Jamacia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little song for the good `ole USA

On this

 The forth of July

 

 

The road to hell

is paved with good intentions

 

 

 

 

I am off to Jamacia for a few days

My sister, brother, dad and I are going there to take Mom’s ashes to a place she loved.

Mom went to Jamacia often with her life long friend Hanna..

 

They always stayed at the same place and over the years she developed many friends in town

On those occasions when I would join them 

I was amazed that so many people in town knew her by name

and considered her a friend

And in a sense she will be re joining her friend Hanna once again

Hanna recently passed away and her family  released her ashes to the gentle trade winds

of  Ocho Rio only a few months ago  

 

The two would hang around the beach in Ocho Rio, soak in the tropical sun…and drink like fish!!

and play in the water of course!

Sometime they would take us along

 

This was one of those times….

 

Alicia loves the beach

 

 

And mark found the culture and atmosphere of Jamacia

much to his liking 

This is us climbing the falls at Dunn’s river

 

 

 

Now since i got back from Canada …it has rained Non stop here in Arlington!!

 

 Thats all very nice for the plants and the lakes are finally full

And it has really helped me cleaning the crystals

But i was hoping for some good sunlight by now

 to  adequately photograph  the new crystals Howard and I were so fortunate to have mined!!

 

Ok great I am going to Jamacia…

surely a fantastic place for sunlight and photography…

I can pack some crystals in a suitcase

and get some great shots in the tropical sun

and the crystals will like the adventure !!

Hummm lets have a look at the ..The weather forecast in Jamacia

  Current Conditions

KRIKE!!!

 

  

 

 

 

if everyone cared

 

 

 

 

 

Just for fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I broke the drive up into two stretches,  the first day was the long  16 hour leg and then after a welcome few days visit and rest at a friends house,  I traveled the final six hours to meet Howard in Thunderbay…

Now in a situation like this,  I do like to be on time…

but you just can’t plan on every eventuality

and for some reason the Canadian Border Patrol

seemed to take a special interest in me

 

I watched the cars ahead pull through the border crossing

as if it were a simple toll booth…and just drive through..

I was encouraged then that  I would keep the time schedule..

but that was not to be the case..

 

When it was my turn,  the officer in the booth ask me if i had specific items…

i told him the truth.. the only one i had on his list was a case of beer..

which I knew is allowed but still he told me to pull in and sent me to immigration ….??

This was all new to me ….

I was almost alone in the building save for the border guards…

They didn’t seem to stop many people…just me?

 …so i wandered up to the serious looking woman in immigration

 A woman perhaps 35 years old, began to ask me questions

in a rather stern tone of voice

Q: Why are you traveling to Canada ?

A: To mine amethyst (I answered with honest enthusiasm) 

Q: And where are you going to mine this Amethyst?

A: I am going to a mine North of Thunderbay

Q: And how do you know of this mine?

A: My friend Howard invited me to his mine.  He is the owner

Q: And who is Howard?

A:  A Canadian citizen…

Q: And how did you come to know  this Howard?

A: The internet…synchronicity .. fate…

….how deep would you like me to go on this one miss?

Q: Just stick to the facts please..

 

and for the next 30 minutes we continued like this…

 

I believe she may have forgotten to ask me my shoe size..!

but i stayed friendly and cheerful as i could

Then the armed inspector came out …

He instructed me to drive the Subie into an inspection bay

CRAP……

I was in the one behind the sign!

 I had actually prepared a bit…. in anticipation of this remote possibility

it was more of a hunch…

For i surely did not give this occurrence  

the quality of attention to manifesting it as an intention …

any way

The inspector began to look thru my car

The first thing he saw were seven or eight  tape cases of the jesuit priest Mitch Pacwa, his sermons were strew about the passenger seat..The titles were like ”Where Does the bible come from.” …My aunt Rosemary loaned them to me to listen to them on the long trip…and i did!…

I saw the stern inspectors eyes travel to the cluster of geology books, the gps, the hand lens, my chemistry books… all the camping gear…

I felt then that moment…. when everything changes…

His mood lightened and he turned to me and smiled and asked me with friendly interest about my trip, and we talked  for a while as two people often do… sharing the moment…

We shook hands and he wished me a safe and pleasant trip….

I was safely across the border!!!

but really what was there to fear….?

It’s not as if I would ever think of smuggling “bud” across the border

Mean while I was still almost an hour was behind schedule…..!

but I made good time into Thunderbay and soon …

 I pulled into the Terry Fox memorial where Howard had suggested we meet

  

 

Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, a community near Vancouver on Canada’s west coast. An active teenager involved in many sports, Terry was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977. 

While in hospital, Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients, many of them young children, that he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.

He would call his journey the Marathon of Hope.

After 18 months and running over 5,000 kilometres (3,107 miles) to prepare, Terry started his run in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980 with little fanfare. Although it was difficult to garner attention in the beginning, enthusiasm soon grew, and the money collected along his route began to mount. He ran 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day through Canada’s Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario.

It was a journey that Canadians never forgot.

However, on September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. An entire nation was stunned and saddened. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at age 22.

The heroic Canadian was gone, but his legacy was just beginning.

To date, more than $400 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry’s name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world.

http://www.terryfoxrun.org/english/about%20terry%20fox/default.asp?s=1 

 

 

 

 

 

 Reflections of Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The long drive to Canada ?

“Say here I am ….

On the road again…

 

 On a long and lonesome highway…

 South of Iowa

 

You can listen to the engine…

Moaning out as one long song

 

You can thing about the woman

or the girl you knew the night before….

 

 

 but your thoughts  will soon be wandering

the way they always do

 

when your riding 16 hours

and there nothing much to do

 

and you don’t feel much like riding

you just wish the trip were through…

 

There i am …

up on the stage

Here I go…

playing star again

 

 

Yet ..every ounce of energy 

  Just seems to slip away

 

 

As  the sweat pours off my body 

the miles toll on and on ..

forever in a day

 

 

There i go

turn the page….

 

There I go …

slipped away

 

  

It took a bolt of lighting

to awaken to the truth 

 

I had given the moment away

forgotten the very point

 

 

 

reclaiming every ounce of energy…

 I sought to give away

 

I begin to focus on today 

 

 

and as the past and future dissolved away

 

 

  life itself returns

 

  

filling me with the feelings of

 color, sound and vibrant aliveness

 

I awaken to the beauty and joy

of each instant of the journey…

 

 

and live..

 

I was always … only a moment away

 

 

and now

I am there

 

 

 Thanks to Bob Segar for the feelings incorporated in the song lyrics

Turn the page….. 

 

 

 

Today I am driving the Suburu up to Canada for my first trip to

The Amethyst mine

 

I can’t begin to describe what a tremendous opportunity 

this is for an old rock hound like me

yea ! Howard !!

 

This is the cabin…

 

The natural enviroment there is outstanding but

surely this is a geological paradise

Howard and I will be there a few weeks working the mine

and exploring the area

 

I hope to find a computer I can hook into in town and perhaps

 

share a bit of the adventure while I am there

but if not I will  be back in a few weeks with lots of pictures

 

and hopefully a lot of Amethyst to share

Have a great week my friends

-doug

 

 

 

 

The passing of my mom was an intense time for  me and my family

 The familiar  world I see around me  appears the same as always 

yet  it feels as if    it is somehow   a different place  

 When everything is quiet  and the house is still

 I feel a sense of a subtle quality of alone ness  now, 

that was not here while she was living..

 

 

I am so very thankful for all of your kind words and thoughts

Your  presence in my life at this moment 

is helping me  reconnected with the world

-doug

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I  left my moms side this evening she was sleeping peacefully

On the drive home from the hospital as I was passing through a park region along the Trinity river bottom,  I saw a turtle emerge from the grass in a desperate attempt to cross to the road. I managed to just miss him with my tires but it was close! Given the traffic and the lighting on that very busy streak of road, I estimated the turtles chances of survival were slim to none.   

I pulled over and stopped the car, Urgently I ran back to the turtle and noticed he had made it almost to the middle of the road and that after a cluster of five cars moving at 55 miles per hour there was a slight break in the traffic! Yes … that just might allow me to run out and save the turtle. As the first car came abreast of the turtle… time slowed to a crawl and I closed my eyes. I could hear the passing of each set of tires  as the cars whooshed by… 

One car… I counted … then two,  then the third and forth passed by and then I heard that which I feared ..a heart breaking crunch.  As the very last cars passed by  it’s tires found the turtle and crushed the life from the living creature …

Gone was the intense sudden feeling of urgency … I turned away and slowly began to walked back to my car, as I bent  to retrieving the reading glasses that had fallen from my pocket and broken on the hard concrete , my mind replayed the sequence of events .. What could  I have done differently that would have allowed me to save the turtle?  My mind struggled to accept  the role of passive witness to a circumstances beyond my control..  I try to shake off the notion that had I just been more present and alert as to what was happening  then I could have saved a life..But that had not happened, the turtle died despite my intention to change course of events … 

I could not quite see past that then …

Dad called around midnight

My mother passed away this night

As the rain drops hit the window

I listen to the dawn

There is light within a person of light

And it shines on the whole world