Meanderings

Elephant Revival- Go On

2011-09-10T22:37:00.000-07:00

My Travel Blog...

2011-09-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

sojournnotes.wordpress.com

Travel Blog to Come...

2011-08-19T10:20:00.000-07:00

September 6, Calgary-Thunder Bay
September 14, Thunder Bay-Zurich
September 21, Zurich-New Delhi

Adbusters Canada

2011-08-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

"Karl Marx was one of the first to observe that as societal wealth increases so too does the prevalence of individual madness. Marx estimated that in 1852 one out of every 850 residents of Great Britain was classified as a "lunatic" whereas merely five years later the rate had increased to one in 700. The trend has since continued and rates of mental disorders are rising annually in the richest nations. The World Health Organization calculates that one in four people in the US suffers from chronic anxiety, a mood disorder or depression-the highest rate globally. In the Netherlands one out of seven are similarly afflicted. Most alarming is that in 2005 researchers predicted that one in two Americas will suffer from a mental illness in their lifetime. According to the WHO, mental disease will be bigger than heart disease by 2020. In many ways, mental breakdown is much scarier than ecological breakdown, because once we lose our ability to think clearly-once we descent into a society of anxious, depressed me-then we will never be able to deal with the political, economic and climate tipping points now bearing down upon us. In a strange twist of fate, the apocalypse that we fear is coming our way, may not be of devastated landscapes but of devastated mindscapes."

Kono Matsu

An Ode to my Journal

2011-06-02T09:22:00.000-07:00

There's nothing more disconcerting than losing ones own journal. It must have happened at Fountain Tire. I had a flat yesterday on my drive back from the mountains-I stopped in Didsbury to get it fixed, while waiting I wrote in my journal at a coffee shop then went back to Fountain Tire. I recall pulling out my journal to write some more-but I never did-I was interrupted, the guy fixing my tire wanted to show me the patch on it...what did I do with my journal from there? I didn't slip it back into my bag, for it's not in there. Did I really set it on the magazine table? Laura, did you really!?

So I've searched high and low but no journal, somebody, somewhere may have read it, may have tossed it out, or maybe it's still sitting there on that magazine table, being perused at intervals by people waiting for their flat tires to be patched. Perhaps on my list of things to do today a drive into Didsbury would be most beneficial...poor little exposed journal.

poet friend

2011-05-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

II. Sadness
But there is also the sadness of spring-time, which,
like falling snow, distracts us.
Both sorrow and joy throbbing and pulsing—a
countless crowd of feelings are stirred and
mingle together in this festival of perfume.
What if I have a friend far away on the shores of
the Hsiang! (Calgary/India) Clouds part us and hide us
from each other.
Upon a little wave I shed the tears of separation,
and—little wave going eastward (and Westward), take to
my friend my soul-felt love.
Oh! that I could grasp this golden light of
spring, keep it and horde it—a treasure-trove
of days for my fairest far-off friend.

Spring is Here and so am I

2011-04-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

I've discovered some poetry by Theodore Roethke. I like skimming a poem first and noticing the lines that jump off the page:

"I dream of journeys repeatedly"
"I learned not to fear infinity"
"What I love is near at hand
always in earth and air"
"I learn by going where I have to go"

Tomorrow-I'm going with a couple friends to camp and rock climb and then there'll be a week in Thunder Bay visiting a dear old friend. It is difficult to believe that the school year is over, that the hum of activity last weekend is now covered in quiet restfulness. There will be one more month here for me and then I'll be shooting off into another chapter. I want the month of May to be a Monastic month. My roommate will be in England, the campus is empty, and aside from work I don't have too many obligations elsewhere. So I'm putting this out into the universe, "Monastic Month of May!"

It will be a sort of retreat, a reflective time-and how good it is to do this in Otterburne where I've spent the last five years. How good to use that time to say good-bye to it all. And to enjoy its fields and its trees while I can; to read the Lonely Planet guide to India, to plan my trip, to write, to "imagine! imagine!" and then to go out and do.

"One day you finally knew what to do, and began."
-Mary Oliver

In the meantime I will say how much I've loved Prov...This is what I've loved:

-the color of twilight when all the snow is blue
-the recital hall where sits a shiny black piano
-the walks down long gravel roads with friends
-walks on the frozen river
-playing guitar outside in a thunder storm
-tea and wine and wine and tea and coffee and a good chat and a good book and a good friend
-the fireflies, the stars, the nighttime owl that swoops down suddenly with big white wings
-finding inventive ways to climb onto the roof

Here's to closing one chapter, and beginning another! Cheers.

Jon Bryant - Think Back - OFFICIAL VIDEO

2011-02-25T17:47:00.000-08:00

Alchemy - Unfinished

2011-02-23T09:03:00.000-08:00

Nicole and I decided to record one of our songs. Still a lot we need to work on but here's a taste!

snowy woods and Rilke

2011-01-31T16:58:00.001-08:00

I went snowshoeing yesterday in the woods. There is a stillness about winter which always catches my breath, suddenly everything is quieter, seems more solitary, more thoughtful. Black branches of trees were frosted over in white snow, draping over the frozen ground. The sky; grey too, and wings of black birds crossed over it at unexpected intervals, interrupting the stillness. All the colours are muted, the river is silenced by it's covering of ice and snow. Then I read later the thoughts of Rainer Maria Rilke, which so often impress me.

He writes to a young poet who is seeking a mentor, someone who will advise him. These letters were written over a span of 5 years. Written from Rome, Italy, Paris, Sweden... what comes out of Rilke's pen as he corresponds with this man is poignant, beautiful, wise...here is a taste from "Letters to a Young Poet":

"If you will cling to nature, to the simple in nature, to the little things that hardly anyone sees, and that can so unexpectedly become big and beyond measuring; if you have this love of inconsiderable things and seek quite simply, as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory for you. You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day to the answer."

"Your life, of which I think with so many wishes. Do you remember how that life yearned out of its childhood for the "great"? I see that it is now going on beyond the great to long for greater. For this reason it will not cease to be difficult, but for this reason too it will not cease to grow."

"So you must not be frightened, if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall."

Vivian Maier, street photographer and nanny

2011-01-13T12:42:00.000-08:00

Bonhoeffer

2011-01-11T14:50:00.000-08:00

"O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you:
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely; but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me...
Restore me to liberty,
and enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before me.
Lord, whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Balmorhea - The winter

2010-12-09T09:37:00.000-08:00

regina spektor - Lulliby (Songs)

2010-11-30T12:34:00.000-08:00

2010-11-26T13:39:00.001-08:00

the world happens all around me

spins revolves soaks

all connected in this transitory web

I see a calm golden moon sailing through barren sky

I feel the branch, the root, the ripple, the tide

The storm may be upon me now

And if it be stronger than my wits

I will sing until the waves become a staircase to the stars

quiet now...listen

Laura Marling - Rambling Man

2010-11-23T16:01:00.000-08:00

Lissie - Everywhere I Go

2010-10-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

The roses on my rosebush are still in full bloom. I find them beautiful. Everyone tells me it's a miracle that they are still alive. They survived the frost of last night, they budded in mid-september and stayed until nearly november, it's my miracle rosebush. My roommate and I went to see them last week late at night in the full moon. The music wing was to the right and someone had left a window open while practicing. We heard a piano, a cello and a viola. We sat on the ground by the roots of the rosebush and listened to this amazing music, afterwards we went home and made hot tea. These things I love about life.

Paul sent this video to me, I'd like to be this girl wandering around the world with an elephant trailing behind. I'm restless again, I want to wander and wander.

I came back from Toronto last night. I missed seeing the stars in the big city. Toronto lights blot out all of them...so driving home last night beneath this black sky completely covered in white lights was breathtaking. So I find joy in these little things. My rosebush, the stars, and elephants. I find hope in my shoes and where they might take me, my backpack and what it might hold. I like the last couple of lines from a Mary Oliver poem,

"imagine! imagine!

the long and wondrous journeys

still to be ours."

So...goodnight world. goodnight. sleep well, rest well. blessings. peace with you tonight.

10 Things

2010-09-11T16:32:00.000-07:00

because I have a cold; and because it keeps me indoors; and because the thought just crossed my mind...I will write a list of 10 things I want to do with my life:

1. Travel India. I want to do more than just see India. I want to be more than a tourist. I want to be with the people and among them, does it sound narcissistic to think i could help them? Even in just small ways I would love to try.

2. Write a book. I have always wanted to write a book, something leaning towards fantasy with an allegorical feel. Derived from real life experiences or just imagination? That is yet to be decided!

3. Record a cd of the music I've written.

4. Go Skydiving

5. Plant a garden

6. Travel the world while documenting my time in it by writing music, taking photographs, writing poetry, and stories...this I think is a life-long adventure.

7. Become fluent in another language

8. Travel across Canada in an old VW! (is that not every Canadian's wish?)

9. Walk where Jesus walked.

10. Read. Read. Read. Read how other people are interpreting this crazy world, read the poets, classical literature, read from the philosophers and theologians, read why people do what they do, or how we have no idea why we do what we do! And the following is Mary Oliver's advice:

"Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it."

Of course there is more than this, but here are the first things that come to mind.

Most of all I want to look at life and see it. See the things that nobody else notices, and count the moments that are quickly forgotten. I think that all of life is a waking up, each day draws us closer to being more alive; if we let it. I don't want to sleep through my life and suddenly wake up at 80 wondering where it went. I want to live fully now. I think that means many different things and looks different for different people. Right now for me, it means waking up, being thankful for the sun that shines into my big yellow kitchen, for the long fields I can see from my window; the honking of canadian geese; the laughter of my roommates; sitting out on the deck while the sun sets with a cup of tea; the hope of tomorrow.

1995 Laura

2010-03-09T20:18:00.000-08:00

Dear Reader,

I thought I might type out an old journal entry from 9 year old Laura. I was looking over my old journal from 1995 and always am amused. Here is a piece:

"April 19, 1995

Dear Diary,

Today we went down to the creek near my omas house. It was fun. Stephanie, Paul and I made a club we called it the secret club. It is very pretty down there. We have a hole in a hill where we put tresure, there is 3 or 4 bridges down there that go across the creek too. There is a hill that looks like a cliff, so we call it the cliff. If someone wants to start a meeting then they would go AAIAA!! really loud. The creek down there is clean and there is lots of evergreens. At the farm there is even beaver dams its fun, not boring like the city."

2010-02-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

The ladybugs lying creviced between the tangled green carrot leaves, left an impression forever imprinted in my mind; as home. Home; the smell of fresh bread being pulled from the oven. Home; the sound of a guitar being strummed from downstairs. Mom had a knack for making things beautiful. She could pull pine cones from the front yard and frost them with golden spray paint. She would have them sitting in a green basket by the fire, looking as though they had been taken from a Martha Stuart magazine.

She was the cool hand that rested on my forehead at night, or the comforting smell that hung over me during our nap times when Stephanie was away at school and Paul was lying in his crib.

Mom was born in a small town called Taber, in Alberta. She grew up in a time, when her Grandpa owned the only Burger joint in town and she could go over with her friends for free ice cream. She ran among the hollyhocks and caught bumble bees in glass jars. On hot summer nights her and her friends would take turns on the swings outside, then scream as the bats would come out, flying round their heads. Independent and free-spirited mom took a road trip with her best friend Penny out to California when they were 16. She was married when she was 22, and had Stephanie at 24. She first discovered that she had cancer in 1989. She was 29 years old and had three children.

At that point I still clung to the ideal. The mother who was ready with a steaming cup of hot chocolate after I had come home from a winter walk with Papa. The one who’d pull out her guitar and sing late at night when I was lying in bed; the one who’d take out her paints and sit by the window, sketching patiently the robin’s nest in the tree, then carefully filling the sketching with colors from her pallet. She sketched me once when I was 4. I fidgeted and tapped my foot as she followed the long bangs that cut across over my eyes, the dinosaur shirt I’d always wear; the round cheeks.

Her mother, my Grandma had a lighthouse station on Vancouver Island when I was growing up. It was here I began to love the ocean. The phosphorescent lights dancing in schisms upon the tripping waves. The empty echo of the foghorn as it sounded among the crevices of hollow caves, etched with old sketches of the people who had lived within them years ago.

Grandma had my mom when she was 16 years old. She married her high school sweetheart, my Grandpa, but he left her to be a rock star in California, at least that was the plan. He wasn’t ready to grow up, but my Grandma didn’t have a choice. Still, the love that was present with the voices that sang around the piano was real, and each time we left a visit with my Grandma, my mom and her would be in tears.

Grandma: the scent of cigarette smoke, which somehow seemed comforting to me as I curled up and laid my head on her shoulder. The hands that would play Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” on our piano until I begged my mom to teach me the music. Grandma, laughing behind her video camera as she recorded us jumping up and down, pulling on moms arm, begging to be understood.

We’d go out onto the ocean in a boat, watch the waves lap up against the side; Stephanie would catch a starfish, Paul would catch a trout. We could watch the Orca whales raise their black, shiny bodies into the sunlight, then back down again into the dark depths of the mysterious waters, which I imagined would go down for miles and miles into complete darkness.

Oma came with us to the Lighthouse once, Oma, my dad’s mom. Oma: thick German accent, amber necklaces, would cuddle with me and tickle my arm, would jump up to the sound of music to dance, would laugh at our antics, would watch as we’d scrub the tiles in the bathroom, “not until they are perfectly clean!” and then she’d take us out for ice cream.

Oma was born in Berlin, Germany. She witnessed the atrocities of Hitler in World War 2. She shuddered in horror in the bunkers as Berlin was bombed out. She was not immune to the weakness and strength of the human spirit, she loved God despite her hard life. She was already married, with five children when she immigrated to Calgary, Alberta. Difficulties at home did not dispel a deep and transforming love for God and in all this ugly pain...beauty.

When I was a child she had a farm. We would take trips and spend vacations on this farm, where moonlight danced in the brook, and tadpoles whisked across our toes. Where the trees whispered their secrets, surrounding an old and forgotten barn. I’d stand at the mouth of this barn and shiver in delightful fear at what might come out of it! I fell in love with wide open spaces, with the dusk and with the cold, distant stars.

In the mornings Oma would sit at the window, sipping her coffee, seeped in warm bathing shoots of morning sun, I could tell she was not alone and so I’d tiptoe down the stairs, open the front door and go outside in my black rubber boots. Met with the sound of a thousand bird choruses, met with the singing of the cattle, met with the One who sat with Oma too.

There he was again, in the hospice as Mom lay there, looking at us through gleaming eyes. “I love you,” she said, “I am proud of you.” There he was again, surrounding us all, remembering us, holding us, asking us to trust. To trust what? To trust the heaviness, for he has held it up, to trust that after darkness comes light, to trust that in the garden, where the ladybugs slept and the bumblebees buzzed...that in the ocean, where the darkness hid large creatures that broke over the surface of the water to our delighted screams...that in the firelight that leaped from the burning logs on the farm, our voices being carried into the woods in the far corner, to trust, that He surrounds all these things.

These three women shaped my life. They are my legacy, they are beautiful beacons of light and hope. Thank you Mom, Oma and Grandma, for loving me, for shedding the light you’ve had, on me.

know yourself

2009-11-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

The second commandment is to love others as you love yourself. How can you expect to love others if you do not first love yourself?

I want to clarify the poem, "The Journey". In part it sounds selfish and egotistical-why should one leave everyone else to in order find oneself? We are taught to extend ourselves to others, love others, move others. But this is not stressed enough-how can you truly do that unless you know yourself and love yourself?

I don't think we can save ourselves wholly within our own power and strength on our own and for our own selves-but we do each of us decide our own place in the world and that place touches others and together we become a whole entity that both gives to each other and takes. We can give more easily when we know what we have to offer when we understand ourselves and know ourselves. Also take from others all the "more" that they hold in their hands, I have learned it is just as hard to take as it is to give.

Another thought, the great loneliness that hangs over each of us will never leave, at times the hunger will be filled in others and our experiences shared but in the end we do walk out alone, we can not carry them out with us. And so who are you? Who I am?

The sociological viewpoint claims that I am only what others have taught me to be, I am not untouched by their ideas of me, I become how they view me but I want to go beyond that.

Who am I? In the darkness when the voices have been stilled and there is nothing left. I suppose there are many answers to that question, and this all seems so trite. What is the point of being anyone unless someone recognizes it and calls it out?! And so there-we do need people and yet the initial burst begins with you and you alone. You choose your place, you tell others how to treat you, it is you who runs through the memories of your day before bed and you who must wake up with the thoughts that burden you in the morning. YOU YOU YOU. The emphasis is on you. What will you do with it? But the real root of YOU lies in everyone else. You are You because of them.

If I was alone long enough would I fade into nothingness? Perhaps.

Life is a fine balance, a walk between the self and the other. It is presumptuous to believe that only you can save yourself and just as presumptuous to believe that in forgetting yourself you can save others. Let the two walk hand in hand, life is the infusion always of two things. God and human kind, man and woman, friend and foe, self and other, night and day-you and your journey. In the end it is only you and you will be asked, "What are you holding in your hands?"

So be alone, find yourself in a dark wood, move in the silence-know yourself. In knowing yourself you will save your life, and because you have saved it you will have the opportunity to give it.

The Journey

2009-11-16T10:22:00.000-08:00

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.

-Mary Oliver

on birthdays eve

2009-06-07T22:04:00.000-07:00

Here is the poem Bethany gave me for my birthday:

Grown-Up

Was it for this I uttered prayers,

And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,

That now, domestic as a plate,

I should retire at half-past eight?

Disclaimer: I should hope to always keep the wonder of a child with me, to find joy in the little things, to not dismay when grown-up reponsibilites take root and to always remember to dance and play. Life is really too short to be only grown-up and no child.

1 am

2009-05-16T00:15:00.002-07:00

dear life

I have not squandered you

you still stand as though transfixed

by what has been done and what will be

dear sky

I have not reached your limit

you still beckon me

limitless endless then and now

dear God

you have not deserted me

my darkest moments still sing You

You permeate my deepest longing

And when I am weeping

I am ripe

2009-03-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

If I had grown in some generous place-

if my hours had opened with ease-

I would make you a lavish banquet.

My hands wouldn't clutch at you like this,

so needy and tight.

Then I'd have dared to squander you,

you Limitless Now.

I'd have tossed you into the ringing air

like a ball that someone leaps for and catches

with hands outstretched.

I would have painted you: not on the wall

but in one broad sweep across heaven.

I'd have portrayed you brashly:

as mountain, as fire, as a wind

howling from the desert's vastness.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

in winnipeg

2009-03-03T16:55:00.000-08:00

I feel you as I feel the cold

close and crinkling up my spine

my song is life

I sung it in the dark

and the world moved to the sound

The Office...Part 2

2008-08-01T08:01:00.001-07:00

The other day the guy from my office who calls me Allison walked by my desk. Now the receptionist who is usually here is the daughter of the President of the company, so this guy comes up to me and asks,

"Allison, who's daughter are you?"

"I'm no one's daughter," I replied.

Realizing that my last comment sounded ridiculous I corrected myself,
"I mean to say, I'm no one's daughter here, and my name's not Allison."

"What?" He asks incredulous. "It's not?"

"No, it's Laura."

"But I've been calling you Allison all this time."

"yeah".

"Well..." he says slowly, as though pondering this concept, "Have a good weekend...Laura."

For the next several days every time he would walk by my desk he would say with zest and valour,

"Have a good day...Laura." Or "Weather looks great...Laura." He was so proud...so assured, but then something awful happened. Yesterday he walked by my desk saying,

"Good morning Faye."

He hurried away looking a little ashamed of himself, and I believe though he couldn't quite put his finger on it, he knew my name was not Faye. Needless to say, he almost got it right.

The Office...

2008-07-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

Everyday at the office one of the guys here at Regal Energy walks past my desk and says,

"Good morning Allison", so confidently assured that that is my name.

I never introduced myself as Allison, I've never been called Allison, and I certainly am not an Allison. I haven't corrected him yet because he walks past my desk before I can get a word in. However it is only getting worse. It seems he wants to utter the name, "Allison" whenever he walks by me now, even if he's just making a comment about the weather. For example:

"It's a beautiful day out there Allison."

"Enjoy your weekend Allison."

"I'm leaving now Allison." etc. etc.

Whatever put the notion into his head that my name is Allison? And how can I put a stop to something that is already snow-balling out of control? To correct him now would seem...cruel.

A Walk in the Dark

2008-06-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

Thoughts from C.S.Lewis's, "The Silver Chair".

Jill, Eustace and Puddleglum all fell down into the Underworld after their escape from Harfang. Imagine the dread that must have filled each one as they sat in the darkness awaiting the unknown.

You see, they had fallen into the Underworld almost by accident. They had a faint idea that Aslan required them to be under the large rocks above them, and yet they did not know for certain why they were there, what their mission was or if they would ever get back to the surface again.

They waited in the darkness until a voice came to them. The voice of the Warden of the Underworlds. He and all of his men took the three travellers into the depth and darkness of the Underworld to be brought before the witch. As they went deeper and deeper down, and as they got further and further from the surface of the earth, what must they have been thinking?

"Will we ever see the sun again?"
"Will we be down here forever?"
And perhaps, "We made a mistake somewhere along the way...surely we must have!"

And yet...the Underworld was exactly where they were meant to be. The Prince, who they were meant to save was trapped in the Underworld and they were on their way to get him. Yet, the idea of it all sent chills up and down my spine. There they were, trapped in the darkness, taken hostage by Underworld men and yet that was the plan, that was exactly what was meant to happen in order for them to find the Prince!

How often have we found ourselves in the dark? How often have we thought, "surely, I must be on the wrong track! Something has gone horribly wrong and I shall never see the sun again."

And yet, don't lose heart! Perhap the very reason why you find yourself in strange and unknown territory, is because you need to cross that territory in order to find yourself doing exactly what you were meant to do.

Perhaps Jill thought,

"I have done something wrong. I have disobeyed Aslan and nearly forgotten the signs. Thus, he has sent me for punishment into a dark place. If only I had been careful and not fallen into this hole! If only I had known and stayed above the surface."

If she had her wish, and been up at the surface then the Prince could never be found.
Take heart friends, in those times of darkness, who knows but that it is exactly where you are meant to be. Our walks in the darkness are the closest thing to exercising our faith fully...we do not know what is at the end, but we must keep walking, trusting and believing that somehow that which we are called to do will be fulfilled, even if we find ourselves miles below the surface.

Gardening

2008-05-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

Bethany and I have transformed our little dead garden into a beautiful array of colours, stems, and sweet smelling petals.

But in the middle of the garden was a bush that had not yet sprouted any green leaves or flowers. It look dead. It was dry, brown and quite ugly against our fresh little flowers that we had planted around it. I looked at it and was then determined to pull it out since it didn't appear to be living, and since it made the garden look so ugly.

However, we decided to give it another week or two just in case it was still alive. Sure enough, several weeks later tiny little green leaves are beginning to peek out of the brown stems. This reminds me of life.

When we view our lives and look at the pain that we see in them we begin to feel disheartened. We don't want pain to be in our lives because it looks so ugly against the bright colourful cheerful things. We have a choice to either pull the pain up and pretend it never existed, or let it sit there a while.

If we choose the latter option, we will find that it will teach us things about ourselves and who we are. And if we wait long enough we will soon find little green fresh living things sprouting from the dead bush...give it time; eventually it will blossom and the garden will be fuller because of it. And I really do believe that our lives will be fuller when we allow ourselves to feel pain and let it sit with us a while, trusting that God will eventually bring beauty even into the darkness of our lives.

may my heart always be open to little... (19) by E. E. Cummings

may my heart always be open to
littlebirds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

99

2008-03-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

now all the fingers of this tree (darling) have
hands, and all the hands have people; and
more each particular person is (my love)
alive than every world can understand

and now you are and i am now and we're
a mystery which will never happen again,
a miracle which has never happened before-
and shining this our now must come to then

our then shall be some darkness during which
fingers are without hands; and i have no
you: and all trees are (any more than each
leafless) its silent in forevering snow

-but never fear (my own, my beautiful
my blossoming) for also then's until

2008-02-23T19:28:00.000-08:00

"No single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: Mine!"
-Abraham Kuyper

Poetry

2008-01-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

This next poem was first read on some hay stacks. A few friends and I had gone to watch the sunrise. We set up our blankets on the hay stacks and then waited for the golden globe of light to peak over the long dark fields of morning. As we were reading this poem the sun began to peek its way over the dark fields, and then by the end it was spreading its warmth on all of us. These moments are poetry in themselves. Here is the poem:

Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond
Any experience, your eyes have their silence:
In your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
Or which I cannot touch because they are too near

Your slightest look easily will unclose me
Though I have closed myself as fingers,
You open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

Or if your wish be to close me, I and
My life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
As when the heart of this flower imagines
The snow carefully everywhere descending

Nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
The power of your intense fragility: whose texture
Compels me with the colour of its countries,
Rendering death and forever with each breathing

(I do not know what it is about you that closes
And opens; only something in me understands
The voice of your eyes is deeper than all the roses)
Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

e.e.cummings

e.e.cummings

2008-01-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

i thank you God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

A Walk

2007-12-29T14:20:00.000-08:00

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-
and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

Translated by Robert Bly

Looking-Glass Self

2007-11-11T11:57:00.001-08:00

The way humans view themselves is largely built up on the ways in which the primary people in their lives view them. In essence, nobody is free from the views of others, these perceptions that others have of us, begin at a very young age and make us who we are; this process is defined by Horton Cooley (1864-1929) who created the term, “The Looking-Glass Self”.
This refers to the fact that the image others have of themselves is based largely on how they believe others see them. We become self-fulfilling prophecies through the eyes of others.
We begin to form attachments and make friends with people who share the same view of ourselves that we have of ourselves. And the view that we have of ourselves comes from those people who have shaped that view. If someone has come from a family that has thought little of them, their perception of themselves results in low self-esteem and a negative self-image, brought on by the negative views their parents or close relatives have had on them.
Perhaps that is why many girls who have grown up with a father who was abusive and condescending repeat this pattern with boyfriends and husbands. They view themselves the way their father has taught them to view themselves, and they are most comfortable with people who hold this same view, because that is what they are used to, and that is who they believe they are.
There is a pattern that exists between abusive and condescending relationships. Soon, the person begins to see them self, just as the abuser sees them, and it is difficult to jump out of this pattern because the negative self-image becomes a part of that person.
How can these patterns of abuse be broken?

People cannot find themselves alone; without the views and assumptions that others have placed on them. We find people that see the same truth about ourselves that we have been taught to believe.
In Karl E. Scheibe’s book, “The Drama of Everyday Life,” he writes that the equilateral of asking, “Do you love me?” is: “Do you see the same truth that I see?” Do you see me as I see myself? When we have positive thoughts about ourselves we will seek out positive people that will see us for who we believe we are. Yet, if we have a negative and low self-esteem it will be easier and more comfortable for us to find someone who also sees this “truth”; that we are unlovable and incompetent.
This cycle can only be broken through a loving God, who takes his children up and shows them how he sees them. Beautiful, glorious children of God; worth every drop of blood; worthy of love, worthy to make attachments with people who can say, “I see the same truth that He sees.” The One who looks deeper than the skin, and past the insecurities and faces others have placed on us.
People categorize, marginalize and dehumanize people everyday. All of us are tainted with the masks, names, words and negativity of others, but it is when we look past all of that; realizing its weight and power, yet negating it to what is: masks, words, names that hide the real person underneath. When we begin to ask God to show us the truth that He sees then we will be better able to love and be loved in return.

Chick-a-dee

2007-10-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

today a chickadee flew into the library window and was left wounded on the ground before me. Before he hit the window he looked free and wild, a little bird singing and flying against the true blueness of the sky. Unfortunately he hit the window, and he lost his song.

I watched as he lay on the ground. Stunned; hurt; depressed? A boy in the library wanted to kill it because he said that the bird was dying anyways so we might as well end his suffering. Before this horrible plan could be carried out however, the bird got back up and sat there for a while.

He sat wondering if he ought to fly again. Was it worth it? He looked up at me, his little black eyes blinking and he seemed to ask me if it was worth it. Is it? I think so. Because after ten or fifteen minutes I looked back at him and at that moment he said,

"dee dee dee dee" and then flew up, almost hitting the window again but not so hard and then he went up, up, up and back into the sky. He decided it was worth it to fly again. And I think it is worth it; at least I want to believe it is.

The Marines and Injustice

2007-10-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

Lastnight in class we watched a video called, "Anybody's Son Will Do." It was about the social injustice of bringing boys into the marine corps to be trained as soldiers to fight and to kill. These boys are impressionable because they are young and in a sense they are brain washed to believe that they are invincible and strong to kill and destroy. This video was based on a group of boys brought into training for the marines in the United States.

After the video everyone began talking about what they thought about what they saw. Most people were angry that these boys were being brainwashed and yelled at all day. They were angry that these boys were beginning to believe that they could fight and kill someone if the need arose, even though it is not a humans instinct to kill automatically. I suppose one the things that upset everyone the most was the fact that if these boys weren’t able to “live up” to what being a soldier meant, they would be considered a failure.

So while everyone was ranting against how these boys are under so much pressure to be something that they were not, I felt as though everyone is under pressure to be someone or something that they may not want to be.

In life we have to jump over a number of hurdles to “get to the top”. We need to be strong and put on a “front” so that we don’t appear afraid or weak. People tell us what they expect from us through their actions and we accordingly have to step into that role. How different are we from those boys that we had watched?

Furthermore I began to think that those boys were better off. They were part of something, they belong to an organization. Most civilians don’t, ordinary people have to work alone to keep their self worth up. They don’t have a group to belong to, and some of them don’t even have a dream.

I grew sad as I sat in class listening to us discuss. I felt sad that those boys we saw wanted to join the marines because they were part of something bigger than themselves, even if it was negative. It scared me because I began to realize that people want to feel important and belong, even if it means getting “brainwashed” or killing other people.

Don’t we all want something to live for? I could suddenly understand why someone would want to be part of the marines, the military etc. Sometimes we don’t know what to do with our lives, and sometimes it would be easier to be part of something where they form your thinking, no matter how screwed up their theology or philosophy on life might be. Perhaps living under leaders that mould you and control you is easier than trying to figure life out on your own.

I want to be part of something more. And I know that I am part of something more…but there are times I forget, and times I don’t know what to do with my life; times that I see a movie like this and realize that we are all searching for the meaning of life. We are all searching and waiting to belong.

God's Grandeur

2007-10-01T09:39:00.000-07:00

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

-Hopkins