Local People, Strengths & Solutions

Nearly five decades after it’s birth at a Kemp Lake Road farmstead, the Caravan Stage Company is returning to Sooke’s Government Wharf for a three-night run of its urgent and spectacular “climatopian” rock opera Nomadic Tempest.

Moored at the foot of Maple Ave. South, the company’s troupe of actors, musicians, aerial artists and sound/visual technicians will perform aboard the tall ship Amara Zee. They’ll mount one show per night at 10 p.m. on Thurs., Fri., Sat. July 12, 13 and 14.

Nightly attendance is limited to 250 people. The site will open each night at 9 pm and it’s recommended you arrive no later than 9:30 to ensure a prime view. Dress warmly for this outdoor show. Please bring your own low-slung chair or blanket. 

Thanks to a community grant from the District of Sooke, tickets are by donation. Reserve and print-out tickets online at Eventbrite. 

A limited number of tickets may be available at the gate each night. Please consider purchasing your tickets in advance to guarantee admission.

Volunteers are needed for a variety of positions in return for a free ticket. If you’re interested, contact tour coordinator Miranda Feldtman at amarazee@gmail.com with the subject line “Sooke volunteer”, cc sooketransition@gmail.com.

Nomadic Tempest envisions a world devastated by climate change. The Vancouver Sun described it as “an outdoor Cirque du Soleil and IMAX hybrid with a smattering of J.R.R. Tolkien and David Suzuki.” The production continues a long Caravan tradition of presenting accessible agitprop theatre that delivers impactful wake-up-calls about the planet and modern culture.

Paul Kirby and his life partner Adriana Kelder (ne Zigay) rolled out of Sooke in 1970 with their one-wagon, horse-drawn puppet show to perform in communities across Vancouver Island. In time, the company grew to feature six wagons drawn by teams of Clydesdale horses that toured every corner of North America from its base in Armstrong, BC, racking up more than 20,000 horse-drawn miles.

After a hiatus in the mid-1990s, the Caravan switched from dry land to open water aboard the custom-built Amara Zee, a 30-meter long ship modelled after a traditional Thames River sailing barge. A shallow draft of 1.2 meters has allowed it to access hundreds of waterfront communities large and small around the world.

Audiences gather on the shore and experience original music, soaring vocals, aerial artistry and large scenic elements backed by spectacular lighting and sound effects. The production is a continuous cinematic panorama of originally designed video graphics, animations and images. Within the upper trusses and the lower decks, as the Aerialists cavort, a palette of surprises, colors, and mechanical transformations unfold.

After performing Nomadic Tempest along America’s gulf coastline last summer, the ship was transported through the Panama Canal for dates on the BC coast in the fall and a local moorage over the winter. Performances in Nanaimo and Courtenay will have preceded the Sooke dates, following which the tour will sail to Port Townsend, Bellingham and Seattle.

Our TS working group, the Sooke Region Multi-Belief Initiative, is hosting a summer solstice celebration on Sat. June 23 in the apple orchard at InishOge Organic Farm, 6698 Helgeson Road just east of Otter Point Rd. All welcome, no charge. Bring a picnic lunch, whatever you need to be comfortable and your playful spirit. It promises to be a fun, communal and meaningful afternoon in the heart of the idyllic Sooke farmbelt.

Get to the farm at 11 am to participate in an hour-long work party involving lightweight chores as we offer some help to our hosts, Steve, Mary, Finn and Chloe.

Or arrive at Noon for the lighting of the fire pit and the start of festivities. On the afternoon’s relaxed schedule will be a circle dance led by Vivi Curutchet; a witness circle led by Hum (Eric Anderson); a multi-faith singalong with Phil Rossner; and, if we’re all so moved, a drum circle (bring your own drums, rhythm instruments and noisemakers).

As InishOge’s Mary Coll will tell us, the longest days of the year signal the start of mid-summer and the time when, metaphorically and literally, the fruit of another growing season is ripening and ready to be picked. What might that bounty be in your own life? How can whatever it is be of service to yourself, your circles and the community at large? Thoughts to ponder and perhaps share during Hum’s witness circle.

By the way, the summer solstice is exact at 3:07 am Pacific Time on Thursday.

Also upcoming: 

* Tues. June 19: Ministry of Transportation & Infrastructure Open House, 4 to 8 pm, in the lobby at Edward Milne Community School. Drop-in anytime to talk to Ministry officials and share your ideas and frustrations about the winding road home as MOTI planning proceeds for phase two improvements to Highway 14. Slow-car pullovers and signage? Passing lanes? Roundabouts? Stop lights? Speed enforcement? More crosswalks? Now’s your chance to weigh in. If you can’t make it in person, feedback can be offered via email. More info on the current improvement program here.

* Wed., June 20: Zero Waste Sooke‘s regular third-Wednesday monthly meeting at the Sooke Library on Anna Maria Rd. Everyone welcome. 6:30 to 8 pm. Topics to be discussed include the next ZWS delegation to council (July 9), the Earth Day legacy fund, and early planning for the next Sooke Repair Cafe in October.

* Thurs., June 21: National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada. Local events are scheduled for the Victoria Native Friendship Centre (10 am to 3 pm), Royal Roads University (10 to 3 pm), the Royal BC Museum (starting at 10:30 am) and West Shore Parks & Recreation(11 to 3 pm). (shared on from the T’Sou-ke/Sooke Reconciliation Group.)

* Sat., June 23: Drop by and visit with Zero Waste’s Jo Phillips at the Sooke Country Market from 10 am to 2 pm. Corner of Eustace and Otter Pt.

* Sun., July 1:  Sooke Canada Day at the flats  www.canadadaysooke.com

* Sat. July 7: Afternoon Tea in a Metchosin Country Garden.  Rolling Justice Bus presents a fundraiser for Site C dam legal challenges.  Featuring Sarah Cox, author of “Breaching the Peace”, hand-crafted eats and live music. 4856 Jelkinek Place. Recommended: $50/person, otherwise pay-what-you-can. To reserve a ticket: GardenParty@sitecsummit.ca

*Thurs/Fri/Sat, July 12, 13, 14: TS presents  Caravan Stage Company at the Sooke Government Wharf.  A world-travelling troubador group that originated in Sooke in 1970 performs from the deck and rigging of their ship the Amara Zee. Presenting “Nomadic Tempest” a Cirque de Soleil type production that is a cautionary tale about climate change. 9:00 p.m.  Tickets by donation.

* Sat., July 28: Compost Education Centre will be at the Sooke Saturday Market as guests of Zero Waste Sooke.  They will bring some demo composters and answer questions about the art of making compost no matter what your circumstances. 10-2

Closing with a few links from our social media streams: 

* Sooke residents are wanted for a new District of Sooke Affordable Housing committee led by Councillor Ebony Logins. Apply here. Deadline: June 29.

* High five to Sooke council for unanimously affirming the Charter for Compassion  following the June 11 presentation by the Sooke Region Multi-Belief Initiative’s Mark Ziegler. The SRMBI emerged from Mayor Tait’s 2016 Health Summit as one among other ways Sooke can evolve into even more of a caring community than is already the case. We’re planning a workshop in the fall as the local campaign continues. If you’ve not done so yet, please affirm the Charter online.

* Download the District of Sooke’s 2017 Annual Report. Offer feedback in person at the Mon. June 25 Committee of the Whole meeting at the Municipal Hall starting at 6 pm.

* BC’s new Wild Salmon Advisory Council: x-month of public process vs this short-cut to solutions (aka the Cohen Commission) and action on its recommendations regarding fish farms.

* Years of Living Dangerously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk8izVrznFk. David Letterman investigates India’s solar revolution and SNL’s Cecily Strong learns how US utility companies are blocking renewables in many states.  Sound somewhat familiar?

* The CRD seeks public input regarding its new EV and E-bike Infrastructure Planning Project. Deadline for survey submissions is July 8.

* Become a Witness for the Peace and support the Treaty 8 legal challenge to the Site C dam.

* Andrew Coyne takes five minutes to explain why Canada’s electoral system is broken (recorded before Doug Ford’s victory in Ontario, where 17 percent of eligible votes delivered 100 percent of the power). Click here for a PDF of BC Attorney General David Eby’s How We Vote electoral-reform referendum report.

* Next on our speaker wish list: Dr. Peter Carter, founder of the Climate Emergency Institute and co-author of Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival. The Pender Island resident delivered a fascinating talk in Metchosin last month and we’d like to bring him here for a Sooke audience in the fall. A few (among many) reasons we need to hear from Dr. Carter: Exhibits A … B … C … D … E … F.

* A proposal for tiny home villages from Practical Utopian Guy Dauncey

* A wonderfully close encounter with a pair of Sooke’s wild things captured by a Project HOWL trailcam last month. Fast forward to 3:50 for a sniff and muzzle of the camera.

* A fab and timely closing song … and one Phil might play by request on June 23 at InishOge Farm. Please join us 🙂

* Tues., May 15, 7 pm, Sooke Region Museum, 2070 Phillips Rd. With bear season heating up, Wild Wise Sooke‘s Debbie Read and her new sidekick Samantha Webb from the Wild ARC will host an information/volunteer recruitment night. No charge. On a related Wild Wise note, please complete this online survey on local bear-habituation issues being conducted by Royal Roads University students.

* Wed. May 16, 5:30 to 8 pm, downstairs in the Community Hall. Library 2018 preview! Drop-in to see the blueprints, meet the architect and say hello to current library staff as we all rub hands gleefully in anticipation of the new Sooke branch of the Vancouver Island Regional Public Library system. (Check the Sooke PocketNews story, which includes links to earlier episodes in this happy saga.)

* Wed. May 16, 4 to 7 pm, SEAPARC. District of Sooke open house and opportunity to offer feedback re: the proposed Demamiel Creek Pedestrian Crossing.

* Wed. May 16, 6:30 pm, Sooke Library. Regular meeting of Zero Waste Sooke. All welcome to drop-in and join the discussion as this TS working group led by Bernie Klassen continues to shape Sooke’s future as a model zero-waste community. Time for a plastic bag ban and drinking water fountains in Sooke? Can we expand and promote the BYOB campaign? Your ideas and energy are essential.

* Fri., May 18, 8:30 to 4 pm, Prestige Hotel. The Sooke Region Communities Health Network‘s Age Friendly Committee presents “Aging With Grace,” a day-long summit focused on health, housing, transportation, seniors activities, lifelong learning and more, all with a Sooke twist. Speakers lined up by SRCHN’s coordinator Christine Bossi will include Mary Dunn, Andrew Moore, Carol Pinalski, Janet Raynor-Thorn, Doni Eve and Rick Robinson. Free admission, lunch included. Limited seating. Register ASAP by calling SEAPARC at (250) 642-8000. (This is the latest in a series of follow-ups to the 2016 Community Health Summit, from which our Sooke Region Multi-Belief Initiative arose).

* Wed., May 23, 6:30 pm, Sooke Library. Timothy Snyder‘s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century will be discussed by the Transition Sooke Book Club. All welcome to join Paula Johanson, the regulars and new faces for what’s guaranteed to be a lively, far-ranging discussion about a slim book that started life as a Facebook post and has rapidly evolved into an essential guide for those alarmed by the rising tide of nationalism, closed borders and authoritarian governments.

* Wed. June 13, 7 pm, EMCS Community Theatre. Awareness Film Night‘s 2017/18 season finale will be the rousing short documentary Water Warriors. It details how indigenous and non-native locals in a small New Brunswick town dared to challenge the oil and gas industry. AFN’s Jo Phillips is working on further plans for the night, which will include either another film, a panel discussion or both. Thank you once more, Jo, for delivering timely, thought-provoking alternatives to mainstream media.

Recently featured on our Facebook page and Twitter feed … 

~ Starhawk interviewed by Transition Network founder Rob Hopkins.

~ Globe & Mail infographic tracks the projected impact of increased west coast oil tanker traffic + Naomi Klein weighs in + this Paul McKay article from the Energy Mix. <clip> “Despite new ultimatums from Ottawa, Alberta and Kinder Morgan, take a deep breath, Premier John Horgan. Hold your ground. Follow the molecules, not the money. When the bitumen bubble inevitably bursts, it will be obvious that your most abrasive opponents were full of sound and fury, signifying nothing in the way of scientific honesty, international ethics or even viable exports.”

~ Author Sarah Cox on what’s wrong with Site C (from The Tyee). (PS Want to get involved with Sooke Citizens for the Peace? Send us an email and we’ll put you in the loop with this group arising from our March Justice for the Peace night with Ken Boon and friends.)

~ Updated: Our Pesticide Education Group’s webpage, including a recent response from a Monsanto Canada spokesman that reads in part: “As a retired landscaper who used these products (Roundup) for over 25 years at levels the table cosumer will never experience, and now as an employee of Monsanto Canada, I sleep well at night knowing glyphosate is still ranked as less toxic than coffee, red meat or wood dust.”

~ Kudos to Dogwood Sooke’s Roland Alcock for winning Sooke council approval on a proposal that the District of Sooke join the climate accountability movement by seeking reparations for the costs of climate-change mitigation from 20 of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies + hat tip to council for sending an SOS (Save Our Salmon) resolution re: fish farms to the Association of Vancouver Island & Coastal Communities convention last month, where it passed and will now be voted on by UBCM delegates in the fall before being forwarded to the BC government. In the meantime, however …  😦

~ “Death knell for net metering” BC Hydro sets new guidelines for surplus solar

~ CBC Radio Ideas episode featuring On Tyranny author Timothy Snyder

~ “Researchers discover trees have a ‘heartbeat,’ it’s just so slow we’ve never noticed before” + “The secret life of plants, no really” (Macleans) + encourage government action in the campaign to preserve Muir Creek.

~ Anticipation 🙂

Author, activist, permaculture designer and teacher Starhawk is returning to Sooke on Thurs. May 10 for a TS-presented encore talk and Q&A session at the Sooke Legion. Her address will be titled “Vision, Hope and Strategy”and it will explore how all three of these factors are critical in working towards a better tomorrow.

As with Starhawk’s local debut at the Legion a year ago, doors open at 6:30 for an evening that will run from 7 to 9 pm. Tickets at $15 each will be available at the door or in advance via Eventbrite (search term: ‘Sooke Starhawk’). The evening’s MC will again be TS board alumnus Lee Hindrichs.

“My own feeling is that the business-as-usual forces, the centralized power Oilasaurus, is like a dying dinosaur, wounded and thrashing about,” says Starhawk. “The question is how do we limit the damage it does on the way out? And also hold to a vision of what comes after?”

Starhawk brings social justice, care of the earth and spirituality to a vision of how our societies can function for the benefit of all. She is cited as one of 2018’s  “100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People” by Mind, Body & Spirit magazine.

She is the author of thirteen books on earth-based spirituality, group dynamics and social permaculture. Her bibliography includes The Spiral Dance, The Earth Path, The Pagan Book of Living and Dying, The Empowerment Manual, and the novels The Fifth Sacred Thing and its follow-up City of Refuge.

Through her organization Earth Activist Training, Starhawk directs courses in permaculture and regenerative design grounded in earth-based spirituality and with a focus on organizing and activism. She is travelling to Sooke during a break a course she is teaching at O.U.R. Ecovillage in the Cowichan Valley.