Larry Gibbons' Blog

SOMETHING STINKS IN DENMARK

2/6/2023

“If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character,
The philosophic and Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things,
And stand still,
Unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again.
William Blake

I’m looking outside my living room window and I can’t believe how many birds are out there. Purple finches, evening grosbeaks, white throated sparrows, crows, blue jays, hummingbirds, pine siskins, chickadees, goldfinches, and others that I can’t name.

Meanwhile, the largest wild fire in Nova Scotia’s history is burning bright. And, not far from here, I believe they are doing some clear cutting.

Cape Breton Crocodile

Something stinks in denmark.

Only a few mornings after Sue’s disappearance I had a choir outside my window. A large alder bush was covered in blue jays singing their blessed little hearts out. I approached them and they stayed put. I couldn’t help but think that I was getting a peek through the invisible veil.

One of the reasons that there are so many birds at my place is because I feed them. And, gosh, but aren’t they having a good time. But, I’m feeling guilty, because I’ve heard that feeding birds can get them partying together and then they might get sick. So far, they are just singing, eating and having a good old time. I’ve found no bodies.

I feel responsible though. I’m a human being and the partying birds are, in our scientifically harsh views of the world, to be controlled. They are a resource. We’re even considered a resource. Aren’t we doing a good job.

Sometimes, when I look at my dog, Dominic, I feel that I think too highly of myself. I feed him scientifically approved food when he loves the unhealthy food that I eat. When I give him some of my food, well, he practically swims in his bowl. When I’m preparing his meal, using some of my chow, he’ll stand on his hind feet with his front paws resting on the counter. He’s trying to hurry me up. “Get that food stirred and down here”.

I know best, but still, he survived in the wild. He drank out of dirty puddles, probably ate dead mice, garbage, who knows, but I’m the human and he’s the beastie.

So, the birds are out there, singing their hearts out, while clear cutting is rampant, wild fires burn, politicians push for more oil production and many animals border on extinction. Because, of our hell-bent attacks on nature. But we know best. We interfere and think that we are helping.

Something stinks in denmark!

A little bird, a chickadee, told me that it’s all ass-backwards and we should butt out and let them enjoy their happy chow-down time.

“How do you know but every Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, closed by your senses five?”
William Blake

I have found that people who are grieving can recognize others who are grieving. I run into many who are dealing with grief. They are kindred spirits and I’m thankful for encountering them in my life. We don’t need many words.

One of the things I find difficult to do is, and hang onto your hats, it will seem really silly, but, it’s true, it’s eating in the public.

You see, it’s not easy for me to understand how I can not talk while I have food in my mouth. What if it’s hard to swallow and somebody has just told me something and is now waiting for a reply. Do I just keep chewing until I can swallow the food, do I spit it out or do I talk while my mouth is full? Am I being neurotic?

I am an accident waiting to happen. After I spilled red wine on a very elegant and beautiful white table cloth, Sue told our host that giving me red wine, when it’s my first visit, is not a good idea.

Another time, Sue and I visited her relatives. It was one of the first visits to their place and Sue wanted them to think highly of me. She wanted me to have good manners. To not choke, talk with my mouth full or do other things that she knew was hidden in my eating mishap bag. I pulled out a new twist to my eating out behaviour.

Lunch Break

I looked around the table and discovered that I was the only one that had a napkin. I was a real Sherlock Holmes.

I said, “Why am I the only one with a napkin?”

The answer was, “Because ours are on our lap.”

Oh dear!

Cleanliness, is another one of my problems. Last summer, I got invited for a nice breakfast. It was outside on a patio and the view of the highlands was gorgeous.

Poached eggs was on the menu. I love poached eggs. During the meal I couldn’t help but be impressed by how well the other two breakfasters were able to eat. They spilled not a dribble or a crumb onto the table.

At the end of the meal, the table cloth under and around their plates was void of crumbs, egg bits or spilled liquids. Not my place.

Our morning Hiking Route

Do you know how hard it is to properly manipulate a fork and a knife, and at the same time, to talk without your mouth full, to say things that are smart and relevant to the topic at hand and to not have food tumble off your fork when you’re lifting it up to your mouth.

Recently, I went out with a group of people. I ordered fish and chips. Two of us got our food on square plates. The other three got round plates.

I tried to join into the conversations and reply when it was warranted while making sure my mouth wasn’t full when I did say something exciting or relevant.

Now, that wasn’t such a big deal, because there were five of us, and I could, for the most part, just keep my yap shut and concentrate on not spilling or dropping.

However, within a minute, of getting my food, and I’m saying a minute, one of my fries ran away from my fork and hit the deck, one fell onto my lap and while I was trying to pick them up, I was told by an observer that two of my carrots had jumped ship.

Shadows

Okay, I looked after that problem, but there was a long term puzzle for me to deal with. It seemed just to be my problem.

For some reason, my plate kept rocking and rolling when I was digging into my door with my fork and knife. Every time I pressed down on the plate it would do a rocking horse movement. So, the whole meal people could hear the click, click of my plate. Click, click, click. It was as if I were playing the bones. Everyone else’s plates rested solidly on the table.

By the way, have you ever tried to use those sophisticated milk and cream jugs that they have in upscale coffee shops? How the hell do you get the cream to come out faster than a dribble? I know. It’s easy. Piece of cake, but not for me.

Or hotdogs at a gas station. How the hell do you get the relish, mustard and ketchup out of those little packets. I’m afraid if I try to open them with my teeth my partial will fall out. So, I usually have a bare naked Weiner in a bun.

There’s just too much to remember when I go out to eat.

I hope you readers don't mind me doing a little self-promotion in this blog. I do very little and figure my blog may be a way of getting a few folks to hand over their hard-earned money and buy a copy.

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The Character

20/5/2023

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Rare Forest Rabbit

“A smile is quite a funny thing,
It wrinkles up your face,
And when it’s gone, you never find
Its secret hiding place.”
Author unknown

I was recently on a public bus. It wasn’t a big city bus and it was crowded. I am not very often on a public bus, so I was intrigued by the passengers. Many of them were staring at their little virtual rectangles. I think there are people who barely know what the real world looks like.

The bus had seats that faced the side of the bus and seats that faced the front. I was sitting on a side seat. Directly in front of me was a blonde woman who was looking at her phone. A man with a massive belly sat behind her. He wasn’t looking at a phone. He was staring at the woman’s head for much of the time. A young man sat facing the opposite side of the bus that we were facing. He was looking at his phone. A man sat beside me. He had a walker. He wasn’t staring at a phone.

My friend, who sat on other side of me, and wasn’t staring at a phone, said that some of these folks spend the day riding around and around. They get off, buy a coffee or use a washroom and then go for another spin.

Middle River

One couple always sat apart. They would bring their lunches. The husband would eat his at the front of the bus. The wife would eat her lunch, while sitting on the wide seat, at the back of the bus.

I thought to myself, what a bunch of interesting characters.

I turned to my friend and said, “These characters would make an interesting CBC or BBC show.” My friend smiled and agreed.

However, it wasn’t as if they were doing anything news-worthy. They just looked interesting.

Near Middle River

I, meanwhile, was trying not to look interesting.

At the same time, I worried about not wearing a mask. The blonde woman kept coughing into her sleeve. I think her sleeve was drenched by the time she got off the bus.

Let Me Go

Anyway, as I hinted earlier, I tried to sit in a proper bus passenger way and not look like a character.

Suddenly, I found that I couldn’t move my feet. I wasn’t having a stroke or anything like that. No, my lace got attached to a hook on one of my boots. So, I had to do some subtle squirms and foot twists as I tried to disentangle my boots.

Tree Near Sue's Memorial Place

You see, I have boots with metal hooks, and my lace got tangled around one of them. That’s why I couldn’t move my feet. I finally had to bend down and try to locate the source of the problem.

Near Sue's Memorial Place

Really sounds not too difficult, doesn’t it? However, at my age, bending down isn’t so easy and my eyes aren’t so good at seeing clearly from my head to my feet.

People were beginning to take note.

Near Memorial

“Damn it,” I whispered, as I tried to separate my two boots. I was coming very close to being called a bus character.

The man with the walker was now looking down at my boots. So was the man with the belly and the sleeve cougher. I was now hoping that many of the bus characters were firmly embedded in their virtual world and were too busy snacking on social media tidbits of almost important information, to pay any attention to me.

However, the small circle around me were looking, and so to give them some idea of just how dangerous a situation I was in, I said, “these boots can be dangerous. I know an elderly woman, who had the same kind of lace mechanism and her laces got tangled up and she fell on her face. She was badly injured.” I made the last part up, but it helped the bus people to understand just how much danger I was in.

I finally got the boots separated. By this time, we were getting close to our destination, and damn it all, but didn’t a lace, once again, get tangled up.

“How close are we to our stop?” I asked my friend, as I grunted and bent. I wasn’t bothering to hide my actions now because it was, frankly, too late. I also realized that I was entertaining this crowd. This was what made their bus-ride addictions so worthwhile.

Our Morning Walk

The young man, who was facing the opposite wall, had taken note. To make it worse, the blonde woman, the big-bellied man and the fella beside me, plus who knows who else, had become not only fascinated by my black boots, but by my socks. I knew I shouldn’t have worn my pants that had shrunk in the wash. Follow directions

“If we stop and you can’t get off, you can just stay on the bus until the next time the bus gets to our stop,” my friend joked.

Part of the reason, I was struggling so, was because I was in a bit of a panic. I get clumsy when I’m in a dither. I’m not super mechanical anyway, and there’s a reason why two different bosses at two different factories suggested that I should look for alternative vocations. I actually almost destroyed a photo processing business.

Top of Blueberry Mountain

So, I pulled and twisted, as the man, sitting next to me, tried to get a better look. I think they were all about to give me advice or even a helping hand. However, the man, sitting next to me, had trouble moving to get a better look or to help, because I was sitting on his coat-tail.

I apologized and then said, so as to explain the whole reason for why I was being a character, “I’m from Cape Breton.”

Anyway, I finally managed to get my boots separated just before our stop.

Yep, as I said, it was a bus full of characters. Guess who the main character was?

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Puppets, Concrete and Goose Eggs

4/5/2023

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Eagle Cloud

I spent a weekend in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. I stayed with two friends. They were very kind and it was a pleasant time and a nice change. I got to meet many of their friends and to see how their environmentally friendly new building was coming along. It’s named Tree House.

We also watched a puppet show, that Judy put on, before she headed to the valley. Everyone enjoyed the show because Judy is a great story-teller. Her home-made puppets mesmerized the children

Where's the Wisdom Hidden?

Watching us on Our Early Morning Walk

I have to mention, however, that after spending most of my time in the woods, it was a big change being in a town. I’m comfortable living in the wilds. In towns, I’m walking on pavement with vehicles continually zipping by. It’s a different kind of river. It has fumes. Also, my knees began to ache because pavement is so unrelenting. I believe that many buildings and concrete tell a different story from what the wild places say and represent. It must be true because I was warned not to try swimming in what looked like a beautiful river. It is polluted. Its supposed infinite abilities to handle pollution were found to be finite.

“——whereas most modern buildings do not. On the contrary, they are often soulless and, if anything, induce negative emotional responses because they were planned, built, paid for and used by people whose mechanistic world view did not acknowledge the validity of subjective feelings.”
Rob Wood, The Zone

However, I know some people work very hard to maintain a spiritual connection with the wild places, even when they live in a town or a city.

Bike Trail Near Mabou

An interesting aside is that a friend told me that the next photograph made it appear as if I materialized out of nowhere. I guess I look like I’m part of this little place in the forest. I did feel like I was at home and not alone.

Sometimes, I have difficulty getting my head around the fact that so many people are able to be comfortable or even enjoy not being close to nature. I believe that buildings, amenities and concrete can be addictive. After awhile a person can wonder why they even need quiet, green, forested places, if they even think about it.

I suppose there are many reasons for this and maybe, someday, I’ll also have to move into a larger community.

Our Morning Hiking Trail

However, I still wonder if they know what they’re missing? I think many ailments are caused by not maintaining a connection with nature.

And you know, it’s difficult to see something that you love being destroyed almost everywhere you look. Often, just little bits at a time. I’m talking about the wild places. Our society seems to treat the finite world with an assumption of it being infinite, such as the river.

Early Morning Light

Since my wife disappeared, I have struggled with, well, with almost everything. My once solid views on life feel shaky. So, when I’m in a busy place, and am surrounded by so many people, all with their own egos, I feel as if my consciousness is continually being raised or getting a good kick in the ass. Some times my consciousness gets so elevated that I risk it bumping its head on these many thoughts and behaviours and getting a goose egg.

I can’t help thinking that the assumptions that many modern towns and cities are built on are not attached to the wisdom that comes from understanding nature. They oppose it. It’s all so solid and it’s hard to find places that are spiritually vital for our sanity.

Woods Near Meditation Spot

Really though, in this day and age, even in the wilds, if you have some form of virtual device, the socializing, grasping, contrived necessities can niggle away at the surrounding balance. Roaring, roaring, in the form of words and pictures. Turn them off and you’ll find, scary as it may seem, that your soul can breathe. It can poke its head out of its bunker and have a chat with you. Its voice is gentle, but essential, because it’s connected to something powerful, important and universal.

You're Not Touching This Tree

“Your buildings, tall, alien,
Cover the land;
Unfeeling concrete smothers, windows glint
Like water to the sun.
No breezes blow
Through standing trees;
No scent of pine lightens my burden.”
Rita Joe

View From Bike Trail

It’s in the wild places where I find my best counsellors.

A Carving

It’s where I find my centre.

My Good Friend Rick and Buster, Both, Sad to Say, Deceased. Both Good Hiking Buddies

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SORRY

1/4/2023

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Priceless Real-Estate

“Why should Punishment Weave the Veil with Iron Wheels of War
When Forgiveness might it Weave with Wings of Cherubim?”
William Blake
There is sometimes collateral damage when one goes through a crisis. Losing a loved one being
one of the most difficult of loses.

I felt sorry, after the loss of Sue, for my body and my mind. It was an emotional super storm. Most people survive the pain, but they are never the same.

The loss of a loved one pretty well firms up the belief, specially if you are older, that nothing is permanent. Not even taxes.

Dominic and Friend

Interpersonal relationships can be more difficult at this time. I’m afraid that the shock of Sue’s disappearance probably resulted in my losing at least one friend. If not, then it has certainly cut off any communication.

Now, you’d think that people would cut you some slack when something tragic happens, but everyone is different. Forever my friend, that’s what I was told, and then not my friend. Forever, and then not. Sue gone and my friend gone.

Forest Creature

Dominic has done everything he could to make me feel better. He wags his tail, licks me, sits with me while I drink my beer in the woodshed, sits on my lap, chases squirrels and makes me laugh. He has been a great furry bundle of help.

Do you know what is needed. COMMUNICATION!

“Come hither, be patient. Let us converse together, because
I also tremble at myself and at all my former life.”
William Blake

Forest Creature

Hell, I’ve actually apologized, a few times, and I don’t even know what I apologized for. Maybe there’s a reason. There’s only one reason that I’ve heard of and I’m innocent as charged.

Give me a clue! Put the reason behind one of those three doors. Let me guess which door it’s behind. Give me a chance to win a prize. Spin the wheel between commercials. The prize being a straight-out statement. This is what you did that so pissed me off and that’s why I will never, ever be your friend again.

Dominic With Another Friend

The crowd would cheer, the station would jump to the one billionth commercial and I’d go home with my prize. An answer.

However, I’m also aware that maybe something that has nothing to do with me is the problem. However, I don’t know because nobody is coughing up a clue.

Stopping For Lunch

So, I’ll end this section of my blog by apologizing to any friend that I may have upset or hurt. Whether I need to or not.

Happy Hikers

Ah, what the heck, I might as well whine some more. As I said, the loss of Sue and of a friend or two has pretty well firmed up my faith in the impermanence of things. It also screams that I am getting older. It grabs me by the collar and says, “look around you, everyone who is in your age-group is either checking out or getting involved in old-peoples’ activities.

Speaking of. I was asked to buy a lottery ticket for a place that holds events for seniors. I thought, as I filled out the form, that I hoped the young woman didn’t think that I needed to go there. I took a quick glance at my hand as I wrote my name and phone number and I thought that she definitely was thinking that I was an attendee.

Getting older is also making me less tolerant of television commercials and commercialism in general. Is there any limit? I’m fed up to my gills with all the phantoms that people are chasing which often end up as no more than a little old man behind a screen. The Great Wizard of Nothing. Oh Auntie Em, when can me and my little dog just land this bicycle and see what is real?

“It seems to me absolutely true, that our world, which appears to us the surface of all things, is really the bottom of a deep ocean: all our trees are submarine growths, and we are weird, scaly-clad submarine fauna, feeding ourselves on offal, like shrimps. Only occasionally the soul rises gasping through the fathomless fathoms under which we live, far up to the surface of the ether, where there is true air. I am convinced that the air we normally breathe is a kind of water, and men and women are a species of fish.”
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Incoming System

See what getting older has done to me. I’m really starting to believe that watching a woman crying over a dead child, wild fires burning up miles of forest and leaving the wild-life charred or dazed or homeless, dead shooting victims and much more, and then having the screen switch over to an ecstatic family making a big deal over a cheese sandwich is, well, what’s the word, nauseating. It’s the authentic and tragic trivialized. It’s dehumanizing. No

Judy Meets a Hiker

wonder there are so many kitchen tables laden with bottles and bottles of medications. “What’s wrong with me Auntie Em.”

“Nothing child. It’s just your morality showing.”

Morning Hiking Route

Oh I know, there has always been crazy stuff to bitch about, but it’s me talking and my getting-older mind is beginning to say enough is enough. If something, in this society is sacred then leave it sacred and not a ditty for selling the latest toss-out toy.

Well, that’s my rant for this blog.

“It is simple truth that the Indian did not, so long as his native philosophy held sway over his mind, either envy or desire to imitate the splendid achievements of the white man. In his own thought he rose superior to them! He scorned them, even as a lofty sprit absorbed in its stern task rejects the soft beds, the luxurious food, the pleasure-worshipping dalliance of a rich neighbour, It was clear to him that virtue and happiness are independent of those thing, if not incompatible with them.”
Charles A. Eastman, ‘The Soul of the Indian, An Interpretation’

Our Laneway

And one more thing. I know that I don’t have a zillionth of the knowledge of what is really happening on this fine earth, but I do know what I feel.

Sunrise

“I am perhaps the most sinful of men:
   I pretend not to holiness,
   Yet I pretend to love, to see,
   To converse with daily as man why man,
   And the more to have an interest in the Friend of Sinners.”
   William Blake

Strange Tree by Shubenacadie Residential School Lot

Sue's Memorial Lamp

Chewing My Glove on My Truck Roof

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Checking

24/3/2023

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This blog is a test to see whether my blog was discontinued or the message was a scam. If you see this blog then I think it was a scam.

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Unimaginable

12/2/2023

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Hiking Kelly's Mountain Trail

“Look deep
Into the water
Of your nearest stream
For the spirit of it
Will capture you
And you will never need
To thirst again.”
John Williams, Look Deep

Fairy Land

One of the reasons I don’t like watching nature shows is because the narrator almost always ends his narrating by mentioning a threat to these wild areas.

Say for example, I’m watching a show about a pristine untamed area. The wild animals are minding their own business in their wild homes. The creatures, big or small, beautiful and flawless in every curve and line. The trees tall and thick. Strong and ancient. The waters clean and drinkable.

But, Oh, Oh! Here it comes. It goes something like this. “This area is under growing pressure from industry, and it’s ever increasing need for resources.”

Chop, tear, gouge and scrape. Nothing is safe from a culture which sees everything as having a bottom line. Including for ourselves.

“When Nations grow Old, The Arts grow Cold--
And Commerce settles on every Tree.”
William Blake

Look Out! Here Comes Dominic

There is a poem that brings tears to my eyes. I believe I’ve quoted it before. It’s about the last wolf who is running through a crumbling city. Civilization has collapsed. A person waits for the wolf in their room. They listen to the wolf’s approach.

Jalal Taking A Photo

Here’s part of the poem.
“I heard his voice ascending the hill
and at last his low whine as he came
floor by empty floor to the room
where I sat
in my narrow bed looking west, waiting
I heard him snuffle at the door and
I watched
He trotted across the floor.

He laid his long gray muzzle
On the spare white spread
And his eyes burned yellow
His small dotted eye brows quivered

Yes, I said
I know what they have done.”
Mary TallMountain, The Last Wolf

Out Of Focus Photo Of a Bobcat

I remember the night I baled out of theology. I’d been attempting to cope with the study of the stuffy imaginations of the human mind. In a stone hard place where we dissected God and tried to comprehend the comprehensions of theologians and philosophers. This building, filled with mummified air, seemed non-transcendent and unconnected to where my soul wanted to be. Studying God had tired me out, and when the Prof told us that we could take a ten minute coffee break, well, I took a life-time coffee break.

Find The Cute Little Face

I remember walking down the hard steps, imagining that I was a wolf, who had escaped from his cage.
A stone, slung out of David’s sling.

“God is an ambiguous word in our language because it appears to refer to something that is known. But the transcendent is unknowable and an unknown God is transcendent, finally, of anything like the name “God” God is beyond names and forms.”
Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Winter In The Forest

One can find great strength in knowing that the Creator is not understandable and is outside our brain’s ability to see beyond opposites and three dimensions.

Winter's Back

A person can also drown in this view, but for myself, knowing that the universe is huge beyond my knowledge is a source of strength. Peeking through the invisible veil’s tiny holes is enough to keep me afloat. It allows me to have faith that what I can’t comprehend is rock-solid and authentic. Is where my soul dwells.

Scene On My Morning Walk

Last Sunday, Judy, Jalal and I hiked part-way up Kelly’s Mountain. It was gorgeous. The snow clung to pencil straight trees. They looked like a line of white hooded monks bordering the trail.

Another Scene On My Morning Walk

When I walk on these trails, and look at the beauty that surrounds me, I try not to think about how much our society’s main belief is to make everything refer back to ourselves. To view all of nature as ours. To see every creature as inferior to our great and overwhelming brain organ.

He Loves Them All

On this particular hike, my friend said that she felt as if she was on a fairy trail. In one photograph I took, she mentioned that although our clothes were modern, they didn’t diminish the sense that the photo was not taken in the twenty-first century. It was timeless.

Another Morning Walk Scene

At one point, she took a picture of a tall and thick tree. When I looked at the photo, I felt that it, in some way, preserved the tree. Immortalized it. It was as if she’d put a ring around its trunk and then it became a representative of everything that exists. All that we can’t put in words.

Maybe that’s one reason I take photos.

Judy Taking Photo at Broad Cove

“These the Visions of Eternity,
But we see only, as it were, the arm of their garments
When with our vegetable eyes we view these wondrous Visions.”
William Blake

Too Cute

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Surreal

31/12/2022

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Off Red Island Trail

“Art is the Tree of Life.”
William Blake

Angel on a Mushroom

On Christmas morning, Dominic and I went on our four K walk. However, this Christmas walk felt different. Why? Because I was checking the rain water that was rushing down from the highlands, for any signs of Sue.

I thought, what a surreal life I’m living.

Corney Brook

However, I did receive a great Christmas gift. A few weeks ago, when I lost quite a bit of electricity in my trailer, and was feeling rather hopeless that any reasonably cheap solution could be found, an electrician came over, fixed the problem, and then, when I asked him what it was going to cost, said it was free. Now, that’s the Christmas spirit.

Judy's Puppets

I often find, when I’m reading a novel, that the words expressed seem very relevant to my life. For example, I was reading ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’, written by Charles Dickens, and these words jumped out at me.

Many of you will understand why they did.

Brook by Homestead Trail

“I rather grieve to think,’ said the child, bursting into tears, ‘that those who die about us, are so soon forgotten.”

“And do you think,’ said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had thrown around, ‘that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a faded flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect? Do you think there are no deeds far away from here, in which these dead may be best remembered? Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world at this instant, in whose good actions and good thoughts these very graves-neglected as they look to us-are the chief instruments,”

By Red Island Trail

A blog or two ago I wrote about walking on one of Sue’s favourite trails. I'd noticed a thick decaying branch spread across the ground, and this thought jumped out at me.

“This branch was likely here when Sue hiked on this trail.”

It wasn’t that this rumination was so profound, it was the effect of the thought. It was like a deep prayer inside a koan, if that’s possible.

Dominic's Squirrel Hunting Blind

There’s a Celtic parable that says:
“Sometimes when I pray I utter the words,
But I do not feel or think them.
Sometimes when I pray, I utter the words,
Thinking about what I say, but not feeling.
Sometimes when I pray, I utter the words,
And I both think and feel what I say.”
Celtic Parable

Plenty of things have changed in my life, and maybe that’s why I was more aware of the overwhelming commercialism that tore through this Christmas season. So, I now have even more trouble watching commercials on television. Because, it seems that the overwhelming pummelling of our brains, is way-over-the-top intrusive. Way beyond what could be called moderate or sane.

It’s as if our society, in so many suits of clothes, is drowning us in more and more reasons to become morally desensitized, fearful and desperately grasping for the finite resources of our planet. I mean, how many wants, worries, guilt-trips and plain old bull doo doo, can a human brain handle without ending up with some ailment described in those big blue books that sit on specialists’ desks.

At Corney Brook Falls

Frozen Puddle

And what about all those disease commercials where we are told what disorders we should worry about? Don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of people suffering from a sickness, but I still maintain that maybe, one way for me to cope with this bombardment of being educated in all the terrible, not so terrible and made-up diseases, is for me to make multiple medical appointments. Cluster bomb the doctor’s with appointments until I reach that idyllic space, where I will finally not have a reason to get poked, jabbed or run through clicking and sucking machines. I will have finally been fully educated and protected from all diseases.

Furthermore, you advertising people, I have read so many articles and viewed so many commercials on the first signs of so many diseases that I have decided not to educate myself. I’m calling it my Ostrich Philosophy. That way I may have a chance to lower my low-grade constant feelings of anxiety into a I don’t give a damn feeling of release. Until something real happens. Not virtual. Not spun. Not implied. Something that is as real as the sun rising every day to nurture and sustain our planet’s real needs.

“Do what you will, this Life’s a Fiction,
And is made up of Contradiction.”
William Blake

Hiking on Cabot Trail

Salmon Pool's Pulpit

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I Really Did

15/11/2022

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Colours

“The greatest darkness is beneath the lamp itself.”
Robert Van De Weyer, CELTIC PARABLES, Stories, Poems & Prayers

Drying Off

A few weeks ago, I was walking on our little trail which winds through the woods behind our home. I, as usual, had Sue in my thoughts. She loved to walk in these woods.

This particular day, I stopped, and looked at a white birch branch which rested on the colourful, leafy ground. For some reason this branch took on a special significance. It became more than just a part of this specific moment. It felt different, and yet it was the same branch.

How many times had Sue and I walked by this branch? As I thought about this question, I felt as if I was praying. Reaching out, not sure to whom, but I think I was attempting to get a connection with a reality that was beyond our three dimensional world.

Little Mobile Home Surrounded with Colour

Maybe, I was trying to push the past and the present together, so that they were one, and became like a two part Trinity. They were slipping in and out of the paper thin reality that, separates us from the other dimension; the place that Sue might be living in.

In Salmon Pool's Cabin

Let Me In

I believe that there are areas of this universe that can only be understood and experienced through meditation and prayer.

So, this branch had been lying on the side of the trail for, who knows how long. It had, somehow, grabbed my attention, and got me doing some deep meditation on what had been and what now was. After-all, this branch, like so many objects, was a direct connection to when Sue was still alive.

Morning Walking Trail

I’ve just returned from Sue’s Memorial Service. It was in Cobourg, Ontario. The folks that organized it did a great job and the hall was more than packed with Sue’s family and friends.

When I spoke at the service, I mentioned that I had seen Sue’s spirit in a field.

I know at that time, the morning after she disappeared, that I was tired, in shock and experiencing a whole whack of other emotions. However, after much thought, I can declare that I was not seeing an hallucination, and was not projecting. I have only seen one ghost, and it was Sue. I was so fortunate.

Our Road

Hiking Salmon Pool's Trail

Why am I fairly sure that I saw Sue after she’d passed on?

Well, while I trudged through the field, which was covered in fresh snow, I was on the phone with my son. At the same time I was continuously trying to unwrap the leash from around Dominic’s legs, so I was rather busy to be seeing an hallucination.

Salmon Pool's Trail

Salmon Pool's Hermit

While I was speaking to my son, I told him that I was seeing a person who looked like they were either searching for Sue or were hunting.

Where I Go To Make Sense of My World

However, there are other reasons why I am quite sure that I saw Sue?

You see, although I haven’t seen another ghost, I have had other strange, after-death experiences, and they were definitely not hallucinations.

Dominic Running Free on Salmon Pool's Trail

One time, I was taking a shower, only one or two days after my father died. There I was in the tub, my rubber ducky and I, singing a sad song when suddenly, there came, shooting out of my side, two coins. They tumbled to the tub floor. I picked them up, and put them on the side of the sink. I can’t remember what denominations they were, but I know they weren’t just dimes. My father wasn’t cheap.

Anyway, I put them on the sink, and explained to myself that they probably fell off the tub’s ledge. I thought that maybe Sue had left them there.

Creature Under Tree

Well, I climbed back into the tub and continued to shower. Presto! Another coin shot out of my side. It came from nowhere that I could explain. So I put it down as virtual-dad mail.

I will mention one more event.

Off Salmon Pool's Trail

A next door neighbour had died, and a few days later, while I was brushing my hair, I discovered that a looney had been nesting in my curls. I shouted, “Sue, a looney just came out of my head.”

“Figures,” she shouted.

I still have some of these coins, and I could, if I so desired, deposit them in a bank.

Windy Morning Over St. Lawrence River

The coins were as real as any bank note and came out of a place that doesn’t deal with low blood sugar, projections, hallucinations or shingles. That’s why my seeing Sue seems just as logical as my body becoming part of the Canadian Mint.

By the way, Sue left no tracks in the fresh snow, and the trail I saw her walk/float up, was close to where they found her glove.

So, I’m going to rest my case. You can take it to the bank.

Clouds Over St. Lawrence River

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Our Gentle River

2/10/2022

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A Tiny Apple. Notice Wire That I Didn't See. Photo Could Be Worth Thousands

We came out the other side of Fiona in fine form. We were lucky. No wind damage. No water damage. The river didn’t even climb up the side of the bank to take a peek at our place, and the power was out for less than 24 hours.

Dominic and I stayed with our friends, who live in a big house up the road from us. They were hurricane ready. We slept in their basement in a separate room from theirs. Gotta say it was cozy in their industrial bedroom. Real ambiance. The door was a sheet and it took a rapid canine training course to keep Dominic in our room. He is a curious little fella and they have a cat and a dog.

Dominic By River

Dominic was in the lap of luxury. He had three different places to rest his weary body. My bed, a cozy dog bed and a large cage. He used them all. I’d wake up and he’d be on the bed. Wake up another time and he’d be in the cage. The next time I woke up he’d nodded off on the dog bed. It was merry-go-round musical beds and it went on all night.

I’m a bit of an ostrich and didn’t want to hear the storm, so I packed my ears with tissue. The ear plugs and the fan cut out the sound of the hurricane.

It was hard to sleep while wondering if the little trailer was going to last. As I said to a friend, “I’ve lost my wife and now I may lose my home. Life can’t get any better than that.”

Trailer the Same Before and After Storm

I mean what does one do when life threatens to give you another good kick in the wherever? What can one do, but keep on keeping on.

Before the storm hit, I’d sat along the side of the river. At that point it looked like a cute little brook. Oh I knew its potential. It wouldn’t trick me. However, it did. It didn’t flood me out.

The past few years, Sue and I and others had discussed many ways of protecting our place from the river. Nothing seemed cheap, and people said the work might not pan out. The Middle River has changed its course many times.

River Now Wider

However, as I looked downstream, I noticed that the river was much wider, because the concrete bridge had been totally removed and then large armour rocks laid along the sides.

Also, the new bailey-bridge had no central supports holding it up. So, the river’s flow was more unimpeded. Hallelujah! I’m hoping the temporary Bailey bridge stays there for a long time. In Cape Breton, temporary can be like a Minnesota farewell.

Last blog I talked about little happenstances and how they can be interpreted in different ways. Well, just before I vacated the trailer and headed for our friends’ house, the phone rang. It was a sales rep. She called me Mr. Larry. Kind of cute. Anyway, when I told her about the hurricane she said, “God will be with you, Mr. Larry. I’ll pray that you will be safe.”

Clouds Approaching Baddeck River

Well, on Saturday morning, we all crawled out of our beds around seven pm. I’m not sure which bed Dominic crawled out of. Anyway, we all went outside to see the damage. There was no destruction that we could see and it was warm and barely raining.

We all walked down the road to the trailer looking for damage. Only one fallen tree and the trailer was in fine shape.

Now I know that many people were closely watching the movement of the hurricane on their computers and cell phones. I so much wanted to vent one of my theories that morning. I would have said, if I had chosen to say it, and I may have, that there are two main realities in our modern world. There is the virtual world and there is the real world. I tend to rely more on the real world because if I don’t then I’m afraid that I am going to be surprised more times than I can count, plus, relying on the virtual info world makes me feel like I’m living in a painting with stick people. But still, god bless the virtual world.

Pond By Red Island Trail

You want to know what the most dangerous part of our walk was on Saturday morning? I’ll tell you.

My friend, Jim, was walking down the road while staring at his phone. Now I can guarantee there was no present prediction coming from it.
Suddenly his wife, Jennifer, shouted, “Look out!”

Why did she shout? Because a very large buck came crashing out of an apple orchard and was heading straight for Jim. Luckily, it veered off. A real buck going into a real forest. Nothing virtual about it. Perfectly three dimensional.

You may know a little bit about me by this time if you’ve read some of my blogs. I do have an ability to string stories and theories out of disparate occurrences, but do you know what? You probably don’t know what, so I’ll tell you.

Jim and Jennifer

When my relationship began with Sue, two bears suddenly appeared close to her cabin and they caused quite a fuss for awhile. I remember, before we became partners, Sue and I talking about bears and how they can be a healing totem.

On Monday morning, Dominic and I were hiking up the road when we almost bumped into a black bear. The first bear I’ve seen on this road in over ten years.

I know, I know, I should have been carrying bells and whistles. But, how are you to see a bear if your’e belling him off before you see her? I ask you that.

Near Where We Encountered the Bear

It may sound crazy, but I kind of think that Sue may have had something to do with the bear. Really crazy, if I go out on a limb and say that Mr. Larry thinks that Sue had something to do with the river setting things right or for that matter why I have a novel out that is called, “Dead and Not Dead. Maybe there is a fourth and fifth and many more dimensions. I sure as hell don’t know.

Eagle By Baddeck River

Now, before you make up your mind about how crazy this connection might be, think back to the days when, if you had to, that you spent sitting in a government building, asking a government employee, questions. Think of their answers. Think about all the talking craniums, and then think of the bear appearing the first full day that I was at home after the hurricane. I was exhausted, and had quite recently lost a partner and had thought I might lose my home. Don’t you think that these circumstances might’ve put a bit of a crimp in the universe, at least mine?

Beautiful Baddeck River

I was at a friend’s the day after the hurricane. I dropped some water off at her place. As of Tuesday, she still had no power. I, at one point, bent down and picked up a coin. It was a dime. I said, “I can probably keep this because I think it is from Sue. Is that okay?”

Red Island Trail

She didn’t say, “Yes, Mr. Larry,” but she did say “Yes.”

What about the man who came walking out of a bush road and began talking about Sue. He had been part of the search. He apologized for chatting to me about Sue. He then bent over and picked up a coin off the bridge.

“Is that a dime,” I asked.

It was, and he gave it to me because he knew that it was from Sue to Mr. Larry.

Neighbour's Farm House

On Thursday, my friend Torrey, who I gave water to, bent down and picked up a dime and gave it to me. No question of who it belonged to. I have a pile of dimes lying by Sue’s little red lamp. That’s where I say good night to her, and sometimes I can feel that she is there and counting the dimes.

There’s a theory that dimes are the coin of choice for the spirits because they are so light.

Hiking With Torey On Red Island Bridge

I have another theory. I think that Sue, who is and was very bright, doesn’t have to toss dimes. She simply gets others to give me a shit-load.

For example, a few weeks ago I was at Tim Hortons. I handed the teller a bill. She cracked a package of coins and dumped a load of dimes into my hand. Easy peasy.

Red Lamp and Dimes

Who knows. Only the Shadow knows, and he got blown away on Saturday afternoon, and who knows where the hell he is.

I do know this. When Dominic and I take our early morning walk through the forest we are going to have a full, but silent can of bear spray. Because, Mr. Larry may be able to string a series of events and concepts together, but Mr. Larry isn’t an idiot. Go figure.

Lane To House Where We Hid From Fiona

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Thin Walls

20/9/2022

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Mist Dances Over and Around Blueberry Mountain

Mist Climbing Mountain

Mist Moving In

Trail on Blueberry Mountain

I did it. Dominic did it. We both did it. What did we do? We left our home. Went our separate ways, but only for a little while. Five days.

Dominic went to camp. It’s called In Good Hands. He learned to canoe, light a fire, participated in group play time, made doggy crafts and had quite a few good old roll-in-the-dirt sessions

I went to Bridgewater. It’s not far from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Here I hiked two new trails, talked a way too much and attempted to get familiar with being away from the island. It was, overall, a good time and I’m glad I went. I stayed with two of Sue’s best friends, Kathy and Clara.

Baddeck River

But wow, talk about difficult to leave Cape Breton! Hard to explain, and as for dropping Dominic off, it nearly tore my heart out through my head. You see, Dominic has been my faithful buddy and house-mate since Sue disappeared.

I dropped Dominic off at the kennels the day before I left. When I returned home, I couldn’t believe how many times I looked for him and I missed the click, click, click of his nails on the floor as he followed me around.

Losing a loved one, especially a spouse, is like having an emotional bomb dropped into your life. Memories, like bricks and mortar, are strewn everywhere. Everything, to the eyes, looks the same and almost nothing feels or looks the same.

Mount Rushmore In Cape Breton

You try to survive from minute to minute. Like a person in a war ravaged city, you walk around your bombed-out life trying to put your emotional pieces back together. Familiar places and items weep with memories. You look in the mirror and wonder if that person is you. You’re in a battle and it’s not a time to be unselfish, if being selfish is what it takes to survive the emotional and physical storm. The future is too frightening to think about.

Also, you still have to deal with practicalities. Things like money, the estate and all the normal things that keep your life from diving into the dumpster.

You go into a grocery store and watch the shoppers shopping and you try to remember what it was like to have a regular life.

You avoid people because you don’t want to force them, usually uncomfortably, to express their sympathy. You don’t want to put them on the spot and when they do, you want empathy, not pity. Many folks attempt to say helpful things, but often they bring back the grief. You understand that it’s difficult for them to find the right words. Maybe they are also frightened, aware that they too might, in the future, have to deal with a huge loss. Having somebody to love in your life means you are at great risk, in the future, of experiencing debilitating grief.

Some grieving people shop in stores where the people don’t know them. They might wear a hat or sunglasses to disguise themselves. It is so much fun! And it isn’t even halloween, although you are living in a horror story.

Torey's Dramatic Pose

Friends help and when something tragic happens in your life, you will find out who your true friends are. They will let you know, in one way or another, that they are thinking of you. Many have themselves suffered a great loss and are, as a friend said, the walking wounded.

So Pretty

However, gradually, gradually, you put the bits and pieces of your life back together. You search for friends, safe places and therapeutic activities wherever you can find them. You create a retreat from your emotional chaos. However, you never know when you will be attacked by the relentless grief and you’re always anxious that your emotional walls will collapse like a sponge cake in an earthquake.

Good Camouflage out-fit

Now, my biggest fear wasn’t going away, it was returning home. It was coming back to a place where, although I’d begun to know and trust it, was also filled with the bombed out emotional memories caused by the grievous attacks. I’d learned to cope with the emotions, but when I left and then returned would the walls that I had constructed stand up to the dreadful psychological forces that had been almost overwhelming.

Magical Puddle

Well the separation anxiety and all the memories didn’t disappoint. The closer I got to home the more grief, anxiety and disorientation I experienced. The loss of Sue was etched in every once friendly place.

However, in times like this, unexpected miracles occur.

She Thinks She's in Hiding

You see, as I headed over Kelly’s Mountain, I decided to test my miracle theory. I turned on my radio. I hit scan and reached out into the universe. The first station was playing an Elvis Presley song. I think the universe was warming up. The next channel had a man talking about how he dealt with his trauma. So relevant! What are the odds? Who knows? I’ve given up on figuring out probabilities. Whether it was the snow-rainbow I followed to a friend’s house on Christmas morning, only twenty—two days after Sue disappeared, or this sudden radio program, it has to be admitted that they were, maybe more than happenstances, and Sue always gets some of the credit. Anybody need a dime?

Bat Man On a Hike

Finally, a weird thing happened while I was in Bridgewater. I was checking the kennel’s web page. I wanted to see what time I could pick up Dominic. I found a video that they had posted twenty-six minutes before I signed on. I clicked on it and saw all the dogs, every shape and size, running around in a fenced in area. Then, to my surprise, I saw a little black dog pop out from behind a building. He looked into the camera. It was Dominic.