ECOTHERAPY AND EGRETS: IN THE COMPANY OF TREES

THE EGRET

A few days ago during my morning run I stopped to snap a photo of a tall, white bird standing in the shallows of Wascana Lake. Not recognizing the species, I sent the pic to my birder, photographer friend, Cathy, who identified it as an egret. As our chat continued, we also discussed our Wascana consumer habits, my running and her walking and birding in general. Not-so-strangely, Ecotherapy quickly came into the conversation and thus, the title, ECOTHERAPY AND EGRETS: BEING MINDFUL OF NATURE. 

Ecotherapy embraces the principles of Ecopsychology, the psychology that suggests clients can improve their mental health by way of reconnecting with nature. Ecotherapists utilize outdoor settings for their therapy sessions, in an attempt to cultivate fresh solutions for their clients’ long-standing problems. 

Purportedly, the benefits of ecotherapy, too, effect the physical health of clients, movement improving mood, so to speak. Also, for any clients having angst about attending therapy sessions in same ol’ same ol’ clinical settings, ecotherapy definitely fits the bill (pun intended) by providing a new and natural surrounding. 

Ecotherapy is often referred to as Nature Therapy, Green Therapy, Forest Therapy, Forest Bathing, Earthing, Shimrin-Yoku, and Sami Lok. However, to connect this type of therapy to my current hypnotherapy practice, I am contemplating a new tag for it. 

Ecotherapy sounds technical and scientific, suggesting that one needs a certain knowledge that is much more than a pedestrian awareness of our ecosystems. Nature Therapy and Green Therapy sound like laundry or body soap commercials, while Forest Therapy, has an artsy and ethereal hippy vibe, smacking for tree-hugging. Forest Bathing could be a marketing line for a nudist camp, a warm and steamy midsummer night’s dream populated with gamboling wood nymphs; whereas, Earthing could be a body wash of gritty behaviour, a roll in the leaves and the mud instead of the hay. Shimrin-Yoku or Sami Lok could be some pop-up studio, another dojo promoting the latest discovery of some ancient hard-core martial art. 

Because I love hiking, I was thinking about Hiking Therapy! But alas, Hiking Therapy suggests a pre-requisite fitness component to partake. Hmmm. Maybe Excursion Therapy? Nope. The notion of Excursion suggests more of a trip or journey. Maybe Ramble Therapy? Nope. To Ramble suggests a quick and physical spurt or scramble of sorts. At a session yesterday evening I proposed the new handle to a new client, Amble Therapy. He said he liked it. But he was a new client and upon reflection, he might have agreed to liking any of my above mentioned labels, and probably any other I could have put forth. Oh well and so what. I like it and I’m going to stick with it … for now. 

And here is my plan: I’ll not jettison my principal practice of Hypnotherapy to start up a practice of Amble Therapy. I am seriously thinking, though, of employing Amble Therapy as my go-to-imagery for at least most of my Deepening stages. Not coincidentally, because of my hiking, I have often suggested forest scenes for my clients in trance. Also, I’ve decided that for any of my clients who are needing a tweak to strengthen any scenario from a previous session, a literal walk in the park may be the natural way to go. And lastly, for any potential clients who are too angst-ridden, struggling either mentally or physically, to actually travel to my office for a session vis-à-vis, offering Amble Therapy along with my current offering of Face-time, could be a soliciting strategy. 

Factoid: On my website I do offer home visits, but have had only one taker to date. And during that one-time home-visit, during the hypnotherapy session there was a door bell rung soon followed by a heavy, heavy knock on the door. And that session abruptly concluded when the husband walked in and demanded, “What the hell is going on here!” Needless to say it was not my finest hour. 

I thought that Amble Therapy would have been free of intrusions, but it wasn’t. My client and I met in a parking lot on the edge of the forest in Wascana Park. It was cold and rainy and we were bundled up accordingly. (I’m of the belief that there is no such thing as bad weather, there is only bad dress. I had suggested that my client pack along a rain coat.) Our nidus for the occasion would be the first picnic table we ambled upon entering the forest. Such a spot I thought would be tranquil enough for our session. I was wrong. 

Almost immediately as we sat down there were, literally, trumpets blowing. And from a gargantuan tent situated a couple hundred feet away, evangelicals were delivering revival sermons to a throng of hallelujah listeners, all of which being transmitted through microphones. Also, there happened to be a provincial marathon race, hundreds of runners pounding along the Devonian Pathway, so close we could hear them grunting as they passed by. 

No. My client did not have the chance to notice the crackling of leaves under his shoes as we meandered to the picnic table. No.  My client did not see or feel or smell any of the cacophony of clichés I am about to present. He did not hear the whispering winds or the murmuring trees. Neither did he hear the chattering of squirrels nor the chirping of birds. He did not have a whiff of the aromatic pines or the slight and musty scent emanating from the lake. Instead, my client did feel the bites of the rain on his face, and he did feel the clammy and soggy rain-resistant, not rain-proof, windbreaker clinging around the skin on his arms. 

Note, dear readers, Wascana Park is the second largest urban park in North America! So this setting should have been the perfect test for my Amble Therapy debut! Reflecting on this soon after saying adieu to my client, I knew that if any of my clients could focus on the natural things emitting from the forest, rather than these other uncommon and unnatural noises, then I would have reason to celebrate not only the success of this session, but future suggested hypnotic musings as well. 

In my typical fashion I did a follow-up with my client the very next day. I texted him an emoji, a hand with fingers-crossed followed by a question mark. He responded with an emoji having a straight-mouthed, not a smiley face. I translated his response to infer that it was not a success. Hmmm. 

Over the years I continually experiment and adapt new methodologies for my private practice. Needless to say I have experienced non-success before and so I decided this particular Amber Therapy session to be just more grist for the mill, just another counter-pattern to acknowledge and overcome, from which to learn and therefore strengthen my practice. Instead of stewing, I began writing. (When I really want to think about something, I write about it.) 

Here is my first written epiphany with regard to Amble Therapy: 

No matter how loud the other barks in the forest be, 

tune in especially to the bark on your neighbouring tree! 

And here is my wry attempt in parting humour for today: 

May the forest be with you!

Those marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

MY COUSIN, DAVE

 

BUSKING WITH MY NEW HARPING BUDDY, WHO WAS PASSING THROUGH TOWN

TAKE A HIKE! AND TAKE ANOTHER LOOK!

I love hiking up a mountain and into a forest. Such a hike is straightforward and uncomplicated. Writing today about hiking up mountains and through forests, I’ve reduced it to three elements: the physical, the financial, and the psychological. And before I ask my readers to actually weather any of these elements, I shall open with a couple of notions on what this essay is not about – a prologue if you will. 

This essay is not about cliff-hanger cliches referencing the ascension of a mountain as being a climb onto the edge of space and time. Nor is this essay a Zen adventure of the necessary tramping into a deep and dark wood with the sole purpose of getting lost only to find one’s real self. This essay is only about certain elements of hiking and certain facts about the footfalls in the forests where I’m hiking.   

The physical element: 

Spending time in Nature, in especially uncultivated and inhospitable regions, is both daunting and exhilarating. It is so cool to be splashing my face in a mountain stream; it is so wonderful to feel the spray ‘neath a mountain waterfall; it is so gripping to navigate a rugged ridge-line, knowing that any misstep could be life threatening. It is always invigorating spending time in Nature.

Hiking, especially the designated moderate to strenuous mountain hiking, demands a certain level of fitness. Spending at least an hour a day, five days a week in a local gym, I am ever striving to be ever-ready for hiking. Even though in fair weather I run three miles every day around my favourite lake (Wascana), still, my legs need the gym workouts to be hike-ready.  

The financial element: 

Hiking has a back-load of financial realities that need to be reckoned with. Travel costs money; travelling to anywhere is expensive. I live on the Canadian Prairies and therefore a means of good transportation is a must for the eight-hour trip to the Canadian Rockies. Also, I need a place of lodging when I get there. Reliable vehicles and quality lodgings cost money, never mind the added costs of park passes and parking fees. Food need not be included into the budget because, hike or not hike, I still have to eat. 

Hiking also demands certain gear and equipment. Hiking is about ditching the powder blue suit or skirt, along with the bruin leather pointed oxfords or heels, and replacing these corporate costumes with cap-a-pie hiking garb. For even the most middling hike, every hiker needs a cap or hat, sunglasses, a long-sleeved shirt, walking shorts, hiking shoes or boots, a backpack, and poles; most of which, save for the footwear and poles, can likely and readily be gotten (cheaply) from one’s own armoire. If you must buy something, when buying anything actually to go hiking, brand names are best. Quality pays. Quality gear and equipment will last through most anyone's hiking years. 

The psychological element: 

Hobby hiking is a freedom from the hobbles of work. When I hike the weight of work is not in my backpack. When I hike I’ve no team meetings, no client interviews, no end-of-day deadlines. When I hike I've no home duties of vacuuming the floors or scrubbing the decks. When I hike I always attempt to appreciate the nature of things in the forest. I am referring to things as the chipmunks and hares, the birds and the bears (yikes), and the flowers and trees, and the waterfalls and streams. 

Walking any trail is therapy for me, but trekking into forests deep can Zen-like. Walking between old trees, especially, offers that Zen sense of space and time. (But as I stated earlier, this essay is not about that. Just know that for me, every hike up a mountain is another page in my bildungsroman, appending another character script to my alterity.)

And speaking of alterity, as in all things in life ... 

IN THE FOREST, THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS AS THEY SEEM! 

The following three pictures were taken with my iPhone while tramping the mountain trails near Banff, Alberta, Canada.  Please note, the first photo is not a real bear (no kidding!); the second photo is not a real rodent; the third photo is not a real bird.  

Factoid:  All three photos are really just optical illusions that I felt compelled to "click" and share!

                                                                  WATER-BEAR

                                                               WOODEN RODENT

                                                               DRIFTWOOD BIRD 

THE MORNING PNEUMA: THE PEDESTRIAN PERSONALITY PROFILE

 

Every morning I run a three-mile loop on the Devonian Pathway which surrounds the urban side of Wascana Lake.  Every morning I say, “Morning” to everyone I meet on these runs.  This blog entry is simply a conjecture on what these morning recipients are thinking, my inductive approach to measuring the responses, and then bracketing these responses into four different personality traits.  Of course I could be wrong about everyone in this morning regard.

I could have followed the Greek physician, Hippocrates “father of medicine” (400 BC) theory that we are either sanguine (pleasure seeking and sociable), or choleric (ambitious and leader-like), or melancholic (analytical and literal), or phlegmatic (relaxed and thoughtful). 

I could have followed the early 1900’s personality theory of American writer, Katherine Cook Briggs, and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, the Myers-Briggs Personality Test insisting on the four categories of people being: introversion/extroversion, or sensing/intuition, or thinking/feeling, or judging/perceiving.

I could have followed the personality theory of Swedish writer, Thomas Erikson, suggesting that people belong to the Reds (dominant and commanding), or the Yellows (social and optimistic), or the Greens (laid back and friendly), or the Blues (analytical and precise).

Instead of following any of the above I chose to create my own psychology test, The Morning Pneuma: The Pedestrian Personality Profile, which is based upon my morning runs.  “Morning” is a wordplay.  I do run every morning and while running I say “morning” to everyone I meet on the path.

Pneuma, which in Latin means air in motion or simply, breath, is a word I’ve chosen, too, for the title because it is alliterative (the P is silent), and because of the connotation of air in motion for a runner and the short greeting by anyone responding requires just a breath to deliver.  (And it so happens that Pneuma, too, refers to spirit, mind, soul, self, and subconscious, also anima, psyche, and personality.  It’s the perfect word!)

Like any other psychology test, the Morning Pneuma only measures one moment of behaviour in a person’s life.  The Morning Pneuma is simply one snapshot of one personality caught in a mere moment in life.  It would be wrong to suggest that this moment represents this person’s whole personality.  It would be wrong to inductively reason that from one isolated moment of behaviour reflects one’s entire persona.  Saying this, however, if someone’s behaviour is consistently cheery or grumpy or fastidious or flaky in test after test, whatever test being administered to measure this personality would for certain have some validity and/or credibility.

• ·         ADMINISTRATION

Instructions for the standardized administration of the MORNING PNEUMA: THE PEDESTRIAN PERSONALITY PROFILE are simple, simple.

Because I’m a regular morning runner, I tend to meet the same people on every run.  You know what I mean?  At the gym every day I meet the same people who go to my gym at that same hour.  As I pass a couple of bus stops on my walk to my workplace every day I meet the same people standing at those bus stops.  In the world of psychology, such people who are predicatively present in places you frequently visit at the same particular hours, those people who share the same space and times as yourself, are referred to as familiar strangers.   

• ·         METHOD

On the morning of the fourth of July, a usually busy, busy holiday but because of the Covid restrictions in my city, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, I said, “morning,” to just 31 people walking down the path.  (I could’ve greeted people other than walkers but I didn’t.)  The length of my run was three miles; the entire testing time took 33 minutes.  This is my typical running speed – 11 minutes per mile.)

For my test I ran.  To deliver my “mornings” I could’ve walked or I could’ve ridden my bike, with likely the same test results. 

Also, to conduct my test, I could’ve picked anywhere, could've picked most any day, could've picked most any time of day, or most anytime in any season. There are some obvious exceptions:  Anytime after dark would be ridiculous.  During heat waves or frigid temperatures would be ridiculous.  In a mall or down the midway would be ridiculous.  Anywhere in the boonies too far from the madding crowd would have been ridiculous.  

• ·         RESULTS

Essentially, I have bracketed these “morning” recipients into four pseudo-psychological personality types:  Cheerios (the rather sunny group), Grumpos (the surly group), Perfunctos (the austere group), and Astros (the somewhat abstracted group).  For the purposes of my points today, four such personality types shall suffice.  Those sunny Cheerios are sweet and cheerful; those surly Grumpos are menacing and even threatening; those austere Perfunctos are serious and stern; those abstracted Astros are out of touch and lost in La-La land.

Of the thirty-one morning recipients, I discerned thirteen Cheerios, four Grumpos, eleven Perfunctos, and three Astros.  Thirteen cheers for the Cheerios -- 

HIP HIP HOORAY! HIP HIP HOORAY! HIP HIP HOORAY ...

And here are four of the familiar strangers that fit the bill of those personality groups I am presenting.  I shall refer to them by nickname to protect their true identity, though I must confess I’ve no clue of their true identities anyway.

Saint Nick is an older man who looks exactly like the 50’s and 60’s Coca-Cola Santa Claus.  He is balding and sporting a long white beard.  He even dresses in red most of the time.  I have seen him in a red t-shirt and I have noticed he wears red socks in his sandals.  Saint Nick always says “hi there” or “hello” to me before I morning him.   Definitely a Cheerio, Saint Nick always smiles while he greets me.   

Mister Tattoo is thirty-something, with shoulder-length hair and shirtless, seemingly showing off his tattooed skinny arms, tattooed moobs, and even his tattooed pot belly. Mister Tattoo glares at me whenever we pass one another.  To my morning greeting, Grumpo, Mister Tattoo, never nods or orally responds; instead, he just sneers.

Red is always walking her two dogs.  To my “mornings” she simply nods her head with an expressionless visage.  I have noticed one thing, especially, about her.  She is always rifling through the dumpsters on the pathway, not looking for cans or bottles, but for food for her dogs.  I have seen her grab a box from the garbage, empty the contents into her hand, then toss the food contents to the ground for her mutts.  Red is of the Perfunctos ilk.

Twist and Shout is always shakin’ it up and workin’ it on out as he meanders down the path.   Twist and Shout seems in no shape to recognize, never mind acknowledge, my morning greeting.  Always wearing a set of headphones, Twist and Shout belongs to my Astros.

• ·         CONCLUSIONS

Basing my MORNING PNEUMA results upon the responses from my cache of familiar strangers, here is my skinny comparison to the other aforementioned published psychological personality types:

My Cheerios would align with Erikson’s Yellows and Hippocrates’ Sanguines.  My Grumpos would align with Erikson’s Reds and Hippocrates’ Cholerics.  The Perfunctos could be compared to Erikson’s Blues and Hippocrates’ Melancholics.  Those I’ve bracketed as Astros can be compared to Erikson’s Greens and Hippocrates’ Phlegmatics.

None of my groups can easily be compared to those in the Myers-Briggs.  Neither can Erikson’s nor Hippocrates’ personality types be easily compared to any in the Myers-Briggs.  This is my educated guess.

Another educated guess is that my MORNING PNEUMA can be closely replicated while I'm thrumming at my next buskspot.  Within the next day or two whilst on a busk with my banjo, I shall greet the first 31 passers-by with a "Morning" and keep a record of their responses.  

Hmmm ...  

STRUMMING SO, MY BUSKING WILL SOON BE TRANSFORMED FROM RECREATIONAL TO A MENSURABLE AVANT-GARDE ADVENTURE IN ACADEMIA!

• ·         REFLECTIONS

Psychological tests/inventories measure only person/s in a particular moment.  Any behaviour before or after the testing moments are very independent of the testing moment.  Should the same test be replicated frequently with the same results, the more reliable and the more valid do the test results become.

Some theorists have suggested that one’s true personality is only expressed under emergency situations or expressed when a person knows that no one else is around to observe one’s personal behaviour.  Such an emergency situation could include a heart attack or stroke, or a natural disaster such as a flood or tornado.  Such behaviours occurring when no one else is around could include picking one’s nose or being a litter bug.

I shall add a point of personal reflection:  The Cheerios could have been high on drugs.  The Grumpos might have been having just a bad day.  The Astros might have been rehearsing for a play or stage presentation somewhere.  The Perfunctos might have just been absorbed in thoughts elsewhere, yet still knowingly be sociable enough to treat me with a morning respect.

While administering any academic psychological test that is credible, one has to adhere to a code of ethics.  However, with regard to ethics while conducting my Morning Pneuma, having people unwittingly be subjected a rather non-intrusive morning greeting to determine some patterns of human behaviour, then attaching such behaviours to certain personality types, I believe, is okey- dokey.  No person is identified.  No person is personality criticized or humiliated.  Every unknowing participant is just another ghost in the morning pneuma machinery.

Speaking of which, are we not all just ghosts in any stranger’s life.  Of course I am not referring to haunting ghosts – I am referring only to friendly ghosts. 

IN THE WORLD OF GHOSTS WE ARE MOSTLY CASPERS.

Not-so-strangely, here are some movie ghosts making a shadowy appearance in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE today:

 POLLYANNA - CHEERIO - POLLYANNA MOVIE

 

MEAN GIRL - GRUMPO - MEAN GIRLS MOVIE

 

MR. SPOCK - PERFUNCTO - STAR TREK MOVIE

 

JEFF SPICOLI - ASTRO - FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH MOVIE

 

TRAVELLING THE JOURNEY OF A LIFETIME: ARE WE THERE YET?

 

BUSKING MAY 21ST AT SHOPPERS ON BROAD

It is in our human nature to be curious. We wonder who we really are; we wonder why we’re really here; we wonder where we’re really going.  Having such muses, wittingly or not, we are partaking in one of my favourite philosophical topics -- EXISTENTIALISM!

Perhaps a few quotations from some famous existentialists (and others famous but not for being existentialists) are in order.

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced” (Danish philosopher, SOREN KIERKEGAARD 1813-1855).

“All life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make the better” (American essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882).

“The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly” (German philosopher, FREIDRICH NIETZCHE 1844-1900).

"Neitzche is peitzche but Sartre is smartre" (Anonymous academic graffiti writer).

“Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal” (French philosopher, JEAN-PAUL SARTRE 1905-1980).

 “I took a test in Existentialism.  I left all the answers blank and got 100” (American film director, Woody Allen 1935 - Present).

Existentialists generally believe we are born without purpose into a world that makes no sense. So therefore, for the followers of Existentialism, life has no inherent meaning or purpose.  For an existentialist to make any sense of the chaos, the only purpose or meaning in life is that which we create for ourselves. Existentialism is the Carpe Diem ("pluck the day") English literature theme, doing whatever we want and being whoever we want each and every day.

Anything within the realm of our imaginations can be got.  Saying this does not imply an outbreak of social declension resulting from our wildest imaginations.  Rather than fall, the majority, no matter the culture, always seems to rise and embrace a set of archetypal rules.  (Carl Jung believed all things we do are based upon the collective conscious of all humans past and present.  He labelled the actions of this collective conscious, archetypes.)

Really.  The more I travel the more convinced I am that most humans are hoping just to get along with one another.  I am suggesting that the whole human condition is simply a collective cryptography to be deciphered by the self-imposed social norms we have creative for ourselves.  And like I said, this is true in all the inhabited parts of our planet.  That fringe idiosyncratic population that is not in adherence to these social normative values are considered, in research psychology, to be counter-patterns, necessary and offering an ethical credence to the normative behaviours presented by the citizenry majority on the planet.

Following the lead of Frank Sinatra’s, “I’ve been a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king,” I’ll put this notion of existentialism into pragmatic practice by adding my very own abecedarian harmony, “I’ve been an Academic, a Busker, a Counsellor, a Diver, an Existentialist” …

Fact: I can choose to be an ACADEMIC.

Factoid:  I was an academic.  I studied enough to attain a Masters Degree in Educational Psychology and from that credential alone, managed to teach third and fourth year Psychology classes at the University of Regina for 22 years. 

By my design, for the past four years I’ve not signed a university contract.  Even though I loved EVERYTHING about teaching at university, at my age I’ve not enough time left in my life to squander; therefore, have chosen to busk and hypnotize instead of profess.

Fact: I can choose to be a BUSKER.

Factoid:  I am a busker.  And I’ve been a busker for 15 years.  I’ve thrummed guitar and drawn portraits throughout Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Morocco.

Here is what I know about being a professional busker.  One has to empirically study the art of busking to be successful.  I have come to know the best times and locations.  I have come to know my best costume and best instruments. 

My acquired insight provokes reflective, yet the simplest of questions.  Do I busk with my twelve string and harmonica?  Or with my pencil and sketchpad?  On the streets of buskerville, singer-songwriter Bobby Dylan wannabee buskers are everywhere; whereas, portrait artists are rare.  The perception of an artist on the street drawing portraits is donnish -- the perception of a busker strumming on the streets is idyllic.  

Decisions, decisions.

Fact:  I can choose to be a COUNSELLOR.

Factoid:  After teaching high school English Literature classes for five years I careened into being a high school counsellor.  Not-so-strangely, my graduate Psychology classes were not unlike my undergraduate English Literature classes.  Both these disciplines have the same themes – the human conditions and the human behaviours thereof.  Rising academically from undergraduate to graduate studies, for me was a very easy transition.

Having a proficiency in several counselling methodologies, Choice Theory (Reality Therapy), Solution Focused Theory (Systems Therapy), Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (the band wagon methodology that has been the lead float in the therapy parade for the last twenty years), and Hypnotherapy (my favourite and now my only practice).  I used to contract my counselling services hither and thither to several agencies, until I decided to set up my own private practice.  As stated above, keeping my hypnotherapy practice has given me cause to jettison my university contracts.

Fact:  I can choose to be a DIVER.

Factoid:  I was a diver.  I have always been a good swimmer and during my university years I developed into a great swimmer.  Can you believe my minor as an undergraduate was in Swimming?  My swimming led to me becoming a diver on two counts.  I had been certified in SCUBA at Cariboo College in Kamloops, British Columbia, with the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI), and was also on the University of Regina dive team.  With NAUI I was always under water, with the university I was always on a diving board above the water.

For over a decade I was the quintessential and delusional California dreamer, being a diving and swimming instructor for the Regina YMCA.   

Fact:  I can choose to be an EXISTENTIALIST.

Factoid:  To live is to suffer.  With me since the hippy 60’s, this is the existential line that I love.  Not-so-strangely, this line, too, is the skinny of Zen.  Translation:  As long as we breathe we have concern.  Only when we cease to breathe do we cease to concern.  Our concern dissipates with our last breath. 

Being an existentialist on the journey of life is much simpler than following a faith.  Being an existentialist requires neither a costume nor a prayer; it requires only the accoutrements of breath and behaviour.

Fact: Against all odds (taking the planetary human population into account), the chances of anyone been born into the journey of life are now one in eight billion! 

Factoid: As a matter of course, all eight billion of us, the current planetary occupants, are 100% destined to arrive at our journey’s end.  

WE’RE NOT THERE YET! 

(And I’m in no rush to get there.)

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week: 

My friends, NOMAN and ALIYA, newlyweds from PAKISTAN ...