Epigenetics

We always knew it was a mix of what you were born with and the life you lived: genetics and environment. In a world of perpetual change, of nature's endless recycling of everything, how could there be any absolutes? It turns out that even our DNA is not absolute. Our genes have switches that respond to our living in the world and in turn affect our lives, their unfolding. If we didn't have philosophical underpinnings, a knowing that we're born with certain predispositions but that our environment shapes much of what emerges, would our epigenetic scientists have known what to look for? This is exciting research; I was riveted: even when an environment has not been conducive, a smoker's lungs, toxic metals in the water system, and there is disease, it might still be possible to heal the person by fixing the genetic response to the maladaptation. To go in and 'fix the operating system.' Turning back on the gene switch that stops tumor growth, thereby preventing metastasis. Medical science appears more and more miraculous. One hopes the techniques are used wisely and not ever for a eugenic agenda...

How did we meet...?

A meme, at Body Electric, which I couldn't resist:

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, (even if we don't speak often or don't really know each other) please post a comment and tell the story of a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory connecting you and me . It can be anything you want - good or bad ("good" is better for me, however) - BUT IT HAS TO BE FICTION. When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people DON'T ACTUALLY remember about you!

I'd love to meet you all! Imagine stories for us...

Reflections on "Water," the film by Deepa Mehta

The palette in each frame, stark Modernist canvases, pillars, ground, simple, clean. The colour of the moon. Light as a wash over the world, the way water catches the light, the figures of hidden women, what moves across the landscapes of muted colour, women who dwell in colours of the Madonna's veils. Trapped in a caste system as rigid as the iron bars through which scenes are shot.

The women always framed in boxes, closed in, shuttered away.

The gigantic-limbed tree where the lovers meet like a blossoming, flow of the heart. She carries the light for him, visitation of a vision, where freedom may be, the candle she holds at her breast, the light of everything. She is a Religious painting of divinity, beautiful; Durga, Mary.

Ghandi who would free the enslaved of a rigid ideology. Riots and refusals in India for filming, for showing. Thirty one million widows today.

The widow is the virgin; beggar, or prostitute. Where acceptance, love is not possible. Who would not drown themselves? Who could not accept the warm caress of infinity in the waters when the ravaged heart beats like a wounded bird who's fallen out of its cage?

technorati tags: Deepa Mehta, Water, widows in India

It went well...

Finally speaking after 22 years about why my birthday is so difficult and the grief it holds enabled me to acknowledge, accept and perhaps release it. It's been a significant birthday for me. On the inside, where I shape my perceptions. I'm sure it had something to do with you all. After posting with an unusual openess, a warmth began radiating and it spread and spread even to illumining the evening with its kindness and gentle happiness.

Two dear friends took me for dinner at a superb Vietnamese restaurant, Ginger, on Yonge Street. They are both 'chanting buddies' from yoga. Jean and I did teacher training in 1995, and Moira was one of the first people to attend my classes and when I taught in my home she came for years. She belongs to a choir and has a wonderful voice and carried our chants. These two women came regularly to my house for about 5 years once a week for a two and a half hour "Long Chant," the one that has a seed syllable, or bij mantra, for each chakra, and we used to go, round after round, hour after hour, cleansing our memories, minds, hearts, emotions of whatever we were carrying. Afterward we ate chocolate poppyseed cake, a chai or yogi tea that had simmered throughout the chant, and laughed and laughed. I eventually moseyed into a moving meditation dance practice, Sweat Your Prayers, and left the rigorous yoga practice (except for my daily private meditation) but they kept on chanting. Jean, who is 62 and glows, does that woman glow, now hosts a Prayers for the Earth in her home once a month, and they do Long Chant, and an Adi Shakti, or Divine Mother chant, each once a month at the Ashram on Palmerston. I am going to try to make it to the Adi Shakti chant this Friday. They are such beautiful friends, how can I not go? The flowers, their bright ebullience, are a gift from Moira. The evening was a reunion and I don't think I've laughed so hard for over so many hours in a long time!

We hadn't seen each other since before I went to Vancouver, almost three years. I'm glad I'm back because having friends like these is worth everything.

On the way home my cell phone rang. It was my son wishing me a happy birthday, and he had a surprise too. He'd be coming to Toronto to see me, to stay for one night. I was fairly dancing down the streetlight lit streets I can tell you!

He arrived the next day, yesterday, we had a wonderful visit, and he took us to a movie I wanted to see, Water, and then to Future Bakery for cake and wine for me, and milk for him and his sister; he said with a glint, he'll be able to have a beer instead in a few weeks when he turns 19.

The warmth of friends and family, their generosity, what could make me feel more special?

It's been simple, but beautiful.

It's my birthday...

Today is my birthday. It's hard for me to celebrate my birthday, and it's something I have tried to do since my marriage ended, not altogether successfully. There's something raw about this day for me. My ex said I was just plain weird around my birthday. I think it's because I miss my father, and my birthday, with gifts, a gathering of family, dinner out, was the day he celebrated his daughter. I felt honoured in ways that he could never know growing up because other things were going on at home while he was on all those business trips. There have been many years when my mother didn't give me a present at all, but hey, I've done that back too. She didn't want a child, neither did he, their marriage in crisis and about to end, but then me. She wished me out of existence many, many times, he fell in love with his little daughter, and treated me like an exquisite human being, and always did, the whole time he was alive. My brothers and I have never really recovered from losing him.

Anyway, it's my birthday, I'm supposed to celebrate this day that I was born 54 years ago, and I find I think of the wonderful celebrations my Dad had for me on this day, and I feel blessed and sad. My brother and his beautiful children dropped by on the weekend. My mother sent an email from South Africa where she's wintering. I've received a couple of emails from friends. Tonight two dear friends who I know through yoga, one of whom I did teacher training with, the other who came to my class for years, both of whom I've chanted with, are taking me out for dinner. I haven't seen them in about 3 years, so that'll be wonderful. I don't know if my daughter wants to do anything, we'll see.

I wish I could just forget about my birthday, really. Grieving never ends, it's cyclical, and my birthday triggers memories of a time that's long past. My father died 22 years ago.

So, Dad, thanks for all those birthdays, for honouring me, my life, and I am trying hard to bring that within so that I can celebrate myself in all the ways you would have wished.



Photos: The top one was me at 3 months; the middle one is me at 20 in front of the maternity wing of the hospital where I was born in Sinoia, Zimbabwe; the last one is my Dad and I in 1980.

Lies and Hiding

A piece published at qarrtsiluni.

Walking the dog on a Winter's night...

Hills of ice outside the indoor rink. I climb them, looking for your photograph. In the barkskin patterns of ice, soiled layers of sand, the rock-frozen display, I place my felt-thick feet, heavy-booted. The light from the ice centre's lamps thows a tungsten glow on the frozen rivulets and packed densities.

My dog runs over the mounds, compacted ice crystals, our breath steaming. I dig my head deeper into my upturned collar, the wind sub-zero, seeing you on the underside of the dark sky.

I am wearing deerskin gloves and merino wool tights and snowpants and a tight jacket pulled up high. Two layers of fleece insulate me underneath.

The frigid air catches my nostrils as I walk, white plume of breath, my thoughts composing the rigid ice hills where your image lies, fragile, fractals of millions of snowflakes, in crystalline rock.