My friend, Nan once told me that in some situations, a small gift would not be inappropriate!  So, I walked down to the beach yesterday.

A flock of ducks landed in the bay. There must have been 200 of them. They had white heads and a black chest, very yin/yang for a bird! I also saw house wrens, robins, seagulls and a dozen honkers flew overhead. AND, I saw a bald eagle!

Wow!

Tunstall Bay is beautiful. This spring weather is cold, the daffodils are trying to bloom, but I see hesitation. It even snowed a bit in the morning. Still outside is lovely.
My insides are not quite in harmony with the outside view though.

My heart is with Ken, my memories with Tomi. My mind is on some work, I don’t want to do, and to top it off, I find it is still hard to go to the beach without a dog.

Thank you for your sympathy, phone calls and loving thoughts yesterday. All gifts and most welcome in the journey towards balance and harmony.

Welcome spring!

We knew her love.

Thomasina Thomas Parker died today,  after a life well lived.
She was loved and she loved.

Ken and I moved to Bowen in 1996. Believe it or not, that makes us “old timers” in comparison to the majority of the population of people who live here now. That’s just weird, but I guess we are “old timers” most of the places we go. We got here just in time; Bowen moved out of our league about 10 years ago. The ferry cost $12. in 1996 and today it is almost $40. Other things have changed as well, some very obvious and dramatic, and others just have that “feel.”

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m not against change. How could I be? I’ve made a life study of change. Yin to Yang and back again.

Some communities change with planning and some just look up one day and wonder what happened. Bowen does both.

But, I heard on the radio a story about another small town that was re-deigning itself. The comment that got me was, “We’d like to put the stream over there.”

In the short 16 years we have been on Bowen, we have seen changes that newcomers don’t know about. For example, the library, and the gas station used to be in different locations. Actually for a while we didn’t even have a gas station. Blue Eyed Marys (which closed last week) used to be Victors, local musicians would play there in the evenings for donations, and it was not unusual to pull the chair out from your table to find a cat sitting on it, purring. Changes at the Cape have been huge. Bowen has a Mayor now and an artificial turf soccer field.

So, before I get all hoity-toity about a town deciding where to put the stream, I guess I should tell you that where the post office on Bowen is right now, use to be a rock. A really, really big rock!

I worked in the building next to the pharmacy while they were taking this giant rock down. I watched and heard them blast that big rock away, piece by piece, making way for the buildings that are now the Village Square.

I suppose if folks can blast a huge rock to smithereens to put up a post office, it would be kinda fun to be the person who decides just where a stream should go.

Personally, I’d like a panoramic view from our patio, please.

I listen to the radio a lot. Yesterday on St. Patricks Day all the talk was about where to drink, how to drink responsibly, and all offered a lot of advice on how to deal with the inevitable hangovers.

The hangover advice ranged from everything from drink water before you go to bed, to be sure to go back to the pub in the morning for some hair of the dog. The only advice I didn’t hear, was telling folks that you don’t have to drink to celebrate holidays.

That just didn’t seem to make the list of options.

Perhaps it’s a good time to plug Today’s Step!

I remember when Nancy Regan was on the “Just say no” bandwagon. I don’t know how successful that was or is. I just know, sometimes it isn’t about what we do that matters, it’s what we don’t do that can make a difference.

My best friend Sandie and I are very similar to each other. We have the same hair, we walk at the same pace, we have been known to finish each others sentences, and when we are together we laugh like nobodies business.

There are a few obvious differences between us. Sandie has bigger feet than me, she wants to live in the tropics and not the frozen north. She is extremely social, a great cook, and throws amazing dinner parties. I tend to stay home, and have set the smoke detector off with my cooking a few more times than I’ve set the potholders on fire.

Sandie and I became very fast friends as soon as we met. And even though we have only lived near each other once, and that was for a mere 6 months, we have an incredible friendship. I treasure her.

I also have a lot in common with Sandie’s husband, Joe.

Joe is my spiritual advisor, and if you know anything about my spiritual standing, you’ll know I’m in very good hands.

Yesterday, I thought of Joe with love, when of one of our common traits “dropped” in. I am quite sure Joe and I share many qualities, but there is no doubt, we have one particular karma in common.

Here’s a truth, a common bond, or a maybe it’s a tribute:

For Joe and for me, we share the universal truth that — The newer the shirt — the faster the spill, and the bigger the stain.

Joe and I have traveled together a lot over the last 30 plus years, and the journey from fork to mouth has never been smooth for either of us.

Sometimes you just know when you’ll be friends forever.

vigil |ˈvijəl|
noun
1 a period of keeping awake during the time usually spent asleep, esp. to keep watch or pray : my birdwatching vigils lasted for hours | as he lay in a coma the family kept vigil.
• a stationary, peaceful demonstration in support of a particular cause, typically without speeches.
ORIGIN Middle English (sense 2) : via Old French from Latin vigilia, from vigil ‘awake.’

My friend Rosie has a farm with sheep and right now they are birthing the new lambs. Except one of her ewes seems stubborn. This lamb is so big with the life inside her, she looks like she might burst. But everyday the report is the same — no lambs yet. Rosie stands vigil waiting for life to begin.

Ken is still in Nebraska. It’s hard. He is the type of man who is best when he is “doing something.” Right now, what he’s doing is the same as Rosie, only he stands on the other end of this cycle. Ken stands vigil with his mother right now, he stands waiting for the life that gave him life, to end.

Life begins and it ends on its own time.  To stand in witness is our duty and honour.

FINALLY dates for a Summer Push Hands camp/reunion.
August 24 – 26, 2012 Yay!

It will be so nice to touch in with everyone again. I might have said this before, but I really love the students who have studied with me, my teacher and my classmates are just da bomb.

No specific topic for the weekend has come to mind, but for the first time in over a year, during my practice yesterday, I started to think about it.

I use to get all my lesson plans out of my practice. Practice has written the pages of my teaching manual. It is full of lessons learned or in process. I file away discoveries in my mind and body moving through the form. Knowing I could/would call on the information at a class or seminar.

But this last year, I’ve just moved. I allowed the joy, comfort and wonder of the form to unfold. I did it without keeping a notebook, or thinking of a way to explain something, not looking for a key component that “may help” someone, at the next class. I’ve just moved.

Yesterday in my practice, I had an idea about yin and yang and thought for the first time in a while, oh, I should remember this, and share it at the camp.

It was nice a nice thought and just bubbled up to the surface. So, it must be time to get the notebook out again.

I’m not going to be too conscience about changing my practice right now. As I prep for the camp though, I may slow it down a bit, I haven’t been sinking into my legs as much as I could/should be, and well, l really hope Snake Creeps down or Needle at Sea Bottom is not on anyone’s list of “will you show me.”

I will be more open to capturing discoveries in the next few months.

Summer camp will be great! I’m looking forward to it, Tai Chi people are just the best.

If you are a Tai Chi person, I hope you plan on coming. Here are some details. It’s going to be good.

When: Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 24 – 26, 2012
Where: The Bowen Island Tai Chi House on Bowen Island
Who: You, me and others.
How much: I’m going to do this camp by donation. Give what you can and take what you need.
What: I’ll tell you after practice!

Let me know if you plan on coming and if there is anything I can do to make it easier for you to attend.

Woke this morning and the digital clock was flashing, which is good news. It means the power is on. It also means that at some point during the night we lost the power again. I don’t know when or for how long.

What I do know is that the 15 hour outage yesterday wasn’t horrible. We’ve had longer blackouts in the past, and I was warm enough with a nice fire going, no big trees came down around me or the house and I used the unexpected and unplugged time to read and nap. There was no harm — no foul.

So, as this new day breaks and we all get back to routine and ritual — I discover the biggest causality from yesterdays problems…

Cream for coffee goes stinky bad without refrigeration. Oh, the problems I endure! Sigh….

When we turn the clocks forward for daylight savings time, I expect the mornings to be dark again. But this morning it is extra dark. The power is off and as un-green as it is… we live on the grid.
The neighbours have a generator and the sound of juice is only a little worse than the sound of the wind whipping through the trees behind our home. It is loud and scary; the wind, not the generator.
A few years ago we were given a BBQ grill and it sits on the porch out front. I am grateful I can make hot water on a morning like this. Still, I’m a typical North American, I like having power in the house, and popular conveniences like lights, hot water, and internet service. I spend a lot of time on the computer these days, and while I can still write on my laptop, and we do have an old fashion telephone that doesn’t need juice, it’s a little spooky being out of touch and in the dark. I think of the work I won’t get done today and turn to the stack of books by the bedside. (Yum!)
My listening skills perk up in the dark. Peet coming through the cat door, the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard, but it’s really the wind howling that I listen to; waiting for the sound of trees snapping and falling.
I worry that the alder trees our neighbour refuses to cut down, will crash down and cause damage and havoc. The big maples, cedars and fir seem content to sway in the bluster and dark.
When we first moved to the island, power outages were common place. It was never a surprise and our stash of flashlights and candles were ever ready. Over the years, Hydro has cleared most of the culprits and losing power is a rare occurrence now. Still happens (like right now), I feel we are less prepared or perhaps we just can handle the outages with less fanfare.
I’ll mention that I really miss Ken on mornings like this. With Ken away, I need to take care of myself, Peet and the house. We have a house that has jobs for two people. Not one, mostly because one of those people (me) lets the other (Ken) do most all of the hard stuff. Chores like carry wood in and keeping the fire going, And when the power goes out, Ken is the one who boils water on the grill outside for morning coffee and he makes sure the headlamps have batteries that are charged.
It’s the little things that make all the difference in a relationship. Eh?
I was looking forward to posting today on my new blog site, it will have to wait now. When the power is off on Bowen Island, it can be for 5 minutes, 5 hours or fifty. So, stay tuned. I’ve got some wood to chop and some water to carry before I get connected to the world again.

PS. It was only out for a mere 15 hours, so I’m still posting everyday! Yay.