GLOBAL MINDFULNESS - Or Why I Won't Be Participating In The Ice Bucket Challenge

Recently, I re-shared this photo on Facebook:

I received some backlash from friends about it, emphasizing the need for ALS to receive charitable funding and that I shouldn’t be promoting one charity as more deserving of funding than another.

I can see how this could be the perception given from this photo, but in fact it is a statement of statistics – open to interpretation.

First, I would like to state that ALS is a shockingly horrifying disease that strips the sufferer of all dignity and causes extreme hardship on the families of those affected by it.  It DOES deserve funding and a cure!  Never have I begrudged the donations being made to research into the disease.  For more information on ALS or to make a donation, go to https://www.als.ca/.

The reason I posted this image was because it provided an opportunity to raise global mindfulness. 

When is the last time you flushed your toilet and thought “I just defecated into 3.5 gallons of fresh, clean drinking water”?  If the answer isn’t “all the time”, then that is why I posted this photo.  The argument can be made that because of our plumbing, we can’t choose to exclusively have dirty water go to our toilets, but much like my reasons for posting the image, that is not the point.  The point is awareness.  We should be conscious of the impact our actions have on the planet.  We need to think about what we are doing as we do it!

WRITING SNIPPET - The Sun In The Trees

As I sit here, I see the sunlight on the trees and I'm taken away.  The green is so vibrant that it reminds me of the moments before dusk in some tropical country, where I have been awestruck by the vivacity of the greens against a bright blue sky.  The sun highlighting rich tones that lie invisible at the height of day.  I'm in cottage country in northern Canada in August, but I could very well be sitting in my lovely hostel in the Ecuadorian rainforest.  It is usually a scent that will take me travelling to another time or place, but tonight, tonight, it is the way the sun hit the trees.  It was there for the briefest of moments and then as the world turns, it is gone and I am back to where I am.  Time travel complete.  But I was there...

HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE FROM MY CAT

As I lay here tonight

I think of you

Of how you sometimes leap into my arms

Despite yourself

How you stay there and purr

Half purr

Despite yourself

Because I’m holding you

Because I love you

Because despite yourself

You love me

You love being close to me

Even when you don’t like being held

You like that I’m near

Despite not liking what I do

You like that I want to hold you

Even if you don’t want to be held

You let me hold you

You complain but never bite

Because

Despite yourself

You’d rather be in my arms than anywhere else.