This is my very first update from my place of work. My job involves 15 minutes of rounds each hour (this is assuming I don’t become lost or walk slowly, which I did the first couple times), so the rest of my time here I’m free to exist in whatever manner I wish. Starting at midnight tomorrow I’ll be working on my NaNoWriMo project, and until then I’ll be doing some brainstorming as well as doing some reading.
I awoke at 7 this morning and made ready to load a trailer and car with all my belongings. I had an smooth and uneventful moving experience, thankfully. Before coming to work I was able to unpack everything and have the apartment tidied. There’s a ton of natural light there during the day. It’s almost blindingly bright, so I will likely need to get some heavy duty curtains in order to make my living room usable (I already have some for my bedroom, since I would not be able to sleep when I get home otherwise.). I’m really happy with where I will be living for at least the next year. I couldn’t ask for a better location or living space.
I’ll be finished work at 7 am, leaving me with a full 24 hours of being awake. I’m sure I’ll appreciate the sleep when I get home, that is if the large quantity of coffee and teas I’ve been drinking tonight wears off by then.

Following up my last entry, a whole lot of stress has been lifted from my life. I now have a nice apartment that I’ll be happy with and able to afford. It’s a very short walk from the hotel I’ll be working at (a stone’s throw, quite literally) and very close to a shopping center. It’s quiet (with only 22 apartments), surrounded by trees and quite spacious (perhaps too much so for a minimalist like myself, but I’ll find ways to use the space, surely). I don’t think a better place for my needs could have been found for the price I’ll be paying, and I’ll be able to move in Saturday, which is excellent luck, as that’s when I will start my job. The fates are smiling upon me, my friends.

I’m considering taking part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year, as I will have a good deal of time to kill in a vacant hotel.

Not only does this organization offer great support and incentive to complete a novel in the alotted time, it also does charitable work in the fields of literacy and access to literature. This year donations will be funding the creation of libraries in Cambodia. Why not take part and simultaneously contribute to a worthy cause and, if you’re like me, fulfill a life long dream.

Monday night I accepted a job in Halifax that I will start on Saturday. It seems like a job I will enjoy and one that will provide for me amply. I’ll be working as a night watchman at an old, vacant hotel. If ever there was a proper setting for a ghost or horror story, it’d be there. I sure hope I’ll be working Halloween night.
I was given little time to secure a place to live in the city and otherwise make plans for moving and starting work, so I’ve been very busy and stressed for the past couple days. It’s been a mix of excitement at the prospect of being back in the city and working a new job and anxiety over finding a place to live. Remembering to take the time for meditation today helped a great deal to ease the anxiety and to allow myself to accept the conditions I’m facing.

I have changed my verdict on working Halloween night. I think I would rather go see Matthew Good, Limblifter and Auf Der Maur at The Marquee Club. I would love the chance to see three of my favourite bands performing live. It’s been months since I last saw a live concert. Withdrawls have been painful.

Having a quality pair of boots can improve one’s life immeasurably. Doctors universally suggest we wear comfortable, well made and supportive footwear. In addition to the physical benefit, there are also emotional and spiritual aspects of what we put on our feet that aid us.

From the middle of August until this past Sunday I was wearing cheaply made running shoes as my main footwear along with an acceptable pair of sandals. I had forgotten my boots in Halifax and my sister and her boyfriend were holding on to them for me until I could make it into the city. Having them back now, I have a much greater appreciation of their comfort and value.

I put on those big black boots yesterday, laced them up tightly and took them on a short biking and hiking adventure in the afternoon. I ventured a league (3 miles, I’m told) or so on various roads before finding myself on a dirt road I hadn’t explored very far. I of course headed along it, following it into the hills of Newton Mills, past a cottage and a wreck of a car. The road had a strong feeling of being an old lane used by farmers. It was lined by trees and a brook flowed at the bottom of a cliff to one side. These are not things suggestive of farming, but somehow it felt as though farmers surely travelled that road for decades.
As I walked along I with my bike on a hilly stretch I was surprised by how different this place felt than where I had been not many minutes earlier. It felt older, somehow preserved from a time when human community and nature thrived. It was a moving feeling, bringing clearly to my mind a lot of the memories I have and stories I’ve been told of the rural life lived by my ancestors. I felt closer to those times than I have in quite a while. My journey proved to be through time as well as the space covered by the smooth dirt.

One of my favourite books when I was a child was based on the folk element of Seven-league Boots. I’ve sadly forgotten the title, but I do recall that it told of a young girl who travelled through her world with seven-league boots of her own (each step taking her seven leagues) before fulfilling her wanderlust and quest, returning to her family. The freedom the girl possessed was inspiring to my young mind, perhaps planting some of the seeds that would eventually grow into the strong sense of wanderlust I feel now.

My boots influenced my decision to travel down an unknown path. As soon as I laced up the boots I felt adventurous and curious in a way I hadn’t while wearing the shoes I was stuck with for several months. I felt my need to wander freed by the security of boots that would not fail me, that would hold my feet in the comfort needed to take on any trek that became needed or desired. I felt a greater confidence in my step and a lengthening in my stride. I felt more completely myself. I am a man who needs to be able to travel in any circumstance, over any distance. I need my own seven-league boots even though I’m not leaping over hills and streams.

Are your boots granting you what you require from them? Do you have too many shoes to discover the ones that will take you into the forests of your heart? Is it time you invested in some spiritually valuable footwear?

A decade can render some memories foggy and fragmented and others lost entirely. Somehow, we don’t always remember the most meaningful moments, but rather odd things that one might think of as trivial and non-formative. From my childhood I remember a lot of choices I viewed then as mistakes more than I remember triumphs (and I must have had quite a few, being at the head of my class during that time). My greatest challenges and what I thought of as failures were social ones, for I was bullied and picked on to a large extent during my elementary school years and developed what I would later deem to be a form of social anxiety.
I went to a rather small elementary school, with under 100 total students, and around a dozen in my own grade. As I mentioned, I was picked on quite a lot, and had oscillating relationships with my peers. I was different, from my red hair to my grades, so I was an easy person to single out. This lead me to be quite awkward socially.
For the second half of my time at that school (grades 4-6) I had a severe crush on two girls in my class. The one that was likely strongest was on a girl named Becky. Becky was the smartest and prettiest girl in my class and my only serious rival academically. To my young mind she was the ideal girl, full of strength, intelligence and beauty. Kira was a contrast to Becky, less successful academically, with a rougher, more rebellious aspect about her and physical features not as typically attractive to me. Still, I cared for both of them in my childish way, my silent, though perhaps obvious, infatuation shared equally among the two best friends.
If there’s one defining moment of my social behaviour at that point it’s the event I’m about to pull from my memories. One lunch hour I was standing on the asphalt basketball court behind the small red brick school when both Kira and Becky approached me. I stood there, with slight apprehension as one of them said, “Will you come to a movie with us this weekend?” My brain went into a chaotic mess of Wow, they just asked me to go with them to a movie, Is this a date I’m being asked on? A date with Kira and Becky? Am I dreaming? Wow! I don’t think I am, and I’m so nervous. I don’t know what to say or do or how to remove the redness from my face. Honesty came through as I somehow got out, “I – I can’t. I’m too shy.” No surer truth was ever spoken as far as I was concerned, but as they walked away I was devistated that I had not had the courage to accept their invitation. For days I thought on it, embarassed and kicking myself for losing out on the opportunity to fulfill what had been a pipe dream. I was sure I had blown my chance at romance with either of them.
An interesting trend in my life was how I developed infatuation for pairs of girls who were good friends. In all my public school years I never had a crush on just one girl. I was also always attracted to intelligence. One of the two girls was invariably one of the girls in my grade most gifted academically. I wonder if there’s any obvious psychological reason for that, or if I was simply polyamourous and drawn to brilliance naturally.

On November 2, to correspond with the elections in the US, A Perfect Circle will be releasing a new album, titled eMOTIVe. The album is “a collection of songs about war, peace, love and greed” that is the band’s addition to the efforts to remove the Bush administration from rule. Among the most effective artists speaking out against the current direction of America and the world and creating in reaction to it, A Perfect Circle has released a full album of some of their best recordings to date in doing so.
I was lucky enough to be able to hear the album today in advance of its offical release. I had high expectations because I enjoyed their previous albums and live performances. I wasn’t at all let down, and was in fact impressed with the selection of songs and the brilliant interpretations of classics. Among the highlights are their cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” the haunting current single, the vote call of “Freedom Of Choice” (a Devo cover), and “Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums,” a reworking of the track “Pet” from the band’s previous album. The two tracks that raise this album to the greatest level are the closing pair, however. “When the Levee Breaks” (originally by Memphis Minnie and popularized by Led Zepplin) is a beautiful and sweeping song driven by simple piano and drums and falsetto vocals, a rendition that stands in surprising contrast with the version most of us know. The album closes with “Fiddle and the Drum,” one of Joni Mitchell’s finest protest songs and the most moving pieces of this album. Unadorned vocals echo of the great folk traditons of America and Europe, with Maynard’s voice as powerful as ever.
eMOTIVe will stand as one of rock’s great protest albums. It’s rewarding musically, certainly, and comes at a point in our lives that history may very well record as the greatest choice and the greatest danger for America and the world. It’s a fusion of timing and artistic brilliance. A Perfect Circle should be praised for releasing this when and how they are.

One of the essential chapters of the Tao Te Ching to me is the sixty-seventh, on the three precious attributes, love, simplicity and selflessness. These are the aspects of myself that I strive to nurture and act with in all I do. Through every event in my life I’ve had the merits of these attributes reaffirmed in both subtle and grand ways. The true sages of all cultures, from Jesus to Buddha to the elders of The Dobe !Kung (a people of the Kalahari Desert), promote these as high virtues, and each of us should take heed of this great wisdom.
Diane Dreher translated part of this chapter in her book The Tao of Inner Peace, and I found it especially direct.

These are absolutely treasures. They build the finest, most joyous, most rewarding lives. The happiest people I have met are those who fill their lives with love and generosity, who don’t waste energy and resources on things that don’t offer them true value and who are humble in all they do. We are not enriched by excess, by extravagant or overcomplicated things, by apathy, or by selfishness.

The sickness mentioned here is sadly far-ranging in our world. Political leaders, business leaders and countless other members of our societies are afflicted by this and put our world in great risk of hardship. We all can learn a great deal from this one short passage and transform the way we live. Isn’t it remarkable how much wisdom can be found in a text over two and a half millennia old?

I’d like to extend thanks to Ross Laird for his generosity in sending me a signed hardcover edition of his first book, Grain of Truth, free of charge. Ross always writes with an attention to details minute and profound and with a clarity that is truly rare. I can’t recommend his works highly enough, whether the essays and short works on his website or his remarkable books.

Among Ross’ recent postings on his website, I found “A Craftsman’s Guide to Ethical Wood Use” to be quite relevant to my own experiences of the past couple years. Having witnessed the unnecessary clear cutting of a wood behind my parents home and the devistation of forests across this province by a hurricane, I’ve become increasingly interested in forestry conservation and management. Due to the massive number of trees uprooted by the hurricane over a year ago we have an overabundance of of wood. Ross encourages craftspeople to make use of such natural harvesting when possible, and surely that is vitally important in situations like the one Nova Scotia finds itself. There is wood that will go to waste if artisans and others with use for wood don’t take the inititive to claim it now. It’s an excellent opportunity to protect our forests from needless harvesting in the future. My family alone has found enough firewood for years of home use and use in the family business of maple syrup production.

Even today I was dealing with wood. In the afternoon I continued the task of moving firewood that was gained through windfallen trees on this lot. There was quite a lot, so it took a rather long time for the wood to make it through the stages of being cut into initial logs, drying for several days, being cut into usable pieces by a wood splitter (a remarkably simple divice that is essentially a sharp wedge and piston combination that pushes the wood into the wedge, separating the grain) and then more days of drying. The scent of the wood, the feel of its grain and the rhythm and care involved in stacking it within my father’s shed made for pleasant work and will surely help in the fending off of a cold I’m currently afflicted with. I’m not sure if I’m an abnormality, but in addition to sleeping well and drinking fluids, I find that being active helps to speed the rejection of viruses.

In revisiting Ross’ book, reading several translations of the Tao Te Ching and personally working with wood, it’s obvious to me that the lessons of Tao are given a great example and support in working with wood. Recognizing natural cycles and properties is of course important, whether it’s working with the grain to ensure a proper cut or working with the growing cycles to have forests remain the renewable resources and personally renewing places of spiritual peace we need them to be.

In Matthew Good‘s newest journal entry he wrote what I found to be a direct and profound call to compassion and shared one way we can become active in realizing it.

Should we not all be dedicating a part of our lives to doing the same, to bettering the world in the ways we are able to?

In a recent journal entry, Sean Lee suggested adding a small amount of cinnamon (a table spoon full) to coffee grinds when brewing coffee. I gave the suggestion a try and was quite impressed. I used a Guatemalan blend that my friend Sarah sent me some months ago, and the combination was great. I’m sipping on one of the best cups of coffee I’ve ever had. It’s a flavour I’ll be sure to add to my usual coffee mixes.