Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all!

We finally returned to blistery Blue Rocks, NS

after a wonderful visit in Ottawa with

my brother Rick.  We had to pry Alec 

of Rick's couch, fearful that the remote 

was permanently glued to his hand.

"What's not to like about being at Uncle Rick's?  

Tim Bits and Twinkies, it doesn't get much better!"

Google maps tell us that the drive is 14 hours

and 45 minutes.  This must be in the summer

with sunshine and bare roads.

17 hours later, trying to beat 

one of many winter storms hitting

New Brunswick-Montreal-Ottawa,

we arrived in Ottawa just in time

to welcome  our Christmas gift....snow.

Jude with Piper and Murphy in Ottawa

Heaven is the woods, snow and no leash,
oh and especially a friend.

Rick's only concern was not,

 how was the drive or

you must be exhausted

or were the roads dangerous

or wow you drove all this way

just to see me.  No, his anguish

was "WHAT, YOU DIDN'T BRING LOBSTER?"

No Rick, Alec was already whining about

sharing the back seat with "Piper You Stink."

He did not want to share his limited

space with live lobsters.

Alas, instead of walking down to the wharf

here in Blue Rocks to pick up our $5 a lb bsters, 

we splurged and bought Rick

his live Christmas gift in Ottawa.  

They probably came from Nova Scotia!   

Jeff, Rick and The Lobsters

Rick took us on our tour of his office

and showed us where he usually

eats his lunch.  Nice view of parliament.

Christmas was snow,  and The Hobbit,

and making a fort and playing Crokinole 

and cousin Bekkah and Murphy and

a wonderful brother.

Christmas morning cinnamon buns.
"Can we have a reading breakfast?" asks Alec.

Murphy helping Bekkah open presents.

Crokinole, the new game for 2013

How long can tea and scones take?

Contraband Twinkies
(Alec says you can't buy these in the States)

Our neighbour here emailed  a welcome home

with this photo of our house saying, 

"We got snow!"  The dusting of snow was

gone by the next day.

Thank you Rick for a great visit.

We and the lobsters await

 you in Blue Rocks in April.  

Idle No More. A Christmas Gift to Us All.

 December 26 is Boxing Day in Canada.
Similar to Black Friday after Thanksgiving
in the States, it is the  day to shop,
that is if you are a shopper,
which I am not.

For many of the First Nations 

people in Canada,Boxing Day is not about getting 

a deal on an IPad or scoring American Eagle clothing at 80% discount.   

This day is about supporting the Idle No More Movement

of the first nations people in Canada.

Today is  about supporting Attawaspiskat Chief Theresa Spence's

hunger strike on Victoria Island in Ottawa, Ontario,Canada;

Victoria Island, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

a fast that asks for respect and the honouring

of the treaties between the First Nations people, 

the government of Canada and the Crown

(Canada is a Commonwealth country).

This fast is about land and water.
It is about poverty and education.
It is about honouring promises.
It is about wanting to sit down
with the Prime Minister and the Governor General of Canada.
It is about 4 young women who
care about the earth and are
Idle No More.

Late this afternoon, we visited Victoria Island,
where Chief Spence is on the 14th day of her hunger strike.
We walked through a wooden gate,
into a small enclosure where first nation
women were beating their drums and
chanting in front of a fire.


















Sheelah Mclean, one of the founders of Idle No More
tells us that

"the changes they(the government) are making to the 

environmental legislation is stunning in terms of the 

protections it will take away from the bodies of water 

– rivers and lakes, across the country". 

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence
before Parliament Building, Ottawa, Ontario

I can't help but wonder,

thinking about the children and teachers

we lost in Newton, CT,

the latest tragedy

in a long line of tragedies in the United States,

what if, like the four young women

who founded Idle No More,

other young people stood up in the country 

south of this border

and said,

Victims No More.  

I can't help but wonder,

what if the President of the 

county south of this border

stood up and listened

to the people and responded to

Victims No More.

"How can we not all be concerned about that?”

              Sheelah Mclean

              founding member of Idle No More 

How Does A Moose Cross The Road?

Love is a 17 hour-4 stop drive
from Blue Rocks, Nova Scotia
to Ottawa, Ontario to spend
Christmas with my brother Rick.

"Heh Alec, when you come to Ottawa
we will go to Cosco everyday and
taste the food samples."  This is
Alec's idea of fun!

5 a.m.  Jeff, Alec, Piper and I
 packed into our Subaru,
leaving  "winder" weather in Blue Rocks 
with her 75 km winds whipping 
the white caps into shore.  

After several hours we reached
Hwy 2 in New Brunswick and snow,
lots of snow.
The snow laden arms of the balsam fir
draped downward to the white banks
hugging the highway.

Miles of moose fencing also hug the highway.

How does a moose cross the road?

(Moose are bilingual in New Brunswick)

This is not a knock, knock joke 

but a serious question in this province,

the answer involving millions of

dollars in moose fencing.

Apparently before the fence
there were about 300 moose-vehicle accidents
in this province every year, usually occurring
between May and September.

Thankfully we were driving in daylight.

Alec, crammed in the back with Piper

did not win traveler of the day award.

Piper, you stink was his constant refrain.

Safe and sound though a wee bit tired

we are here in Ottawa, Ontario, capital of Canada.

Ottawa Rideau Canal and Ice Skating

parliament hill Christmas lights

Let the fun begin.  Beaver Tails anyone?

When you love someone....

When you love someone
you want them to be safe.

When you put your little
munchkins on the bus,
sending them off to school,
you trust that all will be well.

When you walk
into your classroom,
ready to greet your students,
you trust all will be well.

Driving home from grocery shopping
this afternoon I turned on the CBC news
and heard of the tragic shooting
at an elementary school
in Newton,  Connecticut,
a town of only 30,000 people.

My hand automatically
flew to cover my mouth,
an instinctual gesture of shock.

The tragedy at VA Tech came flooding back.
Then I remembered gathering
 in the library at Fallon Park,
at the beginning of the day
just before the kids got off the bus.
We were told that Fallon received a bomb threat
late in the afternoon the day before
but the threat was deemed a low risk.

How do we keep our children safe?
How do we protect our teachers?



All I know,
at times when tragedy arrives
during the darkest days of winter,
I need to light a candle,
for those we have lost,
and for those left behind
whose hearts have been broken open.

What Are Friends For.....

Oysters!

Erik, our neighbour has a friend Brian,
whose wife Claire's third cousin....just
kidding about the cousin.




Claire, a biologist, works at L'Étang Ruisseau Bar Ltd
a family owned business that produces oysters in
Shippagan, on the northeast coast of New Brunswick.


Brian and Claire gave Erik a box of 100 oysters,
an early Christmas gift. These oysters go for about
 $2.50 a pop in restaurants.

Move over lobsters here come the oysters.




Oyster  Farming at a glance:

1. Seed is obtained from Chinese Hat Collectors

What???  

No, this is a Chinese Hat Collector

which obtains the oyster spat or seed,

during July/August which is then 

retrieved in September.

Each of these stacks yields 7,600 oysters!

From the stacks the wee babes are

put into a nursery called

The Floating Upweller System .
With a constant flow of water
surrounding these juveniles they
grow to be 1 inch.

From the nursery these inchers
are transferred to floating bags.
In three to four years a cocktail size oyster emerges and in 4-5 years a choice oyster.




And now onto the table, except not ours.
From the bags the market size oysters
are moved to off bottom tables.  Here they
rest until they are shipped far and wide
or come to their finally resting place here
in Blue Rocks.

Safety precaution:
Wrap a towel around the hand holding 

the oyster to avoid stabbing yourself!   

      It seems that our lobster boy, Jeff,

      didn't envy jabbing a knife into

      his hand while shucking the shells so this task

      was delegated to Erik and me.

One down, 99 more to go!  

After a few shucks we got the hang of it and whipped this oysters out.

I think we actually shucked about 45 or so.

Our Blue Rocks friends, Katrina, David and Kerri

all joined us for the feast.   Jeff was thrilled to learn

that none of them really liked oysters!

Jeff was not thrilled to learn

that they loved his homebrew!  

Shakespeare's Why then the world's mine oyster

                                      takes on a whole new meaning.

Healing At Our Fingertips

Don't turn away.
     Keep looking at the bandaged place.
     That's where the light enters you.
Rumi

Heal, from the Anglo-Saxon word "haelen,"
means to be or become whole.

 If you don't cringe when you read
this word---heal--- or retreat into
your frontal lobe where heavy
thinking and problem solving
reign, read on.

For those who who have already made a hasty retreat,
 
I'll see you in my next post.

Rod of Asclepius   

According to one version
of the Hippocratic Oath  the doctor says,

I swear by Apollo, the healer, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea, 

and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement...

The Doctor continues as she or he promises 

to prescribe regimens for the good of my patients
according to my ability and my judgment
and never do harm to anyone.

I like regimens, though I prefer the word practice,

that open oneself up to healing.

Dr. Adam Perlman writes about healing
on his Integrative Health and Wellness site.
He talks about the concept of holism that lies within
the original intent of the word "heal." He says that
"true healing is a process of emerging into something new,
rather than simply returning to a prior state of being."


What does healing have to do
with our fingertips?
Like fingers that strum a soothing melody upon a harp
or palms that tap a soulful rhythm onto the skin of a drum,
so too our fingertips can tap us and others into wholeness.

The following two practices that promote
the healing of the body, mind and spirit
belong in my toolkit of soulful living.


Tapping, a simple technique that uses 

the fingertips to tap certain pressure points 

on the body that relate to the meridians or
 pathways through which the life energy, or qi (chee) flows.
When qi is blocked, dis-ease is felt within the body.
Surrogate tapping is when you tap for someone else,
a wonderful way to be present
to a friend in need.

Chunyi Lin of Spring Forest Qi Gong
teaches a simple technique
that allows the healing energy within you
to help heal someone else.

"We are all born to be healers,"
he says.

"Oh mum, you're such a hippy,"
Alec says as he hears me talk
about my practices or worse,
sees me practice.

"Oh Ye of little faith," I reply.

This is not some hippy, new-age technique I tell Alec.


Healing is as ancient as the gods and goddesses;
Panacea, goddess of Universal remedy
and her sister Hygieia, personification of health,
and their father, Asclepius, god of medicine and healing,

all practiced the power to heal.

Whatever your  practice, choose one,
keep looking at the bandaged place
in yourself or another,
for that is where the light enters.

It's The How That Makes All The Difference

The next time you eat lobster
know this;  at 1:00 a.m this
morning the local lobster men
left the wharf here and headed out to sea. 
They returned around 3 p.m
and unloaded a boat full of lobster.



These guys pulled up 250 traps,
measured the lobsters, rebated the
traps then dumped them back
in the ocean.
  

"This looks like hard work," I
quipped to a red cheeked man
who was sliding into the cab of his truck
as I walked by with Piper.

"It's mighty cold out there, that's
for sure," he said.

Jeff talked to a couple of guys
who told him to come back
at 1 p.m. tomorrow to pick
up a few lobsters, probably
$5 a pound.

"We should bring them hot coffee"
I said to Jeff.  I get cold just
looking at these guys.

Lobster season brings a whole
new meaning to knowing where
your food comes from.  Sure,
I always knew lobsters came from the
sea but I never knew the how.  

It's the how that makes all the difference.