Christmas Lights, Seasons Greetings

This Christmas Day I was treated to a wonderful feast at the home of my daughter Chaya and all family members were present for the first time in at least 7 years.

Last night on Boxing Day, all alone in my apartment I was reviewing the events of the day before. As with most family gatherings at Christmas, a lot of things come to the fore that need to be addressed and this was no exception.

I found myself getting hungry and since the oven in my stove burned out over the holidays I went out and bought a falafel on Davie Street. It was a cold, clear evening and I wanted to stroll and work off the doldrums that had somehow settled into my psyche that evening.

Chaya had told me she wouldn’t be visiting after her usual Wednesday meeting in the West End last night, but I wasn’t sure and wanted to be alert if she did come.

I walked slowly up Burrard eating my falafel and then depositing the wrapper in a trash can near the bus stop I rounded the corner and walked slowly up Pacific Blvd in the direction of English Bay. I thought I would keep my eye open for the construction of a new pizza place that I thought I had read was moving here, but I could find no evidence of the same.

I had not walked far when I noticed the outline of a young woman dressed in black standing by the sidewalk. The light was very dim here but as I got closer I could see that her dog was squatting nearby, providing me with the reason for her pause in the dark street.

As I passed, the dog finishing its business came up and stood on its hind legs, putting its paws on my legs briefly hindering my progress. The young woman admonished the dog and I went on my way thinking “some people should take better control of their animals.” I was not in a good mood and I wasn’t sure whether the dog was either.

But I had only taken a few steps onward when the dog came scampering up from behind and this time stood straight up in front of me, tapping me determinedly on the chest with its muddy paws and definitely staying my progress.

It was as if a light went on. The dog wanted to play with me.

So I stopped and gave him a hearty petting right there and then and I could now see that he was just a young dog barely beyond the puppy stage and he was honoring this stranger passing in the dark night with the gift of friendship. He could just as easily have growled and threatened me.

The young woman caught up to us admonishing her dog but I responded, “It’s okay. He just wanted to say hello. I should have stopped and petted him the first time.”

As I walked away and passed a streetlight I could see the dog's muddy prints on the front of my coat, but I didn't care. In fact, I felt quite happy about it.

By the time I reached the big tree at English Bay that is always lit up this time of year, I was feeling much better.

The strings of violet, white and blue lights made it look like a vast, ornate candelabra or maybe a chalice and this Christmas it seemed more beautifully decorated than before, the lights more meticulously placed to give the sensation of moving dimension to the passer by.

Christmas Eve Along the Seawall

It is about 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve and I am back from a long walk along Davie Street and down to English Bay.

It is a cold, clear day and from the distance I could see the whitecaps spiking on the dark gray green aquamarine highlighted water of the bay. It occurred to me that it might be very windy down by the water but I needed the exercise as I haven’t been getting much in all the rainy weather lately.

By the time I got down to the Bay I was already invigorated by my walk so far and the smiling faces of folks going about their last minute business before tomorrow’s holiday inspired me to make the most of this weather.

I pulled up the collar of my coat and put on my navy wool watch cap and quickened my steps as I crossed the intersection at Davie and Denman to reach the water.

The seawall was far from crowded but many of the people walking down there had smiles on their faces as it was a truly beautiful afternoon and what a way to spend the day before Christmas!

A middle-aged lone artist in a leather jacket sat sketching on the edge of the seawall, his back to the passers-by in a spot usually populated by other artists displaying their works, but today deserted because of the chill weather. His drawings were laid out side by side face up on the seawall ledge beside him. Most of them were intricate cityscapes with a local flavor.

By the time I reached the waters of the bay opposite the Parks Board offices where Kind Acts hosts their Monday night open mikes in the summer, I could hear and feel the thunderous force of the large surf pounding in. In places the waves were splashing up over the seawall while pedestrians ducked aside to avoid being drenched. I couldn’t help but draw a parallel between this raw activity of nature today and the few huge waves that came in a few days back over an otherwise peaceful bay.

The crash of surf is an unusual sound on this sheltered bay and it was wonderful music to listen to as I walked along breathing in the ocean air and watching a large flock of black waterfowl easily riding the wild surf and forming an undulating crowd of bodies moving in perfect and calm sympathy with the force of the ocean.

I thought of my sister Marilyn at home in Edmonton and of the times she has joined me along this route on her visits and of how much she would enjoy this day.

She often reminds me how lucky I am to live in such a picturesque part of Canada, where a teeming metropolis meets nature in such a simple and magnificent way that I too often take for granted.

After the Solstice

It is Sunday morning and two days after the solstice the sky is slate gray and the rain still drizzling steadily.

All is quiet here this morning except for a few brief slammings of the neighbor’s door as he exits the apartment, a daily ritual but one that does not really disturb as he has shown me great respect in keeping the volume of his music down after I asked him to a few weeks ago.

"Well what kind of music do you like?" he countered.

"That's not the point," I replied, " I like all kinds but I don't want to hear it through my walls." I guess the penny dropped and he has been very pleasant to me ever since too.

My window ledges are soaked which means that I will be leaving with an open umbrella this morning, but there doesn’t appear to be any wind.

I opened the window to test the temperature and although it’s cold it’s not freezing and that gives me hope for a comfortable walk into work.

A few days back the holiday was looking fairly bleak due to ongoing difficulties experienced by several family members, but in the last two days I have received messages from them that give me a new hope.

As the days begin to increase in length and more light enters into them, may more light also enter into hearts and minds of those I love and help in the healing we all need so much.

This is after all the approach of the Holy Season, when the world comes to a slow stop, a brief pause, maybe a moment of prayer and the giving of gifts and blessings and in the rhythm of a heartbeat everything begins anew.

The Very Edge of the World

I had been looking forward to this morning for the last few days as my daughter Chaya was going to meet me for breakfast.

Chaya surprised me by showing about 15 minutes early. She was in a great mood and the first thing we did was to walk up to the dollar store where she purchased some containers for her Christmas baking (gifts) and a few decorations. She told me that she has changed her mind about "not doing Christmas" this year and is going to put up a tree.

Immediately I thought about how much this will mean to Kadir.

We walked up Davie towards the beach and tried out the little restaurant called The Red Umbrella that I pass so often but have never visited. She had sausages and eggs and I ordered a single blueberry pancake and a fruit cup.

She wound up sharing mine too, at my invitation. It was great food, tasting very homemade and at a good price.

Afterwards we walked back home along the seawall. She headed home to start baking and after checking mail I went back towards Safeway to do my grocery shopping. It had started to rain when Chaya left but by the time I got back to English Bay the sun had re-appeared and so I took the opportunity to stroll up to 2nd Beach and get in a bit of exercise.

Along the way I saw two elderly men talking, or rather one holding court and the other listening with an over-polite, and rather conciliatory expression on his face. The one talking said, “If you dig a deep enough hole, you can bury anything.”

I often wonder at these out of the blue enigmatic "messages from the universe".

The water was calm and serene and it felt peaceful to look out at the horizon as I walked, but on my return along an especially smooth stretch of sandy beach I paused to admire the way the water touched and spread over the sand.

I was engrossed in the tactile look and feel of sea caressing shore when I heard the unexpected crash of surf behind me and noticed that there were several large waves arcing in which I assumed was the result of a wake of a recently passing freighter.

The surf subsided and as I walked further I was startled and awakened by even heavier surges hitting the beach I had just passed.

I stopped again to study the surface of the water and a few huge waves, seemingly out of nowhere, crashed into the seawall where I stood and splashed up over the seawall so that I had to jump back to avoid being soaked.

This activity continued for several more minutes as I stood and watched. There was a young woman standing by a bench a few steps away, talking to someone on her cell phone and she was yanked from that ho-hum ritual by this sudden activity of nature and I heard her say, “What’s with these fucking big waves?” My sentiments fairly exactly!

As I stood there I had an inkling of what it must feel like to be caught in a tsunami. I thought maybe this was a mini tsunami and still feel that this may have been the case.

For a few brief moments I was reminded how it must feel to stand at the very edge of the world.

Sultan of the Heart

My friend Majid sent me a link to the live Sema from Konya this morning and I am listening to the ceremony on line as I write this.

The sweet sound of the flute and the beginnings of zikr as the chorus joins in is holy music to my ears this snowy Sunday morning.

The snow is funneling down in huge wet flakes this morning but is supposed to turn to rain by noon or thereabouts. I am in my apartment preparing to leave for work but part of me is in another country, another world transported by the music I am hearing, swept up in these elegant devotions that are so ancient.

This year is said to be Rumi’s 800th anniversary and celebrations are still going on all over the globe to honor this famous “Sultan of the Heart”, mystic and poet and author of the Masnavi, a collection of his writings that are the holy book of many in the world these days as his name has now become known to so many.

Thanks to Majid and some other friends of the heart I have had the honor of joining in the musical assembly gathered for the sema and have experienced the whirling dance from the perspective of a musician playing for the semazens (dervishes).

This music brings me back into the sacred circle of praise and joy.

To listen, click on the link below:

http://www.semazen.net/news_detail.php?id=646

New Snow

It is December 1st and an appropriate morning to wake up to slowly drifting big lazy snowflakes moving past my window.

I opened the window wide to get a breath of the bracing frosty air and saw that the lane, street and trees were blanketed in white.

This is the first snow of the season for us in this area of town so near the water though the mountains have been dusted in fresh white powder for several weeks now.

In memory I can hear the voices of my children over the years on just such mornings shouting, "Dad, let's go out and make a snowman!" And me mulling over coffee and reluctant to go out into the cold but doing so anyway after several such promptings.

It all happens so quickly, and is over so quickly...these precious happenings with children.

I won't be rushing out to make a snowman today, but walking along the snowy street on my way to work. I can already feel the brush of snow against my face and magical sensation of becoming a child once again in the new snowy landscape.

There is something about the first snow of the year that is reminiscent of spring and new beginnings, I guess it has to do with the stark contrast between the two seasons.

But today (and yesterday too for some reason) I feel full of positive strength and have the feeling that all will be well this winter.

I wrapped up more than a few loose ends in the past days and had a wonderful meeting with my son Ky in which we discussed the options of a young man growing into manhood. He honored me by trusting me and opening up some of the feelings that are causing him concern.

In doing so, he imparted to me some of the wisdom of youth, stuff I have largely forgotten in the past few years mostly around the nobility of setting out into that vast unknown of adult life.

Never mind climbing Everest...life itself is the great challenge and how to trust one's instincts in the face of what one has never done or seen.

As I walk to work this morning in the new clean snow, I will think of myself as an adventurer into the unknown and imagine the day opening into exciting challenges and new possibilities that I had not noticed before.

Who is to say that with this new snow, a fresh chapter of my life is not just about to begin?

A Dream of Breaking into Freedom

I have just finished my morning shower, and while toweling off I recalled a late morning dream I had just before waking.

I had gone up to Whistler in a snappy silver compact rental car with some family and friends, and we were all visiting my friend Robert who was in hospital.

He was wrapped in an orange blanket, his body and head covered and seemed not to hear us speaking to him. While we continued to talk he suddenly spoke saying, “Do you hear the glacier moving?”

At this cue, I could hear a dull and distant roar and looking out the window saw a nearby mountainside in motion, the white side of it rippling down like melting icing on a cake.

All of us looked in amazement as the rippling became a full-fledged avalanche and turned into an explosion of rocks and boulders which spread to the surrounding peaks. As we watched in growing horror the volley of debris came cascading towards the village and I realized that it was going to reach us and probably destroy the rental car, cutting off our means of escape from the devastation that was about to engulf us.

We all began racing toward the exit and fled from the hospital as we could hear the rocks crashing into the building behind us and destroying it. We seemed to be running through a forested area towards the ocean as my dream Whistler was also a waterfront town.

The harbor looked peaceful and I noticed people walking about their business seemingly oblivious of the disaster we were fleeing from. I turned around and could see everyone emerging safely from the forest at full run and I looked up.

In the sky a flock of white snow geese appeared in V-formation, and I felt the thrill of freedom and knew at that moment we were safe and all would be well.

Installation Blues & Sage Advice

It is just after 9:30 and I am awake and up slightly early after another night downloading antivirus software file updates.

When I got home from work yesterday I set right to work to try and un-jam my laptop by manually un-installing Trend Micro Pro upgrade which support had linked me to in error and which was now “stuck” in my system. Of course I could not…and so I tried the tack of reinstalling it, got as far as unloading the installation files, found the diagnostic “toolkit” and ran that to un-install the program.

To my great relief it worked. So then I re-installed PC-Cillin 2007 my original version.

And then...I re-installed Trend Micro Security 2008 but it could not remove 2007 for some reason so I tried to re-activate the 2007 version and it worked. It is good to go for another year if I want to leave it that way (knock on wood.) But what a headache!

This is nearly 2 weeks of off-target support from Trend Micro, failed installations and inability to connect to the net.

My friend and coworker Leon laughed at me when I explained that my days off had been screwed up by this. He admonished me, “With all you have to worry about, you are complaining about software problems?”

The Paramount Hotel Seattle reps visited us yesterday and bought huge heaps of pizza so I stayed in for my break avoiding the heavy rain outdoors.

My intuition told me that I should probably go down and look for my friend Trevor in case he showed as he said he probably would, though with the rain I doubted it. But when I looked out the front doors, there he stood in his hoodie, for all the world looking like my own long lost son.

So I invited him up to the office and offered him pizza. He refused the pizza as he’d already eaten but we went into the Zen room and had a talk for about a half hour. He and his girlfriend of 4 years have broken up and she has left their shared house. He says that they are still talking but that the relationship was not working. He is in search of himself, as so many young men are (and were ).

We didn’t have too much to talk about, and he would not admit to any problems that needed to be addressed. When I addressed the issue one last time before he left he gave me that look of what the hell and said, “Ted, get back to work!”

We had more or less spent the entire time bullshitting (shooting the breeze as we used to call it) and laughing for the most part.

So much for imparting sage advice!

The Rain, The Lark and my father.

This morning is one of those gray, rain-soaked ones that mark the approach of the winter season in this West Coast Rain Forest climate.

I am taking my time as I prepare for work this morning listening to CBC’s I Hear Music with Robert Harris, a program on the influence of the violin in music.

He is playing that remarkable Hungarian gypsy piece “The Lark” that I have heard once before which after a fireworks display of masterful virtuosity strays off into the stratosphere imitating the sounds of birds towards the end.

The recording I heard before was by Kalman Balough and the Gypsy Cimbalom Band but this one was performed by someone with the name Sandor. Maybe it was the same group, I am not sure.

I just Googled it and the name of the group is Sandor Deki Lakatos and his Gypsy Orchestra. Robert Harris suggested, “Maybe if you to Hungary you can still find his recordings somewhere.”

He followed this with some more modern recordings by Natalie McMaster. And he closed the program with Django and Stephane Grappelli.

I could not help but think of my father as this music was being played, and stopped to say a silent prayer for him. If not for his playing of the violin at home when I was a young boy, I might never have been inspired to become a musician.

I can still remember the fine-tuned vibrato he applied using his left wrist like a dowser might use a wand.

Thanks for those beautiful memories dad!

This Precious Life

It is just after 10 a.m. of a peaceful Tuesday morning and a day off work for me.

According to the Weather Channel it was supposed to be blasting rain today, but there is a mottled blue sky above framing the golden brown leaves on the nearby trees and taking me back to the fall of 1996 when I sat at my old DOS based computer texting my journal, marveling that the color of the text seemed to mirror the color of the leaves.

In those days though, I would never have known what the word “texting” signified. I was still “typing”.

I was an early member of the Vancouver Community Network then and able to surf the net, but all in text format…there were no graphics of any kind. It was still amazing though that I could search my local library and even reserve books over the computer, or research an item or topic. I can’t recall how I did it exactly though, before the omnipotent “Google”!

Before I owned a computer, I carried a notebook with me everywhere, and I was always “journaling”, scribbling dreams, poems, prayers and memories. I began to write so swiftly in a kind of stream of consciousness that my writing became largely illegible to anyone but me and when I review those journals today, even I have trouble deciphering some of the writing.

My apartment is filled with boxes containing roughly 40 years of notebooks full of these writings, plus one or two book manuscripts that have not reached publication and perhaps never will, now that I have discovered blogging.

A few years back, I couldn’t imagine a time when I was not yearning to see my records on the music charts or a newly published book on the best seller list, but these days, for whatever reasons, time has slowed down and I have no such aspirations.

Time has slowed down and at the same time paradoxically speeded up! I realize that it is swiftly slipping past me and that for the sake of my children and for posterity I would do well to leave some markers of my journey for those who follow. And my journey has been nothing short of extraordinary, a near impossible tracking of space and time from my childhood in Winnipeg to my current one-step-at-a-time daily ritual.

I can do now what I could never have done in my twenties and that is to hold down a steady job. I was too troubled, confused and brimming with desires and emotions I couldn't understand and which I was unable to share with anyone. I had yet to learn to heal and to learn the lessons that healing brings.

In learning these lessons, some of them extremely difficult, I had a chance to try my wings, discovered I could fly and flew managing to live some of the life I dreamed of as a child.

So for now, a steady job and the maintenance of a daily structure is my recipe for wholeness.

But who knows what tomorrow holds in store?

All that I know is that I am thankful for every day and night spent enjoying this precious life.

A Fine Fall Sunday Morning

It is just coming up to 10 a.m. of a fine fall Sunday morning.

It is cloudy and overcast, but there is no rain pelting down, at least not yet. As usual, I am getting ready for work.

Getting ready for me (in part) means preparing coffee, making my bed, brushing teeth, then doing exercises and finally morning prayers before settling into the ritual of checking emails and doing a daily journal entry.

My daily journal is usually a log of events of the day previous, a recording of the nights dreams if any are memorable and sifting through any thoughts that may be playing on my conscious mind which I feel may need some kind of analysis.

I have often thought and said that this journal keeping is my therapy, and an invaluable tool and way of clearing the field for the coming day’s activities and challenges.

If something is troubling me or if I am concerned about something in my daily life, going over it in journal form often helps me to get to the root of the problem or concern.

This morning I don’t have anything other than the morning silence playing on my mind and so as I write, I also take a break to turn on my little aging Sony short wave radio (a gift from my friend Herb sitting on my kitchen table with its aerial aloft), tune in CBC Radio 2 and listen to a little music while I prepare my cereal.

I look out the window and take back my comment about no rain. It is truly pelting down now. But it is only a 20 minute walk to work and I have my umbrella.

The CBC host (Gregory Charles) makes the comment that he was born in 1968 but from now on is going to lie about his age and pretend he’s 22. 1968! My God, he’s a baby but that classic CBC radio style makes him sound so much older. And he has some fine taste in music! This morning's theme, suited to a Sunday morning , seems to be on the subject of faith and belief.

He tells a story that I find compelling which I have never heard. It is about the I Have A Dream speech by Martin Luther King. He said that while King was talking Mahalia Jackson was standing in the background and kept prompting him, “Tell them about the dream” (the announcer said you can hear her voice in the recording) and she kept repeating this until finally he seemed to hear her and launch into the famous I have a dream part of the speech. Talk about timing and the skills of a musician.

I was hoping that there might be some nice gentle music this morning and I am rewarded as he plays You Must Believe in Spring (and Love) sung by Tony Bennett and accompanied by the great Bill Evans on piano.

Bennett’s soft vocal approach combined with the rich colorful palate of the solo piano combine to create a lovely sense of nostalgia and peace in me, somehow perfectly in tune with the cloudy, rainy morning.

And just as though I had been to church and attended a wonderful service, I am feeling uplifted and ready for the day!

A Simple Act of Healing

This morning when I looked out my window, I thought I detected a break in the rain.

I got out of bed and went into my morning routine, which on Tuesdays usually includes laundry.

I also prepared a bowl of hot oatmeal with raisins, cinnamon and banana, a habit I recently re-adopted on the advice of my dental hygienist. She asked about my health as she always does and I had mentioned that my cholesterol levels were too high. She suggested oatmeal cereal.

"I don't like cooking in the mornings," I replied.

She admonished me with a gentle smile, and the words "Don't be lazy!"

At this time of the year especially, with the weather turning, it feels good to start off the day with something more substantial than coffee and juice. I use Quaker quick cooking oats and it only takes about 5 minutes to prepare.

With the fruit added, I don't need to add sugar. I just add about 1/3 cup of milk.

This is something I haven't done for years. Having hot cereal in the morning reminds me of my childhood (it was Quaker cereals then too) and preparing for school in the morning. It is a good memory and a good feeling. It is a simple act of healing.

After a shower and a change of laundry loads, I went out into the elements and up to Davie to get groceries. I was wrong about the break in the rain.

But it wasn't a heavy rain, it was one of those comfortable, familiar Vancouver drizzles that get you wet but not soaked and the temperature was also very liveable. I was wearing a t-shirt under a light jacket and a baseball cap and felt quite cozy.

The streets are now strewn with multicolored leaves of many varieties and as I walked up the hill looking at the wet, natural collage under my feet, I felt a lightness of spirit and sure of myself.

Light the Night

I received a call from my daughter Chaya yesterday asking me to look over her fundraiser letter which she then forwarded by email. I forwarded Chaya’s “Light the Night” fundraiser letter to all on my email list. Here is the text:

Hello,

On October 13th I will be walking 5 k in the Vancouver Light the Night fundraiser. This is a very special event to me as the goal of Light the Night is to raise money for better treatment, support and awareness of people living with blood cancer.

Last year on October 13th I finished my 8 months of treatment for Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, and the day after my last treatment I was able to do this same 5 k walk. This year feels very momentous as it signifies the one year mark of my health and new life.

My team's name is Chaya's Angels and our team goal is to raise $5000 for this event.

Please visit the link below to sponsor my team for this worthy cause. Any donation made over $10 will automatically be sent a tax receipt.

Thanks for your support,
Chaya

http://www.active.com/donate/ltnvan/2103_ckatrenskyLTN

Since both of us along with my oldest son have been diagnosed with this type of cancer, it was a no-brainer to do more than check the text. I clicked on the link to make my donation.

To my surprise, everything worked like clockwork. Usually when I try these things there is some sort of hang up or delays in the system and I can’t complete the form or I get an error message.

So that’s a good sign and I am rooting for my daughter’s team to make their quota.

Go Chaya’s Angels!

A Typical Tuesday

Today was a typical Tuesday...slated for chores.

I woke late and decided that before I started my chores, I would go for a haircut. It seemed to be the perfect morning, rainy and cool. My intuition was right on as I was the only customer in the store and so didn't have to wait.

I was served by a new gal, one who didn't seem to know what to do, even after I explained it to her. So I talked her through it and came away mostly unscathed. She kept running the clippers into my ears, until I quipped, "Are my ears getting in the way?" That seemed to focus her, although the end result left a lot to be desired.

After this I went for a blood pressure test at the drug store and sure enough it was up again...haircut stress-related no doubt.

I went home to finish my chores, make some coffee, do laundry, check email. The usual. I planned a mid-afternoon movie at the Paramount, but by the time I got there I realized that I had better not sit through a thriller, but walk off some of my stress.

My stress is not unrelated to the decision I made last week.

I stopped taking my blood pressure meds, as they don't seem to be agreeing with me. I braced myself for the dizziness, the headache, and the upset stomach I was sure would follow. It did, along with about a 15 point jump in the BP levels but I promised to give myself a week to see what would happen. Astra Zeneca labs haven't kept me alive most of my life, and I didn't expect to keel over once I stopped.

The end result is that my BP is about 12-15 points higher than it was on the meds...but even on meds it never came down to normal.

So I walked over to the food court in the Pacific Mall and ordered a fresh apple/carrot/beet juice zinger with a jolt of ginger. I walked with that through the downtown core to Caper's to restock my walnut supply, which along with banana and orange juice is my usual breakfast menu.

Once home I was quite tired and so lay down for a nap. While I napped the temperature dropped and it poured rain.

I woke about 6 p.m. and decided to go out shopping for a bite to eat. I have been making loud noises at work lately to some of my team mates about craving a hot Montreal-style corned beef on rye sandwich, the kind that I used to be able to get in Winnipeg.

I passed a small European deli and did a u-turn a few paces past it as the words Montreal-Style settled into my conscious mind. There it was...a chance to relive my dream and satisfy my hunger.

I walked in and ordered, but to my dismay they told me there was no rye bread, and asked if I would settle for multigrain. I said no thanks, as this was not my vision of a Montreal style sandwich, but the owner said "No problem," and pointed to a fresh loaf of rye that was marked for sale and they cut that to prepare my sandwich.

I immediately realized this was not going to be a dream realized, as they kept asking me how to prepare it. Did I want lettuce, cucumber, tomato...did I want the meat hot or cold? They didn't even include a pickle.

This was like my haircut revisited, and I had to talk them through it. The end result as with the haircut was far from perfect, but it was a passable sandwich, and because I felt guilty that they had to cut a fresh loaf for me, I bought the rest of the loaf to take home.

It was a worthy purchase, as I found when I passed a young woman standing on Davie with the cardboard sign...no food, no money...no job.

The expression of delight on her face when I handed her the loaf was palpable and made up for any shortfalls in my day.

"Good food", she exclaimed in a tone of voice that said everything that needed to be said.

I then headed down to the rainwashed seawall, to watch the vestiges of golden sunset and misty clouds over the rippling waters of the Bay, breathing in the cool, fresh air.

The Spirit of Peter Pan

This came to me this morning, when thinking about the James Barrie quote on Nika’s birthday card:

Wishing is like fishing,
you have to be prepared
and go down to where the fish are biting.

A little folksy wisdom which I may or may not inscribe in her card!

I didn’t need any folksy wisdom as a child to fall under the spell of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. To this day I am still under the spell of the story as it unfolded on the big screen that summer night in Winnipeg before the eyes of an 8 year old boy on the occasion of his birthday.

My mother had roused me shortly after I went to bed to tell me that her friend a few streets away was taking her son Bruce to see the film as a birthday present and that we were going to join them. I don’t remember the journey downtown, but we would have had to take the streetcar, as that was the route along the Henderson Highway from East Kildonan in the early 50’s. If I have my facts right, it would have been the summer of 1954.

I can’t remember any other occasion where I was taken by either parent to a movie, although mom took me one summer to see a gala outdoor production of The King and I at Rainbow Stage.

We didn’t have television in those days, and I don’t remember ever having seen a movie before. If I did, the impact was nothing compared to the impact this had on me. The whole experience was like waking up in a Technicolor dream and staying awake afterwards.

The impish spirit of Peter entered into my child’s body and I became him. In the days to follow I mimicked his sword play with Hook using a wooden stick, leapt from the bed and from the garden fence rail intent on levitating and flying around.

I had fallen in love with Tinker Bell and I was determined never to grow up and grow old.

The spirit of Peter still lives strong in me and as I look back over my life, I see now he did succeed in teaching me how to fly.

I could never have imagined such an adventure!

Alice Meets Wile E. Coyote

Yesterday, as pre-arranged I headed off to Zefferellis on Robson for a birthday lunch with our CEO and the other August B-Day buddies I work with.

I was supposed to meet the group at 12:30 at the restaurant but arrived about 10 minutes early.

I climbed the steep flight of stairs leading to the second story and walked into the restaurant for the first time, quickly scanning the tables for my co-workers. They had not arrived yet and so I took a quick trip down the corridor behind the bar to the men’s washroom.

When I came out, I had made up my mind that if they weren't there yet I would go downstairs and meet everyone in the bright sunshine on the street and that we would all walk up together.

The Exit sign glowed above the doorway on my left and while fixing that in mind and turning towards it I scanned the restaurant tables once more. Unfortunately, I took the wrong turn.

I thought I was taking a shortcut behind a counter and I found myself stepping into empty space and hurtling Alice in Wonderland style down a rabbit hole. It was a stairwell leading down to the Cactus Club restaurant below, but it was unlit and because I was not paying close attention there was no way to see there was not a floor behind the counter.

I picture myself in freefall and a lot of things occurred simultaneously.

One was panic and a kind of horror that I had not seen this coming. The other was the sudden realization that I was falling into a stairwell as my vision adjusted to the shadows. There was also a distinct sensation that time had slowed down or stopped all together. Another was that there was a banister rail within my grasp but my body was quickly turning backwards and upside down and so I grabbed for it wildly, certain that I would miss.

I did not miss. Although I was suddenly head first into the stairwell, my feet pointing toward the light, my grip on the banister broke the momentum of my freefall.

Up at the top of the stairs I could hear the waiters’ gasps of “Oh no,” and “Oh my God”.

By the time their faces appeared, I was pulling myself out of the darkness and surfacing. I was feeling a mixed burn of embarrassment and foolishness as I came up, and immediately thought of that unfortunate cartoon coyote, Wile E. I must have had a similar look on my face.

Outside of a few bruises and scrapes I was fine and told them so. I was still intending to go downstairs but they quickly ushered me to my table and sat me down. I could almost hear them thinking "Sit him down before something else happens." It was not until I was sitting that I realized how badly my body was shaking.

When my co-workers arrived I was at no loss for words. Everyone expressed immediate concern and sympathy, even shock as a man my age falling down stairs could easily be a disaster.

I am grateful that I have kept up my morning routine of exercise as I am no worse for it this morning, other than a bit of stiffness in my right arm, the one that grabbed for safety.

Once again this appears to be another mysterious case of Angels to the rescue!

A Child's Prayer

The other day a dear friend of mine forwarded me an email with the subject line: International Angel Day. In it was a picture of an angel and a quote from Leonard Cohen:

If we forget to pray for the angels, the angels forget to pray for us.

This morning as I said my prayers, I pictured myself as that young school boy in church or kneeling by my bedside, saying my prayers, my heart full of expectancy and hope.

As a boy I put my heart and soul into prayers and it is no wonder that prayer has such a healing influence on me these days, as it brings back some of the strength and passion of my youth.

I remember when we were living on MacDonald Street (about 14 years ago now) in the house where Kadir was born, I ran into a stranger at Kits Neighborhood House one day. He was a middle aged man with a French Canadian accent, searching for a place to live and scouring the notice boards there. He asked if I knew of any places for rent.

“Not off the top of my head”, I replied.

“Well what about around the sides of your head, or at the back here?” He demonstrated by touching his scalp at the spots he described.

I was not sure what to make of the person or of this challenge, but we got into a conversation and soon he became an infrequent visitor to the family home. Eventually we found him temporary accommodation at the home of a friend nearby.

To thank us, he appeared at the house one day and summoned me outside.

“I have something I would like to give to your children, but I wanted to ask your permission first”, he said. He opened the trunk of his car and inside were two boxes containing new roller blades.

As we were unloading them, he reminded me of something I knew as a child. He asked if I had ever heard of the “Angel of God” prayer.

I had not thought about this prayer for a long time, but my mother taught it to me and as a child I always said it.

Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love entrusts me here, ever this day/night be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide, Amen.

He told me that he always said this prayer and that he felt it had tremendous power and suggested I teach it to my children.

I had taught my children this prayer when they were small, but had forgotten about it over the past few years and never really recited it myself as an adult.

He also gave me a book on the subject of spirituality although I can’t recall the name and title of it but I do remember that I started saying this prayer again as we had to move and could not find a place to live that we could afford.

The angels must have listened!

To this day I still say the Guardian Angel prayer every morning and at the end of it, add the names of family, friends and anyone that I think is in need of healing or divine protection.

Positive Changes

Thursday morning and the sun is wrestling with the clouds for its place in the blue sky!

I am preparing for my workweek and since rain is forecast for this afternoon, my umbrella is hanging on the door handle. But I have been lucky with days off and the last two were no exception. Both of them brilliantly sunny and hot!

Tuesday I had my scheduled appointment with my doc to check blood pressure and to my dismay he suggested another med called Zocor to work on the cholesterol levels.

How long do I have to take it for? I asked. I should have known better. His stock answer, "Forever" popped up like the No Sale sign in an old fashioned cash register.

I asked him to write out the prescription so I could find out how much the meds are going to cost and also to research it. Once again the price was not a problem as long as I am working and receiving medical benefits but what about after?

After researching it on the internet I made my decision. Why would I want to take another medication that breastfeeding mothers should stay away from and with the added possible side effects cautionary: known to increase the risk of cancerous tumors in mice and could cause muscular breakdown?

So I am going to live with my normal/high BP diagnosis for another month and see if the Plendil brings it down a bit more. Taking this one medication is enough of a bullet for me to bite right now.

Wednesday morning I felt much better having taken this stand and so was up for lunch with youngest son Kadir and his mom. We walked down to English Bay for a bite and to toss around recent happenings.

Kadir is now a couple of inches taller than his mom and going strong to compete with his big brother and oldest sister for height. It is hard to process just how quickly he is changing. He will be going into grade 9 this year!

But like all things in life we are wading through the stream of changes as they go rushing past us, and we try to determine our place in them, find our balance.

I am praying for lots of positive changes for us all in the coming year!

How long do you want to keep your computer?

How long do you want to keep your computer?

This was the question asked by the young sales rep at Future Shop when I traded in my recent birthday present for an upgrade. He was trying to sell me a 2-year warranty which would ensure repairs if something went wrong.

But the question threw me.

Forever, I answered, which drew a huge grin from the young man.

This was my first ever laptop, a recent birthday present that made me feel like a 16 year old again, but when I had tried to burn a backup disc following the instructions, the Acer Inspire write-failed. With this model, you only got one shot. I took it into the shop and they explained that this happens sometimes and asked if I would like a replacement model.

I immediately decided not to replace a model that malfunctioned before I had even had a chance to use it, and so I upgraded to a Toshiba Satellite, a more powerful computer at a higher price. They also threw in Microsoft Office 2007, a non-commercial version at a greatly reduced price.

The young man looked at me with some sympathy and told me that in a couple of years or more this computer could already be obsolete. I preferred to look at it as a fine violin, one that would age gracefully and be even more functional, though I kept this thought to myself.

The original present had come with a 2-year warranty and so we agreed on that. I also agreed to let the experts at the shop set it up for me and burn the backup discs so I would not have to return.

They told me it would be ready in about 5 hours. So I wandered leisurely over to Canada Place and strolled along the promenade with the tourists, looking at the plaques that describe the early beginnings of the BC travel and communications industry.

The hours flowed like molasses and it seemed that the appointed time would never arrive, so I returned to Future Shop an hour early, hoping that my machine would be ready. Nope! I had to return in another hour and so more window shopping followed.

By the time my computer was ready, I was exhausted but I relished the thought that my troubles were now over, and I could go home and get started with learning how to use it.

At home, I eagerly unpacked my computer and plugged it in. I was surprised that when I tried to open the Office Suite, it asked for my Product Key, a long series of numbers and letters that is included on sticker in the box. I thought the setup people at the shop had already done this.

So I entered it in carefully, but received the error message that it was incorrect. I tried this several times, with the same result. Then I thought eureka, I will try using the product ID, a different series of numbers which were also incorrect. Finally, after about an hour I realized that whatever I tried was not going to work. I assumed they had returned my disc in the wrong box.

Not only was I exhausted by now, but totally stressed out by the futile efforts and the long wait of the earlier day.

I was out of bed at 8:30 the next morning and at Future Shop by 9 with my product boxed and bagged, only to see that they didn’t open until 10. I waited in front of the immense industry style unrolling metal gate that closes after hours like a medieval drawbridge until finally, a man with a key appeared and unlocked and raised it.

I was the first customer to get to the repair desk and the technician listened to my problem, tried to enter the key, and then discerned that they hadn’t done they job right in the first place. The computer came bundled with a trial version of Office Professional and they had neglected to uninstall that. So while I waited the sales rep who had originally sold me the package and his department manager came over to apologize and they threw in a nice laptop case for my trouble.

This was a fair settlement as far as I am concerned, as after my two trips to the store with my computer in a box, I knew that I would have to find a more convenient way of transporting it. (The briefcase I originally thought I could use was too small.)

There was yet a 3rd trip to the repair shop, as I was convinced the keyboard was malfunctioning, but the young techie who assisted me pointed out very politely that using the keyboard was a learning curve. As I demonstrated my problem he saw that my thumb was dropping on the mouse pad sending conflicting signals. It seems I have to teach myself to type in a whole new way.

So how long am I going to keep my computer? As long as it takes!

And I still prefer the fine violin scenario!

...but you can't go back.

The morning I was leaving the Zendo at Haiku in 1978, a senior student advised me to say goodbye to our roshi.

I surprised him in his quarters, while he was putting on his robes and he did a magnificent kind of bullfighter’s twist to swirl the robe around him and tie the sash, dismissing my embarrassment at catching him in his underwear.

“I hear you are leaving today,” he said, “what are your plans?”

I was completely broke and had nothing other than my backpack, my guitar and a return ticket to Honolulu but I didn’t reveal my predicament.

“I guess I am going to continue playing my guitar,” I replied. I had been in this kind of a position more than a few times; I was young and full of energy and avoided my uncertain future by not trying to look into it.

His parting words to me were: “Remember…you can surf to the left, and you can surf to the right…180 degrees…but you can’t go back.”

Dream Dancing & Healing

I had another beautiful healing dream in the wee hours.

Karen and I were living in a big, old wood frame house and Paul Reps had come to visit us. For some reason, I didn’t come to meet him right away, as I was dressed in a business suit and at the same time still in bed in another room. I hoped he would not be offended when I finally appeared, but when I did, I saw that he too had been sleeping.

He came out of the room where he had been resting into a spacious living room where about a dozen people had already gathered to meet him. I didn’t recognize any of them, and in the next few minutes, the waiting group grew in size to a small crowd. Reps commented that these were his brothers and sisters of the various faiths and religions, but it seemed that the greater majority were of the Jewish faith as I could tell by the turn of the clothing they wore.

Many were dressed in the garb of religious students, like in the Barbara Streisand movie "Yentl".

No sooner had Reps started speaking than a great swell of emotion rose in the group and they began to move into a circle to begin singing and dancing. It happened so suddenly that at first it seemed awkward or out place but as the group formed into two concentric circles, dancing in opposite directions and I was swept into the movement it seemed the most natural and beautiful thing. Then all the dancing gradually stopped and the crowd went silent.

It became apparent that another type of dancing was now taking place, an erotic one, danced by rotund, nearly nude pink cartoon women. There were some cries of outrage and many in the group seemed offended. Others countered with “No, this is not pornography, it is art.” But the women in the group were not buying it.

Then a young woman, very plain and proper looking dressed in almost Amish garb, came over to me and took my hand, asking me to dance. I was confused but accepted and we were the only two dancing in the now deserted circle that had been filled moments before. And what a dancer she was!

She let me lead but spun and twirled and made me look as though I knew what I was doing. I began to lose my self-consciousness and started to experience a kind of euphoria to be in the presence of this way of praising and celebrating life.

I woke feeling relaxed, healed, joyful and completely at peace.

Thanks to the Angels

The angels continue to watch over me.

Yesterday on my usual visit to IGA for lunch, I was waiting to cross the street at Burrard and Robson. The folks in the curbside crowd were chatting and not paying attention so when I saw the walk sign and nobody moved, I stepped out into the street.

There was an enormous, deafening screech of brakes to my left, and a collective “oooohhh” from the crowd behind me. The car had stopped a couple of inches from me, and a harried and very nervous looking woman sat behind the wheel, her hand to her head, avoiding my eyes.

I felt a strange instant mixture of indignation and anger, and I could feel the heat of the crowd focused on her as well. She had run a red light in her rush to get across before the crowd. But instead of giving her the finger or swearing, (and I was surely feeling the urge to react in some way), I gave her a thumbs up and proceeded.

As I walked away still shaken, I was not sure what confused mix of emotions prompted me to do that.

In retrospect, I guess her hitting the brakes in an exquisitely timely fashion deserved that. I don’t think she was looking though.

I could have been a dead man in seconds. I immediately thanked my angels, and said a short prayer as I walked on.

This kind of close call has happened to me far too many times to count. It was another wake up call for me to be more mindful and alert, and not to take anything for granted.

One never knows what's waiting just around the corner.

Thanks yet again, angels!

A Peaceful Sunday Morning

It is a peaceful Sunday morning, and I am almost ready to leave for work.

I have been getting up about an hour earlier in the mornings, so that I have more time to do my own thing before heading off to my day job.

I began this morning with a prayer of thanks for the quiet silence that surrounds me today, after a hectic two or three weeks of domestic roller coaster riding.

Family problems . . . they sometimes seem never ending!

But a couple of days ago the penny dropped (as it has on other occasions and at other times) and I asked myself, "What about you? What is your relationship with yourself these days? Never mind everybody else's problems. Are you happy?"

The answer at that moment was "No, I am not happy. I am stressed."

"Well then, get happy", I told myself! (Somewhere in the far distance, Stevie Wonder's singing "Have a little talk with God...")

I guess I must have listened.

My thoughts are clear this morning.

I can hear my computer breathing, the click of the keyboard as I key in these words, and there is no peripheral background noise distracting me physically or mentally.

I love days like this!

Here's to many more!

Just Call Me Ulysses...

The July long weekend is over, the sun has found its way through the rainforest cloud cover and we seem to be getting our first real taste of summer.

My two days off were fairly relaxing. I visited a family member who is recuperating in St. Paul’s Hospital and who seems to be doing nicely.

I tried to visit my own doctor too, but wound up waiting nearly an hour in front of a locked office door, along with a horde of other confused patients.

As pre-arranged, my son Ky showed up there to meet me and through the technical wizardry of a cell phone solved the problem for us all. There had been some scheduling mess up, and now we all knew that the doctor would not be in that day.

On my 2nd day off, I was luckier. My doctor was there and after checking blood pressure advised, “It’s almost normal, I can live with it for now.” And he wrote out another mysterious pink Sanskrit message to the Pharmacist, re-ordering 50 more 10mg Plendil tablets for me and telling me that I could wait a month this time until my next visit.

He also removed a huge blockage from my right ear using what appeared to be miniature inquisition torture instruments, which had me squirming in pain for a few moments until he extracted the wax logjam. Then out came the familiar metal syringe filled with tepid water and he flushed out even more stuff from both ears.

I have had to have this done once every couple of years for quite a few now…but until now, never the tongs!

My hearing now restored to pristine levels of clarity, I made my way down to the seawall to enjoy the blistering sun and the play of diamond light over the water. I wasn't wearing sunscreen though, and the unfiltered rays on my skin at the back of my neck soon cut my walk short.

Afterwards I wandered into the computer shop at London Drugs and imagined myself purchasing a new DVD burner, a 19” flat screen monitor, a new suite of MS Office, a new keyboard, and a 7 mega pixel digital camera.

Then I shuffled back out into the street, empty handed but very satisfied with my imaginary purchases.

Now . . . what's next?

Just call me Ulysses . . . (a nod to James Joyce)!

for Nika

I love you
for who you are
not for this, that
or the other thing.

You are my 2nd born
daughter, the one
with the rebel yell.

You never liked
to be scared, not like
your sister who screamed
with delight, when daddy
turned into a cartoon ogre.

You kept seeing ghosts
in the hallway of our house
on Allenby Road
so we placed garlic
behind the pictures there.

You pushed fear away
from you, sometimes
violently . . . threatening
the clear and gentle
blossoming of your aura.

Now it's your turn
to learn . . .
to let down your guard,
to breathe in the Sun

to let that radiant light
nurture and and protect

you, my darling
Lotus blossom.

Wild Mind

This morning I am dealing with my “wild mind” after a night of recurring bad dreams.

Wild mind is my metaphor for the mind that runs away from me, dreaming up possibilities that will probably never exist.

There have recently been several crises in a row in my family and my immediate family, and my tendency is to expect the worst, to begin to worry.

Worry, as I know all too well, despite being the worst thing I could do for high blood pressure, is a tendency I fall into with a stunning and deliberate ease.

And then I double the anxiety by planning avenues of attack and/or escape from the still un-manifested scenarios arising in thought, by dealing with them mentally and exhausting myself in the process.

Confusing? Yes!

This morning was one such morning and it was only when I reached the part of my morning routine that is exercise and prayer that I realized what I was doing. These disciplines, aside from being crucial to my physical wellness help me focus.

The focus is then not on the thoughts, but on the physical movement, the words of the prayers and the breath.

Breathing is the one touchstone that is common in the prayers and meditations of every world religion, just as it is in music.

By breathing, I don’t mean some sort of artificial pattern imposed on the breath like 7-in, 4-out but rather the awareness of the rising and the falling of the breath, the natural in and out flow of it.

Keeping the attention on this is at the heart of Zen meditation.

As my friend Paul Reps used to say, “Don’t breathe...be breathed”.

If I do this mindfully, there is no time to follow my wild mind into the flowery canyons of fantasy, euphoria or horror.

I am so very thankful for this teaching. It has helped keep me sane.

A Few Notes

Those who read my blog may wonder what happened to me this month!

It's not that I haven't wanted to post something, but I like to be upbeat and this month I have been dealing with the health and mental health issues of a dear family member who is recovering from a serious surgery in St. Paul's Hospital.

This has put a serious dent in my "up-beatness" and left me feeling depleted.

A couple of my co-workers have teased me good-naturedly, asking if I am grumpy today or mimicking my facial expressions.

So those of you at work, if you sometimes see a rather grim faced co-worker sitting there staring off into space, know that this is not vacant staring but me trying to gather the strength and energy I need through a form of simple breathing meditation.

I have practised this for over 40 years now, but in times of stress, the focus is sometimes a little more obvious.

Enough said about this for now!

I am so very grateful for the return of the warmer weather, and have been lucky to have sunshine on my recent days off.

It is Saturday morning, mid-week for me, and as I sit at my computer, sip my self-alloted cup and half of brewed coffee and chew on my walnut-halves and banana daily energy snack, I give thanks for the prayers, comments and support of my family and friends.

I also give thanks for the staff and support at St. Paul's Hospital...what a loss to this neighborhood it would be if that hospital were to close.

Just the other day now, they saved the life of someone I love.

Two Healing Dreams

I have been in the habit of watching late night TV after my work shifts but have noticed the past few nights, I've been more tired than usual. Last night, just after midnight, I decided to turn in early and was rewarded for this by two healing dreams.

Most of my dreams in the past year have been far from pleasant and so this is a pleasant shift in visual imagery from many of the others.

In the first dream I was a child in a large playground and across the lot I could see a young, blond girl who I once knew in my youth and to whom I was attracted but in the dream I was too shy to go over and talk to her.

There was a thin rail, not a fence but more like one of those skateboarders rails which went all the way across the playground and I began walking along it. I was thinking "I am too old to do this", as I was also me and my own age at the same time.

I was wearing sneakers in the dream, very lightweight, white low rise ones and was able to balance all the way across the field toward the young girl who stood waiting. I was surprised that I didn't fall off and more surprised that I didn't have to initiate any conversation as we were suddenly talking in the most natural way.

After a bit, I saw a 6 or 7 year old Kadir who seemed to be not my son, but my younger brother. He was standing at the other end of the rail watching us.

I asked the girl to invite him over, as I thought he might not come if I did. She called to him, and he too hopped up on the rail and balanced over. By the time he arrived, he had become a playful cute young puppy who stood up and put his paws on my leg so that I could pet him.

In a second dream I seem to be involved in a pursuit. I was a knight but had no armour, and was being chased by more knights who then morphed into modern day soldiers in full battle dress.

I and two others with me jumped into a compact yellow sports vehicle with black trim and tried to speed away but the car was trapped from behind in some sort of mechanical jaws that began to crush and eat the metal, threatening to crush us with it. I saw that if I didn’t open the door now, I would not be able to and so I got out just in the nick of time and raised my hands in surrender.

The two others in the car were doing the same thing on the opposite side, where it seems the pursuers had also gathered. I was alone on my side of the car. Where the car had been there was now a kind of covered open space into which a young woman whirled like a dervish.

Her hair was short, curly and reddish brown, she was very pretty and she was wearing a rust-colored costume on the breast of which was emblazoned a swirling sun-like crest. She spun face to face with me and put her upraised palms against the palms of my surrendering hands in a kind of salute.

Then to her left, a young blond haired girl of maybe 8 years old appeared and the two of them began to dance for me, bringing me to tears. I felt like my heart was breaking with joy and sadness at the same time. After all, I was expecting to be shot!

This morning, in the aftermath of these positive dream images, I am feeling full of life and energy.

Low Powered Adjustments

Paul Reps once told me, “Watch a cat or a child make low power adjustments to conserve and boost energy.”

This morning, the second of my days off I woke to face the litany of tasks that I had promised myself to finish and after several trips out and back home, I was starting to feel pretty tired.

I had already walked several miles, slowly, methodically doing my self-appointed errands and finally, walked back up to Shopper’s to check my blood pressure. Yep! There it was again, despite almost completing the course of my current meds, still over the top and in the red zone.

I had been feeling very shaky and tired all morning and just wanted to go home and lie down, but once there, dragging myself in the door, I recalled that line by Reps.

It was not a beautiful sunshiny summery day, but it was pleasantly cool and slightly cloudy and it was only just coming up to 3 p.m.

So I put on my jacket and headed back down to the seawall, intent on one more walk but it would not be a leisurely stroll today. I needed a boost and so I was going to pick up the pace. Just slightly!

The moment I walked outside I consciously put that extra ounce of oomph into my step and posture, swinging my arms and walking just close to quickly, but not really quickly.

The first 10 minutes was rough going, as I wanted to turn around and go back home but I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and within 20 minutes, I was headed east along the seawall, then back again under the Burrard Street Bridge to 2nd Beach, half way there, and with a pleasant tingling sensation in my body and a smile lighting up my face.

There is a local resident I pass on a regular basis who usually has a scowl on his face when I say hello, and grudgingly returns my greeting. (He returns a kind of grunt, giving me the impression that he is fed up with my greetings.)

But today, I saw him coming my way and instead of avoiding eye contact I threw out a hearty, “How are ya?” from a fair distance and to my shock, he looked at me, our eyes met briefly and the beginnings of a smile flickered over his face as he responded, “Fine, and you?”

“Good”, I replied and felt good as I passed him thinking wonders will never cease.

By the time I got home, my jacket was around my waist and I was sweating a bit and feeling lots of energy.

The intent, or so it seems, is everything!

The Book of Knowledge

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
I sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley,

Of thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
Amd half a hundred bridges....

And out again, I curve and flow,
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

Mom told me that dad bought an encyclopedia
called The Book of Knowledge (circa 1946)
and that while I was still a babe
in my crib, he would sit by my bedside,
and while I fell asleep,
would read to me from this book
such things as this poem by Tennyson,
along with other more scientific passages.

This story, was one of the things I can remember,
which helped me heal my relationship with my dad...

For as I got older , I can still remember him
sitting at the kitchen table
with more than a few beers under his belt reciting:

I come from hooten scooten skern...

Never realising the hours he spent by my bedside,
years earlier, after a long day at work,
in an effort to help his son become a wiser,
more knowledgeable human being.

This is one of the things being a parent,
gives some perspective on.

A few years ago, at a yard sale,
I stumbled on a copy of the encyclopedia,
Volume I (Copyright 1926-1931 by The Grolier Society, The Amalgamated Press [Ltd] 1922.)
Maybe the only volume dad acquired
as a perk to purchase the entire set of volumes...

But what a host of memories it brought back to me. I recalled many of the passages and chapters in intimate detail, as the book remained in our house as we grew older, and I would dip into it from time to time.

Dad wanted me to become a successful business man, and he was also a World War II Veteran and had a perspective on the trials that I might have to face growing up. I don't believe he wanted me to become a musician given his prior knowledge, but wanted me to have an income, some security, sentiments I now advocate for my own children, knowing what I know now.

He was a gifted musician/violinist recognised by many of his family members. We as children were never told how the family respected him, though he played at home often until I was about 12 years old, at which time he sold his violin for good.

I learned more of the details in later years.

Although he had a terrible temper and disavowed anything other than hard physical or mental labor to me, he would cry at the drop of a hat at any beautiful music, poetry or words.

Is it any wonder he fathered an aspiring poet?

The Blood Pressure Blues

I got them...
blood pressure blues...
from my head...
down to my shoes....

It was back to the doctor this afternoon to see if the new meds were working and as I already knew, just from the feeling in my body, they were not.

A lot of the time it feels like I am plugged into a high tension voltage circuit and even breathing doesn't do much to ease the feeling.

If I wake in the middle of the night, it is an uncomfortable feeling to know you are out of sync with something as basic as your own pulse.

I have been practising a lot of prayer and meditation and a shift in diet but these remedies are not doing the trick.

So the doc says it's out with the Ramipril and in with maximum dosage of Plendil, this one shrink-wrapped by AstraZeneca pharmeceuticals in Canada.

"What happens if I don't take them?" I asked.

"You could have a stroke", he bluntly responded.

He explained that the drug expands the blood vessels thus increasing the blood flow.

"I don't like getting old", I complained.

"It has nothing to do with age", he said, "it's hypertension and it's a disease."

Me: "What causes it, a virus?"

He: "It's not a virus. We don't know what causes it, but it could be inherited."

But the doctors don't know everything and my jury is still out as to whether I will start on the new meds, when I finish the Ramipril, as he suggested.

"How long do I have to take them?"

"For good", he said.

With my medical coverage, they cost $15 but if I don't have work in a few years the same 30 pills cost nearly $50 and how am I gonna pay that?

So for today...I'm singing...

...them BP blues...
from my head...
down to my shoes...

A Simple Dream

Last night I dreamed a very vivid simple dream.

I was walking towards a plain looking two-story adobe building without any windows lit up by bright sunlight. There was a flight of stairs leading up to a door, quite high up which seemed to be the only entrance. Half way up the stairs stood a man and at the bottom another man. They both appeared to be East Indian but dressed in Western clothing.

I had a strong premonition they might be looking for my Sufi teacher. So I asked if they were looking for him. They didn’t reply directly but the man at the bottom of the stairs motioned for me to follow him.

We proceeded into an adjacent building, again nondescript and while walking I felt impelled to tell him I had been to the dargah. He looked at me blankly as though not understanding. “In Delhi…” I continued but he didn’t respond.

We walked through a door into the building and then through another door into a smaller room, pushing the door open as we entered. “Look behind the door,” the man instructed.

I pushed it open wider so that I could see behind it.

I was looking at sunlight and shadow playing on a blank wall. There was a feeling of complete silence though I thought I could hear the wind blowing lightly outside.

The man accompanying me was standing to my left and facing what appeared to be a closet door, slightly ajar, his back to me. “What do you see?” he asked.

“Nothing”, I replied and as I turned back to look him, I saw his body fading into nothingness against the closet door.

I put up both hands to touch the apparition, my fingers coming up against the door, the contours of the vanishing body surrounding my hands.

Postscript: I guess it was not too surprising to receive an email forwarded by a friend this morning with the subject line "Unconditional Love". But when I opened what I thought was a powerpoint attachment, guess what?

Nothing!

Victory Music (the days before the name...)

Last night I checked email and there was a great comment from my friend Jim Page on my Dorothy blog page, which bought tears to my eyes. And he invited me to go down to a Victory Music “Old Timers” open mike in Tacoma in June. It will also be a late celebration of founder Chris Lunn’s 70th birthday! Jim said that it would blow Chris’ mind if I showed. After all, it all started with the open mike at The Tangent coffee house on University Avenue in Palo Alto in the late 60’s, and we were there!

I think it was the summer of 1968 and I remember being stranded in San Francisco with no money and being rescued from a night on the street by two young gals from Santa Barbara who let me sleep on the floor of their hotel room, smuggling me past the front desk.

The next day I was wandering through the downtown streets wondering what I was going to do to survive, and stumbled into Union Square where a stage and sound system had been set up and performers were playing guitars and singing.

I was carrying my guitar of course, as I always did in those days, and perhaps it was this that attracted the attention of a couple of the musicians who came over to talk to me.

After learning that I was from Canada and had come south of the border to find my fortune in music, they introduced me to Chris Lunn. He was tall (well over 6 feet), lean and handsome with an angular face topped by a bushy mass of ash blond hair (clean cut by the days’ standards) and a winning, infectious grin. He was the organizer of this event and many others like it and the founder/big brother of a musician’s collective in Palo Alto, where he worked in a small office by day, and played music by night.

I was told that if I came down to Palo Alto that I could perform at the local open mike and that might lead to some gigs in the area.

That same afternoon as they were tearing down the stage, I hit the city limits, stuck out my thumb and headed for Palo Alto.

Before long I was haunting the open stage at the Tangent coffee house, which was just a couple of blocks from Stanford University. I might have been impressed to learn that Jerry Garcia also played here, if I’d had any idea who he was.

There is an old saying that when the student is ready the teacher appears. I guess for many of us younger musicians, Chris was that teacher and guide. He himself was a singer guitarist and a devotee of the blues, and had a staggering record collection of blues greats like Bessie Smith, Lightin’ Hopkins, Robert Johnson, and Billie Holiday. I had never even heard of Bessie Smith until Chris introduced me to her on an old heavy-weight disc recorded in the 40's, which he played for me on a visit to his spartan digs in the Palo Alto highlands. If memory serves, and it tends to be a wee bit hazy these days, he told me he had inherited these records and much of his musical education from his parents. I remember thinking something like the 60's version of "How cool is that!"

But he always put himself in the background, and made the foreground available for the young players he was mentoring. He taught us by not teaching, but by befriending us, inviting us to spend time with him, getting us gigs in local coffee houses, restaurants and by boosting us into the spaces to practise performing what we said we wanted to do. This is what he continued to do all of his life in the Pacific Northwest once he moved up here.

I began the first serious attempts at writing my own songs during this California period and Chris published one of the first of mine titled Another Land in a little newspaper musical review that he compiled and distributed called The Kept Press. What a confidence booster that was for an aspiring young songwriter!

Those were the days (my friends, we thought they'd never end) and this is a tiny sampling of the seeds that informed us, shaped us, and took us into our future incarnations.

And Chris if you are reading this, thanks for the enormous and invaluable gifts of your friendship and of your life that you have given us.

For a more fleshed out version of the early days and some pics check out Jim Page's article What Victory Music Means to Me in the March 2006 edition of the Victory Review (page 6 in the downloadable PDF version) at: http://www.victorymusic.org/pdfs/2005-6/vr_mar06.pdf

Dorothy

Yesterday at work I got a nice surprise. (Before I go into this, let me preface that these days I fall in love on a daily basis, with almost everyone I meet, but don't always write about it).

I was sitting at my terminal taking calls and noticed Danny and Tracy talking with a tall slender dark haired girl dressed in black. I didn’t look too closely but thought she seemed familiar.

After a while, Danny brought her over to my terminal, hit my meeting button so we wouldn’t be interrupted and I looked up to see the woman who was with him.

“Is it Dorothy?” I hesitated. I was not sure, but indeed it was Dorothy, the same girl who crafted the white origami roses that grace my bookshelf and accompany my Tibetan bell. She worked with us in CRES last year.

When she left CRES, we exchanged a few emails for a while, and then there wasn’t much left to talk about and so the communication dropped off.

What is it about Dorothy? She is tall, very slim, and not really pretty, but she is absolutely lovely in a way that I can barely explain. It is as though she is a shrouded in mystery and nobility, perhaps a princess in disguise who has stepped out of the Hidden Dragons world and is on some secret mission that she can tell no one about.

Our eyes met briefly but we didn’t really connect on the physical plane, yet I could feel her embrace in my spirit.

Her black dress, slim body and long hair pulled straight back into a ponytail made her look almost severe.

Because of the formal nature of our meeting at my terminal, and my penchant to not hear things clearly when I have my headset on, I missed the few clues that led up to the revelation that she has now passed the bar (learned later that the bar exam is upcoming in September) and is working in a law office across the street from us, in the old Mac-Blo building which now houses Coast Capital Savings.

I was stunned, as I had asked her if she was manning the phones there, completely forgetful of the fact that she had been studying law and with no idea she was so close to graduating to begin practice.

I joked, “You are a martial arts black belt, and now a lawyer? There will be no beating you in court!”

I suggested she might help me draft my will. “I have to think about these things now,” I said sotto voce.

“You’re not going anywhere for a long time,” she said, and touched my shoulder warmly. “I’m going to hold you to that!” I joked and all three of us laughed.

We both seemed at a loss for words. I think we said, “It's nice to see you again” at least 3 times each.

But she hesitated before leaving and seemed to step towards me. I realized that I had been sitting the whole time and so stood, and we embraced briefly. Once again, I felt that strange and beautiful sensation of the bodies barely touching, but the spirits embracing.

And as she left, and walked across the office, stumbling slightly in her stiletto heels and grabbing Danny’s arm for support, I felt myself missing her presence already.

There but for the Grace of God...

Ah, the first cup of morning coffee! There’s nothing like it. And then, sitting down to my journal after checking the spate of spam in my email inbox! That’s even better!

I mean, if I don’t receive anything inspiring or any love from friends or family first thing in the morning, then what better gift than to be able to sit down and produce some love.

If I do some creative writing each day, I feel I have fulfilled a need in myself that is a healthy one.

I have said many times before that writing is my therapy. I get to talk to myself, be real about the happenings in my life, the people who love and who challenge me daily, the tasks and obstacles before me that I need to address.

I feel especially lucky when I realize that there are people who pay a psychiatrist an ongoing hefty fee for just such an exercise in self expression, believing it will help heal them of their doubts, fears, insecurities and all other ills that stem from the mind, whose roots go down into a broken heart, a shattered spirit. Counseling is of course a valid way of dealing with pain, but so is self expression in whatever forms it may manifest.

And then there are those you meet on the street everyday, who are a walking breathing example of such ills left to fester untreated.

Of course the spirit cannot be broken, but what can be broken is our connection to it within us.

Every morning I pray that my connection to Spirit not be lost, that I maintain vigilance in the delicate balance between living in the world and dancing in the spirit. And I pray for the same for all my family, friends and relations. Relations include all with whom I have a relationship, co-workers, store clerks, people passing on the street sharing a friendly smile, and of course, those in desperate need huddled in blankets on the streets.

If I can’t give them anything tangible, then I say a silent prayer for them and don’t allow myself the luxury of judging their plight.

As the old saying goes, There but for the Grace of God go I.

Why not laugh?

Yesterday morning, as planned I walked up to Davie Street for a haircut. I was cropped by a lovely platinum blond with a husky Russian accent who always flirts playfully with me and makes me feel like I am 22 again.

That being done I came home, did laundry and then went back up to the Clinic to get my latest BP results, bracing myself for yet another lab slip for a cholesterol test.

My doctor called me in, and to my surprise and relief had ordered the test from my previous blood sample and he informed me, “It’s very high”. This was what I had expected as the blood pressure too is still very high. He asked me if anyone in the family had heart problems, as these things can be hereditary. I said not that I know of, but it occurred to me later that mom died of a stroke, which is a kind of heart attack I guess.

I expressed my astonishment that my cholesterol could be so high given the shift in my diet over the past year but he told me it could be the body manufacturing it, a hereditary thing.

Then, in his inimitable fashion (he was present at the birth of Chaya 26 years ago and so we have got to know each other fairly well) he told me that the high cholesterol could be medically treated but that my health insurance would not cover it and what was the point if the Lymphoma was going to kill me anyway.

He said this with one of his sly, impish smiles and we both laughed at the comment. I don’t care what the prognosis is, that is good medicine from my perspective.

He has doubled my daily dose of Ramipril (from 5 to 10 mg), but other than that there were no further tests ordered, thank God. Also, I have a few weeks before my next visit as he re-proscribed the higher dose for me.

Back home, I decided to take advantage of the sunny afternoon, which had come as a surprise after the muggy cold morning and so strolled down to Sunset Beach for a seawall walk.

There, paused beside a park bench was a familiar figure in plaid jacket, plaid pants and Mao cap, adjusting his digital camera. It was my friend David, out on one of his photo shoots gathering clips for another video I guessed.

So that he couldn’t spot me (I knew he had buzzed my apartment earlier, as he always does when in the area) I made my way down the grassy slope out of his view, and stalked up behind him.

He had already started to walk westward and so I fell into step behind and spoke loudly, “The carver, armed with the tools of his trade, proceeds westward along the seawall.” I could see him momentarily stiffen and then turn to see what manner of tormenting creature had stumbled into his wake. I think he was expecting the worst.

Later he told me when he heard the voice he said to himself, “David, that’s what you get for coming to the West End.”

When he saw me, his frown lightened into a wide smile.

So we had a great slow walk and philosophical talk as we always do, all the way to 2nd Beach and back. It was one of those pristine and serene afternoons where there is barely a breath of wind and the water is like rippled glass.

We admired and commented on the beauty of the scenery surrounding us, and like the 2 old rogues that we are (I can hear him saying, “Speak for yourself Baba”), the beauty of the beauties walking and jogging past with their non-stop motion dancers bodies.

I told him what the doctor had told me earlier and we laughed about that too. Why not laugh? We are all on the same journey, with it’s ultimate destination and portal into who knows what! And for me the trip has been so amazing that I can’t help but be grateful and thankful.

In many ways I feel that my journey is only just beginning.

My Lord of the Rings

Yesterday I went to see my enchanting hematologist to receive the results of my tests.

I was bracing myself for possible bad news as the ultra sound probing especially had been more painful than usual and had seemed incredibly invasive this time.

She asked if there was anything that I needed to report, recent swellings, fevers, etc and I told her only that I had finally gone to see my doctor about the high blood pressure and she agreed that it was “good medicine” to try to bring the BP Level down.

When it came time for the physical however, and she took out her kit to test me, I knew it was still high, as I could “feel it” in my body. So when she laughed out loud and said, “I guess I make you nervous”, I was not surprised. It wasn’t the nervousness that increased my blood pressure, although I do get edgy in such close proximity to a beautiful woman.

However her expert probing fingers soon took the edge off my edginess and replaced that with a few painful exclamations from me as they homed in on the trouble spots.

This was not my fantasy of an intimate moment and I was relieved when the physical was over.

Back in her office we discussed the recent test details. Everything was about the same as last time and there was no evidence of a sudden surge of aggressive behaviour in the cancer, which is what they are monitoring me for.

To make a long story short, I guess the hobbit and the wizard are still on my side, the ring in safekeeping and the dragon still a-snooze.

P.S. And what was up with the Canucks offence last night? Maybe the march on ice of the US Marine Color Guard intimidated them. And what was up with that anyway?

The Good Ol' Hockey Game

Stompin’ Tom hit the bull’s eye with this one!

When I was growing up in Winnipeg, the fire department flooded the local park baseball diamond every winter and the kids would play hockey after supper. They eventually put up lights, so that we could play later and even maintained the ice through the winter.

One Christmas when I was about 8 or 9 years old, my dad enlisted the help of our next door neighbor who had a woodworking shop in his garage, and manufactured what looked to be regulation style hockey stocks for me and my brother. Never mind that they broke after a couple of games; I can still remember the thrill of holding that new stick in my hands.

I was not a good hockey player by any stretch, as I could never master the art of skating backwards, which some friends seemed born to. Also it was too easy to crush a skinny guy like me along the boards.

When we weren’t skating, we were playing those great hockey board games (a new one every second or third Christmas) with the little flat players in our favorite team colors that swiveled on their posts. This was before the Winnipeg Jets and so the players were usually the Leafs and the Canadiennes.

Hockey is to Canadians what apple is to pie, and though I am not a real hockey fan, I jump on the bandwagon with everyone else when the home team is in the game.

And I am looking forward to my evening as tonight is the Canucks/Ducks first playoff game, and I plan to order some pizza and enjoy. What a relief for fans that Linden scored in the 7th game with Dallas and brought it for Vancouver!

That night as I left work it was wall-to-wall traffic, non-stop horn blasting and the savage wail of victory-intoxicated fans counting coup.

As I passed the little square at Bute and Haro a young Asian traveler stopped me. He looked thoroughly confused and even worried. In halting English he asked, “What is this happening?” The cheers and shouts were also resounding from apartment balconies in every direction.

I replied evenly, “The Vancouver Canucks have beaten the Dallas Stars and are still in the playoffs.”

He looked at me blankly, as though briefly attempting a translation and walked away without a hint that he understood what I had just said!

On reflection, I think “hockey game,” might have been a better answer!

Sufi Healing Prayers

Ya Shafi - Ya Kafi, Ya Shafi - Ya Kafi, Ya Shafi - Ya Kafi...

O Thou who art the Healer of our bodies, hearts and souls,
by Thy mercy,
may she / he / they be healed
by Thy all-sufficient Power of Healing.

Ya Shafi - Ya Kafi, Ya Shafi - Ya Kafi, Ya Shafi - Ya Kafi ...

Three Prayers for the Sufi Healing Ceremony:

Oh Thou, whose nature is mercy and compassion
and who’s Being is all peace.
Father, Creator and Sustainer of our lives,
send on the whole humanity Thy peace
and unite us all in Thy Divine Harmony.

Amen.

Oh Thou, the Spirit of our souls,
the Master of our minds
and the Controller of our bodies,
we humbly offer ourself to be used as the channels
of Thy Love, Light and Life
that we may be more able to serve Thee and Humanity.

Amen.

Oh Thou, the Light of all souls,
the Life of all beings,
the Healer of hearts.
All-Sufficient and All-Powerful God,
the Forgiver of our shortcomings,
free us from all pain and suffering
and make us Thy instruments,
that we may in our turn free others from pain and suffering
and that we may impart to them:
Thy Light, Thy Life, Thy Joy and Thy Peace.

Amen.

...Ya Shafi Ya Kafi healing prayers
courtesy of my dear friend Paul Reps in 1976
and again given by my dear friend April in 2007.

The Joy of Being Able To Do

It is a leisurely Tuesday morning and I journal this as I enjoy my home-brewed coffee, having fought off the urge to walk up to the corner for one!

I took my time this morning and almost did not do my morning exercises as I have been going through a spell of fatigue for the last couple of weeks. “I’ll skip it today” I thought, but I guess my body knows more than I do. I found myself going through the exercises anyway and focusing on not hurrying through them.

I imagined myself sick, crippled or incapacitated and not able to move my body, and so allowed myself to luxuriate in the joy of being able to do a slow, unrushed kind of movement and felt the thrill and chill as my arms, neck and shoulders were stretched by the movements.

The important thing for me in doing anything these days is not to become a robot, and trapped in the groove so that I am just going through the motions.

Also, I kept the same focus when I said my morning prayers, keeping friends and family faces and names in mind as I went through the ritual, feeling the pressure of the spirit behind the words I spoke.

I remember as a young man in California, talking to an older friend of mine who was also a musician but one with many more years experience than me. We were in his studio and talking about life, music and spirituality and I said, “Sometimes I feel so scattered and unfocused when I am doing things, but I imagine myself one day arriving at a place where my thought and my action are one.”

As I said this, I stepped forward playfully as if to demonstrate the point.

My friend who had also been a dancer years ago in New York beamed a bright smile at me and said, “That’s it! You did it! I saw you step into it for a moment…and then you stepped back out.”

Chaya's 26th Birthday!!!

It is Sunday morning and after a long nights’ closing shift I am feeling pretty good that Chaya’s 26th birthday lunch at Mi was such a success! The only absentee was Nika, but she called as we were leaving, so at least we knew she is well.

The plates were scrumptious and served with professional flair. I had a Cajun Salmon sandwich on a sesame bun that fairly melted in my mouth along with an organic baby greens salad with lemon dressing fortifying me for my coming days’ work. I rarely eat much before work, but devoured this meal with so much gusto that my children looked on in astonishment.

The waiter, who was born and lived in Vancouver until he was 5, served us with grace and a strong New Zealand accent. He caught the spelling of Chaya’s name from the card I had addressed to her, and at the end of our dinner, bought over a delicious miniature cheesecake with candle on top, which had been place in the center of a strawberry sauce caption, spelling out Happy B-Day Chaya!

We all looked at each other in confusion wondering who of us initiated this, until finally he admitted that it was his gift! Needless to say, he got a big tip!

After all, we all have something larger than life to celebrate this birthday with Chaya's recovery and it is a giant leap of energy ahead after the feelings surrounding us all last year at this time.

Outside in the street we exchanged hugs and kisses. Kadir was off to spend the rest of the weekend with his mom and looked pretty happy despite being told he could not bring his computer loaded with the game World Warcraft, which he seems attached to at the navel. His mom looked pretty happy too; as she has finally moved into into a place she likes, which has a big balcony with a great view of the snow-capped Lions, the docks and the Burrard Inlet.

Ky and Chaya went off to do some errands, and she to give Ky another chance to improve his driving skills in big city traffic.

And dad went off to work, with a smile on his face and a song in his heart!