Category: General

  • Lessons in Positive Mirroring from Zumba Instructors Mike and Kim

    Not long after my first Zumba class last winter, an instructor advised, “Remember that my movements are a mirror image. My left hand is your right hand.” My intellect understood her meaning, but my body didn’t get it. During a song, I would hesitate while thinking, “Wait, does this move start on my left or the teacher’s left?” Glancing from the stage to the bold dancers at the front, I became more uncertain about which foot went first. Becoming familiar with the routines eased confusion, but I rarely trusted myself to relax into the movement.

    At the start of a recent class one year later, I listened as if for the first time to Mike’s suggestion for newcomers: “Follow our movements like you’re looking in the mirror.” It sounds simple, but the repetition of this tip deepened my understanding in a revelatory way: “Stop overthinking and experience your dance in connection to the human mirrors on stage.” A wall of anxiety dissolved when I allowed my head, arms, hips, and legs to reflect the moving patterns I saw in front of me. Separation between mind and body thawed. And learning Zumba more holistically hushed self-critical thoughts like “You’re too old and fat to belong in a class with all these graceful beings. You call yourself a dancer?”

    When negativity strikes, I love how Mike, Kim, and the dance squad strike back with embodied positivity, serving as mirrors of movement and models of joy. When I feel slow and withdrawn, I am grateful for a collective reflection that shimmies with energy and panache. Zumba’s mirror offers more grace than the two-dimensional version, for everyone in the room is a dancer in its eyes.

    Our three-dimensional mirror neither judges nor produces copies. Within its generous frame, we dance together as souls with multiple demographic labels. No two dancers are alike, yet we learn who we are from each other, nourished by a wider field of expression. When one of us shines, we all sparkle.

    Photo of the author at the Light: Visionary Perspectives exhibit at the Aga Khan Museum. Image shows her upper body and arms reflected on a blue background. The arms reach out and are outlined in yellow, orange, red, green, and blue stripes.
    Photo that shows the author’s dance-happy mood. The image depicts a smiling woman with pale skin and grey and brown shoulder-length hair. She is wearing purple glasses, a tan sweater, and a puffy brown winter jacket.

  • Flight Patterns (Catherine Raine, 2024)

    Read by the author

    Beside the fractious traffic,

    I march with office-pleasing gait,

    eyes curtained by routine duties

    that hustle my thoughts down corridors of grey.

    *

    Proceeding at speed below tall wires

    that sag from the weight of many pigeons,

    I fail to notice their common gawk,

    beaks turning as one

    to draw a hungry line in the sky

    from perch to curb across the busy street

    to lock on a red bag of broken bread,

    gift of a grandmother in a woolen cape.

    *

    Afraid of frowns from managers,

    I miss the flock’s initial swoop,

    a curve like the well of a serving bowl

    that lilts up higher to spoon its length

    and reach the top of median’s pole.

    *

    The final phase in two-part flight

    demands a steeper drop from middle mast

    to scattered morsels that stop

    in an arc at the woman’s feet.

    *

    Because I stride beyond the scene,

    I never learn what motivates

    the pigeons’ dives in calligraphic loops,

    the cursive strokes that spell, “Sustain our need!”

    *

    But I want to understand how Desire

    shapes direction and contour of flight

    in geometric cadence from poles to earth,

    and welcomes both punctual and late

    to arrival’s abiding feast.

  • Brandy Lake, Port Carling

    Photo shows a wavy rocky shoreline with three grey boulders and a tree stump in the foreground. Across the top of the frame is the reflection of trees with bright orange leaves mixed with some green conifers.
    This image contains a triangular shape in the lower left corner, which is the edge of a white lakeside dock. Extending from the top left corner to the lower right corner is the watery reflection of a long black tree branch with many smaller branches fanning out from the central one. In the top right corner are amorphous reflections in orange and green in the blue-grey water.
    The photograph depicts a misty dawn beside the lake shore. The upper third of the photo shows a clump of trees with indistinct forest in the background. A band of cool blue mist covers the transition from shore to water, and the lower two-thirds of the frame contains impressionistic reflections of trees in the water. The water’s colours are white, turquoise, and dark blue.
    A triangular wedge of a grey dock fills the lower left corner of the frame. In the middle lies a calm dark blue lake. Across the top of the frame is a band of distant trees topped by blue sky that contains white clouds and dark clouds in different sizes.
    This image shows the same misty sunrise scene as the one described two pictures ago, but the colours are different. A ghostly band of dark purple mist connects the trees to their reflections in the water. The water's colours are yellow, lavender, and purple.
    This image shows the same misty sunrise scene as the one described two pictures ago, but the colours are different. A ghostly band of dark purple mist connects the trees to their reflections in the water. The water’s colours are yellow, lavender, and purple.
  • Garden Mosaic Moment, Milkweed, and Trees

    Garden Mosaic Moment. Photo shows a grey fragment of concrete with a raised pattern of squares in the lower half of the frame, a grey stone in the upper left, and a small pink stone in the upper right. Between the grey and pink stone rests a glass marble with swirls of blue and yellow. Small green plants and a few brown maple keys fill the negative space between the objects.
    Meadow Way Milkweed. The photo provides a zoomed-in view of a milkweed pod with brown felt-like milkweed seeds with white strands fanning out in different directions. The seeds have burst out of the pod and fill the majority of the photo frame. Some green leaves and a few brown stems offer background texture.
    Tree Beside Meadow Way Trail. In this photo, the silvery-brown base of a tree extends from the top left to the bottom left and middle of the frame in a steep curve. Beyond the trunk, a patch of green meadow can be detected between the low-hanging leaves in shades of dark and light green.
    Park Near Kingston Road and Birchmount, Scarborough. The photo depicts three trees in a park. On the left, the tree has partially shed its orange leaves, which cover the grass. The middle tree is larger and mostly leafless. It has a striking shadow that extends from its trunk to the bottom right corner of the frame. The tree on the right is also bare of leaves for the most part. A small section of blue sky is present in the distance.

  • Two Haikus

    Photo shows a flower painted on the pavement of an alley. Following the line of a crack, a green stem has been added with spray paint, and magenta petals have also been painted around the maintenance cover hole to complete the flower image.

    Imagination

    transforms cracks to stems,

    makes steel circles bloom.

    Image portrays a discarded white wooden door that lies on the lawn outside a house.

    Rain-softened by time,

    lock opens to soulful green

    guests it once refused.

    The photo is a close-up of the previous image of the discarded door. It shows splintered wood and gaps where the lock used to be. Green clover fills some of the gaps, sprouting through the hole as well as growing in a patch to the left of the door.
  • Belfountain Conservation Area, Ontario

    Image shows a large fountain shaped like a chess piece with jets of water falling in arcs to the pool at the base of the fountain. A thick canopy of trees topped by a blue sky and fluffy white clouds are in the background.
    The photo depicts the Credit River curving to the right and disappearing into a forest. A blue summer sky appears in a V-shaped wedge between the trees and above the water. The lower right section of the photo contains rocky reddish-brown land at the river’s shoreline.
    In the lower left corner of this image is the left hand of the photographer partly submerged in the bubbly current of the Credit River. The photographer’s thumb rests against a stone.
    The photo shows three leaves in green, yellow, and a hint of orange that have fallen into the river. The water’s current can be seen flowing over the leaves in a wavy pattern.
    The photo contains an image of the photographer. She is wearing a orange and brown striped blouse with a V-neck. She has shoulder-length brown hair, purple glasses, and a smiling expression.
  • Summer Visit to Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, Montréal

    Back Garden Gate in an Alley (Photo shows a wooden fence with a large orange wooden disc with two stylized figures playing horns. The top of the image is framed by dappled green leaves).
    Cat-like Crayon Monster Mural (Photo depicts a purplish-blue monster who is gathering up large green and yellow leaves while gnawing on a yellow crayon that doubles as a tower of a castle).
    Two Squirrels Scamper on Second-Story Balcony Next to Red Outdoor Staircase (Image shows one of the squirrels climbing up the side of the balcony to reach its floor while the other squirrel regards the viewer further up in the frame, having already ascended to the balcony floor).

  • Studies in Green and Magenta

    Photo taken in Scarborough. It shows three white leaves with green patterns in the middle resting at different angles on a bed of raindrop-dotted green leaves.
    Still from a video taken in Bloorcourt, Toronto. Image shows a magenta cone flower with an orange, black, and white butterfly visiting it. In the background are long green leaves and part of a decorative steel fence.
    Photo taken in Scarborough. Magenta Cosmo flowers cast shadows of themselves on the sidewalk to their left, creating patterns in the interplay of negative space.
  • Puddle Scene in Scarborough, Ontario and Rainy Day in Liberty, Missouri

    Lavender Puddle Beside the Parking Lot, Jack Goodlad Park with Reflected Telephone Poles, Scarborough Ontario (2024)
    Purple Iris Beaded with Droplets, Liberty Missouri (2024)
    Raindrops on Hosta Plants, Liberty Missourii (2024)
    Edges of Hosta Leaves Create Curtain-Like Effect, Liberty Missouri (2024)
    Rainfall Rushes in Gutter in Shades of Olive, Brown, and Black, Liberty Missouri (2024)
  • March Willow, April Snow, November Willow

    Nantucket Street, Scarborough (2024). Image shows a large willow tree with branches beginning to show long vine-like leaves. The top half of the tree is reflected in a wide blue and slate-gray puddle that covers part of an empty parking lot. Smaller puddles reflect sections of the trunk in the water.
    Nantucket Street Willow (2024). The photo frame is filled with the twisting shapes of willow branches and their hair-like leaves hanging down against a light blue sky.
    Outside Victoria Park Subway Station (2024). A streetlight illuminates an inky dark blue sky and countless individual lines of light falling at different angles (which are how the camera interpreted the snowflakes).
    Snowfall Under the Streetlights, Victoria Park Subway Station (2024). This abstract mages shows extended lines of gold neon light in diagonal patterns against a background of teal and dark purple.
    Nantucket Street Willow (2024). In this image, the camera lens is focused on the top half of a willow tree whose dark curving branches support thick cascades of narrow green and yellow leaves. A close-up of intensely yellow leaves are flying horizontally across the very top of the frame. Small patches of blue sky are visible behind the willow.
    Nantucket Street Willow (2024). This willow photo is similar to the previous one. The difference is that it is more narrowly focused on the central thick branch and the seven or eight smaller branches that curve in different directions away from it. The flowing leaves seem thicker at closer range and the patches of sky look bigger.
  • Lakeside Mornings

    Heart Lake, Brampton (2023)
    Guild Beach (2024)
    Guildwood (2024)
    East Point Park (2024)
    East Point Park (2024)
    East Point Park (2024)
    East Point Park (2024)
  • Journey Dance and Vision Board Journal Entry for January 15, 2024

    Sheilagh and I’s first JourneyDance of Manifestation and Vision Board Workshop took place in 2018, and it has returned every January since! On Sunday the 15th, fourteen women danced and collaged at The Pink Studio, sparking engagement with goals, wishes, and desires for 2024. According to tradition, Sheilagh led the movement component first, and I followed with the vision board experience. I loved the studio’s energy that afternoon: lively and playful yet grounded in reflective expression.

    For this year’s workshop, I tweaked an element of my facilitation. As the last song of Sheilagh’s set mantled peace over the people stretched out on the floor, I placed piles of images in six different spots by the dancers instead of concentrating them in one big pile.

    After the music stopped and Sheilagh prompted participants to sit up in their own time, I introduced the vision board activity and stressed the importance of following instinct when choosing images. I also encouraged folks to expand the hunt for materials to all six piles if the closest one didn’t provide the right Yes! moments. Although not anticipating conflict, I added, “Two people rarely reach for the same image at the same time, but if that happens we can resolve the issue with a dance battle!” Laughing, Sheilagh declared, “I want to see this dance battle!”

    Once the art-making started, I was happy to observe how the smaller piles strewn across the room gave rise to organic groups of three or four who encircled the supplies like campers round a fire. Soon the community sank more deeply into the work, and it was lovely to hear people chatter, laugh, and be silly as they chose their pictures and experimented with ideas. As I walked around checking if everyone had what they needed, I enjoyed proffering backings, glue sticks, scissors, and stickers.

    When the session’s end drew near, all were invited to present their vision boards to the entire group. It was exciting and uplifting to witness multiple narratives threaded into the artwork, and many beautiful details have stayed with me. The following memory snapshots contain only a taste of the experience, for rich meaning infused every piece:

    Considering cat adoption, one person placed images of cats in a corner of her board. After scissors released the felines from an illustration, she fashioned fancy cat-hats styled with plumes and bows from a 1970’s book of paper dolls.

    Another woman affixed an old library-book pocket and its attendant card to her piece. The last date stamped on the card was from 1992, a year which held personal meaning for the maker. Thanks to her vision and preparation, the library pocket received new contents: strips of paper printed with poems that she had brought especially for the workshop.

    Also playing with hidden elements, a different participant put stickers on her backing and covered them with a paper showcasing kaleidoscope patterns in pink and blue (gluing down only one edge). She lifted the flap of the patterned paper to reveal the stickers, which contained words naming emotions connected to entering a new stage of life.

    Another attendee spoke of how strongly she resonated with a quotation from the Women Artists Diary that she pasted to her vision board: “Not fragile like a flower. Fragile like a bomb!”

    Acting on the wish to embrace creativity more in 2024, another participant traced her hand over a vintage dressmaking guide, cut it out, and glued it in place as a reminder to use her hands to make art. Later, the negative space from the paper she left behind inspired the completion of “Dancing Hands, You Are Beautiful!” (2024) pictured below.

    Finally, one woman’s vision board featured Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi’s words about the wisdom that passes from soul to soul. This verse had spoken to her from a calendar page, destined for her collage. As she read the poem aloud, silence filled our gathering, itself a soulful manifestation of movement, connection, imagination, and hope.

    Dancing Hands, You Are Beautiful, Catherine Raine (2024)
  • Ward 907, Bed 2 (2023)

    Recording read by the author.

    Friendship knits us close,

    but bedside attentions hasten me closer,

    find me fishing for fabric

    below the blades of your shoulders

    to snap the gown together back to front,

    then fasten bracelets to rock-n-roll wrists

    and fold a blanket over your feet.

    ***

    Fully tucked from chest to toes,

    you hold up hands as teachers

    who tell a story of siege:

    fingertips furrowed by siphoned fluids,

    nails shrunken by a fungus that profits

    from sapped immune system,

    vasculitis scattering its scarlet marks,

    and the sober port implanted in your left arm.

    ***

    When the dinner tray arrives, you check it out,

    delighting in rosy chunks of melon,

    calling them sexy and inviting me to share.

    This prompts glad rummage in a dresser on wheels

    for a fork nestled in cache of butter pots

    and sweetener sachets, pink and white.

    ***

    As I boost mattress-firmness from 5 to 7,

    you describe the Olympian efforts needed

    to centre your body in bed,  

    the triumph of standing for 15 seconds,

    pain searing hips and legs, shooting like lightning,

    your broken back screaming No.

    ***

    Though suffering torments untold,

    you nevertheless look outwards,

    still notice a new haircut,

    praise my purple glasses, and accuse me of flirting

    with the Robo Coffee Bot in the lobby.

    I love you for not giving End-stage Liver Disease

    the right to devour your delicious banter

    or eclipse the firestorm of your charm.

    This to me is valour, this to me is grace.

    ***

    Yes is the answer to your request

    to read the poem where your father

    lifts you into the pony’s saddle at the local fair.

    At the sound of this verse, confinement

    and paralysis dissolve, inciting tears to fall

    as you say, I can feel my father here. He’s here.

    ***

    Held by this truth, grief and love saturate me

    throat to chest, sensing how family and time return

    to encircle you with solace from age six to sixty,

    never divided, never abandoned, never lost.

    Memories of my own father’s smile melt composure,

    and I dash to the pantry to fill paper cups with half ice,

    half water, hoping the coolness will last after I leave.

    ***

    On my return to Bed 2, you ask if I smell bowel movement

    and buzz the front desk to state, I need a change.

    At the sight of nurses with fresh bed pads,

    I step into the hall while they clean your ass, crotch, and thighs,

    careful of rashes, mindful of pain.

    ***

    I sit with you a little longer,

    and soon dark brown eyes begin to close

    and re-open at shorter and shorter intervals,

    sleep stealing the ends of sentences.

    Unsettled at first, I come to respect

    the eloquence of drowsiness

    that tells me time to go and let you rest.

    ***

    Another visit is planned,

    but I never see you again

    nor hear you harmonize

    with Free Falling on the radio,

    lyrical instincts unbroken,

    deep voice dancing into curtained corners,

    soulcraft that shatters

    silent windows with its flight.

  • Dovercourt House: Ecstatic Dance Studio (2023) Read by the Author

    Right cheek warmed by friendly planks,

    I sprawl beneath a chosen window

    that spills its sunshine on my lips,

    ladles honey heat over tilted nape.

    I roll from side to side, waking combs of beeswax

    and provoke the floor to creak an invitation:

    “You can ask me anything.”

    ***

    Unsure, I glance to the mirror for answers,

    but it speaks only shame, does not listen.

    I fling away my glasses, and the judge dissolves to Wisdom:

    examining my body is only one way to experience it.

    ***

    Rising yesward on bolder knees,

    I study the high ceiling,

    ten tall windows with fans whirring on their sills,

    the fire exit platform threaded with vines –

    and this choir of generous portals shouts

    “Get Your Freedom Here!”

    and bids me stand.

    ***

    Now on my feet, I allow shoulders and wrists and thighs

    to shake off dutiful belittlements —

    the should’s, the sorry’s, the shrinking silences —

    and let them be shed and shredded on the dance floor

    somewhere south of broken.

    ***

    For once, my hips don’t apologize for their curves

    and they dare me leap from mountain bridge

    to thunder-soaked river, where I wrestle

    with dangerous currents I’ve shunned out of fear.

    Surrender to the river tugs me wild open, cracking my thick shell,

    pushing, pulling, having me rolling like a beast

    who slaps mud on her chest and stamps her hooves

    and doesn’t care who thinks she needs a cage.

    ***

    Being here in this dancing river

    feels like returning to the fire-girl I was,

    burning up caution, sadness, and grief in a healing fever,

    reveling in electrical storms that crackle along my bones,

    flourishing a purple cape, tasting the salt of delectable effort,

    spine loose, palms grateful, instinct hushing intellect,

    feet singing over noise of the brain.

    Here in this movement, I inhabit my body, my rightful home.

  • Impressions of Progress Campus

    Forest Behind Progress Campus (2023)
    Near the Banks of Highland Creek Behind Progress Campus (2023)
    Tree Reflections in Highland Creek (2023)
  • Impressions of Ashtonbee Campus and Nearby Sites

    Mystic Skittle, Ashtonbee Library (2016)
    Ashtonbee Library (2016)
    Grasses Beside Ashtonbee Campus Parking Lot (2020)
    Ashtonbee Library Exterior, South Side (2024)
    Ashtonbee Campus Hub (2024)
    Ashtonbee Campus Hub (2023)
    Wexford Woods (2018)
    Meadow Way at Dusk (2024)
    Waiting to Cross Birchmount and Rejoin Meadow Way at Twighlight (2024)
    Meadow Way (2023)
    Meadow Way Contra Jour (2023)
    Meadow Way Winter Arch (2023)
    Self-Portrait Among Meadow Way Grasses (2023)
    Ashtonbee Road Puddle (2023)
  • Heart Mosaic’s Evolution

    May 2017
    May 2017
    May 2017
    May 2017
    August 2017 Memorial for Heather Heyer
    October 2017 Mosaic Embellished by Neighbour’s Children
    October 2017
    October 2017
    2018 Red beads from Grandmother Raine (1911-2008)
    2018 Marble from Uncle Doug Jones (1935-2005) and bead from Grandmother Raine
    May 2019
    June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection of enamel objects
    June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection
    June 2019 Uncle Doug’s marble
    June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection
    June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection (with bonus portal to bees’ home)
    June 2019 From Uncle Doug’s collection
    September 2019 Marble from Uncle Doug
    September 2019 From Uncle Doug’s enamel collection
    September 2019
    May 2020
    May 2020
    June 2020
    June 2020
    June 2021
    August 2023
    December 2023
  • Belleville Sojourn

    Sagonaska River, Belleville
    Sunrise meets the banks of the Sagonaska
    Riverside Park West
    Return to Toronto by ViA Rail
  • Ellen’s Turtle

    Ellen’s Turtle, Catherine Raine 2023

    My friend Ellen once told me that turtles were one of her favourite creatures, and I hope she would have enjoyed this collage devoted to her memory.

    Detail from Ellen’s Turtle, Catherine Raine 2023