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I really did want to attend our 60th reunion, but No. Here's a couple of pictures, anyway. Life has been very good to me, and my second choice--realizing No for the reunion--was to complete a nice little Bio story for you-all to enjoy, but even that is going to be late. Well, phooey. I do hope you might visit this site again soon to see my micro-autobiog anyway. i was SO shy and SO crazy-uptight all those years, but after I'd been married a couple of times and then found my present sweetie, I was a bit more relaxed. My "present sweetie" of 24 years, is my beautiful Jenny, my "one-night stand" who just never left.
More, much more, to follow.*
*Let's give some of that a try, right now (July 27, 2024):
Looking at the profiles of many of you friends I was way too scared of my own self to ever acknowledge, in Athlone or Quilchena or Maple Grove or Point Grey or Magee--always; my horrific shyness and my imagined horrors at home controlling so much of my first twenty years or so--I feel many of my oldest concerns all over again. The difference now is in my not being afraid, or scared, OF being afraid or scared. "Fear is a very strange emotion," I've said to a number of people: "Fear must always control you when you don't recognize FEAR as FEAR. When you acknowledge fear as being the truth veiled right behind some seemingly much more noble cause, then your fear says, 'Hey, you're no fun! What's the use of making you afraid, if you ARE NOT AFRAID OF BEING AFRAID?' And then Fear walks away, mumbling and cursing to itself." It's a good perspective, and I, Carson, should know. Or should I?
I dunno. Most of you reading this were vastly wealthier than I. Mum pushed us to live way beyond our means, and it ain't no fun to be ten years old answering the telephone to creditors. My life was a huge, scary charade, all through my school years, until I finally accidentally followed my heart and became a naturalist living and working in the Rockies. Waterton Lakes, Banff, Jasper, Yoho, Cape Breton Highlands, and Kootenay National Parks were my intimate friends, along with thousands of miles driven along the roads connecting them. I breathed fresh, fresh air; and I knelt like a man praying to God to receive fresh, fresh water in my fast-numbing hands, beside some stream that was ice just moments before.
Grizzly bears knew me, way better than I knew them.
Fire and Ice, indeed. Rare purple wildflowers on alpine rocks.
Ptarmigan you could walk over without seeing.
Naked glacial ponds higher than eternity; heavens we stripped naked to be inside, splashing into water that we could not survive; happiness like essence of sin; dashing out absolutely nude and running back to our clothing--and realizing our beautiful, perfect naked bodies of joy were absolutely DRY in that sunshine 20 seconds after the heart-plunge into the icy little alpine lake.
Then I was okay again. There I was happy. Safe, extremely healthy, and happy.
And the girls! Oh, goodness, the stories I could tell you; the most beautiful women God ever designed; more dangerous than the lightning strikes; oh my, how my life of colour and violence and passion and all those Siberian Huskydog years of a fantastic love--or a thousand such loves--how deeply and how much those times and places burned me; a singe to my very soul, addictive as the fantastic smooth feminine arms that held me. They said I had a nice cock.
Zero tobacco, not much alcohol, as little money as I could use for survival, conspired to let me wander those places beside God. Ken Goble was there, and oh my heavens, so many beautiful, fantastic strangers. I loved it, and I was deeply loved without knowing I was.
Then there were the Striptease Years; and then the years as an instructor for, mainly, Athabasca University, mostly in Alberta. For Athabasca, I taught in three departments and then also in two federal penitentiaries. "How could you POSSIBLY go from the ultimate, moneyless freedoms of the Rockies, to the closed-life penitentiaries?" I was often asked. Well, one place taught similar lessons as the other; and I was an instructor; not an inmate, of those concrete-and-razorwire cages--unlike my students, when I approached some giant penitentiary gate, it would OPEN magically for me. But the lessons we learn are the same.
Sort of.
Okay. Another pause here, and another return, soon to come. See you somewhat sooner this next time.
--So, just later the same day, after receiving some very welcome email from you guys: Yes, I was not the jealous kind, but I was very very ENVIOUS of some of my peers' assumed-wealth. That was Huge in those days. Since then I've been both poor and wealthy. I finally seemed to understand wealth as much more an account with God: today I see dollars as the biggest single failure of humankind. Did people, way back thousands and thousands of years, attempt to REPLACE the natural joys and happiness of every other living species with LEDGERS? I'm not sure whether earthworms or birds or other life-forms ever engaged in such a perversion; but I see our moneys as just that: every other species on the planet loves to GIVE, while people, who must have floundered here in crashed space-ships, are literally hell-bent on TAKING. in Vancouver, as one of millions examples, our RENTS are really, by definition, EXTORTION. People who have, or who have had, DOGS, are generally among those who see that wars are not necessary at all. People whose lives have involved living very close to decisions from the HEART (or, as my Spanish friends might say, decisiones desde el corazón)--rather than always the same-same boring old HEAD-type logic--know what I'm saying.
I was raised as an Anglican, but since 12 or 13 I've been more Pagan, talking with God every day, and slowly slowly attempting to learn. (By God I don't mean some barely-competent lacky or servant, who blunders along attempting to find your car-keys. I mean God=Cosmos=Gaia=the source-energy who creates the stars, who created You, and who knows your name: NOT a car-key miserable little whatever.
These lessons came slowly, as I was never very bright. My life was saved by other people twice at least, and both times the people who saved me were NOT Supermen; they were much weaker, usually, than I was. Hmmmm.
I'm increasingly aware of fantastic incredible coincidences everywhere. I love them. One of the courses I taught way back when was Logic, as in Athabasca University's Philosophy department. I love logic. I see logic as a ruler along ONE PERSPECTIVE; JUST ONE WAY of seeing the world. But there are millions, and billions, of other ways; many much much more available. If you have known people who rate high on the narcissism spectrum, you see how very often politicians, for instance, "MUST" be that very, very, strange thing called "Right".
How are we doing so far?
Next bit is to be all about girls. Women, I think, are vastly superior in many ways than are men. You'll see. I don't quite "get it" that human genders are of the same SPECIES; not at all.
--Back again; same day again (July 29, 2024).
I grew up in a household that was changing slowly from Baptist to Anglican to an even worse religion called Scientific. I'm giving you the teensy-tiny "I'll make it short" version. Anyway, I was aware that Easter Bunnies hid brightly coloured Eggs. I mean, I wasn't some kind of a FOOL. And I thought Christian religions were Really Weird, if not downright Perverted, in being so hung-up about Mary's being a virgin and all. Why? They always seemed to get hung-up over that. REALLY hung-up. Why?
I don't know much about this, but weren't there other religions, too, which had this same, or similar, idea? "How can I possibly be preggers when I'm still a virgin?" It seemed to matter SO MUCH. Why?
Well, in evolutionary studies, all those concepts were really very recent. I dunno; maybe in the past 2,000 or 6,000 years?? Correct me if you know. NOT JUST CHRISTIANITY, but other religious beliefs as well, had this apparently very impotant idea. In evolution, however, the planet was very much older, if not any wiser. In evolution, the story of a virgin being impregnated by God and--well, you know; the whole bit--was crazy.
One day I wondered whether things really happened that way. What if BOTH ideas were essentially true? Decided to try that out.
So, the planet comes into being, what; 4.6 billion years ago, or something like that. Life evolves fairly soon. Happy life, basically; wildlife, having a wild time in the wilderness. It was a good stpory, until a few moments ago, when people show up. The people to which I refer did NOT evolve. They came here in a few (or a few thousand) space-ships, and crash-banged onto Earth in various locations, as do the rays of sunshine from the nearest star. Their reaction to find themselves here was generally, "Oh PHOOEY" or "DARN!!!"
Hang on. Back in a bit. . . .
