Align
to bring into line or alignment
to array on the side of or against a party or cause
to get or fall into line
to be in or come into precise adjustment or correct relative position
Align
Friday 30 December 2016
“Colors shone with exceptional clarity in the rain.
The ground was a deep black,
the pine branches a brilliant green,
the people wrapped in yellow looking like special spirits
that were allowed to wander over the earth
on rainy mornings only.”
Norwegian Wood, Murakami
Saturday 24 December 2016
Rain.
Big fat droplets of rain falling from the sky for hours,
and lower than average temperatures
make for holiday weather.
Cleansing.
Rinsing deplorable rhetoric and behavior from the outer layer of my skin.
But the work is just beginning.
The deeper dive for information will continue in the New Year,
as will the resistance to policy and behavior which
threatens our democracy.
It's impossible for me to put politics aside this holiday season.
I'm awake.
Shiny presents and sugar laden cookies do not alter my reality.
Tuesday 20 December 2016
Chanticleer, the award winning men's chorus,
sang Christmas songs
and transformed The Disney Concert Hall
into a 16th century cathedral in France.
Monday 19 December 2016
“When we look at the world around us
— our immediate world and the bigger world beyond —
we see a lot of difficulty and dysfunction.
The news we hear is mostly bad news, and that makes us afraid.
It can be quite discouraging.
Yet we could actually derive inspiration for our warriorship, for our bodhisattva path,
from these dire circumstances.
We could recognize the fact, and proclaim the fact, that we are needed.”
Pema Chodron
Sunday 18 December 2016
I was a child of the Vietnam-era America,
of the Kennedy, King and Malcolm X assassinations.
The country no longer felt like the innocent place it was said to be
in the Eisenhower fifties.
Political murder, economic injustice, and institutionalized racism
were all powerfully and beautifully present.
These were issues that had previously been relegated to the margins of American life.
Dread, the sense that things might not work out,
that the moral high ground had been swept out from underneath us,
that the dream we had of ourselves had somehow been tainted,
and the future would forever be uninsured, was in the air.
This was the new lay of the land,
and if I was going to put my characters out on that highway,
I was going to have to put all of those things in the car with them.
That's what was due, what the times demanded.
Bruce Springsteen
Saturday 17 December 2016
My favorite holiday tradition.
20 brass trombones, cold December night, mulled wine, friends,
Christmas arrangements laced with soul, whimsy and heart.
A truly joyful event,
one that I walked to with the glowing orb of the moon,
hanging low on the ridge next to The Observatory,
as my flashlight.
Sunday 11 December 2016
Amidst the dust and dirt from a much needed mini-renovation,
a tree has been selected and firmly screwed into the stand.
After noisy days of construction, and a house full of workmen
stillness returns at night illuminated by the glow of Christmas lights.
Thursday 8 December 2016
Book group pick.
Interconnected characters, associated with, some tangentially,
a cheesy children's musical about a monkey who is adopted by an American family.
Prose's writing is insightful and thoughtful, but in the end the narrative fell apart.
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