Obonato

The anthropologist invited the children from the African tribe to play one game.  He placed a basket of fruit near the tree and announced, addressing the children: “The one of you who reaches the tree first will be rewarded with all of the sweet fruits.”  When he signaled to the children to start the race, they locked their hands tightly and ran together, and then they all sat together and enjoyed the delicious fruit.

The astonished anthropologist asked the children why they all ran together, because each of them could have enjoyed the fruit for him or herself.  To which the children replied: “Obonato”.  Is it possible for one to be happy if everyone else is sad?  “Obonato” in their language means “I exist because we exist.”

I don’t know who wrote this.  It’s not important.  We humanity wrote it.  Similarly, it doesn’t matter if I write a particular thing in this blog.  What matters is that it is written.

We lives and breathes and creates.  We brings joy and reverence for life.  I is a mere shadow of what life can be.  The African kids got the message.  Can we adult Westerners, older and supposedly wiser, understand … and live from there?  The future is cheering us on: “You folks can do it!”  Let’s prove the future right.

Two Faces

How do you assess the quality of the candidates for the US Presidency? Naturally, you listen to what each one says, and listen between the lines for what is not being said. Same goes for what they do and don’t do. And you look for character: for empathy, courage and general decency. I’ve done all that, and I’m super happy that Joe Biden is President-Elect.

I also look at faces. I see things there. I don’t care about bone structure that may produce what many people label as “handsome”. I don’t care about hairstyle or a waddle under the chin. I do look for softness, a sense of the skin gently moving rather than looking like a rigid mask. I think we all need to be moved by life while remaining strong, much like well-rooted grasses waving in the wind.

I look for balance, a general verticality and symmetry. A head askew must put a lot of pressure on the neck … and the soul.

I look for soft eyes, open to give and receive – eyes that seem large and blend into the rest of the face. Eyes that are open rather than enlarged slits.

I look for a face that is alive as opposed to dead, one that breathes and leans toward the future, rather than to the past. A dead face is so sad to behold … no joy and no sorrow.

I watch the lips. Do they sweetly lie above and below each other or press tight for victory? Is the mouth languidly horizontal or curled up on one end? Do the words sound like a melody or a dog barking?

Smiles are nice. Do they ever happen on this face? If so, is it a smile of union or divide, of brother and sisterhood or conquest? And … if benign, does the smile linger past the immediate thought?

***

Faces can change over time, and I don’t mean the inevitability of aging. Faces can mellow. Faces can rediscover the joyous lines of childhood. Faces can turn toward other faces and see who’s there.

May it be so.

Six Deaths

A few weeks ago, I was the host on a Zoom call with about thirty people. I was the one with technical responsibility, making sure that anyone with computer problems was assisted to the best of my ability. Partway through, there was an event which I’ll call an “emergency”: lots of people would have technical issues if I didn’t act NOW. My Zoom host training had prepared me for something like this.

“What happened?” you ask.

I froze. My mind blanked. I didn’t get the job done. Thanks to the person who was teaching that day, all ended up being well. The trouble was, I wasn’t well.

I’ve thought a lot about those moments. There’s no wisdom in piling on the self-blame or coming up with excuses. “Poor me” doesn’t fly, nor does blaming Zoom. I remain a curious human being about my imperfections.

And some images have come through:

The first was a wilderness canoe trip in Alberta. I was up front, my life jacket secure, and my inability to swim parked in the nether regions of my brain. Until, that is, conversation with my canoemate jolted to a halt. Ahead of us on the river were rolling rapids. On the shore, people were yelling and scrambling for their canoes. We had missed the signal that we were to come ashore at our future campsite.

I was dead … I knew it.

One gigantic spill later, one frenzied rescue, one being stripped of my wet clothes, I was a pool of jelly inside my sleeping bag. Not much rest that night.

The image of those marauding waves has stayed with me all these years.

I guess there’s nothing to do with the picture in my head. I’ve been to counselling, and I’m happy with my life, but every once in awhile I get zapped. Zoom goneness, for instance.

Five other times I’ve looked in the eyes of death. Two of them were similar to the rapids: I saw the end coming. In one of those, the finale spread before me for thirty minutes. The other three times, there was no warning, just a blast of lethal energy.

As you’ve noticed, I’m still here. Someone large has been taking care of me, probably knowing that I have much to give, and deserve to have the time to give it.

I’m smiling now. The past sits there like a lump – or in this conversation, seven of them. The present is flowing towards the future. Here I go, wondering at the mystery of it all.

Petering Out or Diving Back In?

It’s been thirty-seven days since I’ve sat here, fingers poised over the keys.  How strange.  I can remember times when I wrote in Bruce’s Blog virtually every day for months.  I developed a trust that words would come each time, that there’d be something helpful to say, at least helpful to a few folks.  That was then.  This is now.

It feels like my life is changing fast.  I feel teaching coming back, teaching about we humans being together.  I feel some things fading away … golf for instance.  I still love the beauty of Tarandowah, a nearby gem of eighteen holes, but I no longer care about the swing and the score.

So where does writing show up in the swirl of today?  If I sit quietly, writing is right here beside me on the couch.  There’s a warmth, a “going towards” it, abiding with a friend.  I don’t know why I’ve been silent for so long, and actually I’m not even interested in knowing.

There’s no momentum right now in having 300 words make a difference on WordPress and Facebook.  Logically, it’s hard to restart after standing still for weeks.  Or … maybe that’s not true, since 201 words have come and gone.

What if I tap away every day for the next week and see how that feels?  Good idea, Bruce.  I’ll do that.  See you tomorrow.

Dull

I told you a few days ago about my eyeglass adventures.  I need a new prescription but to keep my cool frame I had to send the glasses away for seven to ten days.  Since my only remaining pair is sunglasses, my visual life has two choices – dark and focused or light and blurry.

I’m on Zoom a lot with the Evolutionary Collective.  No sunglasses since with them I couldn’t see the screen and people wouldn’t be able to see my eyes.  Part of the time I’m in Gallery View, seeing anywhere from fifteen to forty-eight folks … fuzzy little rectangles.  When I’m doing a practice with a partner, that person is large in Speaker View, and also is fuzzy.  Not a real problem.

Watching tennis or a movie on TV, I need the focus, so on go the sunglasses.  My living room, day or night, is pretty dark.  Really only a minor inconvenience.

But something is happening to me over these days.  More and more, I’m vacant, faded, dull.  How very strange.  I’ve enjoyed working on my physical fitness over the past few Covid months but I’m a universe away from hopping onto the ski machine downstairs or my bicycle out on the roads.

I’m not tired.  I don’t have a headache.  No nausea.  No angst.  But I am slow, especially mentally.  There’s a floating feeling that’s not at all blissful.  And the slowness is not a graceful dance.  It’s a plodding.

There’s a sense of “Where am I?” without the wonder of spiritual mystery.  It takes me back many decades (1985), spending two weeks in a Vancouver hospital with a heart condition.  That time was far more urgent than what I’m experiencing now but there’s a parallel.  I remember being allowed out of bed, and my room, to sit in a wheelchair.  I was on morphine.  Spirits floated down the hallway, moaning.  Their feet never touched the ground.  Their gowns waved behind them as they passed by.  So slow the journey past my eyes.

Well, that sounds dramatic.  No painkillers in the here and now.  No see-through humans.  But the same vague distaste.  The same veil covering my aliveness.  The same feeling of not being home.

Costco … please hurry up

Forza!

I was watching a tennis match from the French open today. Martina Trevisan from Italy was battling Kiki Bertens from the Netherlands. At one point, just after Martina won an important point, she clenched her fist, bugged out her eyes and yelled “Forza!”

My mouth dropped. I stared at her. The power of the moment was immense. It surged through me via the TV screen. I tried to remember what the word meant. Maybe I should have just focused on the exclamation point in her voice. Google soon enough let me know the emotional English translation: “Come on! You can do it.” Force, strength, power.

I’ve spent years meditating, where the words (when I’m not in silence) are soft. The fingers are open, rather than balled into a fist. I’ve said to myself “That’s the energy I want to project – serene, compassionate, loving.” There is great beauty in that energy but today I also saw beauty in Martina’s passion.

We are so big, we human beings. As Walt Whitman said, “I am inconsistent. I contain multitudes.” What if I’m willing to give the world all of me, covering the world at times in a torrent of water, at others in simply a trickle. Today showed me that they both have their place.

Forza!

Peace be with you

Charlie Chaplin

Political life in this era of Covid presents us with some unbalanced personalities, some cruelty, and some ignorance of others’ pain.  I’ve decided to go back in time to see if history can help.  I looked for someone who could cross the decades and speak to us today.

Charlie Chaplin was a British comic and actor.  He featured in many silent movies in the 20’s and 30’s.  He was loved by some, ridiculed by others.

In 1940, Charlie starred in the movie The Great Dictator, a satire about Adolf Hitler, and a biting critique of fascism.  The last five minutes of this film showed Charlie speaking to the audience, holding nothing back about the perils of the time.  His words were embraced by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill.

Here they are:

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor.  That’s not my business.  I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone.  I should like to help everyone – if possible – Jew, Gentile, black man, white.  We all want to help one another.  Human beings are like that.  We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery.  We don’t want to hate and despise one another.  In this world there is room for everyone.  And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.  The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.  We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.  Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.  Our knowledge has made us cynical.  Our cleverness, hard and unkind.  We think too much and feel too little.  More than machinery we need humanity.  More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.  Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost …

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together.  The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men – cries out for universal brotherhood – for the unity of us all.  Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world – millions of despairing men, women and little children – victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair.  The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.  The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people.  And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers!  Don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel!  Who drill you – diet you – treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder.  Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts!  You are not machines!  You are not cattle!  You are men!  You have the love of humanity in your hearts!  You don’t hate!  Only the unloved hate – the unloved and the unnatural!  Soldiers!  Don’t fight for slavery!  Fight for liberty!

In the 17th Chapter of St. Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” – not one man nor a group of men, but in all men!  In you!  You, the people, have the power – the power to create machines.  The power to create happiness!  You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then – in the name of democracy – let us use that power – let us all unite.  Let us fight for a new world – a decent world that will give men a chance to work – that will give youth a future and old age a security.  By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power.  But they lie!  They do not fulfill that promise.  They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!  Now let us fight to fulfill that promise!  Let us fight to free the world – to do away with national barriers – to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.  Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.  Soldiers!  In the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Dark or Blurry

My near and distance vision has been declining over the past few years.  There’s no way I pass cars anymore since judging speeds, especially at night, is difficult.   Tiny words on tubes and bottles might as well be in another language, and buying a magnifying glass has been on my “to do” list for months.

It was time to take action.  I made an appointment with my optometrist.  That appointment was today.  The eye doctor is a genial fellow who’s got a vast array of high tech equipment.  His verdict?  “Your eyes have changed significantly.”  Still … don’t worry, be happy.  It’s an age thing.  Okay, I’m getting up there.  I accept the emerging realities of my senior life.

I headed over to Costco, the home of super-sized quantities and very friendly optical employees.  The woman who greeted me was the same person who found my red and purple and yellow frame two years ago.  She remembered me and my glasses.  I ordered the new and improved lenses, but there was one tiny detail: my dear frame had to go off to Toronto or somewhere for about ten days.  Hmm.  Well, what can you do?

The staff member asked if I had a backup pair.  No.  Guess I’m not much of a backup person.  I’ll just wear my sunglasses.

***

I’m several hours into my shortterm visual life, and there are things to say:

1.  It’s dark

How strange.  Everything I look at is muted.  My lovely red EasyBoy chair is less red.  The sky out there feels like an eclipse has moved in.  My world feels lifeless, listless, subdued, tiresome.  There’s a shroud hanging over things, and I can’t seem to remove it.

If it’s not number 1, then it’s …

2.  Blurry

“Just take off the sunglasses, Bruce, and the light will come back.”  That’s true.  But I can’t see the words on the white feather that’s in the soil across  from me: “Dream on.”  I can barely make out the birdies who are perching on my feeder.  And writing this blog post is “by guess and by golly” until I move my eyes to a point six inches from the screen.

Physically is one thing

What must it be like in the heart
of someone who’s spiritually dark or blurry?
Where anger, fear and depression colour the day
Or where all is muddled, disorienting and not worth the effort

May the light and clarity return to us all

Such a Long Journey

The journey began in June, 2018.  After three days of riding my bicycle in the Tour du Canada with seventeen other folks, I quit.  I was a mess emotionally – terrified and depressed.

In the weeks following, my right hand wouldn’t stop shaking.  I’d look in the mirror and wonder “Who’s that?”  I finally concluded that I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  The shaking eventually stopped.  The fear of getting on a bicycle didn’t.

Oh, I argued with myself – that I should be a better person.  Man up.  Stop being a wimp.  None of that self-abuse helped.  Beyond my general enjoyment of myself was a vague sense of inferiority.  One long sigh of muted despair.

This July or August (I can’t remember), with the PTSD still lingering, and not having been on a bike for over two years, I knew I had to act.  Sygnan and Laura run Cyzzle Cycles and have provided me with impeccable service for many years.  I walked into their store and told them the truth.  Just as on the Tour du Canada, being so nakedly deficient in the company of dedicated cyclists was agonizing.  But I did it.  Sygnan and Laura listened with compassion, and Laura offered to coach me about “getting back on the horse”.

I wrote in my blog about shakily visiting the bike shop – the first day to simply get astride Betty while she was attached to a bike stand.  I’m guessing that few of you can understand the terror I felt to simply put my left foot on the pedal and then to swing my right leg over … but maybe I’m wrong.

A few days later, Laura took me to a nearby parking lot.  First she rode Betty in big circles, giving me instructions that I had known for years but which were so hard to hear in the moment.

And then … I rode!  It was a triumph of my own spirit.

But alas, it wasn’t a happy ending.  Back home, looking at Betty in the garage, the shaking returned.  I had just done what needed to be done, and now it looked once more like an impossible dream.  I was shocked at my lack of resolve to beat this thing.  I retreated into … the weather.  It was stifling hot mid-summer.  No wise human being would choose to cycle right now.  So “later” became the watchword.  The heat lingered and so did my defeat.

A few days ago, it was probably two months since I stayed up on Betty in the parking lot.  Back then, I told Laura that I’d call her as soon as I took Betty out on a ride.  No phone call.

I couldn’t even look myself in the mirror, nor look at Betty in the garage.  But a thought emerged: “Bruce, starting in January, for a year, you will be in the teacher training program of the Evolutionary Collective.  You will be challenged perhaps as never before.  Shouldn’t you move past any roadblocks that are compressing your aliveness?”  I gulped.  the answer was clearly “yes”.  But how?

Last night, I was watching the love between Rose and Jack unfold in the movie Titanic.  At some point before the ship hit the iceberg, I heard words bubbling up from inside: “Tomorrow at 10:00 am.”  Without thinking, I knew immediately what they meant.  I would ride Betty tomorrow morning.  

A calm surrounded me.  A little smile appeared.  I knew that the time had come.  I felt the ease blow through me.  Plus the astonishment. 

I cried as Jack died.  I went softly to bed and slept for eight hours.  I woke up wondering If I remembered all the details about cycling clothing and bike computer settings, and knew it didn’t matter if I didn’t.

At 9:55, the right pedal was aloft with my foot firmly placed.  I pressed down, found the left pedal under my other foot, and …

Rode

 

 

A Sad Decision

I love tennis.  The mano-a-mano or womano-a-womano back and forth of a match enthralls me.  One of my favourite books is The Inner Game of Tennis.  Its author, Timothy Gallwey, waxes poetic about the beauty of two evenly matched players.  Far beyond the winning and losing is the epic struggle, where the best in you brings out the best in me.

The French Open (also known as Roland Garros) is on TV for the next two weeks.  This morning I watched Kristina Mladenovic from France and Laura Siegemund from Germany give it their all.

I don’t know what you know about tennis.  Usually after a player serves, the ball bounces once before the opponent hits it back.  Sometimes they hit it out of the air before a bounce.  Two bounces and the point is over – you lose.

Near the end of the first set today, the score was 5 games to 1 for Mladenovic.  You need to win six games to win a set, and the match is the best two out of three sets.  Within a game, each serve results in a point being given.  Mladenovic was within one point of winning the game, and therefore the set.  She lofted a soft shot well in front of Siegemund, who raced forward.  But not fast enough – two bounces.

The umpire didn’t notice the two bounces.  The TV world did, especially after the video replay.  The set should have been over in favour of Mladenovic.  But it wasn’t.  Siegemund won that set, and later the match.

In that moment of two bounces, what did Siegemund do?

Nothing.

What did Siegemund say?

Nothing.

I had visions of her rushing up to the umpire to complain:  “It bounced twice.  Mladenovic won the set.”  Alas, no.  And the TV commentators said zero about Siegemund’s silence.

I felt myself slump.  A huge exhale of sadness.  I still feel it.

I read a few match reports on the Internet afterwards.  The official site of the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) wrote fourteen paragraphs about the match.  Not a word about two bounces.  Most reports did mention the umpire’s mistake, and some criticized her.  A sole Tweet gave the reader a whiff of “lack of sportsmanship” but didn’t mention Siegemund by name.

The world needs better than all this.