LUE-42 Enterprises May 2022 Ezine

I Believe In Fairness, Fun, And Sharing What I’ve Learned With The People Who Make This Planet A Great Place To Live

Issue 135, May 2022

I am happy to greet the merry, merry month of May. April felt like an entire year (with all four seasons) in 30 days. Now I'd like to enjoy a month that is just a month. While April wore me out, it also gave me much to celebrate.

Through my roles with the Chartered Governance Institute in Canada, I have been working with lovely, inspiring people from around the world. They help me keep my "governance pencil" sharpened, and I am always happy to learn something or see how a new approach to a board problem has worked (or not).

We are into AGM season and my evenings and weekends are filling up. AGMs and Board meetings are are competing with theatre productions and backyard visits with friends around fire pits. It's a fine balance.

I saw some wonderful theatre in April courtesy of Theatre Network, Northern Light Theatre, Shadow Theatre, and others. I continued to unpack and cull even more. It barely hurts anymore! Through it all, I've let others help me. That they keep offering is a miracle that has made a huge difference in my life. I know some amazing people!

I had a quick post-move break in Calgary that included a beer festival, my favourite restaurant, and some vintage/cellared beer acquisitions. I even went to a hockey game! I raced home to a family dinner -- the first in two years. It was good to see everyone at the same time, and not in a lawn chair on the driveway.

I noticed that sometime during the pandemic, the responsibility of telling of family stories shifted to the next generation. I found myself listening instead of talking. Fascinating! I'll gladly hand off that baton. Perhaps if I am not talking, then I can get back to writing. I know there are some plays trying to get out.

I lunched with some dear family friends, and it reminded me that May is Mother's Day as well as the anniversary month of my mom's passing in 2014. Her outlook on life and sense of humour still sustain me in tough times. If you don't have a mom to celebrate with, then I encourage you to take some time to remember the best of her. Have a great May.

/lmwe

"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted

whenever I am contradicted."

-- Ralph Waldo Emmerson

I Have A Play Reading Coming Up!

Well, 8 minutes actually. And I am reading it (not a professional actor). If you're in Edmonton please check out Script Salon's 8th anniversary:

"Hi everyone, We are happy to bring 8 lovely local playwrights to the stage reading from their own work on Sunday, May 8, to celebrate 8 years of Script Salon! Please meet playwrights Sara Campos-Silvius, Louise Casemore, Lebo Desile, Linda Wood Edwards, Darrin Hagen, Holly Lewis, Vern Thiessen, and David van Belle. Come celebrate with us at the Upper Artspace at Holy Trinity (10037-84 Avenue). Many thanks to the Playwrights Guild of Canada PlayConnect program for supporting our 8th Anniversary Playwright readings. The Guild is also celebrating 50 years strong!"

I intend to read from my Chilkoot play "Trail and Error." I hope you can join us!

8 Forms of Capital

A friend shared an article recently that really struck me. While I know little about permaculture, and even less about financial permaculture, I can certainly agree that "money" is not the only capital circulating in our world.

The article "8 Forms of Permaculture" ( Ethan Roland & Gregory Landua, appleseedpermaculture.com April 2011) talks about how it might look to view the financial system as an ecosystem. There has been so much talk recently about "systemic" problems in our communities and nations, that I thought it deserved a closer look and sure enough, these systems are ubiquitous.

"Financial Permaculture goes beyond the traditional permaculture approach to economics and asks the question, “What would it look like if we re-designed the global financial system using permaculture principles?” and “What if our financial system looked more like an ecosystem? ... In 2009, Catherine Austin Fitts presented “Mapping Financial Ecosystems”. We mapped all the ‘capital pools’ in the local community. We explored the flows of money between entities, and discussed how vibrant local economies are more defined by the flows of money rather than by the pools. Something wasn’t sitting right with me. We kept talking about money as if it was the only form of capital, even though there was a growing awareness that acres of land, board feet of timber, and tons of carbon might also be part of an ecosystemic economy. ... At one of the open space sessions I began to realize a more complete map of “capital.”"

The quote above is the context for this chart below. Please look at the article for deeper definitions/examples of these areas of capital. As I look at organizations, and not-for-profits in particular, I can see how this is true. So how can we value more fully these other forms of capital in service to our organizations/ communities/nations? I'm listening.

The Benefits of Awe

This excerpt is extracted from the article "The Power of Awe in Our Lives" by Gregg Vanourek (March 29 2022) which I also include in Links I Like. I encourage you to read the whole article.

Experiencing awe, as powerful as it is in and of itself, comes with a surprising number of benefits, including these ten:

Making us feel truly alive, with wonder and gratitude
Inspiring us to want to achieve or be part of something great
Elevating our mood and increasing our happiness and wellbeing
Putting things in perspective, especially when we get caught up in our own little dramas or ego, and boosting our humility
Elevating us from mundane matters and dampening our materialism, essentially reordering our priorities
Reducing our sense of time starvation, giving us a sense that time is plentiful and making us less impatient
Connecting us more with others—and with humanity—and reminding us that we’re part of a greater whole
Increasing our urge to be generous and to cooperate with and help others
Helping us recognize the role that outside forces play in our lives (e.g., the influence of others, or luck)
Potentially improving our health, including stronger immunity and lower levels of inflammation

Couldn't we all use a little more AWE in our lives?

Some People Who Made Life Better in April

MaryJane Alanko & Bryan Perkins, Claire Barton, Jonathon Cote, Tom Crerar, Patricia Darbasie, Janis Dow, Sandra & Harry Fast, Kevin Garner, Liz Garratt, Jim Gwartney & Donna Stonehocker, Wanda Hackney, Mandy Foster, Dianne Johnstone, Julia Kopala, Lynn MacAskill, Pat Macdonald, Heather Marshall, Sherrill McGilvray, John Mellec, David Miriguay, Margaret Nickel, Paul Rechner, Carole Ross, Michelle Sicard, Misty Sklar, Wanda Stephens, Ralph Suppa, Dean Thompson, Chris Wood & Bobbie Fitzgerald, Jenny Wood Narine, Peter Wood

“The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.”

― Elizabeth Taylor