Hope...

Of all the quotes inscribed in the Cannongate Wall of Scottish Parliament, I made sure to remember this one:

There is hope in honest error;
None in the icy perfections of the mere stylist.

As the peaks melt, their icy waters are rising in our creeks and rivers.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. Dar worked for a few hours at Encounter Earth.

I helped the kids rope a small boat to a tree overhanging the creek so they could let themselves float down stream and then pull themselves back upstream. They giggled for an hour with that.... While they did that, I got a big bucket and lifted water from the stream to water various trees and plants around our home. Then the three soaking wet gigglers wanted to jump on their big trampoline for an hour. And of course, Dad had to provide frigid buckets of water from the creek to their slippery bouncing glee. Another hour... Then the boys ran to the nearby foot bridge to dangle their feet, toss stones, and watch the waters gurgle by, as my daughter curled up in a towel on my knee, listening to the birds sing. Another hour.

Then we had steaks on a grill over an open fire at a friend's place... The guy has amazing stories. We listened to him talk for an hour. He is a Paris trained chef who, among many other things, opened a famous chain of restaurants all around the world. We laughed as he told us funny stories of all his celebrity babysitting. He's guest chef at a ritzy local golf course all summer.

All smiles he says, "You and me, four free hours of golf this week. Brand new TalyorMades!?"

All smiles back, "Ok, just make sure you have a box of 24 balls. I'd rather play from the forest."

5:54 a.m. now... From my vantage point, sunlight is providing rosy ambiance in the far peaks of Mt. Lawrence Grassi. It'll be a while yet before the Sun appears behind me over Grotto Mountain.

Let's see here, I guess I'll thumb through a bit of Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" and Belden C. Lane's "The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality"

Endings and Beginnings

This pic was the desktop shot on my laptop for years. It was taken during a spiritual retreat on the West Coast of Vancouver Island during storm season (waters are relatively quiet here).

With Russia and Asia across the sea, it's the edge of the Western world; where everything ends and begins.

Signed a contract with a PR and Marketing agency yesterday. Creatives are on board with cover design and interior layout. Editor already walked through a few initial edits this morning. Publisher contract next in line. Video Joe carving up a bit of promo...

Clairvaux Manifesto now has a life of its own...

Basilicas and Vernaculars

This pic was taken the day after Ash Wednesday, 2008... which was a Thursday ;) Joe and I sat through Angels & Demons last night... What I'll write in response is two separate paragraphs from my upcoming Clairvaux Manifesto.

I wrote this in a Part III journal entry:

Amidst the liturgy of mass, with ashes on my head, I was filled with peace. I was the last one's out of the Basilica that night, escorted by the Swiss Guard. Actually, I think they were just being polite and I was quite clueless, gawking at everything. I was all alone in the largest church in the world with a dozen security escorts. It was nice to walk out the doors with guardians of the church, viewing the darkening square beyond the steps. It was quite an honor to close out Ash Wednesday with a quiet, unrushed, and solitary walk through those big old doors.

I currently have this in the Appendix:

In the coming days, we must carry on with inter-disciplinary conversations about what it means to be left and right brained, calculative and creative, and even masculine and feminine. For example, if science and religion start arguing between “God” and “no-god” the conversation is already stale, mute, and even gelded. From philosophical forms to earthy tones, we must be careful to avoid over-simplified dualism (faith and reason). We must dialogue from within the primal core of what makes us human, and it doesn’t take science or religion to prove that we all grow through healthy interrelation and procreation. Maybe a male theist and female atheist could begin their conversation there, waxing eloquent about what it means to be a lovesick man and woman, an ecopsychological debate gone romantic. They may not have kids together, but they will adopt a whole new vernacular along the way.

Lost in Translation and Transylvania

Verum videns me longa satis hujuscemodi exspectatione frustratum, ne jam magis nolle, quam non posse viderer, tandem ego quidem quod potui feci: lector judicet, an satisfeci. Quanquam etsi cui forte aut minime placeat, aut non sufficiat; non tamen interest mea, qui tuae pro meo sapere non defui voluntati.
Bernardi Liber ad Milites Templi: De Laude Novae Militae

Having waited thus for quite some time to no purpose, I have now done what I could, lest my inability should be mistaken for unwillingness. It is for the reader to judge the result. If some perhaps find my work unsatisfactory or short of the mark, I shall be nonetheless content, since I have not failed to give you my best.
Bernard's In Praise of the New Knighthood

Today, I've been researching the history and geography of Hospitaller, Templar and Teutonic Knights in various online and book sources. I keep ending up in Transylvania.

Yesterday morning, I faxed some forms and a printout of my Linked In profile, to the nominating committee of a global organization, asking for my name to stand as a potential member of their Canadian board. We'll know by the end of the month about the nominating committee's decisions. Either way, it was quite an honor to be approached.

Morocco and Kashmir

Just got in from seeing Star Trek with Paul and Jared - an interesting twist on history, full of emotional character nuances and one liners from the original series, plus a romantic twist, red matter, and a black hole or two...

Last night, Joe (here for two days helping Dar and I put pens to napkins on all things related to Clairvaux Manifesto) asked me to play a tune on my guitar which I've been toying with for two years; he'd never heard the tune. As I played, he said it sounded a bit like Led Zeppelin's Kashmir. We listened to Kashmir together and I was impressed by one similarity in particular.

As we discussed it more, I told Joe, that since he and his wife Nancy were first in our home (in between their work stints to Morocco) I played this particular tune thinking a lot about them in Morocco (there is a bit of an Arabic, Jewish, First Nations correlation growing into the music). That's when Joe told me that Zeppelin's Kashmir was written in Morocco. That was fascinating, and reminded me of U2 recording in Fez. Last night, Joe and I started researching other artists' music that has been influenced by Morocco, especially Essaouira.

Researching Kashmir today, I see they're in the middle of elections.

Spring Marché

This evening Darlene's Global Friends are hosting a Spring Marché at the kids school. Dar sits on the parent teacher council and earlier this year launched Global Friends, bringing our kids school here in the mountains into relationship with a school in Sierra Leone.

From their website regarding tonight's event:

In addition to the family dance, this year’s event will feature an Art Auction and Marketplace. If dancing isn’t your thing, come and enjoy a cup of coffee with friends from your school community, while your kids whoop it up on the dance floor!! In our Marketplace, fresh baking from Canmore’s best cafes will be on offer, as well as handicrafts from Sierra Leone and bucket draws for locally donated goods. Check out the paintings created by each class in the school and place a bid on your favorite!

From their website about Global Friends:

In November, ERS students voted on how the money raised at the two movie nights and the Spring Dance would be used to help our friends in Kabala. Students were presented with the following five options: purchasing art supplies; oxen to farm school gardens; breakfast lunches and snacks for their students; building a library structure; or school fees. They decided that Oxen, School Fees, and Breakfast, Lunches and Snacks would be the best choices. Well done!

Thank-you to everyone who contributed to the BOOK DRIVE for the schools in Kabala. With your help over 500 books were sent in a shipping container already bound for this region. In February we received a heart-warming letter of thanks from the school in Kabala. Thanks to local NGO, Cause Canada, ERS students watched a video of the students in Sierra Leone receiving the books and got a visual tour of their school, at our assembly in March.

What is this initiative all about?:

This year’s educational plan acknowledges the desire to see “Students model the characteristics of active citizenship”. To engage the students in this process, the question:

“How do we make the world a better place to live?”, is being integrated into curriculum, social events and fundraising activities.

Each year students will chose a local or global topic to explore this fundamental question. This year the students are learning about the lives of children in Kabala, Sierra Leone. Each teacher decides age appropriate ways to incorporate this into her classes learning experiences.

Way to go Dar and Friends!

Winter and Spring

This family video was taken March 27th in Cougar Creek, which flows between Lady MacDonald and Grotto mountains. Whenever I have a few hours, it's my favorite short hike around here. In this video, where the kids are sliding down the rocks and snacking on m&ms, is their favorite summer water hole. Sometime, I'll have to post a video of the waterfall going full blast into the pool.

It's now May, and the rugged peaks around here are still covered in snow; most likely staying that way well into the summer. It's around this time of year I start ascents. Last year, I was climbing Lady Mac after three feet of snow fell in 24 hours. It was a warm day, and I was trudging up the mountain with a friend. The heavy snow was above my knees and often up to my waist. Plodding along, we came across a number of older adventurers who allowed me to carve the path ahead of them. First one into snow that deep has the hardest work. I'm kind of a workhorse that way, love the challenge and the workout.

Through my boots, my feet were getting wet due to the melting slush at ground level. Due to the cardiovascular workout, my body temperature was high, so I thought my feet would be okay. Yet, over the next hour, it was like my wet feet were in a damp freezer. Then, the inevitable happened. Even though I didn't know it at the time, the corner of my big toe was frozen. The way my body let me know - massive cramping up my calf; excruciating pain. I thought it was dehydration. I wasn't going to make the peak. My buddy helped me hobble back down the mountain. After some medication for infection, my toe pained for months and took a full year to recover.

From my coffee shop vantage point (free wireless for two hours a day) I can see the various peaks I've scrambled. From left to right in 360 panorama: Lady Mac; Grotto; Middle Sister; Ha Ling; East Rundle; and Cascade. So many snow-capped mountains to climb and life-filled valleys to explore.

Stone and Light

"It is in their aspiring arches, where rock rises as if emptied of weight; in the towers which soar like aerial hymns; in the windows, which are crimsoned as with the Lord's blood, or which glow and shine with violet and gold, as if reflecting his glory; it is in the transepts, which extend like the arms of His cross; in the very crypt, which takes its significance from His very tomb."

Richard Storrs: Bernard of Clairvaux (1892) p. 344

I took this pic at the Louvre, into a mirror. Splashy! Civilizations are fascinating... In the above quote, Storrs is commenting on the cathedrals of 12th Century Europe. There's a lot to ponder amidst what gets left behind.

Manifestos and Adventures

Well, it's been a while... During the off blogging season I wrote "Clairvaux Manifesto: a personal odyssey of prayer and work" - which may or not be a total disaster. I hope not. The book is now in talks with a publisher, creative team, and agency. So at least there's a glimmer of hope. Each one will have it's own contract and price tag. So, now we go about raising money for something I've written and unwritten many times over. Every time I worked on the Manifesto I thought it was going to end up a total waste of time.

Then some curious things started happening. I was editing a paragraph about a First Nations Chief I havn't seen in ten years, then completely out of the blue, he emailed me saying he was overjoyed to find me again after all this time. Another day, I was editing a paragraph about the Lausanne Covenant of 1974, and that same day got an email recommending me to attend the Lausanne Gathering happening in Cape Town, South Africa in 2010. Another day, I was editing a paragraph with a historical figure's name in it, and later that same day got an email from someone asking if I'd put my name forward to potentially sit on the board of an organization named after that very historical figure. Another day, I was editing a paragraph which contained a French explorer, and at the same time a friend from Montreal emailed me in French about that very explorer sitting on a certain mountain near Montreal 400 years ago.

A few days ago, on May 1st, our sixteenth wedding anniversary (three years to the day that Dar and I first built an altar of twelve stones in Three Sisters Mountain Village here in Canmore), I registered our first company Clairvaux Ventures Ltd. One little step at a time...

I thought launching a company was an insane idea as well. Then curious things started happening, like a guy sending me all these boxes in the mail full of an incredible computer he built from scratch with a handmade card attached saying he really believes in this endeavor, and the computer is a gift to Clairvaux and investment in me. I didn't put the computer together for days. I just sat there staring at all the boxes like sacred artifacts. Then, people here and there started telling me they were in on this thing, that they'd work for me. Little gifts have come in from here and there to raise our spirits and keep us afloat. A friend in Asia tapped many paragraphs into his iPhone at 1:30 a.m. about ideas around the crazy dream of a Clairvaux Ventures office half way round the world.

I guess I'll start documenting this journey.

To be honest, I'm afraid I'll fail. But, I'm going for it.

With my God, I can scale one wall in order to rebuild another.