Banksy... The Village Pet Store and Grill

early here in shangrila....

since today is my second last day in canada, i thought that i should make use of my computer. plus i have 2 days of insanity on an airplane completely cut off from the world so now is the time for communication.

i have had the most awesome week, everything that could go right, has gone right.  i'm slowly getting stuff done, i've even organized my flight info into a daytimer and booked our room in tokyo!!  and i've been spending lots of time with friends.  i've been able to go for tea, meet friends for lunch, drive sky to school and actually have the time to listen to her talk about what's on her mind....we rarely ever have morning chaos!  i love it!

i got the first criticism of my blogging yesterday!  apparently i meander.....guilty as charged! anyone who knows me, knows that i tend to ramble on!!   my mind churns out about 5 million thoughts per minute!!!  and for some reason i also feel the need to share!!! .......all of it!  i jump around from random thoughts to extreme senseless information rather frivolously!  but i have fun and i do have a vast array of fascinating facts and figures!!!  my adventurous little brain continues to explore........

i also really like this whole idea of blogging.  i also think that it is rather anal and vain! NNOOO

i'm just kidding!  i like that the blogger just represents the ideas of me.....an average, everyday person.  i don't have to hold a doctorate, a university education, a position in parliament or be a famous actress.  and their are a lots of average people with fascinating thoughts and ideas and we are under-represented even though we are the majority!  i love the internet, it has allowed so many people to share stories and to tell of things that just weren't getting heard.  and blogging seems like an interesting idea.  i feel  like we are on a communications revolution.  i can now read someone's story about life in a small village in central africa, and i can understand their story.  

i also like the way bloggers don't have to follow some boring, prescribed writing method.  i think that formatted style has it's place, but it is so nice just to hear stories spoken from the soul.  i think that this is why i favor documentaries as well.  real life provides such intensity! people everywhere have such incredible stories!  my dream is..........documentaries.  i'm just putting this out there so that it is out there.  my new goal is to make a documentary.  i love everything about it.  i love researching people and places and hearing people talk and seeing their expressions.  i love asking questions.  people just blow my mind.....all kinds of people.  i'm doing it dammit and now that i've blogged it, it is set in stone!

and i also love the editing process, i used to be pretty unfamiliar with the whole idea of editing, but man i love it!  it leaves me in awe that 5 different people could take one hour of tape and make 5 completely different stories!!!  perspective!

i'm off soon to get more stuff done, but i do need to make one small ramble..........i have been hooking up with some old high school friends and it sooths my soul.  i love these 4 girls......krista, julie, kim and colleen.  we went through our early life together including the crazy teenage years!  oh man! i was such a bad ass.  i'm glad they still like me  ;0    but i just want to give them a big shoutout and i'm so happy to know them after all these years and that we could gather and be so different but fall right back into talking and laughing  and really, really knowing each other!  xoxoxoxoxo

btw.....i am the courtney love of blogging......go read her blog, her meandering even makes me crazy!!!

liberals and conservatives?? same same but different

these last few days have been a heady mix of busy chaos and procrastination!!!!  getting tons of stuff done, but spending SOOOO much time dining out at some of the finest places around town and drinking lots of tea!  getting ready for a trip makes me become a compulsive organizer!

even though my brain is a fairly frenetic place these days, i need to talk about this whole liberal/conservative thing.  now, this might sound like a pretty heavy subject to talk about on limited time!!!  it is, but i'm up for it!!!!  and btw.....i don't mean liberal as in stephane dion or in any type of governmental way, nor do i mean conservative in the big, fat-headed stephen harper kind of a way!!!  oh dear!!!  my liberal bias has already entered onto the scene....i just mean people, people who are more conservative in their ideas and people who are not!

now let me describe myself and why i would be considered a liberal (in the minds of my 'conservative' family of ex inlaws who are as conservative as any i know):

*faithful to yoga!

*vegetarian.....also know as the 'you can't live on lettuce and carrots' conversation.

*i really don't carry if you marry your boyfriend dude....   i just don't and neither should you!

*pro-choice........  a difficult choice, but a necessary option.

*need to care for homeless and other vulnerable persons in our society...  it just seems humane.

*anti death penalty.....  that's a hard one, but an eye for an eye only ends with a black eye.

* i have drank lattes and ate much, much sushi!

and here is how liberals see conservatives....

*close minded

*homophobic

*environmental rapers

*pro-corportation

*and usually intellectually inferior hillbillies!

first of all nobody can be described in bullet form!!  we are so much more complex than that.   more often than not, we are mixture of many ideologies and beliefs.  and we evolve our ideas as we age, it is never constant.. ..

but now i want to cut through my liberal label bullshit.  is this liberal??  i totally consider myself at least half redneck.  i drive a big black diesel truck.  i live in alberta for chrissakes!  i grew up in saskatchewan.  and i would still get in a bar brawl if the situation was called for.

it seems to me like the powers that be need to keep us fighting and separated.... distracted from some unpleasant issues.  not even the big issues, but small ones that affect us all.  it could stop us from noticing things like.....maybe the fact that we have to do an awful lot these days to keep our kid's schools going.  i don't remember going to high school and parents needing to keep raising money for the football teams uniforms? that's what happens at my daughter's school and we live in a very rich town in a very rich province.  the math of that just doesn't add up to me........ so many resources have been cut from public school funding.

what about us all slaving away and paying high taxes, but it seems like we get less?  i don't use the medical system very often, but i've heard some horror stories about wait times.  you can't tell me that  with the canadian government doing pretty well, that we can't make medical and schools work better?  

and i feel a little pissed off that my tax dollars go to this town who now spends it on photo radar services!!  hello, don't i pay for the r.c.m.p. with my tax dollars?

we all seem to accept corporate welfare as normal whether we are conservative or liberal.  i've heard conservative and liberal people complaining about those lazy asses on welfare!  wtf? they're getting like what????  $500-$1200 per month!!  and have you all seen what we give to big manufacturers??  or big oil companies??  WAY TOO MUCH.....and they usually leave behind destroyed small town businesses, a tear in our social fabric from too much working and not enough time with family and more often than that ..... a dirty environment!

omg....sorry, i got lost on a rant!!!  to be honest, i just don't see these huge differences in character between the liberal people and the conservative people.  whenever i have gone back to saskatchewan, i get a little teased about being a vegetarian and my ex in-laws do not share my views on gay marriage.  however, if i was to show up with 2 gay friends, they would be offered dinner and a place to stay!  there would be no hatred there.  people get so caught up in their ideological beliefs, but in reality, it is often different.....and not very black and white.

now, i have a sister-in-law who would proudly proclaim that she is a hillbilly and i think that she is a fine woman.  she goes out hunting.  she loves red meat.  she loves rural life, but when she comes here, she is the first one down at the starbucks ordering a latte!!!  and we talk and laugh and have a good time!  because we hold some different values, doesn't mean that we have any less in common.  

it seems that we all want the same things.  healthy and happy kids seems to be universal.  we all want our kids to grow up happy, we rush them to lessons, hockey, picking up their friends!  we also all want to be able to afford to do some fun stuff, like go fishing at the lake or skiing with friends.  we want enough food to eat and a place to live.  pretty simple stuff... stuff that is common to all of us.

occasionally i watch some clips of the u.s. election and it scares me for us.....i don't want that type of divisiveness here and i think that this is one of the reasons i really wanted to do this blog.  i have a very typical rural upbringing and i'm so proud of those strong roots, but i am also a woman who has travelled the world and i have a mind that needs to explore.  i see these little cracks beginning in our society and i just hope that people see through that.  for the most part, i think we do.  we all have a pretty big variety of conservatives and liberals within our own families!

so if i can be a liberal and have some conservative values just in me, obviously our society is far too complex to separate into such a small box.  you are liberal and you are conservative.  sorry, it just doesn't work, we are way more than just one thing.  we are a constant evolution of ideas and growth and seekers of happiness!!

once we realize.....again.....that we are not that different, the government is going to be hella afraid!!!

beauty in the morning light

what is it about the first light of day that is so inspiring?  wherever i wake up in the morning....sitting around my fire here at home, seeing the soft yellow glow of the sun through my tent high up in the himalaya, or floating down one of those big rivers on a ferry in south east asia, the views may always be different, but the need to go out and explore is always there!  sometimes i just jump on my bike and ride out into the crisp air or take a walk up into the mountains with the snow crunching under my feet.....it just doesn't get much better......and i usually have the whole world to myself.

right now i can see the sun starting to peak through the heavy cloud, the wind blew my house around like crazy last night, something is in the air that's for sure.  last night, i watched (again!!) a fine documentary by one of my favorite canadian filmmakers....velcrow ripper.  it's called 'scared sacred'.   this movie takes us to some of the 'ground zeros' of our world, places that have suffered through some horrendous suffering.

one of these places is bhopal, india.  one night, a chemical leak at one of dow chemical's factories had a leak and a cloud of toxic gas was released into the surrounding area.  of course with corporate responsibility being what it is, these people were abandoned.  but what this film shows in numerous scenarios is the strength of human compassion.  the people in bhopal started an ayurvedic clinic and have been treating victims through healthy eating, massage and yoga therapy.  and it has been very successful.  to hear these people speak of that night and the lost of their loved ones is quite devastating, but to see them rise up and help each other..... left me with a sense of empowerment.

velcrow travels to cambodia, hiroshima, afghanistan, new york, bosnia, israel and palestine. having been to a number of these place myself i found myself really understanding the meaning of scared sacred.  i remember being in cambodia and trying to not let the horror show on my face when i seen countless people out on the streets with missing limbs.  from old people who had survived the days of pol pot to young children who were innocently out playing in the jungle and had picked up a landmine.  but the horror on my face vanished once i looked into those smiling faces. i could no longer see these mutilated bodies... just happy, welcoming smiles.

palestine............palestine is a modern day concentration camp.  a genocide raging on behind closed doors.  and one that never gets talked about because we fear questioning the jewish people who suffered their own holocaust.  to survive a such a horrible situation, as the jewish people have, and then foist a new genocide on the palastinians, which they are doing now, goes beyond my comprehension!  

sky and wayne and i drove our rented car into bethlehem, first we were met by an israeli checkpoint where i had a gun held to my head to convince me not to go further.  but since i had the paperwork, the gun meant nothing!  we carried on and what we seen will stick in all of our minds forever.  people are forced from their homes, encircled by cement and barbwire, cut off from their orchards and their means of making an income.  these days jewish settlements encroach even further onto palestine land and are often populated by the most radical of the radical and fully protected by the israeli army.

not many years ago, rachel corrie, who was in palestine with a volunteer organization (international solidarity movement) to walk palestinian children back and forth to school safely, was ran over dead by a bulldozer.  she was ran over by a D9 caterpillar as she was taking part in a protest against the destruction of palestinian homes on the gaza strip.  rachel corrie held an accurate belief as many at the ISM had.......that a person from the 'west' would be less likely to be shot and killed than just another palestinian.....this time she was wrong...as was thomas hurndall, an student from England, who rushed out into IDF sniper fire to save children frozen in fear as bullets fell around them.

in 9 days i am leaving on yet another trip of a lifetime.......this time with my mom.  how lucky is that?  we're off to bhutan to visit some really amazing friends of mine.  i can't wait to show her the beauty of this part of the world and the incredible people that live there.  we are going to ramble a bit around india and then meet up with sky in tokyo.

as always, i'm a little sad to leave home, but the beauty of the world and it's people is something that i wish everyone could experience......we are all the same, no matter what the color of our skin is or the languages that we speak.....a smile is a smile and this time i'm setting out with my video camera!  so prepare for something interesting.  video is a new challenge for me, but one i've taken up with a passion.  

every time i go away,  i am hit by this process of re-evaluating my life and being very thankful. for the last week or so i have been going over my place in this world and what that means. today i was thinking about my family and how far we have all come.  for so many years we were stuck in this unhappy and very sad place, but we all rolled with it and perservered.....we just allowed time to move along and kept making self improvements.  today, i look at my family and see this really happy group of open-minded people who are more giving and caring than i can even believe.  we don't regret our mistakes, we learn from them.  we don't live in the past, we acknowledge it, accept it and move on to new and better things.  they make me proud to be their family.  the other day my auntie called and i just about cried when i heard her voice....her voice sounded so happy.....

and i want to say a big thank you to tanya.....your energy always moves me and your damn right we could make a great movie!!!

life is pretty good here in pam's world!!!  i'm going to leave you all with a quote that sums up my thoughts today.....

when you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds:  your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world.  dormant forces, facilties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.....patanjali

i'm blogging??? wtf?

i cannot believe i am blogging.....i have been fighting the idea of the blog for some time now, but here i am!  thank you gelay for coming up with the name digital shangrila.  left to my own devices i could only come up with the names......green eggs and pam and welcome to pamistan!!  and since that sucked i had to enlist the help of friends.

let me first start by apologizing for my occasional bad spelling and my lack of desire for capital letters.  also, i tend to rant a LOT!!  

thus being said, i can see that my blog is already quite boring!