I was writing this on election eve, but for some reason this newsletter wasn’t sending correctly. So here it is today. Canada’s still holding its breath …
I decided this weekly newsletter wouldn’t be a livefeed of my daily doings. The week’s activities flow through as I wrangle all the events and experiences (known and unknown to me) here in this locus of accelerated simultaneity (a.k.a. my life). But I’m not writing them down as a list of actions. Instead, I write to orchestrate this information inundation into a harmonious flow. The Sufis talk about love, harmony and beauty, and I’m seeing how to find harmony in this huge rush of amplified experiences. Directing the flow is a sort of irrigation - sending it somewhere that may need its energy.
But when there’s a flood, all that the drone footage shows is water, and the tops of cars. On the roofs of houses people are waving, grouped there with a few bags of stuff, blankets, and shivering freaked-out pets. What then? You can’t wave back to the screen, or say, “I’ll get help.” All you can do is see and know.
When I was a kid, I’d wish upon a star - first star I see tonight - and I’d usually wish for something I wanted, like a bike or a new hairband. But when I opened my eyes the wished-for thing wasn’t there. (No one knew what I’d wished for because of the never-tell-your-wishes rule, something that was reinforced at birthday candle blow-outs year after year.)
If my wishes never came true directly, why did I still believe in them? My mum was the best explainer. The wishes are real and they do come true. But sometimes they come true for somebody else who might need it more. Or maybe it isn’t time yet, and you have to wait. When I was a kid, waiting was soon overtaken by forgetting. My forgotten wishes are probably still circling the planet like satellites. Or just maybe - like eyes of stars closer to the ground - those wishes cluster together and observe the flooding. Oops - did the bike I wished for just land on that roof? Well, ho ho ho.
Overview drone observation and wishes can’t take us to the next level… I almost wrote an action list - all the ways a WWII-style Marshall Plan initiative for climate can mobilize the unemployed into paid working teams. But I stopped. Right now I’m solving the information inundation personally, by writing. I’m slowing down the waves and bringing in more measured thought, sending it to you bit by bit.
How about those magic keys?
Is this a game I don’t know about or … more than meets the eye? Walking this rainy morning in the woods at Jericho Park, I noticed three black keys tied with jute string, on the bench corner. Easy to miss. I snapped a few photos, and right after pocketing my phone I was buzzed by a call: Penticton, BC. Okay, hello. An automated voice says, “Here is a message from the Chinese Forest Council.” Now thinking on it, standing in the rainy forest, “Forest Council”??? I wonder: is this a game, coincidence, the matrix, what?
Quote
“Sometimes I create my own found objects.” - James K-M
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