Nearing the middle of our last calendar month brings this year’s end in sight. However, I have three days per week that I make entries, which leaves me about nine in which to dispend my wisdoms, insights and observations, without any regard to their profundity. This is not freefall writing as much as ‘spout forth verbiosing’, but at least it is my own!

That’s enough on this topic, I do myself esteem harm, if I continue in this vein. By the way, why do way use the vein here instead of the artery, which would seem more applicable. I seem to have struck a vein of trivia this morning and here is the vein again, which reminds me that miners too follow the mineral bearing ’veins’! Possibly all this vein stuff is because veins show under the human skin, whereas arteries do not.

Last Friday I finally sent off the two little parcels for my sisters, each containing a little Maya woven purse and some euros for Jan, my brother in law. Last Saturday John and Annie went to Nakiska to buy Annie snowboard equipment for her lessons in the new year.

On Sunday afternoon, John and I took part in the Handel’s Messiah sing along in the Arts Commons, as it is called now. No more ‘Epcor Centre’ now that the oil prices have tanked, taking corporate generosity right along with it. Fair weather friends I say in particular since the tax payers footed much of the bill for the original Arts Centre in the first place.

This sing along brought many memories to the surface for me, because I was in an oratorio choir - Laus Deo - with my uncle Leen - mother’s side - when I was around seventeen years old.

This sing along brought many memories to the surface for me, because I was in an oratorio choir - Laus Deo - with my uncle Leen - mother’s side - when I was around seventeen years old. In particular that famous and moving ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ stirred me deeply. My voice was not that good, so I just hummed a bit here and there, but I absorbed is all as the sounds washed over, recalling my practices now sixty one years ago. And all that with my grown son John at my side, which made it all very special, both of us enjoying this kind of events.

The local christmas cards are still to be sent, as yesterday allotted time was moved on, my not being in the frame of emotions to write christmas cards. Instead, I read while listening to my ‘Messiah’ CD set. It has text and Bible reference in its booklet, which allowed me to follow it more closely and recall some to the sung lines. The score book was for sale which contained the lyrics, but I did not want to spend 20$$ just to get the sing along lyrics. Maybe I should have in retrospect, but I can play my own CD and sing along with it!
<10:00am and time for a coffee.

I do want to write a few words on the Paris COP21 climate conference. It ended last Saturday a day late, but with an agreement to bring down the global CO2 levels, so as to limit the global temperature rise to 2dC by 2020, while striving for 1.5dC limit. There were many other items agreed to, a few of which will be binding.

What is significant to me is that this Conference Of Parties (COP) meeting for its 21st session, resulted in an agreement that is global in reach, encompassing almost 200 parties, national states mainly. This is a first in our existence as humans, superseding the formation of the UN in 1945, when there were just a few nations involved, while many present ones did not yet exist as independent states.

I see this COP21 agreement as a marker for future such agreements that will address common problems that we as humans share on this our only planet home. This climate agreement shows that we humans are capable of and willing to work together to solve a common problem. There are many such problems that need addressing, but this climate thing was becoming unavoidable and going to affect and effect everybody. It is quite often that it is the problems that bring us together, rather then good fortunes, as I have observed over my life time of almost 80 years!

So, I see many such global agreements coming to fruition as we humans address our common problems and with COP21 we have ‘entered the road’ - after a Maya expression - of a shared future, as humanity in mutual validation.

Another such common problem stalking humanity is that of terrorism that feeds on unstable social regions where contrasts remain unattended until disruption strikes. I use disruption, because ‘Deash’ is an Arabic type sound-acronym for ‘ISIL’, which is homonym with ‘Disruptors’. In Western Canada we say ‘shit disturbers’!

Instability leads to insecurity, which the tears and destroys the fabric of society. Here another Arabic wisdom comes to mind: “One year of anarchy is worse the one hundred years of dictatorship” as illustrated by Iraq after Saddam, Libya after Khadafy, not to mention Afghanistan.

So, I see many such global agreements coming to fruition as we humans address our common problems and with COP21 we have ‘entered the road’ - after a Maya expression - of a shared future, as humanity in mutual validation.
>10:57am; lunch time and 11:56am after with edit.