A cold day to be on the outskirts of a cold city in a cold part of the world. When you travel midweek into Canada’s hinterlands and northern small cities, you share a plane with mostly hard and tired men who work for government or various companies doing business in the far flung nether regions of this nation. Whether it’s travel to Prince George, Thunder Bay, Prince Albert or Yellowknife, it seems like the same guys are on the flight – steak eating, overworked, tired, introverted, hard men. Once in a while, if they are coming home …
For the second time in two weeks, I’m back in Ottawa, one of my former residences, and a part of Canada that I love very much. I arrived yesterday afternoon and spent the evening walking around my old haunts on Elgin Street, going to see Milk and then finishing with a late dinner at The Manx Pub, a place located four doors down from the first place Caitlin and I lived after we moved to Ottawa in 1991. The Manx opened three weeks after we got there and it’s still going strong. Today a day of teaching hosting, …
To some it may seem that we are simply cast about like so much cosmic flotsam and jetsam – and on a day when the partner of the moment is dark chaos that is surely the experience. But partners change and the dance moves on – light creative order enters our experience. How wonderful it might be to hold that moment for ever. . . The ecstacy is not in the moment, But in its passage. To hold the moment is to destroy it – The ending of the dance. I think we are all dancers who live fully when …
From my newsreader this week: Peter Rukavina blogs a fish eye view (or sushi eye view) of a Japanese evening out. Dirk at mediabuzzard on the history of Chinese – First Nations relations in British Columbia
Last week I was working with an interesting group of 60 Aboriginal folks who work within the Canadian Forces and the department of National Defense, providing advice and support on Aboriginal issues within the military and civilian systems. We ran two half days in Open Space to work on emerging issues and action plans. In an interesting side conversation, I spoke with a career soldier about fear. This man, one of the support staff for the gathering, had worked for a couple of decades as a corporal, mostly working as a mechanic on trucks. We got into …