Wednesday the 9th, July 2008
Each edition of ‘Well’ takes on a life of its own and this one seems to focus on some of the often-overlooked bedrock elements of wellness, such as family and friends.  Trauma often sends you back to basics and I suffered a minor trauma when I became digitized recently (i.e. lost the top of my right thumb). You can read about the thumb incident in my blog. I hope that you’re not too busy to take a look at the beauty of Ashes and Snow in ‘Visions of Wellness’, or to listen to some music and stretch your mind and feelings just a little. The IT people would like ‘Well’ reduced to a few bite sized paragraphs, but I feel you deserve more than that. So take your time and enjoy the graphics, the beauty and the reminders that we live in a wonderful world, surrounded by generous, caring people, if we allow ourselves to see them.
PS: If you miss the video clip of Jason McElwaine in ‘The Power of Play’ you will miss one of the great sports moments of all time.
:: Martin
Martin’s Wellness Blog
“Fools cut their fingers, but wise men cut their thumbs.”
:: Proverb
‘Everything is connected; everything changes; pay attention.’ That is the Cole’s Notes  of Buddhism and perhaps of life. A couple of weeks back I didn’t pay attention and lost the top of my right thumb just above the knuckle in a wood splitting machine. This meant an enforced change to a left handed lifestyle and, of course, the top of my right thumb is no longer connected to the rest of me.
Bob Dylan in one of his songs said, “Pain sure brings out the best in people doesn’t it?” At first I thought he was right as I was almost euphoric, but after five and a half hours of surgery and a night in the twilight zone of a post-surgical ward I had to deal with a few realities. I cancelled a presentation for the first time in my long career as a speaker and that, combined with a post-shock reaction, left me feeling a bit brain dead and uninspired which is perfect for watching TV, but not the best mental state for creative writing. I’ve had a couple of unveilings for the surgeon to check the progress of his work and the first time I had some Leonard Cohen lyrics running through my brain.
Wondering out loud as the bandage pulls away,
Was I only limping, was I really lame?
But here, come over here,
Between the windmill and the grain
Between the sailboat and the drain
Between the newsreel and my tiny pain,
Once again, once again,
Love calls you by her name.
That whole thought process is a bit lame I guess as I’m only dealing with a thumb, but Leonard was right about the ‘love’ part, as I’ve received nothing but love from friends and family and will probably emerge from this a few pounds heavier from the soup and cookies that show up on my doorstep and from a decrease in my activity level, although I’ve managed a walk almost every day. The bottom line is that I’ll heal, although I’ll have to change the way I strum guitar for a while and perhaps put hitchhiking on the back burner in addition to my future career as a hand model.
 The thumb-shortening incident happened on one of those weeks that lack flow, when everything you do seems to detract from something else. There’s not much you can do about times like that except focus on whatever you choose to do and give it your best. I don’t think there was any cosmic message in the accident. In the words of Jimmy Dale Gilmore “Rain don’t fall on the flowers when it’s falling, rain just falls.” Very Buddhist and good enough for me.
 | If it bleeds it leads, so you get the bad stuff first. I’ll choose maybe three things that have enriched my life since the last ‘Well’. My local pharmacist Naz Rayani is an Ishmaili Muslim who, to the delight of everyone in the ‘village’, has just been awarded The Order of Canada. The official reason was for ‘voluntary service’ but I can think of a number of reasons to recognize this lovely man.
« Naz Rayani |
 (i) He’s a great pharmacist who chooses not to hide behind the dispensing counter but comes out into the store to talk to, to care for and to be in touch with his customers. This is particularly important for his many senior clients who know they have a sympathetic ear to listen to their problems and a person they can trust to give clear advice about the complex world of drugs and health products.
(ii) Naz is a devout practicing Muslim who recognizes the importance of connecting with people of other faiths. He takes customers on tours of his mosque, he raises money for the Muslim Book Fund at the University of Victoria and when the local Anglican and United churches have a fete or fundraiser you will find Naz cooking up samosas and pokhoras as his contribution to the event. Naz told me that someone at his mosque said, ‘why don’t we just give $500’ and he had to explain that it was not the money  he raised that was important but his presence as a bridge builder between different faiths. An Anglican churchgoer told the local pastor that ‘Naz was really a good Christian’, to which the pastor responded, ‘No, he’s a good Muslim’.
(iii) Naz has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Aga Khan Foundation’s Partnership Walk. One of the primary goals of the Foundation is to provide money for people to have access to good drinking water in developing countries. If only the Naz Rayanis of this world were headline news rather than Osama.
If you want to grow, you’ve got to step out of your comfort zone, and I did just that when I signed up for a singer/songwriters’ workshop in the Texas hills. The organizer described it as being ‘7 miles from Comfort’ with Comfort being a nearby small town. My primary reason for going was that the workshop was being conducted by one of my favorite female singers (one of my favorite females period) Eliza Gilkyson. Eliza is one of those writers and performers who keep getting better and better and I  feel she is so much more sensitive, creative, insightful and just a flat out better songwriter and interpreter of her own music than more famous women such as Sheryl Crowe, Shania and other big names. It just reinforced the point that money and quality often find it hard to coexist. The whole weekend was all about music with the goal of the organizers being to create a great musical environment and to break even financially.Eliza Gilkyson »
 click to listen to an mp3
of Eliza: Jedediah (4.3MB)
[Eliza’s website]
Don’t take my word for how good Eliza is, listen to her CD ‘Paradise Hotel’. Many of the participants were passing out their CDs and one incident summarized the magic of the weekend for me. A man named Mike Ericksen said that he had come to listen and not to play, so I was somewhat surprised when he gave me a CD of his work saying I just might be interested. It contained some majestic work for instruments and chorus and had the piece ‘Light Up the Land’ been used in a film like ‘Brokeback Mountain’ it would have sold millions.  Have a listen (6.5MB).
One of the bedrock principles of wellness is to show up with a positive attitude; I did, and was richly rewarded. |
recoil