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.

The House on the Hill

The house on the hill with a porch is always not far from my heart.It sat like a beacon of light in mom mind as a kid.I could see it’s lights from miles away down the four miles of hills as we drove into the Mines road on our way home from town.
The house built by Uncle Joe back in the turn of the 19th century was very adquate as a small dwelling or a cottage if we were in England.It had roses,apple trees in the orchard,a back wood porch,and a pump in the yard.The yard had a barn.It looked very much like a little Cape Cod style home.
The roof was black and the trim was black but the house was always white.Long white steps draped the fron doorway up into a porch that ran all the way from one side to the other.The walls were windows,large and wonderful toma child for,through these very windows was a world of sunlight laughter with friends and hours of play, from school, to angry ministers,actors in a play with my sister,or being a mommy with a doll carriage on the old style furniture.I spent hours here in communion with homeless,safeness,imagination,and tranquility’s delights.There was a habit of removing the windows in the summer time and putting in screens . it was so very hot in summer here, I loved to come from my bed and rest there some nights as the upstairs was even hotter in August.
I would sit here and wait for my dad to drive in the driveway from work sometimes I’d get on his knee and steer the car up the long circular driveway to the back door.I liked to,carry his lunch bucket.I knew someday I would carry a lunch bucket to the house.
The house with the porch knew us many abundant times and some not so abundant as we loved our way through the many ups and downs of life’s journey,walking people in and out of the,house.
Today the house on the hill with the sun pore h is still there,it’s style is unchanged, it’s lands are pretty bald of beauty no roses no apple trees, but one thing is for sure it’s will stay on my,memory and my should as a temple of grace,land of innocence blessed by youth in the house on the hill with a porch.

Mid winter blues are not easy to stay out of,if now when one is grieving,I do not have friends for supper,rest up from a flu and get ready to plant new spring seeds. It’s gray days but not everyday some shine today,it’s getting light longer but not quit long enough or fast enough,makes pacing onself very difficult especially when one lives in a basement apartment, where light is limited and getting out after a flu is not on ones mind.
The cat seems to be coping very well.He sleeps through it mostly, maybe one may fair more well by following his example. Im to curious and to mouthy to do so.
I haven’t seen my little Greek brothers for a few weeks either. Im sure they are skipping well at school and flying through Greek classes.He did say he may not be over for awhile last time I saw them.Someting about Greek classes.I do so very much love to spend time with them on most days.
The mail is mostly on my mind although the mail lady we had last summer is gone.This guy seems useless, for the most part, but my T4 slips have found me now for 67 years so I’ve no doubt all is going to gods plan and universal order.
Have a great winter see you in the sun,flowers and dreams,I’d sunporches and mountainsides and sea.

An Albert Co. Christmas

Growing up in NewBrunswick during the 50’s and 60’s meant winter fields of blustery fields,chocolate ice marshes, and long days of wistful grey hazel afternoons.We could tell by the haze on an afternoon that a storm was on the way that night.Some mornings we’d awaken to six Senegal feet of snow; dry under foot,aired,with lots of fresh seasoned air going into,our little bodies,as we played by the hours outdoors.
Christmas was a magical time of baking,buying,making,singing,playing,stories, stuck on the hill,and much laughter by family and friends.Muchmof the year since the harvest had been spent in food preparation for Christmas and winter.Fruit cakes, maple syrup,candy on the snow,pickled beans dried beans,breads,and fudge along with home made ice cream.
As a small child I went with my dad to cut the tree and bring it home for trimmings.This process could go late into the night of Christmas Eve, a very magical time, when Christ was being born in a manger with great angels out over the blanket of our small minds, Santa was on his sleigh and on his way tomAlbert Co. and coming to our house with lots of toys and gifts.Our house was a typical small cottage style house on top of Levingstones hill surrounded by trees and orchards.never questioned where Santa would land his sleigh it all seemed so fulfilling.
lots of presents started to appear here and there, drawing names at school was usually the first sign of gifts.Then drawing names at Sunday school was the next. One year my teacher Roada  got my name and My eyes fixated on the most beautiful miscalculated jewelry box! WOW I can still se it as clear as anything black with oriental designs on the outside and a ballerina going round and round when I opened it up.I would sit for a long time and just play the tune over and over imagining all sorts of magical outcomes into the universe.
After our gifts were open we would tidy up and mom and dad would make a wonderful breakfast feast. My dad loved to cook with my mom and they both loved to eat, we had pancakes,eggs and bacon orange juice maple syrup and all the fixings This is one of the first times Imdrank tea, Christmas morning, with lots of sugar.
After it was all cleaned up we’d dawn our new outfits and snow pants and pile into the car heading for Aunt Arlettas my moms sister and to play with our cousins.This was my favorite part.It never was a difficult time we all had different toys and things to share, as we had been taught to live  like one big family. I got hand me downs and so did they.Later on my cousin Neenie went to live in New York, and sent home lots of really great clothes for us all.
This first visit was usually play time while the adults would sit I. The living room we would go off to the bedrooms or outdoors to play in the snow with a new toboggan or skate on the ditch water in new skates.We would munch on cookies and fudge Auntie made my favorite divinity fudge or frogs a chocolate oeatmeal cookie.Around lunch time we would have a turkey dinner with all the trimmings,and the best gravy in the world.We sat around in front of the tv usually then to tired from food to do much we would watch Daffy Duck or another cartoon for a bit.Then the calls to get ready to go to,supper to Grammys and Grammies in Curryville would come.
After a short 10 minute drive we pulled into a long lane and up to an old farmhouse in perfect condition, Grampienwas an on the ball kind of man and loved to putter around on the property maybe to get away from the women in the house.Not sure sometimes when we went into the kitchen himand the women were quilting or sewing.They always kept busy in the winter with chores.
All afternoon people would be arriving for the great turkey meal, with gratitude beaming on their faces. We would go,to,church for an our in the afternoon early evening then home to a lovely country meal.Grampie usually raised the birds himself.Most of the vegetables came from his garden and were so delicious I can remember them even now.

Last night after singing with The Helen Creighton Society in Halifax NS I was discussing how I got into music n found my self pipping off at the moon, rambling on you might say, the poor woman I was talking to must have thought I'd lost my mind and for reason I will not go into here I probably had for a few moments.her husband gratefully rescued her.
So whiling away my hours since breakfast  today it dawned on me that if Im so passionate about that singing happening in my life, perhaps it would be fun and interesting to explore here in blog-ville the experience.
I ended up in Barbados in 1993 on vacation, I know tough work but someone has to do it! While there I found the expats community very English and very boring.Sitting every night looking at the beach and the sunset was not my cuppa tea.So off I went to a few Keroke for a month or so.Well they had a contest and I took first prize, with my rendition of House of the Rising Sun! whada ya know!!! Im off to the races!!! I started to sing with them every Kerokee night.
When I returned to Canada in 1996 I was outted from work, the system I wirked in would not hire me as I was old meat and over 50.They were looking for new meat.So I started to do hairdressing and wrote my papers again.This allowed me a small income and off I went to Kerokee.
All went very well, my voice was feeling strong I was certainly getting my self esteem that a divorce had kicked out of me two years before. Thats another story! Yet I did not have mental fortitude in my music  and my musical experiences .So I decided to keep it as a hobby and return to University to finish my B.A. I was 50 years old and braver than a bear!!!I switched from W omens studies at Mount St. Vincent> to Irish Studies with Cryil J Bryne, it would be his retiring year. I fell in love with his Chaucer, his Yeats, and all the Irish folk lore we studied.My soul began to fill with poetry and song and story about my ancestors. I began to compose and write all sorts of great little ditty's.On weekend I woud go to Kerokee when ever I cooed get there in good voice.lololol
One fine winter day walking back to the school about 100 years off campus I stopped to admire a 1977 V.W .popup camper in a woman's drive. I bought it!!
I decided to go where the music took me, I had been designing Gaelic Garden rocks and began to sell them for 10.00 this bought my gas and off I went.I took along with me my trusted camera, my Drum Boran` and my voice.
I spent the summer photographing the Bay of Fundy and singing in The Fair trade Cafe` in Truro NS.I got a job as a hairdresser with Liz a really great lady there. 
I stopped my truck pulled out my drum one Sunday afternoon up to the cafe as I had seen instruments and a piano with mic's in the window. I walked up to the counter " anyone play those instruments?" Ray the owner ask "Why can you sing?" Do you Play"? "Yep I can sing" I replied. "Come over and sit a spell and have a coffee on the house Ill be right back". The man Ray Merryman left the cafe`. I sat for about half hour was kinda getting bored, when he walked into the cafe with a 72 year old black man Hal home for a bit from Montreal and who had played the blues guitar for years up in Montreal.Hal and me hit it off like bother and sister and began to harmonize as well as host a weekly open mic at the cafe for about four months. We certainly developed a lot of respect, humility and love for our gift of music, bringing together all those folks from miles around to sing at the cafe` I went to a blue grass festival that year an held my own with all the boys ( very male dominated genre`)  sang straight for 11 hours one night.Beautiful people and a wonderful experience.
Then one day a  Native American man from the Truro reserve ask me to give him lessons in voice.I remembered all the exercises my old teacher taught me so I started to teach him these small seeds of knowledge and off he went.Got over his shyness and is still going strong today. What a great feeling when you can share what you know with someone who loves to sing as much as you do.I guess its like that with most things. When I was doing hair my sister learned to cut hair,my daughter learned it too. They liked it so well they learned it by watching me.
well this put another bee in my bonnet and off I came back to Halifax for the winter and began to sing at a bar in Young Street with a bunch of old Blues-ers .They were excellent players and soon I was singing The House with a live band for the first time and live music was and is my favorite, I began to be very entertaining.Then my ego got out of wack and I ended up on the board!!! I had already been there done that so I left. There were people there far more smarter than me to do that job and they were not short in letting me know it!! OUCH!
I continued to teach voice for the next 7 years and still do if the person passes the one hour consultation I have set for myself. they think its about them but its really a way of knowing if Im wasting my time and theirs. One of my students is now singing and playing composing and holding his own in the field of music at Dalhousie University Music department of arts.hes an excellent guitarist and Im hoping he can play for me again sometime.last year he was in Prague at a composing conference and composition contest. 
I got interested in the Boran` and was taught by a Englishman at open mic sessions at The Old Triangle, here in Halifax and I continue to sing and play there weekly. For me Irish music is the heart of all Music and has been the sounding board of many traditional styles and compositions all over the world. It is for me one of the oldest forms we have of music in Canada I'm sure there are may in Europe and other countries.The drum and rattles and strings in Gaelic music date back to African times and i love it so much I may not ever leave.I do try to study the old styles of voice and of their music as often as I can.
So that brings me to my very first night in song with the Helen Creighton Society  last night where I was pipping off at that unsuspecting soul about my musical trails that will have to hover here for a bit like a beautiful hummingbird waiting fr the next sweet song-ful nectareal notes to set the spirit free for a short time to feel the joy of song for a another moment to moment, up hill and down vial le  music is almost all my reality, my life, my friend in Gods grace and my gift to you.
see you on the flow in the notes and books of song.
  

It ins't every day one bursaries their son, and there are a lot of new things to be aware of, like walking into a store and seeing white socks. I started to cry, not long, nor embarrassing, just remembered no box would go to Oshawa this winter for Christmas. Mostly we go through the difficult times with grace and hope fr a better tomorrow and a home on peaceful shores for our loved ones.Everyone came out to help bring this wish true for me and my son Justin.It was not a very difficult time at all until three weeks ago.

I went to six banks to find his account for closure and it brings closure for the one who is responsible.I had felt very good as I dealt with government workers who did all they could for us and then some, the Ontario special disability benefits department made an exception in Justin's case and donated 1300.00 towards his funeral, it was as if his ancestors were with us thorough the sad ordeal.I felt a strange kind of validation for us.

The first bank my own was sure he was not in their national bank list of customers. So I went to the Royal, on Quimpool Road . We did not find him but a very kind lady there took me into the office and talk at length about this process, she and her mom had gone through with her uncle out in Calgary last year. She assured me it was doable and not a difficult task would take about a week to completed given the correct papers, she had just looked over with me.There should be no problems at all.

Finally we found his account at the Scotia Bank one street over from my house, Justin was always pulling little tricks on me over the years, it how some sweet little boys say "I love you mommy"

On August 15th i went into the bank of Nova Scotia with the correct official paper work, today is September 19th and this task is NOT complete.

The search took almost 20 minutes, I was calm.Then the clerk looked up with tears in her eyes and said "we have him here" I cried openly the connection to him fresh again, again the loss. I just stood there.The clerk went to get someone to help her as she apparently had no experience with this kind of request.So I just stood there for about a half hour.She explained to me my next task in the process would be to come into see a loans specialist on Friday at 2:30.

I came home and called friends and family to say how relieved I was we had found his account and would close it off properly.For some reason perfection is required in this grieving process.Ha! not one of my strong points.Ha!

I met with miss Spiffy who was very quick to relay to me her deaths in the family over the past few months.She spoke about the papers needing to be sent to another department and we should have this completed in there to five days.Since I had a Scotia Bank account the 700.9 dollars would be transferred to my account directly from his.There was no will no need for pprobate. This was also confirmed by my laywer. I cried.She said she would call me. I didn't ask any questions I just trusted the process.I realized it was not personal to them, I went home again to call friends and family for reassurance and validation.

The following week I went in on Tuesday morning to be told she was on vacation for a week and no the amount in my account was zero.I returned on Friday still zero.

On Friday September 14th I filled a complaint with the manager, who reassured me that she was making this request her top priority come Monday she was not sure if the bank was open on Saturday or not.I am however positive she the woman on the phone speaking to me was working in the bank of Nova Scotia. 

I waited all day on Monday still no call from them to move this task forward.

Today is the 19th of September with October looming just over the horizon and still not word, In honor of my son and his affairs I will go there this afternoon and come hell or high water will continue to do so until this mess is settled.I have not ever in all my 50 years of business seen such inefficiency, uncommunicative, cold, unreasonableness. i will not ever walk into another bank of Nova Scotia, nor do I suggest anyone else do so.The excuses they have given me, like the branch manager left, the bank is a small one...etc etc. point only to their mealy miserly old ideals in business today.  

I Lost Him Twice

I lost Him Twice..................................................by Kathleen Carter Steeves


I came away to work some three hundred miles away when he turned two.We had the "first" moments together....we laughed we cried....we learned.....we blessed.Then the "US" was gone.
I cried into my pillow at nights for three weeks.I went to work everyday.
Over the next ten years a riff of separation seemed to develop, who know how or why its not important...thats life for some.
I felt like a stranger in his little world.He did grow closer to his dad over those years and his uncles.We brought him along with us in the summer and he loved it! Being close to  his dad was all he ever wanted.He grew up fast and hard on himself like so many of us.Not accepting that sometimes there are no reasons or answers life is just like that.He grew strong and lean.handsome like his dad before him.Sometimes he seemed to have a chip on his shoulder sometimes he seemed genuinely happy.He grrew to be kind to those who had less and not tolerant of those who had more, he knew how to share and did not suffer the fools who did not learn this art of sharing. He did not learn to live beyond his drinking buddy lifestyle.
he loved to work like his dad before him.He was what most men of his class would call a hard worker.
When his grandmother was dying in hospital he suffered her pain as well.He found healing and validation with the Native American Spirituality, he felt a closeness to the wolf.He went into the sweat lodges and prayer circles with the pipe-carriers. he moved to Oshawa, "The Crossing Place"
He fell in love with many false starts like his mother before him.Until this time we were not close.
Then I got a letter from him.He was in jail. We wrote for about six months.We began the road to US again.
We became friends.His Post Trama Stress disorder would flare up sometimes and not one word made sense, through the dark drug induced haze.Sometimes in the beginning I hung up then I learned to simply listen. Try the soft approach I thought, it worked for awhile.I only saw him cry once when his grandmother died.
I visited him once in Oshawa, when he was with his little family he helped raise.His woman and her two children.She lost the children when he went to jail one time.We had a great time Kentucky fried chicken on the lake park lawn.We laughed and he told stories that day he loved to tell stories like his mother before him and his grandfather.No woman could live up to the caring,kind saintly woman his grandmother had been.Who in reality was as four sided as we all are.
He would call me to brag or complain like his mother before him.
Sometimes I got a glimpse of a man who was carving out a life path for himself his own way, no top no bottom, no sides going no where in particular. Not flowing against nor for anything.he stayed his path by the suppressed values he had learned as a child from his grandparents, nature and his own powers of creation.
His letters were full of fun and games with the guards and other inmates. Mostly loss and gain stuff with those in authority.He hated anyone to lord a hold over him in any way.He walked his own way forward, a sweet soul,like his father before him.he loved to talk about how it was with his dad and me in the good ole days.We had many long talks about stuff I was amazed at remembering.
Then one day he called to say"Mom I'm dying, I have fourth stage liver cancer, the doctors give me a year to live".I was in shock for a month. Thank god for my support systems, music and writing.I went on a vision quest in Arizonia with the Sisterhood of The Sheilds for a week.
When he told me: all I could see was this scrawny little five pound baby boy laying there in my arms, fighting for his life.He was underweight and not growing as quickly as they would like.He had to have an operation on his sphincter muscle. he could not digest his food.The chances of having that were one in a thousand.Then the other side of me heard this strong mans voice saying something "dont worry mom I dont want you to worry, I can beat it, well for awhile anyway."
I know Nan is on the other side waiting to help me cross over.We laughed we fought we cried we came back together as we weathered the storm of fear of death together over the phone.Then on August 4th he was gone.
He got lucky he lived in that hell for only four months.He was gone as he slept in a deep comfortable peace in palliative care.
Over those months I learned to simply listen.
Then I got the call at 6am.After I hung up the phone I remembered the morning he was first placed in my arms again, and I remembered the prayer I silently spoke to the Creator.God help this little baby boy help me keep him safe.I need you to look over him because I dont have a clue how to do this"
I sat on the edge of my bed knowing I had to call the funeral home, but not able to move.I hung my head and just listened to the early morning silence."Be with us God" was all I could say,and  before the avalanche of tears I heard God wisper "Nothing real can be threatened, everything real is eternal.""What is eternal is already at peace."
I wept!

The Prayer The Drum

Its ten to two Friday my second day there and I begin the walk to our meeting suite on the easst side of the complex just past the pool.Im walking in silence and appreciation of the day and the birds when like a sweet breeze from the left side of my mind I realize in my heart I have come home I realize why I have come, what has been missing from life. I hear the faint heartbeat of the Native drums.Five or six women are drumming us into our first meeting with our Teacher Lynn Andrews.We enter the room women are chanting dancing and drumming some hold rattles all are smiling and feeling the Unity of Spirit in the room.I decide to be a simple witness for today, so I sit off on the east wall with a few quieter like minded souls. Two other drummers are in the room and the sound of a low harmonious flute begins to flow out over the air in the room, its magical and very beautiful to feel a part of.This is my first time at a Joshua Tree ceremony. The women were dancing in a circle or trying to.There were at lest 100 of us in this small space. Thankgoodness for air conditioning !! lolol
It was a happy and cheerful beginning.My body began to relax yet my mind still wanted to compare this to other pow wow dancing which is slower and more orderly sacred and with a purposeful type of footing work.This could hve been in any nightclub downtown. I did not feel this a sacred ceremony, as many of the women did.
The music continued, the dancers swept by me, the flute allured me, then something exciting happened for everyone started shouting and giving hooray into the air.Lynn Andrews arrived and they love her!!!She took a seat at the front of the room then began our first lecture on dreaming.At one point she walked around us with a bowl of Christmas lights, its meaning was lost on me.I didn't get the drift of what was actually being represented in its ritual at that moment.Later on I was told the bowl of dreams would stay lite through out the event and our  prayer strings and ribbon's were placed beside it.The lecture covered the history of Josuha Tree and other house keeping notes with a few stories of her experiences.I never grow tired of her stories.They are true.Ive lived  long enough in Native American environments to understand the wonder and ancientness of what she says happened and that the Sisterhood of Sheilds is real.On this account I have utmost respect for her teachings and her work in healing addictions.Healing fear of fear, something that started a long time ago.
So this format was the first of six sessions where we would meet with Lynn and do visualization exercises .This event had the same feeling as a POW WOW . There is a feeling of the sacred with you,in you and around you.You know you are walking on holy ground and at times in the visualizations you can feel the transcendence of the Divine guiding you.At one point I was totally in the moment with a brown bear, my dreaming totem, we walk through a sunny meadow together.I was there! A few weeks before I was wondering about if the bear was my dreaming totem or not??I didn't know it was BROWN and this does have a meaning only to me.
Another time I was deep in meditation and saw my Celtic Grandmother a wonderful elder all dressed in green and woolen shawal.She knew me and smiled at me, I felt very good and uplifted my heart opened and I was filled with Divine light from somewhere in my soul and my mind was clear my body relaxed.
This is the heart and soul of Lynn's work for me.She , The Sisterhood of Shields ad her apprentices can invoke the Divine presence.The visualizations differ, the stories differ, but they all have one common purpose.We are all created in Divine beauty divine joy and love.We are all original teachers and students of this divine love and can tap into this grace,as we need it is our sacred birthright.From early childhood we are taught otherwise, so we need return to our original instinct and begin a shift in perception, then receiving this Divine protector and guidance.This is the journey one undergoes in the Mystery School and has a small experience with at Josuha Tree gathering.Living ones destiny you might say.
My experience throughout these meditations of visualizations was far greater than anything \i could have imagined.I hve been studying for three years online courses and have some experiences with her abilities.In person was far better.
The soft drumming took us off to the supper hour.

The Prayer The Drum

For obvious reasons the names and places where these tales took place are under the sheets!!!!lol
yeFt I feel their humour and human folly is too sweet to the human soul to resist a telling.

Many years ago I found myself the wife to a man in a wheelchair,a truely traumatic time in my life.
For the years to come I would revisit the welfare offices for assistance from time to time.
This one very hot humid July day we needed food desperately,no diapers for the baby, and no car to get to the office.For some strange reason the monthly cheque did not come.There is  a mountain of paper work and me being A.D.D. was probably unaware of a bit of it, or it got lost in the mail, anyway, Im hoofing it over to the Welfare office for two oclock.Its Friday and they say they can do me up a new cheque. Thank GOD we will have food for the weekend!
I walk the two kilometres with the baby strapped to my back,we climb the three flights of stairs.Im having a difficult time what with the no diapers, hunger and very pissed about the whole affair.I walk into the office and some kids are playing near the secretaries desk, beside one of the old cheque stamp machines, not in use any-longer.
Gail says "ok Mrs Manning here is your money, so sorry for the mix-up". I quickly stuff the cheque in my bag and head out the door."Thanks Gail" and off I head for the closest bank to the office.I have two banks because they have different hours and just in case one is closed i can go to another in such a situation.I go to the closest one.
There is no line-up. Thanks be to GOD and all looks like a clean sweep off to the grocery store.But things are never the way they seem.Im next!!
The teller looks at the cheque then at the baby then at me and says "I cannot cash this!!!"
I overreacted with "Oh for the LOVE OF GOD!!! and stormed off to the bank up the street!!!!lololol
Helen a very nice clerk that I had been dealing with for a number of years is cheery as we approach."Hi there what can we do for you today?" I replied "Helen Im having an awful time with this cheque today"!!!"Same time same station same cheque". I bewitchingly retort to her as I pass the cheque to her.
"We cannot cash this cheque for you hon, we don't have this much money in the bank today!!!
She held up the front of the cheque for my inspection, a very clever notion that had not occurred to me.
She continues, "Its made out for 1million,one hundred and ninety eight dollars!!!!! with a tuneful tone in her voice.lololol
I laughed I cried I felt so confused!!!!!
Luck was with me and so I back to the Welfare Office where the secretary had a good laugh and the Director shouted out over the crowd "Jesus Christ that my whole budget for the entire year!!!!!!and then gave out a hoot of laughter!!!!!!
Thats the closest Ive ever come to winning the Lottery!!!!!!!!!!hahahahahah

The Prayer, The Drum

It's a dark ,cool June,3am morning in the underground garage where my daughter keeps her car.The one that has decided not to start for reasons we wont go into here .Im on my way to catch a flight to Phoenix Arizona for the 29th Joshua Tree  gathering with women from around world. Lynn Andrews is a shaman woman of renowned distinction , author or more than 20 books on the ancient teachings of The Sisterhood of Shields. She has a mystery school for self healing and a school for artists who are learning to write called Writing Spirit. For Lynn it all began with a dream and so like unfolds from our dreams.This pilgrimage, the vision quest from the shores of Nova Scotia to Arizona is a dream come true for me and Im not surprised the car won't start.Every good thing has a price.
If there is one person who believes in me its my oldest daughter Kelly. She gracefully wipps out her phone calls a friend cabby and Im off to the airport in style .I am constantly in amazement of her and she has become one of my best friends.
We are ordinary women with extraordinary skills most of which we have honed in the Great Mystery of life.These women who are hosting with Lynn are students of her mystery school. Im excited yet Im cam and sensible for I know not to place anyone on a pedestal and all gifts are equal to Great Spirit?God, Allah, Buddha, Higher consciousness of the Universe.
There is only one great death trap awaiting me in Phoenix which I have absolutely no awareness of. HEAT !!! Unbearable heat and a killer for someone a ignorant of dessert life as I am.
The plane is huge but seems small its over crowded and worn.
The trip to Toronto is without incident and I arrive in US customs where I take off my shoes to be inspected. That,s a first. You can smell fear everywhere.
We take off for Phoenix, the man beside me on the left is very afraid of flying and sleeps.\he is pale and I intuit he has taken pills to allow him some sleeping comfort while flying.The man on my left is talking about his philanthropic endeavors; of he and his wife, who is seated in the isle seat beside him.He speaks openly anout his money, his wife, his connections and all the goods he has shipped all over the world to third world countries.And make no mistake he owns it all. . He is a good man. His ignorance is that he beleives like so many the America is number one in the world, in abundance , in love, in goodness, in grace,in generosity etc. He cannot see the starving in the streets, he cannot see the lonely in the old peoples homes......he is as Jesus said poor in sight. So we listen to him then he turns to a movie and I meditate.
I can see out the window now all there is NOT for me to see.I who just left my beautiful eat Atlantic coast line of Nova Scotia.I see barrren dessert, no trees no hardwoods, no ocean or water at all,.I see sand craters and grid and grid of little houses with pools. 

The young girl waited in the borrow for her horse, a white stallion of silken hair to come to her beating heart.. She was so excited to see him once again she ran all the way over the fields and the bridge at the edge of the farm. She ran past the witching tree and waved to the old woman who lived in the cracked wooden shack at he edge of the village.
Chalice had been wondering most of the morning over the green fields eating and  feeling strong in the wind of the north south.He watched the farmer bring in the vegetables from the fields, cabbages, carrrots, his favorite, and some of the last bits of hay another favorite of his. He was feeling lonely since his friend the mare had been sold off the farm last spring. he hoped Margaret would be at the burrow and they would go flying. he only knnew how to fly with Margaret on his back because she had a very special medicine of sky sound, and when she sat on his back they could fly out past the earth, the hemisphere and the Pleiades. This brought him great comport and seemed to be very healing and joyous for Margaret as well.
Sometimes they would land on an island star and drink for its regenerative waters and just breath in the holiness of the renewing air there.Then return to earth .he never knew how long they were gone from earth but then horses did not need to know these things anyway.
There she was all dressed in violet and yellow dress and hat waiting for him. She scooped up her skirt stepped off the rock and sat easily on Chalice's back.All the magical mindfullness her grandmother had taught her about seeking adventure and knowledge far out into the Universe came back to her and they lifted off for another adventure in the sky beyond mind.

Kathleen

Eat Pray Love - Eddie Vedder Music Video

OLD n WORN

Growing up in the country side of New Brunswick with my grandpa and grammy in bed with me till they passed away;. seeing their faces every day and hearing laughter from any corner of the house or being lead from the house to a cousins house almost every day of the week Im not writting from the usual side of my self in this story, mostly cause I dont understand whats going on in this particular situation.However writting has alway been a activity that leands its-self to understanding or at least assists me in the process.so here it is!!!
Two days ago I sat on my patio with a couple of co-workers you might say discussing how,, she, Margaret would be going to a nursing home for care, as she has dementia, and how some homes may allow her and her hubby of 63 years of marriage, Ralph to go with her! One of the most daunting counselling exercises of my lifetime.
I could leave it here and say how it all went very well or decide that its not nice to put out laundry on someone else's clothes line but I cannot!!!I value my presence of propriety and my countrywoman to much to just say this is a sleeping dog!!! let it lie!!!! The greatest problem in our counrty and its practises is we minimise what we dont have an answer for or we attract more fear and confusion because we have or feel we have no power over the situation.In this case its so simple.If only someone would step into the leadership role.These two elders are floundering.As, I sat there on my patio with my two old friends and Ralph  said "the family want me to put her in a home". Margaret's eyes watered as she looked at me and said for the hundredth time, "I took sick Caite"
I asked myself only one very wise question, what not in the picture? A son, a daughter- in law?? A doctor? a home worker? NOT!!!Margaret spoke openly about all the drugs she had been placed on over the years and how now she was olny taking 11 daily ones.Her daughter-in -law insisted she take them.She spoke with great pride about her daughter in law the nurse,and all her well placed grandchildren and how well they did at Harvard and in the international hockey league.I wondered if strangers would be the last faces these two old souls would witness here on earth.
We talked about how old fashion "HOMES" used to be and what they are like now.We talked about how Ralph could get a room next door and she could see him every day, I started to cry when she asked him would you still come take me out,could we still go out together?
 They like going to restaurants together. DATING in the final days of their lives had become her most precious gift and  she clung to it.
They talked about having to kick the 50 year old alcoholic son out on his own.They spoke about the woman in the office where they had been the superintendents of a apartment complex for over 20 years who had, had them made redundant without a pension.They mentioned in passing how difficult it has been these last six months on them to be poor.They talk about all their relatives of brothers and sisters who have gone now.They asked me if I liked where I was moving to."YES" I told them my daughter lives cross the street.Their eyes filled with new hope.
We had come to love and care for each other I was her hairdresser for 20 years.
I wondered if these two were old and worn or if our principles and values as a people were just plain old and worn out, broken in some distant way.??

A visit with Algonquin Park