The Wind About Us

More tourists coming. And what will they discover?

That we’ve swept away our homeless? Leapt over them under blankets on our charity runs?

Will they risk an involuntary pedicure when trying to cross the street?

Our city, this namesake of a heroic seaman and cartographer, is resplendent with magnificent trees evident of decades of care and we, though, meanwhile have lost the rock garden in Stanley Park by neglect stemming from indifference… and what after all can possibly stem from indifference?

And so unfortunately we have lost a sense of identity. New immigrants of brutal wealth are buying condos and apartments as investments and they remain empty while some gentleman of momentary bad fortune can’t find a home to rent. Landlords here have become shrewd and disinterested in the plight of their fellow man. Credit checking and snooping is the call of their day when apprising any prospective tenant.

But before I begin to sound prejudiced by generalizing, allow me to introduce the TOMBY index: "Too Many By…” So instead of calling all by race, or judging by creed or caste as a writer of some conscience I will attempt to describe a trend, perhaps a sociological one which affects us all. For example: Do lawyers talk too much and charge by the syllable? TOMBY: 80 (on a scale of 1-100).

A neighbourhood is ultimately a reflection of the people who live, shop, laugh and cavort there. A city is a reflection of its neighbourhoods and a country is again mirrored by its modern multifaceted cities.

We wondered not too long ago about “the Canadian identity.” And I wonder now how easily we have allowed a cultural revolution - bloodless - but in ways shameful to our heritage. What made us Canadian? Our pioneers and our wealth of stories seems of little interest to our newcomers (TOMBY 60).

Our spiritual climate can be spied oft times as a wind of fury. A baritone hiss of deliberate ignorance. The sneer and the snobbery; the glance of arrogance and the drivers who treat the walkers like video-game targets. This is how we might perceive the spiritual climate of our city despite those brilliant and comforting willows, maples and oaks which cascade and mingle across our side streets.

We are those leaves, uniquely contoured, fluttering in blessed youth, changing hue in autumn, and there sparkling in the late summer sun. Why, might God wonder - that personality of the infinite - do each of us refuse the glory given as a birthright… that glory of our humanity, our immediate magnificence?

Why do we not acknowledge the power of automatic decency and visible integrity as such goodness may increase the body of the universe, that personality, inflating its pleasure. We are outlined by the breath of God. Let us then carry ourselves with a gait and manner which behoves such divinity.

Let us be aware.

We have all heard the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Well, it’s time now to: “Speak unto others as you would have them speak unto you.” And therein find your identity, your contour, your neighbourhood, your world.

The wind about us will find us. Let us be found in joy and described as a dear companion to beauty.

poems

Be inside joy. Spy it around you.

Permit joy.

Hearing affirmations from nature.

There’s your day.


Then pray.



My lost friend
loves me when
i find him again
and with his permission
we enjoy our humanity.

a kind of mission.

my lost friend
is with me again. -langen


talk talk talk
spear
talk talk talk
hear. -s coburn

For Layabouts

When you had hope
And hope gave you form,
One might have said, "That is the man you are becoming."

But you are not a man to die with the dignity of manhood.
Labouring with us.
Daily, you gave up your manhood to swim in a swamp of lies.
Which makes you a thing.
You will die as a thing.


But perhaps hope remains.
Because infinite generosity remains...
belonging solely to your choice.

Money in our Genes?

With science having advanced so impressively this last century – a minor marker in our human history – it is no longer arguable that fear and anxiety have an organic effect on our health. And since industrialization – another brief but more potent negative marker – we have all discovered the unpleasant circumstance of being polluted inside our private and public environments. And now somewhat cornered, not unlike a frightened raccoon, we react with some terror and rage. (Check the drivers these days including the so-called professionals who barrel through red lights.)

And greed soon rears its despicable face and we collapse morally.

After generations of this unnatural tension, our bodies are disinclined to joy and as parents we are presenting a hereditary blueprint of greed and dismay.

Are we on a weird precipice where we find money in our genes? Such a spiritual dilemma amounts to worse than a pox. We are at risk of losing our sense of goodness, that elusive but vital anchor which may describe our neighbourliness and civility.

We are this neighbourhood, this city, this country. Selling our water and citizenship indifferently doesn’t embolden our grasp of a delicate situation. Our words and deeds are our only hope to reverse this predicament and which may collectively bring light to bear upon those wayward genes of ours. Your grandchildren will be thankful that you have taken this notice.

Guarding the Shape of Man

"As pines keep the shape of the wind
even when the wind has fled, and is no longer there,

so words
guard the shape of man
even when man has fled, and is no longer there."
-George Seferis, 1969.

The word was made flesh
and then there was light.

light is…
The memory of your mother’s laughter. The first smile of your child hearing the laughter of another’s.

light is…

the form of your lover’s legs,
the laughter of girls and young men at play and
the stars at their most mysterious;
the heaven and those sparkling mathematics.


light is…

the science of goodness and the quiet patience scripted across the countenance of God.

light is…

the warmth of her flesh and the pulse of his sex.

light is…

the opening red flower with its pearl white underpinnings surprising you. And the colour of your tears.

light is…

the tone of his skin and the hue of his hair under that silent moonshine.

light is…

the shadows of our worst fears and the glory of our victories.

light is…

the knowing of humanity and those who hear the first words of the personality of the infinite.

Light is hearing of words spontaneously spoken which give freedom.

Light is the form of hope which drives us to persevere and persevere we must to see… light is ultimately Love and the form of Knowing Itself.

light is…

our beginning with absolute innocence and our knowing of the delicate frame of our mortality, as we wait. Finally, without trepidation, because you see Light escorts us to more chambers of divinity.

Light is detail and clarity. “Be here now?" No. Be with Light in all its complexity and about the rooms in His palace… all of which offer more radiance, warmth and at last, Light.

Matthew Lennox

Now here's the best busker I've heard in years and Vancouverites can be thankful for his energy and talent, as he slaps on his guitar with his lively right hand and plays the riffs on his left. A really exciting talent - who was not permitted (yawn) to busk at the jazz festival. Typical mean-spirited bureaucracy strikes again. Check Mathew out in front of the Waterfront Station just about any time this summer. Thank you Matthew for your enlivening and welcome spirit.

Random Pix of Gastown Jazz Festival

Twas another great relief for all to have no road rage on Water Street and the sounds of laughter and music throughout these last two days. Obviously people are hungering for this kind of freedom, and dancing as much as they did, so exuberantly, was clear testament to that desire.