March had at least two special days, Rebecca’s birthday and St. Patrick’s Day.
We want to wish Rebecca a very Happy Birthday!!
Carolyn wrote: I remember my father had a St. Patrick’s Day tie that he wore every March 17. One of my brothers had one also. They were funny to look at. I like the song group called Irish Rovers. I bought a necklace of shamrocks to wear on St. Patrick’s Day. Wearing something green for St. Patrick is a tradition for a long time.
I have a good friend who is of Irish heritage. His ancestors emigrated to Canada from Ireland in the 1840s and settled as subsistence farmers along the Ottawa River north of Renfrew. So, St. Patrick’s Day was very special for his family when he was growing up. It is also his sister’s birthday. On the day, it was a combined celebration with Irish Stew and a birthday cake with green icing. His dad used to like to play fiddle music records and Irish Rovers that day, which his family felt was right because his dad’s birthday was March 19. My friend’s name is Patrick (I should ask if he is named after the day!), and his tradition is to keep thirteen different types of Irish whiskey and he always makes it a point to sample some “nectar of the gods” on St. Patrick’s Day.
Samantha wrote: My dad is 29 on the 17th of March and has been for the last 30 years. So, St. Patrick’s Day is always fun at our house. He is Scottish, so he likes scotch whisky to Irish whiskey. This is Jayme and I getting into the spirit!
By Samantha Millar and Carolyn Henry
with assistance from Julie Millar and Glynis Henry
On March 27, the global Bliss community joined Chris White for his 50th episode of Canadian Faces to talk about Bliss and music in the lives of our Bliss community.
Canadian Faces is a live-streamed show, hosted by Chris, featuring video interviews and performances with Canadian singer-songwriters and other folk/roots musicians.
Here’s the link to the March 27, 2022 ‘Canadian Faces’ show.
There were many people from around the world. As one member, Joe Jessop, said it was “like traveling on Zoom”. We agreed with Joe that it was so interesting hearing from different people. There were people from Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Brazil, as well as our home country, Canada. We talked about the early days of Bliss and how the Bliss language has positively helped the lives of many of us. Some of us have used Bliss to become writers and poets! Music is very important to many of us and Aaron Lightstone, our music director, shared some videos of the Bliss i-Band. One of the songs was our first collaboration with a musician – who was Chris White. We showed the video of the Bliss i-band playing his song, Follow Your Bliss together with him. Another video we shared was “Take the Time”, with lyrics by Kari Harrington, who was at our meeting.
Many people, like we did, talked about how we used Blissymbolics when we were young.
We also told the group that there is a Blissymbol for ‘hope’ on Snake Island (just off of Vancouver Island, Canada) in honour of the hope for peace in Europe.
Here’s is what one of the group who erected the sign told BCI:
We erected the sign on Snake Island on Sunday March 6th
Our Snake Island is located in Nanaimo British Columbia Canada
We see this as a sister Island to the Snake Island in Ukraine that was shelled by the Russian Navy.
Interestingly enough we also have two ex Canadian Naval Warships that lie peacefully next to snake Island as artificial reefs and recreational dive sites. One is the former Saskatchewan cold war era destroyer escort and the other the Cape Breton a world war 2 victory ship.
The message of HOPE in Blissymbolics has already had people very curious. Asking what to the “letters” mean?
We tell them the story of Charles Bliss and that the letters mean Hope in an international language
Most importantly the Hope can be whatever the person reading them wants to hope for
Hope to end this war
Hope for peace
Hope that we begin to realize that attacking innocents can no longer be tolerated and we need to move forward as a global society to leave this behaviour in our past
Thank you again and kindest wishes to all of you.
Robert Wolanski
By Samantha Millar and Carolyn Henry
with assistance from Julie Millar and Glynis Henry
Comment from Audrey King
March 31 2022
Thank you for writing such an excellent article about our day with Chris White. It was amazing to see ACC users from all around the world and made us all realize how important it is to be able to communicate with each other, regardless of traditional languages.
Great job of com uniting Samantha, Julie, Carolyn & Glynis and everyone else involved.
