I hope that Don ( Donald Davis ) doesnt mind but I just had to copy and paste your link to Patch Adams that you posted in D-plex today. Dons post struck two cords in me. The first one being that I grew up watching Happy Days and eventually all of its spin offs including Mork and MIndy and through the years grew an incredible fondness for Robin Williams especially after the movie Dead Poets Society, because Williams reminded me so much of a wonderfully passionate world history teacher that I once had back in the 1970s at Seton Hall Prep, and thinking about it, when I taught I did so with as much passion as Williams character in the movie, and ironically both our teaching careers abruptly ended just as they seemed to just get started. Secondly, the scene that Don posted really hit home because Ill never forget my very first trip to Mexico with MTN. I had taken my very first MTN Workshop the summer prior to my trip and then passed on my knowledge of Monarchs to my students without really thinking about the whole picture; the connections that the Monarch has to all of us... in Canada where Don is, here in the U.S. where brother Erik helps foster our understanding of the whole picture the Monarch plays and down in Mexico to the indigenous communities that are working to help protect the Monarch over-wintering sites. The entire Canary in the coal mine concept and indigenous beliefs about Monarchs returning as souls of departed loved ones. Fast forward to my first trip. A week before I was to leave for Mexico my grandmother was diagnosed with terminal lymphoma and given a week to possibly two weeks to live. My father argued with me and didnt want me to go to Mexico, just in case my grandmother passed, he didnt want me to be away. After thinking about possibly not going, my aunt who saw my trip itinerary and saw the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe on it told me to go and to pray there for my grandmother. So I packed, boarded a plane and went off to Mexico. A few days later I stepped off a bus in the parking lot at El Rosario and walked up the mountain in awe of the Monarchs that fluttered through the parking lot and along the path as we walked. Ill never forget that very spot on the walking path where it intersected another trail and we had to begin climbing numerous zig-zagging staircases that brought us further up into the canopy. As I stopped on the first landing of the staircases on the trail to look back down at a small cluster of Monarchs in the Oyamels a Monarch landed on me. I remember those around me ewwing and ahhing and taking pictures but at that moment I remember just having this out of body experience and then a flood of emotions totally overcame me and I couldnt hold back the tears. That day forever changed me. And my grandmother, well she passed away at home, in bed peacefully, wearing the Virgin of Guadalupe medal I brought her from Mexico, five months later and only just a few hours after my son and I stopped by to visit her. Upon our visit that afternoon she actually awoke from a months long coma as my son Nick sat on the edge of her bed and began talking to her, she grabbed his hand said his name and then said in Polish I can go now, she passed hours later. My very next trip I sat next to someone on the bus that weve all come to know and love by the name of Hope. Ill leave that for chapters 2, 3 and 4, Ive written enough already. So when I saw Dons post today this all came back to me. Take the time to watch the short video from the movie Patch Adams. Here is Dons post ... Hello: While posting just a photo of Robin Williams may not be suitable for this list, I do recall the scene from the film, Patch Adams, which includes a monarch: https://youtube/watch?v=01Ia27xxbwI I later wrote to the real Patch Adams, who mailed me a hand-written letter (says he writes 4 - 600 such letters per month and has never used a computer). Dr. Adams remembers an incident involving a butterfly - not a monarch - and believed that the butterfly was the spirit of a friend. Certainly there was artistic license applied to the movie.
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 04:42:11 +0000
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