Here are two more funny Speed Bump cartoons from Dave Coverly. These deal with dogs begging for food, but from two different perspectives—that of humans and of dogs. I liked these so much, Dave sent me copies of them for posting. This first one came out March 28, 2014. The second one, July 3, 2019, which I posted a month and a half ago.
When I first saw and posted the begging cartoon below, I asked Dave how it came about. He replied: “I don’t recall an exact moment that the idea hit me, as info tends to settle somewhere in my head and doesn’t percolate until later when I’m in my studio and I turn my work brain on. But at the time this was drawn, our pup was still with us, and she was very food oriented. Easy to train thanks to this, but also could get a bit obnoxious with the begging.”
Dave went on to say it was entirely possible that his wife had said, “can I get you anything” and that he “made a mental note to convert that into a dog’s world!” And he certainly did! He turned what must’ve felt like a human’s frustrated sarcastic remark into a sincere request from a dog’s perspective. I laugh every time I see this cartoon, it’s that funny.
Do you remember hearing a cricket chirping at night? Did you enjoy listening to its song, or was it annoying? Two well-known poets wrote about their encounters with a cricket, but from different points of view—the poet and the cricket.
I first found this poem, Nothing Is Too Small Not to Be Wondered About, by Mary Oliver. Attentive to all creatures, including the smallest of them, she wonders what happened to the cricket after it stopped its singing.
I then came across another poem about a cricket, Postlude, by Rita Dove. But it’s written from the perspective of one with something to say, and the magic that can happen when we stop and listen.
The cricket doesn’t wonder
if there’s a heaven
or, if there is, if there’s room for him.
It’s fall. Romance is over. Still, he sings.
If he can, he enters a house
through the tiniest crack under the door.
Then the house grows colder.
He sings slower and slower.
Then, nothing.
This must mean something, I don’t know what.
But certainly it doesn’t mean
he hasn’t been an excellent cricket
all his life.
Mary Oliver, “Nothing Is Too Small Not to Be Wondered About.” Felicity: Poems. New York: Penguin Press, 2016.
I found that one on Best Poems, and then as it appears with line breaks on page 27 of Felicity posted at the University of Arizona Poetry Center under Poems of Love and Compassion.
2nd cricket poem
PostludeRita DoveStay by the hearth, little cricket.
—Cendrillon
You prefer me invisible, no more than
a crisp salute far away from
your silks and firewood and woolens.
Out of sight, I'm merely an annoyance,
one slim, obstinate wrinkle in night's
deepening trance. When sleep fails,
you wish me shushed and back in my hole.
As usual, you're not listening: time stops
only if you stop long enough to hear it
passing. This is my business:
I've got ten weeks left to croon through.
What you hear is a lifetime of song.
Read about Mary Oliver (1935-2019) and her astonishing poetry in this memorial acknowledgment to her poetic legacy. It contains links to articles, interviews, and poetry readings, as well as many of her favorite poems I’ve loved and posted over the years.
— Written and compiled by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.
While reading Dogs Are People, Too by Dave Coverly, I noticed three funny cartoons that deal with greetings between humans and dogs. They show an evolution on the part of dogs—they’re smarter than humans! (Click on a panel to enlarge it, then on the top left arrow to come back.)
About Dave Coverly and Speed Bump
Dave Coverly is the creator of the cartoon panel “Speed Bump”, which runs internationally in hundreds of newspapers and websites. His work was named “Best in Newspaper Panels” by the National Cartoonists Society in 1995, 2003, 2014 and 2022. In 2009 the same organization gave him its highest honor, the prestigious Reuben Award, for “Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year”. See his impressive bio, which includes a photo of Dave with his dog Macy.
Amazon lists his 11 book titles where you can look inside to see some of his cartoons. Dave’s local bookstore, Schuler Books, also carries his books and is set up for him to personally inscribe copies for customers.
I updated Cartoon wisdom from Karl Stevens appears in this week’s print edition of The New Yorker, since he just appeared at Comic-Con with the multi-talented Jamie Lee Curtis and director Russell Gordon to discuss their newly published graphic novel, Mother Nature. Due to the current strike they could not talk about the film, which is in preproduction.
— Written and compiled by Ken Chawkin for The Uncarved Blog.
Cartoonist Dave Coverly has a clever knack for anthropomorphizing animals with ordinary human speech. Here’s an example with a dog that just cracks me up.
He uses a similar approach blending both worlds when humanizing a crash test dummy in this New Yorker cartoon.
Dave Coverly, (with assistant Macy), creator of the cartoon panel “Speed Bump”, which runs internationally in hundreds of newspapers and websites.
His work was named “Best in Newspaper Panels” by the National Cartoonists Society in 1995, 2003, 2014 and 2022. In 2009 the same organization gave him its highest honor, the prestigious Reuben Award, for “Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year”. (See his impressive bio.)
I later sent Dave a tweet asking him which book the dog cartoon appears in and which one he’d recommend with this kind of human transference to animals sense of humor since I wanted to buy one. I’m adding this information in case you’re also interested in ordering one of his books for yourself or as a gift for someone.
Update: I’m glad I ordered it, but that cartoon was not in the book. Dave later apologized recalling that it must’ve missed the deadline to make it into the book and offered to send me a print of it. He also sent me a digital copy of it along with copies of some of the dog cartoons I liked from the book for posting.
I asked him if it was in Speed Bump: A 25th Anniversary Collection. It was not. The Foreword was written by fellow cartoonist and friend Nick Galifianakis at his mother’s hospital bedside. You can read it on Amazon, along with cartoon samples from the book. The Foreword is so well written, the cartoons so funny, I ordered a copy from Schuler Books, where Dave will personalize it with an inscription.
Craig Pearson wrote a cover story on TM research at MIU for The Week’s Yoga Mid-Year Special (July 9, 2023): A BETTER BRAIN IN 20 MINUTES. Meditation research findings at a US university.
The print version is a 6-page spread: A BETTER BRAIN IN 20 MINUTES. A centre for research in America records increased intelligence and improved health in people who practice Transcendental Meditation. (Pages 86-91) Below is the online article with its own title and subtitle.
How about a better brain in 20 minutes?
Transcendental Meditation can increase intelligence and improve health
By Craig Pearson | Issue Date: July 09, 2023 | Updated: July 02, 2023 07:29 IST
A fourth-year college student named Amanda walks into the laboratory and drops her backpack on a nearby chair. She has just finished her afternoon class on human resource management. The lab director, Dr Fred Travis, greets her and motions her to take a seat in front of the window. As they exchange small talk, Travis places a red cloth cap over the top of her head. It looks something like a ski cap, except for one thing―it has 32 sensors attached to it, connected to an electroencephalograph (EEG) machine that will measure the electrical activity of Amanda’s brain at 32 different points.
He monitors Amanda’s brainwave activity for the next few minutes to establish baseline readings. Then he asks Amanda to close her eyes and continue to sit quietly for a few more minutes. All the while wavy lines are moving across the computer screen, left to right.
Then he quietly instructs her to begin her practice of Transcendental Meditation―and in less than a minute, the waves change dramatically.
It’s clear to the naked eye, without analyzing the signals, that Amanda’s brain has shifted to a significantly more integrated, coherent style of functioning. That is, the different parts of her brain are communicating much more efficiently and effectively with each other.
Outwardly, Amanda appears simply to be sitting comfortably with her eyes closed. But inside, she is experiencing a fourth major state of consciousness.
Travis directs the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi International University (MIU) in Fairfield, Iowa, in the United States. He is one of the world’s leading scientists in the area of brain functioning and higher human development, with special focus on how the technique of Transcendental Meditation affects brain functioning and promotes personal growth.
Founded in 1971 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the noted Vedic scholar and scientist of consciousness, MIU is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. It offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in a wide range of subjects, from art to computer science, from creative writing to sustainable living, from regenerative organic agriculture to Ayurveda. Three quarters of its students come from outside the US, and the student body represents more than 80 countries.
All faculty, staff and students, as well as hundreds of members of the surrounding small-town community, practise the Transcendental Meditation technique. The technique, learned from a certified TM instructor, is a simple, natural, effortless procedure practised for 20 minutes twice each day while sitting comfortably with the eyes closed. It allows the mind to settle inward into a state of quiet―to “transcend,” or go beyond, the constant stream of thoughts and perceptions that fill the mind.
MIU has been a centre for research on Transcendental Meditation since its founding. Its first president, Robert Keith Wallace, conducted the first research on the technique while a PhD student at UCLA. Within two years, he had published his research in Science, Scientific American and the American Journal of Physiology.
His findings were striking. He found that during TM practice, as the mind settles inward, the body settles down into a uniquely deep state of rest, reflected in decreased heart rate, decreased respiration rate, and increased skin resistance. Yet the mind remains entirely awake―more awake than ever, in some respects―reflected in increased EEG alpha activity in the brain.
This combination of deep rest and heightened wakefulness had never been seen before in a laboratory. Wallace described it as a “wakeful hypometabolic state”―“restful alertness,” in simpler English―and he declared it to be a fourth state of consciousness beyond the three familiar states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping.
Wallace was studying the classic state of samadhi, known in the Upanishads as turiya, “the fourth,” and termed Transcendental Consciousness by Maharishi.
This exalted state had been known and celebrated for millennia, in India and in traditions around the world. But Wallace was uncovering the constellation of changes that occur in body during this restfully alert experience―its “neurophysiological correlates.”
The TM technique does not involve focusing or concentrating the mind or attending to one’s thoughts or one’s breathing. It is not “mindfulness.” One does not try to control one’s body’s functions, as in biofeedback. The technique is effortless.
One student describes her experience during TM practice in this way: “I have the experience of transcending all activity and experiencing awareness as an unbounded unity. There is no longer any sense of ‘me’ and ‘not me,’ no longer any thought or feelings or even a body, just the Self, and that is all there is, and that is all I am.”
Yet this simple and natural experience of transcending leads to a host of physiological changes, all in the direction of rest, repair, and balance.
Wallace’s publications sparked a wave of research on the TM technique that has continued to this day. To date, research has been conducted at more than 250 universities and research institutes around the world, and studies have been published in more than 170 journals in a range of fields.
These studies have further detailed the striking physiological changes that take place during the technique. They have also looked at the long-term effects, where the findings have been equally remarkable. These include improved health, increased intelligence (IQ) and creativity, increased self-esteem and self-actualisation, and improved interpersonal relationships.
Many of these findings are notable because they had also never been seen before in modern science. For example, intelligence and creativity grow through childhood but level off in adolescence. Yet with TM practice, these values resume growing regardless of age. TM practice “unfreezes” their growth.
Wallace predicted that, given the TM technique’s ability to dissolve stress, it may affect the rate at which the body ages. Physiologists distinguish between our chronological age (our age in years) and our “biological age”―the age of the body as determined by a cluster of measures.
Wallace found that people who had been meditating more than five years were biologically 12 years younger than their chronological age. Several other studies found that TM practice can extend lifespan by 23%.
One of the most dramatic findings emerged from health insurance statistics. David Orme-Johnson, then chair of MIU’s psychology department, tracked 2,000 people over a five-year period across the US who practised the TM technique.
The data was collected by Blue Cross, the health insurer. The statistics for the meditation group were compared with those of a control group selected by the insurance company to match the TM group for age, gender, education, profession and insurance terms.
The result: The TM group went to hospital 56% less often for illness or surgery. The differences between the TM group and the control group were significant in all age groups but most conspicuous in older groups. The TM group also required 50% fewer doctors’ visits. The TM meditators had not become disenchanted with doctors―for maternity, they used health care just as much as the control group.
Starting in 1990, research on cardiovascular health became a major focus at MIU. Over the following years, the US government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) invested more than $25 million dollars in MIU’s research on TM and cardiovascular health. With this support, MIU professor Robert Schneider and his colleagues, in partnership with universities around the US, conducted a series of studies that made headlines worldwide.
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally, according to the World Health Organization, accounting for 32% of all global deaths. Yet modern medicine has failed to cure or even curb this disease or even pinpoint the cause. It has only identified the risk factors.
This is why Schneider’s studies were so newsworthy. He and his teams found that TM practice shows great promise for preventing and even curing cardiovascular disease.
They focused first on hypertension, a leading risk factor for heart disease. They tested the TM programme on elderly African Americans, who have 50% more hypertension than white Americans, twice the level of cardiovascular disease, and a far higher rate of deaths from it. This is because they’re subject to higher chronic socio-environmental stress.
But when they learned the TM technique, their blood pressure dropped significantly, as much as with standard drug treatments―but with no side effects, with higher patient compliance, and at far lower cost. The meditating group also lived longer. Compared with the control group, those in the TM group were 23% less likely to die from any cause, 30% less likely to die from heart disease, and 49% less likely to die from cancer.
In these studies, the subjects made no changes in their diets or exercise habits. The effects were solely due to the regular experience of transcending using the TM technique.
Studies found that TM practice reduces other leading risk factors for heart disease, including cholesterol and free radicals, smoking and alcohol abuse, and psychological and socio-environmental stress.
Prevention is the best medicine, but for those who already have heart disease, Schneider and company also found that TM practice can actually reverse its damaging effects. TM practice unclogs arteries and reverses atherosclerosis. It reverses enlargement of the heart (left-ventricular hypertrophy). The practice even reduces the severity of congestive heart failure―and heart failure is the end result of all heart diseases. Again, subjects in these studies made no other changes in their lifestyle beyond their TM practice.
Turning their attention to another global epidemic, Schneider and company found that TM practice significantly reduces the risk of diabetes. One study found that after just 16 weeks of TM practice, patients with both heart disease and type 2 diabetes not only had lower blood pressure, but had also significantly better blood glucose and insulin levels―signifying reduced insulin resistance and more stable functioning of the autonomic nervous system.
“This research shows that the Transcendental Meditation technique helps the body tap into its inner intelligence and normalise function,” Schneider said. “These subjects simply transcended regularly, and their cardiovascular and endocrine systems regained more perfect balance.”
Travis has most recently been looking at how the integrated brain functioning characteristic of TM practice increasingly persists even outside of meditation―over time it becomes the brain’s normal style of functioning.
The computer-generated drawings (above) illustrate alpha-range EEG coherence and how it increases during TM practice―and then increasingly becomes the brain’s normal style of functioning even outside of meditation.
The lighter lines show coherence (communication) between the two linked brain areas of about 70%, the heavier lines coherence of 80% or higher (100% is perfect coherence). The more effectively the various brain areas communicate, the better the brain performs.
“These are really remarkable findings,” Travis said. “Before we started researching the Transcendental Meditation technique, we had no idea that the brain could function with this exceptional level of integration. And now we’ve learned that we can cultivate the brain to function in this way all the time.”
This is also remarkable, because the higher one’s level of brainwave coherence, the greater one’s intelligence, creativity, moral maturity, learning ability, and many other positive values, according to research studies at MIU and elsewhere.
MIU students have the option of receiving a Brain Integration Progress Report. Students have their brainwave coherence measured shortly after they enroll and then again shortly before they graduate, to see how much their brain integration has increased during their years at MIU.
“This is a remarkable contribution to education,” Travis says. “And any school, college or university can implement this same approach and give their students these same benefits, without any changes to their curriculum apart from setting aside two short periods for Transcendental Meditation practice.”
Travis is often asked whether other meditation techniques produce these same results.
“Different meditation techniques involve different mental procedures,” Travis explains, “and therefore they produce different modes of brain functioning.
For example, meditation techniques that involve focusing or concentrating the mind―known as focused attention techniques―produce beta/gamma activity in the brain, typical of any active mental processing.
A second category of techniques, called open monitoring, includes mindfulness procedures, which involve monitoring aspects of one’s experience―one’s thoughts, breathing, sensory perceptions, physical sensations―without evaluating them. These procedures induce theta activity in the brain, seen when people reflect on mental concepts.
The third category, which includes the Transcendental Meditation technique, is called automatic self-transcending. It involves procedures that transcend their own activity, enabling the mind to go beyond (transcend) the meditation process and into the experience of pure consciousness. These techniques elicit frontal alpha-1 coherence, indicating the brain’s executive control centre is functioning in an integrated manner.
“All meditation techniques are not the same,” Travis says. “Other procedures have their value. But so far only the TM technique has been shown to produce this integrated and coherent style of brain functioning along with the wide-ranging constellation of benefits that studies have found.”
Over the past 40 years the technique has been applied in a variety of practical fields, where it has been studied by MIU scientists and others.
In schools, when students and faculty learn the practice, IQ and creativity increase, students’ grades increase, graduation rates increase, and overall school climate improves.
In companies, when managers and employees learn the TM technique, stress declines, illness and absenteeism decline, cooperation increases, productivity increases, and the companies become more profitable.
In prisons, when inmates learn the technique, they sleep better, their health improves, they commit fewer infractions, and most important, they return to prison at a far lower rate than non-meditating prisoners.
Among veterans suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), when they start TM practice, their symptoms decrease markedly, and they reintegrate into their families and the workplace more quickly and easily.
How can such a simple technique produce such a wide constellation of benefits―for cognitive development, for health, for personality growth and interpersonal relationships?
“It’s all about the experience of transcending,” Travis said. “The experience is simple, natural, and incredibly profound. It dissolves stress and resets and rebalances the whole mind-body system. Maharishi likens it to watering the root of a tree, where a single act nourishes the tree’s countless leaves and branches. ‘Water the root to enjoy the fruit,’ he said. Consciousness is the most fundamental value of life, and now we know we can cultivate and improve our lives from that deepest level.”
When Elliott (Christopher), a young fisherman with a hidden talent and an extraordinary voice gets discovered at a party by Suzanne, a high-profile music producer who is willing to give him the chance of a lifetime, he must decide if he is ready to open himself up to stardom — and love.
It doesn’t matter who you are. What really does is who you become.
One of the main messages of the film comes out when Suzanne responds to her business partner’s doubts about Elliott. She sees his raw talent, his great potential, and assures Patrick: “It doesn’t matter who you are. The important thing is who you can become.”
“Who do you sing for when you sing?”
Suzanne asks her estranged daughter Lilly, who also heard Elliott sing, to collaborate with him, to produce his music. Their personalities clash and they get off to a rocky start. One of the first things Lilly asks him is, “Who do you sing for when you sing?” Puzzled, Elliott offers no answer.
She explains what makes a song significant, how to communicate it to an audience for it to resonate with them. This insider information is new to Elliott who listens without responding, taking it all in. This is the creative core that will powerfully manifest in the final scene and song of the film. Here is that explanation.
Imagine there’s someone you’re singing to. Someone you’re singing for.
“A song doesn’t just exist. It comes to life. Between two people. One who sings and one who listens. Whether you’re here in the studio or in a big, packed stadium with thousands of fans. You’re not performing for nothing. You have to choose a person, or you have to imagine there’s someone you’re singing to. Someone you’re singing for. If you’re not singing for anyone, then it’s all the same. Then, the song doesn’t exist. Then you don’t exist.”
The song is powerful because it personalizes the universal cycle of life, love, and loss into a story, expressing feelings an audience can relate to.
This is songwriting at its best. One of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. It put a lump in my throat and moved me to tears. It is so good it deserves a Grammy award and at least an Oscar nod if not a win!
A Beautiful Life
"Baby, I'm pregnant" she said
And I saw my whole life
Flash before my eyes
So much for planning ahead
We gon' be all right
There won't be a right time
Oh, I said, "I am way too young"
I'm just a kid, I can't raise one
It feels like my life is over
Feels like my future's crushed
And I'm gonna miss the times when
It was just the two of us
I don't ever want to let go
Of everything that I love
It sure feels like dying
Saying goodbye
To my beautiful life
"Daddy, I can't sleep," she said
Can you leave the light on?
And please sing me my song
And I can't help but think to myself
Those green eyes and brown curls
Turned into my whole world
She's growing up so fast
If only I could make it last
It feels like my life is over
Feels like my future's crushed
'Cause my baby's getting older
Tomorrow she'd be all grown up
I don't ever want to let go
Of everything that I love
I turn off the light
And say goodnight
To my beautiful life
Pack the bags and ready to go
We look at each other
She looks like her mother
Off to chase dreams of her own
She cries in the backseat
As we wave at the taxi
Oh, our baby's moving out
Leaving this home an empty house
Feels like my life is over
Feels like my future's crushed
And I'm gonna miss the times when
It was just the three of us
I don't ever want to let go
Of everything that I love
It sure feels like dying
Saying goodbye
To my beautiful life
To my beautiful life
"Baby, I'm pregnant" she said
And I saw my whole life
Flash before my eyes
You can listen to the other songs in the film's Soundtrack on Spotify. Or choose your own music service at https://christopher.lnk.to/ABeautifulLife. And visit Christopher's YouTube channel for excerpts of songs from the film.
A Beautiful Life Official Music Video
Today, on June 8th, Christopher premiered a new Official Music Video for the film on his YouTube channel with A Beautiful Life. He also posted a short video of the making of the music video: Christopher - A Beautiful Life Music Video (Behind The Scenes). Warner Music Canada posted: Christopher - A Beautiful Life (Full Album From Netflix Film).
“The essence of the movie”
The next day I found this June 5th video on Netflix Nordic — A Beautiful Life: Get to Know Christopher & Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas. This is one of the questions they were asked, “Which scene are you most proud of?”
Christopher mentions his favorite scene with Inga to her. “It’s when you tell Elliott that a song doesn’t exist on its own. You don’t exist if you don’t have anybody to sing to. To me that’s the essence of the movie. The film is first and foremost a music movie. And you’re the one teaching Elliott to have someone to sing to. And that’s important, because if you don’t, no one can relate to it, and making music doesn’t matter. And he doesn’t have anyone. Not until the moment he looks at her and decides to write it for her. I think that’s very special. And I just sit quietly throughout the entire scene. It’s just you doing a monologue.”
Beautifully encapsulated! Christopher confirms what I mentioned under “Who do you sing for when you sing?” This is one of the most crucial and pivotal scenes in the film. It is, as he says, “the essence of the movie.”
The first time Christopher performed ‘A Beautiful Life’ at a concert
It turns out Christopher had performed ‘A Beautiful Life’ at the Seoul Jazz Festival 2023 in Korea. It was the first encore of the evening. He introduced the song, telling the audience it was the title track for an upcoming Netflix film. Seated at the piano, he confessed that he had never played it live before, then proceeded to sing it for them. Once the audience settled down, you could hear a pin drop. When the song was over they roared their approval, a welcome relief to a smiling Christopher. Everyone had a great time, especially Christopher and his band. He posted the whole May 27, 2023 concert on his channel.
Acoustic versions from ‘A Beautiful Life’ in Christopher’s tiny boat
Christopher posted three videos of him singing acoustic versions of the songs from the film with Gustav Wolter also on guitar: Led Me To You, Hope This Song Is For You, A Beautiful Life. He wrote: Busking around in the canals of beautiful Copenhagen ✨ Had to do the acoustic versions on the water in my tiny boat, as a tribute to Elliott 😉🙏🏼 Hope you enjoy ❤️🔥
Christopher later released a fourth acoustic version from his tiny boat: Honey I’m So High.
Dingo Music produce video of film’s 3 songs sung for Sound Lounge
That was followed on June 15 with Live – A Beautiful Life (AFTER PARTY) where Christopher talked about and played songs from the movie with Gustav (guitar) and Matias (keyboard) (31:10). I was lucky to see it on Replay, but it was later taken down since it was only for Premium members. YouTube had offered it as a free trial, so I guess you still have to sign up to see it. If they later release it, at 18:52 the guys leave Christopher who then shares a personal story of how he came to write ‘A Beautiful Life’ and the pivotal role it would play in the film when he sang it to Mehdi, the director. It was over 2 1/2 years ago when his wife told him she was pregnant, and his whole life flashed before him. He wrote the song that night. He performs it on the piano and then takes questions. At 27:42 he’s asked what was his favorite track from the movie and answers ‘A Beautiful Life’. But he then tells the story of how he wrote and recorded ‘Ready To Go‘ one night on the tour bus. It was too late to make it into the movie, but it’s on the soundtrack.
On July 6, 2023, Christopher posted the Lyric Video for A Beautiful Life from the Netflix film, which contains clips from the film, the official music video, and a live concert singing this beautiful song.
Late Fragment
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
All of us: The collected poems
By Raymond Carver
Vintage Books, 1996
New Federal Grant from Department of National Defence Awarded to the Canadian Women’s Wellness Initiative
Over the last three consecutive years, the Canadian Women’s Wellness Initiative (CWWI), has been awarded a grant from Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) to teach the Transcendental Meditation® (TM®) program to military veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS) and related comorbidities while serving in the Canadian Armed Forces. The Canadian Women’s Wellness Initiative is a charitable organization mandated to bring the TM program to individuals whose lives are impacted by toxic levels of stress.
In February 2023, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, the Honourable Lawrence MacCaulay, and his team met with the National Director of the Canadian Women’s Wellness Initiative, Helen Creighton, to review the work of CWWI in bringing the TM program to Veterans and their family members.
Department of National Defence Grant Awarded in April 2023
Based on the success of the VAC-funded grants, the Department of National Defence (DND) has now fully funded a new grant for CWWI to teach TM to survivors of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) who are currently serving, or who have served in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) or the Department of National Defence: Community Support for Sexual Misconduct Survivors Grant Program. [At this link, Canadian Women’s Wellness Initiative (CWWI) is listed under Nova Scotia, where their National Office is located.]
The project can also include family members or support workers and will be taught in 8 major Canadian cities where TM teachers have taken additional training to work with this population.
This initiative aims to bring an effective evidence-based stress-reduction technique to those who have experienced sexual misconduct within the Defence community. Due to the trauma and negative emotions linked to sexual misconduct, this population is at risk for prolonged mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, PTS, low self-esteem, addiction and more.
Research has demonstrated that the TM program is one of the most effective methodologies for reducing the above issues, which are often present in those who have experienced sexual misconduct. Overcoming the negative effect that sexual misconduct has on one’s mental health is a critical first step in moving forward with one’s life.
Confidential quantitative surveys will be administered pre- and -post TM training for self-compassion (Neff, 2011) and trait anxiety survey (Cohen, 1983).
Self-compassion is the self responding positively in times of personal struggle. In addition to decreases in stress and improved levels of self-compassion, CWWI expects results to be similar to past research with veterans, such as:
• Reduced flashbacks and bad memories: Military Medicine 176 (6): 626-630, 2011
• Improved quality of life: Military Medicine 176 (6): 626-630, 2011
• Decrease in insomnia: Journal of Counseling and Development 64: 212-215, 1985
• Twice as effective as other relaxation techniques for decreasing trait anxiety: Journal of Clinical Psychology 45(6): 957–974, 1989
The CWWI project is overseen by several Advisory Boards, including healthcare professionals and military members and employs a researcher with expertise in qualitative and quantitative data.
CWWI is working with support groups mandated to help those affected by sexual misconduct, networking with doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists who work with this population, and reaching out to support groups.
CWWI is grateful to researchers Ann Royer, PhD, and Tanis Farish, PhD, as well as to Advisory Review Board members Dr. Raju Hajela [Major, retired], Dr. Brian Rees [Colonel, retired], and Ami Stadnick, MSc, R. Psych.
Article submitted by Helen Foster-Grimmett, Lead Instructor—Canadian Armed Forces, Veteran, Police and First Responder Outreach—Canadian Women’s Wellness Initiative.
# # #
An article by Garry Foster on both TM grant programs and research was published in a BC Navy newsletter. It was picked up in a few provinces across Canada. It appears in print and online and is read by active duty personnel, veterans, their families and the public. Click on Volume 68, Issue 25, June 26, 2023, select English or French, and go to page 12 (page 11 in the downloadable PDF) to read: New DND grant expands support for sexual misconduct survivors, including family members.
A similar article by Garry Foster written for the Canadian Women’s Wellness Initiative was published in the September 26, 2023 issue of the Totem Times in English and French on page 5, New DND grant expands support for sexual misconduct survivors. (Click to enlarge and read.)
Here is a 30-second TV news spot some Canadian friends are testing out on CHEK TV in BC. The ad airs 44 times over 3 months during the 5pm, 6pm and 11pm News. The voiceover is by a longtime TM teacher, Bob Chelmick, who was the CBC news anchor in Alberta for decades. It broadcasts throughout Vancouver Island and also in the Lower Mainland including Vancouver, and spills over into Washington State. It was first posted on Garry Foster’s Facebook page and is now on their Transcendental Meditation Canada website as The Antidote to Stress.
Six seconds into the video we see a photo of a helicopter carrying a large specialized water bucket to help put out forest fires. Don Arney, inventor of the Bambi Bucket® for Aerial Firefighting, was inducted into the 2017 National Inventors Hall of Fame for his invention. It is manufactured in Vancouver, Canada and shipped to clients in more than 110 countries.
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