Back in Time in a Moment

This morning, as I sit on my patio in the sun and write in my journal, check my calendar and write a few more lines of my writing project, I feel focussed and solitary ~ not alone ~ but a oneness with this pen as it flows along my page. No other task that must be done in the moment but feeding the page with each word. A small spoonful at a time until I am filled up and so is each small page. I remember this feeling from the farmhouse kitchen when mom was busy with mom kinds of things, brothers and sisters were out doing whatever brothers and sisters do, and dad was doing dad kinds of things. 

In that farm kitchen I was designing beautiful ball gowns of paper, colored with crayons for beautiful models made of paper.  It’s as though, for a moment and maybe forever, I will have connected with that young soul who is timeless on the page in the sunshine.

Any difference is only in surroundings. From the summer prairies to the summer west coast island patio. Praire birds of meadow larks and kildeers  replaced by seagulls and humming birds at this western edge. Broad colourful patchwork fields of  flax, wheat and canola whispering in summer winds replaced by stands of Garry oaks with tall grasses set away from the ocean that ruffles the shoreline. Wild saskatoon berries among wild roses in community pastures replaced by wild blackberries winding through alleys, along fences and sidewalks. 

But my soul, hidden for so long from my own sight, is unchanged and yet has grown slowly while I have moved through each phase and place of my life. I have sighed my own sigh today feeling this satisfying reconnection with the little girl cutting, colouring and playing.

“Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.”

~ Walt Whitman

Re-post - Flying Free

Happy endings are possible
Tragedy and death is not the only outcome
There are songs of blue skies not dark skies.

Back to school
Off to work
Raise a family
Learn a trade or profession
Expand education
Participate in and support community

At the beginning
the word ‘addiction’ sinks like a stone 
into a heart broken, beaten or bruised
in great waves shame and sadness
when the meaning is in no doubt.

Years of detox and treatment
all for the others and the others and the others
at least has gathered bits here and there
knowledge
connections
health

Is it easy? Not so much ~
shedding habits and friends
like skin that has clung too long
finding new habits and new friends
feeling lost and alone
clarity of thought a frightening stranger.

Can it be done?
Sure thing - change occurs
at different paces over time.
with commitment
with intention
full consequences of living differently dawns slowly

“Since we cannot change reality, let us

change the eyes which see reality.”

~ Nikos Kazantzakis

From the Inside Out

Health care systems have long time workers, professionals in medicine, nursing and social work, staff that work beside them to direct and redirect care ~ workers working with mops, hammers and drills ~

entry through swinging doors into this insulated managed world melts into an isolated disconnected world, surrounded by a latticed mirage, innocently scaled from the inside and then scaled again from the outside seeing the world from this inside out
believing that family, friends and neighbours are no different,
finding the sameness without labels or slots......no numbers......no diagnoses that live among all the people who are people.

“The people who live everywhere are the same as those who live nowhere.”

~ Vikrant Parsal

Finding a Child

There is a spot in the heart of us all

that harkens back to Kick the Can,
to crayolas and paper and scissors,
disconnected and faded by being ‘adult’.

Reconnect with that long lost and far away child, find new games, wandering journeys to take outside of the shoulds, the musts and time crunching blocks to climb trees and build castles of sand.

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” 

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

A Different Kind of Busyness

It was a different kind of busyness today,
the connections were not the face to face kind of Detox,
and not only the voices of men or women with active addiction or alcoholism.
Assertive voices stepping through the wires, 
referrals through electronic magic of computers and fax machines,
but the desperate requests for care and hands reaching for help had another difference ~ 
Some of voices at the other end of wires carrying tired tones and polite words were a sibling, aunt or uncle, counselors and caseworkers ~ 
all accepting and advocating for an individual 
seeking for respite and freedom from active addiction.

“Accept me for my strength. Love me for my weakness.

Be there for the good and the bad. Remember, I will 

never be who you want me to become - I am who I am.

~ Nishan Panwar

Discussing Connections

Collaborative
Opportunities
Naturally
Nurture
Exciting
Challenges
That
Inform
Our 
Nascent
Spirit

“I think it is in collaboration that the nature of art is revealed.”

~ Steve Lacy

A Gentle Evening ~ 2

Walking in the quiet evening around Cook Street Village
there is music all around, spreading through cool summer air from the Symphony Splash at the Inner Harbour ~
And now I hear plaintive bagpipes playing ~
A sound that I love and that connects my heart to some distant longing ~
And now a choir, their voices full and strong

musical messengers through trees and grasses

to strolling lovers and families in far flung Beacon Hill Park.

The evening shivers with the classical melodies in the air

while fireworks spread coloured notes high over the water.

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, 

flight to the imagination and life to everything.”

~ Plato

Symphony Splash is an annual event with the Victoria Symphony held the first weekend in August each year. On stage on the water at the Inner Harbour in Victoria, it closes with a grand musical finale and fireworks.