Sun and Seawall

I was up at 10:30 this morning, my head full of worries about high blood pressure and slowly swelling lymph nodes. There is a part of me that would like to chuck everything, and just go away somewhere and be a musician again, but that part does not acknowledge the fullness of this present moment.

I know that if there is ever a time for me to have trust and faith it is now.

I managed my morning shave and made coffee. Yesterday I didn’t have coffee at all. There was also a glimpse of sunlight so I planned a short hike along the seawall. I was sure it would do me a world of good, as it's mainly the constant cold and rain bringing me down.

I put on my warm khaki coat and headed downhill toward the beach.

What a glorious day!

The sun was brilliant, warming and there appeared joggers in shorts displaying the white legs of winter, young moms pushing big-wheeled strollers, little old ladies negotiating walkers between puddles, countless dogs on leashes sniffing at pantlegs of passersby and fat Canada Geese basking in the green grass.

What a contrast from yesterday's dull drone of steady rain!

I have not been along the seawall since the recent storms that blew down all the trees and so I decided to hike as far as I could.

Once I got out past 2nd beach, I was able to relax into the rhythm of my walk and gaze into the haze over the calm waters, immerse myself in the texture of the sand rippling out to the low tide, the bleached driftwood natural sculptures and the sounds of rivulets gushing down the steep parts of the embankment where forest meets paved roadway, and at one point creating a broad floodway that poured over the seawalk walk, and through which I splashed in my shoes rather than attempting the tightrope walk along the seawall rim which on this section is rough-hewn.

I rounded the corner to 3rd Beach and at that point I could see that the seawall was now blocked and gated by the Parks Board along the stretch to Siwash Rock. I hesitated and was about to turn back, but thought better of it. Taking this walk to the very end of possibility today, seemed like the best choice and so I decided to walk right up to the fence that is closing off the seawall past this point, and look through the mesh to glimpse the fragmented mess along the walkway that has still not been cleared.

As I approached the walk below the concession stand, the haunting sounds of a flute or horn could be heard coming from the area next to the stand. As I got closer I saw a white-haired gent in black beret up on the rise sitting at a music stand and playing what looked and sounded to be an Alto Sax.

It was a very slow and gorgeous one note samba, and as I listened to the expressive tones unfolding and to the intervals between that created imaginary augmented and diminished chords between notes, the melody line came into focus but only for the moment.

As I look back, all I can recall is the beauty of it, and the sense of peace it created in me as I passed.

An Uncomfortable Physical

Today's rainy cold exactly matched my mood.

I don't like doctor's appointments and I am just back from my latest appointment with my hematologist, and today I had a long wait to get in, and finally a rather uncomfortable physical.

I have noticed some slight swellings around the neck and abdomen that I didn’t notice a few months ago. I decided not to say anything but to wait for the results of the physical exam.

In October there was some suggestion that after this appointment I would only have to check in every six months, not every 3 months.

As soon as my physical began, she immediately touched several of the new nodes that have developed and her fingers lingered on and probed the areas as though her intuitive or trained radar had picked up something.

She gave me a fair jab at one spot in my abdomen that caused me to yelp in pain.

She also did two blood pressure tests and told me that mine is “way high”. She suggested that I monitor it myself over the next few weeks to see if it remains high, and if it does to see my family doctor.

After the exam was over, she didn’t indicate that anything new had developed, but scheduled me for further blood tests in April, a new appointment and suggested that perhaps I would also have an x-ray and ultra-sound at that point.

This was not what I hoped to hear, and I walked away from the meeting feeling at one with the rainy gray day.

I had arranged to meet Nika for lunch afterwards, but I am afraid I was not very good company. Nika said, “You have your nice bright yellow shirt on dad, but why the frown?”

"Am I frowning?" I asked. I hadn't realized it. I tried to explain without upsetting her, but as my face matched my mood, I don’t think I did a very good job.

The good news...3 more months until further tests!!!

Mood Swings Meditation

It is one of those mornings where I am forced to pay close attention to things, because if I had a choice, I would have gone back to bed after I first got up. But I have work today.

Yesterday, the idea came to blog mood changes, and these are closely related to energy shifts in the body. But yesterday I was feeling pretty chipper, as the fire alarm inspector came and I had to be up early to let him in, and I succeeded in getting everything done that needed to be done before I was interrupted by his visit.

Today I got up and the first thing I noticed was…no energy. I feel tired, listless, dragged out. It’s a good thing I have my morning routine, as it is like a map of what to do, where to do it, and all I have to do is follow it, taking one step at a time.

What a perfect day to blog mood changes!

As I sit here at my keyboard, I picture myself floating in a large empty bowl of space. And despite the lack of energy, all I really want to do is to allow myself to settle to the very bottom of this bowl, in stillness and silence.

It would be easy to go off on a tangent and describe reasons why I feel this way. But the thing I really want and need to do is to regain my strength and energy. It seems to me that the first step in the process is letting it go and not to try and pump it up.

However, part of my morning routine is my physical exercises, and I did them in the exact same way as I am describing now, slowly, paying close attention, and trying not to push or rush through them. Feeling how sore and tired I am with every movement. Allowing myself to sink into the feeling.

I am blogging this in exactly the same way, one word at a time, no rush, no hurry.

Usually, I check email first thing, but today I opted for quiet. No radio, no distraction. Deal with the low energy!

An hour later, my mood swings meditation is bearing me up!

A Winter Feast

It is a typical mid January Vancouver morning…because of the rain it seems 2 hours earlier than the nearly 11 a.m. it actually is.

Last night my family gathered at my daughter Chaya’s new apartment to celebrate her successful landing and to finally have the traditional Christmas dinner we all missed this year.

I met my daughter Nika after work at her office and we walked together in the chilly early dusk, over the Cambie Street Bridge to the family-housing complex where Chaya and Kadir (my youngest) now live.

Chaya doesn’t have a landline and so no door buzzer and Nika had to announce our presence with her cell phone. Her older sister came skipping downstairs to open the door and greet us with big hugs.

She then led us to and proudly displayed her new digs, which she has touched up with fresh paint and a few new furnishings. It is great to see her in her element again, as the communal situation in their last place was not exactly comfortable, nor was it her space.

It is still a work in progress. Both she and Kadir now have their own separate rooms and Kadir’s is simply set up with a computer and desk, a nice big bed, and his new guitar and amp standing in the corner. She couldn’t show me hers, as she gave Kadir their only working bedroom light.

Chaya then returned to the kitchen where she and her mom were cooking up a feast, and I tried to engage Kadir in some conversation. But for this 13 year old, dad’s well meant efforts quickly caused noncommittal monosyllabic shrugs and grunts, rollings upwards of the eyes, deep and exasperated sighs and finally a plaintive moaned appeal, “Quit asking so many questions”.

Point taken! But just as I was giving up and turning away, Kadir caught my attention by extending his arm towards me and opening and closing his fingers in a snapping gesture that could only be translated as “pay up!” The subject of his allowance was the one topic he was willing to discuss.

When my older son Ky arrived straight from work, he gave me a big hug and was quick to answer my questions about how his day had gone. This was a refreshing turn of energy for me and I noticed Kadir quietly observing this.

It is amazing how a few years can change a child’s perspective completely. When my daughters were Kadir’s age, they were reluctant to talk to me either and tended to be embarrassed by any effusiveness from dad.

The dinner erased any tensions that had developed in the early part of the evening. This would be the first home cooked dinner in nearly 2 years where all of us were present.

We sat around the table, linked our hands and I led a very short blessing of the food. My kids are still a bit skeptical of this ritual, but put up with it for dad’s sake when we are together. It is a continuing attempt by me of passing along a glimpse of my decades of religious training without the dogma of formal religion. I hope that years from now they will remember this is a good way.

My blessing last night consisted of the words, “Thank you for these gifts,” to which and to my pleasant surprise Nika added the word, “Amen.”

The dinner was fabulous and afterwards we settled down to watch a 2-hour episode of this season’s American Idol. I couldn’t take the second hour of the hilarious but excruciatingly bad singing and so Nika and I bundled up for a walk back home along the Cambie Bridge in the pouring rain, as we are now nearly next-door neighbors in the West End.

We put up our hoods against the weather and hiked up 6 or 7 tiers of spiral stairs in the pelting elements, to the east sidewalk of the bridge and from there made our way to Pacific Boulevard. Nika suggested taking the seawall route back, but it was simply raining to hard and it was too cold to be able to enjoy any kind of stroll.

We both had work the next day and it was the vision of entering my own warm apartment after I had accompanied Nika home that kept me smiling and talking through the cold rain.

Below Zero

The last couple of days have reminded me of long ago Winnipeg winters, lots of sun, crusty icy snowy streets, and temperatures below zero. It has been a long time since Vancouver has seen such weather, and so I trekked to work the past couple of days, breathing steam, hands in pockets and feeling very chilled.

But later today I was reminded that temperatures in Edmonton were in the mid 30-below range and Winnipeg has seen it's coldest weather in over 2 years. A friend who had just flown in from Edmonton said when he landed, he felt he was in Hawaii after the frigid temperatures there.

But I guess it's all irrelevant for someone with a job and a warm office to check into. Not so for the many homeless on the streets still, in blankets and sleeping bags, begging for the money for a cup of coffee. Cold is cold, and homeless is homeless.

I am one of the lucky ones, home tonight in my warm room and sitting at my keyboard, playing out my words and thoughts into cyberspace for friends, family and unknown strangers who may happen by.

I thank God for everyday blessings that are so easily taken for granted.

The Calm

This morning I woke late to a list of chores that always waits for the first of my days off from work.

The gray, windy and silent sky intoduced a calm in me, that reminded me of days on the island of Symi in the Dodecanese, in the early 70's.

In those days, I would open my journal and with pen in hand, enter the first thoughts of the day. Many of these came out as poems or partial songs (which were later finished with music).

These days, my paper journal has been replaced by my computer journal, which is only a difference in formats. I always begin each day writing, and have done so for over 30 years.

So, despite the chores facing me, I launched into them with the idea of keeping the calm sensation I was experiencing today in focus. This was accomplished by an unhurried and quiet attention to each chore at hand.

I multitasked, breathing easily and went grocery shopping between laundry loads, all the while relaxing into the rhythm of the day. I even managed to get my white shirts out of the load, before the dryer had finished, so that I would not have to iron them. I did this without really trying to do so but paying attention to the rhythm in which things were unfolding.

On the way to Safeway, I realized I forgot to turn my TV off or wash out my coffee pot but did not allow myself to worry about these things. When I got home, I turned off my TV, turned on CBC and, while listening to Radio 2, finished my morning dishes and began my preparations for the evening meal.

It is now nearly 4:30 and supper is ready but uneaten on the stove, and I am back at the computer finishing this blog.

Although it rained most of the time I was out, and the wind was increasing, the evening is once again inducing a sensation of calm. Today's weatherforecast was for a storm beginning this evening.

But for now, I am simply and gratefully enjoying the calm. It is so beautiful!

Healing Prayer from the "Gayan" of Inayat Khan

Nayaz

Beloved Lord, Almighty God,

through the rays of the sun,

through the waves of the air,

through the all-pervading life in space,

purify and revivify me,

and I pray,

heal my body, heart and soul.

- Sufi Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan

I first read this prayer over 30 years ago in a little hand-me-down book from Paul Reps' library called In the Garden, which was a collection of writings by and about the American Sufi teacher Samuel Lewis, affectionately known as Sufi Sam.

The book had been a gift to Reps and the hand written inscription on the first page read "Hi Reps, may your breath ever be sweet - Love, Wali Ali" (he was one of Sam's students and later also a sufi teacher.)

The message and energy of this short piece has stayed with me, as it's all about vibrations.

Both Sam and Reps were super initiated into the Sufi path by Inayat Khan around the same time in the 1920's and knew each other well.

This prayer has been coming back to me during my morning meditations ever since August when I began this blog, and in this week's mail came a package from England, addressed by a good friend, who had just returned from a short pilgrimage to Egypt. It was a copy of Inayat Khans' Gayan (or songs/prayers/sayings). And one of the first pages I opened was the above prayer.

Reps used to say that you can tell whether a book is a good one or not by holding it in your hands and feeling its vibrations.

Even before I opened this package, I could feel those healing vibrations as I held it in my hands. So Justin, thanks for this gift from the bottom of my heart.

Bruno's Bench

Yesterday morning, the first of my days off this week, I woke to the dreary sound of a Vancouver winter downpour. This was especially disappointing as this was the day I had agreed to visit Bruno's bench with a dear friend who knew Bruno intimately, his wife Brigitte.

On November 11th of this year I wrote a blog in memory of Bruno, and to my surprise, a friend of a relative of the family in France read the blog and forwarded it to Brigitte, who was still here in Vancouver although I had not been able to find her. I received an email from her son telling me that the family had read the blog, and the same day another email from Brigitte.

After hearing from them I surfed the net to find out more family info and found that they had dedicated a bench to Bruno, in his memory. And so, for nearly two months now, I have been planning a visit to Hastings Mill Park to visit Bruno's bench.

The fact that the family had dedicated a bench in Bruno's memory delighted me, as the words "Bruno's bench" have long been a part of my vocabulary.

I had an earlier version of this bench with me for many years, which was constructed, painted a dark sky blue, and given to me as my first and only piece of furniture in a newly rented room on West 2nd in Kitsilano in 1978 when I was working in the old Greenpeace office at 4th and Arbutus, by my good friend and the designer and builder himself, Bruno Castellan. My décor was Bruno’s bench, and a mattress on the floor and a magazine picture of a gorgeous woman in a bath on the wall.

For several years Bruno's bench served as my table and writing desk. I ate, kneeling down on a pillow beside it, and I wrote my poetry and songs on it. This was not an act of devotion to my friend, but simple necessity as I had little money, travel plans, and no inclination to plant roots.

Once we connected via the Internet, Brigitte agreed to accompany me to Bruno’s bench on a bright and sunny day when our schedules didn’t conflict, and it seemed that despite the rain, this had to be the day. We came close to postponing when I called in the morning, but then agreed to "brave the elements" in honor of Bruno.

We arrived at the park together in the pouring rain, umbrellas aloft and dodging deep puddles and muddy patches and made our way to the bench. It was too wet to sit, and there was a trough full of water in front of the bench where the ground was indented by the feet of many who had sat in this spot. So we walked around behind the bench and talked, and I rested a free hand on the back of the bench.

It was quite chilly in the rain, but Brigitte and I had a lot of ground to cover and we talked non-stop. From time to time I looked out over the bay towards Bowen Island where it seemed that a rift in the clouds was developing. Steady rain had been forecast for a full week but then Brigitte said, “It’s stopped raining,” and folded her umbrella. I could barely believe it, and had not noticed until she said something, but I followed suit.

We decided to walk back through Jericho Park still sharing many memories involving Bruno and the spirit of his love and friendship. By the time we left the park the sun was beginning to emerge from the clouds, and by the time we finished our coffee at Yoka’s on 4th, we walked out into a clear and sunny day.

Today, it seems to me that Bruno’s spirit had accompanied us through the rain and aided in parting the clouds just so we could realize our hope of a sunny day visit to his bench, dedicated to his memory by family and friends in memory of "et tous nos bons moments ensemble" or"and all the good times we had together"!