email addresses in the text and I think it is to avoid spam... good plan).

I am planning on including any responses to the questionnaire in my final project. I will not be publishing any of people's personal email responses here. There is a small possibility that some of the final projects will be included in a short publication entitled "Stories from Montreal" which my university creates from undergrad work every year. All this is just to say that if you do send me a response (and I would love it if you did!) please let me know if you give permission for your responses to be included in either my project (likely only ever read by me and my prof) or in the book (likely only read by me, my prof, the other editors and future undergrads who are forced to buy it) or both. Also, please let me know if you would like your name to be included (just first name) or if you would like to remain anonymous. Both options are totally fine, I am not obligated to give any identifying info about my respondents. If you have any questions about the nature of the project, the publication, my university (including the ethics board) or anything else please feel free to ask.

Thanks!!! Can't wait to hear what people have to say. The project is due at the end of March, so I will be happy to receive replies right up until then. (Well, I would still be interested/happy to get replies after that, they just wouldn't be included in this project).

P.S.
If your response is "no way, praying is not my thing at all" that is just as valid and interesting for me, so please don't exclude yourself for that reason! Instead, I would love to hear why you feel that way, and what your thoughts are on the topic. Remember, that is where I was coming from too, originally.
P.P.S.
If you know anyone else who you think would be at all interested in responding to the questionnaire please feel free to spread it far and wide. I am just casting my net and will be happy to get as many replies as I can.

Photos: both from the playing-around session the other day... the view out my kitchen window and a close-up of one of my favorite candle-holders with a lovely-smelling beeswax candle glowing away.

Project Prayer - Part One

Ok. Enough procrastination.

I have been (supposedly) working on a research project for school since September. This project started out on Meditation, then kind of Yoga, and then finally (for the actual proposal) Prayer. Bless Anthropology's little heart for being so elastic as to allow me to do something as loosely defined as I am. Most people are doing ethnographies, meaning that they are going to study other people. I am doing an auto-ethnography, meaning that I am going to study me. Sounds narcissistic, and it is! Kinda. I will not only be studying myself, but I will be the main focus. I like the idea of doing it that way because it completely removes any of that traditional anthropology us/them dichotomy and it also feels like I get to be a lot more experimental about the whole thing. I have to admit that I do sometimes get irritated with the fluffiness of anthropology, as well as the simultaneous "we are totally scientists, this is totally a REAL science" and "we hate science, down with positivism!". It gets a bit tired. Let's face facts, anthropology is decidedly not a science. Don't get me wrong, I like science. I still kind of wish that I had just stuck with my high school ambitions to study zoology. But no matter how much it may want to be, anthropology isn't very scientific. It's really hard to apply any scientific principles to the study of culture (oh, when I say anthropology I mean cultural anthropology which is all that my university teaches, I realize that physical anth., linguistics and archeology all do use scientific principles). So when I started thinking about things to do for this project, and I realized just how much creative leeway we would have, I decided to fully embrace the fluff and do something as decidedly un-scientific as possible. So I decided to start praying, and to document my experiences as they unfold. Neat hun?
I was inspired by you! Well, by the internet, by the blogs I read and the books I have stumbled upon through them. Especially Eat Pray Love and The Red Book. In both cases prayer was presented in such a way that I could sort of, kind of, almost see myself doing it. At the very least I could see how it was a practice that greatly benefited those women, not to mention many of the women whose blogs I read. And anyway, it got me curious, thinking, wondering and generally feeling inspired. Hence, this project.

Hmm... explaining all this is maybe going to take longer than I thought. Rather than write one long post (who has time to read loooooooong posts?) I will split it up. I want to take my time explaining it because, for one thing I think it will help me get clear about what I am doing (oh the fluffiness of it all) and because eventually I am going to get you guys involved. I will be doing the thing all sociologists do, which is, survey. I would love to hear from as many people as possible, so I am going to put my survey/questionaire here and invite EVERYONE (and their dog... and their cat!) to reply. And those of you who I know in "real life" will be getting copies of it sent to them directly via email, lest they think I should let them off the hook. : ) But more to come on that later.

For now I will leave you with a couple of photos. This afternoon I spent a few creative hours playing with my new (from Christmas) camera. I love it, digital photography is so full of instant gratification. Although those suckers do eat batteries like candy.
The photos on the top are: Griffin (of course) ... I was actually trying to photograph my favorite purple scarf, but he decided to crash the photo session and the other is of a tiny corner of my altar, and the one below is me, doing the oft -used self-portrait method of ... standing in front of my bathroom mirror.

The eye of the storm is winking at me

Greetings from the not so calm center of a crazy storm.
Ok, so I have stuff due every single day next week, including three oral presentations (not exactly my favorite thing to do), two group projects, two big papers and one research proposal for an enormous paper thats due next April. A kindred blogger posted recently about being ostrich-like and that made me think about how I deal with these stressfull times... not like an ostrich, more like a snail. I retreat into my snail-shell where I have a cozy nest of a space to sit and look out the window, practice seeing the world from my cat's point of view, go on bookish adventures and just generally shut myself away from the nasty outside world.
The outside world sure doesn't feel like my friend a lot of the time. It is nearly December and my student loans have still not been properly assessed ... even though I started the application procedure in July (well actually they keep stringing me along, saying I am refused then saying that no not really, but they are still missing documents before they can make a decision and of course they never actually SEND me this information, I have to keep calling them and getting the red tape run around). I am a little concerned that all of my schoolwork stress will be for naught, if in the end I can't actually pay my tuition. I am also trying to sort out some income tax shenanigans from 1998, that I just found out about recently, which meant that the tax refund I was counting on the help get me through this semester is being held for ransom.
Arg! Money is kind of a weird taboo thing to talk about. I've actually been meaning to write a post about it since this summer, but never get around to it. I think I am avoiding it because I am still not sure how I feel or what I want to say, just that I feel like money really messes with me. I have been making little steps towards being less afraid of dealing with money issues, I got a book (not that I've had time to read it!) and a "money tree" to inspire me. But it is so very hard to pull myself out of a money-victim mentatlity when I continually find myself in these terrible money situations. Of course it could be argued that I create those situation by thinking of myself as a victim... but that seems so unfair and cruel! And if that is so, then I am stuck in a nasty catch-22... the more it feels like the universe is toying with me, the harder it is for me to have a positive attitude about it. I really do try to be a trouper and, after the tears and the foot stamping, I find it in myself to laugh at the whole situation. I mean, it is pretty funny. Sad funny, you know. Just almost too ridiculous to be real. And so then I try to approach the situation anew, with more lightness and the attitude that "this too shall pass". It doesn't seem to matter though, the universe just keeps on sending these big kicks-in-the-teeth.

I know I will get through, I have always gotten through. I had my astrological chart done when I was young and apparently Jupiter being where it was at the moment of my birth, means that I will always be taken care of, material-needs-wise. Astrology is one of those things that I love/hate... I love the poetic notion that we are connected to the stars and the planets and the sun and the moon, in such an intimate, personal way. But I hate how goofy it can be, and how it is associated with the very worst of New Age hooey. Anyway. I have none the less always had this idea in the back of my mind, that Jupiter is SUPOSED to be looking out for me somehow, but that he is just barely doing his job. I mean, it's true, my material needs have never really gone unmet. However. I have worried about them, and my bills, debt, and finances in general every single day of my adult life. And I have mostly only been able to get by with help from those around me. If it werent for Adrien, I would be in rough(er) shape for sure. Which is a rotten blow to my idealised independant (Aquarian?) self.

So obviously this is a big part of what I am going to have really work on in this lifetime. It is one of my obstacles/opportunities to grow. I'm learning to be ok with it, I'm learning to be curious and open instead of scared and closed off. I'm learning not to simply hate the machinery of capitalism and be angry all the time that it is even an issue. I'm learning not to see money as evil or my enemy or inherently anything at all except what we make of it. I'm making friends with people who have a way healthier perspective about money. I'm facing up to my ugly tendency towards jealousy and comparison ("why don't I have that!?? It's not fair!"). I am nurturing a feeling of "plenty" rather than one of "not enough!". I am working on being a lot gentler with myself as I navigate this stormy, pirate-ladden sea of money-learning.

And all the while I am still trying to get my homework done, go to work, volunteer at the local library, eat well, find time to do the stuff I like, spend yummy quality time with Adrien (bicker-free of course), day-dream, get a good night's sleep and get some excercise once in a while. No wonder I am so stressed out.

Where's my shell again?

Ok, come on Jupiter... do your stuff!!

*photos: money tree from random google image search, astrology wood cut and Jupiter dwarfing Earth from Wikipedia.

Red is the new Purple

Ok, not really. Purple still reigns supreme in the palace of colour, but I am starting to adore a fair few shades of red lately too. In fact, more than any other colour, RED keeps popping up to make itself known.
I think, even though I eschewed red in my younger days, I still secretly craved it. I have certainly collected a number of bright red friends over the years (opposites attract?). I am thinking here of Megan's super hot, and very stylish Crimson Queen St pants (do you still have them?). And Andrea's fiery red energetic personality! A lot of my nearest and dearest girl (and some guy) pals would have proudly proclaimed red as their favorite colour. I always thought they were strange for this, but I kept on being drawn to them anyway.
This year I turned 30, which for some is kind of devastating. For me it was actually wonder*full. Seriously! My 20s were a bit... rough. A lot of the time anyway. Some crazy bad stuff happened right before my 20s even got started, and I feel like even though I was all stoic and pulling "I am way stronger than this" faces, in reality I was pretty crushed. Well it's not really a big surprise, but anyway it was sort of a relief to be done with that mixed up decade of me. So I saw 30 as a fresh start, a whole brand new pilgrimage. I have (almost) never seen 30 as "old", which of course it isn't. Being in your 30s, to me, means being way more self-assured, being more self-loving, patient, thoughtful and kind. It means knowing yourself better. It means just a little bit more wisdom. It also means expanding my idea of who I think I am. Being less afraid of (blushing red-faced) embarrassment. Letting in things I didn't think I ever would. Which brings us back to red.
I didn't go directly from only liking bluey purples straight to loving carnation red. I started slowly. I started with pink. But then slowly some deeper, darker reds crept in, and surprisingly (to me) I let them stay. I got a red purse. I got my first pedicure, and they used red polish (they even put funny little swirls on my big toes!). I got a red car. More recently I got this Red Book,which has a very sparkle-y red message.









And it is starting to seem like having let in red, I now have to let in all kinds of other new things. Like cottage cheese. When I was little, just the thought of cottage cheese made me gag! Now, I love it. With pineapple. Yum. And spinach! How stomach-churning it used to be. Now my freezer and crisper are both stocked with leafy greens. Other stuff too... like whole new worlds of music. And prayer. In fact I am doing a big project for school all about prayer/meditation (fyi I may be writing to some of you out there for interviews and input, but that is for another post). Prayer is a totally new thing for me. Quite an alien concept. But I find myself approaching it all of sudden with a lot more openness and curiosity than ever before. I don't know who I am praying to exactly... well I have some ideas. My own higher god-self. Some kind of vague universal consciousness concept. The buzzing, snapping, electric totality of life on our homey planet. Also, Ganesh. His elephant head makes him somehow a lot more approachable than other gods. Anyway, I am doing it. In my own snail-hearted, skeptical way, but I am doing it. I am warming up to Red and I am praying. I wonder what other unexpected turning me upside-down twists are to come in my 30s? I wonder what crazy adventurous things will happen in my 40s???



*Note: Who else out there thinks that vermilion should totally be a shade of wormy caterpillar green and that chartreuse sounds more like a purpley, burgundy red? What happened there?

Photos: red lantern paper from Studio Paggy; ruddy kelp by Jeff Foott; nettle au rouge by Craig Knowles; ladybug party by John Grant; floppy poppies by Johner Images; two red pedicures by Andrea; Ganesh with crimson blossoms behind his flappy ears by Johner Images; red prayer by Stockbyte. All images (except the pedicures of course) found at Getty Images.

Swirling into autumn

I have a few started entries... I also have a lot of thoughts spiraling around in a fuzzy halo, but they never seem to make it to the page. This past week and a half has been laughably BAD. So bad. I can almost laugh about it today, but oh it was bad. It included a large (and seemingly impossible) tax debt from 1998 that I did NOT know about until last Wednesday, a few midterms, an over-flowing washing machine (and therefore a flooded kitchen, which was unfortunately where our camping equipment was sitting ... soggy), a big fight with Adrien and ... stepping on a tack. There are a few other things making my heart ache too... things that don't easily spill out in words.
I really just want to be luxuriating in my favourite season; I want to crunch through brittle leaves and wear all my scarves and eat pumpkin pie everyday. I want to curl around a cup of tea and read Jeanette Winterson's new book: Stone Gods (even though it isn't out in Canada yet) or Joanne Harris's sort of sequel to Chocolat, The Lollipop Shoes or my book-club book Plan B by Anne Lamott, or any of several dozen other books I have laying in wait on my teetering shelves like Kafka On The Shore or Hidden Connections or Our Lady of the Lost and Found. My books, they are calling to me. Or I want to take a walk in the grey twilight, listening to Red Mars on audio-book by Kim Stanley Robinson,winking at jack-o-lanterns. Or splashing on a canvas with a paintbox full of red, brown, amber and gold to celebrate the season, or else a paintbox oozing with summery greens, blues purples to remember the seasons past. I want to do these things, but alas I am (STILL/always?/forever...) a student. So I have midterms and papers to avoid. And I am absolutely addicted to selfPITY. I am. I so am. It is hard to truly indulge in one's loves in life when one is busy with the moping and the sniveling and the sobbing. I wish I could let go of that part of me that seems to so glory in the mean reds. I wish I could discard the drama queen. It is exhausting.
Instead of doing the things I want to do, and instead of doing the things I should be doing, I wind up escaping into the oh-so-reassuring land of tele-vision. I don't even OWN a tv and yet, and yet there is the internet. I download my crack. It isn't (all) bad tv, so at least there's that. But still. What a waste of time. I know why I do it, I know that it is a relief to set down my own worries and woes for 30mins while I watch Nancy struggle with much more entertaining and scary troubles on Weeds. I know that I want to live in Eureka and muse on sticky scientific conundrums rather than my own bureaucratic balls of red tape. Oh Bones! Anthropology has never been sexier! Of course it makes sense to want to zone out, forget, let go, stop the swirling darts of angry thoughts. It is shelter from the storm of LIFE. Sometimes life is looking at wildflowers with a magnifying glass, or getting your hair brushed by your boyfriend or swimming in an icy lake or breathing in your cat's purring voice or eating sushi. But sometimes life is a suck-fest. And sometimes it is too much for me to cope with all at once. So I have to shelve everything and then dole it out slowly, one crappy thing at a time. I think what happens sometimes is that, since the world OUT THERE doesn't respect this need of mine, since it continues to send the good the bad and the ugly, regardless of where I am in my nasty inventory, I sometimes get such a backlog of SUCK that I need to close up completely. My inner shelves get full. There is no more room here for that sucky thing, so you will have to wait my friend. I may be ready to think about your little problem next week. But not this week. Not the week with the tax thing and the flooding and the tack in my foot. Nope. Right now I need to balance all this stuff with something lovely. Something simple. Something seasonal.
So I will hang with my pals Tegan & Sarah, Feist, The Be Good Tanyas, The Shins, Badly Drawn Boy and whoever else is hiding in itunes and I will light some incense to mask the scent of SUCK in the air and I will drink spiced tea and I will study and I will get through the midterms. And then I will go to the farmer's market on the weekend and I will make pie.

summer drizzle

The air was so damp last night that the clothes I hung to dry overnight still felt wet in the morning. All that humidity broke the sky apart with thunder-showers and today is a drizzly, foggy day. Which I adore.

Rainy day photo by my brother

I am reading up a storm these days, probably in preparation for a return to the world of text books and papers. A place where there is no (very little) time for fun fiction. I have discovered an interest in graphic novels recently, which probably started when I read Chris Baldwin's Bruno online earlier this summer. I loved it, and it has led to some more truly lovely pieces of work. I really had no idea that people were using the medium of comics (well sort of comics) in such incredible ways. I am reading a great kid's book right now called Predator's Gold, which is the second of a four book series (Hungry Cities Chronicles) by Philip Reeve, who is fast becoming a favorite author of mine. What a brilliant setting! He imagined up a world in the distant future where, after the "60-minute war", the ground becomes unable to sustain life so the cities of the world become mobile. Countries are dissovled and people are citizens only of their city. The (albeit distored) law of Darwinism prevails, with larger, faster cities eating the smaller ones, and using the resources they havest to sustain their own city. It sounds pretty bleak, but of course it is the humanity of the characters and how they cope in this situation which makes the story work so well. Even though it is a strange, heart-breaking idea, I think the imagery of enormous many-tiered cities roaming vast plains like great clockwork beasts is stunning.

Next week is my last week of full time work and then I am back to student-land (and only working one day a week). Even though it means temporarily reading less of the things I choose, I am kind of looking forward to it. And kind of stressed about it. Not stressed about the homework I will have to do per se… after all I have become a veritable magician of getting-stuff-done-through-procrastination. But stressed about being stuck there. Stuck doing the same thing forever. What if my purgatory is school?

I wrote a post last week about the return to school, and that is still what I am feeling. Uncertain and even sometimes ever so slightly ashamed of where I am in "life". But at the same time completely joyfull about this crazy adventure (life?) and not the least bit worried about a destination. I know which feeling I want to cultivate and which one I want to squash! But since they are both still present, I guess for now, I have to sit with them both, honour them both.

A snail's pace

I love these late summer evenings, all buttery breezes and endless skies. I am digging in to the anticipation of autumn, which is my true favourite time of year, but I can still whole heartedly appreciate the resplendent summery now.
I am (once again) looking forward to school, which starts in a few short weeks. It is hard to believe that even after all these many years of study I can still feel excited about the prospect of new text books, lectures, papers and the messy stress of it all. But I do.
School is so familiar, and I have ample evidence that it is a place where I can succeed. But it is also challenging, and I know well how very much there still is to learn. I sometimes feel that I am a terrible slowpoke at "life", and that I am somehow not passing the stages I am meant to pass at the appropriate times. I sometimes wonder how on earth I can still be doing this whole university thing at my age. But then other times I can't help but chuckle a bit at it all (and myself) and think that I am doing just fine. I am obviously doing things at my own pace, in my own way. If I truly wanted to be doing something else, to be somewhere else, then I believe that I would be over there doing it. It is clear that some core part of my self simply refuses to be rushed by anyone, least of all me. As much as this trait sometimes frustrates me, I also have a grudging respect for it. It forces me to pay attention.

I have learned so much and I have been witness to so many mysteries unraveling right in my palms. How could I possibly ever want to change the path I've walked? Were a djinn to pop out of my teapot tonight and offer to do so, I would never ask him to alter my past. Even though it might also erase my mountainous debt and possibly return me to a thinner (healthier?) body it would mean that I would not be me anymore. And I like me. I feel a great deal of pressure from "out there" to try harder to get my act together. I sometimes believe that I would be happier with just a bit more money and a bit less girth. Even though I know how tied into the mass hysteria version of how things should be those messages are, they still seduce me with their fairy tales. I don't watch tv (it is in the closet, unplugged and dusty). I don't read magazines. I am fairly selective about what I read and/or download online. The only radio I listen to is cbc. I shop only very rarely. And yet those nasty messages still find me. So sneaky.
I just wish I could hold onto that certainty that I am marching to my own snail-drummer. There are panels of judges and critics that sit in my head and send out constant streams of negative feedback. As I said, there are times when I can laugh at them. When I can turn them into the two old geezers on the muppet show who complained all the time from the balcony, and I can brush off their bile with confidence. I can say: this life I am living is great! I have made fantastic choices, albeit unconventional, and I am thrilled to be this Christine. Other times though, it is much harder to silence them.

snail photo by my brother