Me Show Soup

Forget hybrid cars, where's the flying saucers ?

2008-04-19T09:43:00.001-07:00

An interesting fact: the US military since the 1950s have been using and developing fully operational "Alien Reproduction Vehicles", flying saucers that use anti-gravity technology and zero-point energy devices (that produce more energy than they consume). As the name suggests, they were modeled after extraterrestrial vehicles. Yes, sounds like something out of a movie (i.e. Independence Day), but I feel convinced that this is true. The person who convinced me of this is Dr. Steven Greer, who is an expert at the military cover-up of information about extraterrestrial encounters and technology. He established the Disclosure Project, who have presented quite a case to support this hard-to-believe story:

On Wednesday, May 9th, 2001, over twenty military, intelligence, government, corporate and scientific witnesses came forward at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to establish the reality of UFOs or extraterrestrial vehicles, extraterrestrial life forms, and resulting advanced energy and propulsion technologies. The weight of this first-hand testimony, along with supporting government documentation and other evidence, will establish without any doubt the reality of these phenomena.

I mentioned this to my room mate, who is interested in solutions to environmental problems such as global warming. I noted that zero-point energy is not being considered by large-scale organizations who are working on environmental sustainability, and it seems this is because they all have ties to government and/or corporate interests that will do everything in their power to suppress this information. Zero-point energy solutions would loosen the powerhold of the oil companies, and completely decentralize energy production. This is the agenda of AERO

Advanced Energy Research Organization (AERO), Inc. is a new research and development group formed to develop and strategically protect new energy and propulsion technologies. It is our goal, utilizing a unique strategic approach, to bring forth these new environmentally sound technologies to replace virtually all fossil fuel, internal combustion and ionizing nuclear technologies within 20-30 years.

The Orion Project has responded to this proposal as such:
We are a non-profit 501c3 foundation dedicated to transforming the world's energy/social crisis into a world of healthy, sustainable abundance. Our goal is to inform, educate, and help supply all peoples of our planet with sustainable, non-polluting power. To accomplish this task we are searching out and supporting the development of new, clean energy technologies that can bring this vision forward in our world now!

I wasn't able to articulate this information very well to my room mate, but he made a stretch and assumed it was true. From this assumption, he made a very interesting point: providing the world with free energy in our current economic climate would likely accelerate the consumption of other resources such as water. This is because it allows us to more readily extract and process those resources for consumption. Although I don't feel capable of defending this position, it makes complete sense to me. It became clear to me that zero-point energy solutions, unless paired with economic regulations, would be a bane to our planet's health, and not a boon.

....but just imagine, a world without cars, a world without roads... it's all within reach...

Community grocery store update

2008-04-19T09:34:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been many many months since I've written anything on this here blog, and I thought I good way to break the ice would be a completely impersonal but important note about the possibility of a community grocery store that has been in discussion and investigation since the close of the Loeb on Booth St. I have been doing a bit of volunteering for these folks and I look forward to opportunities to get further involved. Particularly, I think the experience of helping to set up a co-op (one discussed possibility) would be a valuable one. If you're interested in food security in the Chinatown region, I recommend getting in touch with Heather, who's contacts are listed below.

Hello Somerset West Community Grocery Store Supporters!

Many of you have been inquiring as to the status of the Somerset West Community Grocery Store and we would like to provide an update, as many things have been happening.

Firstly, the feasibility study is complete (thank you very much to all volunteers!) and the Executive Summary of the report is available at www.swchc.on.ca. If you would like to review the entire study please email heather@justfood.ca or ewilliams@swchc.on.ca. The feasibility study concludes that a small grocery store (between 4,500sq ft - 6,000 sq ft) is financially viable in the community. To understand the methodology please read through the feasibility study document.

As a result of the positive feasibility study, the community grocery store Advisory Committee met with a number of potential community partners in March. The objective of the meeting was to explore opportunities to partner and use the old Loeb building space for a community grocery store, plus additional community programs and small businesses. Those in attendance took a tour of the old Loeb building, spoke with the realtor and got a sense of the work required to make the building safe and useable.

Currently, the potential partners are reviewing their interest in partnering on the project, and the advisory committee are reviewing the opportunities and challenges presented by the old Loeb building location and structure. The potential partners and advisory committee members will be meeting again in the coming months to propose the next steps.

We thank you for your continued support and interest. We will continue to send out updates as we progress through this work. We will also plan a community meeting in the coming months and will let you know when and where it will be held.

Just so you all know ... my role as a consultant on this project has ended, however Just Food has kindly provided me some time to work on this project until the next project phase is reached. Therefore, I will be able to continue communicating with you all. If you have any questions please let me know - and please use this email address as opposed to my previous yahoo account.

If you would like to be removed from this email distribution list please reply with your desire to removed.

Sincerely,

Heather & the Community Grocery Store Advisory Committee

____________________________________________
Heather Hossie
Just Food/Alimentation Juste &
Savour Ottawa/Savourez Ottawa
613-236-9300 ext./poste 305
heather@justfood.ca
www.justfood.ca & www.savourottawa.ca

Update of notable points

2007-12-03T06:58:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a long time since I blogged, so I thought I'd lay something down to keep in touch cyberspatially. A bunch of non-related points to describe some notable things in my life :

Since our cat Minu got picked up by some vigilante pound person right in front of our house and subsequently euthanized, we have a new cat Woody, which my room mate picked up from the Humane Society. To be honest, I like Woody more than Minu. Minu was not the brightest cat, and not so friendly either, although she did have a cuteness about her which I did love. She would only eat wet food, which I resented because I had to smell it every morning, and it made me want to barf. Woody on the other hand, is pretty energetic little creature. He just gobbles up the attention when you give it, but doesn't every demand it. And he eats dry food, yay!
I went to go see a circus show called L'Arche 2 weekends ago at the new environmentally-sustainable circus arts centre in Montreal called TOHU. The show was quite visually stunning, as it had two layers of animated projections, one on a transparent screen in front of the performers, and one in behind them, which I thought was really neat. The acrobatics, juggling and clowning was pretty impressive as well. But there was one thing I felt a little bit disappointed with, which was the way in which the thematics of the show, that is environmental destruction/restoration, was conveyed. First of all, it didn't seem to have any clear commentary on this complicated issue, it was more just a mirror of our current situation. I guess I just feel like: because the circus arts have such a captivating quality to them, that they have great potential to be used to convey ideas that will empower humanity to create a better world. I'm not convinced that anyone walking out of that show would even think twice about using plastic shopping bags at the grocery store, never mind take action to solve any of the larger patterns of sustainability in our society.
Lately I've been watching some really interesting documentaries which have profoundly shifted my sense of awareness. I hope to be blogging them in the near future.
My life is slowly acquiring a sense of ritual. Particularly, I've been working to be more conscious of how I begin and end my day. One of the simplest and most practical parts which I'm still working to make automatic is authoring and noting plans for the next day before bed, and acknowledging those plans when I wake up. I consider engaging the imagination in activities to be done "in the future" to be somewhat akin to "time travel". Maybe I'm just trying to make duty more fun...
On Saturday, for the first time ever, I set up a stand at a craft sale in the Rama Lotus called "Caravan Bazaar". I was offering handmade juggling balls and batons, or roley-poles as I like to call them. I also set up "The Playful Geometer's Mini Mobil Spacecraft Gallery", a coat rack decorated with some of my geometric 3D art. I provided some magic tricks for the kids. And for the adults, I was hosting a show called "Channel 64: The Sage's Word", that is, providing the service of I Ching divinations. The night before the sale, I stayed up really late crafting the batons and juggling balls (which I find to be quite pleasant work). I was hoping that I would sell some, but I didn't so in that sense I was slightly disappointed, but through this experience I learned some of the things I did wrong: I refused to label the items with a price tag, I left my station unattended quite a bit, and in general didn't make myself out to be genuinely interested in making money from the event. I did manage to get one commissioned spacecraft job, which was a first. And I also got one opportunity to practice my Channel 64 act. I'm not so sure doing divination in such an open atmosphere is a good idea, it detracted from the focus. Next time I need to make some edibles too, like some raw dessert balls and baked squares (or cubes, rather). Even though as a business venture, this didn't pan out as well as I had hoped, I had a great time, especially in freely entertaining the youth there. I love independent marketplaces because they are a fusion of social and economic exchange. I hope to be a part of this atmosphere more often.

UN sponsors the criminalization of basic nutrients

2007-11-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

So, I was browsing through the Google Video documentary section, and I came across this video about Codex Alimentarius, a legal code which would basically makes high levels of nutrients in food illegal, and out-and-out criminalize certain vital nutrients and herbal suppliments. If you have 2-10 minutes, I highly recommend informing yourself about Codex by checking out Health Freedom USA's Summary of Codex Alimentarius and further materials (this is equally relevant in Canada, as we are a member of the WTO, where the code gets it's leverage). If you have 40 minutes, check out this extremely compelling speech given by the Stop Codex campaign leader entitled

Nutricide - Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs

I Concerning Codex Alimentarius in Canada, I found this article written for Vitality Magazine. As it states, currently KOS Publishing is hosting a campaign against Codex in Canada inside their "Make a Difference" section.

My workshop at unSCHOOLING OPRESSION conference

2007-10-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

I am sooo excited about the upcoming unSCHOOLING OPRESSION conference on November 5-10. The summary reads:

unSchooling Oppression is both a critical examination of the various forms of oppression within traditional schooling models and a hopeful exploration of liberating educational alternatives.Six evening presentations will feature speakers on a broad range of topics, each concluding with a period for questions and discussion. Subjects shall include the historical roots and purposes of traditional schooling; power, authority and oppression; institutional violence; systemic racism; freedom and deschooling; alternative models for learning; and much more. The speakers will be traveling to Ottawa from around Canada and the USA The conference will also include a series of daytime workshops organized by members of the university community and local organizations on various issues that they consider relevant to the themes of education as oppression, and education as liberation. The conference will conclude with a caucus, wherein conference attendees will have the opportunity to brainstorm together a way forward in applying some of the ideas presented during the conference. Our goal, as conference organizers, is for this event to catalyze a new movement of projects and campaigns here in Ottawa to directly address the issues presented. We hope you can be a part of this.

For more info, see their blog and Facebook event. I will be giving a workshop on Wednesday, the details:

Healing Oppression with the Circus Arts
a peaceful and creative approach to physical education
Wednesday November 7th
1:30-3pm @ U of O's Institute for Women’s Studies (143 Séraphin-Marion), room 205

A workshop on the value of the circus arts as a non-authoritarian, non-violent, self-directed, and creative form of physical education. First I'll tell you the story of how and why I got into the circus arts. Then I'll talk about why we should challenge sports as the predominant and sometimes only model for physical education in schools. Then, I'll share some of the benefits of the circus arts, and lastly, I'll give a little interactive demonstration where participants can learn how to juggle,play baton, and spin poi.

This topic is very important to me, and in fact, sharing physical creativity is how I intend to make a living eventually. I'm applying for the YMCA's youth entrepreneurship program to realize this intention (whoo-hoo, I could get paid a decent wage to realize my dream of getting paid to play). Because this venture would be a sole proprietorship, I don't feel like staring a business is against my political views because profit only comes into play when you start making money off of other people's labour. Maybe one day my project will outgrow myself, and at that time I could help start an edutainment co-operative, but first thing's first...

Considering this, I've decided to do some in-depth research on the topic. I have bookmarked the links in my unschooltalk del.icio.us tag, so for more background info, check it out.

Healthy food for kids

2007-10-09T19:31:00.000-07:00

A week ago I was in Mark Laham's Yin Yoga class and I was really feeling it quite intensely, but what gave me and even stronger and longer-lasting emotion was something that he said about the youth of today and their unhealthy lifestyles when he was talking about his attempts at teaching some teenage boys . I'm not really exposed to these children who have grown up in what I consider a "toxic culture" very often anymore, so it's not in my face very much, but I often feel this extrordinary weight of knowing just how unhealthy our society has become. With recent stories in the CBC news like School food not making the grade, says report I think it's pretty obvious that the toxic culture has run wild. One of my goals in life is to share information and practices with youth that are healthy and empowering (i.e. the circus arts and eventually, yoga).

Healthy food is and interest of mine as well, and I feel blessed have had parents that were health-concious. So, when I saw the episode of one of my favourite podcasts ever, Deconstructing Dinner, entitled Organic Daycare, I excitedly queued it up as the soundtrack to my dish-washing session. I was quite enspired by the featured initiatives (described on the page), especially that of the Alligator Pie Preschool program, where young children were taught how to grow organic vegetables, and how to cook them, with guests from various cultures explaining how to cook the dishes from their respective homelands. Ahhh, I love it ! It's very much akin to this idea I had of creating some internet videos where I would be a kooky character that would teach kids how to cook healthy meals. Due to my high standards, I've decided to put this one on the back burner, so to speak, until I learn more about acting (and cooking), but it may just bubble up in the future.

But for now: parents and caregivers, if you're looking for a great place to introduce your kids to healthy food, the Simply Raw Potlucks are very child-friendly place to start, and the next one is a Halloween costume party !

Conspiracy theory .... what's the use ?

2007-10-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

So, after writing about the conspiracy theory story, I was feeling rather vulnerable, considering that this blog is connected to my Facebook account, and even my mom reads it. Also, I am working to become a child care giver, and I don't want parents to think that I'm going to "brainwash" their kids; I want to be as honest and upfront with parents as possible about the values I am willing to impart, and I never wish to betray their will towards their kids. I have no desire to convince children that the world is a scary evil place that's out to get them. In fact, I'm a rather strong believer in "pronoia"(coined by John Perry Barlow, founder of the EFF) and exemplified in Rob Brezny's book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

But, here, I'm not looking to deny my belief in such theories, but maybe just give them a little contex. I still hold to the belief that certain conspiracy theories have truth in them (for example, the theory that our government is dumping loads of wierd chemicals into our air supply using jets that cast what are known as "chemtrails" seem undeniable after watching the movie Aerosol Crimes).

Rather, I ask myself, what is the use of entertaining these possibilities ? Well, I think that one reason I might want to entertain them is to prove that our government is not to be trusted, and that we as a socially responsible people need to invent new ways of organizing our society. For me, that means building communities that are more self-sufficient. So much of our time and our needs are tied up in our governments and the global economy, and to me that is a precarious place for those people -- many/all of which I love -- to be in. That is because I believe that our governments and our economy are unjust and unsustainable. To entertain the notion that our economy is unsustainable, one might want to watch Money as Debt, or even The Money Masters (which I haven't got to yet).

BUT, it occurs to me that rousing people to take action our of fear, using scare tactics, is really an attempt to enslave minds, to convince them that there's no other choice if we want to survive. And that will ultimately lead to the same situation which I am attempting to overcome, that in which citizens do not have control of the decisions that are being made on behalf of us. So with that, I'd like to entertain some inspiring realities out of LOVE for their manifestations....

Pronoia and conspiracy theory

2007-10-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

The bad news: a group of secret elites called the Illuminati are operating on the higest levels of societal control to oppress the masses, and in fact extinguish most of the worlds population. The SARS epidemic was engineered by them to wipe out a large amount of the Chinese population. All of the major financial institutions which control the money supply are controled by them. They have ocupied presidency of the U.S. most of the time. Yes, sounds crazy, but read on...

The good news: a Chinese secret society of six time's the size of the Illuminati is threatening the members of these conspirators with a grand ultimatium: immediately cease their attempts to manifest an armageddon on earth, or face sudden death, one by one.

To for a quick read on the story, check out Chinese Secret Society Challenges Illuminati. If you want to get the full details, listen to this interview, and be ready to be blown out of the water.

I've learned a lot about the politics of oppression since I came to Ottawa, but I never really dug into all of the conspiracy theory stuff thus far. I guess the stuff that they don't hide has been appaling enough. But a friend of mine has done a lot of research on these kinds of things, and he's the one who passed me a copy of this interview. While laying in my bed listening to it, at first, I was rather boggled and disoriented, being one who finds it difficult to keep track of stories, people, placess, times, and all of the links, and not having much of a background on the topic. But I was patentient enough to sit through my discomforts, partly due to the fact that I have high esteem for the person who passed it on to me, and he conveyed sincerely a grand importance in it.

Eventually I calmed down enough to lie down in my bed, which is when the interviewee started telling "the good news". Such a grand sense of relief came over me, I felt radiant with energy. At one point, I was cheering with joy. But I didn't loose my sense or responsability in healing, in fact, just the opposite. I know that once they "gouge the eye of the pyramid out", there's going to be a lot of mess to clean up... and that's where the metaphor of alchemy serves us well.

Calling for CC Salon participaton

2007-09-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

Currently, I'm working to organize a CC Salon in Ottawa. I've set up a Google Group for CC Salon Ottawa (http://ccsalonottawa.notlong.com), and a Facebook group. I would like to see a physical meet-up once a month, but I have decided that I am not going to call a meeting until I have at least 4 people who are comitted to going to every meeting (or course with exceptions for outstanding circumstances) ; the meet-ups would be scheduled around these people first and foremost. These four people would be called the "hub" of the CC Salon. This concept was inspired by the fact that several groups I have involved myself were held down by only one individual (in the case of Free Culture Carleton, that person was me), and at times meetings only had 2 or 3 people, which didn't make for a very lively interaction. Whether you would like to be a part of the hub, or you just want to attend the meetings, please join our mailing list and give a short introduction to the list, optionally expressing your particular interests and curiosities.

Theatre of the Oppressed

2007-09-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

So, I've been having some good progress working wisdom into my performance act, but lately I've been feeling that the socio-political aspects have been lacking, so I googled "social theatre" and I found out about this group called the Theatre of the Opressed, and this captures what they're all about:

International Theatre of the Oppressed Organisation (ITO)
Declaration of principles

Préamble

1. The basic aim of the Theatre of the Oppressed is to humanize Humanity.

2. The Theatre of the Oppressed is a system of Exercises, Games and Techniques based on the Essential Theatre , to help men and women to develop what they already have inside themselves: theatre.

Essential Theatre

3. Every human being is theatre!

4. Theatre is defined as the simultaneous existence — in the same space and context — of actors and spectators.Every human being is capable of seeing the situation and seeing him/herself in the situation.

5. Essential theatre consists of three elements: Subjective Theatre, Objective Theatre and the Theatrical Language

6. Every human being is capable of acting: to survive, we necessarily have to produce actions and observe those actions and their effects on the environment. To be Human is to be Theatre: the co-existence of actor and spectator in the same individual. This is the Subjective Theatre.

7. When human beings limit themselves to observing an object, a person or a space, renouncing momentarily to their capacity and necessity of acting, the energy and their desire to act is transferred to that space, person or object, creating a space inside a space: an Aesthetic Space. This is the Objective Theatre.

8. All human beings use, in their daily lives, the same language that actors use on the stage: their voices, their bodies, their movements and their expressions; they translate their emotions and desires into the Theatrical Language.

Theatre of the Oppressed

9. The Theatre of the Oppressed offers everyone the aesthetic means to analyze their past, in the context of their present, and subsequently to invent their future, without waiting for it. The Theatre of the Oppressed helps human beings to recover a language they already possess — we learn how to live in society by playing theatre. We learn how to feel by feeling; how to think by thinking; how to act by acting. Theatre of the Oppressed is rehearsal for reality.

10. The oppressed are those individuals or groups who are socially, culturally, politically, economically, racially, sexually, or in any other way deprived of their right to Dialogue or in any way impaired to exercise this right.

11. Dialogue is defined as to freely exchange with others, as a person and as a group, to participate in human society as equal, to respect differences and to be respected.

12. The Theatre of the Oppressed is based upon the principle that all human relationships should be of a dialogic nature: among men and women, races, families, groups and nations, dialogue should prevail. In reality, all dialogues have the tendency to become monologues, which creates the relationship oppressors - oppressed. Acknowledging this reality, the main principle of Theatre of the Oppressed is to help restore dialogue among human beings.

Principles and Objectives

13. The Theatre of the Oppressed is a worldwide non-violent aesthetic movement which seeks peace, not passivity.

14. The Theatre of the Oppressed tries to activate people in a humanistic endeavor expressed by its very name: theatre of, by, and for the oppressed. A system that enables people to act in the fiction of theatre to become protagonists, i.e. acting subjects, of their own lives.

15. The Theatre of the Oppressed is neither an ideology nor a political party, neither dogmatic nor coercive and is respectful of all cultures. It is a method of analysis and a means to develop happier societies. Because of its humanistic and democratic nature, it is widely used all over the world, in all fields of social activities such as: education, culture, arts, politics, social work, psychotherapy, literacy programs and health. In the annex to this Declaration of Principles, a number of exemplary projects are listed to illustrate the nature and the scope of its use.

16. Theatre of the Oppressedis now being used in approx. half the nations around the world, listed in the annex, as a tool for the making of discoveries about oneself and about the Other, of clarifying and expressing our desires; a tool for the changing of circumstances which produce unhappiness and pain and for the enhancement of what brings peace; for respecting differences between individuals and groups and for the inclusion of all human beings in Dialogue; and finally a tool for the achievement of economical and social justice, which is the foundation of true democracy. Summarizing, the general objective of the Theatre of the Oppressed is the development of essential Human Rights.

The International Theatre of the Oppressed Organization (ITO)

17. The ITO is an organization that coordinates and enhances the development of Theatre of the Oppressed all over the world, according to the principles and objectives of this Declaration.

18. The ITO does so by connecting Theatre of the Oppressed practitioners into a global network, fostering exchange and methodical development; by facilitating training and multiplication of the existing techniques; by conceiving projects on a global scale; by the stimulation of the creation of local Centres for Theatre of the Oppressed (CTO’s); by promoting and creating conditions for the work of CTO’s and practitioners and by creating an international meeting point on the internet.

19. The ITO is of the same humanistic and democratic nature as its principles and objectives; it will incorporate any contributions from those who are working under this Declaration of Principles.

20. The ITO will assume that anyone using the various techniques of Theatre of the Oppressed subscribes to this Declaration of Principles.

I am definitely in line with these principles, and I'm interested in learning how to employ their techniques. In a quick browse, I couldn't find any HOWTO documents though. Although there is a book about the organization...

Professional brilliance

2007-09-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

This guy's act is so clean; I find it quite inspiring, particularly because I tend to be very sloppy with presentation, and I mean that in a very general way. You can check out the rest of Steven Ragatz's videos on his website here.

Podcasts, hearts, and yoga

2007-09-22T07:05:00.000-07:00

Aside: recently my little black mp3 player has become a figurative black box : the display is completely out, such that I can only navigate the menus by memory and trial-and-error. However, I'm thankfully still able to listen to things, albiet in a somewhat awkward fashion.

For a while, I've known about the Rabble Podcast Network, but haven't really tuned into it too much. But recently I returned to it, and started listening to several issues of one of the podcasts, Healing the Earth, which I really enjoy. The first episodes I tuned into were about Permaculture, which I find an absolutely fascinating philosophy, a great metaphor for many kind of relationships: ecological, economic, human, biological.

The second podcast I started to tune into was about "The Lost Language of Plants and the Perceptive Heart", where the interviewee points out things such as:

the heart is more than a pump, it is a perceptive organ (and if you a reductionist and just believe it's a bunch of chemical reactions, then you'd never see value in loving relationships, as he points out)
in order to do it's work on a purely physical level, the heart would have to be strong enough to shoot a 100 lbs. ball 1 mile in the air, which it obviously is not, so there must be something more subtle at play here
Western culture is the first in history to believe that the earth is nothing more than a series of chemical reations at work (which he refers to aptly as "scientism")
humans have reliably built phychic relationships with plants, hence the massive body of ethnobotanical knowledge (which has mostly been destroyed in the crusades of Christianity and Scientism): he states the example of a woman with no prior knowledge of a particular plant having a vision of a child in a manger, and as she later found out, that plant was traditionally used to cure diaper rash

Anyway, you can just tune into it to get all the details; I was listening to these podcast with the intention of retaining and sharing the information (which I rarely do), so I just thought I'd affirm that. This is because the topics presented are at the core of my focus in life right now, which is the intersection of language (science, politics) and spirituality. In yoga, there is the bodily mechanics, but there's also something more subtle, the prana as yogis call it, and I've been experiencing it in a quite intense way lately. In the circus art like juggling and baton play, it's the same, there are the moves, but then there's the mind's focus, which is something more than just mechanical. In the field of ideas I wish to present in my performance act, there is presented is the opportunity for personal, spiritual change, and a also social/political change (for a great picture of what the integration of spiritual and socio-political change might look like, take a look at The Network of Spiritual Progressives Core Vision; another example of this vision is spiritual activism as popularized by Starhawk).

Getting back to hearts, for a long time, I've felt like my heart has been very closed, that I've been quite avioding of human relationships on the whole, constantly withdrawing into my own mental space. I'm sort of on a mission to make the best use of this (dis)ability by producing art to share with all. However, I feel like it is only because my heart has begun to open up that I feel I can do this, because I care to share. I am very thankful to have left University, as it only further exacerbated my mental mania, and also to have the opportunity to do as much yoga as I please because of my employment with the Rama Lotus.

My parents introduced me to yoga a long time ago, (probably 10 years ago), and I had tried in subsequent years to make a regular practice of it, but never managed to keep the regularity beyond a couple of weeks, and never took a class until about a year ago. I'm very thankful to have been passed on the awareness of yoga from my parents, as I may have never ended up in the practice I have now.

Yoga has been a very large part of healing for me. For the first time in my life since I can remember, I feel comfortable in my own body. Even way back in grade school, I was constantly getting stiff necks and sore backs. As I mentioned before, yoga has also "opened up my heart" and made me a much more perceptive person; I feel like I'm learning to "read people" now.

All of this came to me in a particularly strong way on Friday, which happens to be given the mythological attribution of Venus (for more details on planetary attributions of the days of the week, check out this wikipedia entry) and of course, Venus is attributed to love, and thus the heart. I recently developed a loving relationship with Fridays when I woke up last Friday singing "It's Friday, I'm in love" by the Cure, which my friend Angel, who host karaoke at this dive bar down the road called Bonkers, often sings on Friday. I have not had an intimate relationship in many years, and so to some may think this is odd, but it is my believe that I have to feel the love before it will come to me.

Even more syncronistically, I started inventing a kids song centred on the heart while at work before I started (unintentionally) listening to the "...Perceptive Heart" podcast. The following is a rough draft of it, which I wrote most of after a marvelous day of 2 yoga classes, a great Kirtan (yogic chanting), and a night of dancing with great music and great peoples.

The Heart Song
Air and care, ya care and air
Each one's near the heart
Care and air, ya air and care
Of both I am a part
There's air in care and care in air
Let me demonstrate
Both a feature of the heart
And so they do relate
When I need some care
I start with a deep breath
I know that is the first step
To put dis-ease to death
I use the air to show my care
By singing you this song
And if you care as well
Then you can sing along
The heart it hears before the brain
So trust it when you feel
Then when we come together
The truth it will reveal
Our hearts they grow like leaves so green
With each breath may they grow
In between us all is green
Like the centre of a rain-bow

Feel free to let me know what you think; I'm still pretty novice with writing songs, and I hope find some opportunities to "workshop" them before they reach the "performance stage".

Well, now it's time go make the time to share the care...

Willing to really see...

2007-09-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

I have just applied for a 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat from November 28 - December 9th at the Quebec Vipassana Meditation Centre. It's something I've been wanting to do for a while now; I was considering doing it at the end of the summer, but I didn't get to the schedule until now and that's the next one I can take. I have several friends who have completed it and they all say it was an amazingly transformative experience for them. I haven't really secured this plan in my time space, namely, I haven't arranged to have this time off work, but I should be able to make it happen. Regardless, I'm pretty set on going some time soon.

Minu: R.I.P.

2007-09-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

Recently our cat, Minu, was picked up in the streets by some stranger and brought to the humane society, where after only 3 days of holding, she was euthanized. We know of this because my room mate recieved the info from the humane society when she put in a report. We had noticed that Minu was gone, of course, but did not respond in time. This was very upsetting to our household. Minu is often outside in our neighbourhood, so anyone in our area should have known that she has a home. And as mentioned by our neighbours, people should know a stray cat when they see one because they are scraggly and not very friendly to strangers. Argghhh, the nerve of this "vigalante pound" person ! If only the humane society would have given us their info (they refused), we could have set their head straight. So, lesson of this story: don't go picking up random cats in the streets and throwing them to the humane society !

Returning the focus

2007-09-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

Recently (this Monday) I decided to take a break from all intoxicants aside from green caffene (Yerba Mate being my prefered) for a month because it I felt like they were interfering with me achieving my goals and realizing my intentions. Particularly, there are a bunch of things I've kind of dropped the ball on, including (in no particular order):

spiritual practice (i.e. meditation, yoga)
organizing a community skills exchange network in the area where I live
creating community around Creative Commons, Free Software, and Free Culture, through invovement with ArtEngine and the creation of a CC Salon
my graphics scripting project and related artistic creations
getting my performance act together
finding opportunities to earn more money

That's not to say that I haven't put any work towards any of them, but I guess I've just lost a sense of administration. I've been driven by a passion to a certain degree, but the discipline has been lacking.

There's so many things in life that I can put energy into to make me feel good that, really, I should have no problem leading a more "pure" life. I've already notice since the beginning of the week that I have been getting more out of these things. For example, the last two yoga classes I have taken have given me an incredible buzz; I've even been getting these fantastic visuals when I close my eyes. Also, my circus arts practice have been much more focused as well.

A late follow-up to the SPP protest

2007-09-05T05:07:00.000-07:00

Even though I care a lot about the situation of this planet, I tend to stray from politics because I find it hard to understand; history and geography were always weakpoints for me in school. However, because I realize that there are great threats to public interest at play currently, I try to keep aware of the broader political spectrum. I felt embarassed that the protest against the SPP kind of snuck up on me and I didn't make a comitment to attend it until the last minute. When I was walking toward the hill, I had this frightening but noble sensation that I was marching to war, that I was in a war against war, not one of physical violence, but a war of the mind, of the psyche. Maybe my glorification was a bit out of line; after all, it's the organizers like those in the Council of Canadians who are really on the frontlines of this battle.

I was considering putting on clown face for the protest, as I was attending it with my roley poles turning, but I didn't have time, so instead I decided to put on "anti-war paint", streaks of black paint under my eyes and such. At one point in the protest, I even painted other people's faces. It felt fun to add a little novelty to the ritual defiance. Speaking of novelty, my friend made a sign that said "Portobello mushrooms, not Montebello backrooms !", and his picture made the Ottawa Citizen the next day.

For anyone who's unaware of the impending threats to democracy and public interest that the SPP poses, here's a video of Maude Barlowe describing why we should challenge it:

Imagine Ottawa: callout for presentations

2007-08-26T20:12:00.000-07:00

Imagine Ottawa has put a callout for workshops and presentations for their forum. Since I saw the poster last week, I thought, "I should try and do something.... but what ?" And then as I looked at it just now, I thought, hmm, maybe I should put in a proposal for a presentation about making block parties. I'm still undecided, leaning a bit towards going for it, but just thought I'd let people know about the opportunity now.

Can one own Yoga ?

2007-08-26T18:04:00.001-07:00

Two things I'm interested in are Yoga and Intellectual Property issues. They seem rather disparate, but I've had a feeling there was an interesting intersection for a while now. Well, as it turns out, I was right, and my suspicions were confirmed after reading Source-ing Yoga: Implications for the Commons on the iCommons web page. I guess when it comes to the creation of particular schools of yoga, I could understand why trademarks would be purchased and the practice of particular schools regulated by an organization that certifies one's authority on the discipline. It helps to establish a relationship of trust between student and teacher. I feel that we need a third-party for this trust these days mostly because we don't really live in communities anymore so we don't know who to believe unless there's some kind of institution involved. The organics movement also relies on third-parties to establish trust between grower and consumer, but some farms have circumvented this need by setting up CSAs so that the trust is fostered through a personal connection with the farmer and a hands-on awareness of the farm. I wonder if there's an analog in the "yoga movement".

Anyway, what brought me here was to state that I think it is unjust to declare that some sequencing of yoga postures can be owned. Yoga has been around for a loooong time, which means that it should be in the public domain by now, right ? But now we have these hustlin' yogis driving their Mercedes Benz like they wuz Osho trying to capitalize on the comodification of yoga, and I think that's just whack.

On this issue, I also find myself trying to negotiate my feelings that on one hand sacred wisdom should have "gatekeepers" and on the other hand we'd all be much better off if we shared our knowledge. Concerning the former, I feel that there really is a loss of gatekeepers in our society, and it concerns me because it means that those who want to acquire spiritual power can do it regardless of their intention. I sense the teachings get watered down in the process of making them more exoteric as well. And of course, often the spiritual "inner circles" of our society are determined by class (as are the political), which is not the greatest metric for deeming a student to be worthy of this power if you ask me. I still hope that people will continue to publish media on yoga online; maybe I'll go check out what's there already ...

Freedom of Design, Design of Freedom

2007-08-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

Today I feel compeled to write about one of my greatest aspirations, which is to build an online community centred around Free graphic design scripting (as in, writing computer programs). Currently I manage a piece of Free Software called pLAySVG, which allows me to write computer programs that generate vector graphics images. Currently it is nothing more than a bag of code made out of the functions I have invented to allow me to do particular things with graphics scripting. So, as for my own needs as a graphics scripter, I have most of what I need covered (aside from some things like : making a path that is a circular or eliptical ark i.e. a circle from 10-230 degrees).

However, I feel as though others are not really benefiting from the Freedom of my work (software published under GPL, images licensed under Creative Commons), and that me and/or my project is not benefiting from the interest of others. I haven't heard of anyone who has used my software, never mind someone who wants to contribute to it. But then I think to myself, if I encountered my software on the web for the first time, would I try it out? Maybe... currently the release is not up-to-date, so I'd have to download it though SVN... and if you don't know what that is, you've sorta proved my point, it's not really accessible to the average Joe. I do realize that to a certain degree, only geeks would use it anyway because its a programing library (a program used in programming). However, my overarching goal for the project is to make something that would enable people to learn about geometry and programing in a creative manner. In order for me to make something that enables user to become developers.... well, I have a long way to go.

First of all, my libraries are in no way robust, they have not been thoroughly tested, and they are reliant on some other libraries that have gone defunct (PyXML). Secondly, and I would say more importantly, there is absolutely no user documentation for them. Lastly, I haven't really gone out of my way to promote pLAySVG, partly due to the challenges aforementioned, so really, I'm in no way surprised that this little project has not generated much attention.

However, my geometric art has gotten a little bit of positive light recently, a guy in a local band wants to use some for an album cover, and the deviantart community has given me some thumbs-up. I'm really not all that skilled when it comes to graphic design yet, I just have some powerful tools that allow me to do some neat conceptual things. I would love to see what someone with some programming experience and a keen eye to design could do.

Which is why I have decided to set a goal for myself to build an online community around graphics scripting. It wasn't until I saw Jon Phillips' iSummit Presentation Slides on Building Online Communities
that I thought of it in these words. I felt pretty honoured when Jon friended me on Facebook, because I've decided he's my new... hero ? ... well, I never liked that word, I'm not so into idolatry ... let's just say I aspire to his excellence in this field (check out his website to see what I mean).

The kind of online community he has built at http://www.openclipart.org is very similar to a component of what would be the "pLAySVG community": a ccHost site that would allow users to publish SVG files (and the scripts that made them) under any CC license (OpenClipart is all public domain). It would serve as a remix community for graphic designers. Frankly, I think many artforms could use a ccMixter-like site, video has some already, but I've never heard a ccHost site for something like poetry and song.... I digress.

Warning: geekery inside
More central to the pLAySVG community is the software product itself. I have been dragging my heals on changing PyXML functionality to lxml, which shouldn't be to tricky. I found out about this mess because the Inkscape developer who was central to building a python extensions architecture went throught the same ordeal of having to change over.

I have used my software to build extensions and I would like other to be able to as well, so it's important I stay in sync with Inkscape. I would like to help make the functionality available to Inkscape extensions developers be more centralized because I find that there's some useful stuff in extensions that I would like pLAySVG programmers and other extensions developers to be able to use more readily. From what I understand, the Inkscape developers community also needs a repository for extensions so that people who want to develop extensions can simply submit them to a website. That way not all extensions have to be included with the releases of Inscape... but that's a bit of a different story.

Another thing that's going on with Inkscape is that they're centralizing all of their geometric functionality inot a separate library called lib2Geom. Because there are some really smart people doing some really difficult things for this project, I would like to just use this functionality rather than my own geometric libraries. Already the developers are working on python bindings for it (the library is written in C++, which I'm not so skilled with), so it seems managable.

In the end, I think the best possible way to describe this project would be to say that it could become something like a cross-platform version of NodeBox that could be distributed as a part of Inkscape... I'm starting to feel a little too bright and warm, like my wings are going to fall off or something... I better go make some concrete plans, like: make time to align with people/organizations with similar intentions, and more importantly, find a sense of consistency with my application to this project (aside from my own play with pLAySVG). I find it's rather challenging when it's all coming from my own volition sometimes, which is why I want to partner up and/or get some funding for the project (it really bring a new level of comitment to it) but first I think I need to prove myself to be worthy of that.

Enemies of Reason ?

2007-08-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I suffered through Richard Dawkin's program The Enemies of Reason, and found myself it a fit of fury. So I decided to write a personal rebuttal to the arguement he makes in this program in a somewhat ranty fashion.

Admitedly, I am have been quite hesitant to write anything about my personal opinions on spirituality, especially since anyone who is my Facebook friend is going to see this in my notes, but I think that's only going to foster a fear of these kinds of beliefs, and so it's time to crack that shell. And I figure, I've already told people just yesterday that I work with the I Ching, and if I'm actually going to make my philosophical beliefs a part of my public performance, then I better get used the challenge of people projecting "New-Aged flake" onto me.

In the beginning, Dawkins names off the gifts of science and reason, one of them being antibiotics, which are the one of the harshest kind of medicine for your body. But garlic has been known to be a effective antibiotic and antiviral healing agent long before science "proved" it to be; it was not a "personal feeling" that moved people to use it as such, but rather personal experience: it simply worked. Also an ancient practice that did not grow out of modern science, Traditional Chinese Medicine has been proven to be just as effective as modern medicine at treating certain kinds of illness (I read this in The Web That Has no weaver). These are just a couple tidbits I know of, but there is a huge slew of scientific evidence for the validity of ancient natural healing techniques which could easily take many volumes to summarize.

The example psychics chosen by Dawkins in this program are the hokeyest unbelievable people you could imagine. This reminds me that there is a lot of New-Aged bunk out there pushed by profiteers who play on others' insecurities and trauma. But if what could be dubbed "psychic technologies" have no scientific grounding, it makes me wonder why the CIA would fund research on things like Remote Viewing and other psychic phenomena for decades.

When it comes to astrology, we know that the moon cycle affects many things in our physical existence, from the tides, to plant's biological functions, to the women's menstrual cycles, so why would we assume that larger bodies in our solar system could not affect our physical and thus mental state. Unfortunately the astrologer he interviewed had no rational explanation for it. I do like the point that Dawkins makes in commenting that Astrology is not an evolving science, and has done nothing to come into concord with our scientific knowledge of the cosmos.

Yes, people will tend to believe broad statements that you give them in horoscopes, and so people are conciously subjecting themselves to a certain influence when they read their horoscopes. But I suppose the point in astrology is to conduct your mind towards those energies that are present so as to go with the cosmic flow. I wonder if Dawkings celebrates the solistices and equinoxes, which tends to be a ritual for pagans, "those bastian stuperstitious types" **fist shaking**. After all, those are points in our calendar that are scientifically chosen.

To be honest, I don't even check my horoscope regularly, nevermind keep up to date on the ephemerus, but I think there is something important about mentally taking note of different temporal cycles. Nevermind gazing up at the stars, that's not really a time machine at all. A calendar is a time machine, it has the ability to allow us to communicate with our future and past selves in a very rational way: our calendar is how we plot our our intentions for our futures, and look back at our former deeds cronologically.

As for the idea of associating symbolics to different time periods, well, I think that running any balanced set of symbolics through ones mind at any rate is a useful idea. For example, I think it's a useful exercise to for 12 days in a row to medidate on each one of the astrological symbols. Why ? Because the astrological symbols are a metaphorical language for our different types of behaviour, and to be able to understand that language gives us the ability to better understand human reationships and to have a degree of control of our own psychologies. By running the cycle in our mind, it's like running a course of learning in imagination.

As for the ability of the human mind's intention to affect the physical world, I drect you attention to the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, which has proven by many studies over a 27-year period that the human mind and its intentions can affect the results of supposedly random mechanical output. I first saw these kind of studies on David Suzuki's The Nature of Things, and it really changed my attitude towards these types of things because I was a very skeptical and scientific person at the time. Another project hosted by Princeton is the Global Conciousness Project, it's homepage reads:

Our purpose is to examine subtle correlations that reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. We have learned that when millions of us share intentions and emotions the GCP/EGG network shows correlations. We can interpret this as evidence for participation in a growing global consciousness. It suggests we have the capability and responsibility for conscious evolution. We make the world we live in, and we can create a Planetary Smile.

What Dawkins calls a false positive I call a ritual, and rituals are designed to strengthen one's intentions. One example of how rituals have been scientifically proven to strengthen one's intentions: I know there are studies that have proven that having a group of strangers pray for and individual in a hospital significantly improves their healing process.

Some call intentional healing "the placebo affect" when people believe that they are going to get better, they do. I think there is a rational explanation for this type of healing, some if it involves lowered levels of stress, some of it involves the human's ability to direct the flow of electromagnetic energy (as in reiki), and I'm sure a lot of it modern science can't yet explain. But does that make it mere superstition ? I think not, and I'm someone who is continuing to study the practical application of what Dawkins might call superstitious or irriational belief. It really involves cutting through a lot of BS, but I'd rather do this than become a rational dogmatist like him.

My ultimate goal in spiritual practice is not escape from the world that I have become so disgusted with in so many ways, it is to give myself a sense of empowerment so that I may work to transform our social and environmental illness. I often feel a tensions between "activists", those who believe that global tansformation will come from social organizing and political re-empowerment, and "hippies", who believe that global trasnformation will come from spiritual re-empowerment, and I feel as though I am interested in playing in both spheres. I think that each form of power is valid and that their interplay is crucial in the effectivness of making our society more sustainable.

Mime Full of Hot Air

2007-08-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

I love this guy's skits, he was about the only mime with a good selection of videos online that I could find. You can check out the rest of Mimo Chispa's videos out too. I may just have to borrow this one ... hmmm, I wonder if he'd mind ... of course, I'd put my own little spin on it too.

Lumiere 2007 illumination and inspiration

2007-08-16T07:05:00.000-07:00

Well, last weekend I had the opportunity to participant in the Lumiere Festival, which is probably the most majestic event I have ever seen in Ottawa. As I described earlier in my blog, I made a series of lanterns for the festival based on the Platonic Solids and the Classical Elements. I also appeared as my performance character Mizster Cubeball, minus the makeup (Mizster Cubeball doesn't like to show his face unless he is explicitly invited to go somewhere).

So, after setting up my lanterns, I joined the rallying players in the streets to begin the parade march. At first, I was kind of playing on the side lines during the parade since I wasn't really invited to march in the parade. But then I told myself, what the heck, there's a marching Samba band and I have batons, so it's time to play drum major, so I got right up in front of Samba Ottawa and did my marching thing. One of my more long-term goals as a performer is to lead a circus marching band, so that was a bit of a glory moment for me, although I didn't "have the balls" to stay up there the whole time, considering the situation.

After that, I got to see a couple of great performances. There was a really cute Indonesian shadow pupet show. I also met up for a second time with Christiane Claude the mime, who I had spoken with earlier, and helped her rouse a crowd for her show. The performance was a thematic re-enactment of the birth-death-rebirth cycle, and I found it inspiring.

An aside about miming: when doing peformance in the streets during Bluesfest, someone asked me if I was a mime once, and I had never considered that I kind of look like a mime with my chekery shirts and black and white facepaint. So, I ended up improvising getting stuck in a box, eventually turning the sides inside out to form a box outside of me. I don't think I could be a traditional mime because I really like to make sound, but I'm considering encorporating elements of mime into my act, maybe taking a different spin and becoming a "rhyming mime" of sorts. "Hey ! Somebody help me out of this box ! It's got no door nor locks. Until someone helps me out, I'm going to scream and shout."

One last thing I would like to note is the Earthrise performance group, who were helping to raise awareness about the delecate weave of the web of life. They had this really neat "earth drum" which consited of a very wide short cylinder, having a transparent top, and a bottom with an earth painted on it and mung beans inside, such that when you tilted it side to side, it made the sound of the ocean. The also had a beautiful giant turtle sculpture with the world on it's back. I helped to clean up the earth by pulling out my "head cleaner" (a feather duster) and giving it's back a sweep. The turtle has become an important symbol to me because of it's connection with the Lo Shu Square, which formed the basis for the trigrams of the I Ching.

Anyway, after I saw those performances, I did a lot of wandering around and had a little bit of magical adventure. I got blasted by magic ball of light by the mage and sprinkled with magic farie dust when I encountered the Mini Circque duo. I walked the glowing labrynth and shined my light in the middle. And in all of my wanderings, I got to do lots of play with my roley poles.

To be completely honest, I found myself quite disoriented amongst it all. After the festival was over, I discovered there were a bunch of performers that I would have really liked to see (a full list is on the website), but I had no way of knowing what was going on. Two things that I wished I would not have missed for the sake of inspiration were the fortune teller, because I am interested in doing I Ching divinations as part of my act, and secondly, there was a world-class magician, Michael Bourada, and I am also learning to do magic tricks (luckily I got invited to a magic circle by another magician I met). Oh, that reminds me, if you're interested in giving me an opportunity to practice either form of magic, let me know, and I'll give you a show.

So, as much as I loved the festival, my biggest constructive criticism of it is that there was no orientation to it. I realize that this bias is partly due to the fact that I tend to get lost. Still, I think I would like to help bring some more order to the festival for next year, because I'm sure there's others like me out there. I had some ideas on how to help conduct the masses (if they so chose)

have a board with a map and schedule of performances
after the parade, host a guided tour of the grounds, where the lantern makers and performers could give an introduction to their presence and the festival
create "performances circuits", whereby each performance could end by suggesting a next performance for the audience to attend (might want several circuits, giving the audience several choices for direction)

I am also intersted in getting sponsored to build a larger version of the "Platonic Elements Light-Mobil" , and possibly give some sort of performance and/or do I Ching divinations. And maybe next year, I can be the official drum major of the parade. Yep, it's really my kind of celebration !

Buskerfest inspiration

2007-08-03T08:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I went out to the Buskersfest and saw some amazing acts, most notably The Flying Ducthmen; with 7-ball juggling and a 12-foot unicycle ride, my mind was thoroughly blown. Unfortunately I made plans to travel home this weekend so that's about all I will see, but at least there's a list of performers so I can check out their website. After seeing a handful of street performance acts, I'm starting to envision how I can fit my performance character Mizster Cubeball into this kind of venue. "Learn from the pros" they say ...

Alien induction

2007-08-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

So, for the past couple of weeks I've kind of lost touch with humanity and with my body, caught up in pursuits of the mind. Because of this, I've been feeling a little alien ... so it's only logical that I would be attracted to crop circles. My attention was drawn to them when I saw a poster for a movie about them, which I did not attend, but which caught my eye because of the neat geometric design. So for artistic inspiration I did some research on crop circles, at first just looking at images of them. Then I recalled that about 6 years ago saw a TV show where the "secret" of the crop circles was revealed; all along it had been a group called The Circle Makers who had been making the crop circles with some wood boards and some string. So I visited their web site for the first time recently and found some interesting stories and philosophical musings. I also discovered that they have published a book on their experiences in circle-making, which includes a guide on how to make them yourself. I really appreciate how they are sharing their artform with others. I'm not sure if I'd ever want to make crop circles out of respect for the farmers and their riches; they have it bad enough already. However, I am interested in plotting their images digitally and I'm sure I could gain a lot of inspiration from their publication; here's a little sample of some designs I have reproduced already using a combination of my pLAySVG libraries and Inkscape:

I'm interested in eventually turning this running series of crop circle images into another "space mobil" called "The Mobility of Serial Reversibility", this time the images printed on either side of a circle, where the black and white fills are reversed on the other side as in the Hypnotic Reversibles. The first "space-mobil" I have created is a mobil of the Platonic Solids polyhedra designs I have created. This piece, entitled "aLaMental Mobility" I'm making into lanterns that will be featured at the Lumiere festival; here's the faces with their corresponding 3D shapes:

Spirit - Dodecahedron

Fire - Tetrahedron

Air - Octahedron

Earth - Cube

Water - Icosahedron

So, from LaLa Land, to MaMa Land, I'm learning to make the ideal real. Now to get back to what's in between, the HuMin Land...

Hypnotic reversibles

2007-07-15T17:54:00.000-07:00

Recently I put together a compilation of images that I created for my performance act. Each pair of similar images is placed on either side of a piece of plastic cardboard. The idea is that "on the reverse is the reverse". Here is the image, and the source file is available on the deviantart page for this image.

Because people in keep telling me that my imagery is "hypnotic", I've been considering learning hypnosis. It seems to be a proven method for personal actualization, and in the last couple of years I've been having a challenging time following through with my intentions, so I think it would help me in my work towards self-actualization as well as make a fun addition to my circus act. A friend of mine took a course online, and I'm trying to get ahold of him to learn more about it.

Yoga co-op

2007-07-14T06:04:00.000-07:00

Today I walked a block to the Plant Bath, where I was supposed to attend the following event:

However, because Marcos' flight had been canceled the event has been delayed until tomorrow at the same time. I'm glad I'm available at this time as well, because I'm interested in both becoming a yoga instructor and working for and/or helping to set up a co-operative workplace. I'm hoping Marcos' visit will plant a seed that will grow here in Ottawa.

Free shows

2007-07-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw both Spearhead and Manu Chau at Bluesfest. I didn't pay to get in; instead I just hung outside the gates. It sure felt ironic when Spearhead was singing "give the corporations some complications", and when Manu Chau was singing about the "casa de Babylon" I was thinking "Yeah folks, you're in in !" Particularly, I have some qualms with Cisco Systems because they are fueling the internet censorship in China... but really they're just playing by the rules of the corporation, and the profit game is a dirty one.

I got a pretty good view of the stage on both occasions, but I wished that I had brought some friends along to dance with me. I was supposed to do some busking with my friend Brad but he called 5 minutes after I had left to say he wouldn't be there, which I had guessed because it was pretty overcast and drums don't take well to rain. After the show was over, I considered doing some solo busking, but from the get-go I wasn't really in the mood, and I really need some good beats for what I have jokingly dubbed "pole dancing" (playing with my "roley poles", or batons). As well, I didn't put my clown face on for fear of rain. However, I feel the need to do some solo busking to get over my insecurities and learn how to engage the crowd in a "Free X-change".

The night before last I jammed with Brad and Dennis, two of the most spirited drummer/singers I have ever met, and we together got the crowd riled up. I kind of feel like the the cheer leader of the group, there encouraging everyone to "stick around" and dance.

Lately I've been kind of fascinated by the mode of exchange that is busking. The artist offers a Free (as in "freedom") show; they are free to give (or to not give) to whomever they please. As well, the audience is not obliged to pay anything for this service, they are Free to catch a free (as in "gratis") show if they please, but they are also free to give if they feel like it. And in between there is this dance of influence. The artist may attempt to solicit donations by either appealing to people's generosity, or they might try to guilt-tripping those who are getting a free show (I'm not really into the latter mention, let them give out of love and not fear I say). And then the audience may pump up the artist, calling for an encore or a more extreme trick. As well, the audience can participate with the show, maybe they dance to the music, or are asked to participate in a magic trick. All of this really appeals to me as an advocate of what has been termed "Free Culture", which more refers to the Free sharing of information on the internet (i.e. Creative Commons artistic works, Free Software), but that is kind of mirrored in the world of street peformance.

Mixed Media

2007-07-02T08:39:00.000-07:00

Well, last week while I was headding to juggling club, I stumbled across Morgan of the Ottawa Community Sidewalk Chalk Network laying down some chalk as an ad for a new event called Mixed Media, and I appeared at it after going all the way out to Jaques Cartier Park in Hull with no success finding the jugglers. The event had lots going on: Stefan Thompson was laying some paint on canvas (and cardboard), Morgan was shooting old Thomas Ediston video footage of wild stunts, and DJ Mnemetic was spinning some good hip-hop. So, I took a look for some promo on the net with no success so I thought I'd blog this one, especially because the crowd was a bit thin considering how good the entertainment was. So...

Mixed Media
a weekly multimedia event
Wednesdays 7-11pm
@ the Mercury Lounge
Music, painting, and a special artistic guest every week

This week the event will feature the Decypher Cru . I'll be there.

Fun weekend conducted

2007-06-26T07:11:00.001-07:00

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend the House of Paint, a fantastic free event which incorporates all of the elements of Hip-hop: DJing, MCing, Breakdancing, and Graf Writing. I brought my staff, juggling clubs, and some other toys to play with. When I got there, there was a huge crowd of people around the breakdance cypher, so I got up on a chair so I could see, and realized that I could juggle up there at the same time while watching the dancers. Sometimes I'm concerned that people think that I'm juggling just to show off, but really its for my own pleasure that I do it. And if other people get off on it, well that's great too. Later on Lochness of the Decypher Cru approached me and told me that it made her happy to see me juggling because it made her feel like she was there for the fun and not for the show. That gave me a nice lift :)

On Sunday I also had an opportunity to jam in the park with a very experienced staff spinner, The Pheonix (check out some sample videos on Google Video too). While I was passing by the market square, he caught my attention and after chatting with him for a bit, I found out that he was a fire spinner and his specialty was staff manipulation. My wishes were answered ! For a while I have been hoping to meet someone with more experience than me in the ways of staff play. And best of all The Pheonix has now moved to Ottawa.

At Major's Hill Park I picked up pass juggling with pins as well as learned a couple of new tricks for the sticks with The Pheonix. He at one point refered to my half-broomstick sized staff as a baton, and it never occured to me that it was somewhat like that. I always thought of a baton as a really thin stick that was just thrown in the air a lot, but I had never seen anything impressive done with them. So, last night I decided to do some research on "baton twirling" rather than "staff spinning" which is what I had been looking for with little successs, and I found a very well-developed culture around this. For example, here's a video from UK's Got Talent of Craig, a baton twirler.

So, I got up to some more research last night while I was working on my clowning act and found out that baton twirling culture came out of marching bands where drum majors and majorettes played the role of keeping a beat and conducting the band with their batons or maces (notice how a conductor's wand is also called a baton). Marching bands came out of the military, where they were used to keep the rhythm for marching troops. But then the bands became less useful in actual combat for whatever reason, so the marching band became more ceremonial than anything else.

So, a lot of this object manipulation (baton, mace, rifle) stuff has some strong roots in military, and I'm pretty opposed to the military-industrial complex . As well, marching bands are popular at football games, and I'm not to into that form of combat either. So, I guess what I'm working to do is make staff/baton manipulation into something that is more in the style of the circus rather than the militant marching or gymnastic competition that I have seen with baton twirling thus far. Ok, now to stick to it ! Hmm, maybe I should call my sticks "poles" to distinguish them from the tradition of baton-twirling. Roley-poley !

On the Fringe

2007-06-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

I just got back from my first volunteer shift at the Ottawa Fringe Festival. I got to see two free shows, and I didn't even have to use up the free ticket I obtained for the shift, as they were shows that were open admitance to volunteers. The Rap Canterbury Tales was a spoken word solo show that was a modernized version of Chaucer's A Canterbury Tale, where the stories are told by rappers on a tour vehicle rather than.... uh, I don't know the original verion, to be honest. I like how this show presented some deep thematics in a way that was accessible to the general public. Next I saw Burden of Proof, which was about a nervous, self-depricating, sexually-frustrated clown. The act caught my eye because not only am I an aspiring clown, I also have a ukulele just like this clown did. As much as this act did make me laugh it also made me want to cry too. The clown was conciously asking for love in her life, yet every chance she got, she sqeamishly evaded intimacy.... until the end ... but I won't spoil it for you.

Good Food Box

2007-06-08T07:04:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I signed up for our household's first Good Food Box. I hear it is a good deal, and that the produce comes from local farmers. You can sign up for a Good Food Box in Ottawa at the Centretown Community Health Centre on Cooper just West of Bank. I believe there is only 1 day per month that you can actually sign up for it, and I just happened to pop in on just the right date. I'm still feeling a disapointed that I wasn't able to get our household a CSA share. The major impeding factor was the accessibility of pickups. Oh well, this Good Food box is a good start on supporting local food initiatives, and as well, we live pretty close to the Parkdale market. Yay, it's growing season !

Block Party on Elm St.

2007-05-25T06:16:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned earlier in my blog, I have been working with some people in my area of town to organize a block party. Well to give you the update, we are definitely having this block party. It will be on June 10th 4-9pm, rain or shine. Here's the poster we have created for it, hosted by Tracey's blog entry about the party:

We are welcoming participants to come out and to get involved. If you have a skill or talent you'd like to share with us, please let me know. Particularly, we need:

people to bring food for the BBQs and dishes to serve (please list all ingredients if you are going to make a dish)
participants for the circus play zone: jugglers, poi weavers, hula hoopers, staff spinners, dancers, clowns and jesters of many sorts
musicians and DJs for our sound system
people to help make the kids crafting zone fun
children to share their talents: we will have a talent show for the young ones
community builders: those who want to exchange information on how we can grow our local community

We are focusing our promotional efforts on the people who live in the area, but you're welcome to come even if you don't live close to Elm St. Hope to see you there !

Update

2007-05-24T07:53:00.001-07:00

So, to follow up on my last post, I have kept up doing yoga every day, but I ended up modifying my schedule. I find that any hot yoga classes in the morning do not jive with me so well. Surprisingly, I did manage to make the 6:30 am class on Tuesday, which was one of the most satisfying classes I've had yet. It included some freestyle dancing of sorts, which was really a great release.

Last night I attended the Spring Action Juggling club once again, and was pleased to have my friend Josh join me. He is a fantastic hula-hooper and learned many tricks just over the course of last summer. Again I saw Dr. Kaboom and found out that he had not recieved my e-mail concerning becomming a part of his shows; I was glad to find this out because I felt uncomfortable about him not having responded to my interest. I also found someone I can buy fire wick off of, so soon I will be doing fire shows again, YAY ! To be honest, I don't find fire spinning any more fun than without fire, but the crowd gets a kick out of it and it also drives me to have a planned routine (wheras I mostly just freestyle and haven't put a lot of energy into "choreographing" the moves).

On Tuesday I attended a Buddhist meditation at the Shambala Centre for the first time. It lasted 45 minutes, which didn't seem as long as I anticipated, but my mind was thrashing around quite a bit. I would like to continue practicing there; the space is very warm and welcoming, and it is very close to where I live. After the meditation there was a presentation about the Street Retreat that the Shambala Centre hosted (a document about this here). The retreat gave the participants a strong sense of appreciation for what they have, as well as helped to break down the social barries between homeless people and themselves. In the presentation I asked the question (paraphrased): "What are your opinions on our current solutions to poverty and homelessness ? Do they address the root causes of poverty and homelessness ? If not, did you gain any insights on how to heal these social illnesses on your retreat? " because I think it is important to address the political as well as spiritual aspects of poverty. I didn't get very much feedback on that though...

Yoga mania

2007-05-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

Last night I was feeling rather strong-willed and I got thinking about how I would like to take my yoga practice to the next level. As it is, I only go maybe 3 times a weeek, and I'm at the Rama Lotus Yoga studio almost every weekday for my work. So, I though to myself: I should do a bit of a "yoga marathon" next week where I attempt to fit as much yoga and other healing activities into my week as possible. AND, I should start going to different classes with different teachers so I can appreciate all the variety the centre has to offer. So, this is my schedule:

Monday
9:30 -11:00am - Bikram yoga
3:30-5:30 - Circus arts practice in Primrose Park close to where I live

Tuesday
6:30 - 7:45am - Kundalini yoga (the biggest challenge, potentially the biggest reward)
7:00-9:00pm - Buddhist meditation at the Shambala Centre and afterwards, a presentation about "Street Retreat" where participants chose to live out on the streets for a week to see what street life was like

Wednesday
9:30-11:00am - Bikram yoga
7:00-9:00pm - Spring Action Juggling Club (the circus arts are a kind of yoga/meditation to me)

Thursday
9:30-11:00am - Power yoga
7:00-7:45pm - Shambala Centre meditation

Friday
9:30-11:00am - Hot yoga
5:40-7:15pm - Kundalina yoga

Saturday
9:00-4:30 - 5 elements palm Qi Gong workshop

Sunday
9:00-4:30 - 5 elements palm Qi Gong workshop
6:00-7:30 - Yin yoga

Considering that I'm a person who finds it quite difficult to consistently plan out my day the night before it, this at frist seems like an impossible task. But when I think about it, the more you plan in advance, the more time you have to psych yourself up and imagine yourself fulfilling your intentions. And now that I've not only written it down, but also shared it with the whole world, it far more likely to be fulfilled.

I have extremely low living expenses and I have managed to put off payment of my student loan through the Interest Relief Program (they keep it a secret, but you should know about it), which is why I will be able to sustain myself on part time work for the summer. I would like to take this opportunity to develop my skills and interests so I can get working on something that I really love. Particularly, I need to

work out an act for my performance character Mizster Cubeball because I have been tentatively accepted into Dr. Kaboom's circus family.
shape up my software project, pLAySVG, into a well-polished learning resource, as well as expand my portfolio of art made from the software
find opportunities to work with younger people and elder people

Another goal I have set for myself is to figure out a way to pay for the Hatha Yoga teacher training at the Rama Lotus that is coming up this November, so balancing all of this mostly unpaid work with things that will earn me money is a challenge.

And right about now I'm feeling a bit too self-involved .... if you would like to join me on my yoga marathon or just hang out and socialize, feel free to let me know.

Doing a jig for my gig

2007-05-18T07:51:00.001-07:00

I'm pretty happy right now because I just got a paid gig to facilitate staff-spinning and do performance. Here's the details on the event:

Book Bash 2007
at the Devonshire Community Public School
100 Breezehill Avenue (between Gladstone and Somerset)
Friday June 1st, 2007
4:00-7:00 pm
AND
Saturday June 2nd, 2007
9:00am - 1:00pm
Everyone welcome !

With a very large selection of books at $1 each, a clown doing balloons, a facepainter, baked goods, and a BBQ, it should be a good time. I will be there to facilitate staff-spinning and hopefully my one of my hula-hooping friends will be there to round things out :-P Feel free to spread the word.

Internet failures

2007-05-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

Well, for what seems like a long time now we at the Green Penguin House had lost our internet service. Cyberus had been acquired by some other company and had some trouble keeping our service up; we lost conenction for something like 5 days. After the second day, we decided to swith our ISP to NCF ; hooray for non-profit internet ! Now that's more like something the Green Penguin House can jive with.

Getting the day moving

2007-04-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

This morning before I did anything else, I went for a brief walk around the block even though it was raining out and I couldn't find my umbrella because it was something I planned last night. It occured to me to be a good idea a week ago, and then Philip Li who gave the Qi Gong workshop gave it as a suggestion to us, so I figured it was meant to be. It felt really nice. I'd like to make this a part of my daily routine.

Qi Gong, a great way to start the day

2007-04-28T13:44:00.000-07:00

This morning, I managed to wake up early and go to a Qi Gong workshop hosted by LAMAS Qi Gong Canada that started at 8:30am. I had been looking forward to another free session with Philip Lai after experiencing his teachings at the Ottawa Writers Festival on Earth Day. His instruction is very charismatic, and he's more interested in spreading the teachings than making money, which I really appreciate.

I like Qi Gong because the moves are very simple and this allows me to more easily focus on the breath. I experience the flow of chi much more with this than in Tai Chi, which I have done just a bit of from a book and by a friend's instruction. Memorizing the moves in Tai Chi is quite challenging for me, and my mind gets caught up in this struggle.

LAMAS Qi Gong is hosting a 2 day intensive workshop that I would like to attend, but right now I'm not working enough to have money for much more than my basic expenses. I told Master Lai this, and he told me to call a week before the workshop starts for the possibility of a reduced rate. I thought this was pretty generous considering that the workshop, a total of 15 hours, was only $200 to begin with.

Quote of the day

2007-04-26T06:30:00.000-07:00

I thought of this one while cleaning, in a similar vein to grooks :

If you make a boo-boo
Remember, love what you doo-doo,
Because one thing that nurtures growth is....
POO-POO

Spring Action Juggling club

2007-04-26T06:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended the Spring Action Juggling Club for the very first time. There were 4 olympic trampolines ocupying one half of the gym, and another half-gym for the jugglers. I was quite pleased to come across the opportunity when talking to some jugglers I met at the Earth Day rally. There I met the experienced performance duo The Cowguys among other great jugglers. There were 4 unicyclists there, and one even rode a Giraffe Unicycle. I love being around people who are much better than I at something I aspire to excel in. I left the space feeling very excited.

Me at DemoCamp

2007-04-24T07:59:00.000-07:00

I just made a daunting comitment: I signed up to be a presenter at Ottawa DemoCamp . I will be showing off my pLAySVG libraries and their resulting artistic generations there. I would like to thank my excellent room mate Mark Tovey for the tip and the encouragement to go present. Well, now I have some great motivation to make my code more presentable. Ikes, I have no user documentation for it ! Well, at least my code is somewhat documented ...

Rockin' a block party

2007-04-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

Today I'm going to a meeting that I called to discuss the possibility of a block party in my area of town (I live north of Preston at Sommerset). If you or anyone you know is interested in getting involved in such an event, please contact me.

I've only attended one block party before, and I really liked the atmosphere. We just moved into this area in September, and already we have a sense of neighbourlyness that I would really like to encourage. My vision for a block party includes

DJs and/or bands playing music and people dancing to it
circus performers juggling, spinning poi and staff, hoola-hooping, and encouraging participation
face painting, crafts, and games for young ones
locals meeting their neighbours so that they feel safer and more friendly, which encourages...
people finding ways to meet their needs in a smaller geographic radius (i.e. you can just borrow my lawn mower instead of buying a new one OR you need someone to look after Jonny while you're at your Neighbourhood Watch meeting and my friend is interested in babysitting)

I hope many will share in the vision with me.

Happy Earth Day

2007-04-22T05:46:00.000-07:00

Happy Earth Day everyone ! My plans for today consist of going to the Earth Day Rally , possibly going to the talk at the writers festival talk Empowering Youth To Change The World afterwards. As well, in the evening there is a screening of the movie You Never Bike Alone about Critical Mass which I will likely attend. It can be nice to live in such a happening city.... but it's still a concrete jungle...

Free Software University, where are you ?

2007-04-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

I sure wish that my university taught me something about Free Software development. In fact, I wish there was a whole university dedicated to advancing the Free exchange of software and media. A university where students actually contributed to the richness of the internet rather than doing usless exercises. I say this because I'm having to lean this on my own -- mind you, I feel well-adapted to autodidactic modes -- but these are important skills that "industry" as well as hobby programmers like myself need to know.

On a related note, Right now people are currently working on building The New University Co-operative. I went to one of their meetings to pitch the idea of having a media lab that ran on Free Software, and that facilitated the development of open content, but my presentation was a little bit premature given the stage of development they are at. I'm going to keep dreaming about this kind of thing, but before I can even decide if I want to commit to making that kind of thing happen, I need to get rid of the debt chains of the Old University Profiteers.

New home

2007-04-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

I jumped from my old blog http://wikinator.blogspot.com to this blog so that I wouldn't get kicked out of my gmail account when I logged into my blog under another gmail account. I stopped using Thunderbird for my mail and am quite happy to use the snappy interface of gmail.

Managing online identities can be a very tricky thing. Getting involved in the Facebook community has been both exciting and frightful for me, especially after seeing this animation about the evils of Facebook . I tell people I'm not too worried because I'm not so much of a threat to the state, but maybe that's just self-deprication. Did you hear that Big Brother, I'm out to get you !

So, for a while I've had a blog, and had a lurking sense of "what's the use blogging if it never gets read anyways", but now that all my blog entries get imported into facebook, people might actually read what I'm writing because tons of people I know are up there. Maybe that's the scaries thing of all, being in the light of eyes. Well, I'll just have to dance off the stage fright :-P