ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When the writing didn’t come when he asked for it as a young man, Mark Belfry accepted the career that offered, a joyfully eclectic leadership path through diverse industries, until returning eventually to where he’d started, sharing ideas in word form, now armed with the confidence of experience.
Through it all there have been three constants: service to people; daily 4 AM meditation that brought him ever closer to the constant light, and from which the Farmer lately emerged; and his partner, Tricia, without whom, who knows?
The Farmer would say that we are one, and that our purpose is to discover this in a meaningful way and then live it. And there Mark’s work continues.
Our lives are fascinating, but the telling of it is usually boring. Everyone has their own life, and every life has its brilliance, it’s trajectory and challenges.
So let me share some basics, because people whose lives I’ve crossed may want to revisit the point of crossing. And then let me talk about the creative process, something we all share and all care about.
Me.
Born, Toronto, lived in Don Mills, the first subdivision. Moved after my father’s death, moved from a large junior high in a Toronto subdivision to a one-room schoolhouse north of the city. Went to Uxbridge Secondary School, USS. Got my letter U (you may not care about that but I do, and when do you ever get to say it?) Edited the yearbook, played all the sports moderately well. The one thing I played well was baseball, and there was no school team.
I’ve done this in my life, and this is fun to relate: worked a travelling show (Donkey Baseball – donkey wranglers please make contact.) Copy boy in a major daily (The Telegram, RIP), wrote copy, news and announced in small town radio, safety man, terminal manager and executive with a large trucking company, ran a bingo, ran a bar and social club, traded chemicals internationally, ran a government fleet, opened government offices on weekends and evenings and had to do with government activities like immigration, helping people with disabilities and those with issues of mental health. And I know I’ve missed some.
Oh, final note. Grandson of Frances Shelley Wees, Canadian novelist, to whose site this page will one day be linked, as well as Claire Wallace, journalist. Might do that page one day, too.
Now, creativity.
The Farmer has slowly been convincing me that there is one mind, from which our thoughts refract. I meditate nightly, 4 AM or so, and around that time my mind begins to tease an issue, call it an understanding, from which eventually an angle emerges that interests me, which I capture, writing with pen, and eventually with luck turn into a Farmer aphorism. I have well more than a hundred now, although only the most powerful will be used.
Story ideas often come that way as well. Movement is a product of intention, right? I need an answer. I want it, work for it. And it comes.
I do write with pen at first, then transcribe on my laptop, working anywhere the fancy takes me. I do like writing in the sunshine. I write with a pen because then I don’t edit, whereas with the keyboard under my fingers I tend to want everything to be perfect.
That’s likely enough. I’ve gone on a bit. As other things come to me that I think you may want to know I’ll change this piece to try to keep it of interest.
