February had its beautiful days this year when the winter sun, pale but steady in its raying forth, cast features of the landscape easily overlooked while grey skies rule, into sharp relief. People appeared more cheerful than usual, dogs of every shape and size leading their owners on a pleasant walk around the lake today. I viewed them all with interest as I joined in the parade. Since reading City Wolves by fellow Blue Butterfly author, Dorris Heffron, I am wont to enquire of any likely candidate: “Excuse me, is your dog a Malamute?” Invariably the animal in question turns out to be an Alaskan, Siberian or Newfoundland husky, although I did encounter a young couple about a year ago, doting owners of two well groomed creatures happily of Malamute persuasion.

What I learned about sled dogs and their wolf ancestry in Heffron’s entertaining novel prepared me for the real life accounts of Len Budgell , a Hudson’s Bay Company Manager, posted in Hebron, Labrador, some fifty years ago when dog sleds were a reliable mode of transport. He boasted “a team of the loveliest dogs you ever saw…..They were happy to work with, and were not, as many people claim, wolfish and savage. My dogs had a very special place in my heart.” Budgell’s letters about his eventful career in the North are compiled in a treasured Blue Butterfly volume entitled, Arctic Twilight. The author gives a stimulating account of living in rhythmic harmony with the elements, the acuity of his senses matching those of his Inuit trapper companions with whom he traversed vast expanses of snow and ice between trading posts in a relentless bid for survival, his canny resourcefulness reflective of his devotion to his job. His world is peopled with larger than life characters, with owls and whales and tall stories that are nevertheless funny, sad, true and touching. Every page attests to an authenticity of being, doing and having that is nothing short of enlightened, inspiring the reader to live more fully from the heart. In my own book, Celtic Woman, I explore the meaning of ‘the knowledge of the oak’ that characterised ancient druidic spirituality. Arctic Twilight presents this way of knowing in its contemporary form. To absorb the astonishing contents of this book is to enlarge one’s sense of place and to familiarise oneself with the ever-emerging, living spirit of Canada. In reflecting on these letters, I become more attentive to the small wonders of winter that surround me-geese gaggling in shallow pools of melting snow, the silent concentration of ice fishing huts on the horizon, shadows of trees cast moon-like on a glittering carpet of snow-all seem enchanted now.

Counting my blessings as a Blue Butterfly author includes these musings about books that have thereby come my way. The world must become more Romantic, I believe, meaning that human concerns must be lifted to the higher qualitative level to which a poetic consciousness aspires and which readers are seeking more or less consciously. Three to a Loaf by Lieutenant Michael Goodspeed is the product of such a consciousness, written with a moral tact that can only be achieved through the embodiment of ideals. The author weaves a compelling story with first hand military savvy around his central character, a Canadian soldier, with the stamina to endure and survive horrendous frontline conditions and to later assume the identity of the enemy in a daring feat of espionage. Reading this book, even though it kept me up all night, page turner that it is, had a therapeutic effect because it caused me to reflect on matters far beyond my sphere of influence that nevertheless concern me. While I may absorb any amount of information about conditions of war and its aftermath today, a novel of this kind provides an integrated approach rooted in a fully human perspective, engaging the conscience as well as the heart of the reader in a process of thinking that is ultimately redemptive in nature and that promotes a peace of mind. I eagerly, therefore, await Michael Goodspeed’s next Blue Butterfly book.

To Autumn,  a favourite poem by John Keats (1795-1821), has been on the tip of my tongue all week, only coming to full expression last evening when I conducted a Celtic Woman soiree by moonlight, meeting and mingling with the delightful group of women who made their way by highway and byway to a picturesque hilltop location on the outskirts of Newmarket. A  kaleidescope of vibrant, shifting colours, reflective of every golden brush stroke of the evening sun, prepared a mood of joyful expectation in one and all, a  veil of enchantment seeming to linger over earth and sky as  introductions were made. Then softly dying daylight gave way to a  burst of crimson red and turquoise blue, shot through with brilliant pinks and orange. Huddling around a blazing firepit as darkness fell, we watched in awe until the light show was no more. Our attention then found a new wonder in the natural soundscape in which we  seemed  imbedded, a  raucous  surge of Canada geese above our heads was underscored by a monotonous chorus of crickets, accompanied by croaks and twitters and the random scurry of small animals in the grass. One woman became aware of the ghostly presence of an owl, in a thicket of leaves above her head, that vanished from sight before the rest of us had turned to look. Where are the songs of Spring? Keats asked in the last verse of the poem I then recited, with this rejoinder: Think not of them! Thou hast thy music too!

                                 …..to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease

        For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammmy cells.

     Bees have been on my mind of late. A dear friend who lives in the south of France recently sent me a jar of lavendar honey that is surely worth its weight in gold. Every precious spoonful awakens memories of lavendar fields in full bloom. Honey reigns supreme among the range of uses the French have conjured up for the sturdy flower that grows in such profusion during the months of July and August in a part of France familiar to me and highlighted in my book (see chapter 13).

     Albert Einstein predicted that human life would come to an end in its present form if the honey bee became extant. He regarded the bees work in pollinating essential crops as vital to our earthly survival. There has been an alarming collapse of bee colonies in the US, in Ireland, England and other countries of late. I like to think that the bees of Provence are spared the standard travel of 55,000 miles in order to draw nectar from the some two million flowers needed for the production of a single pound of honey.  Every day must constitute a veritable ‘field day’ for countless worker bees in that blessed  region!

     What, you might ask, does this have to do with books? Everything, if Rainer Maria Rilke is anyone to go by. He had his own poetic harvest in mind when he wrote:  We are the bees of the invisible. We frantically plunder the visible of its honey, to accumulate it in the great golden hive of the invisible.   For what is the honey of life but the meaning we glean from its joys and sorrows.  The more engaged we are in our relationship to one another, to the natural world and to our given tasks, the more we gather the nectar of experience and transform it inside our invisible hearts  into spiritual substance. To be an adult implies having the freedom to choose between conflicting thoughts by drawing on the  capacity of discernment we have honed (as in ‘honey’), an intuitive faculty that relies on imagination and inspiration,  the spiritual elements of being on which every writer depends.

Closing Day of an  international IDRIART (Institute for the Development of intercultural Relations through the Arts.) conference in Chartres, France

     
I have presented twelve readings of my book so far, most of them in the homes of friends where book sales were swift. The official launch of Celtic Woman took place in March ‘09, sponsored by the Jackman Foundation and the Centre for Celtic Studies at the University of Toronto, had a festive atmosphere and drew a large convivial crowd. It was an opportunity for me to sing songs and recite poems referred to in the book-and to chat with old friends who stood in line for the signing session that lasted for over an hour!  

Some weeks later I had the pleasure of presenting poems and songs and themes from Celtic Woman (which includes a chapter on the IDRIART movement and the work of the Novalis Project) to a very enthusiastic gathering of European musicians,  men and women from the business world along with some inspired educators.  I had walked the labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral early that morning with all the people who sat before me now…… We had gathered together in Chartres, from near and far, for an intense discussion on the future of the arts in Europe. The 10 books I had brought with me from Canada were quickly swept up after the presentation. I could have sold many more! One of the writers present, Professor Teresa Balough, who teaches at a university in Connecticut, subsequently sent me a glowing review of my book which will appear in Lilipoh magazine in October 2009