Last Saturday morning my friend and I went hunting for a furry animal that likes to cut down trees and plug water ways. The word was out that a beaver had returned to Beaver Lake which had been beaverless for quite some time and we wanted to see it. We decided the best time to try and see it would be about dawn and that’s exactly when we went. We saw the beaver... took a few pictures... nothing spectacular but we did find and view the beaver in Beaver Lake. Dawn at Beaver Lake was spectacular however...Very few people, although there were some, jogging, biking, hiking in the area, not many. It was silent except for a distant sound of the city now and then, so quiet... Ducks swimming in the early morning light, a bird call here and there. Silence and Sunrise.....Beauty at dawn.... So good for my soul, and the rest of me also.
Sunday around noon, Vancouver held it’s Gay Pride Parade. I guess you could say it was the opposite of the lake at dawn. Garish, loud, a lot of people marching in declaration of who they are and that it is okay to be them. On the way to the parade taking the water taxi across False Creek, there were two young families consisting of a mother and father and a small child, talking about how they were on their way to the parade. They didn’t look gay, either of them, but they sounded like it was a big event. Something to see, a place to take your family. The crowd attending the parade was huge and the parade itself was huge. A lot of people marching in declaration of themselves. And a lot of people supporting that by witnessing this parade. It was definitely not Beaver Lake but it represented something else.... Pride in who you are and pride in being oneself and declaring it rather loudly...
Now Sunday evening my friend and I attended a Yanni concert. Yanni is the new age guy with the long hair and was married to Linda Evans for a while. He has concerts on PBS. I thoroughly enjoyed the music. And through the entire concert he mentioned how he and his musicians have traveled and played all over the world. He talked about some of the different countries and continents where they played. As he was about to play his final song, he said he wanted to leave us with a few words. At this point he mentioned how his musicians themselves come from all over the world, and that he had heard an astronaut speaking recently about how the planet looks from way up there. This astronaut had been on the space station and he mentioned how from up there you can see no borders between countries. From above you can’t distinguish borders... Its as if we were all ONE. ONE people with no borders separating us. He said traveling and playing in all of these countries and seeing all the different people, and hearing the astronaut had given him hope that we might indeed, one day be ONE people. Then Yanni played his last song, “One Man’s Dream”.
So what do Beaver Lake, Gay Pride, and Yanni have to do with each other? They represent my wishes for you and for the world. I wish you the peace and serenity of Beaver Lake at dawn, the Pride of knowing who you are and being that, and I wish you the experience of a world without borders, that we are indeed, One People. That is my wish for you and my dream... Not just one man’s dream...
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