Worth Seeing

I really have no idea how this photo found its way back into view after so many years.  My brother came upon it quite by accident, going through a collection of my parent’s things.  He does not remember exactly how and where he found it.  Yet when his eyes and fingers came upon it he immediately knew, that when the current version of that young man saw himself, he would be shocked.

He never mentioned or hinted at all about his obscure discovery.  Instead he cleverly tucked it casually into the lower corner of quite another picture.  For weeks it was unnoticed and certainly unrecognized by most glancing eyes passing through his home.  Perhaps being judged by the few who noticed it as simply some wild hippy stranger from my brother’s past.  He, all along knowing that my inevitable collision with it would set off a dramatic and profound reaction.

It rested there mostly unnoticed until I recently came to visit him in Canada.  It was stuck in the frame in the lower corner of an unremarkable landscape.   So when I just happened to glance up on the shelf where it had been placed.  I bellowed out an unrestrained yelp of recognition.  In an instant I bounded across the floor to see it more closely in my hands.  All the time feeling a strange battle raging inside, one composed of equal parts of dread and wonder.   

No longer able to continue to grasp firmly to the present I found myself flung instantly back into my past.  One, that under quick calculation, had to be many decades distant.  I was certainly not more than 20, nor less than 18. 

For me the conflict was simply seeing myself, at such a precious time in my life.   Which now in retrospect I believed I had to be at the very beginning of my life's adventure road.  The person starring back at me was filled with such innocence and unblemished youthful vitality.  Still to be shaped and formed by all the learning and life experience that has taken place in the years, that separates the current version of me now, from who I was back then.

.It was not that I did not know that such pictures existed.  It is just that I had not seen this particular version of me ever.  Or at least not one so close to the time when this photo was first taken.  Instead in recent years I have only seen the safe and simple ones.  Baby photos, early classroom shots, all images of myself, securely caught up in the comfortable certainty of childhood.  Not a young man who has just begun to sample vitally and fully all manner of the adventures that are composed in the great world around us.

Now a days practically all the phases of our life can be almost continually captured, and then instantly displayed somewhere in the immeasurable electronic void of the internet.  A place, in which untold millions of us can and do discharge vast quantities of data, helter skelter, every day. 

Despite our knowing how little comes to rest before caring or even interested eyes we still do it.  Each text, tweet, and email rushing here and there and yet so little of it touches or reaches others and has any meaning.  Every stroke and tap of a keypad streaming at light speed on electronic pathways that hardly ever lead to any real destination.  Or at least a destination that matters most to us, our own hearts

Of course this story is one of those same things.  I am one of the guilty.  Sending my thoughts, and now this image out into the world.  Yet if there is any true importance in all this, is that my discovering of this picture inspired me, and if I am lucky, you too might find some tiny inspiration.  Be reminded of what a remarkable journey you also have taken over the years.  And perhaps more importantly, just how far we all have yet to go. 

The Road That Passes By

Quite often I will see something extraordinary and have the idea that I can hold onto it.  Continue to extract from a fragment of time something even more precious and meaningful than what it had originally offered. 

Because I so often carry a small camera there is always a hope that it will somehow graphically aid me in this process.  Perceive the scene or event with a comprehensive permanent bundle of digital bits what my eye had just momentarily glanced upon.  All so I can then replay in my mind a singular special moment.

A week ago the weather, in not just this little strip of Canada but also across a great swath of the northern states were affected by the perfect confluence of dangerous weather patterns.  An immense wet mass of air rolled eastward across the Great Lakes and absorbed even more moisture into itself. 

At the same time a cold front pushed down from across the harsh northern country side.  There was then an immense collision, that under any other circumstances would have normally forced the huge, now merging weather patterns to release its burden of moisture as a swirling blizzard of snow.  But this did not happen.

Instead the thermometer clung to its tenuous grip on fluidity and instead remained teetering on the brink of freezing.  A precarious position as the clouds could no longer hold onto their immense burden of moisture.  Curiously, in a strange coincidence, the earth below and the atmosphere in between were set at a slightly colder temperature. 

The end result is rain that plummeted down through the slightly milder atmosphere and then instantly froze on everything it touched.  What then occurred was a slurpy cold deluge that continued dangerously for hours in many places, and by coincidence or quirk of fate, froze into a delicate gentle beautiful glaze in others. 

Many days have passed since this all took place.  In Toronto there are more than a few who have been dealt the harshest fate of this bizarre trick of weather.  No power,  trees stripped and broken, and lives now forcibly detained in un heated unpowered homes with no sure notion of when all this can be cleaned and cleared  and sorted.   Their lives most certainly drawing closer to normalcy but one which is still unpredictable.

Down here in little Goderich nature offered its most gentle frozen blessing.  No lives put under duress, no trees and buildings damaged, but instead what happened was that fickle nature offered up a delicate translucent non threatening veneer of ice.  That now, after so many days has yet to retreat under the slight advance of warmer temperatures.

My brother, along with my Mother and I had just come back from visiting a Mennonite wood shop.  A place not so far from the bustling town but when you enter this interesting little community of horse drawn carts, men with long scruffy beards, and women dressed in bonnets and long skirts, everything then begins, to my eye at least, to look different and unique. 

So as we drove back closer towards the modernity of town, nature all around me looked more interesting and delightful.  The tired sun was drooping lower, and for a moment the clouds opened up and allowed a burst of light to dazzle the icy glazed trees that framed the clear dark road. 

For just a moment my brother pulled his car to the side of the road and I got out.  Still just a little too far off from this glistening tree for the camera to frame it just right. So I continued to march towards it on the narrow slippery shoulder of the road.  With each slushy step the sun crept closer towards ducking entirely behind the clouds.

 
 .I had time to click just one picture before the curtain of cloud and dusk fell down around me.  Then, just like that, natures moment of perfect light and magic was over.

I clomped back through the frozen slop to my brother's warm waiting car.  Clicked my snowy boots together to dislodge the slush and then hopped into the back seat.

In an instant we were hurtling back towards the well maintained orderly streets of town.  The still and snowy countryside slipping away behind.  The trees that had glistened so brightly along the edges of the sleeping fields now bathed in the total darkness of the night. 

My Morning at the Maidan

 It is my first morning in Calcutta and I have gone for a run. My hotel is just a few tired and tattered blocks from the sparklingVictoria Memorial.  Night has just lifted as I begin a slow circuit around the Maidan, the great park in the heart of Calcutta.  Something big is happening here this morning and I have yet to learn what it is.

There are dozens and dozens of groups assembled in front of the Victoria Memorial.  They are all getting ready to march.  But today is just a practice for the big day which comes 2
days later.  I learn that on January 26th in 1950 India signed its constitution.  Now it is one of just 3 National Holidays.

Kane Learns To Skate

Today, a little Goderich boy named Kane had ice skates strapped to the bottoms of his tiny feet for the very first time.  On this lazy afternoon he was attempting to propel himself forward like millions of other Canadians have done for more than 100 years.  As he was prepared for the event, sitting with his family in the hardwood bleachers of the arena, he was poised to join the sacred, almost universal fraternity of Canadian skaters.  

This precious historic moment was safely nestled in the glowing period that lolls between the two towering winter holidays, of Christmas and New Years.   A golden opportunity had opened up in the life of this preschooler.  It consisted of a fortuitous convergence of opportunity, motivation, and timing.  Some of which belonged to him and yet much more belonged to the inevitable force and momentum of the Canadian psyche.

The critical elements also included, besides available ice, competent coaches and trainers for this operation to succeed.  This was fulfilled quite nicely by the attentive encouragement and support of his parents and the appearance of a bonus Uncle, as added backup, should the coaching breakdown in any way.   The most important ingredient in all of this was of course a pair of brand new skates.  Provided no doubt by the recent visit of Santa, who had either brought skates fresh from the North Pole or the local Canadian tire store.

Kane, to his credit, had already clearly mastered all the standard problems associated with humans primary mode of locomotion, namely walking.  Was he ready to adventure forward into the more challenging world of skating was another matter.  I never had much of a discussion with his folks, but my guess was that they had simply decided that today was the appropriate moment to test the waters, or rather the ice.  Regardless, this day, Wednesday December 29th had been anointed as the proud moment when Kane, regardless of the outcome, was going to stride forward in his life and officially take part in the great Canadian past time, skating.

There are a little over 34 million of us stretched across this vast country.  The number of indoor rinks has been calculated to be roughly around 2500, depending upon which census you look at, or believe.  When you factor in as well the countless frozen ponds and lakes that are created, when the heel of the frosty winter boot strikes down hard upon our 10 provinces.   The opportunities to strap on sharp steel onto your feet and fly across expanses of frozen water in this country of ours is tremendous.

Skating in 1884 Montreal

Christmas Lights: Beyond the Glow

My Greek neighbors live in a sturdy red house directly across the street from me.  They are practical folk who have lived in this neighborhood a lot longer than I have.  We have never talked much, but I have noticed over the years in a smattering of brief conversations,  that their accent is still pretty strong, despite no doubt many years in America and many years in their tidy red house.  

The neighborhood has no doubt changed a whole lot since they first moved here.  At one time the street probably had lots of other Greek families, but now just a few grudging holdouts further up the block.  The street now is a spicy blend of  humanity.  Next door to them is a family from Bangladesh, across a family from Guyana, and the diverse ingredients of the neighborhood soup just goes on and on.  The little world that is 160 st has changed a lot even in the time that I have been there.  Because they are such rock solid people I really no longer take much notice of them.  In the winter they scoot inside quickly like everybody else on chilly days. 

 When summer is hot they will sit out front of the house for long lazy hours in aluminum folding chairs, right into the wee late night hours.  I have never noticed an air conditioner and just assume that if they never had one in Greece where it really gets hot,  then why should they have one here then.   Their only glancing nod to luxury, as far as I can tell, is a big comfortable Chrysler that always gets tucked away in the garage at night. Just to be absolutely safe.
 

Parade April 1986 pt 1

Keep your heart's purity

And your mind's simplicity

At the head of your life-parade.

If you want God

To broadcast your achievements,
Then you must never allow your mind
To resort to self-parade.

A life of aspiration

Is not a parade
Of possibilities
But a concert
Of inevitabilities.

Leading my life's parade

Slow and long,
My Lord goes, singing His
Oneness-Song.

Parade April 1986 pt 2

Happiness: My Dream-Fulfilled Reality

Happiness, happiness, happiness!
The human in me speaks: "Happiness is somewhere else. Happiness is in something or in somebody else. Happiness is not in me. Happiness is not of me. Happiness is not for me. Happiness is a never-blossoming dream."

The divine in me speaks: "Happiness is everywhere. Happiness is in everything and in everybody. Happiness is in me. Happiness is of me. Happiness is for me. Happiness is my dream-fulfilled reality."
The Absolute Supreme in me speaks: "From happiness we all came into existence. In happiness we grow. At the end of our journey's close, into the infinite Happiness we retire."
Happiness is usefulness. When I am useful to God the

Creator and God the creation, my inner being is inundated with happiness.

When my inner life is full of surrender and when my inner heart is full of g ratitude, my outer life becomes transformed and perfect. With the transformation and perfection of my outer life, I grow into a sea of peace,which is all happiness.
If I want to be sleeplessly and ceaselessly happy, then I must not carry with me yesterday's unnecessary burdens and tomorrow's imaginary burdens. I must grow and glow, glow and grow, only in the immediacy of today.

Every day I must run away from my self-centred prison cell and speedily enter into God's oneness world-centred Kingdom where Infinity's Peace, Infinity's Light and Infinity's Happiness reign supreme.
There is only one question which is of supreme importance and that question is: "Who am I?" This question itself embodies happiness. Needless to say, the immediate answer also embodies happiness in boundless measure: "I am of God's birthless and deathless Vision, and I am for
God's ever-expanding manifestation here on earth."

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, Maryland

13 May 1989

Excerpt from My Heart's Peace-Offering by Sri Chinmoy.