Janis Constable

Meet Janis Constable. Nurse by profession, poet-writer-songwriter by passion and gift. She is not new to the world of writing, just new to the world of being a published author!

 

Born in Hamilton Ontario, schooled in Burlington and in Etobicoke, she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Physical and Health Education in Toronto, and in 1982, moved to St John’s Newfoundland, to work for two years as Technical Director of Synchronized Swimming for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

 

She then returned to school for her nursing. She worked 33 years in emergency nursing in various Central Ontario hospitals. She received a late career calling, and pursued studies and internship in parish nursing ministry. She gave ten energized and compassion-filled years, serving her United Church as parish nurse in ministry, and in fostering the growth and development of parish nursing in the region.

 

As a youngster, Janis traveled extensively in the Eastern Provinces, the Canadian Maritimes, and in the New England States. She camped with her nuclear family every summer, all the while enroute to visit her larger extended family in and around Stewiacke, Nova Scotia. Her family ties became tenacious during those camping days—during those childhood wonder years.

 

Janis married in 1992 and moved to Stouffville, Ontario, and then on to Barrie, Ontario in 1999 where she now lives with her husband Barry and their lively dog, Chester!

 

Janis would often be asked “Girl! When are you going to put down some roots?” And Janis would answer in her calm clear assertive voice “One might think, or even say, in all of my moving around, that I have no roots. But this is far far far from the truth! I am grounded. So very grounded. I am deeply rooted in the Christian Faith, and I am drawn into the depths of the ancient Celtic Wisdom. More than any rootedness based on where I live, this spiritual grounding gives me strength, courage, and a true sense of belonging. It gives me a sense of personhood—of who I am. A sense of where I am and where I am going. I’d even go so far as to say that my Celtic Christian roots speak to me—call to me—beckoning me into a meaningful life, into a deeper understanding of self, and into a fuller, richer, more abundant experience of being.”

 

Janis has been writing poems and songs since her teenage years, inspired by and encouraged by her maternal grandfather, the unpublished poet, David Buchanan. He bought her her very first Roget’s Thesaurus, when she was 12 years old. It was a most thoughtful gift. A generative gift for sure. Even though online thesauri are much more accessible, for Janis, her bound paperback copy is still her treasure, to this very day.

 

When the fast pace of career and family life took over in her thirties, she set her pen aside, knowing that one day, someday, she would begin to write again.

 

In her forties, Janis was moved to create a collection of themed hymns, in her trilogy hymnbook Lovelight and the Living Faith. This extensive work is as yet unpublished, and she hopes to complete this work in the near future.

 

For 17 years beginning at the turn of the century, Janis was a very active member of the worship team in her local United Church. While on that team, she wrote and created special Sunday Services, Evening Prayer Services, Taize Prayer Services, Celtic Christian Services, and even some corny Sunday School plays! She, along with members of her worship team, did some pulpit supply in the summers. And later on as their parish nurse, she created and gave thought-provoking Health Ministry Services during regular Sunday Service times. Her written liturgical works were her joy. She rose to each occasion—always inspired and energized—when given the opportunity to create, to lead, and to give, a full Sunday service.

 

Janis retired from nursing altogether, in 2017. She finally had time to breathe, to rediscover herself—and immerse herself in the wonders of the contemplative life. And her desire to write returned. She has most recently been on quite the intensive writing journey, producing five books in four years. Three books are currently published. A fourth is being submitted for publishing. Her fifth book contains a great deal of ultra-personal story within, and on this, Janis is still deliberating “to publish or not to publish.”

 

Janis Constable is a remarkably compassionate, free-spirited woman, contemplative by nature, mystical in approach, and truly poetically blessed. Her Psalm-based prose collection, her Four-Season-based prose collection, and her novel, are all intricately interlaced with threads of ancient Celtic Wisdom and modern Christian Insight. She brings her whole self into her writing. She writes from a place deep within. She shines her Light through her writing. She prayerfully says “The Light of God is with me, for all the world to see. I like to let it shine.”