Saturday, June 03, 2006

Busy Busy

I have to log about the funniest thing that happened yesterday. Kevin almost made me pee my pants. Kevin was giving me a ride home and then with a serious tone, asked me to explain to him what it means to be a witch, to which I respond, I know nothing about being a witch, I grew up Christian. Kevin drops his jaw and bursts out laughing (while driving). Kevin thought I was a witch (he also thought I was something else but you will have to ask him for that story, lol).
To clarify my ambigious identity, I am a heterosexual woman with no specific form of spirituality at this time. I want to learn about Wiccan because the values and knowledge of that faith tradition seem important to me but I am not a witch, Kevin, but I am training to be a midwife.... HA ha ha ha ha ha (and no, that was not a witch's cackle).

After Kevin dropped me home I went back down town to the Hamilton Art Gallery and checked out with my friend Gupreet, the Van Gogh exhibit and a monthly presentation put on by the Baha'i faith association of Hamilton called Soul Food. It was really interesting; held in a room in the art gallery -- interludes of Spanish guitar and readings of sacred and meaningful texts. And what was the subject matter you ask. Well let me tell you. Trees, nature, trees. It was created for me, lol. No, it was created for everyone.

Here are some of those wicked-awesome passages, lol:

Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. -Bill Vaughan

We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions. - Shoghi Effendi, from the Baha'i writings

When you enter a grove peopled with ancient trees, higher than the ordinary, and shutting out the sky with their thickly inter-twined branches, do not the stately shadows of the wood, the stillness of the place, and the awful gloom of this doomed cavern then strike you with the presence of a deity? - Seneca

And here is something that seems to sum up so so so many of my feelings and values:

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is imagination itself. - William Blake, "The letters" 1799.

Nature is imagination itself.... Nature is imagination itself... Nature is imagination itself... He says it so simply yet it is so profound. This is so contradictory to our society where there is little room if any for imagination. This speaks so much to me because I can honestly look out my window for hours, stare at the tree branches and not consider it a waste of time. I am looking into something that words cannot adequately capture but Blake does a damn good job, "imagination itself".....

3 comments:

Kev Chen said...

YO!!! That idiotic conversation was supposed to stay between you and me!!!! Snap, yo!! Yea, if there was any confusion before, the jury is out and has finished their deliberation. You, Kevin Chen, are a dumb ass.

Anyways, thanks for the good times yesterday, K!! And thanks for helping me move my desk.

the lovely kaelyn said...

sorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!
It was just too funny and memorable to not "web log"! Are you mad??? SORRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
you know i luv ya

Kev Chen said...

Hahaha!! No, not mad. It'd take quite a bit to make me mad. In fact, that was a transformational encounter. Fanks.