You may have noticed my Ecoholic feed has been a little sleepy over the summer. Well, after 15 amazing years of writing for NOW Magazine every week, including 13 years of doing the Ecoholic column, I took the summer mostly off to reboot, play, meditate in the mountains of Guatemala, free my dad’s ashes in the… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Bursting buds, sweetly singing birds. After a long, dark winter, this is when we’re all supposed to stop, take a deep breath and smell the roses…or the magnolias, since the roses aren’t technically in bloom yet. Thing is, it’s really difficult to smell the subtle scent of magnolia trees while sprinting full speed to catch a… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Scrolling through the constant barrage of bad news in our feeds, most of us tend to react one of two ways: curse a lot more than usual or look for an escape hatch. Surely, there’s got to be an island out there without TVs or Wifi… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

This is one mother of a week. Not just for the thousands gathering at nearly 2,500 events in over 175 countries this weekend to march, rally, pray, meditate and generally light the way for climate action. Or for the 147 world leaders gathering under one roof in Paris on Monday to talk about tackling the forces of climate change that are… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

It’s amazing what the sight of a big old tree can do for the soul. I love the city but I get twitchy and cranky if there’s no green space in sight. Humans just weren’t built to live on pavement, so we can, unconsciously, get pretty edgy when we’re not getting enough contact with nature, even if… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

It’s the end of a long work day. Do you know where your brain is? By now, it’s likely scattered in a dozen pieces and places. A few bits stuck on that conversation you had with your boss/coworker/friend. Another bit returning texts. Another scanning Facebook or Twitter quickly to see if your status update got any likes.… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Journalists probably shouldn’t cry during interviews but I came very close to balling my eyes out when I was interviewing Inuit activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier. She was passing through Toronto to promote her new book, The Right to Be Cold, and I jumped at the opportunity to have a leisurely meal with her at… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

You know that deep love of cooking that drives people onto shows like Master Chef or even just to their kitchen to make 3 hour long chilli? Yeah, I don’t have that. I’m a decent cook. I make a mean salad and can whip up healthy, homemade dinners in, oh, 20 minutes, but I’ve always left the heavy-lifting… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Can you believe May is almost coming to an end? Rain/shine/gloriously torrential downpours/surprise scorchers (is it really 28 degrees in Toronto today?) – I’ve soaked every bloomin’ day of it in. That was NOT that case in April when I was drained of all life force knocked over sideways with a crazy multi-tentacled flu virus… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Hey gang, My big piece on mindful corporations in Corporate Knights Magazine is out! Here’s a little teaser. SAN FRANCISCO – Executives from Google, Facebook and Instagram are all taking turns on a hotel conference room stage sharing business insights with an audience of 2,000. They’re not, as you might expect, clicking through slide shows about user… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Most of us get antsy when we think about change. We brace for it like a bad smell coming downwind, cringing and turning our heads, hoping it won’t hit us if our faces are cranked the other way. But it always does. Maybe not the bad smell but change always finds us. The question is,… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

I often kid that I’m an old woman trapped in a young woman’s body. I was almost the last person on Facebook (just ahead of my mom), only got a cellphone (the retro flip kind) in 2011 and have trouble maintaining an up-to-date blog (ahem). But all it took was a smartphone upgrade to catapult… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Spend a lot of time face time with your yoga mat? So many mats splash the words “eco” and “biodegradable” in their marketing but are they telling the truth? Long story short, too many eco mats claiming to be green are totally stretching their credibility (some puns can’t be avoided, sorry). It’s pretty astounding how many companies… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

Have you ever blinked and missed a few weeks of your digital life? Somewhere between January and now, well, I fell off the blog train. Did I hit my head on the way down and find nirvana, lined, inexplicably, with chocolate and cough syrup? No, but I did get to spend some time with a… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

We’re only ankle deep into the new year and if you listen closely you can hear resolutions straining, cracking, and, wait for it, shattering left, right and centre.  All it took was a snotty cold to knock me off track with my resolution. Lying in my bed the morning of Jan 1, my vow was… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

It’s the first morning of the new year and I’m lying in bed shaking off the bubbly cobwebs of last night’s impromptu kitchen-party countdown. Every year right about now I join the chorus of North Americans committing to some sort of personal betterment. I’ve tried more winter cycling (sorry, I gave up below -10°C) and… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸

This week at NOW Magazine, we put out our big green issue – beaming with positive vibes! It’s entitled Sure Signs We’re Winning the Eco War. Here’s my piece on being the change, below. *** The ice caps are still melting, greenhouse gases are still climbing, and crazy, extreme weather is still ravaging too many parts… ◂ReadPreviousNext Post▸