Michael Robert Dyet's Blog, page 71

Metaphors of Life Journal: Cloud Ships Adrift in the Evening Sky

Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change – this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.

~Bruce Barton , 1886 – 1967, American Author, Advertising Executive and Politician

Hmmm, if I could catch the cadence of those cloud ships adrift in the evening sky, would I be more at peace?

Occasionally, I feel the world slow down for a day or two. Or at least, it seems that way. The earth is, of course, still spinning on its axis. Humanity is still racing along chasingmits’ tail. It’s just that my life has slipped a gear and shifted into neutral without my permission.

It used to bother me when this happened. So many things to do. Looming deadlines to meet. So little time to do all the stuff I’m convinced I need to do. If I’m not making progress, than surely I’m losing ground and at risk of falling behind.

But lately I’ve begun to recognize, as Bruce Barton so eloquently points out, that ebb and flow is part of the rhythm of life. If I’m forever on fast forward, I’m going to be out of sync with that rhythm.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that the measure of success in our life is in how many finish lines we cross. Or how many mountains we climb. Or how many awards we win. From that perspective, it seems essential to put as many miles under our belt as possible.

I am coming to realize that there is ebb and flow to life every day. If we’re obsessed with always being on the move, we’re missing out on half of life – and it may just be the best half. So why do we err on that side so often?

The reality is this: It is a whole lot easier to stay in the flow than it is to pause and catch the cadence of stillness. Stillness is not the absence of motion any more than silence is the absence of sound. And yet, we seem to fear it.

Cloud ships adrift in the evening sky – a random act of metaphor to help me comprehend that the best of life often happens in the ebb tide. Such a shame to miss out on those delights.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To”  instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Memory Journeys: Shaking Off the Shackles of Time

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,

“To talk of many things:

Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–

Of cabbages–and kings–

And why the sea is boiling hot–

And whether pigs have wings.”

~ Lewis Carroll, The Walrus and the Carpenter

Hmmm, is there more to memory than science can dissect? Does it go deeper, spread wider and cross barriers that defy explanation?

The first couple of lines to the classic Lewis Carroll poem popped into my mind this morning. I have no idea why. Something obviously triggered it. But I have no clue what it was.

Truthfully, I didn’t even remember the origin of the lines. I had to Google them to discover the source. Obviously, I read “The Walrus and the Carpenter” at some time in my life and it made enough of an impact for the lines to stay with me.

Science tells us that memory is all about chemicals in the brain and that it follows a clear three step process. Step 1: Encoding. Step 2: Storage. Step 3: Retrieval into our consciousness.

But I’m particularly satisfied with that clinical explanation. Memory is a strange and elusive thing that I’m not convinced science can contain. Yes, we know there are differentkinds of memory – sensory, short term and long term. But that only scratches the surface of this wonderful ability we possess.

There are, of course, many, quite utilitarian aspects of memory We remember telephone numbers, computer passwords, names of people and places, mathematical equations, how to operate a car etc. I’m content to let science reduce these instances to chemical reactions.

But there is a deeper, more emotionally charged aspect of memory that defies scientific explanation. I’m inclined to believe that bits and pieces of our life experience actually live on in within us. Distinct chunks of reality which shake off the shackles of time and become, in some sense, immortal. Taking us on living journeys of recollection.

We don’t simply remember these experiences. We actually relive them over and over. Moments of overwhelming joy or peacefulness, grief or despair, which are imprinted somewhere other than in our brain. Whatever your conception of the soul may be, this is where I believe these memories reside.

So let’s distinguish between factual memories and soulful memories. Chemical codes in the brain and living entities in the soul. But don’t mistake me. These two distinct types of memories are not mutually exclusive. Oh no, not at all.

There is, I`m certain, an interconnectedness and interdependency between factual memories and soulful memories. A certain smell, or sound – or the fragmented lines of a poem – that send you back through time to a precious experience in all its living colour and vividness.

Alas, memory falters as we age. The connection between those lines in “The Walrus and the Carpenter” and the experience to which it is tied, are broken. I can`t trace the interdependency which saddens me a bit.

But I think this is why I trade in metaphors. Metaphors are another tool for memory. Another bridge to connect me to the precious moment long passed when the chemical reaction can`t do the trick anymore. Metaphors have a life of their own. And for that, I am truly grateful.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To”

instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Time Enough, But None to Spare

“What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.” ~ Saint Augustine, North African Bishop, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church

Hmmm, how did we become so time-obsessed? Is there not a better way to mark the passage of our mortal lives?

Time seems to be our mortal enemy in the modern world. There is seemingly never enough of it. Never matter how many time-saving devices we create, it slips through our hands and leaves us wondering how it got away from us.

We race time to get where we’re going, to meet a deadline or to be first across the finish line. We divide our lives into definable chunks of it – seconds, hours, days, weeks, months and years – and then lament how it passes too quickly. Perhaps it wouldn’t pass so quickly if we were not so obsessed with measuring it.

“Clocks slay time… time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.” ~ William Faulkner, American writer and Nobel Prize laureate

How many clocks do you have in your house? I live in a one bedroom apartment and I have four including the one on the stove and the watch on my wrist. How much time do I waste each day looking at the clock to see what time it is?

I absolutely hate being late to anything. It messes with my state of mind. So I’ve become one of those annoying people who are chronically early.

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” ~ William Penn, Real Estate Entrepreneur and Philosopher

What I’m getting at here is that we have become slaves of time – or, more accurately, slaves of the clock. The truth of the matter is this: time is a human fabrication and a human preoccupation.

The other living creatures on this planet don’t scurry around self-possessed with time. They live by the natural rhythms and cycles of life. Sunrise and sunset, the progression of the seasons, the phases of the moon and the sequence of the tides. They acquiesce to the passage of time rather than constantly battling against it.

“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.” ~ Harvey MacKay, Motivational Author and Speaker

I’ve come to realize that we’ve made time a commodity. We put an artificial value on it in various ways – we’re paid by the hour, we travel at miles per hour and we even purchase units of it for our cell phones and other supposedly time-saving devices.

Perhaps we would be better off if we conceived of time as merely a metaphor for the graceful progression of our existence from the miracle of birth to the certainty of death. There is nothing to be gained from rushing.

I’ll let American author and essayist Charles W. Chesnutt have the last word on the subject: “There is time enough, but none to spare.”

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.comor the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet

home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

 

Advertising By the Roll: The Last, Shameless Frontier

Hmmm, where will I go to escape the advertising assault now that the last, shameless frontier of privacy has been breached?

In recent years, marketers have been pushing forward to frontiers never before imagined in the increasingly difficult battle to break through the clutter. Now it seems they have gone bravely and brazenly into the last frontier.

An Ann Arbor Michigan company is selling ads and coupons on toilet paper. No, I’m not being facetious. You can’t make up this kind of thing. Apparently, the company’s website advises people: “Don’t rush. Look before you flush.”

I earn my living in the marketing profession so a part of me – a very small part that I do my best to suppress – has a grudging respect for this audacious venture. But the rest of me cringes at the thought and wonders about the mindset of the CEO who gave it the go ahead.

The phrase “only in America” comes to mind with apologies to my American readers. I can’t imagine this idea seeing the light of day in any other country. Mind you, if it catches on, I have no doubt others will jump on the rolling bandwagon.

As a former copywriter, a number of taglines leap to mind:

Softmas a baby’s bottom and good for your bottom line.

Clip before your crap.

The perfect captive audience for your advertising message. (To be pitched exclusively to makers of laxatives, probiotic yogurts and high fibre foods.)

I could go on in this direction for hours and quite enjoy it. But it would quickly slide below the line of decency and get me into way too much trouble.

So on to what really bothers me about the idea. It’s not so much the indelicacy of it. I’ve been around long enough that not much surprises me anymore. What raises my hackles is the probability that soon there won’t be anywhere I can hide out where advertising won’t find me.

I’m already bombarded with advertising messages wherever I look: billboards on highways, mobile device advertising, flyers slipped under my door, junk e-mail piling up in my inbox, telemarketers ringing my phone off the hook, and on and on.

What it comes down to is the ever increasing – at all costs and damn the consequences – pursuit for market share and a chunk of our paycheques. Shouldn’t there be a line that no one is allowed to cross in this winner-take-all battle? The bathroom in my home seems to me to be that line.

Thankfully, metaphors are generally not used in advertising. The message has to be immediate requiring little or no cognitive processing. But advertising on toilet paper is a metaphor in and of itself for the final intrusion of marketing into our most private places – if you’ll pardon the pun.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

 

Wi-Fi, Internet Ether and Praying Mantis People

Hmmm, what should we do with those who choose to make their living by taking advantage of our increasingly Wi-Fi and technology blue-sky world?

Take a moment to examine this photograph. It looks like nothing more than an innocuous photograph of a plant.

Now take a closer look – just slightly right of center, in the top half of the photograph, clutching the plant stem. Do you see it? It’s an insect known as a Praying Mantis which can be very difficult to pick out from the grass and plants where it is found.

The Praying Mantis gets its name from the upraised posture of its front legs which make it look like it is praying. But the Praying Mantis is a predatory insect which lies in wait – amazingly well camouflaged, both in shape and colour, to its environment – for other insects which it captures and devours.

I rather like the Praying Mantis. It reminds me to slow down, focus my senses and look for those hidden wonders that lie around us often undetected.

However, I can’t help but wonder if the person who named this prehistoric looking insect was aware of the double entendre inherent in its name. The Praying Mantis is very much a preying creature that uses its uniquely adapted body to its advantage in preying upon other insects.

And from there, my mind makes one of those sideways leaps of insight that being a weaver of metaphors (for better or for worse, you decide) has cultivated.

There are people among us who are very much like the Praying Mantis. Their modus operandi is lurking in the Wi-Fi shadows that swirl around us – sometimes remaining invisible and other times disguising themselves as someone else. We’ve all encountered them:

An e-mail that appears to be from a friend: Please help me. I’m travelling in Spain. All of my money and identification was stolen. I’m okay but desperately need some money to get home.

An e-mail that appears to be from your bank: There has been some suspicious activity on your account. Please use the website link below to access your account and verify your information.

They’re known as “phishing schemes” and they’re getting increasingly common. Somewhere out there, in the internet ether, there is a shadow community of metaphorical Praying Mantis people who lie in wait to cheat us out of our hard earned money.

The real Praying Mantis is simply doing what nature designed it to do. It is part of the natural circle of life. The metaphorical Praying Mantis people, on the other hand, are malevolent opportunists who lie, cheat and steal their way through life.

But here is what I believe: What goes around, comes around. All forms of evil eventually come home to roost – and payback is a bitch.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2.  Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Random Act of Metaphor: Deep Roots Unseen in Solid Ground

“Storms make the oaks grow deeper roots.” ~ George Herbert, 1593 – 1633, English Poet, Orator and Anglican Priest

Hmmm, where do we find the resilience to weather the storms and the droughts that come and go in our lives often with no discernible pattern or logic?

As I look out my eighteenth floor window onto the street below, I could be tricked into thinking that unseen forces hit “fast forward” on the time button and vaulted me unaware into autumn. More than a few treetops have changed their colour shades as if we’ve already rounded the corner into the russet and gold palette of September.

But it is not yet mid-August and too early for fall colours. What I am seeing is the combined effect of the long summer drought and the blistering hot days which stole back the few brief rains that reached the parched earth.

The grass succumbed first – turning sickly yellow and brittle dry. Next the leaves on shallow rooted shrubs and bushes curled, withered and fell. A few of these bushes have given up the ghost while others soldier on struggling to survive. And finally, even the trees have begun to look battle weary unable to feed their uppermost branches.

Only the deepest rooted flora has been able to weather the arid, steamy summer of 2012 without showing signs of fatigue. And, as is so often the case, nature reflects back to us one of the realities of our own lives.

The storms of life come in different forms. Torrential rains of adversity and prolonged droughts of unanswered want. Surviving them requires that we are rooted deep in something more than the transient things that money can buy or the brief flourishes of pleasure that easily won victories provide.

Deep roots unseen in solid ground – a random act of metaphor to remind us that we must anchor our lives in virtue, purpose and deeper meaning if we are to survive the seasons of drought.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.comor the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

2012 Olympics: Defining Moments of the Human Spirit

Hmmm, when the last race is run, the curtain falls on the closing ceremonies and the athletes head home, what will be etched in history as the defining moments of the 2012 Summer Olympics? And what will those moments have to say about the human spirit?

We are a week and change into the 2012 Games. Already there are tales of glory, agony and disgrace with a healthy dose of controversy thrown in.

The defining moment of agony… may well be Canadian triathlete Paula Findlay, heartbroken and with tears streaming from her eyes, courageously struggling across the finish line in last place sobbing “I’m sorry” to Canadians back home. No apology was necessary as Findlay defined the Olympic spirit by battling back from a hip injury that prevented her from competing in any pre Olympic events.

The defining moment of controversy… seems likely to also arise from Findlay’s moment of pain as fellow triathlete Simon Whitfield lashed out publicly at Canadian triathlete team staff for allegedly mismanaging Findlay’s recovery.

The defining moment of triumph over adversity… may well be South African double amputee Oscar Pistorius who has been dubbed “the Blade Runner” for his high tech prosthetics. Pistorius, a four time gold medalist at the Paralympic Games, had to fight for the right to compete at the Olympics. His victory over adversity was forever secured when he qualified for the semi-finals.

The defining moment of the home-town hero… may go to English tennis pro Andy Murray, ranked fourth in the world, who dominated world number one Roger Federer to win the gold medal. And a sidebar note: the Olympics may be the one blemish on Federer’s stellar career as he fell short once again of the ultimate prize.

The defining moment of the unlikely champion… may land in the hands of Canada’s Rosannagh MacLennan who literally soared to victory with her gold medal performance in the trampoline.

The defining moment of victory slipping away in a heartbeat… could come from that same trampoline event as Chinese favourite He Wanna fell on her very last move in what appeared until that instant to be a gold medal performance.

The defining moment of disgrace… seems to be already in the books as Australian rower Josh Booth was sent home in shame. Booth drowned his sorrows in alcohol, after his team finished last in the eight man finals, and went on a rampage smashing two shop front windows outside London.

There are undoubtedly many memorable stories yet to be told at these Olympics. But the story behind the story is that the Olympics have always been, and continue to be, a metaphor for the range of emotions that the human spirit can rise to or fall to and must ultimately endure. We all have our moments of glory, agony and shame. We are, after all, at the same time, gloriously courageous and frighteningly frail.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

~ Send comments to michael@mdyetmetaphor.com

.

 

 

Random Act of Metaphor: The Sound of Silence in a Cicada’s Buzz

And in the naked light I saw – Ten thousand people, maybe more – People talking without speaking – People hearing without listening – People writing songs that voices never share – And no one dared – Disturb the sound of silence.   Sounds of Silence – Simon and Garfunkel

Hmmm, I happened upon a Cicada today resting uncharacteristically on the ground. Why, I wondered, had it ventured down from its normal roost high in the trees? As I bent down to snap its picture, it let out a brief hiss.

You may not ever have seen a Cicada but you most certainly have heard them. Their electric buzz from above is a staple in nature’s summer symphony. There is something quite soothing and reassuring in their vibrating murmur.

We live in a very noisy and sometimes deafening world. The constant, throaty drone of traffic. Honking horns like clanging cymbals. Radios cranked up to the max thrusting the latest hit songs out the window. People talking, laughing, shouting, screaming, cursing and crying at what seems like an ever increasing volume.

As a species, we are very, very adept at making noise. I am inclined to believe that many of us crank up the decibels because – as Paul Simon so poetically expressed – we are afraid of the sound of silence.

Silence seems to strip away all our masks, all our excuses and all our rationalizations. In the deafening din of silence, truth knells with awesome clarity. Our deepest, darkest secrets speak themselves and we have no choice but to listen.

The Cicada that left its treetop perch may just be a random act of metaphor to remind us that the sound of silence can also feed our soul. The murmur of truth can be liberating. We really ought to seek it out more often.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Send comments to michael@mdyetmetaphor.com .

 

 

 

 

 

Murder, Mayhem and The Dark Knight Rising

Hmmm, is this summer of disconcerting drought and discontented super heroes the living symbol of the dark night of the disenfranchised in our midst?

We are suffering through an increasingly troubling drought in this area. It has been well over a month since we’ve had a rainfall of any significance. The ground is parched. The marshes are shrinking leaving frogs and turtles competing for the last few inches of water. Trees, bushes and shrubs are withering by the day.

And while we wait anxiously for even a brief thunderstorm, we’re breaking records for high temperatures and coping with humidity that is hitting 40? Celsius and higher on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, we’ve been rocked by the news of violence and bloodshed in our own cities and in our neighbours to the south. No so long ago we shook our heads at the shooting spree that sent shoppers at the Eaton’s Centre scrambling for cover. More recently, gunfire erupted in Scarborough taking more innocent victims.

And this week, TV and radio brought us the horrific news of the lone gunman who donned a gas mask and walked through a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” shooting apparently at random killing and wounding dozens.

The producers of the latest incarnation of Batman couldn’t have known that their casting of the caped crusader as a discontented and reluctant super hero would resonate on another level entirely. Yes, they were clearly playing on the double entendre in the movie’s name. But how deep that parallel would go must be leaving them at a loss for words.

It may just be the maker of metaphors in me. But I can’t help but wonder if Mother Nature isn’t sending us a message with this prolonged drought. We hope for rain and are disappointed when it fails to come.

But the disenfranchised souls in our midst are suffering a much more profound drought. The withering of their dreams for a better life. The increasing distance between what they need and what they must make do with. The gap, which begins to seem insurmountable, between what their heart’s desire and what their eyes see daily as their inescapable reality.

The drought of hope may be what pushes them to acts of senseless violence. Eventually, the scale tips that last few degrees and they begin to idolize the villains rather than the heroes. The last refuge of their withering souls becomes the act of lashing out and extracting payment in terror and in bloodshed.

We choose to think of nature as a mother figure – caring and nurturing us with the bounty of our earth. It may just be that a greater force resides there than we have yet conceived. One whose heart is breaking at what she sees and is reaching out to us through metaphor to open our eyes.

I hope it rains soon. We desperately need it. But I hope we also heed the deeper meaning and reach out to those whose hearts have run dry of hope. The price of looking the other way has become too dear.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet

home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Sendcomments to michael@mdyetmetaphor.com .

Random Act of Metaphor: A Fireball of Blinding Light

Hmmm, sometimes I have trouble connecting the dots in this rollercoaster thing we call life.

A single day can be filled to the brim with such a disjointed mixture of joy and sorrow and punctuated simultaneously by symbols of hope and fear. It is profoundly humbling to witness how life can swing through such extremes.

Today started out on a high note. It is Lucas Holtom Carnival Day – an annual event in which our church opens its arms to the community with a free carnival in the park. The carnival is an amazing, inspirational event that grew out of the tragic loss of a young child.

Two to three thousand people pass through the carnival in its short, four hour burst of exuberance. Hundreds of volunteers make it possible. A spirit of joyful giving, sharing and receiving blooms in that park with enough good karma to last all year.

I headed down the highway to Hamilton to visit my father after my shift at the carnival. My father had attended the funeral of a friend earlier in the day – a long-time friend who lost his battle with cancer. It unnerves me to think of the human toll that terrible disease exacts each day.

I returned home in the evening and, as usual, called my father to let him know that I was home safe and sound. He told me he had just received a call informing him that another one of his friends had passed away. Another funeral to attend, another loss to mourn, another hole that can`t be filled.

At this very moment, the setting sun is glancing off the window of the next building over creating a fireball of blinding light. It strikes me as a random act of metaphor for the way a single day can burn so bright with both joyful celebration and painful loss. Let us rejoice while we are able for the tide can turn so very, very quickly and with so very little warning.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To”

instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.

Send comments to michael@mdyetmetaphor.com .