First trip to Smoke lake 2003

 Dear EMM,

In our most intimate moments 

I sense a veil of happiness

descend as I see your 

smile flow to me 

like a full and gentle wind.

I hold you deep into my arm

as we speak of natures time of celebrations 

happiness flows over me like a breeze on green fields

near by, we talk of  gathering flowers as summers peaks July 

Breezes dance blossoms lined roads both new and old

on bridges strong all the while new waters deepen our quiet love

unfolding towards one paddle,a strong embrace, engaging our minds

all beauty of the lake is home

all beauty in the quake

all beauty is the lake

all beauty is the lake

KS

 Last night I sat in the middle isle of the main floor of the United Church of Canada with 27 recovering alcoholics all wise members of Alcoholics Anonymous! A blessed sight in my minds eye as I reflect over the experience which shall remain a miracle of gatherings since we had not done so in two years due to the interruptions of Covid-19’s outbreak in April of 2020.

As I reflect this morning I am reminded it’s exactly 43 days from the yearly celebrations of the birth if baby Jesus in the Christian traditions the world over.This Friday night November 12 we sat in a church between the pews as a group, due to the efforts of one of our brothers  who I sat here with just a year ago at his family members funeral,who died an early death as a chronic alcoholic. Now here we all sat to celebrate life and our Sobriety.

I thought of all our members who passed on sobera d in the riches of Gods grace in quiet contentments and moments of wonder at the miracle of another day Free from the horrors of addiction.I felt that Grace last night and I knew all is well.

We sat in a group huddled in our coats and sweaters hoods and scarfs.Like something out of the movie story Scrooge!It was cold no heat in the church almost close to no room at the Inn story.

It was the first time in 35 years since I first joined the AA organization we sat in the main level perpendicular to the Alter, in a Holy sanctuary. We were given sanctuary to pray and discuss the 24 spiritual principles we aim and understanding to live by.Spiritual progress not perfection with the help of each other.

For me it was a deliverance from the fear of Covid 19 for nothing is so precious as my Recovery in Sobriety and my relationship with the God of my understanding.

Tonight our topic was free will something I knew very little of at one time.Many of us never knew the beauty of Freewill due to wars in alcoholic homes as we grew up or religious wars as we grew up,or pomp and circumstances as we grew up.Always trying to please those we loved, but not ever quite making the grade. We did not know how toxic our little minds were or how our emotions ran amuck our choices.

Then we saw through the looking glass! We were creating our own problem.There was no one to impress.There was no competition. There is only belief or disbelief. We entered the path of demystifying into the gentle truth on a daily plan.

The church is only a block away from where I live, so later on at home I reflected as to my going to that church to practise. Spirituality means kindness for me.I have never met kinder folk that Hindu Indian.I have become very fond of Sunday singing and playing the tambourine..The Hindu temple I’ve been going to now for 20 years is across town and winter is coming.I’m age 70.

I did not see any instruments in this church last night.Our temple is walkways warm.When I went to the washroom after the service I had to walk down then up 30 steps, our temple has an elevator!  Thankgod for Divine intelligence! I’ll stay where I am at.Plus we eat a lunch after every service and I did not see a kitchen in that church last night.I did however feel the flow of Grace of Gods Unconditional Love from one to the other of us as we applied Gods greatest gift to us the Power of Freewill in Contented Sobriety.

God Bless you all.

Kathleen

 Oh to be as the starlings fly

As summer days are ore

The cool of the trees makes way

For orange, red, and cranberry leaves

While flocks gather high

Swift the North breeze wisps

Around the sun lite haze

Gone gone from summer shores

And brilliant longing days.             Kathleen

Louise and Me

When our parents were young tey all hung around with each other as boys they were the Steeves boys, others were the Fentons the Tingleys,the Gildreds etc.They were well to do farming folks for the most part some poverty but most folks had employments either in their family or near by shopps.
Louises dad worked in the gypsum plantt and my dad worked in the CNR shops an hour away.
Sometimes our moms worked in the local nursing home or for one of the well to do elderly ladies in their declining years.
When Louise's mom was young her skin was dark,everyone called her tarpot when my mother heard this she gave us fair teaching to not ever do this her name was Ethel and she was to only be called by her name..I never heard my mother gossip or put down another woman.She could sure tell my father were to go though at times.lololol
Our dads became friends as boys and were reunited after a time working in the woods together.Dad had a good job,a wife with an inheritance and he owned a lot of land and a house he sold close to the city so we could live in the country and have a better life living closer to nature.For this Ill always be grateful, i still love to garden,and take country walks.
John grew up in poverty and became an alcoholic
I met Louise when she was 9 and I was eleven.My mom and dad had joined the family church and found Christ.I think my mother just always had God in her heart and life,like my little Baptist Grammy Emily and her three sisters and her father she liked to call pappa.My mom was a good woman.
So dad took a liking to John and mom took to going shopping with Ethel at times.Ethel would drive and we lived some 60 miles from town.Dad sold John three acres of land that Louise's family still own today. They put a tiny house on it.We spent many long hours there playing games and hving quiet visits. Her dad was a great tease and his favorite victium was mom.lololol Johm loved to make her laugh.
Mom and Ethel became best of friends, and Louise and me had our first car together my dad bought a little triumph convertible for me from him and Loiuse and I drove the shit out of it around old dirt roads and apple orchards we had a lot of good times when we were young.
Our children became best of friends too.I went off to the big city to work as a hairdresser and she became a hairdresser in her local community.We were so proud of each other and even felt the good side of family competition at times im sure.We both did well.Our parents were very proud of us.
If we didnt see each other for years we were best of friends when we did see each other.She always maintained her shy modest ways of a country girl.I was more charismatic and outgoing and we liked each other simply for who were were.We intuitively knew each others lives were what they were.Tough.She married and alcoholic and I married an alcoholic. I found God or God found me going in a different direction and I worked in the addictions field for a lot of years.
She bought an old homestead down on the beautiful Cape and I visited her there every five years or so.After my mom and dad passed away she was all that was left of HOME for me.She still lives there in all the lands beauty.I live in a senior home in a large city area in the Maritime Provinces.
Four years ago I made a solo trip back home to visit my grandfathers estate and met the folks living there thats another story, marvelous time it was.I visited Louise and she gave me a small pot to cook eggs in I live alone and dont need large pots anymore.
That next year my son passed away in Ontario alcohol related death age 47. This year Louise's daughter was murdered a drug related death.They were both loved very much.
Im waiting these past few days to hear how my friend is doing and I pray God send her healing angels and all blessings for it has been said she may have stomach cancer and only six months to live.I pray for God to take her home without suffering.
We never know the tasks God gives us in mercy and grace we move along up the mountians down the valleys and I have enjoyed many wonderful years watching Louise and her family grow as much as Ive enjoyed seeing my own little miracles bless the world with presence.

GET IN THE TRUCK LOUISE ITS TIME TO GO TO TOWN'

                                                                            kATHLEEN

The Mirror

The philosophers say and few Spiritual teachers say, that when we look at those around us we look into a cosmic mirror of ourselves. Im sure there is more to it than this; oh so simple meaning, but Im sure Ive more meaning in my life, having the kinds of people on my journey with me,as you both,for we are all just walking each other home.Sam Kean says there are only two things we need to be certain of in life, where we are going and who is going with us, Im about to show you a glimpse of my journey with two of the bravest souls Ive walked with now for over 40 some years,on the Earth.
Yesterday I drove of the city boundaries to arrive in the woods for my soul sake and great mysteries I saw there, a field of meadow covered in snow,a tree with a branch like a spider web,and a lake calming as southwest breezes melting ice reassured me of another of 69 seasons of spring.
Sunny weather and the joy of the sunshine enlightened my love for driving so that I headed my little poney Fiat 500 through the twisting back roads of Waverly and Fall River as familiar to me as the hair on my head and the veins in my body.
My love for driving was something I shared along with many other things with my late husband, and other guys, rarely have a met a woman who started driving at age 10 and drove in a stock car race by age 18.Me and Fred did that!Both Fred addn Dave loved cars and all that entailed.Oh to be a fifty six ford!!!
I was not on my way to once again visit my friend of 44 years and her family.I usually go to her house because we know how much I like getting out of the city.
Today I found another kind of expression in her eyes, and felt a deeper remembering almost a longing in her heart Ive not felt there before,yet I am very familiar with.We just sat,talked about non consequential things, cooked a meal, talked to other family members coming and going.We didn't talk about it, the fact her husband of almost fifty years, is in decline.We sat we waited, we watched her daughter who I am sure in her hearts of hearts wishes she were god not just a mere doctor, treat his liver,his blood his heart and mind with the trust all is well for another day.He moved he slept he spoke, softly, he retreated to the TV.He carried all of his efforts in a blanket of love spread before him in grace and caring for another day of days.
Twenty four hours later my mind has agreed to allow remembering the  us of earlier days, wrapped in this same magic and divine grace so strong, that when the one you loved walked into the room you became a speechless idiot,with the greatest of intentions to marry have a nice home and raise children,fulfilling the Universal laws of ancestral bliss.
We grew up in the countryside came to work in the big city and the men we love did the same.I watched her leave a party to go meet him.I watched her plead with God she never kiss another but him.You are lost in his love of life and nature smiles all around you, your ancestors lead the way. I broke all the rules she loved me anyway.
Today we are going through the motions, habits earned and learned to be trusted by the dream and the Creator of the Void.
Im so grateful to be loved by this couple of mere humans who have been married now almost 50 years, a feat not met by many these days of reform and rebellion to the products in life you cant just go out and buy a marriage, these two have taught me you have to make it happen by commitment and hard work its not easy to believe in magic but by knowing them all these years let me tell you its real and it works.
Im so grateful for all the times they stood by me and allowed my litte family become an integral part of theirs.
For all the things they helped me see through their understanding of so many issues and the illusion of what we call the new age. I realised not all men are wrong or hurtful, we are all allowed to fall for Grace and forgiveness is the answer we are all looking for in our knowledge just to know we are worth it.They gave me this eternal gift.
Im so happy to remember your love as the witness to our marriage, what a wonderful day of bliss that was for us all.The party you all gave us that night!We were all so full of great things. Who know it that day?
Im so grateful for all the ways your music filled my being when with one of you we listening to Bluegrass while with the other one we expanded in to a whole reviler of Celtic Bliss and dancing, all the way from Scotland.Who knew back then that all we would experience was a way of Gods light and Love expanding our minds and our Universal souls.
So I know my friend you are here and you are gone in ways of letting go as you pull on the boot straps of all you have experienced with your man for just one more day of his presence with you. I understand all your little mistakes they are natural they are okk.I love you like my very sister.We even have the same dishes!Not by our design or maybe so who knows Gods Mirror is vast and the Great mystery has a wonderful sense of humor as do you and me.
Im in wonder of the love your man had for trees.Im amazed at the hours he labored over trees and loured the wood home in to the safetey of your home; to his basement home made stove! he loved the woods and all that went there. Im sure today that trees love us for you my friend would not give yourself to any unworthy endeavor towards your family with out the grace of love there and the tenderness of cosey, soft mornings you witnessed of mother and child.Holy were your days then as a husband and a father.
Im so grateful I was one well intended witness to the life force you two have shared. 
So now you move gently in to another side of life and in its tenderness are upheld by all the good you both have created in the universe. Iam now once again reassured that there is a better place beyond this dream of holy unity.For it is always as lovely there as it was on the August and September days we were married,bright as the smiles we shared,and happy as the rum filled bellies we had our fill of that day.A place just as lovely as the love we made in those days and nights creating a dream for the future and those yet to come to bless our lives.
I love you sweet boy and know your wife, she is lifted by the strength that has grown in between each breath you ever took together. May Peace and Light be with you eternally, you are loved, need we ask for more.

Christmas Delivery At The Home

This year I moved into a senior assisted living building.Most of the folks here are mobile some more than others.Some are bored or perhaps just have a few bad habits.Whatever the cause one of them almost rained on my Christmas parade!
My sister sent me a parcel.It arrived here at 6:30 pm while I was watching a movie with head phones on.I heard a knock and went to the door to find my neighbour hold the parcel in her had saying "I think this belongs to you,I met some woman walking off down the hall with it,I was on my way to the laundry and the parcel was at your door on the floor, when I came from the laundry it was walking down the hall in some dark haired woman's arms, so I said to her isnt that the same parcel that was at my neighbors door a few minutes ago? The woman handed over the parcel and quickly walked off.
Thankgod for assertive neighbors.

steppings stones talk 30 year celebration

In the words of the modren philosopher John O Donahue : "The world is not decided by by action alone it is by consciousness and spirit.The Spirit of a times in creditably subtle yet a huge powerfull force and is comprised of the mentality and spirit of all individuals, together.
So we were in the right time and place in 1987 for change.
On December 20th 1985 Bill C49 was hot off the press.Honorable John Crosby Minister of Justice explained it to the house of commons."the slow way is the only way here,education,a changed social out look and reorganization of economic conditions;with these we may remove such causes within our control.
Through the work of the Halifax Police commission and the Elizabeth Fry society the Stepping Stones program was born, to create a bridge,to build a bridge, an arc out to the women in the sex-trade industry and from the streets if they so choose to exit at any time of day or night.
Stepping Stone was to be a user directed service.For the women to be involved in the daily running of the service was a very innovative idea in this area at the time.
We faced challenges like not having enough funding.I remember the director practically dragging the Honorable Terry Donahue out of Province House one Friday afternoon to sign our purposal for 28,000.00.Our salaries for the that year.
When a program like stepping stones is started up it brings out the chaos in people so we had a lot of sensationalism to overcome.
We didnt have any experience, so Karen and I decided to take our direction from the women we were working with,and Jane, and Duma adopted this ideal to the stroll on Citadel Hill later on  Luckily by this time we had developed a board of directors and a director who supported our ideas and recommendations.
When the women didnt have time to eat we set up sandwiches at the old YWCA on Barrington Street part of the stroll.
When children were placed in foster care a three hour drive into the Valley we drove them.
When they needed condoms for free we had them.
We started a bad trick list where a woman could report client abuse
We set up  BBQs in the backyard at the resource center, so the women could network with each other in a non judgmental non contriving atmosphere.
We set up appropriate appointments with relative services, as far away as Calgary in our relocation program in 1988.
Both Karen and I believed that is the Stepping Stone service was to survive those early years we needed a sex trade worker on the board of directors to bring further clarity.
We almost lost our jogs that day implementing this process.
We were a voice for the voiceless and at times we had plenty to say.Church groups, and University classes would invite us to give talks.They all asked the same question and we always had the same answer."What do you talk about to a prostitute.Our reply was always "hairstyles,the cost of bread,childcare,who you going to vote for this year, all the same stuff we all talk about."
Once a year the media would descend to exploit and sensationalize the sex trade on the evening news.One year we found this out and we were astonished at the response from 90 percent of the women"Oh my god my mom"We were humbled by the protective instincts these women felt for their families
In the eighties the women suffered mistreatment from fosh week university students,police deterrents,.& media mystique. Kids would drive by with their parents and throw pennies at them.
Once the women started networking they started to breakdown old false beliefs about themselves and the sex trade.They stared sharing with themselves and with us.
They stared to show up to get warm and have a bite to eat both at the Resource center on Maitland Street and the YWCA on Barrington Street, we knew our services were vital,and valid in the community.
I remember one woman had been very sick a few nights,so I called her one morning to see how she was doing .
She panicked,"OH Kate was I wrong was I suppose to come in or something?"After I reassured her this was a simple follow up call to see if she was ok .She replied "No one has ever called me before like that"! Advocacy work for these women was very new.
Some social workers are still making it impossible for sex trade workers to receive their monthly entitled allowances.Many of them harbor personal agendas towards these women.
That's what we are all here tonight for, to continue reaching out to continue to listen to respond and encourage the voices of sex trade workers in our community of Halifax and across Canada.
I believe the sex trade workers of Halifax and Canada are bilding a bridge between the judicial and healthcare systems, its just a matter of time and we shall see affordable housing and relative healthcare for these women and their families
Im so very honored to speak with you all tonight, to share about this magnificent time in my life,our history and the Stepping Stones Program.
Thankyou all for being here.