I am a worm. Psalms 22:6

Kat sensed the environment as if she was a feral beast. In the stillness she heard her heartbeat, then the leaves sounded the drum roll for a chorus of crickets chirping. The chant of nature recreated the history of the land. She stood as an outsider, on the mast of the ship of Theseus who asked if a ship that is restored, with all the wooden parts replaced, is the same ship.

Kat could not help but be amazed at the grandeur of the human evolutionary experience. She was but a speck existing in a timeline, where a few thousand years makes little difference. But at this moment, environmental change was fueling fires from Australia to the Arctic and throughout the Americas, along the borders of the western provinces and red and blue states, and the northwestern territories and northern parts of the provinces. The evening brought relief from the heat, but the smoke had had begun to settle. The dangerous, persistent, unpaired free radicals, that form the basis of fire and are known to cause stress, were spreading over the earth.

Some argue that Nature has a way of directing the path of the future. Nature’s capriciousness with a random meteor strike, a volcanic eruption, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, pests, and viruses can do great harm. But the spirit of the volatile oils from the microscopic dead diatoms, that once made up the earth, had been released and were wreaking havoc with the environment, creating uncontrollable, and extreme conditions with secondary effects that were devastating to people, biodiversity, and ecosystems. Pleas made to slow down, act cautiously, and find alternatives, were often ignored, or suppressed. This was a period of unbalanced change. It was chaos.

Kat's mind was chattering. Kat began breathing, thinking to herself, “ In for the count of four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four.” She savoured the exhalation and felt herself calm down. As she breathed deeply and consciously, she focussed on feeling safe, loved, and loving. She felt rational.

She wanted to have a waking dream during this dark night of the soul. She had prepared herself for this evening, on this rare super blue moon in perigee with Saturn in Pisces. She had consumed a diet of resistant starches and omega three short chain fatty acids, walked in nature seeing the early morning sun, and was ready to meditate.

She needed to release her anxiety. Stress is hard-wired to the fight, flight or freeze responses programmed by the reptilian brain. Those dragon ancestors had played a huge role in mankind’s development but were not always viewed with respect. The dragon was often referred to as a worm, known as the ormr of Nordic myth, that was often greedy but sometimes wise. The Christians honor St. George, who slayed the dragon. The revered legendary Chinese dragon, lung, bringer of good luck, and the underground Naga of Indians and throughout Asia are respected sacred beings.

Kat smelled worms. The peculiar smell evoked an unusual response. The pineal gland, once considered the worm, was referred to as the seat of the soul. The lowly worm uses what it can to create tunnels by burrowing, to allow water, air, and nutrients to reach deep within. The pineal connects the external environmental stimuli to the brain and body, and affect the primal micro-organisms inhabiting the gut that control and are controlled by thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. The legless dragon of the brain depends on symbiosis. It coevolved with the transplanted communities, and each mutually depend on the other. Epigenetics is purported to hold ghosts of the past, that can resurface as generationally transmitted behaviours, depending on toxic exposures or diet. The worm makes castings, from what was, to create a culture that transforms and regenerates the soil .

Kat closed her eyes. She sensed the mysterious element of being part of the knowledge and experiences of lives from the long-forgotten past, and then, with a greater force. She was drawn into a daydream. Kat got a bird’s eye view of her life. Bird’s eyes work independently of each other, using both sides of the brain, and then interacting with the pineal.

Kat remembered feeling that she was born a stranger in a strange land. Her family was a first-generation minority. She was dago immigrant who had become imbedded into a corner of the Canadian cultural mosaic alongside the wurst-eating, lederhosen-garbed German peasants, the haggis-eating, hot-air bagpipe-blowing Scots and the wee Irish fairy folk. She enjoyed the structure and order of a community that valued hard work and good quality. She was taught morals and values by example, through the various diaspora’s interpretation of traditional beliefs, and some kind of illusion she formed from what she learned in school and by religion.

Kat was a volunteer diplomat. She was part of the national voice that provides informed evidence-based communications that are used to design and implement policies and procedures to promote diversity, equity, and impact inclusivity in international education.

Her early years had inspired her to study animal behaviour. She had been a child worker, as was typical of the time. Her mother owned a café, and so, she met people, accepted them, as if she was reading about them in a book, and got to know a bit about human social functioning. Kat tested the glimpses of the art of forming relationships by experimenting with mediums and tools. Some people came to the restaurant like a goose that had imprinted with the first individual who had assumed its care. Others were like bees who did the waggle dance to find their way to the food source. Kat learned the art of man’s best friend, she would greet, smile and be glad when seeing a familiar face. She learned to be a chameleon, then a mirror, and then herself. She liked to observe and test. She was a scientist.

Kat saw mankind floating in their bubbles along the nouvelle vague, a dynamic new structure beyond what had been once restricted to being termed a hive mentality. Hexagonal crystalline structured water connects life. Matrix bound structured water, is considered the 4th phase of water, found within cells, outside cells, in springs from underground sources, glacial melt, vortexes formed in streams and waterfalls and the juice of vegetables and fruits. Structured water can hold and let go of charges, neutralizing harmful free radicals and recharging the body's dipole battery so that it can connect to be part of a bigger picture. Mankind was swept along by the waves of what is known, unaware of the movement, as predicted by relativity. Subtle, weak changes corrected tiny details. Life becomes like a lucid dream.

When she met new friends, she would invite them into her little world with actions that would say, “We can be like ostriches with our head in the sand, unable to breath, or we can confront the past, address issues of concern of the present, and make an effort to reconcile the possibility of history repeating in the future.”

Money was the quid pro quo. The root of all evil makes the world go round. Money was at the focus of a material, global, unity consciousness. However, Kat believed that the real treasure of a Quid is measured with more than money. It is ‘that certain something’ that is undefinable how, why, and what that is used to obtain the quo, a favor or advantage of goods or services, in return for something, by negotiations and bartering, without exploiting or harming others. The god mammon had become bigger and fiercer and could not be conquered in a contest of force. It would require using the strength of the opponent.

Kat remembered learning the poem ‘Flanders Fields’ by John McCrae. The line, 'Take up our battle with the foe' stuck. It is hard to fight the enemy you do not know. She was never good at history and could not understand all of the written details, but the foe seemed to appear, on either side of a battle. The foe emerges when people feel desperate, most often because of socio-economic inequality or other tensions that threaten material or spiritual survival. People who are driven to defeat the foe do strange things.

Kat was introduced to the foe in 1950’s. Women assumed independence, not so much as a choice but as the only possible alternative to survive against that fearsome foe. The role of women had turned from bread maker to bread winner. It did not take nerve, or bravery. There was no other option. The role of a being generous mother earth figure, had to adapt to include becoming the mother of invention who could create a sense of hope to outweigh the futility and misery caused by the devastation of world wars, economic recessions, depressions, and natural disasters.

Religion was a traditional means for a community to identify and fight the foe. But the comfort of religion was lost, not so much because of the outrageous scandals-they had been a part of histories for millennia- it was because of technology, that offered an alternative way to find spiritual meaning and connection. The introduction of television into homes, and improved global communication, drew the younger generation away from the limited myths and traditions.

The baby boomers created the critical mass to swing the tides. They were radical, and confident in the power of love, ready to change the world. Baby boomers were raised with religion. As young adults in 1971, 99% of Canadians were associated with religions. By their retirement age in 2011, 78%. As the next generations replaced the aging population, slightly less than 50%, have a religious affiliation.

Data suggest that religious faith is foremost in the hearts of new immigrants that make up 23% of the Canadian population, the majority, around 60% being non-Christians, specifically Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh. Buddhist and Hindu do not consider themselves as members of a religion, but followers of a way of life. Sikh means learner or seeker of truth. They are advocates of equality and social justice. Even though they have a caste system, they are tolerant of other religions. From what Kat understood, Muslims do not tolerate individuals wanting to change from the Muslim faith.

Kat tried to find and examine the facts and establish for herself if the concerns were valid. Prevailing Hanafi jurisprudence prescribes the death penalty for the crime of apostasy, that is, death to individuals who renounce their religion. The Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa with a bounty of over $3 million for the death of Salman Rushdie, for writing the alleged blasphemous Satanic Verse. In 2016, the bounty was increased by $600 000. Rushdie survived a stabbing by a militant in 2022. Soon after the attack, Iranian sentiment stated the blame was Rushdie himself. Charlie Hebdo and 17 others were killed in 2015 by two Muslim terrorists, allegedly for using their sense of humour that offended Muslims. Fear and aggression cause fast change.

Islam is the most rapidly growing religions. Kat could not help by wonder how many generations it would take to establish a new critical mass. In Belgium, the Islamic party wants to replace the existing legal system in communities where they have settled with Sharia law. Canada has a policy of inclusivity. It would not be unreasonable to consider that in time, Muslims will challenge section 2 of the Charter, specifically, that Canadians are free to follow the religion of their choice and guaranteed freedom of thought, belief, and expression.

Yet fear does not condone the violence that was occurring against innocent Muslims. There is a consistent anti-Muslim bias that is leading to xenophobia, racism and Islamophobia, the branding all Muslims as terrorists. Transient settlements are growing worldwide. Globally, governments intend to help individuals affected by natural disasters and economic changes on their journey to find peace and security. European countries are accepting Ukrainian refugees but not Muslims who have found asylum in the Ukraine or who came from Syria and North Africa. Cautious fear is evident.

During the Red Scare of the 1950’s. McCarthyism had generated fear mongering and suspicion of Communist penetration and subversion that affected many lives. The 1960’s, the young, smiling JFK held the bright light onto a path of change, wanting democracy and freedom for the whole world. The Cold War ensued. Even an 8-year-old could figure out that putting your head on your knees under your desk would not help if a nuclear bomb dropped. The vibrant, tremulous voice of Martin Luther King, moved the masses to deal with the issue of racial discrimination. And then their flames were extinguished. Poof. Perhaps they could have started a controlled fire. No one would ever know.

Love was the theme of the 1960’s. The New Testament, published in 1966 under the title ‘Good News for Modern Man’, had a focus of love as a virtue that was supported the views of love by John, Timothy, Corinthians, and Romans. It was written to counteract proclamations of free love by the counterculture. Some people say that the love movement is doomed. It did not end well for JFK or Martin Luther King.

Kat was ready to stand her ground and defend a well-defined attitude of love. If love remains undefined, it will morph and disappear when it is tested to its limits. Kat realized that her transcendentalist ideal was to envision love as dynamic, respectful attachment without exploitation. Love is rekindled each moment. Love flows in a way as mysterious as structured water. Tightly bound intracellular water matrix is a plasticizer, that mitigates stiffness. As the matrix becomes loose, stiffness increases, strength is lost. This definition of love respects the uncertainty principle, that says identifying speed and direction results in reducing what is known. It avoids becoming a slave to an undefined concept of love or a prisoner limited by stringent definitions.

Love would have to conquer many crises. In Canada, the health care system was failing, unemployment insurance, baby bonuses, the costs of maternity and paternity leave, the homeless, impoverished, addicted, disabled and immigrants, some persecuted, escaping wars, with no asylum, all needed care. The growing stresses were causing destabilization and individuals were looking for someone to blame. The foe was being materialized. The rumours had already started. Immigrants were falsely accused and arrested for causing fires that were caused by dry lightning and pyro cumulus clouds. They were blamed for taking low paying jobs that the current residents refuse.

Kat wondered if the spirit of Canada, with the wild, harsh winters, spring pests, bounties of summer and uncertainties of the fall, could turn the tides of radical extremism, or was Canada was a young, naive country going through transformation only to be slaughtered.

Customs in Canada were different than in other countries. She remembered when she has first seen a pull string used to flush the toilet in England. She did not know how it worked. Understanding such challenges of cultural norms has resulted in parks and universities putting up signs to teach toilet etiquette. Many other countries prefer bidets and squat toilets.

Kat started humming, A ‘ tisket a tasket, a brown and yellow basket, sent a letter to my love and on the way, I dropped it. A little girlie picked it up and put it in her pocket.” Here she was, that little girlie all grown up, a part of the Canadian mosaic, ready to accept others into the weave. She was welcomed as an Auntie in the Indian community and had made several meaningful friendships within the Asian communities. They shared a common denominator. They had made Canada home, with intellect and the willingness to work, as collateral. In Canada ,they had a chance, that was not available in their own country.

Kat felt the pull of the super blue moon. It affected the tides. Her eyes were leaking. Kat caught the smell of worms again. She thought, “Maybe fires are needed for the phoenix to transform." Myths say, that from the bones and marrow of a dead phoenix, a worm is born that creates the next phoenix."

Kat realized that she was the lowly worm. She would dig deep to create conditions required to maintain the flow within the intracellular tightly bound structured state of the matrix. She would follow the path of least resistance but would also find ways to use surface tension and capillary action, that required cohesion and adherence, to dissolve what was required, to allow movement through tight channels. She was part of a microevolution/ revolution. She would do what she could to ensure a beautiful blend of the brown and gold threads within the fabric of the Canadian mosaic, so that it would remain resilient, strong, and flexible as it was being born again.