shaved

i’m getting my head shaved tomorrow to help raise money to support the work of those trying to find a cure for cancer. when i started teaching, one of my closest friends was a man called peter. we hung out together - went to hockey games around southern ontario, had dinner together once a week, and helped each other out with work around our homes and at his cottage. peter smoked like a damp campfire and drank lots of coffee - i figured he was trying to try to put out the fire. peter was a lovely man who taught with me for several years. his students loved him for being firm but fair and always truthful. peter took me in as a sort of protege because it isn’t easy being male in the elementary system. he was very old fashioned and his teaching? well it was dated to be polite! but he was a good man.

peter died of lung and brain cancer. when he finally couldn’t be cared for at home by his family he was put in a hospital bed. i would visit him there and hug him and hold his hand and we’d talk about almost anything. i cried hard when he finally died. it just didn’t seem fair. but then i know he returned as something else we needed here. i’m fairly certain of that.

in my class this year i have a girl with brain cancer. destiny. she’s a really lovely person and i was glad that she was given to me to care for with my class but she’s so sick, i’ve had her in my room for only half a day. so this little sacrifice of personal vanity - which for me will last a month or so until my hair has (hopefully) all returned is for her a more or less permanent state - this little sacrifice is for her. the shaved head represents for me a little solidarity. a pointed stick to remind me of how none of this really matters as much as it might seem. and especially not to take anything for granted. to have as few expectations of life as possible. and to honour each day as a gift.

the talented artist grace francis created this beautiful holographic mandala entitled "as above so below". this is a sufi knowing and loosely translates into our daily lives as "so it is outside so it is inside". in daily practice this looks like how we take our inner work and place it within the terms of the marketplace. here is "as above so below".

go here to see more of grace's work and thinking: http://www.mandalas.ca/