This blog will discuss human rights, share food, rant, laugh, write poetry and other stuff, and celebrate eccentricity. This blog will look at the difference between freedom and exile.
Category Archives: Just Posts
Simply put, posts that are not poetry, prose, stories, quotes, or rants, etc. Enjoy.
We have names for “sensitive” people now, like “empath”, even “indigo children”, but really we are not those things. We are actually what healthy is. It is healthy to care and love and be aware of what others are going through.
The majority have learned to be without compassion and awareness in order to thrive in a cruel world. There is a book that people read to raise their emotional IQ, and like so much of the “philosophy” out there, it teaches people to “control” their emotions. This is not the way. If you want to raise your emotional IQ you need to have emotions, feel them, and express them. That’s how you get good at it. That’s how to “know thyself” and therefore others.
We will know that we have had victory over “evil” when we no longer consider caring, compassionate, and emotional, people, “sensitive”, but rather, consider hard people to be odd and in need of healing. ❤
Sorry folks, I know that I was writing “Wizard Haikus” as I was posting it, but it was one of those things. I started out with one haiku and then felt another one coming on, then another, and decided that I should make a brief story.
I know there still isn’t a story there, but who know, maybe it will develop. Maybe it won’t.
I had fun doing this though. It was like an experiment. I am aware that it would be frustrating for those who are trying to read it though, and finding that it keeps disappearing and reappearing.
It is done, for now. I won’t add to it, not yet, if ever.
It gets so busy sometimes keeping up with everything, blogging and exploring other writing avenues, and the demands of life, that I don’t seem to get around to checking out the other bloggers that I see liking my posts and showing their support by following my blog.
Every now and then I just set out and go exploring. I blissfully click on the names of every blog that liked my posts and followed and just have a great time visiting and being inspired.
Today was one of those days and I have to say I’ve been having a great time. You will notice that I have shared and reblogged irresistable gems from other blogs as though I’ld been out shopping and now have to show you everything I bought and how great it is.
Please don’t be shy about following the links back to the blogs I’ve reposted from and finding out for yourselves. It’s great fun and I can’t wait until the next time I get out my travelling shoes and head out exploring.
I have been looking over a few of my recent posts and have realized that they are, in fact, not posts, but the beginning of posts. It is as though I’ve placed a bookmark to a possible future post.
Hmmm, this blogging thing can really kick you in the butt, really cause you to think about what you want to say. Unlike a cool little quip or heated ranting burst on a social media site, blogging actually requires content.
Yes, unlike posts on social media sites that want the quick and dirty shiny thing with no context, no messy bleeding heart shreds or supporting historical setting, blogging wants the goods, soul. Story counts.
You know, truly I have a confession to make. It has actually been many, many years since I have really written. Oh sure, in moments of angst or railing response I have hurriedly scattered my pen across a page or two, but venting isn’t writing.
Yes, maybe a few good poems have emerged through those years, but luck maybe? No craft, no painstaking molding and hair pulling or trashing the mess to the floor to begin again.
I’m scared.
I could have said “afraid” but that wouldn’t have been honest. I’m scared to tell, to say, although I thought that this blog had been motivated by a desire to tell, to say, and to share. I thought I knew.
I am scared, folks. Yes, I am afraid, but more immediately, I am scared. I am scared to tell you that I don’t know how to write yet. I am scared, shaking, because I am here, even now, smack up against the naked truth that I have to take this journey in front of you all. All of you will be witness to my shaking, fearful journey through my misspent past and life and open, not as yet known, future.
I am scared of the now that wants to run and hide behind social media quips and rants to keep you from witnessing my horrible messy raking through my own guts to bring the truth to the surface for you, and worse yet, for myself to see.
Story is hard. It is complex and lives in dimensions we rarely dare acknowledge. Every nuance, the red hat at the bus stop, the purple flower weed alongside the road, the song on the radio that morning, is a possible nightmare threatening to awaken, or long supressed grief for a reunion that never took place.
Okay, I’ve foraged up some coffee and I’ve gone to youtube to click on a Bruce Cockburn playlist. Music is on and I’m here with a “new post” window up on my screen.
Why Bruce Cockburn? Well, I’m here in Canada plowing and slushing my way through what is always the first true month of winter every year, February. Oh yeah, I know, by the time we Canadians arrive at February we’ve all had enough of winter already and the relentless, silent dump of snow feels personal, like a deliberate attack, but I’ve been here my whole misspent life and I know that winter doesn’t really start until February.
I also know, from lifelong experience, that March is not the beginning of Spring, it is not the ending of winter. March is the final throes of winter’s tantrum. Like the over-tired child who absolutely refuses to take a nap, March sulks and drifts, then riles, rages, and howls, if only to stay awake. It is the storm before the calm, the fury before the final sniffling, healing drift into Spring, April.
April, as well, is not Spring, not yet. April is hope and that hope brings relief. Here is a poem I wrote many years ago. It describes April,
Filtering April – C. Villeneuve
Soft
down
in April,
snow,
wind
fresh
in springtime
cold,
coat
drawn
closer still
need,
sun
streaked
through branches
hope.
Yes, winters are long here in Canada and summer is the dream we carry with us all year long. So, why Bruce Cockburn? He is Canadian, tough, folk, poet, musician, dreamer. He is a Canadian winter that carries the dream of summer all year long. He is one of us.
He is aiming rocket launchers at the meanies who bleed freedom from us, but only in his mind, his songs, because he is a peaceful Canadian. He is a lover in a dangerous time wishing I was there “on the coldest night of the year” and he is a lion pacing the cage. He knows what February is, what it is to pace the cage of a Canadian winter with that endless dream of summer railing against the cold, the wind, and the confines of artificial warmth.
The ruler of his spirit is the “Lord of the Starfields”. Like me, his hands are cold but his heart is fiery warm, his posture hunched against the grey and his face held upwards toward the sun.
So it’s February and I am in Canada. Like Bruce Cockburn, I built igloos as a kid and threw snowballs at the crush I pretended to hate, and when summer came I ran laughing, kissed and favored while I could over as many green wildflower hills as the short dream of summer would allow.
I, like Bruce Cockburn and all of my fellow Canadians, carry that endless dream of golden summer in my fiery warm heart knowing, like April, that the sun is there, streaking through those branches.
I, with my trusty cup of coffee at hand and this “new post” window open, know that there is still a long way to plow and slush until we feel that golden honey, the sun, opening us and setting us free to outstretch our arms and run as though we were flying over those green and laughing wildflower hills.
Here, take Bruce Cockburn with you. He is one of us.
To help us all keep that endless dream of summer warm in our fiery hearts.
The idea for today is to do something for someone else today. Buy a homeless person a coffee or take your mom to lunch.
It’s easy once you get started at it and you’ll be surprised at how it opens your eyes to how many simple things you can do for another person, like helping that busy mom get her groceries to the car, returning your neighbor’s wayward recycling bin to their driveway.
Hello folks. It’s quite beautiful here in Ottawa today. The sun has been out all day and it is just crisp enough to keep the skating rinks open. I am not a great fan of winter, but a nice day is a nice day.
I have made a decision today to start a face book page called Local Folks helping Local Folks. It will be a page that will feature events and happenings around Ottawa that help out homeless and low-income folks living in Ottawa.
For example, if a local restaurant is putting on a special event that raises funds for others, I will post that news so that when people are trying to decide where to go for dinner, they may choose that restaurant because it is a win-win for everybody. Or, if a local business is promoting a service or product and donating some of the sales or time to a local charity, then I will post that in order to get people out to that business. Win-win.
I love this idea and I came up with it because I have been doing some volunteering and have become aware of just how many good things are actually happening around Ottawa to help out those with less money, less mobility, and such. I have also discovered, though, that there is not a lot of awareness out there of these events, these happenings.
I know, from personal experience, that when you are having a tough time of it, the world around you can seem pretty cold and uncaring. I also know, that if you are not having a tough time of it, you can be unaware of what others may be going through and fall into the trap of blaming people for their circumstances. I would like to use that face book page to break down that communication barrier.
I have found that when people become aware of how many ways they can help out, they are enthusiastic and really enjoy participating. I also know that when those of us who are having a tough time see that many people do want to make life better and easier for others, it can shed light into the darkness, boost self-esteem, create more trust, and it goes on.
I will get this page set up, even sparsely, within the next couple of days and I will let you all know when it is up so that you can go over there and visit. Check it out and see what great people are the folks in Ottawa, Ontario.
Mottyl's Whispers 