Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

standing stones at the solstice… December 21, 2011

Filed under: Commentary,OUTLANDERishness,Pondering,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 4:14 pm
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I’m spending a lot of time the last couple of months reading Diana Gabaldon novels. The Outlander series is about standing stones, and the opportunity to time travel on the sun and fire feasts of assorted solstices. When I realised the day, I posted this on the Diana Gabaldon Facebook site, but I thought I’d share it with you as well.

On this Winter Solstice Day, may the stones guarding your reality open to your dreams…

What are your dreams?

What is standing in the way of achieving them? If your desires are attainable, just as a little more light is added to each day from today onward to summer, take a few moments daily to take steps to fulfilling those dreams. Write a few words, learn a few things, work out a few minutes. Each small step leads closer to reality. Then the stones of your reality won’t be blocking you, they will be the doors to your destiny.

 

Mnemosyne December 20, 2011

Filed under: Mythology — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:01 pm
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I’ve been thinking about memory.  That’s Mnemosyne’s area of responsibility.  My father is in hospital and when we visit, he is spending a lot of time with her.  Stories are told and re-told.  Stories of youth.  Of working days.  Of love.  Of betrayal.  It’s our stories that reveal what is important about us.

Mnemosyne saves the certain moments for us.  Why?  Do you sometimes savour a moment, specifically for the purpose of holding it?  Do you look at a gathering of loved ones, and feel yourself snapping a mental picture that you know will remain with you forever?  It becomes a picture that only you have.  It will alter, too.  You’ll colour it, crumple it, re-imagine it, until the image serves a purpose you want it for.

Is it a catalyst? A purpose?  A dream? An anchor?

Mnemosyne wraps us in the security of our past, and at her best she strengthens and guides us.

Memories can torture and claw though, as well.  They can hold us back in fear as much as push us forward.

We can mire in nostalgia and lose our present when Mnemosyne has too much power in our lives.

 

 

truth or reputation? December 19, 2011

Filed under: Pondering — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:44 pm
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I’m admiring my Christmas cactus and its green companions in my living room, and wondering if my reputation as a plant killer is truly deserved.  I recently received two plants- a red shamrock and a lemon geranium- they’re new and looking like gawky pubescent boys at the moment, but aside from those, the green things are looking rather healthy in the room at the moment.  There are a 5 year old African violet that has flowered beautifully for me three times, a ‘corn plant’ that is 8 feet hight, that I got in 1989, and very contented spider plant that is almost as old.  So.  I’m not a complete loser in the horticulture department if I can keep plants alive for over twenty years.

My mother can make anything live.  She brings plants back from death and has a garden that is the admiration of the neighbourhood.  Her basement is full of intriguing orchids.  Maybe I’m considered a bad plant person, next to her rather impressive talents.  Plants can survive at my house. They just have to be the right plants.

I would not venture to own something tender and finicky.  Plants at my house have to be like my children- tough and independent!  I provide the basics when I remember- water every week or two, fertilizer in the spring.  Usually.  The plants that make it here like to dry out completely between waterings.  That’s usually a given.  They have to be plants that don’t mind being ignored.  Independent plants that reward me by a show of flowers just as they’re dying are very helpful.  I understand that means they’re desperate.  I’m very good with the desperate.

.

This makes me ponder the essence of reputation.  If I am considered a black thumb, just because in comparison with my mother I’m rather pathetic, it’s kind of unfair.   Sometimes we get reputations we don’t deserve.  Sometimes, we’ve been given tasks (or plants) that simply don’t suit our skills.  If we had the right ones, we’d be quite successful with them.  We can’t be compared with anyone else.  We have to be assessed for our own abilities and given tasks that suit who we are.  If we want to change, we can learn, and take on larger tasks later.  Celebrate reality.  Make the task suit the skills and desires that exist now.

 

black thumb December 18, 2011

Filed under: anecdotes — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:40 pm

My daughter walked into the living room and froze.

“What’s that?” she said, pointing in stunned disbelief at the flowering plant on the end table.  I have a reputation for killing plants.

“It’s my Christmas cactus.”

“Is it new?”

“No!  I’ve had it for a few years.  It blooms faithfully every Christmas and Easter.”

She put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, before asking, “Does it have to be dying to flower?”

I smirked sheepishly,  “Well.  Yes.”

“I knew it!” she shouted, to the aggrevation of the poodles.

**********************************

 

 

one person’s attitude December 17, 2011

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 7:20 pm
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My dad is in the hospital this week. I watched with dismay how one harried and dismissive LPN managed to set an entire room in disarray. My father– weak, blind and quite deaf–was in quite a state, knowing something was going on, but helpless to deal with it, and not clear about what it was. I caught enough talk between patients and staff while I was there to know he hadn’t imagined things.

One person’s skill set makes all the difference. One person who is knowledgeable, pleasant, courteous, and respectful of the patients can improve the environment. A person who is sharp, unwilling to listen, dismissive of concerns or desires, causes more trouble, and more problems erupt.

As my father tried to explain what he had experienced, and I tried to offer (what I thought were) logical interpretations, he shook his head and remarked, “This is what makes people think they’re going crazy.” He was right. He didn’t have the picture completely right, but he had enough of it to set off alarm bells. I wonder how often this happens in extended care facilities? The elderly patients may frantically try to explain what they’ve experienced, and because their hearing or visual impairments make some of their observations unclear, and their interpretations may seem a little whacky, and their slurred speech requires some concentration to attend to their meaning, do people think the elderly person is hallucinating?

It is a valuable lesson on how one person’s incompetencies can negatively impact others. Attempting to mask incompetencies just leads to more problems, like ripples spreading in a pond. Listen. Find the problem. Attend.

 

finnish lessons December 16, 2011

Filed under: Commentary,Teaching — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:04 am
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As you’ll know if you’re a long time reader of this blog, I was an exchange student in Finland.  As a result, I speak passable Finnish (even now) and I have a house full of Finnish decor items.  These become particularly noticeable at Christmas, as my host families have tended to send special ornaments over the years.

A few years ago, I was at a teachers’ workshop and the speaker showed a graph of the national ratings of educational systems.  He was pointing to Canada’s number three placement when he asked, “Why do we tend to look at the US for innovative educational ideas, when they’re 23 places below us in these rankings?  Why aren’t we looking to the countries above us?”  That made sense to all of us in the room.  When I looked at the ratings and saw that Finland was number one, I thought perhaps that was an area of potential master’s studies.

One of my Finnish friends drew my attention to the book Finnish Lessons by Pasi Sahlberg today, and I have just ordered it.  Stay tuned for a review.

 

modern medicine? December 15, 2011

Filed under: anecdotes,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:22 pm
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You know you’ve been reading a lot (too much?) historical fiction when you have a bad bump, see the bruise brewing in the swelling of the skin and you think, “Damn.  That’s going to be a nasty bruise.  If I could get a leech on it right now, it would be fine.”

Yes.

True story.

 

or not December 14, 2011

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:51 am
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Come.

They said.

The end is near.

Maybe not.

I said.

He’s tougher than he looks.

Not this time.

They said.

Come.

Hurry.

So we sat holding our breath

when his stopped.

Waiting.

But morning came.

And the next.

And the next.

He’s tougher than he looks.

Told you so.

 

honor and love December 13, 2011

Filed under: Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:12 am
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“A romantic or a novelist might count the world well lost for love.  So far as Grey’s own opinion counted, a love that sacrificed honor was less honest than simple lust, and degraded those who professed to glory in it.” 

Diana Gabaldon, Lord John and the Private Matter

 

tend the rose December 12, 2011

Filed under: Pondering — Shawn L. Bird @ 1:46 pm
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