More Flying Toys

In an earlier blog post, I stated that I was angry and felt like throwing my toys out of my playpen.

Unfortunately, when people throw their toys out on a larger scale, it creates enormous suffering. The news story of the moment is Gaza, but this year tragedies also have unfolded in Sudan, Chad, Zimbabwe, Congo and elsewhere.

It is my dearest wish that humankind would create peace.

I don't know how to persuade people in far away places to do that. The only thing I know how to do is to spend each day learning a bit more about compassionate communication and implementing it right here in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. My primary vehicles for that are my membership of Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community and use of our consensus decision-making model.

As Gandhi said, Be the change you want to see in the world.

Dance, dance, wherever I may be

For years I have felt occasional urges to dance, but have not listened to them. Oh yes, I do sometimes attend parties at which I dance. But that's not what I'm talking about here. What I mean is a more consistent practice of dancing.

Since I've moved to Nanaimo, I've become interested in the Sacred Circle Dancing at the Unitarian Fellowship. Unfortunately it conflicts with the Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community's shareholder meetings, which are held on Thursday nights.

I am in the process of exploring if the shareholder meetings could be moved to another night. If not, we have only a few more months of the construction phase left, and then I expect some let up in our schedule of meetings.

In the meantime, I am just playing music and dancing in my living room. I am feeling drawn to African music, which reminds me of my childhood in Swaziland. Thanks to You Tube, I've found some familiar clips.

When I was a young child, my parents were pioneers in the bush. We were the only white family in a radius of thirty miles. Every night I used to fall asleep to the sound of the drums that the Swazi people used to play while they told stories and danced around their fires. To my ear, drum beats are the most soothing sounds in the world.

When I recently spent several nights on the living room couch of friends in Nanaimo, because severe weather prevented me from reaching my home in a rural area, I found the ticking sound of their clock very restful. When I reported that on the first morning, they expressed surprise. In fact they felt embarrassed that they'd forgotten to take the clock down before I'd settled in for the night. They said that the loud ticking had disturbed previous guests. I responded, "Oh, please leave your clock where it is. I love it." To my taste, it wasn't quite as good as a drum, but it was the next best thing.

Getting back into synch

The frenzy of Christmas used to bother me. I found it stressful. That was until I to some extent unplugged the Christmas machine, or at least tamed it to a tolerable level.

Some years ago a book about mythology explained to me why the North American Christmas is over the top.

Apparently winter used to be a quiet time in Northern Europe. The long hours of darkness and the cold weather naturally lent themselves to a more restful period. According to the book about mythology, that was reflected in the winter holidays of the Norse people.

The Romans, on the other hand, were just the opposite. They commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn on December 17th. They called the holiday Saturnalia, and it evolved into a playful week-long celebration that had much in common with the North American Christmas of today. There were school vacations, feasts, exchanges of gifts, pranks, etc.

When one considers that Southern Europe has a milder winter than Northern Europe, one can understand why the Romans were less constrained by the weather than the Norse people were.

It seems to me that cheap energy in the second half of the twentieth century allowed us North Americans to override the climate in which we lived. If we still were hunter-gatherers or even farmers, we in Canada and the Northern Tier states of the USA would be forced to celebrate a much quieter Christmas. Even my mother, who grew up in Hungary before and during the Second World War, reports that it was a big deal to find a fresh orange in her Christmas stocking.

When I started simplifying my Christmas celebrations some years ago, I did not retreat into a cave. Certainly I do enjoy having Christmas Dinner with family and friends. I also enjoy buying gifts for a very few close family members and friends. (I generally buy gifts way ahead of time, in order to keep December as stress-free as possible.) Now that I'm trying to be even more eco-friendly than before, I probably will make many of my Christmas gifts in future.

This year the unusual weather on Vancouver Island forced many of us to simplify even more than we might have wanted to do. If Peak Oil comes to pass, I wonder what Christmas (and the rest of our lives) will look like. I suspect there is the potential for Voluntary Simplicity to turn into Involuntary Simplicity.

Be that as it may, I like to relax during these days between Christmas and New Year. I like to feel the rhythm of winter.

Last night I played some haunting Celtic music that my son in Calgary had told me about by e-mail that afternoon. I turned off all the lights in my townhouse, lit a single tea light, turned the volume of the music down low, sank into the couch, and felt my body melting into the supportive atmosphere.

This morning I feel refreshed and ever so grateful to have had the chance to chill out.

Christmas was magical

When weather stranded me on Vancouver Island, the parents of a Nanaimo friend, who live in Victoria, invited me for Christmas at short notice. My friend and I caught the Greyhound bus down there on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and returned to Nanaimo by train on Boxing Day (December 26th).

I had the greatest fun with this family, who had been total strangers to me. We spent much of Christmas Day in their kitchen, joking and laughing and cooking up a storm. Fortunately, turkey with stuffing and all the trimmings is a fairly universal meal, which most people in Canada prepare roughly the same way. So it was easy to fall into the rhythm of helping in someone else's kitchen. The reward was a delicious Christmas Dinner.

I was sleepy and nodded off during our late afternoon bus ride to Victoria. But our return journey took place in the morning, when I was alert. This gave me an opportunity to appreciate the stunning scenery over the Malahat Pass and along the shores of Shawnigan Lake. Uncharacteristically, snow-covered Vancouver Island looked like the set of Dr. Zhivago.

Now I'm back in my rented townhouse. This has been a lazy day of reading. For me, these days between Christmas and New Year are amongst the most relaxing of the entire year. Absolute bliss.

Life is what happens while you're making other plans

Well, my flights to Calgary got cancelled yesterday owing to severe weather out here on the British Columbia coast.

I am disappointed not to be seeing my sons over Christmas.

On the other hand, there is some good news. I received a full refund of my expensive holiday air fare. This is enough to cover flights for two people at off-peak times. One of my sons wants to use half of that air fare to visit me in Nanaimo over a weekend. My other son wants me to visit him in Calgary on another occasion. I probably will do that around his birthday.

I'm also fortunate to have received an invitation to Christmas Dinner from local friends who heard about my situation.

It's now Christmas Eve. My movements require me to part company with my laptop over the next couple of days. So I will take this opportunity of wishing you a Christmas filled with warmth and love and laughter. Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, I wish you a day filled with warmth and love and laughter. May you enjoy many such days in 2009.

Want to throw my toys out my playpen

Sometimes unwelcome things happen in my cohousing community, and I feel angry. This is one of those days.

That doesn't change the fundamentals of my situation. I'm still incredibly grateful to have chosen Nanaimo as my new home, to have joined Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community, and to have formed wonderful friendships in a surprisingly short time.

But, with that having been said, I want this blog to be authentic. Being a coho [member of a cohousing community] may be a predominantly joyful experience, but it is not a constantly joyful experience. At least it is not for me.

This is where I'm finding it useful to be learning skills in the area of compassionate / nonviolent communication.

To my mind, our families and our communities are microcosms of the larger world. My belief is that, if I want the world to be at peace, I have to create peace right where I am, right now.

This was the overriding reason for my joining a cohousing community. Yes, there were a zillion other reasons too. But, if we cohos went around in a circle and each had to name his/her primary motivation for joining, that would be mine.

So I will refrain from throwing a tantrum. I will find a constructive way to share my feelings and to help to make it safe for my fellow cohos to share their feelings. Then, together, we will chart a way forward.

Happy Solstice

This afternoon I'm going carol singing in downtown Nanaimo with the Everybody Sings group.

Then on to friends for dinner.

After this, the days here in the northern hemisphere will gradually grow longer. In due course, our winter wonderland will give way to spring. But I imagine we Vancouver Islanders will be sharing tales about the winter of 2008-2009 for quite some time.