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My journey to community

In 2005 and 2006, I created and organized – with the help of many - the Voices in the Sound Festival.

In 2005 and 2006, I created and organized – with the help of many - the Voices in the Sound Festival. I had moved to Bowen six years earlier and was grateful for the friendships, the mountains, the forests, the waters that inspired and nurtured my songs and stories. I wanted to give something back. The purpose of the festival was to honour the past and dream the future, to reconnect islanders and visitors to the natural world and to each other. I had little experience in building community – having been a solitary artist much of my life. Doing the research opened my eyes and my heart.
I began to glimpse what creates healthy community. And planning the festival gave me a wonderful opportunity to get to know more members of the community – developers, environmentalists, actors, musicians, homesteaders, directors, costume designers, storytellers, business folks, historians, visual artists, politicians, Squamish First Nations, R.C.M.P. school kids, and baseball players. I highly recommend it, if you have the stamina.
This column will act as another deep foray into community. Another way to be involved with a community that is rich in beauty and possibility. I will explore what community means and how we achieve it. I will ask if our community is inclusive, who’s missing and how we might do things better. I will look at how communities function in other parts of the world, as well as in our forests and beaches. I will look at my own experience of living in community and how my perspective has shifted. I will be up front about my own struggles around community and my efforts to engage with those who hold a different view of things. In writing about community, I will not be seeking perfection but rather connection and the building of bridges.
Our island community is complex: in many ways it is caring and nurturing, and in other ways divided, stuck, defending positions. I want to write fairly and non-judgmentally about a community I love very much, a community that some people are disparaging, and others are leaving. So I’ll write about those who are staying and why they have made that decision.  I’ll look at what makes vibrant community, what’s working on Bowen and what’s missing. We are made for these times, a wise woman once said, and so we carry on. Best way we know how. As a full-time, longtime artist I know that creativity comes out of just the right amount of tension, and conflict can be an opportunity for real conversation and making things better. We live here because community is important to us – with all its warts and wrinkles.
My mission, if that is the correct word, is to play a part in creating the better future we all want for Bowen. I will attempt to write inclusively about the island and that means the people, the plants, the land, the waters, the animals of Bowen Island. And anything else that stirs the cauldron of community. I will not shy away from controversy; nor will I knowingly instigate it.
 I will write, thoughtfully, words that I hope will be consistently honest and of deep benefit to the community. I see community as a cauldron. What are we cooking up these days? I welcome this opportunity and I invite you to join me. Let me know if there are any topics you would like me to cover. I will do my best.