O Ca-nah-nah -- and DaVinci's Codes...

O Cannanah....Our home and Natra Nah...True patrah lahhh....Is how my little brother used to sing the first line of O Canada, as a toddler.  It is a good example of how...even when little, you can sing the sounds, but not know the meaning. 


Was the song of a child any less powerful?  I think not.  Just at a different level of awareness.  I have a different awareness for the line "true patriot love".  I wonder if patriotism is necessary in the same way it was?  If our borders dissolve, do we lose all we are?  Or do we become more than we ever were?  There are always two sides.  Love/Fear?

I sang the toddler version of O Ca-nah-nah to my kids the other day.  They looked at me like I was an alien...save that discussion for another entry.  I told them Uncle's catch phrase used to be, "Oochie Daydee!" (Oopsie Daisie).  It resurrected into our family slang.

Today I flipped the calendar to reveal July and the following quote:

"When you put your hand in a flowing stream, 

you touch the last of what has gone before, 

and the first of what is yet to come." 
- Leonardo DaVinci-

"Trickle Creek" - Banff National Park, AB- R Christenson (2003)

This sums it up.  Endings are beginnings.  We are what has gone before and is to come... Did DaVinci ever think about how his work would send out ripples into eternity?  I wonder what he'd think about being depicted as the "fair(y) god father" in one of my favorite movies, "Ever After".  


In history, he is depicted as a renaissance man, inventor and scholar...artist, sculptor, painter, and so on...

From the web...not sure who to credit.

Enter Dan Brown and his "Da Vinci Code" many years after "Ever After" --- Dan got me thinking... In a way none had prior.  I saw through nagging flaws I felt in religiosity. 

Through Da Vinci's painting of The Last Supper -- Brown argues a case for the love between Mary Magdalene and Jesus.  Hearing Ian McKellan's storytelling, combined with Audrey TouTou and Tom Hank's Dialogue...I gained new perspective.  What would true love, partnership and acceptance really look like?  Feel like? Be like?

Peace within, ripples out into peace in the home.  One person, one couple, one pair of siblings and one family at a time.   We are turning the tide...I am reminded of a quote by Doreen Virtue: 

"If it's going to be, it's up to me."  

Waves of change alter our DNA, communities, provinces, countries and continents.  Invisible borders disappear through global communications.  Loved ones live and travel abroad.  My sister texted me in an instant, from Doha (Qatar), the other day and...Just like that, "the middle east" has a connection to my heart.    

Portion of painting "The Story of Vaehema" by Jennifer Christenson (11 by 14 - acrylic on canvas)

As I contemplate invisible separations and connections...It is Canada Day.  I grew up here.  I am here.  I live here.  But the bigger picture is so much bigger.   

Earth is my "Home and Native Land..."  Global partnerships are formed daily.  

It's a small world after all...

A Healing Earth - Jennifer Christenson 24 by 36" (oil on canvas)

"People become really quite remarkable 

when they start thinking that they can do things. 

When they believe in themselves 

they have the first secret of success."

-Norman Vincent Peale-

Some interesting research sites are: 

http://www.heartmath.org/free-services/tools-for-well-being/shift-and-shine-age-3-to-6.html, http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/category/earth-changes/, http://www.wunderground.com/, http://nhb-arcims.si.edu/ThisDynamicPlanet/index.html