Rebellion

Winding Ivy

Yesterday I found myself standing in front of an impressive piece of history in a quaint little Ontario town.
Built in 1927, it was the last school built before the Great Depression, and was abandoned in 2004 when they officially closed its doors.
Ten years of natural growth had turned this copper-adorned Gothic stone building into a wonderland of bursting colours, smothered in sunshine, standing majestically on a hill- but now sadly left to lead its solitary existence. Images of eager young children piling into their respective seperate entrances filled my thoughts-to think that boys and girls were actually made to enter the school on opposite sides-such useless irrational dogmas dominating Christian thought at the time.

Have we really evolved as a civilization since 1927? We’ve made some good progress but segregation still rears its ugly head in so many forms,and humans still continue to label things they don’t understand to try and soothe their own fears and insecurities.
If only people could exist together as peacefully as the winding ivy.
Seventy-seven years of academic history. Eighty-seven years old.
Imagine all that happened within those walls.
History- a true magic.

As Is

 

Spring-as is.

Cloud Cover

Occasionally I like to escape my pen and quietly hover behind the clouds, watching the world go by.

It seems I hovered up there for six long months.

A few days ago the clouds were clearing in the sky.

I sat on a park bench and captured their beauty.

Cloud cover broken.

Blue skies ahead.

Fleeting and Fabulous

Such is life. A fleeting frenzy of a million mixed moments. There are shadows and there is light.

Everything is probably not as you might wish it to be in your life.

Monday’s slowly creeping up. Your overbearing parents might be driving you slowly insane. Your lover might be nagging you into madness. As I type, your dog might be barfing on your favourite persian carpet. Your dreams may not yet be fulfilled, the bills might not be payed, but only you have the choice to look at your day and acknowledge what IS wonderful.

Grateful is only a word until you decide to put it into action.

The sunset on the way home tonight made my list.

I was grateful for its beauty.

 Fleeting, and fabulous. Just like life.

Chief Seattle

The only known photograph of Chief Seattle,

taken by photographer E.M Sammis, a year before his death in 1866.

Sunstruck

Paul Cézanne,1839-1906, would have appreciated my early morning view 

Danke Schoen

 It’s those fleeting moments that light the fire of our lives.

Thanks for watching the glow…

My Winged Angel

I once had a wonderful winged best friend. Her name was Zora. She would sit on my shoulder and fluff herself up and nestle in behind my ear and underneath my hair for warmth.  She would stay there for hours. She would eat breakfast with me and loved green apples and alfafa sprouts, but chicken was her absolute favourite food. Go figure. Good thing I never explained it to her or she would have been utterly horrified.  She would play cheeky little games with me. I’d make a little tunnel under the covers of my duvet and she would run in at a fast clip and hide in the far end the tunnel. I’d put my face up to the opening and make noises and call her name and she would come running out as fast as her little feet would go, nudge my nose with her little yellow beak, and perfectly imitate the sounds I was making right back.

She was a talented flyer, but when she’d decide to beat it across an entire room on those little twiggy feeties it would make my heart sing. It was the cutest thing. She was such a sweet little parrotlet. She was a hand-raised peach-faced lovebird, technically an agapornis roseicollis, but I called her all sorts of crazy names. My little agapornis had a million names, and a million adorable personality traits to match all the zany nicknames I christened her with.

She had a good life, better than good. I gave her everything. She was spoiled rotten and was hardly ever in her cage. I wanted to be with her every second I could. She was a wonderful friend. She was my very best winged friend. I was very lucky to have her and the love I received from her in return could never be duplicated twice in a lifetime.

She loved to travel, but wasn’t too impressed when she would spot cows in the pastures while we were in the car. She liked seeing horses but I don’t think she liked cows, she was afraid of them and would vocally let me know when we passed them grazing in a field. She loved to see new places, and in the summer she would chill with me outside on the deck and have conversations with all the other winged creatures that flew the skies. I always wondered what they were talking about.

She loved to sit on the shower curtain rod while I was showering and patiently keep me company until I was finished. Sometimes she would hang with me in the bathtub. She would run up and down my legs and try to bathe herself in the deep water, but I would protect her from falling in head first and she would settle for flitting around in the shallow water that would accumulate on my stomach. I would often give her a bath under a warm tap. She loved water. Afterwards, she would sit on the branch above her cage and groom herself happily until every feather was taken care of and she had deemed herself perfectly coiffed.

She would fly freely from room to room and squeak in delight when I would play hide and seek with her. Sometimes she would fly from the upstairs to the downstairs and I would hear a little chirp from somewhere far away to let me know where she was hiding. She liked to sit on windowsills, looking intently outside to check out the worlds happenings. At night she would fluff herself up while I was watching tv and make little grinding noises with her beak when she was completely content. She was toilet trained. Well, not really a toilet, but her cage. I would move her from my shoulder to my index finger, tell her to go do her business and she would fly over to the top of her cage and use the loo. Then she would fly back to my shoulder. Such an intelligent little soul.

She had a little triangular fluffy yellow bed that I hung in her cage nightly, and every night she would crawl in and put herself to bed, fluff herself up and get comfy, and then I would say, “Goodnight Z ” she would chirp a little goodnight right back from inside her cozy little yellow bed.

We were meant to be together her and I. It was two souls connecting on a spiritual level that could never be captured in words. It was a love unlike any other. It was a perfect love as deep as the oceans and as wide as the Universe. It still is. Infinite as the moon and the stars.

She passed away suddenly of a heart attack after sixteen wonderful years together. A quick passing without suffering.  Sixteen years of pure love and laughter. When I found her that night, almost two years ago to the day, I could feel her little soul sitting atop her favourite branch, looking down at me grieving, holding her tiny little body in my shaking hands. My girlfriend felt her there as well. We both knew she was still there, waiting to make sure we were ok before she moved on.

Zora wasn’t sure why we were suddenly separated. She would soon come to understand.  I knew she would be happy. She had other things to do. She had other adventures to embark on.  A soul that special would have important jobs to do on the other side. Now she was my Spirit Guardian and I felt blessed to know that she would be watching over me.

I asked her to come and visit me in my dreams the night she passed to let me know that she was alright, and she did, that very night. A beautiful vivid dream overflowing with the love that we shared for each other. She comes every so often to see me in the night, mostly when I ask her to, bringing my soul a little slice of happiness again, if ever so briefly, and I’m grateful for her visits. I’m grateful for the sixteen years we spent together, and the pure love she brought into my life. I miss her so, and wait patiently for that glorious day when we can finally be together again.

I love you Z.  Now, then, and forever.

Two weeks before she died I felt her death coming. My intuition told me I wouldn’t have her with me for long, so I took this picture one day after she’d had a bath, sitting on her favourite branch.  She’s smiling.

Calm So Deep

Here is calm so deep, grasses cease waiting… wonderful how completely everything in wild nature fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun shines not on us, but in us. The rivers flow not passed, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.

 John Muir

American Naturalist