Celebrate Your Life! ... Dreams do come true

Photo by: John P. Ford
Nashville Skyline

THE NEW YEAR

Quotes from the writings of Anais Nin...

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.
ANAIS NIN

The New Year is a time to celebrate life and to let go of the old and to rewrite any of our chosen scripts needing a revision. Now is one time to invite into our lives the NEW and the revised!

I believe we are stonger in connection so I am offering a small connection today. The dreams we are holding tight can be set free through our actions and our intentions. I am dreaming of a more organized environment, a revised budget I stick too and a healthier lifestyle!

I would love your thoughts and reflections on the New Year and what dreams are forming or coming together for you for 2009. What do you want to write in your Life's book?

Merry Christmas and A NEW YEAR of Options

Photo by: John P. Ford


This poem is about a feeling of being open to experience what life
is presenting with an open heart and living in the joy of the moment yet knowing that moment changes in a heart beat. I relearn this lesson daily.

This poem was written 12 years on on March 15th. Two weeks later a heart connected love died unexpectedly at age 45.

Wishing everyone wonderful and loving holidays continuing in the New Year and beyond
on a day to day basis.


SEEKER

Angels and Visionaries
traveling through
my here and now
frogs of beauty
who would be Prinzes

Mama's voice in
high adoration
on the inner air waves
Daddy on a John Deere
Waterford Crystal
warm beer


Misty Air -
Solar Eclipse -
Joy on the wing
Wanting to be
THERE NOW

Fractured prisms,
ancient wisdoms
my heart has
my head on line

Incense,
Starstones,
Sticks and Bones
Amethyst Crystal
caught in sunlight

Trailing
dustmotes
Beware the
Ides of March

Celebration,
Sound and color,
Mid-Life Crisis
Glory Hallelujah!

Going home in
a red
convertible
mustang
Ole Time Religion

Unicorns,
foghorns,
sailing vessels
put to sea

Arthur & Guinevere,
Tristan and Isolde
Ralph and Alice
You and Me

Soulmate,
Heart and Head
Out of sync,
The song unsung
Will the circle be unbroken?

Touching
Reaching
Longing
A Yearning Journey
Ecstasy. Despair.

Riding on a Harley -
Sunlight in the air
Children everyone.
Love always there

Sometimes now is
all that's needed
And to breathe
For awhile

Blogger Awards and Special Thanks

I am pleased to offer a special thank you to Jiggins from Con.tin.u.um and to Charli at Broken Mannequin for honoring me with the Honest Scrap Award. I value both of these bloggers and I appreciate them thinking of me! Please pay Charli and Jiggins a visit! I will be passing this on to 7 other deserving bloggers!. Thank you again Jiggins and Charli.
The rules for this award look pretty easy:

1. List 10 honest things about myself (TRUE and interesting things - not just the color of yours socks!)
2. Pass the award on to 7 bloggers

Ten Truths about Me:

1. My childhood was a contradiction in every area, but filled with love and music and also crazy unreasonable expectations.

2. As an adult I feel I have lived through a dozen lives. Sometimes I look back and think...did I really do that?...Think that? give up so much for that?... and on and on.

3. I had a dog that really belonged to my brother, Chuck, who named him Ole Pete but I pretended he was mine. I loved to dress him in bonnets and aprons. (I have no idea why.)

4. I had 13 cats growing up... even before I was in school. Any number of them slept in my room. One mother cat choose my bed to give birth to her kittens.

5. I have always been an observer. At age 3 and 4, our family lived on a farm before we moved to Ohio.. I watched my Dad drive a horse drawn skid for days while he was working. Then I jumped on ....without him.,... and did the same thing he had done. I can still remember how shocked I was to see him running behind me to catch me. I thought I knew exactly what I was doing!

6. I am dealing with some short term health issues that are scary to me because they slow me down! I am dealing with it. However, I am used to running through my life and ...I have always wanted to have it all, experience wise!

7. I had my first child when I was 16. I have three children and every year I see more I could have given them in the early years had I known what needed to be given..They say I make way too much out of that.

8. My mother said I have always been a champion of the underdog , children and animals.

9. I am in love with life and with the people in it. I started this blog because of that need to connect and the need to create. There is nothing I would rather do that meet new people AND I am always afraid for that initial moment that I will be rejected or not understood....Like everyone, I want to be loved and valued..

10. As a child, I wanted to go to live in Wyoming and be a crack shot...sort of like Annie Oakley:>)

The following bloggers are people who I hope have not received this award already but if they have they deserve two... They are also truthful and interesting writers and ones that I deeply appreciate for both their writing and the personal qualities I have come to know. I am holding one in reserve for another wonderful blogger I may not yet know!

SEVEN TRUTHFUL BLOGGERS:

Jesse Mendez at The Art of Jesse

Matthew at Wasteland of Words

Christina at Another Day In Paradise

Steve at Another Sober Alcoholic

Jacqueline Michelle at Or Whatever

Rhi at PeanutButterBound

Robert Talk 3 Talk 4

BUTTERFLY AWARD from Christina
This is a great week for awards! Thank you Thank you!
I received this beautiful award from Christiana at Another Day in Paradise.
I love and appreciate it AND it has all my favorite colors!. Thank you Christiana!
I would like to pass this award on to some of my favorite bloggers friends who
put time and thought and caring into creating beauty in their blogs. Thank you all for the sharing and caring!

Charli at Broken Mannequin
Rabbit at Rabbit Can Fly
Christine at the Voice of the Sea Wind
Heather at Singing With My Heart
Stu at 陶明瀚...小学
Cherie at Butterfly Dreamer
Lorenzo at CROWNED WITH LAURELS

You Know...I wonder

Photo by: John P. Ford

Looking for love....sometimes in all the wrong places and life spaces.. can lead to a level of disappointment that is a sad commentary on the hopeful dreams held close by the seeker in the beginning of the quest..the traveler may think they are at the point of...being there.........only to realize the other occupant was not at home for them.

This is disappointment and it can be a blue period...sometimes with need for regrouping and recovery and it is enough. Two souls in transit who miss the connection they wanted. Why games beyond that? I wonder. This is a poem written about these reflections.

You know.....I wonder

Watching you ignore me
I wonder what you are gaining
I wonder what it is that you really
feel I have done

To make you think that
this is the way
it should go for mutual greeting
of two souls in transit

When to me it seems
a smile, a hello or
even a glance or perhaps
an inclination of a nod
to each other

Would seem the
kinder thing and easier
for us both
who after all have done
no evil or real directed
unkindness to each other

We have, I believe
only led our lives
walked out paths and
while in the doing of it
briefly touched and

connected and attempted
friendship and deeper caring
one human in life
to another and often
with astute observations
on both sides

It is new to me this
Non-Approach of yours for
what seems to be of
no kind purpose and
I wonder why non-kindness

When to my way of feeling
life offers unkindness enough
without working to create it
with fellow travelers all
of us in need of a lighter touch

You know...I wonder
What is this all about
Are star crossed
travelers such as we
in need of all of this...Really?

For whatever the reason
or urge for the rally
I defer to one much better at
advent and execution of
this non-directed pain than am I

Therefore, I send you a
Salute, traveler
for your consistent effort
toward whatever it is
that you feel you accomplish

The game you play seems to
be one you value so
since I value you
As I thought/think you to be

I watch you and
learn even when you
think I am not looking
even when I am wondering

Encore....Or Play It Again Sam

Photo by: John P. Ford

I have come to believe that life is a curious mixture of the magical and the mundane and the interplay between the two. When our day to day lives are steeped in the mundane we sometimes long for the mystical and the magical...a longing that can spark creativity and color our lives in rainbows and bolder patterns.... in a way that can elevate our experience to a more spiritual feeling level.... at least momentarily.....

We may dream and begin to search for a way to mentally create a wider path in living life so that we can be at least one inch above the reality where we may feel a bit stuck.

We may long to be uplifted. As spiritual beings living here in physical form on earth, we may become painfully aware of the limitations of the human form and seek to transend those limitations if only briefly.

Alternately, if our feet are too far off the grounded path, we may feel a longing for a connection to "reality". We may ask for reality checks and confront our thinking beliefs and search for answers in only what we can sense.

We will find ways to connect to nature and see our part in it. We may glorify what we can see in front of our eyes. We may begin to search for the more traveled traditional path that can offer the illusion of familiar territory.... A home base so to speak.

This poem is about the mundane and the magical and their intersections. It is about the transition from boyhood to adulthood and the gains and losses that are a part of that journey. It begs the question, is that journey ever ended or is replayed on various levels throughout life? What defines the poem? If you replaced the word boy with girl would it make a significant difference in the poem?

What is reality? Illusion? Spiritual connection? The meaning of a life lived?
I am still working of all these questions..All answers are a way of questioning.

Play it again Sam

The boy stood
at the top of the hill
Feeling he had
The matter at hand
Under his full control

Yet his half smile
revealed not the half of it
Fear Not, for he
has a heart of courage
and a mind

That at times is open
to Exploration
of the sacred cows
he has always felt

To be constant
that even now
ripple in form
in the heat
of the late afternoon

So. What is it
that the evening
will bring if not
that elusive

Peace. Contentment
and comfort
that belonging
that strikes the lost chord
of his youthful longing

The sirens song
the misty boat
of Avalon untenanted
yet powered on

The blood of passions
Red in life unshed
Unknown, Unclaimed
Laid Down unlived

How gently he
kneels to smooth
the ashes at his feet
the veils not yet parted


From the Lady of the Local Pond Series
With reflections