our evolution

Just thought I’d share a link to a post and the above photo on TreeHugger.com about the Montreal Permaculture Guild classes I’ve been co-facilitating since January …a good excuse to write a few reflections on the whole experience!

Tomorrow is our last  class of the spring semester- it’s hard to believe it’s been four months! Wednesdays have become the highlight of my week and also the source of many a lengthy meeting…I’m looking forward to creating a self-managing system out of the class and getting participants to share their own knowledge and experience through summer skill-shares. We’ll also be having a lots of fieldtrips, which will hopefully mean a bunch of people coming down to visit me at Heartroot farm while I’m there…the prospect of living mostly on the farm this summer has been exciting up til now, when it’s getting quite close and I am realizing that part of me worries that I will end up isolated and that the many people who’ve expressed interest in coming down this summer won’t make it…recognizing this fear has been a big shift for me this week. At the beginning of the year I had a presentiment that there would be a lot of movement around connecting my “city” and “country” selves this year, and such certainly seems to be the case…but I digress.

The semester of MPG has been a whirlwind- I’ve come to understand myself in a facilitators role much better- my needs and strengths and limitations… I’ve come to appreciate the power of music more than ever through our weekly vocal jams and spontaneous round-singing during community dinners after classes…I have so many hopes and desires for the future of this group- the potential is amazing! but for now our energy is not unlimited. The reality is that we all have multiple other jobs, school, projects that we are juggling and cannot dedicate our whole lives to making a strong network of permaculturalists in Montreal and Quebec, but the hope is that we can at least get the ball rolling for others to do so…

April 19th from 11a.m. to 3p.m. I’ll be playing at Northcliffe Square (2000 Northcliffe, #218, across from Vendome metro) at a fundraiser for the Montreal Urban Community Sustainment Project (MUCS). The brunch is on a lsiding scale of $15-30.

If you’ve never been to MUCS, or don’t know what it is yet, let me tell you abit. It has many facets. At it’s most basic it is a dining co-op where people come for shared meals, cooking, skillshares and a sense of community. The Montreal PErmaculture Guild which I am part of is also run out of MUCS and is part of the collective energy around the place.

You can visit www.mucs.ca for more detailed information. I’ve been involved with MUCS as a member of the dining co-op and the kitchen collective since last summer and am constantly inspired by the amount of community building and initiative I see there.

The theme for this months fundraiser is bluegrass (and… rubber ducks…). Come on out and celebrate the spring!

April 5th (sunday) I will be performing at Sala Rossa in Montreal (4848 St-Laurent) as part of a gala for The Social Justice Committee of Montreal. Matt Stern and Jason Stein will also be performing.
The show starts at 8pm and I’ll be on first!Cover is $5-10 sliding scale. Hope to see some of you there!

April 2nd , 8pm at Shaika Cafe in NDG (5526 Sherbrooke street West), pass the hat cover- See you there!

The beginning of the school year is often a challenging time for those of us who have chosen our homes and the world at large as our places of learning. A buzz is in the air and our school-going friends are preoccupied and anxious. School becomes a force drawing masses of people together, willing or unwilling.

Unschooling Camp is a place where home learners of all backgrounds and ages can come together to create connections and friendships and build a sense of shared momentum and excitement for the year to come.
The Camp will be held from August 23rd to August 28th at Heartroot Farm, located in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, about 2 and a half hour drive outside of Montreal. We are on 240 acres of land with both pine and maple forest, 3 ponds and a river for swimming, lots of open field for games and tents, horses, ponies, a cow and llama for non-human company. There are local beaches and hiking ranges within easy driving distance.

Participants are requested to bring something to share with the group during the week- this could be a presentation on something that interests you, a topic of discussion, a game or activity…
All ages are invited, including parents and young children.

The cost is $500, which includes housing, facilities and three organic meals per day as well as snacks.
Family prices are available.

Optional courses which can be provided, with additional teachers fees, include:

Wildcrafting and Herbal Remedies, Plant Identification, Singing and chanting, Breakdancing, Horse riding, drum making, handicrafts (making dreamcatchers, papermaking, bracelets…), basic Spanish. Regular yoga and mediation are available on a donation basis.

If you have questions or would like to reserve a spot for you or your children, please contact Kyra Shaughnessy at kyrasbw@gmail.com.

To learn more about Heartroot Farm , our website is www.heartroot.com
If you would like to look us up on GoogleMaps our address is
Heartroot Farm
86 Chemin Vallerand,
Audet, QC
G0Y 1A0

Nestled at the end of the Appalachian and White Mountain ranges in Quebec’s Eastern Townships is a place called Heartroot Farm. If we choose to define it by arbitrary man-made boundaries, Heartroot is a 240-acre piece of land covered in maple and fir forest, with a river running through it and a mountain leading over into Maine. Or maybe we want to define it by its tangible uses as a family home and nature and spiritual based retreat center. It is indeed all this…and there’s more.

My family has been the caretakers of the land defined as Heartroot Farm since the early 1980’s.  Since then it has been a place where people come to reconnect with nature and to observe and reflect on the stories and paths that make up our lives…or perhaps it always was this way. When people arrive at Heartroot they get an immediate sense of grounding and calm. It is a place of powerful healing and deep intention. For those stepping out of hectic, sensorially overloaded city lives it is like a bucket of cold water in the face. The shock and wonder of open spaces, stars visible in the sky at night and pure silence, not to mention the interactions with various non-human beings (from mice to cats to Ferdinand the llama) causes highstrung human wires to unwind. Often there is an intense need for sleep…recovery from the years of electric vibrations circuiting through the bodies systems is much needed for urban dwellers. We are folded into darkness at night, without the dull pink haze of light pollution or the constant offsetting of car alarms, the window rattling throb of bass boomers and police sirens
The body rejoices. The brain freaks out.

“What the hell am I doing here in the middle of nowhere? How did I get here? Where am I?” This obvious “I’m not listening” tactic is brought on by not having distractions from processing and actually feeling (yes, that’s right, feeling) our emotions anymore. Cities are great places to avoid healing ourselves. Heartroot Farm is a place where duck and cover becomes absolutely impossible.
You may be pissed off. You may be frightened out of your wits. You may find yourself sobbing uncontrollably and have no clue why for the first few hours. But you will feel something. And whatever it is will be perfect. Whatever it is you feel will be exactly what need to come out for you to come closer to your true self and to the realization that We and One.
Some may think this sounds like a contradiction. How can “We” be “One”? Think of it this way- how can the ocean be made up of a bunch of water particles?

Above all Heartroot Farm is a place dedicated to the evolution of humanity. We are a growing community of beings with interrelated intentions for personal and planetary healing.

The past few years have been ones of “foundation building,” as it were. This year we step out in the sun with our shirtsleeves rolled up to raise the walls.
Some projects we’ll be working on this year include: tearing down the fences (please note the symbolism)!; finishing the floor of the extension to be performance and dining hall; setting up an enormous greenhouse and preparing a patch of earth for next years garden; harvesting and canning all the wild foods (apples, plums, filberts, cranberries, pincherries, blueberries, raspberries…etc.);building composting toilets, a chicken coop and creating a “pharmacy” dedicated to all our homemade herbal remedies. We will also be holding an artists retreat in the month of August where we hope to beautify some of the buildings, as well as an Unschooling camp from the 23rd to 28th of August. More information about all our upcoming events and workshops will soon be found at www.heartroot.com. Come find us.
It is an exciting time to be alive!

Tune in to CKUT radio at 90.3 fm this Tuesday,February 3rd, between 7 and 9 am EST to hear me performing on the Tuesday Morning After show. I’ll also be talking a bit about the Sexualization Zine series, along with whatever other probing questions Charlie-O decides to ask me.

You can also listen to the show in the archives post-live appearance at ckut.ca.

January 30th the MUCS dining co-op is holding a fundraising party and celebration of the One Year Anniversary of the Montreal Permaculture Guild.
Members of the Guild, including myself and other local musicians, will be performing throughout the night. Our weekly Community Restaurant Supper will be served at 6pm (sliding scale, $2-15).
Feel free to come join the festivities!

MUCS address is loft 218, 2000 Northcliffe in NDG across from Vendome Metro

phone number 514 312 7074