There’s no hang over. The room isn’t twirling.I’m not asking myself what I did last night. Not so much what I did, but what did I say that I might regret. I’m not wanting to die. I’m not hating work and the human race and wanting to curl up in my bed and never come out.
Instead, the soft light of dawn comes through the window panes. I step out of bed softly. The way the light falls on the bed is beautiful. I’m happy. I look forward to the day.
Crossing the living room I enter the bathroom where I have an old beat up tattered and torn copy of Around the Year with Emmett Fox. It’s pleasant to sit on the toilet and read today’s passage. Metaphysics is science and art. We learn by doing. And there’s a quote from James, “be ye doers of the word."
I’m thankful to be sitting on the toilet and not on my knees beside it with my head down the hole, retching. Retching beyond retching, dry heaving, like soiled seizures, without the comfort of coma.
I sit down to meditate. I pray to my Higher Power. At the advice of my spiritual friend, Willie, I’ve been praying to the Holy Spirit. My sponsor, Bernie, called his Higher Power, Holy Spirit too. I talk to Jesus sometimes still. Then there’s a pantheon of names of God that blindfolded men have used to describe the elephant. God is infinite, finite, omnipotent, omniscient. Holy of holies. I go on in my head detailing all I think I know.
Recently I’ve been riding my Harley Electraglide motorcycle to work listening to Steven Bell. Two refrains from his music play over again in my echoing brain:”We’re not alone” and “It’s always been about love”. We're not alone. It's always been about love.
As I’m sitting quietly considering my breathing, repeating Psalm 23, I hear the little guy get up.
Gilbert, the cockapoo is my room mate. I saw him laying stretched out on my bed when I woke up. Now he makes his way over to the couch where I’m sitting cross legged. He jumps up to sit beside me. I feel his paw on my knee. “It’s always been about love”
I open my eyes. The little guys big brown eyes are looking at me expectantly. One paw on my knee. He's made his morning greeting. It's my move. I hug him, roll him over and rub his tummy and chest. He squirms with joy.
I go back to meditation. A little while later he’s sitting beside me, again, with his paw on my knee, big brown eyes boring through my closed eye lids. I know I shouldn’t reward this ‘behaviour’. I should focus on my meditation. I should listen carefully for God. I should be focusing on my ‘quiet time’. "It's always been about love".
I look the happy fellow in the eye turn him over on his back and rub his chest for a longer while. Then I go back to meditating, thinking too that he came over when my mind was wandering, wondering about the external manifestation and synchronicity and flow. I’d begun thinking ahead too, to my day, worrying about the myriad of details that could overwhelm me, the recent crisis of betrayals, mutiny, disruptions, equipment failures, physical threats, world war, zombies, alien invasion.
He next appears with a ball. I get up then. We're not alone.
Years ago I remember kicking my dog, Shinto, hung over, him greeting me with wagging tail and me pushing him away and then kicking him as I staggered to the washroom to be sick on a country morning. I wish I could take back that shuffling kick. After he came back and licked my foot worried he'd hurt me. Shinto was a saint sent to be with me through the end days and early days.
After him, still early days though I didn't think so, came Stuart, the white Scotty. The drug dealers who threatened me ,wanting me to pass their marijuana dirty urines so they could get high paid government jobs. When I wouldn’t, they poisoned Stuart. They sent me a “message”. Cowards. I didn't pass their urines dirty urines but years later you could hear my voice at the biker rally when Steppenwolf sang out, Goddam the Pusherman. And we all sang along remembering friends and family the slime had killed.
I put the coffee on. I like that I’ve fine coffee, my own stove and coffee maker. It’s mine. It’s not rented. I own this. I pay taxes. I’m a contributing citizen. I put on the kettle for the instant porridge. Once hunting with my friend Luke, he brought these little packets of delicious. I don’t know if I had encountered them before, but they tasted so good on that trip in the woods with all that camaraderie and humour, I just love having them now for breakfast.
I started feeling irritation about this crisis at work that has been thrown at me. Enough time in the day for that later.
I moved my mind instead to remembering the wonderful woman who stepped forward to assist. She makes me wonder about genetics and pedigree. Her family overseas is royal blood. She has that fundamental understanding of ethics and morality along with a joie de vivre, immense talent, skill and training. She's been a blessing.
Rather than thinking about the negatives I focus carefully on the positives. It takes effort. It doesnt come naturally any more.
In passing, sipping my hot delicious coffee, of the the group I was with yesterday. I find myself dwelling more on the one person who I think wrongly or rightly doesn’t like me. Then thought I see the ridiculousness of my thinking. I let this person go and conjure up the smiling wise faces of those compassionate understanding old souled people that I hung out with.
In my head realize I'd began writing a poem for the negative one, about their emotional land mines, their judgementalness and insecurity but stopped myself. I thought about the soft spoken worker, that Brother Lawrence in our midst. I could so easily be distracted by the drama queen desperate approval and miss Brother Lawrence.
I see myself about to campaign, to run Napoleonic war, with the emotional maturity of 5 year old or at most a 13 year old girl. This person likes me, this person, that person doesn't. She loves me , she loves me not. Here I'm Napoleon again and I’ve taken Germany and Italy, but I still have to assault Russia with my charm, good grace and diplomacy. I caught myself almost taking her bait. She's erected walls and moats and hurled down flickering eye lids of burning oil glances and I'd stood 'bewitched'. Meanwhile Mother Mary, Magdalene and St. Theresa of Avilla are all glad to talk to me. I just wasn't giving them my attention. Meanwhile Russia isn't all about me, either.
I conjure up my personal Mother Mary. She’s always true and curious. I love her curiosity and good will. I envy her too. Still,I want to think her life was ‘easier’ than mine, ‘more privileged’, ‘richer’. I want to dismiss her radiance and goodness. I want to make unfair comparisons. I want to chop off the heads of others to make myself taller. But I can’t. I think of her and it’s just ‘all about love’. “I like Steve Bell,” she told me once. Agape is what C.S. Lewis called it.
After being sick I used to have coffee and run through my mind all my enemies. I never even thought about ‘winning them over’. I just imagined hunting them down and doing abhorrent things with their exposed intestines. Mostly I scowled. I’d take a couple of cups of coffee and fifteen minutes or so to ‘compose myself’. Then I’d " force myself" to do what I had to do blaming everyone else for my ‘having’ to go to ‘work’ , "having to put up with idiots’, "having to be diplomatic’. I wanted my personal army, my personal rocket launcher and I wanted to nuke all the silly little girls with their ‘wrecking balls’ and their insufferable prissy little begging boys. I felt sore that I was born out of time, fully equipped for a western but deprived of a Mexican cantina, some easy wrench and an obvious bad guy. I always wore the white hat in my own drama. I even wanted my own spaceship with lasers. I couldn't be satisfied with a sunny day in the summer when I wanted a spaceship with quantum generators and planet killers.
Today I tell myself I have to be nice to those not nice to me, if only to reduce the blow back. I think Karma isn’t some intellectual thing but rather a spiritual law. The golden rule, is just that. Be unto others as you would have them be unto you. I’m still trying to be more forgiving. We talked about my ex wives yesterday. I can list my own faults ad infinitum today and even think about theirs. Mostly I remember their infinitely smooth skin, the sweet smell of their hot sweat and the warmth of their exquisite miraculous bodies. We were all so young, yesterday.
I hope I do better today. Today is my new canvas. It’s time to shower. Dress. It’s a new day. The wreckage of the past is lying out there somewhere. I don't expect to encounter it today. Mostly it's all new. Only I'm projecting the past onto the present. . And I know, “We’re not alone’.
“It’s me against the world,” I used to think. I was an angry Bruce Lee. After a days war I could settle down for a drink.
Today I’m really happy with the peace. Especially the peace of mind. Nothing tastes better than a tall glass of sparkling spring water too.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Morning Pages
Julia Cameron in Artist’s Way encouraged people to write, without censorship, ‘morning pages’. This was her exercise to help people get their ‘creativity’ ‘flowing’. She felt ‘creativity’, especially as a writer, was a spontaneous childlike process that had been stymied by years of criticism and restriction. So she said, ‘write each morning, whatever comes to mind’.
In Recovery, it seems that often the twin vultures of fear and resentment are sitting on the bedside ready to begin their days attack on our peace of mind. Hence, for me, morning pages, when I practiced this process seemed a kind of way of ‘squeezing the shit out of my mind’. I wrote down whatever was troubling me first. Today that’s change of staff and a contractor making a mistake that will not only cost me thousands more dollars but lose me thousands and require me to conjure up a half day of my time out a week already squeezed full by the 8 or 9 days expected out of 5 work working days available.
I’d really like to wallow in self pity. I’d like to whine and blame someone else for my troubles but frankly no one cares.
That raises it’s whole other sort of issues. I’m in the last third of my life and feel like I’ve let everyone else through the door, actually helped them, and now chivalry is dead and I’m left standing at the rear in a culture of agism and misogyny. So there’s a whole new source of self pity.
I”m normal. I liked to suck on the tit of self pity. I want to cry to my long dead mother. I want someone else to shoulder my burdens. I want Jesus to get down off the cross and make me breakfast. I mean, really!
I was happy to hear these last few days that when a man 100 years old was asked how he felt, he answered 20. I don’t feel my age. Like my still gorgeous friend who told me in her 40’s she was leering at a young man who wasn’t paying any attention when she had the insight that she was looking out at this young hulk from the inside of a corpse. She had this realization halfway through life with a body and beauty many would die for. I’m there now. I describe myself more and more as the ‘fat old white guy’. This is in a hip slick world of self help talk gurus who says things like ‘it’s a privilege to be getting old’.
Sure, but it doesn’t seem to help getting laid.
I’m a master of the quick retort when anyone wants me to get off the nipple of self pity or better still the other nipple of fear and resentment. Notice how the metaphors of vultures and breasts intertwine.
It came up when a patient told me that the Conservatives had passed a bill outlawing men seeking to pay women for sex while making it legal for women to sell sex. Meanwhile I answered that I thought it remiss that last year there was no laws against prostitution in Canada and somehow I’d missed that memo. It all brought to mind the famous comedian joke which went, when I was a young man I was disgusted at the idea of paying for sex, but now that I’m in my 50’s and begging is no longer working so well, I don’t think the idea is such a bad one.
Meanwhile the proponents suddenly began talking about teenagers (young women) being ‘exploited’ and evil male ‘pimps’ abusing ‘women’. And I found myself involuntarily retching like I do when I hear the Quebec separatists get on their soapbox. This is when women are in fact the ones who are confronting this ‘bill’ because they say it will ‘interfere’ with their ‘business’. But these ‘older women’ who are indeed the ‘madames’ must be stopped because they’re ‘obviously exploited’ by some as yet undiscovered ‘men’. I used to ask radical feminists how can they actually believe their rant about women having nothing when Queen Elizabeth was our monarch. I just listened to an Australian woman going on and on and on, the way they do, when I asked her if she happened to know that the richest most powerful 'person' in Australia was a woman. These people seem truly gender blind to Hillary Clinton while they ignore the 20 year old male hookers offering blow jobs at half the price of their female co workers in a tough street market.
I guess, sitting at the Red Square last week in a MacDonalds enjoying a Mc Cafe and egg Mc Muffin I kind of hoped that “social communism’ might eventually fall like the Berline wall. All this “I”m the poor proletariat and you’re the bad bourgeoisie” rant should somehow end. I hoped that seeing a shopping mall in the Red Square might shut up all the 'rhetoric' of that old dead 'regime'. I'd seen the phoenix rising in the church revival in St. Basils. I'd seen the new life infused in the very heart of the death culture of the old communist world. Yet I came home to Canada to hear this old debate still couched in the old language of the 'victim' and 'victimizer'. Meanwhile it's just 'me and them". I'd just listened to the song 'ding dong the witches dead' and watched the children running about the village playing again and the bells ringing only to return to the Conservative Government of Canada spouting communist rant about 'exploited women' while wanting us to buy their 'market approach to the world' . This is insane!!!
One day, in the 90’s, it was recognized that those who were always ‘helping the exploited’ were, well, like Hitler who went to the ‘rescue’ of the poor Austrians, or Stalin who invaded his neighbours to ‘help’ them. The 'exploited' never get better with the activists and the hand outs but rather they get better with community and helping each other. I don't even want to talk about this anymore because the world is 'caregivers and victims' and the 'caregivers' will kill me if I even question their corruption. I just watched the millions of dollars of government corruption called the 'Portland Hotel Society' and the major benefactors who stole the milk right out of the babies mouths got off with a handshake. MP Jenny Kwan actually blamed her 'man' .
So, forgive me, but I see the people ‘protecting adult women’ from ‘evil men’ as essentially ‘exploiting’ the prostitutes. The legislators want a cut of the action. They're the 'dirty men'. I remember too well when the women prostitutes of Paris marched through the streets and shut down the city because they didn’t want these pompous ‘daddies and mommies’ to interfere in their ‘business’.
In the ‘metaphor’ of ‘capitalism’ , “my body is my own’, means I can be a mercenary or a prostitute. Historically men risked their bodies in work or war whereas women risked their bodies in sex or childbirth but today men and women die in war and men and women work the sex trade. Men and women ‘sell their bodies’ but all the language of the 'bill' about prostitution was disgusting gender biased so there was little talk of 'men' and no mention whatsoever about the most outcast in todays society, the 'transexuals'.
There's always been a 'trade' in 'blood'. I sold my blood to pay for my tuition to medical school. Right now everyone is up in arms about ‘sale of body parts’. Meanwhile just like health care, the 'local's' are denied services whereas the elite 'shop for health care globally'. The 'elite' go overseas for postitution and buy babies they bring back to Canada where women are told "your body is your own' but the fact is the 'state' and the 'courts' especially ,own your body. There is supposed to be ‘suppy and demand’ but the ‘law makers’ and ‘judges’ in this business world are introducing sanctimonious stupidity into an area where all acknowledge the need for ‘regulation’ not ‘censure’ ,because ‘censure’ simply doesn’t work. It drives the industry into the black market and removes it from taxation and medical attention.
The next three people I spoke to about the Conservative government’s prostitution bill immediately mentioned ‘young girls’. Girls and boys are not considered men and women in Canada until they are 19 and maybe even 21 or 25 because they can look older but until they’re about 25 or 30, men can go to jail for having sex with them because our child protection laws are the most stringent in the world. So the prostitution bill has nothing to do with ‘girls or boys’ but says instead we will put adult women out of work who are in the sex trade by arresting their johns because ’women’s bodies in Canada are not their own’ but rather a woman’s body is the ‘property of the state’. Meanwhile a national woman's magazines carries an article by a new executive woman complaining about the lack of gigalows available for her sexual needs at the end of a work day when she is travelling. And a major Vancouver newspaper carries the several page story of the 50 years prostitute who finds that the 'money' makes the 'work attractive' because she can 'set her own hours' and only bemoans that fact that the younger' competition' can get 10x the rate of pay. The story sounds as much like any aging sports athlete that I thought it would do well to be in the sports pages where the 'body worker's' get paid and complain about the 'young talent' put them out of work middle aged. Meanwhile brain workers like me complain about different shit but try to sound more intelligent about it than they do on the sports pages. Meanwhile pole dancing, a wholly different matter, is showing up as the latest medical solution to an increasingly gluttonous and slothful generation all the while old men and old women in parliament are devoting their attention to lust in what was once considered a place where the state had no business, i.e. 'the bed rooms of the nation'. Now the State , which reads your every email, wants to shake down the man who leaves some money under the pillow while claiming that they're really not interested in shaking down the woman that leaves money under the pillow or god forbid the gay man or lesbian that leaves money under the pillow or god forbid even more a 'transexual' that leaves money under the pillow. The language of the bill is so 'sexist' it should cause an adult to retch. No wonder we have "Wrecking Ball" songs.
So the whole feminist ‘my body, my own’ argument goes out the window. Right? Really?
Which may be okay because that was the pillar that ‘abortion’ was built on. So if the state doesn’t allow women to ‘control their vagina’ and it certainly is already against women being ’surrogate mothers’ for hire in Canada there is no longer any ‘basis’ any longer for "personal' abortion.
Hence from the perspective of ‘pro life’ todays ‘prostitution law’ is truly revolutionary.
Seen otherwise, it would just be more post communist ‘rant’ in an age that is so far beyond bourgeoisie and proletariat. While these old tenured London School of Economics red ’sillies’ were squabbling in another centuries debate, usually smoking dope and wearing paisley bellbottom flower power earmuffs, the world moved back to the medieval days with the ’super elite’ new world order. We're no longer in the Beougeoisie and Proletariat wrong ideology but rather we're in the Emperor, Senate, Citizens and Slaves reality. There’s no proletariat and beougeosie. We’ve devolved politically to a pre Marx reality, all the while the irrelevant ’separatists’ and their other 'ist' die hards, are being used by those who always benefit from ‘divide and conquer’ for their own ends and the stupidity of scaredy cat tenured fat cat academics with their Marxist rhetoric.
Personally, I’m certainly not the emperor and I’m not even a senator. Further my pay cheque excludes me from being a ‘citizen’ because today’s ‘citizenship’ isn’t defined by ‘landowner’ or ‘vote’ but rather a more ‘elaborate’ ’status’ indicator. It’s obviously about ‘money’. To be a citizen I think one needs first to be a millionaire or multi millionaire but at least a ’net’ millionaire. I think if you even have to ’think’ about the cost of any purchase you wish to make short of lear jets and rocket ships, you’re not a citizen. Further, a real 'citizen' can't 'work' in a Marxist sense. They're rather more likely the 'Wolves of Wall Street'. A citizen should 'gamble' for money, perhaps or buy and sell slaves or something but not actually 'make' anything.
I’m a wage slave, myself. In Russia a ‘worker’ was a person to be admired. Work was admired and skills and talents were admired. Slaves, like monkeys, are ‘cute’ when they do things but the Chinese emperor had long fingernails because long fingernails are the outward manifestation and symbol of not needing to work. The elite don't 'work'. They don't 'sweat'. They 'play'. In the movie Elysium they were so far above us they lived on space stations.
Corporate leaders today are not ’national’ but ’transnational’ which is why the word ’nation’ has become an adjective. Corporations can be good or bad but the best make the most money for their stockholders so as Robert Hare says they are judged little differently than we judge snakes and other reptiles. Corporations aren’t ‘warm blooded’. Nations once were or at least aspired to be. Nations were 'tied' to land and history. Corporations are unearthly and make history. There is no ‘idealism’ surrounding the ‘brand’ whereas the very word ‘culture’ in its highest form derived from the very best a nation state had to offer. There is no need for 'locality' to corporations. Indeed right now all the wealth of the world is to some extent 'offshore' or 'off world' but specifically 'off the grid'. There is no privacy in the bedroom but there continues to be no end to the privacy of banks and the elite whoever they may be.
One world order is empiric. Intrinsically it’s digital and paranoid. It’s us and them.
Unfortunately for me, I always feel like a ‘them’. Indeed even when I’m an “us’ I feel for the ‘outsider’ and working as a physician give myself and my services to everyone irregardless of whether they are ‘us or them’. Indeed I've been told over and over again by various authorities especially in government that I should treat 'them' in such a way as keep my distance and 'select' the most 'profitable' relationships as opposed to working in the 'old fashioned way'.
The Syrian government and other governments are now arresting doctors who don’t agree with the master race paranoia. Neitze is in and St. Paul is out. The new fascism says not only Jews require extermination but we all need ‘euthanasia’ because we’re doing the ‘jews’ a favour. Would you want to be a jew, or an ‘outsider’? Aren’t we being kind to kill them. Like aborting babies, isn’t this ‘good’. Aren’t we doing the child ‘good’ by protecting it from entering this ‘cruel’ world. Don’t we have to ‘protect’ the ‘planet’ like we would ‘protect the fuhrer’. The language has shifted but it's still the same old same old. Today the Jew is still the Jew but the Jew is also the gypsey and anyone else who disagrees with, well, you know, disagrees. Is disagreeable. Doesn't pop a pill to 'feel' good about the 'group think'.
In the end I guess I should be thankful that with the economic crisis continuing my government, in it's wisdom, with these new prostitution laws has perhaps, in it's generosity, offered me the right to prostitute my ass, legally. Perhaps looking on the bright side, I can hope that they're done with my ass. They won't even prosecute me for trying to sell my ass, at my age, but if some poor John or, god forbid, a Jane, offers me money for my ass, they're protect me from being 'exploited' by those bastards.
So the trinity of fear, resentment and self pity disturb my peace. I write them down and then hopefully my humpty dumpty ego will feel I ‘listened’ and I heard’ all the fine intellectual arguments that the ‘sky really is falling’ and this ‘really is a steep wall’to fall from.
But gratitude in contrast is all. God is great. So thank you lord for this day. Thank you for my breathing. Thank you for my fingers. Thank you for my dog. Thank you for my life. Thank you for my work. Thank you for my refrigerator with food for breakfast there. Thank you for my shelter this day and my rent being paid this day and all the taxes paid this day in all the hidden and convoluted ways that I am taxed. And thank you for my enemies and thank you for my friends. Thank you for my enemies so that I might better appreciate my friends. Thank you for the rain because the sunshine is so much better. Thank you for the art and industry and technology and all the solutions to all the apparent problems that exist in this ever loving always growing expanding metaphysical spiritual space of coexistence and temporary adventure. Thank you for the sunshine. Thank you for my stomach. Thank you for the coffee I’m about to make.
Thank you for morning pages. Thank you for all your blessings. Thank you Lord. Thank you especially today for my ass and my government. I am so thankful that my government is protecting it from future potential exploitation by scaring away whatever customers I might possibly have ,at my age. I hereby let all and sundry know that I am a prostitute and that if you interact with me, especially younger nubile women, I will expect token financial payment, for which you will be duly rewarded but unfortunately you will be considered a 'john' and subject to prosecution, even if your name is Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie or Ellen Degeneres.
Now I'll get back to prayer and meditation. Thank you Julia Cameron for 'morning pages.' I can focus on God and Jesus and Creativity and Love and work and gratitude. Thank you.
In Recovery, it seems that often the twin vultures of fear and resentment are sitting on the bedside ready to begin their days attack on our peace of mind. Hence, for me, morning pages, when I practiced this process seemed a kind of way of ‘squeezing the shit out of my mind’. I wrote down whatever was troubling me first. Today that’s change of staff and a contractor making a mistake that will not only cost me thousands more dollars but lose me thousands and require me to conjure up a half day of my time out a week already squeezed full by the 8 or 9 days expected out of 5 work working days available.
I’d really like to wallow in self pity. I’d like to whine and blame someone else for my troubles but frankly no one cares.
That raises it’s whole other sort of issues. I’m in the last third of my life and feel like I’ve let everyone else through the door, actually helped them, and now chivalry is dead and I’m left standing at the rear in a culture of agism and misogyny. So there’s a whole new source of self pity.
I”m normal. I liked to suck on the tit of self pity. I want to cry to my long dead mother. I want someone else to shoulder my burdens. I want Jesus to get down off the cross and make me breakfast. I mean, really!
I was happy to hear these last few days that when a man 100 years old was asked how he felt, he answered 20. I don’t feel my age. Like my still gorgeous friend who told me in her 40’s she was leering at a young man who wasn’t paying any attention when she had the insight that she was looking out at this young hulk from the inside of a corpse. She had this realization halfway through life with a body and beauty many would die for. I’m there now. I describe myself more and more as the ‘fat old white guy’. This is in a hip slick world of self help talk gurus who says things like ‘it’s a privilege to be getting old’.
Sure, but it doesn’t seem to help getting laid.
I’m a master of the quick retort when anyone wants me to get off the nipple of self pity or better still the other nipple of fear and resentment. Notice how the metaphors of vultures and breasts intertwine.
It came up when a patient told me that the Conservatives had passed a bill outlawing men seeking to pay women for sex while making it legal for women to sell sex. Meanwhile I answered that I thought it remiss that last year there was no laws against prostitution in Canada and somehow I’d missed that memo. It all brought to mind the famous comedian joke which went, when I was a young man I was disgusted at the idea of paying for sex, but now that I’m in my 50’s and begging is no longer working so well, I don’t think the idea is such a bad one.
Meanwhile the proponents suddenly began talking about teenagers (young women) being ‘exploited’ and evil male ‘pimps’ abusing ‘women’. And I found myself involuntarily retching like I do when I hear the Quebec separatists get on their soapbox. This is when women are in fact the ones who are confronting this ‘bill’ because they say it will ‘interfere’ with their ‘business’. But these ‘older women’ who are indeed the ‘madames’ must be stopped because they’re ‘obviously exploited’ by some as yet undiscovered ‘men’. I used to ask radical feminists how can they actually believe their rant about women having nothing when Queen Elizabeth was our monarch. I just listened to an Australian woman going on and on and on, the way they do, when I asked her if she happened to know that the richest most powerful 'person' in Australia was a woman. These people seem truly gender blind to Hillary Clinton while they ignore the 20 year old male hookers offering blow jobs at half the price of their female co workers in a tough street market.
I guess, sitting at the Red Square last week in a MacDonalds enjoying a Mc Cafe and egg Mc Muffin I kind of hoped that “social communism’ might eventually fall like the Berline wall. All this “I”m the poor proletariat and you’re the bad bourgeoisie” rant should somehow end. I hoped that seeing a shopping mall in the Red Square might shut up all the 'rhetoric' of that old dead 'regime'. I'd seen the phoenix rising in the church revival in St. Basils. I'd seen the new life infused in the very heart of the death culture of the old communist world. Yet I came home to Canada to hear this old debate still couched in the old language of the 'victim' and 'victimizer'. Meanwhile it's just 'me and them". I'd just listened to the song 'ding dong the witches dead' and watched the children running about the village playing again and the bells ringing only to return to the Conservative Government of Canada spouting communist rant about 'exploited women' while wanting us to buy their 'market approach to the world' . This is insane!!!
One day, in the 90’s, it was recognized that those who were always ‘helping the exploited’ were, well, like Hitler who went to the ‘rescue’ of the poor Austrians, or Stalin who invaded his neighbours to ‘help’ them. The 'exploited' never get better with the activists and the hand outs but rather they get better with community and helping each other. I don't even want to talk about this anymore because the world is 'caregivers and victims' and the 'caregivers' will kill me if I even question their corruption. I just watched the millions of dollars of government corruption called the 'Portland Hotel Society' and the major benefactors who stole the milk right out of the babies mouths got off with a handshake. MP Jenny Kwan actually blamed her 'man' .
So, forgive me, but I see the people ‘protecting adult women’ from ‘evil men’ as essentially ‘exploiting’ the prostitutes. The legislators want a cut of the action. They're the 'dirty men'. I remember too well when the women prostitutes of Paris marched through the streets and shut down the city because they didn’t want these pompous ‘daddies and mommies’ to interfere in their ‘business’.
In the ‘metaphor’ of ‘capitalism’ , “my body is my own’, means I can be a mercenary or a prostitute. Historically men risked their bodies in work or war whereas women risked their bodies in sex or childbirth but today men and women die in war and men and women work the sex trade. Men and women ‘sell their bodies’ but all the language of the 'bill' about prostitution was disgusting gender biased so there was little talk of 'men' and no mention whatsoever about the most outcast in todays society, the 'transexuals'.
There's always been a 'trade' in 'blood'. I sold my blood to pay for my tuition to medical school. Right now everyone is up in arms about ‘sale of body parts’. Meanwhile just like health care, the 'local's' are denied services whereas the elite 'shop for health care globally'. The 'elite' go overseas for postitution and buy babies they bring back to Canada where women are told "your body is your own' but the fact is the 'state' and the 'courts' especially ,own your body. There is supposed to be ‘suppy and demand’ but the ‘law makers’ and ‘judges’ in this business world are introducing sanctimonious stupidity into an area where all acknowledge the need for ‘regulation’ not ‘censure’ ,because ‘censure’ simply doesn’t work. It drives the industry into the black market and removes it from taxation and medical attention.
The next three people I spoke to about the Conservative government’s prostitution bill immediately mentioned ‘young girls’. Girls and boys are not considered men and women in Canada until they are 19 and maybe even 21 or 25 because they can look older but until they’re about 25 or 30, men can go to jail for having sex with them because our child protection laws are the most stringent in the world. So the prostitution bill has nothing to do with ‘girls or boys’ but says instead we will put adult women out of work who are in the sex trade by arresting their johns because ’women’s bodies in Canada are not their own’ but rather a woman’s body is the ‘property of the state’. Meanwhile a national woman's magazines carries an article by a new executive woman complaining about the lack of gigalows available for her sexual needs at the end of a work day when she is travelling. And a major Vancouver newspaper carries the several page story of the 50 years prostitute who finds that the 'money' makes the 'work attractive' because she can 'set her own hours' and only bemoans that fact that the younger' competition' can get 10x the rate of pay. The story sounds as much like any aging sports athlete that I thought it would do well to be in the sports pages where the 'body worker's' get paid and complain about the 'young talent' put them out of work middle aged. Meanwhile brain workers like me complain about different shit but try to sound more intelligent about it than they do on the sports pages. Meanwhile pole dancing, a wholly different matter, is showing up as the latest medical solution to an increasingly gluttonous and slothful generation all the while old men and old women in parliament are devoting their attention to lust in what was once considered a place where the state had no business, i.e. 'the bed rooms of the nation'. Now the State , which reads your every email, wants to shake down the man who leaves some money under the pillow while claiming that they're really not interested in shaking down the woman that leaves money under the pillow or god forbid the gay man or lesbian that leaves money under the pillow or god forbid even more a 'transexual' that leaves money under the pillow. The language of the bill is so 'sexist' it should cause an adult to retch. No wonder we have "Wrecking Ball" songs.
So the whole feminist ‘my body, my own’ argument goes out the window. Right? Really?
Which may be okay because that was the pillar that ‘abortion’ was built on. So if the state doesn’t allow women to ‘control their vagina’ and it certainly is already against women being ’surrogate mothers’ for hire in Canada there is no longer any ‘basis’ any longer for "personal' abortion.
Hence from the perspective of ‘pro life’ todays ‘prostitution law’ is truly revolutionary.
Seen otherwise, it would just be more post communist ‘rant’ in an age that is so far beyond bourgeoisie and proletariat. While these old tenured London School of Economics red ’sillies’ were squabbling in another centuries debate, usually smoking dope and wearing paisley bellbottom flower power earmuffs, the world moved back to the medieval days with the ’super elite’ new world order. We're no longer in the Beougeoisie and Proletariat wrong ideology but rather we're in the Emperor, Senate, Citizens and Slaves reality. There’s no proletariat and beougeosie. We’ve devolved politically to a pre Marx reality, all the while the irrelevant ’separatists’ and their other 'ist' die hards, are being used by those who always benefit from ‘divide and conquer’ for their own ends and the stupidity of scaredy cat tenured fat cat academics with their Marxist rhetoric.
Personally, I’m certainly not the emperor and I’m not even a senator. Further my pay cheque excludes me from being a ‘citizen’ because today’s ‘citizenship’ isn’t defined by ‘landowner’ or ‘vote’ but rather a more ‘elaborate’ ’status’ indicator. It’s obviously about ‘money’. To be a citizen I think one needs first to be a millionaire or multi millionaire but at least a ’net’ millionaire. I think if you even have to ’think’ about the cost of any purchase you wish to make short of lear jets and rocket ships, you’re not a citizen. Further, a real 'citizen' can't 'work' in a Marxist sense. They're rather more likely the 'Wolves of Wall Street'. A citizen should 'gamble' for money, perhaps or buy and sell slaves or something but not actually 'make' anything.
I’m a wage slave, myself. In Russia a ‘worker’ was a person to be admired. Work was admired and skills and talents were admired. Slaves, like monkeys, are ‘cute’ when they do things but the Chinese emperor had long fingernails because long fingernails are the outward manifestation and symbol of not needing to work. The elite don't 'work'. They don't 'sweat'. They 'play'. In the movie Elysium they were so far above us they lived on space stations.
Corporate leaders today are not ’national’ but ’transnational’ which is why the word ’nation’ has become an adjective. Corporations can be good or bad but the best make the most money for their stockholders so as Robert Hare says they are judged little differently than we judge snakes and other reptiles. Corporations aren’t ‘warm blooded’. Nations once were or at least aspired to be. Nations were 'tied' to land and history. Corporations are unearthly and make history. There is no ‘idealism’ surrounding the ‘brand’ whereas the very word ‘culture’ in its highest form derived from the very best a nation state had to offer. There is no need for 'locality' to corporations. Indeed right now all the wealth of the world is to some extent 'offshore' or 'off world' but specifically 'off the grid'. There is no privacy in the bedroom but there continues to be no end to the privacy of banks and the elite whoever they may be.
One world order is empiric. Intrinsically it’s digital and paranoid. It’s us and them.
Unfortunately for me, I always feel like a ‘them’. Indeed even when I’m an “us’ I feel for the ‘outsider’ and working as a physician give myself and my services to everyone irregardless of whether they are ‘us or them’. Indeed I've been told over and over again by various authorities especially in government that I should treat 'them' in such a way as keep my distance and 'select' the most 'profitable' relationships as opposed to working in the 'old fashioned way'.
The Syrian government and other governments are now arresting doctors who don’t agree with the master race paranoia. Neitze is in and St. Paul is out. The new fascism says not only Jews require extermination but we all need ‘euthanasia’ because we’re doing the ‘jews’ a favour. Would you want to be a jew, or an ‘outsider’? Aren’t we being kind to kill them. Like aborting babies, isn’t this ‘good’. Aren’t we doing the child ‘good’ by protecting it from entering this ‘cruel’ world. Don’t we have to ‘protect’ the ‘planet’ like we would ‘protect the fuhrer’. The language has shifted but it's still the same old same old. Today the Jew is still the Jew but the Jew is also the gypsey and anyone else who disagrees with, well, you know, disagrees. Is disagreeable. Doesn't pop a pill to 'feel' good about the 'group think'.
In the end I guess I should be thankful that with the economic crisis continuing my government, in it's wisdom, with these new prostitution laws has perhaps, in it's generosity, offered me the right to prostitute my ass, legally. Perhaps looking on the bright side, I can hope that they're done with my ass. They won't even prosecute me for trying to sell my ass, at my age, but if some poor John or, god forbid, a Jane, offers me money for my ass, they're protect me from being 'exploited' by those bastards.
So the trinity of fear, resentment and self pity disturb my peace. I write them down and then hopefully my humpty dumpty ego will feel I ‘listened’ and I heard’ all the fine intellectual arguments that the ‘sky really is falling’ and this ‘really is a steep wall’to fall from.
But gratitude in contrast is all. God is great. So thank you lord for this day. Thank you for my breathing. Thank you for my fingers. Thank you for my dog. Thank you for my life. Thank you for my work. Thank you for my refrigerator with food for breakfast there. Thank you for my shelter this day and my rent being paid this day and all the taxes paid this day in all the hidden and convoluted ways that I am taxed. And thank you for my enemies and thank you for my friends. Thank you for my enemies so that I might better appreciate my friends. Thank you for the rain because the sunshine is so much better. Thank you for the art and industry and technology and all the solutions to all the apparent problems that exist in this ever loving always growing expanding metaphysical spiritual space of coexistence and temporary adventure. Thank you for the sunshine. Thank you for my stomach. Thank you for the coffee I’m about to make.
Thank you for morning pages. Thank you for all your blessings. Thank you Lord. Thank you especially today for my ass and my government. I am so thankful that my government is protecting it from future potential exploitation by scaring away whatever customers I might possibly have ,at my age. I hereby let all and sundry know that I am a prostitute and that if you interact with me, especially younger nubile women, I will expect token financial payment, for which you will be duly rewarded but unfortunately you will be considered a 'john' and subject to prosecution, even if your name is Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie or Ellen Degeneres.
Now I'll get back to prayer and meditation. Thank you Julia Cameron for 'morning pages.' I can focus on God and Jesus and Creativity and Love and work and gratitude. Thank you.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Vancouver, eh?
I love Canadian. I remember returning to England after bicycling across Europe with Baiba and so enjoying hearing the English trying to speak Canadian.
The English in Dover then didn’t speak the language properly as Canadians do but it was a far better proximity to modern Canadian communication than any of the Dutch, Germans, French, Spanish, etc had been able to achieve. I would think with all their old world knowledge they’d have learned how to communicate in Canadian by now. Their stubborn persistence in maintaining their outmoded communication is probably central to their ongoing difficulties at getting along with each other. If there’s to be peace on earth everyone must simply learn Canadian, eh?
So here I was again,returning home from a foreign country, all too full of foreigners, and glad to be back among the chosen and holy. Having spent weeks studying how the Russians are coming along with their Canadian, I find they’re still not really getting it. With their excellent hockey capacity and cosmonaut capability you would think they’d be able to communicate in Canadian. But no. They persist in making all manner of mistakes with language, not even getting the alphabet right.
I repeated myself. I even raised my voice. I spoke very slowly to them at times. But they couldn’t even understand Canadian to give me directions, let alone speak it. I was glad to return to this land of deep intelligence. Some Russians actually thought I was the idiot.
Immediately I boarded the KLM plane home the stewardess, with very little effort, was speaking Canadian. I have hope for the Dutch. When I got off the plane, sure enough everyone in Vancouver appeared to have mastered the art of communication. Given we in Vancouver, make Canadian seem so easy, I wonder if that’s what makes it so difficult for foreigners. We can’t be faulted with our own genius. They just have to try harder as nations. I feel sorry for other countries and understand why so many people come here from there. It’s the only place people actually talk properly.
I loved getting in my own truck too. In Moscow they expected me to share the Metro with everyone else. Not once did they offer me my own train. I would have been happy with my own train car but no, they insisted on crowding me into this little space with all these foreigners. Nice people, friendly. In then end, I expected they all just wanted to be close to a real Canadian. Probably only get the chance to see us on tv. So here they were all about me, acting like they were just going from place to place, when they really were having, perhaps, their very first ecstatic experience of being near a Canadian.
In the Metro I just hoped all those foreigners washed, brushed their teeth, and kept up with their vaccinations. I confess I sniffed at them a bit, like Canadians do around foreigners. These ones smelt just fine. I actually think they were probably a better sort of foreigner, the kind authorities keep, to show off to Canadians.
I really liked having my own Ford F350 truck back.. All that space inside and all that diesel power to drive right over the top of anyone who even thought to mess with a Canadian.
I also really liked being reunited with my real man dog, Gilbert, the cockapoo. Hannah and her girl dog Hamchi took wonderful care of him. Still when he saw me it was like male prison break from an all girls reform school. He barked, ran circles and danced up and down. He was pretty clear too after that gleeful reunion the king was back. He quickly had his ’subject’ human throwing ball, fetching food, and scratching his belly. It was really good to be reunited. He doesn’t speak Canadian but I understand dog. Dog might be the only language superior to Canadian.
Then we were home. Home is great. . I was so excited to see everything I love still here. Hurricanes, tsunamis, zombies and meteorites could well have taken it all away. I was filled with gratitude. Mida had been by and tidied up the hectic mess I’d left leaving.
My Harley Davidson Motorcycle was there too. Gilbert and I got on that Harley with Steve Bell music playing full volume and rode on the highway.
I've even enjoyed going back to work. No major crisis while I was away. The plants and fish survived. The bills had piled up but not so bad that that the tax department has sent around anyone to knee cap me. Aubrey, my assistant, kept things safe.
Then there were friends. In Russia I only had one friend, Barrett. Here I have what seem like a gazillion people and family too. They all know and speak and are Canadian. Holy sainted geniuses, the lot of them.
I’m really glad to be home. I don’t know if the rest of the world is going to learn Canadian any time soon. They’re still a little backward.
I keep telling foreigners that if you want to know God, stop with the om, amen, or allah akbar. Just say ‘eh’ ? And everything will be okay, eh?
The English in Dover then didn’t speak the language properly as Canadians do but it was a far better proximity to modern Canadian communication than any of the Dutch, Germans, French, Spanish, etc had been able to achieve. I would think with all their old world knowledge they’d have learned how to communicate in Canadian by now. Their stubborn persistence in maintaining their outmoded communication is probably central to their ongoing difficulties at getting along with each other. If there’s to be peace on earth everyone must simply learn Canadian, eh?
So here I was again,returning home from a foreign country, all too full of foreigners, and glad to be back among the chosen and holy. Having spent weeks studying how the Russians are coming along with their Canadian, I find they’re still not really getting it. With their excellent hockey capacity and cosmonaut capability you would think they’d be able to communicate in Canadian. But no. They persist in making all manner of mistakes with language, not even getting the alphabet right.
I repeated myself. I even raised my voice. I spoke very slowly to them at times. But they couldn’t even understand Canadian to give me directions, let alone speak it. I was glad to return to this land of deep intelligence. Some Russians actually thought I was the idiot.
Immediately I boarded the KLM plane home the stewardess, with very little effort, was speaking Canadian. I have hope for the Dutch. When I got off the plane, sure enough everyone in Vancouver appeared to have mastered the art of communication. Given we in Vancouver, make Canadian seem so easy, I wonder if that’s what makes it so difficult for foreigners. We can’t be faulted with our own genius. They just have to try harder as nations. I feel sorry for other countries and understand why so many people come here from there. It’s the only place people actually talk properly.
I loved getting in my own truck too. In Moscow they expected me to share the Metro with everyone else. Not once did they offer me my own train. I would have been happy with my own train car but no, they insisted on crowding me into this little space with all these foreigners. Nice people, friendly. In then end, I expected they all just wanted to be close to a real Canadian. Probably only get the chance to see us on tv. So here they were all about me, acting like they were just going from place to place, when they really were having, perhaps, their very first ecstatic experience of being near a Canadian.
In the Metro I just hoped all those foreigners washed, brushed their teeth, and kept up with their vaccinations. I confess I sniffed at them a bit, like Canadians do around foreigners. These ones smelt just fine. I actually think they were probably a better sort of foreigner, the kind authorities keep, to show off to Canadians.
I really liked having my own Ford F350 truck back.. All that space inside and all that diesel power to drive right over the top of anyone who even thought to mess with a Canadian.
I also really liked being reunited with my real man dog, Gilbert, the cockapoo. Hannah and her girl dog Hamchi took wonderful care of him. Still when he saw me it was like male prison break from an all girls reform school. He barked, ran circles and danced up and down. He was pretty clear too after that gleeful reunion the king was back. He quickly had his ’subject’ human throwing ball, fetching food, and scratching his belly. It was really good to be reunited. He doesn’t speak Canadian but I understand dog. Dog might be the only language superior to Canadian.
Then we were home. Home is great. . I was so excited to see everything I love still here. Hurricanes, tsunamis, zombies and meteorites could well have taken it all away. I was filled with gratitude. Mida had been by and tidied up the hectic mess I’d left leaving.
My Harley Davidson Motorcycle was there too. Gilbert and I got on that Harley with Steve Bell music playing full volume and rode on the highway.
I've even enjoyed going back to work. No major crisis while I was away. The plants and fish survived. The bills had piled up but not so bad that that the tax department has sent around anyone to knee cap me. Aubrey, my assistant, kept things safe.
Then there were friends. In Russia I only had one friend, Barrett. Here I have what seem like a gazillion people and family too. They all know and speak and are Canadian. Holy sainted geniuses, the lot of them.
I’m really glad to be home. I don’t know if the rest of the world is going to learn Canadian any time soon. They’re still a little backward.
I keep telling foreigners that if you want to know God, stop with the om, amen, or allah akbar. Just say ‘eh’ ? And everything will be okay, eh?
Monday, June 2, 2014
Moscow - leaving, all my bags packed, an hour early
5:15 am
I’m up an hour early to leave Moscow. Showered, dressed, had coffee, ate yoghurt, checked email, ready to go. Nope, it’s 5:15 not 6:15. Can’t meditate. Been through Facebook once and a half already. No more milk for another coffee. Only 4 hours of sleep but can’t nap. Could sleep through alarm.
Moscow skyline pretty in the morning sun. Great gold onion and crosses church that Stalin bombed and now is restored, outside my window. I see a bridge and the river I’d not seen before. Seems like forever since I took the boat cruise on that two weeks ago. Intense times. Looking forward most to seeing the little guy. Funny, how a dog gets under one’s skin. We’ll be re united. He’ll run circles and bark, then it will be like two guys hanging out together. He’ll want to walk, sniff butts, fetch ball. I ‘ll want to sit at the computer, drive in vehicles, watch tv lying down, go to work. He’ll want to play with toys. Meet and greet. Then there’s riding on the motorcycle. We do that together. More fun to be on an ATV in the country.
Ate great salmon here. I really should be out fishing more. We’re both not as patient as we should be for that. Vancouver, this time of the year, is tremendous. Great weather. Vivid green with flowers galore. Most everyone's over the winter seasonal affective disorder depressions. Too many activities and not enough time. Make a point to walk the sea wall, get to the beach, go swimming outdoors. Store up the good times for the winter doldrums. Play outside. Dog days.
Now I’m waiting. Another half hour. Didn’t sleep well last night. Tossing and turning. Anxiety about missing flight. Alarms set and still awake, first on this side, then roll over ,and still awake on that side too. Slept some. Woke from good dream. This awake is pretty good too. Gratitude.
Metro. Then Train. Then security checks. Then wait. Then board. Will snooze on plane. Stopover Amsterdam. Remember being there in early 70’s. Peugeot bikes and gorgeous girl. I confessed to a friend “I think I just wear women out. Too much life threatening adventure and immaturity.” Now when I think I’m a little grown up I’m older and wishing I knew what I knew now back then. Where did the time go? It sure was good though. Packed a lot in to the seconds and nano seconds. Apparently another third to go. One day at a time. Just for today. Living in the present is a gift.
I actually thought I’d know God more, meditating and praying back then in my 20’s. Thought I’d be some kind of enlightened by now. Expected different things. Life happens while we’re making other plans. I’m still talking to God, still doing healing work. But mostly just learning. Always learning. Letting go of the old , holding onto the new.
Barrett’s up and decided next time she’s going to take a 2 week intensive Russia then visit her family. Admire her love of languages. I’d like to continue Spanish. Started Hebrew last year to better read Bible. Might get back to it. Discussing pictures and architecture. Contrasts between Soviet era and other times.
Soon we’ll be gathering things. “All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go….” Not at all relevant but the song goes through my head whenever I’m heading for a plane. John Denver and Colorado. That was another place and time as well. Strawberry Mountain Peace and Love Festival. Later Fear and Loathing days in LA. Tapestries. All the moments sewn together by some master craftsman who lets me come along for the ride. I often think all I am is the voice over. I can be happy or sad. I can scream or laugh. It’s that kind of roller coaster. I’m strapped in and it’s playing out to the end.
We talked yesterday of times we wanted to end it. A few men discussing our decisions to carry on. In spite of it. It. that’s what we name the thing in tough times. Trying not to swear. Then a friend sends a picture of soldiers around a generator with their cell phones plugged in. I think of times when I’ve ached to be alone and now it’s no longer a scary place. I want people more than I need them. Am with myself rather than away from them.
The reincarnation thing isn’t linear. Like so many things in the quantum world it’s parallel and stellate and multi dimensional. How little I know, the more I know. Once I wanted to get off this path, now I’m holding true. It’s less thought and more experiential. Acting oneself into right thinking rather than hoping right thinking will lead to right action. Even with a good start so much is maintaining course. Sailing is a marvellous metaphor with currents, tides and winds and equipment.
The first time Dad took us up flying was so thrilling. Now I brace a bit as I take off and brace a bit as I land. There was that crash and no preparation or thinking about it could have done anything about the plane sheering off into the ditch and rolling onto it’s side crushing the wing and making us climb out the side. I thought it unusual to be climbing up out of a plane. The shock never really hit at the time. So much work to do. So many patients to see. Hundreds waiting. What’s a bruise or a crashed plane got to do with anything. Someone will arrange other transport out. Then years later watching eyes go wide when I say I was in a plane crash. Wondering now if that’s the only reason I brace. Other’s reactions. Another plane.
I remember thinking how poorly made the Lada was, in that one, a friend was driving a decade or two ago. YBut Soviets got into space first. Cosmonaut technology went into their plane design. The LADA’s I’ve seen here are good looking cars, sound good too. My Ural was a tough machine too, but I do prefer my Harley.
I’ve nothing to fear. I can say that. But anxiety is a measure of my distance from God and equally a measure of my humanity. We are Gods that shit. Time to catch a plane back home and see my favourite little friend.
9:10 am
We’ve made it through the gauntlet, metro, train and three security checks. Amazing accomplishment. Barrett was shoved and I was told to hurry up. Now a child is screaming behind us. A little White Westy dog is making the rounds with his human. Anxiety has shifted to boredom. I’m reduced to taking selfies. Don’t know what next. Another coffee? Another trip to the toilet? Try to get everyone involved in a flash dance?
Moscow - hiking about
It was my last day in Moscow. I visited some churches then went on an adventure looking for St. Andrew’s Church of England. There was supposed to be an evening service and meeting there. The evening service turned out to be off because an opera recital was taking place. I actually was sitting in a cafe, showing a girl the google internet map of the area, and street the cafe was actually on asking, where the church street was, showing her the names of the streets, when it was only a couple of blocks away and she said she didn't recognize any of the streets. They were in her language and alphabet but they were all Greek to me.
I eventually got a map which had both the cyrrilic and latin naming. Then I asked a young man and he pointed me to the very street the cafe was on. He used his Samsung gps and rudimentary English to make sure I was pointed down the street to the church a couple of blocks away. It was across from the Marriott Courtyard. I’d already gone to the Marriott Moscow Grand. This was beyond the great Russian writer Pushkin's statue. There a lovely Marriott trainee got me all sorted out finding the right Marriott and gave me the indispensable tourist map.
Up until now I’d not needed such a map because Barrett had been reading a regular Moscow map in cyrrilic code.I’m convinced the Soviets use the cyrrilic alphabet just to ensure that no invader will ever get through Moscow or anywhere in fact in Russia because it’s all Greek.
I finally found St. Andrews only to encounter a busy surly chaplain. Travelling, I’ve enjoyed meeting priests around the world, but this one was the first rude one. Later I told Barrett about this and she figured he’d probably osmosed the Russian brevity and abruptness and not to take it personally. As his church was being turned into an operatic forum for the evening he was probably preoccupied and didn’t recognize a sweaty Harley Davidson t shirted sneaker wearing blue jeaned pot belly older sort of Canadian as a true Anglican of the faith. A regular colonial, and here in Moscow, is probably what he thought, Brits being Brits. That said I’ve got the very best priest the British could have produced in my parish so it balances out. The poor fellow is also probably mad with the alphabet.
I wandered a bit. Walked down by the Kremlin. Checked out some statues. Some a porcelain moose in a window so am convinced beyond doubt moose are in Russia. I also saw my Harley with a different paint job. Made me want to ride. Got back to the apartment where the washer wasn’t working, It had captured Barretts clothes holding them hostage. She’d arrived later to tell me she waited for a repairman to release her clothing but he’d not arrived. She’d gone off to the Gulag Museum but found it closed. I’d had an hour nap and a snack of Riga sardines and the repairman hadn’t come.
I was off to the church again where the opera was in full swing and the meeting was the normal tragicomedy in foreign accents. We laughed downstairs while the piano thumped upstairs. It was a marvellous way to spend the last evening in Moscow. Later I’d walk and talk of walruses and things with an English fellow married to a beautiful Russian.
When I got back to the apartment the repairman had been. Barrett was pleased her clothing had been freed. “He simply broke the door with his knife,” she said. I could see she’d taken vicarious pleasure in the ill fate of the offending laundry washer door. Now her clothing is drying out on the balcony.
We’re on the 14th floor and the view is spectacular. Last night I was having salmon in the cafe down the street and a delightful businessman joined me. He was drinking beer and I was drinking coffee, A Russian born Russian with a Texas accent. He said he’d represented American oil men here and travelled back and forth to Texas. He said the district we were in had several embassies. He gave me a copy of the English Moscow Times which I read while I finished my dinner before he joined me again to chat some more while I had ice cream and he had another beer. Being in the business of oil he knew Alberta as well and waxed poetic about the Calgary stampede. I’d just been to the Bolshoi and he was glad I’d so enjoyed the opera. He loved the city of Moscow with all the cultural achievements but loved the West and the oil business.
I confess I enjoyed speaking English. Other than Barrett, that gentleman, and now the fellow tonight, I’d not spoken more than a few broken phrases with anyone the last two weeks. Probably that’s part of the maker’s plan. Give my voice and mind a rest since the spoken and heard word are so much a part of my work. I’ve enjoyed watching people , their gestures and expressions. The young are so animated here whereas a lot of the old are suspicious and scowl, more than in the West, much more.
I saw a man wearing a catchy t shirt, which said, “EAT Your Enemy”. He was built and looked just like a Hollywood Russian bad guy. I smiled at the shirt and he didn’t smile back. Best to keep moving.
We’re up at 4 in the morning. Barrett’s a great traveller. I’m so glad she said she was only travelling with two bags. We’ve done well, washing linen of course, but the light travelling has made everything so doable. There was no room on the train for more suitcases and we’ve had to carry and wheel our bags all over trains and planes and metro. It's been a fast paced trip with lots of walking and hauling gear. Totally unworkable without travelling light. It’s really a great way to travel.
I travelled with just a pack sack in my 20’s and 30’s but with all the medical conference travel I’ve become fat and lazy with a big suitcase and a little bag. I pack enough underwear and socks for a week or two and multiples shirts and pairs of pants.
Barrett calls this ‘camping’ but it’s really been the very best way to travel. I love my Eagle Creek wheeled and shoulder strapped luggage. It’s done extremely well.
All that didn’t work this trip was the gps maps I downloaded for Russia. Also my Iridium satellite phone connects me with some Russian speaking woman rather than dialling through to home. Getting a cell phone card here was worked just fine along with internet email. I really would have liked to have had my hand held gps. That would really would help in city travel.As it was Barrett has scouted and conversed and found our way wherever we’ve had to go. A top notch tour guide.
She says I’ve been most helpful and as well as a pleasant sort of travel companion. I'm fairly non plussed by changing plans and disruptions. It's all an adventure. Everything is so novel. She does get into conversations with people about their cats and children though. I’ve had to be patient as she’s learning that some lady’s son is in prison or some daughters husband drinks too much. She delights in these conversations. So while I’ve been enjoying architecture, paintings, churches she’s been having a very different experience of language, stories and people. She’s been so happy to be with her family and friends again too. She really animated after spending time with them.
I can’t help but think that a lot of my personal journey here has been about ‘loving your enemy’ and ‘forgiving’. My childhood was so impacted by the Kennedy Missile Crisis and the Cold War. Sure we got great James Bond OO7 movies but really I lived in the fear of nuclear war and threat of the apocalypse. It wasn’t until the SALT talks that I thought that we just might have another future than the Mel Gibson’s Road Warrior one. So I really was resentful, I’m sure, at the communists who no doubt were resentful at us and vice versa. The Stalin era architecture are a sharp contrast to the beautiful onion and cross churches.
Here I’m seeing that the Russians are much like the Russians I’ve known back home. I was telling Barrett about the Russians I scuba dived with. They certainly were trustworthy. And here so many people have been so helpful.
The women are so beautiful too with their love of fashion and especially their devotion to high heeled shoes. I tried to take a few pictures of shoes then but it's not as easy as it might seem. Besides I'd not want to be arrested as a photog with a foot fetish. I couldn't do justice to the fashion moments that happen every few minutes on the downtown streets. Women that really could have stepped right off the catwalk saunter by. The culture overall is so global it’s just a different world than at some level I expected. Really, I guess, I expected more drab.
I love the Orthodox Catholic church, the devotion and revival I see happening here. It’s miraculous really. A real revival. So much hope too. Rebirth.
So again I face my fears, have faith and am rewarded. God is good.
I eventually got a map which had both the cyrrilic and latin naming. Then I asked a young man and he pointed me to the very street the cafe was on. He used his Samsung gps and rudimentary English to make sure I was pointed down the street to the church a couple of blocks away. It was across from the Marriott Courtyard. I’d already gone to the Marriott Moscow Grand. This was beyond the great Russian writer Pushkin's statue. There a lovely Marriott trainee got me all sorted out finding the right Marriott and gave me the indispensable tourist map.
Up until now I’d not needed such a map because Barrett had been reading a regular Moscow map in cyrrilic code.I’m convinced the Soviets use the cyrrilic alphabet just to ensure that no invader will ever get through Moscow or anywhere in fact in Russia because it’s all Greek.
I finally found St. Andrews only to encounter a busy surly chaplain. Travelling, I’ve enjoyed meeting priests around the world, but this one was the first rude one. Later I told Barrett about this and she figured he’d probably osmosed the Russian brevity and abruptness and not to take it personally. As his church was being turned into an operatic forum for the evening he was probably preoccupied and didn’t recognize a sweaty Harley Davidson t shirted sneaker wearing blue jeaned pot belly older sort of Canadian as a true Anglican of the faith. A regular colonial, and here in Moscow, is probably what he thought, Brits being Brits. That said I’ve got the very best priest the British could have produced in my parish so it balances out. The poor fellow is also probably mad with the alphabet.
I wandered a bit. Walked down by the Kremlin. Checked out some statues. Some a porcelain moose in a window so am convinced beyond doubt moose are in Russia. I also saw my Harley with a different paint job. Made me want to ride. Got back to the apartment where the washer wasn’t working, It had captured Barretts clothes holding them hostage. She’d arrived later to tell me she waited for a repairman to release her clothing but he’d not arrived. She’d gone off to the Gulag Museum but found it closed. I’d had an hour nap and a snack of Riga sardines and the repairman hadn’t come.
I was off to the church again where the opera was in full swing and the meeting was the normal tragicomedy in foreign accents. We laughed downstairs while the piano thumped upstairs. It was a marvellous way to spend the last evening in Moscow. Later I’d walk and talk of walruses and things with an English fellow married to a beautiful Russian.
When I got back to the apartment the repairman had been. Barrett was pleased her clothing had been freed. “He simply broke the door with his knife,” she said. I could see she’d taken vicarious pleasure in the ill fate of the offending laundry washer door. Now her clothing is drying out on the balcony.
We’re on the 14th floor and the view is spectacular. Last night I was having salmon in the cafe down the street and a delightful businessman joined me. He was drinking beer and I was drinking coffee, A Russian born Russian with a Texas accent. He said he’d represented American oil men here and travelled back and forth to Texas. He said the district we were in had several embassies. He gave me a copy of the English Moscow Times which I read while I finished my dinner before he joined me again to chat some more while I had ice cream and he had another beer. Being in the business of oil he knew Alberta as well and waxed poetic about the Calgary stampede. I’d just been to the Bolshoi and he was glad I’d so enjoyed the opera. He loved the city of Moscow with all the cultural achievements but loved the West and the oil business.
I confess I enjoyed speaking English. Other than Barrett, that gentleman, and now the fellow tonight, I’d not spoken more than a few broken phrases with anyone the last two weeks. Probably that’s part of the maker’s plan. Give my voice and mind a rest since the spoken and heard word are so much a part of my work. I’ve enjoyed watching people , their gestures and expressions. The young are so animated here whereas a lot of the old are suspicious and scowl, more than in the West, much more.
I saw a man wearing a catchy t shirt, which said, “EAT Your Enemy”. He was built and looked just like a Hollywood Russian bad guy. I smiled at the shirt and he didn’t smile back. Best to keep moving.
We’re up at 4 in the morning. Barrett’s a great traveller. I’m so glad she said she was only travelling with two bags. We’ve done well, washing linen of course, but the light travelling has made everything so doable. There was no room on the train for more suitcases and we’ve had to carry and wheel our bags all over trains and planes and metro. It's been a fast paced trip with lots of walking and hauling gear. Totally unworkable without travelling light. It’s really a great way to travel.
I travelled with just a pack sack in my 20’s and 30’s but with all the medical conference travel I’ve become fat and lazy with a big suitcase and a little bag. I pack enough underwear and socks for a week or two and multiples shirts and pairs of pants.
Barrett calls this ‘camping’ but it’s really been the very best way to travel. I love my Eagle Creek wheeled and shoulder strapped luggage. It’s done extremely well.
All that didn’t work this trip was the gps maps I downloaded for Russia. Also my Iridium satellite phone connects me with some Russian speaking woman rather than dialling through to home. Getting a cell phone card here was worked just fine along with internet email. I really would have liked to have had my hand held gps. That would really would help in city travel.As it was Barrett has scouted and conversed and found our way wherever we’ve had to go. A top notch tour guide.
She says I’ve been most helpful and as well as a pleasant sort of travel companion. I'm fairly non plussed by changing plans and disruptions. It's all an adventure. Everything is so novel. She does get into conversations with people about their cats and children though. I’ve had to be patient as she’s learning that some lady’s son is in prison or some daughters husband drinks too much. She delights in these conversations. So while I’ve been enjoying architecture, paintings, churches she’s been having a very different experience of language, stories and people. She’s been so happy to be with her family and friends again too. She really animated after spending time with them.
I can’t help but think that a lot of my personal journey here has been about ‘loving your enemy’ and ‘forgiving’. My childhood was so impacted by the Kennedy Missile Crisis and the Cold War. Sure we got great James Bond OO7 movies but really I lived in the fear of nuclear war and threat of the apocalypse. It wasn’t until the SALT talks that I thought that we just might have another future than the Mel Gibson’s Road Warrior one. So I really was resentful, I’m sure, at the communists who no doubt were resentful at us and vice versa. The Stalin era architecture are a sharp contrast to the beautiful onion and cross churches.
Here I’m seeing that the Russians are much like the Russians I’ve known back home. I was telling Barrett about the Russians I scuba dived with. They certainly were trustworthy. And here so many people have been so helpful.
The women are so beautiful too with their love of fashion and especially their devotion to high heeled shoes. I tried to take a few pictures of shoes then but it's not as easy as it might seem. Besides I'd not want to be arrested as a photog with a foot fetish. I couldn't do justice to the fashion moments that happen every few minutes on the downtown streets. Women that really could have stepped right off the catwalk saunter by. The culture overall is so global it’s just a different world than at some level I expected. Really, I guess, I expected more drab.
I love the Orthodox Catholic church, the devotion and revival I see happening here. It’s miraculous really. A real revival. So much hope too. Rebirth.
So again I face my fears, have faith and am rewarded. God is good.
Moscow- last day
The swimming pool church was closed. The Pushkin museum was closed. It’s 9:30 am. Tourism opens in Moscow 10 to 11 am. I’d not had a morning coffee yet. Just yoghurt and Russian sparkling water. I’ve already stood beside an enthusiastic Russian and genuflected three times before the icon outside the church.
Travelling for me is a time for writing. In Gr. 3 or 4, Mrs. Murray or Mrs. Cowrie assigned us the task of writing letters home from places we visited in ‘geography’. I wrote epistles. A psychiatrist might intuit a need for ‘attention’. I was a day dreamer. Someone might say I needed antipsychotic medications then. The flights of fancy to other planets of the galaxy would be no more. I’d not astro project or have intuitions that proved true. I’d not heal wounded birds and gather hurt things to me. I’d have no time for such nonsense. I’d not sing because when I sang I didn’t sing on key for a very long time. I was good at defending myself and beating up gangs that attacked me or my friends. If I’d not had a mother that made me a set of pyjamas for my teddy bear I’d have been a better killer. Perhaps taken that sense into the win or lose of business transaction. Maybe I’d have gone further in athletics not sort of turned away from the group sports to pursue the lone pursuits with only myself as my main competitor. Maybe I wouldn’t have danced. I’ve a potpourri of skills that span the gender spectrum and spend too much time with under dogs, odd balls and outliers. Maybe I could have just chosen friends from the rostrum social status. Rejecting the ones who weren’t the flavour of the month.
I would have liked to ‘fit’. I envy those who have these neat collections of traits and behaviours that fit an acceptable mould. Those dancers who don’t ride motorcycles and hunt big game. When I was a vegetarian and meditating cross legged all day, yoga was anathema to the main stream. Now I’m in churches genuflecting and praying to Jesus when Buddha is all the rage. I fancied Buddha in my 30’s. He’s still a pretty nice guy, like the Queen. I still like Yogananda and for some reason reflected on meeting Bishop Tootoo recently, thinking that he like the Daliai Lama I’d also met, were very fine fellows. But mostly I liked the doctor who shared a call room with me when the building flooded and slept through the alarms only waking when his personal beeper went off.
I think of storms at sea and being knocked down in sailboats going on through the eye of the storm. I’ll never forget the pattern of the sea and eerie glow. There are some places I’ve been that no amount of money could buy. Only experience gets you in and out. Like the charging moose bent on killing me. The rifle didn’t fail me that day despite the 30:06 bullets bouncing off the lowered horns. He died feet from where I kneeled.
For some reason I’ve been remembering different patients , ones I’d not thought of for years. With the Ukranian and Russian troubles I remembered the old Ukranian man whose life I saved by sacrificing the doctor bent on killing him through ignorance and arrogance. Now I’m so honoured to know a Russian professor whose sense of style and flare is so original. I see where she gained this here in the streets of Moscow where fashion outshines Paris. But how can these women walk all day in 4 inch heels on cobblestone?
I explained to another just the other day that the doctor we knew wasn’t dementing. She’d said he was forgetting things and missing words. I explained that dementia was only when you didn’t know the meaning of an automobile or tried to mop the floor with the dog. Then she said ‘some kind of cognitive failure’ like the young will , with the naming of things, having meaning beyond the thing itself. Then eventually we talk of talk of talk and seem so learned to ourselves when the garden is just a garden.
I am overwhelmed at times now with memories so vivid I’m living in the past again as if it were today. The woman who passed me in the Russian subway reminded me so strongly of the patient I knew who refused to leave 1969. She was dressed as this modern woman was. Transport her here from her room in the asylum and she’d be in vogue.
Young people in their 20’s dress like we did then. I remember your body so sensuous and agile in the wheat field where we made love all day. I thought our bodies were forever wedded. I never lost love for your every movement. There was such grace in the way your eyelashes lifted as you looked through me and at me. Your lips were so full. I was blessed in your love. That was then and now they dress like we did. The girl I just passéd wore her hair as you did, the same folksy beret.
If someone asked me the time at that moment I wouldn’t know what decade I was in. I’ve a bliss of memories that bring tears to my eyes, I’m so blessed with who I’ve know. This journey and adventure has been such a wild and crazy passing. I didn’t know I was on a roller coaster even when I was taking a train, bicycling or hitch hiking across the country with a beat up guitar. I've had a beard, a mustache, long hair, short hair. Looking back it's such a tapestry.
All I wanted was to know you God, in all your manifestation. I loved the Song of Songs best. My fingertips tingled as lightning leapt through my body caressing the buttocks of the woman who knew me as her lover. It was a very big bed on the wintry night in a city where people only spoke French. I saw a horse drawn carriage and remembered our carriage ride that night, the fur robe lain over our legs.
I’m here. I’m in this present. I’m writing home from geography class. I’m walking around in a world where the language is as psychotic as the letters on the signs. I’m stopping at toilets, churches and occasionally a museum. Museums indulge in the collective memory. Some are obviously dementing. There’s coffee spots too.
Right now I’m looking for a meeting. I spoke English with a Russian last night. He was drinking and smoking cigarettes. I was weary of the memory of the substances. I just want to be awake. I want to be present.
Here I am in Moscow but already I’m thinking of my dog. I’ve dreamed of him these last three nights. I’ve remembered my office, my vehicles, my homes, faces of friends and thought again how an intense vacation can restore the joy of the mundane. Just as the tedium threatened to swallow me whole, I am relieved by this whirlpool of unknown, so much so that I long again for the everyday everyday. And of course I need a vacation from my vacation.
I’ll never forget when Baiba and I, after bicycling Europe got off, the ferry in England and simply rejoiced in the known language. That first English woman we talked to must have thought us batty as we hung on her every syllable. We take understanding for granted. We take communication for granted.
The coffee is done. I’m refreshed. Time to go look at this church that was closed when last I came this way. Perhaps now I’m synchronized with tourist time.
Travelling for me is a time for writing. In Gr. 3 or 4, Mrs. Murray or Mrs. Cowrie assigned us the task of writing letters home from places we visited in ‘geography’. I wrote epistles. A psychiatrist might intuit a need for ‘attention’. I was a day dreamer. Someone might say I needed antipsychotic medications then. The flights of fancy to other planets of the galaxy would be no more. I’d not astro project or have intuitions that proved true. I’d not heal wounded birds and gather hurt things to me. I’d have no time for such nonsense. I’d not sing because when I sang I didn’t sing on key for a very long time. I was good at defending myself and beating up gangs that attacked me or my friends. If I’d not had a mother that made me a set of pyjamas for my teddy bear I’d have been a better killer. Perhaps taken that sense into the win or lose of business transaction. Maybe I’d have gone further in athletics not sort of turned away from the group sports to pursue the lone pursuits with only myself as my main competitor. Maybe I wouldn’t have danced. I’ve a potpourri of skills that span the gender spectrum and spend too much time with under dogs, odd balls and outliers. Maybe I could have just chosen friends from the rostrum social status. Rejecting the ones who weren’t the flavour of the month.
I would have liked to ‘fit’. I envy those who have these neat collections of traits and behaviours that fit an acceptable mould. Those dancers who don’t ride motorcycles and hunt big game. When I was a vegetarian and meditating cross legged all day, yoga was anathema to the main stream. Now I’m in churches genuflecting and praying to Jesus when Buddha is all the rage. I fancied Buddha in my 30’s. He’s still a pretty nice guy, like the Queen. I still like Yogananda and for some reason reflected on meeting Bishop Tootoo recently, thinking that he like the Daliai Lama I’d also met, were very fine fellows. But mostly I liked the doctor who shared a call room with me when the building flooded and slept through the alarms only waking when his personal beeper went off.
I think of storms at sea and being knocked down in sailboats going on through the eye of the storm. I’ll never forget the pattern of the sea and eerie glow. There are some places I’ve been that no amount of money could buy. Only experience gets you in and out. Like the charging moose bent on killing me. The rifle didn’t fail me that day despite the 30:06 bullets bouncing off the lowered horns. He died feet from where I kneeled.
For some reason I’ve been remembering different patients , ones I’d not thought of for years. With the Ukranian and Russian troubles I remembered the old Ukranian man whose life I saved by sacrificing the doctor bent on killing him through ignorance and arrogance. Now I’m so honoured to know a Russian professor whose sense of style and flare is so original. I see where she gained this here in the streets of Moscow where fashion outshines Paris. But how can these women walk all day in 4 inch heels on cobblestone?
I explained to another just the other day that the doctor we knew wasn’t dementing. She’d said he was forgetting things and missing words. I explained that dementia was only when you didn’t know the meaning of an automobile or tried to mop the floor with the dog. Then she said ‘some kind of cognitive failure’ like the young will , with the naming of things, having meaning beyond the thing itself. Then eventually we talk of talk of talk and seem so learned to ourselves when the garden is just a garden.
I am overwhelmed at times now with memories so vivid I’m living in the past again as if it were today. The woman who passed me in the Russian subway reminded me so strongly of the patient I knew who refused to leave 1969. She was dressed as this modern woman was. Transport her here from her room in the asylum and she’d be in vogue.
Young people in their 20’s dress like we did then. I remember your body so sensuous and agile in the wheat field where we made love all day. I thought our bodies were forever wedded. I never lost love for your every movement. There was such grace in the way your eyelashes lifted as you looked through me and at me. Your lips were so full. I was blessed in your love. That was then and now they dress like we did. The girl I just passéd wore her hair as you did, the same folksy beret.
If someone asked me the time at that moment I wouldn’t know what decade I was in. I’ve a bliss of memories that bring tears to my eyes, I’m so blessed with who I’ve know. This journey and adventure has been such a wild and crazy passing. I didn’t know I was on a roller coaster even when I was taking a train, bicycling or hitch hiking across the country with a beat up guitar. I've had a beard, a mustache, long hair, short hair. Looking back it's such a tapestry.
All I wanted was to know you God, in all your manifestation. I loved the Song of Songs best. My fingertips tingled as lightning leapt through my body caressing the buttocks of the woman who knew me as her lover. It was a very big bed on the wintry night in a city where people only spoke French. I saw a horse drawn carriage and remembered our carriage ride that night, the fur robe lain over our legs.
I’m here. I’m in this present. I’m writing home from geography class. I’m walking around in a world where the language is as psychotic as the letters on the signs. I’m stopping at toilets, churches and occasionally a museum. Museums indulge in the collective memory. Some are obviously dementing. There’s coffee spots too.
Right now I’m looking for a meeting. I spoke English with a Russian last night. He was drinking and smoking cigarettes. I was weary of the memory of the substances. I just want to be awake. I want to be present.
Here I am in Moscow but already I’m thinking of my dog. I’ve dreamed of him these last three nights. I’ve remembered my office, my vehicles, my homes, faces of friends and thought again how an intense vacation can restore the joy of the mundane. Just as the tedium threatened to swallow me whole, I am relieved by this whirlpool of unknown, so much so that I long again for the everyday everyday. And of course I need a vacation from my vacation.
I’ll never forget when Baiba and I, after bicycling Europe got off, the ferry in England and simply rejoiced in the known language. That first English woman we talked to must have thought us batty as we hung on her every syllable. We take understanding for granted. We take communication for granted.
The coffee is done. I’m refreshed. Time to go look at this church that was closed when last I came this way. Perhaps now I’m synchronized with tourist time.
Cathedral of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God, Moscow
The St. Alexis Convent of the Conception of St. Anna was founded in 1360 by the Metropolitan of Moscow. In 1547 the convent burnt down in the great fire of Moscow. It was rebuilt but laid to waste during the French invasion of 1812. With the support of the state it was fully restored. The miraculous icon of the Mother of God called the “Merciful’ was located in the cathedral. 1917 the Bolsheviks gained power and the convent and cathedral was closed. The Cathedral and bell tower were blown up in 1934 and a standard 4 story school built on the site. The miraculous icon of the Mother of God called the “Merciful” survived by being transferred to another church. In 1991 the Sisterhood of the Icon of the Mother of God called the “Merciful” began work on revival of the convent. With the blessing of his Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia and by decision of the Holy Synod of 1995, the ancient convent was revived. 1999 the miraculous icon of the Mother of God called “the Merciful” was carried in triumphant process back to the Convent of the Conception. On Nov. 25, 2005, the feast day of the icon of the Mother of God called “The Merciful”, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II laid the foundation stone of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God . On Nov 25, 2010, the 650th anniversary of the Convent of the Conception - the great consecration of the convent and the first Divine Liturgy was headed by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.
I came across this cathedral on two separate days. Each time I was looking for something else but the second time figured I’d best go in, accepting my lostness as more than geographical. Nuns were there along with other devout worshippers. I felt guilty taking pictures but no one seemed to notice. I bought a candle and lit it. I prayed. It was a good place to pray. I bought an icon for a friend. I'd thought of him in the night.
I came across this cathedral on two separate days. Each time I was looking for something else but the second time figured I’d best go in, accepting my lostness as more than geographical. Nuns were there along with other devout worshippers. I felt guilty taking pictures but no one seemed to notice. I bought a candle and lit it. I prayed. It was a good place to pray. I bought an icon for a friend. I'd thought of him in the night.
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