One of the monks sent me an email with several photos of an acrobatic bear. The antics of this resourceful creature deserve a wider audience. The photographs were originally posted here, an on-line journal based in Prince George, British Columbia.
While over on the BC coast why not visit Hornby Island where a webcam is permanently pointed at a Bald Eagle’s nest. Apart from the nesting Eagle there’s lots of bird song and general spring-time carry on happening in the background. While I have been watch the Eagle took off for a moment and revealed two eggs she is hatching. This is a very popular site and I am not surprised: “April 3, 2006 Here at Infotec we are counting over 2-million hits a day and an average simultaneous connection count of 5,000 viewers!”
Yes, I’ve had my bird song fix for the evening, definitely more uplifting than coffee and with no adverse side effects either!
Sorry to say I drank coffee this afternoon! Now my brain can hardly gather itself together on the page. I will be sticking to will(ingness) power from now on. Here are a couple of coffee related thought threads.
A monk told me recently about a chap who came to him for emergency counseling a few days into a retreat at one of our monasteries. He couldn’t keep up with the schedule, he felt exhausted all the time, he had a headache to beat the band and was trembling all over! His problem? Coffee withdrawal. He’d gone from twenty cups a day, to none! Gosh, how they can mount up, ay?
The origins of coffee. The way it was told me, a goat herd in Ethiopia noticed his goats were dancing and then chewed on the red berries they had been eating, and felt pretty good. Fairly soon the word got out and a world wide phenomena was born. There are a number of different stories however I like this one the best so I’m sticking with it.
It’s been three weeks since I registered my lost purse on the Vancouver Airport web site. And since doing that the purse has faded from memory. Lost, forgotten and let go of. This evening I received a phone call. “We have your purse!”, she said brightly. “I’ll mail it on Monday”.
I feel like I have been given the purse all over again; wonderful. So, a big THANK YOU to Dawn and all the staff who deal with found items in Vancouver Airport, and airports everywhere. And I will certainly ‘look up’ should an item of mine ever get lost while I’m traveling. ‘Lost’ doesn’t automatically mean ‘stolen’. There are crowds of good people in this world who find things and who then take the trouble to hand in what they pick up. And thus grateful people get their stuff back. That’s me this evening, a grateful person.
I love yard sales, car boot sales and estate sales. Flea Markets, jumble sales, auctions, charity shops, thrift stores, you name it. All wonderful places to find useful things such as things for altars, household stuff, fabric, linens, unusual tools….
Once in Berkeley, at a place called Urban Ore, a fellow monk found me an item used in ceremonies which would have cost hundreds of pounds, or millions of yen bought new in Japan. Seeing this gleaming item being held aloft and processed past beaten up old wardrobes and office furniture is a sight indelibly imprinted in my brain.
While looking around for inspiration for a posting tonight I stumbled upon this site called Jalopy Junktown. From now on it is where I will go and have a look around when I want to see neat stuff.
On Monday afternoon I drove out to Elk Island National Park to take in some open-air. The snow had mostly melted in Edmonton so I was surprised to find the trails still filled with snow and hard going. The main lake, which stretches far into the distance was white and thick with ‘mystery’. Gazing out I pictured a woman waiting for her trapping folk to return, or stuck alone in a frozen cabin miles from anywhere, longing for company, any company. Being out in the white wilderness can do strange things to ones perceptions.
So when I spotted two black specks far away in the distance I became fixated on them with excited anticipation. ‘Were they moving’? ‘Yes’! ‘Men carrying heavy packs – really big packs’? Gradually as the specks advanced, excruciatingly slowly, they developed into animals. Closer still and two male Wood Bison emerged, taking their long journey across the frozen lake, perhaps in search of grazing.
They were like two four wheel trucks in an invisible traffic queue. A couple of steps (were they testing the strength of the ice?) then a few minutes stationary. Then a few more steps. I found myself mentally willing them to move, to move faster, to get closer, so I could fill my frame with hulking great brown fuzzy beings. But the wild walks it’s own walk and my wish for ‘Bigger, faster, closer, better’ made no impression. Of course!
Getting closer. Close enough!
The person in the foreground is a photographer, ecstatic to encounter these grand creatures roaming free. As his companion and I retreated we fell into conversation. She told me about the thirty Bison due to fly next day, to Russia! Bison high in the sky, who would have thought.
There are warnings everywhere in the park not to approach the Bison since they are unpredictable and may charge for no apparent reason. They seem so heavy and ponderous however they can be light on their feet, it would seem.
