now history

his vision inspired people basking in the gravy shadows of enlightenment.

emergent hippy peace infiltrated  macho state dynamics.

military action shifted (a tad).

to celebrate, a nation etched his words under a gunned guy glued to rock:

and said yay, we support peaceful force!

and decided to do more force of the peaceful variant.

if you’re canadian, it’s in your genes to be nice.

but, you still hold a gun.

and you shoot it once in a while

offer your head on a platter to the ideal of

force

(and if it’s not your head it’s your neighbour’s or someone else who’s a couple degrees of separation from you)

define force:

physical action. threat of violence.

back in Pearson’s day, peacekeeping

threat of force,

(an added layer of thought, contemplation, responsibility

was added prior to the task of point…shoot…

kill).

And this was

(was)

progressive. radical.

cool. all good. threats and warning prior to kill are better than just naked force. now–

time to move forward.  next.

!

a new paradigm of peace:

drop the force.

well, drop the gun and physical force.

replace with this definition of force:

mental or moral strength, power.

wait, we’re doing that with cida non-profits…development initiatives.

time for one notch up cuz

forceful peace

only leads to more conflict

(cuz i don’t know about you but when i’m sipping on a latte or crossing the street, a gun doesn’t imbued freedom from disturbance. it’s a constant threat of disturbance, or an assumption that there is something to fear that will disturb, which is all the same thing)

time to jump out of the scope of morality and fear

(in the world of morality things are good and bad, black and white,

and we’re all a grey shadowed crew

my life your country me you us

and across the way

balanced feminine energy waits for her eggs to hatch

(‘Maman, the giant egg-carrying spider, is a nurturing and protective symbol of fertility and motherhood, shelter and the home.  With its monumental and terrifying scale, however, Maman also betrays this maternal trust to incite a mixture of fear and curiosity’)

sigh.  fear again.  feel of fertility shelter and home?  yeah.  fear of being totally vulnerable, totally dropping the gun and power games.

here i am
would be we if you were here
the seemingly or in reality
(take your pick)
‘lucky’
chatting writing planning gazing from and into navels mine yours and others
smart phones on every table and for some reason everyone wears grey tones today
sipping coffee
its cost above average
about the daily wage of the women who sorted the beans (no i haven’t done my research in this particular case but i studied enough to have a Pretty Good idea and let’s be honest, one doesn’t need to study this to have this pretty good idea)

how do i feel about this reminder of me being served by these women, sitting here with my sweet leather boots and sexy silver air? if you were sitting here with me, and you might some day, how would it make you feel?

conflate time and space, turn the photo a portal.
walk thru it.
smell the humid stagnant air of the grey walled facility. choose a stool. sit down beside one of the women. she is about my age, perhaps younger
she’s wearing a hot pink tank top and a conservative beige skirt, shiny black hair pulled back with a blue clip, dangly earrings that maybe her mother gifted to mark a special occasion.
help her out. sort some beans–identify the bad looking ones and drop those into the steal bucket beside you, the good ones continue on the conveyor belt whirring along
hear the plinks around you, layered into the tinny radio pop music.
repeat. repeat. repeat.
do this for a few more hours.
how do you feel?
imagine the counterpart portal, if there were a large photo of us, sitting here, placed on the concrete wall where you hardly look because you’re focused on the bean sorting (just like the people on this side of the portal are focused on sorting out their bean issues)
what would be your commentary on them (that’s us)?

she’s done her shift and you float along with her…
on her way out picks up her faux leather purse and punches out.
see her walk down the street laden with stray dogs racing kids motorcycles squawking chickens. she stops for a sugar drink, sips the Real Thing thru a thin yellow straw, chats with the shopkeeper about the latest news (another corruption scandal and did you hear what the US is up to this time?)
then places the glass bottle in with the rest crosses the street and joins the bus queue.

board the bus with her. it’s packed with people and chickens, windows open so your hair wisps and weaves with hers, your touch connects with the two pressed on both sides of you, you’re sitting beside her, she has the window seat, she smells like baby powder and perfume and the man standing beside you shares his sweat and spice cover-up. he bumps into you on occasion while the overtaxed vehicle flies on the strip of highway the big important authority coordinated the building of with money you might have contributed to thru your taxes, and then slows to a bouncy meander thru the streets in the neighbourhood she calls home.

get off the bus, walk with her thru the maze of corrugated tin and little grey boxes and then close to destination
you see her kids run up to her, hugs and smiles.
she smiles. you smile.

smile
and the portal folds into itself

back right here.

[this is what she contributes to. this is what i contribute to.]

no wifi in this joint, so bring your air stick. food is more than decent, coffee as mentioned, excellent. big windows on the other end of the photo.

i’ll work here again.

rating: 8.5/10 (more or less as meaningful a measure as those of the global conglomerate of bureaucrats i used to wish i worked for that excels in collecting comparing analyzing quantifying reporting on thru under and over and over
over over
bean bean bean counting).

oh lovely love contrarian
meet you on atlantis
cuz the pale coridalis sails the atlantis for yet another year
and signs say it might be true
that we’re bouncy ball twin flamed shoe
and if it’s true
then
mange we will some manna moo
mm hmm yeap with
tahini honey dressing
test we are on 3
jump to 7
find
11
take the cue
щ(ﾟДﾟщ)(屮ﾟДﾟ)屮

oh weak kneed mr muna koo
who climbs mimes a tree to woo
touch down no?
huh? atchoo…!
fears so feisty more and few
yeah
just like my defiance
rainbow wheel run askew
i’m a dragon sail flail fail
spiral lost anew
nope up and atom
blue luna glint of kale
time a rhyme add a lime
turns me into juicy drop of dew
yeah i know
ヽ(´ー`)人(´∇｀)人(`Д´)ノ
you too.

i know
shady shadow shackles
labelled crossed your name undue
toll i know beyond two plus two
(＃ﾟДﾟ)
tho
nyc shines in grime like baku
desert eats the mona lisa bamboo
promise not as pretty as your side view
best place on earth
cage ironic harsh
but someone’s gotta be laughin’
not me or you
(wait)
who’s in the front seat
and who stole the mirror
lady in red or astral zoo?
ha no
yeah
it’s true.

┐(‘～`；)┌
so
at least for a mile slip & slide a smile
side step the sushi pu the hungry too
wait…
( ´д)ﾋｿ(´Д｀)ﾋｿ(Д｀ )
basket full of dreams might real debut
clear blue drip drop keys please bees
candle mine yours ethers thru
oh what to do
oh. boo slippity hoo.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
let go
did i say
please
let go?
fly i say cuz fly we flew
flow will come and fly into
an invite to a fruity rue romp to roo
hop skip bound ta true
dip your hearts we’ll say yeap
jump into our fondue…

i smile cuz maybe i see what he sees (or maybe he sees me)
maybe it’s just an excuse to laugh, it may or may not have anything to do with the group of old men behind me
who share an accent
(one that often strikes me as pretentious…i know, i have my off kilter or not judgements of tone as the case may be)
talking politics tone Oh So Serious.

he walks out, as tho he walked in just for the chuckle.

he is a happy bum. whenever he’s asking for change, he’s one big smile. if i’m in the mood i smile back.

i saw him yesterday eating at the little british restaurant down the street
its walls and windows plastered with the prince and queen
matching accents as the old men in the cafe and i’m reminded that
we’re still in the colonies
old notional seeds of money and norms in our brains
(that may or may not be tickled pickled by something you either tell me i should or shouldn’t)
and i’m increasingly pretty sure that sans seeds new realms of possibilities emerge
(and if that’s not a kite you can fly on your island of possibility, then maybe we’re not on the same one, even tho we are, we can just see this funny reality differently sometimes)

maybe this smiley dude knows this, his skin gives him away as one of those with a wiser baseline than the slaughterer mine
if we time machined back the power story would be obvious go back further and oh it’s even more clear as water running thru the stream…

one time i was in this same coffee shop and the toilet overflowed
(earlier that same morning clogged sewers with the same result sent me messages in my dream, seriously my subconscious sucks at subtleties sometimes)
it being a holiday i wondered how long it would take to get a plumber on-site, how far the water would seep into the lovely wooden floor where nice shoes settled to catch up on coffee high and news.
it took about 3 minutes–in walked the wise man to clean up and de-clog

hmm.

that’s all. there are no conclusions here only clues and you know what’s real now.

kinda hoping for a postal strike

had a bunch of things that needed to be delivered

(ok actually a puppet mitt along with some instructions of how to use the site for nurses in BC i’m promoting–i stole/adjusted the idea for a site mascot from a former colleague–thanks Daryl and sorry i kinda made fun of the idea, whimsy is good maybe we need more of it?)

instead, maybe i’ll just turn it into a road trip and hand deliver the message.  Actually meet the early adopters of this new site in person.  Sit down with a hot chocolate tea green juice or coffee wine build community that way

oh and i’ll blog about the cool nurses i meet

qualitative research info of starting an online community

the stories of frontline public service workers

camp along the way

maybe drop in on festivals

find people who inspire

spread inspiration around

kiss the frog

there are two

meet the site's mascot who's giving away delicious handmade bars of chocolate to insight into using tap water on wounds...selling chocolate cuteness clickiety connectedness. if it were a bar of gold would this would better? probably not. or am i totally deluding myself? how long will i be able to have this chocolate around and not eat it??

the words spill out thru my fingers typing away into a silver-thin lightbox that a spider just ran across saying hi to me a creature wearing wool so i’m cozy warm and i think i’m having fun writing and some of it is even classified as the thing i do for $ —  ah! here it is — give me more of this and i think i’ve found home…

because it’s totally ridiculous to think that the horizontal reaching out grab my hand let’s run dance walk together for a little or just give me a high five Pride and Ego aren’t part of me

when i balance it with this love spirit energy

life flows!

(Look at that beautiful Tree that’s been standing on That One Spot for decades and see how tall vertical up to the fifth it pokes its lovely green warmth, it knows something i do even tho i used to Run All The Time

now calm winds and the tall creature whispers a message that i know too even tho i still like moving

meandering dancing floating is my deliciously preferable high, the yin to the yang adrenaline rush run run run, as is the smooth slip into bliss just sitting eyes closed inward dive deep

or snuggled within crevasses of dreams of climbers sinking into the blanket it takes less than a minute for the tiny moss tentacles to breathe their ties around me and bound I am cradled held tight safe zone–this is home

and i hear Its message and believe in it just like the fairies with their doors that you’ll see if you want, and in whom i don’t believe but know exist, and if you’re giving me that look then look at me again, take off that mask those glasses the heart soluble invisible barrier between us… i see the glimmer in your eye when you talk about your belief magic passion love  )

Look at those roots, hold me tight and then let me go, i love how you'll be right there when i return! xo