I took a kayak out in the early morning and paddled up current in the Prairies River flanking the island of Montreal. The water surface was disturbed by the concentric circles of the occasional breaching of fish. Western painted turtles sunned themselves on partially submerged rocks and logs at the river’s edge. And rounding the perimeter of a small island, I discovered a flooded forest. Absolutely still river water enveloped the bases of giant trees whose canopies blotted out the sky. In total awe, I weaved my way through the other worldliness of it, flushing a blue heron as I went. He took flight right over the top of me and I watched him fly through the trees silently. The blue heron flies in a way that makes it look like he is going in slow motion. It looks like a regal thing left over from the time of the dinosaurs. It has always been one of my favorite birds on earth.

Canada has been calling me since the beginning of this year. And so, here I am on Canadian Tour. This is the first time I have been to Canada since before 2020. And it weighs heavy on my heart that I find Canada much changed since then. Not because the land has changed or the water has changed or the sky has changed or the architecture has changed. But because human society has changed. The Canadians themselves have changed. Canadians have a worldwide reputation for being overly polite, super nice, selfless and conflict averse. But no matter what city you go to, this stereotypical way of being has succumb to a general angst and defensiveness. And a consistent policing of each other. One would not expect Canada to be a country in any great deal of pain. Yet, it is now. Lots and lots of interpersonal pain and political pain. Enough pain to bring me to tears during my finishing speech in Toronto. Neither dominant negative nor positive vibrations of Toronto changed. But the Dominant negative vibration of Vancouver did change since I was there last. The people of Vancouver are NOT timid now. They are surprisingly abrasive now. But the dominant negative vibration is now: Delusion. There is a kind of collective mental un-wellness that has taken the form of everything from very severe mental illness to people being locked in a story they tell themselves to feel good, regardless of whether it is true or not. It is a coping mechanism. And a very, very hard one to break people out of because people who are delusional are completely convinced that they are the one in reality, and anyone who doesn't agree with their reality, is the delusional one.      

It is this Canadian tour that brought me to Montreal. I spent time with my team exploring Mount Royal, where the first French Explorer, Jacques Cartier was greeted by thousands of natives on his second voyage to the New World. We took a river boat tour into the shockingly swift current of the St. Lawrence River. We traversed the streets of Downtown Montreal, the Old Port area and several other boroughs and neighborhoods so that I could get out of the tourist zones to observe the true inhabitants of Montreal. And to immerse myself even further, my Company manager (who is originally from Ottawa in Canada) managed to find a chef who could make us a vegan (and alcohol free) version of Poutine and a Caesar (drink). Two foods that Canada is known for. My time in Montreal came to a close with our night time synchronization event, which was held in St. Jax Church. A Gothic Revival church built of grey limestone in the 1800s, which turned out to be my favorite event on this tour.

Montreal is a mind screw because as a foreigner, you cannot figure out whether you are in North America or Europe. So much of the architecture is like something straight out of Old England or Old France. The legacy of two successive colonizations. Yet it has become a juxtaposition of the old and the new. Sky Scrapers and futuristic structures erected for the Olympic games and community housing, abutting ancient looking homes and Basilicas. Everyone is speaking French and everything is in French. But if they want to, they can switch in a second to speaking English with a perfect General American accent. And the road signs are all printed in French, but on the familiar kelly green road signs you see in USA. And the culture is a real curry of both European and North American Cultures. If you have spent time in both Europe and North America, it creates a real undertone of internal confusion.

The dominant negative vibration of Montreal took me a while to sort out, because there are three very dominating negative energetic elements to the area. Because it is important for people to know about each of the three, I am going to list them. But, I will list them in the order I decided upon.

1.     The most dominant negative vibration is not a human one. It is: Poor Feng Shui. Because people are so used to feng shui relating to home décor, most people don’t understand that the harmony between different elements, such as objects, spaces, buildings and people applies to entire geographical locations. Montreal is actually an island that is the main island of the Hochelaga Archipelago at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. The main city of Montreal is on this island. The entire area is being hit and run through by a huge current of energy as a result of this. The island is massive. But you will get more of an idea of what the energetic problem is, if you imagine the kind of energy that would be hitting a boulder that is placed in the middle of a river, so that the water has to find a way to flow around it. Now imagine making the top of that boulder your home. You would be living in a constant rush of fast-moving energy. Like living in a wind tunnel on an energetic level. And that energy would not be collecting, it would be going straight through you and past you. Very quickly you would find yourself drained. This, in combination with the next dominant negative vibrational element is why so many people of Montreal feel the need to leave town on the weekends to get out off the island and into nature to re-charge. Montreal feels like a city that was built where it was for strategic purposes, rather than because it is an ideal geographical place to live.          

2.     The next dominant negative vibration of Montreal is: Emotional Assault. Of course, you can find people who do not fit in with the generalizations or stereotypes in any place. But the reality is, in stark contrast to the Canadian stereotype, the people of Montreal are not very friendly. In fact, they trend towards being discourteous, disagreeable, harsh, defensive, offensive and prone to attacking each other’s emotional bodies, usually with body language and verbal weaponry. In this way, and in the way that they are arrogant as a people, quite surprisingly, they are exactly what gives the French a bad reputation around the world (the French are famous for rudeness and arrogance). On top of this, despite Montreal being a fully bilingual city, they are not particularly welcoming to non-French speakers. The intense tension between the English and French, which has played out in Montreal across centuries, is still palpable in every day interactions. This way of being means that people are almost constantly on the defense in day-to-day life. They are interacting with one another from their very activated protector personalities. The social atmosphere is very tense, edgy, nervy, uneasy and irritable.

3.     The next dominant negative vibration is: Mold toxicity. Mold in and of itself is not a “bad” thing. It is a living organism that is everywhere. But in Montreal, it is a problem for the people. SO many of the homes I drove past, were emanating a glow specifically from the energy field of mold. It would be interesting to see if this kind of glow remains during the famously frigid Montreal Winter months, as Mold often becomes dormant in low enough temperatures. But this level of mold would be making people sick.

The dominant positive vibration of Montreal is: Positive Pride. Most people don’t think of pride as a good thing. But there is a really good side to pride. When you are proud of something, you are pleased with it. You are delighted by it. You are grateful for it. You see its value. You cherish it. And because of this, you usually take precise care of it. The people of Montreal ADORE Montreal. They adore it with the same kind of zeal that a child adores a favorite toy. They are so pleased and satisfied with the city itself and with their cultural identity, that the entire area (not just the main city itself) is softly soaked in the kind of pinkish hue of the frequency of cherish. Montreal is a possession that the people who are identified with the city admire and expect others to admire. It kind of makes you feel jealous of the city. Nearly everyone in the world dreams of being loved the way the people of Montreal love Montreal. And for this reason, I feel anxious about publicizing this energy diagnosis blog which includes the negative vibration(s) of Montreal. When people have a great deal of pride about something, they feel insulted when presented with anything short of praise about it. And this, I really do understand. To generalize, people from around the world who follow my work, love this kind of brutal honest feedback about the positive and negative energetic elements of their city. They beg me to come to their cities so that I will do one of these blogs on the place where they live. But there are some cities where it feels like this appraisal is not wanted. Montreal is one of those places.

Breathing in the gentle steam from a mug of tea, I sat on a stone stair case that descended from the backyard gate down to the river’s edge. The river being so deep and vast that its flow was silent. My whole team was gathered around me talking and laughing with each other. Basking in that gorgeous collision of purpose and the simple pleasures of life. The sun was setting, bathing us in a gleaming flaxen colored heat, creating the appearance of a pathway of shimmering water directly from us to itself. My visit to Montreal ended with this memory, a memory which I will keep with me always.