American thanksgiving

 Maggy and Seth hosted a traditional American thanksgiving dinner. Seth was born and grew up in San Francisco before meeting Maggy and settling down in Montreal about ten years ago. More pictures after the jump

to calm down

digital painting by Lohbado

Lohbado woke again at 3 AM in a sweat, heart pounding. He turned on the bedside lamp, took a deep breath, then went to the Tabernacle to say a few prayers of aspiration and supplication to the deities of the infinite cosmos. As he breathed out, he let go of thoughts and visualized a clear summer sky above the ocean. The image of vast sky and ocean waves calmed his mind.

lucid dreaming

digital painting by Lohbado

Lohbado dreamed friends invited him into a medieval stone house overlooking a lake in the mountains. They showed him to a room on the second floor. As he lay on the queen sized bed, demons came out of the closet and started poking his chest with spears from the antique display cabinet downstairs. They pierced his flesh and bones, without drawing blood. Then another demon reached its hands into his stomach and began tearing his stomach inside out, as if his stomach was an old purse made of a hog's ear with silk lining.

Lohbado broke into a sweat. He tossed and turned, before realizing it was a dream. To dissolve the fearful scenario, he visualized Grandmother Aida entered the room with a large crystal glass of brandy mixed with Jagermeister. Moonlight through the window gave it a warm ruby glow. He sat up in bed and accepted the ritual beverage. Grandmother vanished. His body sank into calm and serene waves. He then slept like a baby until sunrise.

the power of light

digital painting by Lohbado

In the middle of a dark night of tossing and turning, Lohbado rose from the bed and turned towards the light.

in memory of Kevin Thayer

Kevin Thayer October 2013

July 2010 Karme Choling

Kevin Thayer was a good natured, imaginative and intelligent man I first met about 2007 at Karme Choling Shambhala Meditation centre during a program called Family Camp. We both had daughters fairly close in age. The day before he died, out of the blue, a memory of a conversation we had one afternoon came to mind, about the choreographic-type moves people make as they drive, or get in and out of motor vehicles. At the time he was completing his PhD in communication. He talked about cyborgs and imaginative realities. Later he began a site, Axis of Character, which I subscribed to, plus we corresponded regularly by email. He posted poetic texts and images. He did a lot of work with the Zen garden at the meditation centre and enjoyed making ritualistic fires. He had a lot of experience doing sweat lodges and studied shamanistic lore. He was a strong, warm hearted and fascinating person. He died yesterday morning after a year of struggling with cancer.

it snow joke

It's no joke. Monday morning, November 21, 2016 Montreal was covered in a thin layer of wet snow, first downfall of the season. It's a reminder. Be prepared. Are you ready for the season of slosh, cold and darkness? Maybe one could ride a bicycle all winter. Taking public transit would be a way to avoid the stress of driving.

wine swan

The wine swan came as a surprise, even more so than the black swan. Nobody expected to see a glass swan with spaghetti on its back in a ceramic basin of wine. Lohbado celebrated the event with a handful of dill pickles. A few pickles in the hand is worth more than two dozen in the jar. The elements came together in perfect harmony, part of the digestive model of existence, whereby one ingests a variety of physical and mental events, processes them within the body/mind continuum, then lets go and moves on.

ride through the cemetery and up Mount Royal

gravestone Notre-Dame des Neiges

Mount Royal

Lohbado paused to admire the beauty of letters and lines in high contrast on grave stones during his bike ride up Mount Royal. Beautiful light bathed the city of Montreal as the sun went down. He went into the chalet to warm up. It's a peaceful place to have a pause from daily worries or concerns.

The Body of Grandmother

click on picture to see video. Lohbado remembered his last lunch in Grandmother's kitchen, when he was Peter Stumps, 10 years old. Fried egg lunch turned into a religious experience.

birthday

Once a year you can celebrate what you do once a lifetime. One is born once, but can celebrate the unique event of one's coming into the world once every 365 days. On the menu of this happy gathering was mama's home made lasagna, wine to gladden the heart and cake for comfort.

dreaming friend

click on picture to see video. Dreaming friend could be like the endless quiet inner conversation, or stream of consciousness. Lohbado spent so much time alone, sometimes his thoughts became vivid, as if he was in conversation with actual people. The latest loba vlog video is an experiment in sound, trying out different things. It's an ongoing process. Sometimes it's interesting. Sometimes it's boring. Forget about accomplishing anything. Just do the video. That's what the Chief Nomroh at the Tabernacle instructed. The previous video, artery registration was in response to the phenomenon of how visibility on the web is controlled by algorithms which function to promote certain interests while suppressing or ignoring others. Whatever... the river keeps flowing. Keep going. That's how it is.

autumn colours

Lohbado rode up through Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery to the lookout on Mount Royal in Montreal. On the way down, the colours were spectacular as the sun neared the horizon. Lohbado stopped to take a few pictures, until his ice cold hands forced him to put away the camera and continue on home.

November of the soul

November of the soul is an expression used on page one of Herman Mellville's Moby Dick. It refers to a character who feels gloomy, restless, on edge, slightly morbid. When one experiences November of the soul, then it's time to go to sea, concludes the narrator.

Lohbado enjoyed November of the soul at Lachine Canal yesterday in Montreal. It's a mixture of beautiful golden light and foliage, plus an introspective dark dreamlike quality. The canal has been partially drained in preparation for the winter. In some section, repairs are being done. As Lohbado gazed into a muddy section with a stream in the middle, it felt like gazing into the gates of Hades, the underworld in Greek mythology. It felt like standing at a passageway between the world of the living and the world of the dead. November has its unique form of beauty, which is why it is one of Lohbado's favourite months. He found it stimulating to the imagination. It inspired a sense of wonderment about infinite nature and the transparent qualities of the human experience.

father and son rendezvous

Friday was a perfect day for father son rendezvous. Frederick visited his father in beautiful Beloeil, Quebec.

How Dana and Randy First Met

click on picture to see video. Dana and Randy work in prosthetics and orthotics in Montreal, where devices are made or altered to fit those in need of artificial limbs or support. They talked about how they met at work. Dana and Randy are also hosts of Hootenanny at Brasserie Beaubien in Montreal.