"And here is the result of the Epilogue...

...God exists, by two falls and a submission."

a piece of a lesson

the cabin in the woods was a refreshing reminder that there exist places of beauty, even close enough to travel to for one night. you don't have to go too far to get away from yourself and see things new, so there are no excuses. you know there are no excuses, but its good to be refreshed. everything worked out perfectly and nature left some new impressions: the quiet of a forest at twilight, a secret you are spoiling, a story that has been unfolding quite contentedly without you, but lets you walk through and ruin its concentration. Very gracious, i thought.

night falls. Clear skies and a new moon make for a sheet of pinpoints of light that looks so fresh, you would guess how much they have traveled to get here. You get to see shreds of this fabric, because the silhouettes of the giant spruce trees cut into it, so it looks like you view it through a tunnel. just stand still for a change.

"i haven't seen stars like that since i was young and still believed you could wish on them and it would make a difference"

And the coyotes. Who are they? So wild and so close, in the middle of the night, to our box of a shelter, howling and yelping at each other. Fear is trumped by wonder.

Wonder was a big thing. It is unfashionable, to walk around in awe. I kept my cool, though. We were all pretty happy, so someone with their eyes open a little wider than the rest really wouldn't get noticed.


It is good to be learning still... to be amazed by nature and people and keep moving... to let that be a new part of you.

from Neruda's Book of Questions

Why does the hat of night
fly so full of holes?

Do uncried tears wait in small lakes?
Or are they invisible rivers who run to sadness?


Where is the child I was,
still inside me or gone?

Why did we spend so much time
growing up only to separate?

Going to a cabin in the woods for the night

Clayton, Paul, Paul.

recording for the university CD collaboration. The only blues band in town, and they practice in our nook-under-the-stairs. good for musical tension in a house, bad for people trying to learn new instruments: discouraging, to be so bad, amongst so much good.

ah, but the beauty. the beauty!

A faith that is undermined by education and engagement in society is... a weak faith. an insecure faith, either unsure of its object, or of its own purpose. my faith that has fallen away (and continues to be shed, further each day) through this 2 or 3 year period has been one of those faiths. Undermined by experiences, or the lack of them, it is was a faith with little grounding in truth. it was a faith in what i was told, what i thought was right. but indeed, if it is weakened by engagement in society, then it is not true. Because engagement in society is the most basic, easily observable, purpose of life. And true faith has to lead you to strengthening that, to supporting the community around you, binding people together. What is the point, otherwise? beautiful comment. i bet it was from a philosopher.

Instructions on how to cry

Putting the reasons for crying aside for the moment, we might concentrate on the correct way to cry, which, be it understood, means a weeping that doesn't turn into a big commotion nor proves an affront to the smile with its parallel and dull similarity. The average, everyday weeping consists of a general contraction of the face and a spasmodic sound accompanied by tears and mucus, this last toward the end, since the cry ends at the point when one energetically blows one's nose. In order to cry, steer the imagination toward yourself, and if this proves impossible owing to having contracted the habit of believing in the exterior world, think of a duck covered with ants or of those gulfs in the Strait of Magellan into which no one sails, ever. Coming to the weeping itself, cover the face decorously, using both hands, palms inward. Children are to cry with the sleeve of the dress or shirt pressed against the face, preferably in a corner of the room. Average duration of the cry, three minutes. -Julio Cortázar

Anna Binder on Skype Stephen Morris on MSN and a package from Ecuador in the mail across these new small pieces of love a shadow of something bigger falls

the debt monster

as part of today's Freeze for a Freeze protest, a huge puppet was constructed to illustrate the burden of debt. the puppet stole the show, and made for a very successful afternoon. Also, it was freezing, it was below freezing, i would have cried if i thought i could get away with that without looking like a baby.

towards the making of the puppet, i contributed the hand. was pleased with that.

but, of course, the protest was just a part of what made this day today. so many stories converged, so many pages turned. its a good day when you simultaneously get affirmed by people and disgusted with yourself. I think its a pretty honest experience.

Ah, and then of course there was The U.S. vs. John Lennon...first Sackville cinematic experience. I liked the use of photographs and stills, powerful montages and significant interviews (Walter Cronkite, Angela Davis, Tariq Ali, Geraldo, Gore Vidal and Chomsky) . Also, its always good to get a little Beatles exposure...and John Lennon quotations...can't complain.

I'm glad today is over, though. What a build-up. And what a sleep it is going to be. The built-up stuff wasn't half as pleasant as the surprises.

rhetorical questions

What the hell does that have to do with anything, Candy? What the hell kind-off a name is Candy?

what a curse, to understand the width and depth of human misery. Of the problems that exist in the world, the ones I know the most about are the ones that baffle me when its time to think of solutions. where to even begin. as we struggle for accessible university education in our small Canadian corner, i can´t help but be consumed by thoughts of less fortunate societies where education is never accessible to all, much less at the post-secondary level. i get angry, i get sad, i get frustrated. where to even begin. equality, such a simple idea, such an impossible mountain. there is no equality, and those that struggle for it struggle against the strongest foe, the enemy is too big, too big to describe or quantify...a cancerous mass, the giant marshmallow man in Ghostbusters II, an unstoppable 40 foot wave. because what can you do, without education? what sort of people are we creating, when we deny them the most basic right, to know and understand themselves and their context. education is generative, you can take people to a certain place and if you have done it right, they will go on from there. But this doesn't happen. Those on top don't know, don't care to know. Those on the bottom know all too well how it is. i sat in the snow in the waterfowl park for a while trying to get less angry. trying to make sense of the feelings, trying to find a way forward, a compromise that i could live with. what am i going to allow myself to feel and what am i going to have to do something about. i would be sitting in the snow still if it weren't so cold. i have sorted nothing out. i have such little commitment to even my personal part in all of this that i let myself off the hook because of a little temperature discomfort. i do not want to be irrelevant. i don't want to carry around this anger about unsolved problems. problems so big. why is it this way?