Kairos Victoria

09/05/2026

😳 Berry at his most provocative....(and truthful)

09/05/2026

Municipal elections are on October 17th and already various groups are lining up opportunities for you to meet the candidates. Here's a resource you may find useful, especially if you are unable to get to one of the all-candidate meetings. Candidates are currently filling out the scorecards, and the responses will be released on September 20th. Stay tuned!

Livable CRD is a non-partisan coalition scoring Capital Regional District municipal candidates on transit, housing, climate, arts, and other livability issues.

09/05/2026

And rightly so, but this "winner" is also being loved to death by over-tourism. As well, because so much of the old growth has been logged all around it, these giants are more vulnerable to damage from fierce weather systems.
"The Douglas fir and other conifers that characterize Cathedral Grove owe their size in part to the fertile soils of the Alberni Valley, in the floodplain of the Cameron River.
The Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley, and Victoria were at one time "dominated" by similar giants, according to Kevin Wu, executive director with Endangered Ecosystems Alliance....Today, there is "far less than one per cent" left, according to Wu. And Cathedral Grove is the largest representative stand."

A controversial parking lot, adjacent logging and more than 100 years of interest make Cathedral Grove a site of competing values.

09/04/2026

“In Victoria, there are about 75,000 eligible voters.
Tellingly, 3.5 out of every 10 of us — about 27,000 — vote for mayor and council in civic elections, and then it’s back to “whatever” for four years.
The other 6.5 — or 48,000 — of us? Good intentions notwithstanding, work, coffee dates, the grandkids, Costco, golfing and other priorities, or outright disinterest, keep us from the polling station.
Euphemistically, 13,501 votes make someone mayor or a councillor.”
A healthy democracy requires citizens to do more than vote every 4 years, but they must at the least, do that- VOTE.

How did America fall down? Democracy is not this “thing we do” every four years.

09/04/2026

Two caravans of seniors are leaving the west coast (from Victoria) and east coast of Canada to meet in Ottawa.

There they will be taking non-violent direct action to stand up for the planet and protect it for their children and grandchildren.

Many of them are not in excellent physical health due to their age, and yet they are doing something, believing everyone has a role to play in fighting climate catastrophe.

One thing you can do that will help a great deal is follow their YouTube channel. They need 50 subscribers in order to livestream their journey. So each person that follows helps quite a lot- thanks!

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

09/03/2026

Fixing the tracks has to become a priority if we are to see these new rail cars on Vancouver Island in the future.

With the Prime Minister's announcement of new Canadian built cars for VIA Rail Canada, it's a good time to remind folks that last year VIA confirmed that a rail subsidy negotiated in 2014 for Vancouver Island still exists.

Under the new service agreement, the ICF would manage the schedule delivered by the contracted operator Southern Rail of Vancouver Island that still moves propane by rail in Nanaimo.

We just need to repair the tracks.

Restore Island Rail
https://restoreislandrail.com

09/03/2026

TO HONOUR THE DEATH OF WENDELL BERRY, here is a practice you can do. Source: Rev. Cameron Trimble

Spiritual Practice: Practicing Resurrection

Berry’s spirituality was never primarily abstract. He kept returning to the particular: this farm, this river, this meal, this neighbor, this patch of soil.

So today, don’t try to save the world. Choose one small piece of it to love. Go outside and walk slowly through the place where you actually live. Leave your phone behind if you can. Don’t count your steps. Don’t listen to anything. Don’t turn the walk into exercise.

Pay attention.

Find one living thing you normally pass without noticing. Perhaps it is a tree, a creek, a patch of weeds, a bird, a garden, an insect, or the soil beneath your feet. Stay there for a while.

Ask yourself what you actually know about it. Do you know the tree’s name? Do you know where the creek begins or where it goes? Do you know what birds live near your house? Do you know what grew on this land before your neighborhood was built? Do you know whose ancestors lived here before yours arrived? Let curiosity become relationship.

Then ask a more Berry-like question: What does this place need from me?

Maybe the answer is nothing dramatic. Pick up some trash. Plant something native. Learn where your food comes from. Support a local farmer. Repair something instead of replacing it. Meet a neighbor. Use less poison on your lawn. Sit outside long enough to notice who else lives there. Or perhaps the answer is simply to love the place more consciously.

Berry spent a lifetime teaching that care grows from affection. We protect what we have learned to love.

Before you go inside, stop once more. Look around. This is not the environment. This is where you live. And for whatever years you are given here, you belong to it.

Practice resurrection by helping something live.

09/03/2026

Are we loving this river to death? Too many people using the river for recreation purposes create issues for other users of that river, especially the fish. Some limits that respect the health and well-being of the river’s ecology are needed.

I am deeply concerned about what is ­happening to the ­Cowichan River during our increasingly hot and dry ­summers.

09/02/2026

Now here's a question that needs some pondering....
"The future of AI will need big public decisions about money, rules, safety, and power. But another part of the future is shaped every day in our homes and relationships.
So maybe this week we start with one question:
What in your life is so precious that you would never want to automate it?"

A Meditation by Rev. Cameron Trimble

09/02/2026

Another month, another opportunity for you to stand with other women who are against the genocide that is still happening in Gaza and the West Bank. This is what solidarity looks like.