Here are some links to my recent Life As A Human posts…

Speed Trap: When Life in the Fast Lane Doesn’t Work Anymore

Excerpt: “I’m sorry,” I tell the copper, wiping my hand furiously across my face. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. It’s just a bad day. A bad, bad day. And this is just one more bloody thing on top of EVERY OTHER BLOODY THING.”

Ashes and Snow Stills the Craziness and Stirs the Human Spirit

Excerpt: “Ashes and Snow, a 60-minute feature by filmmaker Gregory Colbert, is that good. In fact, I found it to be spellbinding. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I would say this film comes close to being life changing for me. See three amazing video clips at Life As a Human].”

Being Bennie: Life with a Wise-Ass Parrot

Excerpt: “Four years ago an alien arrived in my living room. It was grey with big black eyes, scaly feet and feathers. It spoke English and could bite, hard. It also said “I love you” and would run around the house screaming “Help, Heeeelp!” when it was time for a bath.”

Here’s an excerpt from my Valentine’s Day post on Life As A Human:

Are we destined to love the people we love, and be with the people we are with? I probably wouldn’t have said so before I met the man I’ve lived with for the past 25 years.

The first time I saw him, I was 21 and attending a reading by poet P.K. Page at the University of Victoria. I tried to keep my mind on the reading but I kept feeling a strange pull from a few rows behind me. Finally I turned and looked. Sitting there was a young man with longish black hair and soulful blue eyes, wearing a scruffy poetic hat and a Calvin Klein sweater with holes in it…Read more…

Hope you enjoy the stories…and Happy Valentine’s Day! I plan to eat lots of chocolate, drink wine and sleep in late.

Photo Credit

“Big Heart Art — 1000 Visual Mashups” by qthomasbower at flickr.com.
Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.

Hi everyone, the following is an excerpt from my first blog post last week at Life As A Human, the exciting new website I’m editing. I hope you’ll follow my link below. The story explores the question: How do I know I’m human? Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Hmmm.

Excerpt from “Oh So Human” by Kerry Slavens, posted February 1st on Life As A Human.

“As far as I know, I am a human. Last time I had an MRI, nobody saw anything alien in my body — or at least nothing that worried them. My blood tests don’t raise eyebrows. It appears my human-ness is valid.

There was no entry visa required to be human — no test to fill out. I simply arrived on this planet one morning in February, slipping out of my mother into the hands of a midwife. In those days, being born to a midwife rather than in a hospital generally meant the family was poor, not holistically savvy. I did not have a silver spoon in my mouth. I did, however, have stars in my eyes. …” Read more…

Photo source: Webridge, Wikicommons

Life As A Human is an exciting new web venue that comments on and celebrates the human experience. The site features writing across a wide range of topics. Our goal is not to promote sensationalism, but to always strive to be sensational. As well, we hope to make our contribution to the world through philanthropic efforts that benefit humans from all walks of life.

As many of you know, I signed on as Editor in Chief of Life As A Human — I didn’t have to think twice. I am thrilled to be part of such a creative team and excited about our amazing editorial offering. This line up includes people like Steven Erikson, bestselling author of the  Malazan Book of the Fallen series; Bill Weaver, founder of Media that Matters; Sandra Phinney, travel writer extraordinaire; Julie Harrison of Coffee with Julie fame; and Alison Skelton, shaman and artist. Every day we will be releasing more stories by more contributors. If you would like to contribute stories or photos, please visit our Submissions page.

“To say that the writing community has expressed a great deal of interest in Life As A Human would be an understatement,” says Life As A Human president Gil Namur.

“Right from day one we have had tremendous feedback, all of which has been positive and encouraging,” he continues. “We want to thank all of the contributors who have embraced our vision. Their support and the trust they have placed in Life As A Human has been extraordinary. Without them, these pages would be, well, pretty empty. A huge thank you also goes out to all of our social media friends. Thank you so much for your tweets, stumbles and Facebook posts. Please don’t stop.”

I hope you will visit Life As A Human soon. We look forward to your comments, suggestions and contributions.

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.

So I’m sitting here at 5 pm on New Year’s Eve frowning at the love of my life. “Why are you pissed at me?” he wants to know. I’m not really pissed at him but I’m crashing under the pressure to DO SOMETHING. I feel guilty that all I really want to do is stay at home, paint, and drink red wine. We have no red wine and he’s not offering to go buy any so I guess we have to GO OUT and DO SOMETHING.

I’ve already turned down a dinner invitation from my dear friend and her family. I don’t want to inflict my NYEM (New’s Year’s Eve Malaise) on them. It just doesn’t seem right. My husband suggests a movie and then finding a pub. I just can’t see myself faking gaiety with the drunks. But hey, we need to DO SOMETHING.

My attitude to New Year’s Eve dates way back to childhood. When I was 12, my grandmother committed suicide on New Year’s Eve, the same night that had been her wedding night in happier times. What a night to depart the earth. How could we ever forget even if we wanted to?

After my grandmother’s death, celebrating New Year’s always seemed counter intuitive. This was not a night of happy endings. It was a night of sadness. As I got older, I got stuck babysitting brats and watching Guy Lombardo while the grown ups got drunk. Later on in my teens, I also got drunk on New Year’s Eve but I never got happy on this annual holiday of hullabaloo. I only went through the motions, a slave to the Gregorian calendar’s turning of the year. Tick, tick, tick, clunk.

My husband doesn’t know how to deal with me so he disappears to the dungeon to his computer and guitar. I look at my cat who has no idea it’s New Year’s Eve. Doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. He’s obsessed with chasing his tail. But isn’t that what we are all doing in this cycle of years, chasing our tails around the calendar, hoping at some point to beat time at its game? Oh bloody hell, now I’m really talking rubbish. Time to DO SOMETHING.

I give in to my guilt. When my husband comes upstairs, I agree to go downtown to eat Tibetan food. If anything can lift my spirits it is surely eating potstickers while thinking of the Dalai Lama. Then I may go see a movie with the now-dead Heath Ledger in it and think about death. After all, 2009 is in its death throws. It’s been a hell of a year. Good riddance to bad rubbish. It’s time to DO SOMETHING.

PS: I just found something to get excited about. Tonight, on the edge of 2010, we are being treated to the second full moon this month, known as a blue moon. Now my night has meaning!

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.

The story takes place on a distant world called Pandora where corporate mining interest come face to face with wondrous 10-foot-tall creatures called the Na’vi. The Na’vi are highly reminiscent of Earth’s own indigenous cultures, intimately connected to the land, the animals, the energy and the ancestors. They worship a mother goddess called Eywa.

The Na’vi live in a world with trees taller than many of our skyscrapers, mountains  that float and flora and fauna that shimmer with colour at night. It is Eden, but just as in our world here on Planet Earth, there are those who would put profits before people and they are willing to destroy paradise for it. To that end, the company that is so aggressively mining Pandora has the military, a thinly veiled and effective poke at the USA’s protection of corporate interests in other countries.

During the past year, I have been learning more about shamanism. For me, Avatar was familiar in that it strongly resembled a shamanic journey in non-ordinary reality.

Yeah, I know this is Hollywood and I don’t want to demean my own practice by comparing it to computer generated odysseys. On the other hand, I applaud that Cameron is bringing an important message to people who might not otherwise care to learn about shamanism. Avatar is clear — we are all connected, to each other and to our planet, whether it’s Earth or a moon called Pandora.

James Cameron said that “the Na’vi represent something that is our higher selves, or our aspirational selves, what we would like to think we are” and that even though there are good humans within the film, the humans “represent what we know to be the parts of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe condemning ourselves to a grim future”.

I will write more about Avatar after I’ve had time to think about it more (and get some sleep) but I am inspired and still a bit in awe of this movie. For three hours I sat there in my 3D glasses, exploring a fantasy world, thinking of our own world and wondering what is going to become of us on Planet Earth if we don’t find the strength and spirit to protect our planetary home.

One of the best things about having a blog is that I get to rave about the people I think are remarkable. One of these people is jewelry artist Anne M. Kelly who will debut two exciting new lines at the upcoming Out of Hand Craft Fair on November 20 — 22 at The Crystal Garden in Victoria BC.

Anne, who truly is one of the West Coast’s best kept secrets, creates high-demand original pieces of jewelry, each with its own unique story. Because Anne is a published poet, the stories that come with the jewelry are works of art in themselves. Her two newest collections include a Native Species line featuring Shibuichi Roughskin Newts, and a Timorphic line created from pure repurposed aerospace titanium.

The Roughskin Newt Pendant is created using an ancient Japanese alloy made of pure silver and copper called Shibuichi. This metal was traditionally used in decorative and functional Samurai sword guards, called tsuba, which prevented the sword-wielding hand from slipping onto the blade.

Titanium cuff with silver clasp by Anne. M. Kelly

The Timorphic line, created from the material of space shuttles and deep-sea exploration uses historical chain mail weaves to create jewelry that is almost fabric-like. With silky texture and feather-light weight. The result is some of the most luxuriously wearable, glamourous jewelry you’ve ever experienced. With its ancient patterns and a futuristic edge, Anne refers to it as jewelry a time traveler might wear.

Anne is not just content with creating beautiful things — she likes her work to make a difference. That’s why part of all sales of her Native Species jewelry sales will be donated to conservation of native species and habitat and will also generate microloans to the world’s most impoverished women through http://www.kiva.org.

I own several pieces of jewelry by Anne. Whenever I wear them, I am usually surrounded by women and men who want to know about the artist. I met Anne almost 20 years ago when we were both in a poetry salon with poet Robin Skelton. I became fast friends with this beautiful and talented woman who, with her New Orleans background, always brings an intriguing sense of the exotic to any gathering.

Japanese Lace Collar with Nine Row Earrings and Semispherica by Anne M. Kelly

In the 1990s a car accident changed Anne’s life. Following several years of rehabilitation and adaptation, she combined her distinctive style of graphic design with a love of fashion and natural history to create her first collection of jewelry. Watching her work is like watching alchemy — each piece she creates is imbued with such story and magic that is would be difficult not to feel magical each time you wear a piece of her jewelry. If the goddess incarnated, no doubt she would want to wear Anne M. Kelly jewelry.

Anne is a contributor to Chain Mail Jewelry: Contemporary Designs from Classic Techniques, published by Lark Books. Her jewelry is sold in The Avenue on Oak Bay Avenue in Victoria, at Mattick’s Farm Gallery in Saanich, and by private commission.

You can also see her work this weekend (November 20–22) at the Out of Hand Craft Fair, Booth #17, The Crystal Gardens in Victoria, BC, or on her website http://www.annemkelllydesigns.com.

Lilla Cabot Perry, “The Black Hat”

Johnny Cash once sang, “I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, / Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town…” I love Johnny Cash but that’s not why I wear black. I don’t wear black because I’m depressed either. Or to look thin. Or to look mysterious.

I wear black because when I’m wrapped in it, I feel authentic. I love its inky mystery, its subtlety, its rebellion contrasted with its chaste darkness, its timelessness. When I wear black, I feel energized, perhaps because this non-colour absorbs all light in the color spectrum. It’s all there.

In Western culture, black has an undeserved bad name as the colour of mourning, melancholy and evil. But in ancient Egypt, black represented life and rebirth in homage to the black soil of the Nile valley. In parts of Africa, black is associated with rain clouds, a symbol of prosperity and life. The medieval Cathars saw black as a color of perfection. So did Renoir who said, “I’ve been 40 years discovering that the queen of all colors was black.” Viva le noir.

Oh, I’ve tried to wean myself away from black, mostly under duress. Back in the 80s, when colour profiling was in, I was diagnosed as a “spring” and condemned to wear vapid pastels. I felt like an imposter. I felt like a flower. No wonder I began to sneak black into my wardrobe again. Carbon. Onyx. Charcoal. Smoke. Ebony. My mother couldn’t believe it. “Black, black, black,” she mourned. “What is it about you and black?”

She tried to reconvert me. She bought me coloured patterns and coloured stripes and lots of clothes in peach, but all I wanted was black (and maybe a little bit of purple or pink for good measure). I wasn’t morbid. I wasn’t a depressed teenager sucking the light out of rooms. I just wanted to wear my own colour.

Firstly, black is easy. It goes with anything although you have to be careful because one black doesn’t always go with another. There are many shades.

Secondly, black is always in fashion. Think of Chanel’s Little Black Dress (LBD), introduced in 1926 as the go-anywhere, do-anything dress at a time when her arch rival Paul Poiret was touting colour. Ninety years later, the LBD is still a fashion must. Interestingly, Chanel was raised by nuns and it has been speculated that being surrounded by women in black may have influenced her designs.

Thirdly, black is a statement about what is essential. It has a purity to it. You can wear it plain or wear it with frills but it never looks frivolous.

“The most popular and the most convenient and the most elegant of all colours,” said fashion designer Christian Dior. “And I say colour on purpose, because black may be sometimes just as striking as a colour. You can wear black at any time. You can wear it at any age. You may wear it for almost any occasion.”

I do plan to keep wearing black as I get older, despite warnings from stylistas that black is aging. I don’t care. I’m not interested in being one of those women who become more peacock-like as they age, wearing brighter and brighter colours to avoid becoming invisible. I admire women like Georgia O’Keefe who donned black because it was simple. As an old woman, she stalked the New Mexican desert like a shadow.

I know, critics of black clothing will talk about hidden depression, a macabre nature, a dark outlook, but I’m not sure those labels apply to me — at least half of the time. I have to admit to being somewhat of a closet goth.

But I’m enough of a fashion lover to understand the value of pairing black with chunky silver jewelry, colourful pashimas and vibrant fuchsia camis. I have no designs on being nunlike.

I do think some black is tacky. Fake leather in black looks, well, fake. Many polyesters in black look downright cheap. So I choose my black carefully, and as I go out into the world in my black boots, black coat and black skirt, I can still hear my mother chiding me, “You look like you are going to a funeral.” But, as Baudelaire said, “We are all attending one funeral or another.”

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.

I am not going to be fooled again. Back on December 21, 1999, I remember counting down the minutes to midnight with friends and family, waiting for the grid to go down as Y2k ticked closer. I had stocked up on mushroom soup and toilet paper. I might still have some of those soup cans.

Last month Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson reported that Mayan Apolinario Chile Pixtun is weary of questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly ending on December 21, 2012.

“I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff,” said the Mayan elder.

Now, Not Myth

Here’s what bugs me — the world as we know it is ending — we don’t need to wait for 2012. Change is definitely happening and it’s hard to deny it. Some things that were, are no more. Some things that are, will soon be gone. It’s called climate change, or global warming.

Yet instead of really focusing on what we must do to slow climate change, our mass media focuses on Mayan myths and some ‘maybe-maybe not’ event with Hollywood profit power — 2012 starring John Cusack.

Here’s what we know for sure that is not movie myth:

• The snows of Kilimanjaro are melting.
• Polar bears wander the arctic, hungry, as their traditional hunting territory literally melts.
• Warming waters in the shallow oceans have contributed to the death of about a quarter of the world’s coral reefs in the last few decades alone.
• Greenland’s ice sheet is melting. The amount of ice melt during the summer of 2007 was the largest since scientists first started making satellite measurements of the ice in 1979. According to climate scientist Konrad Steffen, the amount of ice lost in 2007 was “the equivalent of two times all the ice in the Alps, or a layer of water more than one-half mile deep covering Washington, D.C.”
• An oxygen-depleted dead zone the size of New Jersey is starving sea life off the coast of Oregon and Washington, reports Kim Murphy of the LA Times. It will probably appear there each summer as a result of  “evolving wind conditions likely brought on by a changing climate, rather than pollution,” according to Jack Barth, professor of physical oceanography at Oregon State University.

On his site Global Issues, Anup Shah has dedicated significant time and resources to providing a comprehensive overview of climate change and other issues affecting our Earth. His message — we can’t wait to act. He is not alone in his opinion.

“We have to do it this year. Not next year – this year,” Al Gore at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen. “The clock is ticking, because Mother Nature does not do bailouts.”

Is climate change real? Ask the people of the archipelago nation of Maldives. Eighty percent of its chain of 1,200 islands is no more than 1m above sea level. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change is forecasting a rise in sea levels of at least 7.1 inches (18 cm) by the end of the century. That would mean the people of the Maldives, all of 396,000 of them, will have no home, no country. Climate change will claim it and the sea will bury it.

Recently, Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed and his cabinet donned scuba gear for an underwater meeting to focus global attention on the threat of climate change. The cabinet signed a declaration calling for global cuts in carbon emissions. The declaration  will be presented before the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark in December.

“We are trying to send our message to let the world know what is happening and what will happen to the Maldives if climate change isn’t checked,” Nasheed said. If urgent action isn’t taken according to Nasheed, “We are all going to die.”

It’s not the kind of thing you usually hear from a president of a nation.

It’s not the kind of thing you want to hear.

Indeed, denial is easier and so human — an effective but self-defeating shield against fear and despair. I believe we turn to denial because we really don’t know how to cope with a problem of this scale and few people with power seem to be offering real leadership. Certainly Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper isn’t, but then he has oil to think about, right?

Sometimes I think global warming is akin to a fever whose purpose is to fight off infection in a body. Have we polluted the body of the Earth to the point of infection?

I do believe this planet will survive. Will the polar bears? Will the whales and fish? Will the coral reefs? Will we? The ancient prophesies haven’t been very definitive on this point. Stay tuned.

I often think about what I’m grateful for, but I don’t say it nearly enough. So here goes.…

1. The drumming song of rain on the flat roof of my house.

2. The amazing French radio station I listen to…I still don’t understand what it says but it makes me feel a little bit more sophisticated than I am.

3. My awesome leather boots with the fleur de lis buttons and the buttery feel of warm leather.

4. Crows, the most misunderstood of any bird.

5. The soles of my hiking boots because they remind me of all the trips I’ve taken and places I’ve walked, from the red dirt of Arizona’s Painted Desert to the alleyways of Venice and the graveyards of Paris.

6. To live in a peaceful country — Canada.

7. Thai food. Thai food. Thai food.

8. Living with a man who loves poetry and a daughter who doesn’t. Good balance. Keeps it real.

9. Every leaf in my backyard. I love the fragrance of them and the look of them (I’ll deal with raking later).

10. Having a nice nose (the only part of my body I never complain about!).

11. The crinkles in the corners of my eye.

12. Candlelight flickering on a stormy day.

13. Watching my cat Eddie’s ongoing delight and sense of wonder at the water dripping from the bathtub tap.