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 …

Seasons of the Mind

Didn't see that one coming ...

I thought that I had set the course once again and that time would steer me gently into the new direction that I so desperately needed to sail. How juvenile was that?

Things never proceed in one single direction. As a matter of fact life is a totally scattered and messy lot. If you ever think that you know where tomorrow is, think again because it will be elsewhere. Maybe that is what makes it so interesting and so frustrating at the same time.

Once upon a time a long, long time ago I thought that I had figured out what it was that I really wanted out of life but then in the next instant all was gone. Just as a plant or flower leans toward the light we, the same sun worshipers, look to the direction of the warm and nourishing light.

What then is it that calls us to the effort, to the task, to the desire that makes us flesh?

Perhaps it is nothing more than that ecstatic instant when energy becomes love, and that love in turn fulfills us and makes us whole and one.

Being the hopeless romantic I can only hope that life is just that. A reoccurring dream of fulfillment that gently leads us on to the next adventure which will be a reaffirmation of the adventures that have brought us thus far and comfort us in the long nights ahead.

Tide Pools

I was lucky enough recently to spend some time on my cousins boat off the coast of Maine. Strange how time can move sideways when you are in a state of complete relaxation. I hadn't been to Maine in also most 40 years, although I had planned to so many times, so this was another item that I could check off the "bucket list".

While sipping cocktails in the salon and talking of nautical adventures one evening, the topic of tide pools came up. You know the little craters of sea water that are left after the tide recedes. The pools contain tiny and microscopic creatures which exist in an isolated suspension until the next tide comes in to free them. During their time in this calm I wondered what they might be feeling in their new surrounds.The pools while providing a rest bit from the vast expanses of ocean can become a trap as well.

Our lives I think have such pools. When washed out of the norm and swept into a new and different situation we are just the same as the creatures of the pool, left to ponder our existence and it's survival.

Once I thought that I could be happy in such a state of suspension but I have found since that it is not possible. We seem to exist because we must, as if the universe itself is calling us to task, and it is. Of course there are "time outs" in this massive mess of molecules colliding but there is also the need to jump back in and swim again in order stay in step with the tides.

As my short rest bit ended I noticed myself anxiously gearing up for the next tide. And even though my time away was wonderful and even precious, the dawn of the new day was more intoxicating, beckoning me on to swim again in the large and daunting tides of life and feel their
energy ...

Tides and Torrents

Does anybody know exactly where they are at any given moment? I don't! Well maybe let's just say that I'm not where I would like to be, but maybe I am where I should or need to be. When in the world are we really ever where we want to be? I have often thought from one year to another that I am there, only to realize in another instant that I am no where near where I thought that I wanted to be. Ergo, how does one come to know where they are and what they want to be and just exactly when does that moment occur?

About one year ago I was sure that my life had reached it's full potential and that things could never get any better, and I was right. But in the next instant I found myself spiraling into the depth of a depression that threatened to consume me and everything that I had learned to hold dear. What then was the pivot on which my life turned in order to make this kind of reasoning valid? I determined that everything that life that had brought me, to the day, had been chronicled in my being. Every touch and taste, every smell and embrace had taken me to the place that I called perfection. But for every "nirvana" attained there is also a promise of another to be conquered. Eventually we must finally reach the ultimate nirvana which is very simply just our own self realization. Many sages and poets over the years have hinted at one cosmic fact - we, and the universe, only exist because we choose to accept it and therefore give it relevance. Should we choose to ignore our reality than where would we be?

As the summer turns to fall and the sun light changes its angle signaling another season it is then that I take the time to reflect on the victories and failures of the last year. A moment to bring myself to a precipice from which I can view the valleys and mountains, the tides and the torrents that I have sculpted and read their rhythms. Like looking into a maze from above I can see the beginning and the end and most of the paths involved in getting there. To meditate on my memories and to hush my hopes and fears long enough to hear the sounds of the universe, and to take charge of my journey through it. We are all children of time and being such must make the time to feel it. And if we do I think we will find there is no limit to it. Yesterday is just today later, and today is eventually tomorrow, but tomorrow is of our making because of the past. The best part however is that tomorrow is forever. Listen to the calm ...

It was Bastille Day at Kiki's Bistro on the newly anointed Rue du Kiki and I was there with a table of my best and dearest friends. It was crowded and warm in the restaurant because of the large crowd that had gathered for this event, but no one seemed to mind.

Outside the street had been blocked off and there was a celebration of Renaissance acts going on - fire jugglers, minstrels and the like. A feeling of primal energy filled my soul and I began to feel as though I were in another time. A simpler time when people would celebrate thus and drink in the joys of everyday life well lived.

I thought to myself aren't I lucky to be alive right now? I know there are a lot of things that need to be fixed and many problems that need to be addressed but aren't there always? We are ever evolving creatures you and I and in order to evolve we must shed the skins of the past and put on the new and future ones. They may not fit right now but we will undoubtedly grow into them because we must. It can be tiresome, tedious and some times even treacherous but in the end it is worth the effort.

Mankind must persist for the only alternative is to perish. Perhaps with the help of our gods we might just find a way to celebrate together again and drink in the primal energies that have kept us so alive in past decades. Viva la France and vive l'humanite'!

Transitions

Many years ago a friend said to me "you know in my other life things were different". I thought, other life? How many lives do we have or how many are we entitled to?? Are we cats of a different color or maybe it is just that we consider ourselves to be part and parcel of existing conditions and not unique onto ourselves.

Well twenty some years later I finally, I think, deciphered the code. We are in fact products of our own delusions. We think from the crux of our involvements. Should we be singular most of us would be lost, as I have been, in the maze of "ownership of self".

We are a species of connectors. We, I think, are happiest when we have another to tend to - at least I am. When left to our own devices we can become monsters and consume our constituents in order to satisfy our desire for self gratification.

That being said, let me say this. In my many years and many reincarnations I have come to the conclusion that there is one thing that really matters. In my endeavours, in my many life times, and in my many modes, one thing above all has become the overwhelming reason for living and/or going on. Think of it this way - If we are aware and content with ourselves we then connect with the positive elements of our universal conscience. If, however, we are not connected in the positive then we are doomed to a life of discontent. Moreover, this discontent becomes a monster that dominates our existence and in the end consumes us.

So what is the point? Be involved in life, be aware of it, be in the moment. But most of all be kind and considerate, and giving. Because in the end it is that which we have given that might be returned when most needed.