One Soul's Journey in Healing and Transformation

What really Matters

2011-02-18T07:34:00.000-08:00

Recently I asked my friend Amanda what really mattered for her: was she pursuing her PhD in hope of a job, or beyond that was there some greater meaning in her work? It's only fair to put the question to myself: Why am I doing what I'm doing, and what am I doing anyway?

A year ago I took retreat to consider this question, resulting in my last post. Since then I have been posting only in Facebook notes (FB id: daniel_f_berg). I resonate with a lot of what I wrote a year ago, but am ready to bring myself up to date so to speak. Back then I still focused on entrepreneurship and consulting as the practical ways to make a living and do good in the world, but in fact talked at some length about the insights and humanity of the my relationships of support with Jan and Marie. Since then I have been incredibly challenged by, and have increasingly focused on going deep with, those who are in need of transformation, so much so that now I call myself a spiritual healer/teacher rather than an entrepreneur/consultant. In fact the reason I am writing this at 6:30 am is because I awoke with a dream confronting me with my anxieties about being all washed up as a consultant/entrepreneur. While I did support two of my friends in creating a web presence (Annet Schaap and Robert's Hava Java), and I did work with quite a few people for quite some time on Ethiopian development and business possibilities, I'm no longer pursuing social media/web consulting or things Ethiopian (as much as I love Ethiopia and will still support my Ethiopian friends) but am instead develooping and teaching healing/transformation courses and planning a healing centre with my friend Claire. So what do I mean by spiritual healer/teacher?

Just as psychotherapists are the secular priests of today, those to whom suffering people outside and within religious communities look to for expert friend support, so too spiritual healer/teachers are the 21st century shamans/gurus for those who have no spiritual community or who have not found the transformational support they need within their religious communities. Psychotherapists represent the secular orthodoxy of today, being credentialed, and validated as part of modern day institutions whereas spiritual healer/teacher types tend to be those who have suffered and having found healing and transformation now share their enlightened gifts with others who suffer. I reached a turning point 3 years ago when I felt called to serve, to trust myself to our creator and walk with those who would walk with me, walk meaning pursuing healing/transformation in life. Now, three years later, I feel ready to identify myself as a spiritual healer/teacher as opposed to an entrepreneur/consultant. So how has this come about?

As one who walks with others, I have been walking the last year with those in sore need of transformation, those who at the same time are really gifted. In this walk, I have been incredibly challenged as I have lived full-time both with Jan and Marie with Jan's needs for full-time care, as well as with my friend Claire with her challenging needs for healing/transformation. I have also maintained several helping relationships throughout this time period, some of these efforts being brought together in the first of my courses last fall. It has been my great privilege to walk with people serious about their own need for healing/transformation, trusting me and the grace that flows through me, to guide them in their journey.

The course that I offered took my participants into an internal dialogue experienced through their dreams, waking visions (guided imagery) and body symptoms, all this grounded in breathwork I originally learned from my former teacher Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The reality of who they are and what they experience has become clearer and stronger for each of them as a result, with some significant breakthroughs experienced along the way. I believe each sufferer has the potential to become "the gift" they were lovingly created to be, and it is my great joy to facilitate the transformation of suffering into that gift! :)

And so I walk now, not simply quietly focusing on my own healing/transformation and of those with whom I walk, but now, increasingly publicly.

Be blessed and a blessing so much as it is possible for you this day my friends! :)

What Really Matters

2010-02-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

I am on retreat this week, retreat from business and NGO activity, from keeping all those irons in the fire warm, from pushing looking for the business break-through, from being so immersed in "doing" that sometimes I begin to forget what I'm doing and why.

I have companions on this journey of mine, the journey itself being what matters, not the goals: these companions are people like me who have sold out to God (whom/whatever they take God to be) who have left the world behind and pursue the vision they've been given, the guidance they receive. Through us grace flows, light shines, and yet we experience our journey as one of trials, complexities, difficulties mixed with blessings, ecstasy and transformation - as we are refined, transformed and changed, and have the honour of being present to others in their transformation. My companions include Karl, Karen, Joy, Martin, Don, Heather, Ray, Grace, Marie, Laura and others I recognize as being in early stages of this realization/transformation, who perhaps share with me a journey of increasing healing/integration/wholeness which will one day include the BIG PICTURE, and many others known only to God, but whom I will find some day.

Yesterday, after long conversations with Joy and Karl, after I realized I needed this retreat, then in my usual maintenance of my many Facebook relationships I came upon a couple of statuses that touched this renewed and growing quest for guidance:

♥ "Go Confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined"♥ . Henry David Thoreau

"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be." -- Abraham Maslow

Now that I'm not battling to keep my head above water of the many business and NGO activities I have been pushing forward, I now find myself being more, seeing more, and appreciating what really matters. For example, I've been with my very good friend Jan the last couple of days as I do every week, supporting him while Marie, his wife is off at the University doing her professorial thing. Jan is suffering from a degenerative brain disease called Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) that has left him needing 24/7 support from Marie, myself, other family members and paid care-givers.

As I was discussing his breakfast options with him this morning he said he'd like something. I commented, but your face doesn't seem to agree with the words you say, and his response was, "it slipped off my face." Well I broke up, and when I told Marie about it, she broke up!! He has the driest humour perfectly situated within his condition we all accept as his normal. His ambivalences manifest physically now unlike the rest of us "civilized" beings who have learned to mask our internal contradictions. The line of an old Genesis song from the Foxtrot album came to mind, "wearing feelings on our faces while our faces took a rest".

You see Jan has lost many capabilities, such as the ability to focus, the ability to separate dream from "reality", etc. and so is usually dealing with hallucinations (dream reality) at the same time as our shared reality. This leads me to the second joke he cracked today. We were engaged one of our favourite activities, eating together, and I was pointing out to him that he had dream objects in his hands, the beer was on the side table beside him. Looking me straight in the eye, he took his dream object to his lips, bit a piece off, brought it back out if front of himself for further consideration and then said with a perfectly straight face: "See, it's still here!" Well I just broke down laughing on the spot, and laughed for a very long time. It was a perfect joke told from within his lived reality as shared by Marie and I. I told her the joke later with Jan, and we all three had a good long laugh about it.

Being with my friend Jan really matters: I have and am learning so much about how we human beings construct reality, about our egos, our identities, about how strong feelings distort our perception, and on and on it goes. But mainly, I am living in love supporting my friends as they support me. This is what really matters, this is what makes life worth living. I am also getting the added gifts of reflection and insight as I started reading to Jan today from Rumi and from Rinpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (thank you Lynn for giving them to me for this purpose!). And so I close with a few quotes that are still reverberating through me:

on life and the pursuit of meaning:

I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

On joining a community of the spirit:

Be empty of worrying.

Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison

when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.

Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always

widening rings of being.

The Many Wines (Coleman Barks explains that wine is a symbol for ecstasy, a kind of wine being a kind of activity of the mind or soul that can lead to ecstasy)

God has given us a dark wine so potent that,

drinking it, we leave the two worlds.

God has put into the form of hashish a power

to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.

God has made sleep so

that it erases every thought.

There are thousands of wines

that can take over our minds.

Don't think all ecstasies

are the same!

Jesus was lost in his love for God.

His donkey was drunk with barley.

Drink from the presence of saints,

not from those other jars.

Every object, every being,

is a jar full of delight.

Be a connoisseur,

and taste with caution.

Any wine will get you high.

Judge like a king, and choose the purest,

the ones unadulterated with fear,

or some urgency about "what's needed."

Drink the wine that moves you

as a camel moves when it's been untied,

and is just ambling about.

From the Foreword to Rinpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying written by the Dalai Lama:

No less significant than preparing for our own death is helping others to die well. As newborn babies each of us was helpless and, without the care and kindness we received then, we would not have survived. Because the dying also are unable to help themselves, we should relieve them of discomfort and anxiety, and assist them, as far as we can, to die with composure.

From his Preface:

Had I not met my master Jamyang Khyentse, I know I would have been an entirely different person. With his warmth and wisdom and compassion, he personified the sacred truth of the teachings and so made them practical and vibrant with life. Whenever I share that atmosphere of my master with others, they can sense the same profound feeling it aroused in me. What then did Jamyang Khyentse inspire in me? An unshakable confidence in the teachings, and a conviction in the central and dramatic importance of the master.

Likewise I Daniel can say that if I had not been baptized in the Holy Spirit, if I had not met my teacher Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and if I had not been healed by Abba, our Creator--the loving parent revealed to us by Jesus, then I would have been an entirely different person. I am so grateful for these many realizations, particularly for the centrality of the master or saint is supporting others in breaking free from the fear that binds them so that they can wake up and realize who they really are, beloved children of the one in whom we live and move and have our being. We are each unique, we can each wake up and be free, we can each be transformed, one day we will know as we are known, but until then we have companions on the journey, brothers and sisters all! :)

So this is what really matters. The rest of the details will sort themselves out as time goes on . . . :)

grace and blessings,

your brother Daniel

suffering and celebrating on the path

2010-01-09T08:16:00.000-08:00

A beautiful young female Malaysian friend of mine asked me "how it's going these days" which led me to reflect on how to answer: of course I could just say, "Fine, thank you" or could I get into how it's really going. I slipped into reverie (day-dreamy, meditative state) and realized that my answer had to do with the interplay between suffering and celebration.

As I was writing this I was asked that same question by a lovely, wise, spiritual Taiwanese friend, and answered: "At one level I'm tired - not quite exhausted, but low energy from being on the long road to freedom; at another level I'm encouraged here and there by this or that positive occurence, seeing grace flow through me, etc., but still really don't have a clue about what's really going on . . . just keep putting one faithful foot in front of the other." It doesn't take great perceptiveness to see that life is not easy for me these days.

My path of increasing transparency and honesty with myself and others has continued to result in the stripping away of this or that identity construct (these illusory but socially accepted ways of presenting yourself to the world from within which you can feel comfortable and good about yourself) leaving me more exposed to anxious and depressive moods which may be pretty fundamental to how I became myself from an early age. Of course, going through these moods instead of trying to medicate or distract myself from them is transformative; but because of them I'm remembering less often to celebrate the love that holds me, the gift that I have received and that I am to this world.

We know that Mother Theresa shone with grace according to those who were around her, and, yet we also know that she endured the blackest depression in the last few years of her life. For me, I know that in the darkness a light has shone, and the darkness cannot comprehend or overwhelm this light. So despite my decade of rationalistic psychoanalytic training, I know that where I focus is the source of my strength or weakness. Holding myself, and knowing that I'm held as I walk through anxiety and depression, remembering when I can to celebrate the LOVE that powers this universe, this LOVE that has transformed and is transforming me, while being continually open to what's next is in fact where I live this interplay between suffering and celebration on the path.

grace and blessing be with you all! :)

Rumi, the master alchemist, making all things new

2010-01-03T06:48:00.000-08:00

Our work in Ethiopia combines two visions: Joy's One Village and Carlo's Alchemy World. We are of course all from One Village, this our global village, and lifting a hand to help someone else stand up is a natural gesture of being in one family! We also are participating in fulfillment of Carlo's vision of the the transformation of the poorest of the poor into the entrepreneurs who will transform Ethiopia.

I opened "The Love Poems of Rumi" for the first time this year, and the page that presented itself was "The Alchemy of Love." Enjoy! :)

The Alchemy of Love

You come to us

from another world

From beyond the stars

and void of space.

Transcendent, Pure,

Of unimaginable beauty,

Bringing with you

the essence of love

You transform all

who are touched by you.

Mundane concerns,

troubles, and sorrows

dissolve in your presence,

Bringing Joy

to ruler and ruled

to peasant and king

You bewilder us

with your grace.

All evils

tranform into

goodness.

You are the master alchemist,

You light the fire of love

in earth and sky

in heart and soul

of every being.

Through your loving

existence and nonexistence merge.

All opposites unite.

All that is profane

becomes sacred again.

When we are confronted with the greater reality in which we are immersed, in which we live and move and have our being, all man-made structures dissolve, and we are left immersed in love, together with all that is! :)

May 2010 be the year in which you wake up to this reality, and, on the path, may you find yourself increasingly blessed and blessing in all that you do! :o))

The red tones of Christmas

2010-01-02T12:03:00.000-08:00

Coming into the holiday season, I, like many with less than perfect family situations, was very aware of the greys of Christmas, the shadows, the experience of lacking what the culture is celebrating. Walking through this holiday season with those who chose my company, I was surprised and bemused at the intensity of RED experiences erupting all around me.

First, let's look at the red associated with something to celebrate. somebody said somewhere that a lot of relationships start in this holiday season, and in fact three of my Facebook friends have happily changed their status to "in a relationship" with something close to an announcement tone. At the same time I was aware of the pull myself, not the dark pull of depressive thinking and feeling, but the red pull of chemistry suddenly manifesting in relationships where things had been pleasantly quiet for quite some time. Of course these two subconscious or unconscious influences are quite related, since the red chemistry of attraction brings to life new social status, the desire for which is most keenly felt at this time of year: "See, I have a significant other, isn't s/he wonderful;" and life is magically transformed at least for a while! Gone or at least more deeply submerged is that implacable dark pull.

But at the same time as these red under-currents are here and there resulting in new celebrations; there are also red outbursts of a different variety. All around me couples are showing the strain, or actually bursting out into unrestrained conflict: there is anger, wounding, damage and destruction. I remember my first wife left me on Valentine's day; there is something about the pressures of these socially constructed rituals and expectations. Relationships are being positively or negatively transformed under the pressure of this socially constructed vice: change is bursting out.

Well, for better or for worse, another holiday season has passed: perhaps you fit the stereotype, and you had a enjoyable, warm holiday season with memories to cherish. For those for whom the red tones of Christmas have blessed you with a new start, a new relationship, be grateful and take good care of each other. For those for whom the pressure was inexorable and the reds of damage are mingling with the dark greys and black of hurt, loss, and despair, remember that this too will pass, that everything is always changing; and that new life awaits whether it is the restoration of a transformed relationship, or the blessings our creator/universe is always showering on us, giving us resources to heal and build anew with hope and courage.

May 2010 be a year in which increasingly you find yourself blessed and a blessing in all that you do! :)

The Grey Tones of the Holiday Season

2009-12-21T10:12:00.000-08:00

The Grey Tones of the Holiday Season

Not having any artistic talent to speak of, I nonetheless am learning something of the “design” world. When I say grey tones of Christmas, from a design perspective you don’t just have the bright reds, whites and greens, but you have the shadows, the contrasts, what makes the bright stuff stand out and shine. The same is true in our lives of course: we don’t always surround ourselves with the joy of extended family and holiday traditions, nor immerse ourselves in the nativity, the story of just how much we are each loved by our Abba, creator that he gave us Jesus, the first of many brothers and sisters. And so many in this world celebrate with bright colours this joyous, family time of year.

But for many people, these bright colours do not manifest in their lives, but rather as a sort of negative contrast, highlight the greys with their absence. There are people who have experienced these joys in the past, but can only now mourn their passing; others for whom trauma impairs their ability to access the joy of this season. For those who cannot celebrate these bright colours, their greys are darkened as they try to find ways to endure this time: some will succeed of course more than others, but they all feel the same dark pull, each in their unique way.

For those feeling this dark pull, whether you have completely admitted it to yourself or not, let me say something of my intentions for this time. For those who find themselves outside of the mainstream, there is an opportunity not available to those caught up in the busyness of career, families and social obligations. At some level we all know that we are one human family, all connected to each other in ways we don’t even understand, one of them being that we are all children of the creator: at some level we know this, but for many of us it does not come into our sense of self, who we are in our own eyes. Instead of being God’s/Gaia’s/the Universe’s children, special and gifted each in our own unique way; instead of such a consciousness we get entrapped in feeling less than, reduced or victimized, caught perhaps in a downward spiral dragged deeper by this dark pull. The opportunity I speak of is to simply change our focus: to be grateful for what we have (for we all have a LOT), and to take every opportunity to bless another. Do this as a simple decision, a choice of on what to focus, and whether it happens dramatically or gradually, your experience of yourself and this season will become different. This is my intention then for this period: to be grateful, to remember who I AM, and to bless others as I find the opportunity to do so! J

May you be blessed and a blessing! J

Your brother Dan J

feeling blue . . .

2009-12-09T06:44:00.000-08:00

I am feeling a bit blue today, it's that time of year and there is a major blizzard blowing. I'm cooped up alone in the house with my internet friends for company as I work away on business development and getting our new charity going. I am tired and a bit disheartened. . . but I know better than to BE this mood, rather this mood will change just like the weather outside will change - who I AM is more than this mood. From my eastern teacher I learned that there are four sources of energy, and that when our energy is low, we tend to feel depressed even hopeless. By simply taking care of ourselves, by providing ourselves with enough energy, we feel very different about the same circumstances. The four sources of energy then are sleep, fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh air, and meditation or a quiet mind. All of these contribute to increasing or lowering our "life force" or prana: the higher our prana, the better we feel, the lower, the more depressed. There is much more that can be said about this, but I guess my main point is - don't worry too much about feeling blue today, don't get over-impressed by how bad your situation seems when you feel like this. Rather, get more sleep, eat fresh fruit and vegetables, get out in nature (near water is good) and breathe deeply some fresh air, and, practice focusing on something that makes you feel more peaceful, more tranquil. Doing so increases your energy levels, which in turn positively affect your mood. But, remember, your moods and feelings are always changing, for reasons often beyond your conscious awareness or control: as such they are best treated like the weather, something you experience but something that does not define you. Thus you do not have to medicate them, or worry about them, but rather accept your present moment, accept yourself, and in this acceptance, the conditions for a deeper knowledge of yourself are born.

In the end, "feeling blue . . ." without panic or need to medicate, but rather with full self-acceptance, can in the end be a gift, as who you really are becomes more and more available to you; for in the end, your life is a gift, and, you are a gift given to many. Feeling blue can in the end be the wake up call to who you really are . . . :)

Why I will invite Canadian Companies to set up a branch in Ethiopia

2009-11-06T12:22:00.001-08:00

Okay, let's get the obvious objections out of the way before we even start. Everyone knows that Ethiopia is subject to intermittent drought, famine and ongoing security concerns (sharing borders with Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia), so why would any Canadian company be interested in setting up business there? The fact is that most of Ethiopia is green, relatively prosperous and secure, and in fact construction is booming, both in infrastructure and buildings.

There are many buildings under construction, but on many of them work has ceased as power, concrete shortages and land speculation are slowing down the pace at which construction can proceed. However, by next year, greatly increased hydro electricity supply will alleviate many of these issues, creating more of the conditions sustained, rapid growth.

Buildings are often constructed of a rough concrete, iron window and door frames with poor quality glass – perhaps like inexpensive building construction from the early in the last century in Canada. When better quality materials are used for more elaborate designs, finishing is often poor because the workers don't have the required skills or tools to work with them.

There is a crying need (and thus a great opportunity) for more concrete production, more sophisticated steel and aluminum production, plumbing pipes manufacturing of all kinds, PVC extrusion, doors and windows technologies, etc.

The problem is that purchasing western materials is prohibitively expensive as the Birr is worth approximately .10 of a Canadian $, but, materials manufactured in Ethiopia could do very well not only in Ethiopia but in the rest of Africa. Africa needs to increase its own manufacturing capability, and mature its construction industries; and in this lies a huge opportunity for Canadian businesses.

My emphasis on Canadian businesses is in part because of a CIDA (Canadian Government) program which pays for the feasibility study for a Canadian company looking into whether it could work to set up business in a country such as Ethiopia; and, there also is money to support the training of the new work force. Total support can be as high as $500 - $600,000CDN.

CIDA itself describes Ethiopia as:

Heir to an ancient civilization going back over 2,500 years . . . a prominent and strategically located country in the Horn of Africa. With a population of 77 million, the country has a rich and diverse cultural heritage. Agriculture is the economy's mainstay. Ethiopia plays a major role in African affairs as home to the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and in its pivotal role in other regional development organizations.

I also have formed good working relationships with construction developers, businessmen who can partner with a Canadian company, assisting with land acquisition, building development, and of course with a detailed understanding of the construction industry and opportunities for growth.

Finally, there are as well clothing manufacturing opportunities as Ethiopia produces very good quality cloth and a lot of leather. So far however, they have not made much of a foray into manufacturing clothing or shoes, and in fact a good tannery is needed, as is training in animal husbandry so that the raw hides are in better shape for leather goods.

So why, outside of sensible business reasons, am I inviting Canadian companies to consider setting up a branch in Ethiopia? Well, for one thing, I believe that good business involves also making a positive contribution to one's society and the world. I'm also in love with Ethiopia and intend to spend more and more of my time there. As an entrepreneur committed to doing good, helping such businesses get established is good for them, good for the people who will work in them and buy their products, and good for Africa in general.

So join in with me and spread the word!! :o))

When we suffer . . .

2009-10-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

When we suffer, we are experiencing the effects of frustrated desire, expectations and conditioning, but we are also on the verge of breaking out into the light. Let me explain . . .

I remember when I did my first intro course in Buddhism on the way to my PhD in Religion: I heard Buddha saying Desire causes Suffering, and to me from a very Christian background this made no sense at all. I could quote it and get 100% in the course, but there was absolutely no resonance in me to this sacred truth. More than a decade later, when due to being tired of too much suffering in my life, and yet again finding myself full of peace, love and joy after one of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's advanced silence courses, I decided that I needed the knowledge, I needed to understand why I always ended up emeshed in suffering after the effects of the course wore off.

As I opened to the knowledge and pursued it with all my heart, with my full attention, it opened to me like a lovely flower, bit by bit revealing the sweetness and perfection of these sacred truths. Guruji's style of teaching was so simple: I got one basic principle through his example of coffee and a gulubjamon (a favourite Indian sweet): He gave us the example of sipping a sweetened coffee, then taking a bite of the gulubjamon and then taking another sip of the coffee. On the 2nd sip it tastes quite bitter, but it is the same coffee. The light came on for me. Our reality, what we experience in life is constructed: our perceptual abilities have been conditioned by cultural judgements and personal experiences. We don't see things as they are, but as we expect them to be. Any student of human perception knows that this is the case: that we don't see things that are there because we don't expect to see them, and we see things that are not there, because we expect to see them. This is a fundamental truth about the human condition, our experience of reality is illusory; we live in a world built of illusions.

So it is the illusory world we individually and collectively construct that gets us all mixed up with desire: because we are taught what is desirable and what is repulsive. In our consumerist world, where we are fed lies by advertizers all day long about what we need to be happy, this web of illusions has certain predictable if unfortunate results, such as young girls and women suffering from Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia because of having been seduced by false or illusory visions of what it is to be an attractive female. The point is that one of the ways that desire causes suffering is by the fact that what we desire hurts or kills us like tobacco and yet theses desires seem inescapable for many.

Desire also causes suffering when what we desire is harmful for others, either directly or indirectly. Men's desire for young females is a case in point, as is our desire for personal comfort and wealth that is satisfied off of the backs of very poor, even starving people. Desire also causes suffering when our way of providing for our needs and wants leads us to damage and destroy the environment that sustains us: witness that increasing industrialization in 3rd world countries that is resulting in so much air pollution that lung and heart diseases are on their way to being the leading causes of death. Despite how obvious this pollution is they have nothing on us asa the first world's contributions to degrading the planet on which we live is so much greater than theirs. A wise friend of mine, who has witnessed the relentless onslaught against the Congo River Basin Rainforest said to me, perhaps we really do deserve to be annilahated, or at least, that's likely what we're going to do to ourselves.

Finally desire causes suffering when we can't have what we desire with responses ranging from fear and anxiety that we won't get it or we'll lose it to unhappy disappointment to bitterness and anger or despondency and despair. All of this is caused by inappropriate ways of constructing our reality, of deciding what is important and what it is that we must have or else. But I have good news: the good news is that suffering opens the possibiity of escaping these illusory constructions, these empty promises of fulfillment and happiness, because all human contructions are flawed, are imperfect, are incomplete versions of reality and human nature. As Leonard Cohen, my favourite musician and poet, famously says, "there is a crack, there is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in!"

People "broken" by suffering, often end up being healthier, stronger and freer than those still caught in their illusions, still running the rat race, feeding the beast, trying to stay happy, when at heart they know they are as fragile as anyone else, that disaster can strike anyone, anytime, no matter how strong your illusions are. You see suffering often knocks people out of the mainstream, at least for a while, and in that time, reality can break through one's illusory defences.

All this to say, that if you're suffering, I want to encourage you by saying this is not all bad: stop to consider just how your desires, expectations, and related fears are at the root of your suffering, or are greatly amplifying the effect. I can tell you from my own personal experience that you are in fact, in the natural/spiritual centre of your being, peace and joy and love. If you can remember how infants and little children experience the world, you still have that capacity, that child-like way of being within you if only you can drop the fear, the desire for control and abandon yourself to the care of the Universe, to God, to whatever you can call that in which we live and move and have our being. I know that each of us is loved and precious and a channel of joy and peace and love for others if only we can awake. The ones who can hear me now are the ones who have already suffered, and who have already realized that there must be something more than career, possessions and family: to you I say, don't be discouraged by your suffering but surrender and find the meaning of this suffering, the liberating truth of who you are. To those of you so caught up in the pursuit of happiness, of wealth, of being somebody, I wish you the blessing of suffering when you are ready to benefit from it!

grace and peace to you all

your brother Daniel

Everything is always changing and Some things never change!

2009-10-21T20:48:00.000-07:00

My former teacher, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, once had all the people on a course go through the following process: we were to pair up and take turns complaining to each other about the biggest problems we had in life. The person listening was instructed to give one of two responses: "Everything is always Changing," and "Some things never change!" Well as first I sat and listened to my partner complain it was amazing how well one or the other response suited what I was being told. The same happened when it was my turn. You see my teacher was a subtle user of paradox. No system of thought and belief no matter how well elaborated and defined can cover all of our human experience: but contrasting truths go a lot further in that direction.

What brought this memory to mind for me in the last few days was just how much my life keeps on changing. As I wander from person to person, from place to place, simply being with people, supporting them, and then moving on, my chosen path is one of transience, of fleeting moments of insight, times of grace and love which then have tranformative impacts both on myself and those I'm with. And yet, increasingly I find myself being drawn back into business activity, albeit business activity that not only is good for those involved, but that contributes to worthy causes at the same time. I am finding more and more like-minded people, people wanting to build businesses that mean something as well as earning an income. So I have quite a balancing act now with this will-o-the-wisp style of being in the world with my friends which clashes some with the different demands of being in the business world.

Now Ethiopia, Ethiopia was a wonderful, challenging, transformative experience. I watched one person almost come apart because of the stress of the culture shock; I experienced a lot of really bad customer service in hotels built to be real estate investments rather than client service establishments; I experienced the joys and hazards of a "working girl" culture where the bar us white guys were patronizing would suddenly fill up will all manner of attractive, hungry women, and in one case they found out where we were staying and tried to get to us through the front desk; I experience the joys of a new cuisine (the raw meat was wonderful!) and the pain in my guts as new bacteria caused havoc; I found generous friendly people, but also on all sides people with their hands out, even people with good jobs looking at us as a cash grab opportunity.

A Begging Culture
On the last point, while in Dese, there was an old woman outside our restaurant begging: now when you've just had scrambled eggs, toast and coffee, it's natural to want to give something to those who apparently are in need. So after avoiding her eyes for some time so that she wouldn't be all over us, when our car was approaching I went over and gave her a couple of Birr - a generous enough gift when most people give them much less than a Birr. She was at first really grateful and talking to us about the little ritual she wanted me to go through with her in accepting her thanksgiving as an instrument of God, etc. But then it shifted suddenly as she shifted into greed; she even grabbed my arm, digging her nails in as my companions intervened and steered her away with a vigorous scolding. I'm sure they were saying something like get a hold of yourself, you should be ashamed, etc. This small event is a microcosm of what has gripped many in this way from very young children who instead of waving, yell "money" as they run after us. Where there is a clear need, generosity is likely appropriate although in reality the beggars are putting in a full day's work like anyone else, except their work is to try to attract enough sympathy and money rather than sell enough of this or that. But it is really sad to have children, adults, and older people who clearly have a life, clothes on their backs, are healthy enough and food to eat, to have them chasing tourists hoping to get money. They are in fact driving many tourists away, as are the speculators who happen to have chosen a hotel as their way to make money in real estate, but allow them to fall into disrepair, and have not a clue about good client service.

This is the country that we plan to build a tourist business in; where we will give nature lovers, those who wish to experience different cultures and cuisines, where we will give them the wonderful experience that Ethiopia is, while working to eliminate the more aggressive, greedy pursuit of tourists. Our plan is to build up the tourism infrastructure in the Woldiya region by both writing up the sights and sites so that people know what they're looking at, what the human and/or geological history is what they're looking at; as well as training communities in how to welcome tourists into their village so to speak so that they have self-respect as they peform their cultural rituals such as the coffee ceremony. With this arranged provision of services will also come the opportunity to purchase cultural arts and crafts from a local outlet rather than from the crowd of artists and vendors hoping to score a sale from this or that hapless tourist.

As you can see, Ethiopia is calling me back, because white guys like me with 3 decades of experience in all things western, business, etc. are needed there to build their emerging economy. So I went to Ethiopia knowing that I needed to experience and understand what was there in order to build the kind of business that would be good for Ethiopia and good for us white guys who wanted to contribute meaningfully somewhere. I mean, in my case for example, who wants to keep on producing shelfware (reports that get shelved) no matter how much you get paid to write it. I'd rather go and work with teams of Ethiopian developers who've been trained but don't have much experience, and help them set up their governments computer systems.

The founder of Alchemy World Projects, http://alchemyworld.org/, told me that in his estimation 85% of people in Ethiopia, all hard-working people, work either in subsistence agriculture or subsistence trading. We will work together (One Village Foundation Canada and Alchemy World Projects) to train local people in internet, English and business so that they can become 21st century entrepreneurs. If I can add a recent discovery of interest, Canada in the original aboriginal language meant "Big Village" and our hotels, touring business and web development businesses are all going operate under variations of One Village Ethiopia. The genius of our Hotel and Tour approach is to ensure that tourists always feel like they're being welcomed into a new village, their new home for a day or two. For we all despite our differences are part of our one global village! :)

But I digress from my main theme of how everything is always changing and yet some things are always the same. I now have many Canadian and Ethiopian irons in the business fire, and more and more of my waking hours is consumed with the many activities required to keep things heating up on all fronts. Yet, I continue to experience the synchronicities of apparent happenstance which opens this door, pauses this effort, moves my focus here for a bit, and so everything is getting done, but in a flow, rather than by a well-organized project plan. As it says in Proverbs, and I requote colloquially, "Man proposes but God disposes" or even better, if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans!! :o))

So what remains the same is a certain uncertainty as to what is next, and yet the certainty that meaningful and significant events will continue to occur with transformative impacts on myself and those around me; what never remains the same is "the plan" what in fact exactly is going to get done!! It's really quite entertaining if one can maintain a certain level of detachment as one continues on towards the goal, whatever that goal might be. Returning to my former teacher again, it is so Guru and disciple for the teacher to tell their disciple to do so and so, not so much because they want it done,but because of the impact of trying to do so on the disciple!! :)

For those on the path, whose life is being guided, turn upside down, and transformed, may you be swift to see and slow to fear; for those are still stuck in the traces, still caught in the rat traps and chains of work with the pitiful inducements of more comfort, more stuff, more prestige keeping you there; well, may you have the grace to wake up some day soon!! :o))

your brother Daniel

Blog Action Day 2009 - Climate Change has to be Addressed NOW

2009-10-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

As my readers know, I'm just back from Ethiopia. As much as I love Ethiopia, and for that matter, Ghana, China and India, I found the same pressing problem in each of these countries, and that is air pollution. These countries are often blanketed with a permanent haze, and being on the streets is dangerous to your health because of the diesel and other fumes that choke the roadways. People are of course dying, some slowly, some quickly as a result of this unchecked air pollution. However, we are also changing our planet, changing it in ways that will render it uninhabitable for humans.

Now it's not that I'm worried about Gaia, the name many call her when thinking of our planet as alive, as an organism, as goddess; Gaia has not always been habitable by us, and is not likely to always be habitable by us. No, the problem is what we're doing to our own environment and to that of our children and our grand-children.

We have to stop using petroleum for everything-- it is so dirty and it has been fouling up our planet and our bodies for a long time. We also have to stop consuming way more than we need. We have to stop designing campaigns to get people to buy things they don't need! Whoever dreamt up the expansion of the economy as some sort of inalienable good has left way too many things off the balance sheet. The cost of cleaning up our messes now has to added to this balance sheet in govenment and international policies, and, we need to aggressively invest in changing how we do things: the status quo of expanding consumption and our use of petroleum has to stop.

So I leave you with a citation from David Berman, who in is presentation "Weapon of Mass Deception" and his book "Do Good Design" (with Design Struck out) very effectively makes this point:
". . . global branding strategies are the most powerful tools used today to encourage over-consumption amongst growing Developing World populations, resulting in the largest long-term threat to global harmony and the environment. Communications professionals have more conspicuous power than they realize, and play a core role in helping some corporations mislead audiences in order to invent unfulfilled "needs" in larger and larger markets. In a World where design has become a recognized corporate asset, creative people have the opportunity to use their persuasive skills responsibly and to accelerate awareness of the messages the World really needs shared. Recent developments regarding professionalism and ethics offer hope. Designers and other professionals need to choose what their still-young professions will be about: creating visual lies to help sell stuff, or helping repair the World by bridging knowledge and understanding. http://davidberman.com/seminars/howlogo.php#description

grace and blessings

your brother Daniel

What has happened here?

2009-10-02T01:12:00.001-07:00

(Yesterday's post – accidentally appearing after today's! J

I came, I saw, I experienced, I fell in love! J This has happened to me so many times now! I'm this Canadian who keeps falling in love with very un-Canadian countries, peoples and ways of life. First it was India, back when I was a follower of His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who I still respect more than any other person in this world. Being in India, immersed in the mystery and wisdom, yet poverty and disease, I was attracted and repulsed, but in the end very in love. More recently I spent time in China, again being impacted by the mystery and ancient wisdom, yet the poverty, disease and spiritual hunger of a people raised during the cultural revolution. In the end I was very much in love and happily would go there again for a protracted period of time. Last winter when I got to Ghana, it was again the same thing – in fact I thought I was back in India, it was so familiar to me what I was seeing: the air pollution, the dirt, poverty and disease, yet a vibrant, strong, virile people whose drive towards life is an expression of the ancient life force that emanates from the land. Three lands, three civilizations, three ways of being quite foreign to a Canadian and yet I felt so at home. Now here in Ethiopia it is starting all over again. But first let me tell you a bit about Ethiopia itself.

Ethiopia shares quite a bit with Ghana but has some very distinct differences as well. They are both very Christian with a sizeable Moslem minority, but Ethiopia is an ancient civilization, and both its Christian and Moslem roots go deeper and further back than in Ghana. In fact The Prophet Mohammed declared that Jihad would never be declared against Ethiopia, because the Ethiopian Christian king protected his family members when the rulers of the pagan city which he had offended with his new teaching and path, came with gifts asking for them. The king on listening to what they believed (the Mohammedites and the Pagans) said that the Mohammedites were closer to his beliefs, they were his guests, and that they were welcome to stay with him. So Ethiopia ever since has had a certain level of tolerance between their Christians, Moslems and traditional religionists. Although Ethiopia like Afghanistan has been conquered, it has never been colonized; Ethiopia like China went through a communist period (only 17 years), but it has shaken it off as a dark chapter in its history, not having suffered the same dislocation from its traditions and spirituality as happened in China. So today, Ethiopia is modernizing rapidly, and while much of the infrastructure has been delivered through international aid and development channels, today business is taking off in many sectors. But as it modernizes, the government is also working hard to support its poor, creating jobs like Street Parking Payment workers, and building thousands of low-cost, basic multi-story condominiums as it flattens one story slums. Ethiopia today is a multi-faith society that is opening up increasingly to investment and the modernization of its agriculturally-based economy. It is a place of opportunity for those with business skills and capital, a relatively stable society in which corruption is not such a feature of life as it is in so many other developing countries.

Whatever the case, again, I have seen, I have been repulsed by the air pollution, dirt and disease and yet I am deeply attracted to this place, to these people, to their food, to what it means to live and work here. So do come over here sometime and see for yourself about why it is that so many people like me, once they've been here, are bitten, changed, and never the same.

It’s a long road to freedom

2009-10-02T00:22:00.001-07:00

It's a long road to freedom, a-winding steep and high. But when you walk in love with the wind on your wings and cover the earth with the songs you sing, the miles fly by. I love this old chorus from my charismatic renewal days: it is so easy to soar into ecstasy, or at least savour the memory and potential of ecstasy in the words and music. These days I am more likely to remember who I am, to soar into ecstasy with Rumi:

I am Life itself

You have been a prisoner

of a little pond

I am the ocean

and its turbulent flood

Come merge with me

leave this world of ignorance

Be with me

I will open

The gate to your love

And again . . .

Defeated by Love

The sky was lit

by the splendour of the moon

so powerful

I fell to the ground

I am ready to

forsake this worldly life

and surrender

to the magnificence

of your being.

I have tasted the joy, the ecstasy that flows from this knowing who I am, knowing the great I AM, knowing who I AM. And yet I continue to walk in this world, in this world but not of it; and as such I find myself increasingly immersed in business, in human frailties (including of course my own) rather than simply leaving it all behind me.

Today I am tired, today, my last day in Ethiopia for now I find myself already grieving this place, somehow wishing I was staying, and yet knowing there is much work to be done in Ottawa and other places before I can return. It is indeed a long road to freedom, when it winds through the valleys of this worldly existence rather than across the mountain tops of the sublime joy of merging with our creator, our lover, our mother, our Abba. Yet this is my path, learning as I go, dropping attachments as quickly as I can and yet finding myself tired this day . . .

It is of course all good, my arms are open wide as I walk and as I remember to sing. There are no easy answers, no quick solutions, I cannot give money to every beggar I see, not even to every seemingly deserving beggar I see. Even when meals cost a dollar or two, when bus fares are 15 to 35 cents, even with such a low cost of living, still I cannot give money to everyone who wants it from me. No, I have to harden myself, so against my nature, although yesterday I started telling little children to stop begging and they listened! J

On the path as it leads from Ethiopia back to Ottawa . . .

Your brother Daniel

Feeling at Home in Ethiopia

2009-09-30T01:37:00.001-07:00

Ottawa, Canada is such a crowded place, crowded with well-educated, professional people. I have been part of that society, a top IT management consultant to the Federal Government, but now I find myself feeling more at home in Ethiopia or Ghana than I do in Canada. In the developing world, there is such a need for senior people of good will to participate with them in the building up of their society. But in the past, people like myself have mainly been present through religious charities and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), it has been a trying to help out or rescue people in trouble. Now, the way I and my colleagues are participating is through doing business, but business oriented not only to being profitable, not only a good ethical business, but also one that purely does good. Gone for us are the days of making money being some kind of virtue in and of itself, the means that justifies any ends. Now instead we are purposefully choosing ways of engaging in business that benefit the wider society, not just in terms of jobs, but in building capacity in a society based largely on subsistence farming and trading to one that participates meaningfully in the 21^st century internet economy.

So, when we plan to bring tourists trekking across mountains and plateaus, we do not go through community backyards so to speak (almost everywhere in Ethiopia is inhabited or grazed by someone) as we see fit so that our tourists get a view of this or that. Rather we will work with each community, organizing them so that they are able to appropriately welcome tourists into their communities, so that both they and the tourists end up with a good experience, and, income for the community. When we build a hotel or a resort, we will share the land with Alchemy World Projects and the One Village Foundation who respectively provide an entrepreneurship centre for young adults and an internet-connected community center for those lacking accessibility, resources and skills. Thus, the communities in which we situate a hotel will benefit in many ways from the many and diverse impacts of our partnerships in the region.

So now as my time here in Ethiopia winds down and I prepare to return to Ottawa, we already have a plan for my return for a much longer time the next time, as I find my place supporting the growth and development of this economy and these people with the many close friends and colleagues I am being blessed with. One of my many agenda items while back in Ottawa will be to prepare the way for friends and colleagues from around the world who may want to join in with us in supporting a dynamically growing economy with the experience, expertise and capital they have acquired in our lives to this point. Those who do choose to join in with us will share our common vision of not only seeking out profitable investments, but meaningful ones. I happily anticipate being able to look back with the community of friends who have joined in over the next decade or two with us, looking back and seeing just how many people have benefitted in so many ways from our choosing to join in with them in their life here in Ethiopia.

Counting down in Addis

Your brother Daniel

Ethiopian night life & sex trade workers

2009-09-27T03:09:00.001-07:00

There is no such thing as a singles bar in Ethiopian society: what they have instead are bars where sex trade workers get friendly with patrons, perhaps getting drinks bought for them, perhaps a little something more like dancing together at the bar, or perhaps going "home for coffee" and an all night gig for the equivalent of $20 - $30. I found myself into the world when sitting in a bar with my friends, wanting to start something I invited an attractive young woman I took to be our server to come over and chat. So she sat down beside me and with translation assistance from my friends we chatted. Our driver, Ziguy (we often affectionately called him ``the guy``) was VERY good at chatting up the women and could easily make them comfortable and so was soon engaged with her teasing and joking with both of us. After a while I realized that she was in fact a sex trade worker and why there were so many good looking young women taking turns standing on the other side of the room waiting for something to do.

So the three of us had an enjoyable time as we continued the teasing, joking, interplay with her of course trying to warm me up for something else having already invited me to her house for coffee. J I asked her through Ziguy what it was she had planned for her life, and she said she would like to get married someday. Finally I told her that I really was not into getting laid tonight, but that I would be coming back in 4 months, that she should work on her English, and that will look her up when I get back to Woldiya. I also tipped her the equivalent of $10 for her time with us, my generosity bemusing my friends.

Afterwards in discussing the sex trade with my friend Derebew, (he has been an international development researcher and project manager in his own country for 14 years) he explained that these girls work for themselves, and that there is not the same stigma to being a sex trade worker, neither is it criminalized. As such these women represent an available pool of talent for a hotel which will want to provide western levels of service to their clients as they are more client-centred than the staff in the hotels we visited in small town Ethiopia, where levels of service are often nowhere near where they need to be. The hotel likewise can be for them a way of transitioning into a less risky line of work that can still give decent remuneration.

A couple of nights later in Bahir-Dar, we were again in a bar that soon filled with over a dozen attractive women, focused on the prospect provided by a couple of white guys. On my last night there I invited over the most attractive of the women and ended up with an amazingly wonderful evening of dancing, joking, talking with this mature, intelligent, gracious, gorgeous and oh, so sexy young woman. We both really like singing and dancing and so had a wonderful evening enjoying the music together, with me being absolutely blown away by her dancing, and telling her so often. She told me that she planned to continue in the business for another couple of years until she had saved up enough money to open her own business. I promised her I would look her up when I got back to Ethiopia, she said she would be happy to come and see our new hotel in Woldiya, and like with the first woman I ended up with her phone number, real name and working name. She also got tipped, the equivalent of $18. J

The Proposal

2009-09-25T09:43:00.001-07:00

Doing good business, doing good is taking form for us here in Ethiopia as the One Village Ethiopia project: it combines developing a hotel, a tour service, a school for poor young high-school drop outs that produces young entrepreneurs and our very own Digital Village – a community internet center that provides access, training and consulting to the surrounding community. Woldiya has tourist potential that is as yet largely undeveloped, yet with the tourist business worldwide predicted to peak and plateau in the next decade it is one of Woldiya's most sustainable ways of gaining income as well as emerging into the 21^st century internet economy.

My original plans for Woldiya involved a drilling business or NGO, because ½ of the countries 70 million or so inhabitants still don't have reliable access to fresh water, but in fact our expertise and "guidance" has ended up bringing us to support Woldiya's emergence as a modern town, still well rooted in their rich and diverse cultural traditions. Thus we have submitted a proposal to both the Town and Region received with resounding support (including the gift of land!)

This proposal is intended to support Woldiya's successful emergence into the 21^st century internet economy. We will be working with local communities to who will welcome and host our tourists on their hiking trips up or across mountains, or trekking across highland plateaus to the breath-taking vistas that await them at cliff's edge. We have forests with monkeys, baboons, gorillas and tigers, lakes with hippopotami, camels all over the place in the lowlands, donkeys in the highlands, most of this within a few hours drive from Woldiya depending on which direction you head out. These communities will welcome our tourists as members of their families, all of us being One Village, giving themselves and the tourists a lovely sense of belonging as they share their food and cultural dances, songs and crafts with their guests. At the same time we will be connecting many sectors of the Woldiya region with the internet, giving them lessons in English, computer skills, and entrepreneurship so that they can with our support build Woldiya's new relationship to the world.

We have one more week here, a week that will be spent setting up the new Ethiopian company that will develop this hotel and touring business, that will host these charities. But tonight, we are off to have some fun, as it is Greg's birthday and so we will be having a good time with our Ethiopian friends, as only they can have fun!! J

Ethiopia Day 7

2009-09-25T09:09:00.001-07:00

We are now in Woldiya a little past Dese heading North but not as far as Lalibela. We have surveyed the potential sites for our new hotel, which will include our Digital Village and an Alchemy World school as well as a bar and restaurant, having chosen a nice one on the road between Woldia and Bahiothr-Dar; but far enough from the traffic that a nice fresh breeze sweeps across the land as it slopes gently down towards the river bed (during the rainy season there is water but it's mostly mud and stones now).

As you can see the setting is spectacular, Africa at its finest!! The grain is Teff, an ancient grain endemic to Ethiopia, the first grain to be cultivated, the grain that is used in making Enjera.

This evening I sat down to write the proposal to present to the mayor of Woldia, a really nice, wise 40ish man who is really pleased at what we want to do: in his words, "he will not let this opportunity pass him by." This sitting ended up being on a white plastic patio chair I pulled out of the Internet Café to sit on the Marble walkway alongside the Hotel and Café, tapping away at the laptop in my lap. Within minutes an enterprising 10 year old boy had me agreeing to let him shine my shoes for 10 Birr ($1 CDN). As he worked away others walked by, stopped to stand behind me and watch for a bit, or tried to find some way to engage me beyond the smile and nod I'd give. Then a large truck carrying a load of sheep pulled up and 20 or so were loaded off the top section of this truck into the waiting hands of the a catcher who then passed them along a chain of people into the bowels of the restaurant. They believe in fresh meat! Later as I was sitting with some of my colleagues and new associates in the quadrangle restaurant of this 2 year old hotel, (2 years going on 50) they were released from where they had been penned up and ended up pouring into the restaurant section before they were finally herded outside. In Ethiopia there is a marked tendency to do everything yourself from scratch and so just as this hotel restaurant clearly butchers its own meat, so too, the building contractor we visited today has his own cement blocks made on site, his own gravel crushed, etc.

This hotel is as good an example of developing world as compared with what I'm used to. It is cheap we've got rooms for 5 of us averaging out to $4 each per evening. It has a nice design with an open quadrangle and three stories, but despite being only two years old, well designed and built with nice materials, everywhere you look the actual construction, finishing and maintenance are very poor. The stairs are not all the same size and have a slope downwards so that slipping is easy; the water is not working in much of the building and in my room where there is supposed to be a wall outlet there are only wires protruding. The window to the outside in the bathroom is permanently open with the result I killed 4 mosquitoes, three of whom got me first. There is a TV running permanently in the open quadrangle which resounds effectively into all the rooms whether the door is open or not, which has been going since 6 am this morning! J

Day 8

Having finished the letter of intent, in the late morning we headed up one of Woldiya's mountains to see the Church on top. These drives up the mountains in a good strong 4x4 are nonetheless often hair-raising as we repeatedly seem to come within inches of the edge, and even just looking out my passenger front seat window, I experience some vertigo looking down the sheer drop into the valley below. We went past many subsistence farms where they've managed to create a plot of corn or teff and/or keep a few head of goats or cattle. These are certainly highland peasants: according to Zinabu highlanders share more cultural commonalities across the tribes with other highlanders than they do with the lowlanders of their own tribe. So we made it to the top without incident, were greeted by a couple of young men in their early teens who at Zinabu's request brought us leafy twigs (Olive tree) with which to brush our teeth. We simply peeled back the bark, crushed the wood with our teeth and ended up with a nice set of bristles for brushing: very effective! We were not allowed into the Church because it turns out that western visitors used to talk their guides into selling them the holy hardware so to speak, so that valuable ancient cultural items of great significance to the local community ended up gracing someone's wall or desk with the guide pocketing the equivalent of perhaps $100.00! We each did the available obeisance, respectfully leaving a 10 Birr note in the collection box.

Zinabu then suggested we walk down the mountain rather than driving back down!! What a great suggestion that turned out to be as Greg, Zinabu, our young guide and myself took the next 2 hours walking down the mountain in the bright early afternoon sunshine (no sun-stroke or sun-burn to speak of and I was not wearing sun glasses a hat or any other special protection. We enjoyed the most spectacular views and increasingly were convinced of what a wonderful tourist experience hiking in these mountains could be. Oh, and part way down we shared the path with a small herd of 15 goats ably managed by a 10 or 11 year old boy. He had a makeshift bullwhip – a wooden handle about a foot long to which a 2 metre length of rope had been attached. Could he ever make that thing crack. Zinabu cracked it not far from my head almost deafening me with the gun shot! Greg got pretty close to a good snapping sound but I gave it up realizing I was to used to snapping towels, which it turns out is a different motion. I also made friends with one of the goats who started nibbling on my olive branch, in the end, he got the whole thing but there were first several familiar, comfortable interactions as we made our way down the mountain together. We said goodbye to our guide sending him off with 30 Birr and the encouragement to pick up his schooling again – he had yet to finish grade 10 but was not in school. He is a potential student for our Alchemy World Projects school – but more about that in another post.

We then headed over to meet with the mayor, handed him our letter of intent and were sent back to make a detailed proposal, and that's what I'll be doing all afternoon and evening of Day 8. Over and out for now!

Ethiopia Day 5

2009-09-19T05:49:00.001-07:00

We have made several important discoveries about Ethiopia, each of which are shaping our experiences here to date. First they are behind most countries in the development of the internet. There are 351 broadband customers in all of Ethiopia, but this broadband is a stepped down broadband, and many internet applications are reputedly banned or unavailable. The form of dial-up that is more present in internet cafés I'm told can take 5 minutes to send an email. Using the dial-up available through our friends in the construction business is faster than that, but is very buggy, hard to get on, and you often need to hit "send" multiple times in order for an email to go. Thus our ability to be actively involved in our business has been extremely limited, meaning our fourth partner has got a lot to manage on his own. Construction is continuing on a fibre optic ring but there is no official date of completion or when broadband will become more widely available. However, when it does, (probably within the year) there will be significant opportunities for a company like ours who handles all aspects of communications, especially if partnered with a good local company like the one with whom we're already in discussions.

Second, the banking system is also significantly behind so that the only Visa transactions are at a bank for withdrawing cash. Thus we are doing our best to avoid needing to tap that particular reserve putting quite a bit of stress on our cash supply. The third impacted on the second as in we've found that many of the people we meet here, in the words of a Ghanaian friend of mine, "see us as their bank from which they can withdraw money," and so we've found our cash supply getting stressed by "friends" we are meeting, who as it turns out have their own assumptions and plans for us! J

Anyhow enough griping, these are really comments about differences in expectations and functionality, differences I'm adjusting to. However this trip South to Awasa had many highlights, three of which I've included in photos for this blog. Suffice it to say that Greg and I did the tourist thing and very much enjoyed our confrontation with the majesty and beauty that is Africa:

Our guides kept a respectful distance and so this pod of 11 Hippos – two of whom left as we were arriving, tolerated our presence occasionally lifting themselves out of the water or cracking one of their trademark yawns. On this boat trip on Lake Awasa we also saw a kingfisher, cormorants and an eagle all fishing and enjoying their meals.

We all very much enjoyed our encounter with this wild Columbus monkey that was coaxed down out of the trees by our guides, and who patiently sat with us eating a peanut at a time from our hands.

The storks were huge and not at all shy if there was food around. In fact a human could get stampeded if the fish scraps were thrown out with him in between the birds and the scraps. There were huge numbers of these huge birds: again I am so taken by the virility, the powerful life force that throbs throughout Africa!! This trek we took to Lake Awasa and later to Emporer Haile Selassi's resort, shower and hot springs was a trek through the Rift Valley, an amazing geological, cultural, and natural feast of diversity, all somehow co-existing and thriving, despite our sensationalist news generated opinions of the hazards and difficulty of life in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia by the way is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations dating its origins back to centuries before Christ. They have a remarkable religious and cultural tolerance sewn into the fabric of their daily life as they have been coexisting as Muslims, Christians and Traditional Religionists for more than 1500 years. More on that as we continue our quest to understand Ethiopia, to understand perhaps our place in Ethiopia, in contributing in some ways to the re-emergence an ancient civilization into the modern world.

Ethiopia Day 2

2009-09-19T05:24:00.001-07:00

The endless day is over, (more than 50 hours between beds) I slept 8 hours last night and I am "on the new schedule. " We are over 2,000 ft above sea level which may account for the shakiness I'm feeling inside(effects of altitude), but overall I am well, and happy to be here. The weather is wonderful, it gets nice and cold at night – probably less than 15 degrees centigrade, and even when it is hot in the afternoon, the breeze is still cool. The air unfortunately is quite polluted but not as bad as either Beijing or Accra, and in general so far Addis is more affluent than Accra.

There are herds of sheep sometimes with a few cattle thrown in, bevies of donkeys carrying burdens that can be seen from time to time, making their way with haste down the side of the road, or even as part of the traffic; and this is right in the middle of down-town Addis, so pastureland is rather scarce! We have been feasted twice already by Limenew, Zinabu's cousin, at two different restaurants, with Enjerra and various delicious meat and vegetable concoctions: beef, lamb, goat green vegetables I don't recognize. So far the chillies have been on the side, which is a good thing, since their version of hot is pretty hot!

We are staying in what amounts to a very comfortable cottage: Greg is in the master bedroom under mosquito netting in a rather opulent white set-up; I am in the kids' room with perfectly comfortable bunkbeds and Zinabu is in the servant's bedroom which includes a small double bed and a sink. There are no screens on the windows, but then there aren't many mosquitoes either, given the altitude and cold nights. The windows themselves are a latched set of of glass windows on the outside and latched wooden panels on the inside. The grounds are well manicured with lovely hedges, trees and cacti, many colourful, musical birds and generally a quiet, restful atmosphere. The air is nice with the exception of when a neighbour's servant is burning some yard refuse.

Yesterday (the endless day) after arriving in Addis I had several intense, fruitful meetings as I began exploring the construction industry looking for gaps that Canadian manufacturing or services could fill, met with the Carlos, the founder of Alchemy World – an Ethiopian NGO, and his executive Director, Daniel a local. We found many synergies between our ideals, visions and approaches and are likely to, partner together with them (One Village Canada) on getting our first Digital Village up and running.

Carlos, like myself, comes from the software Industry, also on the marketing, sales & consulting side of things, but 5 years ago began to explore his roots (his Mom is Ethiopian, while his Dad is Italian). In coming to Ethiopia he was struck by the millions of people living in poverty but realized that they were hard-working people who just didn't have good jobs. So, he set about creating jobs by developing entrepreneurs. He is working with the poorest children who have not finished school but who are bright and show initiative and drive, 70% of whom were female, and supports them in finishing their high school. But he also trains them in the use of computers and in business. Each of his schools handles 25 children at a time and his programs take a year or two each. He already has 4 schools going and aims to have 100 someday, each churning out 100 graduates a year. They will end up pouring new entrepreneurs who will each become small to medium sized businesses, and therefore increasingly transform the Ethiopian economy. This is especially likely as so far Ethiopia has yet to embrace the computer age, having very limited internet (only as fast as our dial-up – and often very slow) so that businesses are not on the web, there is no online banking, etc. But by next year a fibre-optic ring will be completed linking in much of the country with hi-speed to the rest of the world and thus these entrepreneurs will have a competitive advantage when it comes to getting businesses online.

Alchemy World is a natural fit with The One Village Foundation as we take a similar approach on the importance of access to the internet and basic computer training for the alleviation of poverty. Since they are already well established, including with the Amhara (the ethnic group we will be working with in Woldia) we will be able to leverage that reputation but also add to their program elements that will increase the good being achieved, and, even produce trained Open Source developers who will themselves be contributing to the Ethiopia's emergence in the 21st century knowledge economy.

I also visited the Caterpillar Offices and Garage and was really impressed at the sophistication and scale of these multi-million dollar heavy equipment sales and maintenance facilities. It has been in operation for fourteen years, is owned by a Frenchman, but totally manned and operated by Ethiopians exhibiting Caterpillar best practices in every aspect of their business. The construction industry is booming as Ethiopia industrializes and modernizes at a tremendous pace. In keeping with our doing good business and doing good philosophy, we are hoping to play matchmaker between a Canadian manufacturer or services company, who knowledge will be a boost to the Ethiopian economy, just as opening another market would be a boost to them.

Day 1 - The Three Amigoes hit London

2009-09-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Something interesting is happening with several 40 – 50 something guys, who first ended up on a soccer (football) team together, then became business partners, http://www.glsdezign.com/, started a charity and now are in Heathrow airport on their way to Ethiopia.

Two years ago Zinabu and Daniel were on the same soccer team and began talking together about developing Canada-Ethiopia charity and business activities. This year, Gregory and Harrison joined the team. Daniel and Gregory got talking, with synchronicities popping up like Gregory already being convinced he was going to Africa before we started talking. Then Daniel and Gregory invited Harrison, who's also in the design business and an entrepreneur to join in. Once Zinabu saw what was happening with Daniel, Gregory and Harrison, then he wanted in. What he contributed to this business were his contacts and investments in Ethiopia, and Gregory's company GLS dezign took on some new partners and a new mission: to do good business but also to simply do good, inspired by David Berman's vision as enunciated by example in Do Good Design. In fact David Berman Communications is one of the new GLS dezign business partners.

Harrison is running the Ottawa arm of GLS dezign for his partners while they go to Ethiopia for 3 weeks. So today, day 1, Gregory (behind the camera) Daniel and Zinabu went and explored Pickadilly Circus, taking advantage of our 15 hours between flights at Heathrow. Greg had never seen London before so after arriving at 1 am Ottawa time and grabbing a hour or so of sleep on airport benches we included our sortie in this admittedly low energy day. We will eventually fly out by 4:30pm Ottawa time (22 hrs so far) and arriving in Addis at 7:20am Perhaps exhaustion will make us better sleepers on the 2nd flight!! :) All told it will be 28 hours of travel and more than 2 days without getting to bed.

I will be posting pretty regularly, and also putting pics up on Facebook. So over and out for now for these "it's time to do something really different" trip, guys who are remaking themselves, remaking their company, and looking to do their bit to make the world a better place.

Daniel Berg

Being, Doing Good, Being in Business

2009-09-08T08:26:00.001-07:00

Being: Being happy in your own skin, content and grateful for whatever comes your way

Doing Good: working for the betterment of those given to you, those who choose to work with you, making yourself available to those with needs

Being in Business: doing good business with a preference for providing services to those who also in their own way are doing good

Thus is GLS dezign transforming itself, becoming a company that not only does good work, but it does good! Thus we have started the One Village Foundation Canada Trust, a non-profit organization, in order to raise money for bridging the digital divide in the developing world. We are beginning with Ethiopia: while we are there we will be doing our facts-finding, establishing the level of need, the cost of setting up a digital village (a Wi-Fi connected community centre) so that we can establish the plan for our first project.

But while in Ethiopia, we will also be researching and engaging in various business opportunities, each of which will be designed to strengthen Ethiopia in some way:

Researching how Web design, development and hosting is currently offered in Ethiopia, looking for how we can partner for mutual benefit with anything from outsourcing web development work through to designing and hosting websites for Ethiopian businesses looking for direct access to western consumers;
Researching the construction industry looking for what new manufacturing or service capabilities could do well in (and thus strengthen) the Ethiopian economy, so that we might ask selected successful Canadian businesses to consider setting up a branch in Ethiopia with Canadian government support and our consulting services;
Researching the current state of tourism in Ethiopia as we explore how to strengthen cultural tourism and eco-tourism in Ethiopia through partnerships with InterCulture of the University of Ottawa and Addis Abeba University;
Begin developing a hotel in Woldia, a small city situated at a major crossroads, accessible to many important and attractive tourist destinations in Ethiopia;
Import/Export opportunities we discover as Ethiopia can export to Canada duty free, and needs to develop its export markets.

So follow us to Ethiopia and perhaps in some way join with us in our path: being happy, doing good, doing good business.

Daniel F. Berg, PhD

Web 3.0 Imagineer

GLS dezign.com

Web 2.0 / 3.0 and the small or medium business or organization

2009-08-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

In order to understand what Web 2.0 and 3.0 might mean for your approach to and use of the internet today, it always helps to see what in fact these terms mean. So, think of Web 1.0 as a library. You can use it as a source of information, but you can't contribute to or change the information in any way. Web 2.0 is more like a big group of friends and acquaintances: The library features of Web 1.0 have been augmented by your network of social relationships, so you now have many more ways to learn and find stuff. So what then will Web 3.0 likely be?

Some internet experts think Web 3.0 is going to be like having a personal assistant who knows practically everything about you and can access all the information on the Internet to answer any question; others compare Web 3.0 to a giant database. But what is likely to be true is that intelligent software behind the scenes will be giving you librarian-like access to what you and your friends know, how it's relevant to any new thought or issue that arises, and what information out there might be most relevant to you right now. Star Trek will have arrived, at least the all-knowing computer-assisted part of it; personally I can't wait for the "beam me up" technology!

So what does all this mean for your business or organization today? Two things:
One, to satisfy your future omni-librarian, there will never be a better time to get your information in order. Today a well-organized information architecture does everything from increasing your findability via Google to improving your clients and members search experiences at your website. Tomorrow you will be ready to reap the benefits of the new technologies that harvest and share your well-organized information.

Two, it's time to fully leverage today's Web 2.0 internet: today's successful business or organization does not only have a good local network of friends and colleagues, but is leveraging the internet to exponentially grow this network through social media communities such as Facebook and Twitter. We will help you understand how to be a solid citizen of the new internet, and to effectively network and market yourself in the rapidly expanding WWW!

Doing Good & Sustainable Business

2009-08-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

I came into my Monday with Bruce Cockburn's song on my mind:

http://www.nme.com/awards/video/id/ZL4CdHd9ma4/search/lions

This troubador of the soul sings of a life lived without fear, but instead walking in joy and love. What does walking in joy and love have to do with the business world, if anything?

It is a truism that the markets are driven by fear or greed, and sadly this is often true of business dealings. But there is another way, something beyond the rapacious greed of mindless earning and consuming, mindless because somehow continuing to maximize bottom line profits, to maximize the successful lifestyle, that somehow these means are ends in themselves. Oh, there's some blather about not restraining market forces so they can make us all rich . . . but I'm talking about real world values now . . . not some mystical $ in the sky that will bless us all if only we pursue it freely with our whole beings!

But something else is going on now: we live in a shrinking, not expanding world - where consuming more means others have less, where consuming more is slowly, perhaps even quickly destroying the conditions for our ability to continue to enjoy life on this planet. Then there's the coming of age of the baby boomers, who once were idealistic and wanted to make this world a better place, and then got sucked in like most everyone else into the consumerist system, and now more and more of them with decades of work experience and wisdom want to create sustainable businesses, want to do good as part of doing good business. This is what we're doing at GLS dezign, and soon we will have our first announcements of this good business that does good.

But it was a lovely synchronicity to see the in the Harvard Business Review this morning an article on a book, "SuperCorp: Values as Guidance System" (link in subject line above) in which the author, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, writes of how IBM and others are moving into a sustainable approach to big business, perhaps finally closing the door on the General Motors style of capitalism (whatever is good for GM is good for America). More and more books are coming out now on the theme of doing good business, of doing good. (One of my favourites is David Berman's Do Good Design http://davidberman.com/social/index.php in which he enourages designers to integrate doing good into how they do good design and good business.)

Something important is happening in the world of business today. Businesses are being established explicitly to do good such as o3b networks who is already well into establishing high speed broadband services to the developing world through a network of affordable satellites.
(http://www.o3bnetworks.com/press_o3blaunch.html) People in their 50's are tired of being cogs in the consumerist system and want to consider something worthwhile with the most productive years of their life.

Join in! :) You don't have to be in your 50's, all you have to do is decide that making this world a better place is an important part of your business plan! :)

Building a Business that does good

2009-08-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

Three things happened to day which are bringing into sharp relief something I've believed for sometime (it shapes how I am with people) but have yet to "realize" it corporately so to speak. In the business world, generally you work with whomever you can, so long as it is profitable first, and enjoyable second - and the first can eliminate the second (we need the business).

We at GLS dezign are different, and there are in fact more and more businesses like us. When you are in an unpredictable universe, where things could go bad at any time, when times are tough, there is a tendency to prioritize $'s above all else. However, what more and more people are realizing, what the enlightened approach to business is, is to truly be yourself, to do good, and to work with people like you. We are attracted to each other, we are brought together often by fortunate "chance," but the more our self-statements and our marketing statements reflect this solid, grounded presence, this being good at what we do, and committed to doing good, the more we will attract these kinds of clients and partners.

So the three things that got me thinking about this:

First I had an email from a potential client telling me I had failed in my first impression, because of getting the time and place wrong for our meeting. This is quite common in business culture, to judge people, sometimes quite dispassionately, on their first impressions. I'm a businessman, but I've never done this: rather I look beneath the surface in everyone. I have also found to my dismay that the people in best control of their first impressions often made terrible business partners, and very difficult clients, because of how ruthless and unethical they were. I am no longer interested in working with such people.

Second, was an email invitation to take a course on social marketing. If you're ready to be snowed by someone, desperate and looking for answers and perhaps have already been burnt by slick, empty marketing that cost you money without delivering anything, then, you might be ready to take the plunge with this lady. However, she horribly over-promises the way so many "success" vendors do, and so, despite the glitz of her promises I'm really not interested in learning from her.

Third, a small charity I know running an orphanage and school in Ghana, recently put out the message I've pasted below. It's about getting consumers to slightly change their habits in order to direct small %'s of the sponsor's revenues to the designated charity. While this has the possibility of being able to create a revenue stream for your charity, it involves either changing how you search (therefore your effectiveness) as well as shopping online at this place rather than that place. From a marketing point of view this could work well for a charity with a well-established brand and 1,000's or 1,000,000's of "friends" a small percentage of whom might be willing to through the trouble to register and shop at this particular location. But personally, I prefer the granular one person, one business at a time approach we are using, working with people who share our values, in order to grow both our business and foundation. I will however check out Goodsearch and Goodshop, as she is a very small charity like us, and perhaps this can work at our level as well.

To close, there was in the Ottawa Citizen this morning two stories of interest that provide an interesting context to this reflection:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/rude+worker+poisons+whole+office+study+finds/1910315/story.html
is a story about research into the effect of negative behaviour in the workplace. While the focus is on coworkers, obviously negative behaviour from clients or partners can have the same effect, the more people that are exposed to it.

But to finish off we have Steve Wosniak who had the following and more to say about his philosophy of being in business:

One of the pioneers of Silicon Valley and the creator of the world's first mass-market personal computer has some simple words of wisdom for today's struggling startups:

"Believe in your product." Adds Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc.: "Don't ask yourself, 'Will this be successful or will this make money?' Ask, 'Is this what I want to do?' "Ask yourself, 'Are you absolutely sure that this is what you want to do to make a big mark in the world?' "

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Wozniak+words+wisdom/1910821/story.html

On that note, for business people of similar strip, let's forge our way with confidence and yet wisdom as we find the people like us with whom we want to work, and, find our way to making that mark in the world we have in mind!! :)

your brother Dan

********************
What if FosteringHopeInternational earned a donation every time you searched the Internet? Or how about if a percentage of every purchase you made online went to support our cause? Well, now it can!

GoodSearch.com is a new Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo, and watch the donations add up!

GoodShop.com is a new online shopping mall which donates up to 37 percent of each purchase to your favorite cause! Hundreds of great stores including Amazon, Target, Gap, Best Buy, ebay, Macy's and Barnes & Noble have teamed up with GoodShop and every time you place an order, you’ll be supporting your favorite cause.

Just go to www.goodsearch.com and be sure to enter FosteringHopeInternational as the charity you want to support. And, be sure to spread the word!

Collecting used not abused Athletic Shoes and all sizes of soccer cleats to establish selfsufficent sustainable farms for individual families in Ghana.

Elaine Brown, Director
FosteringHopeInternational.com
GoodSearch - Web search, coupons, discounts & deals for charity!
Source: www.goodsearch.com
GoodSearch - Search the web to support your charity. Also, find online coupons, coupon codes, deals, discounts and promo codes at GoodShop.

Ghana 3: It is heating up!!

2009-08-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

this is the 3rd in a series of my republished accounts of my trips in Ghana from January- February of this year, as a warm-up for my Ethiopian trip this September . . . more on that later!

For a cold-adapted guy like me, something more ominous than storm clouds is on the horizon, in fact it is already here. Each day is hotter than the last, and although these gains in heat and humidity are small, the fact that I've got a month of the same to look forward to is looming over me now! I'm now implementing the opening of windows in the evening once it is cooler, and then the closing of them again in the day once it starts to warm up. Every little bit helps, but the trend is undeniable. Fortunately my new clothes will be ready tomorrow evening as I'm sure I will sweat my way through at least one outfit a day, and I only have 3 or 4 light cottony outfits. V will have close to a continuous stream of laundry from me as S's washing machine broke down quite a while ago and V is its replacement. I sure do get nicely ironed clothes back from her!

Speaking of V, she is now learning her numbers from me: practising writing them as well as their visual recognition. Her English is also improving rapidly. We are able to communicate well enough that I now know that she likes the boy in Eremon who keeps calling her, that he is working, and that she's known him for about five years. He's a nice boy, smaller than her, but that's what she likes. I teased her about wanting to be the boss in her family, as this is a very patriarchal culture where the men still traditionally call all the shots. She liked the tease.

With the boys, I am the respected, loved and feared Uncle who supports their learning: so far I have helped K memorize his times tables, showed P how to ace exams, and helped R develop his soccer skills), and of course, at the drop of a hat they are being tickled or thumped, sometimes for no reason at all. S is now onside for the rough-housing, understanding the benefits for the boys in the development of their masculinity. P and S will also be taking some instruction in meditation and breathwork from me, as P had put together a meditation practice for himself based on what he found on the internet, but had been dissuaded by S because of the biased psychological and christian perspectives she had been fed. Fortunately she has a PhD in psychology and religion staying with her with a lot of experience in meditation who's all to familiar with the tendency of religious christians and religiously-biased psychologists to pathologize and demonize stuff they don't understand.

S and I have been working together a lot on her ideas for an NGO and what I'm finding in internet research, as well as going deeper into the spiritual direction, counselling side of what I do. She's encouraging me to think about setting up a counselling practice in Ghana; I'm encouraging her to think about a solar energy business since there is a UN NGO called AREED that supports the development of entrepreneurs in the renewable energy field, and my friend T's Dad has developed a really nice solar energy package viewable at wwww.solarfire.com. F has been away working this week, but when he's around we tend to focus a lot on guy stuff like watching soccer games and discussing bible translation, religion, and the country and its issues. At meal times, I've been telling them all about Holland, China and India rather than sitting listening to P and K extol the merits of one of their video games. Most evenings, S and I go out for a long walk in the cooler evening air, and I've had a couple of Skype computer to computer phone calls with T and A from Holland and L from Ottawa.

S and I met yesterday with a parishioner from St. John's (my church - Elgin and Somerset St. in Ottawa) and received some much appreciated support for our key perceptions and ideas, as well as some helpful networking contacts and general advice. He's acting head of the CIDA branch of the Canadian Embassy in Ghana, and a former international development professional, so he's being very helpful to us in many ways. Tomorrow we will meet with S's cousin, who's a senior bureaucrat in Ghana's Agriculture department. "Bit by bit the river grows, till all at once it overflows" is a line from an old song that comes to mind.

So I continue on living a day at a time, enjoying the walk, the company (both earthly and heavenly) and the scenery, if not the climate.

heating up in Ghana, but not sweating it too too much

Life in Accra

2009-07-28T08:39:00.000-07:00

(2nd republished account of my time in Ghana in February this year: this republishing is a wetting of the palate in preparation for my trip to Ethiopia, Taiwan and Ghana beginning in mid-September)

Yesterday I was walking through Accra's downtown marketplace with literally thousands of other people, almost all of whom were very black (the only exceptions being one Chinese couple who owned a store we were in, one mixed race young woman working in that store, and one white guy I saw where the main business district boarders on the market). After picking up the things Stella was looking for we continued on prospecting for clothing for me. As the heat continues to build, so does my determination to be clothed in light flowing cotton, cut in the traditional style.

One of the really entertaining dynamics of our mutual exploration of this reality of navigating with a white guy through the 100's if not 1000's of sellers, is the tension between Stella's need to satisfy herself that I am not being ripped off and that she is being treated with respect that runs counter with my generosity combined with wanting the item that I want. Quite a few times the same scenario played itself out with Stella controlling the discussion (in English) with the seller, deciding they wanted a dollar or two too much and walking off leaving me without the item I wanted. One time I insisted on going back and getting the shirt I am currently wearing - -paying $7 for it instead of the $5 she thought it was worth, while another time she ended up promising me she would go back and get me the cup I wanted for $1 instead of trying to get it for less. All of this transpired in an atmosphere of relaxed work with lots of laughter as we continue to sort out how to handle things together. We did manage to get me 6 metre pieces of 100% cotton - one a bright patterned green, the other a darker, more subdued maroon - for having top and bottom sets of clothing made for me. One cost $10, the other $15.

Along the way quite a few men called me Jesus as I was going by, and in such cases I would smile at them and they would smile warmly back at me. Another time in our neighbourhood when we were out for a walk a group of young children excitedly called out "agroni" (white man) agroni Jesus. Meanwhile business and professional people have no idea what to think, as everyone here is of course closely cropped.

Today we visited Stella's tailor and agreed on a price of $30 in total for the two outfits. We were a good team when it came to ensuring we got a fair price from him. As Stella says, every time a vendor sees us coming, they believe that Stella has brought her bank with her and want to share in the wealth. Pretty ironic! :)

On the price of things, we saw Broccoli in the store for $9 a bunch and bought ordinary loaves of bread for $7 each. Fabian tells me that bread is available for $1 a loaf on the street, but the hygeine issues keep Stella away from street vendors. Anything for the Western palate is really expensive, but ordinary Ghanaian food and products are very reasonable. For example there were a couple of motorbikes on display in one store we went into - one for $700 and the other for $1200 - probably a 250cc. The latter looked to me like one that could easily cost $5,000 or more here in Canada. When discussing Ghanaian manufacturing with one of Fabian's relatives he mentioned trying to bite a piece of Ghanaian chocolate - trying without success to break off a piece! I see lots of room for CIDA's technology transfer program here, getting for example a successful Canadian chocolate manufacturer to set up a Ghanaian manufacturing operation with CIDA's support.

Oh, yes - after coffee this morning early, Stella at the last moment took me on the morning excursion to drop the boys off at school after an hour of rush hour traffic, and then took me to a business her sister owns where they produce Pito - a fermented Guinea corn brew. I was given a healthy bowl of this to drink, with the information that many people start their days like this - particularly where they come from. Her sister and her decided that despite my skin colour I am Dagabo - one of their tribe and family! This designation is based on my acceptance and enjoyment of their cuisine, as well as my consumption of Pito in the morning without showing any ill effects. Actually i had a very liquid bowel movement when I got home - and we have a bottle of Tipo available now in the fridge; so we'll see what the longer term effects are.

Finally, Stella and I had a little heart to heart about quantities of food and alcohol I'd been having stuffed down my throat. We've agreed that now that I'm a member of the family, I can eat less without her having to worry about whether I like the food or whether she is being sufficiently hospitable.

Enjoying life in Accra,

grace and blessings

your brother Daniel

5 weeks in Ghana January – February 2009 1st Journal post

2009-07-21T15:38:00.001-07:00

Technorati Tags: Ghana,foo foo,traffic,etiquette

Anticipating a trip to Ethiopia, and perhaps Taiwan and Ghana beginning mid-September, I thought I’d repost my experiences, experiences which to date had only been sent out by email and a couple of previous blogs to a long list of friends, colleagues & acquaintances. Now these experiences are being offered here on Blogger & Facebook.

The following was my first "impressions" piece about being in Ghana:

Well, hello India, it's nice to back! So much of what I see and experience here is straight out of my experience of India. Being as I absolutely fell in love with India, you can guess where this is going then! :)

So some of the flora and fauna is pretty familiar, as is the architecture, climate, roads, etc. Some important differences are however that there are many more cars and trucks than motorbikes, whereas in India, exactly the reverse is true. In Accra you don't see many bikes, motorized or not, whereas in India there is an overwhelming number of them. In Holland, there are certainly a lot more bikes than cars and trucks, but not on the scale or proportion of India. Anyhow, here traffic often crawls; drivers are often polite, with a few very aggressive drivers adding spice to the over-all mixture.

People are more allergic to accidents here in Ghana than perhaps anywhere else I've been. It's very interesting what policy can do to public behaviour. For example, in Syria, drawing the attention of the police to yourself always results in misfortune, and so people keep their noses very clean. One time, out in the country, a drug dealer had a farm, and had fortified it, had armed men, etc., Two police officers were shot at when they went out to make some arrests. A helicopter gunship flattened the place killing everyone. So a harsh police system cuts down on visible crime, unless it is, in the case of Syria, crime carried out by the ruling family.

Here in Ghana, the policy towards car accidents is that both parties in the accident have to go through the rigamarole of re-taking their driver examinations. Thus people are even more motivated than usual to avoid car accidents and to settle them privately if they have one. Thus aggressive drivers get away with it, because nobody wants the trouble of being penalized for getting in an accident with one of them.

When it comes to crime, such as burglary or fraud, anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the act would be very happy to see the police, because they can count on getting a major beating from the affected people, their family, neighbours and friends. Fabian told a story of a man who went around taking pictures of people in his village in Northern Ghana, collecting deposits, and then never coming back to deliver the goods. Unfortunately for him he forgot he'd defrauded this village and some time later came back through. They demanded their money back, which of course he didn't have so they took their satisfaction out on personally beating him, that is each one that had been defrauded got their satisfaction.

Fabian took me for a drive yesterday including through the very crowded central market area. We were in a vehicle without air conditioning so I had my window all the way down despite the crowds packed against the car. One woman said (in her language) "Look at that white guy, he's not afraid of anything!" Evidently white people driven through the market in cars are a bit timid and keep their windows closed and doors locked. I will be going down there later on foot (at Fabian's suggestion) as I'm still looking to pick up local traditional clothing. Of course one needs to be careful of becoming a "mark" or "target", as almost happened already last evening, but my experiences in India and China have helped me recognize the dynamics of these situations as they unfold.

I took Prescott to a small local garage store in search of batteries, but I was concerned he would not get the type right, so turned off the vehicle and went in after him. There was a group of 4 guys lounging to one side and sure enough one of them had situated himself near the vehicle when I was coming back out. He tried to make eye contact at which point I pointedly averted my eyes and walked past him, disappointing him in the process because he could not engage me. I just got in the car with Prescott and left. Body language and use of the eyes is pretty key.

Stella has also suggeted I take public transport up to Wa way up in Northern Ghana, and from there I can stay with a teacher relative of hers and by motorbike travel to the villages of Eremond. We shall see - it looks like it could be a 700km trip!:) http://www.mapsofworld.com/ghana/ghana-political-map.html

In whatever manner, and however I'm guided, the adventure continues. I've been meeting people with training and backgrounds who could contribute big-time to a sustainable agriculture, water conservation project, so it should in fact be a very interesting next few weeks! :)

For what it's worth, I've been given a passing grade by the relatives they had over yesterday for dinner. Evidently I'm not doing too bad at basic cultural niceties like eating Foo Foo with my right hand and keeping my left hand out of circulation. Foo Foo is beaten yams (a large root with white flesh) pounded for more than an hour by Stella's domestic (in a wooden bowl with 6 foot long pestle or pounding stick resulting in a sticky doughy mass served as steamed mounds that you serve in a bowl of soup and meat. The etiquette is to rip or scoop pieces off of the mound, dip them into the soup and scoop the mixture into your mouth with your fingers! Quite appetizing. Oh, and so far, I have yet to hit really hot food! :)

Anyhow, nuff for now!

Michael Jackson In Memoriam

2009-07-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

The sad death of Michael Jackson, "our tortured genius" has had me reflecting for some time now. I was saddened and disgusted by American and British responses to Michael epitomized by the comment from British Foreign Secretary David Milliband: "Never has one soared so high and yet dived so low." I was heartened by the responses from countries like France and Japan where Michael is their hero!!

We laud ourselves on our democratic and humanitarian principles and yet we are perpertrators ourselves of great violence against so many people, believing in the justice of our actions. We all make mistakes, sometimes big ones, sometimes we hurt the people we love the most; but to demonize those who are a great force for good in our society because of such mistakes, betrays a fundamental weakness in our culture.

But enough of my ramblings, Michael's music more than responds to what our messed up society did to him. I refreshed my memory of his music by listening first to: "I'm Bad", and saw the rebel, the voice of all those who are so angry at a society and system that excludes or denigrates them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG5NhkxQJQc

Then it was "Nobody really cares about us:" A deliberating shocking view of the brutality of our world, and the social legitimization of deliberate violence against so many, many people, whether that violence is physical or the destruction of someone's identity, reputation and everything good they've done in life. Do we remember Michael as the one who started Collective Star Rock concerts for famine relief? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HSNeHHuQA4

But the final word goes to Michael's message on how to change the violence and hatred in this world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9lq8oaK5Mw So many images of famous people, people who were agents of change in this world, now like Michael, all deceased, all people we reverence in our memory, and so are better people for it.

You know, we don't all make it. Even when we've taken the transformative path, become a vessel of grace for others, pursuing our own and their transformation with authenticity and love . . . we don't always make it. Perhaps Michael never quite made it onto this path, trapped instead in the shame/rebellion dance with way too many drugs to numb the pain. I don't know, I just know that I'm sad that we lost the creative force that he was, I'm sad for his suffering, and grateful that he can now finally be at peace.

RIP Michael Jackson

online spirituality

2009-06-16T05:49:00.001-07:00

More and more we are connecting with each other online; in my case through Facebook and Twitter. While text may seem like a limiting medium to some and “being online” an unnatural use of time and energy; those of us who have immersed ourselves in our online connectivity and use it to grow our face-to-face relationships as well as new ones born on the net so to speak, can attest to the depth and heights, even the transcendence of these interactions.

On my path, I simply walk with people who will walk with me. We end up sharing a few things in common – among them being somehow different from mainstream people, with a strong sense of vision or purpose that empowers us. In the next little while I will post some of these conversations, not only as witness of the spiritual possibilities of online communication, but also as an invitation to join in with us on our paths of transformation, lurking on the fringes of our discussion, or even joining in.

So here’s a long excerpt from a conversation P (other side of the world) and I (in Ottawa) had a week or so ago: I have not edited out the normal “grunge” of online chat so that you may savour the authentic flavour of this repast. Do note that there is perhaps a 30 second delay between sending and receiving, and so sometimes you see us responding to statements after a few comments of our own.

enjoy!:

in 20 or 30 years, when you're sitting in your rocking chair and perhaps playing golf regularly you will remember these times with great pleasure, having lots of stories to tell your grand children

this is the time of your life to really make things happen

8:24amP

yes...true! I am experiencing them now with great pleasure too!

yes..

I agree!

totally!

to me the best years I have had..so far.

8:24amDaniel

8:25amP

the first bit was just preparation.

but for what?

8:25amDaniel

that's right

8:25amP

well I know now!

or at least better.

8:25amDaniel

you're already in the middle of it P

8:25amP

just had to keep my path going and inthe right direction

yes...

8:25amDaniel

and it's not the plan or the horizon that matters but the way you walk and handle things day to day - that's where it all happens

yup

8:26amP

glad I had the courage and encouragement to do it.

yes..makes sense...

being present, aware.

8:26amDaniel

those of in that magical mix, around and through whom things happen - that's how it is

8:26amP

yes...magical is a word for sure!

And the coincidences just keep on happening...

8:26amDaniel

so is presence and awareness!! :o))

8:26amP

yes!

8:27amDaniel

start calling them synchronicities or even better - God-incidences! :o))

8:27amP

now the coincidences are more influenced by my wishes..

as long as they are genuine and not self focussed.

can't spell that word.

8:27amDaniel

GOT IT

8:27amP

the C word I can.

8:28amDaniel

you can spell God-incidences or at least "meaningful coincidences"

8:28amPeter

ok or coincidences for short...

lol

8:28amDaniel

when you say God - you know that doesn't mean you're buying all the religious stuff that comes with the word

LoL

8:28amP

Did I say God?

8:28amDaniel

what else do we call "the one in whom we live and move and have our being"

8:28amP

I thought that was you!

8:29amDaniel

yes - I'm encouraging you to use the word my friend! :o))

not that it matters at all

8:29amP

hmmm...I believe in a sense in a God, but not a being though.

no, I am just teasing.

I do use it..

8:29amDaniel

LoL

8:29amP

or my preferred word...Allah.

8:29amDaniel

yes Allah is great!! in many ways

8:30amP

I think my way of viwing thhe world is more pagan like

8:30amDaniel

over a beer sometime I'll have the Jesus/Abba discussion with you

8:30amP

not that i understand it that well..just rings truer to me.

8:30amDaniel

did you know that Jesus did not come to start a religion?

8:30amP

Abba...yeah they are great!

8:30amDaniel

LoL

what he taught is potentially transformative within any religion

8:31amP

He was setting up a store or somethign right?

8:31amDaniel

anyhow - nuff of htat

8:31amP

carpenter?

can\t remember..

8:31amDaniel

I like your sense of humour

8:31amP

why did he first come? interested.

8:31amDaniel

He was a guy like us

8:31amP

thx

not everyone does!

especially the brits over here.

8:32amDaniel

someone who knew he was "special" and something was planned for him

8:32amP

hmmmm...this feels familiar!

8:32amDaniel

was so close to "the one in whom we live and move and have our being" that he told his followers to call God "Abba" which in Aramaic means "Dadda"

he walked around like an infant holding the creator's hand

absolute trust, total enjoyment

8:33amP

did he have curly brown hair and a beard?

8:33amDaniel

but as one called he "got up the noses" of the religious establishment

ha ha ha

looked more like your Arab buddies wise guy!!

should I continue?

8:33amP

yes.

keep going..the humour are memory jogs for the future for me..sorry!

8:34amDaniel

you see us humans don't deal very well with people who have direct experience of "the divine"

don't apologize! :o))

8:34amP

ok...take it back.

8:35amDaniel

so we create religion - rules, rituals, ways of reassuring ourself that we are clsoe to God - but without necessarily providing the direct experience

ironically we are immersed in God but oblivious to that fact

trained to understand a world without the spiritual dimension

8:35amP

this makes sense to me

8:36amDaniel

bascially improverished, hungry - as Augustine said - we have a God-sized hole in our heart

8:36amP

yes, a focus on what our senses show us...the forms shapes and sounds, the physical world.

8:36amDaniel

anyhow - realization or enlightenment for Eastern Masters is much the same experience as waking up and realiizing we are chidlren of God - specially called - full of charisms and grace if only we knew it

but most people don't

so they trudge along worrying about what other people think and trying to satisfy themselves with possessions, etc.

only a few people, people like you and I, get it, or may get it

the rest don't

so . . . what are you thinking?

8:38amP

hmmmm...why do you say I get it?

8:38amDaniel

it's about direct experience of who you actually are as one connected to that which is more than you are

8:38amP

I am thinking actually, that this all makes sense...I am also thinking about

8:38amDaniel

when you start acting like that, making decision like that - then you're one of the special ones

8:39amP

ego, individuality and the pursuit of both...

how this denial of innerconnectivity takes over our actions and conscious thoughts...

8:39amDaniel

uh-huh

8:40amP

when we are "born" it seems to me we have to work very hard to figure out who we are and capable of just to survive,

8:40amDaniel

yes

working with the tools at hand

8:40am

this naturally means we need space froom the others around us to do this.

problem is this becomes our goals...

we get stuck there.

always thinking of self...how we differ from others.

8:41amDaniel

if you were to study human perception - you see that we "see" selectively

8:41amP

and how the material world successes enables us to display those differeinces.

our clothes, etc.

yes..makes sense...

8:41amDaniel

right - in a false image, a false construct

so selective seeing means that we ignore aspects of our experience that would connect us deeply within - or to the One

8:41amP

just as the "coincidences" or those other words, I believe we may selectively notice.

8:42amDaniel

and instead stay trapped like rats running on a wheel

God is always inviting us to the greater reality

8:42amP

yes....there is a lot of fear!

8:42amDaniel

something inside is always yearning for it

8:42amP

lot of ego to protect us from our fears.

8:42amDaniel

absolutely fear keeps us trapped!!

8:42amP

yes...I understand.

the world is moving so fast, hard to find a place for many to slow down to see this.

8:43amDaniel

your "self" has been expanding for some time now

8:43amP

also, easier to do surronded by nature.

8:44amDaniel

the constructed world is built to distract, entertain and comfort so that we never get to what really matters

8:44amP

I am very conscious of ego, labels, and things.

8:44amDaniel

uh-huh

8:44amP

yes, it has become more than just for survival...

the material things, a total preoccupation, how our shopping malls are the new religioin.

but how unsatisfying it is...

8:45amDaniel

and sports stadiums, movie theatres

8:45amP

we have to go back and back to fill tha yearning

8:45amDaniel

absolutely - we are being anethsetized

8:45amP

yes...but the difference for me of sports stadiums is the collective energy one feels

it can be incredible.

8:45amDaniel

have to risk, have to surrender

8:45amP

whenn we speak and feel as one.

yes...how to do this is the challenge!

and at the root of all ths must be love.

8:46amDaniel

true - it does open our potential to us - but in a way that ultimately misses what matters

8:46amP

without it..ain't gonna work.

not lust, not the crazy hand wringing love...

not the sleepless type

but true love.

8:46amDaniel

yes in greek the word is agape - which means unconditional love

as opposed to eros or filia

8:47amP

okay..

yes, unconditional very important concept!

Yes...okay..

8:47amDaniel

when you simply want the best for the other person, for other people, without the What's in it for me factor (WIFM) - that is unconditional love

8:48amP

joy is another key state

yes...

8:48amDaniel

ecstacy even!!

8:48amP

yes..I agree with you!

Okay....so starting to see why you said you and I...

have or are awakening.

8:48amDaniel

at the core of our being, when we are in flow, ecstacy, unconditional love, contentment or peace are our natural feelings

8:49amP

hmmm..makes sense...

have felt that state a lot since coming here to Oman.

8:49amDaniel

yes, I know

8:49amP

I never feel lonely, even though no family here.

8:49amDaniel

I'm very happy for you . . .

it was like that for me in Ghana as well

8:49amP

I live alone, and spend many days that way....still not lonely.

its great.

8:49amDaniel

but I'm also learning to be like that wherever I am

8:49amP

Thanks!

yes....it is wonderful isn't it?

yes....this is true...

8:50amDaniel

absolutley!

8:50amP

good poiint.

8:50amDaniel

lovely connecting with you at this level P

8:50amP

It is much easier to be like that when one has gotten some strength and experience with it.

8:50amDaniel

heart-warming in fact

8:50amP

yeah this is great!

this conversation is just flowing;

8:50amDaniel

yes, the spiritual path is mostly about the work after the awakening

8:51amP

like streams of conjoined consciousness.

8:51amDaniel

to unlearn the first decades of habits, assumptions, thinking patterns, beliefs, etc.

8:51amP

so...an interestign other side of the coin is..

8:51amDaniel

yup yup yup

I'm listening

8:51amP

okay I will hold my thought (on empathy)

oh..okay..

as this awakenking has been happening I feel i am more in tune with the others around me.

i can feel them more..

sense the core issues they are facing.

even almost sense their thoughts, often

8:52amDaniel

right

8:52amP

unexpressed or articulated..

8:52amDaniel

welcome to who we really are P

8:52amP

but I can express those thoughts for them.

happens all the time at meetings.

8:53amDaniel

other cutures that have not done the materialistic thing have had this intution, wisdom for a long time

very cool!

8:53amP

i used to think these were my ideas, but in truth.

8:53amDaniel

makes you very effective!

8:53amP

not..I just sensed them, expressed them.

hmmm...

wow..this is interesting.

8:53amDaniel

there is a concept - a word for this

8:53amP

however, when one is like that, and is not feeling strong, the empathy can make it difficult to keep going.

you are so susceptible to those feelings.

what is the word?

8:54amDaniel

they call it reading the "field" that we all in fact are not only physical beings but carry a field (auora) - and sensitive people pick up the fields of others

I know what you mean about finding it hard to keep moving

8:54amP

okay...yes, I understand totally.

8:55amDaniel

sometimes I've been doubled over in pain and in tears because of the wall of pain I hit

8:55amP

this field is partially what connects us.

8:55amDaniel

other's pain

yes that's right

8:55amP

wow...I am not that empathic yet.

8:56amDaniel

it's a rare exprience for me - but on the other hand I don't regularly experience what you're talking about - our gifts are different

8:56amP

yes..I suppose our filters or "sensers" are different.

Hmmmm...this is interesting.

8:56amDaniel

we are of course each unique - and I really edmire what you can do with meetings

8:56amP

I had a conversation with someone the other day who

Thanks!

8:57amDaniel

people who are sensitive like you sometimes use rituals to "cleanse" themselves of other people's issues and affects

8:57amP

oh yes?

Over here it seems to be one of hitting the bottle.

really!

but does not work for me. interested.

what do you suggest?

8:58amDaniel

the New Agers will use candles, incense, even wash their face or take a shower as an outward symbol of cleansing themselves (in a sense staying separate from) what they've taken in from someone else

8:58amP

interesting...

8:58amDaniel

I use alcohol as well

8:58amP

incense is very popular here.

From the Frankincense tree.

Yeah me too!

but even more so...

8:59amDaniel

but we both know that regularly using alcohol is not a solution but just a temporary fix with its own complications

8:59amP

I have been very conscious of washing my face for the past severl months...funny you mention that one.

I love to do it..use a lavendar based soap.

huh...funny that!

9:00amDaniel

well symbolically again - our face is our sense of who we are

washing ourselves means separating stuff from us that we don't own or want

so when your boundaries are too fluid - and you actually feel the impact of someone else's mood - or worse feel them draining your energy - it's important that you can "separate" yourself from that experience

9:01amP

yes....

9:01amDaniel

a ritual P is something you do meaningfully - you will find your own

go ahead

9:02amP

welll when I wash my face, it actuallly feels ritualistic, now that I think of it..

it did feel like i was dong more than just getting rid of grime and dead cells from the surface.

It seems to make more sense now.

9:02amDaniel

so the more consciously you "participate" in the ritual - and the more you pull into it your greater sense of self/God, etc. the more powerfully it will assist you

9:03amP

the refreshing nature of the washing was always more than skin deep.

9:03amDaniel

uh-huh

9:03amP

Okay i will try this....see what happens.

I think I understand how to do this, what it means.

9:03amDaniel

you know how holy people are often portrayed as having light around their faces

9:03amP

important too to verbalize I believe.

9:04amDaniel

agreed

9:04amP

yes.

facebook a little messed up here.

9:04amDaniel

are you aware that you are radiant?

9:04amP

who? you mean all of us..

9:04amDaniel

you personally

9:04amP

me?

hmmmm...

9:05amDaniel

I've seen this for a while now

9:05amP

what do you mean?

9:05amDaniel

spiritually sensitive people can see this

those who read auras see brighter, whiter light around those whose selves are more expanded

Jesus told his disciples "you are the light of the world"

you've had a shining personality for sometime now P

9:06amP

huh! gee...shucks.

9:07amDaniel

so your ace washing, is in one sense, a dropping of conditioned, limiting identifications - that pull you down and drain your energy (almost like dirt or tar) and free you to shine as you really are

9:07amP

trying to tame mr ego right now!

9:07amDaniel

ah -- I can only say this stuff to you now because you are working on your ego - because earlier you certainly were getting a swelled head - no doubt about it

9:07amP

huh...interesting.

what!? me? swelled head?

9:08amDaniel

when we're free to BE without needing to be well respected - then we truly are free

heh heh

9:09amP

I believe that respect will come anyway, if our path is true and our means honest...

9:09amDaniel

of course

9:09amP

Of course what you said about jesus before is a point where the respect may not be given.

but that is due to vested interests or the fear thing.

9:10amDaniel

missed something

9:10amP

When you mentioned that Jesus upset the Religious leaders of the day.

9:10amDaniel

its okay - I remember

yup

it's just that in the conditioned world we need this stuff . . . as you are freed into who you really are, you are more a channel of grace - like Jesus was

9:11amP

hmmm...yes.

9:11amDaniel

you can face total opposition from everyone that "matters" and still be true

9:11amP

hmmm..yes.

makes sense.

opposition in a way, passes right through you.

without touching you..

another one of those ironies, of which there are many!

9:12amDaniel

yup!! good insights!! but we do need affirmation - it's just that when you're connected to ultimate reality - people's opinions don't matter as much

what makes this stuff difficult to talk about is not our shared experience, but all the religious baggage associated with jesus or God language

9:13amP

yes...I must agree.I am afraid I am not well versed at all in the Christian faith, or any other one..

for some reason, just did not, or does not resonate with me.

9:14amDaniel

but when you hit the simpler faith of good people - something attracts you - thus Allah feels interesting

9:15amP

yes...it does, you are right.

so does paganism, the native rituals..

more grounded, more real..more turned in the direction

9:15amDaniel

absolutely and so does walks out in nature

9:15amP

that intuivietly makes sense to me.

yes.

9:16amDaniel

i can soar in ecstacy simply at the sight of a wonderful cloudscape or the stars at night

9:16amP

Yes, acctually me too.

or the smell of a pine or cedar forest.

or the waves washiing on the shore.

9:17amDaniel

anytime your senses are filled with the beauty of creation

"you fill up my senses" comes to mind

9:17amP

As we mess with nature, with the beauty of reation as you put it, then we are really messing with ourselves.

9:18amDaniel

that's for sure!!!

and we are really messed up now

9:18amP

not only with the phsyical/biological world, but how all the energy is moved amongst us.

9:18amDaniel

look at all the auto-immune diseases

9:18amP

and the quality and richeness of that energy.

yes...and these are physical manisfestations.

of something much deeper.

9:19amDaniel

and the deadness of our souls that comes from constructed numbing out built on the carcasses of so many living beings, treated with disrespect, inhumanity ./ . .

9:19amP

yes....a downward spiral...

hmmm..seems like some sort of cleansing will be needed soon!

9:19amDaniel

with evermore neon lights to keep us entranced

9:20amP

or a dramatic change in how we behave.

yes...

9:20amDaniel

now you know where apocalyptic imagery comes from (end of the world type stuff)

9:20amP

yes.

I have to head to the washroom...nothign to do with apocalypse or anything..

brb

9:21amDaniel

my former teacher (guru) once said, "God loves diversity"

well we are killing off God's beloved diversity - whether you consider bio-diversity or the diversity of human cultures - we are homogenizing everything into something increasingly lifeless and tasteless

9:23amP

yes...

to me a fear based process, a need to reduce nature to a simplicity that we can understand.

to take nature from God's image to man's

9:24amDaniel

fear and control go hand in hand

9:23amP

if you will.

However, this is the strenght of tourism.

why people want to travel, to experience other cultures and places.

9:24amDaniel

wow - that's a quotable quote!!!

9:24amP

because of a desire and need for this diversity.

but not for everyone.

those that go for the beaches and sun..no.

lol

9:25amDaniel

agreed

(taking nature from God's image to man's)

I will definitely use that if that's okay

9:25amP

yeah...thanks

no problem..it was our conversation that precipated it.

so it is as much yours as mine!

9:26amDaniel

thanks!

anyhow - it would be something like a nugget from our online conversation - an example of God's work in our virtual world or some such thing! :)

might show up in my blog

9:27amP

When you get here, you will see the splenders of the ancient sculptures that nature has created.

9:27amDaniel

uh-huh :)

9:27amP

interesting to think about when i was in the Louvre..which i did.

yes..to the above parts..

sorry...phone ringing..other room.

9:28amDaniel

much as I love art - I'll take creation's beauty anytime

c ya

Social Media Polluters! Greed and Self-Aggrandizement on Twitter

2009-06-09T07:53:00.001-07:00

On Twitter, @nickcharney Retweeted @mitchjoel: The dirty little secret of the Twitter Elite

http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/the-dirty-little-secret-of-the-twitter-elite.

This is an excellent article tracing the history of the takeover of what began as a social media space with a minimalist communitarian ethic (I’ll follow you if you’ll follow me) into what is now a technology driven “get your message out” space in which it’s “all about me” rather than listening to and learning from each other.

My response to this article was only one of a number of thoughtful and provocative comments:

You just touched on one of the most important points about Twitter, but dropped it, just as a previous author I respect touched on affiliate marketing but then allowed that it was respectable. Is anyone going to stand up and say that being in it for yourself, that duping others to spend money chasing impossible dreams is immoral and a cancer in the soul of America? Is anyone going to say that treating everyone one you relate to as a means to your personal aggrandizement instead of an end in themselves, is anyone else going to say that this makes a mockery of "In God we Trust"?

Twitter started with some attempt at community, and there are still people who actually like to talk to each other, network with each other, discover new things and new people from each other. Instead of rolling over and ceding yet another piece of social real estate to the selfish, the immoral and the blind, perhaps we can learn to block out those who are only clanging cymbals or pounding drums in their own names, and promote those we know who truly value and contribute to community. Just a thought . . .

Despite retweeting Mitch’s article myself, I thought there was still more to say on the topic.

Currently I spend time in Facebook, where I often utilize chat to talk to people I’ve met on Twitter and other friends around the world as well as Friendstock which is a co-operative game where one gets to meet people in a low risk, low investment setting. It is interesting that in friendstock those who value a communitarian, looking out for each other approach to the game group together and tell the predators (only in it for themselves) to get lost. So far in Twitter, I’m the only person I know who routinely publicly blocks spammers, those who demonstrate their Twitter know-how to clog up our screens with their achievements of multiple consecutive posts. I’m still just barely tolerating those who are only on Twitter for self-promotion purposes and who seemingly couldn’t give a flying f@*& for anyone else on Twitter except as a potential buyer of whatever it is they’re trying to sell. I’m so tired of watching the scammers scam the desperate wannabe scammers – all of them thinking that somehow this is acceptable social behaviour!! Can you imagine being in a neighbourhood where everyone was like this, and every first-time conversation inevitably ended up with what you had for sale, and then ignoring people afterwards if they weren’t interested.

So people, instead of the mindless, lemming-like rush to “get rich” why don’t the real people start banding together, blocking anyone who’s cluttering the tweetways with their pathetic approaches to “look at me so I can try to sell you something” so that we can get back to real human intercourse in this cool social media space we share? Or is it too late, and in fact, like some cheesey sci-fi horror movie, most tweets are already “one of them” with glassed over eyes, tweeting the same words and phrases to each other hearing in the distance an illusory “bling bling.”

The secret to being happy in difficult times

2009-05-28T08:45:00.000-07:00

There's a song many of us know: it has a happy lilting melody and rhythm and invites us to "Don't worry, be happy." It's a lovely song and reminds us not to become preoccupied with our troubles or difficulties, but to instead, "Don't worry, be happy."

So how do people go about putting this advice into practice? Well I'm going to divide the field into a few categories if I may. There's the distraction and numb out approach; there's the solve the problem approach, and there's the "shift your focus" approach.

As solid, responsible people, let's start with the "solve the problem approach." Sometimes this is great: doing research, getting advice, trying different things with the determination to succeed can accomplish quite a bit. There are in fact many problems or life situations in which progress can be made with this approach. But we also know that in fact in the end, we don't have control over our lives, or our environments, no matter how much we would like to believe we do; for many of us we are faced with this when illness, loss of career or marriage, an accident, etc. confront us with our mortality, with the fragility of life. But even in disaster we don't have to be reduced to the pitiful helplessness of victims.

The 2nd group are those who cope with pain, trauma or difficult situations they are unable to manage or control by seeking relief in distraction or "numbing out" behaviours. Any relief found in ingesting or indulging is temporary and often leads to more issues down the road. These people often end up with very established habits, even addictions, that then become problematic in and of themselves.

Finally, there's the shift your focus approach, with variations I know of in both the East and the West. A teacher I respect more than any other person walking this earth today likes to say, "everything is always changing." He also likes to encourage us to consider feelings as internal weather that comes and goes and also is always changing. This is of course, actually true, it is a perceptual choice to see something as unchanging because we and the universe are in constant flux and motion. The problem is we get stuck in our problems, stuck with a certain understanding of ourselves and others, stuck within our own supposed limitations. For an example of someone who knows the cost of staying stuck, and so never gives up watch this short video of Nick Vujicic, "Are you going to finish strong."

So what keeps us stuck? What prevents us from continuing to work at it until we overcome? It isn't just our beliefs in our limitations or of our helplessness in difficult circumstances, it's also our beliefs about what it takes to be happy. We are unhappy when we don't have we want or believe we need and if we stay focused on the "not having" we can end up paralyzed in depression and despair. However, beliefs can be changed; changing the beliefs changes how you feel; and realizing you are more than your feelings gives you the freedom to let a mood pass instead of being dominated by it. Just like a parent can out wait the feeling storm of their little child all the while loving and holding her or him; we too can out wait our own reactions, calming ourselves down, because sometimes we too just need a little reassurance, even from our adult selves.

Jesus told us the same thing about our place in the universe. He told us that the Creator is our Abba (literally Dadda in Aramaic) and that those who relate to the One in whom we live and move and have our being as a very small child, are in fact living in a whole new reality. This is my experience: being able to simply walk in life like a little child of the One frees me from worrying about many things and certainly reassures me of how loved and special I am. Waking up to the reality of being created children, of not having to understand everything or try to be in control (believing we truly understand or are in control is itself an illusion!), frees me to delight in the little or big things of life as they come along, rather than staying wrapped up in the stuff that in the end does not really matter; or so it seems to me! We can be responsible, do the right action as seems to be best, and yet be unattached to the result as we trust ourselves in Abba's hands!

So don't worry, be happy! You ARE loved, You ARE protected, You ARE provided for if only you can wake up and realize that it's true! :)

Blame, judgment, projection & the spiritual path

2009-05-20T07:32:00.001-07:00

This path known by many names but travelled by only a few, this path of surrender, of service, of self-realization, of grace and blessing, this path of transformation for those who have left or are leaving the world behind, this path as it continues to rise up before me weaves its spell of new insight, of self-recognition and in so doing blesses me, and makes me a vehicle of blessing for those around me.

But anyone with the power to bless also has the power to curse, and this perhaps is why Jesus was SO strong on us not judging, not condemning our sisters and brothers but rather forgiving them as part of our walk of love. If there is a needed change, it is in being lovingly accepted that a change is more likely, rather than in having a finger wagged in your face. But, more importantly, this habit, this tendency, this attitude of finding others blameworthy is rooted in our own insecurities, our own fear, even our own self-hatred.

As one who has committed himself to a life of loving service I nevertheless this week increasingly became aware of my own tendencies to judge, complete with righteous anger no less! For example, I’ve been starting to say what I think to some Tweeple on Twitter about how offensive I find their “marketing practices,” as increasingly they are setting up false attractive identities (young woman) as a way of getting you to click on a link/URL that is supposed to take you to this woman’s website but instead gives you some stupid get rich now thing to sign – just type in your email address! But worse are those people who pose as good Christian or spiritual people who really just want to sell you their own get rich quick scheme. I have gone after a few of these people, but then found myself in the messy situation of discussing someone’s way of doing business, of following God and leading their own lives. Perhaps something good will result from such an interaction, but it is a far cry from the satisfaction that comes from calling a spade a spade, especially when it’s someone else’s spade that you are naming!

So where does this feeling of satisfaction come from? In the case of Twitter, I too am a person representing myself to the world through this particular medium and working both on the face I present (trying to be as authentic as possible) and what in fact I have to sell if anything. So even a cursory look inwards turns up all kinds of mixed motivations and ambivalences that find some resolution in finger-pointing.

Then there’s soccer, where I felt righteous enough to take on the new manager of my team, the one I managed last year, but in pursuing Africa left it for someone else to rescue. Having rejoined the team just before the season will start, I reacted strongly to something he said in email about a couple of players. Again there was this telling feeling of satisfaction, and again, of course, stuff to deal with after calling a spade a spade. Speaking the truth in love does not result in self-righteous satisfaction; something else is going on.

But in an even cuter twist that the Spirit, the One in whom we live and move and have our being, the blessed magic of my path, has synchronistically brought to my attention, is this pattern of mine which begins with me, who after all lives in flow, pulling together or allowing to emerge a situation for which I have the vision, I get it, but then others don’t and things fall apart. Here again, I’ve woken up to realize that I badly want someone else to take the fall, if only in my mind, rather than looking at how my way of doing things is not working. I say synchronicity because it so happened that I was confronted with our (Saint Cecilia’s Singers) need to record our upcoming practice and/or performance (see poster), which brought again to mind the failure of the spontaneous recording of our last concert (we never got anything out of it) which I had organized. I felt I should tell our director how is actions had kiboshed the whole thing, which I least had the discretion to do privately. His response included the failures in communication that led to the misunderstanding.

I got an email today as well about how in the end the money sent by a friend to Ghana for supporting the start of our NGO was dispersed to another worthy cause because our NGO is a no go: again I had a vision for how it all should go, the pieces were coming together nicely and then it all fell apart. I so much want to blame someone else!!!

Finally, I’m presently struggling mightily (hmmm, doesn’t sound very flow-like does it?) to get a project I’m managing to come together as I see it . . . but the guys are not seeing it my way, and it has not come together yet. Perhaps now we’ll see how patience, being grounded in everyone’s input, confidence, etc., rather than simply my own and my ability to carry the day (sell water to fishermen) will bring US to that flow. We shall see . . . but returning to the main theme then . . .

It is when my own sense of self, my own ego, is threatened by a failure that implicates me, or by a way of acting that I’m repulsed by but also attracted, it’s the internal need to resolve my own ambivalence by projecting the blame onto another person that makes me feel that satisfaction, that calling a spade a spade that leaves me feeling righteous! There is so much work to do on this path, so much clearing away of illusions, defenses, assumptions, etc., The nice thing about this hard work is that it’s not only the work of an adult taking responsibility for his stuff and supporting other in doing the same, it’s also the work of a beloved child, held and supported by the One, our Abba, learning to love anew, to see anew, and to increasingly be free, free to play and dance lovingly with those I’m given to share this journey.

grace and blessings to you, whatever your path

may you also find yourself held by One! :)

Technorati Tags: spiritual path,judgment,projection,ego,surrender,love,service,blessing,flow,Spirit,the One

The Centre of the Confusion

2009-05-17T16:59:00.001-07:00

Some people, like myself, because of some early trauma in life, have developed what Winnicott called a "false self;" one which was constructed to please Mom and other significant people as a way to seemingly guarantee getting one's required care and attention through an attunement to Mom's moods and needs (to the detriment of the normal connection to one's own needs) and the development of pleasing and helpful behaviours. Pleasing Mom or any other significant person like a teacher, spouse, etc., was such a person's way of ensuring their own needs would be met. Such a person, when answering the call to leave all and follow Jesus, to live for others, to live from the heart out of which flows the healing and transforming grace we all need, such a person requires healing and transformation: this includes the unmaking of old patterns, habits, assumptions, motivations, etc., the death of the old self, and the regeneration of a new way of being and doing in the world.

There is however a significant confusion at the centre of the required transformation: I have been blessed enough to have a question put to me three times in the last week or so (twice in the last two days) a question that leaves me both further enlightened and quite confused. Let me explain. The question is a simple one, the first time it was asked it was, "Why do you want to go to Africa so much." The related question that hit the same point was asked in the face of a number of interesting and potentially rewarding opportunities: and it was, "What does your heart say." This simple question is incredibly important, because our Creator, the One in whom we live and move and have our being, the reality that supports our existence in ways we cannot even imagine, inspired Solomon, Israel's wisest king, to say:

"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37.4)

Now I've been delighting myself in our Divine Lover, my Abba (Dadda in Aramaic) for some time now, but when it comes to the desires of my heart, I realize that I am so powerfully drawn to meeting other people's needs, that beyond meeting their needs, I have no idea. What is confusing of course is that I am called into loving service, but if this service is from a "false self" constructed to mitigate trauma and ensure I get what I need, then my drive to serve can be operating from the wrong motivation. Meanwhile my constructed sense of self, the identity that I project to the world, is quite satisfying as I am a humble servant, dedicated to serving others, but in the words of a friend of mine, perhaps also a professional codependent. The key is the motivation.

Now I've been going through a deconstruction of this ego or sense of self, and have therefore been becoming more and more aware of this need to be needed that has driven much of my walk with others over the last year or so: I was never so at peace and so satisfied as when I was helping or supporting others. But as I've become aware of these interior dynamics I have been both ceasing and desisting from reaching for these satisfactions as well as holding my younger self more and more. (Winnicott believed that the provision of a reliable holding environment gave the afflicted person the conditions in which to grow past the false self constructs into a more authentic being: holding simply means being warmly present to.) At the same time I have have also stopped describing with certainty the "inevitable" results of my business activities, developing a certain detachment to my activities, as I continue to simply walk with the ONE and those I'm given.

Now as for the realization that has finally come to rest today as I continue to allow this question to work away at me: "What does my heart say?" You see, as one who is detaching from the need to be needed, I've realized that I really don't know what my heart wants! I am however comfortable with not knowing but holding the experience as I unfold. Now I realize that what makes the many options opening in front of me attractive is what other people see in me: the meeting of their needs, the fulfillment of their desires: there is no stronger tonic for a false self constructed person such as myself. But now I'm not attached to the outcome of any of these potential opportunities, but rather I'm simply walking with the people involved as we find our way to what God has in mind for me, and perhaps for each of them. I know that a key to this will be my discovery of my own "heart's desires," for not only do I delight in Abba, but I am surrendered so that S/He is able to remake my heart according to her/his purposes. My task is simply to BE ME, the loving and beloved child I was created to be, the gift of light and life to those who are seeking.

To say the same thing in a language accessible to those who do not do the divine object thing, say my Buddhist or psychoanalytic friends, what I am doing is taking apart the delusional ego constructs that were developed in response to a traumatic situation. In so doing, I am becoming more aware of who I actually am in the fullest sense of those words. Self-realization must include such a transformational journey, before and/or after the moment of one's awakening. There is every bit the need to drop the old habits and ways of being and doing on these transformation paths as there is on the path of being a disciple of Jesus. In fact, Buddhists, Hindus, followers of Jesus and psychoanalysts all have in common the master/disciple or teacher/student relationship which is often provides the context and support for such self-transformation.

So I say to all who have realized their disenchantment with the world, who have committed themselves to some vision of transforming the world, and have realized to some degree this transformation in themselves, I say, "Walk on sisters and brothers" for we have the grace and power of the universe co-operating with us, supporting us in our unfolding as we become lights on the way for those who are searching for a better way. We recognize each other not so much from the verbal and conceptual constructs we use to frame our self-understanding, our theology, our pictures of the Divine, but rather we recognize in each other people on the path having the same experiences, being transformed in the same manner. I am so blessed to have sisters and brothers from so many different religious and spiritual traditions who are on this path of suffering, renunciation and liberation, surrendered to the greatest horizon of their experience! J

Dazed and confused in the desert :)

2009-05-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

I started out without finishing a couple of blog postings in the last few weeks, one of which was entitled "dazed & confused in the desert." I will start my reflections with this one after saying that I am okay if swamped by many things these days. More on that later: first the reflection I started sometime ago that gives you the feel for my ongoing experience and walk.

I've been resonating a lot lately with the Hebrews' exodus and desert experiences: the desert is the place to get Egypt out of you, lonely, uncomfortable and barren yet full of a life of its own. Egypt is of course a handy metaphor for "the world" today, being as most of us living in the world are in its chains (job, social expectations, etc.), and like the rich young man are just not able to drop everything to go with God wherever he calls you. However, sometimes God disrupts our illusory existence by calling us: Moses called Abraham's descendants, Jesus called his disciples, and still calls those today who will in fact drop everything and follow him.

Once you are following, then comes the desert, the confusion of having to relearn everything (dropping old habits and identifications and being refined by the loving but firey finger of the Spirit who unmakes and then reshapes us. You notice how much God's chosen people considered themselves cursed and simply wanted to go back to Egypt? It's not easy wandering in the desert, being undone and remade in the process!So as someone going through this ongoing traumatic yet uplifting experience, (agony and ecstacy being in some ways as close as love and hate it would seem but I digress in perhaps too exaggerated a manner! :) ) I find myself unconsciously grasping at straws to prop up a sense of self: and in fact they keep being offered to me.

One friend has said you're such a wonderful counsellor - you should put out a shingle, another has said you are such a good recruiter (IT) you should be a recruiter. I have people I've met on Twitter asking me to to mentor them. Then there's the opportunities! You see I have a growing number of irons in the fire as I seek for what it is God is leading me into: I don't have a clue whether any will turn out, and suspect that if any do, they will do so in an unexpected fashion. Oh, I tell you, wandering in the desert and seeing what looks like a familiar and hopeful sign is often an illusion, conjured up not so much by water vapour and sunlight, but by my own desires, memories and habits of thinking, as combined with what people see in me.

Until fairly recently I would go around describing what I was doing (therefore in some sense who I am) with reference to this or that possiblity I was persuing, giving them more reality than actually exists simply by use of optimism, enthusiasm and being able to sell water to a fisherman. So now, as I am increasingly overwhelmed with the number of seemingly high quality opportunities, I am also increasingly unattached to the outcome of any of these activities. Rather I try to maintain enough local business (money now) through window cleaning, carpet cleaning & supporting a strong painting/renovation team, while I continue to give the long range opportunities the energy they require, at least as much as I can manage at the time:

I'm trying to get international development going with growing possibilities in Ghana and Ethiopia but I'm not from that field and only paying attention to it part-time
I'm being considered for a 6 - 12 month term managing an IT project in Ghana
I'm working on an opportunity in Oman to do a sustainable cultural eco-tourism strategy as part of InterCulture http://aix1.uottawa.ca/~iculture/eng/index_eng.html
I've been invited to consider becoming part of a start-up Buddhist University in Taiwan to work in their department of philanthropy
I'm looking at starting a Software company (search engine for social media sites) and/or a 2nd stage addictions treatment facility combined with a trades business in the Cornwall area
I'm trying to find work for my Russian IT genius buddy who's currently unemployed
I'm spending more and more time in Social Media environments like Twitter and Facebook - and as a result getting stronger in the understanding of why to establish a presence there and how to achieve desired results - so I'm starting to advise people on Twitter
I'm still supporting friends, walking with them, being with them as needed, and, of course still being transformed myself in the process

I'm a sales guy, a counsellor, a mediator, a marketing guy, a business manager and my gifts are in human transformation and finding solutions to complex problems, whatever they might be - because in the end they're all human problems. But I'm also a disciple of Jesus, one who left the world behind to walk to the beat of a different drummer, and yet who is in the world trying to sort out "being in but not of the world." All the while I'm guided by the Spirit, by God-incidences, doors opening and closing, walking without attachment and more and more being unmade and refashioned by that fiery finger of Divine Love.On top of all of this I'm trying to figure out who the hell I am when it comes to presenting myself to the world. I've been experimenting for some time with "Brother Daniel" as a working or stage identity - and thus have that moniker in some social media sites as well as a name for my cleaning business. But as I continue to participate in Twitter, I find myself wondering, who am I, what am I selling, how do I present myself to the world? Of this I am sure, I am certainly a work in progress! :)

So I've stopped blogging and just as it was sometime since my last posting it may be an even longer time before the next one. From a sojourner in the social media corner of the internet to you then, as may best fit you:

Jai Guru Dev
Namaste
Grace and Blessings

Your brother Dan

suffering on the path

2009-04-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me The Three Books of the Absolute by Richard Rose: a 7 page rumination on our existential situation as those who would suffer the death of our egos, looking for ulimate transcendence. A number of sections of it really struck me, so I've pasted them below followed by the letter I wrote him in return.
*********************************

I sought Thee, O Eternal Essence, in the grottoes and in the tabernacles. I called out thy name to the stone ears of statues. And thou answered not.
I sought Thee in the voice of nature. I looked for Thee in the footprints of animals, in the habits of birds. I listened for a revelation in the murmuring of waters and in the soft moaning of the forests. I laid my ear against the roaring cataracts and bared my head to the tempests. But Thou answered not.
I have sought Thee, O Eternal Essence, within my self. I have sought Thee in my mind until I was cursed with confusion. And I saw Thee not.
Then, O Eternal Essence, I sought Thee whence I came. I sought Thee in my womb. As the wild beast flees from the elements into his cavern where his wild dam littered him, so I fled the darkness of my clay. And naught did I find but the turbulence of my imagination. There in chaotic pattern did I find the seeds of all confusion that pretended to be wisdom. Where man was born was also born his gods. Where man was born was also born his demons. . . .

I, O Eternal Essence, beseech Thee,--where within Thee have I dissolved myself?
Where are prisoned those who follow love? Where have I left my I-ness, and now having left it, who is it that cries out to Thee? Where is the dirge of sorrow that is all that remains of me? Who feels this pain that burns and consumes, yet is felt not by I-who-am-no-more? Who is it that looks from the windows of my mansion like a strange prowler? Who is it that hears and hears
not, that yearns for life and lives not, that seeks out death and dies not....?
O Ever-Allness, what is Thy pleasure in my sorrow? Thou hast damned me to thoughtlessness, and yet I cannot leave off thinking, and still my thoughts are not words. Thou hast robbed me of my soul and mind, and my body laments for all ages, for my body dies not nor yet walks among men. Thou hast delivered me from my Ego, and what is there that remains? O Ever-Allness,
forever insensate, pitiless to entreaty, speechless to my prayers,--weep Thou with me for I am of Thee....and all that remains of me is Thee. . . .

Relax ye and die and live the darkness, and enter the impassive pool of the Unknowing....
Who shall extol the memory of man that leaves him often before his life....Who remembers after life? If man forgets his infancy before his manhood is upon him,--what shall he remember hence....shall he remember nothingness? Desist and enter the pool of the Unknowing....
What is time, O mind....? Is it the number of steps in a day,--the number of thoughts in a step....? Then of the thoughts in a day, how many years of days would it take to know all that is know, and then how long,--to know the magnitude of the Unknowing....and how many steps will take thee from here to there? Who shall anoint thy limbs?
Though he who forgets more seems greater than he who strived not and died in ignorance....who shall know....who shall know? Mourn ye for the hour when the cloud of the Unknowing passes and the falseness of light dazzles the eye. For the light is a liar unto the Light, and the light is the darkness of the mind. Yet who shall know....?

And soon I see, looking ahead, that all my joys are not, that all my love is not, that all my being is not. And I see that all Knowing is not. And the eminent I-ness melts into the embraces of oblivion. It melts into the embraces of oblivion like a charmed lover, fighting the
spell and languishing into it. And now I breathe Space and walk in Emptiness. My soul freezes in the void and my thoughts melt into an indestructible blackness. My consciousness struggles voiceless to articulate and it screams into the abysses of itself. Yet there is no echo. All that remains is All. My spark of life falls through the canyons of the universe, and my soul cannot weep for its loss....for lamentation and sorrow are things apart. All that remains is All.

**********************
and I answered my friend from the bottom of my heart:

thank you!!! :) :) :)

I resonated in many places with the solitariness, the utter futility of any human action, thought, perception . . . but then I diverged strongly from where he went with it . . . because I cannot and will not imagine my ability to perceive, to be, to experience as anywhere approaching our creator's. For I believe we are created, I believe it is the only sensible belief. I cannot get caught in the solipsism, even narcissism of the endless return on myself, always questioning, always pushing beyond my last construct - for I know I will never clear the constructs - of that I am now sure. Oh, I will again and again break free from them, but again and again my ability to identify myself, to see myself in contrast or with others, this basic dualistic perception of creator and created will return. I love the I AM, I love the total identification with the God-head that being his child suggests - but I also know that I am limited to partiality until one day I know as I am known, and this is perfectly okay with me.

I remembered today a development in my realization I may not have shared with you from my time "on retreat:" First I found myself singing a little ditty that had manufactured itself in my consciousness "Out on a limb, out on a limb, out on a limb for the Lord" some days or weeks later I noticed it had changed to "dancing on a limb, dancing on a limb, dancing on a limb for the Lord." Finally as my dance became more and more abandonned, I found myself singing "drifting on the wind, drifting on the wind, drifting on the breath/spirit of the Lord." and so I've drifted ever since, occasionally getting hung up on this or that worldly identification, this or that preference for self-identification, but then again waking up to it, letting go and starting to drift again.

I don't know how this painful part of my drifting is going to go - I think I must be resisting now - not wanting to let go of what I've already lost, wanting to retain some vestige of my former life (family, money, career, prestige - yes - to be honest I can see myself yearining sometimes for these things) and so I burn as I cannot grasp, but try to grasp, cannot let go, but it's being torn away from me - is already gone from my failing fingers. Yes I am physically weaker now . . . I am sagging in some extistential way . . . it hurts a lot, I often find myself weeping easily . . . but my friend - I do know that despite my suffering that I'm held, that I'm going through a painful patch of somehow resisting letting go - I don't know if this is my ego's final battle - I'm wearily afraid that's it's just another of an endless set of rounds I will do in the ring, until finally I am released to BE all that I AM.

I very much appreciate you stimulating this in me - I am grateful to our God for inspiring you to break through my walls of passivity and lethargy, prompting me to write again about my experience, and in writing to make progress, to get closer to that inevitable breakthrough - that liberation I can almost see if I stand on tip-toe! :) heh heh - of course it is not by any effort of mine that it's going to come but only from God-incidences like a good friend whacking me over the head with such an evocative piece or writing! You are such a good friend! Thank you!

And so dear reader, I close. If you made it this far, perhaps you also know something of this painful journey, this determination to be free from illusion, free from the world (prestige, possessions, etc.), free from self-centred concern, free to BE, free to BE love, free to BE with whomever we're given, free to go where the Spirit leads us. If so, well met, and God's blessing continue to rest on you, flow through you, and grace you in every way!

suffering and joy

2009-04-11T05:48:00.000-07:00

Many voices of the wisdom of the ages tell us that we run from our pain, that we distract ourselves in any way possible from the pain, loneliness, emptiness and essential deficiency of our existence. And so we experience transitory joy when we have fulfilled a desire, experienced great pleasure, achieved success, won a game, won a lottery, fallen in love, given birth to a child, etc. At such times we feel really good about ourselves, we are happy with who we are. As good as any one of these experiences is, and as joyful as we feel, they are all transitory, and our lives are consumed with the quest for or maintenance of these personal satisfactions, which often are reliant on what other people think, the approval we feel from them in our socially constructed roles of parent, employer/employee, coach, performer, consumer, christian/hindu/moslem/buddhist/sikh/you name it. And so many of us live out our lives achieving enough of a balance between the good and bad experiences, that on the whole we are happy enough with our lives, content with our socially acceptable identities. We are good enough people, liked enough by enough people, own enough of the right stuff that we are comfortable enough in our own skins.

I have left all this behind me: like a Buddhist or Hindu monk I am in a process of dropping all attachments but I am doing so as a follower or disciple of Jesus. This process leads me directly into suffering, but this suffering is the suffering of not having the crutches we all need to feel good about ourselves, and so I'm faced with my own personal deficiency, loneliness as I increasingly refuse to make it better in the ways we all learned. Perhaps the story of Job can help as a way to illustrate my point.

Job was a very rich, successful and righteous person: he always did everything right and so had a great reputation on heaven and on earth. But his happiness or security was vested in all the signs of his success - he knew he was blessed of God because of his great success. Yet he lived in fear. He was afraid his children would offend God so he did sacrifices on their behalf, and when everything was taken from him including his health, he said, "I was always afraid this would happen." Having everything stripped away from him left him confronting his own misery not only from the loss of his children and health, but also his reputation and social standing because by the calamities that had befallen him he was now marked in that society as a sinner and cursed by God. It was only when after having everything stripped away from him, and nakedly confronting his creator that he finally MET God, and after that, nothing could ever make him afraid again - for now, he knew who God was and who he was, and everything else was secondary.

Like many before me who have chosen to leave the world (prestige, possessions, etc.) behind, I have given away or sold my possessions, and as I recognize attachments or ways of constructing an identity on which I like to rely, I drop them as well. In so doing I am responding to Jesus' invitation to follow him, but in order to do so leaving everything else behind. For I too have met our creator, whom Jesus revealed to us as Abba (literally Dadda in Aramaic), I know who I AM, and am content to more and more walk in His presence.

Yesterday I was again moved to tears listening to the story of Jesus suffering and sacrifice, after having already been confronted by the pain of the Tamil people demonstrating at Parliament Hill demanding that the Canadian government do something about the attrocities being committed against them by the Sri Lankan government (chemical warfare, bombing hospitals, churches and schools, etc.) through whom I walked on my way to Church. From the God's eye point of view, there is so much suffering in this world, and yet I know that S/He is surrounding us, holding us, waiting for us to awake from the illusions of our social "realities," our immersion in all of the constructs that imprison us from seeing the truth, that keep us compliant as good little consumers, happy in our nests, trading "Good days" with our friends and colleagues, chattering about weather, sports, or what the neighbours are doing, oblivious to the suffering we have insulated ourselves against, inside and out. But Jesus calls us to leave these comfortable illusions and distractions behind and to follow him on the path of suffering and joy.

It is interesting to note that Jesus described himself as coming for the "sick" (oppressed, poor, sick, imprisoned, rejected, etc.) and not for the well. Those caught up in the illusions of their goodness, of the good-enough quality of their life do not respond well to a radical like Jesus who said to the rich young ruler, one more thing you need to do beyond being a good person and loving God, and that is give away all your possessions and follow me. The young guy left saddened because he was to attached to his possessions and position to give it all up in order to follow Jesus. Oftentimes it's only those who've already been knocked out of the mainstream by society's cruelty, by illness, by their own misdeeds, it's only the marginalized who can truly respond to Jesus' call to leave the world behind. If you find yourself resonating with this post, then it is likely because you too are marginalized in some significant way, and, realize the value inherent in dropping all the superficial stuff and going all out for transformation and liberation . . . but that is material for another post.

So have a blessed Easter all; whether it is one in which your own personal suffering is deepening as you drop your attachments and leave the world more and more behind, or whether you are feeling the joy of the resurrection, the joy of liberation, the joy of new life. The two go hand in hand!

take up your cross and follow me

2009-04-09T05:57:00.000-07:00

I find myself resonating more and more with Jesus' command to his disciples. For those who have answered the call, who have realized they've been chosen, this is the straight and narrow path that almost everything in our nature rebels against; I say "almost everything" because the depth of filial love and devotion can in fact cause us to lay down our life if need be.

Inspiring me this week on this path have been the reflections of a Sufi devotee going through his early awakening back in the early 1970's, a devotee who has since gone to become a teacher of many. I have been offered many things to read, but rarely pick one up. In this case though when I had read the first paragraph I knew I would be working with this for a while.

He traces in his own experience themes found in many mystical paths, that of accepting even embracing the wounded heart we all carry: the loneliness, the emptiness, the self-rejection; this pain we all flee from by way of distractions such as work, food, alcohol, drugs, sex, entertainment, sports, etc. He does so by accepting his teacher's instruction to not allow himself to follow any of these ways of constructing an ego, a sense of self based on partial identifications. Rather than becoming the doer, the person who strives for this or that pleasure, who pursues fulfillment in these ways, and becomes self-identified as a person who does this or that, as a Sufi he only focused on God and on being aware of this emptiness, not trying to fill it at all. This he found extraordinarily difficult as he was at that time both in love with a woman for the first time as well as devoted to his teacher; but he would not permit himself to ask them for anything, to need anything from them and so found himself in agony.

Eventually after suffering for many weeks some experiences of love and bliss began to break through here and there. As he described his transport of delight at a loving glance from a friend, or a sublime moment in nature, I remembered fondly my own sweet tendency to ecstacy a year ago, how easily I slid into an exalted state of love, joy and bliss. I realized that the metaphor so often used for transformational work and the spiritual path, that of peeling the layers of the onion, was quite apropro here for me. I have been through a number of successive layers of denying a certain ego gratification, of dropping a certain attachment to identity, and am currently going through one again.

The one that is now being dropped is my attachment to being the advisor, the wise friend, the one with the answers: oh how I loved this ego identity! Letting go of it is really quite depressing, both because I've kicked another crutch out from under my faltering sense of identity, as well as tarnished the memory of many pleasurable encounters where I was the man with the right word at the right time. Not that God doesn't work through us when we're "happy doing what we're doing" so to speak, for of course S/He does; but seeing my need to be needed outlined in such bold relief turns yet another worldly or self-centred fulfillment into ashes in my mouth.

At the same time I'm feeling more and more urgent about getting business going again; believing perhaps that it's finally time to make some money, to repay some debts, to get myself back over to Africa, etc. I have my brother continuing to say to me that he believes that my gifts are in the business world, not just on the path, so to speak. I don't know, but perhaps I've spent enough time in this desert of the ego, enough time dropping attachments, etc., that perhaps I'm ready to truly be "in the world but not of the world."

Let's face it folks, there is a certain something suicidal about the willingness to "take up my cross" and follow Jesus; to emulate him in every way. The willingness to take the via dolorosa, to be tortured, to fall under the weight of the cross, to be crushed, broken and pierced is yet finally the path of liberation.

We cannot have two masters, either we care more about what everyone thinks, we care more about our creaturely comforts, about our stuff, or we are in fact sold out, surrendered and living only for God. It's not that our Creator doesn't love all the children S/He has created, or that those who are merely good in a worldly or religious manner are not loved and accepted; it's simply that to be like Jesus is to NOT be of this world.

It is so confusing for Christians who believe they are following Jesus when in fact they are part of a religious club that has Jesus as its hero. Picking up your cross and following Jesus is not simply another way of saying that suffering is part of life, just accept it and know that Gop still loves you: No, it's far more radical than that.

Jesus didn't call Christians, he called disciples saying only those who were willing to leave everything behind to follow him were worthy to be chosen. When he said go and make disciples of all nations, he did not have in mind building churches in every country, nor was he trying to create a religion. He was saying to people one at a time, come and follow me, become like a little child with Abba (literally Dadda in Armaic) our Creator like me, be filled with the Spirit like me, leave the world behind like me and be my disciple. At his ascension his disciples graduated into teachers and were told to go and make more disciples in the same way: one at a time, person to person, heart to heart, so that those who could hear the call, who would one day realize they too had been chosen, would follow them, would follow Jesus, whatever country, language or religion they came from.

We are a light in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it, nor can it. Those of us who see the light, through whom the light shines, are also not at home in this world anymore. I was realizing just the other day how much I missed "being at home." I've been such a married family guy in my life but have been on my own now for a few years; more recently I woke up while on my long reteat and realized I was called to walk with whomever I'm given to walk with, and have since given away or sold most of my possessions so that I'm free to go wherever the Spirit leads. I now find myself being like Jesus, not having a place to lay my head, a place to call home. This then is part of what it means for me to pick up my cross and follow him: I seek no worldly comfort, no place to call home, but instead walk as I'm led, with whomever I'm given. So be it!