Black Dot Diary

Just got back from see­ing Avatar, the lat­est movie from direc­tor James Cameron. Now, Cameron is known for the great effects and plenty of action. Think of Ter­mi­na­tor and The Abyss. I wasn’t expect­ing pro­fun­dity, but that’s what I found tonight.

On one level Avatar is typ­i­cal block­buster, super­sized with amaz­ing ani­ma­tion. But it’s sub­text is pure shamanic jour­ney, from the world tree to the rev­er­ence for the uni­ver­sal mother, to rites of pas­sage and ani­mal guides.

I have no idea what will hap­pen on Decem­ber 21, 2012 when the Mayan cal­en­dar ends. Maybe the world will end. Maybe it won’t. Maybe the poles will shift? Maybe the Earth’s axis will wob­ble? Maybe.

I do know there are lots of peo­ple mak­ing money out of 2012 and the shelves in book­stores are fill­ing up with tomes on the end of the world as we know it. On the cor­ner of a major inter­sec­tion in Vic­to­ria where I live, a bedrag­gled guy holds a sign warn­ing of the wages of sin and the end times. Funny, I thought I saw the same guy hold­ing the same sign in Van­cou­ver in 1970.

It’s autumn and that means it’s time for my annual rant about the gas-​powered leaf blower.

I really, truly do not under­stand why these things exist. They churn out smoke and fumes. They spoil the silence of a Sun­day morn­ing. From my point of view, they are not even all that effec­tive: I could rake the leaves in less time than it takes the guy down the street to make sure every speck of tree detri­tus is blown into a neat lit­tle pile (which the wind then blows around again anyway).

This morn­ing Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Lal­ib­erté boarded the Inter­na­tional Space Sta­tion and con­ducted a news con­fer­ence wear­ing his trade­mark red clown nose.

Lal­ib­erté made the two-​day jour­ney in a Russ­ian Soyuz craft along with Russ­ian cos­mo­naut Maxim Surayev and U.S. astro­naut Jef­frey Williams. The space sta­tion is 350 kilo­me­tres above the Earth.

I always wanted to go to space. I remem­ber watch­ing the TV as Neil Arm­strong and Buzz Aldrin made that first moon land­ing in 1969. I told every­one that I wanted to be an astro­naut with NASA. I never did reach my goal but some­times when I’m look­ing up at the stars, I imag­ine what it must be like to be out there gaz­ing back at the Earth as Aldrin and Arm­strong did 40 years ago.