Q is a fun letter to play with the sounds.

Again where I began with the Minister’s cat game ( see C for Cleric’s Cat )….The minister’s cat is a quirky cat, she quarrels quietly!

Or perhaps it is a day of Quiet reflections of questions on the Easter Saturday!

In English, we normally follow the letter Q with the letter U, however this is not so in Inuktitut as can be seen in many of the words below. There is a vital difference between the sound k and the sound q… Q q Like "c" in "car" and K k like "k" in "oak". Inuktitut is the traditional oral language of Inuit in the Arctic. ... Typically, they replaced "q" with "k" and "r" with "g", among other misspellings. Also written in syllabics....

Personally when working in Nunavut, I only picked up a few phrases in Inuktitut offerings being limited to Qanuippit ( how are you) Ilali ( your welcome ) ai ('hello'); nakurmiik ('thank you');  or Qiujavunga ('l'm cold'). Different regions have different dialects…a simple Koana or thank-you will indicate you are from the western arctic such as Kugluktuk or Cambridge Bay. the history of the two writing systems used in Inuktitut is that they used in English in the western Arctic, and syllabics in the eastern Arctic.

But the wrong pronunciation of words could get one in difficult or embarrassing situations...

qaanqijaut

qallunaaq

qamutiik

qanga

qaniq

qanuq

qassit

qaukpat

qausiqtuk

qikturiaq

qikturiaqtauniq

qilalugaq

qimmik

qimmuksit

qisik

qujannamiik

qukiut

For many as Christians, this past week has been the end of the Lenten season as we celebrate Holy Week and retrace Christ's journey to Jerusalem,  with Palm Sunday, today Good Friday and wait in expectation for the Resurrection on Easter morn.

 Reading the story of the triumphal entry  (Matthew 21:1-11),   and then take our palm crosses and process into community and later the church. I was with my daughter Amelia for this procession in Eastside Vancouver, an inner city community, of which St. James Anglican Church is very much a part.

Later on, participation in a dramatic reading of Matthew's story of the Cross (Matthew 27:11-54)

The word Passion comes from the Latin word for suffering.

The Passion of Christ is the story of Jesus Christ's arrest, trial and suffering. It ends with his execution by crucifixion. The Passion is an episode in a longer story and cannot be properly understood without the story of the Resurrection.

The Passion is a story about injustice, doubt, fear, pain and, ultimately, degrading death. It tells how God experienced these things in the same way as ordinary human beings.

Often there was no reply to his accusers or "That is who you say"

One may also attend a Good Friday or Maunday Thursday service in Tenebrae format:

The service of Tenebrae meaning “darkness” or “shadows,” has been practiced by the church since medieval times. Once a service for the monastic community, Tenebrae later became an important part of the worship of the common folk during Holy Week. We join Christians of many generations throughout the world in using the liturgy of Tenebrae.

Tenebrae is a prolonged meditation on Christ’s suffering. Readings trace the story of Christ’s passion, music portrays his pathos, and the power of silence and darkness suggests the drama of this momentous day. As lights are extinguished, we ponder the depth of Christ’s suffering and death; we remember the cataclysmic nature of his sacrifice as we hear the overwhelming sound of the “strepitus”; and through the return of the small but persistent flame of the Christ candle at the conclusion of the service, we anticipate the joy of ultimate victory.

But the final theme is victory -  the victory of Christ over death - and this is why the Passion story is inseparable from the story of the Resurrection.

A different post topic not in the A-Z challenge as am travelling for a week in Vancouver and Victoria!

 Blue herons fishing at low tide Robert's Bay Point, Sidney, BC...saw 5 last Monday!

They stand perfectly still in the water

Caught on Monday April 14, 2014 in Sidney BC

until a tasty morsel passes by.Usually it’s a fish, but sometimes a heron will eat other water life, or even another bird.

When they see something — wham! 

The heron lunges with its body and neck. If it nabs the prey, the bird usually tries to swallow it in one gulp, sometimes choking in the process. 

No need for explanation in this post, just enjoy my collection and have a chuckle or two!

As children we blithely repeat the song of parents or classmates and dance moving in our own world. As adults we may reflect and see different meanings. This collection of uniquely carved pumpkins reminded me of the above.

These rows were located in Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island in early November 2010, deep in old cedar growth. 

Love the orange and green contrasts.

An Ode to March, written last year

Bonnie Patterson Payne 2013

March, you enter like a gentle tease, a preschooler at the parent’s bedroom door on Saturday morning to see if they are rousing yet, a gentle tease of lengthening days and melting snow and morning chatters of chickadees and sparrows at my backyard feeder.

Yet vestiges of "  old man winter "  still hold me in his grip,
knee deep piles of snow off the front deck and forecasts of spring blizzards, the snow shovel and ice chipper too soon to retire to the garage or 
parka, snow boots, gaiters & cross country skis to be hung up one last time.

This past winter did not wrap itself overly gently in its usual time to cocoon, read, meditate and reflect. The upheavals of loss, three of my girls, on to next life stages of marriage, independent living and yes, even death. No longer, the note on the kitchen table, “Grandma I am here and sleeping” punctuated with the smiley face or the calico kitten,
meowing at top of the stairs, ready to take flying leaps on the kitchen table or pounce to wake my sleeping huskies on the office futon.  As the lingering of winter, I keep the voicemail messages from last summer and refurbish my photo frames as reminders: girls in red dresses,
leaping in the rain of the September Vancouver wedding and a smiling, fat baby next to her pensive older self, blond-haired autumn modeling shot dappled in afternoon sun.

My younger dog, Nanuq curls contentedly with nose in tail on the chair next to me and older, reddish blond Siberian, Dysis, sighs deeply, fully stretched out on her side in the rug that she has meticulously arranged, first pawing and circling.

In this quiet Saturday morning, March comes as a gift, an in-between time of seasons.

I am reminded our Lenten a period of waiting, preparation and expectation for the joy of Easter. “ Lo, I am with you always! “ and in that, I am content.

This past weekend I was visiting my daughter in Vancouver B.C. and spent an afternoon wandering around the campus at UBC.

One of the first beautiful spring days and being exam week students were sprawled on the grass or at benches outside the library with books, lunches and laptops.

The library was titled the Irving K. Barber Learning Center, housed in a much older stone building,

dated 1925 from the inscription on the top tower.

The newer library is shaped like an upside down book.

This got me pondering how we value learning, whether academic, experiential, or life long. If you are like me you have had to face exams at some point either in high school, university or in some professional and/or personal course. Some times we move with ease at our knowledge base and other times stress and anxiety may overwhelm I have these often recurring dreams that on the way to the exam room I lose my way, thus miss the final exam & lose my credits for the course, often true in subjects like economics and chemistry!

At this stage in life I have come to value learning as the journey or life long process & not necessarily the achievement or end result ( although computer exams such as electronic medical record training still somewhat freak me out! )

Erik Erikson talks about different life stages, and the value of mentoring as we grow older....the sharing of our own life experiences to assist others in the same field. Coaching is a similar sharing process but the encouragement by the coach for the learner to develop and master their own often new skill sets.

We often in the western world forget the privilege we have to have to have access to schools, when we hear of such stories as Malala who almost died in her fight for the right to educate girls in her country.

Share some of your own thoughts and/or journey on learning, joys and difficulties!

Place names often reflect the geographical features, and/or history of the area or the inhabitants and their culture. Often you may have noticed there will be changes In the name of a town, a city or a street.

In Nunavut, such has been the situation and even a program whose prime purpose was “to preserve and promote Inuit language and culture by providing official recognition to traditional Inuktitut place names.” Called Toponymy, here is the link…

http://www.ch.gov.nu.ca/en/Toponymy.aspx

Kugaaruk or Kuugaarruk; English: "little stream") …also called Arviligjuaq, meaning "the great bowhead whale” ..formerly Pelly Bay.

Kugluktuk or in the local language Inuinnaqtun: Qurluktuk, "the place of moving water"; was formerly Coppermine until 1 January 1996 and is  situated at the mouth of the Coppermine River.

Kimmirut known as previously as Lake Harbour is a community in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada.

Taloyoak or Talurjuaq formerly known as Spence Bay until 1 July 1992 has a 2006 population of 809.

Arctic Bay, one of my favorites, has of 2011 Population: 823, or in Inuktitut Ikpiarjuk  means "the pocket". It is an Inuit hamlet located in the northern part of the Borden Peninsula on Baffin Island  in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada.

History

Arctic Bay Health Centre

The Arctic Bay area has been occupied for nearly 5000 years by Inuit nomads migrating from the west. In 1872, a European whaling ship, the Arctic, captained by Willie Adams, passed through and gave the area its English name. It has the lowest tidal range in Canada.

The Inuktitut name for Arctic Bay is Ikpiarjuk which means "the pocket" in English. This name describes the high hills that surround the almost landlocked bay. To the southeast, the flat-topped King George V Mountain dominates the landscape of the hamlet. The community is served by annual supply sealift, and by Arctic Bay Airport. There is also a road connecting it to Nanisivik, a mining community just inland that is being closed up. Residents had hoped to boost their housing and public facilities with buildings relocated from Nanisivik, but those hopes were dashed due to lead-zinc contamination. However,

a church was relocated from Nanisivik to Arctic Bay in August 2007.

On a bit of a different theme, share in your comments what type of humour you use or appreciate!

Always with a more serious approach to life, some humour I just don’t get! Think the term is “being gullible”. Tell me a story with some aspect that is out of the ordinary and my response will be “ Oh really! “

Laughter is such a good response for the body and stress reliever…. But there is a risk: laughter can be infectious.

The ability to laugh at ourselves and our situations gives perspective.

I remember at one point when I had done much hand sewing and let me tell you Inuit ladies are always laughing but in making mittens for my grand daughter, left them on the kitchen counter and then much to my dismay, discovered my husky, Mike, had nabbed them and chewed all the rabbit fur trim. I was devastated due to all the work I had done ( and at the moment making comments like BAAA…AD dog! )

However a good friend wrote to me..There will always be mothers and mitts and granddaughters and dogs and remember it is the relationship that counts!

Continuing on my arctic theme would like to share my photos of some of the traditional structures of the Inuit culture.

An igloo  (Inuit language: iglu,  or plural: igluit ) Inuit word “iglu” means means “house” and is built in a spiral shape using the snow from the inside of the circle out.  Cutting tools required to build an igloo are a snow spade and a saw, but in traditional times these implements would have been fashioned from bone. Note how the entrance is dug deep enough to allow almost standing height.  By trapping body heat, or the heat produced by even a small burning lamp, the inside of the igloo can stay much warmer than the outside...This heat starts to melt the inside of the igloo and as the inside walls of the igloo start to melt, they become more solid.

My own experience has never been to overnight in an igloo but only to visit  

( and crawl inside where they are surprisingly warm )….watching igloo building contests,  a x-c ski with a friend who had built one outside of Kugluktuk and visiting one built by an elder lady in Gjoa Haven.

An inuksuk (plural inuksuit)  inukshuk in English or inukhuk in Inuinnaqtun, is a stone landmark. These mysterious stone figures known can be found throughout the circumpolar world.  Inukshuk, the singular of inuksuit, means "in the likeness of a human" in the Inuit language. They are monuments made of unworked stones that are used by the Inuit for communication and survival, markers for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, drift fences used in hunting or to mark a food cache.

An inukshuk in the form of a human being is called an inunnguaq 

or Innunguak, the ones that are shaped like men. 

This type of structure forms the basis of the logo of the 2010 Winter Olympics, designed  by Vancouver artist Elena Rivera MacGregor. 

The flag of Nunavut 

was proclaimed on 1 April 1999, along with the territory of Nunavut in Canada. It features a red inuksuk—an Inuit land marker—and a blue star, which represents the Niqirtsuituq, the North Star, and the leadership of elders in the community.

An excellent video with Peter Irniq explains more details.