A Historic Birthday Greeting

Today would have been his birthday

His 106th birthday ~

which may not have impressed him.

Would he have been impressed with this blog?

It is part of the message that is the medium - or is it?

No - it’s only a tiny part of the medium that is the message.

The blogosphere as a word did not exist

not even in 1980 at Marshall’s passing!

This World Wide Webbing universe 

weaves and flows all around and through

our lives and our work and our growing

never ending and always sprouting up and out

So Marshall would expand his philosophy about this 

age of electronics that he postulated so long ago

from giant computers to desktops and laptops 

to tablets and ipads and iphones, 

androids and smartphones carrying

incredible communities of electronics growing connections

so vast and abundant that my little blog is a pinpoint

like one star in the sky - not that I think I’ve designed a star

just that each Facebook page, each Google page, the Instagrams 

and Twittering tweets and My Space, and your space and 

any space that can be designed twinkle and sparkle 

from glowing rectangles tiny and held in your hands 

to walls covered in screens

to inflatable screens in parks and backyards ~

Would Marshall have been impressed?

“We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us.”

~ Marshall McLuhan

Until

Learning is like climbing a ladder 

rolling over in our crib

pulling ourselves up by the bars

clambering up stairs

without fear of falling

until we do

and then we climb up again

or fall asleep on the stairs

until it’s time to climb again

up over rocks and roots and fences

coming home with torn and bloodied jeans 

crying and wanting to give up

until curiosity wipes my tears and whispers

that there’s something out there I need to know

to answer why

to figure it out

to work out the puzzle

until homework gets boring but story is exciting

in movies and you-tube and video and books

then policy and practice and procedure

answering why

figuring it out

puzzling and working

until steps up into another world

of learning to feel abundance at home,

in our gardens and parks,

sidewalks and streets

until one rung at a time

hands gripping the stringers
we are almost at the top of the ladder…

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most 

undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”

~ Richard Feynman, physicist

Firestorm in Two Parts

Dense, abundant greenery spreads roots deep, in soil tossed, turned and packed by ancestors and ages,

massive oaks and scrubbly brush intertwined with edges of tiny flowers and frail wild orchids, ferns pluming into 

underbrush, nestled proudly beside the fallen, along paths made by 

communities of animals and man

all growing up to the sun that forever

spreads through blue skies, filters of thinning clouds,

banks of thickening, billowing dark clouds

white streaks hinting at electric storms to come with wild winds, 

slashing rain unable to quench wild fires that leap and burn.

                             ~~~~~

Epilepsy, unchecked and unnoticed, 

brings it’s own firestorm with little warning

electric misfires deep in soft brain jelly.

Hot spots never extinguished

merely dimmed down, dumbed down

by medication and meditation

by sleeping and waking 

by stepping forward and settling back

with time that grows ever longer

Epilepsy burrows under 

the giant ancestors, the tiniest flowers,

the most gracious ferns

to erupt in a firestorm of sparks, flames, and

destruction ~ Epilepsy spreads like wildfire, 

but only if fuel is there to burn ~ Where is the fuel?

What is the fuel? Could only I find what fuelled my epilepsy?

Was that seed of destruction my fault?

Were the seizures that boomed and cracked my fault?

NO! 

Merely an extra special responsibility

mine to mold, to develop and to refine

in firm kindness and genuine respect of

my life with this unwelcome guest.

Epilepsy is the seed that spreads weeds unless

my health and my ego is taught how to behave

Even so there are some whose epilepsy 

is more unruly

more unpredictable

more fiery with hot spots so hot

and hard to handle despite keeping 

faith with the rigours of health and happiness.

 ~ I have grown unfamiliar with

unpredictability every day.

Now I only know my epilepsy as 

dimmed down and dumbed down

so I can live and can love without fear.

“I can hear your whisper and distant mutter. 

I can smell your damp on the breeze and 

in the sky I see the halo of your violence. 

Storm I know you are coming.”

~ Robert Fanney, author

Author's note: Edited July 19, 2024

                        August 06, 2024 - Previously titled Firestorm - #3

In the Tent

My attempt at a bit of Slam Poetry:

In the Tent

in the park overlooking Fisherman's Wharf, Poets of the Spoken Word

entertained a motley crowd of the many while their words environmental and relational 

punched and massaged the cooling evening air, cold sea breezes riffled through from the wide open, we were wrapped in sweaters and blankets applauding and snapping fingers braving the cold to youthful wisdom, blunted anger or hopeful memory, abundant thoughts rolling into abundant words.

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought

 and the thought has found words.”

~ Robert Frost

Check out their Facebook page:  (Poetry) Slam by the Sea

Drift

Drifting thoughts tonight ~

Thoughts of depth or creativity float in the abundance of the deep, distant and barely visible quiet and waiting…..

waiting for sleep

“Where does a thought go when it’s forgotten?”

~ Sigmund Freud

Butterflies, Dragonflies and Ballet

It was a lovely afternoon. My plans for the day were to enjoy my home and be fully content. To write, to read and to have a quiet day. Then an invitation to join a friend for a Romp in the Park intrigued me. A Romp? Had I looked online, I would have been sceptical about ballet in the park, but I didn’t look. I welcomed the invitation which, after a couple of emails, expanded to the coffee shop first, the Romp activity and then to Big Wheel for a burger.

Cameron Bandshell in Beacon Hill Park was bathed in sunshine streaming between the tall Douglas firs. The abundant seating of  green painted benches created a woodland amphitheater. Great blue herons are the first to arrive - actually we were invading their living room! They have their nests and noisy young in the highest branches. Spectators of all ages streamed in to watch the dancers from as far away as South Korea and from Guelph, Ontario. Dancers from Ballet Victoria completed the performers. (Did I mention dogs in the audience of all sizes, all seeking the shade?)

For the next hour we were entertained by the grace and agility of the beautiful dancers. Contemporary dance, ballet, jazz and tap kept me tapping and swaying. From Swan Lake to Jazz dance in ballet our attention didn’t deviate. Except to watch the children that attempted their own form of ballet, to look up in the trees when the herons squawked, and to see the dragonflies and butterflies that danced over the crowd. 

Victoria’s own, Suddenly Dance Theatre is a charitable non-profit society. The ROMP Festival is a free two week program held annually in the summer, bringing dance and ballet to outdoor audiences. This was the 20th year of this wonderful experience.

“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair……”

~ Susan Polis Schutz, author

https://www.suddenlydance.ca

Birthday Presence

Nonsense is good

Nonsense is fun

Nonsense in abundance

is shared and never spared

Birthday dinners are excellent!

“Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, 

and to have her nonsense respected.”

~ Charles Lamb, The Life, Letters and Writings of Charles Lamb