Human Sacrifices

You know me, the holidays have always held a special place in my heart. Being some where between Buddhist Priest and Druid, I enter into the season with trepidation, never knowing which way to turn. This year, left to my own devices, I decided to go with the pagan motif as it seemed more in touch with my inner self at the moment. So it was a rock crystal mobile dripping down my staircase interspersed with silver snowflakes, white lights and an occasional ornament - kind of Auntie Mame. White poinsettias surround our living room and a silver, white and gold Christmas Tree touched by a smidgen of red for flavor stands proud by the fireplace. The third floor is more sedate with dark red poinsettias as the theme, still to soon for the family tree. Maybe, I thought, a few treasured ornaments and accessories would do but we will see.

Did you ever notice that the holidays seem to bring out the best and the worst in people. If you are in a good place your great, but god forbid that you are in the dumps because it will only get worse. However, there is salvation at hand. I have learned that if you are not in a good place in your head at the holidays the best thing to do is to go somewhere else, physically that is. Yes! Run away!!

I know that you can't run away from life forever but you can run away from Uncle Burt and Aunt Emmie. You can ignore Santa Claus and go with Santana or you can enjoy a Merry Christmas in Margaritaville. Be creative for goodness sake and give your inner Santa a "Sidecar". Hang those jalapeño pepper lights and make merry with your boyfriend Harry or your girlfriend Mary! You don't have to stew in other peoples puddings you know and you don't have to sing their holiday anthems. What you do have to do is to listen to your very own inner voices and let them take you to that place that makes you happy. Sure you can always bring a few people along if you want to but it is not a requirement.

This year I think that I just might invite a select group to help me celebrate my Pagan Solstice and we might just make a sacrifice too!

Happy Holidays

The leaves of summer have turned their color and are now falling to the ground carpeting the earth with a coat of many colors, giving warmth to the now barren earth and providing nourishment for the season to come. Upon the horizon I am looking at the shadow of November which has now over taken me and is rushing me once again into the holidays ahead.

What has changed since a year ago today? Everything and nothing at the same time. Life seems to go on with or without us and I sometimes wonder what the point of all this constant concern really is. Perhaps we are concerned lest we loose are place at life's table. If we loose our place, our identity, then it is only a matter of time before we become forgotten and part of the past, left behind to fend for ourselves in the wilds of solitude.

But we are in fact meant to be free beings and whether we choose to live alone or to entangle our lives with those of others, we will live and love only as much as is our capacity to do so. As we gather around our Thanksgiving tables this year with friends and family let us celebrate each other and remember just how fragile and transient life is so that we may enjoy it all the more.

So as the Holidays rush in and dazzle us with their opulence remember that close behind waiting in the dark and quiet of winter is the time when we will need our friends, on occasion, and our memories, always, to brighten our days until the spring sets us free to run again through the fields and forests of our lives. To gather new memories and to bask in the sunshine that is ours.

Of Life & Living

I remember a morning in Provence when the sun smiled gently through a carpet of mist illuminating a field of lavender and giving warmth to a magical moment. Jack and I were experiencing a moment of total bliss and the world was ours.

There is that moment when the tide turns and the continent divides. The moment when the sun rises to illuminate the day or sets in the twilight of another night. A time of change and enlightenment or a time fear and stagnation. When the circle is completed there must be the moment of remorse for what which has been but also a joy in it's completion for if the new day is to begin the old day must end.

I have traveled a long and hard journey these past months and now find myself at its end. It is a daunting place to dwell and must not be allowed to stay. But for a brief moment in time it shall be cherished because in it I can see the sum of it's parts and am able savor it's existence. Now is the time to begin again a new journey that will honor the past one and carry with it the rapture of it's beauty.

For as the sun sets and rises, and the tide returns to the sea we are the captains of our own existence and it must therefore be ...

Angst Revisited

Just what is it that takes a good day and turns it around?

I was heading for home base just yesterday and then I ran smack dab into this invisible wall. I' m not really sure what it was but it hurt real bad. Maybe not as bad as a year ago, or six months ago, or for that matter, three months ago but it still hurts and probably always will.

I have asked myself over and over again, what is it that brings on the angst, really? Is it the touch of a strong yet gentle hand no longer there. Is it the words of love silently spoken every day now missing. Or might it be the deafening silence of laughter that once filled my heart no longer here. Perhaps it is all of these and probably more.

What I do know is that no matter how far away I travel from yesterday it is always just around the next corner. But you know what, it's also a comfort since it is a reminder of good times enjoyed and life lived well, of seasons in the sun and happiness beyond expectations. I guess that I should listen more closely to myself and not to the sounds around me because in my own domain I am totally content. It is only when I try to make sense of my life in comparison that I run into these walls of emotion. Better to be content in oneself then to desire the unattainable. Not that it is unattainable but rather at what cost.

So I will be joyful in remembrance and content in the present because the future is made from both ...

An Autumn Reflection

It is a Friday in fall. What a perfectly glorious day! This is one of those days that you would wish for should you want to play hooky from work or life. I am sitting at my table in the sun at Topo Gigio with my support staff buzzing around me, trying their best make me feel at home, I am suddenly reminded of a time past. An old acquaintance and even older friend todder in and pass me by headed for their table in the autumn sun. Neither notices me as one has crossed the threshold of forgetfulness and the other is preoccupied by his duty to give care. I smile and think to myself could this be all there is to life? To cultivate friendships as crops or cattle so that we may feed on them in our dotage or, on the other hand, to give ourselves over to caring for others hoping that someone will return the favor in our time of need? I think not.

Today is Sunday, another most beautiful day. This time I am sitting on my sun dappled deck basking in the warmth of an early Indian Summer afternoon. I know that the warm days of the harvest are entering into their demise but somehow it doesn't seem to bother me since I have been here so many times before. It is actually a more of a comfort and a call that it is once again time to enter into the cocoon of winter reflection. I will warm myself on the embers of this autumn blaze until the cycle of life and friendship are once again renewed in the splendor that is spring.

So here's to life and friendships, to seasons in the sun and to the winter solstice. May we enjoy them and feed on them to nourish our souls. And may they aid us in our quest for understanding ourselves and accepting each other.

All Hallows' Eve

Do you see it ...

can you hear it ...

can you smell it?




The season is ripe with the sensations of the harvest!

Summer is now turning into fall again and I am feeling the chill of the north wind on my face. It will soon be time to face the winter darkness once more. But fortunately before the ultimate cold and dark of winter descends there is this magical season of dappled sunlight and frosty color to bask in. A time to collect our thoughts and the experiences from the last three seasons and bring them together into a warm and comforting quilt, a quilt that will both protect us from the cold days ahead as well as nourish our souls through the long winter’s night.

Halloween was and is a favorite time for Jack and I. A time of magic. A night of gouls and goblins but also a time to gather with friends and toast the begining of another season of holiday, childhood fantasy. This is a time when we put our reasoning behind to fly with our hopes and dreams, to enter into a world without the everyday constraints and complications.

It is at this time that my thoughts turn much as the suns angle and become reflective of times past. It is once again time to gather and sort them so that they can be carefully stored in the memories of my mind, yet still kept accessible for times to come when I will need them once again to feed on and gain sustenance from them.

Maybe we should consider the autumn "trick or treat" as an everyday occasion ...

Autumn Memories and More ...

Don’t you find that the more you try to forget the more you seem to remember? Like cleaning out a closet, the more you throw away the more there seems to be. This last year has been a gigantic clearing house for me and it isn’t over yet. What makes it so very different however is the fact that unlike clothing or other tangible objects which can be sent or given away, memories not so much so. Nor do I think that I would really want that anyway. What are we if not our memories? What would we be without them? A blank canvas devoid of shape or color, a mound of raw marble laid waste in a studio, a life form awaiting its birth.

I can tell you that life is beautiful, but that is in the moment. Or I could tell you that you are beautiful but that is my perception. I could merely say that memories are beautiful because they last forever and only improve with age like a fine wine. Memories are magic. They are the song of our souls. They sing to us of other times when life was newer and less tarnished. They tell us stories of better days when the sun shinned brighter and they embrace us in times of sadness and despair.

My memories are also dreams in which I live from time to time, a safe place where I can fly if I like. They are a place of magic and mystery of my own creation, a planet on which I am master of my fate.

If we don’t have dreams then the memories begin to disappear, slowly as if being swallowed by some black hole of despair. It is a kind of antimatter that exists in part in all of us and the universe itself.

My memory today, this morning, was that of a year many ago when the sun had turned its head southwards again and began the annual journey into autumnal magic. The crisp and clear morning air was light and ethereal, and our pilgrimage to the changing leaves up north was underway. With a picnic packed and Jack by my side, we and two good friends would set out for the quest, talking and laughing and napping along the way. How many times had this ritual been performed I can only guess. But each time there was sadness along with the beauty that someday it would in fact only be a treasured memory of times gone by.

As I look in the mirror and ready myself for this new day do you know what I see? I see a face that while weathered by the passage of time is still a vibrant reflection of all that has gone before. What are we if not our memories; I would not wish to be anything else …