Learnings from 29 Day Challenge - Success!

(Image: https://brianchristner.io/define-success/ )

Or, Why I feel the 29 Day Wellness Challenge was a qualified success:

So, now it is March, I can see the results. Most days I meditated at least once, a couple of times twice. I got a bunch of naps. I wrote a few blogs, not too many. Daily yoga? Not really - I did stretches etc for a few minutes, not enough to really establish a regular practice. Didn't get to Tai Chi even once.

The real success wasn't being able to tick off accomplishing all my goals every day.

For me, I feel successful because:

1) I tried to prioritize my wellness all month - huge for a type A!;
2) It made me much more aware throughout each day of what my levels of energy were,
3) I considered as a result how best in the moment to care for myself. Sometimes I napped. Sometimes I went out for a walk - there were some beautiful days and I have been very inactive this winter as usual, so it felt great to start to be more active again. Sometimes I did a quick meditation, or took some breaths and checked in with myself to connect with what I was feeling.

So now I have a new March challenge, as a result.

I know I want to continue meditating daily, and to keep trying to establish a yoga practice.

Hoping that it will be warmer than today most of March :), I hope to get back into walking at least 3 times a week on the rail trail.

But above all, I want to stay aware more of the time. This will mean cutting back further on social media time for a start, because of the time drain as well as the glazed unaware scrolling thing that tends to happen when I spend too much time on Facebook or Twitter.

I am excited to see where a deeper awareness can take me in terms of the healing journey.

Conflict is To Be Expected

(Image from 12-phrases-that-will-help-you-resolve-any-conflict)

I have been wondering lately why I feel surprised and disappointed when (not if) conflict arises in a friendship, relationship, or group I am in.

In fact conflict is the most natural thing in the world when there is more than one person in the picture.

Even when I alone, there can be conflict within myself, of course. 

I have been wondering today what life would look like if as children were brought up, they learned not only how completely unremarkable conflict is but were equipped with the skills for healthy resolution?

Skillful speech: Buddhism talks about skillful speech which is a great beginning - practising not lying, slandering, gossiping, or speaking profanely or harshly. It is chastening to realize what harm can be done even saying things in someone's absence that seem benign, and how 'teasing' is often much less innocuous than one thinks.

"What remains are words that are truthful, kind, gentle, useful, and meaningful. Our speech will comfort, uplift, and inspire, and we will be a joy to those around us." (Allan Lokos)

Fully present listening: Even more, listening in healing silence, compassionately, without rushing to add anything. How different it is to listen when one is not busy preparing an answer!

I'm sorry. How can I make amends?: In spite of all the best intentions, sometimes I will totally blow it and the result is conflict. Often the first line of defense is the total absence of defensiveness. Yes, I made a mistake. I am sorry. What can I do to make it up to you? Some mistakes are relatively easily fixed; others take much time and effort. But leading with a recognition of where I went wrong and what I can do to attempt to make it right is often the most effective way to defuse a situation.

Embrace conflict. Don't pretend nothing is wrong: this article  is about work conflict but just as applicable in other spheres. Closing my eyes and believing it will just go away on its own is a futile wish. We will have to talk it out and try to work on a resolution together. Sometimes help is needed, either a trained therapist in a couple's conflict situation or a mediator for a group conflict. Recognizing when one doesn't have the resources to resolve it alone and needs help is the skillful path.


I'm sure many of my friends know of a ton of other effective strategies for conflict resolution. I don't have the answers. Just sitting in awareness of the question: when do I believe conflict is surprising or a sign that people are wrong?

Delegation today on Both Climate and Equity Lens

Good afternoon!

We have a really impressive list of speakers today, as always on these occasions so I do not wish to reiterate details of what they say much more eloquently. 

I am here to remind of Hamilton's Climate Emergency. It is only a few weeks away from being a year now since it was called in March 2019. 

At the same time, Hamilton's council has committed to using an equity lens as it makes its decisions. 

I believe both an equity and a climate lens are necessary. One is not more or less important than the other. Both are crucial at a time when the decisions made worldwide will decide whether or not global warming will exceed the level where there will no longer be human and animal life on earth. 

Both are crucial because climate change hurts the less privileged more immediately and harshly than the privileged. When it gets extremely hot 40, 50, or 60 days a year, will we have all the cooling stations necessary in place so that people do not die in the streets of the heat? Will landlords be required to install proper cooling in apartments, which will be as necessary for basic quality of life as proper heating in the winter? Will all sidewalks be cleared by the city in harsh winter weeks or will those with mobility issues be forced to remain housebound or risk their health by using unsafe sidewalks? Will everyone have access to shelter if they need it or will the homeless simply be the sacrifice to the changing climate?

We always have choices at every level of government. We can choose as if nothing matters but money and industry, the concerns of the privileged. Or we can choose in a way that makes it clear we are truly prioritizing tackling the climate emergency and in every way possible addressing the countless inequities faced by Hamiltonians every day. 

I hope we choose the latter. In the words of Kai Cheng Thom, the title of her book: "I hope we choose love."

Thank you for your time. 

Why languages are important - including 'minority' ones

Just read this excellent article
from Nation Cymru ostensibly about why it is not funny to joke about the Welsh language, but really about the value of Welsh and by extension other endangered languages all over the world.

I am not a professional linguist, but I have had a chance to indulge in my love of languages since my elementary school days. Over the years, I have become fluent in French and have also studied Spanish, Koine Greek, German, Latin, Yiddish, Italian, Russian, and Hebrew (listed in the approximate order of relative knowledge with Hebrew being the language I feel I know least about).

What I have come to appreciate in my limited experience of languages is the richness of expressiveness each one has in unique ways. Singers know for example the delight of singing in Spanish, Italian, or Latin for the beauty of the syllables of these languages as well as Spanish and Italian being 'languages of love and passion', as it were. Singing the Rachmaninoff All Night Vigil in Old Slavonic (an older form of  modern Russian) conveys the depth of religious feeling specific to the Russian Orthodox Church in a way that English cannot do.

As someone who grew up in Quebec fluent in French and English, I was well aware that there were some things you could say lot more easily in French than in English, or in English than French. We would switch back and forth readily from sentence to sentence or even within a sentence use an English or French word to convey something specific that language did better. I am sure anyone fluent in multiple languages has experienced this.

There is also the point made within the article linked above that every  language one acquires opens up conversation with speakers of that language in a way that cannot be defined, only experienced and felt.

Languages are treasures. The more one knows, and the more one knows of each language in vocabulary and breadth, the richer one is in being able to communicate as well as touch the regionalized and deeply human experiences that went into shaping that language.

Ubuntu: I Am, Because We Are

Image from https://otrazhenie.wordpress.com/tag/togetherness/

This morning, I read this Guardian article about the need to leave self-care in the 2010s in favour of communal care. Brigid Delaney, an Australian columnist, says: 

Wouldn’t it be great if this decade we took the self out of self-care and strived instead for communal care?

Self-care is saying “I need to look after me”, while collective self-care is saying “we need to look after each other” (in the words of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius: “What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.”)

Collective care exists outside the market and can’t be captured by capitalism, turned into a product that we buy back and, by definition of its price, excludes many from participating in it.

The fact that it’s collective, means it’s for everyone.

This made me think of the concept of Ubuntu. The story goes: 

'An anthropologist suggested the following game to a group of children in a tribe in Africa: He placed a basket full of fresh fruits under a tree. He then said that whoever reached the basket first in a race would be the winner of all the fruits.

As he gave the signal to begin the race, the whole group held hands, ran bonded together and then sat and enjoyed the prize together.

When he asked why they had done such thing, when he had offered the possibility to one to be the ultimate winner.

They replied: ” UBUNTU”– how could one of us be happy (feel happiness) while the rest are in despair, unhappy?

UBUNTU in the Xhosa culture means: “I am, because we are.”

Looking around just now, I found this excellent TED blog about Ubuntu.

It includes among other things takes on the concept from Tutu and Mandela, information about the free operating system, and a fascinating article by South African activist Alex Lenferna on 'how thinking about our collective humanity could help form a united front of environmentalism'.

'Many have interpreted uBuntu as a narrow ethic confined to the limits of one’s own tribe, regional community or nation, but for Madiba (Mandela) the scope of Ubuntu expanded to all of humanity, to the community made up of each and every one of us. One could call this Madiba’s Cosmopolitan Ubuntu, and for Madiba it was tied to the recognition that every human being is inherently valuable and has a right to dignity and a decent life.1 Contrary to a strong individualism which permeates the Western world, the ethic of Ubuntu, when combined with Mandela’s cosmopolitan valuing of all humanity, would allow us to see that the enrichment or development of one individual, one community or one nation is not truly enrichment if it is achieved at the expense of other individuals, other communities, other nations or future generations...

'Underlying Ubuntu for Mandela was the belief that each person had a common ‘core of decency’, within which lay the potential to achieve the principles of Ubuntu. However, convincing Shell and BP to live according to the principles of Ubuntu, might be harder than teaching a lion to become vegetarian...

'... like poverty for Mandela, climate change and its detrimental effects are a manmade problem and not a question of charity, rather a matter of justice, especially for the global poor and future generations for whom addressing climate change is about the protection of fundamental human rights, such as the right to dignity and a decent life, and often even the right to life itself. Given the interconnections between climate change and poverty, Mandela’s call to end poverty, his call to justice, rings out just as loudly now as it did then. The challenge of climate change makes his call even sharper, even more urgent, and even more fundamentally a matter of justice. If we are to truly tackle climate change, we must hold ourselves, our nations, institutions, and companies, like Shell and BP, accountable to the demands of justice...

'... overcoming Apartheid often seemed impossible, especially when seen through the perspective of limited social imaginaries that focused on limiting perspectives such as ‘real politik’ and selfishindividualism. However, through visions of greatness inspired by leaders such as Mandela, the seemingly impossible was brought into the realm of the possible. Likewise, in order to rise up to the immensity of the challenge of climate change we need to overcome the narrow and limited social imaginaries that dominate much of our discourse. We need to overcome ideas and policies that limit what is possible and shackle us to a future defined by climate chaos and the damages and destruction associated with it. We need to continue to break down the hegemonic discourse that tells us that we can’t create a better world and replace it with a vision of positive possibilities defined by fairness, equality, and a decent life for all both now and in the future. Of course, this is no easy task and will require great effort on our behalf, but as Mandela pointed out in his call to end poverty: “Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation”. “Let your greatness blossom. Of course the task will not be easy. But not to do this would be a crime against humanity, against which I ask all humanity now to rise up”.'

Wiping the Slate Clean in 2022

(Image from here)

Many Hamiltonians are completely fed up with the current City Council.
I was invited to a rally today for a new council and people tried to crash the Mayor's Levee to call for him to resign. That didn't work. There were police and security preventing anyone who looked hostile from getting in or shadowing them closely if they asked to come in for a minute.

Sewergate secrecy is only one reason, though it is a reason that brought in more letters to the editor than any other issue in the history of the Spectator. The Red Hill report that was hidden, the IT scandal, and hate-related debacles have all taken their toll on public confidence, arguably at an all-time low.

We are all agreed that change must occur. But how is the big question.

As satisfying as it might feel to "throw all the bums out!", it is simply not going to happen.

We need to focus, in my opinion on preparing compassionate and compelling progressive candidates to win in the 2022 election, especially for the position of Mayor and for the Wards that have had incumbents who have been on Council for too long and have become far too complacent:

2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15.

This will not be an easy task and will require a great deal of cooperation to pull it off.

The question is, can enough of us work together especially in the preparation years this year and next year to pull it off?

By January 2022, we must be ready with candidates who can actually unseat incumbents. That's a big ask.

Returning to the 29 day Wellness Challenge!

(Image credit: https://uwaterloo.ca/engineering-wellness-program/)

Better get on this, right? February starts Saturday.

For those not eagerly reading each blog as it emerges from the tips of my busy fingers, as it were - what's that? You have other things to do with your time? :) -
a few days ago I mentioned the-power-of-30-day-challenge has inspired me to created my own 29 day challenge for the month of February. It is an experiment of course. No stress! You notice the kinds of wellness choices are very dependent on the work and activism things on that day. Trying to be realistic.

As I have been mapping the below out and thinking about it, there are other key elements not in the map. Friends and family are really important but I haven't got all those conversations on the phone, lunches, tea breaks, and movie nights planned into my calendar yet. I will! Music is tremendously healing at all times - I listen in the car, while doing admin at home, at night or in the morning when I can't sleep... And walking - trying to walk as much as I can, for exercise, fresh air, and regaining my confidence, strength, and balance.

At least as important is what I will not be doing. Social media took up way too much time in 2019. It expanded to multiple hours per day. I find I feel much better with two or three short bursts of social media a day and otherwise not looking at Facebook and Twitter.

Nicole's 29 Day Wellness Challenge February 2020

February 1: meditate 20 min, do 10 min yoga, blog, nap, practise singing
February 2: meditation 45 min, do 10 min yoga, nap
February 3: nonduality check in with friend, meditate for 20, yoga for 10, nap
February 4: meditate for 20, yoga for 10
February 5: yoga for 10, blog
February 6: meditate for 20 (2x), yoga for 60, nap, blog, practise singing
February 7: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, physio, blog, practise singing
February 8: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, Tai Chi, nap, blog, practise singing
February 9: meditation 45 min, do 10 min yoga, nap, blog, practise singing
February 10:  meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 11:  meditate for 20, yoga for 10, physio, blog
February 12: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog, nap
February 13: meditate for 20, yoga for 60, blog, nap
February 14: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 15: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, Tai Chi, nap, blog
February 16: meditation 45 min, do 10 min yoga, nap, blog, practise singing
February 17: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 18: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 19: meditate for 20, yoga for 60, blog, practise singing
February 20: meditate for 20 (2x), yoga for 10, blog
February 21: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 22: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 23: meditation 45 min, do 10 min yoga, nap, blog, practise singing
February 24: meditate for 20, yoga for 60, blog, practise singing
February 25: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 26: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog, practise singing
February 27: meditate for 20 (2x), yoga for 10, blog, practise singing
February 28: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 29: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, Tai Chi, nap, blog

Losing a friend

https://terracemuse.tumblr.com/post/136916671019/this-dewdrop-world-is-a-dewdrop-world-and/amp

Losing close friends is a universal experience. As children, I usually lost friends because I moved to a new school (sometimes a new province or country). But as an adult, one loses a close friend as well either by death (two of my closest friends, about 20 years ago now, on the same day coincidentally), or by estrangement (three of my closest friends over the intervening years for very different reasons). I also lost a number of friends when I moved from Montreal nearly 10 years ago of course.

I don't know about you. I always find it hard to lose someone close to me. In my meditation group on Sundays we often talk about impermanence. But knowing even more and more deeply about impermanence does not make loss easier.

I think of Issa who suffered much more severe loss, and wrote his famous haiku about a dew-drop world. He understood, probably far better than I, how basic impermanence is to the fabric of existence. He understood both philosophically and through immense personal loss of his children and spouse. But he still ends the haiku with the words "and yet... and yet".

And yet. When you love someone, when you deeply care about their well-being, when you value not only who they are but enjoy a daily friendship, and then for whatever reason they are gone, and sometimes worse happens and they completely turn their face away or even die...

Impermanence is at these moments a great struggle.

And yet!

The Power of the 30 Day Challenge

Image: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/wellness/a26631446/30-day-mental-health-challenge/

Perhaps you are like me and skeptical of popular life fixes.

Why is a 30 day challenge actually often a very effective way to meet goals?

This article explains.

'Whether your goal is to pay down debt or you want to start going to the gym, design your own 30-day challenge. In addition to your brain viewing it as a "now" goal, you're more likely to succeed because:

• You won't have time for excuses. When you have a short-term goal, there isn't time to take days off because you feel tired. And you don't have time to make up missed work later. You have be all in if you want to reach your goals.
• Fast progress builds momentum. Your hard work will begin to pay off fast. And when you begin to see results, it's easier to stay motivated. Building momentum early can help you stay on course and finish your monthlong challenge strong.
• Short-term pain feels tolerable. Working hard to reach a new goal means you'll have to give something up. It's easier to give up time with your family or your daily latte when you know there's an end in sight.'

In September I was motivated by a friend who started it first to do the 30 day Wake Up Challenge with Adyashanti. 

Because I don't normally do this kind of thing, especially when it involves paying for it (not much but enough to take it seriously, I think), I was quite amazed by the progress I saw in my nonduality path that month.

There are so many other challenges out there already:

30-day-relationship-challenge

30-day-declutter-challenge

and of course a ton of fitness and diet ones.

I rather like the idea of designing my own challenge though.

How do I want to challenge myself and what will I aim to do each day to get there? I am intrigued to explore this further in the last days of January. 

A Year Of Saturdays, or Counter-Rallying against Hate

Many of you have some familiarity with Canada's-yellow-vest-movement.
You may know how different it is from the Gilets Jaunes in France.
Perhaps some of you have even rallied on Saturdays in front of Hamilton city hall, hopefully in support of love and diversity, but I am well aware that as one of the leaders of "Peace in the Hammer", I am one of the people that yellow vests watch online and in person, and talk about.

What you may not know is that yellow vests began rallying in front of city hall every Saturday beginning December 4, 2018.

That's right. It was a full year of Saturdays. And shortly after they started rallying, the counter rallies of people in Hamilton who believe in peace, love, acceptance, inclusion, and diversity (some of us have adopted the acronym PLAID - see facebook.com/PLAIDHamilton/ and it is also on Twitter) began.

By June, not many knew yet about these weekly rallies. Then Pride 2019  happened in Hamilton on June 15. This is one of many reports about that awful day. I missed it because that was the day the Save the Wesley Day Centre effort kicked off, but I heard all about it, like the rest of Hamilton. 

Most of us did not know this then but police would later arrest two yellow vests for violence near city hall the week before, June 8.

It was not the first arrest connected to the protests. The earliest report I can find online was from a year ago, January 27, 2019. Apparently it was not possible to ascertain "which side" the arrestee was on. This kind of "both sides" verbiage was to plague us as people simply taking time from our lives to stand up for vulnerable people from other countries who were being intimidated by yellow vests. 

While council began looking at means to stop hate groups from parking themselves outside city hall every Saturday as early as June 2019, the rallies went on. And on. Reported on in local news here in June, here in July, and here in August (the infamous 'bus incident').

By September, it was old news. Counter-protesters were fewer; councillors and the Mayor were not making appearances any more for the most part (with significant exceptions from time to time); and the media seemed tired of reporting on it.

But the counter protests went on and the weather grew colder. And one of the protests was not at city hall but at Mohawk College where Maxime Bernier was speaking. This was a typical media misrepresentation of that day.

Let me tell you what really happened. I was in one of the first groups to arrive for the counter protest. There were already well over a dozen yellow vests, Sons of Odin, and Proud Boys waiting for us. They began taunting and cat-calling us as soon as they saw us. I was with the Love in the Hammer Choir as usual , and so we began to sing our songs about love and acceptance, while the haters jeered and criticized our singing, feeling safe and cocky behind a human shield of police lined up to keep the two groups of ralliers separate.

As more people came up, some joined our singing. Most just stood in a supportive group, neither hindering nor speaking to those who chose to go in to hear Maxime speak. There was an altercation that happened too fast for most of us to see and the first arrest of the day happened as Maximiliano Herrera, who had walked to the protest in my group and had been laughing and joking with us only a short time before, was hauled into police custody in great distress and taken away.

It felt surreal. We were standing there singing, the hater 'security' aka bully boys were standing behind the police shouting and jeering, trying to create a reaction from us, and then Maxime Bernier himself came up. Again, everything happened very quickly with pushing and shoving and shouting, Councillor John-Paul Danko was nearly trampled while trying to protect one of his constituents whose sign was destroyed in the fracas, and then Bernier was inside and we were all trying to regain our composure.

At the same time as the great majority were peacefully protesting, a determined group of anti-fascists were trying to impede people from going in and were chanting slogans at them. One of them, of course, became notorious as the person who allegedly tried to stop an elderly lady from going inside. But the narrative that quickly escalated ignored many facts about the situation including those detailed here.

It was no surprise to me that a 'viral video' became the sole narrative of the event. I saw from the moment I arrived that the haters all had cameras and video-cameras.

They were waiting for a chance to catch one of those of us who were standing up against hatred and intolerance on video doing something they could make viral.

And they got their wish. But we also achieved some key goals. I personally witnessed, because I was so close, the doubt on the face of the PPC candidate who afterward withdrew from the race, Chad Hudson..

My friends and I also learned a valuable lesson about how severely distorted media accounts can be, so that they barely resemble what actually happened. Some media accounts were more extensively researched and more compassionate, such as this one by Samantha Craggs.

But when one of our own was viciously attacked, pushed out into Main Street, and repeatedly kicked in the head in December (after a Year of Saturdays!), this was a report.

However, something good came of this horrific incident. One of the yellow vest ringleaders was banned from city hall, and since then, the yellow vests have not been back.

Dare we hope the Year of Saturdays is finally over?

No Time to Spare For Anger

(Image from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/200807/what-your-anger-may-be-hiding )

Today I want to explore a Brain Pickings article on one of my favourite writers, Ursula K. Le Guin, writing about anger's dark side.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/12/05/ursula-k-le-guin-no-time-to-spare-anger/

'Philosopher Martha Nussbaum has argued that it is often “an alluring substitute for grieving,” granting us the illusion of agency in situations that bereave of us of control.

'Poet and philosopher David Whyte pulled on anger’s weft thread to reclaim it as “the deepest form of compassion.” But anger, like silence, is of many kinds and thunders across a vast landscape of contexts, most of its storms ruinous, and some, just maybe, redemptive.'

I have read Le Guin's thoughtful book No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters (public library) and enjoyed it very much. Her essay within it On Anger does begin with the positive and terraforming side of anger, using the concrete example of the feminist movement: 

"In the consciousness-raising days of the second wave of feminism, we made a big deal out of anger, the anger of women. We praised it and cultivated it as a virtue. We learned to boast of being angry, to swagger our rage, to play the Fury.

We were right to do so. We were telling women who believed they should patiently endure insults, injuries, and abuse that they had every reason to be angry. We were rousing people to feel and see injustice, the methodical mistreatment to which women were subjected, the almost universal disrespect of the human rights of women, and to resent and refuse it for themselves and for others. Indignation, forcibly expressed, is an appropriate response to injustice. Indignation draws strength from outrage, and outrage draws strength from rage. There is a time for anger, and that was such a time.

Anger is a useful, perhaps indispensable tool in motivating resistance to injustice. But I think it is a weapon — a tool useful only in combat and self-defense."

It is important to understand the nature of anger as a weapon and tool for combat and self-defense. There are countless battles out there still to be fought, for the planet, if we can still save it, for the right of  people to be housed reasonably and to have clean water to drink, and for many other causes.

And self-defense is necessary both for women and men.

But if it becomes a sort of daily bread, there are negative consequences especially to the one carrying the anger.

"Anger continued on past its usefulness becomes unjust, then dangerous. Nursed for its own sake, valued as an end in itself, it loses its goal. It fuels not positive activism but regression, obsession, vengeance, self-righteousness. Corrosive, it feeds off itself, destroying its host in the process."

Again, giving a concrete example which has become all-too painfully clear since the rise of 45:

"The racism, misogyny, and counter-rationality of the reactionary right in American politics for the last several years is a frightening exhibition of the destructive force of anger deliberately nourished by hate, encouraged to rule thought, invited to control behavior. I hope our republic survives this orgy of self-indulgent rage."

Canada is not a republic of course, or even something presenting as such, but I hope we survive as well.

"Considered a virtue, given free expression at all times, as we wanted women’s anger against injustice to be, what would it do? Certainly an outburst of anger can cleanse the soul and clear the air. But anger nursed and nourished begins to act like anger suppressed: it begins to poison the air with vengefulness, spitefulness, distrust, breeding grudge and resentment, brooding endlessly over the causes of the grudge, the righteousness of the resentment. A brief, open expression of anger in the right moment, aimed at its true target, is effective — anger is a good weapon. But a weapon is appropriate to, justified only by, a situation of danger."

As much as anger can poison the heart and mind of an individual when carried on a continuous basis, it seems that it does the same for a community, a city, or larger group. Hamiltonians have had many legitimate reasons to be extremely angry over the past years and decades. But the cumulative weight and effect of all that collective anger is fierce.

Historical beginnings of the Wesley Day Centre

As we continue to prepare to lose the Day Centre in a few short weeks, let's look back at its history. The story begins about 60 years ago when Wesley United Church, then a thriving congregation on the corner of Rebecca and John, saw the need for service of the homeless and others in deep poverty and began the outreach that would in time become Wesley Urban Ministries.

See full details here at Wesley's site.

The Day Centre opened its doors about 24 years ago, in 1996 and 20 years ago added to their housing services and other outreach arms an incredible 24 hour a day, 7 day a week unconditional shelter for people who needed a place to sleep, regardless of why.

Sadly, over the years, support for the Wesley Day Centre gradually dwindled and they were forced to cut back on services and hours again and again until they were down to being a 'Day Centre', open first during the days then mostly mornings, but still offering a significant suite of essential services for the homeless and those in dire need.

Fast forward to early 2018 when it was decided that the time had come to address the opioid crisis by incorporating an overdose prevention site (now renamed by the Conservative government as CTS, consumption treatment site) within its offering.

Sadly the by then estranged other branch of Wesley, Wesley Community Homes, was horrified at the idea, and informed the Day Centre that it as the landlord would not be renewing the lease of the Day Centre in April 2020.

For over a year the Day Centre struggled in extensive correspondence with city staff to get support to continue its mandate. By June 2019, the ED, Daljit Garry, felt that all that could be done had been done, and announced that the Wesley would be closing its doors.

This is where I came in. (To be continued...)

Yes, getting good sleep regularly is actually important

There are terrific things about having a really strong immune system. One of them is working in an environment with many children, a number of whom at any given time who will be coughing, sneezing, and blowing their noses, and rarely becoming ill. Even being married to an RN who is exposed every week to some of the worst germs Hamilton has on offer and still not going under.

However, from time to time, even such a superpower shows  its kryptonite. One must get enough sleep and rest daily and weekly or eventually it will catch up with one.

My life is full. Too full, some would say.

Full-time work at my Kumon centre
Grand Philharmonic Choir
Extinction Rebellion Hamilton
Health Advocacy
Anti-Hate activism
Running a NA franchise association
Facilitating two meditation groups
Dedication to regular time socially
Political activism

Among other things of course. People often ask me how I do it all. It is frequently at the expense of proper sleep and rest, continuously going from one task to another from early in the morning to sometime in the evening, sleeping early and waking up around 1 or so to put in a few more hours of emailing, editing documents, and planning.

So at the moment humbly admitting I will need more down time than usual today and on the weekend, possibly also next week, either to stave off being fully ill, or submitting to the inevitable at last.

The Death of #SaveTheWesleyDayCentre

On an as-yet-unannounced day next month, i.e. in February 2020, the Wesley Day Centre will close its doors for the final time.

"But, but!" you exclaim. "Didn't this chch.com/ article assert the Wesley Day Centre has found a new home? Indeed it did. 

"And back in July, did not Council approve funding to keep the Wesley Day Centre open until another site could be found, so that the wealth of services it offers could be housed in the same building as the new second CTS for Hamilton?" That is what we were told then.

Without any fanfare, this article quietly stated the Day Centre was not going to stay open until March 31, as we were originally told was its lease expiry date. Instead, 'the centre will close earlier than that to clean up the space and allow clients to transition to other services'. 

"We are working with the city on a contingency plan and we hope to announce details in December." (Andrea Buttars, manager of resource development for Wesley Urban Ministries)

That said, while 'Wesley Urban Ministries' plan has been to move the social-service agency's meal program to Vanier Towers, a CityHousing highrise complex at Hess and Jackson streets' (more about Vanier Towers in a separate blog to come), 'Michelle Baird, a director in the city's public health department, says the hope is the remaining services can still be offered elsewhere. "Ideally, from the point of view of the client, we would want those operating together. It makes sense." '

So, we're all good, right? 

Wrong.

On January 8, having heard nothing since the December ECS meeting wherein we were assured by Paul Johnson, GM of Healthy and Safe Communities for the City, that a site had been secured for the CTS and the Wesley Day Centre services, I wrote a long letter to the Emergency and Community Services Committee councillors and Paul Johnson asking for an update.

Paul wrote back very quickly with a lot of detail. While he could not yet tell me the location of the CTS site, he assured me we were only days aware from the City submitting its application to the province for the new CTS and making public the location of the site.

However, he added this: 'One point of clarification (although it could be the way I read your email)…we are not looking for a new site for Wesley Centre AND a CTS site. As our report last year indicated we funded the continuation of Wesley Centre through the winter until the end of their lease. We are also working with Wesley to determine which of the services currently at Wesley Centre would integrate well with our CTS. As we noted we do not see all of the services of Wesley Centre operating out of the CTS but some of the critical services related to housing, income security, additional health services through public health and the shelter health network will be integrated wherever possible.'

In other words, eating is not important. If you've never really been hungry, it doesn't seem that critical, does it? An afterthought after an afterthought. "I don't need to go to the grocery store. I have plenty of food at home."

Showers, especially for homeless and insecurely housed women? I can assure you they are not easily found in Hamilton. 

Free laundry services? Also very difficult to find.

Podiatrist? Believe me, proper foot care is essential for those who spend countless hours in the cold. This is not an optional extra.

What we advocates for the Day Centre have said over and over again is this:

The reason the Wesley Day Centre is a unique and necessary resource centre within Hamilton is that all of the services are hosted under one roof.

When you start cherry-picking and saying you are going to keep this service but not that, housing services but not a cafeteria, health clinic but not showers, addiction services but not laundry services, you are telling us that the Wesley Day Centre will die in February.

I will continue to blog daily in honour of the Wesley Day Centre, as there is much history to commemorate before its upcoming demise.

Watch this space. In the meantime please enjoy this song about another beloved place which closed elsewhere. Different place, different context, same feeling.

The Deep Dark Woods: Charlie's (Is Comin' Down)

Not Knowing

Have you ever not known what is happening in your life?

I mean, really not known?

I am someone who has always prided myself on knowing. Partly it's an ENFJ thing but partly a Nicole thing. I have been a recovering knower since I was in my teens and twenties and thought I knew everything.

Something funny is happening this week. My mind is just stopping. My mind doesn't stop. It just keeps talking all the time. Yep, even when I am supposed to be meditating, often, too, though of course there are blissful chunks of time it takes a rest and then the time seems to blur by quickly.

But I don't know right now. And usually that would fill me with panic because as a dear friend told me today that means the creature is in free fall. But it is exhilarating instead.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5tVA6TkbaAH9QMITTQRrNv?si=9Ns_e0LpThC5YFpEarpmew

(Song: Free Fallin' by Tom Petty
"Now I'm free, free fallin'..."

Just ignore the verses - it is that wide open space of the chorus that I love about this song.)

What is Non Duality and Why Does It Matter?

Image source: https://www.freedom.clinic/non-duality-not-two/

Often when I mention to friends or family members about my abiding interest in non duality, they ask, "What is it, anyway?"

Not an easy question to answer. This is certainly one where you don't want the Wikipedia version. For example, you might want to read Rupert Spira's introduction_to_non-duality Or it may be too opaque, and this interview within buddhist inquiry with David Loy could be helpful as a starting point - that it is about "not two".

Training in dualism begins for us very early. One can imagine a fetus in the womb has no sense of not two, and in the first weeks and months of life may not be perceiving divisions as much as later on. But soon the parents and other caregiver introduce the idea that the baby is a separate self from those around him or her, separate from things, entirely separate. And so the gradual development of what nondualists believe is the fiction of the separate self grows until the adult may be extremely skeptical that there is another valid way of perceiving the world.

Why it matters is that the vast majority of suffering we experience is as a result of living withing a framework of duality. Who doesn't long to end suffering? But as long as one believes one is a separate self, it is inevitable. If you look at the myth of the Garden and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it could be interpreted as describing moving from an experience of non duality into duality, with all the suffering that accompanied that ejection from the Garden - separation from God, work involving toil and pain, childbirth being an experience of suffering, and suspicion and division between male and female, brother and brother, and so on.

What if our relationships were characterized by an absence of judgment, or attempting to "get" something out it the other? As Seal says in his song: Help me find someone peaceful and non-judgmental." Would that be "life without the pain"?

This week, my daughter shared with me a tweet that blew my mind. Funnily enough it was by someone I already follow on Twitter: 

The Hungover Pundit

@hungover_the

A friend once shared what she called the Parable of the Choir: A choir can sing a beautiful note impossibly long because singers can individually drop out to breathe as necessary and the note goes on. Social justice activism should be like that, she said. That's stuck with me.

Singing in choirs is a huge part of my life, so stagger breathing (which is what we call this technique) is very familiar. Also, since buying I-Hope-We-Choose-Love, trying to understand what it means for life is instinctive. And being an activist, struggling frequently with the demands of activism and the inevitable friction between activists at times takes up a lot of emotional space. 

This is what I want, so badly I can taste it. A world where not only in our activism but in all the spheres of life we know that we can drop out to breathe whenever we need to and come back in and the music just goes on and on regardless.

Where it is not a competition or a fight. Where within each couple, or family, or group, or country, or world, we take turns. No one has inexhaustible capacity. But it doesn't have to mean the defeat of our efforts when the energy is gone for one individual for a time.

So non duality matters because if I truly know, if you truly know separateness is the illusion, then conflict no longer makes any sense, and working together on everything including the #ClimateEmergency becomes the natural way forward.