Malcolm Dalglish & Grey Larsen - Shake These Bones .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

I imagine I'll start my 60th b-day show with this song.

Writing rules

Cool rules for writing. nuff said.

Word cloud

writing quotes

"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside of us."
--Kafka, letter to Oskar Pollak, 1/27/04

"That which would give light must endure burning."
--Victor Frankel

"The true art of memory is the art of attention."
--Dr. Samuel Johnson

All of the above collected in Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking about Difficult Stories by Loren Niemi and Elizabeth Ellis

And Stacie wonders if I overthink things!?

1977
From a 1977 letter to my housemates:
Not meaning to sound too esoteric, etc., but Penny and I have been working a lot on what might be called aligning the subjective with the objective. We’ve been focusing on how we both shut each other out in fear when it’s really only our illusions we have to fear—not reality itself. It’s a hard process to break down the illusions because they’ve become part of us, even though they cause us to work against our best interests. And at the bottom of those illusions is perfectionism. Neither of us will really let go and trust the other person until she reaches perfection. In the meantime, though, there’s a lot we still want from each other—so we finally reach and ask, but in such a defensive, suspicious way that the desired results become highly unlikely. Slowly, we’re starting to break the patterns. That feels GOOD

what if we discover...

What if we discover that our
present way of life is
irreconcilable with our vocation
to become fully human?

--Paulo Freire

Self Portrait by David Whyte

It doesn't interest me if there is one God or many gods.

I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.

If you know despair or can see it in others.

I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is where I stand.

I want to know if you know how to melt into that fierce heat of living falling toward the center of your longing.

I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love and the bitter unwanted passion of sure defeat.

I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.

Great movie

OK, for me, the highlight was the 70s-era interview with the guy who believes Jesus was actually a mushroom. Not to offend, just gave me a big belly laugh.

in reference to: KNOW YOUR MUSHROOMS (view on Google Sidewiki)

Tell Me Your Story

Tell me your story
tell it long and tell it loud.
Don't leave anything out.
I want to hear how you
came here,
I want to feel the pain of
your first love.
Tell me your ridiculous
jokes
and let me too cry at your

wedding day.

Tell me your story
tell it long and tell it loud.
Don't leave anything out.
Throw in all your dark
secrets
so I see who you are.
So I can really feel your presence.
Take all the time you need,
we have the long hours
to laugh and cry
before the sun rises.

--Pedro McMillan

The year ahead

I turned 59 this month. And so it begins. I did a 50th birthday celebration concert in my old stomping ground (Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring, MD) back in 2000. And I plan to create a performance piece on turning 60. It began "officially" last week when I asked Stacie Chaiken to occasionally coach me in this process. Stacie and I lived in a women's group house in Springfield, OH back in the 70s, so she's the perfect choice.

I have one song, a digital story, and the start of a brief stand-up comedy routine, and the tarot reading that Pattie and I did for my coming year. Plus I actually like some of what I wrote last November for National Novel Writing Month. Good start!