Secrets

Write about secrets

     Secrets only have power when they hide in the shadows. Exposed to light and truth they wither, fade and  blow away like dust. Darkness camouflage, confuse and confound the task to tease the threads back to the origins, back to the source. Like poison ivy, we may not feel the sting immediately, as we brush away in-nocuous rumours but these contacts may fester and return to haunt us like the seven year itch.

     Secrets erode  trust, poison intimacy and encourage addictions. I have counseled  many addicts who use substance abuse, gambling,  sex, and eating to avoid transparency. Secrets have a charge that feels exciting but drains our batteries. Like a pebble in our shoe we are aware there is  something wrong,  bothering our conscience but we often cannot find the words or the courage to explore the darkness, find our way back to the light.

      As a society we need to expose not only the dirty old men but the politicians who use paternalism, lobbyists  and corruption.  According to Wikipedia…

     Political corruption is the use of power by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by private persons or corporations not directly involved with the government. An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political corruption only if the act is directly related to their official duties, is done under color of law or involves trading in influence.

     Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement. Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, though is not restricted to these activities.

     The activities that constitute illegal corruption differ depending on the country or jurisdiction. For instance, some political funding practices that are legal in one place may be illegal in another. In some cases, government officials have broad or ill-defined powers, which make it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions. Worldwide, bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually.^[1] A state of unrestrained political corruption is known as a kleptocracy, literally meaning "rule by thieves".

     When I was in Costa Rica five years ago I was delighted to hear their president had been jailed for  a year by accepting a bribe for an inferior cell phone infrastructure. A previous political figure was also jailed for a similar crime. When are we going to point the finger of shame at our beauracracies in Canada and the US who make  many deals behind closed doors that directly affect of our futures. We need more transparency and less secret deals.

About Light, Dark and Negative Space

^.Negative space contrasts a light image in art and photograghy, with pure blackness.

     However  something happened. The Big Bang postulates Light, Energy and Elements accelerated outward, filling the Void, the emptiness of space. Photons and gaseous elements forced forward into the unknown. The analogy, that Light illuminates darkness. Knowledge dispels ignorance. Photons are tiny packets of uncharged electrons, vibrating specific wavelengths, that touch and transform. Matter evolves into receptive participants absorbing and transforming this energy, captured in chloroplasts, into oxygen and carbohydrates, further transforming the planet.
     Darkness is simply the absence of Light. Blackholes, however have gravitational pull, sucking in the light and matter, destroying entire solar systems. Insatiable, they are a mystery to cosmologists.Dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to accelerate the expansion of the universe, In the standard model of cosmology, dark  energy currently accounts for 73% of the total mass-energy of the universe.^{[ According to Wikipedia2} Lambda-CDM model^].

     It is postulated that the expanding universe is like the skin of a balloon and can be twisted into shapes. The dark energy is what is inside the balloon.

     Consciousness, similar to light has different wavelengths and qualities depending  from which body radiates the consciousness. The qualities of light we absorb, also effect the quality of  awareness. Hormones, like melatonin secreted by the pineal gland  and neurotransmitters depend on circadian rhythms. Sunlight activates vitamin D, an essential hormone, in the skin much more efficiently than through diet or supplementation. One function of Vitamin D acts on intestines aiding absorption of minerals, like calcium and magnesium.

     Truly living in Light is preferable to living in Darkness. Ask anyone suffering from SAD, Seasonal Effective Disorder, a yearly cycle of disrupted thinking and hormones caused by the shorter days every fall. Millions suffer from SAD,  shift work,  working and playing  inside,  avoiding natural sunlight;  we damage our health.

     In art and photography,  light and dark add  not only visual contrast but symbolic,  archetypical reference to satisfy a need to see the shadow and the light that bleeds into it.

Found Poetry

_{on how government works}

Layoffs at GM

 General Motors

 Announced

 Shut down

 Of the consolidated line

 At its Oshawa assembly plant next year

 Resulting in up to 2000 job losses

 Questioning the health of the manufacturing sector.

The Cancelled Mississauga Gas Plant

 Dalton McGuinty announced

 Cancellation of a controversial gas plant

 Ontario Power Authority, offered an American hedge fund $82 million

 To settle a $300 million lawsuit brought

 Against the government for cancelling the project.

 The offer was rejected,

 Prompting questions

 What the final price tag will be.

Mercury Poisoning at Grassy Narrows

 Residents of Grassy Narrows, Ontario

 Still suffering the effects of mercury poisoning

 40 years after a chemical and pulp mill

 Dumped  mercury into a local river.

 Contaminated the fish stocks in the English-Wabigoon river

 Commercial fishing operations were shut down 4 decades ago

 New Cases of mercury poisoning continue to emerge.

---

§  _{For interactive tools on how government works: Civics 101}

§  _{For complete program archives: Queen's Park This Week | Question Period}

§  _{Follow: @TVOCivics}

Big Ideas

Hungarian philosopher

political activist,

Gaspar Tamas,

delivers a lecture

The Failure of Liberal Democracy

in Eastern Europe

and Everywhere Else.

Hod Lipson

 discusses the future of 3-D printing

 Programmable Matter: The Shape of Things to Come

Dr. Allen J. Frances presents Diagnostic Inflation: Does Everyone Have a Mental Illness?

My prose from TVO.org

Googled FPR

Found Poetry Revue

Laughing

Reading Sarah Palin

Remixed, reworded

Collage of words

Arranged on a page

Appealing not just to the author’s wit

Recognizing another political dimwit

Reading between the lines

Home: Past, Present,Future

      I lived on the same street, in downtown Toronto for 20 years, when I got married I moved next door for the next 70 months. I attended  a university, so close I rode my bike daily even in the winter. Riverdale was  convenient, inexpensive and comfortable. Ample money to  frequent  unique restaurants and travel.  Free music tickets for Massey Hall and Maple Leaf Gardens, original pre-released  albums, from my  Dad, the only discount  stereo dealer in Ontario. My dad was an audiophile and my boyfriends all loved the music.

    My dad ran his business out of our home for years, before his move to the Colonnade at Bay and Bloor. I grew up with stereo components everywhere, including having $350 Bose speakers in my bedroom. My dad  designed speaker boxes,  imported them from Hungary and we would deliver  equipment  to bars and restaurants all over Ontario and the Northern States.

    My husband, Lorne collected old  jazz, R&B, blues, rockabilly 78’s and we had 5 old Wurlitzers, complete with posters and memorabilia.  We would go on extended pilgrimages to the US for concerts and records every opportunity we could. Lorne opened a used record store at Queen and Broadview while he was still working at CBC and still hosts  successful  vinyl record shows. My life was filled with music and musicians.

     I had been accepted into Chiropractic College 1974 when I got itchy feet for foreign lands. The next 7 years I felt I was living out of a suitcase. I only came home when I ran out of money. By 1975 I had moved to Kitchener, rented a room in a co-op, and kept travelling further and further afield. In  1977  I bought a triplex with money I had saved in high school, rented out everything except one room and kept travelling. 1982 I found myself pregnant, attending U of Waterloo, so I bought 4 more houses as I thought,  it would be a while before I could travel again, but in 1986 I spent a month in BC and the Yukon, 1988 I spent 2 summer months in Peru and 2 winter months in Arizona. Then I sold 5 houses to pay for  education and bought a monster home in Hespeler. Thank God my next trip 1991, was won, by opening an account at Royal Trust to anywhere in the world plus $2000 US.  I took my sister to Thailand and then I went on to India for the next six weeks.

      Talk about extremes in lifestyle; 25 years on a culdesac with 2 ‘no exit’ signs  remind me daily how trapped I am by my possessions. My life is littered with old stereo components, thousands of old vinyl records, books and memorabilia. Home is now shackling my freedom. Tara plans to stay in Australia, and is urging me to liquidate and move to Bali or Papua New Guinea, somewhere warmer  and closer.

    My Mom, 92 would love to have me drive her to her appointments in Florida, and my retirement home is on a small BC Gulf Coast Island, Gabriola. If I had the money I would definitely attend the local massage therapy school as well as an acupuncture school in Toronto. These licences would further my career plans, whether I decide to stay here, Florida or Australia. I am dabbling with Spanish CDs because if I sell my home I would love to study medicine in Cuba and take my skills on the road maybe to Malawi, in Africa, where my neighbours  have had a mission for 20 years and a good homeopathic teaching school has been established to treat tropical diseases like malaria, HIV and sleeping sickness. I think my days in Hespeler are numbered, I hear the call of the road once again. I am fighting inertia as I have become so fat and contented surrounded by old treasures, reminding me of a  similar situation in Riverdale so long ago.

To Blog or not to Blog is the question

     The literary form I would like to explore is WebLog, now known simply as a BLOG, a journal entry published chronologically  on the internet. Blogs are relatively new, started in the 1990s as online forums, virtual Bulletin Board and chatlines. Diarists   quickly evolved into journalists and journalers with relevant topical discussions and regular contributors and followers. A common genre, that we have been studying here is the personal essay, and its self- reflective tone is well suited for blog entries.

     I have been told for decades that I have a book in me? Friends  have spent thousands to publish on Vanity presses, catering to artistic types,  know how difficult  and expensive it is to promote a book. However, I do know some authors succeed. It is natural that people want to express themselves through clothing, furnishings, hair, makeup, art, poetry and musical  tastes. They  also want to connect to others  even if it is only by   a thread  to the net. Twitter and Facebook can satisfy, or at least wet the appetite  for various shades of intimacy. Blogs have the potential to have intellectual, economic and political consequence as people  gather to listen and write from their own homes with thousands of like minded souls.

     Fellow homeopaths have talked on line for decades but I did not have the desire or time to learn the skill. I was a Luddite. I started waking up to the potential of the Blog, feeling I was losing a valuable opportunity because of my ignorance and inexperience. I have been digitally ignorant until the last few years, but because of St Louis, I have been digitally initiated and even learned to Google open book exams.

    Now we have Live Blogging because of social media’s demand for instantaneous  blow by blow descriptions of sporting events captured by cellphones. Arab spring and Occupy movements also are Live Blogged and influence world wide opinion.

     I have been arrested for my activism and would prefer the comfort of being an armchair rabble-rouser  with more clout than more arrests. I convinced my daughter, Tara to bus down with U of  Toronto students to the Quebec Summit of the Americas 2001, to experience the art of protest in a democracy, first hand. She had left that morning with a head cold, and she reported back, that after being tear gassed a few times, her head cleared up. Her group was tear gassed 28 times and subjected to rubber bullets.  She swore, they were nowhere near the fence, but singing protest songs in a public park.

      I was supposed to bus in with the Council of Canadians,  but my cold was in my lungs and my heart was labouring.   I went to the protest at Kitchener’s city hall. I would have loved to be kept in the loupe with a Live Blogger then. Tara was in grade 13 and doing an English assignment for St Benedict’s, poetry inspired by social injustice. Tara had refused to read until Grade 6, had always been a math person, dyslexic like her Mom, aced that course with a 95 and an overall 95 average that year.

     I talked to Tara about starting a Travel Blog. She has travelled to Korea four times as she earned tuition teaching English during highschool’s summer breaks. After 5 years of studying Engineering at Guelph she left for  Asia. I met her in India and we travelled  for 2 months. She returned home after 14 months of travelling in Korea, Thailand, China, and Vietnam. I had tried to get her to upload photos and descriptions but she kept dismissing my efforts. She kept losing her phones and had not uploaded much to Facebook.

     Conestoga Rovers of Waterloo sent her to California to clean up gas stations from San Diego to Los Angeles. After checking out numerous unsuitable lodgings she decided to camp out, in a friend’s backyard on the beach in San Clemente. She said it was an eye opener living in a gated community in Orange County, with nose, boob and dyejobs driving BMWs everywhere. Unpaid overtime and working nights were not in the job description when recruited by headhunters back home. A Blog would have given her ample opportunity to grumble, and upload pix for friends to admire. She could even publish under an alias. After fourteen months in the California sun, she had only a handful of pix of her Chihuahua, Spenser.

     We as a family have always picked up hitchhikers and brought them home for supper, a shower or even rest a night, if they were going far. I have encouraged Tara to check out Couch-Surfing on line, and when Tara came home from California, it took her 2 and half weeks, as she was having fun zigzaging across the US, meeting strangers, calling me from Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Amarillo,  Nashville, Chicago and Indianapolis. Home for a few weeks, then off to Hawaii, and  on to Thailand but her plans were diverted  by the red shirt demonstrations, so off  to Malaysia and Australia Couch Surfing. After only three days, she found  Oz  very expensive, and because she had only a tourist visa, she decided to come home,  to file income tax and apply for a proper working visa. Weeks later she drove  down to Montana to spend six weeks with her friend Kat, from San Clemente.

     On to Australia and in 3 days she had a job and a room in a Victorian whore house, filled with university students. She has seen much more of Australia than most  Ozzies. Three months in Melborne, 3 months in Sidney, 3 months in Brisbane, 3 months in Perth and mining towns , 6 months in Brisbane and more remote mining towns, and hit by the flooding 18 months ago. She is a true beach bum and loves camping but no Blogging. So I have had to learn the art and explain how living out of suitcase and being lonely can even be a theme which could appeal not just to armchair travellers, but also musicians and other itinerants. Maybe she would write poetry again and take more pictures like she did in high school.  She loves my Blogs and I know I would love hers. Blogging as travelogue  is not only entertaining in the present, but provides a scrapbook of memories for the future.

   Tara emails and Facebooks friends she has met on her journeys, but Blogging is more of a literary art form and the hyperlinks add that little extra flavour to any photos that one uploads. Blogging is not only a free  hobby but entertaining and educational as well. Families Blog Newsletters with uploaded photos and video clips of birthday parties. Small business can flog their wares. Whether it is the New Journalism Peter Worthington describes, or a client that may potentially subscribe to my Blog Homeopathnd for alternative thoughts on Lymes disease or kidney stones, the form offers endless opportunities. Opportunities, alas lost for the years Tara and I spent on the road. Thank God we still have our memories.

Reflecting on lessons learned in May

Write a reflection inspired by May 2012, be as creative or as formal as you wish.

This too will pass.

      Precociously curious as a child, I read and read about the world around me. Lay philosophers were everywhere with free insights and free advice. Masters filled libraries. Heraclitis said “you don’t step into the same stream twice”, but  truisms are oddly comforting, sometimes.

       May has  been an expensive month. In  truth, January, February, March and April were worse. An obstinately plugged drain, took hours of plunging,  2 trips to rent larger and more powerful  augers and 2 trips from a plumber with a 350 pound  super rooter,  finally blasted through an inch  layer of what appeared to be a  bar of  soap. Yes, the pioneers did use fat to make soap with lye and what is Drano?  Lye ! For years tenants poured oils and fats down the drain and with a chaser of Draino.  My pipes  were making solid, hard soap. I saw it with my own eyes! No matter how often I suggest paper towels or parchment paper and pouring the grease into the green bin, some tenants are slow learners or maybe just saboteurs. Plumbers hate products like Draino, because they are so corrosive and will sit there in the water making it dangerous  to work on your blocked pipes.

      Frans  asked me if I knew anyone who would do a website for him. I thought , there is something I always wanted to try so I took a few digital Pix with my new cell phone, I  bought   6 weeks earlier  because I did not have a digital camera, nor cell phone.  Even when you are giving things away for free, on Kijiji, people still want to know what it looks like, before they drive over to check it out. I downloaded a trial template from ebizwebsites, downloaded pictures of plumbing, uploaded his pix, and after  about 10 hours, Voila! FranVoogtPlumbing.com

     The same tenant then informed me, two of his burners got warm but not hot enough to boil water. The stove is at least 10 years old, with solid elements and I could not get them to budge. Back to Kijiji for a stove.        

      Next my air conditioner would not come on in the heat wave. The A/C  is a Preston, 30 years old and no longer manufactured.  My A/C  guy arrives and finds electrocuted mice have nibbled through wires  and informs me that new units are much more efficient and he does not know if he can get parts for mine. $2500 for a brand new A/C plus labour plus taxes and they can arrange financing! Yahoo. I tell him to try and fix it and I will put a new A/C  on my wish list after my broken teeth,  water  softener and car repairs. I carry around booster cables because my starter is intermittent, but I favour parking on an incline, so I can pop the clutch.

     I am in the house, next to the main panel  and he yells to me to turn the breaker back on. I can hear him through the wall. “Your  A/C  is working”  he says excitedly after replacing a box with something he luckily had in his truck. But I hear grinding from the panel and smoke is definitely coming from the breaker, not a good sign. He inspects this problem and exclaims, “You need an electrician” and gives me  one of his buddy’s card. I thank him but I know my guy will work for $30 an hour cash.

    My electrician can come on Saturday and reminds me to  pick up a 15 amp 2 pole Commander/Sylvanna/CEO. Because of his previous visits, I know they don’t make these breakers anymore.   Electric supply  companies  keep used parts  in a back room somewhere. After unsuccessful trips to Gerrie’s,   Little’s and  Ray’s  in Cambridge I was told to try Pope’s  in Kitchener. $60 for a used 2 pole was too much. If I was a true entrepreneur I would take these used breakers to China and bring home a  thousand and sell them on eBay  for all those homeowners with houses like mine that are 30 + years old. But on a more practical path, when I can afford it, I will replace one of my subpanels  and salvage the breakers.

     Adam  accompanied by his 11 year old daughter, found another nest of mice complete with nursing babies. Carefully he gathered up the insulation she nested in and placed it under the unit. His daughter carried one around while he did more repairs on the A/C. He explained his dad was an A/C+Heating contractor and Adam had just  replaced contacts and capacitor, and as well,   boosted  his compressor  2 weeks earlier,  and his unit was only 7 years old. He like so many repairmen have told me, yes, newer is more efficient but wears out faster. $40 later and my breaker no longer smoked. Yahoo!

     A few months ago, my tenants’ shower diverter was stuck and then ripped. Again with a 30year old plumbing fixture, I was told that I would have to rip the tiled wall down to install new shower guts. I went down to One Stop Plumbing in Kitchener and they let me look through their old catalogue until I recognized the distinctive handles and could  get the correct numerical description of this part no longer  stocked by American Stardard in Canada or the USA. I googled the part and after phoning at least a dozen American Plumbing Supply companies, I would always end with a plea, could they think of any other supply company I could pester? Please. Finally a guy, who had been in parts for 42 years, Harlan in South Carolina told me that American Standard had subcontracted a German Company to make these and he would call me back after he checked his stock. Harlan saved the day with a $26 part that arrived in 2 days. I now know why companies promise their products for life.

     Reflecting back on this past May I realize that book learning is okay for kids, but there is a real world out there with more experienced minds, that can teach us plenty of life lessons, if you are open to learning. If you think education is expensive, then try ignorance.

creative writing course

Reflect on your journey as a writer. What has this course taught you about yourself. Has this course expanded your writing style?

     I have always seen myself as an educator, but it is boring, explaining to each client about their adrenals, spleen, Candida, auto-toxicity, ad nauseum. I have a unique voice and viewpoint on many subjects including health, foreign, and monetary policies, politics, and I recognize the need for a soapbox. Friends, clients and relatives have encouraged me to write a book, magazine articles, audio podcasts, website or blog… get the message out. Stop preaching to the choir, harness your potential, reach out to people with differing viewpoints. My excuses typically, “But I don’t have the time, I have zero computer skills, I don’t type, I’m tired”, have made me question my potential and vocation.

     We are meant to shine, illuminate, teach the younger generations. Some of us are meant to be more orthodox, others more traditional educators. Some of us wear white, others black hats and some infinite shades of grey, while others rainbow or even no hats at all. I avoided high school’s indoctrination and chose the counter-culture’s message of Timothy Leary, “Turn on, tune in and drop out.”

     In order to cope with the high school boredom I worked 25 hours a week at the post office sorting mail, 5-10pm Monday to Friday, 1965-1969. Weekends were spent partying, travelling and cramming. I was accepted by U of T. High school was an exercise in memorize verbatim. University challenged paradigms and questioned authority.

      Marshall McLuhan’s department brought in Timothy Leary to speak and inspire when I attended 40plus years ago. Long lineups awaited Northrup Frye’s lectures on the Bible and Blake, standing room only at Emmanuel. Donald Chant headed up Pollution Probe, Pomeranz taught neurobiology, I was intoxicated by the avalanche of fresh ideas. I revelled in so much freedom of thought. I took it for granted that free thinking would challenge authority forever; I was wrong.

      I am disappointed that young women know nothing of herstory of feminist thought and literature. Curiosity is dead and education now represents debt and career opportunities. I love documentaries; I recognize there is a niche for discussions on the dilemmas we face.

      Previously I wrote lab reports and essay assignments with deadlines and marking schemes. I have never taken a course in creative journaling. I love these reading assignments and the discussions that follow. These remarkable writers encouraged fresh  thinking especially when first published. I trust that I could hone this skill and apply it to a blog and join the internet revolution. Many voices, many pinpoints of light may yet illuminate darkness and ignorance.

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