Walking alone on a cold day at Macaulay Point on a weekday is a very unique experience. There is a haunted quality to the old ruined buildings on this old military lookout and as I walked through the almost deserted landscape beside the sea and the setting sun it felt as though I was walking the plane of another dimension. In the eerie shadow and light of the sunken pathways all kinds of thoughts floated up to the surface and then fell back down again into the murky subconscious. I realized that I was walking paths inside my mind as my feet walked the earthly ground of this Esquimalt park. Some paths as with thoughts lead nowhere and those that are more promising are usually a struggle and take much longer. When I looked around I saw two boys with a metal detector having fun and looking for treasures. These days I realize I too am seeking, though something a bit less tangible than in younger days. I can only hope that my own directional system is in sync with my soul's heart. The Bhagavad Gita tells us "all is clouded by desire", like a mirror by dust and fire by smoke. Similarly the bible in Corinthians says we "see through a glass darkly" .
If we can remove the veil we will be able to see clearly but why is it so hard to take that creator of illusions, our ego, out of the equation? It seems to be a life's work in progress two steps back, one step forward.
Being mindful in the moment helps. Stopping our busy minds, taking time to breathe, time to look around and be in the moment opens the heart in the same way that suffering can when we try to live life on life's terms and flow with the universe as a part of it's divinity and mystery. Overcome space and all we have left is Here Overcome time and all we have left is Now - Jonathan Livingston Seagull
and by some metaphysical, universal and divine magic the heart finds respite and love is increased. Faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love. Being mindful in the moment when I am out with my camera, walking in beauty, as Thich Nhat Hahn says I can try to walk as though my feet are kissing the earth.
A Canticle for Meg Based on a true story and dedicated to and in memory of Kate and May, two women of the 20th Century, rest in peace
This story touched me deeply when I was first told it. I knew that time passes quickly and memories can be forgotten so I wrote it down with other stories of time and family. I finally put it to pen (or keyboard)
Lauren sat in the small side pew after lighting the tiny votive prayer candle under the icon of the Sacred Heart. The church was filled with a silence so profound she could hear her thoughts and memories swirling around like a softly wailing wind inside her head. She watched as the sun broke through the stained glass in smooth golden shards. The window portrayed the child Jesus and his cousin, John the Baptist, spilling the waters of grace from a small pitcher into the peaceful corners of the sanctuary. She bowed her head and tried to pray. A woman sitting at the end of the pew gingerly fingered pearlized rosary beads, her mouth moving in silent, chanting recitation. The woman had graceful, white hands and Lauren immediately thought of her cousin Meg's hands, less precise perhaps, but just as graceful when she would drape a set of oriental pearls around her slender neck. Lauren had loved the look and touch of Meg's pearls. She looked up toward the altar and recalled that the center of the cathedral was called the nave after the Latin word for ship. The curved apse with the raised dais at the high end was like the helm, where the congregation looked for steady guidance in the midst of tempest and storm. She remembered a beautiful summer day when Meg's ship arrived in the town harbour, with the Captain standing tall on the bridge.
The year following Lauren's mother death, Meg had come up to Seattle to take her to San Francisco by steamer for a summer holiday. Meg seemed so much older and so sophisticated to the younger teenaged Lauren. Meg was married to a sea captain and they had sailed all over the Pacific, from San Diego to Shanghai and up to Anchorage. Her husband came from a long line of seafaring men dating back to the old days of windjammers and clipper ships.
Growing up in a poorer neighbourhood of honest, hard-working folk, most of them of Scots/Irish origin, there had never been time or money for many luxuries. Somehow the lovely Meg had stepped out of these humble beginnings into something far grander. She was tall and slender, with black hair and ivory skin. Her every gesture seemed to breathe a sweet grace and Lauren looked up to her as a sister might, with a deep affection. Lauren remembered that summer on board the coastal steamship as one of the most memorable times she had ever spent. She enjoyed the gulls' shrill cries and feeling soft sea spray wind blowing on her face and hands. She was never seasick. She stood at the ship's rail with Meg, laughing as dolphins raced in the wake. She loved watching Meg's Captain walking on the bridge and hearing the music of the ship's bell, as the sky flooded gold at sunset.
Meg and the Captain touched each other frequently, and as gentle as that touch always was, Lauren sensed a wave of electricity that seemed to pass from one to the other. It seemed to illuminate them and everything around them, including Lauren, who sometimes felt her own adolescent heart race at the thought of the two lovers alone in their berth, and Meg in the Captain's embrace. When the holidays finally ended it was hard to return home again, but she knew her father needed her, and so it was promised that a strand of pearls would be brought back for her from Singapore. She waited in anticipation, dreaming of exotic harbours where Meg and the Captain strolled hand in hand, and sat sipping tea in tea shops under colourful umbrellas.
The church bell began to toll in deep, resonating waves calling the faithful to Mass. Lauren thought of Donne's poem as solemn worshipers entered the sanctuary. For whom is the bell tolling? War had just been declared in Europe. There would be terrible losses to come. She thought anxiously of her own young husband and of all the husbands and people who would be caught up in events beyond anyone's control. She placed her hands protectively on her swollen belly and felt the baby awaken to the sound of the bell, stirring fearfully inside her as though it sensed the unrelenting summons to suffering. This would be her first child and if it was a girl she would call her Margaret Maire, -Meg for short. A stab of grief pierced her and the baby moved again as though trying to escape it. Meg would never have children, she thought bitterly. In an abrupt and terrible twist of fate Meg never returned from that far off place of monsoons and sudden hurricanes. One hot, humid night, in a fevered moment of time, Meg was murdered by her husband in a fit of jealous rage and suspected betrayal, after which he had killed himself. The news arrived on a merciless tide overwhelming the family in shock and grief. No one would ever fully know what really happened, nor ever fathom the meaning of such a terrible and unforeseen tragedy.
Lauren struggled to find a comforting grace in a life that had become unpredictably cruel and without reason. Everything in her world had shifted relentlessly. She questioned how such darkness could overtake the hearts of good men. How could a grand love story have ended in this way? Was the beautiful Meg in heaven with her Captain, or were they forever condemned? It was much too painful to contemplate. She withdrew with her losses into a desolate silence and uncertainty. The congregation stood reverently, as the priest and servers began to move in somber and hushed procession up the center aisle to the altar. Just then, the church organ began to play, and the choir commenced a majestic opening Laudate. The music swelled like a wave on the ocean, engulfing the spaces of the church to the very tops of the tall pillars. As it rose into the domed nave, Lauren closed her eyes and felt as though she were again standing with Meg near the bow and rising upward on the crest. A shining horizon beckoned them. She felt her baby leap with the joy of an approaching redemption, like John the Baptist in the womb of his mother when visited by the pregnant Mary. A summer rain had begun to fall and she noticed a storm was gathering on the water. The ship's bell suddenly rang out. At the sound, the captain opened his arms heavenward for deliverance, and the passengers knelt in supplication. It was then that a great sob surged upward from the depths of her, and looking down at her wet hands, she realized that they were drenched in tears.
Play The beautiful "Laudate" by Taize Monastery in France
click to play "oh very young" by Cat Stevens a shorter story
Walking in the woods with Alice
“Only a few find the way, some don't recognize it when they do - some... don't ever want to.” - Cheshire Cat
Mr Tibbles, the brown rabbit
It's a wonderful journey to the rabbit hole revisited. Alice rolls her eyes as though she knows I never believed she would find it. Yet here it is. I hope she doesn't expect me to fit through that little hole. Politely I listen to her rather curious tale about how some time ago, after an argument with her sister, Hattie, who is nodding in grave affirmation, she walked outside and caught a glimpse of a rabbit running into the woods. Alice composes herself and the rather curious little tale begins in earnest. "Why it's Mr. Tibbles!" she declared; Mr. Tibbles was a grumpy old rabbit who bit everyone's fingers. "You must have escaped from your hutch," and giving chase she followed him to a large tree where he sought escape in a hollow root cave. Sticking her hand inside, she felt the predictable nibble but she managed to grab his tail. He pulled her farther and farther into the tree until falling down a deep hole she found herself in a strange and unrecognizable part of the woods. Trying to find her way out she came across a mad hatted girl , sitting drinking chai tea on a tree stump in the forest.
the dim-witted tea party
Where is everyone at this dim-witted tea party?" demanded a rather bored Alice (having read the book many times), to which the Mad Hattie spoke up brightly from her tea cup, "Have some tea?" Alice thought that would indeed be appropriate at a tea party but looking at the rather empty table cloth covering the stump asked "well then, where is the tea pot?" to which Mad Hattie, looking confused, replied, "Why, there isn't one", and in a muddled state of mind went on to explain ," -umm, I guess that's why it's dim-witted!" Alice stared at her, thinking she looked a lot like her sister and every bit as dim-witted.
So they instead sat and reviewed the book "The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney," which Mad Hattie pulled out of her bag of broken tea cups, and that was soon followed by a discussion of upcoming school events. Alice wondered which way was the Queen's way, -the Red Queen to be exact- and who it was rumoured in this particular incarnation of wonderland, actually preferred to wear purple, according to Mad Hattie who loved anything purple.
Suddenly a pipe smoking and rather odd green winged creature named Absabaloon happened to stumble out of the woods in a dither, announcing that poor caterpillar had been run over by a bicycle! After a moment's silence they were then handed a rather muddy and torn invite to a celebration and dance at the Royal Palace. They understood that this was no ordinary RSVP but a "must attend without delay or lose one's head!" They wondered if Craig Ferguson would be at the party.
and so they set out, Alice, Mad Hattie and Absaballoon on the road to the palace
( actually Scone Palace Park in Perth, Scotland with poetic licence)
Never mind the Queen, come on let's dance!!!
All ad libbed and improv'd by the galumphing beamisher girls from out Metchosin Way, not the Queen's Way, though Queenie is a good friend of ours. These are two absolutely amazing little film makers and stage enthusiasts.
