stripped....

around the world in 30 days!!! or... just.... the contiguous US.. in 21. or so. .... (just don't sound the same...)

.....and thank goodness for travel. of any sort. because it pries you open. helps you to see what you're missing... the good, the bad, the terrifying... and the peculiarly & unexpectedly beautiful.... the orchids blooming in the cracks of cement... days spent communing with a long stretch of open highway and my thoughts... reminding myself to breathe, breathe.. be still... Enjoy.

....days of napping in the back seat, ensconced like a giant human S...waking up with a stiff neck to view the world.. anew.... days of road food & NPR... of blisteringly strong coffee & motel sheets.... of gorgeous rock formations and the dancing of the light... of clear gulf waters & magnolia trees bowing to the ground.... of reminders of home.. of the joy of forgetting.... of travelling to the end of the road... and finding you had a home... a face & a fellow... perhaps you'd forgotten... of warm & rowdy & scintillating conversation over an afternoon's third round of canned beers... of rest... of sunshine... of heat.... of prying your head out of your damn ass long enough to wake up and see that there is a surplus of spunk & beauty EVERYWHERE!!! .. if you know how to tilt your head and look.. just right... of yes's & thank you's & please. Please. Yes. MORE. ... let this ever-unfurling journey continue... without... Within....

and i am reminded that people are people.. everywhere you go. the same.. just.. Different. and as much seemingly bad is marring the world today.. there is so. Much. Good. Shit. Yes!!! it just becomes a matter of what you are staring at... and so you follow... so you become....

and i am reminded to get off my high horse, temporarily abandon my flowery speech & high-minded asceticism... and abandon all names.. all credos... and to just be. humble. simple. Breathe. .... for there are many things which i aspire to... beautiful words & notions... pillars of word & vow unfurling day-after-day, a large, pink cloud nestling my mind's eye...

and i am reminded that this means nothing - NOTHING!!! if my perfumed words & honeyed descriptives amount to a putrefied hill of beans.. worse! ...."if i can move mountains but have not love......" ......

it is like my good friend Noah says... a self-described Buddhist.. and athiest... how would you characterize this brand of Buddhism you practice there Noah???.... simple, he says.. with an ever-present glint in his eye... i live by 4 simple words.. Just... "Don't be an asshole!" .... and it's great. and it's sterling. and, in a way... amazing.. in it's ability to reduce all the evocative images i keep stashed in my head.... memes on how to be, and how to live & the sacredness of things & life & bla bla bla.... Noah takes it down to a science.. exacting & true.

Don't be an asshole. ...

think about it. ....

covering so much with such minimal verbage... don't take what is not yours... be kind. always treat others with as much integrity & respect as you possibly can!!! (even if you feel you've been shafted in this way...) ... look for the good. ... recycle. take care of the planet that has made your own human life possible... etc. etc. ETC....

and so for the moment, as the last leg of my journey continues... i temporarily am stripped of all my high-minded badges and -isms.... i step down off my petty soapbox & party platforms... i give up. i pledge my allegiance to these simple words...

...because in the end... eloquence serves me little... poetry turns toxic... distasteful.. foul.... if the life that i am leading... bears no resemblance to my faustian semantics... say less. do more. and let your own life & light shine so humbly & Brightly... there are no need for words.....

i have been thinking as of late about attachment... about specifically the things we attach ourselves to... hmmm.. for that matter maybe the ideas & people too.. funny...

when i was 14 after several overpriced trips to several different doctors, i was diagnosed as bipolar. recognized as a disease in modern medical literature, it is when "the patient" swings from bouts of mania to severe bouts of depression.. there are about a gazillion variations on this tune. everything from mixed mania, hypomania... prolonged hypo/hyper depressive states.. etc... (it's kind of amazing in hindsight how many bullshit psychiatric terms we can coin just to diagnose what is essentially the human condition...)but i digress...

at the time i remember thinking Yes! Finally! A name, a label, a safe, stringent set of terms & descriptors that tell me what I am going thru!!! Halle-loo-yah! Thank ya Jeezus!!! and then you read on... in much of the literature (which is mostly aimed at helping others deal with & compassionately navigate the tumultuous waters of their manic-depressive loved one's state) you read about what happens to a person "under the influence", so to speak of a manic or depressive phase.... For Mania: anything from loss of sleep & appetite, to huge bursts of energy & creativity, visions of grandeur, rabid spending sprees... taking on large debts or massive projects.... And Depression, the ugly mole-faced step-sister: ... weight gain or loss, social isolation, withdrawing, inability to cope with the tasks of daily life, sleeping for hours on end... you get the bit. and somewhere in these lines, after the initial relief you find the slightest trace of... what.... well... i dunno.. i halt to put it into words... simply put the rational, sane, compassionate party reading said text is heartened to not take the actions of a bipolar person completely seriously or try to relate to them rationally during a manic or depressive episode (which begs the question... aren't they pretty much always in one or the other??!?) ... rather.. wait until a time when they are functioning in their "right mind" (and properly medicated, to boot) to try and reason with them.. and negotiate the inevitable fall-out of their hyper-manic or hyper-depressed states... much like you would choose your words with utmost care to speak to a child.. who has not developed the capacity necessary (so we believe) to digest your input straight from the tap, as it were, so too, for the manic-depressive we must weigh & water down our words... from such an altered state, they are unable to relate to you (the sane, salient, normal one, let's recall) in a rational, objective way. Huh.

This is fucking infuriating.

...

is this to say that my husband, who suffers from a hearing problem, needs special treatment, as it were, when relating to him one-on-one, mano-a-mano... teatime, coffeetalk style? does my sister, who suffers from the occasional bout of fatigue and a spot or two of psoriasis - must i choose my words carefully for her, knowing that she is under the influence of these things??? what of my friends who smoke cigarettes (which we know.. alters brain chemistry.... duh.. why else do it??)do i need to cater my speech to them, knowing that they are not functioning from an optimal place?

my neighbor has been known to get up at 1 o clock in the morning.. and start working on a project.. should i alter my context of conversation to him knowing that he keeps drastically different sleep patterns & modes of creativity than I do?

i have friends that watch a lot of TV (and don't Tell me that that shit don't alter your brain chemistry, folks... ha. ...) do they need a light hand when discussing the finer workings of things or the essential bits of life? ???

i have friends that do a lot of yoga, drink a lot of juice & spend a lot of time outdoors... maybe I should watch what I say to them as well....

There are times when readily don this diagnostic crown that I was given some 15 odd years ago. i lean into it. and heavy. at moments when I am down, unable to pull myself up from a slump of days or weeks.. wondering why life does not hold the joy it once did.. even a day, a week ago... why? i wonder? why is everything so effing hard? and then i remember.. oh yeah. this is part of that wave they were talking about.... "the depressive state" ..."all part of the disease" ... "this too shall pass".. I am Bipolar. ..so they say.

and then the Heights!!! the glorious, brilliant luminous heights! where words & thoughts, images, brilliance & compassion flow freely.. as if tapping the vein of some gorgeous body of Life.... full, fluid.. eva-frigging-nescent!!! and it is me... the truth of me.. this is who I am!! not that sad, sorry creature of a week ago who could barely rise from bed or muster much more culinary skill than burnt toast or leave the house... This - this lovingLife, glorious Byzantine creature that has emerged - THIS!!- is my truer nature. Surely. It must be. ...

and rather than let the wave pass thru me, around me, underneath me, about me... i ride it.. hard... trying like mad to grip the reins of this wild thing... to see if I can hold onto the feeling of Yes! of good. of bliss.. and let the bad drain away... but it isn't like that . That's not how we roll.

Into each life... a little rain... in the form of hearing loss.. disease, fatigue, odd & funny skin eruptions, weight gain, weight loss, cigarettes & alcohol, anger, frustration... Joy, elation, love, beauty... wheatgrass, twinkies, brown-papered packages tied up with string... these things... a little rain must fall..

It is the stuff of Life. and sometimes the rain is heavy & gray.. and bids you to stay indoors.. perhaps longer than is healthy or "good". and sometimes it's light & airy.. pliant & delightful... & smelling of earth & plants... inviting you to Dance & jump barefoot into puddles... it feeds the stream...

and there is no pill for this shit. there is no proper diagnosis. there is no cure. It is Life. and you can't take it all too seriously i am told. and you can't be afraid of getting utterly messy. and Wet.
and thank God.

and we do the best we can... and try, yes, Try... to not attach ourselves too strongly to any of it... our grandeur, our failings... our foibles.... our scars.. our demons... our Angels.... we keep moving... with an open heart (or as open as we can...) and stay the Vessel... that Life... in all its' vertiginous Beauty... can Occupy.

and thanks...

i need reminders that i am blessed.... there are weeks when things move so slowly, so haltingly, so irritatingly backwards & frustratingly i need to remember... that grace abounds.. that this is yet another season of my life... and that it serves the greater purpose of the whole... i am one to leap willingly, joyously.... wholehearted & caffeinated-ly into the good - the JuJu, the Bahva.. the good schutff... Yes! I can be heard to proclaim! This is it! The stuff of life! The nectar of existence. Atlong last!! How I've found you! Claimed you! I now take you for my own! Let us never be parted! Let the goodness that now runs thru my veins and in-habits my Sphere .. let it never cease! Let the bad, the drudgery, the anger,the vexation.. the pain... let it wait forever upon my doorstep, never to be summoned, nor answered again! For Yes!!! Joy! How I'/ve found you!!! Let us never be parted!! I've tapped the goodness, I've entered the flow... never to exit again... But then.. You are... The flowing, gorgeous sense of continuity that guided your steps for a few days, maybe even weeks... goes on leave.. takes a vacation.. perhaps an extended one.... and the things that were so right.. so glisteningly perfect & humming.... their song, for the time, is silenced.... unaccompanied... inharmonious... unpleasant.. inert. for if it hums, it falls on deaf ears... your Joy receptors have gone on holiday.. leaving you with..... What????? and i need to remember... there is no light without darkness... there is no beauty without the deep cavern of sometimes pain & suffering (of both small & great magnitudes I am sure...) to lend the waters of ease & enjoyment a place to reside... let the uncomfortable, loathsome & hard spots carve you deeper... so that you can contain yet more joy!!! (but it is so difficult to remember at times...) i need reminders... i need reminders.... i need to re-member sometimes... that this too is a part of the blessing... that the world is an ever-waking dance of both death & vitality.. and they walk side by side.. hand-in-hand.... and every day.... we get to wake up.... and make the decision.... moment by moment.... which wins.... the darkness or the Light... and sometimes Darkness gains a foothold..... sometimes we wander in the cave.... sometimes we forget the warmth & nourishment of the Sun.... and then.. and then... so we keep reminders..... folded, origami-style in our back pockets, splayed across our walls and our refrigerators... lurking in the eyes & reassurances of those we love.. and sometimes of those we have yet to know... that frankly... none of us gets out of here Alive... and the best any of us can do... is to do.. well... the Best we can do.. on any given day.... though it may feel rotten or unendingly difficult.. ploddingly.. but assuredly... one foot.. then the other.... keep coming toward the Light... and i am given reminders.... an unexpected embrace... a beautiful sunset... art & children.. & the joys of a wet bathing suit..... rambling words that somehow makes sense of the thread.... prophets, luminaries, poets, pranksters & madmen... all come up to take arms... and walk alongside... and just to ground down into this bits.. these pieces that forever rise up to bring me back to a sense of YeS!! and Whole-Ness in my meandering journey... I say Thank You... I bow .. in gratitude & remembrance. Thank you beautiful jagged skipping stones of remembering... how to Inhabit this Life... showing me once again... Yes. For we are so very BlESsEd ..........

checking out...

i have been having a serious case of the "i sucks"s this week. from standing at the front of a room, leading strangers thru downward-facing dog, instructing them to breathe & release what no longer serves them, wondering "What the hell am i doing up here?!?" to holding my squealing, squalling infant in my arms - unable to comfort her - with either my words, sounds or body.... helpless. inert. grossly incompetent and unable to meet the demands of life - as they present themselves in this moment... well... or at least.. that's how ya' feel. ... from staring covetously at a friend's smooth skin, firm belly or tidily-coiffed hair, while my own body is still in the process of recovering from & meeting the new demands of motherhood... it seems we're primed to engage in an endless game of covetousness... always someone else's life, or the accessories thereof... barbie's perfect dreamhouse is always perched just one spot over the hill.. and never residing where you are NOW. we are clothed in lack.. drenched in longing... and it is Encouraged. No! It's True! the ads & accompanying voices seem to say... "You are NOT enough! Buy this! Use this cream! This shellack! Try this ab routine! This insider tip. This secret-handshake-twenty-dollar-club-badge-membership trick. One more thing, more tidbit, last tweaking, last temporary stamp of approval.. before you are enough.. good enough. presentable. lovable. acceptable. GOOD. and i'm tired.. i'm tired of a game that pits me against a would-be friend, a mirror, an ally.. and turns them into someone i must either idolize or demonize... someone i must weigh my own value against.... well, she's thinner than me but at least i'm smarter... they make more money, but i have a cooler, more bohemian life... they're more talented than i, but i know the "right" people... bull. shit. i am tired of a game that turns friends into frenemies... assesses my life's value & worth based on how effing well i look & measure up to, EVERYBODY ELSE. it's as if high school never ended!!! hey, look, folks! no need to cultivate any strain of authenticity, any depth or grit.. any nuanced flavor or soul.... all you've gotta do is cultivate the right ratio of fat to muscle, floss, wax & scrub the right things, read fucking cosmo, fill your brain, that delicate and valuable gray real estate with nothing more than sex & diet tips.. and newer ways to whiten your teeth & eradicate wrinkles. cuz, you know.. it MATTERS. and i'm tired. screw this. of a game that views the soul as an afterthought, the spirit as an accessory akin to earrings or lipstick. in the words of the wise & erudite Homer Simpson.. "This Game SUCKS. Let's play Chinese Checkers." .... so I'm giving up. I'm calling it quits.. handing in my playing cards, admitting DeFault.. No way... So when the conversation inevitably shifts towards bodies & what we all virtuously hate about our own - our thighs, our butts, our "less-than-perfect" triceps & glutes... I will cradle my soft & stretch-marked belly, declare myself to be Perfect & Beautiful. AND MEAN IT, DAMNIT

. .... when longing words of what so&so does or drives or earns or how successful & accomplished they may be and So Young too.... I will write songs. I will play my ukulele, slowly & maybe out of tune... do cartwheels on the lawn & make gurgling noises at my beautiful kid.. and have so much fucking fun , that I will not CARE ....... I will love deeply & play with abandon... I will create, Create!! without thoughts of paychecks or outside recognition... On the days when I suck - at every task at hand - i will give myself permission to do just that - SUCK! - fully, completely, with glee & joyous aplomb!! - I will dance & sing & seek inspiration in all the gorgeous forms in which it chooses to find me.. and I will give thanks. .... I will stand on my own two feet & declare "Here I am!" and know..now free of the bound & cumbersome rules of the never-ending game of Human Monopoly I've just exited... that finally.. & beautifully - I am EnOuGh . ......... and to those still playing on the other side of the fence... over on Barbie's dream hill, living Barbie's dream life, driving Barbie's dream car.. striving Barbie's dream Striving... I will issue a friendly wave.. from my new patch of wild grasses & rambling clover... the air perfumed with the intoxicating scent of pOsSibILiTy... and bid them Welcome. Should they ever choose to vacate the stifling patch of Astroturf... and join me together inhabiting... a brand new SpHeRe ......

disclosure: I am a reader of horoscopes. not in the drink-the-koolaid, buy in hook,line & sinker sort of way... not in the superstitous, "lemme check in with the demi-gods of free internet astrology to determine how to chart the course of my life & day" sort of way. more, uh, i dunno. like you pick out what clothes to wear in the morning. how am i feeling today? a blue scarf? maybe a cap? is it a jeans or skirt sort of a morning? and how do we feel about socks? ??? ... some brief little pithy check-in, to help lend my morning a spot of color, a flavor... lime or orange, tobacco or peppermint, please... what shall it be? * and discount shopper that i am, if one does not give me quite the Thang I was looking for.. I'm off in search of another (well, Yes, Mom said no to Tv & ice cream before bed but let's try Dad - he's a sucker- he'll say yes.) from the generic & overly-perfumy words I glean from the peddler of Vagueries app on my phone to the so eerily specific references I get delivered to my daily inbox they make me wonder if Google & the CIA have perhaps joined forces to monitor the daily workings of my life.. to my favorite.. but the one I least turn to because he does not merely dish out empty platitudes and lofty, feel-good pop-psychology wrapped in the satiny tissue of the stars, but rather... this guy... who takes it several steps further and issues warnings, nudgings, commands & directives that are often times hard to swallow in one fell gulp. "Now is not the time to be complacent, dear Pisces.. step up and steer your ship! Be willing to serve as the captain & commander of your own life!" or somesuch thing.... Activist Astrology - commanding you to stop being lazy, get out of your rut, stop clinging to the things that no longer work for you - take charge and step into the protagonist role of your own damn storybook.... or atleast that's what I get from him anyway.. and, so, entreatingly, intrepidly.. after both my aforementioned Sources had failed to supply... "what's on the menu for today? stripes & chenille? polka dots? feathers? a toupee?" No thank you. And off to my last resort - my own personal, psychic manufacturer or these, "the pills that are large & difficult to swallow"... and what should I alight on but this.. these words.. glimmering... poignant.. a song...a lark. "Rob Brezsny says the apocalypse is now, so let's dance." *and a small lightbulb is lit in my head. of course! because it feels like so many things are falling apart... personally, politically, structurally, incredibly... i feel like *( and correct me if i'm wrong)... we are being collectively led to a place whwere the old ways simply will not serve.. beat-up, sullied, stagnant & gentrified ways of conducting business, relating to one another, constructing our worlds.. the car we've been driving thru life all these years - that once was so shiny, new, humming & perfect -now runninglike the beat-up old jalopy that it is.. making strange new sounds, grumbling & sparks... one more trip to the mechanic.. try & sew up the seams of this outworn mode of existence... and it's broken.. and yet we're clinging.. and so says my dime-store prophet, my world-wide-web-soap-box-savior... "Yee-haw!" Let's party. put on your favorite records & boogie. Cuz this is just Life's way of cracking you open.. stripping you down to your essence so you can Breathe.. helping you, oftentimes painfully, repeatedly.. release what is futile, heavy, & leaden & dead in your world... helping you shed all your scales & hook-lined gils & fins .. so that you can swim again - Unbounded - in the deep blue sea of your own Life.. and the last shall be first and the first shall be last... the meek becoming the inheritorsof this - this brand new earth... emerged from the fissures of the past.. cracked wide open by well.. Love - that great leveler of playingfields.. the stuff that melts molecules & shifts substance... so in the maelstrom of your brokenness give Thanks! Take a page from Leonard Cohen or a Sufi poet and breathe a quiet prayer of Yes. ... all right.. I give up.. cuz its only just the Light... bravely, boldly. & sometimes quite painfully!!.. finding its way In.....

cognition...ignite ...

the last few weeks in review... 3 weeks ago, my partner, the love of my life, the father of my infant child, and the man who nearly one-fell-swoopedly scooped up the contents of my heart almost 12 years ago... he went on a bender. ..... 3 weeks ago, i very dramatically scooped up my child, as much cash as i could find inside my house, filled a banged up toyota corolla to the brim with children's toys & clothes, shoes, books - Whatever I imagined we might need... 3 weeks ago I slept in my childhood bed, with my daughter by my side, and listened to her breathe. 3 weeks ago, i sat in my sister's tiny little living room watching trashy reality television, sipping coffee, changing diapers & playing with our kids, reading magazines & taking turns dissecting the vicissitudes of one another's worlds... 3 weeks ago, when pressed, i pointedly told my own mother - the one who saw fit to drop everything in her world at that moment and run to my aid, cradle my daughter and i in the confines of her house-beautiful home & soothe us with 400-thread count sheets & impossibly fluffy scrambled eggs - i told her - that I thought she was frivolous & silly. that she ought not to spend so much time just buying shit & why couldn't she contribute something useful in some way? I made my mother cry. and in the end, all i could think was - careful to hang yourself up on the splinter of another - when there's a massive log in your own damn eye... 3 weeks ago, i sat on the big, mortgaged deck with my father - that overlooks mountains & trees & a beautiful sunset - discussing farming & subsidies, consumerism, cancer & the My-oh-Mys of what a pickle we all are in. And I felt lost. So lost. & small ..... 2 weeks... i camped in the woods with mosquitoes & firewood and improvised woolen mittens for my 3-month old daughter from socks - who likes to sleep with her hands held aloft - as if she were absorbing Grace from the Ether into some infinite power strips traversing the width of her palms... i had bad, horrible dreams where i would wake up, wanting to spit and pummel at the man sleeping beside me - friend, lover, husband - betrayer - .... i stood at the edge of a stone-lined, grass-laden labyrinth by a river - closed my eyes - and whispered - avowing to live at the Center of my life - with heart & courage & verve & wisdom. then quietly walked to the center of the stones...eyes closed. i sat in warm pools and took deep breaths. i napped. i cried. 3 days ago, i went on my own bender - of listening to the news for 3 hours straight - deluged by the endless rain of Civil Rights not gradually, but so rapidly eroding, our food supply ever-more tainted, the corporate stranglehold on our nation growing ever greater - the Endless litany of "The BAD GUYS are winning"... playing its insouciant dirge another round in my head... and i could barely put one foot in front of the other - for fear of everything I buy, every morsel I eat, every trip downtown I take in my little petroleum peddler - somehow only adds to the Demise... this week i sat and listened to my breath, watching the endless rocking train, engine seemlessly linked up to the caboose -of my thoughts- for FIVE WHOLE MINUTES. this week i sat in the company of warm, imperfect women - & we dug together - pliantly nudging at the contents of our hearts & guts - as one. i walked, i wrote, i rode my bike & ate bananas. and i thought... how in the end, the political is, in fact, deeply personal. what a radical thing to move on into the center of your own life - inhabit all of it - the fear, the anger,, your doubts & your own great smallness- the myriad uncomfortable places - and to sit. Breathe. Listen. then to quietly ask, open-palmed, for Grace to come aloft - and be your Guide.

..operation gold, not straw...

i forget who came up with this idea.. or where i heard it. but i woke up with the very ringing, singing , quietlytuggingatyoursleeve and at the back spot of your brain...this prayer,this mantra today... arT BoMB .... remember back at the beginning of the whole iraq/afghanistan debacle when the media was still trying to put this great, g.i.joe, American Might&Right against the Bad Guys spin on the whole affair... (are they still doing that? at one point, i simply had to stop listening...) while we were bombing the shit out of homes, schools, hospitals, & the like... day after day, relentlessly pelletting a people with our gunfire, our fear, our obscure & jingoistic notions of Justice & Honor.. our wrath, our Entitlement... our billion-dollar video games dropping bombs like hell from the sky... obliterating entire families, towns...and what's more a people's sense of hope & joy.... in one fell-swoop... we called it Operation Shock & Awe......(remember with me if you will)... and we were told that if we could just keep on'em.... assault them with a daily, torrential dose of good ole American-style justice, then surely, and quickly, the Victory was ours'.. (and yet here we stand...) but i wonder, somewhere in that thinking, there lay a kernel of truth.. single droplet of gold, spun in reverse-Rumpelstiltskin style... taking something lovely & spinning it back into a meaningless lump of hay.. well, let's begin to spin it back, i say.... (oh, won't you walk this way with me for a spell??)....... beginning today.. our own little operation shock & awe... or better yet *gOLd, not sTrAW!!!* still with me? for while that which is ugly, small, & hateful has a way of in-toxic-ating everything in its' wake.. soo those random acts of truth & beauty.. well, you see where i'm headed here... 30 days. release your art (in dance, in song, in word, in rhyme, in catterwheeling stand-up comic-ry, in beautiful noise, in flowers, in prose, in spontaneous hugs donated at will to those who could use 'em...) upon the world... unhook your line from the stream of commerce and go dangle the bait of your brilliant, creative self in the waters of commune-

ity for a time... Random Acts of Beauty.. as many as you can.. or as you choose.... Art Bomb your little local world... make a poem or a drawing & staple it to a telephone pole for all to enjoy, do cartwheels in your local town square, set up a booth by your local post office & offer free face-painting for kids of all ages on any given Tuesday, JUST BECAUSE. lay down your yoga mat in the parking lot of the nearby liquor store and offer handstand lessons to anyone who wants 'em. ... get OUT of your comfort zone. bring your faithful kazoo & perform your 6-minute one-woman show about the beauty of daffodils right by where you buy your morning coffee. Smile at people for no other fucking reason than that shit is Catching... and we need it so right now. Leave a bouquet of daisies, perched happily upon a random parked car,, or better yet... plant a stealth vegetable garden in a public space. .... let's do it. cuz the bad shit is overwhelming i know.. but so is the good... once it takes hold. ... if the concentrated efforts of a few shortsighted men can dismantle a world as it existed, so the consistent, open-hearted efforts of the artfully-inspired many... can re-write it.... turning these base metals of human experience once more.. into GO-LD.... write and tell me what you do! send me a pic. remind me once again that there are amazing people out there in the world, enchanting the sphere, each day.. hoo-ray. 30 DAYS. Let's go..........