Chance = Change

When I take Cyrano and Sally out in the sparkling day to pee, they shine in the sun, and look freshly minted from the puppy factory. The thing is: they are ever-enthused, always on the edge, and compellingly concentrated on whatever is before them, and where Ego resides in most humans, there is, instead pure canine astonishment.

I love astonishment. It...well.....yes,it astonishes me....Astonishment has the power to cleanse any palate and, thanksfully, restores me beside the still waters of trust ..the opposite of astonishment is the quality of being jaded and tired. Astonishment is bright scarlet...jaded-ness is...well, of course...green. And not a pretty green at that.

So, of course, as I watch the cutting flashes of red in the green of the weeping cherry tree outside our picture window, I see not just the standard Virginia red Cardinal, but the possibility of life beyond the Now. In astonishment I see Hope...because if something can astonish me, then that means i am not as dead as I sometimes feel.

Trapped in the needy clutches of Ego, I am paralyzed by the hot air of its urgent boastings....and though these explosions of hot air stifle me, I am chilled to the bone by them as well....I am so tired of it...so tired of the making of excuses instead of the making of something better.....the world makes excuses...I do believe that is how it survives. It talks itself into believing....convinces itself to drink the kool-aid, and thus the world turns....leaving many dead bodies behind...or at least dead souls.

I do sound a bit down, don't I???...well...actually, I am not down much at all today...i do need to get some more sleep, and hopefully, before my afternoon rehearsal, I can do just that...but, the day invites me, and something inside me, something looking for an answer to some deep unformed question, is keeping me writing down and down and down...into a place i rarely give myself time to enter.
And it's not a bad place, it's merely a thoughtful one.

The Avian Cafe outside out living room window, suspended from that weeping cherry, is clearly the new hot spot in town....hummingbirds come to sip and sip....birds large and small come to nibble....I wonder if I am the floor show, as I peer at all these flying sprites and their companions...I am certainly a looming presence....but man, are those cardinals red! A scarlet counterpoint to the bright red hummingbird food in the neighboring feeder....the red sugary liquid I can believe...it's the red of nature, the pure red possible in bird feathers, and flying as well! That's what gets me. Red came before Crayola....red was part of nature's plan all along, and we are only borrowing it. Looking at these birds makes me realize that.

And here we are back at Ego again: the temerity to imagine that we invented the various shades of red in the world...Man takes and captures and pretends that what they have taken was theirs all along... somehow this makes us feel less insignificant, i suppose...I suppose that need - to feel significant - is at the bottom of most stupid behaviors.

To matter....to materialize...so as not to be invisible...thus: to (turn ourselves into) matter.
To become more substantial...less air, more earth...heavier, weightier, with more importance.

I could wander among words all day.