27 years

I woke chilled and wanting to pee.  When I finally got out of bed to relieve myself I found the covers were  on the floor. I’d held onto the duvet.  It’s Vancouver June.  Hot in the day and cool in the wee morning.

I came back to bed and couldn’t sleep.  My mind was restless.  The Bangles song, Walk like an Egyptian was playing on my mental jukebox.  Background music.,  I have to take my car in to have the sun roof fixed.  I can’’t leave the dog in the car in the heat without the sun roof.  The Mini sales and repair is downtown in Kitsilano.  I have a virtual phone clinic and don’t know where I’ll have wifi reception and phone except at the clinic,  Should I take my dog Madigan with me,  What are the logistics.

I want to wear a long jean skirt. I’ve been thinking about wearing the jean skirt for days and weeks,  It used to be kaftans or sarongs.  Today I’m thinking I could wear the jean skirt. I am not falling back to sleep,  I have been planning another tattoo.  A celtic cross. I’d like to travel to Berlin and see where the wall fell and the place of the air life miracle.  

I have turned over several times and each time Madigan walks over my head to be on the other side scrunching his little body up against my back.  I rub his head.   He growls at me.  I don’t fall asleep.  The ipad clock says it’s 530 am.  The sun is out. I might as well get up.

27 years.  It’s that anniversary. While I ‘m sitting in the living room trying to meditate or meditating I’m aware its 27 years. I run my mind back over the lists of sponsors and the fondness of memories.  Gratitude.  Gratitude. Gratitude.  Bernie.  Then Hank.  Then Scotty..  Then it blurs with George.  The Georges of my world are the Saint George of Christian fame.  My mentors mix with my sponnsors.  Art. Ray. Don. Graham.  Willie.  Phillip.  Then there are the priests and ministers and professors.  Carl. John. James Peter. Emily.

27 years ago I stopped drinking. It may have been a few weeks before but I took this day as the anniversary that I could remember. 25. Christmas and June.  June 25, 1997.  My friend said since I’d stopped drinking I should try out this meeting,  I had returned to church.  She was dangerously insane  on cocaine and wouldn’t get help.  I begged her to get help. Instead of going to treatment she had a little detour and vacation and plotted and lied.  I know she was borderline.  Hysterics are attractive.  Like male psychopaths. Narcissistic. They complement. Bonnie and Clyde.  I lost myself in her.  She in me.  I thought we were to have children.  The woman before had aborted the child.  I had been raped.  I felt ruined and shame.  I passed a sperm test like other exams.   I had thought of it in terms of violence but later knew the person as weak and afraid taking advantage, and lying. The snake.  But a sociopath. Kindly , a gentleman.  Well dressed. Intelligent.  People might describe some lawyers and politicians like that.  Smooth. 

I never thought of myself as smooth.  Rough.  I ‘d been called a jewel in the rough. Maybe the hairy Neanderthal genes inside me remember the smoother less hairy Homo sapiens coming to burn their homes, kill their children and rape their wives.  Yesterday.  40,000 years ago.  Yesterday.  

27 years ago life was so crazy with her that I decided I couldn’t afford to drink or smoke dope.  I’d smoke pot occasionaly when it was available , on vacations.  I needed to quit smoking cigarettes. I’d reached a pack a day over 10 years and promised myself I’d quit when I did but I kept relapsing that year whenever I drank wine out.   I was in a foxhole and needed all my wits about me.  I had never wanted my life to be this way.  I was a god seeker and a doctor. I wished to be a healer. I prayed , make me a channel of your peace.  We met in sex and pot and wine.  She’d promised children and I wanted a family.  I married because I had sex and I had sex for the sake of children.  I was also a slut.  I never said no.  I was simple that way but there were no children just abortions and birth control pills and I’d wanted birth control pills before that.  When children were offered I was in my head.  Our bodies entwined in love and I was elsewhere. Now I was here.  A wounded amphibian on a beach.

My colleagues didn’t know that evil among them.  I learned of it as a patient.  I was threatened and humiliated and assaulted.  I was ashamed and prayed. I’d turned my head from God and all was my fault. I found solace in the psalms.  I’d not been able to protect her from herself or her demons or the mother or the insaniety and rudeness and I’d failed as protector.  She kept attacking police and gang members and laughing thinking she was above the law and younger may have been. She was elite.  She thought me silly for not knowing how the world works, how people are bought, how it’s who you know and old alliances of family and money.  I was an outsider.  She found me amusing until she didn’t.  « I’ll drink and smoke what I want to. ». « You can’t stop me, ». And I couldn’t but the proxy violence a woman can cause is volcanic. Zeus tremors before Hera. I’d only known Venus.  Tsunamis of rage can be meted out to failed lovers.  Victim cards and foolhardiness.

I was silly.  Naive.  She was a flower and I was no prince.  So many regrets.  She wouldn’t stop.  

I told the doctor all I want is for her to stop drugs .  I’d stopped drugs,  I liked Keith Richard’s, I’ve been stoned so long being straight is a new high.  

I can get you back to drinking next month. Everything can be as before but you can’t speak of these things.  You just have to do as I say.  You can never see a lawyer.  Drinking a bottle of wine a day is okay.  Smoking a joint is okay. Stay away from those people who say different he said.  I didn’t.  

27 years ago.  It was a muddle.  A mess. I left her because I couldn’t face another of her weeks in bed and refusal to do anything.  I was so tired of enabling, taking the phone calls, making excuses.  

It’s all a cesspool, an outhouse hole. I couldn’t stand her screaming at me night when I needed to work in the morning.  I had this work ethic. Middle class.  I served. I was there each day.  She came and went. The butterfly. I was larval.    I laughed because poor amber heard shit in the bed and she’d done that a decade before.  She’d puke on my stuff too.  I’d made the sheep skin sleeping bag sewing each hide together over many evenings and now I had to clean it.  What stories she could tell.    I suspect she didn’t like it.  She didn’t like something and she broke something but she didn’t tell me.  She didn’t communicate. I was supposed to be telepathic and because I was n’t I was punished.    Passive aggressive active agressive . I thought but then I was increasingly paranoid.  She’s trying to kill you they’d say.  Concerned friends.  

Complements.  When I point a finger four are pointing back.  I was the flip side.  War of the Roses and I didn’t even know there was a war.  Leonard Cohen.  Dylan.  The poets and philosophers of the day. I gave her my heart and she wanted my soul.  What ever I say of her is worse with me. I forgive her and maybe one fay I’ll forgive myself.  

I walked away. Ran. Left my part cannibalized body parts  in the cage,  I went from frying pan to fire. Borderline to psychopaths.  I couldn’t even take care of my dog.  The two of us in the cold  and rain on the ferry fleeing one nightmare to another.  

I stopped everything.  The thieves drugs addicts and criminals just looked at me as food .  Once they’d stripped me of what I had they lost interest. God sent a peculiar angel and gave me a trailer on a hill and the solitude I’d prayed for.  I rented it with the disability cheque I’d paid into for decades.   I went to church where I could cry and saw doctors who didn’t drink and drug who said I didn’t need to drink and drug.  I left her with the doctors who said ‘women don’t have addictions.  It’s always the men they choose that are the problem. ». They claimed they were feminists and gave all power to the men. I triangulated on booze. Okay, if you want me to quit asparagus I’ll quit asparagus.  I’ll show you.

Survival kicked in.  I was cared for by Christians.  Christian doctors. Christian friends.  Christian lawyer.  I escaped the aetheists and didn’t know who to trust but my Christian childhood had been good and I parted from that path when I went to California. Now I was back.  Jesus Christ.  St. Francis.  Father John.  

Bill and Bob.  Oxford Movement, 

Higher power,

I’d been a follower until he brought me pot and wine and fucked me saying we create reality. We are the priests of science,  Alistair Crowley was his mentor and I was his student. I was lost.  She wanted to stay with her mother and I was alone. Outside the garden of eden.  There were so many singles.  Mulling about. Lemmings.  Plenty of fish.

I’d washed up on stranger shores.  Then one day gave up on the world and turned back to God and God alone. I’d meditated for years with Paramahansa Yogananda. I’d studied theology at University. I’d read Billy Graham and Martin Luther. Later I’d read Bishop Spong.  My utmost for his highest would be my daily reading then. I read the Bible several times those years and studied with James and others.  John and I laughed so heartily over pizza and spoke of Freud and Jesus.  Dinner discussion missionary, talk of  work and and service and society.  Candlelight .

I was a year sober when I realized how sane my life was. Living in the morgue with her. Watching as she worshiped the mausoleums of her soul.  I was asked to replay the fiction of her parents after the deaths and she was the arbiter and publisher.  I was a pawn.  I was in so many dramas of so many people and then all I wanted was to do hunt and sail and heal.  Sober I could see how insane I was.  I had to turn off the media and stop listening to news.  Among sober people I saw the sadness in the bar.  I was sick and now I was healing. 

I realized I was insane.  Not as insane as the hospital but insane. I was restored to saniety as promised.   

I had actually thought there was a limit to God’s love. I had imagined I was outside his grace.  I was grandiose and judgemental and was among those whose fear kept them from faith. I sailed through hurricanes alone.  He stilled the water. My mind found peace.  I was fascinated by those out of control who needed to control.  I was blessed by the presen of God.

I was sober.

I stayed sober

one day at a time,

It was yesterday.  A different year. A different time, A different place.  Adam and Eve playing so many games of peek a boo.  Peek a boo with Jesus. Love and lust and hide and seek.  I thought I was lost.  God never was.

Peace.  I’d lost my peace of mind ,  I’d be Joseph with the coat of many colours tossed in the ditch by his brothers. I was waiting for Godot. I was the Metamorphisis. I was doing one day at a time. One foot after another looking at the foot prints in the sand. 

I went to meetings, I didn’t isolate. She isolates,  She controls the comments. She avoids difference. Needs constant adulation.  She is a reflection.  She is the woman. The mitochondrial Eve.

I stagger at times. The back pains from the weight of world get to me.  Sisyphus. My eyes have been plucked out by eagles.  I am losing my hearing. Bits of me are falling off.  I stagger but then Irealize where I am and I smile.

I used to be a mental wankers. That’s what the Aussies call us.  

Don’t look for God in the wall, he said.  I loved Mere Christianity.

They have children and don’t want to talk about abortion and euthanasia.  They want to make pie and hide in Metorrahs. .  I know there are no more Cappidocea’s today.  This is the world of the Devil and the lies are everywhere. Even Jesus whispered before he ascended.

My father who art in heaven.   Haven,  My parents and family have gone before me. Many friends have died. They have mansions and I still worry what side of the street I ‘m on. Will there be street lamps in heaven. 

But it’s funny. Sober.  All my wits about me. A fool on the hill,

I am thankful. So much to learn. I’m alive today thanks,  Gratitude and spiritual tools,  Wisdom writing.  Emily preached on Job at St Barnabus but she left out the part where God and the Devil play dice,  Zoroastrianism and prehistory. I’m fascinated with ancestor worship and fertility goddesses.  The Venus figurines.  Mom was such a kind person,

She was kind,  Kind and kinship. Lucy in the sky with diamonds. Ethiopia and the south San tribes.  Flying into dry and wet reserves.  Being shot at ,chased by polar bears and surviving plane crashes.

I accessorize others. I serve their egos. I’m a flower in a lapel. I’ m a part object. I’m alive. I love the air and the feelings and this world as a gift of God.  I am so thankful. 

I am alive.  Thank you God.  That’s all we can hope for and be thankful for each day.  Life. I am alive.  17 years sober.  A sober me.  I drank from 17 to 1997.  45 years old. I was a binge drinker, months and months of time working, studying, and then a week in mexico blatto.  There’s 23 years of drinking.  I’ve now 17 years sober. I figure I’ll not drink today and maybe see what its like to see 23 years. I ‘d thought I’d only do a year but life got so good that I’ve never gone back . Thank you God. Thank you Jesus.  

Commercial Street and Havana’s Cafe

I’ve come from Dr. Ready.  He’s a fine chiropractor and I’ve been enjoying improving under his care.  I invited Laura for brunch but she’s off for dinner with her brother and sister and their new car so she thought she’d pass. She’s not known for spontaneity and these days seems overwhelmed by work and scheduling.  I can appreciate the desire for one speed and pacing oneself. My life has been responding to other’s emergencies and erratic behaviour. I love the acronym, G.O.D.  Good orderly direction.

I have a tremor in my right arm that’s pronounced when I lift a cup of coffee. It appears to stem from the old whiplash injury and the thoracic spine injury from the plane crash years back. I also seem to have more tremor in both hands and it’s improved with chiropractic adjustments, It’s also improved if I don’t drink coffee and by meditation, stretching and tai chi. Still aging is not for the young and I feel my body especially my spine if recoiling from the extraordinary demands of my life.

I really have been blessed though.  I find myself in meetings being asked to share and more and more I’m struck with gratitude for the remarkable life I’ve lead, the incredible teachers, loving parents and family, adventures galore and the beautiful women and fine friends.  I miss those who have did these last few years. I’m lonely at times and wonder about the immediate future.  Covid was a time of isolation and post covid I am more decidedly alone. I do a lot of work from home and enjoy that since seeing patient by video or phone is so often adequate. I miss seeing the staff but fear I interrupt their work.  I’m pre retirement and enjoy this life with the balance of work and leisure. I’ve worked so much for so long. 80 to 120 hour work weeks for so many years. Now I’m actually only working 30 to 40 hours a week and satisfied.  I understand how government workers notorious for working even less have the time to take up positions in the community doing volunteer work and coaching and participating in church and clubs.

I’ve taken many night school courses over the year after completing training as a dancer, actor, family physician , a year surgical training, a couple of years of public health and community medicine training, specialist training in psychiatry , advanced training in psychotherapy and psychopharmacology, special interest in trauma and head injury and then addiction medicine training and certification. I’ve done my Canadian and American credentials and need to remind myself of all this when our PM, an offensive splat of smegma attacks Canadians and doctors especially.  Right now he’s pushing euthanasia for the mentally ill and elderly while selling the country to the communist chinese, communism the religion 

I have to resist thinking of Trudeau, WEF, UN and the sharia communist attack on democracy and freedom.  It’s a rabbit hole that reminds me of historical precedents of Lenin and Hitler and other megalomaniacs like Trudeau.  The future though is not the same as the past and there is hope today that sounder minds will prevail,  1984 has certainly taken down Communist China but that nightmare hasn’t taken hold here to any similiar extent. The threat is always there. The Dalai Lama talks about the Communist Chinese genocide of his Tibetan people but the Liberal propaganda rag once the great CBC continues to sound like Pravda on any issue.  It’s best for peace of mind to detour around the contagion that is Trudeau and his ilk.  Good people are reacting just as they did when Hitler invaded his neighbours like Xi Jing Ping did to India and wants to do to Taiwan.  

I’m reading the story of the THE GENE, by Sidhartha Mukhajee, a brilliant history of genetics and hereditary.  I’m actually listening to it as an audio book. I’ve always got an audio book going now walking the dog and driving in the car.  I so enjoyed Louise Penny’s Detective Gomeache series returning from Southern California.  Now I’ve just listened to the history of transsexualism and this incredible history of the Gene.

I’m taking this online course from Oxford University , Prehistory: Ritual and Religion.  It began with my being so impressed by the British Museum’s presentation of the World of Stonehenge.  Of course I attribute my weekend at Oxford as the turning point that took me back to university.  I so enjoyed staying their with friends and the discussions with students.  I’d lost faith in university but saw that universities still served the highest and I returned . I’m glad I did.  I’d love to attend the hallowed halls if only for the ambience and ancient beauty but this online course is a delight.  I’ve taken the equivalences of a masters in Christian spirituality on line and in various night school courses. I’d begun auditing and writing on my own, This though I signed up for it all rather than just auditing. That’s required me to do a couple of paper the last I finished yesterday and will submit this week.  I was astonished at the trepidation dead lines and such caused.  Almost old ptsd symptoms .  I have enjoyed the directed reading and learning

Ancestor worship and venus figurines and the level of communication and travel 50,000 years ago with earliest Homo sapiens.  I really would like to visit the Stonehenge and cave paintings.  

I’m looking forward to Venice with Laura and hope to go to Berlin au femme in the future.  The fall of the wall has such street art paradox in the day today.  Do people forget so soon.  Laura and I are going to Whistler RV park next weekend.  

I’m enjoying being on this street. The Havana breakfast was excellent as usual.  Huevo ranchero variations with the best chorizo. I’m ordering another Americano so I can finished this bit of blogging.  The waitressses are so young and gorgeous.  One came over and petted Madigan who was in heaven.  Lucky guy.  

I so enjoyed taking the HD Nighster Special to Victoria to attend the Royal British Columbia Museun exhibit of the Stonehenge,  Pearson was the archeologist who developed it. I have his book from the exhibit but actually got the book from the British Museum exhibit that first inspired my interest.  So much advance in knowledge secondary to genetics studies and more excavations.  In first year under grad I’d so enjoyed studying the Minoans and Mycenaeans.  Years later. I was blessed to visit the palace on Crete.  Now I want to visit the Stonehenge and cave paintings.  Laura and I did visit the barrow graves in Ireland and I am looking forward to returning.

I was excited to visit NASA and yet spiritually my focus is living one day at the time and being in the present where God is. I really want to know you.  

It’s June and 27 years ago I stopped drinking and smoking tobacco and marijuana, I’d been a binge drinking but only in sobriety did I realize how I was attracted to women and friends with alcoholic families or like me a bad boy bad girl propensity.  With sobriety I’ve benefit from fellowship and the 12 step insights into fear and resentment.  Our society is immersed in fear and resentment.  I’m just a part and yet everyday for years I’ve struggled to let go and forgive.

My course finishes in July. My sailboat is progressing with sale to Alister. I really think he’ll appreciate it and have years of joy as I’ve had decades to this point.  So much a part of my life. Now it’s the camper and truck and motorcycle. I was looking at another vespa, the 150 since I want to go to Mexico next winter and don’t want to take my harley across the border.  A vespa is a different thing, Less likely to be stolen and non binary.  I don’t feel ‘macho’ on the vespa but more European and the direction I wish to go. I also feel being o scooter is like a bicycle in the city but with the Harley, the ultimate country machine i feel like I should gear up. I really just want a Vespa to run to the store and back.

I really liked being out in the woods bear hunting this spring but mostly it was the camping and truly I wasn’t excited about shooting a bear. In the fall I’ll see because I love partridge and venison.  Yet visit the museum and attending art galleries in New York and Europe have been more fulfilling in the last years.  Having Madigan still makes the outdoors important. 

He’s happy here with all the smells on Commercial and the other dogs.  He’s my physiotherapist and keeps me active.  I also love watching the gorgeous young women on this streets more than looking at trees in the woods.  That may be spring too. Years back I visitted wreck beach in spring so this aging business might be mellowing.  Madigan has no qualms about sniffing butts and genitals,  After a winter of parkas and rain gear the spring is exciting with the tank tops and shorts.  I must admit I do like the fashion too. A tall young woman just walked by in a lovely traditional v white dress with embroidered top.  « You don’t have to dress like a refugee’ came to mind thinking how nice she looked compared to those who set out to be grubby. By comparison ,I so enjoy the models and the women who celebrate the long history of fashion,  I was irritated in Victoria when the hateful PLO marched along with police escort shouting anti semitic  slogans and wearing mostly cammo or some other war like apparel.  Another lady is walking by with a bright coloured flowersed frock and reminding me or how much I enjoyed the flowers of spring. 

I bought a digital frame and have uploaded pictures I’ve taken of flowers and art galleries and architecture enjoying seeing birds and Laura changing on the mantel a few seconds for each in a lovely slideshow.  

The nephews and great nephews are all doing well by the pictures the family shares. The God children are eating bear after mom and dad and Izek were all successful in their hunts.  

I imagine I would like to write a book. I’ve a clinical text in process, a book on dogs for fun and some memoir. I really could make progress on that. I’ve an IDAA conference in July in Baltimore.  Life is full abd I’m mostly at peace after years of feeling defensive after that relentless attacks by bullies and the corrupt evil government cronies, the banality of evil.

  I am so thankful to sponsors and programs and gurus and ministers in their encouragement to me to focus on the light.  Life is good. God is good all of the time.

Thank you Jesus. 

 

Victoria

I loved riding my HD Lightning Special Motorcycle to the Twassassen Ferry.  The rain had stopped and blue sky was muscling out the grey clouds of morning.  I’d just bought my ferry ticket when I was being directed onto the ferry with the other bikes. 5 minute wait at most and when I’d looked before leaving reserving for cars was booked two sailing ahead.  It was a rainy windy ferry ride but lots of good memories

I’d lived for years in Errington North Vancouver and even before that loved to visit Victoria.  After I moved to Vancouver and had my sailboat, SV Giri I’d often sail to Victoria and stay in the Innner Harbour. I was married once at the Empress but I won’t hold that against it.  I took my Mom and Dad there and have so enjoyed the tea.  It was Victoria that I left from when I sailed in winter hurricanes to Hawaii to go on to work in Northern Mariana Islands.  Lots of memories. It’s still so beautiful.

I had the Bacon Cheese Burger “as always’ and it was delicious.  The last time I was on the ferry was returning from the Saltspring Island Round Up.  I’ve not been to the Island since Covid.  It’s amazing how Isolate we became. Now I’m out here on Government Street having a Murchie’s Mocha.  Crowds and crowds of young people.  So many beautiful women too. Victoria has always had that. Something like a 10 to 1 , female to male ration because of Victoria is a government town.  Most are young and beautiful. Always were and still are.

The ride to Best Western Plus Inner Harbour was wet. Rained the whole way. I saw the Butchart Gardens sign and was so tempted to take a detour.  Mom and Dad and I had one of our most memorable times together walking in all that beautiful.  Mom was such a horticulturalist and Dad loved growing things as well. In later years they rented grow space along the rail way tracks.  I miss them.  Life long lovers and best of friends.  I was blessed to have them as parents.

I like Best Western.  I picked this one for underground parking since I came on motorcycle.  Laura’s at my place with Madigan.   This trip was a bit impulsive. I saw that the British Columbia Museum was having a Stonehenge Exhibit.  Because I’d been so moved by the Prehistory exhibit at the British Museum when Laura and I were in London a couple of years back I signed up the the Oxford Univeristy online Prehistory, Ritual and Religion course.  I paid for the credit course and tried to switch to audit only to learn it wasn’t so easy. Now I’m committed to writing a paper on Stonehenge.  I did a masters in religion at night school when John was alive.  We attended Shirleys spirituality courses at St. Marks and Dr. James Houstons courses at Regent.  Those were good years.  Pizza night and coffee at Johns’. Dinners with professors and missionaries.  Then I’d go to church with my friend George and we’d discussed God and women at our ‘sole’ fold monthly dinner in North Vancouver before the Whitcliffe meeting.  John and George have died like my father and mother and brother.  Vivian my Urban Aborigianal priest friend died of Covid complications too. I feel alone at time.  I cry even.  Just choke and squint a bit. Not sobbing.  Self pity, really.  Regret too.  I’d paid attention and asked more questions.  

Life is good. I thought that riding my Harley under the blue sky.  Looking into the Inner harbour here and remember all the days and nights I was moored there.  I picked up some perfume for Laura. I’d asked her what she wanted a few weeks back and she said she was running low on the Lancomme Julia Robert’s one I bought her a while back.  She always smells so nice its kind of self serving gift.  The Parfumery makes their own perfume so I picked one I hope she likes. She says she likes the one I can smell. I lost a lot of my ability to smell as side effect of an antibiotic i took. I think it was the one I had to take for a year after getting TB working as a fly in doctor in northern Canada.  The Ameerican’s found it . I wasn’t infectious but needed to be on medication a year and there went a lot of my sense of smell. I can still smell smoke and musks scents.  I like this oak musk citrous one so hope Laura does too.  

I bought her a swatch too from Madigan. I’d bought her a Swatch in London. She likes them. This is the Tate Gallery collection. I took a picture and showed her a Chagall and a Mattise .  She like the Matisse. We’d seen Mattise when we were in New York for New Years Eve. I think it’s was at the MONA but it could have been the Met.  

Now I’m here outside on Government Street truly grateful having had a blessed life so thankful for the study , work and friends and the adventures.  I feel guilty as I’d like to visit a friend whose health has been poor but he lives up a mountain and I’d not be able to drive the motorcycle up the hill. I’m being very cautious not like I was when I crashed my first Norton in Sooke.  Wild times hunting an motorcycling.  

Time to get back.  I’ve a ticket for the morning and am going back tomorrow.  Another drop of rain.  Better pack up.  

Prehistory

Prehistory is the time before writing. Writing first appeared in Mesopotamian 5500 BC.  My interest in prehistory was ignited by a special exhibit I saw at the British Museum on my last visit there in 2022, ‘View of the World of Stonehenge:.  When I lived in London in the early 70’s I worked across from Harrods at the Associated Television Studios and most weeks walked to the British Museum eating a quick lunch so I could use the time to wander through the extraordinary exhibits.  It’s quite likely my love of museums began there resulting in me seeking them out the rest of my life. I’ve also had a life long love for history.  

Right now I’m immensely enjoying the Oxford Online Course, Prehistory:Ritual and Religion in archeology with delightful learned academic tutor Francesca Fulminante, PHD.  The British Museum exhibit and this course and my reading around the subject these last couple of years has thoroughly expanded my knowledge of this period.  I think seeing Lucy, the 3,2 million year old Homo Australopithecus (homo erectus)at the National Museum of Ethiopia when I visited there in 2019 and thanks to Lesan Hailu as tour guide (Lesanu.che@gmail.com)  my excitement was further excited.  

I had heard of Neanderthal’s like most but I didn’t know that Homo Sapiens is the 9th human  Jason’a Hodzic published a succinct article in Big Think 2022 listing our predecessors. H.habilis the handyman 2.4 millions to 1.4 million years ago.  H. Erectus : the enduring hiker (1.89 million to 110,00 years ago),  H. Rudolfensis, the stranger 1.9 million to 1.8 million years ago H, Heidelbergensi, the hunter (700,000 to 200,000 years ago), H. Flores insists, the Hobbit, (100,000 to 500,000 years ago),  H. Neanderthalensis :  The Neanderthal thinkers, (400,000 to 40,000 years ago), H. Naledi: the enigmatic newcomer (335,000 to 236,000 years ago)  H. Luzonensis: a polemic finding (at least 67,000 years ago).  Wee actually share 1 to 8% DNA with the Neanderthals.  

I read the Troublesome Inheritance by Nicholas Wade travelling in Scotland curious about the lessons from genetic studies of human migration learned secondary to the findings of the Human genome project completed in 2003.  

The whole of history has been expanded for me. 

In the course we develop a time line 

Paleolithic 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago.  The advent of stone tools was 2.5 millions years ago. Neanderthals moved out of Africa 100,000 years ago.  Shell beads were found in Israel 100,000 years ago and in South America 76,000 years ago.  The last Ice Age began 100,000 years ago and lasted until 25,000 years ago 

Mesolithic is 15,000 to 5000 years ago and they find graves where the cranium has been removed at an exhumations and secondary burial. This is thought to be related to the origin of the ancestor cult. 

The Neolithic Period was 10,000 to 22,000 .The Neolithic(or New Stone Age)  was the beginning of settled human lifestyle.  The Venus of Willendorf dates from 29,000 years bc and was found in Austria 

The Çatahöyük Research Project in Turkey is an amazing site where they have found so many goddess figurines.  It is about 7500 years old.  I confess I’ve seen these often in museums and liking breasts myself been pleased that my aesthetic appreciation is at least 20,000 years old, Jung would no doubt argue it relates to the child within. 

I also listened to World Prehistory by Brian n and Nadia Durante because I enjoyed the course book from Black Land to Fifth Sun by Brian Fagan. The idea of spirituality is intuited by rituals seen as early as the Neanderthals,  We are in the course looking for the origins of religion in these sacred rituals that are differentiated from domestic rituals.  Where the hearth goes in a hut is a kind of ritual in some digs but the placeing of cave staleglites in a circle and ultimately the Stonehenge and Pyraminds clearly aren’t necessary for everyday life.  

Unpacking Transexual History

I am enjoying Transgender History by Susan Stryker which focuses mostly on developments in America from mid twenties century to today.  It’s shocking that as late as 1963 cross dressing was against the law.  Based on that, the whole country except perhaps the Amish would be deemed illegal today.  I did enjoy the advances in language proposed and the history of these developments starting perhaps with German doctor. Hirshfeld and progressing to his student Benjamin’s designations. Sexuality is biological but gender is psychological and social role is a third distinction.  I don’t know why there has been such confusion in the media where people are arguing that Gender trumps genetics. 

As a physician myself I am always shuffling the hierarchy.  A fractured leg is important but secondary in an emergency to the heart stopping. When we have enough people we address multiples but alone in the emergency at night I had priority.  So Sex, Gender and Social Role have precedence in context and time.  

I just finished Before we were trans: A new history of gender by Dr. Kit Heyam PH.D and enjoyed the broader, global and more ancient historical perspective. That book addressed trans gender experience in history and other cultures and makes a rather strong case for the non binary through time with clear distinctions of sex and gender and role that were extremely offensive to early western traders and conquerors.  I appreciated this because coming from Celtic or Indo European heritage I never grasped the chauvinism so entrenched in the East, Middle East and Meditarrean world.  

My mother and father didn’t have the relationship taht is so comic strip radical feminism.  Mom was primary in the home and dad went out into the world to serve the family.  He was a powerful man but always with a few memorable exceptions, worked together with mom as a team, cooperative and respeccful of ‘domains’ that would change with illness and time. I have always defended women’s rights at great personal cost on many occasions and respect that Jewish women and Italian women and Iranian and Nigerian women have had major struggles.  Canada obviously was until the last decade a leader in women’s rights and I believe that came from the Celtic and Indo European history of the origins. As for aboriginal tribal relationships there were actual matriarchies and patriarchies by tribe.  There is no doubt that Russia, Saudi Arabia and China are patriarchies but Ireland and Indian according to anthropologists are more matriarchal.  It’s all mute though when one can no more dissect society and family than one can the human body.  That tendency to intellectualize in parts is not the organic and interconnected as reality. Indeed the lack of wholistic perspective is central to the failure of Marxist grossly outdated and often barbaric thinking.  OF course he was a chauvinist and lived in a society celebrating male dominance. 

I don’t like the Marxism that permeates a lot of the transgender and LGBT history with the language of “oppression’ knowing that Communism is a religion of perpetual war that aims to increase dissent in the groups it targets as stated by Putin of his highly funded KGB days infiltrating the Peace Movement groups to benefit the Communists fighting American in the Vietnam war.  Yet even West Point studies the revolutionary tactics of Communism because of their success in reducationism polarization and mobilization of peasants and un educated willing to worship and follow second class elite.  Lenin, and his family, unable to gain status in the elite world about the Czar went on to destroy rather than create killing the Czar who had killed his brother.  Mao has similar persona vendettas against his enemies and very successfully uses the primitive ideology of ‘them and us” as EE Cummings would describe with it’s words of war like ‘oppression’ to gather a proxy army who falsely believes that leadership cares about them.  As Voltaire said. Steal a little and they put you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king’.  

That said the politics of change says that there needs to be a Black Panther movement for the ruling class to listen to Martin Luther King.  The moderate is only chosen when there the alternative is disdainful.

So these two histories challenge any idea that everyone is black or white.  The world is shades of grey in the whole with progress made by forward backward movements and compromise.  Before we were trans with its historic and cultural examples is a powerful a denouncement of the idea of absolutes. I found both books together making a cogent argument for the courts especially to move from the 19th century to the 21th century and personally appreciated the concepts of inclusivity and exclusivity reading these books.  There’s a balance and juggling act between too loose and too tight.  Obviously one doesn’t want to be so closed minded nothing gets in or out or so open minded all the marbles fall out. My biological training makes me appreciate the flexible membrane which it’s ATP controlled permeability. I object to those who insist there should be no walls but live in massive gated communities and tell others to do as they say not as they do.  The hypocrisy in politics is so objectionable.

Stryker does a marvellous job of discussing the attack by radical lesbians and homosexuals on the queer and the transgendered who’d often been the ‘shock troops’ of social change at flashpoints like Dewy’s, Compton and Stonewall.  They are comfortable and middle class in their acceptance now and fearful of change no different from the mainstream heterosexual.child based family communities that resisted change.  

I’m still reading Strykker’s book and learning  more in depth about developments that I personally participated in as I was in the civil rights movements and had close contact with the LGBT community as a dancer and actor and in my personal journey. It’s easy to demonize’ the ‘other’ but not so easy when they are family or ‘yourself’. When I studied Hebrew and learned that ‘infinity’ was a mistranslation of Biblical Arabic it was easier to appreciate a ‘loving God’s since one only went to hell for a ‘long time’ and certainly my own life had periods like this.  Jesus was crucified and went to hell to establish his rule.  This was days not eons and the study of history is the study of time which is not as simple as one thought thanks to Einstein and Schodingers and modern physics.  Subjective and objective are dichotomies which get mixed up in the transexual history just as I encountered when I trained in community medicine after family practice and surgery. What was goof for the group especially considering scarcity of resource might not be best for the individual. Indeed the real problem was in the realm of corruption and privilege and issues of ‘fairness’ or even ‘justice’.  

Now frankly I’ve muddled along in my life and appreciate others do the same so I really appreciate the history of struggle of those who didn’t win the lottery with a Rockwell childhood and family and a calm disposition.  I spend all day working with marginal ,different or the elite with little joy in their latest acquisition,  I’m curious that way.  

These books are so much more informative than social media and fascinating when one strips away the anger and fear and drops the word ‘oprresion’ because the Beatles recognise revolution only serves the revolutionaries most but without pressure the elite will not give an inch and we will see the kind of rot that begins in stationary entrenched societies that won’t grow in awareness and acceptance.  I still think of Turing and what he gave and how we returned his gift.   At that level I certainly am ‘inclusive’ and weary of those who want mirrors and judge anyone different from themselves. As a Christian I appreciate that Jesus was more radical than Gandhi  or Buddha but Herod was more like Mao and Mohammed.  I ‘m a left over hippy saying Make Love not war and enjoyed that a Transsexual protest solagan of the 70s’ Fuck don’t fight’. .  I believe we need war and peace but that the balance is off.  These books are great reads .

Addendum: I finished the Stryker book only to be disappointed by the last chapters and conclusion of book. It devolved into a radical leftist political rant. So sad given the pre Obama history. Critical of Clinton and Trump it devolved into the politics now a decade back and about individuals and events that are strictly a partisan bubble. After Jenner it really lost me and it was disheartening given the earlier work.

  

St. Barnabus Anglican Church

What a whirlwind of activity church was!  One would have thought our poor Anglican Beacon on the Hill church had become Pentecostal. It was the second Sunday after Pentecost. So many people and so much going on.  Madigan, young cockapoo,  was jumping about so glad to see his friend Fritz, Priest Emily’s better behaved older schnauzer.  Steven Seegert son of Reverend Vivian Seegers who died of covid complications 3 years ago, carried on her multivocal Christian tradition of sage and smudging the congregation. A moving tribute to his mother who began the Urban Aboriginal Mission I was privileged to be a part of,

Patti Powell our resident songstress extraordinaire had her singers with her, I guess they’d be called a choir but word has it they just get together and sing each week because they love to sing.  Their ‘Wade in the Water’ was really moving, foot stomping swaying music. A couple of traditional hymns balanced out the inclusive Xhosa and Swahili songs. 

Ironically, Bishop John’s sermon was on ‘silence’.  It was hard to hear the opening with the children laughing and playing together at the back of the church.  But that fondly brought to mind Vivian telling me how she loved to hear the children when she gave her sermons. It was her peoples way, she said, that all participated.  All my relations.

The children quieted as the Bishop’s sermon touched the depth of spirituality in words of silence, 

Two were baptized today, 8 more confirmed and Bruce  reaffirmed .  I loved being present for the baptisms.confirmations and reaffirmation..  I loved sharing in the sacred ritual being deeply reminded of my own baptism.    Communion followed, Breaking bread and sharing the blood and body of Christ. Sacred ceremonies,loving community. All my relations. 

I was thankful for church today and the pancake breakfast that followed, the rich conversations. Thank you Jesus.    

Trans

I am enjoying the audio book, Before we were trans, a new history of gender by Ktt Heyam.  It begins with the dissecting of gender assigned at birth (ex AFAB or AMAB) and then looks at the fluidity of gender in different cultures and different times.

I’m sensitized to this as an old hippy. Long hair was gay and the Beatles long hair was obscene to many in my parents generation fresh from the wars when men fought with crew cuts not so much an expression of gender as a prevention of lice and better fit for helmets.  I was called gay when I supoorted women wearing pants to school, a huge scandal in my school in which I was roundly vilified.  It was a time when women wore skirts and skirts represented feminity.  Such silliness diddn’t consider Roman Legionaries or Scottish Highland Warriors.  

The great song of my youth was ‘are you a boy or are you a girl with your hair like that you look like a girl’.  When I got into a fisticuff with a redneck looking for a fight and too full of beer my ‘long hair’ like the Beatles of the day was hardly over the ears, executive cut for today.  

I enjoyed therefore this book reminding us of the absurdities of gender laws through the years..  Men wearing coloured vests scandalously gay while women wearing short hair was obviously a sure sign of a woman being lesbian, I think of my poor elderly mother cutting her hair because managing her glorious long red hair , fond memories from my child, was just too much trouble in her late 80’s . I fear she’d be aghast if she was accused of late age lesbianism but historically this would be true ,  Men wearing jewelry was suspect especially more than one earring.

Now what’s fascinating is that in other  cultures gender hasn’t been as reductive as it has in western patriarchy.  I was most interested in the separation of gender and sexuality. A role in Angola was masculine but it could be held by a woman until the patriarchal Portuguese invaded and subjected the country to th catholic patriarchy of the day.  Women holding these masculine ‘roles’ were evicted from their jobs as an ideas of female inferiority was introduced.

Recently there’s been a spate of chauvinist humor directed at world leaders like Trump as the female patter of Putin and Trudeau as the bitch of Singh.  I tend to think of trans as gender and sexuality despite knowing that 90% of ‘cross dressers’ are heterosexual , mostly married and not interested in men.  

The author also points out the history bisexuality where leaders female and male are historically known to have had sex with the other but it’s not affected their ‘gender’ assignment. Alexander a notorious bisexual is never depicted as such an is gender queer. His maleness is  never in doubt.  This is because the chauvinist patriarchy demands the greater world leader be male and heterosexual .  So bisexuality  is downplayed.

 Hitler’ s murder of the gays along with Jews as discussed in the classic ‘Pink Swaztika,was not of the ‘discrete’ gays but rather the ‘feminine’ .  The macho men are this,  like prison ‘top’s who will kill you for calling them gay or a bitch.  “I fuked men’ but I was never fucked.  I ‘let fairies suck my divk but I never sucked dick’.  The Mexican police I met insisted they has so much ‘Sex’ they needed to have sex with men and women because they were so male. Sexuality and gender were not necessarily linked. Yet in different cultures gender is linked to spirituality.

The book unpacks this ideas separating gender from sex and role, considering it academically with fascinateing examples from history. I just listened to the story of Ann Lister, a famous early last century lesbian whose fault was her fashion more than her sexuality. She apparently dressed in clothing more from 5hemlikes of Mountain Equipment Coop than Holt Renfrew because  liked to hike with her girlfriends. Male attire though scandalous was  more appropriate for the climbing.  

I’m here on Commercial and seeing the whole kaboodle of gender expression.  Personally I’ve painted males and earrings .  But then at one time men shaving was considered feminine.  I like that Jesus apparently had long hair without the aquiline nose. The dandies of the Elizabethan court were frowned upon because they washed .

I think my poor dog who was groomed yesterday must be seen as gay today. .  He is really omnisexual  being discouraged frequently from humping Laura’s leg, boy and girl dogs and pillows.  Humans are a funny lot. Too band wanker isn’t a gender category.

Sex is biological and genetic. 

The judgemental are amusing. I loved reading the Golden Bough of Frazer which describes the need for a community to be the same for difference could  lead god to cause floods or droughts. When people dont know which red berry causes death or which snake venom is deadly then stereotypical behaviour is safe.  Primitive society is extremely fearful repetitive  and superstitious. There is no doubt that sameness may lead to longevity of centuries. Tried and proved. Mainstream. Not bad and certainly a common template for raising the young.   The obsession with rules is what is needed to appease the Gods.  

As a Christian I know Jesus was a good guy. I don’t feel such fondness for St. Paul. Alot of themOld Testament as history is little different than the murderously  barbariaric Koran.  

Madigan and I had fun having a mexican lunch with Laura on Davie street. She’s noted that the once young gay street is now much more populated by older gay male couples .I told her she was definitely gorgeous and voluptuous, with pink nails and sparkling sandals .  She liked my the multi colour glass frames. Today they would just be considered trendy and far too square for Elton John. My rugby playing woman I know  delights in gowns and pears when she goes out to concerts.. My other  female friend changes to black jeans and black tshirt when she works on her truck engine,

I feel less than because I’m not a macho man with  a safe certainty.  Like many men who were sexually abused I feel identification with the aggressor who considered my youth at the time feminine and his being a chauvinist partricarchal predator saw me as a hole in the mattress.  There’s been an effort to address pedophilia, sexual abuse of children and serious questions about man boy ‘love’. Meanwhile a girl from  Iran told me peoophilia was normal for the Ayatola and his fellow clergy. Their approach to pedohilia is way behind the Catholic Church and the education system here in Canada which have been exposed and vetted unlike parliament and congress. 

I often comment on the Khan gene that suggest his brother and he had many hundred of thousand of mates, A one man rape of the sabines  Certainly the Unwillingness of Biden an Trudeau and others like the British royal family to let out the Epstein list shows that pedophilia is enmeshed in the leadership in Washington, Ottawa, London, 

Also I’d trust a pillow with my dog than anyone or anything with Xi Jin Ping in Beijing.  If Putin did anything untoward inecrophilia would follow. Indo Europeans and celts popularized the family while South African success was having as many cattle and wives as possible. Trudeau lowered the age of consent for bestiality as obviously that would get him more liberal votes.The silliness of multi culturalsm is the homogeneity and ethnocentric who project their own ignorance  on the world .  Thank God for the Darwin awards.

I was criticized by a woman doctor administrator who never realized what a butch bitch she was when I explained the Berkeley gender sexuality scale that had hard wired homosexuals and hard wired heterosexuals who on questioning would rather die than have sex with other.  Meanwhile the majority of people were opportunistic with a middle bisexuality blip. . The test results  reminded me of the great movie scene where the man asked the woman would you have Sex with me for a million dollars an she answerd, I’dconsider it . Then he asked,  what about for a dollars.  She sthen said what do you take me for. ‘He responded  , well that’s established I’m just dickering for price.

I’m enjoying the book because it’s expanded my ideas of gender and made a place for the Mad Mollies of Ireland , the female soldiers and others but most importantly that it separates the ‘chauvinist patriarchal’ idea of the woman and transwoman as inferior.  Dirty.  I think of myself as that.  I mostly think of my self as less than because I’m not a father and the only baby I had was aborted.  That’s a whole other history. 

Before genetics and viagra a king could still be king if his knight was happy to pregnante the queen.  Not so today.  Confusing complex times when so many are anxious and afraid . 

Madigan was so happy to see Laura today demanding her whole attention, He was jumping up and down between us that I let her go without hugging her.  I miss hugging her.  

Getting old is unmanly too.