Story to tell....Veronique

Armand l'a trouvé longue la criss d'hiver. Assis sur son perron, dans sa chaise berçante qu'il avait déménagé depuis le salon, Armand réfléchissait.  De l'autre côté de la rue, les enfants du voisin s’amusaient a sauter dans des flaques d'eau. La mère, avec son bébé dans les bras, surveille les enfants en berçant son bébé d'environ 6 mois dans ses bras. Elle avait l'air fatiguée. Armand ne les avait pas vu souvent de sa fenêtre cet hiver. Habituellement ils étaient toujours dehors, hiver comme été, mais c’était différent depuis Octobre dernier.  Armand pensa a sa propre famille, qui était loin et qu'il n'avait pas vu depuis plus d'un an. Maudit virus se disait-il. Pas qu'il les voyait si souvent auparavant, mais maintenant que c'était presque impossible, ça lui apportait une lourdeur au coeur. Armand n'était plus jeune, il ne se faisait plus d'histoires ça fait longtemps. Sauf peut-être cet hiver! Olive, sa femme, était entrée l...

The journey to inner peace is not an easy one, but certainly one that is possible. I’ve experienced inner peace, at multiple moments in my life. My latest inner peace moment filled me with a wave of happiness, hope and relief.  I have been working for years on myself, going through ups and downs. I had periods of great clarities, and others where I’ve felt lost and disconnected.  I always knew that inner peace was attainable. I could witness it in some people that surrounded me, close or afar, that truly exuded this magical aura. I was attracted to that inner beauty, and every time I would witness it, it reminded me that this is what I was working for. Yes I got lost on the track a few times, but now I know that getting lost was my soul telling, with a figurative baseball bat to the forehead, ‘Hey girl, time for you to stop ignoring all the signs I’ve been sending you, and put in the work to solve those inner conflicts! » It’s amazing how much I would be fighting it, and hopin...

International Women’s Day has always been very meaningful to me. It’s a cause for celebration, for all the progress that we have made as a society towards gender equality, diversity and inclusions. We’ve seen in the past year, that this progression is at risk and being put into question! As a country, Canada has made great progress, towards equality.  In 1918,  all white caucasian women get the right to vote to the federal elections. Only in1960, 42 years later, do all minority groups are finally allowed to vote, including aboriginal men and women. Quebec, in 1940 and the Northwestern Territories, 1951, were the last to grant women the right to vote in provincial elections. Before 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada, decided that women, could not be considered a « person ». However, in an appel to the Privy Council, women were finally considered as a « person » under the law, starting in 1929, giving them the right to hold political offices and have the right to possessions....

The first snow flakes are falling from the sky.  For some folks, it’s the first time of a long winter ahead. For others, it’s a sign of nature. A reminder that everything in life needs to slow down at some point, to regenerate itself.  We’ve all had to slow down to some degree in this past year. Slow down from this rat race that can sometimes become life. Normally we need to schedule time in our life to slow down. We plan this grand vacation, to go lay down on a beach, or to travel to a country that we’ve never been. We set our sights on this reward, and it encourages us to keep going and keep pushing in the day to day, thinking that « yes! Only a few weeks lefts before.... » to motivate ourselves that we will finally be able to get a breather. To breathe, to slow down, to enjoy the moment and admire all that surrounds us. We were scheduling that time. This year, we didn’t need to schedule. The ability to slow down was given to us, on a not so pretty platter, but it was. It ha...

Clarity. The clarity that came to me from self work, is like having a high definition TV to the world and your surrounding. —— I had been looking for this clarity for a long time. I knew it existed, I knew I had experienced it before but it was never lasting. It was like I was at the optometrist getting my view tested and going from lenses to lenses, trying to figure out what was the right prescription. I could find one that would make sense, but after a short period of time, it was like the glasses were being removed. Why had it gone away? Why couldn’t I not maintain the vision? When it happened, it was so beautiful, like the feeling one would get by being able to walk on water or be able to fly. I would feel so free of any judgements. Judgement from myself, and judgement from others. I had tasted it, and man did I want it to stay forever. It just wouldn’t. —— The thing is, when you experience something that is so magical, but you’ve yet been able to understand how i...

I do suffer from it. I was born in a small community in New Brunswick. All of my classmates were white. All of my teachers were white. All the folks in my community were white. Oh yeah, expect that one girl. We didn’t know any better. I didn’t know any better. We were all alone. We didn’t get exposed to it. When we saw a person of colour or of other ethnicity, it caught out attention. We all looked towards that person’s direction. We all made assumption. I then went on to University. The diversity on campus was present and for me, coming from a white DOMINATED community, it was a big change. Diversity was composed from all genders, all ethnicity, from all Colors, from all différents countries against the world. It took me a while, so it did I would say for my white caucasian colleague to adapt. I am now wondering, how did our colleagues from another ethnicity fell joining our ranks, coming to a portion of our country that is dominated by white people. I mean, I have to admi...

Create! Imagine! Dream! All words of actions that we are thought from the moment we are born, throughout our childhood, all the way to adulthood. Then, for some imaginary reason, it often disappears. In a North American culture where success if defined by degrees, tittles, and pay checks, we loose sight of our inner creative self. The same creative self that as a young child, would spend hours drawing, building lego houses or snow forts. The same imaginative mind that would make up fictions friend, that would sit at the dinner table on a empty chair, with it’s own plate. The same dreaming young soul that would think they could conquer the world, save the planet by collecting water bottles. We often loose it, and I am for sure guilty of it in some way or another. We talk the talk, but we forget to walk the walk. It’s been over three weeks since this situation started to become real for most of us in Canada. It’s been since in 2019 that the planet started feeling it’s impact. ...