Burnaby, British Columbia
No Power
Being not at home base (Toronto these days), it spares me from the dynamics of the hottest news coming from there. Correction. It’s not hot news at all, and has nothing to do with an embarrassing Mayor who’s caught taking crack.
The ground breaking news from Toronto (T Dot – the cool short term) is the cold ice storm that hit last weekend putting 300,000 home out of power. Normally a power failure wouldn’t create such an out on a short term, but when you consider it’s the middle of winter and it’s dragged on, people will have had to make some adjustments.
I was on the phone with our temple operations person, Keshava, in Toronto. He said with relief, “After 57 hours of no electrical power, we had a big pizza party.” The whole force of nature seemed to have that bonding effect on everyone in Toronto. In the ashram at meal time where there’s no access to light in the eating room, all the monks were getting together hovering around a single candle. Everyone was quite liking it. It was as it should be, perhaps.
I contemplated the joy within the crisis and thought how life must have been before homes were equipped with hydro. Perhaps the utility has spoiled us; that it’s a curse. At least you can safely say that an element of interedependence was very much status quo when we were all unplugged.
It was sadly reported though that through this time of testing, generator, power, propane, and other less safe ways of generating warmth left some people dead from the fumes and exhaust.
I had taken to walking in weather that was just below zero degrees in the lower mainland of Burnaby, BC at Christmas Eve, when things were rather Silent Night –ish. I imagined myself being back in Toronto and how I would handle the cold. Likely, I would find maximum satisfaction in keeping warm in my winter boots, doing a lot of walking. After all, each and every one of us has a built in furnace as much as we have a soul. At some point in time, our 98 degrees Farenheit will quit on us. But the spirit goes on searching for a new furnace.
May the Source be with you.
6 KM
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