Sitting at this table enjoying our house, our home
Held within who we are becoming, who we are
As a potter works clay up into a vessel
Our character is shaped through living
Birthed through fire so as to cradle water

So as we shape ourselves to carry water-like gifts,
as if in preparation for fire or drought,
We are better able to hold, share and sustain life.

It is in our texture that I become lost in our beauty, intrigued
As subtle and stark as seasons, our cycles reveal the textures of our gifts
Held gently in us.

Garden's Child

plant
From seed
Grew tall with sunshine

Leaves

My birth
from conception
united me with the family of life
Sonrise

Mother

plant’s earth
child’s family
everything was as it was
both plant and child grew

Son/sun

Said mother
Mother smiled to sun
Whom fed child
…
plant and child
Grew in accordance
To earth, tilting on her axis
seasons changing and maturing

Lifetimes

Plant grew strong
learned flowers.
the other plants, and gardener, were pleased
for Plant’s root had penetrated
accomplishing the real work
Making plant strong
Free of irrigation

Child explored langauge, story and dance
Making those people proud
Child’s Parents, especially, were pleased
That she was able to meet her needs
Living creatively and learning.
child lived in strong ways

each in their own time…
Plant held firm
Rooted in space
Understanding

Child, rooted in family
walking
standing

Their own time held Necessary process.
Flowers age, becoming seed
Fruit shared and celebrated

Child, singing and dancing
shared insight and delight of her world
through tradition,
and danced the colours of wildflowers
…
seasons

it was time
plant, pleased, passed virtue and memory
dormant for season’s time
after flower celebration,
without grief

child of child
grew surrounded by those colours
and child danced on flower petals
learning the good ways to be

and parent child
in celebration
watched the seasons of her son/sun
cherished

And plant, as child, bore flowers.
Visible to all but themselves,
Planting seeds in those Whom are able to take notice.
And Admire beauty.

Performance Poetry

we've made an artform called talking
cause ya can't start running till ya've started walkin'
and here we are

may all that's come before become 'what's been'
so we can exchange experience with vision
to understand in new ways
that these days
are nothing less than living

I’ve even heard myself perform these words for you
Thinking
My voice isn’t this loud. Usually my thoughts are- - - more subtle.

In fact I hadn’t written a word once I had finished
and I hope you benefited, I hope you hadn't grimaced

'Cause I need you to tell me what I’ve said
- as certain words
When sounded together
may construct or destruct
the canvas used by the thoughts in your head

And this is important
Because when I’m done here
I will turn from this poem
i will Rise as who I am in relation

Up here I’m alone
And the question I will to ask is ‘who are you’
To find out ‘who we could be?’
And I hope to have the experience
To exist spiritually in these physical bodies.

- so then -
You can help me paint these walls black
So that chalk drawn thoughts and insights may incite the breezes
winds that pull these thoughts from poems like dust from stones
Shading the contours of our collective perception

‘cause when you asked me how I’ll know I’ve lived a good life
I’ll unfold a day I had stuffed in my wallet and spend it with you

I’ll say
Because I’m able to decide what to do / when to do
with those whom I define love by

- Time will be my currency -

and i will disemvowel a dictionary
so to define a language suitable for the sacred

I will draw maps of the most beautiful places
by watching mountain top sunshine reveal my dreams in the shadow of my profile

for me
This poem is a love song to love
I am the richest me alive
as I’ve chosen to share this experience with you
And I hope like wise
That you spend time like a millionaire
And when you check your watch it’s like
Withdrawing a million dollars ya didn’t know you had

So now that I’ve written something to tell you
Remind me these thoughts

Collect the currency of the good people in your life and check your watch.
Unfold that day that you had stashed away
Write your truth, and step right up.
Because I want to withdraw and deposit at the same stop.
This microphone can be a bank machine
filled With a currency controlled by how we choose to be.
It’s in this time unknown by any watch
That life is lived, so stop the clock.

call it as it is

Local food is the newest misnomer.

'local food' is so unpalatable, so generic, so, not local.

What about 'Hamilton food'?
What about 'Nanaimo food'?

I don't need 'local food' so that somebody that I don't know can make me feel good about 'eating local'. I will know that I'm living the good life that I value when I sit with loved ones over food that is meaningful for us.

recently we've been eating very well.
beef, venison, vegetables, wheat, spelt.
hmmmm.....

....

I'm worried about what people call 'the economy'
because as the value of my life increases
there is a decrease in my involvement in the monetary economy.

let me explain.

GDP went down (marginally, mind you :) when Chris and I bartered my wage at the beginning of the growing season. As a result not only am I not buying food anymore, but Chris is paying me less money than minimum wage.

GDP, measuring economic health by measuring monetary transactions, is unable to value the situation where I barter a cow with my time on the farm. This beef is both unvalued because it was never traded with currency, but has no price, as how could I quantify what that beef means to me ((so many pre dawn mornings feeding and watering, shovelling manure, fertilizing the gardens, laughing, rotating the cows through pasture, ...))

This is a good thing,
I'd hate to have an unstable value system
a cow will always be worth a cow, a deer a deer, a carrot a carrot,
and as our value system heaves around
retirement is another year away at the drop of a stock
and our energy surges up and down
1.48 to 0.78.9 within a week
I'd be dizzy

...

let's not forget that 'Local' means knowing people
and that as people we can make decisions for ourselves
and the whole point, in my perspective
is to live, full, responsible, lives in relationship with people and place

So don't buy into 'local food'
but begin living in whole ways

and this could mean anything.

remember, we are part of all that is

During high school I remember a remarkable feeling when, after growing up as a preachers kid (pk) of the United Church, the United Church and the Canadian government accepted equal responsibility for the social disruption and hurt of the Residential schools across the country.

As a part of the United Church I needed process, I wanted to be active in this reconciliation, that my religious ancestors had been a driving force in the intentional social disruption of peoples across the continent who lived within paradigms much older than that of our Christian ways.

That was in the 1990's, and for years there has been silence inside of me, a shadow in my identity, not of questions, but where questions had not yet been named.

As a church family, why had we not been humble enough to grow through this historical process? Was this not a necessary and rich process for spiritual health?

...

Recently I have met some people who work with Kevin Annett http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/ As a united church minister who had been fired for creating space in the Port Alberni congregation to hear the stories of people's experiences in the Alberni school, Kevin was a voice for my voicelessness.

My spiritual life, as is my physical life, is continuous.
In this way spiritual practice is how I meet my needs.
It is in this moment, writing these words, that I experience my potential.
It is in this moment, that I am alive.

The tears that I cried were few but beautiful.
As my silent implicitness opened,
I cried because I could feel.

People were talking.
People are talking.

Although it is important for me to hear the stories of those who experienced residential schools as children and students. It is important for me to share these stories with my united church family, and settler communities, to speak about the systems of power that benefit the few while impoverishing the majority.

The majority of people.
of earth
of species
of spirits
The majority of experiences of this life are of survival.

I am interested in living a life of celebration. That every day we recieve unquantafiable amounts of love from the sun. That we are alive. That because anything exists is worthy of celebration.

The path to celebration involves reconciliation.
As I continue to surrender my pride I follow my path of spiritual wealth.

...

I don't believe
creator only communicates
with the ordained

The child
in awareness
asked baby brother
"remind me what God is,
I'm beginning to forget"

As body develops
As mind develops
As relationship develops
so too must our spirit

As a child
As an infant
Let us remember
that we are part of all that is.

As Byrd Baylor writes in 'Another Way to Listen'
" 'Take the horned toad,
for example.
If you think
you're
better
than a horned toad
you'll
never
hear its voice -
even if you
sit there in the sun
forever.'

'Don't be ashamed to learn from bugs
or sand
or anything.'

I said,
'I won't.' "


To view a full length documentary online, go to: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-6637396204037343133&ei=7IAhSfXOHJSM-QGFnOjoBg&q=kevin+annett&hl=en

Disclaimer

I worry about the impact of computers and television, because the cyberworld is seductive – not because it is so real, but because in many ways it’s better than reality. You can have the kinkiest sex yet not worry about getting caught by a partner or contracting aids, and you can hit the wall in a car race or get shot down in a dogfight in the air and walk away undamaged. Why bother with the real world when you can get all the heart-thumping thrills of the real thing and none of the risks or harm?

-David Suzuki