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Have fun with earth, space and flowers (and train your mind and discover the richness of the present moment), April 10th, 1:00 - 4:00 PM. Everyone is welcome.

Learn more on our Ikebana Workshop page.

These two short videos, posted on YouTube just a few days ago, offer an exceptionally eloquent teaching on coming to our senses, manifesting peace and harmony, and celebrating each moment of everyday life.

Thank you to all involved in creating this wonderful gift!

“Breaking News” (below) is the second of two poems recently submitted to this blog by Kootenay Shambhala member Bobbie Ogletree. It has been published in Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry.

To view the first poem (and a photo of Bobbie), click here.

Breaking News
By Bobbie Ogletree

krakow’s museum of jewish culture and history used to be a synagogue the kidneys and bladder are especially vulnerable in winter oh my god my husband was on that plane osama bin laden rode out of afghanistan on a white mare I don’t know how she puts up with him a naturalist gave a chicken some duck eggs the chicken sat on them and when they hatched was not disturbed to find ducklings and later led them to water fucking bastards will ruin the whole damn province abandon your poverty mentality and visualize yourself wealthy from 1962 to 1972 the us air force sprayed approximately 20 million gallons of defoliant over an estimated 10 percent of south vietnam norton anti-virus is not enough protection though sentient beings are numberless I vow to save them all in my opinion with his kidneys osama bin laden is dead a few weeks ago in minneapolis minnesota there was a lottery the winners got beds in homeless shelters my religion is kindness at a factory farm a naturalist found up to 5 hens squeezed into cages 12 inches by 12 inches I say dispatch them to allah immediately george w bush really wanted to be a baseball commissioner in arizona a woman died a few days after her 25 year old son was killed in iraq she couldn’t stop weeping the newscaster reported when a country is ruled with a light hand the people are simple the price of crude oil exceeded 100 dollars a barrel today bring it on the president said a saddhu in india kept one arm raised for 28 years for our sins the bible predicted all this would happen this shall not abide we will hunt them down and bring them in dead or alive they need potable water food medicine immediately if a disaster of unequalled proportions is to be averted we did not order this dessert

Bobbie Ogletree with her granddaughter

Emily
By Bobbie Ogletree

I wrote 800 of my 1775 poems (that they, the authorities on me, know about) during my country’s Civil War.

I understand this kind of war, how the extrovert creeps toward silence and the introvert peeks out onto blinding color; no one knows who is seeing whom after a while. Bone and blood are everywhere. This is when I started wearing white only, a truce for seeing the stain more readily. When they teach about me in high school, the young girls just can’t believe I never left my Amherst home after my married Reverend defected to the West, to power. Black is the color of the West in some Native lore, red for the East, where I stayed, the color for enlightenment. The wounded girls believe I shut and locked the door to my heart right then and there. Oh…

It is romantic, though. Me in white ghosting through rooms in my affluent but decaying home, being struck by the muse of unrequited love. They see me like this: A poem comes, I lift my white skirts and float into the parlor where my scraps of paper await me. I write the poem and then discard it. Every parchment is filled with these diversions from him. I retire the poem to think of him, and think of him, only to do the same thing over and over until I die of Bright’s disease. The irony.

No, it was like this.

I forgot about him after two snowfalls. My hermit home filled with rarified air. I breathed myself alive each morning. The body’s hands pulled knowledge out of hair and strands of skin. I met the snake, the butterfly, the mermaids I wrote of through the mirror of my spine. With no one there between me and It, I saw that death’s carriage would spin me out from the top of my head, the liquids in my eyes would be the fuel. I laughed and pinched the seams of my white skirt with my strong hands. Arms akimbo, I danced with my sherry eyes wide open.

Cameron Wenaus, one of our Centre’s senior students, sent us this poem and photo today, along with his love and this message: “Here is something I wrote on the plane flying over the Andes to visit my bro. The attached image is one I took at Machu Pichu.”

73 hour bodywoke
Stinging eyes wondered open
To Andean sunscraped razor peaks
Oh lha of lha is this your domain?

Mind pushed and pulled to awake
Heart softened by clouds and broken by
Shrinkwrap sugar and orange drink.
Oh lha of lha is this your domain?

Chest beats Ashe black
Snow lions trumpet clouds
Garuda cam soars through space-homeless happy
Alseep in his masters lap
Oh lha of lha how wonderful to arrive!

Machu Pichu • By Cameron Wenaus

The image of the acrylic painting shown below was submitted by Kootenay Shambhala member Bonnie Jackson. Bonnie says, “I call it ‘Ignorance’ because the fish appear to be oblivious to the dangers of the open mouth of the baboon―looking in every direction but that of the gaping fangs…”

Ignorance • By Bonnie Jackson

it wasn’t slow.
it was quick
like how red bleeds to amber
after the match jumps
from its box.
free falling free
swimming in an ocean
of intertwined body-speech 
and mind.
falling 
so free
my heart touched 
your ground.

The image posted here was submitted by Bonnie Jackson, a Kootenay Shambhala member who has completed (to the world’s benefit) a scandalously large number of Kootenay Public Weekthüns.

Bonnie describes the image this way: “I stared and stared at my toes and threw drawing after drawing away until I came upon this one―rivers of colours, without boundaries.”

Toe Meditation • By Bonnie Jackson

This is the first of a series of photo blog posts around my [Jigme Datse Rasku's] practice of a matcha tea ceremony.

This is a matcha chasen, which is a bamboo whisk which is used in the “brewing” of matcha, and which the making of is a contemplative art in itself. This is an 80 strand version, which is one of the coarsest versions available. This is one of the most important tools in the tea ceremony practice as it is one item which is very difficult to replace with items that are commonly available in the “west”.

[To view other posts in this series by Kootenay Shambhala member Jigme Datse Rasku, click on the matcha tag.]

Here is the third and final set of Robin Higgins’ collage work (“final” for just a short while, we hope). To view the first two sets, go to Journey with collage and Journey with collage - 2.

Click on the images to enlarge them.

Dalai Lama • By Robin Higgins

Suffering • By Robin Higgins

Tara • By Robin Higgins