Coming Home to my Community...

Wow.  Good morning.  The universe responds sometimes with such power and clarity that I giggle sometimes at the clear face of its love.

Part I: The Hawk

Today I sit at the doorstep of the rest of my life.  The room I am just leaving is my life until now.  This room has not been all bad, nor has it been all good.  There have been many wonderful gifts that I've been given, many I've indeed given as well, but much that I've taken.  Taken without asking, taken despite being told "no," and taken gently, but taken nonetheless.

I have grown weary of being a taker.

I have chosen to end a relationship of 15 years this past month.  A relationship that has taken much from me, and in turn has caused me to take as much as I could from the people around me, the ones that love me.  This relationship did not feed my spirit nor connect me with the universe around me.  It isolated, caused fear and pain, guilt and shame and wreaked havoc on my relationship with myself, Creator and my family and community.

Community.

I just returned from a trip to the mountains. Two days of love, light and hope.  Even a little ceremony mixed in for good measure.  My spirit was fed, cleansed, embraced and supported.  Now I am home.

Before I left, I wrote on these electronic pages that I would be meeting someone there.  A hawk.  A hawk from the city who had been striving to keep his hawkness for many years. A hawk who has injured some, maybe through thought, action and deed, but never me.  A hawk who has also done very well and helped many people.

I have chosen for many years to not fly in the same circles as this particular hawk. But now, now that I am cleaning my soul, choosing to give instead of take, and walk with pride and authenticity, I have gravitated to some of those circles.

Last week I wrote that the hawk from the city needs, every once in a while, to return to his home, to the verdant fields and grasses waving in the breeze, to the land of the bouncing vole and the timid mouse.  To reconnect, recharge and connect with his centre.  I bore witness to these actions from my hawk friend.

Hawks tend to fly more often than not, so his steps along the mountain, and through the rushing stream were careful and slow.  Fear lined his face as he made his way through the trail.  But he did it...  We did it. We did it together, emerging from the bush stronger for our experience.

As we walked, I had asked him about the things I'd heard that disparaged him, not in a pointed way, but in a gentle way, inviting explanation.  I received this explanation and acquired understanding from his perspective.  Along the way, a beautiful, gentle teacher who happened to be along for the journey, opened her heart and shared wisdom that was hers and straight from the land and from our ancestors.  It was law, as designated and laid down by our Creator.

I saw my friend continue walking and telling his story - one of intrigue and mistrust and misplaced human values, while this gentle teacher behind us, with her truths that emanated from her heart and from the hearts of our shared ancestries, was silenced by my hawk friend and the political bullshit that we were talking about.  I really just wanted to stop and turn, and in fact I did, to learn more of this beautiful teaching that, despite being Indian all my life, I had never heard before.

Maybe he'd heard those teachings before, maybe he is well versed in natural law.  But all I know is that in that setting, in that verdant mountain beauty, to talk of another's errant choices and mistakes and to cast aspersions on the very process that one has spent so much time creating, and to cast blame on others while shining the light of innocence on one's self is a lot like giving Creator the finger - especially while a gentle truth from our ancestry is being shared by a young lady whose gentle truths helped inspire a global movement.

Part II:  Community

Community the word came to us from the French  communité which came to them from the Latin communitas (com = with + munas = gift).  To share gifts.  To share our gifts.  This is what it's all about.

My trip to the mountains saw the coming together of people from many places and walks of life, backgrounds and colours.  Although there was a high number of brothers and sisters from the white race, each of the four races of mankind was represented, due in part to the three colours that dance harmoniously in my blood!) and a single representative from Japan.  Even still, the community that gathered there was not based on race:  It was and is based on love.  On generosity of spirit and deed and on a common vision of a healthier planet and societies based on love, tolerance and understanding.  And on those issues, our racial lines and separation of colour blur into a common shade of spirit.  

"First we are spirit..." said my late mom once at a gathering that was threatening to erupt into flames of hatred and jealousy and anger.

"...then we are man or woman, then we are our race, then we are our communities and families... but first, we are spirit."

The words and ideas and hopes and dreams of a better tomorrow danced around the flames of our sacred fire and among the tendrils of smoke from our smudge and as we shared our hearts and the gifts of our minds and broke bread together, we became spirit.

I met many incredible people.

I met a woman who danced with a wolf in order to protect her beloved pet and in that dance, shared maternal protective instinct that the mother wolf likely recognized and respected.

I met another woman who brings her heart day in and day out helping people in a world that is often thankless and cold - who sat next to me on the way to the mountain while I cried for a child who had to grow up too quickly.

I met a man who made much money helping others make money and save money and invest money and hide money and who now devotes his time to helping people on their journeys and engaging in spiritual improvement..

I met many healers; I met people with the gift of song, with the gift of beauty, with the gift of perseverance... With many gifts. 

I met a woman who has become the change she wants to see in the world - by gently severing her ties that bind her to the worship of legal tender and instead, invests her energies into those things based on spiritual capital or real capital - like food, shelter, love, hope, and so forth.

I met a man who, despite being playful like a child, has seen the enemy and his ways, knows them inside and out, and who can see the light that shines on the other side of a crumbled Wall Street.

What joy there is in being part of a community that gives. That feels.  That sings together. That prays together.  That loves together. 

I heard so many stories in such a short time.  I was sad to leave. 

Part III: Connection and Re-connection

These two days since have rattled me to the core.  I tried yesterday to contact some of the participants for continuation of our discussions.  No emails back yet, no returned calls.  Despite the feeling that my life hinges in the balance of these discussions, I am having to surrender this fear and this frustration.  It is hard.  We are all busy.  

We talked in the circle of how do we sustain this; how do we keep from feeling isolated and alone after we leave here; how do we continue this work in our homes and communities with the strength of the circle?

And now we all sit in our homes and communities, maybe some wondering as me, maybe some grieving as me.

I called a family member yesterday; one who has worked closely with hawks.  I retold the story I'd heard in the mountains. The one of best intentions gone awry.  The one that showed no culpability or responsibility for the permutations and political realignments that have plagued our community.  The one that cast blame on situations and individuals and inescapable truths.

My relative said, "Bullshit."

"He lied to your face."

This hurts.  But what can I do?  

Have a little faith.

I want to work in our community - to help others.  To achieve a level of comfort for my family and to help others accomplish the same for theirs.  There are institutions that have been built with the hope and the vision and the theoretical tools to do these things.

They sit right now, unused and in need of repair - of realignment, of restaffing.  Maybe when the time comes, I will be needed there.  Maybe they will resist a bear like me in the arena of hawks and wolves and foxes and frogs. Maybe they'll welcome me with open arms.  Like most human endeavour, I'm sure it'll be a little of both if the time does indeed come.  

I brought home one task for our circle which will lead to closer connection.  Today I will complete this task and I'm certain I will feel the embrace of the circle again.

Part IV:  Conclusion - Coming Home

Sometimes in our families and our communities, we yearn for acceptance and love.  Or maybe we think it's love, when really it's just approval.  Anyways, we jump and dance, and smile and sing and do everything we can to get that pat on the head, that validation and the feelings of safety and security that come from that.

We spend all our time looking in one place, and in doing so, we miss the love that the universe shares with us from all the other places and sources in our lives.  We become so focused on the one that we miss the many.  We can't feel the beauty and inspiration of the forest for the one or two trees that block our view.

I sat and prayed in the tub this morning.  Revelation is gift I usually receive when I do this.  (I'm a Pisces which is a beautiful set of character traits that derive their power from water)

Pisces:  We are mutable but framed in love, inspiration, heart and creativity and love of food.  Well, that last one, maybe not so much...

Anyways, the revelation that greeted me is that community is many things.  Part of my struggle is that I am working to change my stars as they say, and create a life that is based on sustainability, heart work, love and protecting and celebrating culture, diversity and the earth.

There are not too many jobs out there with these things as a combined description.  So I must do it myself, but within the context of my community.

I have on my Facebook a job description that says "CEO, Living Earth Inc."...  This is a vestige of an idea from some months ago that started out great, but after consulting a non-Aboriginal, driven and ambitious business consultant, thought better of doing something, as he said, "...with a lot of risk and not much reward."

I concurred, not realizing that our concept of reward was very different.

Yesterday I get a message from a media representative wanting to interview me for "my role as CEO of Living Earth Inc."...

Oops.

Holy Shit!  I have to get to work now...  

I will start here at home.  I don't have to dance with the hawks and the menagerie in the city to the west of me right now.  That will happen soon enough.  And I will dance with sure steps, strong and with the rhythm of the earth.  But for now, I will start here.  

I live in Sherwood Park, which I say with a little pride whenever people ask where I live.  What I don't always say is that I live in a co-op in Sherwood Park, renting, not with a $500K mortgage (which is from the Latin "mortus" for death, and "gage" from Old Germanic for "pledge."  mortgage = Death pledge)  I really don't think I want one of those.

If Sherwood Park is sometimes perceived as the elite, as the Joneses that we strive to keep up with, surely our Davidson Creek Co-Op might be perceived as being on the other side of the tracks.

But the Co-op sometimes doesn't feel like one.  Petty differences, grievances, many of them our own; suspicion, fear, uncertainties...  These are things that I feel sometimes when I regard my own home here in the park.  Now I have some acquaintances, and all the kids love me, but really.  I mean, my neighbour and I shared a beer for the first time last week in 6.5 years of living here.  Six and a half years!  Funny.

That's actually a story for another day.

But I want to work at building community here.  Sharing our gifts in the truest sense.

Start here. Not running to some poor First Nation and trying some out of the box social science experiment - right here at home.  I told my wife I wanted to go to the next community meeting and she said "why?", with more than a little trepidation in her eyes.  She knows I like to volunteer and take things on, and seek approval and... and, and...  so on and so on.   She knows that historically I have done this, in many circles, begin to move too fast, and then implode in a fit of bad decisions, procrastination, self effacing thoughts and ultimately to addictive behaviours.

Not this time my love. Not this time.

In my bath today, I was thinking about this guy who I admire.  He's kind of a hawk too I think.  But he started by rolling up his sleeves and stepping into one of the toughest neighbourhoods in the world and began building community.  His work was heart inspired and tireless.  And he brought it.  Day after day, he brought it.

He put on his rubber boots and walked through shit and backlash, through suspicion and racist ideals, and still he brought it.

He wasn't perfect, and still isn't, but he's in the world's most powerful chair, making decisions that shape our very lives, and it all started by building community.

So I will put on my moccasins (or rubber boots) and walk as tenderly and authentically as I can, and ask for help along the way.  I will try not to cast aspersions on another or commit violence against another, and I will not always be successful (even today I took out my anxiety and frustration from my current financial state on someone I love dearly, even before the sun had really risen - Sorry S.).  I will atone when I must and work my hardest to be kinder and more open to suggestions and criticism in the future.

Progress, not perfection.

We are all children of God, and, as such, are all sacred.  We must embrace that sacredness and celebrate our similarities and work to find common ground among our differences.

Ekosi,

With love,
S.

Epilogue:  The Hawk

The hawk is my teacher.  This reprise (from the French "reprendre" = to take back) or theme is a significant one.  The hawk is a messenger.  He tells us when there is healing happening.  Where he circles and flies, there is healing afoot.  I love the hawk as I love all my brothers and sisters.  

Our ways are different but the same.  They complement each other.  The bear with the hawkish ways or the hawk with bear-like traits.  And all the clans in between.  We dance together. We are all one in the same:  Spirit first, then hearts, which are stronger when broken, then bodies that must be fed, clothed and housed.  

No one's work is perfect, but we are stronger together and our chance at perfection lies in the possibility of accepting our neighbour as equally and unequivocally as we accept ourselves and respecting their right to express themselves and feel an integral part of an open, honest and healing community.

xox.

S.

Treating myself thusly

Henry David Thoreau, who left the world we tend to think is the "real world", for a couple of years to live at Walden Pond, kinda figured it out.  He rose even before sunrise, tended his wild gardens, observed his neighbours - the mice and the gannets and the deer and the white cherry and so on and so on - and drew correct conclusions about exactly what was the "real world" after all.

He wrote: "The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruit, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling.  Yet we do not treat ourselves, nor one another, thus tenderly."

True that my homies would say.

Today is about the 20th day or so that I have been clean from crack cocaine.  It feels like my twisted, painful dance with that shit has reached its final turn.

My body feels great.  My lungs clear and full with no cigarette shmegma crawling up my bronchi.  My muscles ache from being used occasionally - the good ache, that is - and my digestive system is responding well to this transition to more vegetables, whole grains and less meat.

Life is good.

I feel this amazing bloom occurring within my frame of reference, from behind my eyes and as the silent witness to my own actions.  I am touched to no end by this flower of truth and beauty that is become a part of my life.

To ensure it does not wither or go to seed is my task now.

Last weekend my wife and I were fighting a bit.  Nothing too serious.  Just echoes of guilt and resentment from my behaviours of so many years and mistrust at my continued efforts.  I left.  Saturday morning, I packed up my fishing rod and knife and leftover pizza, even some leftover bait minnows I had in the freezer, and I left.

I went to the land that has been the source of so much anxiety these last few weeks.  Land that my late mom walked and rediscovered her beauty and spiritual connection to the earth.  Land that my friend and colleague wants to turn into a discovery centre, a cultural centre.  Land with with I have started planting roots and laying hopes upon.

I sat there with the osprey, the red tailed hawk, the chipmunk, the goldeye, the squirrel and the ducks... even with a four foot garter snake who crossed the river to hunt in the fallen tree beside which I sat.

Nearly eight hours I sat there, smudge pot burning strongly, echoes of my mom, who once sat at that same spot, bouncing off the walls of the river valley.

I sat there and reclaimed my centre.

I didn't run and hide, I didn't prescribe instant gratification from a little baggie...  I sat and caught nothing for nearly 8 hours.

This filled me with pride and love and I came home, much to the surprise of my family, and was the better man for my choice.

Today I am going to the mountains, to sit in a circle of progressive thinkers...  and of politicians and of new agey lovers of the world.

I am a little closer to the centre of my being, to my connection to God than I've been for a long time, and I pray today that I conduct myself with respect, love and forgiveness so as to not cloud the possibilities of this gathering with petty jealousies and the like.

There is a man who will be there who has injured and hurt people in my circle.  He has worked very hard to establish a strong following, and a solid perch in this city from where he can build an empire.  He wrote once about a red tailed hawk, how even in the city it still was a red tailed hawk.  It didn't need to be in the bush to retain its hawkness.

I agree.

But I also think, that every once in a while, one has to come down from the glass pyramid to be among the grasses and trees, chase a mouse or two and feel the wind in his wings to remember what it truly means to be a hawk.

Ekosi.
S.

Round and Round...

The world is round.  So said my Hutterite friend last summer*.  So said I to my Polish friend last week.  Good things happen; bad things happen.  Things happen.  Things happen to us.  We make things happen.  When we struggle, things become difficult.  Generally, when we run with the rhythm of life, in the current of positive thought and deed, good happenings occur easily.

I'm trapped somewhere between the world of sinner and saint, closer to sinner by far, and in this lonesome stretch of highway, there seems to be a lull in the proceedings.  At least in the things that I "want" to fall into my world.  Like about $10 grand to dig my way out of the stressful hole that I slowly but methodically dug these past few months/years...

I'm online today, seeking out career changes, educational opportunities, even work opportunities...  Stressing over fines and bills and "stuff" and bullshit.  Worried about the future, when really..  Really, the only work I have before me today is to not pick up dope.

And to not worry about setting my net for jobs and income when I still have fish to clean from my last catch.
Everything will come when it is supposed to.  Just keep my side of the street clean.

My heart beats harder at this realization.  The tears well up.  They call this "surrender"...A ti me rindo.  "To you I rend."

Letting go of the panicky hustle I have conditioned myself to do and just doing what's in front of me.

(sigh)...

Ok..  For now this will have to do.

Right now I have hungry kids in front of me!
xox.
S.






*Piscescree Blogspot - "It's Always Something," April 2013

First Things First...

I have to write.  I just have to.  At least I think I do.  It's because I think all the fucking time.  Too much.  What was, what could have been, what should have been, what will be...  blah, blah, blah... My brain creates visions, and then it makes connections between them and the next thing.  On and on.  

And in doing all this thinking, I am expending some degree of energy.  Very little energy, but some energy nonetheless.  And my brain, drug addled and self obsessed though it may be, perceives this endless brainbabble  as actually doing the thing I am thinking about.

I sense that this hearkens back to my childhood when a trip to Disneyland was out of the fucking question, or even a video game console or some such thing. My mind would create such strong imagery - experiencing the world through PBS and Encyclopedia Brittanica.  I would build these complex universes - like a post apocalyptic preteen mountain lifestyle where the nukes would fly and I would have time to commit a B & E at the Pioneer sporting goods store next to the Bakery and IGA on the hill (Hintonites know of which I speak) and take to the wilderness with plenty of guns, ammo, snare wire and dehydrated stroganoff.

There was a certain solace in knowing that I could succeed in this world - a world of bears and deer, trout and weather and solitude.  That perhaps one of the sweet girls I admired at Mountainview Elementary or Overlander Junior High would see my survival talents and come live in my cabin and we would procreate and eat wondrous meals and hibernate away from the nuclear winter that was sure to come.  

This was a far better reality than the one I was experiencing.  I did not feel worthy of anything special or nice or wondrous.  Much of this came from me not wanting to impose anything further on my mom, who, bless her heart, did the level best she could with what she had at the time.  So my "not asking for anything" was a little bit that I could do to be small and less of a burden.

I lived instead in my mind.  In the books that I spent hours with.  

This kind of escapist thought became my reprieve. 

It has now become my deepest weakness.

These thoughts continue.  Imagining what I will do, and doing nothing of the sort.  The thoughts include several things that are related to my achieving my own self respect.  Things like working on the relationships with my sons, long absent from my life; strengthening my financial situation, staying sober, etc.  All the wreckage from 30 years of pretty much being high, drunk, self obsessed or draped in lies. 

I picture the time spent on these precious tasks, see the sun and rain and all the details in between, and the rainbow at the end, all in a matter of seconds, and my feelings seem to evolve as though I've actually done it.

This is fucked.

Fucked because I imagine all these character building exercises and imagine that I've become the character that they've built.

Then carry this zhǐlǎohǔ or  紙老虎 or paper tiger of personality shift around like a plastic dollar store police badge of accomplishment.

I can't continue this any longer.  I am 42 not 12.  I can not keep building escapist cabins in the bush and feeling like I'm Grizzly Adams when I am trapped in a suburban crackhead nightmare of bullshittery and strained talents.

I paint pictures that are pretty black and white, but the reality is that there are moments of clarity, moments of truth that I do walk through.  Too few though. 

I need more.  

I have a feeling that these incessant thoughts need to be exposed and shown the light of day lest they continue to commit perjury in the psychic court of my life.

Perhaps they can live here in this little homely blog.  

...

I speak of these things today because I have been spending a lot of time writing the next chapter of my life in my mind.  Imagining my way out of this nonsense and into the next phase of wellness, growth, sobriety, career fulfillment, etc...   It has become a bit of a din, (or is that djinn?)

This transitional thinking hedges on being a "plan for recovery and healing" but mostly it is a creatively visualized reality that resonates like my nuclear hermit plan from my childhood.  Real tween the ears but nowhere else.

As such, I sense myself going through the mock changes, see the physical changes in my appearance from working out every day, sense the integrity and honesty taking root in my consciousness, my sense of self becoming humble, kind, real and firmly ensconced in a sustainable home we've built ourselves, with me in the garden, or polishing solar panels, fit and brown and handsome as all get out. 

So I paint a picture out of the madness into a sane and respectable life, look at it for a few minutes, commit to "do the work."  Maybe even put in a few days towards the goalposts...  Then, quietly, like a thief in the night, my penchant for the silky stroke of the pipe comes stealing into my thoughts.  

Poof.

Gone.

Back to the drawing board, square one, whatever you want to call it.

I have been recently obsessing about my current situation, financial, spiritual, career wise, all of the above.  Trying to duct tape and band aid and shuck and jive my way to the path to enlightenment and truth, sobriety and respect.

Looking at consolidation loans, career changes, geographical changes, whatever. Madly trying to fix what I've broke;  what has been broken for so long.

Fuck it.

I have all the tools right here right now.  Within my arms' reach; within the scope of my imaginings and the frame of my doings.  I just need to get out of my own way.

"I suffer from figureitoutism," says a dear friend of mine.  

Me too Al.

Let the brain exercise here on the keys when it starts to get noisy in there...  When I start conjecturing and posturing and reaping the spoils of my imagined efforts.  

Just do what's in front of you says I to me.  First things first, the rest will come when it's sposed to.

Unless God went and left when I was out chasing my tail.  Though I'm pretty sure the Universal Love that I call God doesn't leave.  Never.  I just turn away every now and again perhaps because I don't feel worth the love that flows so freely.

Anyways, that's a story for another day.

xox
S.

I'm just not sure...

So I am grabbing the keys for the first time in several months.  My heart is jabbering away in my chest - worried, excited, nervous...  Just fibrillating away, making me feel out of breath.  Just because I'm asking it to feel.  I was fine a few minutes ago, until I read some of my writing and saw the beauty and compassion and wit and love.  Then I figured I better write again; loosen up a bit.  Get ready for this next stage.

And now I'm fibrillating.

Could be the Ritalin that I've decided to stop.  Funny, forty-two years of unmedicated lunacy and then the diagnosis and subsequent prescription.  I spose I haven't given it a proper chance though:  I've been using consistently.  I thought that perhaps my frequent disappearances were because my mind needed a break from the constant high level thinking I was doing (insert sardonic grin here).  Saw the parallels in ADD symptom and my behaviour and sought to bridge the gaps, synaptic that is, with legal psychoactive medications.

Bullshit.

I like crack.  I like the way it tastes and I like the first few hits.  Period.  No romantic psychobabble or esoteric interpretations.  If I was a dog, I would probably lick my balls too.  I have, since the earliest memories, overdone those things that bring me pleasure.  (interpret how you see fit)  And the natural progression of this behaviour has led me to the street and to the devil's dick. (a slang for a crack pipe)

15 years.  15 fucking years of using.  All the while, perpetuating some kind of weak illusion of being a smart, sensitive Indian man with traditional values and compassion.

How compassionate is it to pawn my son's spiderman fishing rod?

These behaviours do not define me.  I am more than this deluded thinking and acting would have one believe.  But if I keep doing it, keep perpetuating the lies and self destructive act, I am this in toto.

These words today are scattered, jabbering.... a little disconnected.  So am I.  All over the fucking map.  I have been thinking so much of what I should do, what I should have done, could have done.  Thinking all the while of what I could be doing right now that is conducive to my recovery, to my family's and my health.  Doing it a little bit and then jumping off the fucking deep end again.

This is my start.  Again.  A first stab at self awareness and liberating the convoluted thinking and feelings that cram my heart and mind like so many peanut can snakes.

I don't want to hurt the ones I love anymore.  I can see a way out of the misery, pain, fear and suffering.  It starts with honesty.  I will do my best.
Love to all,
even me.
S.