2013 - Year in Review

So I guess in the whirlwind of this thing we call life, I abandoned my blog for a little over a year! oops!

Well here I am, finding myself  spending the last week visioning and scheming about what i want my 2014 to look like, and reminiscing about my 2013.  
Since many of us have such busy lives, i thought that sharing a  journey through my year would be a good way to connect with everyone and give a glimpse into the life of kym chi!
I encourage you to leave comments, ask question or share your own journey if you feel compelled. I would love to hear about your life too! <3
 The past year was one of the most transformational yet! In January, i had all kinds of plans for the year and by April all the plans had flown out the window.

 The year started with doing some work in Fort McMurray. For those of you that don't know, i have been working on a pretty inspiring project there with Learning Through the Arts where we are involved with a program to help keep youth in school and teachers reach differentiated learning styles. Our main focus is to teach the standard curriculum with our art form, offering more experiential education, but what makes Fort Mac so special is that we also work closely with First Nations and help them to share stories of colonialism and residential schools. The experience has been very eye opening for me as i had also not known the full truth and it explained to me a lot about our current paradigm. It warms my heart that the healing process is starting with the sharing of our histories truth and as we progress i see it acting as a catalyst in bridging our cultures.

 After being away for half of the month,  I feverishly prepared for the final session of a year long Permaculture design course at the Chapel of the Sacred Mirrors (CoSM) in New York in February. This course was pivotal in my life for many reasons.
  
photo credit: www.scottcorman.com
 CoSM has held a special place with me for a very long time. The founders (Alex and Allyson Grey) have been mentors/ heroes of mine and have very similar goals to me.  "The Mission of CoSM, is to build an enduring sanctuary of visionary art to inspire every pilgrim's creative path and embody the values of love and perennial wisdom." (from their website) www.cosm.org.

Being able to travel there 4 times in one year to invite Permaculture into my life more deeply and share some of my gifts was a true blessing. During my time there, i met life long friends, an amazing Permaculture mentor and one of my deepest cosmic buddies.
I  had opportunities to learn,

photo credit: www.scottcorman.com
and to teach,
photo credit: www.scottcorman.com
 connect with some ancestors of the land
photo credit: www.scottcorman.com
 and reconnect with my cosmic creativity through the building of Galactik Trading Card displays :)
http://elvism.net/
photo credit: www.scottcorman.com
Being on 40 acres of land that hosted a visionary art retreat centre was vastly different than my crazy Calgarian urban setting, and allowed me to truly integrate the permaculture teaching of observation.  One of my key contributions was helping co create a mapping book that tracks the wind, water and sun pathways, as well as identifies the many beings living there.



As part of my design presentation, i created a guided mediation that presented what CoSM could be like in 20 years with a permaculture design.  I was lucky enough to be able to read it during a full moon gathering! 
photo credit: www.scottcorman.com
 If you would like to learn more about the course check out this short video http://vimeo.com/61135493

Coming back to Calgary refreshed and inspired. I taught my very first sold out Introduction to Permaculture course.
 My dear friend Brendan and I  helped plan a large event at the AREA that introduced the membership program i had developed with the board.   Using a grant Brendan awesomely acquired, we coordinated the free evening that consisted of food, art, music, talks and slideshows to honour how far we have come and to share how we were moving forward.   We sold a number of memberships and created vast interest in what the AREA was all about.

The membership program was one facet of a new structure of the organization that would hopefully help create longevity for the space. Little did we know, one short week later, the city would shut us down. They told us we did not have the proper permits. We spent time trying to figure out what the next step was and it was leaning towards possibly giving up. It was a sad time for all of us and a moment that would redirect me onto a whole new path.

 At the same time, my good friend and Permaculture mentor was due for a visit. We got to have what i thought was one last chance to teach an advanced Permaculture day in the space. It felt like a great way to close and honour the AREA.


That same weekend that i realized that although i dearly love the community, Calgary was not my heart's home. I set intentions to move to BC, though i was not sure how or where and didn't really have time to figure it out yet as i was heading back to Fort McMurray and still dealing with the aftermath of the AREA's closure, as now many young entreprenuers and community minded folk were without a space.

 May came quickly and the AREA although closed, decided to keep on trying.  We remained in discussions with the city that seemed to go nowhere and so the long process continued. I went to BC where i got to do some co teaching of Permaculture on the coast. It was awesome to teach with one of my mentors and see how well we could collaborate.

I started to work with my awesome friend Lisa on some gardening projects. They werent exactly Permaculture, but it gave us lots of time to scheme about ideas for a new community project in Sunnyside called ContainR.  As we weeded, we visioned about the 2 yr placemaking site where we would be installing a new Permaculture demonstration site.  Although short term, this gave me hope for Calgary as by this time i was really missing the AREA.  Gardening with Lisa also gave me an amazing opportunity to spend some nights in her and her families ultra inspiring off grid straw bale home.  It was nice to be away from the city, enjoying good converstation and watching the starlit sky.

I spent alot of my time preparing for one of the busiest times of the year, summer! I attended a great festival in June called Inshala www.inshala.ca, where I taught 2 classes there including kids permaculture. It was nice to relax in nature and with community for a few days. It felt like a calm before a storm… literally.

 I came home to finish organizing for a 6 day teacher training i was hosting with an amazing teacher, Michael Becker from Hood River, Oregon. Michael successfully transformed his grade 6, 7 and 8 classrooms into gardens and greenhouses where all of his classes are taught (*My hero!*).
The day before his arrival, flood evacuations began. When i awoke the next morning i was on the island of Ramsay and most of Calgary's inner city was under water.

 
I had to quickly decide if we should cancel the course. I had people flying in from across Canada and the city was in a state of emergency. It was a tough decision, but then i realized that Permaculture is all about resiliency, and what would be more activated for Calgary than to have 22 high level Permaculture people together for 6 days learning how to share it.



 The day before the class began, my mentor, two close friends and i hosted another advanced class where we did a design for disaster charette on site of the actual flood, which gave some great perspective on using conscious design that could avoid things like this happening again.



The rest of the week was a whirlwind, but i learned many things from the amazing Michael Becker who really taught me the importance of reaching people in a way that they can access information and also the importance of self care (which many of us healer types can easily forget) The greatest gift of the the week was being able to connect with 2 wonderful beings from a guild i am a part of.


 Their ever support through the week was unwavering and we got to do some great brainstorming for future projects. At the time we all lived in different parts of the globe, so it made it very special to connect together over that length of time. 

The last surprise of the whole adventure was connecting with my dear friend from Vancouver. She arrived at the Michael Becker event close to the end with camera in hand, recorded his public talkhttp://vimeo.com/74904208 and documented the class in action as we taught an introduction to Permaculture class to 50 students! Also, the kicker... we got to do it all at the AREA as it was one of the only venues not affected by the flood.

                                                     Photo Credit: www.mortalcoilmedia.com
            
To top it all off as i sent Michael back off to Portland, another one of my heroes Mark Lakeman was landing in Calgary to do a talk for the crime prevention conference. My surprise friend from Vancouver and I had just been talking about him and somehow ended up picking him up from the airport! We all shared a lovely tea together and i realized how truly awesome Mark is.

Although it was a full on week, it is always refreshing to spend time among common people who deeply share your passions.  

Barely letting it "all" sink in,  I jetted off to Astral Harvest (www.astralharvest.com), a multi media festival in northern Alberta focusing on music, art, conferences, healing and more! Last year I taught 3 workshops there and fell in love with the location, vibe and community.

This year, i was asked to take on another role as environmental coordinator (or site beauty). It was fun to see how things go from the other side and to work with such amazing people that are super open to making the festival more environmentally friendly. My personal goal is not to see festivals leave no trace, but to leave a regenerative trace :) We will see what we can do! 

 In August i had a great opportunity to go to OUR Ecovillage on the island to spend 6 days in a training with Starhawk, a highly activated elder in the Permaculture, pagan and activist community.

                                                     Photo Credit: Dana Wilson, www.mortalcoilmedia.com

This courses main focus was on group dynamics, conflict resolution and non violent communication.  Being quite the talker (as many of you know),  I decided to spend most of the course as an observer.  It was a great experience to watch the interactions of the class, and I learnt alot from the instructors and my co students in this viewing state.

The most inspiring thing that happened while away, was reconnecting with my artist side.  In my  time, I started to draw and gave a couple drawings away as gifts.


It was inspiring to connect this way as I did not consider myself someone who can draw, and it sparked an interest in me to practice more. 

September brought some auspiciousness into my life as i was able to live with the Leaf Ninjas ( + Sierra)  for a stint.  It was a true blessing not only to live with some of my dearest friends, but also to deepen our relationships and to be in a space that was fully in line with my values.

We had lots of fun wild foraging, and just all around being silly.                                                     (seabuckthorn is my new favorite!)

It was definitely nice to live in a chill environment, as my month was quite busy outside of the home front.  One of the main projects was a Permaculture installation at my friend Jay and Kylee's.  There were about 7 of us who spent a day in the pooring rain putting in a seed of life mandala garden.  Thank goodness for the community coming together and making it fun,  or i am not sure i could have done it!


 Still being inspired by my art connection at Starhawk, I felt called to start a new service called Energy Portraits.  I seem to have a gift to see into peoples hearts, really recognizing their true potential and their inherent gifts.  I also see energy through my Reiki practice.  Really wanting to dedicate myself to my art practice more and  having a long time goal of  helping people connect with their creative self expression and self love made offering these the perfect thing.  I put the word out and the next thing I knew i had 10 people wanting portraits!  I truly enjoy the experience of creating these drawings and seeing the benefit they have on the recipients is awesome!

 
October was also a super awesome month. I went to Vancouver for the Living the New Economy Conferencehttp://neweconomy.ca/.  This was a 6 day conference all about alternative ways to move forward and create a new paradigm of the way we look at our economy.  There were way too many awesome events to highlight, but my all time most favorite part of the whole week was the first day where my my friends and I got to spend the whole day with Mark Lakeman. 

It was our second time meeting and as I learn more about Mark, I respect him more and more, and can't wait to continue learning from him in the coming months!  Here is a link to one of his awesome presentations with Ian McKenzie: https://soundcloud.com/ianmackenz/living-the-new-economy-keynote.The rest of the week was quite inspiring and i loved the way it was expressed that the new economy is truly the new community! YAY!
During my trip, I took a jaunt over to the Sunshine Coast where I visited some close friends and stayed with Dana (one of my favorite people) in her beautiful tiny home.  http://www.gaiacraft.com/forest-atrium It was during that stay that plans fell into place for my move to BC.  It was a sigh of relief for me as it had been a long time coming and my heart was full knowing that it was going to happen. 
 I always try to make my trips to nature as long as possible, so i hurried back to Calgary to do a couple of speaking engagements and then hopped into the first session of my first ever 4 season Permaculture design course.  I was super excited to have 20 super high level students enrolled in the class.  I was completely in awe of how amazing they all were and i learnt so much in such a short time that I will implement into future sessions.
It was extremely empowering to share what i have been learning over the past 3 years with such an open and brilliant group.  I am in anticipation of the rest of the course and cant wait to see where each individual goes with it all!
It also gave me a great opportunity to try out some of the teaching tools i have been developing.Which brings me to another large highlight of the year. As some of you know, last summer i was asked to join a guild (group) with a few other Permaculturists from across the globe, called Gaiacraft. We act as a platform for open sourced education, and one of my contributions is to create a series of teaching tools for Permaculture. So far I have prototypes for 4 games and i am hoping to have them released in the next year.


Currently there are some tools available that my mentor has created with other guild members, please check them out (www.gaiacraft.com) and download them or purchase the print on demand versions if you feel called.  Keep an eye out for more coming soon!

In conjunction with the teaching tools, I am still working hard on my Permaculture Diploma focusing in Education.  Part of my documentation will be an AREA legacy book along with a mapping and design folio , and a book that will show my diploma learning journey.   They are all in process and will hopefully be ready to release soon!  

November also brought the news that after over a 6 month journey with the city, the AREA would not be reopening and was being sold.  This was a true sign that it was time to carry on.  I had been feeling quite displaced since our closure, but knew that the AREA would live on in some form. 

December approached and I realized it was time to start figuring out the logistics of my move.  With everything happening so quickly throughout the year, i really felt like i was learning to live in the moment.  You almost dont have a choice when things happen so fast. 
I had moved out of the Ninjas and decided to couch surf for a few weeks in as I was leaving to invermere soon and then heading further west.  
It was a tough month as it seemed like things just werent going right.  I left my purse on the bus and had some money stolen, my hours got cut for work and my van (Galaxy) broke down a mere 5 days before i was supposed to leave.  I wondered if for some reason I was not supposed to go, but my intuition strongly told me to have faith, and that it was time to move on.
I have always believed in community and have been someone who has really desired to help the greater whole, but sometimes i have a hard time accepting it back. It was in a time of need that i finally opened myself to receiving, and it was amazing.
Not only did i have safe, cozy and awesome community places to stay (without any stress) for the 3 weeks, (thanks Ramsay house, Nicole, Esther, Dustin and Amanda!)  but i had people helping me out with my van, and even a dear friend (you know who you are, and thanks!) gifting me money which helped pay for Galaxy to get fixed so she was road worthy again.  
In the midst of it all, i was doing interviews with various community members for a book i am making for the AREA as a legacy. It was amplified even more through this, just how amazing our community is and the importance and value of honoring those we have in our lives.
It was a beautiful note to leave Calgary on, to know how truly blessed I have been to share space with such amazing individuals. I am infinitely grateful and profoundly humbled. I know i will be back, but it was still a bittersweet goodbye.

Off I went with my friend Dana, Galaxy and all of my possessions in tow to the coast where i now reside in the heart of Robert's Creek, BC.  :)  http://goo.gl/maps/ShTWB 


As I reflect on the year, there were many lessons learned, journies travelled and relationships forged.  It was shaky for me as I didnt really have anything "planned", but it all came toghether.  I feel a sense of freedom in letting go, infinite gratitude for the wonderfull beings in my life and a deep sense of faith in opening myself to possibilities.  So here is to another amazing year on a new adventure! May all of the seeds you plant germinate and grow into thier full potential!