Swiss Journal - May 2014

This post is sort of a diary of my trip to Switzerland over the May holidays to visit my daughter and her family. I am not writing about events so much as thoughts and impressions.  I am posting it with some starting thoughts, but I’ll add to it as the trip progresses, and probably even after that.

·         Switzerland is an absolutely gorgeous place.  This is especially true in the peaceful, rural areas, away from the bustle of cities like Geneva.  On Sunday, I took a walk with my camera along some paths in the farmland above Lake Geneva and took a few photos.  On Monday, my daughter and I went walking together, and she took this beautiful shot of Mount Blanc – which is in France, far across Lake Geneva – with some of the local farmland in the foreground.

·         In Kharkiv, we have this idea that Western Europeans are perfectly clean, always follow laws and rules, and have none of the rudeness that seems to be so common in our public lives.  They do have almost perfect roads, which I wrote about in this post called Substandards of Living from 2012.  But I was surprised today in Geneva to see how much disdain pedestrians have for the walk signals at crosswalks.  They ROUTINELY walk across on red if there is a break in traffic.  On the other hand, Swiss drivers are FAR more patient and considerate about stopping for pedestrians at crosswalks without lights. 

·         There are a LOT more smokers in Geneva and Vienna than I would have expected.  That is one habit that seems to die hard.  

·         Zombies exist and have practically taken over in Geneva.  Everywhere, you see people hypnotized by their mobile phones and other devices.  The zombies are on trains, in cars, in cafes, on the streets, and even on bicycles.  I am convinced that these devices were designed to bring out the inner idiots in people.  And they seem to be hugely successful.  It sort of validates what I wrote about in this post about Losing our Humanity.  While I was in Geneva today, I saw a man in a suit talking on his phone while trying to ride a bicycle along a very busy city street.  But the most fun was the texting girl who walked right into another person in Starbucks and spilled the other person’s coffee.  It was classic!

·         I really like Switzerland… very much!  It’s a shame, however, that I can’t speak a lick of French.  In Geneva (as in Vienna Friday morning), almost everywhere I went, I found people who spoke at least some English.  But in the villages and towns, it’s not the case.

·         It’s an interesting tendency I have: when I am someplace where the locals don’t speak English, my fallback inclination is to want to use Russian.

·         Hundreds of airplanes seem to pass over the Lake Geneva area every day.  It’s obviously a major pathway in all directions.  I don’t think I have ever seen so many contrails.

·         Today I sat in a city park next to Lake Geneva for a while.  It was nice and relaxing.  Everything was green, except for the multicolored flowers expertly placed in stylish pots along the wall separating the lake shore from the park.  The only drawback was the noise of the busy city street behind me.

·         Sitting by the lake, I tried not to think… just be.  But it’s hard.  My mind still goes to the problems in Ukraine, the events in Odesa and Donetsk, my worries about Kharkiv, my own life there, and my friends.  I can’t help wondering what’s going to happen and what I may have to do.  I have a lot of thoughts and things I want to write about this situation.  I hope I’ll find the inspiration to get it done.

·         There are days, like today, when my body is especially insistent about making sure I realize that I am not 25 anymore.  My back has been hurting since I left Kharkiv, and my knee decided to act up today, which all resulted in a pretty slow pace around Geneva.  When I get back, I absolutely have to get into some real therapy for my back.

·         I met a friendly cat this evening as I was walking back to the place where I am staying.  I had met this beautiful orange cat before on a previous trip.  It reminds me a bit of my former cat, Nekko… or at least how I thought he would grow up to look.  This cat is large, healthy and very well filled out.  Nekko wound up being sort of scrawny and with terrible matting in his long fur.  Still… he was a sweetheart.  I wrote a bit about Nekko (and his sister, Koshka) in the post called A Sick Cat.

·         I managed to make real progress on my second blog post about souls.  The first part, “What is a Soul,” was posted in mid-January, and I had planned to follow up with the second part after a few weeks.  Obviously, it hasn’t happened yet.  I bought a notebook and wrote while I was sitting by the lake.  I think I will be able to finally finish the post in another day or so.

·         UPDATE: I got the post done and posted.  The subject is "The Soul, the Mind and the Heart."

·         It's been cold here at night.  Temperatures have been down in the low single digits (Celsius), and Sunday night it actually dipped below freezing. Temperatures inside the room where I've been staying have been as low as 12 degrees C.  Yesterday was warm and perfect, without the high winds we had over the weekend.  That made it a perfect day to go into Geneva.  And this morning (Tuesday) the day is starting out to look very nice.  But it's a mountain trick; the forecast suggests that the rest of my days here will be mostly cool, cloudy and occasionally rainy.

·         Oh-oh... I feel a cold coming on.

·         And the cold came.  I felt miserable Tuesday and spent about 15 hours in bed Tuesday evening.  Getting better now, and it hasn't put a damper on the trip.

·         It's hard to believe that you can actually "savor" the aroma of cows, but you can.  Or at least, I can.  Being in this rural environment is so great - and such a change from the city - that even the smell of cow dung in the air is a delight.  It's just part of the charm, along with singing birds, peace and quiet, and beautiful landscapes.

·         Even when you are away on vacation and enjoying the change of pace, it's good to hear from someone back home.  I had a brief Skype chat with one of my friends in Kharkiv.  It is nice when someone reaches out to say "hello, how's it going?"  It reminds you that you do have a community to return to.

·         On the flip side, however, I was informed that my hot water will be shut off the day after I return to Kharkiv for the annual MONTH of system maintenance.  I need to enjoy my nice hot showers while I can.

·         This is my "Swiss Diary," but I should also mention that I spent most of a day in Vienna on my way.  Nice city, and I only got to explore a fraction of it.

·         Looking at this post in the regular "view" mode (as opposed to the "edit" mode) makes me more than a little disappointed that Blogger has such poor formatting.  It can't seem to take a properly laid-out document from MS Word and keep the formatting.  And what's more, when you go back in to edit or add new sections, the formatting goes crazy.  I really don't like this.

·         Saturday, 11 May. I spent several hours in the morning walking around the town of Nyon (pronounced "Ne-ouh"), which is situated on Lake Geneva. It was a beautiful, sunny morning. Very peaceful and quiet. There were a lot of bicyclists out because it was such a perfect day. There is a pedestrian mall in the center where there are many shops, including a lot of open street markets. People were just getting ready and set up there. There are also a lot of very old buildings, including a castle. By chance, I happened upon a group of people playing Alpine horns.

·         As I sat beside Lake Geneva and admired the beauty of it all, I wondered what it looked like there before people settled the area. That was thousands of years ago, of course. I often think about this when I am in a naturally beautiful place, and I wish there could be a way to travel back in time and see it.

·         Another thing that almost always crosses my mind when I am in places like that is how much nicer it would be to share the experience with some one special. It seems that almost all of my world travels have been solo experiences and, for that reason, a little lonely.

·         There are quite a lot of mixed-race couples and families here. I have noticed it before, and it was very apparent today in Nyon. It i quite unusual in Ukraine. No matter what your opinion might be about this, it's just a fact of life in many places. People of different races meet and sometimes fall in love. Families result. Such families are still the minority, even here, but they are certainly more common here than in many other places. It seems to me that it must be more comfortable for them - and especially for the children - in a place where it is not considered so unusual.

·         In a related matter, I also saw a lot of political posters on the main square that were related to immigration issues. Some obviously were in support of immigration controls, while others complained of xenophobia among the people who want more control over who comes into Switzerland. As I understand it, this is s big issue in the country these days and is part of a growing problem between the European Union and Switzerland (which is not an EU member).

·         One thing I will never get used to is eating French fries with mayonnaise. For me, it just has to be ketchup!

·         Another thing I've seen on each of my three trips to Switzerland, as well as on my trip last year to Budapest, and have never been able to accept is people bringing their dogs with them into shops, cafes and restaurants. Yes, I am sure that they love their pooches and think of them as practically being people. But, I mean, come on... they are dogs, animals! They don't belong in places where I am going to eat my food. It's hard to enjoy your meal with a flea train at the next table.

·         It seems to me that people have become way too silly about their dogs, even in Kharkiv. Besides thinking that it is acceptable to bring the mangy critters into public eating establishments, we see people walking their mutts with expensive collars or ridiculous looking sweaters or other clothing. What happened to the days when dogs were dogs? When did we start treating them like little children? What has happened to people? Maybe it's because we have created all these breeds of little yappy dogs that don't look like dogs at all; they look more like long-haired rats.

·         Once again my travels out of Ukraine have confirmed a very important point about the country I have called home since 2008: there are no more beautiful girls in the world than in Ukraine. I was not impressed at all with Vienna in this regard. And while the parts of Switzerland I have visited are not so bad, they are still far behind Ukraine. 

·         Made "Mother's Day" omelettes for Cristin and myself this morning. They came out perfectly, which is easy to do when you cook with quality pans on a modern stove, as opposed to mine which tilts to the left. Then it was off to the airport. Despite my back pain, it was a really great visit. I miss them already.

·         Geneva Airport: Access (via train) is excellent. Check-in was fast and easy. Security check... well, not so great. The lines are long. I remember it being like that last time too. Still, it's certainly not the worst airport I've been in (that "honor" goes to Semey (or Semipalatinsk) in Kazakhstan.

·         Speaking of trains, I love the trains I've used to go in and out of Geneva. These are the smoothest, quietest trains I have ridden. You don't hear the metallic sounds of wheels against the rails, and you hardly feel the movement at all. Quiet and comfortable... a nice way to travel.

·         I was sitting at a coffee shop in the airport when a group of Arabs came in - three men and three women. The men were dressed in modern casual clothes: T-shirts, sweatpants or jeans, trainers, etc. The women were head to toe in the kind of black outfits that allow only their eyes to show. The men sat at a different table from the women and never spoke to them. It was like they were two separate groups of people. When they were ready to leave, one of the men snapped something rudely at the women, who dutifully got up and followed the men. Yeah, I know... we're supposed to be "tolerant" of other cultural traditions, but I find the way they treat their women to be nothing short of disgusting. What kind of "culture" treats half of their population as almost like animals?

·         I mentioned before about digital-device zombies. On the flight from Geneva to Kyiv, I took note of all the people who were glued to devices of one kind or another. Whatever happened to reading (a real book), or just closing your eyes and listening to music while your mind wanders off? That's what I do; I listen to instrumental music, close my eyes, and just think. I let myself get deep into thought, not be superficially entertained by games and movies and messages. The worst was the guy sitting across the aisle from me (he was an American), who went back and forth between his tablet (with a keyboard) on which he was watching a news program (MSNBC - ugghh!), his smartphone, and two other devices. Again, I am convinced that we are becoming little more than smart monkeys.

Euromaidan: Why Should I Care?

My next post was supposed to be part two in my series about souls.  But I feel moved to write about Euromaidan instead.  This is the name that has been given to the antigovernment protest movement here in Ukraine. 

The protests have turned deadly in the past week.  There are different reports on the numbers killed or injured, and how it happened – this depends on the source of the report – but no one denies that there HAVE been fatalities now among the protesters.  In the past few days, protests have spread from Kyiv to other parts of Ukraine, and government buildings have been occupied in a number of cities.  Things are getting ugly and dangerous, and no one really knows how this is going to turn out.

Last week, like many people, I replaced my profile photos on Facebook and VKontakte with black squares with thin ribbons of blue and gold.  I did this as a small show of support for my many friends and acquaintances here for whom this is a serious and important matter.  And on Facebook, I’ve subscribed to some Euromaidan news services and shared a number of articles and photos.

The other day, an acquaintance noticed I had done this and asked me why.  He was curious to know why I should care about this: it’s not my country, I have the freedom to leave if I want, and (he suggested) it’s not about my life.  So why, he wondered, should I take such an interest in the Euromaidan movement.

My answer at that moment was not as complete as I would have liked, but it moved me to give it more thought and to write about it here.  Although it is relatively quiet in Kharkiv – which is actually a strong bastion of support for the current government and the ruling Party of Regions – I am very concerned about what is happening in the country now.  Here’s why.

More than anything, it is about people – people I know and care deeply about.  Because my concern for these people is the most important reason, I will save that part of the explanation for last.

What it’s About

Just a bit of background for those not here and fully aware of why this is happening.  These protests are not just about Ukrainians being disappointed that the government refused to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union.  Ukrainians want a better country, and many felt that the move toward Europe was their best hope.  So they were rightly outraged when, after several years of pro-Europe rhetoric and negotiations on the agreement, President Yanukovich suddenly decided not to sign it. 

But that was just the spark that lit the fire.  The fuel for the fire is Ukrainians’ long-simmering anger with the lack of real democracy in the country and the overt corruption of the Yanukovich regime and of government at all levels.

Members of the regime and its close associates have enriched themselves in ungodly fashion since Yanukovich won the presidential election in 2010.  Meanwhile, inflation has eaten away at the ability of regular people to keep up in the struggling economy.

And the regular people are fed up with seeing the rich and privileged be able to do whatever they want – even injuring or killing others – and face few or no consequences.  If you have money and friends in the court or other high places, the law doesn’t have to apply to you.  

The politically motivated trial and jailing of the opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko was another overtly lawless act.  She is not a "clean" politician either, and only about half the country supported her in the 2010 election, but nearly everyone recognized her jailing for what it really was: a move to muzzle opposition to the regime.  And this shook people's faith further.

Courts and police exist more to protect the powerful and steal for themselves rather than to "serve and protect" the citizens.  People want real rule of law that protects everyone equally, and they’ve finally had enough of living in a two-tiered legal system.

Of course, the people who have power are desperate to maintain it.  When the people offer no resistance, it’s easy.  But when the people are finally fed up and start to fight back, such a regime can quickly become brutal, especially when they have the police to do the work for them.  The stories from Kyiv and elsewhere of kidnappings, beatings and even killings of protesters and journalists are chilling. 

These crimes are being perpetrated not only by police but by an informal force of athletic young men called “titushki” who are recruited by the government from sport clubs, especially martial arts clubs.  They are high on brawn and low on brains - classic thugs.  These neanderthals are paid the equivalent of $25 to $50 per day to attack peaceful protesters or to discredit the protest movement by pretending to be antigovernment protesters trying to ignite confrontations with police.  Strangely, the titushki are never arrested for their crimes.

Perhaps most galling was the government’s rush passage more than a week ago of a law that essentially bans and criminalizes any antigovernment protest or expression of opposition to the current regime.  The various points of the law range from farcical to Orwellian, and the response has been big and it has been violent.

With these kinds of abuses going on, it’s impossible to stand by quietly forever.

Despite the Warts, Politics are Important

It is understandable that most people prefer to not pay attention to politics.  Politics is often an ugly, nasty thing.  It seems that, by their nature, politicians are greedy, egotistical liars who get into the political swamp only to find personal benefit, mainly in the form of wealth and power.  Of course, there are exceptions – the rare people we look for to rise above cynical self-interests and provide ethical, reasoned leadership for the betterment of the country and its people. 

But, like it or not, politics decides the direction of our lives as parts of the societies in which we live.  Ignore it, and you leave it to others to decide for you.  Participate in some manner, and at least you make an effort to set a better direction for yourself and your family.  If enough like-thinking people get involved, it can make a difference.  This is why I choose to be involved, even if it only means being well informed and perhaps passing some of this information along to others. 

I am very critical of the American government, especially the last two administrations, and most especially the current one.  If I were there, there’s no doubt I’d be an active Tea Party member.  But although the American government is clearly abusing its Constitutional powers, it can’t hold a candle to the gross lawlessness and abuse of people being committed by the government here. 

In the face of such abuse, it’s impossible to stay quiet.  Keeping your head in the sand only makes it easier for others to come along and kick you in the ass.  It’s just my nature to take an interest and to care about such things.

It’s Not My Life?

I have been living more or less regularly in Kharkiv since late 2007, and I expect to get my permit next week to stay for another year.  I have a nice circle of friends and many good acquaintances.  My work teaching English has been very good for me, and the overall experience has taught me much and, I hope, made me a better person. 

So a large portion of my life, both in terms of time and personal attachments, has been spent here.  So what happens here definitely has an effect on my life.  The notion that I can just fly away whenever I want is simplistic and really not true.  This place is a part of me.  So from a personal perspective, it matters very much.

What Matters Most: People

The thing that affects me the most are the people I know here – people who have been a part of my life, in some cases, for almost seven years, people I care deeply about, people who I want to know are safe, secure and happy.  Friends and students have shared their dreams for the future (and sometimes their fears), and I want them all to realize those dreams and not have to face the fears.

They are the dreams that any of us would have: to fall in love and raise families; to have good jobs and a secure lifestyle for those families; to enjoy comfortable homes, modern conveniences and reliable infrastructures; to feel safe in their homes, their cars and on the street; and to have the freedom to travel and see something of the world.  Mostly, they want a good and fair country, one that can rival the standards of any country in Europe – not a country that clings to a stale Soviet past or a dictatorship in which only a privileged few can benefit.

It is because I do care so much about these people that I should and do care about what is happening in the country.  There are some individuals here who I sometimes wish I could just whisk away to a better life someplace else.  But I don’t have that power.  And while that might be a nice answer for some, for most the answer is to make Ukraine such a bright place to live that emigration would not even be a consideration.  This is their country; they don’t want to leave it, they want to make it better.

I was really moved the other day by some words that one girl wrote on social media.  She commented that she was afraid about what’s been happening, afraid that a serious line has been crossed with the killings and kidnappings and all the anger.  She also mentioned that she is ashamed to live in a city where the local government forces civil workers to attend rallies in support of the ruling political party. 

But more, she felt ashamed that she tries to pretend things are OK and even more ashamed that she is thinking more frequently about emigration.  But she finished by saying that she loves Ukraine and Kharkiv, despite the cynical nature of the people, and she wants to believe that by summer things will be normal again. 

I hope things will be normal again soon too.  More than that, I hope that what is happening now, as difficult and frightening as it might be, will lead this country closer to being a place in which my friends’ dreams will be easily realized and their fear a thing of the past.

This is why Euromaidan matters to me.

Souls - Part 1: What is a Soul?

What is a soul? 

Is a soul the same as a spirit?  How does the idea of the “soul” differ from the figurative notion of the “heart”?  What is the relationship between the soul and the mind?

Do you have a soul?  Does everyone have one?  Could you have more than one?  Could two or more people share the same soul?

If souls exist, are they eternal?  Is the idea of an eternal soul just a fiction we create to make ourselves feel better about death?  Where do our souls go when we die?  Do they stay in one eternal place, or do they return to Earth to experience new lives (reincarnation)?  Do they eventually stop reincarnating and live on forever in some kind of paradise?

If we reincarnate, do we come with our friends?  Are the closest people to us actually “kindred souls” who travel with us through various lives?  Is there such a thing as a soul mate, a soul that is particularly special to your own?

Wow!  That’s a lot of questions! 

These are questions that greater minds than mine (and that’s almost everyone) have tried to answer since we hunted animals with stone-pointed sticks.  But these are also questions that can stir strong feelings, even anger, when they seem to contradict deeply ingrained religious beliefs or go up against fervent secular or even antireligious sentiment.  That said, in my next few posts, I am going to tackle the subject of souls from my own personal perspective. 

Spirituality is something I’ve pondered to one extent or another since I was a kid.  And trying to understand how my soul (and others) fits into the mix has been a key part of my pondering.  At several points in my life I’ve been deeply involved in spiritual thinking and reading, while at other times more worldly concerns have forced such considerations to the sidelines. 

But I seem to be entering into a more contemplative stage these days, getting better about meditation, reading, etc., so perhaps it’s a good time to address it in this blog.  I’m going to write about how I see the subject of souls, but I am certainly no scholar on the subject.  I am writing from my own beliefs and from what I have absorbed from selected readings.  In doing this, I do not intend to diminish or offend anyone else’s points of view, and I hope no one will take it that way – even if my views seem 180 degrees out from yours, or if I approach it with some humor at times.

Souls Are Our True Realities

First of all, I do believe in souls.  But I don’t believe that I “have” a soul; I believe that I AM a soul who happens to have a physical body at this moment.  As the famous saying goes, “I am a spiritual being having a physical experience.”  The soul is the true essence of who each of us is, but this essence is wrapped up inside a complicated and petulant physical mind and body (more about that next time).

And I believe that we all have souls.  Well, there was one person who might have been muddling along in this existence without a soul.  She was my immediate supervisor when I worked for an agency of the Colorado government, and she was such a rotten person that I think even her soul might have become disgusted and left her.

It seems to me that there is only room for one soul per body, although there is that occasional schizophrenia problem.  And I’ve read that a soul might split and occupy two or more bodies simultaneously, which could account for some of my more bizarre dreams.  But seriously, it seems to me that we are generally matched one soul to one body.

I believe in reincarnation – that we experience physical lives multiple times, learning and growing from each incarnation.  This is not a popular belief among the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), which tend to hold that you only get one shot at life and are judged on how you do in that one go-around.

And, of course, the secular types – atheists and those who just don’t think about it at all – figure that everything we do or say is based on some sort of electro-chemical reactions.  To them, the notion of a soul seems silly in the first place, so reincarnation would be silly multiplied by ridiculous.

My Recent Catalyst

Why have I been thinking more about souls recently?  Well, not long ago, a friend recommended a book called Journey of Souls by Michael Newton, Ph.D.  It is not a new book – it was published in the mid-1990s – but, although I have read many spiritual books over the past 20 or so years, I had never read that one before.  Newton is a behavioral psychologist who specializes in using hypnotherapy to help clients “regress” past their childhood and birth to talk about their past lives and their experiences in between those lives.  The book is based on his work with hundreds of such clients.

The main point of the book is the author’s view of how souls move from one life to another, what they do between earthly lives, and how they advance and grow from “new souls” to “older souls” to “guides” and eventually merge with “the source.”  So, of course, the notion of reincarnation is paramount in this book.  And while there are other ideas in the book that are in tune with my own ideas, there are aspects that I viewed with some skepticism.

But this is not intended to be a review of the book.

I was quick to read this book when my friend suggested it because she is someone I recognize as being a unique and possibly special person in my life at this time.  That fact, combined with the nature of the conversation that spurred her to mention the book, made it clear to me that it was something I needed to read now.  

My friend and I were having an interesting and pretty deep conversation, and we got on the subject of souls, reincarnation and, more specifically, the notion of “soul groups.”  Long ago, before I had ever read anything on the subject, I realized that there are a small number of people we meet in our lives with whom we seem to have an unusually strong connection, one that is difficult to explain.  And it occurred to me that perhaps these are special souls, part of a particular group of souls to which we belong. 

When we come to Earth, we do our best to find each other and to help each other with our particular purposes in life.  These people may be close friends, spouses, lovers, parents, children, etc.  Or they may appear as an authority figure, like a teacher, athletic coach or a work manager.  They might be with us for years, perhaps even most of our lives, or they might only come for a short time, just enough to give us the messages or lessons that we need, then they are gone until the next life when they might take different, more permanent roles.

On the other hand, our parents, children, many of our friends, or even our spouses might not be members of our specific soul group, at least for this particular incarnation.  So it can be difficult to know exactly who in our lives is part of this group and who isn’t.  We can’t judge only from the connection we think we feel, because often this “connection” is blurred or exaggerated by other factors, such as physical attraction, intellectual fascination or being thrown together in some dire situation, such as combat or a deadly emergency.

Anyway, my friend and I got talking about this, and I discovered that she agreed completely with my “crazy idea” (sad for her).  She mentioned that she had read something similar in the book and suggested it to me.  The book has added a lot to my own perceptions, but I’m still working on the areas where it seems to fall short or where there are just differences in view.

What Is a Soul?

The simple answer is that a soul is energy.  But everything, really, is energy: material objects are just energy vibrating at frequencies that allows it to coalesce into physical form.  So that’s hardly a complete answer. 

Maybe souls are “intelligent energy.”  But that would suggest that there is such a thing as “stupid energy.”  That might apply to politicians, but probably not much else.  I think the idea of intelligent energy as a definition is getting warmer, but not quite there. 

As I understand it, Buddhists consider the “soul” to be nothing more than a stream of consciousness, a channel of energy that has self-awareness, is conscious of what it is and what it does.  In other words, it is sentient.  But they don’t see each soul as a unique entity unto itself with its own purposes, desires, intentions… its own “personality.” 

In the Buddhist model, this stream of consciousness enters the body and mind, gives it life, and merges with it to create an individual, sentient person.  But after the death of that person, this stream of consciousness reincarnates in another individual, without memories or learned lessons from previous lives and without a particular purpose.  So in this sense, there is no eternal, individual soul. 

I can’t subscribe to that depiction.  Neither can I accept the idea that our souls gets just one chance at a physical life, are judged on the results, and then spend the rest of eternity either in a paradise or a place of torment.  I don’t believe that God, the Universe, the Creator, the Source, or however you want to describe it, would put us in such an all-or-nothing situation.

This is a good point, I suppose, to say a few words about the notion of God. One problem with trying to define the soul is that it seems to require some definition of that which creates the soul.  I like the word God, even if I don’t necessarily mean it in the same sense as traditional Judeo-Christian usage. 

I’ve noticed over the years that many people prefer to use terms like the Universe, or the Creative Power, or the Source, or myriad other words, and I think it’s because they are afraid of the word God. Perhaps they have a grudge against Christianity, and they don’t want their cool, New Age friends to think they are closet Christians.  

But that attitude has always seemed a little too elitist for me; they want to make a point that they are not Christian or even that they are anti-Christian.  The real Christians I know are good people, and that elitist attitude, in my view, is crap.  I like the word God, and I don’t care what perceptions other people have when I use it.

Humans have tried to define God since the beginning of our ability to even think or talk about it.  The mysteries of creation and existence have been explained through pantheons of gods and goddesses and assorted supernatural beings, some terrifying, some comforting, some indifferent and some loving.  The creator and organizer of all things has been described in monotheistic and polytheistic terms among thousands of religions and spiritual systems that have existed throughout time. 

The greatest thinkers and philosophers of the ages have considered the question, and what we still have are thoughts and philosophies.  So who am I to think I have better answers?  I do not. 

It all seems contradictory, yet there are threads of commonality.  And those threads are as far as I go with it.  I feel there is a central, creative source to it all, and that around this source are billions (or more) related entities – souls – which exist at varying levels of knowledge, enlightenment and power.  And all of it, including us, is God.

To me, the soul is energy, of course.  And it is intelligent and sentient.  But more, I believe my soul is a specific, individual entity – my Self – created by God the source, as a part of God the whole, and intended to use many physical lives to have experiences that are only possible in a material existence, to learn, to grow, to evolve and to eventually be enlightened enough to merge back into the creative source.  Siddha Yoga has a nice motto, which I think encapsulates this idea: “God dwells within us as us.”

I don’t believe that I am a particularly “young” soul, but I do think I have a lot of learning, growing and evolving to do.  I am probably still many lives away from being an “old” soul, a guide or teacher for others, or from existing in a manifestation close to the source.  Maybe it’s the same for you.

In the next couple of posts, I plan to discuss two more subjects related to souls:

• The relationship of soul, mind and heart.
• Soul mates and soul friends

ps – Please feel free to leave comments, even if you disagree and think I’m crazy.  But please be civil – angry or hateful comments will not be published.

The Same Old New Year

In Ukraine, New Year is the biggest and brightest holiday of the year.  To a Westerner, the celebration here can seem like a morphing of traditions associated with Christmas and New Year, with a few unique aspects added for good measure. 

Besides “ringing in” the New Year at midnight like everywhere else in the world, the holiday here includes the gift-giving of Western Christmas, and children look forward to an overnight visit by Ded Moroz (the Russian/Ukrainian equivalent of Santa Claus).  Families and friends gather at home to enjoy festivities, including lots of food, and home celebrations can typically last past 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning.

In Kharkov, thousands of people brave the night cold to congregate in the city’s huge central square or at the recently renovated Gorkiy Park to usher in the New Year with fireworks, champagne and maybe a little hot wine to ward off the chill.  After a few hours they head to the warmth of their own or friends’ homes to continue the celebration (with all that food).  Almost everyone has someplace to go and people to be with.

But in my seven new years in Kharkov, that has rarely been the case.  Being a foreigner, having no family or a “family-like” circle of friends, and living alone usually relegates me to entering the New Year on my own.  I generally go to bed early and hope my neighbors don’t keep me awake with their own celebrations.  Perhaps it is just the normal life of an expatriate.

It has been different only twice.  For 2010, I was determined not to be alone and managed to find a couple of people who similarly had no better options.  We met some others at the square and then returned to my place for a small party.  It was one of the few times that I felt motivated to decorate my place with a small tree and other touches.  It was nice. 

Last year, I had the opportunity to greet the New Year at the home of a friend.  It was her first New Year in her own place, and though it was just the two of us – and we were just friends – it was nice to not be alone.  But a couple of hours past midnight, I returned to my own apartment, which was devoid of New Year cheer.

Too often New Year has been a little depressing because it accentuates the fact that, despite having a lot of friends and acquaintances here, when push comes to shove, I am alone.  And it’s a hard pill to swallow sometimes.  

But this year, I was determined to start the year out in the most positive manner possible, with good company and a cheery environment.  I bought a small, artificial tree; decorated it with lights, ornaments and a bit of garland; put up some strings of lights around my living room windows; hung strands of garland around door frames; and even put up some lights in my front window to be seen from outside.  All of these decorations are still up, and it is festive.

The next thing was to buy gifts.  I put some effort into it and found some nice stuff for my friends, some of the people I work with regularly, and a few others.  It was a nice feeling to organize everything, and I enjoyed distributing gifts to people at several of my client companies and to some of my friends.

A few days before New Year, I got dressed up and attended the corporate party of one of my client companies, and I had a great time.  It was a good way to start getting into the spirit and helped me to start thinking about how I might ring in the real New Year, and perhaps even with whom.

But that was as far as it went.  My attempts to find some company and make a good plan for New Year’s Eve didn’t work out.  I was able to meet a few friends briefly before New Year, but most people were busy, and everyone had their own plans for the big night.  So it was early to bed, as usual.  Fortunately, none of my neighbors were celebrating, so it was mostly a quiet night.  The same old New Year.

My first few days of 2014 were spent quietly at home… reading, writing, watching movies… basically just vegetating.  But it was necessary vegetating and not all bad.  I finally got out on Friday and Saturday, and had good times with some friends.  It made things better.

Almost a week later, many of the gifts are still sitting on a shelf waiting to be given away.  Tomorrow is Orthodox Christmas, and few friends plan to drop by for a while, so a few more gifts will find their homes. 

In another week, I will return to my usual work routine, and the whole holiday thing will be behind me for another year.  I expect that I will still be here when 2015 rolls in, though it might well be my last New Year in Ukraine.  And I will do my best to make it festive, no matter if it’s my last here or not.  The attempt is worth it, no matter how it works out.


The next few blog posts will be about... souls.

A Sick Cat

At first, I was annoyed. It was relatively early on a Sunday morning, and some horny cat was under my bedroom window announcing herself to potential lovers. I had been sick for a few days and just wanted to sleep and get better. But the loud feline “come hithers” made that impossible.

But then I noticed that something sounded different. This wasn’t your usual plaintive plea for the attention of the local tomcats; it was deeper and more mournful. Something was wrong.

So I got up and looked out my window. Next to the bench outside the entrance to my building, and right under my second-floor window, was a yellow cat sitting there and howling. It wasn’t moving much, just sitting low to the ground and crying, but I wasn’t sure why.

I had seen this cat around a few times before, so I knew it was local, perhaps from the building on the other side of the driveway. Its coat was in pretty good condition, and it wasn’t thin, so I knew it wasn’t a homeless wanderer. But, what could have been wrong?

Hunger didn’t seem to be the issue, and I had assumed previously that it was a male, so it didn’t make sense for it to be in heat. But the sound of the cat’s cries made it clear that something was not right. 

Then the cat tried to take a step, and I saw that it was wobbly. It couldn’t keep its balance properly except when it hunkered down on all fours with its belly to the ground. When it tried to stand up fully or walk, it staggered to the side, as though it was drunk… or very ill.

Now the sorrowful meowing made more sense. The cat didn’t seem to have any outward signs of injury, so the problem must have been internal. Perhaps it ate something bad, or maybe it had some kind of illness. Maybe it had been in the nearby dumpster and got hold of something that made it sick. My worst thought was that someone might have put out poison. No matter the reason, this little cat needed help.

It was pretty early, and not a lot of people were up and about. At one point, a young guy walked down the driveway, and the cat noticed him. Immediately the cat’s meowing picked up both in volume and frequency. It was as though the cat was pleading for help. The guy shot a glance at the cat but kept moving.

The cat took a couple of staggering steps away from the bench, then settled down on its belly again and continued its low moaning. My annoyance was completely gone, replaced with concern. I wondered what I could do. Anything?

My Conflict

I was sick too. I hadn’t left the apartment since I got home late Thursday afternoon. I was getting better, but I still felt pretty lousy and was just doing my best to stay warm. Plus, I had my usual expatriate dilemma of knowing that there are many things here that I just can’t deal with as I would in my own environment.

If this cat were outside my home in Colorado, I would know exactly what to do. If I knew the cat’s owners, I would alert them. If I didn’t know the cat’s home, I could rescue it in a towel or something, and take it to a vet in my truck. I usually knew where the vet offices were located and could check the phone directory if I didn’t know. 

But here, I don’t know where the nearest vets are located or whether they even work on Sunday mornings (doubtful). I don’t have my own transportation, and even if I did find a working vet and managed to take the cat there, I would still have language issues.

I was conflicted. I love animals and have a particular fondness for cats. It always affects me when I see or hear about cats in trouble, and I can’t escape the urge to want to take in just about every homeless kitten I see advertised on VKontakte. I resist because, logically, I know that I just can’t do it. But my inner feelings are never comfortable with that logical resistance.

So because of how I feel about cats, I naturally felt a strong urge to do something, but as I mentioned, I felt severely limited in my ability to help. Really, this seemed to be for someone else to take action on, and I felt confident that someone would. After all, I know there are other kind, cat-loving people in my building.

And why should I assume that it’s my responsibility to intervene? I can’t save every cat, and nature has to work its way. I couldn’t save my own cats – Koshka and Nekko – 10 years ago. But maybe that was part of the issue. Maybe I’ve felt guilty about that for all this time.

Remembering the Twins

Nekko was a yellow cat, quite similar in appearance to the one under my window; his name means cat in Japanese. Koshka, whose name means cat in Russian, was his sister. I took them both from a left-behind litter, and they lived with me for 12 years. During that time, they were never separated from each other. 

Then, while I was away for a couple of weeks working on a project near Chicago, Koshka disappeared. When I returned home, she was nowhere to be found. Nekko was still in the house, but it was clear that he was upset. My neighbor had been coming over to feed them every day while I was gone, but she rarely saw them, so she did not know that Koshka was gone, and we had no idea how long she had been missing. 

I had made the mistake of letting them have access to the back yard through an unlocked cat door. Being older, they rarely left the yard, and I did not think that either of them would wander off. I thought they would enjoy being able to go out safely into our fully fenced back yard. I was very wrong.

When I returned from Chicago and found Koshka missing, I searched everywhere for her. I drove the streets looking for any sign of her, even if it was evidence of the worst sort. But I never found her. She was gone, and my own stupidity was to blame.

Nekko, meanwhile, was now alone – except for me – and his heart was broken. I still had to make trips to Chicago, and this made it even harder. For a while, my daughter came with her cat, which as a kitten had spent time with Nekko and Koshka. But it wasn’t the same. After a few months, Nekko became sick and very weak.

We took him to a vet, and he got a little better for a while, but then his condition worsened, and the vet said there was nothing that could be done. He was sick, weak and thin. He either cried or just wanted to be held and cuddled. But there was no hope. All that was left was to have the vet put him down painlessly. I loved that cat, and I couldn’t do it; I should have been the one, but I couldn’t. My daughter took him for his last trip to the vet. I was pretty shaken up about it all.

Getting Weaker

I looked out the window again and saw that the yellow cat had somehow made its way across the driveway and was out in the open on the other side, surrounded by fallen yellow leaves. It was still crying, but not as much. And it wasn’t moving much either. I needed to rest, so I took a nap for a couple of hours. Then I got up and check on it. It was still there, but had moved closer to the other building and rested on its belly in a small opening in the bushes.

I continued looking out the window from time to time and saw that it hardly moved at all. It seemed a lot weaker, and I feared that it might have died or been near death. I thought that maybe I should get dressed and at least take some water out to it, but I was worried about what I might find.

Then I saw it move its head a bit, so I knew it was still alive, at least. I could not hear it, so I was not sure if it continued crying or had run out of energy. I just hoped that its owners would come and take it home, or that someone would intervene and help. Again, I took a short nap.

And Then the Rain Came

After a bit, I awoke to the sound of rain. It started coming down hard, and I immediately looked out the window to see if the cat was still there. I could not see it at all. It was very cold, and the rain was mixed with small hail stones. I hoped that the cat had been taken to safety and was being cared for, but my worst fear was that it had crawled under some bushes to take refuge from the rain, a place that would make it even harder for anyone to see.

And the bushes would not provide much refuge anyway. If the cat was still out there, it would be soaking wet and terribly cold, along with whatever was ailing it. The thought crossed my mind again to go out there and check, but I reminded myself – again – that I was not feeling well, and there just was not much that I could really do. I hated that feeling.

It rained several more times that day. I had no idea what happened to the cat. Monday morning I scoured the area from my window and saw nothing. Before I went to my client company, I walked into the area where I last saw the cat, but I saw no sign of it. 

I have been worrying about that cat since Sunday, and have checked the yard each day. The cat made me think about Nekko and Koshka, but on Sunday I also related with it a bit myself. It was sick, alone and wanting help. I too was sick and alone, but at least I was able to care for myself well enough.

I am trying to remain positive and believe that someone – the cat’s owner or some other kind person – found the little guy (or girl) and rescued it. But I don’t think I will feel completely right about it until I see that cat walking around the yard again in a healthy state. Until then, I just have to keep good thoughts… and stop second-guessing my own actions years ago with Koshka and Nekko.

ps - The cat in the photo at the top of the post is not the actual cat I have written about; it's just a representative picture.

FOLLOW-UP - 20 October: Today I saw the yellow cat, apparently in good health, outside my building.  All is well. :-)