Keep Watch

Possibilities are filled with honesty
When grounded in facts, reality and integrity.

If facts have been twisted or bent
Possibilities become limited

If reality has been polished with pretty words
Possibilities become narrow

If integrity has gone up in smoke
Possibities are seen through the haze.

Possibilities are filled with honesty
When accompanied by healthy principles

“Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, 

wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.”

~ Idries Shah, Reflections

Ready

Integrity challenges the status quo ~

Yet status quo is so comfortable!

Like favourite sloppy old slippers 

Soft and warm

Kept under the bed

Integrity challenges the status quo

Standing ready in sensible shoes

Always out of style yet

Polished and unapologetic

Kept ready at the door.

Integrity challenges the status quo

Well worn and worn well

Becomes a principled norm

Never completely comfortable

Always ready to step from the heart.

“I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.”

~ Lillian Hellman

A Principle Guide

Conscience settles in each moment

Waiting patiently 

Individual will

Pushed and pulled

Peer pressures whirling

Buffeting our souls

Conscience settles in each moment

Ready to steer the course

Between shoals and islands

Rocks and rapids

Through stagnant waters

Keeping our souls true

Conscience settles in each moment

Ready to point the way

Across open prairies and plains

Down country roads

Through villages and towns

Steadying our hands on the wheel

Conscience settles in each moment

Ready to light the way

Up steep inclines, over rocky crags

Traversing valleys and into foothills

Through forests and meadows

Keeping our footsteps sure.

“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”

~ Leo Tolstoy

Choosing our Resources

Natural resources are deep within each of us
deep within the earth we share
Extracting them
Digging them out
Letting them rise to the surface
Floating them out
Breathing them in
Separating and sorting them
Choices for which to excavate
Based on
Prestige
Money
Power
Creativity
Or all of the above ~
Whether our planet or our hearts
The principles are the same

“We’re in a giant car heading towards a brick wall 

and everyone’s arguing over where they’re going to sit.”

~ David Suzuki

Nursing Against Stigma

Intuition whispers goals and dreams. Such a lovely sentiment, and one that describes the center of a passionate belief. A belief that may or may not blossom into change. For me, that change has been reflected only in my personal nursing career. My disappointment is that I haven't known how to take this belief out of my personal career. I believe it is an idea that could affect nurses in their comfort and ability to do their jobs.

Missing from my career is the development of this principle in a much deeper sense. My career was born in hospitals where I continued for twenty years. I floated from unit to unit, hospital to hospital. Besides illness, recovery and death there was one condition becoming increasingly obvious. Active addiction. Alcohol. Prescription drugs. Illicit drugs. And many, many combinations. For the last 19 years I have worked in detox facilities in the critical area of withdrawal management. The beginning of recovery.

Now, towards the end of my career, that intuitive thought - that kernel of an idea - has never gone away. My belief has never diminished. Those with alcoholism are living longer, yet with more severe medical effects. Those with drug addiction are susceptible to more and more powerful drugs. More simply, anyone - any age - any gender - any economic bracket - anyone affected at even the lowest levels by drugs and/or alcohol will be in the care of a nurse. Nurses in any area of our health care systems, focused on the individual, their needs and their abilities, can support that very important part of recovery. The beginning. Just as we support the recovery of those with heart conditions, cancer, diabetes and epilepsy - other ‘socially acceptable’ conditions and diseases. 

Nurses have replaced their stethoscopes and manual blood pressure machines with digital up to date machines that record more than just blood pressure. Today, to the best of my ability, I practice my patient care with the intuitive belief residing in my heart that nurses, and the education about basic health they provide in times of illness, are an incredibly important key for addictions care.

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

~ Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

Defying Gravity

City lights wink on
outlining streets and avenues
over mountains and water
dusk settles and is still,
a thin gauzy mist of peaches 

and cream floats gently over 

a textured horizon ~
shining silver plane banks
and into early evening
to defy the principle of gravity

“Every arrow that flies feels the pull of the earth.”

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Author's note: Edited February 3, 2024

Twilight

Sun slows and softens behind thickening gray sky,

islands quiet as we pass

 Guardians of silence

My face cool, damp and smiling.

“….that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself.”

~ Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility