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Toronto Ontario, Riverdale Neighbourhood | 10:30am – Thursday January 31, 2012 | Shot using a Samsung Galaxy SIII

January 21-25, 2013 is Red Tape Awareness Week in Canada.

Watch the video below: 

SIGN THE RED TAPE PETITION! Click on the link to access the CFIB website for more information on Red Tape Awareness Week: CFIB – Red Tape Awareness Week, 2013

“If the government employees would react a little quicker instead of leaving issues for a later time (create work project) business wouldn’t have to wait for a response so long. There are too many departments that overlap. ”  Canadian Small Business Owner

Source: The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB)

A Place at the Table – Film Trailer

One in four children in the U.S. lives on the brink of hunger. This film asks why. From Magnolia/Participant, the team that brought you FOOD, INC. http://fb.me/MagnoliaPictures

Personally, I support many aspects of the #idlenomore movement. For my friends abroad, “The Vision of IDLE NO MORE (in Canada) revolves around Indigenous Ways of Knowing rooted in Indigenous Sovereignty to protect water, air, land and all creation for future generations.” http://idlenomore.ca/

#idlenomore

British philosopher Alan Watts* inspires us all to do what we desire.

…Do what you love!

“So I always ask the question: What would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?”

“Better to have a short life doing that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.”

Source: * Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British-born philosopher, writer and speaker.

December 20th, 2000 | Oia, Santorini Island, Greece.

In December of 2000, I embarked on a journey to build a shrine on a cliff edge on Santorini Island (ancient Thira) over the caldera of an ancient underwater volcano.

My pilgrimage to Ancient Thira, a.k.a. Santorini started with a dream inspired by an angel…

Click on the gallery below to scroll through full size images.
Music Tie-in, listen to: Stairway To Heaven.mp3 – Led Zepplin

December 2000, building my shrine overlooking the caldera of an ancient volcano. Location: outside Oia village, on a remote hiking trail northern tip of Santorini Island.

I constructed the shrine out of tin, glass and ceramic tiles and painted it. Inside there’s an alter made of volcanic rocks, an icon of the Old Testament Archangel Uriel, an oil lamp, matches, olive oil, personal keepsakes. It is cemented to a boulder at cliff edge. The caldera is in the distance. The sea below me is very deep almost bottomless, the crater created by the eruption.

Uriel’s shrine cemented to boulder on cliff edge.

Lighting the oil lamp one last time before I leave the island. — at Santorini Island, Greece.

The shrine was visited by my friend Jennifer in 2007: This is how it looked after years of exposure to the sun, rain, wind and saltine air. Haven’t been back to the island since i built the shrine. According to Jennifer it has become a popular stop along a remote hiking trail. Hikers have been maintaining it, writing their names on the rocks, making offerings and leaving possessions. I don’t know when I’ll get back there again. if you are interested in lighting the oil lamp for me let me know. I’ll send you a map and instructions. I buried something special to me under the rocks.

December 2000 | The last eruption in Santorini was the largest in the ancient world. In legend It buried Atlantis which is suppose to be underneath me in this photo. Volcanologists predicted another eruption around 2000 that will sink the island. It didn’t happen.

AEGEAN SEA

A reproduction on wood of this Icon is in the shrine. The inscription reads Archangel Uriel written in Byzantine script. More on: Uriel – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I found an Iconographer Greek Orthodox Monk in Athens. Told him my story and what I saw in my dream. He painted this image of Uriel in traditional Byzantine style on wood.

The Book of Enoch describes Uriel as one of seven archangels who preside over the world. “One of the holy angels, who is over the world… the leader of them all.”

Two of many dogs that call Oia home without belonging to anyone in particular.

The army of cranes redefining the Toronto skyline.

Toronto reportedly counts the most high-rise real estate projects under construction in North America!

Toronto Condo Construction | Photo Source: John Zeus

High rental vacancies…

“We believe that buyers in the current condo market exude hope over experience…” (Despite claims of a buoyant rental market investors are ending up with) “an astonishingly low return on invested capital.” – Source: Ohad Lederer, an analyst at Veritas Investment Research.

…and a growing number of preservationists who say too many new towers are destroying the city’s character.

Social Media: “Dear Condo Toronto, you were an awesome city before you turned into a condo developer’s dream. I used to love going downtown because you had a welcoming core with parks, community spaces and many innovative small businesses. Now downtown is becoming a high-rise construction haven littered with towering steel and glass walled shoeboxes hiding our lake and our sky. Unfortunately a daily commuter’s nightmare…” – 2013 John Zeus

Facebook post: screen capture

Toronto Condo Construction | Photo Source: John Zeus

“Toronto condo developers face formidable obstacles: an infrastructure buckling under soaring density rates, the laws of supply and demand and preservationists who says too many new towers are destroying the city’s character.” – Source: The Financial Post

Toronto Condo Construction | Photo Source: John Zeus

Toronto Condo Construction | Photo Source: John Zeus

“Since June 2011 the number of unsold high-rise units in the pre-construction stage has doubled. Unsold units under construction have also increased from fewer than 5,000 at the beginning of 2012 to almost 7,000.” – Source: Bank of Canada

Toronto Condo Construction | Photo Source: John Zeus

Adapted by John Zeus. Original Sources Include; Bank of Canada and The Financial Post.