A poem

I wrote a poem today, but realized that it is too dark to post. Here is a poem I found, that struck a chord for me.

Patience

Patience is the best
Shock - absorber.
Patience is the highest
Peace - discover.
Patience is the greatest
Perfection - believer.

Patience is the soul - power
Concealed.
Patience is the heart - tower
Revealed.

In between your failure - tree
And your triumph - tree,
The tree that is growing
Is known as your patience tree.

Yesterday
Patience was the beginning
Of my perfection.
Today
Patience is the flowering
Of my satisfaction.

Sri Chinmoy

Appreciation

I realized last night how much I actually take for granted. And it isn't until something is removed or taken away, that we realize what we actually had or have.

I have taken my parents for granted, or at least the help they give me in child care. Today is Family Day, a day that I don't have off. I work for the Federal Government and since this is a Provincial holiday, I am not entitled to having it off unless I take a vacation day.

My kids have had the flu for the last week and a bit. They are both feeling better, which is really great. Now, with today being Family Day, the schools and Daycares are closed, and they should be. But both my parents are sick now and I had nowhere to send my kids while I went to work. It isn't a big deal, as I just have to take it off now. But it made me realize just how much I depend on my parents. And I have also realized how much I take a lot of things for granted.

Our lives are short, and we never know when they are going to end. It isn't something we can predict or prevent, so we need to live each day to it's fullest because it might be the last. A girl in her late twenties died last week. She hit a gravel truck head on on a slippery highway. She was about 4 months pregnant. I am sure that someone took her life for granted and assumed that they would all get to enjoy the new baby and live to a ripe old age. Not so.

I take many things for granted, and not just the care and help my parents provide. I take my job for granted. I take being able to buy groceries and make my payments for granted. I take my Kung Fu for granted.

That last one, my Kung Fu is a tough one for me to admit. But it's true, I take it for granted. I am very lucky to have the opportunity to train at an amazing school filled with amazing people. I take for granted how much I learn and how lucky I am to be able to pass on my knowledge. I take for granted, and sometimes forget the journey that I took to get where I am today.

It's time that we all look at our lives, and take stock the things that we take for granted. We take for granted our sense of smell, sight, mobility, touch and taste and hearing. We take for granted the people in our lives and the things we have. We need to stop and appreciate how lucky we are to live where we do and the freedom we have. We need to look in the mirror and appreciate the very fact that we are alive. We need to look beyond the little things. If your significant other is constantly leaving the cap off the toothpaste and it irritates you, is it really worth fighting over? What if that person didn't come home today? They were in an accident or something else. How many regrets would you have? Look at the person you love today, and appreciate them for what and who they are. They might not be around tomorrow.

Politics, yada, yada, yada

So, I am not one for politics. I can handle personal politics without any problems, but then I have my hand in the can. I deal with it all the time at work, and I feel that I do quite well with it.

Now the Provincial Election is coming up. I personally am not one to follow what goes on with government as it just doesn’t interest me. However, if I choose not to vote, I am not exercising my right, and with one vote, I can make a difference. So I am going to try to stay informed, so that I can make a choice based on what I know, and not someone else’s bias.

It is time for me to decide what is most important to me, and to see which candidate measures up the best. My biggest problem though, seems to be that I will ultimately have to chose the lesser of the evils. I feel the candidates, and all of them, still have only their best interests in mind. Do they really care or understand how much it takes to raise a child today? How that they have a provincial subsidy for children in daycares, but it stops the day they start grade 1? That doesn’t make any sense to me at all. Just because my child is now in school every day, does not mean that my working hours can be adjusted to accommodate this. How about the seniors on a fixed income? Their pensions do not adjust as the cost of living increases. What about them? And then what about our environment? I believe we need some serious plans to preserve what we have and to encourage a future for the generations to come. These are just a few of my questions, and I wonder if any of them will be addressed. I might be faced with a choice of 3 guys, who might each address one thing of importance to me.

At any rate, I will have a choice to make. I have to celebrate that, since I am privileged to live in a country where I have a choice. I have a voice, and I will use it. I dislike election time, as I have to take interest in something that I don’t have much interest in. However, it is something I will do, and I have no idea which direction I will cast my vote. I am guessing it will be the lesser of the evils.

Children of the World

What is happening to our children? Or rather, what is happening with parenting in this day and age?

All over the news right now, are a couple of incidents that occurred recently. One, a father who, in a drunken state supposedly, dragged his 1 1/2 and 3 year old girls, in only t-shirts and panties/diapers into the -50 weather to freeze to their deaths. It might not have been intentional, but tell me why it had to happen? What did those two little girls do to deserve that?

Another, was a 23 year old girl with autism, who was left to starve to death by her sister. This sister, her guardian is being charged with manslaughter. She made this girl sleep on particle board, with a deflated air mattress covered in her feces. This girl went from 200 lbs to 85 lbs when she was found. How could anyone do this? What did this girl, who had the mind of a 3 year old, do to deserve to die with such indignity? It breaks my heart.

Yet another, an 8 month old baby girl, left on the cold cement in a parkade. Thankfully, she didn't have to die, but why was she left there in the first place?

These are only a couple of the millions of monstrosities being stowed on our world's children. And maybe these hit me so hard because they are here, in Canada where we are supposedly the more advanced culture. How can I believe that?

Another thing to think about is what we bestow on our children as far as beauty goes. What is wrong with us, when a 7 year old refuses to wear a winter coat because it makes her look fat? What??? This girl I heard about was 7. She should have been worried about the size of the snowman she was going to make, or the next time she could go out on her sled. Not what she was wearing or how she looked.

We have this huge responsibility to raise our children. They are our future, and we are in a position of extreme power. But why do some people end up destroying the gifts of our future? I look into the eyes of my children, and I am so thankful for them. I want to protect them from all of this, and to shelter them. But I am being naive. I need to educate them, that is their best defense.

Kung Fu can help me with that, I am sure. It can help me to teach them that every person deserves to be treated with respect, the values of being a good person with peaceful intentions. It can help me teach them to accept people and their cultures, and to ultimately respect themselves. It can help me teach them that beauty comes from within, not from what you see on the outside. Our art flows from the inside to the outside, and from the outside to the world around us.

I can make a difference through my kids. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But one day I will have left my mark, and so will they.

This, that and everything in between

I am sittting here on the floor, seriously thinking about hibernating for the rest of the week, and contemplating my Kung Fu experiences. In particular the challenges involved in teaching others.

I am on the floor, because my laptop is at Westworld awaiting a miracle. I am not sure what went wrong, and I spent considerable time feeling guilty because I must have done something wrong. Who knows. Anyway, the class with the Lil' Leopards was an eye opener yesterday.

I figure that I am good with kids, and that I have an advantage because I have two of my own. I think I am pretty good at reading them, and knowing when the focus is gone and it's time to move on. I found myself down 2 1/2 instructors yesterday. Thankfully, there were only 8 kids. I say 2 1/2 because 2 called in sick, and the other was tied up with a new student. I did have another black belt, and without him, it could have been a disaster.

I had to dig deep, to keep them going. Tried bean bags, but they got way too engrossed in having a bean bag, so that had to be aborted almost as soon as it begun. Running seems to be a fairly good strategy though. But can get boring right quick too.

While I have two of my own kids, I don't think like a kid much anymore. I take much less time to appreciate the simple things, and live in the moment. The Lil' Leopards have so much to teach me. Patience, humour, fun, and the simple joy of living. Watch them kick a heavy bag, and the joy from it. Watch them crawl through a tunnel and the excitement when the reach the end. They are challenging, yet so satisfying.

The Storm

The dark calls out,
The storm rushes in.
Anger comes in huge waves,
and crashes over the deserted beach.

The wind howls,
The lightning strikes,
Slicing the sky open
letting the thunder roar through.

As quickly as it arose,
The storm vanishes. The wind calms,
The waves begin to roll gently,
and sound like a heart beating.

The sky remains grey,
the clouds listless.
A mist rises from the water,
shrouding the world around.

It is still dark, darker yet it seems.
There isn’t much movement,
Just the oppressive presence
Of a mood descending.

The misted veil is worn,
Disguising the anguish of the storm passed.
Peaceful, but not at peace,
It sits and waits for it all to clear.

On Being an Artist

I was thinking about art, and what defines a person as an artist. I have always loved to paint, and create things, however I lack in the patience. I want it done now, and have a difficult time returning to a project to see it through to the end. I have learned that I do better painting walls, than pictures, and I would rather stamp over scrap booking. I like instant results. However, I have patience in a couple of other artistic things, that I tend to actually take for granted.

I have patience in my writing, but this is probably due more to actually being able to wait, and let my thoughts formulate before I try to put them into words. I also have patience in my Kung Fu. Kung Fu is an art, and somehow without realizing it, I have learned patience there. I do get frustrated with it, don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t too difficult for me to continue to work on something and watch it get better and better. Kung Fu continues to evolve, and I think because of it, I have learned patience.

I hope that my children will also learn patience from it. They are always talking about when they get their next stripe, and have learned that they have to work hard, stay dedicated, and to be patient. This is a virtue that so many don’t have anymore in our world today.

If we were more patient, then we would have more tolerance in my opinion. Look within the Kwoon, and tell me that alongside the patience, there is much tolerance. We all come from different backrounds, have different beliefs and values, but ultimately we work peacefully together. The peace we cultivate within our Kwoon, is carried with us into the world. We apply it in our day to day interactions. We don’t pick fights, we try to understand others, we are patient and tolerant of the differences that make our world.

I had a difficult day yesterday in regards to being an artist. I lost focus on what I am truly good at, and could only see what I am not good at. It is a very dangerous road to go down, because getting lost in that darkness is quite scary and the fight to come back is a challenging one. I have to fight to keep my strengths in front of me. I have to accept who I am, that I can always strive to be more, but in order to do so I have to like what I see now. I forget that writing helps keep me centered, and that there are many people who have a difficult time putting their thoughts into words. I forget that I am pretty good at Kung Fu, and that it comes relatively easily for me. There are many that have to work very hard for where they are.

I also have to take the patience that I have learned from Kung Fu, and apply it to my daily life. I have to be patient with my moods, because ultimately, I know that they will improve. The fight to get out from under this dark veil is a hard one, and I always seem to escape it. I just have to be patient, and somehow learn to accept myself and the artistic abilities that I have. I have to accept that I can’t be really good at everything, and that I am judged by who I am, and not what I material things I create.