We are the betrayed. We are the betrayers.

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BetrayedThe dream is not pleasant. It is filled with violence and I am the victim. And I am the perpetrator.

I am semi-awake when I realize what is happening. I don’t want to go back to sleep. The dream is so disturbing.

And then I remember. I have the power to change the course of what is happening in my life, even in my dreams. I have the power to awaken myself.

And so, I take action.

I can  think of only one way to stop the perpetrator of the abuse, who is me. It is violent but it is necessary. I kill her.

I can think of only one way to help the one who was being abused, who is also me. I turn gently to her, wrap her wounds, hold her in my arms and remind her that she is loved. Always.

I awaken fully and feel the tendrils of the dream weaving in and out of my conscious thinking.

What did it mean?

And I remember a recent conversation with a group of women. We were talking about the meaning of grace and one woman shared about an incident with her beloved that broke her heart.

I remember hearing her speak of how broken hearted she was and the thought immediately entered my mind.

Beneath the broken-heartedness for me, is a sense of betrayal, I shared with my friend with the broken heart. A feeling that what I trusted, who I trusted, how I trusted has been betrayed. That what I believed to be true, is not true if we can do these things to one another.

And to ourselves.

Everyday. We betray ourselves, our essence, the magnificence of who we were born to be. We betray ourselves through our actions, words. Through doing things that undermine our beauty and spirit. That strip away our dignity and our humanity.

I am the betrayed. I am the betrayer.

And there I was, a couple of mornings later, killing off the part of me that was mutilating another part of me.

Why was that the only way I could think of to stop her violence?

The dream continues to resonate. It is for me a metaphor of so much that is happening in our world.

We are the betrayed. We are the betrayers.

We beat one another with our words of hatred. We kill each other with our weapons of destruction.

And in each word flung at one another like knives into the heart of our humanity, with each act of violence, we betray the magnificence, the beauty, the purity of our human essence.

We do it to others. We do it to ourselves.

We use food, drugs, alcohol, anger, indifference, abuse, everything we can think of to avoid facing the miracle of who we are, the beauty of our spirits, and the world around us.

We are the vessels of our own betrayal. We are the creators and the destroyers of the birthright of our magnificence we betray every day.

My dream was a call to action. A rallying cry for me to wake up and not participate in the betrayal of the beauty of my human being, of all humanity around me. To not let indifference, or silent consent, or criticising, condemning or complaining about anyone or anything be part of my contribution to my world.

I will only contribute my best.

As a friend said recently when we were talking about the upcoming election here in Canada, “I will not contribute anything negative to the world. I will not engage in the criticism of anyone, no matter their party, no matter how far apart our ideologies. I will only speak my best.”

I killed the perpetrator within me who was killing off the good in me. It was necessary. It was time.

There was no other way for me to awaken.

Memories of Tofino

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Deadly Potholes: Drive with Caution

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  The sign said it all. Except, the potholes didn’t seem all that deadly. In fact, they did not meet up to their billing at all.

But perhaps, that was the point of the sign. Not to predict what truthfully lay ahead but rather, to get drivers to slow down, be cautious, pay attention to the road and its possibilities.

Imagine if life came with such a sign. 

Imagine if we were each born with a “Deadly Possibilities Ahead: Live With Caution<” switch.

Imagine if we never tried. To live outside our comfort zones. To experience new things. To venture new places. To meet new people.

Imagine.

The road of life can be filled with deadly potholes. It can also be filled with moments that take your breath away. With vistas that inspire your heart to leap for joy and throw all caution to the winds of fate as you throw yourself into living this moment passing by.

These are the moments worth living for. These are the moments worth adventuring towards. These breath-stealing moments of pure and utter delight where you are immersed in the wonder of being alive, right now.

These moments where every fibre in your body leans into the edge as you leap in freedom-drenched joy.

These moments where you scream out loud in sheer exhilaration and send your voice into the winds of time capturing every sound you make.

These moments where you dance fearlessly in the delight of being alive in this moment right now. At this place, right here. In this way, exactly as you are exactly as the world is around you, right now.

We walked along Wickinnish Beach yesterday. Ran through the waves. Splashed and kicked up frothy sun-speckled water. We laughed and spun about and sat quietly in the sun, woaking up the splendor of the moment, the time right now.

We did not walk with caution. We did not watch for potholes but instead, watched for whales spouting off the shore. Watched to see their giant bodies arc along the curling surface of the rolling seas.

We watched bald eagles sail upon the wind and dive down to pick up an octopus washed ashore as spluttering seagulls kept their distance and cawed in frustration.

We watched a horse and rider canter along the beach and smiled at the infrequent people we passed. We sat on the beach and listened to the surf’s rumbling roar and felt the calming rhythm of the waves wash over us.

We were only two of a handful of people on miles of beach, soaking up the sun, reveling in the salt kissed air, and savouring the beauty of it all.

It was a glorious day. A day to spend hours in the sun at the edge of the land where sky meets sea. Streaky wisps of clouds drifted high overhead while we soaked up every ounce of joy.

Life doesn’t come with warnings of potholes ahead. It comes with its invitation to live it, right now, and savour the  moment, right here.

I’m so grateful.

This is Bliss: Tofino wanderings

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  We have been here at the westerly edge of Canada for four days now. Four days of walking beaches, exploring tidal pools and rain forests and sipping wine on sundrenched decks at the edge of the water and sharing stories and delectable offerings of Tofino’s restaurants. Four days of letting the world fall away as we fall into the spirit and essence of being at one with the world around us, peaceful in our environment, joyful in eachother’s company.

It takes time to let go of the busy, I have concluded. Time to drop feeling the need to check emails, respond to texts, worry about what is going on, back there, in the not so real world of having to get things done to keep the world going.

The world goes on without my direction. It moves without my effort. It continues without my input. All the world needs from me is to be present, be conscious, be here, where ever I am, as I am and delight in its beauty all around me.

Yesterday, C.C., my eldest daughter, Alexis, who joined us for the weekend, and Beaumont hiked down to Schooner Cove. We walked the boardwalk through the rain forest, traipsed up and down multiple moss trimmed staircases that spanned tree fallen gullies and a burbling stream running its course to the sea beyond the trees.

When we reached our destination, the woods fell back where the sand reached out to kiss the sun-speckled waters lapping at the shore. Gentle waves ebbed in and out, rolling ashore in one long curving crest of white frothed water. 

Beaumont ran and chased the waves, following C.C. where ever he voyaged along rocky outcrops lining the shore.

Alexis and I wandered aimlessly behind, me carrying my shoes, my bare feet lapping up the cool clear waters, my toes digging gleefully into the sand. Alexis snapped photos, racing ahead to entice Beaumont into posing for the perfect photo of bliss on the beach.

Ahhh yes. This is bliss. This is heaven.

Later, we dropped Alexis at the Greyhound Bus Depot for her return to Vancouver before returning to our cabin on the beach, our home away from home at Crystal Cove, a delightfully laid back resort on MacKenzie Beach. After a delicious late afternoon nap, we packed up our picnic basket and headed to the beach for early evening wine and appetizers. Beaumont fell in love with pistachio nuts which C.C. thoughfully shelled for him while the crows jockeyed for position with a Bluejay, begging for their quota too.

And the sun set behind a tree covered outcropping of rock and the cool evening breeze caressed our skin and bliss embraced us all over again.

Ahhh. This is life in all its rich, vibrant, delicious hues. This is Love.

Perfect expessions of love: Tofino wandering so

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A diamond is the perfect expression of flaws in the earth. 

Family is the perfect expression of loving one another with all our flaws.
 

Growing up Beaumont – Tales of a Sheepadoodle

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Beaumont is off on an adventure.

Tomorrow, we are heading west to the coast and then, across the Strait of Georgia to Vancouver Island and to delightful, laidback in a, hey dude, I’m chillin’ on the west coast, kind of way town on the farthest western shore of Canada, Tofino. A week of beach-combing, cuddling by a cozy fire and chilling out in the rainforest.

I think he’s excited.

Okay, that’s just transference on my part, but if he were aware of where we were going, he’d be excited!

Tofino is a place of treasured memories for me.

Throughout their growing years, my daughters, their friend Vicky and I would head out to Tofino for a week every Easter break. We’d pack the car with everything possible (including 100 Beanie Babies, dress up clothes and other paraphernalia necessary for 3 pre-teen to teens girls to play dress-up on the beach and indulge in other escapades). We’d spend the week by the ocean where we would gambol in the surf, wander the boardwalks through the rainforest and sit on rocks watching seals cavort in the waves. We’d eat and laugh and chatter and dance and play cards and board games and skip through tidal pools and lay in the sun when it was shining, which, given this is the west coast, was sometimes dubious as the weather can often be moody.

Every morning, I’d sneak down to the beach to write a daily installment of a story I’d created just for them in the sand. Every morning, they’d awaken and race to the shore, read the story and act out the tale of three star maidens who climbed down the staircase from heaven to earth every night to cast dreams upon sleeping children. Some mornings, the tide devoured the story before they could. And that was okay. It was all part of the adventure.

C.C., nor Beaumont, have ever been to Tofino.

I’m excited. To share one of my favourite places on earth with the man I love, and the puppy who continues to bring pure joy into our lives every day.

I may, or may not be blogging regularly. For sure tomorrow morning I won’t be as we plan on heading out early to arrive in Vancouver in time for dinner at my sister’s.

For the next week, I will be enjoying the company of my beloved, our pooch and as a special treat, my eldest daughter will be joining us for the weekend.

What a gift. To spend time with those I live in a place that has always filled my heart with loving memories.

Life is delicious.

Full Moons Rising and all that Jazz

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Harmlessness is not negativity or inaction; it is a condition of perfect poise, a completed point of view and divine understanding.
Dr. Joshua David Stone

It is the time of the Blood Moon (did you see the red colour of the moon – that’s because earth cast a shadow on the moon). Of the full moon, super moon, also called harvest moon (when the moon is closest to the earth and appears larger because of its position on the horizon) and lunar eclipse aligning to open gateways to possibility for all humankind to find another way of being present here on earth. Source

The four moon’s state of being (the first time since 1967) calls forth the need to cultivate ‘harmlessness’. To not act out thoughtlessly and unaware of our impact, but instead to act with intentionality, to be conscious of both the yin and yang of everything we do and to know, we are the change we want to create in the world.

“Ugh!” my critter mind wails. “Can’t we just revert back to being unconscious? Unaware? Unawoken?”

Just as a river cannot flow backwards, the mind cannot unknow what it has learned.

Dang. I just wanted to moon gaze without having it be all esoteric and heady.

Moon gaze away! says my mind of knowing. Just keep your eyes open, and your heart too.

This moon calls for us to open our hearts completely. To let go of fear and apprehension that we will never be perfect enough and surrender to the human imperfection of being all we can be when we release our need to be perfect. Which is why when I read the title of one of Joshua Stone’s books, “The Soul’s Perspective on How to Achieve Perfect Radiant Health: A Compilation”, I had to laugh.

Striving for perfection is a fool’s game. Perfection doesn’t exist.

Ahh that critter mind. He just loves to play with my thinking I know it all.

And deep within, a voice whispers, “Breathe. To cultivate harmlessness you must let go of criticism.”

A friend and I were talking yesterday about Canada’s upcoming election. She has chosen not to engage in the criticism of our current Prime Minister, no matter what.

I laughed. “Well, that’s challenging. There’s so much of it going around!”

But I don’t have to engage in it, my friend replied. I don’t have to take part in adding mockery and criticism to any conversation.

And my heart feels heavy.

I have contributed through criticism. I have been part of adding to the mockery, not just of our current Prime Minister, but in many ways.

Back to the drawing board. Time to release self-criticism and judgement and flow into intentional harmlessness, with myself and all the world around me.

It is Monday. The business week begins and I find myself feeling on edge, in turmoil, without calm within me.

Good, says my knowing mind. Stay with the unease. Dig into the unsettledness within and allow yourself to feel it, be it, know it. This is a time of allowing the universe’s energy to guide you. Don’t struggle to be in charge of your life, allow life, all of life, to be in charge of you.

Fine. Whatever.

But dang it. I really did just want to dance beneath the light of the full moon rising and gaze into my lover’s eyes and toss moonbeams on the waves of passion emanating between us! Now that would have been fun.

 

Keys to Recovery: Unlocking the Potential

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Karen Crowther is compassionate, dedicated, fiercely loyal and determined. She gives her whole heart and being to creating success for her organization, her staff, and the people they serve. And in return, her staff, the people they serve and the communities within which they live and work love her back.

Karen is the Executive Director of Keys to Recovery and as Broadcaster, Performer and last night’s Emcee Jonathan Love said at the Keys to Recovery (Keys) Unlocking the Potential fund-raiser C.C. and I attended, “There’s a lot of love in this room. I can feel it.”

It’s true.

There was Love. And… passion, commitment, a fierce conviction that we can make a difference. A deep understanding of what it takes to do that and a belief that everyone deserves a second, third, even fourth chance to change their lives. No one is hopeless.

Keys fills a unique niche in the homeless serving system of care in Calgary. They provide housing with supports to formerly homeless Calgarians who would otherwise be discharged from successful completion of rehab back to the streets.

It can be a vicious cycle.

Imagine. An individual knows what they are doing is not working for them. They want to get clean and sober and make the scary, yet liberating decision, to go to rehab. After treatment, they are sober, have the tools to continue their sobriety but, the one thing that is the same, is the lack of housing that contributed to their homelessness, and their addiction, in the first place.

Without Keys, they would be returning to an emergency shelter, or the street, with little support to maintain their sobriety and thus, change their lives.

Keys provides that support. They wrap a person in compassionate care, providing both housing and structure to support them in their efforts to retain sobriety and create a new life for themselves and their families.

Gabriel Chen, the keynote speaker last night shared a powerful and inspiring message of what is possible if we imagine a different way.

Gabriel knows. He is a lawyer whose client base is entirely made up of individuals experiencing homelessness.

In the first story Gabriel shared, “Mary” found herself homeless and, feeling defeated, gave into the lure of drugs to numb her from the dark reality of the life she was experiencing. Eventually, she knew she had to do something different, went to Rehab and got a place of her own and was working on her sobriety. But she was on her own, struggling every day to make ends meet and to retain her sobriety. One day, she got picked up on a misdemeanor and when the police ran her name through ‘the system’ it was determined she had some outstanding warrants from when she was using drugs and stole some food and got caught. She was sent to the Remand Centre and attempted to call Gabriel. Except, she was only allowed one call a day and the phone at the Remand does not allow the caller to leave messages. It was a week before she reached Gabriel when he happened to be at his desk. By then, she was terrified of losing her apartment and told Gabriel to plead guilty on her behalf.

She lost her apartment anyway, Gabriel shared and because he was brought into the cycle after she’d already represented herself at her bail hearing, he could not change the course of her journey. She ended up with a criminal record which, upon release, impeded her ability to get a job, an apartment, go back to school or to make any constructive changes in her life.

And the cycle continued.

Imagine instead, asked Gabriel, if Mary was supported throughout her journey. That upon exiting rehab and being immediately housed with supports, she chose to work with her Case Manager to clean up the outstanding warrants before they created more trouble in her life.

Imagine if Gabriel was able to stand before the Court to plead on Mary’s behalf, before the judicial process kicked into high gear with its judgements and criminalization of homelessness and addictions.

Imagine if he could have demonstrated to both the Judge and the Prosecutor that Mary was maintaining her sobriety, was going back to school and had support to change the course of her life.

Imagine that the judiciary were aware of Keys and respected and supported the work they were doing in the community to end homelessness.

Imagine if…

Keys to Recovery makes this possible, Gabriel said.

It’s true.

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Keys to Recovery plays a vital role in Calgary’s Plan to End Homelessness. Every Calgarian has a role to play — the board members of Keys who were all present last night, the volunteers who helped organize the event like my dear friend Wendy C., and the people who came out to support Keys in their inaugural fund-raiser like Diana Krecsy, President & CEO of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, all made a difference.  You can too. Check out the Plan and see where you fit. (Action Step No. 14 is a great one for every Calgarian) Let’s take action! Together. We can end homelessness in Calgary.

 

 

 

Pride: it cometh after the fall too

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Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.     — Andrew Murray

I wrote last week about The Fall. About landing on the cold, hard cement in front of my office building downtown and the mind chatter that ensued.

At Choices last week, while chatting with another coach about monkey mind chatter, I shared what happened and told them that I was shocked to see how, even before I knew if I’d broken anything or not, my mind immediately leaped to that place of, “OMG! I hope no one saw me!”

Imagine. Lying on the ground, not even sure if I am hurt or not and all I can think about is my pride.

On Monday, I gave a presentation on homelessness to a group of University students. After the presentation, a woman came up to share the story about her daughter.

“She’s lived in a group home for 20 years,” she shared. And she told me about some of the things she’d done to protect her daughter’s well-being and to ensure she always had a nest egg to support her, no matter what happened to her mother.

“The Public Trustee manages her money,” she told me. “Yet, when I tell other parents about what a great job the Public Trustee has done for my daughter, they balk and say, ‘no way’. Their pride won’t let them use a resource that makes a positive difference.”

Pride. We all have it to varying degrees. And we all suffer its consequences.

When I was lying on the ground, my pride said, “You look ridiculous. People will think you are…. weak, stupid, drunk, ignoble…  A host of impressions my pride could not abide.

Truth is, after falling to the ground, it would have been wonderful to have someone come over and ask me if I was okay. To offer to help me back up. To see that I had fallen and ensure that I was okay. Deep within me was a need to be cared for, cherished, helped.

Instead, my pride would have me believe, I did not need anyone’s help. I did not need assistance. I did not deserve someone else’s concern.

English cleric Charles Caleb Colton said it well centuries ago,

pride quote

Where does pride hold you back? Where are you not asking for what you want because pride tells you not to?

 

Homelessness isn’t sexy

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I am talking on the phone with a peer at another agency about their efforts to stage an event, and the lack of up-take from corporate Calgary.

Homelessness isn’t on a lot of company’s radar, they tell me. Most big companies want to invest in kids, women fleeing violence, the environment. Things that capture the public’s attention and help them feel like they’re making a difference. Homelessness just isn’t sexy enough.

Not ‘sexy’ enough? When was ‘sexy’ ever part of the homeless equation?

Somewhere in our collective psyche is the notion that people fall into homelessness by their own fault. Their own doing. Collectively, we hold an unspoken belief that people don’t deserve to receive any more help than having an emergency shelter to fall back on simply because, what they need to do to fix their homeless state is to clean up, dress up and get a job.

It’s not that simple. It’s not that easy.

Homelessness is not that benign.

Homelessness is a state of being present in a world that has not taken steps to address the issues that undermine people’s capacity to access the resources they needed to live without fear of falling through the cracks.

When we feel strong, when we have access to knowledge, resources and supports, finding our way is possible — no matter where we stand on the road of life. We have enough resiliency to get through the dark times because we’ve been supported in building a foundation that is strong enough to withstand life’s knocks.

People living on the margins, who have never known what it means to have equal access to resources to help them achieve their dreams to not know what it means to be resilient, self-confident, self-determined. Their lives have been limited by the lack of resources, lack of support, lack of advantages most of us take for granted.

In their lifetime of scraping by, of being unsupported, unacknowledged, unseen, they don’t recognize or see resources waiting to be accessed. They are too familiar with doors slamming closed in the face of their efforts to not fall through the cracks gaping on their road of life.

Homelessness is not who someone is. It is not a dream come true. It is a nightmare.

Believing people can fix the potholes and cracks in the road that lead them into their state of homelessness is like telling someone with terminal cancer to stop dying. No matter how hard you wish for it, it isn’t going to happen without a miracle or two and a whole lot of care and attention. Like a diagnosis of terminal cancer, the damage was done long before the evidence was in or someone hit the doors of a shelter.

We humans can be shallow. We can be pack animals. We can be easily lead to judge and label others based on our lack of understanding of what it is that they are experiencing.

Homelessness isn’t sexy.

It also isn’t a choice. It isn’t a decision one morning to get up, jettison everything in your life you hold dear just so you can wander the streets and sleep in a crowded space with others experiencing the same condition, and eat what you’re given when told and sleep where directed and lose your dignity and pride and sense of who you are in the world — if you ever knew it in the first place.

Homelessness is nullifying.

Debilitating. Scary.

Homelessness is deadly.

It strips you of everything you own, and steals your life from the inside out, one nullifying indignity at a time, scraping away your pride, your confidence, your belief in yourself (if you ever had any) with every grinding step you take.

Homelessness isn’t sexy.

Neither is telling someone when they’re down to just get up, clean up and carry on.

If it were that simple, we’d all do it every time we hit a bump in the road of life. If it were that easy, we would all just pull up ourselves up by our bootstraps and get going on living the dream life we’ve always imagined.

Someone told me yesterday that homelessness isn’t sexy.

They’re right. It’s not.