Taking a Break ~ 1

Educating myself about how to manage epilepsy has been a life long challenge that has become easier over the years. At the Dallas Road dog park this evening, with Jason, my son, and my grand-dogs, Dexter and Eva, we met a young woman with her dog. Not the only dog and owner for Eva to wrestle and play with, this dog was a service dog. Curious, after an appropriate length of conversation, I asked what kind of service dog. Astro, a large slender black mixed breed dog, was an Epilepsy Service Dog and was on his break from work, part of the care for service dogs - some play time.

Seizures, that epilepsy gifts us with, are frightening and potentially fatal events. Controlled and managed, epilepsy can sometimes be lived with reduced anxiety. So here is a shout out to the Victoria Epilepsy Society, now called Headway, where the young woman I met, learned about seizure dogs at a Plane Pull fundraiser a few years ago. She applied to an organization that provides seizure dogs and was accepted. She then had her home and her life style evaluated to see what kind of dog would suit her, and was flown to Ontario for three weeks to be trained with the dog chosen for her. Her opinion of this support for her was so very positive. She spoke of the dog being a calming influence on her, and that her family and boyfriend are more comfortable about her well-being.

This encounter made me realize my good fortune, with discipline and medication, my epilepsy is relatively calmed. Checking the qualifier’s for a seizure dog, I wouldn’t even qualify! But I do qualify for granddogs! (An attempt to gather pictures of them all throughout the years was too many and varied for this tiny page!)

“Questers of the truth, that’s who dogs are; seekers 

after the invisible scent of another’s authentic core.”

~  Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Click on the links below to learn more about service dogs for epilepsy and for other health conditions.

Canada’s Guide to Dogs

Lion’s Foundation of Canada

Author's Note: Edited December 28, 2023

A Meeting of Minds ~ 2

The Victoria Writers Society members and attendees gathered quietly at 7:00 pm on the first Wednesday of October. A  clear night, light downtown traffic yielded to walkers on the sidewalks. The Greater Victoria Public Library quiet, as libraries should be, was dark inside. In the boardroom, writers gathered to listen to a speaker about editing. What it is and what it should look like. Sid Tafler, the evening's speaker had been editor of Victoria’s Monday Magazine from 1988 to 1995, has been a CBC commentator  and continues in his career as a freelance writer and writing consultant. The education that he provided us was not from a book, but from many books, from his own experience and the experiences of others. One editor from the 1950’s that he spoke of, was Max Perkins, editor for Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. Questions and answers drifted back and forth in the small gathering once his talk was finished, education flowing gently through the air. The evening ended at 9:00 pm with coffee, cookies and casual chat about who was working on what and possibilities of editing, self editing and publishing.

“Editing is like pruning the rose bush you thought

was so perfect and beautiful until it overgrew the garden.”

~ Larry Enright

http://victoriawriters.ca

GVPL Central Branch

735 Broughton Street,

Victoria, BC

Author's Note: Edited December 28, 2023

Bricks and Mortar Schooling

Self-education begins before
then slips in between 
layers spread between
Kindergarten and on 
until time to climb out of the books and get to work in the world.  

Waiting for instruction for
an assigment, a test or a grade
becomes second nature
regiments reality and
can dull down innate creativity
but not for the curious and burrowing.

Listening to a teaching
from the individual
at the front of the classroom
in coffee shop chatter
at the water cooler at work
in passing at the grocery store
from anyone in our networks of community
who inspires, educates and informs our lives

Our job is only to 
listen, learn and become educated
about the ways, values and means of our world
adapting them to our own ways, values and means.

Learning morals and ethics
develops slowly and with practice.

“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can, 

there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.”

~ Sarah Caldwell

A Boardwalk to the Sky ~ EDUCATION ~Theme for October 2014

Edifyingly simple
Dexterity of ideas
Ubiquitous
Curiouser and curiouser!
Artistic endeavours.
Travelogues through time and space
Intrique and mystery.
Opening thought and minds
Never-ending.......

“...what you learn today, for no reason at all, will 

help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.”

~ Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

It's Not My Job

It’s not my job
then who’s job is it
in the space between my job and your job
between our job and someone else’s job.
When a job needs doing, 
do we wait, 
simmering with resentment,
until that nebulous someone 
comes in to do what really is only ‘their’ job?

Definitions, schedules,
guidelines, rules and regulations.
Boxes of smoky nothingness.
Expectations and outcomes suffer the outrage of blame
working with people
providing a service
building a foundation
called upon to extend ourselves
outside the box if only for the sake
of helping out that nebulous someone else
collaborating for jobs well done.

Individual recovery may not be my job.
My job to support recovery for individuals
definitely is my job.

“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled

with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare,

social justice can never be attained.”

~ Helen Keller

Recovery Defined

Recovery is
a return to health - physical, emotional, mental and spiritual

Recovery involves 
activity balanced with rest
while holding down a day job, developing a career, going to school, or looking after grandchildren

Recovery is 
personal but cannot be done in isolation.

Recovery spreads 
from heart and soul sprouting
new roots throughout body, mind and relationships

Recovery
takes as long as it takes but only one second at a time.

Recovery is growing and changing ~
simple but definitely not easy 
turning a life gone sour into a life sweet and full.

“Change, like healing, takes time.”

~ Veronica Roth, Allegiant

Growth and Rebirth

An early crunch of leaves
slow drifting from still green trees

trees readying for cooler months
in a cycle of birth and growth and rebirth

Recovery requires a time for growth
after falling from the cycle of active addiction

like drifting leaves
leaving behind a dying tree

being planted in new soil
readying for growth and rebirth.

“Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.”

~ Christina Baldwin