Autonomy

 

Autonomy. We take it for granted. The capacity to decide for oneself. To choose. To guide our lives in the direction we want to go. To take care of ourselves. To make food. Go to sleep. Seemingly simple decisions that can be lost. Lost in confusion, overwhelm, an overload of the regular function of a human being. Those everyday decisions we make, that we don't even think of, because they're normal, natural, habit. Until, there are moments when that capacity goes away, is missing. And we depend on others to support, to help make those decisions, to guide, clarify, simplify, decide. And yet, we have made those decisions our whole life, we have taken care of ourselves. Until it changes. What has changed -- that this goes missing in these moments? Aging, dementia, isolation. Exacerbated by a pandemic that disconnects social bonds, removes us from the network, so we stay safe. And yet we are left with a different kind of risk, a loss of autonomy, of self care, and wellbeing. The game becomes how to safely stay connected, despite the circumstances, to support and invite decisions, to really listen, to profoundly get people, so they are so heard, that clarity rises to the surface, stress dissipates, and a calm, grounding occurs, surrounded by family and community. Which reminds us how humans are designed to live. 

Not the Truman Show

 

We are either cause or effect in our life. Making things happen, or reacting to things in motion. Leading how we want our life to look, or following what is already happening. Causing has power -- empowerment -- we are the source, the engine, the creator. Being at the effect has no power -- no artistry -- a constant reply to someone else's email. And we are off the hook. We can complain that it is someone else's design, it's their fault, because they did it. It's easier not to cause, to allow others to lead, to be at the effect of life. It's never our responsibility. And yet, what is the impact? We are left at the end with a life that isn't our own, a Truman Show, governed by the man in the moon. What if we sailed to the edge of that world, and stepped out? What could it look like? What might be create, build, design, write, lead? Lots of unknowns, of mistakes, accidents, messy fumbling through, as we learn and grow. And yet it is at least our life, and something we made. And at the end, we have a life with the full palette of an artist who created something that is ours.

Rhythm

What is the rhythm of our week? From the moment we wake up on Monday morning to the time we sleep Sunday night. 

How much time do we spend doing different things in our day? Time in the washroom, getting dressed, eating meals, commuting, working? Conversations with people, with our family, with our partners, our kids; playing cards and board games, watching screens. 

And how much do we guide and create the rhythm? Or are we floating through at the effect of our schedule, out of control, bouncing through life at the whim of our circumstances. What might our days look like if we were to take charge? To explore what our rhythm could look like, feel like? 

How would we design our day so that we actually enjoy it; where we are productive and appreciative; a rhythm that fits our natural strengths, as a morning person, or a night hawk; a balance that includes breaks, time in nature, time to connect, and time to be alone. Time to get things handled, and time to have adventures, reflect, read, relax. 

Starting ... now...

Bueller Bueller?

What is the quality of the time we spend in each moment in our day? On the continuum of present to away, where do we stand?

Times when we're present, engaged in the moment, soaking it in. Other times when we're physically there, but mentally absent -- distracted, away, in our thoughts, escaping? If we were to graph our experience, what might it look like? How often are we present with the life we're living? For all those moments we are away, we are missing our lives, missing our kids' questions, missing moments of intimacy with our partners, missing our life.

Is this the kind of life we want to look back on? An absent life, drifting through, physically there, but a spiritual ghost. And what's the impact of ghosting our own lives? The impact on our kids, our relationships, our work. The question for us all to answer is, what kind of quality of life do we truly want? At the end of the day, looking back, how do we want it to be?

And then start creating it now.

Puzzle

My mission this year is to integrate the rhythm and elements of our family canoe trip into our every day city lives. The quality time in nature, cooking meals on a fire, playing card games with the kids, lying in a hammock, reading a novel! Moving and using our bodies, carrying things over portages, paddling all day, resting on a beach, laughing, playing, washing dishes in the rain, setting up a tarp -- I love setting up tarps, and huddling under as a family, protected, with a fire burning, boiling water, preparing food, feeling the cool water and wind, not being comfortable all the time. The biggest change I noticed was the beautiful impact of having no phones, no screens -- locking my cell phone in the glove box of the car. Taking the screen out. It changes everything. 

So, back in the city, in my real life, I've been bringing elements over to the rhythm of our everyday life. Locking the cell phone away. I even bought a box and found a dead bolt with a timer on it, so I can lock it up, and not be able to get it for 2 hours -- a glove box in our house. We opened a 500 piece puzzle the other day. I hadn't done a puzzle in 20 years. The kids didn't know puzzles. And yet, we were all drawn to it like the pull of a warm fire hearth. I'd see River spending hours looking for the corner pieces. Sikhona and River coming together to separate out the side pieces from the centre pieces. Rowan and Mary-Kate wandering over to work on the cabin area. This beautiful space we have been lured into, a space of wonder and creativity, where time slows, a kind of meditation, and connection, laughter, and random yells of joy, when a piece is found. The kids invited us over to put the last piece in all together, a ritual to close out the experience. 

And onto the next calling -- 1000 pieces!

Build the Wall?

I remember walking through a neighbourhood in Quito, Ecuador years ago, and noticed each yard was surrounded by cement walls, and each wall had sparkling lines of broken glass shards carefully cemented across the top. They seemed like effective home-made security systems, and were clearly designed to protect against others. 

Trump recently suggested he will protect "suburban housewives" from outsiders, low income housing -- "other" people. It's an ideology rooted in the build-a-wall approach to surviving our neighbours. Gate the community. And I wonder where the wall stops? Are corridors built to protect suburban housewives when they leave their neighbourhoods? Do we have armed guards in Costco? Who's being protected and from whom?

Is that the kind of community and neighbourhoods we want to create? Is it really sustainable? To bubble ourselves from the people around us? And yet, maybe there is a place for a wall. I am appreciating our closed border during these times. Maybe there is a place for broken glass shards after all. Trump could flip the focus to the North, blame Canada and build a wall here to protect Canadians from the chaotic, partisan, contradictory and dangerous American federal response to the global pandemic. 

Fires Worth Spreading

Fire sparks other fires without losing itself in the event. Fire is not limited. It sparks more of itself, and yet retains its own energy and light.

Some of our spiritual fires are burning so low -- are so cluttered and watered down -- that it can take a profound interruption to re-light. How do we rekindle our own fire, our spirit -- that energy within, that propels us forward in our life?

I imagine we each rekindle in different ways, sparked by what lights us up, what feeds us spiritually. So then our job becomes to discover what those experiences are, and to cultivate them. To create opportunities to feed our own fires, so that we radiate out and light the spark for others.

To clear the spiritual junk, gather our own kindling and dry wood for our life -- and to keep it burning with plenty of oxygen. Sounds like the kind of fire worth spreading.

Upside Down

I made an upside-down fire the other day -- logs on the bottom, paper and kindling on top. It went against every natural instinct to form it this way. Forty years of building a traditional log cabin or teepee style. I'd seen this upside-down method done successfully, so kept going despite it feeling so wrong. I lit the paper and kindling on top, and it went up in a flare, as if the cake icing was infused with alcohol. And then it slowly and beautifully burned down through the middle of the logs. It's a unique and stunning burn, holding the fire within the solid foundation. And it lasts for hours -- it's resilient and independent. I'm converted -- something out of my view, and against the grain of tradition, now my new normal. How often we delete ways of doing things that don't match the way we've always done it.

*And found this great blog post from Tim Ferris on Upside Down Fires: 
https://tim.blog/2009/02/02/how-to-build-an-upside-down-fire/

Ripped Apart

In 2006, I remember walking past this home in India that had a 6 inch slice right up the middle of the front of the building. It looked like a giant had reached down and ripped the house in two. The building itself looked almost new -- shiny exterior, fresh windows. The split in between was rough -- there was material hanging off the sides in the gap as if it had been haphazardly torn apart. There was a man standing in front of the gap holding a saw working his way through the structure of the home. I stopped and was so curious what was happening. He turned to me, and I asked him what was happening. He said that he owned this house with his brother, that they'd had a disagreement that could not be resolved, so they went to court, and the judge ordered them to split their house in two -- for each brother to own half. Literally.

In 2020, divisions seem to be increasing, getting wider, and louder. We're required to wear masks and be 6ft apart in a pandemic for our safety. Yet we also keep a distance from people to be safe from their difference -- people in our lives who see the world differently, who have opposing views, different ways of experiencing things. They can become our enemies -- dangerous, a threat. A threat to our own view, which is the correct one. If only they would come around, and see it our way, then we could get along. We then avoid them, and the story builds stronger and more elaborate. They become more wrong, and more of an enemy, more of a threat, and we need to defend and build our walls higher. Six feet isn't enough. How do we interact with this difference, disagreement, conflict? Find people who think like us, and be with them, and then we are validated -- we are ok, we are right.

What if it wasn't this way? What if our enemies are not that? What if they are the gold? There to teach us, to open up our world to seeing difference, richness, variety? What if we were to go towards the discomfort, to call up that brother we disagree with, knock on the neighbour's door who is different from us, reach out to the co-worker we avoid? To connect, listen, build relationships, to be open. To ask and really hear other perspectives, and maybe even be surprised that we align, that we share some things in common. That we don't need to agree, to be good neighbours, siblings, colleagues. That we just need to reach out, and start. Maybe we can co-exist and collaborate, cultivate a rich diversity of people and points of view, and keep our home in one piece.

Little Boy

8:15am. August 6th, 1945.

Three metres long, weighing four tonnes, the atomic bomb known as "Little Boy" carrying 50kg of Uranium 235, was dropped above the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Fission caused 1kg of the Uranium to release the effect of 16,000 tonnes of explosive. All buildings within 2km were crushed and burned. 140,000 people were killed. Many of the lives lost were junior school children, volunteering to demolish wooden buildings so they wouldn't catch fire in the bombing raids. One child, who survived the blast, said he only lived because he fell between two desks, and somehow, the desks blocked the heat of the intense radioactive blast. Many were vaporized completely, leaving only a shadow of where their body once was. Others were left with severe burns to their bodies, and many died in the years after, of various effects of radiation.

3:30pm. December 10th, 2014.

The Kanawaga prefectural government announces radiation levels due to the tsunami affected Fukijima Nuclear plant, are not at levels that will harm human health. The ban on water consumption by children & pregnant mothers is also lifted.

Effect of radiation from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station