5 Years! 

Recently, looking at our large whirlpool bathtub, I keep thinking of the times Skye was living with us here. She was always an economical being in a multitude of daily ways...using simple materials... wrapping things with careful string bows, folding lovely nature calendars into remarkable envelopes, creating the most compact bedroom.   She also valued water for the precious element it is for all our lives.  She found the big tub as threatening as a bus sitting and idling its exhaust into the air, because it invited waste.  Finally, after a long time of avoiding its use, she told me, “I figured out what to do!” She had the idea of sitting in the empty tub, and using a pitcher of water for her bath. She was always willing to be visibly unconventional if her ethics required it.   Aquarian frugality!  True environmental awareness!  

I miss her humble stubborn devoted nobility!

Skye you have been with me as I painted the kitchen. The white on white and the snow all around out every window inspired me to paint the kitchen like it was an indian sari. The walls are lime green the cabinets turquoise the back splash is mandarine the doors are yellow and your beautiful painting of the woman on top of the world loves it in there. It is a joy to hold you in my heart forever xoxo (yes, I hear you laughing!)

I love the grace and contemplative observation in this graceful small drawing.

Skye loved and protected the green life around her, and was in some seasons a devoted gardener who went to great lengths to nurture her own food crops, for example in her Elfin garden.

Skye was an energy worker and Reiki teacher, a master who was humble and never claimed such a title.  This small painting is my favorite of hers-- and captures her exuberant Joy and positive intentions.

It's like a thundercloud of beauty and love-- reaching down through the layers of cloud to touch the earth!

Skye practiced simplicity and frugality in all aspects of her life.  In her art work she favored the use of crayons, and her simple bag of crayons well-used, and some that are ancient in appearance, is a testimony to her love of the world. She wished to preserve all of our resources, and honour their preciousness.

At the same time, she honourrd her artwork by framing to protect and display her favorites, and sometimes selling some of them to earn money for worthy causes.

I gave this piece a title that expresses one of the ideas Skye and I shared-- as well as my perception that the drawing captures a kind of interconnectedness beyond the obvious,

Skye was an active and consistent artist-- and she expressed her esthetic appreciations, her love of the world and its nature, and her sense of being part fthe world in these art pieces.... there are many more!

I am willing to bet it is a Universal gift that Skye always gave me. She made me feel very Special, to her and in the world. I hope she gave that to each one of you too. It was most certainly a Genius quality of hers, that ability to pay huge compassionate attention and offer encouragement to each person she met. I have noticed that all the cats in the neighbourhood recognized this in Skye too. They came out from whatever resting places to greet her.
Skye gave me so many special gifts - when she would call and giggle, and then share the most extraordinary leading edges of her discoveries. Some of them turned into marvelous new worlds for me. A particularly dear gift is the time we spent this past October travelling by train to Antigonish to see her beloved Rajaji. We met so many brilliant and devoted souls, and Skye's joy at this reunion would have been worth crossing the ocean for. My prayer for her has always been and still is that she finds a way to take in and treasure all that she has been to all of us and to the world in this lifetime.

Those multiple smiles of Skye in the photographs on this site say a lot about how she shared things with others.  She knew and pushed with purpose to aim for joy with others, in amongst the not so joyous parts of life.  She helped us all by aiming for joy, yet she knew of the hard things people face and willing to declare this for both herself and others.

I knew her closely at a few points of the river of life, mostly decades ago in the late seventies into the eighties as the thoughtful leader and person that she was by sharing and working with others for the braver world we sought together be it a Worker’s Collective coop, living in a “cooperative house”; advancing the cause of the People’s Food Commission; as a social service worker – helping people in Ottawa with home management; being a former writer for the  Consumers Association of Canada; vegetable gardener – she was there for the micro and macro of being an agent of social change.

She taught me much, a few weeks ago when I heard she was at the physical edge of life I thought of her and the ways she helped me, a guy ---who knew nothing of cooking and cleaning ( an essential component of life itself)  and someone with a lot of sadness.  I was cleaning my house and the memories of her prompted me to put on some lively music to dance and clean in the most vivid and joyous way I know, the way she taught me to clean.  Skye brought that kind of experience to a lot of us, over and over again.

She always accepted our and her own contradictions, though she might blink those eyes of her’s  - she saw and was willing to express those contradictions, or tell us, “I will sit with this awhile.”   

I know  we all have many stories, one of the one’s she had in the roaring eighties  was  her being the vegetarian, gentle and simple living path explorer that she was, attempting to establish a sustainable country garden, living in a tent beside it.   In order to gently push back the rabbits that wanted to eat her veggies, she hitch-hiked from the slaughter house with a large container of blood, coagulating in the heat.  She described distributing the chunks of blood with mirth, in amongst the echoes of …the horror, the horror the horror.

She shared herself with all of us, at any point along her river of life.

I didn't know Skye as well or for as long as I'd have liked.

Right now I just want to say Thank you!!! to people who are posting photos & writing stories.

Just saw some great photos of her home & art, & loved reading Paul's message.

I feel I am getting to know Skye better through these photos & words.

A blessing!

warm thanks,

Janet

My memory, which, like all our memories, is malleable, is that I met Skye at Blue Skies 1983. I came to be with my new friend Jane and ended up camping with this crazy group including Skye.

After an amazing Monday morning breakfast we went off to drop Skye at her new abode - a platform with a tent on it at the edge of a hay field. Okay, I thought, this is both very well organized and on the edge. A very good introduction to Skye!