the yak occidental

We're already halfway through 2021! Let's take a look back at the month of June. Above: Flowers and Figures (date unknown) by Alice Bailly June Excursion: New West Farmer's Market Thursday afternoons in New West has seen the return of the farmer's market ! It was weird to go to an event with lots of people after all this time. It was nice though because even as it felt as-normal-as-possible, it was still very safe--everyone was wearing masks, hand sanitizer everywhere, etc. The stands were spaced far apart outdoors, shoppers are encouraged to move quickly through in one direction to allow for other people to come in (they limit the amount in the market).  It was a nice way to pass a balmy evening, good to support local businesses, etc. There was a good variety of products at the market and we ended up spending more money than we anticipated! Most-Liked Chore: Preparing for guests In the corner of the world where I live, COVID restrictions eased up quite a bit in June, ...

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi. Painting above: Still life (c.1650) by Louise Moillon When I looked at her, she smiled brightly. Incongruous smiles were sort of a nervous thing with Miranda, a way of protecting herself from consequences, I think. Just like putting sunglasses on, or opening up an umbrella. p.5 Immediately he replied, "Yes I love you, and you are beautiful," pronouncing his words with a hint of impatience because they had been waiting in him a long time. p.14 Lily was a bunch of crumpled pockets and Sylvie is a black dress, perfumed scarves, iron posture and whatever else turns a person into an atmosphere. p.69 Grey eyes convince so well, burying the person they look at in truth like flung pebbles. But Miranda could never do that with her eyes; convince. Anyway she was never sure about anything. p.108 When Eliot saw Jalil's sunflowers on the sitting-room mantlepiece, he asked where they had come from. Sh...

Over the past year or so I have read a lot of career, business, and self-help books , with the goal of continuously improving my own performance as someone who is active in Production on Vancouver’s world-renowned animation scene. If I’ve learned anything in reading these books, it is that there are a lot of skills that we think are innate when they’re actually not. You probably think that you’re born organized or especially empathic, or you’re not.  According to my readings, this isn’t remotely true. There are a ton of surprisingly-learnable skills that you can legitimately learn and embrace— if you are a disorganized person now, you can learn to be organized. I’m not saying it’s easy — like most skills, if you want to change, it’s gonna take work and an investment of time on your behalf. In this video, I’d like to focus on three skills or aspects of personality that seem like they can’t be learned, but in fact are highly learnable. These are: organization, self-awareness, and em...

We're nearly at the end of the first quarter of 2021! Here are all the books I read April-June. Kushiel’s Chosen by Jaqueline Carey The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self, and Relationship by David Whyte 21 Ways to read a tarot Card by Mary K. Greer They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed: 16 writers on not having children edited by Meghan Daum Body of Work: Finding the Thread that Ties your story together by Pamela Slim  The Three “Only” Things: tapping the power of dreams, coincidence & imagination by Robert Moss The Art of Showing Up: How to be there for yourself and your people by Rachel Wilkerson Miller Tarot Elements: Five Readings to Reset Your Life by Melissa Cynonva  The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman Find Your Own North Star by Martha Beck Kushiel’s Scion  by Jacqueline Carey (re-read) Kushiel’s Justice by Jacqueline Carey (re-read) Magical Writing Grimoire by Lisa Marie Basile Growing...

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson by Martha Ackmann  Above: The Bride (c.1946) by Gertrude Abercrombie She [Emily Dickinson] thought that accepting religious maxims meant abdicating independence and not personally struggling with profound questions. It was like learning chemistry by a book rather than a experiment. p.45 While Miss Lyon wanted to wrestle down the unknown and tame it with lists and order and systems, Emily wanted to stare it down and walk straight into the abyss. p.46 She [Emily Dickinson] recalled hearing the faraway sound of an ax being brought down long after a farmer had swung it. What stayed with her was not the action or the farmer. What remained was the lingering sound. Emily wanted to be like that: heard but not seen. p.59 Housekeeping, to her [Emily Dickinson] was a way to cultivate a woman's submission and steal time, and she wanted nothing of it." p.61 "I have b...

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi. Painting above: The Lovers by Leonora Carrington (c.1987) You run the romantic gauntlet for decades without knowing who exactly it is you're giving and taking such a battering in order to reach. You run the gauntlet without knowing whether the person whose favour you seek will even be there once you somehow put that path strewn with sensory confetti and emotional gore behind you. And then, by some stroke of fortune the gauntlet concludes, the person does exist after all, and you become that perpetually astonished lover from so many of the songs you used to find endlessly disingenuous. p.5 If you stuck out your tongue it would dance there, right at the top: the fizz of conditionality. p.7 I'm sure almost no one deludes themselves that all their ancestors were decent. Pick a vein, any vein: mud mixed with lightning that flows through, an unruly fusion of bad blood and good. p.16 And then there's the...

In my reading lately I have come across an unlikely (for me) theme: memory. Here are a few compelling quotes to ponder. Above: The Four of Water Card from Dark Goddess Tarot by Ellen Lorenzi-Prince "If all art is metaphor, then all art begins with memory. The ancient Greeks knew this: In their origin myths, they cite Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, as the mother of the Nine Muses. To fullly appreciate the authority of memory, you need to appreciate the more exotic forms of memory lurking on the fringes. You remember much more than you think you do, in ways you haven't considered." - from The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life by Twyla Tharp   "Your personal truth is what you remember and act on [...] In Greek, the word for truth is aletheia , which means 'not succumbing to Lethe,' the waters of forgetfulness." - from Growing Big Dreams: Manifesting Your Heart's Desires Through Twelve Secrets of the Imagination by Robert Moss   Through...