Rainy Days

It is raining and I am sitting on my deck under the awning enjoying the sounds of the rain and the silence it brings with it. The paper lanterns from the "Spring Gathering" are wet and glistening and the Azaleas have lost their bloom, but there is still the feeling of regeneration that comes with the spring and its turmoil.

It is also Memorial Day and some how rain and Memorial Day are synonymous to me. Over the years I remember looking forward to this long anticipated holiday weekend. A weekend that would free me from the chains of education otherwise know as grade school. Only to find that I was once again restrained but this time by nature and her elements.

Life I have found is not necessarily a venue for wishes and desires but rather more a primer for how to live it and a rehearsal for how we end it.

What would you do if everyday could be a day in the sun, if every holiday could be filled to the brim with joy and laughter, and if all your dreams could immediately come true? I have and I must tell you it all exists if you want it to. There is no one else that can conjure it for you. We are the stuff that dreams are made of and it is we who make those dreams.

So then, let me leave you with this. There is a saying that goes "be careful what you wish for because you might just get it". And, if I may, do wish and wish as hard as you can ...

Happy Memorial Day!

Try to remember

In a moment it will be Memorial Day again and with it will come rememberances both joyous and sad. A time to let both the victory's and the defeats of the last years linger on our tongues as either vintage wine or soured grape. But whether we choose to celebrate or regret it is still a time of contemplation and reflection.

Today as I spent a leisurely day with friends in the Pacific Northwest I found myself to be both happy and a little sad. Happy to be so lucky as to be able to enjoy the company of such good friends in such a hauntingly beautiful surround but sad that my time is limited. Maybe, I thought, it is not so much the time and place that is important but rather the intensity of the connection to these emotional ties that makes for the glorious moments that nuture our souls and give us the stuff to fuel our tomorrows.

Perhaps we should not be complacent in our memories but rather active in their regeneration and proliferation. Everyday is a new chance to reach out to both the past and to the future. For by reaching in both directions I have found that I achieve the balance to walk steady through the present day and am reassured that tomorrow will become even more practiced should I choose it to be so. Life is meant to be lived and loved, and savoured and I would not have it any other way.

Today and Tomorrow

I was sitting tonight with friends, and a few new acquaintances, after a long day of eager anticipation and many hours of self analyzation. It reminded me of a day many years ago when I sat similarly in a cafe in Rio de Janeiro. There are Avenues in Rio that act as hubs leading from the beach to home but they are also conduits that keep open the energies that I belive are essential to maintainging a healthy flow. It was at once again a spontaneous gathering of strangers and friends who, for a brief moment in time, connected in the seemingly endless turmoil that is life. This was one of those days that cannot be held to task. A day so light and enlightened that it must revel in it's own magnitude for it has given to me a new lease on what I choose to call my after life.

That moment in time, in Brazil, with that special person must live on and unless I am ready to quite neither will it. There is more to life than the daily "ebb and flow". There is also the accumulation as well as the culmination of all that is and has been good, and will, and should remain alive within us.

So a toast today to us and to they who have illuminated our lives. They who have painted on our canvas with such joy that even after they have gone will most definitely live on with us through our forevers.

A Reflection on Time

What would you say if I told you that time is mostly irrelevant? That what really matters is our perception of it.

When I was a young boy I found that I could extend time by standing still. As a young man I found the way to stretch time was to be complacent. But as an older man I now see that time is the means to an end. Some times it needs to be romanced, to be enjoyed and reveled in whether past, present or in the future for it is a quantity that most assuredly will not always be with us.

Today I sit and remember so many sad and happy times from past adventures and venues that have grown together to weave the fabric of my life. Today and tomorrow I will be venturing into even more rich and wonderful territories, places and experiences that can only add to it and thus embellish it.

I now know that time is a vessel that holds our soul in suspension. It is the pot in which we place the soil of life and nurtures the seeds from which grow our experiences. It catches the waters of emotion and grows our very being.

So let us dance through this day and sing of others. Plant our seeds today so that they can be harvested tomorrow, remembering that we are in fact just children of this universe from which we came and to where we will finally return as star dust.

A Perfect Day

I have always maintained that if one has a positive attitude and is of good spirit than an aurora exists around them which can be see by others and will thus lead to positive encounters ...

It is Cinco de Mayo today three days after my day of perfection. It has been so long that true joy has filtered through my days of desperation but it feels like the touch of an old friend who has returned. A feeling that resonates in both mind and body.

Last Sunday the day began at 6am when I was awakened by the song of birds signing just outside my window. It seems that they already new that this would be an exceptional day, a day that had been so long waited. I had decided to welcome the spring by having an afternoon party and invited friends to join me in the opening of my house and gardens to the season.

The preparations were mostly done. The new fountain was standing strong in the back garden beckoning the robins to join in my celebration and I was rushing around to make sure that everything was perfect. This was the day that our cherry tree usually puts on its coat of blossoms and the rhododendron bursts forth in a profusion of color as if blushing at the spectacle. That was other years however, this year nature bloomed prematurely. Never the less their bloom still resonated in my mind and the azaleas framing the deck and garden more than made up for my disappointment, after all it was still going to be a perfect day.

Than came the gathering, a gathering of friends old and new. Friends that had seen me through this and many other long winters. Friends who bought with them their own blooms of joy to this celebration of life. As the afternoon turned towards twilight the lanterns glow illuminated the deck and the guests began to dwindle. I sat with my entourage and talked of celebrations past, some almost ancient now but none the less decades of joy and laughter that are still alive in the shadows of my mind. Days of light and laughter that do not fade away as long as there is life.

That night my "entourage" and I set out to extend this perfect day not wanting to let it end. I felt as though I was being transported to another perfect day that I remember so vividly 28 years ago when I met my soul mate, the love of my life. With a single glance he had made that day perfect - that was then. But wait, as I stood with my entourage, dressed in my white linens and my straw hat and feeling every bit the part a tall and handsome stranger came out of the crowd and walked towards us. He stopped in front of me and said at once "I like your hat. You are very handsome in it". Was this a perfect end to an already perfect day? I hope not I thought, but it could be the beginning of another.

The Inner Space

There is a time - There is a place
But more than these an inner space

A space so vast and yet so small that in times of need we can build a wall

A wall that protects and isolates

Provides a refuge from ignorance and hate

When the winters of life become too long

We desire to hear the robins song

A song of hope, a song of love

A song that heals us from above

The time is spring, the place is here
The inner space our inner ear
The wall is strength from deep within

The universe is our next of kin

An Early Spring

It is April 16th and I am sitting on our tranquil and sequestered deck watching nature in all it's beauty unfold before me. Although rather early, the Rhododendron and the Cherry Tree are in full bloom and a chubby bumble bee is already eagerly collecting nectar. I have impatiently planted the planters and am looking forward to this new again season.

There is something however that is missing this year. That which in past seasons made it all so special. I still put on my summer face and dress the house and yard with traditions long kept but this time they are a little less important. I think that maybe we take too much for granted in our daily patter and, until it is brought to our attention, fail to realize what we have and how important it is to us. While I will sing of the spring this year again and revel in it's beauty I will also remember springs past. Moments of joy and beauty that will not be here this year but will echo in my memories of them and will press me to journey on to the next season and it's special memories as well. For as long as we press on we are still part of this present.

Step by step we all journey on to the next season. Either gleaning from it joy or rejecting it as sorrow. But in the end it will bring us to a conclusion, an extension or hopefully a reconciliation. What was is no longer and that which might be could still, but that which is truly desired can and will be. As long as the sun shines warm on our face and the soft breeze caresses our hair, the energy is still with us and indeed within us. We carry dreams of a life of experience which like a great book can be conjured up at any moment to comfort and confront life's many challenges.