Just Look to Your Soul for the Answer

Look to Your Soul
~Johnny Rivers

I nearly lost myself
Tryin' to be someone else
All of my life I've been playin' the game
Gotta get out of myself, it seems
Life's not real when you're in a dream
Hang onto your head and give it a try

To live you must nearly die
Giving up the need to say 'I'
Look to your soul for the answer
Look to your soul

So many people passing by
Have a need to identify
All of us want to be satisfied
Few people seem to care
Livin' a life that leads nowhere
Nobody takes the time to try

To live you must nearly die
Giving up the need to say 'I'
Just Look to your soul for the answer
Look to your soul
Look to your soul

Haru Matsuri (Spring Festival)

http://www.mhbcc.org/hmatsuri.html

I want to run away and join the Taiko drummers.

Growing Older Gracefully

Today was a special day: It was the Croning Ceremony and 60th Birthday Celebration of my friend, Deborah J. Ross. Pulling together traditions from pagan, Quaker, Jewish, and whatever we wanted to toss into the mix, we celebrated the life of this amazing woman, along with honoring her transition into the role of the Crone, or Wise Woman. The Croning Ceremony comes mainly from the pagan tradition that a woman's life consists of three stages: Maiden, Mother, and Crone. (Being the progressives that we are, we included Career Woman in the stage of Mother, because that counts, too!) However, most traditions seem to include some kind of reverence for the old.

It would simply be impossible for me to describe everything that went on today (and I'd like to get some sleep tonight), but I may be able to leave you with a few impressions. Understand that this was pulled together in a matter of two or three weeks by a widespread group of people with only our love of Deborah in common--many of us had never met before and were just names in emails until we met face-to-face this afternoon. Just being there and making all the pieces work was a blessing in itself.

First, never underestimate the power of positive thinking. We had planned from the beginning to hold this ceremony outside in the garden even though rain was expected. It was pouring this morning when I got up. It poured on my drive all the way up into the Santa Cruz mountains. It was gray and gloomy and threatening more rain as guests were arriving. And then, right before we began the ceremony at 3:00, the sun broke through the clouds. Granted, it was still cold outside, but we were able to hold the ceremony outside under the sky and the redwood trees.

Next a woman named Joan led us in a dance, the Labyrinth step, a simple dance step she said is rumored to have been around since the time of Theseus: three steps forward, one step back. You think dancing is hard? Try this; it's fun! It's amazing what a bunch of willing bodies can accomplish with the direction of a skilled leader. We joined hands and did the Labyrinth step as we wound through and around the altars set up in the garden for Maiden, Mother, and Crone. And as the music played we sang along:

Follow me into the center
The center of our shield
Follow me into the center
The center of our shield

I am the weaver
I am the woven one
I am the dreamer
I am the dream
I am the weaver
I am the woven one
I am the dreamer
I am the dream

The altars each had a candle and flowers and items personal and symbolic. Deborah was led on a journey to each altar where representatives of Maiden, Mother, or Crone read poetry or letters from long distance friends and gave blessings. She finished her journey at the altar of the Crone where she received a veil with painted symbols and a crown of lavender and rosemary. We blessed her hands and washed them with water and rose petals-- for her hands are a symbol of her life's work, whether raising her children, or writing, or gardening, or gaining a black belt in kung foo san soo.

The ceremony concluded with another circle dance. Again, I was struck by how easy it was to get everyone moving in unison (and with no rehearsal!). It looked wonderful and it felt wonderful. It's all very well to get out and shake your booty in some nightclub, but nothing compares to this. It just occurred to me that modern dancing, nightclub dancing, is focused on individual expression; circle dancing as we were doing today is an expression of togetherness. It is felt harmony.

So then the ceremony was concluded and we went inside and ate fabulous food, wrote in Deborah's memory book, strung beads for a blessing necklace, oohed and ahhed over her latest book The Alton Gift (I've already read the first chapter and can't wait to read the rest) and lingered and talked and talked.

I will not dread growing older if this is what lies ahead. I am looking forward to my own Croning Ceremony.

Woman Power

Wednesday night I invited a girlfriend of mine out to this book promotional event offered through the Commonwealth Club: This is Not the Life I Ordered by Deborah Collins Stephens, Michealene Cristini Risely, Jackie Speier, and Jan Yanehiro.

As you might suspect, this was a really woman-heavy event. The few men that were there could be pegged immediately: Tech Guy, Backstage Manager, Somebody's Husband (there were about half a dozen of these), and the two old codgers from the Muppet Show (they show up to everything, don't they?). Women from all walks of life filled the room. I'm sure the estrogen levels were through the roof!

I do not mock in earnest; this was a great event. These women had some startling tales to tell. Remember Jonestown? Jackie Speier was there. She was part of the congressional delegation sent down to investigate. When the whole massacre thing went down, she was shot five times at point blank range and left bleeding on the tarmac of the airstrip for 22 hours before the rescue teams arrived. And that was only the beginning of her story...

Each of these women have lived through a tremendous amount of grief and tragedy, and yet here they were standing before us, bouyant, successful, and alive. Their emphasis, and that of their book, is that to survive women need to do what they do best: network and talk. But what I really appreciated was their focus that this idea was on not forming a pity-party network. Yes, we all need to vent; yes, we all need sympathy in times of grief; but what we need most of all are simple, practical steps to guide us through the grief and beyond. This is about using the support of our friends to survive and thrive.

In their book, they quote the late great Marlene Dietrich: "It's the friends you can call at four in the morning that really matter."

Yeah.

The Desert Island Question

You know the one: If you were on a desert island, and had your choice of only one book to have with you, which one would you choose?

First of all, I find this question monsterously unfair to the true bibliophile. ONE book? ONLY one? Give me a choice of TEN rather. Maybe... MAYBE I can wittle it down to five. But ONE? I can no sooner choose a favorite star in the heavens.

Even Ray Bradbury, when presented with the question, chose three: Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the collected plays of Bernard Shaw, and anything by anthropologist Loren Eiseley.

As for myself, I would have to choose the collected works of Shakespeare, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and, of course, the collected shorts of Ray Bradbury.

And then, the more I start thinking about it, well, there's some underrepresentation here. What about the graphic novel? I need to throw in some Neil Gaiman, or The Dark Knight, or TMNT. What about children's stories? One of the Andrew Lang Fairy Books or something by Michael Ende. What about art? Certainly I can't be stuck on a desert island without some Michael Whelan or Patrick Woodroffe! What about my all time favorite King Arthur story: Firelord by Parke Godwin? And, Oh, Geez... I completely forgot about poetry...

Nevertheless, the point is moot, because any one of these tomes strapped to my back during a shipwreck--let alone five or ten of them--would plummet me straight to the bottom of the sea.

[p.s. Lost, Season One: If you look closely, Sawyer is reading a battered copy of Richard Adams' Watership Down, another fine choice...]

Love is coming to us all

Carry On
~Crosby Stills Nash & Young

One morning I woke up and I knew
You were really gone
A new day, a new way, I knew
I should see it along
Go your way, I'll go mine and
Carry on

The sky is clearing and the night
Has gone out
The sun, he come, the world
is all full of light
Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice but
To carry on

The fortunes of fables are able
To sing the song
Now witness the quickness with which
We get along
To sing the blues you've got to live the tunes and
Carry on

Carry on
Love is coming
Love is coming to us all

Where are you going now my love?
Where will you be tomorrow?
Will you bring me happiness?
Will you bring me sorrow?
Oh, the questions of a thousand dreams
What you do and what you see
Lover can you talk to me?

Girl when I was on my own
Chasing you down
What was it made you run?
Trying your best just to get around.
The questions of a thousand dreams
What you do and what you see
Lover can you talk to me?

Take time out to smell the flowers...

...but don't get too close!

Last week, a beautiful bouquet of flowers was delivered to the theatre; however, due to a lack of communication with the florist, it was delivered too late to be given to the artist it was requested for. So they were given to me. Very nice!

So I have this huge, gorgeous bouquet of lilies in my office, and they smell absolutely fabulous. They are so intoxicating that I just had to go over and smell each blossom. And you know what, they each have a slightly different scent! Neat.

So I turn back to my work, and next thing I know, I notice that I have this powdery, orange-yellow dust all over the back of my hands. Then I turn around and look in the mirror and the same powder is all over my face! It's pollen, of course. But when I go to wipe it off, I find it has turned my skin bright yellow!

This is what I get for taking time out to smell flowers!

(Actually, I am finding that with a little bit of water, the yellow is mostly coming off... mostly.)

And now my mind is drifting toward the fate of certain Hollywood starlets run afoul of flower pollen: Dorothy in the poppy field, for example; or perhaps when Judy Robinson is duplicated by the plant people...

If you happen to find that my office has been taken over by a giant lily, you will come by and make sure I get plenty of water, won't you?