Life’s Photography.

Life’s Photography.

Years ago, before cell phones, instant cameras, and electronics, someone bought me a camera. It was a black box with a film on the back and a simple lens over an opening in the front. There was a crude mechanical shutter release on the front, and a viewfinder screwed to the top, nothing else.

This simple camera taught me more about life than any other device including the computer and the internet. It was based on the early knowledge of the eye which people mistakingly used to call the window to the soul. It is not since the soul is not the brain.

In the fifties, film was rather expensive and developing pictures much more yet. I had to study a lot of material to make sure that I didn’t waste any pictures and I did. I spent many days, in the age before television when we had time to think, learning lifelong lessons which are still with me to this day.

First, you have to figure out what you will take a picture of. There must be something that for some reason is more important than the rest. We choose all the time what to pay attention to and exclude the rest. Try to choose what to think about. You will discover that mostly you don’t. Life chooses it for you, and you go right into it without considering why. If you think about what to take a picture of, you can learn to select your thoughts.

Next, you will figure out if the subject of your picture is going to be the main item in your picture or if it is going to be a part of something bigger. Is it going to be a picture of an eye, a face, a body with the head or perhaps a scenery with a person somewhere in it? The eye is still there. This is a process that is done by itself, but we could do by paying attention. A good practice is to write some of your thoughts. I face it every week when I am going to write this column. This week I had some requests to write about current issues and local politics. There were some news items that I heard on international news, which are not known here, and cameras. Could my readers benefit from learning to chose what to think about? The latest won.

You probably notice, if you have an old camera, that the light makes a difference. No pictures in the dark but wonderful pictures in low light, if one doesn’t use an automatic flash. Do you know how they take a picture of the milky way? The eye hardly can see it, but a long exposure shows millions of stars. If you pay attention to something for a long time, you get details that all others miss. No kidding, it is just an exercise in attention and patience. You must shine a light on something to see it.

I had the old camera for a while, and I became interested in portraits of people and animals. Faces intrigued my interest, pretty pictures were loved by people, but I wanted to show through the camera lens the personality of creatures or the one thing that interested me the most, the soul. You can’t see, smell or touch a soul, but you sure feel that each is different from another. It seems as if the soul makes a body grow just a little bit to reflect its own nature. It is evident in “first impressions” but more pronounced if you have patience and take time to notice.

I remember how as a child I noticed that some people had wrinkles showing that they smiled a lot. Some had frowning marks and some had what I called stone faces. There was a principal in my grade school who had a stone face and the kids used to say that he could paralyze you with a look. I never got his picture.

The next thing I noticed was that all creatures had a good side and a not so good side. In my thinking, I interpreted it as good or evil. It is true, and a child learns early in life to try and deal with the good side, unless they can’t find it. A few people have no expression and whatever they say can’t change the impression they project. At that point, the photographer can play with the angle of the camera.

Benito Mussolini forced all photographers to take his pictures from the bottom up. It made him look like a strong, powerful leader. Pictures from above the middle of the face make women look more feminine and so on. When you meet a person, you tend to choose from which angle you will remember them. It can be done by choice instead of chance. You can select to see them in sharp focus where every line and blemish count, or you can see them in soft focus where the general outline is visible but the little details are not seen. Women prefer the soft focus and men the sharp. You can see a person how you want or expect them to be, depending on your emotional state and feelings towards them. A photographer can direct your emotions about a person by choosing the angle, focus or distance from them. They don’t need to say a word.

Now in the age of complicated, sophisticated devices, we lost a lot of this knowledge. The camera corrects almost all of what I mentioned, and most pictures are taken from the front and middle by people who don’t know that you have so many choices. You must remember that you do and consider that what you see forms your thoughts, and your thoughts direct your emotions.

My friend told me that we use the creative power of God with our thoughts. You live in your thoughts and don’t forget it. Your thoughts are your reality, and often your reality is your choice.

 

Dirt cheap.

Dirt cheap.

My ancestors didn’t take land from the natives in America. They participated in taking land from the Palestinians instead. My home now is situated on land I have purchased from another person, and the line goes back to those who simply took the land from those who used it before them, since they had a more efficient army. All humans took land from someone else at some point. There are winners, and there are losers everywhere, and according to the theory of evolution, the winners have more kids and the species improve. Tell that to the great whales who may not exist fifty years from now.

Looking at the situation now, in 2018, it seems as if our turn to perish and clear the earth for those more suitable for survival has come. Some believe it will be insects. All we must do is stay on course and let evolution do its natural duty.

First scenario is for humans to let some world nuclear power leader push the button on his desk and boom, three years later there will be no more human civilization. Scenario two, which the smoke outside reminds me about, is a bit slower. We keep the orgy of burning things for free energy to do our work; there will be more fires, more floods, and all other related disasters. Going that way will prolong the human's existence but in much more difficult conditions.

Those who are concerned with immediate pleasure and less about the future advocate leaving the problem to be resolved by future generations. Ironically the same people are complaining about social debt and want to see austerity exercised upon the majority of people existing today. Remove the Social blanket and let nature take its course. Reminds me of my children when they were toddlers. They learned how to say “give me” but didn’t yet understand that they can break things.

I am driving my red Ford on a country road watching fields rolling between foothills framed by blue mountains. The fields alternate and are squared off by fences. Some have cylindrical bails, and others are swatted. A pond in the valley is shimmering blue, and horses surround the one shore. Another greenfield and next there are cows and behind them hundreds of windmills white and moving. A valley with a farm beside a bridge and another farm in which sheep graze in front of the house. I glimpse the beautiful prairie town Pincher Creek, and my eye gets stuck on an eagle soaring, while a flock of blackbirds carries my gaze back down towards the road I am supposed to be watching. Here on the right, there is a fresh brown newly tilled field. I see the beloved earth I was looking for.

I understand Hebrew and know a secret that most people here don’t. The Hebrew word for “man” is “ben Adam” which means son of dirt or soil. It’s strange that one of the oldest writings refers to humankind that way. How did primitive tribe people so long ago figured that we and all that we use is made of the earth, will return to the earth and become something else. I pass by the brown field and now see a stretch of gold. It's wheat that only looks like gold. Gold itself is worthless unless people decide that it’s valuable.

My mind goes back to who owns the land, from which all things are made. It is dirt and water which makes all that there is. We find evidence of earlier civilizations big and small on every continent. People were created or evolved but societies came and went. It seems like this is the natural progression of earth’s living things.  Just like people, the societies and civilizations begin, flourish and die so other living things will take their place.

Possibly the Earth is trying to grow a civilization that will live forever and will not be recycled back into dirt. Perhaps the earth is using superintelligence to raise living creatures who will develop the heaven that everyone is dreaming about, but what will it take?

First, we must re-educate or get rid of the humans who are only concerned about what they can get and accumulate fast without consideration for the rest. They will bring an end to our kind, and there is no way to survive the damage they inflict upon our world. We have witnessed their effect often in history or even in our own lives.

Secondly, we must pay full attention to those amongst us who are trying to save us from distraction and take action before it’s too late. It is similar to the biblical stories about prophets who said repent or else. Some nations survived, and others were destroyed. The part that we don’t easily understand is, we must act before it’s too late. If you smoke a pack a day, don’t expect radiation or chemotherapy to save you. One must do the right thing when the opportunity is available.

Last, we must have hope. This world, regardless of who owns parts of it, is built according to the picture in the minds of those who built it. I like to say that God is creating all the time, what we expect him to create. We, the creatures with imagination, have to create a picture that will work out, not just for ourselves, but for the whole earth. Nothing short of it will work.

Forget evolution and natural selection, forget markets dictating the future, It’s only good for creating greedy, selfish earth destroyers. If we share the fruits of our labor, work towards clean energy, and  clean up the mess we’ve made, we may survive. It is simple, but life depends on it.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

East or West, independence or not.

East or West, independence or not.

I remember clearly some years ago when the competition was between Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay for the Conservative leadership. MacKay was young, too Progressive and less inspiring for the “investors” but for me, a Canadian layperson, he had the better ideas. If at that time more of us had made an effort to elect Peter we would have been better off today. History made a “play,” and the best leader sacrificed his political career for “unity” as Canada lost. I wish Alberta today had a Peter MacKay of our own.

Instead, an introvert from Toronto who changed from being a Liberal to being a right-wing Conservative won. Canada under the secretive and unyielding Stephen Harper lost some of its character and a few good opportunities. One most obvious was the Keystone pipeline which had a great effect on Alberta today. Later the hard line over Muslim headdress supported by the then minister of National Defence, Jason Kenney paved the way for Trudeau’s Liberals to come to power.

I just watched an interview CTV had with MacKay and the sentiments from years ago rekindled. Here is a very electable Conservative who truly think about workable solutions to Canada’s present challenges. He is not popular with the “make a quick buck” crowd but could set Canada up for success, if given a chance. There is enough Progressive in his character that could have won the day in today's’ political environment. Captains of ships must be very responsive to the weather regardless of what they like.

What the Conservatives missed is the fact that in 1999 in Seattle USA hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in favor of reducing the gap between the rich and the poor and becoming environmentally responsible. They didn’t win but left the Canadian population more left leaning then they used to be. The world changed.

Acknowledging that Canada suffered a blow with the recent Federal Appeals Court decision to disallow the energy transfer west under present circumstances, Peter MacKay is reawakening the more reasonable option of a pipeline to the east coast.

So many reasons to work diligently and promote the now defunct project as MacKay mentioned. Canada is sitting on oil reserves while being a net importer of oil, buying from places that we criticize for human rights violations. We don’t have to be held hostage to some crown prince who beheads people and bomb school buses in the Middle East. We can supply all the energy needs of the East and sell highly ethical Alberta oil to the energy-hungry European markets.

The East is so scared of Trump either killing jobs in the auto industry or taking away our farmers livelihood by forcing us to give up the smaller farms protections. How would this situation change if we injected all the good jobs of building a pipeline into the economy? Trump is bullying us since he is sure that we can’t get our act together and become self-sufficient. Canada is not acting like a country.

Without looking at the statistics, I seem to remember that at the beginning of the last century Canada produced 80% of what it needed and imported 20%. We later also had the most advanced jet fighter in the world. This has now reversed itself, and we are being taken advantage of while the next-door President is screaming that we are the culprits and demanding that we will buy American manufactured weapons.

I believe that there is no easy solution to the problem since previous generations skimmed the rewards leaving us to foot the bill. I see politicians pushing us to sell more of our resources cheap instead of building our capacity to be self-reliant. They think that austerity which will hurt our average Canadians is the answer.

I say NO we are not going to. We can listen to MacKay and get going on an Energy East pipeline while building capacity for cleaner energy, reducing energy waste, and growing our own food. We can slow down big chains from taking over all of our small businesses and building new export markets so we will not be hostage to American unpredictable election cycles.    

It took us more than a hundred years to become fully independent from Great Britain, and now we must work on becoming free from the American economic stranglehold that we got ourselves into. All is not lost, and it is possible that the lesson we are learning the hard way will leave Canada better than it was.

 

Probably every Canadian loves the country, Liberal, Conservative and others. I imagine that Canadians of every religion, race or origin would volunteer to protect this land if needed. What we must decide is, do we love this country mostly to make money or to preserve its uniqueness.

Do we take action that is aimed at improving business or do we act towards uniting against those who weaken us as a nation? I view Peter MacKay as one who has the country first in his heart, and I wish he got back into politics.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

Is Fighting for justice a right or a duty.

Is Fighting for justice a right or a duty.
The biggest decision a person makes in life is, do I take action or not.
Throughout the recorded history of humanity, there are many stories of people fighting for and against justice. The definition of what is “just” is not solid. It changes over time, and it is different from one place to another. Just two weeks ago the Catholic Church announced that Capital Punishment is not a just way to deal with criminals, reopening an age-old argument. Is it right to take a life for any reason, or is it not.
I grew up and lived my whole life in countries that don’t have capital punishment. Yet my childhood was spent in a war-torn area where many thousands of people constantly died fighting.  The main reason that propelled my parents to move to Canada was to live in peace. Peace and justice are nice but often don’t happen together. People discover that justice doesn’t happen without someone fighting for it or defending it, and that “someone” often pays the price.
There are many who fought against injustice in jails, right to this day. Canada right now is being “punished” by a kingdom of fanatics for expressing support for human rights.
One frequent problem is with people who treat the “commons” as their own. It is regularly mentioned in philosophical discussions. People assume that if something is not the private property of another individual than it is theirs to do with as they wish. Some destroy it; others improve it, all are justified in their own minds. Humans can’t function without setting rules.
Most people stay away from disputes over the commons. Protecting their own property, they are content to stay out of the fight. Let the government or authorities fight injustice, they say, forgetting that the government may be as unjust as anyone else.  Fighting against injustice remains with every person if we like it or not.
In my opinion, we don’t have the luxury to remain on the sidelines when we witness injustice. I strongly advocate peaceful, nonviolent resistance but not resisting is a statement by itself. Both sides in a conflict present themselves as being under attack. A person is obligated to figure out what is just and take appropriate action, or we will head in the wrong direction. Societies that didn’t have strong people fighting for what is right historically ended up causing great damage and failing miserably.
Currently, we see a trend where rich and powerful people remove victim’s ability to protest injustice. In the big picture, it is done by directing privately owned mass media outlets not to report what will damage profits or political power. If this is not enough the famous “fake news” comes to play. The honest news is rendered useless when it is flooded with opposing fabricated news.
Those in power get their way by rendering real news untrusted and by intimidating those who try to bring injustice to light. In some countries, the most dangerous job is to be a reporter.
You and I may witness unjust situations but often find ourselves unable to tell others about it. In the old days, shocking cases of abuse and crime were instantly the next day headlines in newspapers. In the modern environment, with internet and so much social media people discover that more is hidden then publicized. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the volume of so-called News without discovering injustice even when it affects our own lives. We have the means but can’t achieve the goals.
We all remember hearing about some well-known whistleblowers. Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden are just a few names that come to mind. People who chose to risk their lives in order to expose injustice, often towards all of us, have paid the price. They had to break an oath of secrecy in an attempt to stop evil actions, and they were incarcerated or hunted as bad animals. Many others simply were attacked with gossip and discredited for voicing opposition to unjust actions.
Overall, the question which faced people from the earliest time remains. Should a person speak up if he or she feels that unjust actions are taken, or not. In the current business led society majority will consider their own personal gain or loss before choosing sides. This attitude enhances the side opposing justice. Justice has nothing to do with personal gain. It is born with the person. If you have it in your blood, you will feel a draw towards taking just actions.
People on trial for crimes against humanity have justified their actions by the fact that they followed orders or were threatened into acting. Not many say that they didn’t know that their actions were inhumane. Others have used twists of religious texts in their defense but couldn’t say that they didn’t know that what they did was wrong.

I believe that there is what we call God’s justice. I don’t know any of your personal stories but I have witnessed that there is a universal justice simply as a function of nature. From my personal history I can suggest that over time, justice simply happens. Sometimes the justice that happens, not by the hands of humans is so severe that it makes me feel sorry for those who are punished by it.
I think that Capital Punishment is wrong even when we feel that it is just. If someone hurt my loved ones, I would wish them dead, but I shouldn’t support the killing. Killing other people is wrong. I also feel that each of us has the responsibility to speak up for what is “just” simply because we know that something is wrong. Others may feel different but if no action is taken injustice will triumph. Every person is a part of what human society becomes.
This is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.
Internet free art by Pixabay.

OUR Police.

A letter to the editor.

OUR Police.

In Fredericton, they’ve just buried two police officers who were murdered by a disturbed person.  The investigation will take place, and I predict the results, a person that should have had mental care but didn’t, killed our protectors.

Another officer was hit by a stollen truck in Calgary yesturday and is suffering in the hospital.

Some believe that Canada can make all guns disappear, but I don’t. Not unless we move Canada far away from the USA. We are better off the way it is. Good gun controls and a police force that is dedicated to protecting us.

So often stories about police abuse filter over our southern border, but most of the stories about our brave, very professional police, never even make it to the news. It is common, and we take it for granted. Perhaps we shouldn’t.

Two fine police officers a man and a woman were buried this week leaving their loving families behind to mourn. Those were Canadian police officers who protect Canadians day after day and hardly ever hear a thank you.

Constable Costello, 45, and Constable Burns, 43, were killed when they answered a call about shots being fired on the north side of Fredericton.

Well… I thank the police, even if they give me a ticket if I break the law. I am thankful for the world famous police forces of Canada, and I am not ashamed to cry for the fallen fine police officers from Fredericton and their families and friends.

Thank you to our police officers in the Crowsnest Pass, to our local and national police people and those who lead them to be what they are.

As the thin golden sound of the trumpet dies, the loud bagpipes become silent, and fresh graves are left by the mourners, a country mourns.  Canadians love and appreciate our police.

Midsummer to do (write) list.

Midsummer to do (write) list.

We Canadians appreciate our summers more than the majority of world’s population sharing this feeling mostly with the North Europeans and Russians who live in this latitude. The snowbirds come back, both the feathered kind and the Saskatchewan farmers kind, plus some people here who convinced themselves that our winters are a bad thing. I remember living in a tropical environment where everyone feared the summer heat (pre-Aircondition era) and narrated stories about snow to kids like myself who never seen it.

Now when traveling is affordable for most middle-class people it became a status symbol. If you wish to impress people you talk about where you were last winter. If they wish to keep their honor, they try and outdo your story with their own. The people south of us caught on and say, I hate shoveling snow, and you buy a trailer in some southern state and spend your winter months in it instead of in your nice home in Canada, golfing instead of skiing and swimming in an outdoor pool that is no match to our wonderful indoor facilities. Hurray.

Since I started writing the Simple Raven’s Post in mid-Canadian winter, which I happened to enjoy in many ways, I received hundreds of compliments from folks like you who really enjoy the articles. To my surprise, many people read my somewhat controversial opinions and tell me that those are exactly their thoughts. Often they suggest that I should write about other items which they believe should be aired in public. The pages are simply not long enough to cover all the material which could and should be talked about. Here are some of the main items on people’s minds.

The smoke is bothering people all over Alberta. Worst than smoke, many of us live in areas that could be damaged severely by fires and the fires can affect our food supply. Is there a solution? Yes, there is, but it's not an easy task. We have to change our economic system and begin to use much less energy that is based on burning fuels. The technology is known and improving by the day but we are held back by the owners of existing old fuels stock.

There is a huge problem with sexual abuse which is wreaking havoc in our society. Before my time and when I was young, male humans took advantage of their female counterparts by force or often by using positions that granted them power. When the sixties came, it was discovered that women are actually full-fledged humans, and over a short period, a change took place. It became socially unacceptable to use power, force, and money, to extract sexual pleasures from those physically weaker such as women and children. The world of the rich self-proclaimed superior people turned upside down. This week’s scandal is about the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania, at times it is about the entertainment industry, the political profession, educational institutions, medical profession, smaller religious sects or simply powerful public figures.

I like to cover more economy-related issues and perhaps help save our fast failing capitalist system. We built a system where corporations are viewed as people but without them having to follow laws that govern people. For a while, it helped corporate owners to become rich quickly, but now opposite momentum is threatening to defeat the whole system. If we don’t take some timely steps, we will be facing rebellion and even conflict that can destroy countries.

I always like to write some material about my favorite subject, spirituality, and morality. I receive most comments about this topic, and there is great interest in it. Spirituality in the West is exploring untraditional and far East knowledge that took a long time to travel around the world. Stil there are misconceptions such as that Yoga is only an exercise or that the body possesses a soul instead of the other way around. Morality is changing with new scientific discoveries just as religious teachings changed with the discovery of the telescope.

I would like to discuss more elaborately the problem associated with the Trump attacks on the free press. I do not wish to live in a dictatorship. I already see signs of a move towards authoritarianism when the new Premier of Ontario is getting rid of elected representatives at the civic level, and it scares me. We are facing some repressive political forces and if we don’t have free media this country and the big neighbor in the South can become like, let's say, today’s Turkey. There will be a small group that will control the masses and keeps them in line by force. Again, I see flashing warning danger signs.

I must write sometime about fear. Fear doesn’t prevent death it prevents life. Those who build walls to protect themselves are building the walls of their jail. A great man that I once met used to say at the end of all his speeches, and he often spoke, “be not afraid.”

I sometimes get requests to mention local items in the Simple Raven’s Post. The latest is the proposed formation of a men’s choir modeled after the Men Of the Deep from the Maritimes. I don’t have much information yet, but I like very much the sound of the original miner's group especially singing with Rita McNeil. If we were to have such a choir, I would definitely consider joining even while knowing that I can’t read music or start a song on a specific note. If you are interested, you can contact Carmelia Saretzky or leave a question on my blog.

Overall, I will not be able to cover all the good subjects proposed, in my short commentary, but I will try. The smoke will give way to the frozen fresh air, and some problems will take care of themselves. As long as people ask me to write about their concerns, I feel empowered and go on, one word at the time.