On this Women’s Day my attention goes to the millions of young girls and women of all ages, who currently face, and who have faced in the past, unimaginable suffering and loss due to conflict that is unnecessary and incomprehensible. While new conflicts erupt, I am ever aware of the women who have suffered in conflict zones before this. It is in these times that there is a reigniting of trauma and a reliving of painful experiences. I often imagine and feel an unbreakable golden thread that connects all women and girls…a thread that intertwines through each of us and carries with it our grace, dignity, and strength that we share as a collective. My strength is yours; my dignity is yours; and my grace is yours. I am reminded so often by the many women in my life that if not for their strength, their dignity, and their grace, I would not be able to find my own.  

Image: Golden Thread. Painting by Oksana Lekhniak, Ukraine

No matter where I have traveled or whom I’ve met there is something that I have come to find in common with many fellow parents – most of us worry about the quality of education that our children are receiving. …

Over the past 15 years I have privately journaled about my experiences of life in South Africa and life in Canada. I have continually returned to my writings with the intention to eventually join several pieces written on different continents …

Friendship is amazing and interesting to me….some friends are in your life for a short time and others you may know for many, many years. And yet despite duration, proximity and/or circumstance, some friends are deeply enmeshed in the fabric …

.….that I never could have learned during my years of university education. Children naturally know how to be present No stress is ever more important than the time I spend with my kids Wisdom is not learned and it certainly …