Feel Good Guru

I have a friend who does his Christmas shopping in July. He’s a flight attendant, so when he’s in India and finds a gorgeous Pashmina he can’t pass up, he picks several up, brings them home, perhaps gifts one to his mother-in-law in July and tucks the others away until December. Come Christmas day, each of his girlfriends is blown away by his thoughtfulness. I mean who does this, right? Not I, and probably not you.

I actually opted out of Christmas shopping years ago and I can confirm that it’s extremely liberating… (more…)

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Shivering in your knickers? Cavilling the chill? Pleading for heat? When the weather outside is frightful, I can think of nothing more delightful than being wrapped like a burrito in blankets, kneaded like a soft loaf of cinnamon bread dough and warmed to the bone with hot stones strategically placed on chakras to move my chi and fill me with glee.

So when I met my mom in Ottawa to celebrate her 7 decades on planet Earth, we escaped the first flurries of winter in the womb of wellness upstairs at Holtz Spa, across the street from the Chateau Laurier. (more…)

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I’ve taken up painting in the last couple of years. Mostly just to doodle personalized “thank you” cards, but also to use a different part of my creative brain and for the sheer joy of playing with fun colors. It occurred to me the other day as I was slopping paint all over a piece of cardboard, making a mess beyond rescue with too much color, that less is so often more in art.

I’m very attracted to zen-like works with a single color or stroke on a white canvas, yet it’s so difficult to put the brush down after just one stroke, isn’t it? I got to comparing art to life and made the simple connection that in life, as in art, restraint is a powerful tool. As we charge full steam ahead into the holidays, restraint can be invoked often in the supreme interest of keeping Santa belly at bay. (more…)

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