From the Ground Up

“I still feel his presence here all the time,” says Evelyn Dorfman. The petite, moxie brunette is staring at an oval-shaped frame featuring her late grandfather Max Harriman Thuna, founder of the famed family business she’s been running for the last 24 years. “He listens to the various conversations here, there’s a vitality to him,” she adds of the patriarch she barely knew. The intimate Danforth Avenue store, that’s redolent of the past and lined with more than 1,500 vintage apothecary jars, is perhaps better known for its history than its herbs.

Thuna planted the first seeds of his nearly 125-year-old legacy at a small shop on Queen Street West in 1888. The former storefront was, at the time, swathed in block-lettered promises of herbal remedies — something Dorfman says wouldn’t be acceptable today. Read more

Free Spirit

The telltale ting of the sitar provides the soundtrack to my first meditation class. A wooden flute weaves its way through the track and already I feel like my preconceived notions about meditating are being met. The sounds are coming from a stereo in a simple meeting room at the North York Public Library. I make my way to the back to avoid standing out in a crowd of about 20 presumed masters that seem far more attuned.

Despite my cavalier best efforts to camouflage myself, I am quickly discovered. Someone hands me an informative diagram for beginners on how to raise the Kundalini (a dormant, corporeal energy at the base of the spine viewed as a motherly spirit) and a biography on the founder of Sahaja Yoga meditation. A gentle-looking Russian man stands at the helm of the room, anxious to begin. He introduces Read more

The Crux of the Matter

“What led me to where I am right now is kind of a circuitous journey,” says Dr. Andrew McCallum. The chief coroner for Ontario is sitting in a large, antiquated boardroom that’s covertly connected to his personal office in downtown Toronto. Behind him is a bookshelf brimming with encyclopedia-sized texts that advise on cerebral subjects such as expert evidence, fractures, forensic medicine and poisonings. From the strict security check-in to the closed-mouthed hallways, it’s the makings of a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode — but as McCallum contests, he’s no Al Robbins. “The big difference is that we focus on stuff that wouldn’t make great television but what really matters. I’m talking about, ‘how do you keep people alive?’”

What he means by “circuitous” is that after finishing medical school, Read more

Maria Montessori: An education system that passes the test of time

The Montessori method has methodically swept across the educational landscape, fostering young minds to think independently and shepherding parents to give their fawns a fair shot at a ripened yet revolutionary form of learning. With thousands of private and public schools across North America carrying on this legacy, why are Maria Montessori’s early 20th century revelations still so relevant?

The answer to this question is something John Chattin-McNichols, an associate professor of education at Seattle University, stumbled upon after he embarked on a serendipitous trip to Bergamo, Italy in 1970 — exactly 100 years after Montessori was born in a small town just a few hours away. At the time, the-then 20 year old was working as a summer helper at a Montessori school in the U.S., teaching preschoolers archery, ice-skating and other activities when he was approached to attend a training course abroad. “Because none of the Read more