I am intrigued by the idea of a virtual drum circle, hosted on the "To Go Beyond" blog. It sounds like fun and I decide to participate.

So I girded my loins, put on my pit helmet with the flash attachment, wrote out my Last Will and Testament, kissed my wife goodbye and proceeded to descend into the basement in search of a drum. There must be a drum. There's everything else down there. I found three coconuts carved into monkey faces. Lawrence Welk 78 rpm records, a variety of tie dyed T shirts, a lava lamp, models of the Star Ship Enterprise, google glasses with the eye balls on springs, and a hoola hoop. Its like an archaeological expedition. But no drum.

All I found was a tambourine.

Then, at the appointed time for the drum circle, my wife and I find ourselves out of the city visiting my daughter and her family. They are a very musical family, so I tell them about the virtual Drum Circle and they get really excited and head off to scour the house for percussion instruments. We wait for the clock to tick down and at 8pm we have my daughter tapping on piano lid, my son-in-law slapping out rhythm on his guitar, my 7 year old granddaughter plucking violin strings, my 5 year old grandson on plastic bucket, my wife on spoons and myself on tambourine.

We start hammering away and the sound is awful. Lindsay, our dog, is excited by the unusual activity but runs from one to the other staring up at each of us in turn, more than a little worried the entire family has just gone crazy.

But then a wonderful thing happens, it all starts to come together, it all starts to make some bizarre sense. We start to gain confidence and begin playing off each other. My granddaughter's eyes are alive with pleasure. Everyone is laughing, the beat rises to a crescendo and we all end together.

Then cheer with delight.

It may not have been virtual, but it was fun.

Less than a kilometer North of the bluffs, where I take Lindsay for her run, two white tailed deer have returned to the young forest recently clearcut by developers, gingerly stepping around the tangled branches of the 2000 fallen trees, unaware 36 additional trees are now under threat at the southern end of the Ravine. The trees bordering Danzig Creek are protected by the Ravine bylaw and were not part of the recent clear cutting by the developer of the 5 acre site. (See my blog entry for 2/12/08 "The Devastation of Weedgreen Ravine" for background) However, as Don York, President of the Manse Valley Community Association, writes:

In the fall of 2007, trees in the protected area were tagged and when we questioned this we were advised that this area would be cleared for the construction of the sewer lines for the new development. We were later told that an agreement had been reached with the developer to tunnel in this area to minimize the loss of trees. Now a number of representatives from the City and from David Schaeffer Engineering Ltd. were on site examining the protected area, and when questioned, they said that they had changed their mind regarding tunneling and would be clear-cutting that section.

A total of 36 trees will be removed, many of them of significant size.
Since we were originally told that there would be no loss of trees in the protected area we have never questioned that part of the development plans. Now we find out we have been mislead. The area above Danzig Creek is protected under the Ravine Bylaw, and those trees need to be protected, as provided by the Bylaw.

There were 32 trees identified on the proposed construction site as "protected" under the Tree Bylaw, but Council approval was given to remove them with no regard to the significant opposition by the public. Now we have 36 trees in the ravine area, protected under the Ravine Bylaw, and there appears to be NO requirement to get ANY permission from Council. How is this possible???

The fact that there was no reference in any of the developer documentation related to the removal of trees in the protected ravine area shows that either the Engineering firm and the City staff were incompetent in their assessment and review, or there was a DELIBERATE omission of this fact to avoid any additional confrontation with residents. Neither of these possibilities is acceptable! If facts were omitted from the report for this item, how many other facts were conveniently removed from other reports? How many more "surprises" are there going to be?

The removal of the trees in the protected area violates the terms of the Ravine Bylaw. The fact that NO approvals appear to be required to do so shows a major flaw in the process. The fact that an "agreement" was reached to tunnel and then suddenly and quietly reversed is deceitful. There was NO community involvement or notification on this!

An answer is required on how the City staff and the developer can decide to remove trees in a protected area with NO Council approval.

There are no celestial events this morning. There is no free time to take Lindsay for a run along the bluffs. I have an early morning meeting at my downtown office to learn a new software package, so I'm taking Lindsay for a brisk and brief run through the neighbourhood.

My pockets are full of bags for poop n scoop.I'll need them.

At the bluffs she ranges far ahead, criss crossing the terrain, her rambling taking her three times my straight-line distance. She is a blur of motion.

On the leash, she is forever coming to a complete halt, arrested by irresistible smells, needing to mark her territory. I'm the one in motion. Pulling her forward against her will. She gives me a look that asks, whose walk is this anyway? But I have a train to catch and it runs on a schedule I have to keep.

Along the bluffs my thoughts range free. Here my thoughts are of work related issues, phone calls to make, e-mails to answer, clients to visit, problems to solve.

The wind has a bite to it this morning and a bitter taste. The snow banks along the side of the road have been melting and are dirty and ugly, filled with the accumulated grundge collected over months of serious winter.

It isn't inspiring.

This isn't fun, this is a duty.

But that's life.

Celestial events marked the beginning and the ending of the meeting, like auguries from a Celtic past.

A sundog, that torn fragment of a rainbow, dug its technicolor blade into the earth on a 45 degree angle to the setting sun. A rare winter phenomenon never witnessed by me before.

We were on our way to hear Pier Giorgio Di Cicco's talk on Creative Communities. I had worked hard to host this event here in the West Hill section of Toronto. Invitations had been sent to every school, church, political and community organization in the area. But we were fighting the walking wounded staggering home weary from a days work and a long commute back home to the suburbs. And, of course, girls night on American Idol. Given such adversaries, would anyone come?

Millie, at Sister's Restaurant, had donated her party room for the evening. The proviso was that we would have to set up the chairs ourselves. So we arrived early to our task, only to find the room already set up with only a few minor changes needed.

People trickled in and time raced toward the 7 pm start of the meeting. Had the sundog been an augury of success or failure, or just some random meteorological event? In the end, 25 people turned out in a room set for over 60. No teachers and only one church sent two people. A disappointment.

Pier Giorgio arrived, tired emotionally and physically from officiating at the burial of a friend. Although the Poet Laureate of Toronto, Giorgio was once a Brother in the Order of St. Augustine and is now a Roman Catholic Priest. The City Planner of Toronto had died suddenly and Giorgio had been asked to preside over his funeral. He had come to our meeting directly from that, dressed in his black suit and roman collar, the normal flamboyant clothing of the poet laid aside for his somber duties.

He went from table to table, engaging each individual in conversation. Who are you, why are you here (when so many others stayed in the comfort of their home), what do you want for your community?

He went to the lectern and waited patiently for my introduction. And then he began to speak. Hesitantly at first, struggling to find his way into his message. But then finding the heart of what he wanted to say, his voice gained strength, lifting the audience out of the drabness of suburban life into the promise of a vital community, where people spoke to each other, where artists found each other and contributed to the public space, where political will encouraged innovation and risk over safety, where messiness was tolerated and fears laid aside.

Here is the essence of his message: "Let's say an artist creates a piece of public sculpture, a red boot. You will find there are two reaction to this red boot--"Oh look, someone created a red boot and set it here on the sidewalk. Why would they do that? What a fun thing for someone to do!--or "Look at that stupid red boot, someone's going to stub their toe on that. We better get in touch with our City Councilor and have that removed."

You can have vitality or safety, human interaction or safety, growth or safety, a healthy community or safety. But you can't have both. Creativity is a messy and risky human endeavor but joyful and hopeful for all of that.

The meeting went on for two hours, with Giorgio having another two hour drive back to his home north of the City.

As we left the meeting, a lunar eclipse was nearing the 3/4 mark. We stood in the cold winter night, warmed by the meeting and the vibrant exchange of ideas that followed and watched the moon turn red. Like the statue of an old boot sitting on a sidewalk, just waiting for someone to stub their toe.

Lake Ontario is in an ugly mood. It rears back its great waves and rams them into the icy shore, over and over again. The sound of the blows is deafening. Here and there the massive blocks of ice that line the shore at the bottom of the Scarborough Bluffs, break and split apart.

Ontario is the lower of the Great Lakes and it takes whatever the upper lakes send its way. The water from the upper Lakes stream into the Niagara River, cascade over Niagara Falls and push their way into Lake Ontario before making their lethargic journey into the St. Lawrence River on the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

The waters bring down all the pollutants that have been dumped into Superior, Michigan, Huron and Erie. And then we add our own to the mix.

In its latest report, the International Commission on the Great Lakes found the natural habitat continues to be lost as our urban areas expand. It urged our two governments to address a fundamental question: are policy, program and management efforts sufficient to protect water quality from the effects of sustained expansion of major urban areas in the Great Lakes basin and to ensure ecosystem integrity?

Notwithstanding decades of research, new aquatic alien species continue to be introduced into the lakes at a rate of one per every eight months via ocean-going vessels, or from bait fish, aquarium fish, aquaculture and connecting tributaries. The Commission urged the governments of Canada and the United States to issue a standing reference to the Commission to coordinate prevention measures to help halt this invasion to the Great Lakes.

Without adequate safeguards, it found our health can be threatened by pathogens and disease-bearing microorganisms. Again it urged the governments to focus increased attention on protecting the source of drinking water supplies. In particular, coordinated action by all those responsible for managing watersheds is required to avoid impacts from expanded land use pressures from agriculture, development, industry and urban centers.

Chemical contamination continues to endanger human health and restricts the number of fish we can safely eat. Several adverse health effects associated with exposure to methyl mercury, a highly toxic substance, have been identified in human and animal studies. In the Great Lakes basin, people are exposed to methyl mercury almost exclusively by eating fish. The Commission urges the governments to implement programs that reduce mercury emissions from the coal-fired utility sector, to make the risks associated with eating mercury-contaminated fish clear and understandable to the public, and to further research health risks to the Great Lakes basin from exposure to mercury.

Because of their complex nature, addressing the overlapping and interacting issues affecting Lake Erie requires a greater level of binational communication and cooperation than ever before. The Commission urges the governments to determine the cause of recent ecological degradation in Lake Erie and to take appropriate steps to restore its ecological integrity.

Lindsay barks and runs back and forth along the top of the bluffs. The sick Lake looks beautiful and strong, a force of nature to be reckoned with; but it needs our help. Badly.