From Buddha to Beethoven

“The only way to live is to accept each minute as an unrepeatable miracle.”
-- Storm Jameson

The summer solstice by the Bow River. Are the birds singing their one song or their consolation song? In my mind it is not a consolation song but a summer song of verve and vitality. I don’t suppose a bird stops to think about his or her voice wondering if it is good enough, worthy enough or melodic enough. No, I imagine birds awaken as the first morning blush chases away the darkness and sing, not for their breakfast or their supper but just because they are alive.

I was thinking that today as I cycled around Lake Minewanka loop feeling full of life, inhaling the fresh aromas of summer, the green energy of the pine trees, aspens and grass. “I am here now in this moment, with no guarantee of what the futures holds but knowing this is enough.”

Now I guess that is truly what the Buddha was trying to tell us. The problem I have with him is he had his eyes closed, focusing on his inner world. It feels to me that he was closing out the wonders of being alive on this blue green planet spinning through the galaxy at some mind-boggling speed. At this time of the year I want to keep my eyes, ears and nose wide open to embrace the shinning sage waters rushing through the log jam, the song birds, blue butterflies, sweet smelling wolf willow, delicate five petaled flowers with yellow centres and the slipper orchid. Can there be anything more precious than the astounding Alberta wildflowers?

That brings me to Beethoven. I watched a movie called “Copying Beethoven.” He walked in places like this, by rivers and forests listening to their magic. Then at home, using his dazzling creativity he wrote brilliant Symphonies. Flutes, violins and drums echoed the sounds he heard in the environment. The amazing thing is he remembered nature’s wild melodies after he went deaf. With his ears shut off to the external world he tuned into the sounds of his delicious inner world and continued to produce harmonious compositions that he was never able to hear.

While the Buddha left a heritage of verbal teachings, Beethoven left a legacy of musical masterpieces all inspired by the natural world.

Photos below

OK I am still challenged by my blogging skills. The photos in the last post are from a backcountry ski trip to Socerer Lodge in British Columbia.
The bottom on is Jeanie McBroom up on the ridge behind Amsikwi - just for the record it was about minus twenty.

Hamecoming

Hamecoming

Deep roots nurtured by the weeping willow
Fresh western air on Arran’s blond beaches
Striding over Goatfell’s granite ridges
Strengthened my curiosity my wanderlust

As a teen I poured over Beautiful British Columbia Magazines
For geography class made an album of far-off New Zealand
Spent hours under the flouted columns on Carlton Hill
Mesmerized by the green orange hills of Fife
Wondered what lay across the North Sea
As I yearned for exotic lands and cultures

Once launched from the stern walls of Edinburgh University
I a rebellious daughter of patriarchy travelled
before long my passport stamped full
my photo albums like pages of the National Geographic
In a sea of other I stumbled on a forlorn inner place
A longing for home

While I scaled mountains in strange lands,
The world arrived in Scotland
The white mainstream Scotland of my youth
Has morphed into a rainbow blend
Second generation Asian speak with Scottish brogue

At sixty I am woman who has come hame to herself
Found my inner place an expanding pool of light
My roots have suckered across continents
And intertwined with the global community
In an intricate Celtic Knot.

Asian Photos

Xmas in Revelstoke

Home and Away

As a rolling stone who has lived all the world, “Home and Away” brings up many questions, conflicts and dilemmas for me. In 1990 I arrived in Alberta. It was the magnetic pull of the snow covered Rocky Mountains that attracted me to Alberta from the Australia’s sultry beaches.

It is the frigid weather that I quarrel with. This in turn means that the growing season is short and energy to heat my house through the long winter, expensive.

Recently I arrived back from Asia where the temperature had been plus thirty to find every home and road in Calgary encased in a thick capsule of snow and ice. My daughter had left our Jetta outside in the deep freeze for three weeks while she had been in Europe. The car steadfastly refused to start. With Clive’s magic touch the car started. Out on the highway it juddered and stuttered along as if it had a bad lisp. Fast moving trucks barrelled out of the darkness, covering us blowing snow. Welcome home.

This is the home I had been looking forward to returning to yet the reality of winter roads terrify me. In the last couple of weeks since I returned I have tried to banish the question from my mind “Is this were I want to spent the rest of my life?”

Albertan’s are a hardy people, used to this rugged intimidating climate. Dressed in puffy down jackets, woolly hats and thick furlined boots, their cars loaded with emergency blankets, candles and matches Albertans have made friends with their long winters.
More than that even on the coldest minus thirty days you will find them outside, on skates, skis and sleds revelling in the sparkling chiselled mountains of their pristine winter wonderland.

Can I say that after 18 years Alberta is home? What makes a place home? I had time to think about that cycling thought the jungles of Vietnam and Laos, lying on the white beaches in Thailand coconuts swaying in the sea breeze, juicy papayas waiting to be eaten. I told myself there that it was easier to be cold than too hot.

Today the warm Chinook swirled through the towering cliffs of Peter Lougheed, Rimwall and Wind Tower softening their sharp ridges, stark against the blue Alberta sky. It felt as if the warm wind picked up my nagging doubts and carried them far away to the flatlands.

I do know that when I stepped of the plane and saw my daughter, it is my family and friends who make me call Alberta home.