Plant vs. a Human; “Green” a short Canadian film

Counterbalance Collective is a new game in town operating out of Toronto. Very determined young women operating as a collective learning their craft of making film by assuming interchangeable roles of film production. All done with high intentions and spirit but short on funds.

I watched their little over 9 minutes short “Green” and the camerawork has improved and the musical score by Kiia is snappy and perfectly suited. A young lady (Seled Calderon) is given a fern by her friend in the hope that it will help her “get her shit together”. Well the opposite happens as she tries to transplant the little fern she has named Christina and creates a disaster of epic proportions. Calderon shows good range from determination, frustration and then tears and in the end her self proclaimed title “Plant Momma” is rather exaggerated!

A study in good intentions being bombed to smithereens by lack of technical ability and the range of emotions that can flow over a plant and a personality not suited for caring for a plant. Plant Momma loveable and human as she is lacks the ability to care for a fern. If you are searching for a deeper meaning learning and understanding your limitations often is a result of what we might call insignificant events. In fact Calderon is so Chaplinesque in her physicality this could very well be a silent short!

Well written by Victoria Kucher.

You can see this study in plant disaster here https://youtu.be/1TnFNUSPvTc

British Columbia’s Okanagan Wines Power On!

From British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley we have a Meritage from Sunrock Vineyards which is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. The Okanagan does a splendid job with these grapes on a singe varietal basis so I expect that usual high quality in a blend! Unfortunately expectations can sometimes be shattered.

A lush and plush nose. Seems like Okanagan Merlot is showing its stuff. Blackberry, black cherry, blueberry and a bit of coconut courtesy of I am guessing some older American oak? On the palate you get what you got on the nose. Perfect balance of acids, tannins and oak with this wine. Really well put together. It is rich and full bodied with a moderately long finish. I really only eat meat a few times a year. I have not even grilled anything on the barbeque this year. Yes I admit at times I miss it but quite frankly a plant based diet is much better for your health and over the past few years digging deep I have discovered some very satisfying vegetarian dishes so I’ll say go ahead and have this with a steak or lamb and you’ll be well rewarded but tonight I had roasted squash, heirloom carrots and potatoes drizzled with olive oil and beer with red pepper flakes and maple syrup served over some basmati rice. Delicious and this wine would have suited it so well.

Another excellent wine from our neighbours in British Columbia. A veritable treasure trove of wines the world should experience.

(Sunrock Vineyards Red Meritage 2016, BC VQA Okanagan Valley, Sunrock Vineyards, Oliver, British Columbia, $34.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario #408392, 750 mL, 14.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me Rating 94/100)

We move lastly to a Monte Creek ranch 2017 Cabernet Merlot. A predominant nose of blackberry and blackberry all very clean and pure. On the palate noticeable tannins with Santa Rosa plum, black cherry and a hint of coffee. The finish is moderate. This is a right at you type of wine. I say it is made for food and my vote would be a vegetarian lasagna preferably with all local produce which unfortunately is months away but you can try it with the less than tasty California or Mexican produce. And canned Italian tomatoes.

(Monte Creek Ranch 2017 Cabernet Merlot, BC VQA, Monte Creek Ranch Winery, Monte Creek, British Columbia, $23.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario #15770, 750 mL, 14.4%, Robert K Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me Rating 86/100)

Beyond Me Mindfulness; “Service”

Service means a giving of yourself to others for the purpose of helping their purpose and goals. The mere fact you are giving yourself immediately enables you to traverse the “me” barrier.

One hopes humans have the ability to determine if the service is for a worthy cause. In this regard there are bad purposes and ambitions you can give service to and increase human suffering. Determining if you are offering service to a “good cause” involves a value judgement not all individuals can readily make. Like if you are offering your services to the anti-abortion movement is this a good cause? What moral code can we adhere to determine the validity and decency of our service? We are at the mercy of reliance on individuals to assess what is good service. Quite frankly beyond me mindfulness characteristics may often be used for evil so at the end of the day you have to decide if your service is for promoting and reducing suffering for humanity or reducing it.

In simplistic terms you are making someone’s life better. In the easily recognizable forms it is giving someone or organization your time as a community service. It can be volunteering as a hockey coach, sorting food at a community foodbank or volunteering at a charitable organization.

Your giving of time to third parties shows you are interested in more than yourself. This giving has the ability to make you happier as you feel better about yourself. I can only hope it is a genuine act of your heart and not simply a sense of duty. As Martin Luther King stated, “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

As Alison Murdoch and Deyki-Lee Oldershaw say in their “16 Guidelines For Life”, ‘The people who serve most deeply and sincerely seem to be those who can expose themselves the most fully to another person’s needs and problems. It can be painful and difficult to open up to the suffering of someone else. Our minds recoil, seeking a more pleasurable focus of attention. Yet if we can stay open and aware, we may find the answer for many of our own needs and dilemma.’

Mindfulness: Compassion as a key foundation and compassion vs. empathy

Practitioners of mindfulness soon realize compassion is a key component of mindfulness. There is self-compassion and compassion for others. If you can’t be compassionate with yourself how can you be compassionate to others?

In fact there are even specialized meditations that focus on compassion.

I would argue if you can’t exercise compassion for yourself you may be setting yourself up for undue misery. Assume a terrible event has occurred in your life and you are bothered with it. You can be bitter and resentful if you react to that terrible event leading to emotional upset. Or you can respond to that event by showing some compassion to yourself. Through showing this compassion you may overcome the event, learn to accept it and believe it or not you might even be thankful for the event or it may be a combination of all three. You can’t truly escape sorrow but you can “manage” it so it does not become self destructive.

I refer to the “arrow story” for a bit of analogy. You are shot with an arrow and are in pain. If you start criticizing yourself for a myriad of reasons for being an easy target you are heaping fuel to the fire accomplishing little but adding to your pain.

Assuming one is not a psychopath or sociopath compassion is infinite or can be infinite.

It is as simple as closing your eyes and giving yourself or anyone else compassion. Recognize the sadness, anger or whatever the negative emotion is swirling in your head and send kind wishes of health, safety, understanding and in some cases forgiveness. Compassion has become so important there is actually a companion to mindfulness called compassionate cultivation training. Compassion does lead to a degree of neuroplasticity.

Empathy can be somewhat tricky in mindfulness. Empathy is in essence connecting with yourself or a third party and can be painful and draining. Perhaps instead of feeling for yourself or that third party send out thoughts of compassion.

Listen to the following short talk by author Paul Bloom on compassion vs. empathy. https://mindfulnessexercises.com/empathy-compassion/

The Barren Land of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)

If you have been exposed to an MBSR/MBCT course through a hospital which is quite often a step for people suffering from depression, anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder mindfulness becomes a bland therapeutic tool focusing on a apparently simplistic tool of meditation focusing on the breath to give the mind a respite from what has upset it. At the end of the day it is therapeutic type of tool. Whether it be MBSR or MBCT in an institutional setting it really has very little soul. A constant Jon Kabat-Zin theme of being in the present moment in a non-judgemental fashion. Often boring body scan meditations. Breathe, breathe and think of nothing else but the breath. This has so much wisdom in it but having been  at least 14 days of MBSR training at a local hospital I can say only a few of my fellow participants really understood its significance .Nor is there any understanding of Buddhist or Daoist traditions that form the core of modern mindfulness.

Yes MBSR and MBCT may simply be tools. Like prescribing an anti-depressant MBSR/MBCT has become a “drug” to deal with stress and psychiatric disorders. I participate in, or used to before COVID, a monthly mindfulness group meeting headed by a psychiatrist at a local hospital. Yet try to talk about “being in the present moment” or “feeling as one” during meditation very few participants understood these concepts. That is a shame to see that mindfulness is just another RX script. A new nondrug drug. The way I see it taught within the hospital situation is that mindfulness is a state of mind and not a state of how to live mindfully.

Now if it works to reduce or control stress and psychiatric conditions bravo!

But mindfulness living requires more than a technical sophistry if one wants to take that path. Should there be a value-based mindfulness? By this I mean a conscious attempt to import certain values into a mindful practice. Arguably if one becomes aware of these values isn’t one mindful of them?

Can we move beyond that shallow technical application of head towards a value-based mindfulness that involves principles of living and relating that involves more than a quick and dirty meditation that frees the mind from adverse reactions to life?

Perhaps this is something we should delve into? Are there principles of mindfulness that take us beyond the quick and dirty technical use of mindfulness and shape our lives to a richer and rewarding intellectual existence beyond that trite “living in the present moment” expression. Well it is not that trite but in my experience, it is trite as MBSR participants have absolutely no or little understanding of how it feels and how it means.

Yet should we have a cup of “mindful tea” wearing our mindful T-shirts. Or should we be suckered in by employers offering mindful courses to possibly exploit and manipulate their employees. Yes, the employer says, we have given you the tools to manage stress so let’s heap more work on you!

Let us delve deeper into what mindful living might encompass. Coming up a discussion on the 16 guidelines of life.

(The author is certified in mindfulness by the University of Toronto and the University of Leiden.)

COVID-19: Preserving your Mental Health: What are they saying in the Province of Quebec

The Quebec Magazine L’actualité in its December 2020 edition had a lengthy article entitled “Comment aller Mieux” (How do get by better) and it had comments from 20 experts to help readers improve their mental health and live through the next few pandemic months in the most serenely way possible. I have attempted to translate the most interesting provisions from French into English.

This gloomy epidemic sometimes called a phase of disillusionment is all quite normal explains Melissa Généreux who is an expert in public health and preventative medicine at the University of Sherbrooke. She added with a major pandemic at play people muster all their resources to manage the situation and the production of adrenaline reaches its height. It is impossible to sustain this and in the long run it will cause damage.

As Jean-Michel Longneaux of The University of Namur in Belgium says the pandemic has ruined the pillars of Western civilization. Panic has set in because people are unsure of what to do. Experts are squabbling about the best strategy is  to remain isolated, social distance, wear a mask and what treatments? We don’t know what foot to dance on and it is painful to see that science can be incorrect and does not always speak with absolute truth.

Before the pandemic many economies were on a roll but day after day it is bankruptcy and unemployment with countries creating deficits the size of elephants. It is like everything has been taken away suddenly and people fear they have lost control of their life.  Confidence in the future is low and personal anguish high. Many people have lost their footing and have fallen into depression because reality is very hard to swallow. Longneaux says, “The old world is dead and the new world is rising in insecurity suddenly creating monsters. The monsters have now been unleashed.”

Melissa Généreux completed some research of 6,260 Quebecers recently and found that some handled the pandemic better than others particularly those who could maintain consistency. If a person can in a period of crisis realize what is happening and can realize what is aggravating their suffering then re-evaluate their values and objectives can lead a satisfactory life in these new constrained conditions. Généreux discovered that those who had a sense of consistency were 4 times less likely to be depressed and 5 times less likely to contemplate suicide. Being objectively stressed plays a major role in mental health.

Généreux was also interested in the source of information on the pandemic that can leave one swimming in false information that can help bring on depression.

Jean-Michel Longneaux comments that some people hold on to the notion that they are all powerful and that they can control their destiny and then later find their life in flames their whole existence threatened this may cause drastic anguish and suffering to the point of driving some to suicide.

Next: Women in the pandemic

Poetry Corner: “The Hunters”

The hunters

Gentleman they say
kill in the office or fields everyday
the gold mine owners want Peruvian Maxima Acuna dead
the hell with the waster water from the production of gold full of heavy metals and lead
it really matter what the senior management teams say
to show them you are the boss of their way
is it really this way
for them animal and man is eaten off the same tray
but they are proud self proclaimed hunters and crawling parasites
sucking the blood of the innocents
but virginity is made to be given away
as innocence is in its dying day
the façade of peaceful co-exitance will fade away
the the angry will rip the leader lamprey off their backs
and hurl them
under
the wheels of
angry tricycles

Robert K. Stephen

Poetry Corner: “Optical Illusion Oasis”

Optical Illusion Oasis

People sitting under the great Canadian fright
drinking heavily in the village of neon light
pretensions of affairs being outta sight
really nothing more than a herd of uptight

Such a pathetic sight
strongest on a Friday night
people with nothing to do
except play acting cool fools
floundering in the human cesspool

Death should be superior
so come join me today or tomorrow
for you are already dead
what can you do in life
I tell you
you are needless and superfluous
like pieces of gum
the black suited monsters
crush without pity on their way to paper colonies
refusing the cries of the trampled

Come join me in the land of the insane
where every day does not end up a futile game
soulless butchered minds craving dead maggots
that’s what we are
no schools of respectability
only dens of perverse sadistic crazed nobility
souls of the living cry to join us
so if you haven’t guessed it I am Lucifer but which hell is better
yours or mine
you’ll find out in due course of time

Robert K. Stephen


Poetry Corner: :Ode to Donald Trump”

Ode to Donald Trump

It really wasn’t a surprise when the “stolen” election ousted you as leader of the flock
your Republican senators stabbed you in the back and that was quite a shock
your incitement and COVID mishandling made you fall so low
where did your friends the Proud Boys go?
it’s clear 51% of the American population hates you now
making you as popular as a turburclean cow
but not all is doomed as you sit in your cell
as in 23 Hitler didn’t do so well
your type and their supporters still abound
not even democracy can chase them from the grounds
but in the end Benito, Adolf and Idi couldn’t stand the frost
so Trump it’s time to get lost

Robert K. Stephen

Poetry Corner: “the Visit”

The Visit

a Mercedes drives up
a sleek well dressed man emerges from within
he treads into the facility feeling so fine with his charitable actions
and his shiny Hugo Boss shoes
he visits once a year

at reception he is told his father is not yet Prepared
and would he kindly wait a minute
he sits and gapes at the urinated soaked residents
slumped in drugged stupors
some strapped in chairs like dangerous animals
that dear old Dad was in much better shape
but sonny boy had been so busy at the clothing plant
he had again forgotten about dear pops

A nurse gestures as it is time to see him
into dad’s room they venture
to guiltily stare at the living vegetable
with the killing cognitive failure creeping
astonished at dear old dad’s decline he laughs
couldn’t they pull out his tubes or something?
after all he’s shelling out $2,400 a month
and his little Ronnie wants a Corvette
dad senses his concerned son
and beckons him over
and whispers in his ear “you selfish bastard”
and promptly expires

The Mercedes pulls away
stopping at his travel agency
for the trip to Paris
the family had always wanted
but could never afford
because of that expense that no longer need be incurred