This was probably my best year ever; not financially, but rather the best in a deep earthy spiritual way.
With my treasure hunting hobby, I started off the year with a huge find in South Africa - my first day out when I arrived - a platinum ring with a giant triangular diamond in it which I sold there to a friend of a friend who gave it to his wife for her 70th birthday. I spent 3 months in South Africa in the waves hunting for more and found some pretty impressive smaller diamond rings.
My best find in Canada this year has to be the beautiful 1884 wedding band belonging to Annie Hedge, one of Toronto's early residents.
There were moments when I was in the ocean in the blazing sun, getting slapped by big waves, and focusing on the tones coming through my headphones that I realized how deeply I have been connected to the water all my life. I nearly drowned in the ocean at the age of 4 and that memory is still vivid. It took me until my teens to even want to learn how to swim because of that experience. Today, being in the water is my happy place.
My house got robbed down there while I was out in the ocean, and the new expensive notebook I had spent six months researching and agonizing over before buying was stolen. I had owned it about 30 days. It occurred to me that I hated it anyway and was much happier with older (and inexpensive) business type laptops with real keyboards that I could use for content creation, instead of a bloated fancy new thing with all the bells and whistles with features that I would never use.
Last year's resolution was to get my full G license, which for one reason or another, I never managed to complete in previous years before my license expired, which meant I had to start anew at the bottom of the G scale again and again. I scheduled the test up in the Bancroft area where I spent a lot of time in the summer this year in a rented car exploring beaches and swimming holes and getting practice driving in Canada.
I failed one test because I was too much in my head, overly prepared, and nervous as hell. I took it again in Bancroft with the same tester a few weeks later in a more relaxed state and nailed it, but not only that - it was the early morning in the peak of Fall leaf season and it was like driving through an oil painting of yellows, reds, greens, golds. I have never seen Fall beauty like this before. The Bancroft area is magical to begin with, but in the fall it is truly something to see. Even the drive tester, who lives in the area, was blown away by the beauty of it. The colors with little wisps of morning mists in the trees... Wow. Something I will remember for ever.
I spent a lot of time up at The Watcher & Malia's forest in the Summer. In fact I had my tent set up permanently in a clearing by the forest from the spring until the fall. What a magical place it is up there! I connected in a very deep way with the land, with the two of them, and also with the others who came up to the Magickal Forest for a couple of their events, and it was excellent.
I explored every single swimming beach near the Magickal Forest with my metal detector over a ten day period in the late summer, driving the back roads, hunting in pools under waterfalls, eating fresh baked goodies from small local coffee shops. One day, I was about a kilometer out in Papineu Lake, and still only in shoulder deep water, and I intuited some movement near my feet. I looked down and saw an enormous trout or muskie - perhaps as long as my entire arm, swim lazily away in the crystal clear water.
I continued to grow the online ad agency I started last year, and I currently am serving over a million ads a day into various forums around the world. I am loving working with other forum owners. This year I split the TRIBE domains into their own distinct sites, in preparation for next year's board software upgrade and change.
After experiencing huge amount of neck pain since last year, I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in 3 of my neck vertebrae. Already a Pilates guy for many years, I've spent the year doing intense Pilates exercises to try and minimize the pain and increase the mobility in my neck with the top Pilates instructors in the city at
Mindful Movement Center. It is working, and I am reconnecting with my body in new ways.
I started dating again and it has been good.
Tux the Cat is the best cat in the world! You made my 2014 great.
