It’s been raining all night here at this hotel. From downpours to stray drops, it has been a pleasantly wet night. When I’ve been walking outside I’ve experienced the familiar feeling of being full of life that night rains pass to me. It’s a beautiful feeling. Now, however, my mind is filled with water cycle diagrams from my childhood, which are a different sort of beautiful, an early understanding of connectedness and cyclical change.

I’m facinated by glimpses into the lives of others, whether in the form of found photos, found items or a journal. One of my favourite sources of such glimpses is Post Secret, a blog that collects reader-submitted postcards that reveal secrets in artistic ways. “Each secret can be a regret, hope, belief, experience, fear, betrayal, desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation.” Many of the cards are beautiful and most of them carry secrets that move and facinate.

Though seeing the cards is essential to the impact, I wanted to share a few of my favourites here to give you an idea of what Post Secret holds. Take the time to visit there and I’m sure you’ll find something to capture your imagination.

If you’re at all interested in handmade crafts, zines and similar projects you’ll find something of interest at The Sampler.

The items featured there all look to be of high quality and some of the music samples are fine. The value looks great for the sampler packages so I’d suggest signing up when the next subscription opens.

Through The Sampler I was pointed to Ready Made, “a bi-monthly magazine for people who like to make stuff.” It has some innovative and just plain fun projects, such as “Sprout a Couch” (Lawn Furniture for Literalists) and Spindle Lamp (Give CD Spindles a New Spin). The focus on green projects is especially nice. Inventive reusing is essential.

Today there are more people creating and sharing more information than ever before. It’s impossible for any one person to know all of the techniques, theories and practices of any given field, let alone parse the immense amounts of available data. Coupled with this expanding knowledge base is a human sphere that is changing at an ever increasing rate. What does this mean for our social and work-specific structures? We must at last discard the fallacy of all-knowing experts and embrace the more effective and honest approach of communities as providers of knowledge.

Connectivism offers one take on this increasingly important aspect of learning. The website offers interesting and well developed theories of how learning can be achieved effectively in informal, network-based (A.K.A community-based) learning environments.

Also on that site is a rather concise introduction to the concept, “The Network is the Learning.” I would argue that most of these principles are not necessarily new (community-based learning is the oldest form of learning, predating civilization), but whether we are returning to more effective learning methods or creating new ones is of little consequence. What is important is recognizing the benefits of a wider range of learning that a formal education, with the inherent limited sources of learning, can not alone provide.

If we view a network as a community’s storage and sharing place for knowledge and learning, it shouldn’t be hard to see the benefit of being connected to a network, to being part of a community. One person’s knowledge is incomplete, no matter much he/she may have learned. However, the more connected a community is the more complete its base of knowledge can be. A community of communities (whether geographical or field-related, cities in a province or a sharing between related vocations (electricians and carpenters, perhaps) ) increases the scope of knowledge, becoming incredibly broad and useful (holistic) as it transcends specialization.

The easier we can share and access knowledge and learning, the better we can operate in whatever fields we find ourselves working in. The internet provides an incredible tool for this. We have free access to passive and interactive sources of knowledge on every topic and quite often this knowledge is as current and diverse as any other source we have. Especially through sites which offer two-way communication (blogs and forums come to mind) the sharing of knowledge becomes a natural and mutually beneficial activity that improves personal ability and knowledge as well as a community’s overall flexibility and strength.

One excellent example of community learning (and, outside the scope of this entry, free resource sharing) is the open source movement. The open source movement is a community of professional and amature programmers and software users that produce programs that are free of cost to the user and very often better than anything that can be produced by proprietary, corporate software makers. All code of open source programs is shared with the public, specifically programmers in the open source community. This leads to faster development, quicker bug fixing, and the ability for anyone to suggest or create improvements to the software that they desire. A company has a finite number of employees but an open source project is limited only by the number of people who hear about it and choose to contribute. People making other projects can adopt any open source code they find useful, which speeds up their own project and contributes back to the community. It’s a sort of tested honour system that proves to be incredibly useful. A fine open source project is Firefox, a web browser that in nearly every way outperforms Internet Explorer and other proprietary browsers (safer, better, faster). Firefox has been available as a public release for only a few months and has already captured a substantial share of internet users (well over 25 million).

Community learning is our natural method of learning as a process. Not only this, it also may be the most efficient and beneficial way to learn. As we wake up to the fact that we live in an interconnected, inter-reliant world with ever-increasing sources of knowledge we need to break from the limiting education structures we have and adapt to a changing world. Knowledge is not static, it’s evolving.

Thursday was the first day of what will be at least a week during which I will not be eating meat. For the past six months I’ve been eating less and less meat as other foods have become more accessable with a more flexible food budget. I tend to enjoy non-meat foods more and I’ve come to understand the dietary, environmental and societal benefits of low-on-the-chain food sources.

I share this information not to say I think eating meat is wrong. I favour mindfulness over strict ideological boundaries, but it’s clear to me that reducing meat consumption has a tremendous benefit.
If any of you have any suggestions or recipes I may find useful during this experiment I’d be happy to read them. Wikipes has a some good ideas (though it is in need of contributors, it’s a mighty fine project) and VegWeb has a nice assortment of recipes.

RAPstuff, the blog of Elfquest creators Wendy and Richard Pini, has quickly become one of my favourite reads. When a new posting shows up in my Firefox RSS bookmarks I’m sure it will be interesting and settle in for a good read before clicking. Tonight Richard once again hit on a topic I’ve been jointly facinated and disgusted with, the horrid combination of fear and religion. The phrase “Fear of God is the start of wisdom” on a church sign prompted the post, which rightly points out that there is no wisdom in living in fear.

Fear is the greatest tool of those who wish to control us. Whether it’s the governments (especially the Bush administration and Israel come to mind), fundamentalist religious groups (the “Christian” right or al-Qaeda), corporations or groups like the NRA, fear is the easiest way for them to bring people into thralldom.
Want to see a good example of fear in action? In response to recent school shootings in the U.S., the NRA decided to declare that it would be best to give teachers guns.

Yes, it seems we should be preventing gun violence by spreading around more guns, if we are to believe the NRA’s capitalization on fear. You can find out more in “Arm teachers, NRA official suggests” The fear mongering is stark when the NRA spokesperson describes a student with a gun as “someone who has evil in their heart.” Instead of arming teachers, couldn’t we help people who are toubled and keep guns out of their hands as best we are able?

Einstein was brilliant, you know.

As a followup to my “Stillness vs. Stagnation” entry I want to share another site that may be useful. Zazen, provided by the Dharma Rain Zen Center, details a Zen meditation.

What I found especially beneficial at this site was the discussion of variations of posture. As I’m adopting a more traditional posture in my meditation it’s been helpful to see midway steps to help ease the transitioning. As one kind commenter shared in my previous entry, a more traditional posture may help avoid the drowsiness that can sneak in and interrupt my meditation (another mentioned he’d be likely to fall asleep in a rocking chair as well).
Nacho, of WoodMoor Village, left a comment on “Stillness vs. Stagnation” (he was, in fact, the one who commented on the rocking chair) that included, among other suggestions, a tea and coffee drinking meditation.

After reading his comment I visited WoodMoor Village, where I spent some time enjoying his writings. Of general interest may be “Zen & Sex,” which clarifies the Buddhist approach to sex and sexuality nicely, as mindful rather than prudish.

I enjoy sharing music, book and film recommendations with others, especially here at FrozenTruth.com. Of late, though, I’ve accumulated quite a list of art I wish to share and have not yet. I hope to find the time this week to sweep over some of the most memorable discoveries I’ve made. For now, I suggest you listen to samples of Tracker’s Polk, atmospheric music perfect for late nights and long treks.

The image accompanying this entry is one of several I took on Monday here on the patio of the hotel I work at. Sitting where I do while using my laptop I’m able to see the sun rise each morning. On Monday the color of the sky in the morning made that birch on the lake shore appear especially beautiful.

Tonight I sit in meditation for the first time in weeks. I was frustrated with an inability to focus during my last attempt and I then became distracted by a number of projects I’ve been working on. Though having a consistant meditating practice is a goal of mine, I’ve been as neglectful of this aspect of my life as I have been of writing.
I light a stick of incense and drink a mouthful of cold water. I sit in an old, red rocking chair that belonged to my grandparents and begin with some breathing mindfulness, the technique that best helps me clear and still my mind at the start. The subtle smoke fills my nose and then is drawn down into my lungs. Counting deep breaths on a mala, I clear away thoughts and direct my attention to the intake of air. I soon move on to some other focuses, not struggling at all to be in the moment. This attempt is starting much better than the last so I begin to settle into the stillness.
My memory of the meditation stops there and I’m aware time has passed without me being conscious of it. I open my eyes and see some incense I was burning has come to the end of its smoky release. I don’t feel like I’ve been sleeping but that must be it. I slipped into a short slumber and eased out of it without being aware of either.

One of my biggest obsticles in meditating is falling asleep as I become calm and relaxed. It seems I allow myself to be kept from prolonged meditation by a lack of focus that either prevents me from starting or leads to me sleeping through the time I have dedicated to the meditation. I’m committed to the practice of meditation but at times I become frustrated by this. I will have to find a way to work around my limitation.

One source of help I’ve encountered is Mole, a blog by someone I gather is of the Vajrayanan branch of Buddhism. The author shared two pieces that I found to be insightful and useful for my own meditation practice. In “Confessions” the topic is the false notion that one “can’t meditate.”

“How to be Uncomfortable” talks of how we become distracted by discomfort during meditation and how to work with this.

An eventual goal of mine is to be able to sit in a Lotus position, a position most who have not meditated will associate with meditation. My legs are not supple enough to do much more than conventional crossed leg sitting so I’ll need to do some conditioning with some sort of stretching routine. While my interest in yoga is peripheral for now, the yoga site Moving Into Stillness has provided me with some stretches that I will be working on to achieve my goal of sitting in lotus. You’ll find diagrams and descriptions at “A Few Asanas – Lotus.”

Wellness and personal evolution are processes that can be very daunting and challenging. The reward is worth every effort and setback because the reward is ultimately contentment and wholeness.

Wednesday afternoon I met with my friend Cerra for the first time in over half a year. We shared some conversation about graphic novels, travels and other interesting things at a coffee place before venturing to a piercing and tattooing place. There I was a witness to her having both her nostrils pierced, certainly a new experience for me. It was nice to spend time with her again. I remember pleasant times from this past summer and hope the coming one will hold more.

Not long ago I wrote about a radio program, “The House on Loon Lake,” and I was recently directed toward a video piece that was broadcast on CBC’s Zed that deals with subject matter that is similarly facinating to me. Urban Exploration is a piece that was shot here in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and showcases some of this city’s interesting locales.

The girl featured in the segment explores abandoned and active buildings in Halifax such as the old infirmary and grain elevators in a quest for the unseen places of the city. Much like the young Adam Beckman in “The House on Loon Lake,” she and other urban explorers are drawn to the mystery of derelict buildings and their histories.

World Wide Internet TV is a wonderful resource for finding streaming television programming from all over the globe. Whether you want news from Cuba, mixed programming from Andorra, political coverage from here in Canada or music from Iceland (I’ll admit to watching some Popp Tivi.), you’ll find it all there free to watch.

Over at RAPstuff, Wendy and Richard Pini’s (creators of Elfquest) blog, a couple especially interesting entries were shared. “More thoughts on ‘Matrix’” was a look at The Matrix trilogy (a follow-up to “The Matrix Re-re-re-revisited“) that looks at the philosophy explored in the films. I found one of Richard’s later paragraphs especially compelling.

Sunday afternoon Richard shared a second piece that attracted my attention, “Sometimes You Just Want to Thin the Herd,” an entry about the great difficulty of being non-judgemental when faced with the evils we are each day, such as SUVs. In addition to sharing an article by Paul Campos showing the ignorance or hypocrisy of folks who plaster “Support Our Troops” stickers on SUVs, he wrote of a personal observation.

As Richard and Paul both wrote, it’s hard not to be judgemental when faced with things that can bring disgust, fear and anger to us, but these emotions offer us nothing but a prompting to work to fix the wrongs we see and judgement only keeps us from our personal evolution.

Throughout my entrire time in formal schooling (from elementary to university) I don’t remember much mention of Louis Riel. Knowing what I do now, this strikes me as very strange because Louis Riel was one of the most facinating and important figures in Canada’s early history, a civil rights leader (defender of the M?tis, a nation of people of mixed French, English and aboriginal heritage) that could be likened to Martin Luther King, a man who met an unjust end because of his convictions and who was arguably one of the most misunderstood figures of his day.

I’ve been facinated while learning about Mr. Riel during the past couple years. Mostly from online sources, such as CBC’s Rethinking Riel, a short biography from the University of Saskatchewan and Louis Riel: One Life, One Vision from Soci?t? Historique de Saint-Boniface, I’ve come to learn of his story and hold him in high regard. What I hadn’t found was a broadly accessable biography of Riel. I finally found it in Chester Brown‘s Louis Riel : A Comic-Strip Biography.
For a long while I eyed the book (and before it was published, the individual issues) every time I visited the local comic shop. I was always distracted by other books or had too little money to pick it up. A week before finally bringing home Louis Riel I had read Chester’s I Never Liked You, a book that “mixes scenes from Brown’s strained relationships with girlfriends and school bullies with a sudden, staggering subplot about his mother’s schizophrenia,” (CBC). I was captivated by the mixture of caricature and realism he deployed in that work and knew it was high time to finally read what is regarded by many as Brown’s masterpiece.
Chester Brown presents Riel’s story sparsely, employing the light flow of a storyteller rather than the weight of a historian. By filling in blanks and explaining necessary alterations with extensive footnotes, the main narritive is free to tell a story unencumbered by details most would find boring or too weighty. The story remains engaging and fulfilling while also as accurate to historical observations as possible.
The caricatures of the various historical figures are effective, though a bit jarring at first. Brown shares often in interviews that he was inspired by Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie and this is most prominent in his deptiction of Riel, who appears large and bear-like. This gave him a sense of grandness and also vulnerability. Others, like Sir John A. MacDonald, with his distinct nose and arrogant manner, were well protrayed, giving the story an intimate feel that historical accounts very often lack.
The panels employ a minimalism that enhances Riel’s moments of heroism, stoicism and failure. Filling the pannels are bold, yet subtly emotional accounts. Speach and narration are well balanced, using the medium to its fullest. It reads very much like storytelling done by the masters of oral history, the moderate pace and dramatic events feeling like the ebb and flow of campfire stories while letting the scholarly twinkle of the eye speak for itself.
Louis Riel : A Comic-Strip Biography is among the finest graphic novels I’ve had the priviledge to read and one of the finest works of biography done on prominent Canadian figures. One could imagine it as comfortable in the hands of a juniour high student, a history professor or a comics enthusiast. It has the mark of a classic work and, at the very least, elevates Chester Brown to the fore of modern comics creators.

This hotel is being bombarded by high winds and rain. The windows are rattling, lightning has been flashing, the wind is howling and leaks are dripping. It’s been a night of blissful fury. The winds were predicted to reach up to 100 km/h, and it sure feels like that is so. It’s as if Fujin is running around this building trailing his bag of wind, Yaponcha has left his house and Vayu is breathing to all the world.

I recently came across the website for the TPILB Project, an endevour to spread breaks of simplicity throughout the web.

I decided to add a blank page to my site because I like the notion of having a page to make oneself slow down, to realize how cluttered life and the internet can become needlessly. You can find my blank page and take a moment to reflect on just how superfluous much of our lives are.

Buddhism is largely misunderstood in the west. Despite being the fourth largest world religion (roughly one in twenty of us are Buddhist, compared with one in three Christian, one in five Islamic, more than one in ten Hindu), it is neglected by our society’s understanding and practice, so steeped are we in Christian thought. The website for Dharma the Cat (an enjoyable online comic and insight-sharing site) shares some accessable general information on Buddhism. I’ll share some of this here as an introduction, with elipses indicating more detailed information contained on that site.

I hope you’ll take the time to become familiar with Buddhism if you are not already. Studying it has informed my own spirituality and way of life immensely and I firmly believe it can improve anyone’s life, no matter their current religious beliefs. Afterall, compassion is the core of all noble religion and Buddhism provides wonderful tools to cultivate it.

This website features a Blank Page according to the recommendations of the TPILB-Project.

Thursday morning a cheap digital camera (it’s a 3.0 MP camera that interpolates to 8.0) that I had ordered arrived at my door. To test it out I decided to walk to Point Pleasant Park, a place I find very calming and full of visual treats. The park is full of striking features, such as the old battlements that date to as old as 1796 and the recent devistation that a hurricane visited on the park’s once bountiful trees. It’s become a place that whispers to me both of history and of promise.

I have shared the photos I took in my March 2005 album in the photo section of my website. I’d like to mention a little bit about them here.

Photos that were once included with this entry have been removed and may now be in my main photo album.

When I reached the park I walked along the wooded trails for a time and then moved toward the Martello Tower, the park’s largest and oldest monument. This was my first subject, a broad, dwarfing stone structure that I found challenging to capture in a way that would portray its strong character.

When I walk in Point Pleasant Park I usually walk to the park’s edge and follow the coastline from there to a spot where a ferry once landed. This day I followed this path once I left the tower. Along the shore I took in the typical sights seagulls and ducks, crashing waves, a monument to sailors and the remains of coastal defences.

The defences are very much in need of repair, as you’ll see in the photos. Much of their foundations have eroded or otherwise been damaged, giving them a fragile strength. They hold on to the cliffs, keeping a steady, silent watch. Mortar breaks down and brick walls sink into the pebbles of the beach. They’re slowly returning to nature, letting their rocks disperse on a beach no longer in need of their protection.

I moved inland and came to Fort Cambridge Battery, which protected the Halifax Harbour from the American Civil War until WWI. It’s a facinating jumble of buildings and underground structures that are permitted to be viewed but not explored by the public. Today the site is used as the setting for outdoor Shakespeare performances which draw many people to the park during the summer.

The route I take to and from the park brings me past a cemetery. It’s one of the less interesting ones in the city, but there are some interesting contrasts. The housing tower I photographed in the background of several shots is the greatest of this, a hulking, ugly construction towering behind the serenity of the cemetery became beautiful because of its framing.