It's Christmastime (Let's Just Survive) (Kathleen Edwards)

I bought a Nativity set (at Sears, of all places!) our first Christmas in Puerto Rico (1985), which means it's 38 years old now.  When they were younger, our tradition was for each child to take turns putting the characters in a place of their own choosing. The only rule was that the Baby Jesus could not be in the hayloft (since Mary and Joseph didn't fit up there as well).  Somehow it always managed to go smoothly and cooperatively.

When we sold our house and downsized to the condo five years ago, we had all the kids (now grown) over and did a schoolyard pick of the ornaments and various decorations.  Rob chose the Nativity and, since he and E lived together for four years, they continued the ritual.  This year will actually *not* be our First Christmas Without Eric; last year was, since E went with Duyen and her parents to a cabin in North Carolina for the holidays.  Before he left town, he texted the above photo to Rob... 💞

P.S.  Speaking of Rob... Happy Birthday to my Middle Child!  We gathered together for a Family Birthday Dinner this evening, and invited his friend Leslie (who is a darling).  Happy Fish Sushi:  Delicious food, beautiful ambience, stunning presentation; we'll be back.. 🍣

If you haven’t sent cards this year, or forgotten someone’s gift.

If you don’t have matching pyjamas or a festive family photograph.

It’s okay.

If you can’t find the energy to be merry and bright,

or your tree isn’t even decorated yet.

That’s really just fine.

If you don’t feel like watching your favourite Christmas movies, or honouring the traditions that you normally always do.

Don’t sweat it, my friend.

This year has been hard, for many.

Really hard.

If you can’t see a way to celebrating like you have in the past, don’t worry.

Just hang on in there, finding any joy you can in any little way.

Just make it through till next year.

One day at a time.

We need you.

Hang on in there.

You are loved.

~ Donna Ashworth

Referencing the poem below... in our case, today is 12 weeks (and a week from today makes *three* months) since Eric died:

SONG:  It's Christmastime (Let's Just Survive) by Kathleen Edwards

BOOK:  Michael Rosen's Sad Book by Michael Rosen

POEM(S):  Two Months after My Son Died by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

for MS

She gave me an hour.

Since then, every minute

has grown from the soil

of that time.

She gave me silence.

It was the wisest teaching.

She did not know me.

She deeply understood my heart.

There was a time

when she, too,

was met with unthinkable loss.

Now she knows

to say the name

of the one who is gone.

She knows not to fix.

She knows the gift

of being seen.

She asked for nothing

in return.

Over a year later,

I remember how she listened

with her eyes.

I remember the generosity

of her gaze.

She lit a candle for my child,

a golden light

on a bed of amethyst.

With that flame,

she has lit hundreds more

through my hand.

Sometimes I wonder

where her flame began,

I think of all the hands

lighting all the candles.

How beautiful that light.

How far we have come

from the dark we have known.

by john roedel

the wounds in our hearts

seem to ache a little deeper

during the holidays

don't feel like you

need to cover your wounded

heart in wrapping paper

this Christmas

you don't have to

tie the corners

of your lips with

garland to force

a smile

you don't have to

keep whistling

"silent night" to keep

people from noticing

your bottom lip is trembling

you don't have to blame

an allergy to nutmeg

for why you are walking

around with tears in your

eyes

for this Christmas

give yourself

permission

to feel whatever you

need to

last night

I was visited

by the ghost

of yuletide Heartbreak

she told me this:

it's okay to not be okay

on Christmas

it's okay to be melancholy

under the mistletoe

it's okay to come apart

while they are caroling

it's okay to trace your scars with your fingers

while others are humming ‘Holy Night’

it's okay to miss the presence of your beloved

amid the sound of opening presents

it's okay, my love,

to hurt during the holidays

don't stuff your stockings

with your suffering

don't hide your healing

during the holidays

give yourself the gift

of being authentic to yourself

it's okay to not be okay

during Christmas

it's okay to let the broken

pieces inside of you 

be the only jingle bells you

hear

because, my love, because,

it means you are still fighting

to stay alive

and I can't think of anything 

more to celebrate than that 

Talking to Grief by Denise Levertov

Ah, grief, I should not treat you

like a homeless dog

who comes to the back door

for a crust, for a meatless bone.

I should trust you.

I should coax you

into the house and give you

your own corner,

a worn mat to lie on,

your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living

under my porch.

You long for your real place to be readied

before winter comes. You need

your name,

your collar and tag. You need

the right to warn off intruders,

to consider my house your own

and me your person

and yourself

my own dog.

Christmas To Do List by Brian Bilston

• delay • defer • equivocate

• make some tea • procrastinate

• look at phone • stroke the cat

• readjust the thermostat

• dawdle • dither • hem and haw

• eat mince pie • chew my jaw

• write a card • spin on chair

• play six games of solitaire

• take a break • make a brew

• review my list of things to do

• eat mince pie • paper scrunch

• stroke the cat • have some lunch

• prioritise new tasks to shirk

(more cups of tea + less housework)

• look at phone • spin on chair

• eat mince pie • loiter • stare

• consider shopping • have quick doze

• rest mince pie on bridge of nose

• stroke the cat • take a break

• write a card • eat some cake

• spin phone • mince cat • stroke tea • wallow

• write To Do list for tomorrow

QUOTE(S):  “Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy Susan. One day it is heavy and underwater, and the next day it spins and stops at loud and rageful, and the next day at wounded keening, and the next day at numbness, silence.” ~ Anne Lamott

"And in the quiet, I hear the echo of your absence.  In the stillness, in the silence, my heart aches with emptiness.  Loss is so loud.  Oh, loss is so loud." ~ Liz Newman

“When you meet someone in deep grief, slip off your shoes and set them by the door.  Enter barefoot, this darkened chapel hollowed by loss, hallowed by sorrow, its grey stone walls and floor.  You, congregation of one, are here to listen, not to sing.  Kneel in the back pew, make no sound, let the candles speak.” ~ Patricia McKernon Runkle

"What greater grief can there be for mortals than to see their children dead." ~ Euripedes 

Simple Gifts (Yo-Yo Ma & Alison Krauss)

Some of you will be getting this in the mail in the next few days; I need to unearth my holiday cards first... 🤣

Dear Friend – 

On Tuesday, December 26, it will be three months since Eric died.  My two overarching emotions are Heartbreak and Disbelief.  It is impossible (Unimaginable) to think he is never coming back.  And so I persist with my Grief Journey.  I am learning all I can about loss and healing and the (non-linear) Five Stages.  It eases my heart, and maybe I can help others in the future (although I don’t wish this tragic situation on anyone).  It is a lonely path, but it is also a road of gratitude and support and love and luck and blessings.

Adrift by Mark Nepo

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.

This is how the heart makes a duet of

wonder and grief. The light spraying

through the lace of the fern is as delicate

as the fibers of memory forming their web

around the knot in my throat. The breeze

makes the birds move from branch to branch

as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost

in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh

of the next stranger. In the very center, under

it all, what we have that no one can take

away and all that we’ve lost face each other.

It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured

by a holiness that exists inside everything.

I am so sad and everything is beautiful.

I’ve always talked about, but never implemented, a Christmas with no physical gifts, inspired by the Five Hands meme:  handmade… hand-me-down… secondhand… helping hand (donate)… hand-in-hand (spend time together).  What better time to follow through on a new tradition than this year… our First Noel without Eric?  I know that I don’t *need* any more things, and I’m guessing “stuff” might be a low priority in your life too.  My goal is to replace “stuff” with experiences.

I am sending this to friends with whom I usually exchange gifts, and I hope I’ve caught you in time (probably not, given my chronic tardiness!).  Please do not buy me anything; the generous gift of your friendship is enough.  Let’s vow to cross paths with each other more often in 2024… share more authentic and deep conversations… check in Just Because… remember how our connection began, and why it continues… encourage each other to focus on Radical Self-Care… remind each other to live intentionally and mindfully… be aware that life as we know it can change in the Blink of an Eye.

My Christmas 2023 present for you is:

(and I will fill in the blanks here...)

Happy Holidays, and So. Much. Love. Always… 🎅🎄🎁

SONG:  Simple Gifts, covered by Yo-Yo Ma & Alison Krauss

BOOK:  Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year: a little book of festive joy by Beth Kempton

POEM(S):  A Gift by Denise Levertov

Just when you seem to yourself

nothing but a flimsy web

of questions, you are given

the questions of others to hold

in the emptiness of your hands,

songbird eggs that can still hatch

if you keep them warm,

butterflies opening and closing themselves

in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure

their scintillant fur, their dust.

You are given the questions of others

as if they were answers

to all you ask. Yes, perhaps

this gift is your answer. 

Meditation by Jay Leeming

You’re trying to meditate. Cushion

beneath you, eyes slightly open,

breath growing calm and steady.

But there are sounds, distractions,

thoughts: the distant highway,

a blue jay announcing himself,

a car starting down the block.

Always the struggle to pull attention

back to breath, to let each thought

go, not to cling or to keep

but to let it drop like a stone

fallen from your hand. And at times

you manage to stumble briefly

into peacefulness. But then

amid breath and highway and birdsong

you hear something else: the rumble

of a large truck, a sound growing louder

as it rounds the corner, creaks,

then pulls up maybe a half-block away.

The engine shudders into silence.

Footsteps in the street, stray words

you can’t make out, the slam of doors.

More words, a pause, and then the kick

and climbing roar of a wood-chipper

settling in to its raw throne of noise.

The quiet shreds and scatters

with the blow, then re-shapes itself

into a steady grinding drone.

And now comes the crack and shatter

of branches fed into it, the buzz

of tree-limbs being ground to dust.

You wrestle your attention back

to your breath as the tree is fed

into the machine. And hours later

when the workers have gone

and the street is quiet again it happens

without a thought, as while walking

down the block you simply find yourself

there, beside the stump, noticing

how it has been cut nearly level

with the ground so that you can count

the rings, and kneeling down

beside it you begin to count them,

rings of a tree probably thirty

or forty years old, and around you

sawdust scattered in the grass,

a few scraps of leaf, and over your head

an empty space left in the air.

QUOTE(S):  "Joy appears now in the little things. The big themes remain tragic but a leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the taste of coffee. Joy accompanied me as I walked to the press. The secret of joy is the mastery of pain." ~ Anaïs Nin

"Through the empty branches the sky remains.  It is what you have." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

"Brave birds still fly through fog." ~ anonymous 7th grader

“I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing – their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives. They speak subjectively, they argue less, there are longer pauses. To sit alone without any electric light is curiously creative. I have my best ideas at dawn or at nightfall, but not if I switch on the lights – then I start thinking about projects, deadlines, demands, and the shadows and shapes of the house become objects, not suggestions, things that need to be done, not a background to thought.” ―Jeanette Winterson

"For it is in giving that we receive." ~ St. Francis of Assisi 

Christmas in the Trenches (John McCutcheon)

Last night we presented John McCutcheon in our second-Saturday-of-the-month concert series - words fail me!

As one of our attendees posted to our local folk list:

I have heard John McCutcheon's music for years and experienced his opening address at Folk Alliance a few years ago. His talent, wit, and intellect always commanded my respect. But, I must confess, sitting three rows from the stage provided a vantage point on this remarkable individual. From his opening banjo and narrative on Bascar Lamar Lunsford, McCutcheon captivated us. He is a skilled and consummate musician, playing banjo, guitar, hammer dulcimer, autoharp, piano, unaccompanied vocal, and spoken word. His stage presence combines charisma with a natural, folksy style. He impresses as a very real, sincere, humorous, and outspoken fellow.

I wrote earlier in the week that this impending concert had me extremely anxious - I could not have been proven more wrong. John was accessible, gracious and down-to-earth, the entire show (from stories to songs) was captivating and polished and the room was full with an appreciative audience - the evening was bliss, and I glowed and floated my way home... :-)

My running pre-concert PR gag was... John McCutcheon is such a legend that his website is folkmusic.com - check it out to see when he's coming to a town near you... and then go, go, go!

Today I'm showcasing one of John's most famous songs, a tune he said last night that he's asked to play year-round, despite its Christmastime theme - it has become a classic (rightfully so) and is on my holiday mix this year...

For the backstory of the 1914 Christmas truce, see here... and here...

P.S. Another SMM...

SONG: Christmas in the Trenches by John McCutcheon

BOOK: Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce by Stanley Weintraub

POEM: In California During the Gulf War by Denise Levertov

Among the blight-killed eucalypts, among
trees and bushes rusted by Christmas frosts,
the yards and hillsides exhausted by five years of drought,

certain airy white blossoms punctually
reappeared, and dense clusters of pale pink, dark pink—
a delicate abundance. They seemed

like guests arriving joyfully on the accustomed
festival day, unaware of the year's events, not perceiving
the sackcloth others were wearing.

To some of us, the dejected landscape consorted well
with our shame and bitterness. Skies ever-blue,
daily sunshine, disgusted us like smile-buttons.

Yet the blossoms, clinging to thin branches
more lightly than birds alert for flight,
lifted the sunken heart

even against its will.
But not
as symbols of hope: they were flimsy
as our resistance to the crimes committed

—again, again—in our name; and yes, they return,
year after year, and yes, they briefly shone with serene joy
over against the dark glare

of evil days. They are, and their presence
is quietness ineffable—and the bombings are, were,
no doubt will be; that quiet, that huge cacophany

simultaneous. No promise was being accorded, the blossoms
were not doves, there was no rainbow. And when it was claimed
the war had ended, it had not ended.

QUOTE: "People can't concentrate properly on blowing other people to pieces if their minds are poisoned by thoughts suitable to the twenty-fifth of December." ~ Ogden Nash

There (Michael Smith)

I am presenting the extremely talented and very dear Sam Pacetti at my concert series this evening - Sam's personal and musical experiences in the last decade have only served to make his music that much more soulful and heartfelt. In the words of Andrew Calhoun:

"Sam Pacetti's first CD, Solitary Travel, was released nearly ten years ago, when he was 22. It got airplay on NPR, Sam was voted best new artist at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, everything was in place for a grander success, and... Pacetti disappeared. Well, not if you lived in St. Augustine, Florida, where he performs Monday nights at the Mill Top Tavern, and there was an occasional Southern festival gig. He hung some drywall and did some surfing, but the real journey involves the simple truth that no matter how much the world loves you, if you don't love yourself you have no home. His latest recording [Union, with Gabe Valla] reflects that journey, through loss and rapture and loves too fragile to survive, all the more passionately embraced... stating so elegantly that all we need for love and wonder is already in our hands. Yes, indeed. And welcome home."

Sam does a stunning version of my blog-titled song, and I intend to request it this evening - I made a compilation CD for my husband on our 27 (or 28th) wedding anniversary of love songs... not the typical "moon/spoon/June" variety but more like the "it ain't easy, baby, but it's ours" philosophy of Brian Joseph's Cal's Chevy (also on the mix).

Included too is Johnsmith's Iris Blue, which I've always related to since our anniversary is in September as well, and my favorite flowers are daisies (not roses) - on a related note, John wrote an incredible song for/about Dave Carter, not too long after Dave's death, and I requested it last night. He said he'd recently been performing it as a spoken word piece so as to focus on the lyrics - I told him that, although I'd always liked the melody, I truly thought it was more powerful without (who knew?... :-)

John also shared a very cool story with me - last year he played a house concert series in Lawrence, Kansas and the hosts told him that one of the locals asked if she could come by and visit with John alone before the concert. Turned out it was Elise (Dave Carter's sister), who said she wanted to meet and thank him for the loving tribute to her brother - she gifted John with a beautiful Buddhist bell that had belonged to Dave... and they both cried...

So much live music, so little time - love, in all its diverse and delightful incarnations, abounds...

SONG: There by Michael Smith

BOOK: The Truth About Love: The Highs, the Lows, and How You Can Make It Last Forever by Dr. Patricia Love

POEM: Scraps of Moon by Denise Levertov

Scraps of moon

bobbing discarded on broken water

but sky-moon

complete, transcending

all violation

Here she seems to be talking to herself about

the shape of a life:

Only Once

All which, because it was

flame and song and granted us

joy, we thought we'd do, be, revisit,

turns out to have been what it was

that once, only; every invitation

did not begin

a series, a build-up: the marvelous

did not happen in our lives, our stories

are not drab with its absence: but don't

expect to return for more. Whatever more

there will be will be

unique as those were unique. Try

to acknowledge the next

song in its body-halo of flames as utterly

present, as now or never.

QUOTE: "Infatuation is when you think he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford - but you'll take him anyway." ~ Judith Viorst

Yes We Can (will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas)

The following article has been sitting in my inbox for the past two weeks... and the YouTube video (lyrics on the right-side) arrived only hours ago - seems as if they were MFEO (Made For Each Other in Sleepless in Seattle-speak), eh?... :-)

To think one of these candidates will end up as the Democratic Party nominee is amazing, and the fact one could very well choose the other as a running mate is beyond gratifying - talk about the ultimate win-win (yes we can!).

The woman vs. the black guy
Who's more terrifying to red states, smart Hillary or savvy Barack? The nation trembles
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, January 16, 2008

It's the question everyone seems to want to address, the imponderable and frightening and slightly insane sociopolitical phenomenon that's happening right now to such a degree that even the left is falling all over itself trying to digest and parse and comprehend it all at once, and simply can't.

It is this: Just how the hell did it come to pass and which planets finally aligned and what sort of Kool-Aid has been gulped by the universe that the two white-hot Dem frontrunners, the two brightest lights on the political spectrum for the 2008 presidential election also just so happen to be members of the two most controversial/least represented groups in modern uber-white ultra-patriarchal American snake-oil politics — which is to say, a smart, savvy woman and a smart, savvy black male?

It's a stunning thing to watch. Right now, the various spurts of venom aimed at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama from conservative pundits and politicos are, at best, scattershot and convulsive, with only MSNBC's Chris Matthews proving himself to be a consistent blowhard jackass in his relentless slamming of Hillary by claiming that she only made it this far due to adultery-survivor sympathy. Hey, Chris? 2001 called. It wants its puerile, sexist analysis back. Thank you.

Yes indeed, the sexism that surrounds Clinton's run like a toxic fog is almost too easy to spot. (Fox News is, naturally, fueling its entire 2008 programming schedule with it.) It is de facto, built-in, implied and inherent in the coverage of just about everything she does, and what's most amazing to me is that people are still surprised that the sexism is there at all, much less so apparent and shameless.

To which I can only reply: I'm sorry, did you somehow miss the last seven years of brutal, testosterone-drunk war-sucking macho neocon hell? Did your noise-canceling headphones somehow block out the sound of those 10,000 tiny, clashing penises, banging like Satan's own baby rattle all the way from Osama's cave to the Oval Office to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's gay fetish dungeon in downtown Tehran?

Because truly, while a record number of women currently serve in Congress, Washington is still very much an inbred old-boy's network, so deeply entrenched in ancient male power structures and so drunk on stagnant machismo and so poisoned by the Christian right's woman-in-her-place mentality, it will require a couple more decades and a few hundred more dead southern congressmen before the innate sexism finally fades to a tolerable scar.

(Actually, at the moment, it's tough to tell which aspect the right hates more about Hillary: the fact that she's a woman or the fact that she's a Clinton. I think it's a lethal mix of both, the unconscionable right-wing double whammy, insult added to injury and all resulting in a liberal vagina monologue the misogynistic right is simply not ready to hear.)

As for Obama, well, he's not so easy. The inherent racism simmering all over Bush Nation right now over his, um, Negro-ness? Blackitude? Really good tan? (they don't know what to call it, safely) is decidedly more subtle, more insidious, less acceptable as public display than flat-out, everyday Chris Matthews-grade sexism, and therefore, not so easy to spot. Not yet, anyway.

So far, no one on the right really seems to know the best way to play the race card against Obama. Not that they won't try. Will they go after the drug thing? Paint him as a friend to scary hip-hop thug rappers? Resort to saying 'Obama' and 'Osama' in the same sentence so as to confuse the same red state knuckle-draggers who still believe Saddam orchestrated 9/11? Hard to tell. But rest assured, they'll find a way.

Or, you know, maybe they won't. After all, the right has its own heaping bucket of problems right now, not the least of which is the weakest and craziest and least palatable field of GOP contenders in 50 years. There's the chipper creationist nutball who loves him some Chuck Norris, the stupefied Mormon mannequin who simply cannot believe the world is so icky and complicated, the doddering Iraq-loving war vet who seems to be getting more unstable by the minute, and the cross-dressing former New York mayor who has "9/11" tattooed on his ego in fake blood. And oh yes, a zany old anti-choice libertarian who somehow keeps raising piles of cash and sending fascinating postcards from the edge of political reason. Cool!

Perhaps this is the best news of all. The right is a fractured, inchoate mess, with the once Karl Rove-unified evangelical core now gloriously splintered and disillusioned and completely unsure where to turn to find a candidate who will hate gays and slam women's rights and mistrust foreigners as much as Bush promised, but never completely delivered. They can't yet attack Obama because they're too busy destroying themselves.

But I'm most amazed/amused at the one big question that keeps hovering over the media and infiltrating the political blogs — does all this excitement over Hillary and Barack mean the nation is finally ready for a female president? A black president? Have we, at long last, come so far that a guy like John Edwards, an excellent, likable, all-around candidate and a classic populist southern Democrat, actually finishes third?

The answer, I'm afraid, is no, we are not ready. Not by a long shot.

This is the big, astounding myth. See, "ready" would imply we've more or less eliminated the sexism and at least come to terms with the racism, and therefore neither is much of a factor in the slightest. It's a bit like asking if America is finally ready to rid itself of its toxic love of guns and strips malls and numb Christian groupthink. In other words, if you have to ask, we ain't.

However, we do seem to be at this weird flash point, a privileged moment in political history where the anti-Bush recoil has become so potent and the right-wing collapse is so profound and the women/youth vote (at least at the moment) seems so invigorated that it all might coalesce just right and catapult a woman or a black male into the presidency, despite the hardcore misogyny and racism built like a cancer into the framework of this nation. Hey, stranger things have happened.

Look at it this way: Much in the same way Bush whored Sept. 11 to drag the nation to its lowest emotional, fiscal and political point in 100 years, so could the new wave of enraged, inspired voters leverage the Bush nightmare itself to bounce us as far as possible in the other direction. Hell, it could be even weirder than that: Hillary or Obama wins the nomination, chooses the other as running mate. Talk about your perfect liberal storm.

Are we ready for it? Doesn't matter. Quit asking what amounts to a dispiriting, futile question, and let's go find out.

SONG: Yes We Can by will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas (will.i.am's comments on the writing of the song)

BOOK: The Politics of Hope: Reviving the Dream of Democracy by Donna Zajonc

POEM: Beginners by Denise Levertov

Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralla

"From too much love of living,

Hope and desire set free,

Even the weariest river

Winds somewhere to the sea-"

But we have only begun

To love the earth.

We have only begun

To imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?

- so much is in bud.

How can desire fail?

- we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,

only begun to envision

how it might be

to live as siblings with beast and flower,

not as oppressors.

Surely our river

cannot already be hastening

into the sea of nonbeing?

Surely it cannot

drag, in the silt,

all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet

-there is too much broken

that must be mended,

too much hurt we have done to each other

that cannot yet be forgiven.

We have only begun to know

the power that is in us if we would join

our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

So much is unfolding that must

complete its gesture,

so much is in bud.

QUOTE: A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night and a bright, infinite future." ~ Leonard Bernstein, The New York Times, 30 October 1988

True North (Stephanie Corby)

I've always been drawn to the compass as metaphor - obviously, so have many of the musical artists with whom I'm familiar, as evidenced by the following song lyrics ("and you know, there may be more", as Joni sings in Cactus Tree... :-)
"Guiding a ship, it takes more than your skill
It's the compass inside, it's the strength of your will"
~ We Learned the Sea, Dar Williams

"In this world you've a soul for a compass
And a heart for a pair of wings"
~ Why Walk When You Can Fly, Mary Chapin Carpenter

"Not counting the unmarked paths of misdirection
My compass, faith in love's perfection"
~ Love's Recovery, The Indigo Girls

"But like a compass seeking north (seeking north)
There lives in me a still, sure, spirit part."
~ Compass, David Crosby

"i'm the ferdinand magellan of these parts
i'm just acting on a hunch
i'm following my compass in the dark"
~ Following My Compass, Kristen Hall

"That the north you find will be true
When there's no information
And the compass turns to nowhere that you know well"
~ Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot, Sting

"And that's all yours, that's the guide, that's the map
So tell me, where does the arrow point to?
Who invented roses?" [Susan's note: i.e., a compass rose]
~ What Do You Hear in These Sounds, Dar Williams

SONG: True North by Stephanie Corby

BOOK: Your Soul's Compass: What Is Spiritual Guidance? by Joan Z. Borysenko

POEM: Stepping Westward by Denise Levertov

What is green in me
darkens, muscadine.
If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.
If her part
is to be true,
a north star,
good, I hold steady
in the black sky
and vanish by day,
yet burn there
in blue or above
quilts of cloud.
There is no savor
more sweet, more salt
that to be glad to be
what, woman,
and who, myself,
I am, a shadow
that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out
on a thread of wonder.

QUOTE: "Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me." ~ Ayn Rand