New Year's Day (U2)

I admit to being a woo woo woo wee kinda person - there is not much I disbelieve, as there are so many things our brain does not/cannot process about the universe. I'm fine in accepting the fact some phenomena is just unexplainable - the mystery, in my opinion, makes it all the more powerful and intriguing. I don't have to have *proof* - I trust my intuition, even more so in the last decade...

A few nights ago I was packing away the Christmas CDs until next year, and ran across a mix that J (my co-worker who passed away mid-June) had made and given to another co-worker the prior Christmas, who then dubbed a copy for me - I hadn't had a chance to play it over the holidays, and was curious, given J's fun and eccentric taste in music and since there was no tracklist, as to exactly what he had included on his compilation.

When I began listening on my kitchen boombox, I broke into a broad grin - in the three months we worked together, most of our conversation revolved around our shared passion for music... and I recognized so many of his favorites represented: Cyndi Lauper, The Go Go's, Barbra. As I skipped from song to song, hearing about 30 seconds of each, I began to notice a very distinct change in the air in the room - it was the smell I had experienced when we visited J in the hospital room, just a few hours before his death. To tell you the truth, it was an extremely unpleasant odor, but it was distinctive, such that I will always associate it with J - it was how he could identify himself to me in my kitchen and I knew he was there... and I was comforted...

SONG: New Year's Day by U2

BOOK: If the Spirit Moves You: Life and Love After Death by Justine Picardie

POEM: New Year's Day Nap by Coleman Barks

Fiesta Bowl on low.

My son lying here on the couch

on the "Dad" pillow he made for me

in the Seventh Grade. Now a sophomore

at Georgia Southern, driving back later today,

he sleeps with his white top hat over his face.

I'm a dancin' fool.

Twenty years ago, half the form

he sleeps within came out of nowhere

with a million micro-lemmings who all died but one

piercer of membrane, specially picked to start a brainmaking,

egg-drop soup, that stirred two sun and moon centers

for a new-painted sky in the tiniest

ballroom imaginable.

Now he's rousing, six feet long,

turning on his side. Now he's gone.

QUOTE: "No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam." ~ Charles Lamb

What Do You Love More Than Love (Dar Williams)

Goddess bless friends who listen... and love... and fear... and desire... and give... and fall... and grow... and dream... and question... and dance... and trust... and tell the truth - thanks, M, for last night's dear and deep conversation... <3

SONG: What Do You Love More Than Love by Dar Williams

BOOK: Walk with Spirit: A Native American Approach to Spirituality by Susan Thomas Underwood

POEM: The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for

and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool

for love

for your dream

for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow

if you have been opened by life’s betrayals

or have become shrivelled and closed

from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain

mine or your own

without moving to hide it

or fade it

or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy

mine or your own

if you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes

without cautioning us

to be careful

to be realistic

to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal

and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless

and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty

even when it is not pretty

every day.

And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure

yours and mine

and still stand at the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon,“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me

to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up

after the night of grief and despair

weary and bruised to the bone

and do what needs to be done

to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand

in the centre of the fire

with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom

you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you

from the inside

when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself

and if you truly like the company you keep

in the empty moments.

QUOTE: “How do you listen? Do you listen with your projections, through your projection, through your ambitions, desire, fears, anxieties, through hearing only what you want to hear, only what will be satisfactory, what will gratify, what will give comfort, what will for the moment alleviate your suffering? If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice.” - J. Krishnamurti