I just saw my friend, and he is awesome, so calm and posative about the whole experience. Unlike me. :)
I still mean everything I said in my last post.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
freedom fighter
I think that our culture is repressed and because people don’t have healthy outlets for their emotions, either angry or sad they snap and act out. They think that it is okay to set someone on fire. If you follow the news you already know about this, if you don’t. On Saturday night a couple of guys thought it would be a good idea to set a friend of mine on fire. They found the colour of his skin offensive. I feel like I am probably more angry than he his, I am shocked that people could even get away with doing such a thing. I know that lots of people think we live in a progressive society where you can be coloured or gay and it is okay. We really don’t, we really live in a society that talks about how accepting it is but when push comes to shove hate wins.
This is the article:
http://www.theprovince.com/Racial+hatred+possible+motive+torching+sleeping+Vancouver+police/2092186/story.html
I think that everyday of our lives we need to fight hatred and anger, we need to fight it with all the strength that we have. When I went to see the Dalai Lama talk he said that this next century should be one of peace and that peace doesn’t mean conflict. Peace means when there is conflict we choose to resolve it without violence. There will always be violence it is our reaction and response to that violence that is important. When I read, Eat, Pray, Love, the author said that ‘you should look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water’. I think that we should do the same for my friend and for people who have been the victim of hate crimes. We should fight hatred like it is the most important thing in the world. Life is really a precious thing, all of a sudden it could be gone, as I have learned a few times this month. We need to use every breath that we have to work so that we can have a world that is safe where people can look for God and be safe. Where people can love each other and be safe, where people can sleep on a couch on the street and not worry about being set on fire.
This is the article:
http://www.theprovince.com/Racial+hatred+possible+motive+torching+sleeping+Vancouver+police/2092186/story.html
I think that everyday of our lives we need to fight hatred and anger, we need to fight it with all the strength that we have. When I went to see the Dalai Lama talk he said that this next century should be one of peace and that peace doesn’t mean conflict. Peace means when there is conflict we choose to resolve it without violence. There will always be violence it is our reaction and response to that violence that is important. When I read, Eat, Pray, Love, the author said that ‘you should look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water’. I think that we should do the same for my friend and for people who have been the victim of hate crimes. We should fight hatred like it is the most important thing in the world. Life is really a precious thing, all of a sudden it could be gone, as I have learned a few times this month. We need to use every breath that we have to work so that we can have a world that is safe where people can look for God and be safe. Where people can love each other and be safe, where people can sleep on a couch on the street and not worry about being set on fire.
Monday, October 12, 2009
House of Gospel and Blues
I love gospel music!
Yesterday I went to the Sunday morning gospel set at the Dixie Land Jazz Festival in Surrey. It was phenomenal. I really love music, which is something that you would probably know by now, if I love a song I will listen to it repeatedly for hours. Black Swan, was the band featured at the gospel set and their lead singer was Merilyn Keller. Merilyn from Oregon, sings with a band of old white men and she is a wonderful black woman, who I am sure could out sing some of the greatest. I really love gospel music, but what I love even more is being able to dance to it, its like everything lines up perfectly in this combination of movement and music. So Merilyn sang Amazing Grace, a song that I think is a little over rated, by the end of the dance/song I was almost in tears it was so beautiful. She sang that song straight from the heart and you could tell. It was also cute because she dedicated the song to Jenny Legon (sp?), a woman who lives in Vancouver and used to dance with the greats of the 20 and 30s, she was even in the movie Stormy Weather, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBb9hTyLjfM . This clip isnt of her it is actually of the Nicholas Brothers, Jenny isnt on YouTube.
All in all I would have to say it was a great Sunday morning.
Yesterday I went to the Sunday morning gospel set at the Dixie Land Jazz Festival in Surrey. It was phenomenal. I really love music, which is something that you would probably know by now, if I love a song I will listen to it repeatedly for hours. Black Swan, was the band featured at the gospel set and their lead singer was Merilyn Keller. Merilyn from Oregon, sings with a band of old white men and she is a wonderful black woman, who I am sure could out sing some of the greatest. I really love gospel music, but what I love even more is being able to dance to it, its like everything lines up perfectly in this combination of movement and music. So Merilyn sang Amazing Grace, a song that I think is a little over rated, by the end of the dance/song I was almost in tears it was so beautiful. She sang that song straight from the heart and you could tell. It was also cute because she dedicated the song to Jenny Legon (sp?), a woman who lives in Vancouver and used to dance with the greats of the 20 and 30s, she was even in the movie Stormy Weather, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBb9hTyLjfM . This clip isnt of her it is actually of the Nicholas Brothers, Jenny isnt on YouTube.
All in all I would have to say it was a great Sunday morning.
Friday, October 9, 2009
pumpkin pie season
I think that I might be getting sick.
The yoga conference was a very busy week for me 12 hour days, waking up at 7:30am every morning for 6 days (for all you 5am wake up people 7:30 is early for me). Yesterday I woke up at 6:30am from really bad cramping, which has never happened to me before. Aside from the abdominal pain, I was missing my cat. I had yet to be home to the scene of the crime so I decided yesterday that I should stop by. It didnt make me feel any better or worse, I was sure that I would have some sort of emotional reaction. Instead I felt exactly the same, which was tired and a little down. My mother is the greatest, and sensing my emotions made me a pumpkin pie! :) And, it was a vegan pie at that! Sorry, Amanda it didnt taste that good, the tofu was to strong but my mother was great.
I tried really hard to cheer up for the day and I really couldnt. I was almost dreading the yoga classes that I had to teach in the evening. One was a group of teenage boys. They are on a hockey team and their coach has decided that they need to do yoga as part of their training. Even though I was dreading the class, I got to be a hard ass which I thought was fun. You try getting twelve, 16-18 year old boys to be quiet and do yoga.
I am just kinda rambling at this point, I had some time to kill before leaving for work and I wanted to get my thoughts out of my head. Thanks for picking them up for me. :)
The yoga conference was a very busy week for me 12 hour days, waking up at 7:30am every morning for 6 days (for all you 5am wake up people 7:30 is early for me). Yesterday I woke up at 6:30am from really bad cramping, which has never happened to me before. Aside from the abdominal pain, I was missing my cat. I had yet to be home to the scene of the crime so I decided yesterday that I should stop by. It didnt make me feel any better or worse, I was sure that I would have some sort of emotional reaction. Instead I felt exactly the same, which was tired and a little down. My mother is the greatest, and sensing my emotions made me a pumpkin pie! :) And, it was a vegan pie at that! Sorry, Amanda it didnt taste that good, the tofu was to strong but my mother was great.
I tried really hard to cheer up for the day and I really couldnt. I was almost dreading the yoga classes that I had to teach in the evening. One was a group of teenage boys. They are on a hockey team and their coach has decided that they need to do yoga as part of their training. Even though I was dreading the class, I got to be a hard ass which I thought was fun. You try getting twelve, 16-18 year old boys to be quiet and do yoga.
I am just kinda rambling at this point, I had some time to kill before leaving for work and I wanted to get my thoughts out of my head. Thanks for picking them up for me. :)
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Shanti.
This world ebs and flows, and constantly changes, yet I am always surprised when it does things that I dont expect. Tonight I have been cleaning house, not litterally by organizing my space, although I am sure that I could do that also. It really feels good to just deal with emotional baggage the piles up, and you dont even think it is there. Some how you are immune to its pull. That is not the true though, it hides and finds you when at a time that is rather inconvient.
I was at the Vancouver yoga conference this past weekend and the last class of the week was moon cycle yoga. It was really a nice class to take at the end of a very busy weekend. It was almost calming and reassuring. Really that was not what I was expecting from the class, it was an open forum about being a woman and really being okay with what we are delt from our bodies. I am often a very emotional person before I get my period, just the context that we discussed this in the class made me feel okay about that. Incase you were wondering that is where I am at right now, which is why I am forced to deal with my emotional baggage for the month. I am okay with it, it allows me to work throught things that I have been neglecting.
Shanti.
I was at the Vancouver yoga conference this past weekend and the last class of the week was moon cycle yoga. It was really a nice class to take at the end of a very busy weekend. It was almost calming and reassuring. Really that was not what I was expecting from the class, it was an open forum about being a woman and really being okay with what we are delt from our bodies. I am often a very emotional person before I get my period, just the context that we discussed this in the class made me feel okay about that. Incase you were wondering that is where I am at right now, which is why I am forced to deal with my emotional baggage for the month. I am okay with it, it allows me to work throught things that I have been neglecting.
Shanti.
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