the epoch changer

I find it interesting that Mr Obama is being called an epoch changer, when he hasn't done anything. It is the "we the people" who should be getting credit for this positive vote on epochal changing...it is the citizens of America who chose to vote, and who chose to vote for a democrat who have instigated the possible change we see looming like a great lumbering shadow.



I forgot about shadows for a while.

Symbols

Symbols are wonderful things. Don't doubt that. They capture for us the emotions, meanings, ideas, desires, dreams and intentions in just, well a symbol. In one susinct space they communicate so much than these phonemes strung together will.

Today I am struck by today's remarkable symbol and the irony and the implications of its association with today. That is, of course, the rememberance day (Armistice Day) poppy. It is iconic for me and many Canadians (I'm sure for many other people around the world too, but I'm learning in my travels not so universally as I once misbelieved), and brings to mind that John McCrae poem. And school assemblies where we sang the national anthem and gave wreaths to old people.

But more than that. The poppy evokes devotion, bushido, duty, honour, a willingness to sacrifice the self for an idea. The poppy evokes a debt, a living challenge, and a call to action. The poppy is a we must and a we will.

But how ironic that the poppy would become the symbol of this late November holiday. A flower that blooms in the spring. A flower that is fragile flower; their blooms last only a few days. And yet this flower, which you will never see in November (except perhaps somewhere in Australia...but who wants to go to Australia to see a poppy...aside from an Australian), which is so subtle and lilting and delicate is the hardend symbol of memory, or respect and thankfulness to those who came before us. Is this emotive symbol. I think that is wonderful!

If you have ever touched a poppy, gotten its purple pollen on your fingers, you know how it can mark you. If you have seen a field of them you know the silence and contemplation they can evoke. But study them, the symbol itself, and we can respect the implication and impact of this flower. We should listen to the fragile things. We should hold them dear, and let them represent us. We must protect them, lest they are forgotten and carelessly destroyed. We must honour them, lest they are neglected and dismissed.

Poppies are slow things, that in this every accelerating world should not be missed or forgotten.

I have to find or write a poem

I don't know how i feel about that...


Marvelous. I'm perfectly giddy with this right now. I just stumbled by a little friends Facebook page and saw one of her other friends had posted that on her wall. "i have to find/write a poem for writers craft...I don't know how i feel about that"

It's possible she was talking about two different things, as often conversation is a multitasking activity. It covers many topics simultaneously without warning (particularly the online conversations of adolescents and extra particularly of adolescent girls) so its possible they were unrelated comments. But that is the most marvelous little observational poem you have read in a while.

I have to find or write a poem...and i don't know how i feel about that.

Wonderful... i love it!!

We have no idea what is going to happen

I was in a stationary store walking through an aisle of notebooks. Thinking how nice they all looked. Clean, organized, potential. Isn't it? A notebook is that potential. What could I do in that note book? As though the many notebooks I already own could never live up to that potential...they couldn't I think I know, because I have already used them, and nothing great has come of them. At least so I delude myself to believe, when walking through an aisle of delightful shiny new red notebooks.

And it reflects on life, I think. We are so ready to throw away perfectly good and usable tools for a newer shinier version of the same because for some reason we believe the newer shinier version of the same will give us more potential, greater potential, and maybe this time help us actualize that potential into heaps of money happiness ego satisfaction etc etc...

But in reality we have no idea why we are compulsed to want and want that newer newer thing.

I think this is about hating my cell phone. I really didn't want to buy it. Really didn't want to need it. But bought it believing that somehow owning one would make my life better. And well now i see that it is a lie. That it was a waste of time and money and that really only I can improve my life. Can change my life. Can inject and actualize potential. Not this piece of garbage cell phone.

Sigh, life is a little more transparent today.