Calendar

Hands Like Roots: Nakusp Book Reading, April 30

Please join me in Nakusp for the launch of Hands Like Roots: Notes on an Entangled Contemplative Path. We will meet at the Nakusp Public Library on Wednesday, April 30, at 4 p.m. There will be readings from the book, a time of question and answer, and yes, there will be books for sale!

Hands Like Roots: Book Launch April 23

Join me at 7 pm on Wednesday, April 23, for the first official launch of Hands Like Roots: Notes on an Entangled Contemplative Life. The launch will be at Knox Hall in New Denver, and I will read from the book, talk about the process of writing the essays, and answer questions. And yes, there will be …

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Contemplative in the Kootenays

Strengthen your capacity to stand strong amidst the raging winds of contemporary chaos. Come spend the day in New Denver with others who love silence, prayer and community, and who are committed to loving as God loves. Contemplative in the Kootenays meets on Saturday, March 22, 2025. We will sit in Centering Prayer together; ponder …

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Wide Spot: Anchored

In the book Unshakeable by trauma therapist Jo Ann Rosen, there’s a discussion of anchors, those simple practices that return us to awareness. Rosen speaks about anchors because trauma responses bypass all our good skills. We forget what we know and react instinctively. Instinctive reaction may be the perfect response when a rattlesnake is rattling, but it’s …

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Contemplative in the Kootenays, October 5, 2024

Contemplative in the Kootenays meets (mostly!) monthly in New Denver. This day-long event (10 am to 3 pm) is open to contemplatives across the Kootenays; most of us practice Centering Prayer, but not everyone. Most of us are Christian, but not everyone. Most of us come regularly, but not everyone! This month we’ll be exploring …

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Wide Spot: Aim High

One predictable result of a good retreat is the scramble at the end when people start asking, “How can we keep this great community going?” Then follows a frenzied exchange of emails and phone numbers.  Equally predictable is that any community formed simply for its own continuance inevitably falls apart. I find this depressing. I …

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Wide Spot: Fog Blind

I am blind. This is legally true—without glasses, my eyes are so bad that I should only be behind the wheel if I have a guide dog on my lap who has a driving license. Fog exacerbates my vision problems. Driving Highway 6 in the dark and the fog is hard enough; when another car …

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WideSpot: Beautiful

“Our fingers imbibe like roots,” begins a prayer by Francis of Assisi, “So I place them on what is beautiful in this world.”   Beauty may feel like a shaky reed these days, nothing much to hang our hat on. Most of us are more inclined to attend to what’s ugly: environmental degradation, wars, famines, loss …

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Wide Spot: Get Ready

I remember looking up at Goat Mountain from the Kohan Garden that evening. We’d had a lightning storm about an hour earlier and now the trees were candling, just up the mountainside from our house. Close enough that if the wind kept up, we’d be evacuated before the night was out. I sprinted home and …

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Canadians can send an e-transfer to descamp@widespot.ca. Everyone else, I take cheques of all nationalities.
Box 452, New Denver, BC, V0G 1S0, Canada