New Year's Eve

“Come to the edge.”

“We can't. We're afraid.”

“Come to the edge.”

“We can't. We will fall!”

“Come to the edge.”

And they came.

And he pushed them.

And they flew.

Guillaume Apollinaire, 1880-1918

French Poet, Philosopher

I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.

A Child's Christmas in Wales

Singing,... without any presents at all.

Christmas day will always be

Just so long as we have we

Dr Seuss

Waiting on the Doorstep, Christmas Eve

We are so taken up and occupied with the good qualities of

this saint Christmas, that we are keeping our

friends waiting in the cold outside, well wrapped up in great-

coats, shawls, and comforters.

Pickwick Christmas

At three o'clock that afternoon they all stood high and dry, safe

and sound, hale and hearty, having taken on the road quite enough of ale and brandy, to enable them to bid defiance to the frost that was binding up the

earth in its iron fetters, and weaving its beautiful network upon

the trees and hedges.  

halfway to my knees in snow

 It came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards.

Dylan Thomas

happy solstice, bring on the light

adjustment

Most people live life on the path set for them. Too afraid to explore any other. But once in a while people come along and knock down all the obstacles put in their way. People who realize free will is a gift, you'll never know how to use until you fight for it.

Thoreau

Our truest life is in dreams awake.

o christmas tree

enter the fairy

The way a crow 
Shook down on me 
The dust of snow 
From a hemlock tree 
Has given my heart 
A change of mood 
And saved some part 
Of a day I had rued.

Dust of Snow - Robert Frost

"Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother." ~Kahlil Gibran

St Nicholas Day

Lorenzetti - The Dowry.  Yes Virginia, there was a St Nicholas.

Baby it's cold outside

Because it's only 6F degrees outside my door...

Network for Good

http://www.sixdegrees.org/

Linda Thompson-Jenner

Heaven surely knows

That packages and bows

Can never heal

A hurting human soul.

No more lives torn apart,

That wars would never start,

And time would heal all hearts.

And everyone would have a friend,

And right would always win,

And love would never end.

This is my grown-up christmas list.

What is this illusion called the innocence of youth?

Maybe only in our blind belief can we ever find the truth.

a season starts

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. 

~Hamilton Wright Mabie

Ute Prayer

Earth teach me stillness

as the grasses are stilled with light.

Earth teach me suffering

as the old stones suffer with memory.

Earth teach me humility

as blossoms are humble with beginning.

Earth teach me caring

as the mother who succors her young.

Earth teach me courage

as the tree which stands all alone.

Earth teach me limitation

as the ant which crawls on the ground.

Earth teach me freedom

as the eagle which soars in the sky.

Earth teach me resignation

as the leaves which die in the fall.

Earth teach me generation

as the seed which rises in the spring.

Earth teach me to forget myself

as melted snow forgets its life.

Earth teach me to remember kindness

as dry fields weep with rain.

"Crow"ing

All right, so you failed. You failed, you failed, you failed. You failed, you failed, you... You think I care about that? I understand. 

You're an artist, man.

Your job is to break through barriers. Not accept blame and bow and say: "Thank you, I'm a loser, I'll go away now." 

You still want to be great? 

(and don't think you have to be great to prove anything to me, or to them, or even yourself -- just for the thing of it, for the doing of it). 

Then have the courage to fail big and stick around. Make them wonder why you're still smiling. That's true greatness to me.

But don't listen to me, I'm just [Gigi].  Your "greatness" is not why I'm here.  

I am.  

You are. 

That's all it is.  

That's the miracle.

notes from the guitar man revisited in celebration of the day he was born

notes from the guitar man

though i wear a guise of pure mayhem for the family dynamic, no one is whole and true: like Lacan surmised, we are born incomplete, many sided, in parts, and we integrate and present the part(s) that weather us through.

Ah this is a bore, huh?

so on to Gigi. I've named a guitar after you. Actually a bass. the white bass Lisa practiced on while here is refered to as George, and i've ordered on to be made for me similar; heavier wood, thinner neck for fast playing, looking almost identical to the untrained eye as the first. She'll be Gigi. George is short for Georgeous, so Gigi is a compliment to the beauty and pragmatism of the bass. i have no doubt I'll love her dearly.

of Death

And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its rest-
less tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence
shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top,
then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs,
then shall you truly dance.


Kahill Gibran, The Prophet

Music

breaking through my stony healing

I saw your soul by Hugh Macleod

Intimacy isn’t strictly about romantic relationships, or even relations with family--sometimes it happens quickly, and often times in ways we hardly notice. I’m talking about that moment when someone allows the world to see what’s inside...what they are really about. It’s about seeing someone for who and what they are and that the glimpse was offered either voluntarily or without the person’s knowledge. This is an incredible moment where our existence suddenly makes sense and all comes together in a singular place. For those of who have experienced this, it’s something that never gets lost in memory or time. It’s like a little mirror we take out every now and then to remember a time when something so complex became so inconceivably simple. It’s pretty incredible.

All the stars in the sky say "goodbye" say "goodbye"

We were here yesterday, now you seem so far away,

We were here yesterday, I heard you saying you don't know me,

You know one side of a story, oh you don't know me.

So open wide your wounded heart, feel yourself be blown apart,

Open wide your wounded heart, it's a funny place to start.

In the light of the sun, we are found, we are undone,

In the light of the sun, we are a one.

And you don't know me, you know one side of a story,

Oh you don't know me.

All the seeds beneath the snow start to grow, start to grow.

All the seeds beneath the snow say 'Hello', say 'Hello.'

All the seeds lie below, deep in heart and what we know,

All the seeds lie below, the ones we sowed.

And you don't know me, you know one side of a story,

But if we could be free, one with all this glory,

If we could be free.

-WJ

has it ever set you free, to scream out...

In the light of the sun, we are one - one with all this glory.  We are free.

Hello

as Shel would say

free will

This is a perfect moment. It's a perfect moment for many reasons, but especially because you and I are waking up from our sleepwalking, thumbsucking, dumb-clucking collusion with the masters of illusion and destruction.

Thanks to them,
from whom the painful blessings flow,
we are waking up.
Their wars and tortures,
their crimes against nature,
extinctions of species
and brand new diseases.
Their spying and lying
in the name of the father,
sterilizing seeds and
trademarking water.
Molestations of God,
celebrations of shame,
stealing our dreams and
changing our names.
Their cunning commercials
and blood-sucking hustles,
their endless rehearsals
for the end of the world.
Thanks to them,
from whom the awful teachings flow,
we are waking up.

+

Their painful blessings are cracking open more and more gashes in the shrunken and crippled mass hallucination that is mistakenly called "reality." And through the fractures, ripe eternity is flooding in; news of the soul's true home is pouring in; our allies from the other side of the veil are swarming in, inspiring us to become smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier.

We are waking up.

As heaven and earth come together, as the dreamtime and daytime merge, we register the shockingly exhilarating fact that we are in charge of creating a New Earth. Not in some distant time or faraway place, but right here and right now.

+

As we stand on this brink, as we dance on this verge, we cannot let the ruling fools of the dying world sustain their curses. We have to rise up and fight their insane logic; defy, resist, and prevent their tragic magic; tap into our sacred rage and supercharge it.

But overthrowing the living dead is not enough. Protesting the well-dressed monsters is not enough. We can't afford to be consumed with our anger; can't be obsessed and possessed by their danger. Our mysterious bodies crave delight and fertility.

Our boisterous imaginations demand fresh tastes of infinity. In the New Earth we're creating, we need lusty compassion and ecstatic duty, ingenious love and insurrectionary beauty. We need radical curiosity and reverent pranks, voracious listening and ferocious thanks.

coolest boots ever

Worn by Julie last night at her show, and generously she shared where she'd gotten them with me... a boot Christmas for me!

Julie Fowlis - 'Biodh an Deoch' (don't forget to pause the player below)

Hugh Macleod

Mike Clark "Hey Daisy"

Happy Halloween

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

Traditional Scottish Prayer

Pause Player-The Incredible String Band - Gently Tender

Old Eyes

When I was born, my mom says I looked around the whole hospital room with a stare that said, "This? I've done this before." She says I have old eyes.  And yet, for someone who's apparently done this already, I still haven't figured anything out yet. My knees still buckle every time I get on a stage. My self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons mixed into my poetry, and it still always tastes funny in my mouth. So no matter that I have inhibitions to fill all my pockets, I keep trying, hoping that one day I'll do something I can be proud of, as the only proof I existed... 


I don't know what to do with impossible, but I see the impossible every day. Impossible is trying to connect in this world, trying to hold onto others while things are blowing up around you, knowing that while you're speaking, they aren't just waiting for their turn to talk -- they hear you. They feel exactly what you feel at the same time that you feel it. It's what I strive for every time I open my mouth -- that impossible connection.


When I meet you, in that moment, I'm no longer a part of your future. I start quickly becoming part of your past. But in that instant, I get to share your present. And you, you get to share mine. And that is the greatest present of all.


This isn't my first time here. This isn't my last time here. These aren't the last words I'll share.
 Sarah Kay

Let me make this very clear... THANK YOU

Seagull

Fly free and happy,... across forever, and we'll meet now and then when we wish, and in the midst of the one celebration that never can end.

Everything's here...

“I've been sitting on the edge of the bed for an hour in a complete daze. I told him if I die toight I'll die happy, it's all here, everything's here.”
― Helene Hanff, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

irrepressible hope

Walking in her footsteps

“I tell you, life is extraordinary. A few years ago I couldn’t write anything or sell anything, I’d passed the age where you know all the returns are in, I’d had my chance and done my best and failed. And how was I to know the miracle waiting to happen round the corner...? It restored a self-confidence and self-esteem I’d lost somewhere along the way, God knows how many years ago. It brought me to England. It changed my life.”
― Helene Hanff, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

The difference a week makes

"Thou shalt not create graven images, Ira. Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain. Still loo... at The Cartoon Bank

"Thou shalt not create graven images, Ira. Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain. Still loo... at The Cartoon Bank

Orchards

The sublime is a departure.
Instead of following, something
in us starts to go its own way
and getting used to heavens.

Is not art's extreme encounter
the sweetest farewell?
And music: that last glance
that we ourselves throw back at us!

Rilke

pause player!!!

Woe Be Gone

Celebrate Autumn

Longfellow

The Past and Present here unite
Beneath Time's flowing tide,
Like footprints hidden by a brook,
But seen on either side.

lost ten years ago

…then the end

bend in the road

that we’ll never find

a death I will always defend

you from… 

by ejm 

lost ten years ago, today

peace

Nightnoise－Night in That Land - pause player please

Creating a new earth

Don't let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.

Eckhart Tolle

the way things can turn on a dime

Spending my day in the hospital, holding my friend's hand.  Think a good thought for her if you will.  

bovine baby boy

And the cow dances gloriously with the rising of the sun...

love love love

All the Art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on - Havelock Ellis

wildflower days...keep an eye on them and the mountain will seem smaller

Out
Of a great need
We are all holding hands
And climbing.
Not loving is a letting go.
Listen,
The terrain around here
Is
Far too
Dangerous
For
That.


Hafiz

rumi baby

I once had a thousand desires,
But in my one desire to know you
all else melted away






(great to see everyone in London!  Thanks for the time, the conversation, and the beautiful music)

For Jonathon lost too soon

it looks like the end
it seems like a sunset
but in reality it is a dawn
when the grave locks you up
that is when your soul is freed

Rumi

my sunshine

Shine on me, sunshine
Rain on me, rain
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here
With your fiercest wind
Let me float across the sky
'Til I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakes
Cover me with white
Cold icy kisses and
Let me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving sky
Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone
Star shine, moon glow
You're all that I can call my own. 

Kahlil Gibran

Wake at dawn with a winged heart
and give thanks for another day of loving

in celebration of Dad

Tony Wrap Up

And in the final analysis, what survives tonight?

Theater,


because it's what we live, 
we're changin some lives tonight, 
and theater thrives because we love to give it, 
so to speak. 


This ain't reality tv, 
this is 8 shows a week. 


Every chorus member you saw tappin,
 had to make miracles happen, 
for a chance to see you clappin and applaudin in the audience.


What's next?
 Who knows. 
Anything Goes. 




Now go see a motherf&%king Broadway (West End) show.




-Neil Patrick Harris

Lovely Leonard

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin 
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in 
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove 
Dance me to the end of love 
Dance me to the end of love 
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone 
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon 
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of 
Dance me to the end of love 
Dance me to the end of love 

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on 
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long 
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above 
Dance me to the end of love 
Dance me to the end of love 

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born 
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn 
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn 
Dance me to the end of love 

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin 
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in 
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove 
Dance me to the end of love 
Dance me to the end of love 
Dance me to the end of love 

Fantasia 2000 - Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite

Quiet Days of Gratitude

In memory of G

ezra pound

Music begins to atrophy when it gets too far from the dance. Poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music

The Namesake

Sweet Gigi in dance class.  We're not biologically related, but I'm glad she inherited something from me anyway!

Rumi

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Youngblood

Love is but the song we sing, 
And fear's the way we die 
You can make the mountains ring 
Or make the angels cry 


Some will come and some will go
We shall surely pass 


We are but a moments sunlight
Fading in the grass 


C'mon people now,
Smile on your brother
Ev'rybody get together
Try and love one another right now 

If you hear the song I sing,
You must understand
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command 

Chinese Laundry

When I was14, I swept the floors behind the scenes at a theater.  As you do when you are making your way as an aspiring performer.  I also did the laundry.  It was a nationally heralded theater where Tom Hanks and Al Pacino had performed Shakespeare (long before I swept its stage's planks).  They had an "international series" including a group of Chinese Acrobats performing as guest artists during the summer season.  These guys had an adorable little chimp in their act.  He apparently had a very prestigious film and stage resume, and this was before anyone had been victim to having their face ripped off.  They would very frequently throw their personal laundry in the industrial top loader, though it had been explained a million times that there wasn't enough time between the matinées and evening performance for personal laundry, but they feigned ignorance.  It is true, none of the seemed to speak any English, but they had been in the country for years, and it seemed they must understand it to some extent.

The youngest of them was 16.  He liked to drop the chimp in the industrial top loader and the funny little animal would hide there until I'd opened the lid and scream.  I never got use to it.  I had a lot of reverence for this little chimp and reminded myself that he was, after all, however tamed, a wild animal.  We came to be good friends, the chimp and I, but finding him popping out of the washing machine still scared the SH%T out of me.  One day, when this happened, he wouldn't get out of the machine.  SO I left the lid open and turned it on gentle spin.  Needless to say he thought I had some SERIOUS POWERS and was loving it, laughing, screaming, squealing, waving his arms.  I was laughing my head off.  The 16 year old acrobat heard our little play date going on, despite his prank, and came screaming into the laundry "STOP THAT!!!!  STOP THAT MACHINE!!!   GET HIM OUT OF THERE!!!!"

Funny how he could suddenly understand (and even SPEAK) the language he needed to when it came to getting in trouble.  I know when I've pissed off my Italian cousins, I know the words to apologize, and I know how to avoid doing it in the first place, though I speak very little of the language (much to my shame).  The universal language as it turns, is in the listening.  Maybe that was what Babel really was -- when we all stopped listening to each other.

Today is your day, your mountain is waiting, so get on your way.
Dr. Seuss 

Easter 2011

Wherever you are is always the right place. There is never a need to fix anything, to hitch up the bootstraps of the soul and start at some higher place. Start right where you are.
Julia Cameron