Journal - Oct.31,2025

I set the alarm for 6 am.  I have to take Madigan in to Dr. Biernacki to have a little tumor removed from his elbow.  It looks like a little wart. I’d not seen it. It appeared when he was groomed, The biopsy said basal cell so it could invade though it’s not likely to metastases.  Same as what I had on my face once.  George treated mine with cream but the 5 Flu cream is toxic to dogs if they lick it.  Madigan would lick it. Surgery is better. Still it’s surgery and anesthetic.  

I want to scream inside. He’s precious,  Dogs are.  I don’t envy anyone whose not have pets they can identify with. They’re as close to children as we get. Dogs are our oldest companions.  50 thousand years plus as far as we can tell

Madigan is 5. He’s a cockapoo and a rascal.  A covid dog. He wasn’t socialized the first year and became dependent on me. If I’d had two dogs he’d be more notionally balanced but I’m his one and only. He’s neurotic.  Then he had a bad experience with a groomer and became even more anxious. But he tries not to let on that he’s not a big and tough boy. He piddles at the door when I leave him alone, still.  He barks and cowers in the corner protecting the place.  I’ve had a camera and watched him be anxious with strangers outside whereas other times he just sleeps while I away.  Laura is his Mommy and he’s quite incestuous.  His humping has thankfully reduced but for a while there her leg was his fetish and it was all we could do to stop that.  He’s had his ways with pillows too.  That’s less this year.  Cockapoo’s mature between 3 and 5 going from crazy adolescent nut bars to loving statesmen.  He’s there. Laura says he watches the door when I’m gone and runs to it when he hears my returning motorcycle.  He loves pets and treats and toys .,  He also invents little games for himself and us.  There’s chasing his tail and staring at me but then he has this thing where he touches each of my feet with his nose when I’m trying to do exercises.  You’d almost think it was a blessing or a coach indicating which foot to move.  

I went to bed at 930 and set the alarm for 6. I was up at 2 and then had difficulty falling back to sleep. The alarm woke me up and here I am having coffee. I’ve put his food and water dishes on the counter.  I have to walk him and hope he poops.  I don’t have to have him at North Shore Vet till 830 so I would have been fine getting up at 630.   

It’s been an expensive month and I’m juggling credit card and bank balances to pay the taxes.  It’s Canada today. Everyone I know is feeling the squeeze of  a decade of fiscal irresponsibility. The inflation and taxes are increasingly painful.  We’d looked to an election for relief only to see that while there appears less incompetence there’s persisting and even worsening corruption. This whole globalist communist descruction of the middle class for the benefit of the elite is raging.  I’m older and managing but see so many who aren’t and hear of an exodus of Canadians while we’re struggling the the mass migration 85% of which are Muslim so many hostile to Canadians values.  The WEF and UN are alligned with communist China and suddenly we have this unknown banker with his ‘elbows up’ slogan parachuted into replace the Laurentian mascot.  I don’t know. It’s hard to have hope and faith in world affairs.  Our CBC is a liberal rag sheet and the Liberals are Quebec Montreal and Toronto. I’m Western Canada and tag every turn thee East is taking our resources, money and thwarting our advance,  Health care industry I’m is is stretched with increasing administration and utter disregard for the front line.  Top doctors are leaving with burn out and I’m wooed by offers abroad but continue here wondering if it’s wise.  I always said the ‘smart Jews’ got out of Germany before the Nazi completely took over, Now so many I know who are retired are moving to South America and Asia fearing war or just more economic rape of savings and assets.  I’m never sure what to think because I’m an optimist with regard to God and spirituality but can so easily catastrophize and feel self pity with regard to worldly matters. The fact remains I’m okay.  My dog needing surgery and  unforeseen costs have caused me to do that old self recrimination where I think I shouldn’t have been a caring person but rather been paranoid and chosen money when I chose love and car instead.  I continue to trust the Lord and really have been well cared for by choosing to do the right thing rather than seeking the more lucrative alternative.  I look around and see the more heartless who suffer greed and compete for wealth doing better apparently that’s us who care for humans more than machines.  But I don’t believe that’s true.  I’ve slip into fear of financial insecurity easily without real occasion.  Food prices have doubled this year and rests have gone up and the hollow men seem to be rubbing their hands and I’m doing okay while I have to consider if I’m even thinking of this so many more are feeling the strain.  But why did they vote for more of the stupidity and corruption.  I feel then that I’m out of place but realize that those who voted for these scienfifically illiterate opportunitsts aren’t my neighbors. We in the west are collectively suffering at thee hands of the evil Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa Triad.

It’s funny to play politics.  As Lear said, court things ,whose in, whose out.  Black and white when it’s all grey.  I’m hopeful and know for me it’s just a cash flow issue. The money is coming in but more is going out.  It urusally rights itself by Christmas but I think it’s sad how many others are looking at Christmas with concerns for finances too. I don’t have the kids or burdens others have just this little dog needing costly surgery and maintenance of a lovely life without the assets of government and corporate or union pensions.  I really am okay but there’s this tendency to wallow. I wonder if it’s the past, the horrendous loss and punishment that followed divorces, the years that the evil forces attacked and ravaged me for doing good. See how I portray the me as victim in that scene Arik of the past.  It’s all about the ‘poor me’ and ‘journey of the hero’.  The fact is I’ve had a very good life and continue to do so even if I’ve always been working and it’s always been heavy lifting.  I’m not alone. Whenever I look around complaining I don’t have shoes I see the leg less.,  The politicians are fat cat and the ideologues and slick business men. Our PM moved money from one tax haven to another.  I’m struggling to pay taxes. I’m trying to run a business. I’m seeking freedom and control and managing.  It was a shock and a trial to have the clinic closed but then i felt for the owner whose illness meant she couldn’t manage the clinic as well.

I think I’m sorry to be alone and look about and see couples helping each other Yet I left those safe harbours and was chivalrous and upright .  My rewards are in heaven and here I am closer by the day but not feeling the love.  Sittiness really.  

I’m in warm and have a wonderful life being of service and am reading a book about ‘after dunkirk’ and the terrible plight to the French after Nazi invasion.  Clearly I’m doing better. Now I’d best walk the dog so the poor little guy poops before he is knocked out by ansesthetic and undergoes a little surgery, a luxury I’m so glad i can afford.  

Thank you Jesus

It’s Hallow’s Eve and I think of the ancestors and relatives.  Those who have passed over are near by. Perhaps I ‘ll be touched by Druids and Leprechauns.  Thank you Jesus .  Thank you God. 

Existence

It is a new day. I have awoken with a mind that carries left over dreams.  I am in my Thor Motorhome.  I toilet.  Then I meditate and exercise.  My little dog chooses to sleep some more.  He has piddled at the door in the night. I’m irritated but then with the heavy rain of yesterday we didn’t walk so much but he did pee and poop. These are memories.  Yesterday is a construct. It is selective.  There are the facts of the day and the emotions of the day.  I can carry forward the emotions or begin a fresh slate.  The facts seems less mutable but I can focus on the successes or the challenges. My mind unfortunately has been trained to gravitate to the negatives. Each day with meditation and prayer I need to reset the mind to neutral or better , a little positive.  Life is better positive and if there’s been trauma there is a tendency to replay the negative past while forgetting the positive. To be alive means that one has at very least 51% . It is good to have an attitude of gratitude . The Law of Attraction says that positive attracts positive.  

My alarm is set for 630 am and the song Holy, Holy, Holy wakes me.  

On day at a time says that yesterday is gone and tomorrow is not yet known. What I have is today.  Brother Lawrence said practice the presence of God.  Be in the present.  Richard Alpert, the psychologist who worked with Timothy Leary and went to India to study yoga after LSD, became to spiritual advisor to the Grateful Dead.  His book I read back then was Be Here Now.  Elkhart Tolle our local spirit guide wrote the book ‘the Power of Now’.  I read it but my now deceased friend George listened to it in his car each doy going to work.

It’s one thing to intellectualize something.  I read Be here now over 50 years ago.  Today I’m actually being in the present more than ever before.  28 years ago I’d stopped drinking and smoking .  I was at an AA meeting in Chilliwack at the clubhouse.  I’d just spoken and  asked this young Canadian soldier I admired what he thought.  He looked at me tall clear eyed gruff voice, “well Bill, you’ve got one foot in the future and one foot in the past. You’re straddling your day and pissing and shitting on it.  Get your head in the same room as your ass is.”

I confess it took that plain speach to bring it home to me. I’d seen a black and white movie with translations made at the opening of the century. A pretty American journalist was visitting an ancient Taoist monk in a cave monastery.  She asked the monk through his handsome young novitiate and translated, “What is enlightenment.?”  The monk had problems translating and when the reporter insisted he share the answer , the translater says , the ‘master says he shits when he shits’.  

Today I am here. It’s a new day.  

I accept that I exist because I do but also I study Descartes famous for much but perhaps most his ‘Cogito ergo sum’.  “I think therefore. I am,”. 

In the biblical story of Exodus 3.2 , Moses encountered a ‘marvellous sight’.  ‘A bush wass burning with fire but the bush did not burn up’ Moses turned aside to see and God called to him saying this was ‘holy ground’ This was at Horeb, the mountain of God where the angel of the Lord spoke to him from the burning voice. The voice said, “I am the God of your Father, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”.He  said I am concerned for teh suffering of my people and have come to rescue them and bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey….I am sending you to the Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt .  Moses answered who I am that i should go to the Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt.  God said “I will be with you.’  Moses said , suppose I got to the Israelites and say the God of your fathers has sent me and they ask what is his a name what should I say. “God said to Moses, I am who I am…..I am has sent me.”  

After one comes two.  The creation myths say there is a god who made all but not that there was a god and building blocks. Rather that, to keep it simple, there is God the Creator who makes all out of one.  The one became many.

Martin Buber, the great philosopher who my now deceased friend Nathan, had as a professor, wrote “I and Thou’.  He posited that a child experiences himself then the other, the mother as ‘it’.  Melanie Klein the great child psychiatrist describe this as the child experiencing first the breast and when it was being suckled the breast was good and when the breast was absent and the child had hunger pain the breast was bad.  Hence the good breast and the bad breast.,

Buber described this as the “I and it’ phase. 

The Rastafarians use the phrase “I and I’ to signify the unity of God , Jah, and humanity.  By rejecting me and you this phrase I and I promotes unity.  Spiritual development moves from I and it to I and I and ultimately Buber saw the transcendent I and Thou.

I exist now.  But am I alone.  I tell my friends that I try to levitate the table each day and as I am so far unable I humbly accept I may not have created this existence or at very least I now do not realize my capacity as creator so I acknowledge ‘another’.  I and it or I and I or I and Thou.

Jesus taught be not afraid.  Paranoia is that experience of aloneness and I and it.  In Paradise Lost , the great English writer described Satan, the first angel of God who rebelled against God as preferring to look at his own shadow rather than turn and face the light of God.  

This is considered in psychological terms as the ‘ego’ or ‘false self’.  The true or authentic self is not arrogant but humble. 

Shamanism

 Shamanism is the oldest religion in the world. Ancestors worship is likely the first religious expression. But shamanism has three worlds and a priest and beliefs that are found in the hunting society of Asia, Europe, Australia and elsewhere.  The name comes from Tonga, the people of the northern region above Mongolia.  Shamanism is still practiced there and anthropologists have recorded the translations of ibnterviews of shamanan.  

I studied it first in my 20;s when I was interested in anthropology and studied Franz Boaz’s works on the Haida and Kwakiutl.  I have always been interested in religion since my mother kneeling beside my bed taught me to pray and told me Jesus love me.  Recently i took the Oxford University Anthropology Continuing Ed course Ritual and Religion of Prehistory. It was an incredible course as exciting for me as my first archeology course with Dr. Gold at University of Winnipeg.  There I also studied Literature of the Bible with Dr. Carl Ridd a course that encouraged the historical exploration of religion and religion texts rather than the rote memorization promoted in Sunday school.  

When I was working in the Mariana Island I stuidied Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel and later the World until Yesterday.

In the brilliantly crafted and taught Oxford course we studied the Paleolithic cave paintings of Europe.  In the  Cave of Les Trios Freres is the ‘sorcerer’ who to most today would be considered the earliest depiction of the Shaman.

This book,”The Soul Retrieval Journey” Sandra Ingerman , a family therapist,  who describes herself as a Brooklyn girl who moved to Haight Ashbury to find herself is entertaining and informative.  She was mentored by greats of anthropology but ie more easily accessible than Mircea Eliade who I’d previously studied and whose book ‘A History of Religious Ideas’.  

Of course Freud and Jung were great students of anthropology.  I enjoyed Freud’s treatises early but now am more fascinated by Carl Jung’s insights into the mind and soul as fit better well with modern anthropological works .  

In the worlds of the shaman there are three, upper middle and lower.  The middle world is somewhat everyday reality whereas the upper and lower are different and more represented in myth and religion. Joseph Campbell the great study of myth taught about shamanism as well and I’ve just again read his book edited and update book Primitive Mythology.  One really needs to understand Evelyn Underwood’s Mysticism, what today would be called Spiritual Christianity to gain insight into the original religious experiences.  

There is the ‘ordinary’ world and the altered consciousness of the spiritual world which Dr. Mario de Beauregard who studied Scans of Carmelite Nuns has depicted as distinct as the various zones of sleep as recorded in EEG.  This altered consciousness which Brother Lawrences described ad ‘Practicing the Presecne of God” is now taught in workshops by Elkhart Tolle the teacher who wrote the Power of Now.

There’s an association with ‘lucid’ dreaming, the dream therapy where one is taught to alter the nature of the cream consciously.  The experience of the ‘state of heightened consciousness’ is described by C. S. Lewis in his seminal book, “Surprised by Joy’.

The Shaman and Priests and Yogis and Monks today apply volitional control to this ‘surprise’ and move through the unconscious state as if they are on a journey.  Again it is much like the world with Lucid Dreaming and indeed therapeutic hypnosis.  

Today the therapist and teacher and priest all touch on the ground that first moved the early man to experience the ‘sacred’ and feel ‘reverence ‘ or ‘awe’.  

Given that the shaman;s origin was in hunting tribes animals are a central friend with spiritual guides and protectors from upper and lower world’s .  Today the remnants of this phenomena might well be consider in John the Baptist’s  seeing the Dove descend on Jesus.  The Dove was also the bird Noah sent to find dry land. The dove returned with an olive leaf.  

I personally have always had dogs and feel my dog is my guide and protector and companion. My friend Vivian Seegers , medicine woman and Anglican priest was of the bear clan and taught native shamanism. The sweat lodge was part of the process as much of native early shamanism is being brought recovered and considered without the fear and judgement that is associated with the encournters of strangers. 

I’m enjoying the learning and imagine the Old Testament Biblical stories that came later with agriculture, settled life, towns and empires.  It all began one day long ago.  

 

Shamanism

 Shamanism is the oldest religion in the world. Ancestors worship is likely the first religious expression. But shamanism has three worlds and a priest and beliefs that are found in the hunting society of Asia, Europe, Australia and elsewhere.  The name comes from Tonga, the people of the northern region above Mongolia.  Shamanism is still practiced there and anthropologists have recorded the translations of ibnterviews of shamanan.  

I studied it first in my 20;s when I was interested in anthropology and studied Franz Boaz’s works on the Haida and Kwakiutl.  I have always been interested in religion since my mother kneeling beside my bed taught me to pray and told me Jesus love me.  Recently i took the Oxford University Anthropology Continuing Ed course Ritual and Religion of Prehistory. It was an incredible course as exciting for me as my first archeology course with Dr. Gold at University of Winnipeg.  There I also studied Literature of the Bible with Dr. Carl Ridd a course that encouraged the historical exploration of religion and religion texts rather than the rote memorization promoted in Sunday school.  

When I was working in the Mariana Island I stuidied Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel and later the World until Yesterday.

In the brilliantly crafted and taught Oxford course we studied the Paleolithic cave paintings of Europe.  In the  Cave of Les Trios Freres is the ‘sorcerer’ who to most today would be considered the earliest depiction of the Shaman.

This book,”The Soul Retrieval Journey” Sandra Ingerman , a family therapist,  who describes herself as a Brooklyn girl who moved to Haight Ashbury to find herself is entertaining and informative.  She was mentored by greats of anthropology but ie more easily accessible than Mircea Eliade who I’d previously studied and whose book ‘A History of Religious Ideas’.  

Of course Freud and Jung were great students of anthropology.  I enjoyed Freud’s treatises early but now am more fascinated by Carl Jung’s insights into the mind and soul as fit better well with modern anthropological works .  

In the worlds of the shaman there are three, upper middle and lower.  The middle world is somewhat everyday reality whereas the upper and lower are different and more represented in myth and religion. Joseph Campbell the great study of myth taught about shamanism as well and I’ve just again read his book edited and update book Primitive Mythology.  One really needs to understand Evelyn Underwood’s Mysticism, what today would be called Spiritual Christianity to gain insight into the original religious experiences.  

There is the ‘ordinary’ world and the altered consciousness of the spiritual world which Dr. Mario de Beauregard who studied Scans of Carmelite Nuns has depicted as distinct as the various zones of sleep as recorded in EEG.  This altered consciousness which Brother Lawrences described ad ‘Practicing the Presecne of God” is now taught in workshops by Elkhart Tolle the teacher who wrote the Power of Now.

There’s an association with ‘lucid’ dreaming, the dream therapy where one is taught to alter the nature of the cream consciously.  The experience of the ‘state of heightened consciousness’ is described by C. S. Lewis in his seminal book, “Surprised by Joy’.

The Shaman and Priests and Yogis and Monks today apply volitional control to this ‘surprise’ and move through the unconscious state as if they are on a journey.  Again it is much like the world with Lucid Dreaming and indeed therapeutic hypnosis.  

Today the therapist and teacher and priest all touch on the ground that first moved the early man to experience the ‘sacred’ and feel ‘reverence ‘ or ‘awe’.  

Given that the shaman;s origin was in hunting tribes animals are a central friend with spiritual guides and protectors from upper and lower world’s .  Today the remnants of this phenomena might well be consider in John the Baptist’s  seeing the Dove descend on Jesus.  The Dove was also the bird Noah sent to find dry land. The dove returned with an olive leaf.  

I personally have always had dogs and feel my dog is my guide and protector and companion. My friend Vivian Seegers , medicine woman and Anglican priest was of the bear clan and taught native shamanism. The sweat lodge was part of the process as much of native early shamanism is being brought recovered and considered without the fear and judgement that is associated with the encournters of strangers. 

I’m enjoying the learning and imagine the Old Testament Biblical stories that came later with agriculture, settled life, towns and empires.  It all began one day long ago.  

 

Journal - Monday, October 27

I just looked up the Daylight Saving time and that’s Nov. 2, Sunday.  I just looked up Halloween and that’s Oct. 31, Friday.  I just checked my calendar and no surprise.  A regular work day. I have to pay tax installment this week, I’ve paid the rent.  Propane delivery is this week,  I’ve been getting by with the electric space heater .  Electricity is cheaper than propane according to Shane, Hank, the Dalmatian’s Dad. He’s experience with motorhomes.  I may get out my electric blanket any day now, I wish I could find my SAD Lamp but I expect it’s hidden in the storage locker.  I must take an expedition there one day to find what treatsure is stored.  

I woke at 630. I’ve had 7 as my alarm for ever and am trying to move to 6 am in stages.  Surgeons hours. We’ve been rising before the sun for over a 100,000 years, electricity being relatively inexpensive in the last decades.  It’s the healthiest life schedule waking as close to dawn as possible. That’s what UBC Sleep Disorder clinic recommends.  I tend toward going to bed at 10 to 11 and 7-8 hours sleep is sufficient. I have a Sleep Ap machine I could get back to using.  It seemed my sleep improved especially after the nightmares reduced. Then there continue to be those wonderful Mediterranean meeting and the camping in the pines on the ridge meeting. I had one of those last night.  

I shared that I had a dream of apologizing to some wife the morning after then realizing I don’t drink and haven’t for decades so this was a dream waking as I told myself that.  So grateful not to have one of those hang overs.  Life is good sober.  

Now I’m up and having the first morning coffee. I did some Foundation exercise.  Imagine a chiropractic or Masseuse AI.  My inversion machine is in the storage locker.  I’ve a work out room, pool and hot tub and I don’t use them enough.  I am pretty good still at walking the dog despite the rains returning.  He likes his sweater but doesn’t like his rain jacket. Too much fussing.

I really had a full weekend with having the Thor in maintenance and at day at the Traveland Office waiting readin and doing some work.  I was so delighted at getting it home and set up.  I fasted on Saturday and am pleased with myself .  I didn’t do the purist orange juice and water but drank coffee and tea.  I did errands.  Laundry. I had my Saturday morning Cyberdocs meetings on line and enjoyed that. I did do a few hours of catching up with paper work for patients on the weekend.  I’ve been struggling with the charts which were all stacked up when Royal Columbia closed and set to Docside in a batch.  I have to scroll through some hundred pages of records to find the medications and even sort my notes from those of general practitioners. Once I see the patient the first time at Docside I reestablish lay out with diagnosis and medications.  I miss having access to family history and social history up front .  I’m a little concerned that I’ll miss the medical/surgical history which I used to keep on the front page. I’m populating that but reviewing the chart has to be done while I’m dealing with whatever the problem is today.  A muddle. Thanks to the Docside and Royal Columbia staff and administration the last couple of weeks have been doable. 

This week I’m looking forward to working and helping and participating as a cog in the great wheel of work. I have purpose and am serving. I’m fulfilling the oaths I’ve taken.

Sunday I was in West Canada Doctors in Recovery meeting and enjoyed the discussion of integrity and gratitude.  

I miss Nathan and our discussion of reality and Buber’s I and Thou.  I told my friends that in that duality they were a reflection of my Shadow and all the archetypes in the world of spirituality.  There is only God and God to play divides himself.  Then Jesus said where two or more are gathered in my name there too am I.  So I’m either alone, alone with another or we are together in the trinity with Jesus.  Jesus Christ means God within and God will come again. I shared that I’d just read We who wrestle with God by Jordan Peterson.  Jacob wrestled with the angel all night and was called Israel in the morning. Israel means ‘we who wrestle with God’.  I often say I play Peek a Boo with Jesus.  Jesus comes as the stranger .  I am either paranoid or reverent or just kind.  

I’m mostly this year being ‘experiencing’.  I shared that before sobriety I truly felt I knew God and then I even felt at times I understood Christ Consciousness but it was only in recovery I found Jesus. Here I was told God works through other’s hands.. It was then I stopped being thee fool and the hill and reengaged with other humans.  I liked seeing Michael. I actually reached out to him and we message. I ‘d not done that before in Canada. I’m anxious about the authorities heee and the communism, the religion of aetheism. The death cult of MAID and a variety of other Neitzeian ‘ideas’ and intellectualism

I like to say  I was told to ‘act like a doctor’ by an anxious man who was trying to my mind to ‘act like a lawyer or beaurocrat’.  Meanwhile I’m trying to connect with my Shaman past.  I finished reading the audio book. Primitive Mythology’s by Joseph Campbell.  I enjoyed the book I read on genetics and the migrations.  Now anthropology has been as excited as it did when I studied Minoan and Mycenaean cultures with Dr. Gold at University of Winnipeg.  

Ancestor worship fascinated me in the Oxford University Anthropology Course Ritual and Religion in Prehistory.  I really enjoyed that course and especially loved the Earth Mother goddess and the shaman of the cave paintings.  There’s more found in Indonesia.  The political world of power and war is not nearly so interesting to me as the world of healing and learning.  Yet here I am thankful for my Thor Hurricane Motorhome and the Cave Painting T Shirt that I wore all weekend .

I like t shirt communication.  My favourites are my Celtic cross , some of the Harley destination ones, my British Museum shaman one, the cave painting one now, Fountain of Youth Spa and Bombay Beach Cafee.  I’ve always liked the IDAA tshirt and have a lot. I must consider culling t shirts. My NASA one is old worn stained and too tight. I may have to take pictures o make a collage of some sorts because they are a guy kind of souvenir collection .  I like that my aunt collected spoons from her travels.  

Yesterday I enjoyed the group then drove with Madigan to visit Laura. I picked up brunch , BLT’s at the Davie around the World cafe . Madigan loved the adventure especially when he got to see his favourites friend. He’s so full of beans with his hair cut.  Laura had my Martin Backpacker guitar in her living room beside.  It had the Aloha flight sticker from when I shipped it from Hawaii to Saipan. It was the travel guitar I had with me sailing across the Pacific.  I brought her the 2/3 guitar I’d bought last month because it was bigger.  A Cordova I believe.  I am amused at the interest in music again. I was turned off when I had to get hearing aids and everything I heard seemed untrustworthy. I was affected by the deterioration.  That guitar got me interested again and here was my old ship guitar. It needs new strings. I’ve been thinking of the Christian songs,  As a deer panatest for the water , so my soul seekest after thee and Be Thou My Vision.  I’ve the new little electric Traveller. On the way back from her place Istopped again at Long and McQuade and bought a bigger amp that the battery operated one I got initially fo the ‘Traveller’ electric.  Now I’ve a Blackstar amp that has a healthy base and lots of knobs.  I really am enjoying playing blues with that guitar and look forward to more fun with music.  

So it’s been a good time. Today I’ve prayed that God guide me and show me the Way.  I’ve a lump to take off Madigan’s knee and must find estimate and time.  Laura is coming next weekend.  This week is work. I have to follow up on Bellair Direct Travell insurance.  Then there’s. The US dog travel on line form I’ll need to get.  I asked Thaun to get Lauras travel insurance and I have the LA RV site and her plane tickets paid for. I even have our entry tickets to the LA county art museum.  We’ll be having Christmas in LA.  A bit like our New York Christmas Holiday. 

Thank you Jesus.  Thank you God. Thank you Holy Spiriut.  

 

  

Journal - Rainy Autumn Saturday

I’m having a quiet day.  This morning I woke at 730 after a delicious sleep. 

The night before I’d been anxious about Thor and Madigan.  All went well.  Traveland did the maintenance while Madigan and I waited in an office. The ride there was in the dark and rain but traffic was light. Coming home traffic was heavier in the afternoon but when  I got to. BCRV I was able to back in pretty good. I’m getting the hang of it.  I was then set up in record time. It’s incredible to see the transformation when the slide goes out. I’ve a vehicle and a home, 

Peter came by with Luka and Bella. Madigan was so happy . The walk was great.  Kraft dinner later. Early to bed.

I made the meetings and then walked Madigan who had a poop under a tree making me stoop and back in to bag the poop.  After. I spent the next hours talking with patients and completing forms for them.  I liked that I was working and billing. I’m fasting today so it’s good to be doing light work.  I’m enjoying casual dress.,

I spoke with Thaun from Rand and McNaly.  He sent me the mini insurance for BC RCV.  My Vespa insurance ran out and he renewed that.  He’s also looking into Laura’s Travel Insurance. I’m using Belair Direct since there’s a group rate with Doctor’s of BC.  My previous MEDOC Johnson and Johnson travel insurance has been bought by Bellair so it’s not a big deal but I’m in a group plan which I like.  I left them a message and must follow up next week. 

With the Thor maintenance done I’m that much closer to departure Dec. 12.  Madigan’s growth is basal but non invasive and I’ve left message asking if Dr. Biernecki will remove it. Otherwise I’d get the really good woman vet in Algadones to .  

When the rain let up I took Madigan in the Mini and picked up the laundry at Tiki,  On the way back I stopped at Home Hardware to get another space heater.  Electricity is cheaper than propane. I’ve now got a back up which I like given the importance of electricity to water heating .  I have electric heating too and was able to have showers despite propane shortage. 

I’m enjoying leisure au femme.  It’s been a steady stressful week and fasting I’m enjoying lounging. I ordered a set of spa sandals. I’m now up to date with shoes.  I really do like my home. I swiftered it today.  This fasting is good but I’m still amazed that I did it for years on Friday.  I’ve been getting back into it but more like monthly. I like that cancer cells are hungrier and die off with fasting.  I also need to lose weight to help with the back healing.  

Life is good. I’m very grateful for all the blessings, Thank you.  Thank you. Thank 

Journal - Traveland Thor

It’s been a tough 24 hours. I’m still anxious about driving the Thor Hurricane. It’s day for maintenance is today and yesterday after a long clinic I brought in the slide and took it off jacks.  I had agreed to be at Traveland for 830 so they could get it all done and I could take it home same day.

I didn’t sleep well. I was up a couple of times in the night and woke at 430 and 530 despite setting alarm from 6 and 630 on two devices.

I’d also had a message to call Dr. Biernacky about the biopsy of the bump Madigan had on his elbow found at grooming.

Because the message said there was something and the doctor wanted to talk to me I catastrophized and had to pray half the night to stop worrying.  

I drove to Traveland in the dark and in the rain. I just had to have a coffee stow the counter stuff and take down Starlink, disconnect water and electricity. It was dark and raining. I said that.  I pulled away.  It was okay.  I do well with the map and navigating with the map.  

The traffic was light.

I was elated to make it here without an issue.

Now I’ve been here and it’s 2 pm.  Madigan has on his Cowichan sweater. Still it’s a bit chilly in this office. They’ve given me a desk so I could do some work this morning.  Madigan and I walked over to the Roadrunner Cafe.  I had a burger and fries and he had a burger. We’d brought them back here but the skies opened on the way back and we got a bit soaked the last bit.

He liked his burger and I feel better having had one too. The fries were good. Traveland has coffee and I’ve had three cups waiting.  

The call came from the young Dr. Douglas who said the biopsy said the little tumor was basal cell non metastasizing but potentially invasive.  Not really a concern and certainly a good prognosis. I think Dr. Douglas wanted to do the little dermatological surgery but I asked if Dr. Biernecki could since I trust him.  Dr. Douglas had delayed on seeing Gilbert when he has severe pain from his clouded glaucoma so I’d sat with this terribly bereft dog in emergency 3 hours as the pressure caused unbearable pain and hastened his blindness.  I think he’s a just young and new but I simply don’t know what I’d  without Madigan or if something happened to him.  In Mexico there’s the woman vet he liked and we both were impressed with . Her practice had been farm and big animals and she was now working with tourist pets setting up her practice. I considered her as a back up since I’ll be there in January.

I’m going to be heading to LA mid December and Laura is joining me a week later. I’ve already booked and paid for the RV place for 3 weeks and I’ve got Laura’s return flight down,. We’ve even got tickets to one of the museums.  I’m really looking forward to it.

This transfer of clinics with closing of Royal Columbia Clinic has been a trial since the records are all scroll type and often 80 or 100 pages but my notes and meds and interspersed with general records.  A challenge to pull up.  I’m repopulating the first past with work and family.  It’s tough trying to update records while hearing today’s complaints. Patients have been understanding and terrific and Mary Lou and staff at docside have been great.

It’s been a slog and I feel I’m a ‘working’ not “being’ but each of these tasks is getting done. This is a big one. I’m getting more comfortable with driving the Thor. It’s like the days with the 13 ton 39.9 foot GIRI Sailing vessel.  Big.  A steep learning curve.  I’m fine on the straight highway now and looking forward to heading south on the I5 It’s driving in the city and parking and setting up that is exciting.  Ion time it will become second nature like the boat.  Already I’m able to avoid panic  I do pray a lot and am very grateful for that sense of guardian angels, ancestors and higher power. I really am blessed.ed

I’m reading Chris Hatfield’s. Final Orbit. it started slow but then it’s really picked up and such a thriller. I’m really enjoying it.

I’ve some patients to address but I can do them today or tomorrow.  

All is well. All Shall be well. All Shall Be Well .  All manner of things shall be well

With 

Journal - Wednesday, Dog grooming

I’m grateful for today. I woke to Holy holy holy . I moved my alarm forward and programmed praise to to begin my day. I am grateful.  I woke at 430 and then I had some Red Bull yesterday afternoon so hard to fall asleep then waking in the night.  Dreams fine but wakening realize Madigan needs to be taken in for grooming visit so all the anxiety and flashbacks.  This week it’s been reflections on the extreme pain of Gilbert when hiss glaucoma first appeared.  The young vet who’s now at the clinic missed the diagnosis and made Gilbert wait for 3 hours in pain. The vet ophthalmologist later said the delay in treatment contributed to his earlier onset of blindness. HE had his eyes removed and I felt guilty I didn’t make a fuss in the emergency room and let the receptions and the young vet tell me to wait.  

I have such a fast lane neurotransmitter track to self pity. I’ve also got resentment and anger.

These days I’ve felt on the verge. The closing of the clinic and the transfer of files and now the lack of easy access to records because of the EMR.  I’m always working on the edge, like trying to do surgery with the government rationing light.  

Then notice of more government oversight and control and beaurocrat dominance of health care with the greater potential for politicization and corruption. Meanwhile the whole government economic policy and the climate change scam and mass migration just means more stress and cost. I manage but everyone I see seems to be struggling more.  

The hospital delays have my patients rightfully outraged. They’ve paid taxes for health care and they’re dying in the waitlists.  Several now waiting for surgery.  Meanwhile migrants demanding health care but they haven’t contributed to the collective process here and our last PM called himself a Transnational had seems to have not had an orchiectomy but a brainectomy.  The new PM seems to be costing the country money and I’m upset at the inflation and cost of groceries.

Poor me is the halcyon cry of the addict and resentment is the principle cause of relapse. I am thankful I’m sober and a member of AA. I don’t feel centered. I imagine it could be because I’m in this body enjoying sensations and not being stoic and otherworldly.  I think of myself on a spiritual journey.  I wonder about taking hormones. My physical sensations increased with more breast sensations but my penis seemed to get smaller. As it is I’ve an erection on wakening but it doesn’t sustain and my back pain occurs if I’m on top. So sexually I can be a bottom submissive or give and get oral sex but the idea of the young man who used to have hard erections and pound women I held up against walls isn’t likely,

I was much better hunting this year able to walk in the woods on uneven ground and climb up and down hills without falling. I wasn’t stable.  

Pain is that which you can say in no other way. 

My disability is improving with exercise. I’ve actually doing the foundation training exercise each morning now for 5 or 10 minute at most and it’s supposed to be 15 minutes. I’m supposed to be fasting at least once a week over night and all day and as well I’m supposed to be walking 10,0000 steps and I was at 6000 but I’m back to 4000 with the rain. I’m depressed with the cold and rain and longing to be at Fountain of youth hot springs. I was there two weeks last year and my back and body pain was relieved. 

Yesterday a driver honked at me as he was trying to come out the gas station exit in the entrance lane. It was a close call but the honk and arrogance and false accusation got me as much as the near collision he nearly caused. I was coming off the highway and turned into the station but the honk got me.  It brought back the false allegations , the doctor who killed the patient and tried to blame it on me and were it not for my responsding to the distrust and copying the file I’d have been blamed. As it was I was blamed in a peculiar way as there was thos idea that the junior man should fall on his sword.  It’s like defending oneself is frowned on in Canada and the failure of the law and order system and government is blamed on the victim of conflict.  

I have these memories come as intrusive thoughts and flashbacks. I push them down and thought block them with an attitude of gratitude but I had a drinking dream last week. Not really,  I was apologizing for rudeness on a Friday night drinking on a Saturday morning when I realized in my dream I hadn’t drunk in 28 years and that I was no longer drinking. It did 

remind me of the arguments that occurred when we were drinking. I usd to think we were being ‘truthful’ then and that what my ex said when she was drunk was the truth but now I know it’s just unfiltered base savage talk.  The truth isn’t what comes out drinking but rather that’s the most basic.  It’s the ‘Id’ talking or the ‘bad child’ within.  What is truth is constant behaviour.

I have been betrayed too. My partners have cuckolded me and I carry the scars of believing women when they were lying and cheating and never apologized.  Then I think it’s my own projection because I’ve certainly thoughts of sleeping with another when I was with someone.  

It’s all about wrestling with God. I love Buber I and Thou. The relationship within is myself and my higher self. I pray and talk with God and listen in meditation. I wish to know ‘thy’ will and I want the ‘power to carry it out’.

I love the one day at a time and the being present.  These past memories as mental misfiring because I’m wanting to have my mind in the present,.  

Today I’m taking Madigan to the vet. I’m then working all day. Then it’s the men’s meeting tonight. I’m thankful for that.

I know that worrying is wicked and it’s praying for negative. I have to think like Monty Python’s men being crucified singing ‘always look on the bright side of life.”

I love Norman Cousins and humor therapy,.

My friends is having bowel problems I have three male friends all who are wealthy and judgemental and religious who all have intestinal issues. Irritable bowl syndrome. They experienced their anxiety in their bowels as I experience my anxiety in many back,

I need to trust God more and have greater faith and surrender. My position has been over run. I’m insensitive to my friend knowing their focuse and the physical and looking at the physical is not where the solution is.  Mine is with God.  Our conversation , the reality for existence. I’m here for a purpose and reason I”m not sure of and my relationship with God is central. Like Jacob I’m wrestling with God and in the morning may be called Israel whatever that is.

The war continues though there are peace talks and hostages greturned.  I don’t want the Canadian PM to be pro hammas and anti Israel.  I don’t like this > I don’t like the Canadian China movement and greater authoritarianism and collectivism and communism.  I have this continuing fear of authority which is fear of God fundamentally.  

Thank you Jesus for another day,  Please care for my family friends and patients nd keep them safe today,  Watch over Madigan and help him with his grooming .Still his fear and comfort him this morning, Thank you for Adell and Laura and madigan.  Thank you for their well wishes . Help Graeme with his cold. Watch over Pepper.  Thank you for Peter and bell and Luka and Larry. Thank you for Mack and Ernest and Nicholina,  Thabnk you for Kim and this place. Thank you for my Thor which is going in for maintenance this week. Thank you for George and Marty and Dean and FRank and Jack and Neil and Mario an all the other guys, Thank you for my mentors and teachers and all my relationship

Journal - rainy Sunday in oct

I admire those who made it to church this morning.  I stayed up late watching an Alaska csonvict escape series with CIA, ski doos and dog sleds.  I’ve also been reading Final Orbiter by Chris Hatfield.  I woke late and had a nightmare that I’d been drinking and was apologizing to friends and family for rude and mean things I’d said. It was a relief to realize I’d not been drinking.  Twenty eight years sober.  I’m not drawn to drink but I do fantasize about illicit sex.  I’m apparently typical of executive men would for years have been in charge and now would like a night of submissive sex.  I resist temptation wondering how quickly a fantasy would become an addiction,  I know I suffer from ‘more’.  If this much ice cream tastes good why not finish the container.  

I thought of fasting this morning, It’s apparently a major healing and cancer cure and prevention. 

I woke late.  I woke early in the dark and went back to sleep and wake again in the light.

The visit to Dr. Ready the Chiropracter gave me a whole day free from pain. I did appreciate that.  Saturday was driving about doing errands.  I picked up my new Traveller guitar.  I have some Christian songbooks and enjoyed playing Blessed Assurance I first heard played by Third Day. The postal strike continues to delay my packages from Amazon.  I enjoyed getting some sweat pants from Epic Men’s ware in the Mall. I picked up Nioxin hair saving shampoo at Chatterers.  I saw a picture of me from a few years ago and my hair was less and thinner. I made an apt with Shirin at Chatters. She introduced me to the shampoo and has been colouring and cutting my hair for some years now.  I am not going gentle into that still night but raging. I tell her when I see her she needs to give me a face lift to go with the full bodied youthful hair she leaves me with.

I had Madigan along with me.  A good companion .  He enjoyed the walk in MEC where I bought new Texas.

I did all these secular things maintaining work and finishing the consultant report I’d done on Friday.  I even used my SRFax for the first time and will follow up on how well it works.  

It was raining heavy all day.

This morning it was raining heavy too.  I was going to go to church but then I convinced myself I need to pray and meditate instead and have coffee and now Journal.  The key thought was that Madigan is going to be groomed this week but now is a fluffy teddy bear everyone is cooing and cawing over, like the Long and McQuade girls and guys .  I towel him off when he comes in from a walk. It’s one of his enjoying events and he waits for me. Just like his little game jumping over my legs when I finish my meditation and do stretches. I just thought I’d not want him wet in church and next week I can go,.

I thought of coffee when I was praying.  I’m drinking the coffee and have a Banana and yogurt.  It’s a slow morning now.  

I have to take my frozen rabbit and partridge to Laura’s . She agreed to let me put them in her fridge. It’s just the drive.  Merry maids are coming tomorrow and the freezer can be cleaned and defrosted. At Traveland for the maintenance day they ask that refrigerate be emptied so they don’t have to plug it in.  I walked Madigan with Peter and Bells and Luka and he told me they go for a day and just asks that the friedge stay plugged in .  My freezer really needed defrosting.  

Now I’m supposed to be a spiritual being in a material journey. I’m practicing Brother Lawrence ‘presence’ which Elkhart Tolled, Power of Now, has a workshop on.  I like Elkhart Tolle not just because George liked his power of now and despite Willie thinking any not directly biblical evangelical spirituality is suspect.  I’ve been Reading Mercer Eliade since my Oxford course on Ritual and religion in Neolithic times.  This is all the ‘shaman’ hsiory which Joseph Campbell’s book also talks about. I’ve been making my way through the audio book Primitive Mythology.

I’m anxious thinking of the freedom of neopagan and the safety that Christianity brought.  The weakness of the Druids was their continuation of child sacrifice the very thing Leonard Cohen’s song of Issac .  I learned this as sang this in my 20’s.  Only later did I learn that this was pivotal to Christianity and its advance of civilization.  The blood cults of the pagan priests had this.  Interesting the remains of bogs suggest that the Druid sacrifice of adults was a voluntary event like the Buddhist self immolation, the best known Thic Quang Duc who self immolated in the 1963 in the Vietnam war. But child sacrifice as with other pagans.  Today we have mass abortion so much a part of the aetheist communist religion.  I wonder if Leonard Cohen cry ‘you who sacrifice children, do not do that anymore.’

Yet we don’t feel so badly if the child has Downs or any of those autistic traits etc which our forebears associated with ‘gifted news’.  The shaman was also selected for abnormality, seizures, some weakness.  Alternatively the disabled child was killed for the group to survive.  The Inuit old left the igloo in the night to save the family by creating one less mouth to feed.

I’m alive today. Thank you God for this. I think of sexual orgies or gastronomic orgies, no longer drugs and alcohol, but other ‘sensationalist’ ‘entertainment’s.  AA is a stoical but I hear of women increasingly who were promiscuous as me and are as promiscuous or seek pleasure in lust as others seek pleasure in gluttony.  We have an epidemic of obesity but the Polly armory crowd if they avoid infectious diseases and we have increasing treatment and prevention get exercise and socialization,.

I just learned from a scholar in the psychology department of Trinity Western. 3 % of people have severe social anxiety and loneliness and more than 10% suffer loneliness. I felt ‘lonely’ after a couple of months in the south. I love the weather but eventually feel my life is here and the vacation world seems to lose appeal by 3 months.  I’m hoping to do better this year. I’d like to write books and be productive more than with just my virtual work. I do enjoy the world and with time this world and that becomes the same,

I am aging and feel increasingly that I’m more and more invisible with the ageism of our society.  I like being the younger person in the old crowd at the hot springs.

I do enjoy my virtual meetings and my life and routine give me the 4 walls of the I’m just a bar tender song.  We create our safe places

.  I established routine and then war against it.  

Right now I’m very grateful for the world I have . I enjoy this living space and felt constricted in my camper which was pretty good. I lived in the little space of my yacht which is closer to this than it was to the camper.  I liked my Keystone RV for space but I never did take it out on my own fearing the towing and size.  I’ve driven this more in months than I did thee RV in years.  The camper has had its use but it’s needed repeated repairs mostly because the Adventurers are a cheap brand,  In retrospect it would have been worth it to get a better quality camper like the Bigfoot and saved money in the end.  This Thor is made good by the support of Traveland.  I’m having a maintenance apt this week.  Coastal Ford has provided me piece of mind by ongoing maintenance and prevention of my ford 350 which has been a success.

Now here I am supposedly thinking of God and spirituality and my mind goes to another coffee and walking the dog. The rain has let up so that’s a good idea, I worry about his pooping since his butt hair caught the poop and we had the whole nightmare of him needing to have me clean his putt nad cut some hair and him being terrified but needing that done.  With grooming I’ll get 4 months of reprieve from Madigan and his butt anxiety. 

He’s loyal and adores me but I feel guilty I don’t play with him enough though he’s will me most of the time. We spent hours throwing ball with Stewart and I did a lot of training with Shinto.  Madigan is with me and he likes that a lot.  I think of parents with their kids in the car and that’s us. 

Walk time. I’ll talk to God while I do that .  Thank you God for this day. Thank you that I’ve been able to spend the time hunting, making the change over from one clinic to the next, kept the Thor going, paying taxes and rent.  I seem to be sneaking through this year with no abundance or savings but I’m managing. I’m getting by and that seems success when I consider so many struggling with the treasonous management of the economy.  So much government interference and cost. It’s a weakness of mine to think like this.  I’ve so much to be thankful for and yet I have a judgemental critical mind that often goes off into sloth envy anger and sins so easily.  Please God help me focus on you and serve you and do your will.  

Thank you Jesus.  

 

Sins - 7 deadly sins

Sin was a term from archery that meant ‘to miss the mark’.  The idea of ‘intention’ is a central tenet of the spiritual life. It’s central to psychiatry, addiction and law.  Romans 7:15=20 NIV” I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but whaat I hate I do.”  This speaks to ‘intent’ and ‘outcome assessment’ .  In law the issue of ‘intent’ is also known as “mens tea’ (guilty mind).  It is a critical component of law. 

All of this then rests on the idea of ‘free will’ versus ‘fate’ or ‘determinism’.  

The 7 deadly sins focus on the most important aspects of human endeavour and assuming ‘free will’ address the ‘intent’ and ‘outcome’.  The seven deadly sins are:

1. Anger

2. Envy

3. Gluttony

4. Greed

5. Lust

6. Pride

7. Sloth.

If we take gluttony as an example, as related to food and drink, there is a ‘healthy’ consumption that leads to well being and longevity.  Gross obesity or anorexia are by the traditional language of ‘sin’ missing the mark.  Personally I’m off the target by some 50 lbs and spiritually am advised to fast and restore my balance and ideal weight.  Unfortunately the sins are interlinked and ‘sloth’ which has me preferring snacking on the couch watching tv is in conflict with my ‘intention’ to be healthy which in the material world today is a kind of term form “holy’.

The  12 step programs essentially have a self help group aligned with several of the ‘deadly sins’.  Alcoholics Anonymous , narcotics anonymous,  and overeaters anonymous address gluttony.  Emotions anonymous looks into anger and anger management. Sexaholics anonymous, sex addicts anonymous and sex and love addicts anonymous address the issue of lust.  Greed is addressed by Debtor’s anonymous. I’m not sure how envy, pride , sloth, enter into this except that they are recognized as contributing to the more overt expression of the difference between intent and outcome.

Pride is central given that the song of addiction is “I did it my way”.  In Milton’s Paradise Lost the devil was seen as preferring to look at his own shadow than turn and look into the light and face of God.  Humans are all said to be interconnected and tribal and family based. We may claim individuality but ‘solitary confinement’ is the toughest treatment given in the jail.  Shame is the sense of being outside and excluded from the group. Essentially we are ‘herd’ animals and need each other. 

Jesus said, ‘where two or more are gathered together in my name, there too am I’.  In day to day jargon we need someone in the physical world to ‘cover our back’.  The buddy system of war was having the ‘wing man’ or the person who stood back to back with you to cover the 360 degrees of potential risk.  Alone our vision at most managed 180 degrees 

Jesus didn’t speak about a lot that is attributed to him or interpreted about him But he did say ‘do not be afraid’.

Faith is believing in spite of contrary evidence.  The faith that w are ‘not alone’ is central to life.  Buber described the child’s awareness of ‘I and it’ growing to the spiritually realization of “I and thou”.  The paranoid doesn’t make this transition but maintains the idea of hostile other or environment.  Alone they struggle. Together we prosper. The early tribes found hunting and living together more successful.

Like the Dylan song, May be the devil or it may be God but I have to serve someone’. Hubris or pride was the great evil of the Ancient Greek and Roman times.  Pride goesth before the fall.  In a hurricane at sea uncertain of my likelihood of survival I considered that I depended on the guy who did the rivets on my steel boat. No matter how good and courageous a sailor I might be I was still interconnected with my fellow in that moment. 

Each of the ‘sins’ are considered in psychiatry as ways of reducing anxiety.  We collectively have this ‘anxiety’, an ‘existential angst’ related to childhood nurtured, adverse childhood events and later trauma.  Bill Gates said the greatest thing in his life was being born in the Pacific Nothwest.  That place of birth was a deciding factor related to the rest of his successful life. There is an island of Stone Age tribes that have not developed any more advanced degree of technology. Had Bill Gates been born there it is unlikely he would have developed Microsoft. The interconnectedness of the world and the need for certain precedents to be in place define success of individuals and groups.

Each of the sins gives a reward that reduces adrenaline increases dopamine neurochenical response and provides a temporary relief from anxiety,  I have relief from the pain and anxiety of life briefly in indulgenceng the manipulations of the senses by any means.  

I am afraid.  I seek distraction.  I move through the mall of sins but in the end pride remains.  I am afraid.  I am alone.  Seeking companionship and help I overcome the haunting desperation of anxiety.

The power of now and the practice of the presence is that time is central and I just need to get through this second minute hour or day.  

‘

This too will pass.

Thank you Jesus

Journal - Burnaby -Autumn

I have returned from only 10 days physically away and I feel a bit overwhelmed by the challenges.  

The closure of Royal Columbia Clinic with my patients transferring to Docside has been at the top of the list.  

Thanks to Mary Lou we’ve been able to get most of the files but they’re as a collection of notes and I have to repopulated thee medication allergies, medical illness and social history boxes.  I certainly won’t have cheat notes to remember the cats name.  It’s like teaching grade 1 and losing the pictures of the kids and their seating plan.

I’m muddling through.

The Agile Insurance continues to hassle about paying for damage to the camper jack.  They say there’s no claim but there is and now they’ve taken 6 months to get back to me and still haven’t released the material I’d need to have the RV and Insurance folk here dispute it or even to have a lawyer involved.  Horrendous abuse of medical professionals in a shortage dealing with their clearly unnecessary delays and buggering about.

I’ve been able to continue to see patients even while away. The main thing has been continuation of medications and recording and communicating with pharmacy. I write 3-6 months RX with repeats but people only realize they’re running out when the pharmacists tells them.  There’s always the’emergency’ caused by disorganization and forgetfulness. I certainly don’’t judge these days when the leadership in the country comes across as continuing to be corrupt, uncaring of citizens and involved in some global rip off. The neo communism and sharia rise concern me.  I struggle to avoid ‘worry’ which of course is wicked but my patients are feeling the economic threats even more than me.  I wonder at times whose managing well and realize I’m doing well compared to other times in my life and yet I lack the attitude of gratitude

I’m so blessed that Laura and Madigan are well

Driving away I left the Starlink antennae on top of the car and lost it. I only realized it was gone when I unloaded the car here at the Thor.  Fortunately i was able to get to Best Buy to get the Mini Starlink dish on Thanksgiving day.  

Unfortunately it didn’t work. The new antennae is still not functioning on the old roaming account, I’ve spent 3 hours trying every action but support only got through in wee hours when I was sleeping. I’ve texted them SIN and pictures of the error messages and am hoping.  At the PO they didn’t have the tripod mount because of the postal strike but fortunately Adell texted me that the iPhone I gave her and the talking stick for Allen finally arrived having been delayed by the postal strike.

Today I have 6 or 7 patients and will manage. I like that at this moment cash flow continues given that I’m facing more costs.  Food costs alone have doubled and tripled in Canada.  All the overtaxation and punishment of citizens to support the holidaying illegal aliens .  I wish I was more spiritually aware.

I’m disappointed a bit that I didn’t shoot a deer, I was impressed that Alex and Kendra both shot spikes.  Incredible.

Baiba still looks great and her sons are grown up fine and she continues to attend shows and dine out with lots of photos of wine and cocktails

I enjoy seeing the past and elsewhere through Facebook. Everyone gets to see pictures of Madigan and grouse hunting

I feel I’m ‘plodding”.  Everything is getting done. It’s a miracle and truly amazing , all the accomplishments. Since buying the motorhome I’m been continuing to pay the mortgage, rent and maintain work,  

My back aches but I was much improved on the hunt actually able to walk uneven forest paths. I’m now exercising and regularly walking Madigan here keeping up with schedule despite the challenges.

I don’t know if I like that word .  

Laura was gone in the morning having got up early to drive home and prepare for work,

The game is in my freezer but my freezer needs to defrost and the cleaning ladies Alina and Alyina will come. I’m hoping the propane guy coming today will some the lack of hot water.  I think I have electric heat. I’ve used the space heater so the temperature is fine but I really don’t think I have propane though the sensor says it’s half full.

I emptied the tanks and the sewage is fine.  Next Friday I have an appointment with Traveland to have the maintenance done on the motorhome.

I reserved a few weeks at the Hollywood RV Park in LA and paid for Laura Air Canada return flight.I’ve even arranged tickets to the LACounty Art gallery and found the dates for the Geddy.  

I’ve the eye assessment follow up in November but with vitamins my sight seems better, 

Some days I think I’m depressed because it’s like the spiritual light of the world is only at 3/4’s.  I did enjoy seeing George, Marty, Dean, Frank, Mario, Jack, Terry and more last night. Jesse is back which is great.  Adam’s death notice was sad.  Lethal disease.  Daily reprieve.  I’m truly blessed.

Madigan has a groomer appointment for next Wednesday and continues to poop each day without the poop getting tangled in his butt hair.

I enjoyed driving the Vespa last night

Thank you Jesus.  Thank you God. Thank you Creator.  

I love Philomena Cunk’s responses to being asked about her future.  “I’m just trying to get to Friday”.  I ‘m doing one day at a time spiritually and getting through the day and yet I’m not surrendering despite having the sense my position is overtime,  

All shall be well. All shall be well and All manner of Things shall be well.  

Even my plant survived though it lacked water and had too much sun. I’ll care for it and it too will continue.  

Time to walk the little guy. Thank you Jesus. 

Thanksgiving Hunt - Princeton area

Friday October 3 Laura and I drove the Mini fully loaded out to Chilliwack RV Storage. There we saw John and I met his beautiful pharmacy assistant family.  John, his wife, son and daughter are a good looking very bright family.  I feel blessed to know them,  John and his son made sure my truck and camper were ready for this trip.

Laura and I transferred guns, ammo and gear to the truck and camper and left the mini behind. We were off stopping in Chilliwack to gas up,filling truck, Honda Rancher and 4 5 gallon Jerry cans for quad and generator as well as the 44 gal camper water tank and a couple of 5 gal water tanks.  

We stopped in Hope at the grocer to buy $600 worth of good and such which only a year ago cost $300. Buying food always reminds me of the grossest incompetence and mismanagement of the Canadian economy by the inflationary liberal government under silly boy Trudeau and now Climate Carmie all involved in the communist UN /WEF rich man scandal.  However I then remember I’m blessed as Gates says to be in the Pacific North West and here I am able to work virtual from the wilderness with my Starlink WiFi and extended cellular.  The cellular was iffy but we got to Picard Creek and I was able to see a few patients a day not disrupting the clinic care while being up at dawn and hunting then and at night. Normally I’d nap mid afternoon when game is most scarce .  Laura loves being in the camper reading and using the internet.

Madigan loved riding on the Honda Rancher with me up Stemwinder to our target practice place.  Scott, the great guy at International Shooting Supply Surrey had replaced my Browning scope which fogged a few weeks back from seal leak after 30 or more years of tremendous use. Scott sold me a scope and mounted it. It was great and I had fun shooting the target and then shooting cans with the Ruger 30:06.  I also had the Black Creek Labs “Siberian’ semi auto 223 which I bought from International last year when the sissy Karen’s of Toronto outlawed my Ruger mini to give their criminal and terrorist buddies and advantage over the citizens.  Without further digression the Siberian turned out to be a lot of fun target practicing as I had weeks before.

Off we went ready to find a deer but just as happy to shoot grouse Madigan was in heaven finding the grouse after I shot them. He must have run a hundred miles or shot full speed ahead after I shot looking for the downed bird and any other that might be out there. What excitement and enthusiasm! What a great hunting buddy.  I missed more than half the grouse before I found out I was shooting 8 instead of 6 20 guage load which must have felt like rain to the grouse at the distance i was shooting from stopping the quad. I couldn’t walk closer before they scurried away.  6 load or 5 is best for the distance I shoot from when I surprise them with the quad. 4 load which is good for ducks gets into the meat where as 8 , the target load doesn’t do anything but frighten the birds.  

We got a bird each day and returned to Picard Creek camp.  Unfortunately a few days there a guy came round and said we were using the generator too much. It’s only allow 9 to 11 and 8 to 10 in BC parks. That didn’t work with virtual psychiatrist consulting mid day. 

So we moved. Which was okay because I wasn’t seeing any deer sign and I like to shower if not daily every other day and we had water rationing. If I’m close enough to a lake or river I can pump or carry water to refill the tanks .I did that later with the two five gallons of potable water having enough for a shower a few days out. Laura likes washing each day and together we had water without much rationing for 5 days.

On the way back through Princeton we stopped at the RV Sani Dump across from the RCMP, emptied our black water and grey water tank, filled up with fresh water and replaced one of three propane tanks we used over night for heating and all round for refridgeration. We filled up the truck and a couple of five gallon gas Jerry cans.  And yes I bought another dozen chocolate bars.

We drove way out on Jura one of the places I’ve hunted.  Driving into the area a herd of 8 or more deer were standing on the road. I naturally didn’t have a rifle ready so stopping the car got the rifle out of the case and the trigger guard off and the ammunition off following the long gone deer up the hill into the forest. How exciting and evidence to my mind the deer were still in the valley and not up the mountains where I’d not found sign.  Other hunters were out and the area was crawling as TG is the rut time if the weather turns cold.  

Since we are principally grouse hunters we’re not as dedicate to the deer or elk hunting in the area. 

Laura and I just like the off grid experience. Laura work all week with sick people and phones and demands and loves being alone and away from people.  I make her coffee and cook for her and she loves Madigan who adores her, I set up the camp again with Starlink and Honda Generator and the Honda Rancher off the trailer. With the Ruger 30:06 , Siberian 223 and Argentinian 20 guage on the gun racks on the front of the quad and back packs on the back for Madigan to sit on we were set.Again each day I shot a grouse though missed a half dozen,  I saw 3 deer a couple of times and maybe one spike but got lost and came out near the beginning of the area in the east when I thought I’d be far out in the west.  I spend a lot of time talking to God hunting, discussing our relationship and understanding not seeing a deer but truly thankful Madigan and I and the Honda stay safe despite being far off grid. Sometimes hunting I’ve never met another soul for days but this time it was busy and I came across a half dozen other hunters on quads.  I met 2 older guys who looked military CEO efficient and a couple of fun good old boys as well as some young guys. I liked seeing the young guys, the future of hunting but was annoyed when I saw them out at dawn when they should be sitting in ambush or stalking about the bush on two legs.I was highly successful big game hunter till 5 years  ago when I was in Edinburgh climbing Arthurs seat  in the rain and slipped hurting my back yet again. Obviously there is some cumulation from the plane crash, motorcycle crash,  getting hit in my car on the highway and doing a 360 and 180 flips, then the rolls in the truck off the highway towing the camper and being hit bicycling and flying over the roof the the offending car as well as other less remarkable back events had left me with chronic pain and occasions fear of sneezing but mostly a love for hot springs and amazement that exercises like tai chi and yoga do so much good, Covid I got fat with sciatica and pain and one year couldn’t walk mor than 3000 steps at most. I love ibuprofen.  The fall in Edinburgh had me see a doctor who thought surgery might be a consideration while my favourite friend and sports medicine specialist recommend Eric Goodman’s Foundation Training.  I was able to walk relatively well year later with pain mostly getting out of bed and pain in bed but it was all getting better so that last year when I crashed and flipped my quad I was walking pretty good but still afraid to walk in the woods because my strength and balance was offer. I used to be called a billygoat and run and jump in the woods and mountains. Now I have this inordinate fear of breaking a hip though my hips are fine. I just can’t rely on my back not to give in a fall.  Yet praise God and exercise and good medical care this year I’m walking fine and was so thankful that I could walk on uneven deer trails in the woods.  Thankfully riding the quad wasn’t painful just tiring. The other old guys talked about knees.  My fear is shooting a deer too far from a trail and getting it out without injurying myself.  A bear I shot took all days to get back to the road just as an elk I shot at dawn took all day despite being quartered to get to the trail and quad,  By contrast grouse like to come out by the side of the road and are what I hunted with my brother and father.  Madigan thinks this is our prime target and we do have fun exploring and missing grouse which are smarter than libera politicians and fly away at the sound of a rifle being loaded.Monday to Thursday I saw patients in the afternoon on the medical legal zoom Doxy.me using the Oscar EMR all thanks to Starlink.  At night with my iPad we watched a series of great movies after the barbecued steak , hot potatoes and corn or peas meals with butter and sour cream.  Great feasts.  The dog shared the steaks and pork chops and chicken and after dinner Hagan daz ice cream bars.The movies on prime and Netflix were incredible.  Naked Gun with Pamela Anderson and Liam Nielsen was the best with us laughing through out.  Guns up was great. The Lost Bus with Mathew MacConachy was the best thriller and action movie off all.  We watched a couple of the Cold Case episodes .Tired after long days and fresh air and physical activity I’m not used too we were in bed before 10 and up at 6 am.The weather was spectacular with sunny, blue sky and cool.  I loved the hunter and harvest moon.  I’d get up at night and check whatever had Madigan bark in the night and enjoy looking up at he Milky Way and moon,  Spectaculr. I’d have ny gun and expect the disturbance was some raccoon or coyote, If it has been a bear I’d have shot it but whatever woke Madigan was gone when I got out with flashlight and rifle. I was grateful the day I got turned around and thankful that a couple of young guys pointed me in the right direction to the main when I’d been off in the other direction and had fears of running low on gas, catastrophising when I had a new garmin I was having trouble reading and yet had been sending my position to Laura a couple of times a day. The fact is that sometimes God’s grace is helping me find my way home. I’ve been “lost’ main times in the woods but only had to spend the night out decades ago when I lost my car on the side of the mountain not realizes how many roads come down from the top having come from the prairies. Lots of times I’ve been uncertain and in the past relied on tagging with pieces of Kleenex the bread crumbs as it were to find my way back.  Bill Mewhort my older hunting guide had taught me that before I had a Garmin GPS.  The main reason I like the garmin in the SOS feature since I didn’t bring my sat phone I’d used this last decades to stay in tough which clinics and pharamacists. This time I just have the Garmin Inreach II gps and messenger I’m not well versed in. But after the difficulty walking a couple of years I had this irrational fear of injury in the woods and waiting in pain to be rescued. Now I love the SOS feature and of course Laura misses me when I’m late getting back.  Madigan thinks its all apart of the adventure.One night I got to use the Siberia and shot a rabbit. I’d really been hankering for rabbit stew.  So that was a big event.  The first kill with the new rifle and really my thinking that as I’m headed south in a month a deer might to be too much meat.  I’d have to get Laura little freezer like I did when I shot the elk that we ate for 2 years.  This fall has been really busy with the Royal Columbia Clinic closing and the transfer of patients to Docside Clinic with the maintenance on the motorhome to be done for going south for January.  I’m anxious about my lungs after having had TB working as a flyin in doctor in the far north with so much TB and then the tough year long treatment with anti TB drugs and the fear during Covid , the pneumonia, and flashes of death in Mumbai so sick after thee smoke air of Dehli.  I ‘ve had too many close friends and family and a brother die so I’m a bit frail in my victim prone thinking. The fact is after so many beaurocratic fights with corrupt woke and being falsely accused and victimized and divorce I can so easily slip into self pity despite 28 years of sobriety and the wonderful uplifting recovery program of AA and the hilarious fellowship.  I am so thankful to IDAA and Cyberdocs and my Christian Church for keeping me out of that seductive egomania with inferiority complex I’d known the last year of drinking strugglign with a marriage of addiction and all the gas lighting and lies and dangers of that time but also the angels and godsends. I am so thankful for Ray and Willie and Graham and Bernie, Hank, Art, and Phillip. I was so blessed to have George as a friend.  The women have all been incredible.  But so many have died these last years that I have difficulty at times maintaining my own illusion of immortality. I did enjoy reading Atia’s Outlive and considering that yes I’ll live to be a hundred thanks to God and genes and medicine and parents and teachers. That’s if I don’t drive off a cliff lost in the wilderness riding a quad with a terrific buddy dog who’d lick my face if I was down. The rains came.  I was at dawn watching the weekend crowd careening about on quads losing faith when I’d watched the sun come up and been passed by three quads and watched this one circle the area while another couple guys walked along the road like they were out for an afternoon stroll only it was before 8 am.  I had made my coffe with lots of cream and honey. I was sipping that and still feeling cold and having unchristian thoughts about the yahoos while I was doing the ‘right thing’ siting silently unmoving in my foredt’ hunting ‘office’ watching the grand central station with the rains coming. I have a great poncho but it was my spirit that began to trouble me.  In the unlikely event I now shot a deer, it would be a few hundred yards getting to in and back in the west and slippery.  Was it worth having a deer and hurting my back and hip again and all in the miserable. The joy to successful hunting over rode everything but I had a rabbit and grouse. With all the quaffing I was dirty with dust and the night before had got back to camp in a storm of thunder and lighting and downpour. This morning it had begun to drizzle . I’m just a sissy. I want to blame it on age but I’m surprisingly developing caution and am no longer the guy who carried an island deer on his back down a mountain wading streams and getting back to my truck bours later. Neither am I the fool that road Honda 250 enduro down a mountain sitting a deer carcass laid over the seat.  I’m not the guy hunting with my native friend Wayne Andrew’s did Man from Snowy River On horseback down the mountain.  I’ve actually had moments when i treat my body now like a vintage vehicle. This was one of them.  I surprised Laura coming back at 10 rather than noon and said how do you feel about packing up and going to Sunshine Valley RV resort for a last few days of glamping. “I’d be glad to,” she said.  She’s easy. She just likes dogs.So I loaded up and we stopped at A&W in Chilliwack for take out burgers, onions rings and fried and drove down to Sunshine Valley, They said they pretty full but could accommodate the truck and trailer but I couldn’t use the quad as their quad sites were all taken.“No problem I’ve been riding quad all week and my butt is sore and I just want to use your hot tubs.”  “We can accommodate you there.”She was as lovely in person as she’d been on the phone.  We checked in and soon had electricity and city water and the Starlink was up.  I walked Madigan.  Laura microwaved the potato’s and peas to go with butter and sour cream. I barbecued the chicken breasts and we had a feast. I’d finally figured hour how to get the Amazon Fire Tv working by down loading an app to my phone as I’ve not been able to find the remote since spring.  I spent 20 minutes in the hot tub loving the jet I called my own. Later my back emailed me a simple thank you..Laura and I watched House of Guinness series enjoying the Irish history we both share in our genes.  Prods and Finians and dastardly English.  Then bed, glorious bed after a walk about the park for Madigan.  This morning we both shared over coffee how well we slept and how much we appreciate civilization again.  We’re easing our way back to the city.  Thank you Jesus for friends and love ones, Help those we know who are sick or in distress’s Thank you God for Laura and Madigan and for keeping us safe. Thank you for the grouse and rabbit and all the adventure the last few weeks. Thank you for all the technology, Honda, Starlink, Ford, Adventurer, Garmin, Apple, Ruger, Black Creek Labs etc. Thank you Creator for nature and wonder and grace, Thank you ancestors and those who have gone before. Thank you for my skills and work and the blessings I have known, Thank you for sobriety and AA and the Christian church and truth and myth and gratitude.  Thank you God.