Vedder River Run - Part One

On the beach, on the extreme left of this photo you can see Lucy lying on the beach by our "day camp"


Two young "bathing beauties" (Lucy's daughter, and Lucy's son's girlfriend) , above, have found a perch each at the back of the root of the tree that you see in the next photo (this photo is taken pointing West). This is our somewhat "private" swimming hole. The river we float down is to the left of the beach (sand bank) in front of that long row of trees.




This is taken from our "day camp". The photo above this one is the back side of this root system. This photo is taken pointing South(?), i think, South East. The above photo is taken from the opposite side, pointing West.


Tyko and Lucy in the river,


PurdyDog on the bank. (She is not as adventurous as she used to be a few years ago). This is at the beginning of the "run" - just before we round a corner to end up where you see this couple standing, this next photo.




I asked this couple if they would mind if i took their photo; the current was quite strong as you will see in the next photo.



Here i am struggling not to fall down as the water rushes past my leg.

My Mission; Part One 'ON MEDITATION!'

Meditation - "the need to calm the reptilian brain.... " - Matthew Fox



me and Chi Chi, my room-mate's Boa Constrictor
(photo circa 1970 something?)

"Feeding and taming the reptilian brain - put your anger into something creative"

"Fear can so overcome the human heart that it drives compassion out"

- Matthew Fox

from "Call Them Canadians"

A photographic point of view
Produced by the National Film Board of Canada
(1968)




In the house of maimed desire
he will take your dreams of fire
and melt them into lead;
he will give you dancing girls
and colour nightmares red or
style a snake on your back
so the coiled cylinder moves:
his needle dances with light,
his eyes are heavy and black.

His eyes are smithies of night
forging dreams of fire
in the city's burning groves,
and his house of maimed desire
is the graveyard of your loves.







What is a Canadian
anyway? A mountain, a maple
leaf, a prarie, a Niagara fall,
a trail beside the Atlantic, a
bilingualism, a scarred mosaic,
a yes-no somehow-or-other maybe
might-be should-be could-be
glacial shield, grain elevator,
empire daughter imperial order of
man woman child or what?

poems by Miriam Waddington

Postcards from the Flying Four!

they stopped in to visit one of their new arrivals, a second-cousin i think...



i'm not sure which one this is



The Pink Flamingos made a detour over this Mountain Range, i think somewhere near Japan?
They didn't give me any details.



Again, no details, but i think this is somewhere near Shanghai



Well, it seems like their final destination is the Westin Kauai Lagoons Hotel, wow, they aren't sparing any expense, eh? lucky birds!

Dreaming -- July 3, 2006

I'm in Victoria, and I'm trying to find the Tax Department. It is raining and I am getting soaked. A tall, fat, blond man in a beige suit says he will help me, but the more he sorts through my papers the more muddled up they get, and his help turns into a terrible hindrance. I am getting very anxious and tell him i will just "be on my way", but he does not want to let me go. Then we are in a sort of enclosed yard, and we are joined by a young woman with dark hair. She seems very sinister and I try to get away, but they seem to have me captive. She says she wants to eat my pancreas. I become greatly fearful and then she pinches me really hard on both my hips -- at first i am very frightened -- and she pinches me again and it is very painful, but then i realized that is just what she wants, she wants me to be frightened. She seems to gain strength from my fears -- so i tell myself to relax, to flow with the pain, to embrace my impending doom -- and as i do so, she looses her power over me, and they both seem to disolve - then i wake up, but the dream has left me feeling very disturbed.

Growing Old and Wise With Grace

After a while

You learn the subtle difference between

Holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn

That love doesn't mean leaning and

company doesn't mean security

And you begin

To learn that kisses aren't contracts and

presents aren't promises.

And you begin

To accept your defeats with your head up

and your eyes open,

with the grace of an adult,

not the grief of a child.

And you learn

To build all your roads on today because

Tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans.

After a while

You learn that even sunshine burns a little if

you get too much.

To plant your own garden

and decorate your own soul, instead of

waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn

that you really can endure...

That you reall are strong,

and you really do have worth.

[This is a gift from The Gecho Bar & Grill in White Rock]

Toxic Emotions: The Clinical Data

"...Yale researchers point out that it may not be anger alone that heightens the risk of death from heart disease, but rather intense negative emotionality of any kind that regularly sends surges of stress hormones through the body. But overalll, the strongest scientific links between emotions and heart disease are to anger: a Harvard Medical School study asked more than fifteen hundred men and women who had suffered heart attacks to describe their emotional state in the hours before the attack. Being angry more than doubled the risk of cardiac arrest in people who already had heart disease; the heightened risk lasted for about two hours after the anger was aroused.

These findings do not mean that people should try to suppress anger when it is appropriate. Indeed, there is evidence that trying to completely suppress such feelings in the heat of the moment actually results in magnifying the body's agitation and may raise blood pressure. On the other hand, as we saw in Chapter 5, the net effect of ventilating anger every time it is felt is simply to feed it, making it a more likely response to any annoying situation. {Dr. Redford}Williams {at Duke University} resolves this paradox by concluding that whether anger is expressed or not is less important than whether it is chronic. An occasional disply of hostility is not dangerous to health; the problem arises when hostility becomes so constant as to define an antagonistic personal style -- one marked by repeated feelings of mistrust and cynicism and the propensity to snide comments and put-downs, as well as more obvious bouts of temper and rage. [my highlighting]

The hopeful news is that chronic anger need not be a death sentence: hostility is a habit that can change. One group of heart-attack patients at Stanford University Medical School was enrolled in a program designed to help them soften the attitudes that gave them a short temper. This anger-control training resulted in a second-heart-attack rate 44 percent lower than for those who had not tried to change their hostility. A program designed by Williams has had similar beneficial results. Like the Stanford program, it teaches basic elements of emotional intelligence, particularly mindfulness of anger as it begins to stir, the ability to regulate it once it has begun, and empathy. Patients are asked to jot down cynical or hostile thoughts as they notice them. If the thoughts persist, they try to short-circuit them by saying (or thinking), "Stop!" And they are encouraged to purposely substitute reasonable thoughts for cynical, mistrustful ones during trying situations -- for instance, if an elevator is delayed, to search for a benign reason rather than harbour anger against some imagined thoughtless person who may be responsible for the delay. For frustrating encunters, they learn the ability to see things from the other person's perspective -- empathy is a balm for anger.

As Williams told me, 'The antidote to hostility is to develop a more trusting heart. All it takes is the right motivation. When people see that their hostility can lead to an early grave, they are ready to try.' "

pages 171 - 172, Chapter 11 Mind and Medicine, "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman

Sweet Pickin's At Draggonfly Bog

(photo by "Angeldust", Aug.2006)

On Thursday afternoon i went for my usual walk
around Dragonfly Bog. I took an empty 1L Yogurt
containter, hoping that i would get enough wild black
raspberries to make some jam. What i encountered
exceeded my wishes and abilities to contain, and as
i was picking i vowed to go back on Saturday.

Not only was i hugely rewarded by the quantity and
sweetness of the wild fruit, but i was greeted by many
shimmering dragonflies, damselflies and an assortment
of small birds. There was a light breeze which made
gathering comfortable, as the sun blazed down on my
hatless head. I was the only person in the little park, and
i felt so calm and content. As allways seems to be the case,
there were some berries beyond my reach, big ripe plump
ones that i really really wanted. As i reached through the
rails on the bridge spanning the small creek, i knew that i
had to draw back as i was risking tumbling into the sharp
brambles. The thought of me lying helpless, trapped in
the viscious thorns, made me laugh; i though of myself
crying out for help, life a pathetic troll, the late afternoon
strollers looking about, wondering from whence came the
catawalling. Sigh....i chuckle to myself now at the memory!

As i rounded the south bend of the Bog and headed for the
east side, i heard a tap tap tap tap.....tap tap...tap tap tap - well
kind of a sound that is between a tap and a knock, being not one
or the other...and i knew it could not be the workmen who are
building a complex of townhouses nearby. A WOODPECKER!!
Could it be? Excitement making my heart beat a bit faster, i
looked towards the trees straining my eyes to find it....it took me
awhile, so well camoflarlged she was. I'm sure it was a female
as i could see no colouration on this tiny bird. I stood transfixed
as she tapped away, marvelling at her tenacity and ability to
so diligently work at her task of gathering food, oblivious of my
own gathering of sweet fruit. Finally i had to move towards
home, as was becoming dizzy from the sun beating down on me.


But, filled with renewed energy and joy, i headed home, excited
about my project, knowing that the fruit i had collected
would yield only a small amount of jam. I was right, after
adding sugar, and a small amount of apple for some natural
pectin, the result was a 2 cup mason jar of slightly runny
fruit preserve. The next morning i decided to take a small taste
to "Angeldust", which is what you see in the above photo.


see also "Some of Life's Simple Pleasures" posted on August 2nd.

The Enchanted Forrest

Kitchen window overlooking Sleepy Hollow



(my wierd "artistic rendering")



Ground View of the Enchanted Forrest, as
seen from a section of Sleepy Hollow


(photo by pj, circa 1994)


This is a "re-run" of a brief "essay" i wrote a while back. I'm thinking that some new readers might find it interesting.


(Aerial photo by Pj - 1995)

The Enchanted Forrest - realm of faeries and honourable ancestors, where i first locked eyes with Coyote. Eros came blundering through, in his carpenter's belt, his steel-toed boots covered with sawdust. Wielding his nail gun, he turned my whole world up-side-down; with his 50lb crowbar he roughly chipped away at the stone that was once my heart - slowly cracking open a small crevice into which the moonshine of love could penetrate. He whirled me so high i was dizzy and breathless; when i felt my whole being shattering, he threw me back down again. And so my journey began anew...[first published September 28/05]

Does Anybody Ever Really Know What Time It is?

Taking a "cat-nap" in York (circa 1980 or thereabouts!)

Fond Memories

at new sub-blog Persephonie's Parlour

Some of Life's Simple Pleasures!

Hooray, my Blog is fixed. Now i can tell you about my walk today. After the Doctor's appointment i decided to go to Dragonfly Bog. Fortunately i had my car with me and in my car my travel mug, because at the beginning of my walk was the finest little bush of wild black raspberries, which i picked, thinking what a fine little desert they would make. The best thing about this was they are not only very tasty, but FREE!



As well as the wild fruit i saw a sweet little bunny, no bigger than my hand, who let me get quite close to him before hopping away. What a glorious day! I LOVE LIFE!

"Attachment is blinding; it lends an imaginary halo of attractiveness to the object of desire"

- Sri Yuktesnar