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Some Suggestions

AUG 18, 2025

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Pay attention to the mainstream media, but only so you’re aware what the bastards want you to think. The western press are plutocrat-controlled propaganda services for the US-centralized capitalist empire, and they frame their output accordingly. Don’t trust them.

Be aware of online echo chambers and confirmation bias, and be humble enough to understand that these things affect you. Make sure you’re getting information from a variety of sources, including ones you disagree with ideologically. It’s easy to spin off into erroneous perspectives if you don’t have any other feedback keeping you in check.

Ignore our society’s ideas about what an ideal or successful life looks like. This is a sick civilization whose madness is driving us all into dystopia and disaster. Blaze your own path, and set your own standards for what a good and worthy life would look like.

Make a practice of noticing beauty everywhere. Everything has beauty, even the ugliest things you can imagine. If you can’t see the beauty in what you are perceiving in a given moment, the failure is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is just the experience of having truly seen something.

Feel your feelings fully and courageously, all the way through. If you have forgotten how to cry, re-learn. Don’t repress your feelings, but don’t make them anyone else’s problem either. Feelings are meant to be felt. That’s all.

Face your inner demons and heal them. Don’t hurt anyone else with them. If you have children, make this a priority of the most urgent order, because you will pass your woundedness onto them if you don’t. You can’t heal all that’s wrong in the world, but you can heal all that’s wrong in you.

Put love before everything in life. No one ever went to their grave wishing they had loved less, or had placed their career or ambition above their children or their partner. Love with everything in you; hold nothing back. Loss is inevitable in a mortal life, but love anyway, because it’s the only thing that makes a mortal incarnation worth it in the first place.

Learn to love yourself. This looks like bringing a passionate, unconditional “YES” to everything that shows up inside you — all your thoughts, feelings, sensations etc, even the ones you don’t like very much right now. If you feel resistance to this, bring a “YES” to that resistance. Keep YESing all the resistances until you work your way in. You can only love others to the extent that you love yourself.

Hold no loyalties to the collective delusions of your family, your social circle, or your culture. If you know they’re wrong or ridiculous about something, there’s no reason to protect it or act like it’s legitimate. Be free from the psychological shackles of conformism. Life is too short for that shit.

Open yourself up to new music, films and art, and increase your capacity for appreciating and enjoying culture outside your comfort zone. Learning how to appreciate more things will make life more enjoyable for you.

Be discerning about what you put into your body. A system of food production and distribution which is guided entirely by the pursuit of profit will not have your health interests at heart in the options it presents you with.

Be kind to people who struggle with neuroses, but try your best to free yourself from your own. Certain segments of our society have become far too glorifying of psychological dysfunction and far too encouraging of learned helplessness and irresponsibility. Be a mature adult and heal everything you are capable of healing, and for everything else try to find adaptations and strategies to get by.

Cultivate a serene mind. If you feel called to, pursue spiritual enlightenment. It’s entirely achievable and readily available.

Do as much as you can to make the world a better place, and be content with your efforts regardless of whether or not they are successful. You’ll never be able to save the world single-handedly no matter what you can do; all you can do is make one person’s worth of effort. Make peace with that.

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Caitlin’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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Denman ART Studio Tour 2025

Denman ART Studio Tour 2025

🗓 August 16 & 17 | ⏰ 10 am–4 pm | 📍 Denman Island | 🎟 Free Self-Guided Tour

The Denman ART Studio Tour returns this weekend, offering a rare chance to step inside the working spaces of more than 20 exceptional island artists. From potters and painters to weavers, sculptors, photographers, and mixed-media creators, the tour showcases the rich spectrum of talent that thrives here.

Plan Your Visit

This is a free, self-guided summer adventure perfect for families, friends, or solo wanderers. Download the map from our blog, bring your car, bike, or hop on the Island bus — and set off with a spirit of curiosity. Studios are scattered across the island, tucked in forests, perched by the sea, and hidden along winding country roads.

Each space is unique: some rustic and shaded beneath tall trees, others airy and gallery-bright. All share the same warm welcome and deep connection to Denman’s land, community, and culture.

Whether you’re revisiting old favourites or discovering new talent, you’ll find something inspiring at every stop.

🖼 Map & details: denmanstudiotour.blogspot.com

Maureen Drew’s Water Studies: An Outpouring of Art at the Summer Art Gallery

Maureen Drew’s Water Studies: An Outpouring of Art at the Summer Art Gallery

The title Water Studies is accurate, but it doesn’t describe the full  breadth of the work you’ll see at Denman Island artist Maureen Drew’s upcoming exhibit of that name at the Denman Island Summer Gallery, August 21 – Sept 2, 2025.

To stick with watery metaphors, the show could be described as the current outpouring of Maureen’s life-long immersion in art, design, and creativity. 

Water as theme and fluidity as a painting technique characterize about half the pieces in the show. Figures on the beach gaze out to sea; multi-hued waves undulate across the canvas. This focus emerged from a course Maureen took last year. 

“I love to experiment with new techniques and recently attended North Island college. One of the artists I studied with poured paint over huge canvases, creating the effect of running water. At home in my studio I tried to emulate this technique: that was the birth of water studies. The backgrounds are the starting point for many of my beach scenes,” says Maureen. 

The exhibit also includes abstracts, vibrant foxgloves and other flowery naturescapes, and a series of paintings incorporating lace doilies. 

Repurposing Doilies in Contemporary Art

On her many visits to second hand shops, Maureen noticed that doilies, which used to be a treasured part of our grandmothers’ homes, were now in bags selling for just a few cents. “These doilies took an incredible amount of time and skill to make. Many of them are incredible beautiful and so I have tried to repurpose them, honouring the work of our grandmothers. I string them on hoops to make mandalas to hang in windows, and some of them I use as collage in my paintings,” says Maureen. 

In one painting, an oval doily takes centre stage, a portal, an evocation of the feminine, or whatever the viewer sees in it. In another painting, a doily plays the role of a blanket covering two lovers. In another, small doilies create a textured pattern in the background. 

Water and doilies are just the latest fascinations for Maureen, who has spent decades working and playing with creativity, happily ignoring the perceived borders between fine art, craft, and design. 

A Life in Art

Maureen’s life in art began as a child in England. “My dad owned a store in which he repaired watches and jewellery. My job was to repair broken pearl necklaces, which were in vogue at that time. I loved to sort them into rows and restring them while listening to radio programs.”

Maureen’s family moved to Winnipeg, and at 16 she started to make her own clothes. Later on she did alterations for a living and learned to sew drapery and do small upholstery. 

Maureen completed a fine art program in North Carolina and a degree in interior design in Washington state. After working in interior design for a few  years, she founded the Pacific Design Academy, a private college in downtown Victoria offering programs in interior design, fashion design, building technology, and graphic design. 

“Starting up that school from scratch and running it was huge. I did all the promotion, all the organizing, and I taught there. After 15 years, I was spent, and passed the school on to my son.” 

Denman Island Creativity

Since moving to Denman 18 years ago, Maureen has concentrated on painting in both oil and acrylics, but of course that’s not all she creates. She has many fruit trees and a small vineyard on her property. “Autumn is juice time with the apples and pears and then when the grapes ripen it’s time to make wine,” she says. 

For Maureen, the world is a cornucopia of inspiration and material, whether the medium is fruit, fabric, or paint. 

Maureen Drew’s exhibit, Water Studies, takes place at the Denman Island Summer Art Gallery Thursday, August 21, to Tuesday, September 2, 2025. 

Hours: Mon – Sat 11:00 am – 4:00 pm  / Sunday 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm. 

Opening reception: Thursday, August 21, 7:00 pm. 

Community Feast Sunday August 24th

Community Feast Sunday, August 24th

All are invited to a family-friendly community feast prepared by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Studies Field School students with assistance from Denman Island’s Farm to Family Meals Service Society. 

Held at the community hall, the feast will feature delicious local food donated and purchased from Denman and Comox Valley gardens and farms, and prepared and cooked by the university students. Gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan options will be available. This is a family-friendly event. 

We would very much appreciate donations from our generous local gardeners to help cut costs for this event. Please contact Bee Balm at bee.farmtofamily@gmail.com if you have some lovely offerings from your garden that could be incorporated into the feast. We would be most grateful for anything you have available!

The feast is a free event, but a $donation jar will be available for those who wish to contribute. Funds collected will be split between Farm to Family and an organization of the students’ choosing.

Please bring your own plate, bowl, cup and cutlery.

6pm, Sunday, August 24th. 

Hope to see you there!

Kevin Mitchell & Steve Ireland to play the Guesthouse Aug.23rd.

Sat Aug 23 @ 6:30 will see Kevin Mitchell and Steve Ireland  perform at the EarthClubFactory/Guesthouse.

New original songs in the vein of alt/country/folk are on the menu, with unique and strong harmonies. Songs about real life, a musical poetry of motion…It’s been one year since they last performed at The Guesthouse with a lot of time spent fine tuning !

It promises to be a great evening of good food, great service, inspiring music, and hopefully perfect weather!

Dinner at 5 30, cover charge$20.

Hope to see you there!

Quinn, Shel & Bethany present WILD HAVEN Concert at Hall Friday Aug. 29th

Quinn, Shel & Bethany present

WILD HAVEN

Concert at Hall Friday Aug. 29th @ 6:15 Doors Open at 5:30 pm

25 Community Youth, Kevin Drew & David French!!!

 

We’re thrilled to share that Kevin Drew, founding member of Broken Social Scene, will be joining us at camp this year — popping in throughout the week to jam, connect, and quietly inspire our young artists.

And as a generous gift to our community, Kevin and fellow BSS member David French will perform a 30-minute set following the kids’ final performance on Friday evening at the Denman Community Hall.

This intimate show is for the kids — but we know the adults might love it too. We invite non-camper families to join us for $15 at the door — with all proceeds going toward next year’s Wild Haven Performing Arts Camp.

It’s going to be a beautiful, music-filled night — and we can’t wait to share it with you.

Mohammed on Denman

A group picture of friends of Mohammed, visiting Hornby. Yom Shamash, Peter Borkovitch, Yvon Raoul, Mohammed. A great peaceful day.

Previously, in the August 1st and October 24th, 2024 editions of The Islands Grapevine, I related the story of Mohammed Al Zaza, a young Palestinian refugee from Gaza, co-sponsored by the B.C. Muslim Association and the Vancouver chapter of Independent Jewish Voice (I.J.V.), who lived with us for several months last year. To briefly recap: he was badly injured in an Israeli “mowing the grass” bombing attack in 2011 at the age of 15, and then transported to a Tel Aviv hospital where he spent two years undergoing multiple operations, then sent back to Gaza in need of further medical treatment. 

He found his way to Egypt, and then Turkey, where he was helped by the generosity of friends in Israel for 5 years. Confined to the situation, not having proper documentation as an immigrant in Turkey, Mohammed ended up in the Canadian Embassy in Ankara. Again, with the help of the same group of Jewish Israelis, and in liaison with Vancouver’s I.J.V., Mohammed was put on a flight to Canada. A friend of ours asked us to lodge him for his initial stay in Vancouver. He ended up staying with us for several months until he had to get further treatment and several operations at UBC’s Health Science, G.F. Strong and Vancouver General hospitals. 

His weakened body speaks for the suffering he has had to endure all these years since that Israeli bomb changed his life forever. As if things were not bad enough, he lost three of his brothers since October 7th: one in November following the initial strike on Gaza and buried somewhere under a collapsed building, a second one killed fetching water for his family a few months ago, and a third one in need of dialysis, died for lack of medical treatment. It has been hell for him and it is only through the amazing support of friends and volunteers in Vancouver, that Mohammed has managed to keep hope guiding his indomitable spirit. 

Abdullah Alzaza, Father of two
Mahmoud Alzaza, Father of two girls
Abdul Kareem Alzaza, Father of three children

Two weeks ago he spent a few days with us on beautiful Denman Island and visited Hornby Island for lunch in Rae Maté’s beautiful art studio, and a chat with Gabor Maté. It was the first time Mohammed saw B.C. beyond Vancouver’s bustling life. In our home on Lacon, he went swimming, stretched on a deck chair, sipped strong coffee, gazed at the sea while thinking of all his family and lost friends in Gaza, who might be looking at a similar ocean thousands of miles away, wishing this nightmare would fade away. Here’s the beautiful text he wrote. It is translated from his Arabic:

“They said I would not remain, that I was finished, but they never understood that those born from the womb of this land do not die, and that those raised on sunlight and blood are never forgotten. They bombed me to silence my voice and bury my truth, but they forgot that my heartbeat echoes with the pulse of the earth, and that when I fall, my roots rise from beneath me. I am never buried. I am planted, We are the people of this land. We do not surrender what is ours, not to force nor to fear. We do not shake the hand that stole our olives, our homes, our children’s laughter. Every bullet they fire awakens a thousand memories, every wall they build tears down a thousand silences, and every attempt to erase us gives birth to a thousand rebels. I do not run. I do not forget. I am the promised one like fire, like rain, like resurrection. I am not a passing name in the footnotes of history. I am the story. I am the land itself speaking back. They tried to end me, but I am just beginning. and from me grows resistance.”

A group picture of friends of Mohammed, visiting Hornby.
Yom Shamash, Peter Borkovitch, Yvon Raoul, Mohammed.
A great peaceful day.