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A Community Remembers – 11 November 2023

I had the privilege of attending the Hammonds Plains-Upper Hammonds Plains-Lucasville Remembrance Day ceremony today on the traditional “11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour” at the Hammonds Plains Cenotaph. I have attended Remembrance Day/Remembrance Sunday ceremonies around the world: Glace Bay, Wolfville, Royal Artillery Park Halifax, Bedford, Dartmouth in Nova Scotia; Base Lahr, West Germany; Base Petawawa, National War Memorial and Royal Canadian Artillery Memorial, Ottawa, Toronto, Base Trenton, Quinte West, and Frankford in Ontario; Base Gagetown, Fredericton, and Mactaquac, New Brunswick; Sonaguera, Colon, Honduras; Base Chilliwack, British Columbia; RAF St. Magwan in the United Kingdom (in a sleet storm so vicious that the Grade 4 Piper’s pipes squealed); Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (during a UN tour); and at shortly after dawn at the Commonwealth Graves Cemetery in Djibouti City, Djibouti due to the Al Shabab/Al-Qaeda terrorist threat to avoid being there at “the 11th Hour.” I have seen many, many variations on a theme with numerous nations – and today I was impressed.

Our mixed rural, suburban, and very dispersed Community, has been through significant traumatic events in the past 15 months with COVID-19, Hurricane Fiona, the Fires of June 2023, and the Floods of July 2023. The organizing committee orchestrated a moving, inclusive ceremony which recognized the contributions of service women, the Indigenous Mi’kmaq Community, the local Lucasville Black Nova Scotian Community, and serving CAF members, and Veterans. The formal parade was led by 3 Military Police Regiment, supported by 2632 Halifax-West Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps, and 250 Royal Canadian Air Cadet Corps. Our Member of Parliament, our Member of the (Provincial) Legislative Assembly, and our District 13 Councilor of the Halifax Regional Municipality attended as did senior leaders of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) Police Department and the HRM Fire and Emergency Services. Approximately 1000 Community members attended during a brisk, cold morning with occasional rain squalls. The ceremony began with thanks to the brave members of the First Responder Community which did so much in mitigating the effects of the devastating fires, floods, and hurricanes of the past year.

One of the most impressive aspects of the ceremony is the cenotaph (Memorial number 12005-013). Installed in 2006 and dedicated in 2016, the cenotaph’s design harkens back to the Canadian “Brooding Soldier” Memorial at Ypres, Belgium, which was erected following the First World War. The cenotaph also recognizes the contributions of the Canadian Army, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Merchant Navy, and Allied Forces. There are huge stones along a path adorned with plaques which recognize Nova Scotian winners of the Victoria Cross, Canadian Peacekeepers in Cyprus, and the Merchant Navy. The circle around the cenotaph is adorned at ground level with the names of local people who have served in war, conflict, and peacekeeping. What makes this cenotaph truly unique is that there are time capsules around the cenotaph containing soil from Vimy Ridge, France; Juno Beach, France; RAF Station Perranporth; Kapyong, Korea; Camp Julian, Afghanistan; salt water from the Atlantic Ocean; and a medicine bag from the Mi’kmak Community. “Lest We Forget” is displayed in English, French, and Mi’kmaq. The care and respect for all members of our Community for Veterans, past and present is evident. I feel proud to be a member of this Community.

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RRB #8 – “NIGHTBIRDE HAS FLOWN”

The world has just lost a beautiful soul. America’s Got Talent (AGT) singer Jane Marczeswki – a.k.a. “Nightbirde,” died Sunday 20 February 2022 after a four-year battle with metastasizing breast cancer. Her last seven months were especially courageous, as she shared her fight with cancer with the world.

AGT

Nightbirde burst onto the world entertainment stage in July 2021 when she wowed the AGT judges with her original song “It’s Okay” about her struggle with cancer and her determination to live life to the fullest in whatever time she had left. Nightbirde won the hearts of the AGT judges and many viewers with her clear-eyed discussion of her condition, and her lack of self pity. She told the judges that she had a 2% chance of surviving, but added that “2% is not zero percent.” Jane gained further sympathy when she revealed that her husband of five years had divorced her in the middle of her treatments. When queried how she copes with the pain and the exhausting treatments she replied, “You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore to decide to be happy.”

“It’s Okay”

Her rendition of her original song “It’s Okay” moved the judges to tears and earned her the “Golden Buzzer,” which guaranteed her passage to the Hollywood phase of the show. It was not to be. Jane withdrew from the show within a month as her cancer returned. She quipped, “I bet you never saw someone win so hard and lose so hard at the same time. This isn’t how the story was supposed to go.”

“Finding God on the Bathroom Floor”

Nightbirde caught my attention with her clear-eyed determination to not let the cancer dictate the remainder of her life. Her blog posts displayed exhaustion mixed with optimism. She once blogged of “finding God on the bathroom floor” as she spent the night alternately vomiting and sleeping with her head in the toilet.

YouTube Sensation

Jane continued to blog sporadically as her condition allowed, gaining ground, enjoying life, and then falling back as her aggressive cancer continued to advance. Her AGT audition video has had 39 million views on YouTube – and counting.

Yoga Mantras

I became a staunch fan, willing her to live as her roller-coaster journey continued. I began to play her music to end my yoga classes in Fall 2021. “It’s Okay” and “Fly” became my “go-to’s.” The first when I wanted to end the class on a contemplative note and the second to encourage my students to go grab life with both hands and never let go. Sometimes I would join her on the High C of “Fly.”

“Fly”

Fly high, Nightbirde, fly high. Soar to the Source. Save me a front row seat for your next concert.

I am not crying, you’re crying. Sniff…Courage always gets me.

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RRB #7 – Mark McMorris

The sports world – and most people – love an Olympic “hero overcomes adversity” story, and another Canadian snowboard team member – Mark McMorris fits the template perfectly.  

At Sochi 2014 Winter Games, McMorris won the Bronze Medal in the Olympic debut of snowboard slopestyle for Canada’s first medal of the Games. That came just two weeks after he had broken a rib at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado.  This was just the first major injury in a string of injuries that were to follow. 

In February 2016, he broke his right femur in a crash landing at a Big Air competition in Los Angeles. Off his snowboard for eight months, Mark had a fantastic  comeback in 2016-17,  including winning the Big Air World Cup – a test event for the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics. Unfortunately in late March 2017 he sustained multiple injuries in a backcountry snowboarding accident, including fractures to his jaw, left arm, pelvis and ribs as well as a ruptured spleen and collapsed left lung.  Despite the severity of his injuries Mark made yet another comeback. He won the first competition he entered, a Big Air World Cup in Beijing in late November 2017. He went on to win his second straight slopestyle Bronze Medal in the PyeongChang 2018 Games, sharing the podium with Silver Medallist teammate Max Parrot.

Mark’s painful recovery continued after the 2018 Games. Among the various surgical procedures, he underwent  “hardware removal from my femur and my jaw.”  Mark observed that given all his injuries it has been a lot of work just to get moving some days. 

“Physically, I’m doing amazing, but it would be better if I didn’t break 17 bones four years ago,” McMorris said. “I’m so thankful to be where I am.”

Mark’s secret sauce – gratitude that he can bounce back – and win. His is the only Olympian to win three consecutive Bronze Medals in the same event.

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RRB #6 – Max Parrot

The sports world – and most people – love an Olympic hero overcomes adversity story. Canadian Max Parrot won gold in snowboard slopestyle on Monday 7 February at the Beijing Olympics, upgrading from the silver he won at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. In between his trips to podiums, Parrot, of Bromont, Que., was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which necessitated his missing the entire 2018-19 season. Now, just over three years later, he stood atop the Olympic podium with Canada’s first gold medal of these Beijing Games.

Parrot was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in late 2018, but in July 2019 announced he was cancer-free. After Parrot learned of his blood cancer, he underwent 12 rounds of chemotherapy over six months during which he said he shaved his head, developed an aversion to lattes and was generally taken out of training. Just two months after completing his chemotherapy later, he competed at the X Games in Norway at the end of August 2019 where he won gold in the big air. He followed that up in December with big air gold at the World Cup in Beijing and then in January 2020 with big air gold at the X Games in Aspen. In March 2020 he won slopestyle gold and big air silver at the X Games in Norway. In 2021, Parrot competed at his first FIS World Championships where he won silver in big air behind Canadian teammate Mark McMorris.

“So much went by in those last four years,” an emotional Parrot told BBC Sport. “The last time I was at the Olympics, in Pyeongchang, I got a silver medal, and then I had to go through cancer. It was a nightmare – it’s so hard to describe what I’ve been through.” It really just shows how anything is possible. Three years ago, I was laying down in a hospital bed. You have no cardio, you have no energy, you have no muscles.  To be back out here, at the Olympics, on a podium again but with a gold medal, it feels amazing.” 

As he had entered the slopestyle competition in tenth position, Parrot made a vow to “go big or go home,” throwing all caution to the wind – and landed three triple rotations.
“I laid down the best run of my entire life …. I’m so proud of every feature, how I was able to clear them, and I’m really stoked with my score.”

As he had entered the slopestyle competition in tenth position, Parrot made a vow to “go big or go home,” throwing all caution to the wind – and landed three triple rotations.
I laid down the best run of my entire life …. I’m so proud of every feature, how I
was able to clear them, and I’m really stoked with my score.

Perhaps Parrot’s secret is his gratitude for being able to beat a frequently fatal disease. “Every time I step on my snowboard, I smile twice as much as before and it just transplanted into my training.” 

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MINDFULNESS BASIC COURSE – CANCELLATION NOTICE

Unfortunately, I must cancel Koru Basic Mindfulness Course (IMA 5586) effective immediately. I have not received sufficient applications to officially conduct the course.

I intend to conduct subsequent courses oriented toward organizations vice canvassing for individual registrations, e.g. retirement home residents, Not-For-Profit organizations, schools, places of worship, service clubs, government agencies, and for private businesses. I may co-teach with an American colleague if they receive sufficient registrations. My tentative plan is to open another course for registration in mid-February, but this date is subject to change.

In the interim, the need for mindfulness and insight meditation remains for many people during “COVID Wave 5.” Here are some free guided-meditations to help people in their personal journeys:

https://student.korumindfulness.org/free-guided-meditations.html

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MINDFULNESS HERO OR MINDLESS A$$HOLE?

Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 B.C./BCE – 7 December 43 B.C./BCE) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher. He left behind a tremendous opus (trans. Lat. body of work) that includes treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics. Cicero is considered one of Rome’s greatest orators and authors. He wrote more than three-quarters of extant Latin literature that is known to have existed in his lifetime, and it has been said that all subsequent prose was either a reaction against or a return to his style, not only in Latin but in European languages up to the 19th century. The peak of Cicero’s prestige was during the 18th-century Enlightenment, during his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers and political theorists such as John Locke, David Hume, Montesquieu and Edmund Burke was substantial. Cicero’s standing as one of the towering intellects of Western Civilization has lasted over 2000 years.

Cicero is remembered in mindfulness circles for his beautifully composed reminder to be grateful for whatever life brings us (trans.), “Gratitude is the principal virtue, and the prerequisite for all the others.” This phrase is available for download on numerous mindfulness, stoic, leadership, and resilience building sites. This beautifully worded quote is even available as an A4 Size Parchment Card Poster Quotation inspirational poster for college dorm rooms. One might think that he represented the flower of Roman civility and gentility. One would be wrong – Cicero was a lot more complicated than that.

Gifted with an agile brain, Cicero was able to eviscerate opponents in the law courts, in the Roman Senate, and in the public square. If he had limited himself to public life, he might have survived to influence Western Civilization through his writing and rhetoric for a decade or two more.

Cicero was also a cunning, occasionally cruel man who made enemies easily. Following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C./BCE, his enmity against Caesar’s son Octavius and Caesar’s friend Mark Anthony created the circumstances that led to his death. This account is well known. The lesser-known causes of his demise are much less befitting of his noble stature.

One of Cicero’s enemies was the nobleman Clodius, who came to hate Cicero after Cicero had defended a young man in a breech of promise case brought to the courts by Clodius’ sister. Cicero won the case by shredding the young woman’s reputation in obscene and mocking terms. Cicero as able to circulate in society due to the protection of a debt collector turned muscleman named Milo and members of his protection gang. Cicero had Milo appointed as a Roman Senator for his services.

On 18 January 52 B.C./BCE there was an altercation between two large parties led by Milo and Clodius along the Appian Way. The altercation was fatal for Clodius, who was stabbed more than a dozen times by Milo’s men. Cicero defended Milo in court, and while he was convicted, Cicero’s eloquence led to banishment rather than a death sentence. Milo went on to enjoy the remainder of his days in Marseilles in Gaul, i.e. modern-day southern France.

Cicero’s past eventually caught up with him on 7 December 43 B.C./BCE. Two of Mark Anthony’s men, a centurion and a tribune cornered Cicero leaving his villa at Formia, heading to take a ship to Macedonia. Cicero did not resist arrest, and ever eloquent, his last words were “Ego vero consisto. Accede, veterane, et, si hoc saltim potes recte facere, incide cervicem.” (Trans. Lat. “I go no further: approach, veteran soldier, and, if you can at least do so much properly, sever this neck.”) The centurion not only severed Cicero’s head, he also severed his hands.

Cicero’s head was nailed to the rostra in the Forum in Rome. Legend has it that Clodius’s widow approached the head and stuck a needle in the tongue that had brought her family so much grief. (With apologies to Mark Anthony and his wife Fulvia, who is mentioned by other authors as the deliverer this ultimate after-death insult). (Fulvia is also the gleeful figure in the painting above, “Fulvia With The Head Of Cicero” by Pavel Svedomsky). 

So dear readers – your verdict – a Mindfulness Hero or a Mindless A$$hole?

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RRB #5 – MLK

17 January is Martin Luther King (MLK) Day in the United States of America. MLK Day is marked with tributes to the late Reverend Dr. King, and with reflections on the states of civil rights, i.e. minority group voting rights. This solemn anniversary has taken on greater importance in the past year with pending legislation to expand voting rights in the U.S.A., and with an active campaign to restrict such rights. Dr. King was assassinated 4 April 1968. Had he lived he would be 93 years old today.

MLK is best-known for his 28 August 1963 speech, “I Have a Dream,” delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom Rally from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The speech was a rejuvenating moment for the Civil Rights Movement vitalizing tired campaign workers and gaining much sympathy for the plight of African Americans. MLK was named TIME Magazine Man of the Year in 1963 and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He is regarded as a hero by many Americans and by many people around the World. Despite the respect which his name invokes today MLK had many enemies during his life, which led to his assassination. The question most pertinent for readers of this blog on resilience building might be “How did he stand the pressure?” and “Why Did He Succeed?”

There are numerous facets to resilience: knowing capabilities and limitations, knowing how to give meaning to your life by creating your existential projects, dealing with negative emotions, and knowing how to set emotional boundaries between yourself and your problems without isolating or ignoring them. Of course, self-confidence, the ability to balance one’s need for affection with the attitude of helping others, and a sense of humour also help to reframe difficulties as challenges rather than tragedies.

I offer that MLK’s greatest assets were Commitment: The ability to commit to values and to help others, and Morality and Ethics, i.e. maintaining coherence and unity between what you say and what you do, based on solid principles. Now in full transparency there are detractors who will mention marital infidelity on his part, however, the arena in which he led was civil rights, in which he truly did share the risks of his fellow Civil Rights organizers and his followers. MLK led the 385-day Montgomery Bus Boycott, he was the first President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),he led the Birmingham Campaign in which water cannons and attack dogs were used by police, and he was instrumental in organizing the Great March on Washington at which he delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech.

I see MLK’s leadership style as being similar to those of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, in that he knew that armed resistance was futile in the face of superior numbers – and police firepower. He could have become a violent revolutionary in the style of Ché Guevara as a leader in the Black Panthers. His decision to take the non-violent moral path embarrassed the United States on the world stage and led to the eventual expansion of the franchise. His phrase, “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend” proved to be the way forward in establishing voting rights for minorities.

Let us hope that the contemporary trend in the U.S.A. to limit voting rights under the banner of “voter fraud’ is seen for the canard that it is.

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3 Upcoming Programs for 2022

Three exciting new programs starting this week:

1) Tuesday 18 January 2022, 08:30 to 09:15 AM – Yoga Fix 45 at Breathing Space Yoga Studio Tantallon:  https://www.breathingspaceyogastudio.ca/tantallon-schedule

2) Tuesday 18 January 2022, 07:30 to 08:30 PM –  Online “Vinyassa Yoga with Ian” at Tone &  Strengthen LLC of Furlong, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. : https://toneandstrengthen.com/events/vinyasa-yoga-with-ian/?occurrence=2022-01-18

3) Wednesday 19 January 2022, 07:00 to 08:15 PM – Online Koru Basic Mindfulness Course. Registration:  https://student.korumindfulness.org/course-detail.html?course_id=5875

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POST HOLIDAY HABIT HACKS

2021 was a tough, emotional roller coaster of a year as COVID-19 provided a Second, Third, and a Fourth Wave. Just when we thought it might be safe to resume our routines, the Fifth Wave – Omicron – arrived at the start of the 2021 Holiday Season. For many people, new disappointment compounds older disappointment. Key questions at year-end 2021/early 2022 might be “Where are we?” and “Where do we go from here?”

Why Environment Based Habits Often Fail

Trying to predict the COVID – driven availability of restaurants, schools, shopping malls, and gymnasiums is challenging, and will frequently lead to disappointment. If you cannot control the environment you must find new ways of perceiving your environment. For example, pandemic-related uncertainty makes New Year’s Resolutions such as more quality gym time difficult to maintain when the gym is closed, or it closes so frequently that you are reluctant to commit to a three, six, or twelve-month membership. The same might be said of starting a quilting class, a new language, a new relationship, or a new job. If we cannot depend on a stable external environment, how might we move ahead with healthy habits?

Healthy Responses to Losing the Old Environment

Habits are conditioned by the environment in which they are formed, and if the environment changes the habits can be lost. The loss of a favourite gym spin class, yoga studio, or pottery shop and quilt guild can be disorienting for many people. It is all too easy to dwell on what you have lost. Negative Thoughts can occupy your brain – so that you can feel sad, worried, angry, and anxious. This uncertain state is when unhealthy habits may embed, habits such as:

• Eating without prior planning because it feels good;
• Procrastinating because you are too overwhelmed to even get started;
• Lying in bed all day because you are “just too tired to do anything;”
• Surfing the Net or watching TV all day because you “just don’t feel like doing anything;”
•Using alcohol, marijuana, or other substances to “calm” or “stimulate” your brain;
• OR …. fill in the blank with whatever habit that doesn’t serve your best interests.

The Way Ahead – Develop a Future Focus

“Break old patterns that no longer serve you” is easy to say, but it is hard to do alone. You are more likely to succeed if you have a multi-layered strategy, including an “accountability coach,” and habit-building routines.

Accountability…find:

• AN EXPERT COACH. If possible, try person-to-person, with allowances for social distancing, masks, etc. However, COVID-19 has made using the Internet normal. You can easily find an:

o Online local gym, studio, or guild.
o YouTube has thousands of free videos on every subject under the sun.

• ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER(s):
o This might be your coach or your teacher, but it works better if you have a peer sharing the same experiences with you.
o Having one partner, or two, or ten helps keep you coming back for more sessions for social reasons. Nothing builds an accountability community better than having a chance to mutually gripe about the weather, if outside, or that perky teacher if in an online class.
o If you absolutely must, deputize a family member or friend that you respect enough to NOT rebel if they do call you to account.

Habit Building

• CREATE your own Micro-Environment. Create what ancient monks called the sanctum, sanctorum – “The Holy of Holies” – your private place, in which you find more space for your spirit to expand than you would outside. This may be your basement, your garage, your spare room – wherever you feel totally at home – and without distractions. Leave your phone outside your private space unless you are watching an instructional video.

• PUT MONEY where your mouth is:
o INVEST money in decorating your private space so you have financial “skin in the game,” and you want to make it worth your investment. Posters, workout charts, quilt photos, framed quotes from “thought leaders.”
o BUY that yoga mat, barbell, or sewing machine that you have being thinking about for months (or years).
o TACK the sales receipt where you can see it as a reminder of your commitment. (Lots of well-intentioned stationary bikes, yoga mats, and cross-country skis start to gather dust after a month of activity).

• THROW MUD on the Wall.
o DON’T WAIT to pick the ‘perfect time’ – it’s never going to happen.
o PUT your finger on the calendar and on a time slot – and just do it.
o ADJUST the day/precise time later if it proves to be unmanageable. Do NOT think that you have failed, MEASURE, ADJUST, MOVE ON.

• Time Based Habits. Routine is one of the best ways of controlling your perception of a situation. Knowing what is coming next is comforting, it facilitates planning, and it reduces mental stress.
• Eat with workouts or classes in mind.
• Fitness watches, such as a Fit-Bit or Apple Watch can help to keep you on schedule. Remember to turn the volume down at work or home to not disrupt others who may come to resent being reminded of your schedule.
• Sleep is the master-key. Same time to bed, same time to rise whenever possible.
o DISCONNECT from electronic devices 90 minutes before bed.
• When you get off schedule, DO NOT quit. The very essence of mindfulness is noting that you have drifted off your path. Simply get back on the path – without judgement and start again.
• BE PATIENT. Habit formation guidelines vary. You may read, 21, 45, 60, 90 days as the magic number. Just accept that it will take awhile and keep going. Consistency is the key.

Small Steps – Micro Habits Support Major Change

• Ambush your laziness with Visual Cues. Before bed – Put your sports, yoga mat, pottery kiln, quilting equipment where you can see it, even if you have to trip over it or step over it to remind yourself to just do it.
• Match the brain with the action. Turn off the Thinking Brain. Stop talking about it and do it. When you get up – don’t think, don’t talk, don’t check your email, just do one set of whatever – and then go pee.
• Pre-plan and PRACTICE your immediate actions (IA). If you feel yourself spinning off into “I am too tired” or “I am too busy,” etc. have an IA ready to go.
o PLAY your go-to psych up song.
o GO OUT for a 5 -minute walk.
o SPLASH cold water on your face.
o TAP the middle of your forehead with two fingers for 15-20 seconds until you disrupt your thoughts.
o DO one (or two) quick mental readiness routines, e.g. a 60 second Pilates flow, a Yoga Sun Salutation, your pre-run stretches, your singing warm-up, etc.
o The purpose of the IA is to get you “out of your head and into your body” long enough to break the mental spin-out, rationalizing, etc. Once you are into it your brain will likely say “Here we are let’s keep going.”
o PRACTICE your IAs so that they work when you really need them. “In case of emergency – break glass” seldom works. Your IAs are instinctive.

Summing up. COVID induced isolation needs more tools:
o BE FLEXIBLE. Mix and match whatever combination of micro-habits works for you.
o “RINSE, REPEAT” as necessary.
o REACH OUT. Lean on your accountability coach, partners, and routine when you need a brief break or a boost.

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A mindful approach to mental health during the Holidays

(This post has been published in several venues, most recently as an article in the 22 December 2021 edition of The Bedford Wire and The Clayton Park Wire, two community newspapers in the Halifax Regional Municipality in the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The article is found on page 5 of both publications, both paper and online. As the online version will change  29 December 2021, I am capturing it as a blog post).  

COVID-19 changed our predictable routines, necessitating remote work arrangements, physical distancing, and wearing masks. Everything from shopping to attending sports and social events now necessitates planning. Add workload, traffic congestion, home schooling, and alcohol to the mix and you have a sure-fire recipe for frayed nerves and lost tempers. According to a Canadian Association for Mental Health survey of 1000 adults in March 2021, 20.9 per cent of respondents indicated moderate to severe anxiety levels, 20.1 per cent reported feeling depressed, and 21.3 percent reported feelings of loneliness.

Mental health and addictions admissions in Nova Scotia Health Central Zone more than doubled between April – June 2020 (191) and April -June 2021 (458).

These mental pressures often worsen during the Holiday Season as people try to maintain family traditions, shop for gifts, and socialize at home and at work. As waiting lists for mental health treatment are often years long, there is an urgent need for non-clinical ways to help people suffering from anxiety and depression. Thankfully, there is a centuries old tradition which is backed by evidence-based science – mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment without judgement, and with compassion for your errors, and for those of other people. You can start applying mindfulness in your daily routine immediately. The old adage, “Any task worth doing is worth doing well” sums it up. Rather than drying an old plate with your attention on the radio, stop to think that this was grandma’s serving plate for many family celebrations. Count the crenulations and notice the intricacy of the flower design for the first time. Think of the love that went into the preparation of those meals. Cooking is particularly well-suited to practicing mindfulness due to the focused attention needed to measure, cut safely, adjust temperatures, and set cooking times. The Holiday Season offers numerous opportunities for mindful participation in family traditions as we haul out treasured ornaments and our favourite family recipes. Savour eating that special cookie with all five senses rather than bolting it down and reaching for another one. The Holiday Season offers numerous opportunities for sharing the same mindful experiences!

Mindfulness is best developed through meditation, which is the practice of holding our attention on an object of meditation, or an “anchor.” The key is to return to the anchor whenever you feel your mind start to drift. This action of noticing the drift and returning to the anchor is the very essence of mindful meditation. You can learn meditation from books, the Internet, and classes. Classes offer the guidance of a teacher and the support of other students.

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Advance Notice – Insight into Your Best Self

We are well into the 2021 Holiday Season, and many people are starting to feel the demands of fulfilling family expectations against the backdrop of Round 4 of COVID-19. Meeting these expectations can be draining. Despite the busyness, the Holiday Season can provide an opportunity to count our blessings and to consider our areas for growth.

New Year’s Resolutions are statistically hard to keep – most don’t last through January. Lasting change usually occurs when you can change the environmental context of your habits or insight into the mental framework through which you view the world. Mindfulness of your present moment environment and Insight Meditation examining your thoughts and feelings usually requires more than just education – it requires frequent training and practice until a new habit is embedded.

I will be conducting a Koru Mindfulness Basic online course 19, 26 January and 2, 9 February 2022. Four 75-minute classes and self-paced practice with instructor feedback over four weeks provides an opportunity to make such fundamental life-affirming change. Here is the registration page: https://student.korumindfulness.org/course-detail.html?course_id=5875  

I will be providing further details as to course content through this blog space and via other advertising venues. In the interim, here are some testimonials as to the power of this course, and to the effectiveness of my teaching/coaching methods:

https://ianmacvicar.com/testimonials/ 

More to follow – and Compliments of the Season!

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The Right Man, at the Right Time

Today marks the 104th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion – the largest man-made explosion prior to the advent of the Atomic Bomb. This story is well known to Haligonians, and indeed to most Nova Scotians, as it is marked annually with solemn ceremony. However, as this post addresses the split-second decision of a one man many people outside of Nova Scotia have never heard of, it is worth summarizing.

Background

On 6 December 1917 Halifax, and much of the World was at war. As Halifax is the largest, widest, and deepest ice-free port on the eastern coast of North America, it was a major port of embarkation for Canadian troops proceeding overseas – and for the transportation of military equipment and munitions. That morning two ships were on a collision course in the Harbour Narrows, near where the present-day MacDonald cross-harbour bridge stands. Their initially minor collision with engines dead and reversing would take a tragic turn within 20 minutes.

Twenty Fateful Minutes
SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship laden with high explosives, including TNT, picric acid, gun cotton, and highly flammable liquid benzol collided with the Norwegian relief vessel SS Imo in the Narrows, a strait connecting the upper Halifax Harbour to Bedford Basin. The time was 08:45 A.M. AST. The initial damage to the Mont Blanc was not severe, but the barrels of benzol stowed on the deck toppled and broke open, flooding the deck and flowing into the hold. As Imo’s engines kicked in, she disengaged, which created sparks inside Mont-Blanc’s hull. These sparks ignited the aerosolized benzol vapours. A fire started at the water line and travelled quickly up the side of the ship. Surrounded by thick black smoke, and fearing she would explode almost immediately, the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship.

The Explosion

At 9:04:35 A.M. AST a massive explosion ripped across the North End Richmond Street district of Halifax. Approximately 1, 782 people in Halifax and in cross-harbour Dartmouth were killed by the force of the blast wave, which released the equivalent energy of approximately 2.9 kilotons (KT) of TNT. The force of this blast was incomprehensible in this pre-atomic bomb era. Mont-Blanc’s forward 90-mm gun landed approximately 5.6 kilometres (3.5 mi) north of the explosion site near Albro Lake in Dartmouth with its barrel melted away, and the shank of Mont-Blanc’s anchor, weighing half a ton, landed 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) south at Armdale. The floor of the Harbour was briefly exposed by a welling tsunami which rose as 18 metres (60 ft) above the high-water mark on the Halifax side of the harbour. In a manner similar to the Atomic Bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a pillar of white smoke rose to at least 3,600 metres (11,800 ft) above the devastated city.

The casualty total includes others who were killed by collapsing debris, and by fires ignited by overturned stoves and lanterns, and by the tsunami. Approximately 9,000 others were injured, 300 of which died due to the severity of their injuries. Hundreds of onlookers were blinded by flying glass.

Many Heroes
There were heroes aplenty that day, Halifax Fire Department West Street Station 2 was the first to arrive at Pier 6 with the crew of the “Patricia,” the first motorized fire engine in Canada. In the final moments before the explosion, hoses were being unrolled as the fire spread to the docks. Nine members of the Halifax Fire Department lost their lives performing their duty that day. Captain Horatio Brennan and crew of the tug Stella Maris tried to tow the burning Mont Blanc away from Pier 6. A whaler from HMS Highflyer and a pinnace from HMCS Niobe also responded bravely with firefighting hoses. Only five men of approximately fifty involved survived the ensuing blast.

One Man’s Fateful Decision
As horrific as it was, the casualties could have been much higher had it not been for the self-sacrifice of one man. Canadian Government Railway (formerly Intercolonial Railway) Dispatcher, Patrick Vincent (Vince) Coleman. Coleman was operating a telegraph at the rail yard about 230 metres (750 ft) from Pier 6, where the explosion occurred. Coleman and his Chief Clerk boss, William Lovett, learned of the dangerous cargo aboard the burning Mont-Blanc from a sailor and initially started to flee. Then Coleman stopped, as he remembered that an inbound passenger train from Saint John, New Brunswick, was due to arrive at the railyard at 08:55 A.M. AST. He retraced his steps, sat down at his telegraph key, and sent out repeated telegraph messages to stop the train. Several variations of the message have been reported, among them this one from the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic:

Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and
will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye boys.

The Aftermath
Coleman’s telegraph message was responsible for bringing all incoming trains to a halt. Passenger Train No. 10, the overnight train from Saint John heeded the warning and stopped a safe distance from the blast at Rockingham, which saved the lives of about 300 railway passengers. According to its Conductor J.C. Gillespie, the train was held by the Dispatcher 6.4 km (4 mi) away from the blast and suffered only blown out windows. Gillespie, on his own initiative, took “…cold, barefoot, and torn people” from the Willow Park Junction back to Truro that afternoon by 4:00 P.M. As mentioned in his witness statement “I went to work. Filled the train full.” He also recorded the names and addresses of all he took aboard.

Coleman’s desperate signals likely saved thousands of now-homeless survivors, who survived the blast and the snowstorm that followed the next day. His telegraph signals were heard by other stations all along the GCR/ICR rail line, which helped railway officials to respond immediately, with relief trains filled with medical personnel and construction workers arriving in Halifax from Truro, Kentville, New Glasgow, Amherst, Moncton, later that day. If he had not sent this signal, it is unlikely that the response would have happened in such a fortuitous manner as no-ne outside of Halifax would have known what had happened. The Halifax Garrison went to general quarters as it was believed by many observers outside the immediate blast radius to be a German attack. This rapid response also facilitated clearing sufficient debris to put the Port of Halifax back into operation within a week.

Coleman died at his post. Vince Coleman’s split-second decision to return to his post, and certain death, is commemorated in a Canadian Heritage Minute in 1991.

Why Commemorate Coleman?
There were certainly other heroes that day – in the responding ships, from the Fire Department, in the immediate crisis and from the surviving servicemen and private citizens in the aftermath of the explosion. The other heroes certainly knew that death or injury was a possibility, but Coleman stands out because he leaves the only record of knowing that he was going to die as a result of his staying at his post. What factors led to this selfless, and ultimately altruistic act?
No-one but Vince knows for sure what went through his mind in those last moments. However, we draw from what is known of his life story. Coleman had received a commendation from ICR for stopping a runaway train several years earlier, so it is evident that he could take decisive action at the risk of his own life. Perhaps he was thinking of protecting his wife Frances and four children who lived just 0.6 kilometres (0.38 miles) away on Russell Street. Or perhaps it was simply that he knew that no-one else had full knowledge of what was happening and who had the ability to send those crucial messages. I would like to think that it was the latter, in the style of the French saying, he was “Le bon homme au bon moment” (trans. The right man at the right time).
Would that we could each be “Le bon homme (ou la femme) au bon moment.” I would feel better about our society – knowing that such people are among us, prepared for their moment, with the presence of mind, and the willingness to sacrifice themselves for their fellow humans.

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RRB #4 – Back to Bach

Johannes Sebastian Bach was voted “the greatest composer in world history” in a 2019 survey of 174 living composers. The survey appeared in the December 2019 edition of BBC Music Magazine. Aside from being born into a musical family, what character traits brought him to this distinction?

Backstory

Johannes Sebastian Bach was born 22 November 1685 to a musical family, and he was being raised to follow in their footsteps. He lost both parents by the age of nine and was raised by his brother, J.C. Bach. He lost his first wife at 35, and 10 of his 20 children with his two wives to illness and accident. How could someone so accustomed with tragedy find the time, let alone the mental resilience to become the greatest composer in world history”?

Faith

Bach was heavily influenced by his Lutheran faith. He saw music as a gift from God, and his work was always connected to theological teaching. He ultimately strove to find divine analogies in music and aimed to perfect music in a way that was ever closer to nature and God’s likeness. 

Hard-Working and Industrious

Bach was successful in school, in his work, and in his home and family life. As a student, Bach graduated at the top of his class, nearly four years younger than the average graduate’s age. In his opinion, 

I was made to work. If you are equally industrious, you will be equally successful.

On the rare occasions when Bach appraised his life’s work, he remarked simply “I worked hard.”

Balance

Bach took great pleasure in his two marriages, and in being a father.  He approached all he did with curiosity and a sense of humour. He was known to growl, “Without my morning coffee, I’m just like a dried-up piece of roast goat.”

Despite being very demanding of subordinate musicians, Bach was also humble in his approach to life. When asked how he achieved such beautiful melodies, he explained,

You just have to press the right keys and the right pedals at the right time and the music plays itself.

Experience with Death

Throughout his life, Bach faced the untimely deaths of his loved ones.  In  Spring 1694, at nine years of age, his father’s twin brother, who was quite  close to the family died. A few months later, his mother passed away, and a year later, he became an orphan when his father died. 

His first wife Maria Barbara also unexpectedly died while Bach was away on a trip to Carlsbad with his employer, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen.  The sad news of her death was intercepted, and Bach only found out when he returned home weeks later. 

By the end of his life, he would also witness the premature deaths of ten of his children.

The tragedies that filled Bach’s life heavily influenced his compositions. Perhaps such losses in life made his music more formal, and less whimsical  than that of his  contemporaries Beethoven or Handel. Bach’s music, in contrast, seeks to console in times of heartbreak.  His experience with death and the uncertainty of human life brought him closer to his artistic aim, 

The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.

Bach was well aware of the power of music in calming the soul. He knew that,

It is the special province of music to move the heart.

As his music continues to do so well – 271 years after his death. 

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RRB # 3 – TENACITY PAYS – POTUS 46

Love him or hate him, Joseph R. Biden has displayed a remarkable ability to bounce back from some of life’s harshest setbacks. He lost his first wife and daughter in a 1972 car accident shortly after being elected to the U.S. Senate representing the State of Delaware. He lost a middle-aged son to cancer in 2015 – which led to his decision to nit run for President in 2016. In many respects he is an unlikely President, but then again – perhaps not. 

Backstory

Joseph R. Biden was born 20 November 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Joe grew up with a pronounced stutter, which affected his self-image and standing amongst his peers. Despite being a poor student, he was a good athlete and popular amongst his classmates. He was elected Class President in his junior and senior years at High School, graduating in 1961. Joe completed a Bachelor of Arts in 1965 at the University of Delaware in Newark – without any distinction. Biden graduated from Syracuse University Law School in 1968, and he was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969. 

Unexpected Triumph, then Tragedy 

Joe Biden ran against three-term Republican Senator J. Caleb Boggs in the autumn of 1972. He campaigned with minimal funds, employing his sister, Valerie Owens. Other Biden family members filled key roles in the campaign staff. The Biden team was given little chance of wining. A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points. On 7 November 1972, Joe Biden was elected as a Senator for the State of Delaware, beating Boggs by 1.4 percent of the vote. He was only 29 years old, which made him the sixth-youngest Senator to ever be elected.

Tragically, his wife Neilia and daughter Naomi died in a car accident 18 December 1972, and his sons Beau and Hunter were critically injured. Joe Biden was sworn in as a Senator at the hospital January as he did not wish to leave his sons. He was persuaded not to resign by Senator Majority Leader Mike Mansfield. Biden went on to serve in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009.

His young family’s tragedy became the pivotal event of his life. The accident filled him with deep anger and doubt in his religious faith. He wrote that he “felt God had played a horrible trick” on him, and he had trouble focusing on work, and anything outside caring for his surviving sons.

The Long, Lean Years

Joe’s grief brought him close to his sons. He explained this bond in a commencement 2015 speech at Yale University in 2015, when he was serving as Vice President of the United States in the Obama Administration. Speaking of Neilia, he said “The incredible bond I have with my children is the gift I’m not sure I would have had, had I not been through what I went through [after the fatal accident]. But by focusing on my sons, I found my redemption.”

Joe met his second wife Jill Tracy Jacobs in 1975. They were married in 1977. They had a daughter, Ashley Blazer, a few years later. Joe credits Jill with renewing his interest in politics and in life.

Biden suffered a brain aneurysm and a pulmonary embolism in February 1988 – both life threatening ailments. He suffered a second aneurysm in May 1988. Somehow, he pulled through each crisis, missing seven months of Senate duty. 

Clay Feet?

In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law. He placed 76th in his class of 85. He finished later than anticipated after failing a course due to an acknowledged “mistake” when he plagiarized a law review article for an essay that he wrote during his first year. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.

Joe courted controversy for over a decade by characterizing the driver of the tractor trailer that hit his wife’s car as being drunk. The driver was never charged and there was no evidence that he had been drinking. Biden later apologized to the driver’s family in 2008.
Biden admitted making several false or exaggerated claims about his early life: that he had earned three degrees in college, that he attended law school on a full scholarship, that he had graduated in the top half of his class, and that he had marched in the civil rights movement. These claims came back to haunt him in his 1988 Presidential run. On September 23, 1987, Biden withdrew his candidacy, saying it had been overrun by “the exaggerated shadow” of his past mistakes. 

A Late Bloomer?

Joe Biden ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Barak Obama selected him as his running mate in 2008 and appointed Joe as Vice-President. Biden’s debating skills aided the campaign. He once quipped regarding the ambitions of Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani: “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11.”

Biden served as Obama’s Vice President from 2009 to 2017. The Obama-Biden team appeared to be a sincere partnership, even friendship. His son Beau passed away from cancer at age 46 in 2015, leading to his decision to not run in the 2016 Presidential election. Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2017 in recognition of his value contribution of the course of his political career.

Joe Biden was elected President of the United States 4 November 2020 at age 77. Because of mail-in voting his victory was not official until November 7, 5 days after conventional voting began and the 48th anniversary of his Senate election over Boggs. Biden is the oldest President, the first to have a female Vice President, the first to have a Black person as Vice President, the first President from Delaware, and the second Roman Catholic President after John F. Kennedy. 

Character Traits

Joe Biden publicly credits his Roman Catholic faith for his resilience. It is probable that this personal assessment underestimates the support offered by his second wife, Jill. His social skills also had to be honed to a high degree by over coming his stutter. The degree to which this challenge bothered him can be seen in how kindly he treats children with stutters, taking the time to encourage them that eventually they would learn to overcome their stuttering. By all accounts these private meetings are sincere. Joe no doubt had to overcome his own doubts at every stage of his life. He was athletically gifted, but never shone as a student. His speech impediment was a barrier to social, scholastic, business, and political success – but he overcome this limitation, and became an accomplished orator.  

Biden’s oratory is perhaps his greatest strength as a politician. Political writer Howard Fineman once noted,

Biden is not an academic, he’s not a theoretical thinker, he’s a great street pol.  He comes from a long line of working people in Scranton—auto salesmen, car dealers, people who know how to make a sale. He has that great Irish gift.

Political columnist David S. Broder observes that Biden has grown over time:

He responds to real people—that’s been consistent throughout. And his ability to
understand himself and deal with other politicians has gotten much, much
better.

Journalist James Traub described Biden as “the kind of fundamentally happy person who can be as generous toward others as he is to himself.”

Biden has been noted for his empathetic nature and ability to communicate about grief. In 2020, CNN wrote that his Presidential campaign aimed to make him “Healer-in-Chief”, while The New York Times noted his frequent history of being called upon to give eulogies, as he did at Republican Senator John McCain’s funeral.

The Measure of the Man

Joe Biden started his political career with few advantages, and the detriment of a speech impediment. He developed into an accomplished orator who demonstrates a refined ability to press emotional buttons – at the right time. He can be alternately self-aggrandizing and self-effacing. Perhaps the winding path to the Presidency developed his best self. As did the unnamed son mentioned in Rudyard Kipling’s timeless ode to tenacity If, Biden “has learned to meet with triumph and disaster and to treat those two imposters just the same.”

Joe Biden is a survivor. He has been practicing these skills virtually all his life.

 

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RRB #2 – ON HAVING A PURPOSE

RESILIENCE REBROADCAST (RRB) #2 – ON HAVING A PURPOSE IN LIFE

When I set out to blog about mental resilience, I deliberately chose to feature lesser-known heroes, from all eras, and from all walks of life. Here is a synopsis of the life of Wilma P. Mankiller, who will be featured on the obverse side the U.S. quarter-dollar coin in 2022.

A Tough Life

Wilma Pearl Mankiller was born 18 November 1945 in Oklahoma. She traced her ancestry to Cherokee, Irish, and Dutch ancestors. One of 13 children, she grew up in a house without electricity or running water on Mankiller Flats, located near Rocky Mountain, Oklahoma. The family hunted, fished, and grew vegetables to survive. Wilma grew up hearing stories of the Trail of Tears, which was the forced migration of the Cherokee Nation away from their traditional lands. That knowledge that 4000 of the Cherokee Nation died along that path was a pivotal event in her life.

Wilma and her family moved to San Francisco, California, when she was 11 years old. Unfortunately, the family still struggled greatly in their new home due to dwindling finances and discrimination. Wilma chose to ignore the daily indignities of racial discrimination and to fight the larger challenge of structural inequity in American society.

 Wilma attended Skyline College and San Francisco State University in California before enrolling at Flaming Rainbow University in Oklahoma, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences. She later undertook graduate courses at the University of Arkansas.

In 1979, Wilma came close to losing her life in a car accident, in which she was struck head on by her best friend. Her friend died, and though Wilma survived, she underwent numerous surgeries along her long path to recovery. She later had to struggle with kidney disease, lymphoma, and myasthenia gravis – a neuromuscular disease which can lead to paralysis. Once again, Mankiller overcame her health challenges.

A Tough Leader

Wilma Mankiller was elected Deputy Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1983. In 1985 she became the first female Principal Chief. She sought to improve the nation’s health care, education system and government during her tenure. Twice re-elected, she resigned due to ill health in 1995 but remained active in women’s and Native American activism until the end of her life. Wilma received numerous honors for her leadership and activism, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. 

Legacy 

Wilma Mankiller shared her experiences as a pioneer in tribal government in her 1993 autobiography, Mankiller: A Chief and Her People. She also wrote and compiled Every Day Is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women (2004), featuring a forward by feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem. Wilma died of pancreatic cancer 6 April 2010 at the age of 64. Then President Barack Obama issued this statement after learning of her death,

As the Cherokee Nation’s first female chief, she transformed the nation-to-nation relationship between the Cherokee Nation and the federal government and served as an inspiration to women in Indian Country and across America. Her legacy will continue to encourage and motivate all who carry on her work.

Why

Wilma Mankiller experienced hunger, crowded housing, racial and sexual discrimination by being a woman born into social hierarchy in the mid 20th Century. This would be sufficient challenge for most people. She had a difficult path to recovery from the 1979 car accident which killed her best friend. Wilma also suffered from ill health for last 15 years of her life while remaining active in the struggle for equal rights. Her life begs the question “What special resilient strengths allowed her to overcome such hardships and become an influential leader?”
According to Wilma,

The most fulfilled people are the ones that get up every day and stand for something larger than themselves. They are the people that care about others and they are the ones that will extend a helping hand to someone in need or will speak about an injustice when they see it.

Mentoring Her Successors
Wilma’s influence inspired other Indigenous women to set higher goals. According to Lynn Williams, Chairwoman of the Kaw Nation,

We as natives have been silent for far too long, we want our voices to be heard. We want people to know how things really are for us. I think having her face on that quarter is just going to help us and help our young people to realize anybody can do whatever you set your mind and your heart to do.

Edwina Butler-Wolfe, former governor of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe and current Education Director of the Sac and Fox Nation, said Mankiller played a crucial role in her decision to become an Indigenous woman leader.

I like the saying that Wilma used: She had said, ‘Women can help turn the world right-side-up. We bring a more collaborative approach to government. If we do not participate, the decision will be made without us.” And that’s so very true. And I took that to heart, because you got to be at the table.

The new quarter design, according to Butler-Wolfe, shows that “our Native American women can be somebody.”

Speaking to the Future

Wilma Mankiller is one of five women chosen by the United States Mint for the new American Women Quarters program. Wilma will be featured on the third coin of the American Women Quarters program, which will begin circulating in 2022. The design features an image of Mankiller, wrapped in a traditional shawl with the seven-pointed star of the Cherokee Nation to her left. Below her, “Cherokee Nation” appears in the Cherokee syllabary. The wind is at her back, gazing to the right, steadfastly into the future.

 

 

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MENTAL HEALTH FOR THE HOLIDAYS

This post was originally published as an article in Silver: The Art of Living Well magazine:  

Mental Health for the Holidays | SILVER (silvermagazine.ca)

I retain the Creative Commons license and choose to publish the article here as well. 

COVID-19 changed our predictable routines, necessitating remote work arrangements, physical distancing, and wearing masks. Everything from shopping to attending sports and social events now necessitates planning. Add workload, traffic congestion, home schooling, and alcohol to the mix and you have a sure-fire recipe for frayed nerves and lost tempers. According to a Canadian Association for Mental Health survey of 1000 adults in March 2021, 20.9 per cent of respondents indicated moderate to severe anxiety levels, 20.1 per cent reported feeling depressed, and 21.3 percent reported feelings of loneliness.

Mental health and addictions admissions in Nova Scotia Health Central Zone more than doubled between April – June 2020 (191) and April -June 2021 (458). These mental pressures often worsen during the Holiday Season as people try to maintain family traditions, shop for gifts, and socialize at home and at work. As waiting lists for mental health treatment are often years long, there is an urgent need for non-clinical ways to help people suffering from anxiety and depression. Thankfully, there is a centuries old tradition which is backed by evidence-based science – mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment without judgement, and with compassion for your errors, and for those of other people. You can start applying mindfulness in your daily routine immediately. The old adage, “Any task worth doing is worth doing well” sums it up. Rather than drying an old plate with your attention on the radio, stop to think that this was grandma’s serving plate for many family celebrations. Count the crenulations and notice the intricacy of the flower design for the first time. Think of the love that went into the preparation of those meals. Cooking is particularly well-suited to practicing mindfulness due to the focused attention needed to measure, cut safely, adjust temperatures, and set cooking times. The Holiday Season offers numerous opportunities for mindful participation in family traditions as we haul out treasured ornaments and our favourite family recipes. Savour eating that special cookie with all five senses rather than bolting it down and reaching for another one. The Holiday Season offers numerous opportunities for sharing the same mindful experiences!

Mindfulness is best developed through meditation, which is the practice of holding our attention on an object of meditation, or an “anchor.” The key is to return to the anchor whenever you feel your mind start to drift. This action of noticing the drift and returning to the anchor is the very essence of mindful meditation. You can learn meditation from books, the Internet, and classes. Classes offer the guidance of a teacher and the support of other students.

 

 

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ON CLOSING THE BOX

Like many veterans, I packed my medals away in a box with a sigh of relief. The first ten days of November are trying for me. I have too much time to think about what it means to be a veteran – past and present – as there are reminders in the media every day.

I have too many memories of suffering – of a cousin who served with the Cape Breton Highlanders in Italy. Omar had a 7.92 mm German bullet enter his shoulder in 1943 and fall out of his elbow joint about thirty years later as it followed the nerve tract. I think of my maternal grandfather’s undiagnosed PTSD, of the frequent heavy drinking of local First World War and Second World War veterans, and of my father’s embarrassment in not being one of them.

My father Charlie joined the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in 1943 to have a chance at life beyond working on the surface at Dominion Coal Company mine 1B. Like so many other young people of that era, he wanted to “do his bit.”  His basic training and early days learning to become an Electrical Instrument Mechanic started well – but then went downhill in late 1943. My father never had a chance to “do his bit” due to ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritic condition that causes the vertebrae to fuse, often rendering the sufferer unable to walk or stand.

Dad had boarded a train in Toronto in December 1943 for a three-day journey across eastern Canada to Cape Breton to be with his family for Christmas. By the time the train reached Sydney, he could not move, and he had to be taken off the train on a stretcher. He was put to bed under his mother’s care; but was then moved to the hospital at RCAF Station Sydney as his condition was not improving. He missed his return date to RCAF Station Saint Thomas, Ontario and was declared Absent Without Leave (AWOL). Two RCAF military policemen from RCAF Station Sydney arrived at the house to arrest him. They were quite put out when they were told that “you have him in the military hospital.”

Eventually Dad made it back to Saint Thomas, where he was deemed medically unfit for further service. He was released from the RCAF 11 June 1944, five days after D-Day, when the newspapers and newsreels were filled with heroic stories of the advance of Allied Forces into France. These events occurred against the backdrop of the “Zombie crisis.” The Zombies were non-volunteers conscripted in accordance with the National Resources Mobilization Act of 1940. Conscription was a divisive issue in Canada, and to labelled as a shirker, i,e. a coward, was a mark of shame.

My father was embarrassed by his medical release from the RCAF. So much so that he did not consider himself to be a veteran as he had not served overseas. Given that his intended training path was to become an Electrical Instrument Mechanic, and then a Wireless Air Gunner (WAG) on bombers, it is better – for me and my siblings that he did not. Many of his peers from RCAF basic training in the “Horse Place” at the Canadian National Exhibition Grounds, Toronto did go on to become WAGs on Halifax and Lancaster boomers in No. 6 Group, Royal Air Force. Two-thirds of his basic training course intake were lost over the night skies of Europe.  It is quite possible that he had “survivor guilt.”

Dad held to the idea that he was not a “real” veteran tenaciously. As he aged, he needed home assistance as the ankylosing spondylitis adversely affected his balance. He would often “dipsy-doodle” like a hockey player trying to break through the opposing defence walking down the hall. He had to touch the walls to stay upright. Dad refused for decades to contact Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), believing that he was not entitled to VAC assistance as a “non-veteran,” and that ankylosing spondylitis was a personal problem. He was a hard sell. When attending church at age 85, he would park his car at the lower end of the hilly parking lot – even in winter – as he believed that he had to leave the reserved spots near the entranceway for “the old people.” Eventually he allowed for snow clearance and grass mowing assistance as it was becoming a safety issue at age 86. I clinched the deal by mentioning that even high school aged part-time soldiers who sprained an ankle at Camp Aldershot were entitled to such assistance.

When Dad died, I prepared a shadow box with his RCAF paraphernalia for the post funeral reception. The box contained his wedge cap with the RCAF hat badge, RCAF brass buttons with the albatross in flight, and his identity bracelet. I used a fringed marron pillow embroidered with Halifax Bombers as the backdrop for his two medals. He had been awarded the War Medal 1939-1945 and the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal by the Canadian government. He had never even threaded the medal ribbons through the clasps. The medals rested in their original white cardboard presentation boxes. He had never worn them – not even once. I put the ribbons on the medals – 65 years after they had been awarded – on the day of his funeral. I spoke about his wartime service at the reception, as many people did even not know that he had served.

All that to say, we should be careful in our assumptions as to who is a veteran and who deserves subsidized care. I do not know the degree to which Dad’s arthritic condition was affected by his RCAF service. It was not helped by the daily regimen of physical training and working in tight spaces in cold temperatures. When his condition stabilized, he went on to university and became a chemistry teacher. However, the mental aspects of not “doing his bit” stayed with him for the rest of his life. It was not traumatic, but it did have a significant impact on his self-image, and on his decisions to exercise Veterans’ Care options. I still have Dad’s medals and memorabilia, which hold bittersweet memories.

Not all military service encompasses confrontation with an armed enemy, even in wartime. I have met children of other Second World War veterans who expressed similar sentiments due to their parent never leaving Canada. However, injury and death still occurred in training in Canada. According to historian F.J. Hatch, 2367 lives were lost by British Commonwealth Air Training Plan trainees in Canada. One of these was a family friend, an instructor pilot, who died on Christmas Day, 1942 at RCAF Station Trenton, Ontario. The family’s sorrow lasted over 70 years – until the last member of his immediate family had died. Their sorrow was made more difficult by the fact that it had occurred in Canada, and they did not have the same sense that their family’s sacrifice had contributed to winning the War.

Military service occurs in accordance with an unlimited liability contract – even outside of a hostile theatre or a Special Duty Area. Would that this same obligation would extend from our federal and provincial governments to all veterans, past and present.  Mental health post service encompasses more than PTSD, and we should recognize the need for transition support post service as former service men and women rebuild disrupted, and sometimes shattered lives. Please offer them that recognition of having “done their bit” even when they do not ask – and please accept that this recognition comes with a cost in time and in treasure.

If you wish to consider what these costs might entail, please visit the following websites:

https://veteransmentalhealth.ca/
https://www.facebook.com/CanadianVeteranMentalHealth/

https://www.yourdoctors.ca/blog/healthy-living/resilient 

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OPENING THE PANDORA’S BOX OF REMEMBRANCE

Speaking as a Veteran, November is my least favourite month. Aside from the darkness and worsening weather, it brings very mixed feelings on the meaning of the words service, sadness, honour, duty, life, and death. It has taken me all week to find the mental focus to blog on this subject.

I am reminded of my maternal grandfather, a member of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps (R.C.A.M.C.) during the Second World War. Grandpa Gordon Ferguson was qualified as a Casualty Aide, as a Pharmacist’s Assistant, as an Operating Room Assistant, as a Laboratory Technician, and I believe as an X-Ray Technician as well. He liked to joke that he had been too expensive to send to the front. Although he was a Private, he was paid the equivalent of Staff-Sergeant wages due to his R.C.A.M.C. qualifications. The extra money helped as he was supporting a wife, two children, his mother-in-law, and his brother-in-law and his wife in a tiny house on York Street, Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. My Grandfather Gordon was away from his home in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia for over six years, and almost five years straight overseas. He studied pharmacy after the War, spending another four years away at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and  then spent years in running a pharmacy in Whitney Pier in Sydney. His two daughters, including my mother, spent much of their childhood without him. A son was born two years after his return – a “celebration of survival” baby – so to speak.

Grandpa Gordon had a wry sense of humour, smoked beautiful smelling pipe tobacco, and loved watching hockey and football on television. We often watched M*A*S*H together, and he would occasionally comment on the technical veracity of the episodes. The only war story that I ever heard him tell was of trading a pack of Player’s Cigarettes for a German Iron Cross Second Class with a Soviet sentry who held him at gunpoint when he tried to visit the Fuhrer Bunker in post-war Berlin. He saw limited combat action, but what he saw was enough to change his life, and the lives of his family for generations.

In August 1944, he was a Casualty Aide in a second-line ambulance exchange point just behind the lines at the Falaise Gap, where Canadian and other allied forces were acting as the plug in the bottle preventing the escape of the German 7th Army from the Falaise Pocket. My Grandfather Gordon was one of the Casualty Aides who received the casualties from the armoured corps unit ambulances. His role was to stabilize the casualties for movement to a third-line field hospital by changing dressings and administering pain medication. Sounds simple – right out of an Army doctrine manual. According to their training, the Casualty Aides role was to control bleeding, ensure that broken limbs were immobilized, and pain controlled. Except that it wasn’t that simple.

The casualties from the Canadian and Polish Sherman tank crews arrived at the ambulance exchange point soaked in bloody bandages, sweat, urine, feces, and assorted other body fluids. Most were badly burned to the point where skin, clothes, and bloody bandages were indistinguishable. According to their training, the Casualty Aides were to look for time of the last morphine dose written in purple crayon on the bandaged forehead of their patient. What Private Ferguson often saw was a reddish-purple mush soaked in blood, sweat, huge swollen blisters weeping fluid, and burnt skin sloughing away. The lucky casualties were unconscious, covered with third-degree burns, and close to death. The unlucky ones, somewhat less burned, were waking up in shock and delirious with pain as their swollen burns put pressure on the surrounding blood vessels and nerves, the often fatal “compartment syndrome.” Finding the time of the last morphine dose was impossible in most cases. You were supposed to NEVER administer morphine in such circumstances. 

Confronted with the reality of the aftermath of tank battles, he used up all the morphine ampoules he had, trying to find an unburned place with functioning blood supply in which to insert the needles. Sometimes he could, giving the soldier near instant relief, and other times he couldn’t, and simply pushed the needle into the most solid looking body part. The knowledge that he had almost certainly killed Canadian soldiers with a morphine overdose stayed with him for the rest of his life.

Grandpa Gordon briefly tried the Royal Canadian Legion after he returned home. He didn’t stay with it as he said it was filled with combat veterans drinking away their memories, and “wanna-bes” basking in post-war euphoria. In a town that had lost many during the War, and in a town that continued to lose men in the coal mines, he didn’t think that his story was anything special. He personified “stiff upper lip.”

Grandpa Gordon and my Grandmother Sally were incredibly close. She told me that whenever she saw a telegraph boy on a bicycle on York Street (this was a frequent occurrence), her heart would race until he had cycled by their house. She would then feel terribly guilty for feeling so relieved at a neighbour’s sorrow.

I heard the Falaise Gap story only once when we returned to his house from Grandma Sally’s funeral. Grandpa Gordon died three years, seven months after Grandma Sally’s death. He had been desperately lonely, and it seemed that whatever joy he held was gone. He had a heart attack in March 1983, and despite knowing exactly what was happening, he did not go to the hospital for a day. According to my mother, he was trying to die. Once at the hospital, probably knowing that death was close, he sent my mother and aunt out of the hospital room with the excuse that he wanted privacy to go to the bathroom. He died almost the moment the door closed, six weeks before he and I were to visit his wartime billeting family in Holland.

By today’s standards, Grandpa Gordon would almost certainly have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His once close family is now fractured, and I often wonder what his life – and our lives – might have been like if he and the other Veterans – and their families – had had access to the psychological care that we now have – imperfect as it is.

Please remember the cost of war, for the soldiers, and for their families in the decades that follow. Please be patient when they ask for help – and be especially understanding when they don’t.

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Remembrance Week 2023

Once again I have an opportunity to reflect more deeply on the nature of remembrance in my life. While I think about war and conflict on a daily basis as a defence consultant and as someone who lives with PTSD, my thoughts always become more focused in the last week of October and the first week of November. For most of my life, my thoughts focused on the Second World War service of my father, grandfather, and father-in-law. More recently, I think about the service of friends and colleagues who are starting to leave our Earthly experience with the passage of time and accumulated service-related injuries. This afternoon I will be attending the funeral services for a colleague who I served with in 1st Field Artillery Regiment in Halifax, Nova Scotia from 1988 to 1990. I was a relatively young Captain, and he was a middle-aged Warrant Officer. We were both members of the “Regular Force Cadre” (RFC) within this storied Primary Reserve unit. The RFC was expected to support the Reserve Commanding Officer in ensuring that his unit used the most up to date technical drills and tactics within the context of their resource challenges. The RFC was also expected to model professional behaviour. I inherited a rather challenging circumstance in which these lines were blurred in a unit wherein personal relationships often trumped rank. It could have been a miserable posting, but it turned out to be one of my favourites, in no small part due to the unflinching support and loyalty I had from my older colleague. I think of selflessness in service when I think of him. RIP Jerry, END OF MISSION, Good Shooting, STAND EASY, your example will remain with me for the rest of my life.

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