I’ve been pondering one of the early readings in CMC11 which stated “Multicultural experience enhances creativity.”   Being immersed in cultures other than the one a person was born into, does allow the mind to embrace alternate frames of reference.  And being able to “see” differently is certainly a prerequisite for creativity.  It also has the potential to enhance our ability to communicate, at least to listen, even as it poses a threat to our tolerance for mono-myopia.

Carol Yeager has urged me to share some of my multicultural experience through pictures.  So here you go, Carol and CMC11-ers.

 

 

 

We live here

 

 

 

 

where everything has to be flown into a short gravel airstrip

 

 

 

 

 

 

by small aircraft,

 

 

 

 

or hauled in on ice roads across frozen lakes in the winter.

 

 

 

 

Our retreat isn’t Florida or Arizona, but just across the bay

 

 

 

 

where a floor of spruce boughs and a wood stove keep the tent toasty warm

 

 

 

 

 

 

even when it’s bitterly cold.

 

 

 

 

Come visit.  I’ll serve tea.

 

 

 

 

We learned this way of life from the Aboriginal people who adopted us when we arrived in 1983.

 

 

They taught us how to harvest in the north,

 

 

 

 

 

 

and how to process our own food,

 

 

 

 

 

 

and how to enjoy the richest delicacies.

 

 

 

 

Quite a journey for a boy who lived here for the first seventeen years of his life

 

 

 

 

traveling like this

 

 

 

 

and like this.

 

 

 

 

Oh, did I forget to mention it?
My journey also led through the Canadian Prairies where I photographed rodeos and preached to the cowboys on Sundays.

 

 

Photo Gallery – click an image below for a larger view