The Moment of Meaning

There comes a time in every ones life I think that sets its tone. What tone you may ask? I say the tone that defines your "life path" and for that matter your very existence.

I have been extremely lucky in my life to have had so many positive associations and involvements, so many people that have touched my life so deeply and sincerely. I believe that when one finally connects to life you feel the energy of a million or more Galaxies colliding in unison and giving birth, if you will, to your own reality.

Sometime, a long time ago, I found myself afloat on a sea of introspection, a place of indecision and a time of confusion. What was it that sparked that turn around, that decision to decide, that entrance into my "me"? Maybe it was the happiness of a summers day spent with a fond friend, a night spent with a special lover, or maybe just the fact that I had in fact so many options in my life I thought that they would never run out. If only I could just make one of them real. Enter then reality, the moment of meaning, the ultimate end to the quest, my connection to my "other half".

Now it would seem that from the ultimate would come total satisfaction but not so. We are after all creatures of creation and thus are compelled to a life of endless evolution, that is until we can no longer evolve or do not desire to do so. Eventually I feel there is a gateway, a pass or a window that opens in the end to yet another tomorrow of unending beginnings, and those beginnings become an end unto themselves. So on we go forever forward ever searching for another moment of meaning.

Would that I could fill my tomorrows with all the joys of the past then I could surely fly to the summit once again and bath in the pure sunshine of endless love itself and find true happiness in its embrace.

Single is as Single Does

A friend recently asked me "what do you consider the best part about being single". My answer was "not much". Perhaps being single and alone affords you the opportunity to get more into yourself and then again it also affords with opportunity to do things that you would never do if you had a significant other. Now, I know that there are many who say that they are better alone, and that is fine but not me I fear.

I have always enjoyed having a partner, someone that I could love and take care of. Someone who would in turn cherish me as well. I had that dream come true not just once but several times in my life and in varying degrees of satisfaction. The first and the last were the best and I can most assuredly tell you that I don't count on another great love - but then again one never knows.

The thing to remember is that while opportunities present themselves to us every day there are precious few that really deserve our full attention. My grandmother used to tell me that "the best way to live you life is to respect yourself and take care of your mind and body as if it where your only dwelling" because it is. She said to me that if you I didn't take care of myself no one else would and if I were not happy with myself no one else would be either.

You see, you can't take care of another if you are not strong and secure within yourself. It is like someone trying to run a race without being prepared. Now, once you are strong and secure then the world can be yours. The main thing to consider at that point is what do you want out of life.

Another pearl of wisdom from my grandmother was this, "you can do what ever you like in life as long as you don't hurt someone else". Be kind and caring. Be gentle but strong, and most of all live life in the present not the past or future, because the past is gone and future might not be; but the present is precious because it is here and now.

So live life in the moment and cherish it for what it is - our only opportunity to get it right!

Happy Valentine's Day

The Road to Idyllwild

There are three ways to approach the mountain. The first and most direct is the "Tram" or cable car that assaults the shear granite face and lifts you upward like a mountain goat fleeing from a bobcat in search of sanctuary. Once you leave the ground you are transported through layers of life zones from arid desert to airy pine trees, from sunny and 70 to blustery winter blizzard perhaps. It is a dramatic and awesome spectacle always.

The second approach is the Pines to Palms highway. A winding and windswept way to motor to the top. For the first few miles you will find yourself transfixed at the steering wheel negotiating the hair pin curves and jagged granite cliffs as you make your way to the first valley. All of a sudden you are transported to another time. A peaceful and placid valley where it seems like time forgot. Sleepy little ranches and cabins scattered across the landscape like fragments of the mountain itself.

Leaving the lost valley we are now entering into what I call the "pine zone". You could now be in Colorado or Switzerland, or in fact any mountain locale on the planet. Funny how nature does not discriminate when climate dictates. I have always been enamored with alpine environments. There is something so serene among the evergreens in the cloud forests. The air is light and pure having been cleaned and scented by the peaceful pines. One almost feels like this could be heaven.

The third approach to mountain is the more tranquil trail up the windward side. While no less menacing to maneuver this side is more placid with it's miles of shaded and pine lined pavement. Here you will pass by sleepy cottages clinging to cliffs of green covered granite and a lazy, misted lake that looks to be primordial. I would expect to find ancient creatures wandering through the dense thickets. Then onward and upward to the pinnacle.

The top of the mountain is majestic in it's magnitude. For here you can see forever. It is both awesome and awe inspiring. It is a place that I could dwell for many seasons and the place that I find to be closest to heaven.

Everytime I make the journey to the mountain I find it to be unique and special. Whether I impatiently storm the mountain on the Tram or seduce it on the Pines to Palms Highway, or meander my way up the lush and lonely windward slope; what matters in the end is the destination. However we get to our nirvana is pretty much up to us because every day is a little different after all.

The Hummingbird & the Eagle

One day while sitting in the desert sunshine I noticed a hummingbird buzzing his way past my head on a quest for nourishment. I thought to myself how curious that he should be so hurried in his plight. Wouldn't he be better off to take life a little slower? Than he might not need so much energy. But that is not the nature of the hummingbird, rather his nature is to be hurried or his wings could not support his flight. At once I saw a majestic eagle riding the warm desert currents in his search for sustenance, a much easier way to hunt I thought.

Maybe that is part of the human condition. Perhaps we, in order to sport our life styles, must rush hurriedly to and fro until we cannot anymore bare it. Would I than rather be the eagle who rides on the wind and floats above the hills and mountains, surveying my kingdom until opportunity presents itself?

There are always choices to be made I fear and depending on the moment need to be determined. My grandmother once told me that good comes to those who wait but I have found that sometimes it must be sought out as well. Maybe life itself is only a venue of choices much like a parlor game, and depending on what you desire so goes the game.

Sitting in the desert sunshine is in itself a decision that I made many years ago. It became my venue, and vehicle if you will, to regain my energy and sanity for that matter. A place and time " to lay my head upon the grass and listen to it grow" so to speak. We all have our own venues and vehicles for work and for rest. Maybe they are not perfect in their creation but they are in fact of our making. So I though to myself, yes I think that I would be the eagle. Why not? After all he is regal and rides on the wind. But then again the hummingbird might just be happier in his microcosm and less stressed?

The Dream Catcher

There is a "dream catcher" that hangs over my bed. It was a gift from a very dear friend and it hangs from a Venetian light fixture that my partner and I purchased on one of trips to Italy. I'm sure that Jack would disagree with it's positioning but I have found it to be just right.

You see it is the first thing that I see in the morning and it is the last thing that I see every night. It catches dreams and remembrances of times gone by but it also catches the energies of those moments that time has passed over but not forgotten. Many nights as I lay half awake or half asleep, I can see the memories of my mind caught in it's web and suspended like photographs in an old picture book above me. I wonder how many times I have revisited my life in reflection. I don't think it possible that I could count, but let it be said that it is never too many.

To catch a dream is a wonderful thing and if you haven't tried it you should. You see if you don't catch your dreams they tend to run away and finally they disappear. How sad would it be to lose ones dreams. Dreams are the stuff that life is made of. They are the essence of the universe and the sustenance of the soul.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I dreamed a beautiful dream and it actually came true. Now I am hoping that if I can dream it again it will become real once more. After all what is life if it is not a beautiful dream of our reality?

Squirrel Seeks Sunshine

A gentle snow has begun to fall in Chicago and as I look out of my window onto the deck there is a little red squirrel eating the nuts that I put out for him earlier and a puffed up sparrow is waiting to the side for scraps. It is that time of the year again. As the winter casts its shadow over the city and tightens its icy grip, I find that a brief retreat to desert sunshine is just the thing to help rejuvenate and refresh the new year. More than just a luxury this break in the fast paced, multi tasking society of our time is a necessity.

As I have said before, there is sometime very special about the desert southwest and Palm Springs in particular for me. I don't know if it is the silence of the drifting sands or perhaps the magnetic energy of the surrounding mountains, but either way the effect is one of serene and total relaxation.

I have been coming to the desert now for over 25 years and each time I find it awe inspiring in its majesty. A place like no other I have found, it is a refuge and a revitalizing respite as well. What better way to spend the day than to sit in the shadow of a palm tree and nap by an azure pool or to read a book beside a cactus plant with hummingbirds buzzing around, busy collecting nectar from fragrant blooms. To some it is the ocean that brings them the inner calm they desire but for me it must be the desert for in its vastness I have come to realize true serenity and inner peace.

In another month as the spring draws near and the snows of winter disappear the squirrel and I will meet again. The blossoms on the cherry tree will cautiously start to open and the rhododendron will follow in kind. We will bask again in the Chicago sun and forget that the winter had in fact ever visited - that is until next year ...

To Sleep - Perchance to Dream Again

Today is January 14th, 2011. It has been one year, two months and five hours since my partner Jack, the love of my life and my best friend, left me and I lost my inner child. Even though he still exists in my heart and my soul, and always will, there is a void that cannot be filled nor would I want it to be. That void that we feel when something or someone dear passes should and must become the vessel in which to gather new joys and experiences. A safe place for dreams and memories.

A friend recently asked me if I thought that he would ever experience what I had shared with Jack. I had to tell him no. You see there is this thing in life that occurs only once for each of us if we are lucky. Everyone of us feels it differently. It is a pairing of souls that cannot be denied, a joining of hearts that begin to beat as one; a longing of two entities to exist as one forever, and once it occurs it cannot be again. Much like the moon to the tides or the rivers to the sea, these seasons of the soul are unique and special onto themselves. Would you desire that which is not your own it will never be yours, but if you give yourself to that which is offered you will own it forever.

I have come to conclusion that even though I must except my life for what it is now I must also remember it for what it has been too. A rare and beautiful expression of love fully realized, of life richly lived and of dreams experienced together that will never vanish. With this in hand the journey becomes more palatable and therefore worthy of perseverance.

It is now January 14th, 2011 and it is the beginning of a new decade, a new decade in which I talk alone. Granted there is a lot of love out there, supportive friends and relatives, and of course always the possibility of new relationships. But I think that for the present at least I am feeling just fine ensconced in my warm and comfortable world of dreams and memories. After all it is the place that I have chosen to create and the space in which I exist. It is me after all and I think that my inner child is alive and well again too.

So, to Live? Yes, definitely; to Sleep? Perhaps; But to Dream again? Yes please.

Crystal Reflections of a Winters Day

Sometime around five o'clock on a winters morning in the Midwest my eyes slowly open in anticipation of the new and frosty day. Being born a Midwesterner and grandson of farmer I have always enjoyed the early morning hours. A time in the city when the noise and congestion of the work-a-day-world are, for a few brief hours, still in bed and nature rules.

To walk in the solitude of an early morning snow in Lincoln Park is sublime. To breathe in the freshness of the crystalline air not yet polluted by the machines of the city is a delight. But to be alive and alone in the stark vastness of a metropolis is magical, as if the world has stopped for a moment just for you and allowed you to take a snapshot of your life in suspension.

When I first discovered this morning moment I was surprised at how few others knew of it; almost as if too good to be true the secret remains for those of us who wander alone. Maybe it is a gift from the gods, beings of light and energy, for the dream walkers like me who rely on silence and solitude to recharge and rejuvenate. Or could it be a state of consciousness that exists in all of us at different times of the day, or at different stages of life itself.

For me it is in the winter especially that these moments of crystal reflection can become reality and foreshadow an afterlife where the souls of the noble and righteous dwell in peace and contentment under an eternally starry sky and then at once the warm days sun can melt the icy touch of that moment and fill it with new and vibrant life.

Creating a Tomorrow

When all the noise and clammer of the new year celebrations cease and the crystal clear reality of the new day begins; there is a roaring silence that, which if listened to in sincerity, can make magic happen and anoint us with the blessings of future bliss.

I say this as a veteran of other lives lived and many more realized. For if in this new day, new year, new decade, new millennium we have not finally realized our lot and worth then perhaps it will not. Best we take comfort in our own realities and leave the other to others. After all what is it that has made us where we are. Loves of long ago have formed us and those of not so long have transformed us, but the ones of yesterday linger on like the taste of honey on our lips and give rise to new and more perfect relations.

I have both lived and loved, and will no doubt do so again. But this time is different and may not be better but must in fact be allowed. For if in our abstinence we deny ourselves the pleasures of life then are we not denying our very existence.

So take heart with your heart and let life be lived; for today is for today but tomorrow must of needs be created.

The Snows of Another Decade

Just a day ago we were covered with the snows of another decade; but that evening the rain of the new year washed it away in preparation for the new years day. As the warmth of the day gave way to the cold and clear night skies a choir of voices seemed to surround me; as if embracing me in their song they gave a lightness to my being, gradually lifting me up to a place on high; a space in the heavens were I could feel the essence of that moment in time.

What becomes of us when we experience change? Well in the first place the act of change must either happen to us or be driven by us. In either event however change has occurred and when it does it cannot be easily altered. Therefore we must be careful what we wish for and take care with our new year resolutions as well.

This year, this new decade should and must be filled with the promise of all the abundant love and joy that we can muster. May it ring out loud and long; loud enough to fill the next decade and long enough to carry us there and beyond ... and shouldn't it be the hope of each and every one?