Beauty/Spirituality

The beginning of Love

Posted on by stephen t berg / 2 Comments

Daniel Stanley is a homeless man. But he’s not in any apparent hurry to find a home. We sat on the grass together along the Railtown strip, with his two friends Curtis and Devon. Friends, I’m guessing, he helps support.

I had met him earlier. He had called me over to see a piece of art. We squatted beside the sidewalk. Devon, who had been carrying it, unfolded and lifted off the red-plaid blanket. A three-foot frame surrounded a smallish portrait, painted on foil–of what was a shining totem…a communion of nature…a heritage.

This time when I met him he had a half dozen or so of larger, unframed works, in a plastic Save-On bag. We sat on the ground and he told me the story of each painting.

Daniel uses a collection of fine-tipped pens to fill heavy, semi-gloss paper with micro-dots. That’s his method. His art, like most aboriginal art, is rich in symbolism. He explains patiently, pointing to the circle of grizzly cubs in one, to a wolf swirling out of itself in another, and to the profile of a chief in yet another. 

LovesBeginning(sm)

One captures me more than the others. An extravagant eagle towers, a rose is superimposed…there’s a cleansing sweat lodge beneath, beside which rises the pipe’s nourishing smoke of peace. Everything is in motion and enjoined, loose and lively. To the left, a spiraled circle of beads proves the interconnection of all people groups. Daniel tells me the painting is called "The beginning of Love." 

He speaks to me as a friend. I’ve known him for 15 minutes. His hair, pulled into a ponytail, heavy eyes set in full, worn, features, a quiet voice… I feel the elder in him as he speaks. He is younger than me.

There’s a transaction to be held. We barter and trade. He’s given me a lens and patient counsel in the ways of his culture–some First Nations pre-school. And picture to remember–Love’s beginning. I’ve given him some time and money.

Daniel is from the Shell Lake reserve in Saskatchewan which would make him, if my research is right, part of the Ahtahkakoop First Nations. But he roams western Canada. He paints what he sees, putting it together with what he remembers.

Poetics/Poverty

Scattershot

Posted on by stephen t berg / 2 Comments

A lady in a pink blouse is holding herself. Her arms are crossed and wrapped tightly around her waist. Her blonde hair is uncombed and hangs past her face in torn sheets as she watches the sidewalk move beneath her. She is walking west on Jasper–without plans. She has walked many blocks and many hours.

A native man in a nylon red jacket has bought a small coffee–and bought himself some time. Enough time to place chin on chest and sink, as far as possible, into his wooden chair. One arm has fallen and hangs limp by his side. Soon, the Railtown bench where he sleeps will be warmed by the sun and he’ll return.

I recall that I haven’t seen Brian for months. He had plans. So I’m hopeful.

sleeping on park bench(sm)

Later…two young women, annoying even to themselves one would think, have mastered scattershot-blather. With one dramatic "oh-my-god!" head shake and convulsion after another… Like, oh m’god, I’m gauging my annoyance levels. They’re in the orange.

Now a tall slender woman has come in. Black hair pulled tight and fastened behind her head with a broad orange hair-clip, red-orange lipstick, tight white blouse, tight orange crop pants and orange leopard-print stilettos upon which she balances and awaits her coffee. The two young women are: LIKE-OH-M’GOD!

A swad of joggers run east into a low sun awaiting their endorphin-high.

Spirituality

Edgy-Tuesday

Posted on by stephen t berg / 4 Comments

It’s an edgy Tuesday. Found a bug in my bed. Window was open to the wind. One gust at the right moment hurled its skinny thorax through the screen and one flip of the curtain sent it sprawling onto my pillow. No damage to its head during passage however. Either that or it came back riding one of the camping mattresses… So now I’m imagining dealing with an infestation on top of just trying to make work.

It’s a Tuesday that has its teeth on edge. Like Monday ate sour grapes. The sun’s six o’clock slant had no salubrious effect on my walk to Starbucks–what with a norwester clipping along ricocheting off buildings and pavement and sticking me with grit. The wind in its old battle with the sun. You would think it would give up already.

So I’ll wait. Not like I have a choice. But one morning it’ll be back again–the sun–reaching in and flowing down the spine, flooding cells, fibres, corpuscles, with warm light-waves, skin doing a slow ripple-tingle…that’s the sun I like. Me, a Lite-brite–the sun a big warm bulb. It’ll come.

It’s looking forward to things that keeps us going. I don’t like the idea, but it’s the way it is. I don’t like it because I live with the romance of learning to be so in tune with the moment that future plans have no bearing on my emotional state. I imagine my "second naiveté" to be just over there, only a season of meditated Psalms away. And when I get to that enlightened place, worry will melt and I’ll meet every blustery day with a knowing smile the size of St. Theresa’s serenity.

Thing is, there are methods and meditative movements that sweeten the prospect of being liberated from life-unhinged-from-place. And I’m an advocate P1080284 []of anything that moors us to our bodies–pasting us to the present–living our lives. But that’s a discipline that takes discipline. Like any.

Perhaps however, no matter how nirvana-nated, no matter how well the ectoplasm emanates, docking us to now, we still need some reflection of future to keep us kicking and alive. After all what is native possibility? Is it not a posture of leaning hopefully into the foreground of time? And this leaning doesn’t necessarily have to tip into anxiety. Does it? And anyway, is not this view-to-the-new perfectly human? And that precious unencumbered moment I long for, is it not hyper-linked to both polls of time? Can I really experience placement, the place-of-place, outside of a place beyond? No, I’m thinking we are all tuned telologically. All our time-capsules are tensed by contingency.

So edgy-Tuesday, you’ve got me shakin’ like a leaf, but I’ve got a date with Hawaii in October, so still yourself.

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