Elephant in the Room

 

Silver Ganesh in Chaing Mai

While in Asia, I became mildly obsessed with the need to own a Ganesh statue to bring home. We left most of our shopping to our last 3 days in Bangkok; which in hindsight was not enough time. I despaired at the end that I hadn't found the Ganesh that spoke to me, but resigned myself to the fact that it was one item not coming home with me.

Our flight home began in the wee early morning, so the night before we spent packing our purchases until after midnight. With 3 of us, we packed for getting things home in one piece front of mind rather than who's stuff went in which bag.

While going through every pocket of my pack to see what I had, I found a very small brass Ganesh that I forgot I'd bought at a temple in Cambodia for $1 from a woman who looked like she needed the $1 way more than I did.

Wondola, wondola, wondola… (you have to have been there to understand what this means).

Terrace of the Elephants
Angkor Watt, Siem Reap, Cambodia

I read recently that “(Ganesh) is the Lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. He is also the god of education, knowledge, wisdom and wealth,” according to About.com.

Perfect God for someone looking for work.

This morning, I went to the EnchantedForest website to choose an animal spirit to help me with my job search.

I did a similar thing last year around the subject of self-love and the forest gave me Squirrel. At the time, I thought WTF? Squirrel?
Over time though I came to understand just how perfect Squirrel was for me as a learning tool for self-love.

Today, the Enchanted Forest gave me Elephant to help with my job search. It told me, "You are a tower of strength. Your heart is full of courage and you know that you can do and be anything you care to. After all, you are the elephant."

Wall post with elephants, Chaing Mai

It goes on, but you get the picture.

Maybe because I was raised without formal religion I see no harm in taking strength from Ganesh and the Enchanted Forest website in equal parts to lift me up and set me on my way with a spring in my step. Who is to say which of these elephants will lend me the strength I need to find the work I want for now.

Two Things

Two things: environment matters and a comfortable mold will lurk for a while even after you think you’ve broken free.

Recently, I allowed myself to slip back into my comfortable mold of The Mother.

The person responsible for the efficient, socially respectable and tidy management of a home and family.

Dictator Mom at your service!

That’s the old role where I can’t afford to be warm and fuzzy because I’m too busy making sure the structure doesn’t crumble around us and allow the worst to happen.

It’s an attitude where you are convinced that life is a slippery slope and it is only by clenching that you can maintain order and survive.
I had returned to clenched. Actually, until today I hadn’t realized just how clenched I can get. I must have spent years like that in my old life!

Only when I changed environments did I see the truth of what I was doing. For me, my immediate environment has the capacity to affect my mindset. I need empty space around me.

Years ago, I read that Sagittarians need space around them so much that when they sit down at a table set for dinner, they will immediately push away the utensils, dishes etc. to make a space in front of them. I do that and, yes, I am Sagittarian.

I like empty spaces in my home, in my neighborhood and in my view.  No wonder I liked my Little House on the Prairie; it had views all the way to the sunrise.

Right now, I’m in a place of space and quiet. I can hear my spirit here. Today, I heard it tell me to chose faith and a spirit of adventure. Okay!!!

I spent a few hours today clipping branches and sawing big sticks.

I’m going to have a big, full moon fire tonight!

I may even howl!

People Are Great

So hanging out in Vancouver on a pendulum. One day I’m looking for work here. The next day I’m talking about returning to my network in Alberta.

taken from FB

I came across this term the other day – Negative Capability. The definition says – the ability to tolerate uncertainty and doubt. Clearly, I’m exercising this muscle right now. 
Of course, I’m also exercising that muscle in the people around me as I exhibit multiple personality disorder. Consider this week; each day my sister arrived home from work, I had a new plan for my future.
This particular sister is very good at handling chaos; which is very much working in her favor right now. I, on the other hand, prefer minimalism and simplicity. So this is driving me crazy and making her laugh.
This might be why today’s thought is that I love people more than anything. People are great. They are kind, generous, caring, supportive, instructional, forgiving and, if nothing else, good for a laugh.
When I stop to think about what makes my life good I can’t avoid the obvious; which is that it’s the people I know and interact with that do it… well, unless it’s interacting with an animal. Cats and dogs are people too and do some funny sh_t.

Cherry blossoms at Steveston

Here’s one 2-hour interlude to illustrate.

The other day my sister and I had time to kill. We drove around Richmond and stopped at various points of interest and here’s what made them interesting.
A small girl learning to ride a bike hollered “Hi. Hi. Hi.” She was not going to be ignored, so I turned and said hi back. Her face lit up with a big smile when I acknowledged her and she proudly rode on toward the benches. She was just as insistent about saying bye a few minutes later.
At the monument to sailors lost at sea, it is very moving to see the names of souls lost at sea, but even more moving to see the boats they take to sea moored on the other side of the park. The thought of those little boats tossed on a high sea gave me shivers.

When fishermen go out to sea.

Sitting on a bench watching the variety, energy and love in the people around us lifted my spirit. There were conversations at a sedate pace, groups running in camaraderie and support and people playing with the dogs that love them unconditionally. For me, the most poignant was a group of women that looked like 4 generations of a family out for some air on a spring evening.

Sunset at Richmond Dyke

At the north end of Richmond dyke as the sun set over the marsh planes landed at the airport full of people coming to see people.
Then we stopped by a park where white geese we resting on their annual migration. Almost an entire school yard was covered with white geese.

Geese eyeing up the neighbor's nice grass!

Here we saw a little league baseball outfielder hesitate just short of the edge of the geese then plunge in to retrieve the white ball from amid the white geese. Practice over, a few young players tried their luck running through the geese. It really didn’t seem to bother the geese much at all.
I got the feeling the geese put up with the humans every year. Such as the woman with the finely manicured lawn that tries to keep them on the school side of the street by clapping her hands. I suspect she fails because her grass looked very green on that side of the fence.

Bull Rush fluff by the sea.

A woman who pulled up in a car to walk her dog, but the little dog was too scared to get out into that sea of geese. She managed to coax him out and we watched him suddenly become the Great White Hunter or Herder to be more precise.
Through all this, it was the companionship of my sister sharing the observations and laughs that really made it so much fun. I realize many people know that it’s people that make our lives fun and meaningful, but it doesn’t hurt to remind us all of the simplest truths sometimes.

Relationship Ruminations



A new relationship developing in my life - granddaughter

I’m sitting in the sun on Madelon’s patio watching over Simbah – who is tethered – and thinking about relationships. Even this simple relationship with a cat engenders food for thought. For many years, Simbah ran free, without a care in the world, all her worldly needs provided and an entire rodeo grounds to call her turf. Meanwhile, I – as the provider – tethered myself to a desk, a way of being and role that I felt worked as provider. Now, the tables are turned. Simbah walks circles at the end of her tether and I roam free about the world. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s aware of that and not so pleased with me.

When it comes to my human relationships, I have old ones, new ones, family, friends, associates and colleagues. I had clients, but I’ve let that go for now and number those people among my friends and colleagues. I have relationships I’ve let go, relationships dangling, blooming, changing and comfortably distant.

So I see that relationships, with everyone and everything, constantly change. Part of this is because I constantly change even when I’m not aware of the change.  I read somewhere recently that a person cannot consider themselves the same person in the evening as they were when they awoke. It’s akin to geological change; so slow that it takes a period of time to notice something changed.

In some respects I am the same person as the babe born decades ago, but I am also a new person several times over. Experiences, learning and relationships with the world mould and evolve our beliefs and values.

A babe, my baby boy and a new grandmother.

This change is so constant and so slow that we sometimes don’t recognize that we have changed. Many people roll their eyes at the concept of an organization that does something one way because, “we’ve always done it this way; it is the way to do it.” Yet, sometimes those same people also say, “I have always…” and do not see the fallacy of the statement.

I see now that the belief that we are the same person today as yesterday is the lie that traps us. We are not and we never will be the person we were before this moment or this moment or this moment…

The trick is to remember in each moment that I am under development and that I will be under development until my last breath. The freedom in this thought is that an ever-changing state allows for directed change.

Any relationship in my life that does not bring me joy, I can choose to change in a direction that will allow joy. I can direct change in my relationships to people, money, my idea of home or my idea of work.

I can recognize that these are fluids I’m working with instead of rocks or even that relationships are currents in our lives and we can paddle our way through or float along to see where we end up.

Jack in the Pulpit - BC coast, Canada
I am that

Of course the most important relationship of all is our relationship to our higher Self or the Divine in us. If there is an unchanging aspect of humans, it is the Divine in us as us. Our job is to let it shine through in this moment… this moment… this moment…

Reintegration is Rough



On the causeway over the moat at the main Angkor Wat temple.

Before I do something foolish and jump back into a life that made me desperately want to free myself, I need to find some clarity around what it is that I want my life to look like going forward.

I could list my past accomplishments, my present skills and my close relationships as a way of describing who I am. I could talk about what I need to hold on to my identity. I could list personal attributes worth preserving in my attachments, but I would prefer to step away from who I am and who I’ve been and see if I can find something deeper; a core of truth.

I feel fraudulent; as though I live my life as a veneer of my true self.

Coming home from Thailand offered me a couple of experiences that make me wonder where I belong.

This is how you buy fruit in Bangkok.

I walked into a grocery store to buy food and did not recognize the reality of the place.   I felt as though I couldn’t see what was in front of me.

None of what my eyes were taking in looked right or real. If my brother hadn’t come to walk with me, I probably would have left that store without much of what I intended to get.

I was walking between worlds and couldn’t see clearly.

The next day, I was driving in Calgary and there seemed to be too few cars on the road. There were a couple of times when there were no cars around me on the streets at all.

The first time, I sat at a red light waiting to turn onto John Laurie Blvd. There was not a single car in sight anywhere.

Suddenly, I laughed at the thought of a Bangkok taxi driver sitting beside me exasperated and yelling with arms flailing, “Why don’t you go? What are you waiting for? There are no cars. Step on the gas and go fast!”

Bangkok street

The second time the streets felt deserted, I had a feeling as though I was one of the last living people following a terrible holocaust and driving through deserted streets in some Sci-Fi movie. It was unnerving.
But these feelings of disconnect from my surroundings signal to me that I’ve let go of more than I may have thought; if I’d thought about it.
Perhaps the foreign travel provided the separation I needed from my old, entrenched life and I’m now ready to head in a new direction.

It would be nice if the direction would present itself! There is one journey I haven’t made yet in this process and it is the journey inward.

During the winter of 2010/11, I wanted very much to go sit in an ashram. It’s possible that it is time to do that… after a visit with my kids.

Heart's Home

I made a comment the other day on Facebook that I now know that Canada is one of the best countries in the world. A friend then asked if I'd found something in my travels that I didn't like.
That's not it; that's not why I'm feeling love for my country while travelling in another place. It is not that there is something I don't like. In fact, there is much Canada can learn from these freer, older and perhaps wiser societies.

Placing a garland offering on Buddha
in Chaig Rai, Thailand.

 It is that I am Canadian.
As David Montgomery points out in his book Dirt, each generation grows up believing that what they see around them is how it has always existed. It takes a geologist or an anthropologist to see the changes that have taken place over time lines longer than a human life.
As a Canadian, I grew up in wide-open spaces, swimming in clear lakes, hiking in vast forests and skiing in blindingly white mountains breathing clean air. I can't recall a time in my life when there were so many people around that I couldn't find a deserted spot to sit.
Last night, we walked to Surin Beach, Phuket Island. The beach was covered from one end to the other with 3 long rows of lounge chairs. There were pathways through to the beach and along between the rows. Umbrellas on stands divided the chairs into pairs. Behind the rows of chairs began the concrete or wooden platforms for the restaurants full of dinning tables.

Taxi boats line the beach on Ko Phi Phi, Thailand.

I think of the deserted beaches of the west coast where I've walked in the sand alone except for the gulls and the odd eagle and don't care that's it was because it was cold and raining. By Phuket standards, it was cold at Surin last night and raining (in a not Phuket way, which is solid sheets of rain). Earlier yesterday I sat in/on a beautiful veranda sipping coffee, reading and watching Phuket rain and feeling every bit the world traveller enjoying something I don't get at home. So, it's a question of what do I love.
I love the sound of silence while skiing in the Jasper Back country. I love sitting on a rock in a ray of sunshine that's found its way through the forest canopy. I love dangling my feet into water so cold it hurts and so you have to dip and jerk a few times before you can sit for even 5 seconds with them actually in the water. But oh, heaven to splash that water on your face when you stop for 10 minutes on your way up to a back country hut!

I love being able to stand on the beach and holler all you want because there is no one around to hear you except the buddy hollering beside you. Finally, it soothes my soul to listen to nothing but the sound of a babbling brook or rushing river knowing that, at that moment, it belongs to you.
In the din of man-made noise, I loose connection with my inner self. I get lost.

Angkor Wat temple monkey

To visit these ancient lands where humanity's mark is far advanced from the one I see in my usual travelling, is to recognize at a deep level of my being that I live in a young, sparsely populated country. I've known this most of my life, but now it is refreshed knowledge. On a visceral level, I see how important environmental protection is for our future generations.

This is a photo of Chaig Mai from up the mountain at Doi Sutep - except you can't see the city because of the smog. This is not a large city.

At some point, life will go on without all the current technologies. It won't go on without drinking water, food production and air to breathe.
This is what I find as the fundamental problem of dragging our feet on alternatives ways of living, transporting and consuming. The chance that a child born today will see the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok run clean with parkland on its banks is probably quite slim.

Will that be true of a future child growing up in Calgary and playing by the Bow River? Will Canadians 3, 4, or 7 generations from now see the forests, rivers and lakes I've seen? Or will they write about visiting the ruins of the ancient city of Bangkok and long to return to cooler metropolis of Calgary?

Rubber trees on Phuket Island. Note the little black collectors.

Cambodian Encore

Pictures!

Houses of the floating village. Note the Spirit House for the ancestors on the tree stump.

T, our guide, turned off the main road onto a secondary highway wide enough for 1.5 cars. The edges of the pavement were level with the well packed red earth of Cambodia that made it possible for 2 cars to pass carefully. He cheerily talked about the crocodile farm coming up on our left - crocodile farms produce meat, leather and, more recently, agri-tourism.
And there is was with its big funky sign and advertisements on the fence. It was surrounded by a rather large moat; which seems as though it would not be a deterrent to crocodiles, but what do I know.
We travelled along the road listening to T explain that the crocodile industry is fairly vibrant in Cambodia, Vietnam and China, but Vietnam by far has the largest demand.

A Cambodian woman shows us cashew fruit from her tree.
At the bottom of the fruit is the nut we eat.

Suddenly, we were slowed right down and crawling through a local market with stalls on both sides of the road, people, food, goods and animals making just enough room for us to pass. "Sunday market busy," T offered a little sheepishly as though we may be offended by the delay.
Back on the open road, we passed by ripening rice while T explained that this close to Tonle Sap Lake the farmers can produce three crops per year because they can irrigate.
After a brief stop at a random ticket booth by the side of the road, we began to see canals with water and, although we couldn't see the lake, we could see that the land ended. We emerged from the rice fields onto a large mud flat bordered by a large mud embankment with typical longtail boats bobbing on water so muddy it looked viscous.
We clambered onto a boat with T and a driver who began to back us out of the squeeze of boats. A young man on shore gave the boat a shove and then jumped into the water to further assist. Between the driver and guy in the water, they got the boat headed down the canal toward the lake. Now, T said we were in a river, but both sides of the bank were large piles of mud and the river ended where we got onto the boat.

The canal/river with men fishing.

Also, we didn't follow a river at any time on our car ride and, later, T told me that the government digs the river every year for the boat drivers and the farmers. Language is a barrier, but that sounds like a man-made canal to me.
As we motored down the waterbody (shoulder shrug, it was definitely water), men on the shoreline swoopingly tossed fishnets into the water. Many times, heads slipped out of the water and back under as we passed. That water looked and acted more like soup as it streamed from faces, lazily slapped up the mud banks or through floating vegetation. It was the same color as the banks.
Soon, we started to see what we came to see. First a police station, then a school standing tall on beams at least 15 feet tall. Next, a few homes with life taking place in, under and down by the riverbank at each house. Small children worked alongside moms washing laundry in boats tied to the bank. Men tended fish cages also tied to the banks or repaired boats and nets. By the time we came to the village proper, one whole side of the river was side-by-side homes high in the air. The village was a busy place both on land and water. It even had a couple of restaurants up there.

The village - didn't write down the name, so can't remember it.
Names over here sound like Kong Phong Hong and can one or 3 words.

We passed a houseboat looking affair that was a government clinic and came to a similar installation that was a terminal for tourists to get out of a longtail boat and into a small canoe for a paddle through the trees in the delta. We turned down this opportunity and continued to the lake.
At the mouth of the river (?), we came across several floating restaurants and some locals in smalls fishing boats. These small boats had colorful cloths suspended on poles overhead to provide shade. The one or 2 people in the boats were chatting, snacking and watching the tourists go by while rocking on our waves. We waved at them as we sped out onto the Tonle Sap for a quick look at that water body. I've never seen the type of algae that I saw there.

Algae

T had our driver pull up to one of the floating restaurants that had 3 sections. We sat on the platform where there were plastic tables and chairs. Tied on one side of it was the family's home and the restaurant's kitchen and,on the other side of the dinning platform, a large metal platform that had the day's shrimp catch drying in the sun.

Floating restaurant.

shrimp

We sat for a cold drink and looked around at the delta with its woody plants growing out of the water and scenes of Cambodian life around us.
I find myself again impressed by my inability to judge the lives of people living such different lives than mine. It is unfathomable to me to live that life. Frankly, I didn't want to step in that water let alone swim in it or eat something that came out of it. But that's me. I live in a place where the water is clear and cold not muddy and warm.

Fisherman

Back on the road, the older children were coming home from school on their bikes. They wear uniforms and travel in packs or alone. They laugh, race and travel along that road toward their homes on high where, I imagine, mothers greet them and put them to work on chores or send them out to play.
They sell T-shirts here that say "Same Same" on the front and "But Different" on the back. Truer words have never been spoken.