It's [My] Birthday Today! (Epic Birthday Songs)

Posting this at 12:01 a.m., August 5, my 66th birthday.  When the f*ck did that happen?!?

Like New Year's Eve, each new trip around the sun is always a time of reflection and introspection for me, "attempting to figure out the circuitous journey I call my life: where I've been, where I am, where I'm going and who will be my traveling companions, continued or new", as I say in my blog profile.  From surrendering the Labyrinth Cafe concert series in May 2019... retiring from my office job in June 2019... and this f*cking pandemic since mid-March 2020, it's been a h*lluva year.  I have retreated, recalibrated, and regrouped.  "First World Problems" is my new mantra.  

I find myself being more direct and honest than I usually am... expressing my true feelings when something is on my mind... reaching out to make amends, repair relationships, and/or bridge distances.  We just don't know where we're headed with all of this.  Maybe part of my thought process is because my mom's passing was 11 years ago last month, and my sister, brother and I prided ourselves on not having any woulda/coulda/shouldas.  Also, as I am fond of saying, I am still 19 until I pass a mirror... ;-)

With nothing important, time-consuming, or deadline-driven to deal with, I am floundering a bit to re-find my place in the world and reclaim my worth.  I used to be so busy (to the point of ridiculousness; dare I say frenzied?) and I am not that anymore.  Whew.  Replacing that with radical self-care is not easy, when I am usually The One Who Organizes and Nurtures.  Struggling to find the balance, and it is necessary that I do. [Yo, Adriene!  Sorry that I quit ya.  Back in the cat/cow/downward-dog/pigeon/eagle/tree/cobra/Happy Baby/corpse saddle tomorrow!]

So... most of you know I deactivated my Facebook account on New Year's Eve 2019, and I haven't really missed it, other than the amazing book discussion group RWA (Readers With Attitude) that provided me with stimulation, inspiration, and hilarity... as well as excellent recommendations.

This will be my first birthday without social media, and I do confess that I will be feeling the void of the day-long deluge of well-wishes, memes, and sweet thoughts from friends and family.  Normally I honestly don't care if anyone comments on my blog, as I've always thought of it as a journal, an exercise in creativity, a way to blow off my monkey-mind steam.

Today, however, I want to ask a favor of all of you.  I am a Leo, and birthdays (all celebrations, actually) are a big deal.  We joke about having a Birth Month! 

At some point, if you are reading this, could you please:

~ wish me a Happy Birthday in the Comments box below (moderated, so it might not show up right away!)

and, if you're up to it, let me know:

~ what you're reading now, OR
~ a favorite book you've recently read, OR
~ a book you look forward to reading, OR
~ none of the above (and that's okay, too... :-)

Given this ongoing COVID Chaos, it would really mean a lot.  Thanks in advance for celebrating with me, and much love always... 💖

NR:  Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (starting at 12:02 a.m., I'm going to read all f*cking day, about as guilty a pleasure as I can imagine!  Maybe I'll even stay in my nightgown... or my bathing suit, if it's a nice day... ☀


SONG:  It's Your Birthday Today, Susan! by Epic Birthday Songs (you really *must* click on the link.  Many viewings later, I am still laughing so hard I am crying!)

BOOK:  Leo: Harness the Power of the Zodiac by Stella Andromeda

POEM:  On the Eve of a Birthday by Timothy Steele

As my Scotch, spared the water, blondly sloshes
About its tumbler, and gay manic flame
Is snapping in the fireplace, I grow youthful:
I realize that calendars aren’t truthful
And that for all of my grand unsuccesses
External causes are to blame.

And if at present somewhat destitute,
I plan to alter, prove myself more able,
And suavely stroll into the coming years
As into rooms with thick rugs, chandeliers,
And colorfully pyramided fruit
On linened lengths of table.

At times I fear the future won’t reward
My failures with sufficient compensation,
But dump me, aging, in a garret room
Appointed with twilit, slant-ceilinged gloom
And a lone bulb depending from a cord
Suggestive of self-strangulation.

Then, too, I have bad dreams, in one of which
A cowled, scythe-bearing figure beckons me.
Dark plains glow at his back: it seems I’ve died,
And my soul, weighed and judged, has qualified
For an extended, hyper-sultry hitch
Down in eternity.

Such fears and dreams, however, always pass.
And gazing from my window at the dark,
My drink in hand, I’m jauntily unbowed.
The sky’s tiered, windy galleries stream with cloud,
And higher still, the dazed stars thickly mass
In their long Ptolemaic arc.

What constellated powers, unkind or kind,
Sway me, what far preposterous ghosts of air?
Whoever they are, whatever our connection,
I toast them (toasting also my reflection),
Not minding that the words which come to mind
Make the toast less toast than prayer:

Here’s to the next year, to the best year yet;
To mixed joys, to my harum-scarum prime;
To auguries reliable and specious;
To times to come, such times being precious,
If only for the reason that they get
Shorter all the time.

QUOTE(S):  "Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!" ~ Dr. Seuss

"Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words." ~ Plautus

"We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be." ~ Lauren Hutton

The Christians and the Pagans (Dar Williams)

The solstice when the Sun's position in the sky is at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane as the observer, is the winter solstice. Depending on the shift of the calendar, the event of the Winter solstice occurs sometime between December 20 and 23 each year in the Northern hemisphere, and between June 20 and 23 in the Southern Hemisphere, within either the shortest day or the longest night of the year. Though the Winter Solstice lasts an instant, the term is also used to refer to the full day and night (24hrs) within which the event occurs. A more accurate usage might be the "day of the winter solstice" or the "night of/before the winter solstice".

Winter Solstice is a controversial subject, since it is sometimes said to astronomically mark the beginning or middle of a hemisphere's Winter and so there is much argument about when it starts. Winter is a subjective term, so there is no scientifically established beginning or middle of winter but Winter Solstice is clearly defined.

The word solstice derives from Latin sol (Sun) and sistere (stand still), Winter Solstice meaning Sun stand still in winter.

More here...

Saturday, Dec. 22, 1:08 a.m. EST, marks the solstice this year - however, since we'll be on the road then, I wanted to honor the occasion (and Dar's phenomenal ability to blend the two belief systems) today...

SONG: The Christians and the Pagans by Dar Williams

BOOK: The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas by John Matthews

POEM: Toward the Winter Solstice by Timothy Steele

Although the roof is just a story high,
It dizzies me a little to look down.
I lariat-twirl the cord of Christmas lights
And cast it to the weeping birch’s crown;
A dowel into which I’ve screwed a hook
Enables me to reach, lift, drape, and twine
The cord among the boughs so that the bulbs
Will accent the tree’s elegant design.

Friends, passing home from work or shopping, pause
And call up commendations or critiques.
I make adjustments. Though a potpourri
Of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Sikhs,
We all are conscious of the time of year;
We all enjoy its colorful displays
And keep some festival that mitigates
The dwindling warmth and compass of the days.

Some say that L.A. doesn’t suit the Yule,
But UPS vans now like magi make
Their present-laden rounds, while fallen leaves
Are gaily resurrected in their wake;
The desert lifts a full moon from the east
And issues a dry Santa Ana breeze,
And valets at chic restaurants will soon
Be tending flocks of cars and SUVs.

And as the neighborhoods sink into dusk
The fan palms scattered all across town stand
More calmly prominent, and this place seems
A vast oasis in the Holy Land.
This house might be a caravansary,
The tree a kind of cordial fountainhead
Of welcome, looped and decked with necklaces
And ceintures of green, yellow, blue, and red.

Some wonder if the star of Bethlehem
Occurred when Jupiter and Saturn crossed;
It’s comforting to look up from this roof
And feel that, while all changes, nothing’s lost,
To recollect that in antiquity
The winter solstice fell in Capricorn
And that, in the Orion Nebula,
From swirling gas, new stars are being born.

QUOTE: "I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys." ~ Charles Dickens