To thine own self be true

(craggy-looking Mr. Steinbeck pictured with a drawing of Charley, his black standard poodle that accompanied him on a trip across America)

The snow had started falling again as I walked with my limping horse on the road. Given the cars sliding past us, I decided we’d do better on the sidewalk where others were walking, just to be on higher ground and patted my horse’s blanket-covered back gesturing where we were to go.

A tall man with a cane who had been hobbling ahead of us also made the same move. But when he reached the sidewalk, he took a tumble and fell hard in an undignified heap. “Well, aren’t you going to help him?” my horse looked at me, but I instinctively intuited the man’s independent air as he cursed, struggling slowly to his feet.

My horse indicated she wanted to meet the man who now stood shaking the snow from his cloak. When we got to him, she looked intently at the man, trying to communicate something of their lame similarity and how impressed she was that he had righted himself despite his bad leg. The craggy-faced old man was baffled and laughed heartily at my horse’s perspicacity. “Imagine, identifying with me!”

We then parted and my horse and I reached home only to find a note already waiting for us, inviting us to join a Mr. Steinbeck for an afternoon beverage at his place in the valley. Later when we arrived at his cabin, he was genial and hospitable, now more appreciating the earlier moment of identification between man and horse. As he and I sipped scotches, he fed my horse carrots by hand and remarked that “the third horse had been lame” like mine and him.

It was my turn to be confused. “You know the one” he continued. “The one who fell, but never got up again.” He rubbed my horse’s nape as he said this. “The one we both of us could have been. We were lucky,” he added, his blue eyes twinkling. “Yes, the one who never got up again.”

Something about energy and enthusiasm, chi most likely, and its movement toward…?
Where is one going today? Is there a sense a movement or moving forward toward something (maybe even someone)?

Likely something resembling felt meaning and purpose. “This is my goal or plan for the day. This really reflects who I most am, what represents my best, and some vague road to peace, pleasure, (outer) destiny, (inner) peace or personal fulfilment.”

Some daze the wheels spin or one feels ‘lost’ doing even the tiniest, most mundane things. To accomplish the smallest thing seems to require the greatest effort. Other times, one spiritually leaps over many tasks, distances, accomplishing literally everything. ‘On top of one’s game.’

It’s a matter sometimes of how the day registers. “Today I will likely do this much.” Or: “Today I will accept the flow of life and circumstance and not try to change the universe or others in any way at all.”

On the other hand, consciousness is consciousness, and one is aware always of how much or how little is going on as life ebbs and flows. Acceptance and letting go do have their roles, especially when one is finally removed from the daily drudgery of Work and ‘making a living’. In earlier years, there is always motion, routine, the ‘locked-in’ effect. Ambition, if one has any. Joni Mitchell’s “So many things I would have done…” is more likely the commoner tale of the lifetape–the projects only dreamed and left unfinished and unaccepted by others. And there is such a thing as “Going against the prevailing current” especially involving the many others, not just bosses or unimaginative people who control whatever purse strings.

I speak only from experience and add that, recurringly, I have found it necessary to ‘leave the formation’ and do and find what interests me or ‘is me’. I cannot hold others responsible for whatever their limits and limitations might be. That is for them to work out or through. Always I must make of my day what I shall do on my own–as me, for me, to begin with.

After all, if one pretty much knows who one is and what one is like, in both strengths and weaknesses–those limits and limitations I spoke of–then one is at least operating from a known base or within some common-sensible context regardless of what others or the greater world, including nature, are doing. It is much harder to get lost if you have answered the Alice Caterpillar’s question as much as you likely can or will.

An inner centeredness removes much that is seemingly in flux. That centeredness has the surety and confidence of inner freedom or autonomy that is not dependent on the whims of others and the buffets of the exterior world. Far better to have that state relative to family, friends, love, and even work.

Facts: there will always be change, obstacles, setbacks, crises, disappointments, disillusionments, stupidity, ignorance, and the numerous limits and limitations of others, let alone oneself. But one will always be most responsible for one’s own fate, one’s own life, one’s own satisfactions, pleasures, engagements, purpose, and meaning. No one else.

Who or what would you be willing to die for?

The sort of question which helps to set or confirm priorities and values. The sort of question which, first of all, clarifies one’s own level of self-centeredness vs. other/s. It, of course, may not come to that, but is perhaps still relevant in such medical matters as donating blood or organs. The notion that, despite one’s situation or mortality, one may help or contribute to, even live on in someone else, so to speak.

As I have said several times previously in this blog, the best gifts are the gifts of self. This big question and the other discussed possibilities reveal how that may be true in extraordinary, unexpected, yet significant ways.

Find the blog author, 21. Look Ma, no monitors! (How bands played live through the ’70s. Had a particularly tough time hearing their singing voices.)

This is also pretty much how we looked in January 1970 when we had the privilege of opening the very first Voyageur Festival in St. Boniface in front of 1,100 people.

(my signed letter by Colville)

Thomson, MacDonald, and Harris were the first great artists of the 20th century, but because they focused on landscapes exclusively, they lacked the range and variety of Alex Colville’s work.

Colville subtly and deeply affected my consciousness and sensibility. His work speaks eloquently and timelessly about man’s inhumanity to man (his WWII paintings and drawings), man and nature, the unnoticed juxtapositions in daily life, the implicit dangers within life, and the mysteries of people, relationships, and life.

My list of favorites is a long one:

-Dead Paratrooper near Deventer Holland(1945)

-The History of Mount Allison (1948)

-Tragic Landscape (1948)

-Children in Tree (1957)

-Dog, Boy and St. John River (1958)

-Dog, Boy and School Bus Ocean Limited (1962)

-June Noon (1963)

-Snow (1969)

-Professor of Romance Languages (1973)

-Looking Up (1975) –on a poster in my garage

-Swimming Dog and Canoe (1979)

-Main Street (1979)

-Cyclist and Crow (1981)–on a poster over my bed

-At Grand Pre (1982)

-Steve (1988)

-Chaplain (1991)

-Embarkation (1994)–I own a rare signed book about this painting

-Coyote and Alders (1995)

-On a River (1996)–on a poster over my study door

-St. Croix (1997)

-Dog in Car (1995)

-Terrier and Crow (2001)

-William (2002)

…………………………

Most of my journey of late has been about consciousness which was a theme in Colville’s work. Colville was the first painter whose work I saw which truly intrigued and fascinated me. His best work, for me, always starts with a definite immediate feeling, mood, or impression followed by a sense of implied context and hidden narrative. Much of his work has moved my heart, mind, and spirit. No app could ever replace Alex Colville and his impressive body of work.

in April at the Edmonton Poets Festival. Meantime (Magnum) OPUS getting a good reception as I suspected it might. I will feature some of its poems in entries to come…

the Edmonton Oilers. They have more hockey smarts, play as units, defend well, skate fast, and have more energy, will, and commitment than the fat cat NHL club. It would be interesting to put up either team against the Oilers in a one-time no-bodycheck exhibition game. I believe that either team would have a reasonable chance of beating the Oiler bums. Oilers are just not as disciplined, organized, and smart enough to beat these two teams.

is just another selfie-style photo opportunity to curry favor with East Canadian Indians to get their votes in the next election and to diminish whatever potential impact the NDP leader might have had on that result down the road.

Elsewhere, Justin continues his wantonly defiant ways not paying back Canadian taxpayers for his Aga Khan getaway and having the gall to fly a Canadian chef out to cater a dinner in India. He continues to make stupid mistakes, inviting a Canadian assassin to dinner and allowing his wife to be photographed with this dangerous man. Reckless, careless, and downright selfishly dumb. “Uh, uh, uh….”

“Life is a verb, not a noun.”
–Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.”
–Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“Life is like a ten-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.”
–Charles M. Schulz

“Life is like a play; it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.’
–Seneca the Younger

“Life is a rainbow which also includes black.”
–Yevgeny Yevtushenko

“On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.”
–Scott Adams

“Life is a journey, but don’t worry, you’ll find a parking spot at the end.”
–Isaac Asimov

“Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.”
–Truman Capote

“Life is a near-death experience.”
–George Carlin

“Life is a funny thing that happens to you on the way to the grave.”
–Quentin Crisp

“For most men, life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed.”
–Clifton Fadiman