The road less cycled

Ok. I’m ready. Rested, and relaxed, and raring to go for the New Year, with a new semester, different work if all goes well, and hopefully, the willpower to follow through with some resolutions. I’ve never actually made any formal New Year’s resolutions, being more predisposed to express a healthy cynicism about other’s pathetic and feeble attempts to reform their lives. As a student, I know all too well how likely it is that I’ll actually follow through on any resolutions, as every semester I vow not to put myself through the just completed semester’s hell again, and unfailingly wind up in the same boat, semester after semester after semester (and I’ve only done 3 full and two partial semesters). This year, however, I’m going to give it a a shot. Stay tuned for my next blog, in which I’ll lay out some things that I intend to change in 2008. The break has done me good, and now it’s back to the grindstone, starting pretty much now, with a bit of a New Year’s blip. Though I am working New Year’s, hopefully not too late…

That means no more sleeping in until noon as has been far too customary recently, a natural effect of working evening shifts until midnight a lot of nights, I suppose. This morning for instance, the intention was to get up at 7:00 a.m. and hit the trails for a morning of birding in Downes Bowl for the annual Christmas Bird Count, a nation-wide and likely continent-wide event in which gluttons for punishment like myself head out in teams to survey their area for winter bird species. Today I actually heard my alarm, proceeded to semi-consciously ignore it, and actually left around 11:00. Still, I spent nearly 3 hours in the park, but the late start definitely put a damper on the day.

A great many of life’s finer and more enjoyable aspects are related to its subtleties, which I admit I often function in complete ignorance of. In cooking for instance, well used herbs, spices, and sauces can turn an otherwise bland meal into a culinary experience to remember. Tea is another that jumps to mind – the subtle difference in taste between the many varieties of teas, if properly appreciated, can elevate the tea-drinking ritual (which it definitely is in my family) to a new level. It’s the same for birding – one of the fastest growing sports in North America, if not worldwide.

Birding is one of those, pun intended, “quacky” activities, a ‘pseudo-sport’ if you will, that many people look on slightly askance. I’ve yet to meet anyone in my age group locally who possesses the same avid interest in it, and would totally love to do so. Until then however, I’m content to hang out (should I say perch?) with a more middle-age to elderly age class. When I was younger, I often noticed I felt much more like one of the flock with adults than my peers, and that’s still more or less the case. So I have no feathers to pull (gosh, I should stop – although that does remind me of a birding buddy from TWU who I affectionately call “the Goshawk”). with that situation. Back to the subtleties of birding.

The fun in birding lies in the thrill that comes with a rare sighting. You can bird for an entire day seeing almost nothing worth recording, feel like you’re beating your head against the wall, and then suddenly run into, for instance, a Red-breasted Nuthatch, or a Great Gray Owl that will make the whole day worthwhile. I’m not as fanatical as some – there are birders who will quite literally drop everything they’re doing at the report of a rare sighting in the hopes of getting there before it’s left the area. I still have fond memories of the 2005 count on Fishtrap Creek where the Goshawk and I spotted a Peregrine Falcon and a Northern Shrike, two lifers for me and quite special birds for this area.

I should explain the whole “lifer” concept. Most “real” birders keep a life list of all the birds they’ve seen. Some go list crazy and keep backyard lists, provincial lists, national lists, overall lists, seasonal lists, location specific lists, Friday morning between 6 and 8 am. lists….well you get the picture. I only keep a life list, currently at 114, all in the Fraser Valley area. (I have a plant list too, but we won’t go there…). The life list is a birder’s pride and joy – his or her ticket into the “upper circles” of birding culture.

I wasn’t able to add any new species to my list on today’s outing, only finding some 21 species, the highlights being an as of yet unidentified raptor, a Bufflehead duck, and 4 Hooded Mergansers. I was however, able to capitalize on many of the fringe benefits of birding. It’s an awesome excuse to get out and go for a leisurely walk for a few hours, and I’m not kidding when I say leisurely – my ex will fondly remember stopping and starting with approximately the rapidity of a dog who wants to follow every scent that wafts into his or her’s nostrils. About the only muscles that get a serious workout are the neck muscles – birders get what’s called “warbler neck” – the condition derived from many hours of ‘craning’ (haha, n.p.i) the upper appendage in desperate attempts to make out a field mark on a little speck flitting around in the canopy of some tree. It’s why my raptor today is “unidentified.”

The CBC also gave me a chance to check out part of the new “Abbotsford Greenway” – an ambitious project to create a paved network of trails from one side of the city to the other, starting at Fishtrap Creek, over into Downes Bowl and the hydro right-of-way, through Horn Creek Park, Willband Creek Park, over and through some Sumas Mountain foothills, and down to Mackay Creek Trail by the Sumas River. I have mixed feelings about it – it’ll make for some great cycling, but simultaneously, I intensely dislike the all too civilized feel the trails have. In many ways, I’d rather bushwhack through some virgin terrain then coast along a paved pathway. But where can you find uncivilized terrain these days? Everywhere you go, somebody’s been there and done that. Sure, there’s some relatively uninhabited parts of the world, but as a species we’ve expanded to occupy so much landmass and consume so many resources, that I really can’t justify any further expansion into natural areas. But that’s a post for another day.

Zipped out to Stoney Creek to follow up some Christmas errands before going to work only to find I wasn’t scheduled today, and then being asked to come in anyway while I was in the middle of making an onion-potato soup. Of course, I capitulated (how can you say no when your brother is the supervisor and his girlfriend the manager) and dropped everything to do a couple deliveries to help them through the rush. Yeah we have a nice little cult going on over at work.

Stoney Creek was at its best – high water, invigorating chill in the air, numerous spectral salmon. Official count was 12 dead and 9 alive, although those that were still alive won’t be much longer – all of them were lethargic with fins and tail worn ragged from digging in the gravel.

I cut a couple open to check whether they had spawned – I’m no dissection expert, but one was definitely male based on all the semen which came spurting out. The other I wasn’t so sure about – could have been a spawned out female or a less obvious male. The good news is most fish the crew have been opening up appear to have spawned successfully.

My computer is bound to freeze any moment now, as it has done 3 times in the last 45 minutes or so. That might be fine, if the rest of the world’s computers did the same, simultaneously. Such thoughts course through my mind as I read Sharon Butala’s “The Perfection of the Morning.”

So much to write. And such baffling evaporation of ideas as I sit down to actually write it. Butala’s book is full of insights, and I’ll share just a few of them here, after briefly introducing her and the situation she writes from.

Butala, a woman whose worldly experience was largely urban and academic with the exception of the formative years of her childhood, abandoned much – a position as a university professor, nearly completed Master’s degree, her house, and her circle of friends and family to marry Peter Butala, a lifetime rancher and 41 year old bachelor content to reside in the same place where he had grown up, earning an honest, if challenging, living from the ranch.

She writes: “In the years since the summer I turned thirteen and we moved into the city, I had become so urbanized that I knew nothing about farming, or about the daily life led by people who made their living in agriculture. I thought of myself proudly as a sophisticated city woman, but even that first weekend with Peter, strangely, I kept having flashes of deja vu. They were incomplete, vague and unformed, and yet carried with them a puzzling tug of recognition, of memories that were more visceral even than images or fragments of conversations. Bewilderingly, I felt comfortable when I should have felt ill at ease; I felt at home when I should have felt lost…..I felt transported to a familiar way of being and to a familiar place. Yes, I thought, and then, but how do I know this?”

“By the time I was twenty I had developed contempt for those who wanted to return to Nature, believing they were all romantic dreamers, nitwits from the city, people raised in the lap of luxury who did not know about Nature’s nasty side, who had never done a real day’s work in their lives and thus had no idea of the grinding labor a life in Nature demanded for mere survival. “

Of her struggle to adapt to her new life: “Through that struggle to fit – to become congruent – I became not the painter I once was but a writer, and I discovered that the writer I’ve become is the Self I’ve been in search of for so many years..it has been the act of writing that created and continues to create that Self I’ve at last found, and that acts as the instrument of integration between myself and my environment….”

On men and leaving behind her old life: “I saw nobody in my city life doing anything more physically dangerous than walking to work, and in Saskatoon that wasn’t much of a risk. I’d had enough of my windowless office at the university and the endless maneuvering for advantage, not to mention the incredibly hard work people of my lowly rank had to do for distressingly low pay; I’d had enough of the men I was meeting, each one of whom seemed to be more insecure, convoluted and uncertain than the last one; I couldn’t wait to put it all behind me.”

And her Coyote Dream; which perhaps I’ll write about another time.

Such writing inspires self-reflection, of course. Could I be a Peter Butala? A capable rancher, content to live a simple, yet physically demanding lifestyle? To accept and revel in it? How long (yes Papa, he’s a Chinaman ) will I be content to float in much the same vein as Sharon Butala, in the ’soft’ yet grueling world of academics? Could I leave this abstract world of ideas and theory where I seem to spend so much time, replacing it with a life where the primary focus is the day’s physical work – a life stripped bare of all the frivolousness and frenzied efforts to accomplish…..what? What exactly am I trying to accomplish?

On the surface, it seems a horrendously unsatisfying life – it seems there must be more to life than living on the land, living with the land, working on it and relying on it for survival, romantic as the idea is. Although from where Peter Butala is, it’s only a step up to be a Percy Schmeiser – internationally renowned canola (among other crops) farmer from the Saskatchewan prairies, renowned for his struggle against biotech giant Monsanto Corp., former town mayor, and acclaimed public speaker. Perhaps it’s the participatory element, the element of democracy which I would most miss. One might expect to miss the social experience that, as I gather from Butala’s writing, is unique to the urban lifestyle. I’m not sure if I would however – I’ve never been one to go overboard in that regard, preferring to remain on the sidelines, waiting in the wings, greatly favoring a long ramble in the woods over a night at a club. Although as I’m learning, both have their place.

A Peter Butala seems so…well, grounded. So rooted to the spot, so impossibly content. I wouldn’t be content if I was content – I’d need something more. There’s an incessant need for a deeper understanding, which perhaps drives my inclination to need to write everything down, to digest it, which, by all appearances, Peter doesn’t feel. Perhaps because that deeper understanding isn’t lacking, having been gained from a lifetime spent in Nature, in touch with it’s (her?) rhythms, patterns, and mysterious yet comforting ways. I suppose what I’m saying is that the academic in me, the writer in me, would want out, no matter what I did.

Because I really have to go do my finances and get up early tomorrow I’ll close here, with a final quote from S. Butala:

“I was learning to be a different kind of woman from the one who’d danced all night in clubs to rock ‘n’ roll, competed with men at a job, borrowed money at the bank, bought a house, had a manicure, and set her cap for men and fended off others, who faced an urban, modern world on her own. As I lived this new way part of me was beginning to to feel all that – the life of the modern, urban woman – had been a mistake, and maybe not the great improvement on my mother’s life I thought it had been.”

I’m at a bit of a loss to explain my fascination with salmon. It’s something which I seem to experience with an intensity that few people share. That’s not to say that most people find salmon boring – there’s lots of people who are fascinated by salmon, but….it just seems it’s a fire which burns a little brighter for me than most. The sight of one of these fish gliding in a pool of still water, or thrashing in a riffle only as deep as it’s dorsal fin, so close to death and yet so full of the promise of life fills me with a deep sense of reverence and awe that can’t really be put into words.

Perhaps it’s something to do with how salmon seem to epitomize a holistic, big-picture understanding of life – that it really is just a big circle. The apparent ending of a cycle is really the beginning of another, for as the spirit of life leaves the spawned out salmon, their decaying carcasses become nutrition for their progeny, feeding the streamside vegetation, which in turn feeds insects and macroinvertebrates, which serves as a food source for the salmon fry which will emerge in the springtime.

Salmon present us with the essential facts of life – a life stripped bare of frills and excess accessories. Hatch. Eat or be eaten. Feed, in the ocean. Grow. Run the gauntlet of dangers. Return. Spawn. Die. Begin again. They remind us that we too are a part of this circle of life, bound to one day grow old and die, and move on to whatever lies in store.

They make me reflect, too, on a life where the sole purpose in life is to survive to complete the sexual act, after which the life force simply withers away, having accomplished its purpose. Must be one hell of a way to go though – the reward for 2 to 7 years worth of struggle for survival, of high-tempo fight and flight, of competition for food, of flying through liquid air, following where the ocean currents lead, and then the valiant, tortuously wearying struggle upstream to the place of birth, forgoing food in the single-minded drive to return home, all for the right to pass on those most precious of possessions – the genes which mark one as an individual unique in all the world, while also branding one as a member of a species-family and the grand community of life on Earth.

Know what I just realized? Roughly 99.9% of all salmon conceived, and 98% of alevins that hatch, die virgins.

Nice to know I have company, albeit it not exactly company I’m angling to keep.

Carpe diem, or Cuivis dolori remedium est patientia?

Thanks a lot WordPress for dropping this this post.  The creative genius is gone and I don’t feel like calling her back.

On my way out of the Domino’s parking lot at the end of the night, around 12:30, the little voice in the back of my head which seems to be usurping more and more influence these days whispered to me that I really shouldn’t be heading home just yet.

Still undecided, I approached my driveway at about 90 km/h in my Prelude, already reasonably certain I wouldn’t hit the brakes. Didn’t, and ended up allowing my steering wheel to lead me to the Mission Bridge, up to Stave Falls/Rolley Lake area, and past the snowline, where the thought of skidding around up in the Mission Hills without snow tires at 1:oo a.m. more or less lost its appeal, in addition to which the toothache which I had disrespected for the entire evening was beginning to throb, so I cranked ‘er around and headed back down, with Sting’s probing and remarkably appropriate tunes resounding inside the car. His lyrics are, of course, written to strike a chord within as broad a range of people as possible, so perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising that the words so closely mirror some of the thoughts and emotions that are spinning around inside my head.

It’s not exactly typical of me to go for random midnight drives; actually, the word “drive” would typically be replaced by “ride.” Perhaps the whole midnight driving thing is a sign that I’m getting super restless; I need a change, I need a challenge, I need some excitement and I need it now before I explode. Were it not for the toothache, I probably would have parked somewhere and called it a night – even there, just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the city, there’s a certain sense of relief that comes over me as I ascend, and a pall of resignation as I re-enter the bright lights of the central Fraser Valley.

Got to learn to channel that energy, and store some of it for when it’s really needed.

We call ourselves the Stoney Creek Salmon Stalkers. Today, it’s more like the SCS Harassers, from the way we poke sticks into all the pools and overhanging banks to flush out any fish in hiding. It’s a good thing we only do this once a week, or these fish would go out of their minds. Which they must already anyway – rather an invasion of privacy, don’t you think?

“Excuse me, you two there, yes you, in the (stream)bed, do you mind if I jostle you a bit just to be sure there’s no group action with a third one of you there? Please don’t be offended, but I just need to mark down that you’re actively spawning.

Only two of you? Ok, good, well carry on then! Toodle-oo!”

I should back up a bit. Stoney Creek Salmon Stalkers are a rather unlikely crew of locals who survey Stoney Creek for spawning salmon, mostly coho and chum. The group was formed out of interested residents who attended our annual Mother’s Day Fry release. Each year the Ravine Park Salmon Enhancement Society releases ~10 000 coho fry/smolts into this creek, and it is these fish, now adults, which return to spawn here.

Stoney Creek is a small, urban stream which flows off the northwest slopes of Sumas Mountain in the east side of Abbotsford near Robert Bateman Secondary. It descends the hillside in a deep, rocky and vegetated ravine, before crossing under Bateman Road and joining several other waterways to form the Matsqui Slough which discharges into the Fraser River, not far from the Abby-Mission bridge.

We’d like to see how this creek has fared in the aftermath of extensive urbanization of its headwaters, and counting spawners is one way in which we do this. It doesn’t provide a complete picture, however – keep in mind that these are largely hatchery fish raised in an out of stream environment, so we don’t know how many fish an unmanaged Stoney Creek could support. Today, we walked the upper 1/3rd of the stream, finding a total of 20 active spawners, most looking healthy and fresh indicating that they only recently arrived in the system. It’s a good number – up to now, we’ve found not a single chum, and only a handful of coho despite the spawning season beginning over a month ago.

They’re amazing animals – most people are amazed to learn that such small backyard tributaries are capable of providing habitat for fish up to a metre long in some cases, and this is why we take extra effort to chat with people we meet in the park – to let people know that all those “Salmon Habitat” signs aren’t just a farce. These fish are easily 50-80cm. long, and yet are amazingly well camouflaged and difficult to spot.

DISCLAIMER: It’s illegal to disturb spawning salmon, and our spawner surveys are conducted under the auspices of the Department of Fisheries and Ocean.

So I’m not insomnic. Quite the opposite, actually. I barely know the meaning of the word, and never, ever, have the tossing and turning kind of sleepless nights unless I have a toothache or have women on the brain. So why do I find myself pacing the house at 1:30 in the morning? Coming home from work at 1:00 and not going to sleep until 6:00 a.m.? Hyperactively jumping from browser to browser, book to book, paper to paper for hours on end? Laughing hysterically at the thought of sitting here at 4 a.m. for at least the second consecutive night now? Gosh, I’m not even sure anymore, is it 3 nights maybe? I seriously think I’m going insane. I’m too stubborn to go to sleep before I finished what I’m doing, and then too scatter-minded to finish what I’m doing in a timely manner. It’s seriously time to escape. Just need to get out and re-balance my life a little bit. (classic understatement there). I hear there’s finally salmon being seen up in Stoney Creek, in larger numbers now, so I’d better get up there real quick like and check it out. That’s exciting news, and not unexpected, as the 30cm. of snow followed by the warm air mass and heavy rain last weekend would have done wonders for the water levels in local creeks.

Speaking of salmon, I’m a director of the Ravine Park Salmon Hatchery, and in the coming weeks we’ll be taking schoolkids through the routine of removing the eggs (roe) from dead female coho salmon, squeezing the sperm (milt) from the males and mixing it together for the fertilization process to take place (it only takes seconds). Then we take the carcasses and discard them down in Ravine Park, along Willband Creek which drains Mill Lake, so that all the dog owners can throw up their hands in frustration as their dogs give in to the uncontrollably delightful urge to go and roll in them. Best not to wear the hatchery identifying cap for the next few weeks after that little stunt. Apparently, we’ve also gotten complaints from nearby residents as well over the smell. Yes, it can be pretty strong, but personally I wish these people would come to grips with the fact that the absence of this smell is unnatural, and that these carcasses are playing a key role in fertilizing the streambanks and riparian plants which grow there.

We welcome members of the community coming by and taking in the process, so let me know if you’d be interested.

Lately I’ve been super irresponsible when it comes to being a proactive member of the household – something that I’ve justified by saying it’s exam season and that I’ll more than catch up as soon as my 3rd exam (just about 17 hours away now) is history. Sure, there’s been some positives coming out of this. My complete dereliction of laundry duty has prompted Papa to put in yeoman’s work doing about two weeks worth of laundry in 2 days, all the while ejaculating (yes, that is a valid use of the word) about implementing new systems, instituting new policies, anything to make this place run a little more efficiently. While it’s super irritating to be around him in these kind of moods, I have to admit it’s a lot better than the status quo, which would be frustrated cynicism. Problem is, I know from experience that he’ll stick to the new system for about a week max before we collectively lapse back into business-as-usual. Ah yes, ever the optimist. Actually, I fully intend to have the entire basement transformed into a welcoming, livable place to be by the end of the holidays, limiting my social activities with the exception of two major events I have planned.

Egads, this is turning into what I had hoped to avoid when I wrote my first couple blog entries, namely a “Gee I have profound thoughts….” type blog that is more about the mundane details of my own life than the bigger pictures concepts. Oh well, fun to write anyhow. Hopefully to read as well, though I’m under no illusions as to the volume of readership.

Spent the evening working tonight, at Domino’s, and am actually still sitting here in my uniform as I write. Put in an 8 hour or so shift, one of my longest to date, as usually I’m in by 4 and out by 9 or 10. I’ll be working quite a bit more over the coming month or so as I try to keep pace financially a little bit. To date I’ve been limiting myself to one or two days a week just because of all the exam and essay pressures, and because I’m really not sure I want to stick around for too long – I have a rather mercenerial approach to this job, and don’t want it to turn into a situation where I get into a comfort zone and suddenly find I’ve been there way too long.

I feel it’s the trap my brother fell into – started in Gr. 11, worked his way up, and now, 5 years later, is supervising a couple of the local stores. Which is great, but to spend 5 years in one location in the food industry? I just don’t know if I could do that. I tend to think that once you’ve learned something, mastered it, made it second nature, it’s probably time to move on and tackle something new. On the other hand, it’s opened up quite a few doors for him and he’s done well. But this is my blog, not his, and I have enormous respect for his ability to make the sensible decisions.

Friends have commented on the unlikely prospects of me doing this job – me, the longtime die-hard cyclist who somewhat snobbishly dismisses all things polluting, darting around the city in a SOV and burning gas like there’ll be no tomorrow, delivering pizzas topped with all that which, quite honestly, I detest. The pepperoni, bacon, beef, sausage – all products of a culture which accepts that our food is raised in often inhumane conditions, fed with food identical to that which many people around the world are eating and which has enough nutritional content to feed many times the number of people thatwill be fed on the meat produced. There’s implicit acceptance that the slaughtering process has to be done somewhere completely removed from the end consumer, in complete ignorance of the social or ethical question marks raised by this process. Or maybe we don’t just accept this disconnect between food production and consumption – maybe we demand it. Could we handle this disconnect being removed? On a bit of a side note, I caught myself being politically incorrect again today. (Those who know me will know I have a slight tendency to shoot my mouth off in ways I’ll regret later). Seems most every place I deliver to has a dog or a cat or two who love to greet the pizza guy, which gives me a bit of a diversion while I wait for the customer to complete the transaction. Anyway, on one of my last deliveries, I noticed a canine companion with a definite interest in the pizza, and I commented as I left, “Share some with the dog too, eh” – not realizing until afterwards what the underlying message could have been interpreted as!

Do I feel a sense of guilt over working in an industry which is completely immersed in this unsustainable culture? Yeah, some, but at the same time, as long as the demand is there, bodies will be needed to serve it up and prepare it. At a certain point, economic realities take over, and until our culture as a whole realizes what it’s supporting and demands alternatives, things aren’t going to change. So why do I still get this nagging feeling that I’m not trying hard enough to find work that I can feel great about doing?

Maybe part of the answer to that is simply that actually, unexpectedly, there’s a certain appeal to doing this job. I’ve never had the desire or motivation to get myself a vehicle, so now that I have, there’s a certain sense of freedom which comes with it. Zipping around town, being one with the road, the traffic, relying on a combination of reflex, reaction, observation, and motor skills (in the bodily sense), does bestow a certain sense of exhilaration. Of being in control; free of the cares and stresses of day-to-day life. For that 15-20 minutes, 10-20 times a night, that it takes to do a delivery, I’m entirely free – free to reflect a little bit on the day, on what tomorrow will bring, on what I’ll put in my blog. That feeling of control is one that is actually quite rare these days, as it seems I just barely keep up with the minimum of my obligations. It’s one of two polar opposite feelings which I think benefit everybody – feeling in charge, confident, relaxed but alert; and on the other hand, being able to relinquish control completely – to somebody else, to a deity, or simply to the open skies, and being able to trust that you’ll be taken care of despite your complete and utter vulnerability.

It’s entirely delusional, of course, as I realize when I’m jolted back to reality, remembering that, really, there’s no freedom in this. I’m still reliant on the liquid black gold flowing out of the Middle East; still merely a pawn to be manipulated by the oilmen with their hands on the levers that have the power to make our society stop, go, dance on a string like a puppet, do whatever suits their latest fancy. I’m still chained to my car – I may be the one gunning the gas today, but tomorrow, it’s the one demanding another fill-up, another repair, another tune-up, another insurance payment, and so on. Really, it’s a cruel hoax and a false promise based on the myth that these last hours of ancient sunlight will never run out. The party’s over, folks, and the sooner we realize it the better. But for now, I’ll bottle all that up, and take my place at a bar that’s slowly emptying as people realize that the real party, the party of sustainability, is just around the corner. Yeah, I’ll be there too, but just give me minute, ok?

Can I get that topped up again? Pour it real slow, too – I want to savor this one…

Sinterklaas kapoentje,
Stop wat in mijn schoentje,
Stop wat in mijn laarsje,
Dank je, Sinterklaasje.

A simple little Dutch nursery rhyme sung by Dutch people all over the world at this time of year, for today is Sinterklaas! The day that the great Saint, having anchored his steamboat, brings gifts around to all the good little children who have faithfully put out a pair of shoes (preferably klompen, of course) and a carrot or two for his majestic white steed.

Not to be forgotten is the devoted servant Black Pieter (yes, that’ s so not a 21st century concept. We know. Allow us a little transgression…As a matter of fact, according to Wikipedia, multi-colored Peter’s have been introduced with the explanation that Sinterklaas passed through a rainbow on his journey) who will distribute the pepernooten and taai-taai in his big brown burlap bag (bringing back delightful memories of childhood Sinterklaas celebrations at a local senior’s home, where us kids would scramble all over the hardwood floors collecting pepernooten as fast as our grubby little hands could gather them, all the while desperately avoiding Zwaarte Piet’s (Black Peter’s) big bag which he would stuff you into and haul you off to Spain if you weren’t careful).

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind visiting Spain…maybe I can get free boatfare too…

Oh, to be 8 years old again… if only for a day, for today would be my chosen day.

Not to be all pretentious and petty, but if this blog can play some part in stimulating discussion and illuminating some of the collective challenges we face, it will have been worthwhile.

Hear the words of The Elders of the Hopi Nation, Arizona.

______________________________________________

“You have been telling the people
that this is the Eleventh Hour
Now you must go back and tell the people
that this is THE HOUR. And there are things to be considered:

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
Where is your water?

Know your garden. It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community. And do not look
Outside yourself for the leader. This could be a good time.
There is a River flowing now very fast
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold onto the shore. They will
feel they are being torn apart, and they will
suffer greatly. Know the River has its destination.
The Elders say we must let go of the shore, push off
into the middle of the River. Keep our eyes open
and our head above water
See who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history we are to take nothing personally,
least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do,
our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

Gather yourselves. Banish the word “struggle”
from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

_________________________________________

What are we waiting for?

Why keep a blog? My sister thinks blogs are stupid – why go to the effort of publicizing your thoughts? If people are truly interested, there’s this device called the telephone… and something called “face-to-face communication”… (which our frenzied lives don’t seem to allow time for anymore…)

Garth Turner blogs because he’s an M.P. and what he thinks matters. Ditto for Christopher Bennett, former Green Party of B.C. leader (see my Blogroll for both). Which isn’t to say that only politicians and leaders have reason to blog – far from it. Everybody has something to contribute. The question is, is a blog the forum in which to do it? Many blogs I read don’t seem to have a definite purpose, and as far as I can see, aren’t much more than, “Gee, I have some really profound thoughts that the world should know about.”

Some say blogging is about developing writing ability. To some, it’s a free and convenient soapbox (nothing wrong with that…more people should have one (a soapbox that is, doesn’t have to be a blog) and actually put them to some use. Stick your neck out. Create an intellectual mess. Get yourself burned a few times. Set some wheels in motion. And then listen to the responses you hear coming back. It’ll become second nature).

To others, blogging is simply the easiest, and most efficient, way to stay in touch with friends and family, where you can transcribe a sanitized version of your true self.

Where does mine fall? I think it’s about the sharing of ideas. A way to get some feedback. A measuring stick, if you will. It’s not about who’s dating whom, or that the Canucks lost a nail biter and I’m devastated, or who annoyed me on my drive to university.

As much as my blog is a window into my life, it’s a smörgåsbord of ideas. A palate of possibilities. Yes, it’s a soapbox, but it’s also a tuning fork, a sharpening stone, a vehicle for the mind, an interactive forum. Please, if what you read intrigues you, leave a comment. Put in your two cents. Make your mark. Come back for more. If you’re bored shitless, tell me that too.

In Dutch we have a beautiful saying, which, roughly translated, goes, “The tongue runs over with the contents of the heart.” So, consider this an overflow of my heart – well, as much as I think people want to hear, anyway . Expect lots of internal musings – salmon and streams, community and culture, power and politics, mundanity (my spell check says that’s not a word – if not, it should be) and insanity, the simple and the sublime. If that’s your cup of tea, well, come along for the ride.

The future is ours. Dare to dream. Share your dream. Live your dream.

Wow. Eerie. Thunder rumbles as I ponder my first blog entry at 3:30 a.m. Eerie, too, that I’d want to have a blog of my own. Why on Earth would I want to lay my soul bare for every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a passing interest to goggle at? Am I on a hugely misguided ego trip? Succumbing to the curse of me, myself, and I? Desperately seeking answers and not knowing where to look? Trying to impress a romantic interest?

Crying out to the universe, “I exist!”?

What if the universe replies, “So?” What then?