Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Rich. Amy. Dental hygienists. Shadow. Jumping up to greet me in the morning. Hard-boiled eggs. Canned Chicken. And, Tuna. Sardines. Lox. Salmon. Marrow bones. Dog toys. Puppy vitality. Energy. Pain doctor. Trump and the intentional diminishing of the United States. Seed-Keepers, all of us.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The American Dream

Week Kavannah: Persistence and grit.  Netzach.

One brief shining: Shadow wriggles, tail wagging when I get up, going over to her, I sit on the ottoman and she jumps up, front legs on my legs, licking licking licking, transferring her delight to me as I pet her, hug her, transferring my delight to her. Good dog.

How can I say it so his base might hear? I love difference. Variety. The new and the old. We don’t have to choose between loving our white neighbors, our family, and persons of that least significant of all human traits, another skin color. Why push away the next researcher who might cure a disease you have? Doesn’t make sense. Let a hundred flowers bloom. One beautiful flower does not detract from another.

Or the multiple, almost limitless solutions to the hard problems of human existence found around the globe. So many languages and in each one we have to know where the bathroom is. So many ways of cooking and preparing and choosing what’s good to eat. So many ways of making music, painting, dancing, singing. So many ways of defining who’s related to whom. All potentially useful to us since our way is so obviously not the only way.

I remember one very early morning, around 3 am, when my sister and I walked the streets of Singapore’s Chinatown. We had come to the oldest Hindu temple in the country, where worshippers stood in long lines, each with a small branch with leaves in their hand, as they waited to walk on hot coals inside the temple.

They would approach the coals, some confidently, striding across, others more hesitant, all greeted by a crew of friendly faces after striding through the milk bath to cool their feet.

A group of women, a large contingent, but much smaller than the number of men who preceded them. I spoke to them. Yes, they had only recently been given permission to participate. And, yes, it annoyed them.

Women who wanted only to participate in worshipping their gods as the men had done for centuries.

A colorful, vibrant mode of honoring their faith now possible for them as ideas spawned elsewhere helped them see their own worth. How is that not a good thing?

That Scottish breakfast I had in the Inverness Station Hotel. On our honeymoon. Complete with black pudding. After eating it first (my rule), I asked what it was. Congealed blood. Oh. Well. There you go.

The Cajun woman who fed me spicy Shrimp in her bayou facing restaurant. To my surprise.

Clarence Davis. My friend who let me join him as an organizational consultant tracing the roots of racism at the Minneapolis YWCA.

Please help me help others to see the world as it could be. An amazing tapestry of persons, skin colors, ideas, forms of government, food, and song.