Re-post with addition from Oct. 22, 2012 - A Question of Politics

Politics is a funny thing....
Not an amusing sort of funny, but curious.

Today (Oct. 12, 2012) in Victoria, there was a protest of thousands giving voice to the local grassroots concerns about the Northern Gateway Pipeline.
On tap on TV was the third and final U.S. Presidential debate.  
Topic?  Foreign Policy and all the nuances of two disparate party policies. 

This week of October 2014 in Canada, terrorism came brutally to Ottawa………..

The political layers for both of these sorts of events
weave throughout our societies via
personalities
principles

Where do the layers start ~
At the grassroots and grow up
Or at an economic top and trickle down
What about those folks in the middle who live and work whether
someone wins or someone loses?

Which issues come first ~
personal and daily 
local and scheduled
regional and broader
national on an even broader scale
global and beyond my limited understanding?

And whom do we believe ~
politicians
developers
protesters
media
colleagues
neighbours?

What parts are played by ~
culture
religion
gender
education or illiterate
housed or homeless
illness or health
art, music and literature?

Behind the images and reflections that we are given to look at,
what events have already occurred below the surface?

Curious isn’t it?
I wonder ~  is there a principle to guide all of these things?

“In dwelling, live close to the ground.  In thinking, keep to the simple.

In conflict, be fair and generous.  In governing, don’t try to control.

In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.”

~ Lao Tzu

Author's Note: Edited December 29, 2023

Just A Thought..

Education opens windows and doors.

Teacher and student collaborate on learning.

Ideas and goals blossom and shower the world with creativity.

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two 

chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”

~ C.G.Jung

Repost of: A Letter to Bernie

Hi Bernie,

How are you and what’s it like in the great beyond? If your mom and dad are there with you, please give them my best. I think of you often when I’m at work at Detox. You were one of my very first patients in Chemical Dependency. Later we worked together while you went to Texas Tech and got your Master of Education and following that we worked together again - you as one of the counselor’s and educators, me as one of the nurses.

Two of my favourite memories of you are the first time I took care of you and later on something you shared with us at the treatment center where we both worked.

As my patient you were stubborn and arrogant, unwilling to even look at the types and amounts of pills you were taking. Mention of your dad, just put your back up because you were ‘never going to be like him’. And you weren’t ~ he died of lung disease, but was sober and had been sober for many years. In those early years you knew nothing of relapse, and maybe didn’t really believe it could happen to you. And so, you unfortunately relapsed after a long period of clean and sober time, yet dying of this nasty, horrible disease of active addiction.

We were all so proud of you at the treatment center. In between the time you were my patient and your too early death, we watched you go through a treatment program, graduate university obtaining a Master of Education, and returning to where you had begun your journey - but this time as one of the counselors. That surrounds the second memory. It was your belief, and I concur with you, that all recovered folks in the early years of sobriety are ‘flaming co-dependents’. You worked well with patients and their families bringing them hope and help, directing them to the supports that they required to maintain their lives when they had chosen sobriety.

I was greatly saddened when I learned of your death after all of the work that you put into your recovery and the recovery of others. The manner of your death was so very unfortunate, but the good that you did in the years before your relapse was profound. Just know that lessons you taught me from that beginning stubborn arrogant individual and later on, from the very professional counsellor are still used and shared by this nurse.

Thanks for all that you gave to me and to others,
Take care,
Susan

“Relapse is part of the disease of addiction. It’s something that’s 

going to literally slap them in the face when they walk out the doors.”

~ Nicole Lockhart

Body Awareness

In past essays and muses I’ve talked about the education that one needs to deal with epilepsy. I’ve discussed education from a ‘school’ point of view these past few weeks, and a bit about self education. What I have, I think, failed to mention, is body education. Not a body of education but educating the body! One would think, that once you learn to walk and run, ride a bike, dance, throw a ball there would be no other education needed. Now that I think about it, I’ve merely been adequate at any of those activities learned in my youth. The most regular activity, specifically for my body's health, a yoga/exercise routine for years. The regularity have been intermittent, but in general pretty faithful.

But that is not the point of this post. My skeleton is rather crooked - my spine is the shape of my first initial ‘S’. There is a fancy medical name for that physical oddity - scoliosis. There's much more to that story than I have to talk about tonight. Tonight is about, not just educating, but re-educating the body that, with each year and dare I say, decade, just keeps on reminding me that muscles protest loudly when overworked. This scoliosis thing, besides stamping my back with the letter ‘S’, has created an imbalance in my musculature.

Since I’ve been doing Aquafit, walking so much more and of course doing my yoga/exercise routine I have gotten stronger, more balanced and have slept better. However…… when you’re in the water, doing aerobic exercise for an hour, following the directions of a 40 something man who runs marathons, any muscle that hasn’t kept up with its lessons, stretches too far becomes annoyingly sore and unwilling to respond rapidly.

My own re-education is to try not to keep up to someone 20 years younger and much more fit. But when I do, I seek the services of my very effective massage therapist and slow my pace. Not quit, just walk slower for a bit, get out the Epsom salts for bath and rub on the liniment.

So, what does that all have to do with epilepsy? A tonic/clonic seizure, strains every muscle in a body. Yoga and exercise have positive effects on brain health. Regarding epilepsy, they have provided me with focus, calm, energy and, I believe, supports seizure control. So it is a 'two for one' benefit for my health in general.

“The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense,

a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd.”

 ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Author's note: August 17, 2024

    Extensive revision to provide focus on epilepsy that I neglected to write in the initial writing of this essay.

Educational Cycles

Seeds planted in the fertile soil of a child’s mind and heart.
Gardeners gently till, water and weed tender plants until, growing and spreading on their own,
curious tendrils and branches reach for more sunlight,
soak up nourishing rain
rest with dark seasons.
The child chooses 
which seeds to nurture
which seeds to discard
some seeds are scattered, neglected and remain dormant until….
A new voice, a new teacher appears
opening a door long sealed shut.
The cracked seal peels slowly away
sunlight and rain soften hardened soil of heart and mind.
Blossoms appear as if from nowhere. 
Education begins again.
Student becomes teacher.

“Learned we may be with another man’s learning:

We can only be wise with wisdom of our own.”

~ Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

Movie Review - My Old Lady ~ directed by Israel Horovitz

This delightful story starring Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott Thomas is both comic and tragic as three life stories unwind. Kevin Kline plays a three times divorced, recovered alcoholic and penniless, American man who arrives in Paris to take over the apartment left to him in his father’s will. The resident of the apartment, 92 years old and played by Maggie Smith explains a viager,  a unique way of selling real estate in France. It is this viager that is the entanglement in the story that began before Mathias Gold (Kevin Kline) was born. My Old Lady  unwinds a love story of many years between Matilde Girard (Maggie Smith) and Mathias Gold’s father that began in Paris before either Mathias or Chloe (Matilde’s daughter - played by Kristin Scott Thomas) were born. The early education about family, parent love and relationship that Mathias and Chloe witnessed, is worked out and through in this funny and tearful movie.

“No adultery is bloodless.”

~ Natalia Ginzburg

Now playing at the Odeon Theatre in downtown Victoria.

Opportunity

Education gaps 
at recess time when 
the rules of games 
are taught by children.

Education gaps wide
on the sports field 
with team work and scoring

Education gaps openly
in summer 
without schedules

Education gaps expansively 
to teach life’s other lessons 
without hard covers.

Education gaps ~
opportunities abound.

“For the things we have to learn before we 

can do them, we learn by doing them.”

~ Aristotole, The Nicomachean Ethics