Kitten in slow motion

A friend of mine shared this video on facebook a couple of days ago and it really touched me. To some people it might just be a cute video; others might be interested in the technology that was used to create it. But for me, I found myself to be quite moved.

Within the two minutes of that short video, here’s what I noticed:

• How extraordinary a simple moment like playing with a kitten in the garden can appear, when given attention
• The slow-motion effect is a lot like being mindful - giving focus to one activity at a time, paying attention to the special qualities of the event, such as the kitten’s movements, the spectacular nature of its body, the joyous nature of the event
• Play is natural state of being. We should make more time for it
• How joyful the kitten is, in its natural state of play
• How beautiful many other moments are in our life, just like this one - beautiful in their simplicity, innocence and naturalness
• I busy I am.  I have not been making time for mindful attention to simple activities that I love - such as playing with Butternut, cooking, hiking, photography, and just being. And I miss it.

Breathing in little moments

Last Friday I had sushi with my dad while in Toronto. We ate while sitting next to another father-daughter pair.  The daughter looked to be about 8 or 9 years old. I could overhear most of their conversation, some of which had to do with making weekend plans together. “We could make a pizza together,” the dad suggested, and explained how they could together prepare a pizza and choose the toppings. He spent some time coming up with various ideas that might be fun ways for them to spend time together. I was touched to see a dad spend his Friday night with his young daughter, enjoying some sushi and thinking earnestly about other activities that might be fun for his daughter.

In my field of work there is a lot of sadness and a lot of awareness and attention on human rights abuses and struggles - sociologically, legally, politically and personally. A great deal of my time is spent thinking about how I can address and work to overcome these challenges in small ways. So it is very good, but often involves an energy that is borne from a sense of injustice, involving anger or indignation.  Even those who don’t work in such a field can probably understand; most of us spend a lot of our time focusing on problems.

That’s why, when I see something beautiful, something touching, I breathe it in. I savour it. Seeing human kindness is one of the things that touches me the most. Whatever challenges that little girl has in her life, she will remember Friday night sushi dinners with her dad, making pizzas together and other weekend activities. She will have grown up with a dad who wanted to spend time with her. Those little moments will probably provide retrospective joy when she is an adult.

It’s so important that we capture and relish small moments of beauty and compassion in our lives. It’s what makes life so rich.

Lean in, with eagerness. (Honouring Martin Luther King Jr.)

When I look back on my life and the people who have inspired me, Martin Luther King Jr. stands out as one of my biggest inspirations and greatest hero. I like to take time out on every Martin Luther King day to reflect on his many teachings.  Dr. King can be admired for many reasons; best known as a tremendous leader in the civil rights movement, and an incredibly eloquent orator, King was also a great teacher of non-violence, for he was determined that civil rights must be won through audacious hope, dogged determination, unfailing persistence and always, peaceful protest.  Inspired by Mahatma Ghandi, the principles of nonviolence were fundamental to the movement, and still today lend important lessons to grassroots organizers everywhere.

One of Dr. King’s greatest teachings was that “a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”  - that injustice does not only have only one victim but indirectly impacts entire societies, entire nations, even the planet itself; injustice of any kind justifies violence of all types.

A friend of mine shared this Dr. King quote with me today:

All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that
somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a
single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all
indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be
until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to
be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure
of reality.

I read in the paper today that a Scarborough woman died in the snow last night. It was one of the coldest days of the year.  She was a 66 year old woman who had dementia. She wandered outside, not dressed for the cold, died of hypothermia in a snowbank in her residential neighbourhood.  Neighbours heard her cry for help but didn’t call 911. They rationalized their behaviour by explaining that they lived in a dangerous neighbourhood and didn’t want to get involved in anyone else’s affairs.  Upon reading this I recalled my Sociology 101 textbook, with stories about Kitty Genovese and explanations for such peculiar behaviour - the bystander effect and the diffusion of responsibility.  There are explanations for this kind of absurd-sounding behaviour, but how tragic it is that sometimes even caring and compassionate human beings can let fears or insecurities get in the way of helping another person.

Martin Luther King’s quote, above, reminds us that we are all connected. When we draw away from, instead of towards, the pain of another human being, we alienate ourselves from our own innate humanness, from a profound connection with ourselves and others.  In When Things Fall Apart and The Places that Scare You, Pema Chodren explores why we attempt to cover up our feelings with distractions, drugs or noise of any kind. Feeling another human being’s pain can be frightening, and it may frighten us for different reasons. It may remind us with our own pain, feelings of worthlessness, or other feelings we try to bury. But getting in touch with our own pain, opening up to another’s pain, and opening to that compassion that is at the root of our humanness, connects us with the very essence of who we are.

I recently completed suicide intervention training, and one of our instructors taught us to lean in, eagerly to help the suicidal person. Many people are afraid to ask someone if he or she is suicidal, for fear of what the answer will be.  We might be afraid that we cannot help, that we will say or do the wrong thing,or  that we will make things even worse, so we stay quiet and don’t ask, missing out on an opportunity to help someone and perhaps even save a life. One of the take-home messages of the training was, you don’t have to do it perfectly. Just ask. And then listen.

And so, my final thoughts for Martin Luther King Jr. day is that we cannot forsake our humanness, out of fear. We must lean in, with eagerness, with compassion, to help others, to fight for human rights.  Whether we feel we are protected, safe, privileged, loved, rich, whether we have all of our rights and needs met or whether we have none of these things, we must continually look towards the presence of fear or judgement to share our compassion with the world.

A human being is a part of the whole called by us “the universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

- Albert Einstein

A year in pictures

Just for fun, here is a sampling of my favourite photos taken in 2010.

succulents, southampton

a sleep on the beach

little treasures

beach on a windy day (colleen)

fall colours

springbank park, london

amphitheatre garden

birch tree in the winter sun

dusting of snow

window on a sunny morning

fear of trains

peeling paint

I was going to supply some discussion of what these pictures are all about or why I like them, but I think I will leave them be, so you can use your own imagination. Overall, I think they represent my personal exploration, an attempt to see the world from different angles and appreciate the small details, which is kind of my approach to life.

2010 wrap up

I hope that everyone had a really fun, happy and safe new year’s eve.  I went back to work today and was obviously not quite “with it”; I woke up at 20 past nine and rolled in nearly an hour late for work!  I’ve spent the last couple of days enjoying the final moments of my holidays, reading, drinking leisurely cups of coffee, listening to music, planning art projects and slowly tidying up the apartment. It’s left me in a somewhat pensive state.  My true wish for the new year is to continue living my life the way I want it to be lived, with passion, sincerity, gentleness and gratitude.  I want to continue making my own happiness, joy and adventure key aspects of my life since they have been off my agenda for too long.  I want to nurture relationships, pursue beauty, make my own art, expand my own scientific inquiry, become stronger and look after my overall wellness.  My father called me last night and congratulated me on thinking for myself and living my own life. During the times when I have doubted myself and compared my decisions to those of others, truly, living my own life has been the greatest gift in an uncertain period.  And so, amidst the annual consumeristic blitz of the holidays and then boxing day bedlam, I hope you each spend a few minutes reflecting on what is truly important in your lives and not dwelling on what you think you should have, don’t have, can’t afford.

As a side note, a small rant, the entire boxing day shopping scene is so appalling. Not to say that I haven’t engaged in it before, but after the holidays, more shopping is really the last thing I want to do.  I see people going in and out of my apartment building carrying massive TV boxes and all kinds of crap and I can’t help but wonder, is increasing your size of your television really going to improve your life? On boxing day, I took a long walk with my dad in an empty forest, and have been avoiding going anywhere near the malls.  Not surprisingly, it’s actually the practical, frugal person in me that tells me I should go shopping (the little voice goes, “it’s a good time to get cheap deals on clothing for next fall and winter”) but I simply don’t want to venture into that mess, and my desire for simplicity and for more time with friends or with good books, wins over the more practical voice.

Instead, I’ve been reflecting more and more of what I would like to see happen in this year and also taking time to appreciate everything grand that happened last year, especially since my attitude was so blase.

A few favourite highlights from last year include:

- My job  (many highlights, including speaking at two different conferences, developing my first social marketing campaign, receiving some great feedback from service users, and best of all feeling a deep connection and passion for the cause, the theory behind the work, the people involved, the mission behind the work we do, and feeling at home in my career and excited about the future.)

- Holding my friends’ new born baby, cherishing the way he looked at me with brand new eyes

- Going tubing at the winter tube park with my sister

- Starting rock climbing for the first time

- Winning two flights to Hawaii (and many other prizes!)

- Going on a day-long hike on the Bruce Peninsula on a rainy day with my dad for his birthday

- Moving… to my *own* place, that is comfortable, financially affordable and just mine

- Attending Stephen Hawking’s good bye party at Perimeter Institute

- Attending the potluck in High Park park with Gail Vaz-Oxlade, which I organized for the second year in a row

- Discovering the arboretum. This discovery resulted in many special visits, the best being one in which I sat for about an hour and watched goldfinches and two different species of hummingbirds feed at the flowers, a mere few feet away from me. It was surreal.

- Taking a long canoe ride around Guelph Lake with a friend I hadn’t seen in about 3 years

- Gliding down waterslides with two wonderful friends at a giant waterpark for my birthday

- Enjoying a very special visit with my sister during the summer

- Laughing nonstop during a three day weekend in Southampton with my sister and my two best friends from highschool

- Making some amazing friends (too varied to mention here, but no doubt they have contributed to the highlights - see “a message of thanks“!)

- Finally coming to terms with the past, and feeling the ability to move forward into a bright new future.

An inspiring new year

I hope that all my readers have enjoyed a happy holiday season full of friends, family, peace, joy and love and lots of treats! I’ve had a nice Christmas with my family, will soon be spending some time with friends, and look forward to sharing New Year’s with my sister, her husband, and their friends.

I wrote out my goals for the new year in September, but I still enjoy the opportunity for a “fresh start” in the change of the calendar year.  As my readers know, I have some issues with high-achieving goal setting that usually accompanies the new year, and illustrated my philosophy on the issue in last year’s new year’s post,  (a less resolute new year) where I was determined not to set any new years goals.  I think that goal setting and happiness-seeking is a fine line to walk. In one way, goal-setting can be liberating and powerful, and can help you determine what you really want out of life.  In the fall, when I set my intentions to simply have more fun and broaden my objectives from survival and service to joy, happiness, exploration, fun and friends, I think I subtly caused a shift in myself and my own sense of liberation, which actually allowed me to have more fun and look forward to the future.  But my goals are still flexible. Because  at t the same time that we set goals or outline desired achievements, it’s important to realize several truths:

1. We don’t always know what is best for us or even what will make us happy. We think we do, but we really often don’t.

2. We don’t have total control over what happens to us.  We have some, but not total control.  It’s not an all-or-nothing deal. As humans we like to think that we are all-powerful agents, captains of our own fates. And yes, our actions have consequences, both positive and negative.  To believe that we are impotent is to be, in a sense, lazy, shy, or painfully insecure, and that’s not exactly a healthy approach to life either. But the reality is that life happens - sickness, death, and loss occurs, and so do new opportunities, new relationships, new desires and new lessons.  If you don’t accept that life is all of these, and that we need to be flexible to adapt to the changes in life, we wind up stuck, spinning our wheels and failing to more forward because of our refusal to accept that some goals may not be possible, or even desirable, anymore.

For me, what is more important than goal-setting is inspiration. I adore having people in my life who inspire me. Friends’ choices, travels and adventures serve as inspiration to me in different ways.  Seeing other people make choices that fulfill them, and their own personal desires, as opposed to fulfilling conventional norms, makes me more confident to pursue what makes me happy.  Seeing friends’ exciting travel adventures makes me want to travel more, but also to just explore what is close to me at home.  To have mini-adventures, take outdoor walks, take pictures, to just go outside and move and be free.

Sometimes the inspiration is subtle, and difficult to describe.  Sometimes it’s a photograph, a recipe, a line from a book, a piece of music, a piece of art, that just makes me want to remember to explore my own humanness, and to create.

Since I don’t have a television, and don’t have a large dvd collection either, I tend to watch my favourite downloaded shows over and over again. This year I probably watched (or listened to) the movie Rent about 7 times. It’s a great seasonal movie. I love the reflection on the importance of being present, of loving freely, and the reminder that all we have is this very moment.

In the scene “La Vie Boheme,” the character Mark announces that, “the opposite of war isn’t peace - it’s creation!”

“To days of inspiration, playing hooky, making something out of nothing
The need to express, to communicate,
To going against the grain, going insane, going mad”

So for the year ahead, I have some goals, but I also have the overall desire to be inspired, to feel that desire to explore life, experience life as an adventure, and learn more and more about what it’s like to be human.  It doesn’t have to be glamorous - listening to someone carefully and aiming to understand their experiences, feeling the cold against my skin on a cold day, painting and getting in touch with my own artistic side, making delicious meals with a few humble ingredients - all of these things, for me, contribute to feeling alive, to feeling that beautiful, energized sense that I have limited time on earth, and I wish to know it, to know it well, deeply and intimately.

So, more pragmatically, here are my intentions for the new year:

1. Volunteer with children.  Either as  Big Sister, or through another program with children.  Kids bring happiness into our lives, and I’ve realized that I want more time with them.  This would be a good way of fulfilling my own desire to have kids in my life, while hopefully making a positive difference in the life of a little girl (or girls).

2. Become more athletic. Yes, it’s a broad goal. But I want to climb more, hike more, do a little more yoga, run a little and generally be a bit more active. Perhaps this is a bit too vague, but this intention might evolve into something more specific in the coming weeks or months.

2. Continue with my ‘fun goals‘ - I’m already on my way to achieving many of these goals. Flights to Hawaii are booked. In a few weeks I will be seeing my 3rd live performance by a “new-to-me” band. My climbing has been somewhat sporadic but I’ve improved nonetheless and will have all my equipment in the next month or so.  I have plans to run a scavenger hunt in the spring, I have travel plans with a friend to visit NYC in July, and a date is set for an “un-conference” on community-building, which I will be coordinating with a couple of friends of mine.  But more importantly, I’m having more fun, spending time with great friends of all different sorts, and am overall feeling more invested in my own happiness and in the joys of life, which is really the main point.

Happy New Year everyone, and please share, what are your goals, intentions, or desires for the New Year?

A message of thanks

In my last post, I blogged about feelings of perfectionism and my ambivalence towards the Christmas season.  Since writing that post, I have reflected more on my consistent sense of gratitude that has kept me grounded through an otherwise flustering, busy time. Consumerism threatens to overpower us each winter, but ah, what a joy it is to retreat inward, quietly, and reflect on non-commercial gifts.

Over the last year and a half, gratitude has been a particularly fundamental building block of my personal pursuit of happiness.  Since losing my parter, common themes on this blog have been gratitude for my apartment, my family, my Butternut, and for the earth - the sky, the trees, the air.  But as I reflect on the last year, what I am particularly grateful for today are the people around me.  Most of them are newcomers to my life.  And they are incredibly important to me, because for a long time, my loyal readers will know, I have been searching out of isolation for a sense of community.  ”Community”… I have used the word so frequently on the blog but haven’t often defined it.  But I have considered what this really means, and I think for me, when I use the word “community”, what I am really hoping to describe is a sense of belonging, a sense of being cared for, the ability to rely on and depend on other people, interdependence and cooperation.  Feelings of shared values, shared joys, shared passions, and the sense of working towards shared goals.  It’s about mutual support, coming not just from one direction, but from multiple directions and sources.

Although I am still seeking to become more deeply connected with my city and community, I dare say that I now finally feel a strong sense of connection and interdependence with many other people in my life.  And it is indeed thanks to the many people who have shared something of themselves with me, and shown me kindness and respect and have placed their trust in me.

Because I can’t name names on this blog, I would like to instead open up my gratitude to saying “thank you” to anyone who has done any of the following things for me in the last year:

Made me laugh; Taken care of Butternut; Helped me move; Trusted in me; Asked me for help; Made me soup; Made me soap; Asked me how I am and genuinely wanted to know the answer; Shown up at my apartment when I haven’t answered your calls to make sure that I’m okay; Encouraged me to take care of myself or love myself; Reassured me; Shared your story with me; Thanked me for the work I do; Believed in me; Taken a chance on me; Surprised me with a gift; Listened to me, and listened without judgement or motive; Made a (solicited or non-solicited) donation to the agency where I work; Checked in on me when I was sick; Pushed me to go further on the climbing wall; Forgiven me when I’ve made a mistake; Told me I am beautiful; Accepted me and appreciated my differences; Shared your home or your family with me; Cooked me a meal; Brought me a Tim Horton’s coffee in the morning; Made me think; Inspired me with your passion for the planet, for science, for community-building or with your efforts to make this world a better place to live in. Did I mention, made me laugh?

The difference to my quality of life that all of these people have made is immeasurable.  So, to my colleagues, my friends, my family, my readers, my yoga instructors, and to the participants and volunteers at work, and all the people who make up my “community,”  thank you.

Saver Queen Facts

I almost never write posts that are exclusively about me. But when I read the “Whiska’s Facts,” a blog post written by a friend of mine, I felt inspired to do the same.  His post is amazing - a pilot’s license? Cycling in 10 different countries? It’s amazing what you find out about someone from a little list of facts that they choose to share.

Here are some lesser known Saver Queen facts. (Loyal readers may already know some of these.  Others may surprise you.)

Readers take note - I would love to hear from you, too - please share a fact about yourself that we might not know in the comments!

Saver Queen…

- started up her own animal rights organization along with her twin sister when she was 15.

- has hair that has been coloured green, purple, daffodil yellow, yellow with clown-red stripes, burgundy, black, and most recently, black underneath with purple stripes.  It’s been au naturel for the past 2.5 years.

- is kind of a geek. She likes sci-fi and games with expansion packs and loves her mac. She probably wouldn’t date a man who uses a PC or doesn’t like Star Trek and wouldn’t touch him with a 10 foot pole if he didn’t have a good understanding of the scientific method. (Maybe this qualifies her as a bigger geek than she thought.)

- has slept in a teepee on Salt Spring Island.

- has suffered from pretty severe phobias of 3 activities most people do every day.

- conducted 1/3rd of her graduate thesis research in the Middle East.

- sat by a man for hours as he breathed his last breaths and slowly died.

- lived in Oxford, England, studied for a year and participated in Oxford Union debates.

- does not own a television.

- thinks that the Magnetic Fields are one of the greatest bands of all time.

- spent 5 years entrenched in an underground music subculture, planning & going to shows, interviewing bands and co-writing a ‘zine (before the advent of blogs).

- has several secrets that she’ll never share on the blog.

- gets incredibly riled up and starts ranting when anyone mentions anti-vacationist crusaders, cults, or The Secret.

- lives with a chronic disease.

- has a regional circle of friends who are mostly mathematical, theoretical or “recovering” physicists, and hardly any of them are Canadian-born.

- has travelled to, and has friends living in, 11 different countries.

- used to have a boyfriend who is an award-winning Elvis Impersonator who is also 15 years her senior.

- is a somewhat talented artist, a pretty good cook, and a lover of wine, animals, and social justice.

The joy in being alone

I just finished watching Episode 10 of Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s “Princess.” Ever watch this show? I love it. It has a different flair from Till Debt Do Us Part. Gail helps the spoiled Princesses get more attuned to what they want in life and she helps them develop plans that centre around more significant life goals besides just looking good.  It’s interesting to watch as the girls (most of them, anyway) experience for the first time what it feels like to be financially responsible and responsible in other ways too. They gain more control over their lives and improve their relationships.  They begin to determine what’s important to them and develop plans to achieve short and long term goals.

In Episode 10, I was struck by an exercise that Gail gave Princess Cortney. Cortney was not a regular princess; most of her spending was not on tanning, fake eyelashes, botox injections and special needs dogs like most of the others. Cortney did love the expensive nightlife and boutique shopping, but her real indulgence was sports and travel.  She kayaked, played basketball, did yoga, played beach volleyball, went rock climbing, when to the gym, played on a frisbee team and paid a lot of money to be apart of all of these activities. She always packed every day of the week with activities and almost never took a night off.

So one of Gail’s challenges was to cancel plans for one week and spend her free time at home. Partly this challenge was about saving money but it was even more about giving Cortney a chance to reflect and breathe and become more attuned to herself, so she could realize that it’s good for the soul (and the budget) to stay home and relax. When Gail brought up this challenge though, Cortney immediately became angry and questioned the relevancy of this challenge.

I don’t think Cortney is unique in this regard… there are a lot of people out there who are terrified of being alone. Being alone is difficult, but Gail’s right, it’s important to be alone in order to self-reflect and also to feel safe in one’s own skin.  Being alone can be scary because sometimes emotions come up that we’d rather ignore. Being alone without distractions is even harder - it’s tough to resist the noise from the TV or a steady stream of information and contact from the internet.  But sometimes reading a book, going for a walk, or doing a single activity at once - playing with your cat or dog, cooking a meal - can provide the kind of rest we’re really craving.

I love packing my schedule with new and interesting activities - rock climbing, yoga, concerts, workshops, dinners with friends, shopping.  And I love my job because it is very social. But time alone is also very important to me. It helps me feel calm and centred.  When I don’t have enough time to contemplate my life, to rest and to just take my time, I start to feel overwhelmed and exhausted.

Being alone also helps me to determine who I am, what I want, and assimilate what I’ve accomplished or what I want to do differently.  I develop thoughts and ideas. I enjoy listening to scientific talks online, reading blogs and books, meal planning, and gazing at magazine pictures for creative inspiration in different forms.  Being alone gives my brain a chance to work out ideas and problems, and I like that. I think it helps me to develop new and different parts of me, in a creative, intellectual, and spiritual sense. Just as different social experiences add to who you are, so can being alone.

Beauty close to home

I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to start exploring the different trails in my city, but it has. After discovering the arboretum and booking a staff retreat hike at Starkey’s Hill, I ventured out for a Sunday trek on the Radius Trail. This path has a few different side trails which take you along the river and along some escarpment, but mostly this long path takes you through pine woods, which is refreshing change. I haven’t smelled pine needles in a long time. It smelled good, like winter.

Sometimes it’s hard to break out of routine. I’m a person who clings a lot to routine and I get a little unnerved when my routines are disrupted. This conflicts with my love for travel, adventure and spontaneity. You can see how these personality traits sometimes compete.  For the past year and a half or so I’ve been making more of an effort to break out of what I know and just explore, because experimenting is part of living a full life and it’s definitely necessary when you’re trying to meet new people and feel like you’re a part of a community. A recurring theme of this blog is to look a little deeper and go off the beaten path, because you’ll probably be surprised at how much goodness you find in your own backyard.

Here’s what I found in my back yard (or almost backyard - a 4 minute drive from my house.)

What exploring have you done lately?