Black Dot Diary

The Eter­nal Clock. Photo by Rob­bert van der Steeg, cour­tesy of Cre­ative Commons

I hate New Year’s Eve. Just think­ing about it puts me in a bad mood. All this build up just to watch the dig­i­tal clock click into a new twelve-​month cycle. All the TV sta­tions show­ing the year in review, with inane sum­maries deliv­ered by bob­ble heads. All the drunk kisses at mid­night from peo­ple you wouldn’t think of kiss­ing at any other time.

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.

What’s it like to be on stage with U2? I never dreamed I’d ever find out. But life is full of twists, turns and gifts as I dis­cov­ered at U2’s Van­cou­ver show on Octo­ber 28, 2009.

U2’s music has been with me through a lot of my life — births, cel­e­bra­tions, deaths, dances, epipha­nies. Their music takes me to the same place I go when I’m writ­ing poetry — the almost-​undefinable, mag­i­cal place where the poetry gets lift off and seems to write itself.