A typical Sunday

Today I did my laundry at a laundromat. Living in a small cottage, I don't have the room for a washing machine. I've always enjoyed going to laundromats. This is a chance to catch up on my reading, and perhaps to meet new friends. Today, in Ridgetown, an older gentleman and a younger man, perhaps his son were openly friendly and we talked a little. I thought of mentioning the Green Party but the conversation was warm and light and precluded politics.

Greg, another good friend had the idea of a laundromat encounter group, where people would meet on a regular basis to discuss the pros, cons and possible improvements to laundromats. Although this might prove an interesting social exercise, the net result would be to rally a movement against certian laundromat practices and perhaps engender a united front from the laundromat industry, probably resulting in raised prices. Perhaps a more reasonable solution might be to have a laundromat rating system, where the various laundromats are gauged on a scale from one to ten on the various aspects(ie. cleanliness, price, machine maintaince, washrooms etc...) and the list being published in a newspaper, in a similar way to resturant reviews. Anyway, the Ridgetown laundromat gets an 8 on my scale.

I also visited my friend, Larry Johnston, chief of the Caldwell First Nations, here in Chatham-Kent. Larry is a good man who deeply understands the connection we all share with the environment and each other. I showed him the draft campaign flier which mentions the support the Caldwell First Nations gave to the Aquatic weed harvesting program that I conducted last summer. Happily, Larry was pleased and told me he would put the information from the flier, in the band's monthly newsletter.
We talked about a source of agricultural pollution that I've identified on my water quality monitoring program. Sometimes these problems are complex and require strategy-based solutions. In the meantime, I'll collect more readings and perhaps build a solid case over the next few months. I'm sure Larry will be happy to help with a solution.

Who is this guy anyway...?

This is my first posting on this blog. I guess begin by introducing myself. My name is Ken Bell and I live in the small fishing village of Erieau, on the north shore of Lake Erie. My connection to the water and to the land, has always been profound.
I feel embraced by my community and although there are always differences of opinion between members of a community, we all share the same air, the same water, the same Earth.
Like an eddy, a small whirlpool in a stream, we exist as a process. Within 7 years, the matter that entered and became this body has left to become part of another. That realization has always given me a sense of purpose and connection. The world, the friends and the woman that I love are all part of who I am. The boundaries that exist between myself and that which I perceive as outside are soft and porous
In South Africa, from centuries before the Boors, before the ravages af apartheid and aids, there existed a wisdom that predated the devastating cogito of Descartes. The phrase,"Umuntu ngumuntu ngamuntu" has been shortened to UBUNTU, which means "I am a person through others", or in the parlance of Descartes, it would read "You think, therefore I am". This social definition of being is how I choose to define myself. In my younger years, steeped in a culture of possessive individualism, not understanding the consumerist anarchy that began to rot my soul, I aspired to satisfaction through the means of satisfaction. It's been a long tough road, but several years ago I made a conscious decision to guide the path of my life, according to my understanding. I know that this is the right path
...and yet, even today I wonder, am I so different.

Looking at a poem I wrote years ago, I wonder...who was this person...



Blessed Passion;
Through virtue lost,
As apples sweetness
By November frost.

November;
The twelfth moon,
of decline and decay
Holds a secret, cloaked;
In pallid gray.

Summers Ravenous Torrent;
winters single thought.
Wrestle, dance,
They join, part, and swirl
A mixing movement of ecstasy
and through the chaos is wrought;
A glimpse of terror.



Virtue always wins,
Until once again they dance
and a blossom is sweetened
By Passions Due.