Forward

    These sentences are not stories, poems or prose. They are little vignettes of my life. They are little sound bites that show my experience of the world. I have been nourished and saved by these moments. And now they are preserved in words. Like the splintered planks of a now wrecked ship I gather these remnants into a raft of knowledge to move forward in life. I will escape myself with the experience of these stormy passing moments. These words and this art is my solid grasp on the fleeting slippery experience of every passing second.

The miraculous.

    I was in a dirty grocery store and saw the most beautiful huge blanket. It was in the design of a leopard. Close by were bells of many varieties moving in a breeze. I stood listening to their ringing, singing, rustling, whispering chime, and ringing chords in me. And there in front of the leopard skin, in the presence of the bells I was in a mind far from my own. Then just tonight I was on the metro, the beautiful metro, sending warm winds into my face underneath the wintry city above. You’re cold tonight Montreal at negative 17 degrees Celsius but below in the metro the artificial and warm wind pushes winter out. And waiting at the station there was a mentally delayed guy and his girlfriend. The girl friend sitting child like at his feet, a hat poised on her drawn out legs, and the guy was singing...and what singing.... ah beautiful voice. It was not so much singing as it was haunting. He had a fabulous sound but could only get a few words out at a time. Then he would stutter and stall and his singing came down to silence.  But then in the midst of his breathy mumbles and shaking of head, a pendulum swing with voice come back with quiet then such ringing, lingering beautiful sounds the length of subway station would echo with these determined, wrestling expressions. And then my train arrived and I was whisked away in the new rising crescendo whirling speed of train. This is how we all must shake and whisper to finally give triumphant release to our quickly expelled song.

Inbetween.

    On my travels today I entered into a strange place. Like many cities the place between concise civic order and country there exist wastelands. These places are no mans lands. Narrows surrounded on all sides by fast moving highways. The land in between buildings and highways are lonely, ugly unused strips. There are excommunicated islands of once fertile farmland relegated to fester as neither wild not used. These are the side effects of big city greed and poor civic planning. Plastic bags shiver in the tall bulrushes. This land was the vestibule for my new entrance into the earth. I found a deep underpass for a highway. I was surprised to see from the snow that no one had walked this way since it had first fallen. "Could that be a month, six months, a year...", I wondered. I walked into the dark place wondering who the few other people were who might have come the way. As I walked deeper I realized this was a cave. I stopped and closed my eyes. What sort of strange shaman journeywork would find me in this place? On my face was a calm, emotionless expression. I listened to everything. Felt the roar of the traffic. Breathed deeply the noxious fumes. Such a bazaar place; active, motion filled, yet dead; Machines driven relentlessly yet no human presence. The air was stale. I shouted. I sang. The whirl of the traffic covered my voice. I opened my eyes and left this place. As I breathed clean air I wondered if this had been the deepest, the darkness moment of this winter. Was this moment at 4:23pm, January 25, the lowest swing of the pendulum for 2002? Was that dark, dirty snowed, machine filled, soulless place that I left behind with each progressing step, the hell? I will remember this place for what purpose I do not know. Perhaps there is a lost soul that will cower in this Mac Beth witch home place breathing, waiting for hunters to pass.

Snowballs.

    Yesterday was a beautiful day in the city. It was bright blue but warm with fantastic packing snow. I walked past a building with a solid brick face front. It had a stain on the brick right in the centre like a big target. I couldn’t resist. So there I stood for about an hour. Packing snowballs, weighing them in my hand, feeling my stance, feeling very Zen, detached about myself, detached about the target. Just letting the balls of snow uncoil out of my grasp with uncompromising sureness to slap hard against the bricks. It made me remember the basket of balls we hit into the driving range in Heartland. Do you remember that afternoon? It is a long time and a long way from where you are now. It is said the human psyche measures time not in terms of the ticking clock but by the experiences that we note. Is it years from that place? Could it be three years you have been gone from here or is it longer?

Collage.

    Having always an inclination to both art and spirituality, designing the dust cover for your book was the perfect project for me. The design of this cover has utilized collage techniques. That this is a personal cover makes this all the more meaningful: like our relationship, moments are collaged together over time. Seemingly incongruous vignettes function together as a uniform larger vision. What seems confusing is not if layers are uncovered. Likewise, that which seems incomplete will find fulfillment in future additions. Understand that no collage or relationship ever ends. Something more can always be added. Add much as you read, travel, live and understand, dear friends.

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