I feel the gradual settling down of my emotions from yesterday, as if I am lying down on the beach as a giant, slow motion wave envelops me. What am I doing here...Since when does a Canadian go to France to get into carpentry...It's backwards..."We here in France think there are more opportunities in Canada"...Who will hire an English speaker in Charente Maritime?...What does it mean for me if Steph takes the job of working at a vinyard making cognac and pineau and raising lamb, when the owner wants to hire someone long-term who will eventually become a business partner...The farm is less than 20km from her parent's house...I realise how painful it can be to have a family scattered all around the world, when I feel attached to them...My mom is brave living all by herself in Toronto, does she sleep well?...I jumped up and left everyone to France to Steph's parent's house...What is the best way to transfer CAD to EUR?...Do I feel comfortable staying at Steph's parent's house in March without earning any money?...It all fades away as I feel the morning's oatmeal breakfast in my body. Ah...yes...nothing is written in stone, and everything is temporary...I can change my circumstances...and I will if I should...I am here, now, on this little path, let's see what comes? Life is long, distances are far, if you pay close attention. No day is the same, no spot is the same, no emotion is invalid...Like a boatman in a rowboat, who can only see things behind him, I will only come to understand the larger context of events in retrospect...hmmmmmmm....calmness...let the others stress out...I will not let that into my body for very long...wipe the chalkboard before writing something new, and write only when necessary, using brevity diligently, don't let the board stay full any longer than it must...Surrender...Stop trying to do and just follow...The questions come only when the emotions are stimulated by stress...The memories the same...The longings for people and places past...When things are in harmony...present...there is just me writing on the laptop on my blog...breathing...burping...tasting the oatmeal (jeez, I digest slowly!)...feeling the stiffness and soreness in my neck...If I want to: "I have lived a worthwhile life, if it ends now, so be it"...but it goes on, how mysterious! How interesting! The heart beats whether I know it or not...The body works and goes on ever-present, whether my consciousness keeps up or tumbles around like a tumbleweed...I am riding this body which is really me... I am all of this...I am recycled material...I am the relay racer carrying this flaming torch to the next racer...I am honoured.
Cheers,
M
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
My message blog
Psychological testing en francais tomorrow to see if I get into carpentry school! If not I can still look for some professional carpenter to take me on as an apprentice. Meditation retreat on wednesday! I will be silent from Feb. 24 to March 7. It will help me adapt to this land and this culture, and give me some insight into the kinds of French inbalances (or Sankaras). If I get into the school, it turns out that the school in Brittany will be the more logical choice than the one in Bayonne. It's still near the ocean, I haven't connected with the ocean much before (The Mediterranean yes, but when I was insensitive towards subtle energies). Brittany has Celtic roots, and so it would be the closest physically and culturally that I have ever been to my Welsh Celtic roots. Anyways, chi doesn't have a culture or ethnicity. I am curious about the type of rock along the rocky northern coast of Brittany (St. Malo, the town with the carpentry school, is right on the coast), and what residual energy has accumulated there. There seem to be many churches and monasteries in France built in spaces or on spaces of high and auspicious chi (by auspicious I mean one that can be interacted with by a human organism healthily, the opposite type of 'high energy' might be a power plant).
Europe is a land which has been grasped by human hands and tread over by human feet so intensively and for so long. Long gone are the times when prides of lions roamed Greece and the Balkan valleys. Long ago are the times when mastodon roamed the cold fringes to the north. Long ago were the all-encompassing forests cut down (except in Belarus, where apparently 40 percent of the land is covered in forest!). There is still much wilderness to be found, a lot more than I imagined!
As Western Europeans migrate more steadily to major cities, these obsolete, economically decaying parts of the land will perhaps be the grounds for ecosystem regrowth, with patient, helping human hands.
As a response to Dave for the last post: I think it is because it is an adult school, and they want to ensure that someone who has strayed from the normal (or 'catholic', as they call it here, where we would use the terms 'orthodox' or 'kosher') path, and also because they pay students to go to these schools, and they want to weed out those who would ruin their investments.
Another thought about Latin and non-Latin languages. In French, the subjects and objects are in the opposite order than in English. By the end of the sentence, the message communicated is more or less the same (depending on how significance the difference is between French and English in how each language can be used to express thoughts, if you remember my earlier post on how different languages applied to thoughts transform thoughts in different ways). But in mid-sentence, what does the Frenchman already know that the Englishman has yet to understand? Polar bear/oarse polaire. Un maison en bois/a wood house. Je voudrais un carte de banc/ I would like a bank card. If you started to speak this sentence in either language, and were interrupted mid-sentence right after you said 'carte' or in English 'bank', the French audience would have a different picture than the English. A bank what? A bank statement? or you would like to own a bank? What carte? Un carte de credit? A business card?
Interesting, no? How many messages have been misunderstood because the end wasn't received? Many, surely. French sentences seem to go from general to specific (bears, then the polar type. Cards, then the bank type) and English from specific to general (polars, the bear type. Banks, the card type). For where this rule holds true, it seems like the French language has an advantage, if the message is not fully received with a period at the end. I will have a better understanding of the context of your message if the last word I hear is 'bomb', rather than 'nuclear'. You could be talking about a nuclear atom, or plant.
Anyway, I will try to write again before retreating through my bodily orifices into my inner world (on wednesday).
Cheers,
Maurizio
Europe is a land which has been grasped by human hands and tread over by human feet so intensively and for so long. Long gone are the times when prides of lions roamed Greece and the Balkan valleys. Long ago are the times when mastodon roamed the cold fringes to the north. Long ago were the all-encompassing forests cut down (except in Belarus, where apparently 40 percent of the land is covered in forest!). There is still much wilderness to be found, a lot more than I imagined!
As Western Europeans migrate more steadily to major cities, these obsolete, economically decaying parts of the land will perhaps be the grounds for ecosystem regrowth, with patient, helping human hands.
As a response to Dave for the last post: I think it is because it is an adult school, and they want to ensure that someone who has strayed from the normal (or 'catholic', as they call it here, where we would use the terms 'orthodox' or 'kosher') path, and also because they pay students to go to these schools, and they want to weed out those who would ruin their investments.
Another thought about Latin and non-Latin languages. In French, the subjects and objects are in the opposite order than in English. By the end of the sentence, the message communicated is more or less the same (depending on how significance the difference is between French and English in how each language can be used to express thoughts, if you remember my earlier post on how different languages applied to thoughts transform thoughts in different ways). But in mid-sentence, what does the Frenchman already know that the Englishman has yet to understand? Polar bear/oarse polaire. Un maison en bois/a wood house. Je voudrais un carte de banc/ I would like a bank card. If you started to speak this sentence in either language, and were interrupted mid-sentence right after you said 'carte' or in English 'bank', the French audience would have a different picture than the English. A bank what? A bank statement? or you would like to own a bank? What carte? Un carte de credit? A business card?
Interesting, no? How many messages have been misunderstood because the end wasn't received? Many, surely. French sentences seem to go from general to specific (bears, then the polar type. Cards, then the bank type) and English from specific to general (polars, the bear type. Banks, the card type). For where this rule holds true, it seems like the French language has an advantage, if the message is not fully received with a period at the end. I will have a better understanding of the context of your message if the last word I hear is 'bomb', rather than 'nuclear'. You could be talking about a nuclear atom, or plant.
Anyway, I will try to write again before retreating through my bodily orifices into my inner world (on wednesday).
Cheers,
Maurizio
Friday, February 19, 2010
Decroissance
So. On monday I will endure psychological testing as prerequisite for applying to Carpentry school. My French is coming along. It is a challenge to discipline myself to speak in French with Stephanie instead of English, and to not rely on her for translations, and it hurts sometimes, but I am still here. Started to meditate every morning with Steph, and exercise (have you heard of burpees?): today we went for our first jog. According to studies done ten years ago, this region of Poitue-Charentes is home to some of the longest living Frenchpeople! We eat good fish and other seafood, and lots of great vegetable soups. To get an edge on my application to the school, I will volunteer for a carpenter who lives 25km away for two weeks in the last half of March. We will see how well the osteopath realigned my body (or how well I re-disalign it unconsciously). In France, bathrooms are split into two rooms--wait, I already wrote this, didn't I? Stephanie wants to continue schooling in a new 1 year program for advising people on how to transition to organic agriculture, and how to get licensed. She has a few schools to choose from, and so do I, however they are not in the same cities. If I go to Bayonne (Basque Country. In the south. On the Atlantic coast. Close to the Pyrenees mountains.), Stephanie will go to somewhere around Toulouse, a few hours away. This is unfortunate in one sense, yet it is also good to have some distance sometimes. Next sunday we start Vipassana. Last week I started detoxificating foot baths. Very cool. Electric charges stimulate the excretion of toxins from my liver and other places through the soles of my feet. For my liver, I am also beginning to drink a mug of hot water before I eat breakfast.
What do you get when you gobble down sweets? (A snapshot of random music that entered my head from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory)
Saw the movie Zorba the Greek last night. It was recommended to me over a Greek lunch with my Greek philosopher friend on the Danforth a few summers ago in response to my description of some eastern philosophical thinking I was exploring at the time. The movie was great. Zorba had some great, deep lines in that movie which resonated with me: The British author was asking Zorba if he fought the Turks for his country, and started to make assumptions of Zorba's lack of nationalistic fervor when Zorba flared up and said something like "What do you know about war? All that you know is in your head! From books! What about your arms, your legs, your heart? They are blind! Stupid!" And he went on to describe briefly the horrors he endured. I resonated with Zorba's love of dance. He told the Englishman that when his infant son died, while everyone else cried and mourned, Zorba started to dance, and everyone thought he had gone mad, but it was his catharsis, his way of coping with his pain. He broke into dance at the most spontaneous times. This is what I loved about Zorba: his spontaneousness. To strip and run into the sea. To make up stories to win a lady. To scare the devil out of some poor forest dwelling orthodox monks. To pick up a young prostitute and lounge with her for a few days at the luxurious expense of the Englishman. And then to write the Englishman telling him all the luxuries he was buying to facilitate his indulgence with this woman, saying how every day his mind is clearer and better able to think about the work he originally intended to figure out during that 'business' trip to the major town. Fantastic! Thank you Stefanos!
'Decroissance' translates literally as 'decay'. It is, in France, a movement of people back to simpler, naturalistic non-capitalistic lifestyles. If you look at the country of France, and draw a diagonal line from the SW extreme to the NW extreme, and you consider the land along this line, imagine the line was a few hundred kilometers thick, and you have a rough idea of the part of France considered in 'decroissance'. Lots of these regions were once on the up and up economically speaking, but are now experiencing economic decay, and emmigration. These are the regions where perhaps there can be a revitalization of permaculture principles, creating the conditions conducive for a regrowth of ecosystems. France is very centralized politically and economically. The region including Paris and its hinterlands is called 'Ile-de-France', literally 'Island of France', and some famous Frenchman once commented on the rest of France as savage or wild or something like that (compared to the Paris metropolis).
We went to a seasonal agricultural job fair today in a nearby town called Pons. Gave out a bunch of resumes to Tobacco farmers, apple farmers, viticulturalists, an asparagus farmer, and a mixed organic educational family farm especially for mentally handicapped people to visit. It is a nice idea to work in agriculture until I start carpentry. There is an organisation for volunteers to help on ecoconstruction projects in France, no experience required, might check that out (It is like wwoofing, with room and board in exchange for work, with the difference being it is with professionals and the work is focused, not just whatever the farmer is too lazy to do [dishes, shovel shit, dusting, washing floors, cooking]).
I am seriously considering running a duathlon in the end of March, a 6k run, then 25k bike, then 4k run.
Cheers,
Maurizio
What do you get when you gobble down sweets? (A snapshot of random music that entered my head from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory)
Saw the movie Zorba the Greek last night. It was recommended to me over a Greek lunch with my Greek philosopher friend on the Danforth a few summers ago in response to my description of some eastern philosophical thinking I was exploring at the time. The movie was great. Zorba had some great, deep lines in that movie which resonated with me: The British author was asking Zorba if he fought the Turks for his country, and started to make assumptions of Zorba's lack of nationalistic fervor when Zorba flared up and said something like "What do you know about war? All that you know is in your head! From books! What about your arms, your legs, your heart? They are blind! Stupid!" And he went on to describe briefly the horrors he endured. I resonated with Zorba's love of dance. He told the Englishman that when his infant son died, while everyone else cried and mourned, Zorba started to dance, and everyone thought he had gone mad, but it was his catharsis, his way of coping with his pain. He broke into dance at the most spontaneous times. This is what I loved about Zorba: his spontaneousness. To strip and run into the sea. To make up stories to win a lady. To scare the devil out of some poor forest dwelling orthodox monks. To pick up a young prostitute and lounge with her for a few days at the luxurious expense of the Englishman. And then to write the Englishman telling him all the luxuries he was buying to facilitate his indulgence with this woman, saying how every day his mind is clearer and better able to think about the work he originally intended to figure out during that 'business' trip to the major town. Fantastic! Thank you Stefanos!
'Decroissance' translates literally as 'decay'. It is, in France, a movement of people back to simpler, naturalistic non-capitalistic lifestyles. If you look at the country of France, and draw a diagonal line from the SW extreme to the NW extreme, and you consider the land along this line, imagine the line was a few hundred kilometers thick, and you have a rough idea of the part of France considered in 'decroissance'. Lots of these regions were once on the up and up economically speaking, but are now experiencing economic decay, and emmigration. These are the regions where perhaps there can be a revitalization of permaculture principles, creating the conditions conducive for a regrowth of ecosystems. France is very centralized politically and economically. The region including Paris and its hinterlands is called 'Ile-de-France', literally 'Island of France', and some famous Frenchman once commented on the rest of France as savage or wild or something like that (compared to the Paris metropolis).
We went to a seasonal agricultural job fair today in a nearby town called Pons. Gave out a bunch of resumes to Tobacco farmers, apple farmers, viticulturalists, an asparagus farmer, and a mixed organic educational family farm especially for mentally handicapped people to visit. It is a nice idea to work in agriculture until I start carpentry. There is an organisation for volunteers to help on ecoconstruction projects in France, no experience required, might check that out (It is like wwoofing, with room and board in exchange for work, with the difference being it is with professionals and the work is focused, not just whatever the farmer is too lazy to do [dishes, shovel shit, dusting, washing floors, cooking]).
I am seriously considering running a duathlon in the end of March, a 6k run, then 25k bike, then 4k run.
Cheers,
Maurizio
Friday, February 12, 2010
This way
I realized something interesting about French and its use of masculine and feminine for objects and titles. For a poet, there are a plentitude of subjects and objects to explore when considering the sexifying of nouns literally. My favourite one so far (I know, how predictable!): "la façon", meaning "the way" is feminine. I haven't met a Frenchhuman yet who knows why certain things are considered linguistically as masculine and others feminine, and nobody seems to care. It's just the way it is. I asked if it has been an issue for feminists, and the only answer I have received so far is that no, they overlook it. Poets, philosophers, why is "the way" feminine in the French language (and undoubtedly all other latin-based languages)? Well, the obvious answer is that the ancient Latini tribe from modern day Lazio judged it feminine, and French derived at least partially from their ancient language Latin. So why did the Latini think of femininity when they contemplated a way, a fashion to do a certain thing or be a certain way? Chinese philosophers referred to the Tao "often translated as the Way" as feminine, passive, generative. But the French word façon refers to "the way" in the way that it is generally used, for example "the way you bake a pie" or "the way it is in winter" or "the way the Parisians are". So I just thought it would be an interesting case study in epistemology to assume all sexualization of latin words literal and from there contemplate how these things which the words represent are feminine or masculine. I imagine one could gain some insight into the subtler nature of some things, and some insight into the way human minds worked in ancient times.
If we tried to use language differently, more literally and contextually, and then tried to apply this frame to describing someone's attention, it would be interesting! For example, for those workaholics who get their jollies from counting their earnings, perhaps their story would read like this: "got a good parking spot close to the door...double double...check stock market online...emails...check online bank account...respond to an email...check memos...double double...call potential client...respond to another email...visit boss to ask for overtime...check stock market again...lunch/check stock profolio/swallow coffee/turn on stereo/think about possibility of familial reponsibilities this week that may interfere with overtime/think about checking budget...triple triple...call client...call client...respond to last email...open budget program...input all the coffee purchases and the pre-wrapped tuna sandwich and the calculation of the gas bill for the week's commute...double double...close office door, close blinds.flick on the best porn sight and whack one off quickly..."
For the meth addict or the nympho it could have many more ...s, which represent gaps in awareness. I bet there would be many ...s if we considered the world's working class: everyone ...ing to get home or to the club or the dinner date after work. Everyone "living" inbetween work shifts. If you have 168 hours in a week, and you work 40, and you sleep 50, that leaves you with less than half of your life between ages 16 and 65 (well for us younger ones more likely 75 or death). And that assumes you are mindful during your leisure time and meals. The first bite of a tasty morcel of food is often with mindfulness, and then at about the third bite you look at how much of this is left on your plate, then you look at how much is left in the pot, perhaps in the fridge, and then you notice the taste again for a split second and the pleasurable emotions and then your mind takes off onto something else.
How many …s are in your day ? How many etc .’s ? How about now, did you notice your body doing something ? How about now ? And if we applied to to a senior person exploring their memory, it could look like this : « graduation…first date…first drive in first car…first fuck…first hit…best fuck…best hit…proposal…marriage…birth of first child…second…divorce…first drive in first BMW…trip to Tahiti…retirement…first cruise ship trip… »
For any of you who have started to develop the habit of mindfulness, have you noticed how your perception of time and emotional relation to time has transformed ? For me, starting a big new something used to feel like starting a new book, or a new chapter. I imagined myself and the way things were different before this beginning. When something big came to an end (my first breakup, for example), it felt like the end of a book or the end of the chapter. It was significant, and things were different. Time was like a dotted line.
Now it seems more and more like i’m in a book with no chapters, and huge runon sentences and obese paragraphs. Things weren’t different before and I don’t feel things will be different after in the same way as before. It is not so impactful, leaving University, leaving the farm, coming to France. There is a place in my mind, always within reach like a shadow on June 21st near the Arctic Circle would be, a place where it feels always the same. It is like the central bolt on a wheel, like a small country village, like those unfound tribes in the Amazon rainforest. Time feels like a line which has bigger segments and smaller gaps, a line which if it would be painted on a road, some drivers might be confused as to the legality of crossing that line.
There was this old drawing softwareprogram on the computer, I think it was by Crayola. One artistic function made it so that when you clicked somewhere on the page and held down the mouse button, all these shapes jumbled all around it , creating quite a mess around that central click. You can drag the mouse pointer all over the page and fill it with jumbledeegook. I was reminded of this at some point when contemplating the effect of meditation, raising energy and unblocking blockages. The jumbling is like how the background stars streak by rapidly when a spaceship goes into hyperdrive. It is an accelerating of things, and at the same time a blank spot, slowly growing outwards from the middle of the mouse pointer, surrounded by the jumbling.
I have witnessed a real relative absence of fearful reactions in my consciousness this year sofar. Even before, when hanging from a ladder in –20 windchill for 5 hours straight, scraping away the ice from the wooden deck to create a stable footing for the 32 foot ladder to hold my 190 pound body in the right place. Not to mention the wind. And to dive headfirst into meeting Stephanie’s parents, jumping through all the bureaucratic hoops, studying French every day and going to classes. In a while I will dive right into a 10 day Vipassana sit. It is like building a callus towards emotional reactions and experiencing less frequent and softer emotional reactions simultaneously.
I wouldn’t cry : NO FEAR ! , but maybe FEAR IS OKAY, DON’T SWEAT IT!
Cheers,
Maurizio
If we tried to use language differently, more literally and contextually, and then tried to apply this frame to describing someone's attention, it would be interesting! For example, for those workaholics who get their jollies from counting their earnings, perhaps their story would read like this: "got a good parking spot close to the door...double double...check stock market online...emails...check online bank account...respond to an email...check memos...double double...call potential client...respond to another email...visit boss to ask for overtime...check stock market again...lunch/check stock profolio/swallow coffee/turn on stereo/think about possibility of familial reponsibilities this week that may interfere with overtime/think about checking budget...triple triple...call client...call client...respond to last email...open budget program...input all the coffee purchases and the pre-wrapped tuna sandwich and the calculation of the gas bill for the week's commute...double double...close office door, close blinds.flick on the best porn sight and whack one off quickly..."
For the meth addict or the nympho it could have many more ...s, which represent gaps in awareness. I bet there would be many ...s if we considered the world's working class: everyone ...ing to get home or to the club or the dinner date after work. Everyone "living" inbetween work shifts. If you have 168 hours in a week, and you work 40, and you sleep 50, that leaves you with less than half of your life between ages 16 and 65 (well for us younger ones more likely 75 or death). And that assumes you are mindful during your leisure time and meals. The first bite of a tasty morcel of food is often with mindfulness, and then at about the third bite you look at how much of this is left on your plate, then you look at how much is left in the pot, perhaps in the fridge, and then you notice the taste again for a split second and the pleasurable emotions and then your mind takes off onto something else.
How many …s are in your day ? How many etc .’s ? How about now, did you notice your body doing something ? How about now ? And if we applied to to a senior person exploring their memory, it could look like this : « graduation…first date…first drive in first car…first fuck…first hit…best fuck…best hit…proposal…marriage…birth of first child…second…divorce…first drive in first BMW…trip to Tahiti…retirement…first cruise ship trip… »
For any of you who have started to develop the habit of mindfulness, have you noticed how your perception of time and emotional relation to time has transformed ? For me, starting a big new something used to feel like starting a new book, or a new chapter. I imagined myself and the way things were different before this beginning. When something big came to an end (my first breakup, for example), it felt like the end of a book or the end of the chapter. It was significant, and things were different. Time was like a dotted line.
Now it seems more and more like i’m in a book with no chapters, and huge runon sentences and obese paragraphs. Things weren’t different before and I don’t feel things will be different after in the same way as before. It is not so impactful, leaving University, leaving the farm, coming to France. There is a place in my mind, always within reach like a shadow on June 21st near the Arctic Circle would be, a place where it feels always the same. It is like the central bolt on a wheel, like a small country village, like those unfound tribes in the Amazon rainforest. Time feels like a line which has bigger segments and smaller gaps, a line which if it would be painted on a road, some drivers might be confused as to the legality of crossing that line.
There was this old drawing softwareprogram on the computer, I think it was by Crayola. One artistic function made it so that when you clicked somewhere on the page and held down the mouse button, all these shapes jumbled all around it , creating quite a mess around that central click. You can drag the mouse pointer all over the page and fill it with jumbledeegook. I was reminded of this at some point when contemplating the effect of meditation, raising energy and unblocking blockages. The jumbling is like how the background stars streak by rapidly when a spaceship goes into hyperdrive. It is an accelerating of things, and at the same time a blank spot, slowly growing outwards from the middle of the mouse pointer, surrounded by the jumbling.
I have witnessed a real relative absence of fearful reactions in my consciousness this year sofar. Even before, when hanging from a ladder in –20 windchill for 5 hours straight, scraping away the ice from the wooden deck to create a stable footing for the 32 foot ladder to hold my 190 pound body in the right place. Not to mention the wind. And to dive headfirst into meeting Stephanie’s parents, jumping through all the bureaucratic hoops, studying French every day and going to classes. In a while I will dive right into a 10 day Vipassana sit. It is like building a callus towards emotional reactions and experiencing less frequent and softer emotional reactions simultaneously.
I wouldn’t cry : NO FEAR ! , but maybe FEAR IS OKAY, DON’T SWEAT IT!
Cheers,
Maurizio
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
As above, not as below
In French, the word for below is "dessous". The word for above is "dessus". This blew my mind when I read it in the dictionary. The pronunciation of these two words are so very similar, it seems so dangerously inpractical. How many times did a worker yell "dessus" to another worker who interpreted "dessous" over the sound of a saw or a motor or mooing cows. How many different scenarios can you think of where "under" mistaken for "over" could prove problematic, disastrous, catastrophic, or accidentily advantageous, catalystic, life-changing, world-saving?!
The health care system here looks fantastic! for thirty five bucks a month you get free glasses (except the Gucci ones), dental and ortho, 450 dollars off eye surgery for each eye, between 25 and 45 dollars off up to three sessions per year each of chiropractice, psychotherapy, foot doctor, acupuncture, and osteopathy! Plus all the various things that people subject themselves to (willingly!) in a hospital. Plus free nicotine patches.
Cheers,
M
The health care system here looks fantastic! for thirty five bucks a month you get free glasses (except the Gucci ones), dental and ortho, 450 dollars off eye surgery for each eye, between 25 and 45 dollars off up to three sessions per year each of chiropractice, psychotherapy, foot doctor, acupuncture, and osteopathy! Plus all the various things that people subject themselves to (willingly!) in a hospital. Plus free nicotine patches.
Cheers,
M
Monday, February 8, 2010
Preparation for the next steps in a sustainable lifestyle
Tomorrow I have two appointments. First, at 0900 is with someone who will help me orient myself towards entering an apprenticeship program in carpentry. The second is at 1400, and is with a lady who will help me orient myself towards a better state of health. She is an osteopath, and she can perhaps help me better understand the inbalances my body has sustained. The first one that is immediately obvious a la body sensations is an injury to my left shoulder blade area from over 5 years ago during a game of tackle football, sans equipment, when a 210 pound guy head butted my chest and drove me into the ground, falling with all his weight focused on the top of his head onto the heart area of my chest. The injury reappeared directly behind the area of contact in my back, behind my shoulder blade, once I started to do some consistent heavy lifting in farmwork. The other areas of inbalance are the muscles that surround my median nerve, from my neck down to my wrists, from repeated strain from work, as well as my middle back, from something or other. None of these are debilitating, but have me frequently stretching, which hasn't proved to be a fundamental solution. So I look forward to an educational day, a day of new beginnings.
My French is progressing, with a little help from my friends :)
Cheers,
Maurizio
My French is progressing, with a little help from my friends :)
Cheers,
Maurizio
Sunday, February 7, 2010
ramblings from a village of white stone walls
It seems like careers, even jobs, oblige one to practice something in excess. I keep meeting farmers and carpenters, tilers and roofers who have allowed repetitive strain and basic misuse of their bodies to create permanent damage in (most often) their knees and lower backs. Market gardeners talk about food in their sleep, carpenters` lungs house and feed termites, Casino entrepeneurs evaluate potential markets while on polar bear safaris in Churchill, Manitoba. Can one put bread on the table and be moderately involved in the many things opposable thumbs and abstract minds allow? The Renaissance (whoah)man. The Taoist who manages to preserve their body and mind through harmony and balance and a mediated level of exertion in the world until they are perfectly ripe when picked.
My gosh, Stephanie brought me to a house of chocolate fanatics, how to be moderate about that? Her parents' house is beautiful, with a nice productive backyard garden in a little town called Saint Georges de Coteaux. The washrooms in France are separate from the toilets. Allow me to clarify. A little closet houses a toilet and (hopefully) toilet paper. Next to it lies a larger room, which houses the soap and the shower and the sink. While in Italy there area bdays (not birthdays, although they have them also), in France they are currently passé, and although houses come with these marvelous things, they are for the most part removed. There is a massive loaf of bread in the kitchen for the family, it is three feet long and fatter than my thigh. There has been marvelous maliciously hot mustard in every maison since the Spanish border.
I tried a wet sauna for the first time today at the local spa/fitness center (is it "re" or "er" in Canadese?)Nothing to write in the blog home about.
Stephanie's brother's girlfriend Aurela of Basque-ish descent makes (unliquidated) loaves of bread by advising people on how to start business enterprises and told Stephanie (with me the big, bearded still guy in the background trying to follow) about a couple who worked in Canada for a few years and learned carpentry and other house-building skills and now have an enterprise 45 minutes away from here. She will connect us and perhaps they can apprentice us.
QUESTION: I am getting used to this non-qwerty board (the French went wrong here in their insisted independence from America) but what does µ mean?
Aurela insisted that it is not difficult to make fat, family-sized loaves of bread growing organic produce, however I still think it is important to learn carpentry. As the French say (in English), better to have a few strings in your bow. Especially in the scenario where the string shop's economy collapses and it sinks into a spontaneous abyssmal chasm.
Dry-stone-walled pastures, wooden sauna, vegetables, a mule or two, laying hens, fruit trees, natural spring, wood lot, tree nursery, subterranean meditation chamber, dry toilets, with my partner and the soft skin on her neck amidst a hamlet of close-knit community members with sustainability in their bellies and the present moment in their minds.Who's with me? SPEAK UP!
Cheers,
Maurizio
My gosh, Stephanie brought me to a house of chocolate fanatics, how to be moderate about that? Her parents' house is beautiful, with a nice productive backyard garden in a little town called Saint Georges de Coteaux. The washrooms in France are separate from the toilets. Allow me to clarify. A little closet houses a toilet and (hopefully) toilet paper. Next to it lies a larger room, which houses the soap and the shower and the sink. While in Italy there area bdays (not birthdays, although they have them also), in France they are currently passé, and although houses come with these marvelous things, they are for the most part removed. There is a massive loaf of bread in the kitchen for the family, it is three feet long and fatter than my thigh. There has been marvelous maliciously hot mustard in every maison since the Spanish border.
I tried a wet sauna for the first time today at the local spa/fitness center (is it "re" or "er" in Canadese?)Nothing to write in the blog home about.
Stephanie's brother's girlfriend Aurela of Basque-ish descent makes (unliquidated) loaves of bread by advising people on how to start business enterprises and told Stephanie (with me the big, bearded still guy in the background trying to follow) about a couple who worked in Canada for a few years and learned carpentry and other house-building skills and now have an enterprise 45 minutes away from here. She will connect us and perhaps they can apprentice us.
QUESTION: I am getting used to this non-qwerty board (the French went wrong here in their insisted independence from America) but what does µ mean?
Aurela insisted that it is not difficult to make fat, family-sized loaves of bread growing organic produce, however I still think it is important to learn carpentry. As the French say (in English), better to have a few strings in your bow. Especially in the scenario where the string shop's economy collapses and it sinks into a spontaneous abyssmal chasm.
Dry-stone-walled pastures, wooden sauna, vegetables, a mule or two, laying hens, fruit trees, natural spring, wood lot, tree nursery, subterranean meditation chamber, dry toilets, with my partner and the soft skin on her neck amidst a hamlet of close-knit community members with sustainability in their bellies and the present moment in their minds.Who's with me? SPEAK UP!
Cheers,
Maurizio
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Still Stones
I like to keep still. sitting or standing, body still, face still, breathing soft. Whether my mind goes far off into the vast depths of imagination, or is being entrained to remain passive, or is casually surfing between awake and sleep. For years, I have liked to keep still, for hours at a time, inhabiting some book, and in my later years admiring the sensations in my body, and my ever slowing breath.
I was studying my hands today. I like to do that too, to see the changes. My finger pads on my right hand, their ridges are arranged in a spiral beginning in the middle of the pad of the digit farthest from my heart. All four of them, and the thumb. On my left hand, none. All the five patterns on my left hand are similar to eachother, and dissimilar to those on my right hand. I will study my toes sometime soon and report on them. Those on my left hand are like a bird's eye view of the sharply distinct contours of a very thin, finger like plateau, which has extremely steep edges, so many parallel lines close together. Each skinny plateau occupies the middle of each finger and thumb pad.
Today we were shown how to build dry stone walls. The stones are shaped by banging them with the edge of a hammer to make right angles. Small stones are used to balance the bigger right-angled ones and make them secure (not wobbly). What ancient work, how simple, finding stones and gathering them together, separating big and small, and building straight, sturdy walls with all these odd, uniquely shaped, one of a kind stones...
I was studying my hands today. I like to do that too, to see the changes. My finger pads on my right hand, their ridges are arranged in a spiral beginning in the middle of the pad of the digit farthest from my heart. All four of them, and the thumb. On my left hand, none. All the five patterns on my left hand are similar to eachother, and dissimilar to those on my right hand. I will study my toes sometime soon and report on them. Those on my left hand are like a bird's eye view of the sharply distinct contours of a very thin, finger like plateau, which has extremely steep edges, so many parallel lines close together. Each skinny plateau occupies the middle of each finger and thumb pad.
Today we were shown how to build dry stone walls. The stones are shaped by banging them with the edge of a hammer to make right angles. Small stones are used to balance the bigger right-angled ones and make them secure (not wobbly). What ancient work, how simple, finding stones and gathering them together, separating big and small, and building straight, sturdy walls with all these odd, uniquely shaped, one of a kind stones...
Monday, February 1, 2010
"Modern Art"
Just to jump back to Rome for an experience not to be forgotten, There was a modern art gallery on the same street as the hotel where we slept: Borgo Vittorio. We walked by it every morning and evening, peered through the window, and saw a most bizzare sight: a human body, encased in a glass container full of water suspended by chains a few feet off the ground. Upon closer inspection through the gallery window, we could see that he was an old man with thick black hair and mustache. I commented that it looked like Saddam Hussein's body. We kept meaning to enter the gallery and take a closer look, and when we finally did, we confirmed that it was indeed Mr. Hussein's corpse submerged in what looked like water, and around his neck was tied a noose of thick rope. This exhibit dominated the gallery. We took pictures. When we upload them, I will post. Strange, but strange is not unusual, in my experience.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)