I do a lot of driving.  It's not one of my favorite things to do.  It also is one of my favorite things to do.

We've been on a family road trip since the middle of last June.  It started just outside of Toronto in Southern Ontario, Canada.  It ended after eight months, just outside of Victoria, on Vancouver Island in Canada.  Almost 3500km.

We got to the island in the beginning of November and it felt to me like we'd come home.  The Highlands in North Greater Victoria is where laura and I came together on our mission toward sOMa and beyond.  That was seven years ago and so it truely was quite a homecoming.  It was great to share the beauty of the landscape with sOMa and to watch him frolic in the woods where laura and MyKL first played on our journey together. 

I found a great job right away in Victoria and we set out to find the settling spot, having the tremendous gift of the offer an unlimited stay with friends.  This proved to be too good to be true however, as their relation exploded about a month later and we were rather suddenly unwelcome.  The scenario unfolded while laura and sOMa were up island with some fresh friends we met on the ferry to Deman Island.  I couch-surfed for a few days.  When the family was reunited, we were gifted with another exceptional extended stay with friends who had found a wonderfull house-sitting gig just North of Duncan: about 50km out of the city.

Since then, I've put another thirty-five hundred kilometres on to MO, our Magic Odyssey van.  That was in about two months.  It will take about four months for me to put on that many kliks again from where we have finally settled (on beautifull Shawnigan Lake).

Driving is probably the most sressfull thing I do every day.
Don't get me wrong, I Love to drive.  It's not quite as fun as cycling IMO but you do get to go a LOT faster. 

I really came to Love the drive from Duncan.  It's a really pretty trip up and over a large landform ominously called the Malahat.  A lot of commuter traffic travels the Malahat and, as it's  a mountain pass, it can get pretty messy up top.  In the two months of commuting, I never lost a day due to driving conditions but one of my co-workers who lived on the way lost a couple.  There have been times when the highway has been closed many hours. 

On a clear day though, I could see the Cascade Mountains on the mainland of British Columbia and Washington.. and especially Mt. Baker, the most dominant peak on the distant horizon.  Down right below is the Saanich Peninsula and the Gulf Islands.  Coming down the Malahat into Langford, I've been treated with the occasional view of the Olympic Mountain range just over the more immediate Gowland Todd range.  Luckily I can still catch that little piece of magic if the conditions will allow.  It's truely a vision to behold.  Keeps me suspended in a high-up place for the whole day.

It's the views, aside from the speed, which make  driving tolerable.  Other than that, it's all stress.  I suppose, even the speed is a stress.  Going that fast  is hard on the system.  I will be glad to not have to do it for a while when i've got parental leave  this summer.   Then the driving's more on my terms.

Where Did Four Years Go?

In that instant,
When very first you open our eyes,
To see the waves of sound and subtle energies
Moving through the haze of shades of light...

The language has a pattern:
The sound of her voice differs from hers.
His voice moves the world a lot like his,
But not quite.  These voices,

They're not as safe though,
Not nearly as sudden,
As the feeling of your body
Wrapped around mine and

...It's so strange, in this growing,
That it's not as much
So much about that
Anymore: 

(Not that I'm not all over it when it is,
Mind you, and not so much
That I mind much either that it's not,
Love, it's just that...)

I want to show you more, much Much! more
Than the feeling of your body
Can convey. I don't quite know
If i know just how to do that

Today, without language at least,
And in a lot of ways,
Like with the body,
Words get in the way...

Or without plant allies.
But we live in a world
That is terrified of plants; a world
That has corrupted its communion

With the Void.
I so didn't want
To give that to you
Love.

Money moves mountains.

There has been some pretty intense action in Langford the last couple of days when the RCMP moved in and dismantled a tree-sit protest in the woods just off the highway. 

First person account of the bust

As of yesterday the machines moved in and today on my way into work I saw one of the machines take down a tree... like I presume it had been doing all morning gauging by the carnage on the hillside.  The snipping action of the giant clippers of the machine caused the tree to crumple in an instant. To flop RIGHT over.  This wasn't a tiny tree either.  It was probably at least forty feet high.  Probably more like seventy. 

This is a catastrophy. 

The wound of industrialism is really quite fresh in British Columbia.  It has taken not much more than a hundred and fifty years to decimate the treescape on Vancouver Island and to take down it's aboriginal culture.   And it's all about the money.  The governments on the island are beginning, it would seem, to acknowledge some aboriginal title, if only cosmetically.  It could be argued that this is positive,  but it's is not stopping the money from doing what it needs to do.

The council of Langford and Bear Mountain Stakeholders should be ashamed of itself for such a disrespect of First Nations cultureand spirituality;  of equal importance is its brash disrespect for its own due legal and moral process in its  bylaw processes. 

And now I have to deal with uncertainties in traffic delays on my way to work.  I have to deal with witneesing the progression of the pillage in my neighborhood, which is part of why I left southern Ontario.

The lesson is that I'm still a little too dependant on cities.  I must steepen the learning curve.

They're quite a thing, these roads.  I wonder about what the land could have loked like before the colonial merchants arrived.  I wonder what the Cowichan Valley looked like five hundred years ago.  I travel through a pretty beautifull part of the world  every day but it's far from pristine.  It's terrain that has been terrorized by industry. 

The intimate beauty of the landscape is stunning.  'The Swimming Rock'  is not much more than a five minute walk from home.  From there, the vista is impressive with Cobble Hill to the north and Old Mt. Baldy Due east, casting quite an imposing reflection on a usually still lakescape.  When Sharon showed us the place initially and walked us to the water, access to the 'Rock' was limited due to flooding.   I'm so pleased to have discovered this little piece of almost pre-historic heaven.

Of course, Who knows quite what Shawnigan Lake looked like two hundred years ago.  Was this rock even accessible by foot?

I think about this because the road that  leads to my house curves along the lake.  Tonight on the way home from work, I turned the first bend on West Shawnigan Lake Rd.  and suddenly came upon a couple of deer on the road.  My suddenness caused them, I presume a mother/child pair, to separate.  I slowed right down then, feeling like I'd freaked them.  I followed the smaller one in the opposing lane and it moved toward the larger one and then they both bounded across the road into the woods.

And I continued home to where laura was waiting up, a little worried at my lateness and we shared some sacred adult time.  You know, the time when the kid's asleep and it's just us two and stories of the day  and Life and 'the plan' and Love and "what about kaya with an I"

It's been a pretty special Valentines at the Love Shack.  Me n' laura and sOMa feel like we've come Home.  We're Getting ready to birth the rest of our immediate family this summer and settling into a rural Island life.  There are so many adventures awaiting us and so much beauty abound.

Triple Hemp Cake

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup hemp oil
• 3 cups demerrera sugar
• 1 cup water
• 3 tbsps vanilla
• 4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup hemp flour
• 2 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup hulled hempseeds

1 - Pre-heat oven to 250°F
2 - Mix hemp oil, demerrera sugar, water and vanilla together.
3 - In a separate bowl, mix together whole wheat flour, hemp flour, baking powder, salt and hempseeds.
4 - Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and slowly stir in the wet mixture. Mix until just blended, do not overmix.
5 - Pour the mixture in a non-stick or sprayed 9 x 12 cake pan. Bake for 1/2 hour, rotate the pan and bake for 30 - 40 mins more or until a kinfe inserted comes out clean.

SHIT! I forgot the vanilla.  Oh well, I can put it on the frosting.  This recipe is courtesy of Puff Mama, a Hempster out of Toronto who's doing some really great stuff.  I made it last year for sOMa's b-day party and it was a hit.  Aside from its Hempiness, the best part about it is that it's vegan! 

I'm looking forward tomorrow's party.  When the kids have many other kids to play with, it takes a lot of pressure off the parents.  And it gives the parents a chance to hang out with adults while still being in a parental role.  It's pretty magical.  It's going to be interesting to see the mix at this party.  There's quite a variety of personalities in seven kids aged two to ten.

It may give me a little glimpse of how schooling for sOMa could look.  There is an independent school not far from us in Cobble Hill that really resonates from it's first impression.  We  would have to look closely at it before deciding but one of the really appealing things about it was multi-aged classrooms.  That and it cost less than Waldorf... and it was closer.

We're still not convinced we'll feel like giving up homeschooling either.

We'll wait until after the party tomorrow to make a decision there.  Right now, there's too much to do getting ready in our new place for guests and we certainly don't want to wish his early years away.  Conventionally, kindergarden is still a year and a half away... which blows my mind as he feels quite old enough for that now.  It's certain that he could use the social outlet.

A party will be so good for him.

A couple of people asked me for the recipe of this batch.  Here it is for those just too shy to ask:

First of all, we have a device called a Sunbeam OSKAR.  It's a mini food processor that's great for making these things as well as pestos and whipped fruit etc. etc. Picked it up at a thrift shop for six bucks.  I don't think they make them anymore.  If you see one, grab it! 

I wouldn't try this without a food processor.

Ingredients (all measures are approximate)
A couple of big handfulls of oats.  maybe 1.5 cups
About a third-cup of almonds
A half-cup of hulled Hempseed
3Tbs dried apples
3Tbs dried mango
3Tbs dried goji berries
Almost two cups of pitted dates.  For #57, I used fresh Medjool dates which are quite expensive and stil very moist.  It's the first time i'd used these dates exclusively.  Normally it's just bulk "cooking dates"  maybe with a couple of medjool's thrown in.

Mix all of the ingredients SEPARATELY (with the dryer ingredients going through the food processor first) and place them in a medium sized mixing bowl.  Place the dates in last and knead them into the dry stuff until it's all a big gooey mess.  If you've got the ratio about right, you should then be able to roll them into balls without them falling apart or sticking extensively to your hands.

This is a severely maleable recipe:  you can use any kind of nuts, grains, dried fruits and whatever additives.  if it's too gooey then add more dry and if it won't stick then add more dates... or try some coconut oil.

These are my favorite treats to make.  sOMa Loves them as do most folk who happen upon them.  They're quite sustaining and very yummy.  And always different... And always Hempy.

Enjoy and share
and please make use of fair-trade and organic agricultural products as much as possible.

I am really Loving daily communion with the lake.  Shawnigan Lake has an area of 1,321 acres and contains 64,000,000 m3 of water. (1)  That means that the lake that we go and sit with every day weighs over a hundred billion pounds!  A hundred billion pounds of most of what we are, just down the road.  It's no wonder there's an incredible attraction.  And this is just a small lake. The first notion I have when I get out of the van after the drive from the city is to gather sOMa and whisk him out to the lake.

Lately there has been ice on one of the perma-puddles on the beautifull rock where we commune.  This rock slopes right into the lake and is covered with a moist film of lichen and mossy bits leading into the forest.  How eager I feel for the warmer times and walking right off the rock into the lake.  Now though, it has been such fun cracking the ice and then throwing the pieces into the lake.  sOMa had an especially great toss that skimmed across the laketop for several feet in an extended slieuce.  The ripply waves cascaded through the still lake.  It's nearing mystical as they settle back into the stillness. 

In gregarious laughter we notice that we've got a pretty unique echo-scape from this place.  Our waves of scream directed west onto the little island bounce back and off of Baldy to the east of the lake and then back and back again, then right into the valley to the north of Old Baldy Mountain.  Whereas the same screams across the lake to the north offer no such echo play.  Same went if we sent our voice into the bay and missed the island. 

Tonight we waited for the Lunar eclipse and were treated to what felt like the calmest lake yet.  So so quiet.  Broken only by sudden geese or distant dogs...  and their echoes.  True rural life.  

It's church to me.  I'm on public land in this place and my religion is unfolding all around me.  I bring my family when they choose and we can meet pretty much anyone here.  Chances are, they're here because it's exactly where they want to be.

We Commune with Water in so many different ways.  I'm reminded just now of our ritual in Ontario of driving 25km to the spring north of Pickering to harvest our month's drinking water.  An amazing place to go to church.  Always met someone new!

Like we met Charlie just the other day.  I trust he was exactly where he wanted to be, reeling in a dinner-sized trout on his third cast out from the rock.  We commune with water in so many different ways.

It''s night-time at the Love's  sOMa sage and MyKL have finished brushing their teeth and are having a final pee before heading to bed for some books before sleep.

sOMa:  Papa, when I get big, will I have hair on my penis too?
MyKL:  You bet!  everyone with a penis get's hair on it when they go through puberty
sOMa:  I already have some starting.  Look, right near my scrotum.  Can you see?  There's        
              the scars from the hairs right there.
MyKL:  (looks)  hmmm.  I wonder what color your pubic hair will be?
sOMa:  I think it will be red.
MyKL:  Red, really?
sOMa:  Yes.  Or green, or brown, or purple.

****************

It may seem a strange thing to say but I Love sOMa's penis more than almost anything in the world.  What seems stranger about this, is that before he was born, I was terrified of the Idea of being father to a boy.  I was so so SO hoping for a girl.  Kinda like this time too, but for different reasons. 

I Love sOMa's penis so much because it's intact.  I was circumcized at birth.  Because of this, I've lived my whole life with a desensitized glans (and painfull emotional scars), and in a way, have not truely felt what it means to be fully human.  When suddenly we were blessed with a boy, the idea of cutting his penis wasn't even an option.

In growing with him  I've so enjoyed observing its physical development as it has grown and changed over the years.  Even moreso however, I've been completely in awe watching sOMa's relationship with his penis develop.  Watching how and when he plays with it:  I remember the first time I saw his glans.  It was last summer in Montreal that he showed it to me.  I presume by how it came about that he and his friend Noah had been playing penis games earlier.  But here he was quite suddenly with his foreskin completely pulled back and this bulbous, moist, deeply purply-pink and beautifull glans...

And I could do nothing but shudder in amazement.  Shuddering mostly because I could imagine how the sensitive little head of his penis was feeling with the physical treatment it was getting.  How very stimulating it must be what he's doing right now.  I could feel it by proxy in my own penis and had such a queer feeling in my belly.  Akin to the feeling of when I stick my finger in my belly-button (does anyone else know that strange belly-feeling I'm talking about?).

It's not going to be too long 'till sOMa's bringing home a Lover who' s going to be purposely doing things to his penis that will send him into states of ecstacy.  Places I'll never see with him.  Places where it's not my place to be.  Though between now and then, it's my job to talk about and explore intellectually, and ready him for as much as can be. 

Even though our units are different, I feel blessed that this is my job.  It's my calling and I feel most up to the task.

Would that I could enjoy with you, my Love:

A special selection of midsummer moments
In an oft-winded, flower-stained, dew-filled meadow,
Presence shared with strong, truthfull thoughts, comments;
Sweet secretive glances leaving us goofy and mellow.

Serene, breathtaking engulfment of a warm sun-baked breeze
That swirls around our energy of ideas, dreams, notions.
Up above and through the passion of wild, swaying trees,
And farther away, even, than the most remote of oceans.

The melodic, playfull rush of a fast brook that can't be shushed
(never a stress).
On the shore, a swift token gift inspired by this liquid excitement:
All the fury of fire in the sudden spark of a silent caress...
All the kind laughter of knowledge in a quick giggle of enlightenment.